Page 4 of Professional Consult
Not the exit I had wanted.
“Tomorrow—eleven a.m.! The private strip we use to bring—!”
“Yeah, I’m familiar,” I snap, exiting the room and heading straight to my trailer.
I know what he’s doing. ClintfuckingBastwick. He’s getting the upper hand. He wants to make sure the award campaign money flows in his direction. He wants to lord this over me and drop hints of it in interviews, keeping me on edge.
And one day, when I least expect it, it’ll all come out during an interview. How incompetent I was. How he, as a rookie, had to intervene in order to save the show.
Well, that’s not going to happen. At least not how he thinks it will.
I’m going to act my fucking pants off. I’ll act goddamn circles around that rookie prick.
I just have to make it through a couple of weeks in Pond Spring.
CHAPTER2
LEXI
Deep breaths.
I could be in a lot worse places than this comfy private jet, drinking down a glass of high-end wine.
I could be working a nine-to-five, exhausted, coming home to three children each night and a man that can’t bother to get his own beer.
Okay, so I have a flair for drama, but in my defense, I am an actress. I kind of have to.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I have to reshape my outlook on the situation at hand. This isn’t a failure. This is on-the-job training, which people need in every profession. While some jobs require recertification, mine benefits from the occasional dip into another world. Another life. Other ways of thinking.
And on this assignment, I get to go to Pond Spring, Colorado and follow around Luke Bastwick, Clint’s older brother.
Oh, and fuck Clint for inserting himself into the situation like the opportunistic upstart that he is. There is a zero-percent chance he did this altruistically, and I have no doubt that Luke will be acting as his spy, ready to report even the smallest hiccup to his underhanded brother.
And if Luke is going to be a stabby-backstabber, I’m certainly not going to help him feel good about it. Which is why I’m going to act gracious, show up on time, do every assignment Luke gives me, bring breakfast each morning, and send parting gifts.
The flight attendant approaches with the remainder of my wine.
“We’re about to land. Would you like me to pour you the rest?”
“As much as I want to say yes, that would probably be a bad idea.” She turns to leave, but I clear my throat. It’s a six-hundred dollar bottle of wine, and it’d be a shame for it to go to waste. “If you’re stuck here for the night, or wherever you go next, you should take it.”
“They keep inventory of the amenities aboard the jet.”
“Mark it as consumed, for all I care. You won’t hear any balk from me.”
She smiles. “Thanks.”
I wish I’d gotten a little more sleep in, but my nerves had me on edge all night, and even though I know my lines backwards and forwards, I’d stayed up to rehearse them.
I pull out my phone and Google Luke Bastwick, which I’d been avoiding until now.
Look-at-you…
The Bastwick family seems to have a dominant hot gene.
It might seem ridiculous that I’m fanning myself as I look at Luke’s sharp jawline and soul-seeking blue eyes with the Hollywood hunks I encounter on the regular, but those men always have an artificial feel to them. They’re manicured and manufactured, right down to their spray tans and sparkling white veneers.
Luke is a Grade A, all-American slab of man meat that you can’t create in a gym or with any steroid. Those muscles are homegrown, just like the dirt stains on his pants didn’t come from the manufacturer.
