was here. Of course, he had to be here.
The voices are scrambling for an explanation.
“He’s not…”
“He…”
“The cowriter…”
“She’s…”
Everyone tries to speak at once, but his voice again silences them.
“Cowriter?”
“She’s his…his…”
Eva’s searching for something to say and she’s going to pick the wrong word, the one I don’t want to hear.
“His wife,” I say. I stir the coffee again and again, watching the milky white substance instead of his face as I turn around. “Benjamin Ellison III’s wife.”
Chapter 2
CHRIS
Jesus goddamn motherfucking Christ.
She’s stirring a cup of coffee over and over, and I can’t see her face. Eventually, after what feels like a lifetime of waiting, she looks up just for a moment. Muscle memory takes over and before I even know what I’m doing, I’m crossing the room. Instinctively, I need to be closer to her, to drink in her presence, so long absent. Only her blue eyes, seemingly made of ice, and the memory of her voice saying the word “wife” stop me in mid-stride.
Of course. I should have made the connection. How many times did I listen to her tell stories about the amazing Ben Ellison, who came off as a combination of Jesus Christ and the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa? Apparently, her amazing Ben Ellison was the same person who had taken the literary world by storm with his book series the year before.
I had blown through all three books in a week while I had a short break from shooting my latest movie in Thailand.
I was less than three pages in to the first book when, unable to wait a moment longer, I tore myself away to call Jeff. I wanted the script more than I’d wanted anything in a very, very long time.
It had been five years since I wanted anything that much. Five long, lonely years.
Damn it.
“I don’t care what it costs,” I told Jeff. “Get it for me. I want all of them. All three books. I’m going to make a fortune.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. It’s not coming fucking cheap,” he retorted. “Those fucking books are everywhere.”
Jeff wasn’t cheap either, so I had full confidence in the fact that the trilogy was going to be mine. I expected a rant or a rave about the asshole agent or a competing studio, but he had merely called back the next day at the exact same moment as a brown envelope was delivered to the door of my hotel suite.
“There’s a screenplay and it’s fucking good.”
He didn’t say anything else. And he was right. It was fucking good. Usually, scripts made from books were crap, filled with rambling speeches and all of the lame parts and none of the good ones. This one was pitch-perfect and even more nuanced, layered, than the book had been. I was only ten pages in before I picked up the phone again.
“If it’s not locked down tomorrow, I’m ditching this set and coming to New York and I’m not leaving until we have it.”
Jeff had hemmed and hawed about impossible literati, but he got the meeting. Since that call, I had thought of nothing but how I was going to convince Mr. Ellison that I was the right person to make his movie. During the whole last week of shooting the stupid buddy comedy, another piece of trash in a long line of pieces of trash, I ran through my arguments in my head. This script? It was going to be my Mona Lisa. I wanted to see the writer in the flesh, to look into his eyes to tell him that I could make this movie, that I understood this character down to his very bones.
Of course, I hadn’t realized that I had already met Ben Ellison, and that there was little I could say that would convince him that I was the right person to make his movie. I look around for him, but he isn’t here. No, he did me one better, sending his wife instead. That label catches my tongue and twists it, causing me to cough a few times. A blond intern rushes over with a glass of water and I take a long gulp. Damn it. I wish the glass contained something stronger.
The other people in the room, half of whom I’ve never met before, are looking back and forth between Hallie and me, but thankfully, Jeff makes an asinine comment and everyone’s attention is at least temporarily diverted. As I settle back into one of the plush leather seats, I