Love, Chloe - Alessandra Torre Page 0,29

my voice.

“Cute.” He peered down at me. I said nothing, not crazy about his tone. “You mute?”

“No.” I pushed myself to my feet. “Can I help you?”

“Do me a favor,” he said. “Keep your boss out of my way.”

“Out of your way?” That’d be difficult to do, seeing as they were co-stars.

“Yeah.”

I laughed. “Okay,” I intoned, in a manner that left zero doubt as to my sincerity.

“I’m serious. She doesn’t belong here.” Joey Plazen’s sexiness was taking a serious nosedive. “And I need lunch.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I think you have an assistant.” My phone lit up, Nicole’s ringtone playing, and when he glared at me I almost laughed. God, I’d seen that glare so many times. Threatening bad guys. Scowling at love interests. I’d seen it enough that there, on the set, surrounded by fake backdrops, it had no impact whatsoever. “Got to go,” I sang, answering the phone and stepping away, any response from him lost in the bark of Nicole’s greeting.

Right before she ended our call, I glanced back over my shoulder, but he was gone.

“Joey’s pissed.” Hannah popped her gum and wrapped a hand around my arm, pulling me into a dark spot between two trailers.

“Why?” I didn’t look up from my phone, time short. In fifteen minutes, we needed to be at an all-cast meeting where our great director, Paulo Romansky, would finally make his first appearance. I didn’t want to be late, not with the thin ice that Nicole seemed to be on. The more I found out on set, the more I discovered exactly how disliked Nicole was by cast and crew. We were talking serious hatred being spewed, and it wasn’t for lack of her trying. She’d been bending over backward to try and win over hearts. We’d brought in sushi and afternoon cupcake deliveries, hired on-set masseuses, and she paid for everyone’s drinks at the bar around the corner on Friday night. Nothing helped. No one wanted her here. The general consensus, whispered over scripts and coffee, was that she had bought her way onto the project. Poured some condom dollars in, saved the movie’s financing, and got herself a starring role.

But regardless of their snide comments and her crappy résumé, I knew that the woman could act. I’d watched her beam at Clarke. Giggle and wrap her arms around his neck. Lie so smoothly that if I didn’t know the truth, I’d have believed every word. I hadn’t seen her boyfriend since that day on the street, but I’d been paying attention, noticing the lies about her whereabouts and the extra cell phone she carried in her purse. She couldn’t play the part of the devoted wife so well without acting chops of some kind. Maybe Boston Love Letters was her chance to really show them off. Maybe now, with all of the pieces in place, she’d actually move into the limelight she seemed to so desperately crave.

“I can’t talk Hannah, we’ve got that meeting—” She kept tugging me aside, like she had something urgent to say.

“You can’t do that—just blow him off.”

It took me a minute to remember who she was talking about. Oh, right. Joey Plazen. I dismissed her concerns with a laugh. “Whatever. He needs to get over himself. No offense, but your boss is an asshole.”

Hannah’s eyes widened and she sucked in a deep breath of air, her dark purple nails biting into my forearm. I noticed, a moment too late, that she wasn’t looking at me, but behind me.

And then I heard the devil himself speak.

“You girls done with your chat?”

I grimaced, watching Hannah mutter an apology and dart out into the light. I stood, cornered and chilly in the shade, and crossed my arms. Screw his Oscar, screw his looks. I was sick of entitled assholes. “I’m sorry. Is chatting not allowed?”

“Not when you’re on the clock.” His frown enhanced his dimple, a dimple I once had stuck to the inside of my locker. “The meeting’s about to start.” I fought the urge to roll my eyes at him.

“Then I guess we should get to work.” I smiled brightly and turned sideways to squeeze past him. He stepped back and stalked toward the meeting.

Diva. I killed a few minutes fishing for a pretend something in my purse. Once enough distance was present, I followed suit, glancing at my watch as I moved.

I arrived to the meeting late. I tried to slip into the back of the room, but no one budged to accommodate my