over her shoulder. The move drew his attention to her breasts—small but perky. He gave himself a mental shake. As if he cared what her breasts looked like. They were attached to the rest of her, which was toned within an inch of its life and way too scrawny for his tastes.
“I need to get that,” she said as she refocused on him.
“Fine. But we need to deal with this fence or Mr. Smith is going to come visiting again.”
“I’m sorry, but I really need to take this call. I’ll get back to you.” There was a distracted urgency beneath her words as she reached for the knob.
He opened his mouth to protest—as the door swung shut in his face for the second time that day.
“You cannot be serious,” he told the shiny black wood.
But she was. She was also the rudest person he’d ever had the misfortune to meet. He was tempted to knock again and force her to deal with him, but he had an image of himself knocking till the cows came home and her ignoring him as she dealt with her vitally important, utterly life-transforming phone call.
He’d been de-balled quite enough by his wife’s staggering infidelity, thank you very much. He had no intention of hanging around to play the part of supplicant.
He remembered an old saying as he returned to his aunt’s house: no good turn goes unpunished.
Indeed.
CHAPTER TWO
MACKENZIE REACHED THE PHONE just as it stopped ringing. She checked caller ID and swore when she saw Gordon’s number. She’d talked to Linda earlier and managed to convince her to prompt Gordon into calling. Linda had come through—and Mackenzie had been too busy dealing with Oliver What’s-his-name to take the call.
Unbelievable.
She hit the button to return the call and prayed that Gordon hadn’t already moved on to something else. She willed him to pick up as the phone rang at the other end. She was about to give in to despair when Gordon’s voice came over the line.
“Mackenzie.”
“Gordon. How are you?”
“Good enough. More importantly, how are you?”
“Getting there. Better every day.”
He grunted. She pictured him sitting at his desk in Melbourne, feet up on the corner, big belly straining at the buttons on his shirt.
“How are the headaches?” he asked.
“Better. Much better.” She didn’t mention the fact that she still struggled to spend more than a couple of hours at a time on her feet before her back started acting up and that she struggled to stay awake after eight at night.
“That’s good to hear.” He sounded distracted and she knew she wouldn’t hold his attention for long.
“Listen, Gordon, I’ve been wanting to talk to you because I know Philip’s contract is coming up for renewal.”
Philip had been brought in to fill her role while she recovered. An experienced producer, they’d been lucky to catch him between gigs.
“It is. Still got that steel-trap memory, I see.”
What she had was a heavily used calendar function on her iPhone, but he didn’t need to know that.
“So, have you spoken to him about renewing for a shorter term?” She wrapped her free arm around her torso, tension thrumming through her body as she waited for Gordon’s response.
“We haven’t had that conversation yet.”
“Right. Well, I wanted to suggest you go for three months. I’ll be more than ready to get back to it by then.”
Gordon sighed. “Mackenzie...our hands are tied here. You have to understand that.”
A chill ran down her spine. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? “What does that mean?”
“It means we can’t afford to lose him. The show needs continuity. If he won’t consider a short term, we’ll have to look at something longer. It’s a shitty situation, I know, but he’s done a great job for us.”
Mackenzie bit back the urge to remind Gordon that she’d done a great job, too, in the three years prior to the accident. She’d increased the ratings by nearly thirty percent, streamlined the story department and used her influence with her ex-husband, Patrick Langtry, to persuade him to join the cast—a move that had led to another ratings bump. Gordon knew all that, though. It simply didn’t mean anything to him while she was sidelined.
There was a reason Hunter S. Thompson had described television as “a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs.” The industry was ruthless, ratings driven and peopled with huge egos. God only knew why she’d spent the bulk of her adult life loving the hell out