Touching the Billionaire - Holly Jaymes Page 0,13
Then I got stuck on Madeline’s question about whether or not the audition was over. Did she really think I was there to continue my evaluation of her? My point had been to apologize and move forward.
It was a disappointment to learn that she thought I was still judging her. I enjoyed our visit. I liked how there was no guessing with her on what she was thinking. Or at least that was what I thought. If she believed I was still testing her, perhaps she wasn’t her true self. She’d be putting on her best behavior instead of being real. I enjoyed the Madeline I’d met, so it was a bummer to discover that maybe that wasn’t the real her.
Then again, she was blunt and didn’t seem like she had a wall up. So, who knew who I was getting to know tonight?
By the time I reached my apartment, I wasn’t sure what to think. I tried to put it out of my mind as I grabbed vegetables and rice to make a quick stir fry. Crackers, wine and cheese were nice, but I needed a meal.
Over the next few days, my life settled back into normal. I read scripts and books to see what I might want my production company to take on in the future. I checked in with my brother Oliver who admitted he was playing with fire by seeing a celebutante. As a plastic surgeon in Los Angeles, it was important that he stay out of the limelight. Famous plastic surgeons never lasted long because their clientele could be exposed. Oliver was older than me but unlike me, he hadn’t grown out of the need to sow his oats. I was sure he’d hit on Madeline if he met her. That thought didn’t sit well with me. Strange. Another strange thing was how I kept anticipating, maybe even hoping, that I’d see Madeline each time I got into the elevator.
On Monday, we started on Take It or Leave It. Madeline wasn’t on the schedule until later in the week. When I arrived on set, I hunted Corrine down before I went to my trailer.
“Please don’t tell me there’s a problem. Let me guess, Madeline quit,” she said when she saw me.
“You don’t think much of me, do you?” I replied as I took in the area that we were filming in. We were starting off with a heist scene set in Russia where I was stealing artwork stolen by the Nazis during World War II, that ended up in the Soviet Union at the end of the war. The premise of the film was that I was a billionaire who stole unreturned Nazi plunder to return to their rightful owners. Madeline was the Interpol agent sent to hunt me down.
“I think a hell of a lot of you, but I also know you,” Corrine said.
“No. She didn’t quit and I didn’t fire her. But I noted on the schedule that our first scene is the library scene and I was thinking maybe for her first day we do something else.”
Corrine arched a brow at me. “You’re not scared to kiss her, are you?”
“No, but considering the start we had, maybe it would be better to do something a little less handsy.”
She laughed. “God, Theo, what happened to you? How many women have you kissed…on film, that is?”
I burned with embarrassment that she thought I was being weird around a kissing scene. “A few.” A good number actually. And the truth was, it was strange to kiss a woman that I wasn’t really into. Weirder still to pretend to make love to one. Sure, I’d hooked up with a few who were sexually appealing, but even that was strange. Sometimes I wondered if we were just extensions of our characters. It was partly why I’d shied away from on-set hookups.
“She’s just another job, Theo. Lucky for you, she’s gorgeous and feisty, just your type.”
“She’s never done it before,” I blurted.
Corrine frowned. “Please don’t tell me you asked her about her sexual history. Jesus, you really do want to have this film fail.”
“Not her true history, her screen history. She was eleven or something when she left the business. There’s no kissing on screen, much less fake-fucking at eleven.”
She seemed to ponder that and then shook her head. “Based on what I saw on the test, it won’t be a problem. And I suspect she’d be pissed if she knew you were trying to soften the path