I avoided Krystal all day and the next, which wasn’t difficult. She wasn’t around that much. I heard her coming and going late at night, but never saw her because I was in my room most of the time.
Max called me early Wednesday morning and said he was going to have to cancel our dinner plans. I was disappointed, but figured it might be best. For one thing, I kind of liked the idea of the anticipation building. On top of that, he was becoming something of a distraction, consuming all of my thoughts that didn’t have to do with work. Actually, he was consuming some of those, too, whenever I talked to Jacqueline Mathers, who was turning out to be a pain-in-the-ass client.
She called me twice on Monday. The first call was to find out if I thought she would be asked to do the late-night talk shows, and if so, could I make sure he was booked for Letterman? “If I’m going to get on Howard Stern’s show, I better not go on Leno.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because Howard hates Leno!”
Apparently she thought she was on a first-name basis with Howard Stern. She filled me in on the feud, and I did all I could not to nod off during the boring story.
I told her I wasn’t sure it was time yet to think about booking appearances, and when the time did come, we’d have to ask Kevin about the Howard Stern idea.
“But you think Letterman’s a possibility?”
I really had no idea, but I said, “Sure. Of course.”
The second time she called, later that afternoon, she asked me if she’d have a driver to the studio and various set locations when shooting started.
I talked to Kevin, who told me: “Get used to it. They get one film and they think they’re the hottest thing in town. And for our sake, we better hope she is. Tell her we’ll make it happen.” He shut his laptop and shook his head. “Jesus.”
I felt better now that I knew Kevin had the same thoughts I was having about Jacqueline.
ELEVEN
I stopped at a Starbucks on Friday morning on my way in to work. There was a bounce in my step and a flutter in my chest. I was thinking “TGIF” not just because the weekend was coming, but because I would be spending the entire weekend with Max.
In the shower earlier, I thought about what it would be like to live with him. I imagined myself as the wife of this incredible man—not just professionally, but personally as well. I thought of the great sex we’d already had and would have much more of over the weekend. I had mental images and matching warm feelings of comfort thinking about how safe and desired I felt when he held me in his arms.
I’d had all week to get that stupid dream out of my head. More to the point, I had all week to work through my self-limiting fears of whether I was worthy or not. Of course I was. I wasn’t going to let anyone tell me I wasn’t, least of all myself.
When I got to work, Kevin was waiting in my office. That had never happened before. I looked at my watch to make sure I wasn’t late, and sure enough I wasn’t.
I walked in and he said, “Have a seat,” as though I had walked into his office. His voice was flat and he sounded concerned. He had his iPad in his lap.
I sat down and said, “What’s going on?”
“Olivia, can you explain this?”
He held up the iPad. I looked at the screen and saw a picture of Max and me on the red carpet at the movie premier in New York. Well, it wasn’t exactly a picture of us—it was a picture of Gwenyth Paltrow, and Max and I were in the background. The photo was snapped just as Max and I were emerging from the limo.
Damn. If only the background had been just a little more out of focus, I wouldn’t have been sitting there facing this inquiry.
I decided to be quick and blunt with the truth. Why run from it?
“I went to New York with him over the weekend.”
“When did this come about?”
“It started a few weeks ago.”
He sighed and looked at the picture again.
“I don’t have to tell you how bad this could be,” he said. “Do I?”
I shook my head. I knew all the ramifications of this for Kevin professionally, and by extension for me as well. I had thought it through early on when things started with Max. But in the meantime, my only concern had become for me personally, and the emotional wreckage that I might become if I let myself get too close to him. Too late. I was already there, and there was no going back.
Kevin continued: “Look, I understand if you got swept off your feet by Max Dalton. But you should have at least told me you were seeing him. This could complicate our working relationship.”
I wondered if he meant his working relationship with Max, or with me. Was he thinking of firing me? No, that would be a stupid move. He’d just landed his biggest deal with a major Hollywood producer, so how could he possibly fire his assistant who was dating that major Hollywood producer? The notion was fraught with career suicide for Kevin. And it was all just dawning on me. So I relaxed.
I didn’t say anything, though. I just let him finish. “Be careful.”
I hoped the ominous tone in his voice was unintended. The warning sounded like something more than an admonition to play things safe for the sake of his agency.
“Careful?” I asked.
Kevin looked down at his iPad without saying anything. He touched the screen a couple of times, scrolled down, then turned it so the screen was facing me.
I was looking at a tabloid website. There was a large photo of Max with a tall blonde woman under the snarky and typically unprofessional headline: “SOAP STAR’S BABY DADDY”.
Holy shit.
I read the first two paragraphs of the story. The woman was a soap opera actress named Liza Carrow. Rumors had been swirling for weeks, apparently, about her being pregnant and how they would work it into the show. And, as always happens in celebrity news, the major question was about who the father was.
The photo was taken two days ago outside a Thai restaurant in Los Angeles. The story named Max and told readers who he was, but the focus of it was really Liza Carrow. At least, that’s how the tabloid had intended it.
For me, the focus was Max.
It’s not often that you can shoo your boss out of your office, but that’s pretty much what I did. “I need to be by myself.”
That’s all I had to say. Kevin got up and left.
I sat there for a few minutes, stunned. Then started feeling stupid for letting myself get into this so deeply. I knew I shouldn’t have. My instincts were right.
My cell phone rang. I got it out of my purse and looked at the screen. It was Max, of course, no doubt calling me about the story that had been broken by the tabloid. I let it ring three times, and then decided I needed to hear his voice. I needed to hear his explanation. Avoiding him wouldn’t do any good.