ONE
I had been living and working in Los Angeles for only three weeks when I met the man who would change everything for me. I’d heard his name before, but only during the last few weeks of working in and around Hollywood.
As a regular girl, fresh out of Ohio State University, a Midwestern transplant to Tinsel Town, I’d never heard of Max Dalton before. Maybe I would have, if I’d paid attention to movie credits and caught his name on the screen. He was a writer and producer. I plead guilty—actually ignorant—to not knowing who he was before I began seeing his name on documents and hearing his name around the office.
Before walking into his office, I’d never seen him, though. I accompanied my boss, Kevin Anderson, to the meeting. Kevin was trying to get one of our agency’s clients cast in a new movie, and Max Dalton was the producer.
Max Dalton’s appearance wouldn’t have been such a surprise if I’d bothered to Google him and do a little research before the meeting. But I hadn’t. Chalk it up to my being new, but it was something that just hadn’t occurred to me. My focus was the presentation of our client.
Most of the hour we were in Max Dalton’s office, I sat there staring at him, unable to focus on the matter at hand. Max Dalton stood about six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a trim waist. It wasn’t a bodybuilder’s physique, much to my delight, but he did have that V-shape thing going on. I suppose the clothing he wore didn’t hurt, either. Dark gray slacks, and a white button-down shirt with the first two or three buttons open, revealing smooth and evenly tanned skin.
His hair was just long enough to get messed up if a certain girl had the chance to run her fingers through it. At the beginning of the meeting it appeared to be slicked back and I wondered if he was one of those guys who overdo it with the gel. But as the hour progressed, it started to dry, and I figured maybe he’d just gotten out of the shower in the private bathroom in his office. Maybe he’d been working out before the meeting, and in the thirty minutes I’d spent in the waiting room, he was in that bathroom, in the shower, soaping up….
See? That’s why I was so distracted. And, honestly, it kind of pissed me off. I had come to this town to work, establish myself, start my life. I couldn’t afford to be so lacking in self-control in any area of life, let alone with men. I’d had my share of man troubles, and when I arrived in L.A., I’d promised myself that I’d say goodbye to all that for a long, long time.
Work. I was here to work. I kept trying to tell myself that, repeating it like some mantra over and over and over…
“What do you think, Ms. Rowland?”
It would have been bad enough if those words had come out of Kevin’s mouth. But they came out of Max’s. Either way, though, there I was sitting next to my boss and across from a Hollywood mogul, caught totally off guard because I hadn’t been paying attention.
I was already looking at Max, so refocusing was just a matter of moving my gaze from his lips to his eyes. I’d already noticed that they appeared to be a mixture of gray and light blue, but this time I saw that one eyebrow was raised to punctuate the question he had directed at me.
I didn’t have the first clue about the context of the question. It was a prime opportunity for me to appear completely idiotic and useless. But there was no way I was going to let that happen.
Without missing a beat I said, “With all due respect, Mr. Dalton, I appreciate being asked for my input, but Mr. Anderson is the pro here.” I said it with a smile and a glance toward Kevin Anderson.
Luckily, Kevin picked up where I left off and launched into his closing argument in favor of our client.
Saved by a little wit. It doesn’t happen often for me, but when it does, it always seems to happen when it really counts.
This is the part where you’d think I would have gotten control of myself and paid attention to what was being said. But as Kevin spoke, I stared at Max. Staring was okay; after all, he could have thought I was simply watching his reaction to Kevin’s spiel. But that wasn’t at all what I was doing.
I’m a Midwestern girl. Fairly normal. Pretty tame, actually. I’m not a virgin, and I’ve had my share of sex. I’ve never watched pornography, though, which made it even more strange that such images were in my head. They were like the flash scenes in a movie, the kind where the light flickers and increases and you catch a couple of seconds of the action. In this case, the action was me, facedown, with Max behind me…the kind of fucking that rips the sheets right off the bed.
The few times he glanced at me, my paranoia worried that he could see what I was thinking. Crazy, I know.
When the meeting was over, Max rose and came around the desk. He shook Kevin’s hand, placing his other hand on the back of Kevin’s arm. I’d learned in a Psych class that it was a show of power and dominance. I wasn’t surprised to see it in a Hollywood meeting.
Max looked at me. “Ms. Rowland, it was a pleasure meeting you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Dalton.”
I reached to offer and handshake as he was saying, “Please call me Max.”
His hand was large and strong, and he gave a firm yet warm handshake. If I wanted to be melodramatic about it, I would say a tiny bolt of electricity jumped between our hands. But nothing like that happened. The smooth firmness and inviting warmth of his hand was thrilling enough.
“Okay, Max. Please call me Olivia.”
He smiled, said, “Olivia it is,” and we all turned toward the doors.
Kevin went through first, stepping out into the reception area, where he quickly struck up a conversation with Max’s secretary. “It seems like we talk on the phone almost every day…”
Their conversation faded out as I felt Max’s hand at the small of my back. He leaned over my shoulder, his mouth close to my ear. “Nice dodge in there.”
I turned my head. “What do you mean?”
“When I asked what you thought. Very nicely handled, Olivia.”
“I don’t—” I started to lie but he interrupted me.
“It’s okay.” He laughed. “Really. I’m just giving you a hard time. We’ll talk soon, I’m sure.”
I felt the blood rush to my face. Great. Blushing in a professional setting.
Kevin faced us again and thanked Max once more for the meeting and I couldn’t have been happier that we were on our way out of there.
The ride back to the office from the studio was a short one. As Kevin drove he kept saying he thought the meeting went well and that Jacqueline Mathers, our actress client, was almost sure to get the part and that meant a big deal to the agency.