With His Consent (For His Pleasure, Book 13) (10 page)

“Okay, action,” Hunter said.

Scarlett felt Bryson stiffen in the seat next to her. And she thought she knew why he’d reacted that way.

“Action” is what directors say.

She was afraid to even glance at him now, and instead kept her eyes on the actress.

It was amazing to watch her transform. She held a few pages from the script in one hand and read from it, but frequently enough she would look up from the script and engage with an imaginary world around her.

“You can’t honestly expect him to believe in you when you don’t believe in yourself,” Jennifer said to the room.

Barbara, from Sony, read lines of dialog from her seat behind the desk. She sounded bored and tired. “How can you say I don’t believe in myself?”

Jennifer put her hands on her hips. “Just look at the way you’ve doubted everything from the beginning. Don’t you think you deserve better than that?”

“Gabrielle, don’t you turn on me too,” Barbara intoned, her voice inflectionless.

“I’m not turning on you, I’m trying to smack some damn sense into you.”

“You don’t have the right—“

“I’m not going to let you sabotage everything,” Jennifer said. Her eyes flashed.

Scarlett found that she believed her. It was amazing, she thought, that this woman could act and give so much when the woman playing the opposite role was doing just about as little as humanly possible in return.

They went on reading a little while longer.

“Thank you so much,” Hunter said, at a certain point. “That was really, really wonderful.”

“Thank you,” Jennifer replied, bowing her head slightly. “It was an honor to be here—I’m a big fan of your work,” she told him.

“And you’re able to start almost immediately if we do cast you for the part?”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay, Jennifer. Thanks, we’ll be in touch.”

She smiled and waved and everyone thanked her as she walked out. The door closed.

“Well she was a bright ray of sunshine,” Barbara said, smiling through her enormous teeth.

No thanks to you, Scarlett thought.

“I thought she was sweet,” Kallie said.

“Yeah, she was pretty radiant and I bet she’ll really pop on screen,” Hunter said.

He looked at Bryson. “Any thoughts?”

Bryson shrugged. “No.”

There was another awkward silence. “What about you, Scarlett?” Kallie asked.

“Did you have any thoughts about Jennifer?”

“I thought she was wonderful,” Scarlett replied. “I mean, I’m new to all of this but she captured me instantly with her smile.”

Hunter stood up. “Good. Let’s keep it moving. I’ll see if we can bring in the next actor.”

And so it began. Over the next couple of hours, they saw perhaps a dozen more actresses who read for the same role, and said the same lines. Almost all of them were adequate, but there were very few who stood out from anyone else.

By the time they were getting ready to break for lunch, Scarlett was finding it difficult to care. She was starting to realize how hard it was to cast a film, let alone audition for people who had been watching a steady stream of hopeful actors for hours on end.

“My stomach’s rumbling,” Kallie said.

“Are we getting sandwiches, Hunter?” Barbara asked.

“Should be here any minute,” Hunter said. “Do we want to work through lunch and try and get ahead of schedule, or—“

“I’d like us to break for half an hour,” Bryson said.

Hunter looked at him. “Maybe just twenty minutes.”

“I need to clear my head. I want to give these people my full attention.”

“Then give them your full attention. We don’t have time for a full half hour break.”

Bryson smirked. “Maybe we should just skip eating entirely then. Let’s not have a break or food. How does that sound?”

“Or we could have a sandwich while someone auditions, and not make a federal case out of it,” Hunter told him.

“That will feel really nice for the actor who comes in and pours their heart and soul out while we’re stuffing our faces with chicken salad and potato chips.”

Hunter smiled. “Actually, there’s no chicken salad—just turkey, ham or veggie wraps.”

“Come on now, boys, we’re all tired,” Kallie said, trying to lighten the mood.

“I’m not tired,” Bryson said.

“Then stop acting like a baby,” Hunter leaned in and whispered.

Bryson stood up. “You know what, I need to go to the bathroom. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Good idea,” Hunter said. “Let’s take five, everyone.”

The entire group stood up and began stretching as Bryson left the room. Kallie walked over to where Hunter and Scarlett were standing. Scarlett took a sip of water.

“Is Bryson okay?” Kallie said, looking at Scarlett.

“I don’t know. He seems a little edgy.”

“He’s just being a baby,” Hunter said, shaking his head.

“Well, you might want to give him a little more room to work,” Kallie said.

“You think I’m stepping on his toes?”

“Maybe just a little tiny bit,” Kallie laughed. She touched him gently on his arm and her moved closer to her.

“You know I’m a control freak.”

The two of them shared an intimate glance that made Scarlett almost uncomfortable.

“Bryson is the director,” Kallie reminded him.

Hunter nodded. “You’re right. That’s why I love you.”

“That’s why? Because I’m right?”

“Because you’re always right.”

There was a knock on the door and then the receptionist came in, looking slightly frazzled. “Hi, sorry to disturb you all,” she said.

“It’s fine, we’re taking a break,” Hunter told her.

“Well, someone’s come in to audition that I didn’t have on my list. But she’s very insistent, and she says she’s a friend of yours.”

Hunter glanced at Kallie. “Let me guess. Is her name Danielle?”

The receptionist nodded. “Should I let her in?”

Hunter ran a hand over his chin. “Kallie, did you—“

“Don’t blame this on me. You know you shouldn’t have told Kane Wright about this.”

“She’s here with a whole entourage,” the receptionist said. “At least three others are accompanying her. I really—I don’t know what to do here.”

“Just let them all in, it’s fine,” Hunter sighed. “At least she came during lunch.”

Kallie laughed and shook her head in disbelief.

Scarlett didn’t know what to think. She knew even less when a group of about four people came into the room, and suddenly everyone was talking and making introductions. It was the exact opposite of the orderliness that had accompanied all of the other auditions.

Kallie brought over Danielle and introduced her to Scarlett. A stylist was fussing with her hair as they said hello.

“So you’re the new girl?” Danielle said, looking Scarlett up and down.

“I don’t know. I guess so.”

Bryson walked back in and came over as they were talking. He looked confused and annoyed.

“I’ve told you about Scarlett,” Kallie said to Danielle.

“That’s right. She used to date Hunter,” Danielle practically yelled, snapping her fingers. “And the guy—the crazy guy—“

“Easy,” Kallie said. “Easy.”

Danielle looked at Scarlett again. “You’ve got quite a history, don’t you?”

Scarlett held back her annoyance. “I think we all have history.”

“How true, how true indeed,” Danielle giggled.

Some people were now bringing a tray of catered deli sandwiches and side dishes into the room, creating even more havoc and noise in the room.

Bryson was watching everything with an unreadable expression. “What are we doing?” he asked.

“My friend Danielle is going to audition during lunch,” Kallie said.

“Oh, great,” he said, with faux excitement. “Your friend’s auditioning. Glad to hear that. I’ll go sit down and stuff my face.” He walked back to the deli trays and started loading up a plate.

“What’s his problem?” Danielle sniffed, as her stylists tugged at her clothes and hair.

“He’s just hungry,” Scarlett heard Kallie saying.

Scarlett left them and walked over to where Bryson was putting sandwiches onto a plate by the trays of food.

“Hey,” she said, standing beside him now.

“Hey,” he mumbled, not looking at her.

“Are you upset with me?”

He glanced at her. “No. Why would I be?”

“I don’t know. But it seems like you are.”

He turned and held his plate as he looked at her briefly. “Scarlett, I’ve got a lot going on right now, in case you didn’t notice. Not everything is about you.”

She hated the way he was looking at her right now. “I know that.”

“If you know it, then deal with it.” He walked back to the desk and sat down.

She was left by herself, feeling cold and alone and hurt. It wasn’t right that he was taking his problems out on her. Was he also mad because of what Danielle had said about Hunter and her having been together?

Scarlett realized that Bryson really didn’t know anything about her past. She hadn’t told him about Hunter or Terrence or anything. But maybe it wasn’t any of his business, either.

She got herself a sandwich and sat down again, trying to ignore him.

Meanwhile, Danielle had finished being primped and primed and now she was ready for her close up.

Hunter directed her to her mark.

“What’s a mark?” she asked.

Bryson snorted and bit into his sandwich.

Hunter calmly explained it. “A mark is where an actor stands when they say certain lines. It’s called ‘hitting your mark.’ Otherwise, the camera might have trouble knowing where you’re going to be when you deliver your lines.”

“Oh, yeah—I knew that,” Danielle said, waving. She was starting to sweat a little.

Barbara raised her eyebrows and looked at her script, blinking, as if she’d never seen such insanity before.

Danielle went to her mark and introduced herself. She had brought a headshot with her, but no resume. Scarlett looked at the picture. In it, Danielle was wearing a skimpy dress and smiling demurely in the foreground, while in the background, four handsome men appeared to be pining for her.

Scarlett could hear the others trying to hold in their laughter as they looked at the headshot.

“Well, it’s unique,” Hunter muttered.

“Shhh….” Kallie warned him.

“Okay, action,” Hunter shouted.

If most of the actors up to this point had been at least adequate, Scarlett was now seeing what ‘not adequate’ looked like.

Danielle was unable to deliver a line with anything that resembled conviction.

She was inflecting the lines with odd emotions, overwrought at times. It was confusing—so confusing that Barbara even lost her place twice and they had to start over.

Hunter let them go through the entire scene, which he’d rarely done all day.

Scarlett supposed that being a friend had its perks, because she was absolutely certain that Danielle would have been kicked out of the room after one or two lines if she’d been anybody else.

Finally, mercifully, it was over.

“That was really great,” Hunter said, standing up.

“Oh, thank you!” Danielle cried, like she’d just received an Academy Award.

“Thank you so much. Everyone.” She blew three or four kisses. “Bye, everyone. I can’t wait to see you all when we start shooting.”

And then she and her entourage floated out of the room.

When they were gone, everyone just stared at each other.

“I apologize for that,” Kallie said.

“Nothing wrong with some comic relief,” Barbara said.

Bryson was silent. He picked at his food while the others made lighthearted conversation.

“Okay,” Hunter said. “Let’s get through the rest of the day. We’ve got another twenty or thirty people to see.”

Suddenly, Scarlett remembered Lydia.

“Oh my goodness,” she said. “I just remembered. I should step out really quickly.”

“Sure, no problem,” Hunter said.

“I’ll be right back.” She got up and headed into the waiting room. As she’d feared, there were only actresses out there. Nobody else was waiting—Lydia was gone.

Scarlett came back and sat down, her heart felt as if it was in her throat. She’d forgotten about Lydia in all the madness and mayhem of these auditions, and she knew that this was going to be a costly mistake.

On top of that, Bryson wasn’t even acknowledging her existence.

Things were steadily falling apart and Scarlett truly had no idea how to fix any of it. She wasn’t even certain why Bryson was upset with her, and he didn’t seem too interested in explaining himself at the moment.

She managed to get through the rest of the auditions, trying her best to pay attention to each actress that came in. It was hard to care, but knowing how important this moment likely was for each woman, Scarlett did her best to show interest and care about every performance.

Hunter continued to basically run the auditions, since Bryson had gone silent. A few times, Hunter tried to ask him a question and Bryson would mumble some generic response.

Finally, the last person came in and left. Everyone was exhausted—Scarlett could see it on everyone’s faces, and she imagined her face was no better.

“So,” Hunter said, “were there any standouts for you guys?”

“Clearly, your friend Danielle was a homerun,” Barbara said drily.

This got a big laugh out of everyone—except for Bryson, who simply sat there and looked at the floor, waiting for the ruckus to die down.

“Bryson?” Kallie asked. “Was there someone who stood out to you?”

“There were three women who all brought something different to the table,” he replied. Then he took three photos out of the stack in front of him. “These three were my favorites,” he said, passing them to Scarlett.

One of them was Jennifer Willis, who’d been Scarlett’s clear choice. The other two were women who she also had liked, but not nearly as much.

As Scarlett passed the photos down to the others, people began talking all at once.

Other names and pictures were bandied about, traded back and forth. After a few minutes, it was clear that everyone had loved Jennifer Willis, but there was another actress that Bryson, Kallie and Barbara had also liked a great deal.