With His Consent (For His Pleasure, Book 13) (3 page)

“None of these details matter,” Greg replied.

“Why not?”

“Because he’s Dale Nolan. Because the newspapers don’t have any of that crap in any of the stories. Nobody’s going to believe this girl, and nobody will care.”

“Still, it puts things in a different light,” Hunter said. “This was an honest mistake.”

The vein was back pulsating in Greg’s forehead.
“Mistake?
Punching my client was a mistake? Maybe we’ll just take it to court and see what they think. And when we’ve bankrupted Mister Taylor and made sure he can’t even get hired to scrub toilets in Hollywood—then we’ll see if you still say it was just a mistake.” Greg stood up, gritting his teeth. “Come on, Dale. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

But Dale didn’t stand up. Instead he signaled for Greg to sit back down. “Ease up, man. You’re blowing a gasket on this.”

Greg sat down again, petulant but temporarily quiet.

Dale looked over at Bryson. “Hey, man.”

Bryson nodded back at him uncertainly. “Hey.”

“Listen, don’t take Greg too seriously. He’s a fucking pit-bull and I need a guy like that in this sick fucking industry.”

Bryson smiled grimly, but didn’t say anything.

“But sometimes he can take things a little too far.” Dale took a deep breath and put his phone away, cocking his cap back a little on his head so Scarlett could see his eyes. Dale rolled his neck around and sighed, like he was thinking. The tension in the room was palpable, as they all waited to see what Dale was going to say.

Finally, Dale smiled widely. “I think you’ve got balls, man.” He laughed. “I mean, that shit was wild, when you hit me. I loved it. I fucking loved it!” He stood up and extended his hand.

Bryson stood up and also extended his hand and the two of them shook. “I’m sorry I hit you.”

“Hey, the papers think I kicked your ass, so my rep’s still good. And I like that you stood up to me,” Dale said, as they stopped shaking hands. “I need a director who can stand up to me.”

“Then why all of this?” Bryson asked. “Why couldn’t you call off the dogs?

Why this meeting?”

Dale shrugged. “Sorry, but I needed to be sure. I wanted to put a little pressure on you and see how you held up.”

Bryson shook his head, obviously not understanding Dale’s methods.

“This is just the beginning,” Dale told Bryson. He laughed. “This is the easy part.” He slid his cap down over his eyes again and started towards the door. “You’ll find that out before too long. See you all again real soon.”

Greg shook his head, obviously furious with what had just gone down. “I still think your director is a ticking time bomb. But if Dale’s okay with him, then for now—

we go forward.” He walked out without shaking anyone’s hand or saying another word.

Everyone let out a sigh of relief as they left.

Hunter looked at Bryson and made a face. “You just escaped by the skin of your teeth. Even less, to be totally frank.”

Bryson chuckled. “The important thing is that we escaped.”

“Yeah, for now,” Hunter said. “These actors can be very temperamental and they have fragile egos. You punched him in the middle of a club. He might still hold some resentment towards you because of that and it might come out during the film shoot.”

“There’s nothing I can do about it now.”

Hunter shrugged. “I guess not. You’ve done plenty to last you a lifetime already.”

“Listen, I’m sorry I caused you guys trouble. It’s not how I wanted things to go.”

Kallie leaned forward. “We know that.”

Hunter glanced at her with an irritated expression. “He really screwed up, Kallie.

We can’t just give him a pass.”

“He was defending Scarlett.”

“That’s not how things are handled in Hollywood.”

“Oh? What would you’ve done if it was me that Dale Nolan groped at that club?”

Hunter’s jaw flexed. “You know what I’d have done.”

Kallie smiled. “Exactly.”

Hunter exhaled, rolling his eyes. “Fine. Let’s just put this unfortunate incident behind us.”

“So we still have our jobs?” Scarlett said.

Hunter and Kallie laughed. “Yes,” Kallie said. “We promise, you still have jobs.”

“Now, how are those rewrites coming?” Hunter asked Bryson.

Bryson hesitated. It was brief, but Scarlett saw lines of worry appear on his face before he put on a casual smile. “Good. Really good.”

“Good.”

Kallie’s phone began buzzing. “Shit. It’s a text from Sean. I totally forgot, we’re supposed to be meeting him and Lydia for lunch today.”

Hunter leaned back in his chair. “No. No. Not today, babe.”

“Honey, we have to. I promised him.”

“Christ,” he muttered. “Scarlett, Bryson, will you come along?”

Bryson got up. “I wish I could, but those rewrites won’t do themselves.”

“Scarlett, you have to come,” Hunter told her.

“Oh, I don’t know….” She wanted to have a chance to talk to Bryson about everything that had gone on, but he didn’t seem too interested in hanging around. He was already practically out the door.

“Come on. You can’t say no to a free meal. It would be a huge favor to me.”

She looked at Hunter and Kallie, as Kallie got off the phone. “You’re coming,”

Kallie told her.

Scarlett tried to be happy. Normally she would be ecstatic to be included in something like this, but not today. She found that instead she wanted to be with Bryson, to talk to him, to hear what he was thinking.

Her feelings were confusing and a little bit scary. When she’d first met Bryson, her impression was that he was just an immature jock with some sex appeal. Since they’d started to spend more time together, a different picture was emerging. He had more layers, more dimensions than she’d given him credit for. The way he’d stood up for her at the risk of losing his job was shocking.

Scarlett realized that she wanted to talk to him now, just the two of them alone again.

But he was leaving, and it hurt that he didn’t seem to care about leaving her behind. He gave a wave and told them all to have a great lunch and that he’d call Scarlett soon to plan the coming days’ work.

When he was gone, Kallie and Hunter began discussing the upcoming lunch, which both of them apparently were dreading.

“I think I’d rather get shot again then have lunch with your brother and Lydia,”

Hunter said. He rose from his chair, a bit stiffly, Scarlett noticed. He was clearly still suffering the affects of the attack he’d survived.

“Don’t even joke about that,” Kallie told him.

“It’s not a joke.”

“Hunter, please.” She grabbed his arm and looked into his eyes.

He looked back at her and then the two of them shared a loving kiss. It was an intimate moment that made Scarlett distinctly uncomfortable for any number of reasons.

Suddenly, she was thinking about Bryson again, and his lips—imagining them pressing into hers.

She wondered if it was merely that she was uncomfortable with being alone, having to make her own way in the world. Maybe she was just looking for the next thing, the next man to focus on so that she didn’t have to deal with her life.

What else could it be?

Bryson was just a distraction, a cute guy she was working with, nothing more and nothing less.

***

Lunch was awkward, to say the least.

Over pasta and salad, Kallie, Hunter, Sean and Lydia exchanged strained bits of information with one another while Scarlett looked on.

Sean was clearly trying his best to be pleasant, but he couldn’t hide his disdain for Hunter, who he seemed to be threatened by and also jealous of.

Scarlett didn’t know the details of their relationships, so the discomfort at lunch was puzzling to her. Although the food was good enough, she wished many times to be somewhere else, or have had a good excuse not to come along.

At one point, the tension seemed about to boil over. Sean picked at his calzone and glanced casually at his sister. “So, when exactly are you going to tie the knot?”

Kallie sipped her water. “We still don’t have a date.”

Sean nodded. “You got quite a rock, though. Man, that thing probably cost as much as this entire restaurant.”

“Sean!” Lydia cried, slapping him on the arm playfully. “That’s so rude.”

“What? I’m complimenting it. I’m saying, that’s a really nice ring you got my sister, Hunter.”

“Thanks,” Hunter said. His tone was upbeat, but Scarlett knew him well enough to know he was annoyed. “I’m just glad she likes it.” He reached across the table and took Kallie’s hand.

“I love it,” Kallie told him.

“I wonder,” Sean said to Lydia. “They say that guys who drive those big SUVs are overcompensating for other deficiencies they might have. You don’t think that ring is like the equivalent of a gigantic gas guzzling SUV…”

Scarlett wanted to hide under the table. She couldn’t stand the silence that came over the group at that moment.

Scarlett felt like she needed to try and do something. She stood up. “You know, I need to use the ladies room. Come with me, Kallie?”

With a look of relief on her face, Kallie stood up. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”

She shot Sean an angry look and he ignored her.

“Oh, I’ll come too!” Lydia squealed. The ditzy girl was up and following them like a puppy dog as they left the table and headed to the restroom.

Scarlett was annoyed, because she’d wanted to give Kallie a little time out, to get her away from her brother and his crazy fiancé. But now they wouldn’t be able to talk at all. Lydia was a motor mouth, completely in her own world. “Sorry about Sean,” Lydia said, rolling her eyes, “you know how silly those boys can be.” She began fussing with her hair and makeup while Scarlett and Kallie went to their own stalls. Lydia kept up a steady stream of chatter the entire time. “I swear,” she said, “sometimes I almost wish I’d found a guy more like Hunter. I mean, I love Sean—you know that Kallie—but he can be such a handful. Such a big baby. If he doesn’t get his way just once!”

Scarlett noticed that Kallie barely even responded to her soon-to-be sister-in-law except with the occasional grunt.

Scarlett came out of her stall and went to the sink to wash her hands. A moment later, Kallie did the same. Lydia looked over at them. “Isn’t this so fun? We should do more things with just us girls, don’t you think? Maybe we can all go shopping or something next week. I really need a new MK watch.”

“MK watch?” Scarlett asked, puzzled.

“Michael Kors,” Lydia said. “You should get one, too!”

Scarlett gave Lydia a quick smile, deciding now wasn’t the time to tell her that she had absolutely no money for shopping, and even if she did, she wouldn’t throw it away on something as silly as a designer watch. “That would be fun.”

Kallie stayed silent.

“Wouldn’t that be fun, Kallie?” Lydia pressed.

Kallie opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, her cell started ringing.

She frantically scrounged through her purse to find her phone. Scarlett could imagine why. She was probably that desperate to get away from Lydia’s maniacal presence.

When Kallie finally found her phone, her eyebrows raised. “Sorry, I absolutely have to take this.” She ran out of the bathroom with the phone to her ear.

Scarlett wished she could come up with an excuse that would get her away from Lydia as well.

“Oh!” Lydia was suddenly kneeling down and picking a piece of paper up off the floor. “This fell out of Kallie’s purse.”

Scarlett turned in time to see Lydia unfolding and reading whatever was written on the piece of paper she’d picked up.

“Oh, my God!” Lydia’s cheeks flushed as her eyes moved down the paper.

“Hey,” Scarlett said, taking a step toward Lydia. “I don’t think you should be reading that.” She went to grab the paper, but Lydia turned around, keeping it out of Scarlett’s reach.

“Well, I had to make sure it was hers.” Lydia actually turned the page, her eyes getting bigger and bigger, her cheeks turning redder and redder.

“That’s really not cool,” Scarlett said, not sure exactly what to do. She glanced toward the door, willing Kallie to come back.

Lydia ignored her. “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Scarlett was furious. This idiot was totally violating Kallie’s privacy. “Give that to me,” she said, walking towards her.

“Do you know what this is?” Lydia asked, her voice screeching. She waved the paper around in front of Scarlett’s face. “Do you?”

“I have no idea and I don’t want to know. It’s none of my—”

“This is a sex contract between her and that asshole, Hunter.” Lydia’s nostrils flared. “It says that she has to be his slave. His
sex
slave.”

Scarlett felt faint. She knew that Hunter was into BDSM—after all, she was the one who’d introduced him to the culture in the first place. But most people didn’t understand bondage and submission and why certain couples might wish to engage in such practices.

Certainly, Lydia had no concept of what the contract meant or how it actually protected both parties by spelling out the agreement in detail.

Lydia didn’t even know that it was wrong to look through someone else’s personal property.

And Scarlett knew she had to act fast if she was going to keep this from blowing up in Kallie’s face. “I’m sure it’s just a joke,” Scarlett laughed. “Kallie’s nobody’s sex slave.”

Lydia held the contract out for Scarlett to see. “Read it yourself. This isn’t a joke. The date is from months ago, when the two of them first started seeing one another.” Lydia’s eyes narrowed. “And to think, everyone considers Hunter such a hero, such a great guy to Kallie. Even I fell for his act. Meanwhile, my man is treated like chopped liver and he’s twice the person that Hunter is.”

“Sean seems like a really sweet guy,” Scarlett lied. “This isn’t a competition between the two of them.”

“You don’t know what it’s like!” Lydia fumed. “I’m always a second-class citizen. All anyone ever talks about is Kallie. Kallie and Hunter. They’re celebrities and they treat me like I don’t even exist.” She took a deep breath, and Scarlett could practically see the wheels in Lydia’s head turning. “But when I tell everyone about this contract, people will see that it’s all bullshit.
They’re
all bullshit.”