Page 18 of Hot Nights in Morocco
Cute man.I can feel myself melting, and it has nothing to do with the heat. He’s the same age as I am, but in a whole different stratosphere for everything else. His tan is faultless, his long, blond surfer-boy hair has just the right amount of careless tousle peeking out from underneath his red baseball cap, and his black wraparound shades hug his cheekbones to perfection.
“I’m Brad. Brad Wilson. My father’s Walt Wilson, the VP here at Global.”
“Ah.” I frown as a memory starts jostling for position somewhere in my brain. “It’s good to meet you, Mr. Wilson.”
Could this be the man that Cassie and Jake were shouting about in his office that day? My mind drifts as I try to recall what was said… And then I’m back. Basking in the glow of his attention and wondering how he knows my name.
“I saw you arrive with Jake. I know most of the crew, so I figured you must be Max’s new assistant,” says Brad, reading my mind. “The sexier the better, right? Can’t fault his taste.”
Somehow this doesn’t sound creepy coming from him. I smile at him shyly. Me…shy? It’s a shining testament to this man’s charisma. “Actually, it was his HR team that hired me.”
“Then I’ll applaud them instead. Is Jake already in the meeting with my father?”
“Your father? Oh. I assume so. He doesn’t divulge such details to me.”
“Same old Jake.”
I detect a note of coolness in Brad’s voice. “Do you know what the meeting’s about?”
“Global this, Global that.” Brad waves his hand airily in the direction of the studios. “It’ll probably drag on for hours. Hey, do you feel like having a tour of the place while you wait?”
“When the alternative is a deep, meaningful convo with Mr. Talkative?” I joke, nodding at Jake’s driver who is hunched over his cell phone in the front seat. “I’d love one. Are you sure it’s not too much trouble?”
Brad’s grin widens to embrace my enthusiasm. “For you, honey? No such thing.”
It’s a tight squeeze in the golf cart. Brad’s legs are so long they look like a grasshopper’s squished in behind the wheel. Our elbows keep banging against each other.
“Are you a producer, too?” I ask him, inching sideways.
“Did the baseball cap give me away?” He shoots me a look as we speed up the driveway past the giant red X of the studio’s helipad, and approach the main complex. “I’m nothing special.” He shrugs, modest to a fault. “We’re two a dime in this town.”
I beg to differ, especially when they look like Brad Wilson. “How long have you known Jake?”
“All my life.”
“So you grew up together?” For some reason this surprises me. These two men are like the yin and yang of hotness. One is all easy-going charm while the other is wound up so tight he’s liable to snap you in half.
Brad’s grin falters for a millisecond. “You could say that.”
Not friends, then.
I’m about to ask him if Jake’s personality has always resembled a broken bottle left out on the beach, and then I remember the bright smile of the boy in the photograph.
“Coming up you’ll see the first of our sound stages,” announces Brad as we enter a different section of the studio. There’s an emphasis on the word “our” and a real intimation of pride, and I find myself wondering what Jake’s meeting is all about again. “We have thirty-five sound stages in total, ranging from twenty-eight thousand to just eight thousand square feet.”
“Wow,” I murmur, gazing up at the iron-gray, industrial-size warehouses. “How can all that Hollywood movie magic transpire from such boring-looking buildings?”
“Appearances can be real deceptive, sweetheart.”
Why do I get the feeling he’s not talking about this studio?
Rounding the next corner, he slams on the breaks to avoid a head-on collision with a large FedEx truck. “Up ahead you’ll see a number of our on-site production offices,” he says, adjusting his baseball cap. “And here’s where our short tour ends.”
Just as well, because two seconds later my cell phone starts ringing.
“Where the fuck are you?” roars Jake. “I told you to stay put.”
“I’m enjoying a tour ofyourstudios,” I say politely, feeling Brad tense. “That was a quick meeting.”
