***
"Do I even want to know about why you wanted that girl's picture?" Deza glanced up from the table she was sitting at in my favorite breakfast cafe. She stirred her coffee slowly as her eyes moved across me.
"No and stop checking me out. I told you that fucking each other would mess up this brother-sister thing we got going on. It's not happening." I smiled as she shook her head.
"Not in a million years, Ethan Lewis. The places that dick has been." She grimaced, and I chuckled loudly.
"I love you too." I picked up the menu. "Where's the old man?"
"Right here, kiddo." Frank dropped down in the seat beside Deza. "Great job on that last film. The world is buzzing about you this morning."
"I think that's more to do with you guys doing open auditions and less to do with my acting skills." I gave him a knowing look.
"You told him?" Frank glanced over at Deza.
"He's like one of my kids, Frank. The one I care about most." She shrugged. "I told him."
"Parents don't pick favorites." Frank picked up his menu. "I'll explain it all to you."
"I don't need you to." I shrugged, much more calm than I had been in weeks. My release that morning was exactly what the doctor ordered. I didn't need a woman in my life, not even the sexy little librarian-looking one that had my balls tightening. "I figure you guys know what you're doing."
"Good. Finally." Frank looked up at the waitress and ordered. She glanced at me next, but I nodded to Deza.
"Ladies first." I winked at her as she gave me a smile.
After ordering, Frank cleared his throat. "Deza told you that we were only bringing in ten women?"
"Yes, she did. Again, I'm fine with it." I picked up the cup of coffee the waitress put in front of me and blew on it carefully.
"Did you tell him the rest of the story?" Frank's lip lifted in a smirk behind his furry white mustache.
"Nope. I decided if someone was telling him that part, it was you. I'm around him too much. I'll end up with a knife in my back." She glanced down at her juice, and wouldn't look at me.
Great. I finally agree to go with one of their stupid-ass ideas, and it's going to blow up in my face.
"What?" I turned my attention to Frank, letting my mood sour a little.
"So we were trying to bring loads of interest to this new film, and we have. We've already pre-sold all sorts of tickets to this thing."
"How? It comes out in ten months, Frank." I took a sip of my coffee.
"Just some marketing tools we're using, but by the time we're done, it's going to double the revenue you made on this last film. If you can just hang in there with us on some of the shit the marketing guys are cooking up, then in the end, you're going to be a very happy, rich, young man."
"I'm already most of those things." I took another sip. "Spill the shit. Stop dancing around and tell me what's going on."
"We're bringing in ten women to try out for the part across from you as female lead in Down Low."
"I know that part. What else?" I lifted my eyebrow, not liking how long it was taking everyone to give me full disclosure. "Get to it."
"Right, so the scene that you'll be running with them in the live audition is going to be a love scene." He cringed, and he should have. As much as I like fucking women, the love scenes in my movies were my least favorite part.
It felt cheap and gross to show fake passion on the big screen. All the women watching thought I actually felt the way I portrayed toward my co-star, hell, most of the women playing across from me thought I was in love with them.
It was acting. It's what I did.
"No." I shrugged and glanced up at the waitress as she gave me a shy smile.
"I'm sorry to ask this, but can you please autograph something for me? My friends are never going to believe I got to wait on you." She bit her lip and gave me a hopeful look. I usually ate in the back room and they had one older woman that waited on me. We were taking a chance today, but it didn't seem like it was going to turn out too terribly bad. An autograph I could handle. Being pawed at? No.
"Sure." I took the paper and glanced back up at her. "Who do I make the note out to?"
"Tammy. Thank you so much, Mr. Lewis. I think it's just so incredibly cool that you wanted to have open auditions. My cousin is trying out for the part in the new movie. It really speaks to just how good of a guy you are. Giving the actresses in LA a chance to show who they are? Just very cool."
I signed the note and smiled up at her. "Awesome. Good luck to your cousin."
I turned back to what I expected to see across the table. Both Frank and Deza had smug looks on their faces.
"All right. I get the point of it, but why a fucking love scene? That means I have to kiss ten different women? Come on, guys... I'm a good actor, but having to fake passion is the hardest part of my job. How would you like it if I grabbed some random woman off the street and told you to make out with her?" I tried to keep my voice down, but all the years in drama left me, well, dramatic.
"I get it, Ethan, but we're not picking the ten women. We're narrowing down their abilities and which of them fit the part. After that, you choose the ten." Deza shrugged. "It had to be a love scene, Ethan. Half of America is masturbating to your picture. It's a marketing scheme that works for a reason."
I stifled the need to laugh. Deza was hitting a little too close to home, but then again, she usually did.
"I don't like it, but whatever." I picked up my fork and started to cut my eggs up. "Can we do five? Narrow them down another way."
"No. It's ten." Frank rolled up a piece of bacon and ate it in one bite. "Besides, it's a five-second tryout. She's got ten lines and you have five."
"And the rest is fake humping and kissing her, right?" I took a bite of my breakfast, more than happy to rake them across the proverbial coals.
"It's part of the job, and again, when you see what this has the potential to do for boosting the next movie... you're going to love us again." Frank leaned back. "Deza said that there was one girl you were interested in bringing into the mix?"
"Yes. I don't care if she submits. I want to meet her. I've been around movies and actors my whole life. Her eyes tell a million stories. I want to hear them." I licked at my fork. "That and I want to do a love scene with her."
"Really?" Deza laughed and picked up her biscuit. "That's a first."
"Tell me about it." I let out a quick sigh. "She does something to me. It's exhilarating."
"Let me see this woman. She must have superhuman powers to affect the great Ethan Lewis." Frank winked at me and reached for D's phone. "Oh yeah. She's beautiful, but not in a way that I would expect you to appreciate."
"Why is that?" I licked at my lips and grabbed the phone before he could pass it back to Deza. I glanced down as my body reacted again. She was beautiful, impossibly sexy with her pouty bottom lip and the neediness in her eyes. She needed to be rescued and then made love to.
"She's classically beautiful. Like Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe." He took the phone back and studied it, leaving me a little unraveled. I didn't like the idea of him eyeing the pretty girl at all. He was old enough to be her grandfather.
"What has she done? Who is she?" Frank handed the phone back to Deza.
"I don't know," she mumbled and glanced down.
"What's up with you?" I tapped her plate with my fork. "You jealous cause I'm not getting a boner over you?"
"No." She laughed. "Idiot."
"Then what is it?"
Frank gave me a cheeky grin. "It's because the girl is represented by Darren."
"What's with you and that guy?" I sat back, pulling my napkin from my lap and wiping at my mouth.
"We were married when I was younger. It was before I became your agent." She took a deep breath. "I really don't want to talk about this. It's still painful after ten years."
"Okay. So have Frank call the asshole and get the girl at the second audition. I'm telling you guys that she's the one. Hell, put her first up and we won't have to waste our time." I pushed my plate away and glanced between the two of them.
"Unfortunately, all of the candidates get to try out. That's part of the deal." Frank gave me an apologetic look.
"You guys seriously pimped me out to make out with ten girls just to get the ratings on the film higher than ever?" I shook my head and tried hard not to overreact. "All right. Fuck it. Let me see the list of who you've narrowed it down to."
"We haven't yet. It's going to take a few days. The tryouts are going to be through Tuesday night, and then we'll make calls Wednesday morning, and those that can make it here by then... great." Deza lifted her hand in the air and asked for the bill.
"How many people have applied?" I crossed my arms over my chest as my ego reared its ugly head. That their number was going to make me feel like shit or like a million bucks was disturbing.
"Almost four hundred thousand." Deza glanced at Frank. "We'll be working with about twenty other people non-stop to weed through them. I'd rather make out with the ten at the end than do this shit."
"I'd have to agree with that, but then again, I'm a little jealous that hot shot over here gets to make out with anyone and I don't." Frank laughed as I tried to swallow the startling fact that there were that many women in the world that wanted to lay beneath me and have my hands all over them - fake or not.
But that wasn't the case at all. A handful might want that, but most of them were after the same thing every woman in my past had been after.
Fame and money.
I was just a means to get them there.
The tool of choice.