Chapter 7
“You know what?” Jake splashed more water on Claire’s face before wiping his hand with a paper towel. “I’ve seen way worse auditions. One time an actress straight-up shat herself in front of us. That doesn’t count all the ones who come in high out of their minds.”
Claire groaned into her sweater, wadded up in her hands and offering to suffocate her so she didn’t have to deal with the cruel world. “So embarrassing! It was going well, too, right?”
Jake offered her a clean towel. She begrudgingly took it. “It wasn’t bad.”
Claire furrowed her brows. “You’re kidding me, right? I killed it.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t bad. You were better than the girl before you.”
“Really?”
“Didn’t you say you killed it? Before the barf, anyway.” Jake gestured to the bathroom door. “You’re not sick, are you?”
“No idea. I felt fine until this morning. I thought it was nervous butterflies because of the audition, but then I threw up twice. That only happens if I get a stomach bug.”
Jake kept his distance from her.
“Very funny.” Claire dabbed her face with the towel and sighed. “Thanks for helping, though. No idea what I would have done if you hadn’t jumped in like that.”
“Continued to look like a barf bag, I guess. Are you ready?”
“In a bit…” Claire was still reeling from the embarrassment. She slid down the bathroom wall and buried her face in her sweater again. Jake didn’t leave, but he also didn’t offer to hug, pat, or console her. Sometimes, another person’s presence was the only thing necessary.
She had almost been more mortified by Jake jumping up from the panel to come help her than throwing up. Wes was not going to help her. Scott was on the phone with a custodian to come take care of it. The movie director shook his head, and the woman on the panel texted something, body turned away from the scene. Jake insisted on taking her to the bathroom to clean her up and find out what was wrong. Nobody had questioned it, for the same reasons nobody had questioned them stealing away at the engagement party.
“You’ll be okay.” Jake leaned against the wall. “Like I said, this is far from the worst I’ve seen. So what if you’re sick? If they liked how you tested well enough, they’ll give you a second chance.”
“Thought you had something to do with the decision.” Claire snorted. Damn. It still hurt to snort. “Otherwise, why the hell are you here?”
“Because I wrote the script and am one of the co-producers under one of my subsidiaries.” He shrugged. “They invited me to be on the panel, and I admit… I wanted to see how you tested after I saw your name on the shortlist. Congrats, by the way. I can assure you that neither my father nor I had anything to do with it.”
Claire sighed again. “Were you shocked to see me here?”
“Shocked? No. Slightly irritated? A bit.”
“Irritated? What have I done to you?”
He shot her a cold look. Oh, right.
“Seems I can’t escape you, Claire Finn.”
“The bathroom door’s right there.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Ah, yes, she had given him the perfect opportunity to change the subject. “Because I can give you a lift home if you want.”
“I’m fine.” Most of the nausea had finally left Claire’s body. “I’m starving, though. I haven’t eaten a damn thing today because I felt so gross.”
“I could tell. That was pretty liquidy barf.”
“Oh my God, you’re gonna make me vomit again.”
“Tell you what…” Jake helped her off the bathroom floor, his soft hands warm and strong as he guided Claire toward the door. Damn you for being so comfortable, Jacob Carter. “Why don’t you come back to my place? It’s only ten minutes away. I’ll order us some lunch and you can decompress before going home.”
“Don’t you have to do the other auditions?”
“There’s only one more, and she couldn’t come in until later this afternoon. C’mon. I have some time to kill.”
“But…” Claire hesitated. “Do you think we should?”
“I don’t know, Claire.” He squeezed her hand in his. “Do you think we should? It’s an invitation to lunch. Nothing more.”
It didn’t feel like nothing more when her hand sweated so much in his grasp. “I don’t know…” she bit her lip. “I really should get home.”
“Well, okay…” Jake released her. “Okay.”
He said it with such finality, that it was as if he released Claire from both his mind and heart. Don’t tell me he has feelings for me… Oh, no. That would make Thanksgiving dinners even weirder! Don’t be in love with me, Jake. It’s one thing if you have the hots for me after what happened at the party, but love? No, no, Claire was overthinking this. She needed to back off. Take stock. What the fuck ever.
Yet how could she swear that when a man who looked as concerned as him turned his back on her? Let alone with such resolution that she could feel his oath radiating from his heart?
“Don’t get involved with her, Jake. She’s gonna be your stepmother. It would be wrong. Not the cool kind of wrong, either. Just be nice to her. No hard feelings.”
Claire wasn’t psychic, but she swore she heard that in Jake’s heart.
“Wait.” She stopped him before he opened the bathroom door. “Okay. I’ll have lunch at your place… if you promise it will be light.” She put her hand on her stomach. “Not sure what’s going on in there.”
His eyes suggested he was about to rescind the invitation. Except the words coming out of his mouth said, “My car’s right out front in the parking lot. I’ll let you finish putting yourself together and wait for you out there… after I let everyone know how you’re doing.”
Claire watched him go. Gone was the concern and the warmth. All she felt now was the impending sense of dread – of things she did not yet understand.
Hell, she might never understand them. Few women had been in her position, after all.
***
Jake ordered from a soup and sandwich shop a block from his apartment. Claire had her choice of clam chowder or tomato basil. The thought of putting something with the texture of clam chowder into her stomach made her want to hurl again, so she went with the safer bet. Instead of a sandwich, she opted for a Caesar salad.
At least Jake didn’t make any dieting jokes, like some of Claire’s old boyfriends. Not that Claire felt any worse after getting in Jake’s car and driving ten minutes to his high-rise apartment downtown.
It’s smaller than I expected. Jake’s primary residence was a luxury one-bedroom apartment that was big enough to offer a separate office nook, but still a pauper’s chambers compared to his family’s mansion. Claire had always preferred the small and cozy apartments as opposed to sprawling mansions full of rooms she would never enter. Yet that’s where I’m living starting this summer. Maybe Arthur would let her have an apartment in the city. She could make the claim that it would save money in drivers and gas to get her around to functions and work. While insinuating he’ll have that much more time to spend with his mistresses…
She glanced at Jake from where she stood next to the living room window. I wonder how far the apple falls from the tree. Claire turned to him, but waited for an invitation to sit down before joining him at his small dining table. This impeccably kept bachelor pad did not scream that he spent a lot of time at home, let alone throwing dinner parties.
“Thank you for doing this.” Claire reached to fix up her own salad, but Jake had already arranged it on the plate and slid it toward her. “When I think about it, I really don’t want to go home yet.”
“Is your mother anti being sick?”
She is, but that’s not why I’m avoiding my house. “If I go home, there will probably be another ridiculous present from your father waiting for me. Did you know he sent me a giant portrait of me the other day? I never even posed for it! I have no idea what to do with that thing. I sent it to the house for him to hang up.”
Jake dropped the empty container that once held his salad. The fork that jumped up from the impact clattered and clanged on its grand journey down to the hardwood floors.
Claire bent down and picked up the fork that had landed next to her feet. “You okay?” she asked, handing him the dirty utensil.
“Yeah…” Jake tossed the fork into the kitchen sink and opened the plastic fork that came with their food. “Must’ve slipped.”
Claire studied his careful movements as he finished preparing his lunch and sat down across from her. “Anyway… the thing was huge. I guess I got creeped out because it reminded me so much of that portrait of your mother that’s hanging up in your father’s office.”
Jake placed his hands on either side of his plate and stared at the greens and tomatoes tossed together into a plastic carry-out box. “I often forget he still has that thing in there.”
“It’s so weird going in there and seeing his ex-wife hanging up in plain view.” Claire shuddered. “Sorry. No offense to your mother.”
“No,” Jake agreed, “it’s weird. My father is a strange man.” He sipped his water, but his face conveyed that he found it wanting. “I don’t say this to deter you from anything, Claire, but I’m often of the opinion that the man’s an idiot and still in love with my mother.”
Claire had half-bitten into a cherry tomato. “He never talks about her, unless he’s trying to impress someone.”
“Trust me. I can tell.” Jake bristled. “My mother is the one who divorced him, not the other way around. He was convinced the whole thing had been a joke until the lawyers shoved the papers beneath his nose and told him he really did have to sign them. She hasn’t talked to him since. She doesn’t want to, either.” A sigh rattled the table. “Sorry. You don’t want to hear this. Like I said, I’m not trying to convince you to dump my father. You have your reasons for marrying him.”
“Don’t worry. I know he’s a cheater. He was fooling around with some woman at the engagement party. I heard them in the office bathroom.”
Claire couldn’t bring herself to look Jake in the eye. Why did I even tell him that? He’s Arthur’s son! After we… I’m no better than Arthur.
Jake cleared his throat. “No wonder you were so brazen.”
Damnit. He brought it up. Jake had seemed reasonable, especially after discovering that Claire hadn’t known who he was the other day. I thought we were on the same page, Jake. Don’t bring it up again. Ever.
He must have sensed her sudden discomfort, for he got up and went to his fridge, where he fished out a bottle of beer. He held up another. “You want some too?” he asked.
“No, thanks.”
“Right. Not feeling well.”
That wasn’t why Claire forwent beer, although it was a good excuse. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be. Took two, right?”
Claire shrugged. “I guess.”
Jake sat back down. “You don’t want to talk about my father. I get it. I don’t really want to either.”
“So then why are we?”
“Because he’s the only real thing we share.”
She looked up at him. “Is he?”
Was it unbelievable that she brought up the attraction continuing to reverberate between them? Or would it be more unbelievable to continue to ignore it, as if they had truly gotten it out of their systems and were now content to only see each other at Carter family functions. What about when Claire continued to think back on it? What about when she woke up in the middle of the night, fondly reliving those five minutes in a closet?
What was she supposed to do when that happened?
“We need to sort this out. Now.”
Jake nodded. “I don’t disagree with you.”
“It’s awkward as fuck.”
“It’s fine. I get it. It made sense after we met at the house and you were shocked that I was your future stepson.”
“Don’t put it that way.” Claire was going to be sick. Again.
“What I mean is that I understood that you weren’t being purposely problematic.”
“Purposely… problematic?” Claire laughed. “What kind of buzz words have you picked up in this business?”
“A lot. They’re the best words for me to use. Because you were reacting to my father’s behavior and retaliated by fucking the first semi-attractive guy you saw.”
Claire put her utensils down. Maybe she wanted that beer after all. “Semi-attractive? Give me more credit than that. Please.”
“Fine. Damn fine and diabolically handsome.”
Was he being facetious? Because Claire couldn’t tell when he kept that same serious tone. “You’re right,” she finally admitted. “I was retaliating. It pissed me the fuck off, and I wanted to prove that I could at least still get some ‘damn fine’ man to bone me at a moment’s notice. You have no idea what position I’m in. That man holds all the cards, and if I break off the engagement, my career is tanked.”
She expected him to laugh. He didn’t. Jake maintained that same dire countenance he had been courting since they met.
“You’re right,” he said. “If you broke it off with my father, he could very easily blacklist you. You would never work again, or at least not in any projects worth mentioning. You’d be better off moving to Bumsville, Iowa, and being the star of the local community playhouse.”
Claire snorted. “At least you’re honest with me. Like that audition today. I don’t have a chance, do I?”
“Well, puking on the lead male actor is not going to help you any, no.”
“Even without that. I could tell that the casting and movie directors weren’t feeling my performance.”
“It’s ultimately not up to me to decide. They might consult me since I’m one of the producers, but beyond that, I’m the screenwriter. Whoever plays the lead female only must fit a fixed set of parameters I wrote up months ago. All four of you auditioning today did that, which was why you got the callbacks. After that? It’s up to the directors and the head producer.”
“You’re not making me feel any better.” Here came the nausea again. Instead of being sick, however, Claire was convinced that she might simply pass out for a nap instead. What better way to pretend that this conversation had never happened? “Because it’s not only about that one movie, you know? It’s about my whole career. It’s not enough to ride on the name of Ronald Finn.”
“I believe it. I grew up in this town, too. Nepotism is a powerful thing, but it can only get you so far if other powers are at play.”
“Do you know about the powers at play with me?”
Jake leaned forward, most of his food and drink untouched. “Don’t you know them?”
Claire hated how much she shivered to have him so close again. Because they weren’t shivers of discomfort – they were shivers of arousal, anticipation, and bad, bad ideas. “I’m the granddaughter of a famous Hollywood legend who made bad deals and made the wrong people angry before he died.” Ronald had clung to a past that no longer existed by the time his twilight years caught up to him. Every time someone dared to suggest to Ronald that he take his company in another direction to keep up with the times and making money, he retaliated by doubling down and making terrible business decisions. The only reason the family hadn’t gone broke was because the company was sold at a pivotal moment, and the royalties for Ronald’s most famous movies were still decent.
Claire sighed.
“I’m not the best actress in the world. I’m good, but I don’t hold any grand delusions that I’ll win a ton of awards and have directors fighting over me to be in their billion dollar franchises. That’s not even a little bit realistic. I want a decent career to enjoy for the rest of my life.”
“It’s good to be realistic.”
Oh, shut up. “I thought that by getting engaged to your father I could secure myself. Not just my career, since I doubt your father is going to be gung-ho about letting me do whatever movie I want. You know what? I also wanted to secure myself financially. There, I said it. I don’t trust my own inheritance or my ability to make enough money on my own. Do you know how much money I’ve made from my career so far?” Claire didn’t wait for Jake’s guess. “Sixty thousand, and that’s since I was eighteen seven years ago. Most of that money was for modeling and a couple of reality shows about kids of the rich and famous.” Sometimes Claire stumbled upon clips on YouTube. What a wonderful way to relive her youth as a dumb teenager.
“I don’t envy your position.” Jake didn’t say anything beyond that.
That wasn’t good enough for Claire. “What about your position? Do you find it enviable?”
“What in the world do you mean?”
Claire shook her head in disbelief. “You’re the son of Hollywood royalty. Recent royalty. You were given everything. Your mom’s good looks, your dad’s head for business… and every opportunity they both could afford to get your foot in the door. I know what my grandfather’s name has done for me, but even I can’t fathom how good you’ve had it with your parents. I’m not saying you’re a bad scriptwriter at all, Jake, but do you think you would’ve broken into the business at such a young age if you didn’t have you parents’ connections?”
“No,” he quickly said. “I don’t. If you don’t think I’m thankful…”
“It’s not about what I think. It’s about what you think. Because you still have the hots for me, which is why you whisked me away from the audition and are now tormenting me!” She pushed away her half-finished lunch and leaped up from her seat. Before Jake could say a word, Claire rushed to the windows, where the LA landscape sprawled before her.
She glanced over her shoulder. Jake remained in his seat at the table.
“You’re right,” he admitted. “I do still have the hots for you, as you put it. You’ve put me into an impossible position. I’m trying to make it right.”
“How?”
Jake stood. His carefully controlled movements made his dress shirt wrinkle against his shoulders and chest, and his trousers crease across his thighs. Damn me for noticing that! Claire tapped her forehead against the window.
“You’re wrong if you think that party was the first time I ever saw you, Claire.” Jake remained a respectful distance, but the pull between them intensified, as if the more passionate they became, the stronger the connection between them grew. “I knew who you were before we met. Before my own father announced that he was marrying you.” He tapped his fingers against his table. “You remember Love in the City, right?”
“Of course I do? It’s the only real lead role I have.” Five years ago. Her stint on the reality show earned her the lead role in a B-movie about bumbling teenagers falling in love in New York. Claire had been convinced that it was the official start of her acting career. Instead, the movie was universally panned and her agent almost dropped her. Claire didn’t have a real movie role again for two years, and it was as a woman who only appeared in flashbacks, totaling ten minutes out of a ninety-minute film.
“I love that movie.”
Claire scoffed, her arm rattling against the window and her sweaty hair sticking to her cheeks. “What? Don’t be silly. That movie was crap.”
“That’s what the reviewers said after it was released, but you really enjoyed making that film, didn’t you?”
“Only because I thought it was the start of something great.”
“You can see your happiness in the film. You can feel it. I’ve watched that movie so many times, that I’ve used characters like yours as inspiration for the ones I write.”
He’s got to be kidding me. It was almost insulting, really. How stupid did he think she was to believe that? “You’re only saying that. There was nothing special about the character. She was stock. A trope. Like all of them.”
“Maybe so, but it was your performance that made me think of it so highly. There’s something special about the right talent and the right character coming together. I always wanted that to happen with my own movies.”
“You make it sound like you kept writing characters like that in the hopes I would audition for them.”
Jake shrugged. “Maybe so. A little. Watching you on screen so many times may have opened my mind to how lovely you are.”
“Please, stop.” Claire curled her fingers against the window. “You keep making it sound like that you already…”
He was right behind her, his voice hitting her in the back of the head. “I was already attracted to you when we officially met in the flesh, yes. Trust me, I wasn’t a big fan of our situation either.”
“Our situation, huh?”
“You marrying my father. Us clearly being attracted to one another.”
Claire slowly turned around. “How did you feel when you heard about it?”
“I was the first person he told after you accepted his marriage proposal. I was… confused, to say the least. Not only how you two knew each other, but why… I felt… damn.” He laughed. Did he find this funny? Was he more interested in making fun of Claire than clearing up this polluted air? “I felt conflicted because I wanted you first. I saw you first. Didn’t he realize that? Was my father punishing me for something? How had he even known that I watched your movie repeatedly? How could he possibly have known that I would’ve asked you out in an instance if I ever had the chance to meet you? I wished every day that you would have a better career, so we would have an excuse to meet. To think, today could’ve been my big chance, assuming we hadn’t met like we had.”
“Just admit it, Jake.” Claire crossed her arms. “You were already in love with me.”
“Perhaps so. Now you’re to be my stepmother.”
“And you’re to be my stepson.”
“The reasons for an affair are innumerable, yet the big reason to avoid it overshadows them all. I think this will be the plot of the next movie I write.”
“Who said anything about an affair? It was a onetime thing, Jake. It shouldn’t have even happened.”
“You’re right. It shouldn’t have. Yet it did. So here we are.” Jake took one step closer. “You’re throwing up during auditions, and I’m still thinking you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
“It’s wrong.” Claire couldn’t bear to look at him. Not his own shame on his handsome visage, and not his sizzling aura that was hotter than the Californian sun beating against the apartment windows. “No matter how you look at it, it’s wrong. I could break up with your father right now, and it would still be wrong.”
“You know how it goes in the movies, Claire. Sometimes what’s the worst thing ends up being the hottest and most unavoidable.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Dare what?”
Kiss me. Claire sucked in her lips to prevent them from searching out his. Yet how could she deny how much she wanted to kiss him again? This man had all but admitted to being in love with her, and they barely knew each other! Was that story about my movie true? Or is he some kind of sociopath sowing discord with his own father? Claire hated how conflicted she was. This should have been cut and dry. She should have had the spine to turn down Jake Carter’s advances. This whole time, I thought that I was the one advancing on him. Wasn’t she the one who seduced him, not the other way around? Why oh why hadn’t she gone after some other man at the party?
Perhaps the reason they were so attracted to one another came straight from the movies they loved so much. It’s fate.
Had Jake wished hard enough to meet Claire that the universe finally made it happen, albeit in the worst of ways? It wasn’t fair. If they had met today instead of before… to think it could have happened without being involved with Arthur… would he really have asked her out? Vomit and all?
Did Claire have any say at all in this supposed fate? Or was her will left up to the machinations of the universe? One man named Jake Carter?
What if you’re the man I’m supposed to be with, Jake?
What if?
“I’m not going to lie to you, Claire.” Jake’s hands formed fists at his sides, as if he couldn’t hold back the emotions flooding the space between them. “When I heard that you were engaged to my father, I felt as if something had been ripped out of me. Not only was the situation preposterous, but it reminded me that there may be forces at work out there that I had no control over. Except I can control my own actions. I can’t control who you marry. I can only control how I react to that and what I choose to do.”
“How’s that?”
Jake cracked. He grabbed Claire by the hand and pulled her body toward his. Cologne, sweat, and the distinct scent of a man on the brink of madness overcame Claire as she ended up in his arms again. “Sometimes I don’t think I control things very well at all.”
Their lips were so close. Yet Claire knew that if they did kiss, they may never be able to split apart again. The affair would be official. They would both stand to gain so much from one another, but also risk losing everything that made them who they were in the outside world.
“If you’re counting on me to say no,” Claire said, swallowing the lump in her throat, “then I’m afraid you’re doomed to disappointment. Because I simply can’t say no when I feel this way.”
“How? How do you feel?”
There was desperation in his voice. Desperation that had almost been there the day of the engagement party, but so well-hidden that Claire never once suspected that this man had slowly been falling in love with her through a movie for the past few years. He had been so inspired by her interpretation of a character that he had used her as a muse for his own money-making works… did that mean the role Claire auditioned for that day was based off that performance? Damn. Now? She was desperate, too. Desperate to find herself in a new, more fruitful situation that wouldn’t mean the demise of her spirit. Her engagement was a farce. Everyone knew it. She knew it most of all.
If only things could have been different…
“I feel like I became engaged to the wrong member of the family.”
She probably could have said she felt like she was going to puke again, and Jake still would have kissed her.
Claire’s arms were around him in fewer than two seconds. His kiss had dismantled her ability to reason, and his touch around her waist destroyed her ability to reason with that part of her soul that claimed he was The One.
If he hadn’t said those sweet things about her… if he hadn’t shown such compassion when she made a fool of herself at the audition… maybe she could have pushed him away. But she couldn’t. She was his thrall, and all that mattered was making the most out of this kiss.
Perhaps it would be the last one. The one to purge the last of their attraction to one another.
Or not.
“Have you ever made such a fool of yourself before?” Jake whispered upon her lips. “Because I hadn’t until now.”
She clung to his chest, nails digging into his shirt and piercing his skin beneath. “No,” she admitted. “I hate it.”
“Me too.”
“How much?”
Flames spread from the ember burning in Claire’s heart. All it took was one wisp of smoke in the rest of her, and the next thing she knew, the fire had grown and consumed everything in its path. All that was left behind was the soot and ashes of her sanity, cremated until Claire gave herself over to this desire tearing apart her brittle, mortal form.
“So much that I wish you would put me out of my misery.”
“If that can be accomplished in my bed, then I’ll be more than happy to.”
Claire kissed him. He pulled her hair out of its clasp and yanked the zipper of her dress down to her ass.