CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
“Paige!” Gannon’s voice bellowed in her headset.
“Geez! What? You don’t have to scream. You’re wearing a damn microphone.” She regretted ever giving him the headset when he wasn’t shooting scenes.
“Can you come down here? I need you to look at something.”
“I’m sure the rash is perfectly normal, Gannon. But if it would make you feel better, you should think about getting it looked at by a medical professional.” Paige joked for the benefit of the others listening in to their conversation.
“The kitchen tile, princess. Not my impressive and rash-free anatomy,” he shot back.
Paige smothered her laughter and signaled for Bradley to keep an eye on the B roll they were shooting for the backyard landscaping. A crew of sub-contractors was out there whacking away like it was untamed jungle.
“Oh, that Gannon.” Nina, one of Paige’s camera crew, shook her head, her shock of platinum blond hair with purple streaks, falling across her forehead. “He’s quite the character.”
Paige pointed a stern finger at Nina. “As your boss, I forbid you from being on his side.”
Nina shrugged. “It’s kinda hard not to like the guy, you know?”
Yeah, she knew. Paige was well aware of Gannon’s appeal. She just wished she only had her inner conflict to deal with, not everyone else’s opinions.
She made her way down a floor on the in-progress staircase to the main living level. She’d done her best to stick to her guns since their conversation two weeks ago, but Gannon’s words echoed in her head on repeat. And damn if she didn’t feel just the tiniest sliver of doubt creeping in.
Had she walked away from him because it was easier than standing up for what she wanted? What kind of a feminist was she if she only wanted to call attention to double standards and unfair treatment rather than actually fight them? Or was she just too far under Gannon’s sexy spell to see things clearly? That was a possibility that deserved examining.
She’d tried to explain the conversation to Becca, but when Becca announced they should interview him for the docu, she’d given up. It was a complicated situation that she seemed to be intent on complicating.
“You roared?” Paige said, picking her way around sawhorses holding two-by-fours and piles of discarded copper pipes.
“What do you think?” he asked pointing at the spread of cabinet, countertop, and tile samples. He stood in the middle of the gutted space that would be the new state-of-the art kitchen.
“What do I think of what?”
“What would look good in here?” He was impatient, hands on hips, shoulders tense.
“It’s your house,” Paige reminded him.
He closed his eyes, blew out a breath. “Just humor me.”
He’d asked her opinion here and there on other things in the house. Flooring, paint colors, light fixtures. She studied Gannon and the space. White cabinets were the trend, but this space and Gannon King didn’t need trendy. They required substantial, solid, masculine.
“Cabinets,” she said, pointing at the black walnut sample in an espresso stain two steps down from black. “Counter tops, light and clean. Probably quartz so you don’t have to seal it every year. One of these,” she said, waving her hand over two nearly identical samples of white quartz with gray veining.
He crossed his arms, brought a hand to his mouth, and watched her thoughtfully. “Backsplash?” he asked, giving nothing away.
She examined the samples, weighing and rejecting each one. Too feminine, too contemporary, too boring. Paige shook her head. “If you want my opinion, none of these. You need something with texture that fits with the rest of the building. Brick. But in a rough finish, nothing too smooth. Something that plays off of the exterior. It would be a pain to clean, but it would look really good.”
Really, really good, Paige decided. Not that she really cooked, but with a kitchen like this, she might learn to make a few dishes here and there. Gannon would probably just use it to store beer and pizza boxes. Lucky bastard.
He nodded. “Okay, thanks.”
“That’s it?”
His massive shoulders lifted. “Yep. That’s all I needed. You can go on back to whatever directorial crap you were doing.”
“Gee, thanks.”
She headed out but Gannon stopped her. “Paige?”
She turned. “Yeah?”
She saw the twinkle in his eyes, the dimple next to his mouth. “You’re doing a great job.”
Flustered, she gave him a brisk nod and escaped.
“A pleasure working with you,” he called after her, an odd emphasis on the word pleasure.
Paige shook her head and headed for the stairs but was flagged down by her associate producer poking her head in the front door.
“Hey, Tina. Welcome to King’s Castle.” Paige offered her hand.
Tina, a compact woman in a red hoodie and sneakers, gripped and shook. “After running through last week’s footage with the editors, I had to come in and poke around myself. Hope you don’t mind.” She cracked her gum as her eyes took in the half-finished framing, the new HVAC ducts that a crew was wrestling into place.
“Not at all,” Paige said. “It’s a mess right now but an organized one.”
“The footage of the guys in the tub,” Tina began, taking a look at the view out the front windows. “It was freakin’ hilarious. We get more of that? Gannon King acting like a human being? We’re looking at a solid hit… provided this shithole miraculously transforms into a castle.”
“Leave it to Gannon,” Paige told her.
“I’ve got a couple pages of notes—some one-on-ones we need for episode one, some B-roll ideas,” she said. “If I can run through those with you and Gannon at the same time, it would save me some repetition.”
“No problem. I’ll go wrangle him. Fifteen minutes enough?” she asked, consulting the call sheet. They needed to start setting up for the window installation, and delivery was scheduled in half an hour. She needed to talk to Gannon about where he wanted to start and then dole out shooting assignments.
“Should be plenty,” Tina cracked.
“I need to make a quick call, and then I’ll drag him away from whatever mess he’s in the middle of. Poke around if you want,” Paige offered. “The upstairs looks just as bad as down here.”
She left Tina to it and went out on the stoop where the construction noise and the chatter of crews were at least muffled by the thick wood of the front doors. Gannon had chosen a quiet street so traffic was minimal. Things were moving along inside as if the work was a dusty, noising purging of the demons of the past, leaving behind a fresh, new start. Today especially was a day for considering fresh starts or recommitting to old choices, Paige thought. It was her birthday, not that she’d be sharing that information with anyone else.
Birthdays in the St. James family weren’t for celebration. They were mile markers of successes, moments of pause to appreciate the journey, and hers hadn’t started yet.
But instead of her journey, her future success, she found herself thinking about Gannon and fresh starts.
He’d warned her flat out that he’d be seducing her. And with each morning cup of coffee that he presented her with on set, each time he’d asked her opinion or listened to her direction, he was doing just that. He brought her chopped salads for lunch and bought Paige her own pair of work gloves as she was always borrowing someone else’s for lending a hand.
And anytime Gannon wasn’t hanging around, he had his crew and her own singing his praises.
Chantay had taken one look at the playback of the bathtub scene and fanned herself. “That is one fine-looking man. I would not be kicking that out of my bed,” she’d said pointedly to Paige.
If she wasn’t very careful, she’d end up exactly where she’d been… on her back under the powerful thrusts of Gannon King.
The image hit her so hard that Paige thought she might be hallucinating. Impulsively, her fingers clenched and released. Her phone tumbled onto the concrete step. “Crap.”
She shook herself out, stretching to rid her body and mind of the demons of Gannon. Satisfied she wasn’t about to enjoy a spontaneous orgasm, she dialed Eddie for their daily check in.
“Hey, kid,” he said cheerily. Someone in the background yelled.
“Golf course today?” she asked.
“It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta babysit the network VPs. How are things in Brooklyn?”
“Moving right along. It’s the mess before the order. But I think this is going to be a show-stopper when the house is done.”
“Good, good,” Eddie said in that distracted way of his. “You don’t need to check in every day, you know. I trust you. You know what you’re doing. You don’t need me to hold your hand.”
“Just trying to do a good job,” Paige said.
“According to Gannon you’re doing better than good,” Eddie told her. “And post-production is thrilled with what you’re feeding them. You and Gannon really work well together.”
“Not you, too, Eddie,” Paige groaned.
Eddie chuckled. “Sorry, kid. He got to me. That’s a man that cares a hell of a lot about you.
“I’m not having this conversation with you or anyone else for the fiftieth time today,” Paige announced. “We’ve got the replacement windows coming on the truck, and I’ve got to go find the permit so I can wave it in the meter maid’s face when she shows up to yell at us again.”
“Have a good one,” Eddie signed off.
“Yeah, yeah.”
Paige made another call to an in-house production assistant who was assisting Gannon’s team by organizing orders and deliveries to the house and then took a minute for herself. The autumn sunshine was warm, and there was a thick door between her and Gannon.
He was slipping through cracks in her defenses right and left. She’d always been impressed by his talent, enough to mostly overlook his cockiness and attitude. But seeing him working with his whole crew, guys he’d known for years, some of whom had worked with his grandfather, was like getting to know his family.
They all had a genuine respect and affection for the man, and as far as Paige could tell, the feeling was mutual. More often than not, after a long day of filming, beers would be cracked open, and wives and children would appear.
It was so different from Kings of Construction. There they were constantly surrounded by strangers before picking up and moving on to a new group of strangers. Here was a community, a family, and Paige’s own crew was welcomed as such into the fold.
She spotted a familiar woman, tall and impeccably dressed, approaching. Her dark hair was coiled in a sedate, yet classy chignon. The navy blue suit hinted at the fit figure beneath. But the stride, in nude heels precisely two inches in height, spoke of confidence and no nonsense. The walk, purposeful without being hurried, was as familiar to Paige as her own.
“Hello, Paige,” her mother offered, standing hands folded over her stylish leather bag just outside the gate.
“Mom, what are you doing here?” Paige rose from the stoop, brushing off the seat of her jeans and hurrying down the stairs. Had her mother really taken time out of her day to come wish her a happy birthday? That would be a birthday miracle. Usually her mother sent her a perfunctory email, and Leslie’s assistant mailed her some shiny, expensive gift.
“It’s lovely to see you as well, dear,” Leslie said, subtly correcting what she felt was a rudeness. “I was at a symposium down the block at the hospital, and I thought I might come visit my daughter at work.”
“No special occasion?” Paige prodded.
“Must there be one for a mother to see her own daughter?” Leslie asked pointedly.