Exposing Alix (5 page)

He ran his fingers through his hair and laughed ruefully.
Maybe Gunther was right. Maybe he could learn something from Alix Z.

He turned back to the dog-eared script he carried
everywhere he went and focused on it while he wolfed down part of his salad.
Lately it seemed that
Salva’s Revenge
was destined for disaster. Just
last week he’d realized that some of the film they shot on location had been
overexposed. All of the actors’ faces looked pale and lifeless, and he’d have
to rework the scene so they could do it again on a sound stage. That would take
at least another day or two and who knew how many thousands of additional
dollars.

He scowled at the script. He had a lot of work in front of
him, and since he’d told the actors they had a six a.m. call, he had to finish
it tonight.

The ringing of the phone startled him out of his reverie.
The caller ID showed it was his sister, Maria.

“Shouldn’t you be studying?” he said in greeting. Maria was
in a nursing program and complained at every opportunity about how difficult
her classes were.

“Not anymore. I decided to quit.”

Ryker sighed, setting down the script. “No you didn’t. You
decided to quit last week. And the week before that. You can’t decide it
again.”

“This time I mean it.”

He heard the sound of a child crying in the background.
“What’s going on? Is Fifi sick?”

Though at twenty Maria seemed little more than a child
herself, she had a one-year-old daughter to juggle along with nursing school.
The father had disappeared at the first word that there would be a baby.
Fiercely independent, Maria was raising Felicity on her own.

“No. She’s just grumpy. Doesn’t want to go to sleep. I
don’t know if she’s teething or what, but I’ve been trying to study for the
past hour, and I can’t get anything done because she keeps waking up.”

The wobble in her voice told him she was close to tears.
“You aren’t going to quit,” he said gently. “You’ve put in too much time and
effort to let it all slip away. You’re just tired and frustrated. Tell you
what, I’ll come by and distract Fifi while you study. Just find me a beer, will
you?”

“You’re busy. I can’t let you come all this way just
because of me.”

He let the smile show in his voice. “Maria, if you hadn’t
wanted me to come over, you wouldn’t have called.”

“I suppose you’re right.” She sniffed. “But I feel
terrible about it.”

“Don’t.” He cradled the phone on his shoulder as he picked
up a jacket and walked over to the front door. “I was done for the night
anyway.”

“Alix Z? Are you Alix Z?”

The crowds of travelers in the busy Los Angeles airport
streaming around her, Alix closed her eyes and briefly entertained the fantasy
of saying no. As her plane had descended through the thick layer of yellowish-brown
smog that covered the city, memories of her days making movies for Gunther came
spilling back, leaving Alix with a familiar mix of longing and distaste. Even
when she’d been living and working here, she’d never felt quite at home. The
urge to run back to Oregon and Rex was overwhelming.

But then she remembered that she didn’t have enough money
in her checking account to pay the change fee on her ticket. Leaving LA was not
an option.

She steeled her shoulders and pasted an artificial smile
on her face for the eager young man who had greeted her. “Yes.”

“Mr. Valentine sent me to pick you up. I’m Nick Peters. I
hope you don’t mind me saying that I’m a big fan of your movies.” He extended
his hand, and Alix shook it with a resigned sigh.

Nick Peters was tall, lean, and broad-shouldered, with
frayed blue jeans riding low around his hips. A mop of curly hair covered his
forehead, expertly cut to ensure it did not obscure his crystal blue eyes or
square jaw. Alix studied him clinically, seeing in that perfect physique and
artful appearance a mirror of a thousand other young men she’d met over the
years. When she first moved to LA, she’d been flattered by the attention of
boys like Nick. But after a few painful encounters, she’d learned not to trust their
gleaming white smiles. They spent time with her because they thought she could
give them something: a part, some money, connections. They had no interest in
her
.

As they left LAX, Alix eyed the familiar mix of palm
trees, artificially green shrubs, and dead grass with a sigh. Nothing in LA
seemed real, not even the plants.

Nick pulled onto the freeway, chattering at high speed
about
Salva’s Revenge
, the latest Hollywood gossip, and his
recommendations for the newest restaurants at which Alix simply had to be seen.
The Bolvana studio was in Burbank, which could have made for an endless trip
across the Valley, but luckily the freeways were all moving, and Nick seemed
determined to get them there in record time. He ducked across lanes on the
bumpy concrete road, alternatively moving at a slow crawl when traffic
tightened and then accelerating to ninety when the traffic broke. By the time
they arrived, Alix was exhausted. Six months since her last visit and she’d
forgotten how much energy it took just to exist here, with the constant barrage
of stimulation from the radio, the billboards, and the honking horns. She found
herself longing for the silence of her beach retreat, even as her nervousness
over what she was supposed to do grew.

Her role on the film was clear, she reminded herself. She
would stay for one month. She would provide her opinion and nothing more. She
would ignore her silly, physical response to Ryker and focus on her work. And
when her month was over, she would be back on a plane, one hundred thousand
dollars richer.

Bolvana Studio was small in comparison with its neighbor,
Warner Brothers, but still expansive, with eighteen sound stages on over
seventy acres. Gunther had been working with Bolvana for years and had a
comfortable bungalow on the lot with offices for his production company, which
Alix had visited at Christmas. As they pulled to a stop outside the main gate,
Nick held up a security tag for a guard who stood in a small white building at
the edge of the enormous compound. With an impassive nod, the guard turned away,
and a red-and-white arm rose to allow them entry.

“Did you want anything from the cafeteria? Water? Coffee?”

Alex shook her head. “What’s on the schedule today? I
won’t be interrupting, will I?”

“They’re just rehearsing. Ryker wanted me to bring you by
right away.” Nick stopped in front of a multistory, square building. It looked
like an enormous warehouse with brown stucco walls and no windows. A small sign
identified the building as “Studio Twelve.” A light hung over the doorway,
along with a sign promising dire results if the door was opened when the light
was red.

Nick led them inside. The studio held an open, unfinished
space with cavernous ceilings crawling with wooden scaffolding, lights, and
black electric cords. A three-sided living room set faced them, complete with
an overstuffed couch, two large windows with lace curtains, and dark cherry
coffee table. On the right-side wall was an entry door with a row of locks. A
small army of empty canvas-backed chairs faced the set, one bearing the logo
“Director.”

Lena Mandaval, lead actress in
Salva’s Revenge
, sat
on one side of the sofa, shoulders back, jaw set. Jake Redburn, the actor who
played Hank McAdams, the bulldog cop who was Salva’s nemesis, stood a few feet
away, arms crossed over his chest, a frown cutting deep grooves into the sides
of his mouth. A group of people clustered around the other side of the coffee
table, including Ryker. He was intent, scratching notes on a thick tablet of
white paper.

“Do it again,” Ryker ordered, looking up to glare at the
actors.

“It’s not working,” Jake said. He was shorter than Ryker,
with the lean, hard muscles of a wrestler and short, cropped hair. Defined
biceps stood out from the edges of a worn cotton T-shirt. “I’m telling you, you
can rework the scene a dozen times, but if Lena doesn’t warm up, it’s never
going to work.”

“Oh sure, it’s all
my
fault.” Lena shook a mane of
thick, black hair and turned her back more fully to him. “How typical. Blame
someone else for your inability to get it up.”

“Maybe if I wasn’t kissing a doormat, I’d have a little
more interest in my work,” Jake snapped.

“Enough!” Ryker held up his hands. “You’re acting like
children. We’re going to do it one more time and then take a break. Now pretend
you’re professionals and take it from the top.” He took a few steps back from
the set and focused on each of them in turn, barking instructions. “Lena, you
don’t want him thinking about what he saw earlier today. You’re desperate.
Distracting him is your only hope. Jake, you’re fighting a losing battle and
you know it, but your job is too important to you to give up easily.”

Nick started to open his mouth, presumably to announce
their presence, but Alix shushed him with a hand and slid into one of the
canvas chairs. Nick shrugged and sat down beside her.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Lena said, turning to look at
Jake. In the time it took her to rearrange her position on the sofa, her body
changed completely, from defiant and angry to inviting, concerned. To the
casual observer, her posture—leaning forward, hands clasped together—appeared
designed to draw him closer. But Alix could see the tension in her mouth and
the stiffness of her back.

Jake moved around the room, checking the window and locks
on the door as he spoke. “I saw Rinaldo by the bank this afternoon. He’s
looking for you. I’m staying here tonight.”

“They’ll find you,” she said. “And we’ll both be in
trouble if they do.”

“I’m not leaving you alone.” He stopped in front of her,
grabbing her by the hand and pulling her to her feet. “I can’t stop thinking
about you, Salva.”

She melted into his arms, triumph curling her lips, giving
every sign of a women well satisfied. But to Alix’s mind, Lena’s eyes told a
different story. The current between Jake and Lena was hot—hot enough to
light the screen on fire, if channeled properly. But it was all negative
energy, tension and fear.

Her fingers curled around his biceps like the talons of a
hawk. “We shouldn’t,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

“I don’t care.” Jake wrapped his arms around Lena’s narrow
waist, dropping his head to kiss her. As their mouths meshed, she put her arms
around his neck. The gesture looked forced. Stiff. They kissed, but there was
no passion. A moment later, they broke apart.

Ryker tousled his hair, leaving the black waves uneven and
rough. “That looked like crap. Let’s take a break. Anyone know what time it
is?” He glanced around the room, lips curving when he noticed Alix for the
first time.

Alix flinched, his gaze brushing roughly against her like
the touch of his hand. His eyes were hard, inscrutable, the smile showing
little in the way of emotion. Frustration, though, was evident in the tight set
to his shoulders. She had the sudden desire to run. Ryker Valentine didn’t want
to share the set with her. He didn’t believe in anything she did. And it would
only make it worse if she had to tell him just how bad things really looked.

“Alix, welcome. Come on over.” He gestured toward the
people gathered behind him and then to Lena and Jake. “Folks, this is Alix Z.
Gunther thinks she’ll be able to get something romantic out of these two.”

Jake cocked his head. “Alix Z? As in,
Through the
Window
?
One Night Stand
? That Alix Z?” A look of surprise crossed
his face, but he was a decent enough actor to mask it almost immediately with a
welcoming smile.

“The one and only,” she said, stepping forward
reluctantly.

The look of surprise on the faces of Jake and a few others
was not shocking. She’d seen it hundreds of times before. Everyone in LA seemed
to think a woman who made sexy films should look like one of her actresses.
They wanted to see a show poodle, and, like Ryker had said, she was a Labrador.
Of course, it didn’t help that she was wearing a baggy T-shirt and a pair of
old jeans she’d bought at a thrift store a few years before. That, and she wore
her usual glasses today, not her sunglasses. They were square and heavy, with
thick black frames that Gunther said made her look like an old man.

Jake extended his hand. “Jake Redburn. Pleasure to meet
you.”

“Jake.” Alix returned his firm handshake. She liked him
immediately. There was an openness to his smile that she didn’t expect from a
million-dollar actor.

Jake looked at Ryker, laugh lines crinkling at the corners
of his eyes. “You didn’t tell us you were bringing in an expert.”

Ryker’s only reaction was to twist his lips into a deeper
frown. “Considering the garbage you call acting these days, I need all the help
I can get.”

“I’m Lena.” With another toss of her long hair, Lena rose
from the sofa and positioned herself between Jake and Alix. Lena smiled, but
the gesture did not touch her dark, doe-like eyes.

Alix shook her soft hand, wondering at the emotions
swirling below the lines of tension in Lena’s beautiful features. Lena had a
typical Hollywood body—thin and toned, each curve carefully sculpted—but
her face was just old enough to have more character than the generic blonde
starlets that filled Hollywood. There was wisdom in her deep brown eyes and a
hint of pain. Alix had to admit that Ryker had cast the perfect Salva.

“I’m looking forward to working with you,” Alix said.

Lena’s eyes darted back to Jake, and her mouth tightened.
“I’m not sure why. There isn’t a lot getting done around here.”

Jake gave Alix a look of apology. “Did Ryker warn you?”

“Warn me about what?”

“You’ve wandered onto the most dysfunctional set in
Hollywood,” he said cheerfully. “We’re a mess.”