The Gideon Affair (5 page)

Edward looked up as soon as the ruckus started. Huddled in a chair at the edge of the soundstage, he’d been studying lines, creating a personal visual storyboard as he worked out the next scene.

Annoyed by the disruption, he cut off an angry grunt, watched the commotion unfold, and mentally shook his head. Markus was having a hissy fit, something that was neither good … nor helpful.

Just fucking great.

An experienced director losing his shit on set didn’t happen every day—for obvious reasons. You didn’t get to the top tier in this business without having gained the coping skills to deal with talent meltdowns, technical fuck-ups, and crew flubs. Being a diva was one thing. After all, everyone was a diva in one way or another. But yelling, swearing, and manhandling equipment? Yeah … that shit signaled bigger problems.

Well, fuck. This shoot was heading for the crapper at an astonishingly swift rate.

Edward tilted his head to watch the director’s angry retreat. His wildly flailing arms let him know the storm hadn’t passed yet. Everyone else in the vicinity scattered, looking like mice running in circles. It was all pretty amusing until he remembered where they were.

Dismissing all of it with a jerky headshake, he slid from his chair and headed away from the drama on set and in the direction of his personal sanctuary. Thank god for the star treatment.

Still in costume, he stomped along courtesy of the heavy work boots his character favored. They were serious shit kickers that reminded him of the mountain boots from his time in Iraq, which were currently shoved in a box and kept in a storage unit.

Several people gave him a cursory nod as they passed, but he kept his head down and plowed on. Try as he did to keep focused and stay above the never-ending industry bullshit surrounding him, what was happening right now made for restless, sleepless nights. The movie was falling apart, and though he was pretty sure this crap storm could be taken care of post-production, it pissed him off that it was happening at all.

Edward did not like drama, and he didn’t mean scripted drama—that shit was his bread and butter. No, what got his teeth grinding was people’s propensity toward being a scene, making a scene, having a scene, instigating a scene—creating any kind of scene that attracted the paparazzi.

To him, the bracelet janglers, high-pitched gigglers, nipple-slipping cele-brats and all-around circus performers clogging the entertainment culture were an unimaginative sideshow. None of that crap was original, and he was not interested in replaying the same tired shit over and over. Spend a couple of years spitting out the dust from an inhospitable land hosting an endless war and you’d understand why. Unfortunately, he worked in a business where avoiding that kind of nonsense was virtually impossible.

The movie and atmosphere on set were falling apart for a dozen reasons. Too many egos had made for a difficult shoot, which, thank Christ, was wrapping up.

One of the producers was an obnoxious asshole and, despite a fabulous screenplay, the author of the original work was constantly in Markus’s face.

Then, the two leading ladies had ended up hating each other. Nothing like an established, mature female lead in the second position, playing the parent of whatever fresh-faced up-and-coming starlet was burning up the screens. Jesus. Talk about drama. Joann had tried nicey-nice at first with her on-screen daughter … the lovely and surprisingly talented Phaedra Bellamy. But Phae turned out to be the opposite of a vacuous ingénue, and Jo rather quickly realized the young girl could act circles around all of them. Poor Phae. From that moment on, Jo had been a complete cunt. And though her attitude seemed way more personal than reasonable, he’d managed to stay out of it.

Climbing the stairs into his massive trailer, he pulled the door shut and breathed a deep sigh of relief. No matter where he was or what shithole he was in, the space he officially occupied became a Zen retreat where he went to find himself.

Home was important to him, and since he didn’t have a permanent residence other than the requisite Malibu beach house, he tended to bring that homey thing with him. He was a Cancer after all … didn’t the crab carry his home upon his back? Yeah. That was him.

It helped that the studio was licking his ass every step of the way—the price of keeping someone from the A plus plus list happy. Looking around at the insanely expensive motorhome that had more square footage than a multi-room apartment was a reminder that he was very much in the driver’s seat where his career was concerned. And Paige Turner had as much responsibility for that as he did.

He’d be skimming pools and fending off the advances of the Beverly Hills stay-at-homes if not for her. From the moment she came into his life, the quirky brunette had quite simply changed everything.

That was why Joann being a cunt to Phae mattered. While she dished it out, Paige had stepped into the woman’s bull’s-eye and no fucking way was that okay with him.

Dropping like a stone onto a plush sofa, he stretched out. He crossed his ankles in the cumbersome boots and eased his head back onto the couch, closing his eyes.

He liked silence. Not all the time but for him, when the peripheral noise got too loud, he retreated to that place where calm lived inside him. Most didn’t realize it because of the firm grip he kept on his composure, but the real him, Edward—not the Hollywood invention—was actually an emotional guy. One who’d had his fill of aggression and conflict.

The sounds of people moving around outside with yelled directions and hollered answers cut through the soothing atmosphere.

Opening one eye, he rolled his head to one side and swept the surrounding area with his gaze.

The control pad. Where in the hell was the trailer’s systems controller?

Reaching for the hi-tech device, Edward closed the electronic window coverings, adjusted the lighting, and turned on the sound system. He liked his rock to be loud when it rolled—preferably with a thundering beat—and had more classic, metal, grunge, and hair band shit in his music library than he’d ever have time to listen to.

As a catchy melody filled the open space, some of the tension from the set started to dissipate. He just wanted this shoot to end. And soon. Staying focused and being a professional was the best way he knew to get this fucker wrapped up.

Edward shook his head. No use in pretending he didn’t have ulterior motives for getting this shit done so he could move on to the next thing. Not anymore. That ship sailed about two years ago when he’d been thunderstruck by the realization that he had more than a passing case of the hots for his assistant.

Spending time around Paige was the best fucking part of being Gideon. And even better was when they traveled together for a location shoot. That was his favorite. Being out of town, keeping each other company, and screwing around as he and his brother used to when they were kids.

He loved that about her. Paige had this amusing tomboy quality that she tried hard to hide. But once he knew what lurked inside his assistant, Edward used every trick and ploy in the book to bring out that part of her personality. Her exuberance for anything physical completely turned him on. He bet she’d be a champ at camping. Paige was the type of lifelong adventurer who’d jump at practically any challenge. She’d throw herself into the experience, not sit on the sidelines and sulk because her makeup was mussed and her shoes dirty.

The idea of spending eight glorious weeks with her at a remote location was better than getting everything he wanted on his Christmas list.

After Joann and Paige’s little dust-up a few days earlier, something he’d set in motion by refusing to kiss his co-star’s butt, he’d followed through on his threat to fuck with the actress for stepping over the line. The woman wasn’t stupid and knew damn well that most of what she’d filmed those two days would be edited down to nothing.

Delivering a performance that sucked all the oxygen out of her role had been easy. The simple truth—she was a shitty actress by today's standards. It hadn’t stretched him even a little bit to give Markus one hundred and fifty percent although it rubbed his
nalgas
raw that the director hadn’t really cared.

Maybe he should be concerned that so much had gone so wrong with this project. But he was financially secure for life, and if the movie tanked, it wasn’t going to set him back. Not at all.

Of course, it helped a shit-ton that his father was a retired money manager. Figuring at the beginning of this wild and crazy ride that he had a dozen-year shelf life at most, he’d been brutal when it came to money. Edward wasn’t cheap, but that didn’t mean he blew wads of cash on stupid shit either.

He drove an electric car because, well … because this was California, and that was what you did. Sure, it was a top of the line Tesla, but still. Being electric counted for something.

He’d leased his house—as well as all of the furniture. Almost all of his travel was work-related; subsequently, so too were the expenses. In short, Gideon Shaw was working his motherfucking ass off so Edward Banning—and the rest of the Banning family—could carve out a sense of security that was more than worth the price of admission to the three-ring circus of celebrity.

Inevitably, the path of this musing circled back to one strange truth that sat at the core of his world.

Gideon Shaw was a myth. A shadow figure. Quite literally, the result of a brain fart that a girl he’d met maybe an hour earlier had deftly managed.

And that girl? Paige Turner.

With the exception of his agent, Mickey—Paige was the only other person in Gideon Shaw’s life who knew the man behind the mask.

That was why he couldn’t wait for the Montana location shoot. The trip might be for work but getting away from the constant attention and being the real him? That shit was gold.

Hmm. Gold. Kind of like the sun-kissed highlights in her hair. He liked that natural glow she had. It was such a change from the heavily styled appearance that was the Hollywood norm.

Edward let out an agitated groan. All roads led back to Paige. Dammit. There it was again. Those visions from his dream … the one that was starting to haunt his nights.

Paige. Naked. As in buck-ass naked. Her hair in that messy top knot she favored when she was busy. She’d be barefoot, walking toward him with a lithe grace on toned legs that went on for miles.

He imagined a triangle of soft curls covering the temptation of her womanhood and growled, squeezing his eyes shut with a fierce frown.

The heat flooding his groin triggered a sudden hard-on that made it virtually impossible to cut off the rest of his fantasy image of the woman who shared both sides of his life.

Though naturally beautiful, Paige would never win a wet t-shirt contest. At least, that was how she explained her modest set of knockers in a town that had practically invented hydraulic tits.

This point of view mystified him. Her breasts were perfect as far as he was concerned. No, they weren’t huge—he’d seen her in a bathing suit enough times to make that a statement of fact—but they were what the universe had intended for her frame. And he thought they were pretty fucking awesome. The perfect handful.

In his fantasy, as she slowly stalked toward him, her hips would do that little shimmy thing he liked so much, and then, his gaze would land on her tits, and then, shit … it was go time after that.

Her nipples would be pink-tipped and begging for his touch. Having never actually seen Paige naked, he was working off what his imagination created. He wondered for the thousandth time if she’d like him to suck each pert, plump mound. Because, fuck to the yeah, the idea of feasting on her tits was interfering with the vow he’d made years ago—not to cross that line with her.

She was his friend more than his assistant. He trusted Paige completely. Keeping his growing desire for her on the far back burner was getting more and more involved but he had to, right? There wasn’t any other choice, but that didn’t mean his feelings weren’t complicated where she was concerned.

Did he want to sleep with her? Of fucking course, he did. He had a goddamn pulse, after all. But sex wasn’t all he wanted from Paige, and that was what kept his pants in their zippered and closed position.

She was inside him, and there wasn’t any other way to put it. She never judged or questioned his integrity. They were a damn good team. Fiercely loyal, smart-as-fuck, intuitive, and cleverly funny, Paige was his anchor. She had this uncanny knack for knowing what to do.

And that should have been the end of it. But it wasn’t. The thickening shaft in his loose-fitting pants was lobbying nonstop for a different approach to his calm, cool, collected, and sexy-as-fuck assistant.

Staying firm on the avowed side of the Do-Not-Cross line was going to be put to the test once they were away from all this crap. Might be time for Gideon Shaw to move the fuck aside. Edward Banning was sick and tired of playing second fiddle.

That sound? It was him—groaning, sighing, and growling all at once. He was on a collision course with himself, and he would be lying if he tried to pretend that making love to Paige wasn’t a need that drove him morning, noon, and night.