FADE INTO YOU
Part One of the FADE series
KATE DAWES
~~~
Copyright © 2012 by Kate Dawes
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written consent of the Author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
~~~
ONE
I had been living and working in Los Angeles for only three weeks when I met the man who would change everything for me. I’d heard his name before, but only during the last few weeks of working in and around Hollywood.
As a regular girl, fresh out of Ohio State University, a Midwestern transplant to Tinsel Town, I’d never heard of Max Dalton before. Maybe I would have, if I’d paid attention to movie credits and caught his name on the screen. He was a writer and producer. I plead guilty—actually ignorant—to not knowing who he was before I began seeing his name on documents and hearing his name around the office.
Before walking into his office, I’d never seen him, though. I accompanied my boss, Kevin Anderson, to the meeting. Kevin was trying to get one of our agency’s clients cast in a new movie, and Max Dalton was the producer.
Max Dalton’s appearance wouldn’t have been such a surprise if I’d bothered to Google him and do a little research before the meeting. But I hadn’t. Chalk it up to my being new, but it was something that just hadn’t occurred to me. My focus was the presentation of our client.
Most of the hour we were in Max Dalton’s office, I sat there staring at him, unable to focus on the matter at hand. Max Dalton stood about six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a trim waist. It wasn’t a bodybuilder’s physique, much to my delight, but he did have that V-shape thing going on. I suppose the clothing he wore didn’t hurt, either. Dark gray slacks, and a white button-down shirt with the first two or three buttons open, revealing smooth and evenly tanned skin.
His hair was just long enough to get messed up if a certain girl had the chance to run her fingers through it. At the beginning of the meeting it appeared to be slicked back and I wondered if he was one of those guys who overdo it with the gel. But as the hour progressed, it started to dry, and I figured maybe he’d just gotten out of the shower in the private bathroom in his office. Maybe he’d been working out before the meeting, and in the thirty minutes I’d spent in the waiting room, he was in that bathroom, in the shower, soaping up….
See? That’s why I was so distracted. And, honestly, it kind of pissed me off. I had come to this town to work, establish myself, start my life. I couldn’t afford to be so lacking in self-control in any area of life, let alone with men. I’d had my share of man troubles, and when I arrived in L.A., I’d promised myself that I’d say goodbye to all that for a long, long time.
Work. I was here to work. I kept trying to tell myself that, repeating it like some mantra over and over and over…
“What do you think, Ms. Rowland?”
It would have been bad enough if those words had come out of Kevin’s mouth. But they came out of Max’s. Either way, though, there I was sitting next to my boss and across from a Hollywood mogul, caught totally off guard because I hadn’t been paying attention.
I was already looking at Max, so refocusing was just a matter of moving my gaze from his lips to his eyes. I’d already noticed that they appeared to be a mixture of gray and light blue, but this time I saw that one eyebrow was raised to punctuate the question he had directed at me.
I didn’t have the first clue about the context of the question. It was a prime
Part One of the FADE series
KATE DAWES
~~~
Copyright © 2012 by Kate Dawes
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written consent of the Author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
~~~
ONE
I had been living and working in Los Angeles for only three weeks when I met the man who would change everything for me. I’d heard his name before, but only during the last few weeks of working in and around Hollywood.
As a regular girl, fresh out of Ohio State University, a Midwestern transplant to Tinsel Town, I’d never heard of Max Dalton before. Maybe I would have, if I’d paid attention to movie credits and caught his name on the screen. He was a writer and producer. I plead guilty—actually ignorant—to not knowing who he was before I began seeing his name on documents and hearing his name around the office.
Before walking into his office, I’d never seen him, though. I accompanied my boss, Kevin Anderson, to the meeting. Kevin was trying to get one of our agency’s clients cast in a new movie, and Max Dalton was the producer.
Max Dalton’s appearance wouldn’t have been such a surprise if I’d bothered to Google him and do a little research before the meeting. But I hadn’t. Chalk it up to my being new, but it was something that just hadn’t occurred to me. My focus was the presentation of our client.
Most of the hour we were in Max Dalton’s office, I sat there staring at him, unable to focus on the matter at hand. Max Dalton stood about six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a trim waist. It wasn’t a bodybuilder’s physique, much to my delight, but he did have that V-shape thing going on. I suppose the clothing he wore didn’t hurt, either. Dark gray slacks, and a white button-down shirt with the first two or three buttons open, revealing smooth and evenly tanned skin.
His hair was just long enough to get messed up if a certain girl had the chance to run her fingers through it. At the beginning of the meeting it appeared to be slicked back and I wondered if he was one of those guys who overdo it with the gel. But as the hour progressed, it started to dry, and I figured maybe he’d just gotten out of the shower in the private bathroom in his office. Maybe he’d been working out before the meeting, and in the thirty minutes I’d spent in the waiting room, he was in that bathroom, in the shower, soaping up….
See? That’s why I was so distracted. And, honestly, it kind of pissed me off. I had come to this town to work, establish myself, start my life. I couldn’t afford to be so lacking in self-control in any area of life, let alone with men. I’d had my share of man troubles, and when I arrived in L.A., I’d promised myself that I’d say goodbye to all that for a long, long time.
Work. I was here to work. I kept trying to tell myself that, repeating it like some mantra over and over and over…
“What do you think, Ms. Rowland?”
It would have been bad enough if those words had come out of Kevin’s mouth. But they came out of Max’s. Either way, though, there I was sitting next to my boss and across from a Hollywood mogul, caught totally off guard because I hadn’t been paying attention.
I was already looking at Max, so refocusing was just a matter of moving my gaze from his lips to his eyes. I’d already noticed that they appeared to be a mixture of gray and light blue, but this time I saw that one eyebrow was raised to punctuate the question he had directed at me.
I didn’t have the first clue about the context of the question. It was a prime
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