His One Desire by Kate Grey Page A

budget, but we’d be insane to turn
down an opportunity like this. With Luke Tanner on board we won’t
have
to be creative on a small budget. We can be creative on a
big
budget.”
    His eyes glowed. “When the network execs get wind of this
they’ll write us a blank check. Remember all those weeks you spent figuring out
how to produce the special effects you wanted with no money? Well, now you
won’t have to. Your job just got easier, my friend.”
    Kali couldn’t look at Tom anymore. She stared down at her
desk instead, fixing her eyes on the framed playbill from the off-Broadway
production of
Negative Space
. They hadn’t had much money for that
project, either, and Kali had never been more proud of a show in her life.
Didn’t Tom remember the satisfaction of making something out of nothing?
    Apparently he didn’t. Apparently the money and spotlight
that would come attached to Luke Tanner were things he desperately wanted.
Which meant it wouldn’t be any use to tell him she didn’t really want her job
to get easier. That she’d always done her best work with limited resources.
    She had one hand in her lap, and now she clenched it into a
fist. She’d have to find another way to convince Tom.
    “Luke is Hollywood’s golden boy right now. He doesn’t really
want to come to New York to do a TV show. This is just a whim—a whim he’ll
never follow through on. He’ll disrupt everything we’ve been doing, and then
he’ll go back to L.A. where he belongs. But by then it might be too late for us
to recover.”
    Tom frowned. “That possibility did occur to me, Kali. I’m
not a complete idiot. I had a very frank discussion with Luke’s agent on this
very subject, as a matter of fact. He told me that the best way for us to get
Luke’s signature on a contract is if you meet with him one-on-one. To woo him,
as Julian put it.”
    Bile rose in her throat. So that was Luke’s plan—to
humiliate her by putting her into a situation where she’d have to
woo
him. God, how he’d love that—to be the one with all the power, holding all the
cards, while she was the humble supplicant.
    “No way.” She was startled to hear herself—she sounded
almost angry.
    Tom looked startled, too. Kali never got angry.
    “Kali—”
    “I won’t do it.”
    “But, Kali—”
    She folded her arms and tried to look fierce and implacable,
like a heroine from one of her shows. She’d always written women who were
stronger than she was, and she’d always hoped that some of their toughness
would rub off on their creator.
    “I’m not going to beg Luke Tanner to work with us.
Especially when I don’t want him to.”
    Tom took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “In that case,
you should know that I’m probably going to lose my job.”
    Her arms dropped to her sides. “What? What are you talking
about?”
    “Three of my five shows are missing their ratings marks.
Sheila gave me the straight word last week. They’ll give me until the end of
this year, and if things haven’t started to turn around by then, I’ll get the
axe.”
    He sounded matter of fact, but Kali knew that his partner
had been laid off a few months before and that Tom was supporting both of them
while Andrew looked for another job.
    She slumped back in her chair. “If they fire you, they’ll
probably let me go, too. We’ll look for a new gig together. We could—”
    Tom shook his head. “They’re not going to let you go, Kali.
They love the writing you’re doing for
Roommates
.”
Roommates
was the network’s highest rated show. “For that alone they’d keep you on. You
have a big future at this network.”
    She thought about what he hadn’t said. “But
Ghosts
…”
    It was Tom’s turn to sigh. “You know they weren’t sure about
Ghosts
to begin with, and there’s a chance it’ll never air. But if we
could get a star like Luke Tanner on board…well, that would be a whole new
ballgame. I guarantee you they’d get behind us one hundred