hour started eons ago—
In Paris, if not Los Angeles.
Addison was lucky to get Sebastian on this project. In only four days, this award-winning screenwriter has done a wonderful job massaging Lethal into a thriller that is also a love story. The characters are no longer cardboard cutouts, but a man and a woman who must make life-or-death decisions and live with the consequences. The plot revolves around stolen intelligence. Its loss is the fault of the hero. The heroine holds the key, but she doesn’t know it—yet. She once had a relationship with the villain—a terrorist who is both heartless and cunning. In reliving her feelings for him, will she fail in stopping him?
Sebastian has made Jack and my job easy. He graciously listened to our suggestions of how to make the scenarios of derring-do ring true, both in regard to the technical details and the emotions that drive them. Then, he just made a few simple changes—reworded a few lines of dialogue, or altered the action within the scene.
He has an Oscar on his mantle, but his cache of BAFTAs and Emmys comes from a BBC drawing room drama that’s a hit on both sides of the pond. Bloomsbury , which dramatizes the life of Virginia Woolf, her sister Vanessa Bell, and other influential early twentieth-century writers, philosophers, and artists in her London social set, is being applauded for its attention to detail, nuanced performances and spot-on period dialogue.
No wonder word has it that Sebastian is a shoo-in for a knighthood, and not just because he’s tall, elegant, and looks great in a tux.
His question not only catches me off-guard, it brings a blush to my cheeks, too. “I don’t usually have the opportunity to hang around after a hit.”
“Ah…yes, I imagine that would be the case.” He laughs at his own naïveté. His bashfulness is part of his charm. In fact, he’s so shy that he has never looked me in the eye—yet another of his many endearing traits. “But the way you’ve described your hits to me—how you research your targets, how you get close to them without their even noticing you’re there, that you even know them intimately—I would think that you’d feel some sort of…I don’t know. Perhaps the word I’m looking for is—”
“The word I think you mean is remorse. By the time their name is on my to-do list, they’ve already been very bad boys—or, for that matter, girls.”
“But they have lives. Maybe even spouses and children.” He tosses back his head, so that his bangs stay out of his eyes. It’s a nervous habit. Despite being in his forties, he still wears his hair as if he’s in his third year at Oxford.
Or perhaps he thinks women find it adorable.
I’m a woman, and yes, it has its allure.
Jack, on the other hand, finds it annoying. But what he finds even more irritating is Sebastian’s subtle attempts to veer us away from the technical aspects of our job by tossing in a question or two about our personal lives.
I’m sure it’s why Jack passed on this little celebration, claiming he had “another appointment.” In truth, he’s out walking the dogs, but I don’t dare tell Sebastian that Jack prefers their company to his.
Right now, I can’t say I blame Jack. This question certainly gives me reason to pause. “In most cases, yes. They have lives beyond their day jobs as terrorists. But it hasn’t stopped them from ruining the lives of others.”
“But isn’t terrorism in the eyes of the beholder?” Sebastian pours yet another two fingers of Bowmore into his glass. Ever the thoughtful guest, he splashes my tumbler, too. Okay, more than a splash. Enough so that even Jack’s rudeness no longer bothers me.
I don’t want to lose the giddiness of our success, so I tap the rim of my glass to his. “What do you mean by that?”
“One man’s terror attack is another’s fight for freedom.”
I shake my head adamantly. “Terrorism is not a political statement. It’s a bullying tactic used
In Paris, if not Los Angeles.
Addison was lucky to get Sebastian on this project. In only four days, this award-winning screenwriter has done a wonderful job massaging Lethal into a thriller that is also a love story. The characters are no longer cardboard cutouts, but a man and a woman who must make life-or-death decisions and live with the consequences. The plot revolves around stolen intelligence. Its loss is the fault of the hero. The heroine holds the key, but she doesn’t know it—yet. She once had a relationship with the villain—a terrorist who is both heartless and cunning. In reliving her feelings for him, will she fail in stopping him?
Sebastian has made Jack and my job easy. He graciously listened to our suggestions of how to make the scenarios of derring-do ring true, both in regard to the technical details and the emotions that drive them. Then, he just made a few simple changes—reworded a few lines of dialogue, or altered the action within the scene.
He has an Oscar on his mantle, but his cache of BAFTAs and Emmys comes from a BBC drawing room drama that’s a hit on both sides of the pond. Bloomsbury , which dramatizes the life of Virginia Woolf, her sister Vanessa Bell, and other influential early twentieth-century writers, philosophers, and artists in her London social set, is being applauded for its attention to detail, nuanced performances and spot-on period dialogue.
No wonder word has it that Sebastian is a shoo-in for a knighthood, and not just because he’s tall, elegant, and looks great in a tux.
His question not only catches me off-guard, it brings a blush to my cheeks, too. “I don’t usually have the opportunity to hang around after a hit.”
“Ah…yes, I imagine that would be the case.” He laughs at his own naïveté. His bashfulness is part of his charm. In fact, he’s so shy that he has never looked me in the eye—yet another of his many endearing traits. “But the way you’ve described your hits to me—how you research your targets, how you get close to them without their even noticing you’re there, that you even know them intimately—I would think that you’d feel some sort of…I don’t know. Perhaps the word I’m looking for is—”
“The word I think you mean is remorse. By the time their name is on my to-do list, they’ve already been very bad boys—or, for that matter, girls.”
“But they have lives. Maybe even spouses and children.” He tosses back his head, so that his bangs stay out of his eyes. It’s a nervous habit. Despite being in his forties, he still wears his hair as if he’s in his third year at Oxford.
Or perhaps he thinks women find it adorable.
I’m a woman, and yes, it has its allure.
Jack, on the other hand, finds it annoying. But what he finds even more irritating is Sebastian’s subtle attempts to veer us away from the technical aspects of our job by tossing in a question or two about our personal lives.
I’m sure it’s why Jack passed on this little celebration, claiming he had “another appointment.” In truth, he’s out walking the dogs, but I don’t dare tell Sebastian that Jack prefers their company to his.
Right now, I can’t say I blame Jack. This question certainly gives me reason to pause. “In most cases, yes. They have lives beyond their day jobs as terrorists. But it hasn’t stopped them from ruining the lives of others.”
“But isn’t terrorism in the eyes of the beholder?” Sebastian pours yet another two fingers of Bowmore into his glass. Ever the thoughtful guest, he splashes my tumbler, too. Okay, more than a splash. Enough so that even Jack’s rudeness no longer bothers me.
I don’t want to lose the giddiness of our success, so I tap the rim of my glass to his. “What do you mean by that?”
“One man’s terror attack is another’s fight for freedom.”
I shake my head adamantly. “Terrorism is not a political statement. It’s a bullying tactic used
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