Page 6 of Broken Rules

Staring across the parking lot and the horizon beyond it, my resolve hardened in the rays of the early afternoon sun.Like hell.There weren’t many things that chilled my blood like the thought of moving back home did.I had sort of gotten used to the idea of living somewhere with air conditioning, a garbage disposal, not to mention more than one bathroom so I wouldn’t have to share it with my damn parents.No matter how many times I tried to remind them that an artist didn’t have to live like a pauper to be legitimate, they didn’t want to hear it.That was their choice.

Not mine.

But that didn’t make me like Lex Landry, either.I was nothing like him or the people who inhabited his world.

“I’m sure it’s going to work out just fine,” I said.Was that a lie?Not if I believed it, which I had to.I knew what this film needed, and it was me as its director.If Lex only cared about dollars and cents and getting this finished by the impossible deadline, that was fine.It meant I’d have to work harder and smarter to keep the film’s integrity in one piece.

“That’s my girl.But the offer always stands,” she reminded me.“Sometimes I wish you had chosen something a little less cutthroat.If you wanted to direct, there was that position with the local children’s theater?—”

“I’m sorry, I’d better go,” I murmured, cutting her off so I wouldn’t throw up if I heard her talk about that damn children’s theater director position one more time.Running two-week theater camps for school kids was nothing like directing a major motion picture.

“Just keep us posted, okay?Your sisters have been asking about you too.You should reach out to them.”

“I will.”Even if I had no desire to talk about Aura’s beekeeping hobby or Rainbow’s latest rescue dog, I loved my sisters, I loved my family, but I was always different—more driven and less inclined to walk barefoot through my garden on the way to the beehives or whatever it was Aura kept in her backyard.

“Tell Claudia we send our love,” Mom added, and I promised to as we ended the call.

I sighed, staring longingly toward the Hollywood Hills in the distance.It had taken a long time for me to come to grips with the idea there was nothing wrong with wanting to be part of that existence.To have a career in Hollywood, to make the sort of movies people would see instead of the kind that got buried for lack of a promotions department behind them.I wanted to sit at the table with the men who had ruled the town and industry for much too long.I wanted to make my mark.

If only that didn’t mean having to jump in the mud with these pigs and splash around, fighting for dominance.

But I would if it meant I’d finally win.

Even if Lex Landry insisted on getting in the way.

3

LEX

“Somehow, I have to find a way to make this work,” I concluded, then bolted back the rest of my whiskey.It didn’t do much to ease the resentment that had raged in me ever since I set eyes on Summer Strawbridge earlier.

I hadn’t been able to get her out of my head, no matter how I tried, and I did since the last thing I wanted was to spend my entire day focused on her.I had calls to make, meetings to schedule, permits to obtain.I would need Summer’s list of shooting locations, to say nothing of the whirlwind casting process.

For once, my friends didn’t smirk or bust my balls when I was finished.It was something we made a habit of—the four of us—never taking ourselves or each other too seriously.There were times when they were all that kept me grounded since it was pretty easy in Hollywood to start listening to your own publicity.Good, honest friends like the ones I had managed to find over the years to keep me from making that mistake.

“That fucking sucks.”Travis Knight only shrugged and shook his head.“I wish there was something more to say, really.”

“You have to do it all in six months?”Clayton Manning raised a skeptical eyebrow.“I don’t know anything about the process, but that seems like a tight timeline even to me.I could never open a new restaurant in six months.”

“It’s fucking impossible,” I blurted out, rubbing my temples.“But the whole fucking future of the studio could hang on this.We need something to turn it around.”

“You know, the same shit is going on in so many industries.”Spencer Collins signaled a passing server for more drinks.Her warm, inviting smile was lost on him.He had lived with his girlfriend, Rowan, for the past month after they’d reconnected, and in the process, he had discovered a ten-year-old daughter he never knew he had.The days of him getting his dick wet with some random server were long gone.

“What do you mean?”I asked.

“Well, look at my cousin, Connor,” he explained.“Diamond Media is the biggest out there, but they still had to pivot into digital media when print started declining.Other media brands either couldn’t or wouldn’t change their approach, and he wound up buying them out when they failed.You have to be willing to change with the times.”

“The times are changing,” I growled out.“And I get to clean up the mess.”

“You could say no,” Travis pointed out.He was normally the smartass of the group, but now he was serious.“You don’t need to work for the studio.Do your own thing.You have the money, you have connections.”

He was speaking from experience, having built his own shipping business after interning with Spencer’s father years ago.That was where he and Spencer met when their fathers sent them overseas to learn the ropes.Rather than come home and work for his dad, Travis had decided to strike out on his own.Now, he sat at the head of what was rapidly becoming an empire, snowballing faster than even he had ever hoped while somehow raising a kid on his own.

He had a point.Walking away was an option.I had more than enough money to my name, enough to start a studio of my own if I wanted to.But my father’s face floated in front of my mind’s eye, and I wiped that idea away like a marker off a dry-erase board.“I’m not going to walk away,” I decided.“I refuse to let him think I can’t hack it.”

“There’s only one solution, then.”Leaning back in his chair, Clay crossed one ankle over the other knee.“You’ll have to fuck this Summer Strawbridge until she’s too exhausted and sore to put up a fight.”

They burst out into predictable laughter, though I didn’t join them.“Please,” I protested.“Her pussy probably has teeth.”

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