Page 73 of Best Served Hot
It was one thing not to be able to be with Alex. It was quite another to imagine how much Alex would probably despise her by now.
But better than the alternative: Alex arrested. Alex on trial. Alex in prison.
Nicole wanted to vomit at the thought. That’s why she had to give Ethan precisely what he wanted. She loved Alex too much not to. Alex would have to hate her and that was that. No matter how much it broke Nicole. She would have to stay broken.
‘OK, Jenna, you’re wrapped, thanks. Really great job,’ she told the actress.
Lara smiled, wiping blood off her cheek. ‘Thanks, I had fun. Shame I had to get murdered, really.’ She left the set.
‘OK, let’s move on. What’s next?’ Nicole asked her AD, Mina. She was a fine assistant director, but Nicole couldn’t look at her without thinking about Alex.
‘We’re gonna shoot that interrogation scene, pages seventeen through twenty-two,’ Mina told her.
‘Got it. Jackie, how long do you need?’ Nicole asked the set designer.
‘Should have this set back to zero in about twenty-five.’
‘Great.’ She turned to Brian. ‘You’ll need to get to costume, OK? Tell them they’ve got twenty to get you sorted.’ Brian nodded and left.
‘Leads in makeup?’ Nicole asked Mina.
‘Yeah, I think so. Hang on.’ Mina tutted as she checked her phone. ‘I don’t have that info yet, sorry. I’ve got this new runner, but she’s not broken in yet, only started today. Let me chase her down.’ She took a walkie off her belt. ‘Lena, what’s the ETA on Mara and Andrew?’
Nicole’s head whipped to Mina. What name was that?
A voice crackled through the walkie. ‘They just got here, so thirty?’ Lena answered unsurely.
Mina sighed. ‘Any chance we could hurry that up a bit—’
‘I’ll handle this,’ Nicole said. ‘I’m heading in that direction anyway. I need to have a chat with wardrobe, so I’ll poke my head in.’ Nicole raced off. She wasn’t sure why. This was Lena. Lena hated Alex. And yet Nicole was desperate to speak to her because her instincts said she should.
She almost ran into her coming out of wardrobe. ‘Lena?’
Lena looked embarrassed. ‘Oh, hi, yeah. Saw your name on this. Small world.’
‘Small indeed,’ Nicole agreed. ‘Surprise to seeyouhere, though?’
‘Is it?’ Lena asked.
Nicole was very interested to see how tense she was. ‘Nothing to do around the offices ofFoundationsin the off-season?’ she pressed.
Lena’s eyes flitted away. ‘Wouldn’t know. Not with them anymore.’
Nicole had somehow known it was something like this. The moment Nicole heard Lena was on the set ofCriminal Thoughts, she knew it. A disturbance in the force.
There was a time when Nicole would have tiptoed around this, working her way gently up to the topic. But she wasn’t fucking around today. ‘What the hell happened?’ she asked Lena.
She didn’t get a direct reply. Though there was some kind of answer. Lena started bawling.
Forty-Two
‘Love it,’ Alex said, checking out the plans that the set designer, Ashley, had drawn up to build a large cabin in the woods. They were sitting in a tiny, shabby production office, working through a list of talking points. ‘But you think you can do this on the budget? It’s ambitious.’
‘It’ll take some serious reclamation of old materials, but I think I can scrape it together,’ Ashley said, running a hand over the drawings. ‘I really want to make it work.’
‘It’s risky, though,’ Kendall said, ever the pragmatic producer. ‘We really can’t find the right existing space for this?’
‘Nothing’s come close. And everything was too expensive, anyway. Let me off the leash, and I can get it done,’ Ashley pleaded.
