Behind the Scenes Read online

  “Which is?”

  “I’ll do my best to get this off the ground and make it a success. But JBC is wading into new territory here, and we have no guarantees. I’ll do it on the condition that, no matter what, hit or bomb, I get the budget to shoot the pilot of my show.”

  Frank beamed. “Deal.”

  Even as they shook hands AJ remained uneasy with the little transaction . . . but anything to get to shoot his pet project. “Okay, what’s it called again? Where’s the bible?”

  Frank shoved a leather three-ring binder at him. He looked down at the title. “Pretty Women,” he muttered, trying to keep any trace of disgust out of his voice.

  He opened it up and skimmed the concept and other materials. He glanced back up. “It’s already been cast?”

  Frank nodded. “This was Stan’s project before he decided to try to learn to ski. He’d already set the crew. And I think it’s a good one.”

  Interpretation: You’re stuck with them, bud.

  AJ didn’t like this at all. Still, he figured he’d see who and what Stan had come up with and make changes as he went along.

  He looked down again. The host was a guy named Cole Porter. Cole Porter? He hoped the guy wasn’t going to croon his way through the makeovers. AJ’s gaze lit on the makeover artist. He looked up, his eyes narrowed. “Tanya Pierce?”

  “Yes. She’s absolutely wonderful. Very talented. Why, she has people who fly into her shop from all over the country to have her take care of them. Word got around. I mean it really got around.”

  “Umm . . . any relation, by chance?”

  Frank studied his fingernails. “Didn’t I mention that part? She’s my niece.”

  AJ didn’t want the words coursing through his head to escape out his mouth.

  Finally, when he’d swallowed all those of the four-letter variety, he said, “Not that I’m any expert, but I’ve never heard of her. Where does she work now?”

  Frank waved. “She’s not from L.A.”

  Terrific. “So she’s a no-name?”

  “Maybe here in L.A., but she’s got a happy clientele list a mile long. Besides, I’m counting on you to make her a name.”

  Make her a name. Here we go again, AJ thought grimly. “Now, no offense, Frank, but I’ve got a thing about nepotism.”

  “Me too,” Frank said, nodding. “Nothing like being stuck with dead weight on account of genetics!”

  “Does she have any experience at all in front of a camera?”

  “We’ve run some test shots, and, AJ, the camera adores her.”

  He’d be the judge of that. “Has she got a personality?”

  Frank looked offended. “Of course she has a personality. She’s related to me, isn’t she?”

  Frank’s idea of a joke was an exploding cigar. A ringing endorsement, this was not. “I mean, does she have a quick wit? Think fast on her feet?”

  “She’s adorable. You’ll love her.”

  AJ doubted that with all his being. “Frank, I’m not entirely comfortable—”

  Frank held up a finger. “Hold that thought. I need to show you the budget I threw together.” He leaned forward and punched a button on his phone. “Bring in the blue file for Pretty Women, will you?” he said when his assistant answered. Then he looked back at AJ. “I mean it, this budget is rough. I’ll need you to tweak it ASAP.”

  AJ thought of the fifty things on his new to-do list. “Define ASAP.”

  “Tomorrow afternoon is fine.”

  Who needed sleep when there was work to do on a budget he hadn’t seen for a show he didn’t want with personalities he hadn’t selected or met?

  A minute later the door opened and AJ glanced up quickly to give Frank’s assistant, Leslie, a quick smile. He looked down and then did a double take. Whoa!

  He stood up, glancing between Frank and his new employee. “When did Leslie leave?” he asked Frank, then smiled again at the gorgeous brunette. “Hi, I’m AJ Landry. Nice to—”

  “AJ,” she said, “it’s me!”

  Her voice sounded a lot like Leslie’s. “Leslie?”

  She handed a suddenly beaming Frank the file in her hand, then twirled. “Like the new look?”

  “Like it? Honey, your husband must be in heaven.” Now that was no exaggeration. Whereas Leslie had always had so much hair that you didn’t notice her face, this look was softer and revealed her gorgeous eyes and cheekbones.

  She struck a pose, laughed, then sauntered out, tossing back a saucy smile before closing the door.

  “Looks pretty good, huh?” Frank said.

  “Well, she’s always been cute, but . . .” He dragged his gaze from Frank’s door and narrowed his eyes at the older man. “The niece?”

  “The niece.”

  “Nice evidence.”

  “Seeing is believing!” Frank agreed.

  “Okay, she has potential talent. But I still don’t like nepotism, Frank. Let’s be honest. Is she a prima donna?”

  “Of course not. Tanya’s the real deal. If anything, she’s a little shy. Never could seem to get her over that.”

  “Shy? She wants to do a national television show, and she’s shy?”

  “She adapts quickly.”

  “Right. She spoiled?”

  “I raised her. Maybe a little.”

  “Great. Stubborn?”

  “She’s sweet as can be . . . as long as you agree with her.”

  “Wonderful. Now don’t take this wrong, but is she attractive?”

  “She’s the prettiest young thing I’ve ever seen. Why, she takes after me,” he smirked.

  AJ ignored that since Frank reminded him of W.C. Fields, and no girl could be that unlucky. “Bottom line, am I going to like her?”

  “What’s not to like?”

  AJ could think of about a hundred possibilities right off the bat. Like the fact that she was the center attraction in a show he didn’t want to be involved in, and Frank wanted him to make her a star. Which meant she probably wanted to be a star.

  So AJ had been assigned the task of making her a star. A sick feeling twisted through his gut.

  Yep, here we go again.

  Chapter Two

  TANYA STOPPED IN front of the oak door with the brass plate reading, “AJ Landry”. She took a deep, calming breath that failed to calm her and sounded more like a pant of panic. So, she directed her panting upward to blow an unruly curl of hair from her forehead.

  That didn’t calm her either. Her hair was falling apart because Tanya’s hair and humidity never got along, and nature had decided to dump rain on sunny southern California. What a great first impression she was about to make.

  Tanya was so out of her element. She’d been raised in small-town Sonora. Of course she’d been to bigger metropolises like San Francisco and Portland, but nothing had prepared her for Los Angeles. Her small and comfortable little shop had never prepared her for chopping, shaping, and teasing in front of a camera. In fact, being placed before a camera for any reason was pure torture. Performing before strangers—whether she could see them or not—was her idea of pure hell.

  Why couldn’t her family get that through their heads?

  Tanya silently cursed her mother once again. At Christmas last year, when Uncle Frank had asked Tanya’s advice on a new makeover show he was developing, her mother said, “And why are you picking her brains but not asking her to do this show? She’s the best in the business. Everyone in Sonora will tell you so.”

  Frank nodded. “The initial angle was to get a big name. But we wanted to go for fresh.”

  “You wanted to get someone cheap,” Gran opined.

  Tanya rolled her eyes then, but was shocked when a few weeks later a man named Stan Heinbeck called to ask her to audition for the show. Sh
e did it only to keep her mother and grandmother from faking heart failure if she refused.

  Right now she could happily consider matricide.

  Strangely enough, that first audition hadn’t consisted of doing any sort of makeover. They just took film of her from all angles, did what they called lighting and sound checks and had her read straight from a script that scrolled across a monitor. And she was horrible. She knew it and she saw it in the eyes of all the people who watched her stumble through. Without even trying, she was successfully a bust.

  She apologized to her uncle, trying to keep a relieved smile from her face. He appeared a little disappointed but asked one final favor of her: to do a quick makeover job on his assistant. It was for two reasons, he told her. One, because his assistant was going to a class reunion that weekend, and she really wanted to knock ‘em dead. And two, he wanted to test out the set-up for the show, to make certain it was ideally designed for the beautician to do her best despite the rather tight quarters.

  That favor she happily granted Uncle Frank. She did Leslie’s hair and make-up, making notes along the way of things they could improve on the set for whoever actually did do the show.

  What she didn’t know was that cameras were silently rolling. After she’d shown Leslie the results in the mirror, disembodied hands clapped in the darkness beyond the set, and her uncle’s voice boomed, “Did I tell you, or did I tell you?”

  And apparently the Stan guy had agreed.

  It had been a really sneaky thing to do, and Tanya was still fuming when two days ago Stan called to inform her she’d won the job hands down.

  She’d tried to turn it down, to no avail. The Zegretti-Pierce world would come to a crashing, bloody end if Tanya didn’t jump on this opportunity.

  “He’s expecting you, Ms. Pierce,” the middle-aged, rail-thin secretary said from behind her, reminding her she’d been standing in front of the door for who knew how long. She tried to smile at the woman, but the lady appeared to have woken up on the wrong side of the universe this morning. So much for the blonde-bombshell, chipper, dumb-as-a-brick personal assistant stereotype Tanya had been expecting.

  “What do the A and J stand for?” she asked, trying to be conversational and informed all at once.

  “They stand for Mr. Landry.”

  Oh, goody. A stuffed shirt. Her favorite kind of jerk. “I’m betting he didn’t win any spelling bees, hmm?” she murmured.

  “Ms. Pierce!” That imperious tone brooked no argument, so with one final breath and attempt to fix her unruly hair, she knocked softly.

  “Come!” a deep male voice barked.

  Tanya wanted to run. She was a marathon runner; she could be in Mexico before he noticed she’d stood him up.

  But then the possible recriminations from her mother and grandmother popped into her head. The badgering it had taken to even get her down here still rankled. She was thirty-two. At what age was she legally allowed to tell them to stuff it?

  What was worse, once she’d agreed to shoot what they called a pilot, and five additional episodes, her mother and grandmother had insisted on accompanying her to “the big city” to help her settle in.

  Since she was staying with Uncle Frank at his Bel Air home for the foreseeable future, and poor Sharyn had to pick up the load back home, she wasn’t certain what kind of settling she was supposed to be doing, but arguing with them was more trouble than she could handle at the moment.

  In fact, a bigshot producer should be a piece of cake compared to the two of them. She hoped. And there was always that marathon-running thing.

  She opened the door and all but tiptoed in.

  She nearly stumbled when she saw the man. And not just because she was used to wearing sneakers instead of these damn dress shoes. He didn’t even bother to look up from the keyboard he was hunting and pecking on or the computer monitor he kept glancing at.

  He was mumbling to himself, and she thought she caught him voicing a very colorful picture of where he felt all budgets should go.

  He was adorable. Chocolate-brown hair stood up in various patches, as if he’d been pulling at it in frustration. His brow was crinkled in consternation, or confusion. His skin was lightly tanned. Dimples appeared every time he bit those luscious lips.

  Tanya stood in shock for a few moments. She’d expected a grizzly old guy. She’d never expected someone so close to her age.

  Without looking up, he pointed at a chair in front of his desk and said, “Hi. Sit.”

  She almost turned and marathoned it back to Sonora. He might be cute, but after only three terse words from his mouth, she’d already figured out that he’d become a curmudgeon early in life. This didn’t bode well. Her mother and grandmother might have been pushy, but she had always been able to wrap the men in her family around her pinky. It was a source of pride.

  She was pretty sure her wrapping days were over.

  Tanya sat down . . . and waited . . . and waited. Soon she was getting irritated. There were good rudes and bad rudes, and he was not displaying the good kind. She cleared her throat. Twice.

  Finally, though still not looking up, he opened a drawer, pulled something out and tossed it at her. She caught it and stared back at him. A cough drop. Very cute. She’d never made quick judgments in the past, but she was not going to like this man. Oh, joy. Another reason to be thrilled to be here.

  “I’m here, as scheduled, but if you don’t have the time I’ll be more than happy to leave right now, Mr. Landry,” she said, hoping she sounded professionally ticked off, Hollywood-style.

  He still didn’t even bat an eye in her direction. She was becoming certain they’d be Satan-red. “Actually, Ms. Pierce, you were one and a half minutes late. That better not ever happen on the set.”

  Tanya stood abruptly, almost knocking over her chair. Not even Mama’s wrath was worth dealing with a crummy cute guy. Oh, to be home in Sonora. “You know where you can stuff your set, Mr. Landry? Meeting’s over. And just so you know, your hair looks like hell.”

  Self-righteous indignation felt good. And actually a relief. If she were to be honest, her response was probably way out of proportion to the situation, but grabbing at any straw was just fine with her. She’d never wanted this gig.

  Tanya started to make a sweeping exit. She figured it would be apropos here in Hollywood.

  “Sit, Ms. Pierce.”

  She turned around, almost upset she didn’t have a boa to toss over her shoulder indignantly. “You’re not my boss, Mr. Landry.”

  “Yes, I am, actually.”

  That was when she noticed he’d actually deigned to look at her. Dammit! Gorgeous gray-green eyes. Cute, cute, cute.

  Then again, bears were cute too, but she’d never had any desire to work with one. “Not if I don’t take this job, you aren’t, buster,” she said. “And after about two and a half minutes in this office, it’s obvious that working for you isn’t all that appealing.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Not that I’m doing cartwheels either, but you’ve signed a contract. Sit.”

  “I am not a dog, Mr. Landry.”

  “You certainly aren’t. Still, that doesn’t mean you don’t need to be trained. Consider yourself a very pretty puppy.”

  The only thing she had to throw at him was her briefcase, and she sincerely doubted her aim was all that good. Not to mention, if he really was her boss, sending him to the hospital probably wasn’t going to look good on an employee evaluation. She’d have to have a talk with Uncle Frank about how things like this worked in the surreal world of television. In the meantime, conciliation seemed to be the best course of action. She conjured a tight smile. “You’re lucky I’m housetrained.”

  “Just don’t chew the furniture,” he said again, sounding bored and preoccupied all at once.

  Maybe conciliation wasn’
t all it was cracked up to be.

  He actually grinned, though, and dimples peeked through again. Damn, she hated that he was handsome. And, worse, that she’d noticed. And worse than that, that he knew she’d noticed. And that he knew she knew he’d noticed she knew.

  No matter. She hadn’t been known as Tanya The Terror in high school for nothing. She’d been able to make football players quake at fifty yards. What could a puny television producer do to her?

  “Here’s how it’s going to be,” he said, leaning forward.

  He could irritate the hell out of her, that was what he could do.

  She stood up straighter and went for a menacing look. “I was told this is my show. If I’m mistaken, I’ll gladly go home.”

  He smiled at her again. It was a really mean thing to do. “You’re mistaken. It’s my show. You just happen to be the gorgeous talent. Deal with it, or go ahead and walk out on Uncle Frank. He thought you could do it. Maybe you’re not so sure.”

  Tanya happened to pick out two parts of that speech: “gorgeous” and “walk out on Uncle Frank.” She normally would have taken in the rest, but the man had the nerve to stand up during his speech. It nearly did her in.

  No football player here. Not wide enough. Not quite tall enough for basketball, either. “Soccer, maybe?”

  “Excuse me?”

  That was when Tanya realized she’d spoken aloud—a lifelong habit she’d never been able to cure herself of. When she was nervous, she spoke whatever thought was uppermost in her mind. The damn habit had gotten her into trouble more times than she cared to wince about. Most of the time she could talk her way back out of it. But AJ Landry’s gray eyes were just a little too wise for her liking. “I was trying to decide what sport you played growing up,” she finally admitted.

  “Never played soccer.”

  “Rugby?”

  “Nope.”

  “Volleyball?”

  “At beach parties.”

  He wasn’t going to give it up easily, the turkey. “Swimming?”