CHAPTER 1
Juliette
Ugh. What the heck time is it?
I pushed my sleep mask up onto my forehead and reached over to the nightstand to unplug my ringing cell from the charger.Arlo Quinnflashed on the screen, and unless I’d slept eighteen hours, he was calling me at five fifteen AM.
“Hello?” My voice cracked with morning grog.
“Hey, Jules. It’s Arlo. I’m sorry to wake you this early.”
“If you aren’t calling to tell me there’s a wildfire heading straight for my house, I’m hanging up.”
He sighed. “Bradley doesn’t like the rewrites you did.”
I sprang upright. “What? How is that possible? It’s the fourth set of rewrites I’ve done for those scenes, and I barely even wrote any of the words. Bradley dictated how he wanted the entire thing to go.”
“I know. I’m sorry. He can be…difficult sometimes.”
“Parallel parking in front of The Ivy while being watched by a table of movie stars is difficult. Figuringout what to wear when someone tells you dinner issmart casualis difficult. Bradley Wilson? That man is a giantasshole.”
Arlo chuckled. “He wants to meet with you at six in his trailer at the studio.”
“That’s in forty-five minutes.”
“I know. He just woke me up to have me call you.”
I shook my head and ripped the covers from my body, dragging myself out of bed. “Does Sam know he asked for rewrites again?”
“I’m not sure.”
Translation—the director has no freaking clue. These constant rewrites had become a control game for Bradley, a power trip of sorts. The director’s team spends hours planning the next day’s shoot, only to have the star show up ten minutes before call time and drop twenty pages of rewrites in their laps. After, he struts back to his trailer to sip his stupid grande, iced, half-caff, ristretto, sugar-free vanilla, oat milk macchiato with no foam and enjoy a one-hour massage. I had no clue why the director put up with it. Actually, that wasn’t true. He probably did it for the same reason I did. Because Bradley Wilson was—Lord knows why—one of Hollywood’s biggest A-list actors at the moment, and the jerk had a lot of industry pull.
Annoyed, I padded into the kitchen to the coffeemaker. “I’ll be there, Arlo. But you have to invite Sam, too, or at least one of the assistant directors. They need to be in the loop from now on.”
“Okay. I’ll make some calls.”
I breathed out on a huff. “Thank you.”
“There’s one more thing…”
“I’m afraid to ask. What?”
“Bradley requested you stop at Robeks and pick up his morning energy drink.”
My eyes bulged. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
The poor assistant sighed. “I’m afraid not.”
“No.” I shook my head vigorously. “I’m not doing it. I’m a screenplay writer, not his damn gopher.”
“I would do it myself, but my girlfriend and I share a car, and she works the night shift. She doesn’t get home until seven.”
“Why can’t he have his drink delivered from Uber Eats?”
“He doesn’t trust the drivers.”
“What does he think is going to happen? They’re going to poison him? Wait, on second thought, maybe I will pick up his energy drink, with a side of cyanide.”
