Prologue
“You work too hard.”
Cindy Knight pulled herself out of a world of Egyptian mummies, desert sands, and a hero with a stubble-covered jaw and a great set of pectorals to answer her daddy. “I’m almost done with this, promise.”
Her father, Robert Knight, owner of Knight Studios, placed his large hand on her shoulder. “A screenplay is never really done.”
He was right, of course. Long after she typed “The End,” the director would change lines, the actors would ad-lib, and the cutting room floor would own reams of her hard work. Still, the thrill of putting her imagination onto the page and sharing her vision with an audience was enough to keep her at her desk long into the night. “I can see the story—it’s already a movie in my head.”
“You have a gift.”
His words were more than empty parental praise. Robert Knight wasn’t a man to take words lightly, having started in the business as a screenwriter thirty-five years ago. He’d had a full head of James Dean hair and Robin Williams humor back then. The hair may have thinned over the years, but his humor was just as thick as ever.
“Then maybe I should open a studio,” she quipped. Why not? She knew every inch of Knight Studios, often taking over for her dad when he was out on a shoot. No matter how successful he was or how much money he made, Robert would never be far from the cameras. A fact her stepmother abhorred, but Cindy admired deeply.
Daddy chuckled. “No one should own a studio before they’re thirty, it’s too much work. Enjoy your twenties; you only get them once.” He planted a kiss on her head, making Cindy smile. At twenty-seven and three-quarters, she’d positioned herself nicely to step out on her own at thirty. Thirty was a good starting age for a large venture.
“Robert?” Patricia Dixon Knight glided into the room, leaving a trail of glitter in her wake. Her silver evening gown shimmered and flashed, making Cindy want to say, “Ka-Chow!” Lightning McQueen had nothing on this camera-hungry woman.
“We’re going to be late for the release party.” Her words came out with only a hint of rebuke. For all her high and mighty ways, Cindy’s stepmother coddled and cared for Robert—which was the only reason Cindy kept her mouth shut about the way the woman charged meals to the company account and burned through credit cards. If she made her daddy happy, Cindy was happy too. Besides, they were family. Dysfunctional in some ways, but there was no such thing as a perfect family.
Robert’s jaw flexed. “I’ll be right out.”
Patricia purred her way across the room. “Cindy, dear, you aren’t dressed?”
“I’m not going, Stepmother.” It was alwaysStepmother—never Patricia from Cindy. As a teen, she wasn’t allowed to call an adult by their first name. No matter how old Cindy got, she’d always be that scraggly little girl to her stepmother.
Cindy hit print on the manuscript that had taken her months to complete. She’d co-written several screenplays with her father, learning while under his protective wing. ButEgypt’s Goldwas her first lone venture, and she wanted it to be perfect. She planned on skipping the release party to do another round of edits before she laid the document on her father’s black cherry desk in the morning.
Patricia thrust out her bottom lip, making a small mewing sound in the process.
“What is it, darling?” asked Robert. He straightened the picture frame on Cindy’s office wall. She’d framed a picture of the two of them taken just two weeks before at the company luau. Her long, blonde hair was parted in the middle, and she’d tucked a hibiscus blossom behind her left ear. Her dad had on a horrible Hawaiian shirt and pair of khaki shorts. They were laughing at something off camera.
Patricia pulled on the front of Robert’s shirt. “The girls so wanted their big sister to be there.”
“I doubt that,” muttered Cindy. Her stepsisters, fraternal twins just over twenty-one years old who had the bodies of preteens, rarely noticed when she was in the room. “I’m sure they’ll survive. Isn’t Justin Bieber supposed to be there?”
Patricia brightened. “I invited him. It would be so much easier to throw these parties if we were in Hollywood.” Patricia hailed from the land of sun and surf, a fact that she liked to point out on a daily basis, as if being born in California gave her an edge over the “slow Southern women” who worked for Knight Studios—Cindy included.
Her dad placed a hand at the small of Patricia’s back. “Atlanta has been good to us, my dear.”
“Of course.” She smiled so wide that her makeup cracked, revealing lines her latest Botox treatment hadn’t corrected. With a peck on Robert’s cheek, and a glance to make sure Cindy had seen the possessive kiss, she sashayed to the door. “I’ll wait in the lobby—don’t forget your tie.”
Cindy’s fingers uncurled, releasing the tension that gathered when her stepmother was in the room.
Robert fished a silver bow tie out of his pocket and made a sour face. Cindy bit back her smile as she took it out of his hands and helped him put it on. “This tie is re-donk-u-lous.”
“I know. But it makes her happy.” He searched Cindy’s face. “You like her… don’t you?”
“You’ve been married for six years. It’s a bit late to ask that question.” Cindy smiled as she straightened the bow.
“The truth.”
Did she like her stepmother? No more than someone liked a pebble in their shoe, but a pebble wasn’t worth throwing a fit over. “I’m happy that y’all got your ever after, Daddy.”
He clasped her hands, his grip as firm as a talking-to and as serious as a sermon. “There’s no such thing as ahappilyever after, Cindy. Life doesn’t hand those out. Whatever happiness you gain in this life is a choice.”
Like learning to like kale because her stepmother was on a cleanse and ordered the cook to only serve smoothies.
