I'm not alone.
Both Evelyn and Natasha are on the couch right in front of me, and at my gasp, they both turn their heads in my direction. Their eyes go wide, and Natasha jumps to her feet and says, "Oh, shit, Laine. I had no idea he wasn't alone."
"And I had no idea there was any meat to our manufactured engagement," Evelyn adds with amusement in her voice. She looks me up and down. "Or am I misreading the signs?"
I have no idea what to say, so I stand there like a dolt, certain my entire body has turned lobster-red, and wondering if they'd notice if I bolted back to the bedroom and hid under the covers.
It's one split-second of embarrassment, but it feels like hours. And then all the embarrassment fades as I hear a voice behind me in the hall. "Fake engagement," Lyle says as he reaches me and puts a hand on my shoulder. He squeezes lightly. "Real relationship."
"That's great!" Natasha aims her broad grin right at me.
Evelyn's smiling as well, her attention entirely on Lyle. "There might be hope for you yet, Iowa."
"Might be," he agrees, then bends to kiss my head. He lingers for a moment, then steps beside me, taking my hand as he leads me into the living room. He's wearing a pair of gray sweatpants I'd noticed hanging on his closet door, no shirt, and an air of absolute cool and confidence despite the truly awkward circumstances.
"Sorry about this Nat," he says. "Didn't occur to me to call and tell you to work from home or come in late. My office is in the back of the condo," he adds for my benefit. "A converted third bedroom."
"No worries," she says, rising. "At least not from my end." She looks at me and shrugs. "Sorry, again."
"I'm fine. I was just surprised."
"And I'm here because we need to talk about these contracts before I go chat with Charlie. I bumped into Nat in the elevator and we rode up together," she adds, which explains how she arrived without ringing ahead, since Lyle explained to me the elevator doesn't open on his floor without a code once he's locked it down.
"Fine," Lyle says, his voice clipped. "Let's talk."
"Why don't I make coffee?" I'm not desperate for pants anymore--the T-shirt is big enough to be a dress--but I also don't need to be in the thick of it. Not when there's obviously some undercurrent of business tension that I don't understand.
"I'll help," Natasha says, hurrying toward the kitchen with me.
The kitchen is on the far side of the open area, set off by a bar that forms a ninety-degree angle to mark the kitchen's edge. "Who's Charlie?" I ask as she starts to run water for his coffee maker.
"Attorney. He's reviewing the next three Blue Zenith contracts."
At the same time, I hear Evelyn chide, "Wait too long and you'll miss the chance. Arizona Spring needs to lock in the cast soon."
"What's going on?" I ask quietly.
Nat takes the pot to the far corner where the coffee maker is tucked in by a mug tree, then starts to pour it into the machine as she explains that the next three movies were specifically written for the M. Sterious character. "Once Lyle signed on, they wanted to lock him in to multiple movies." She lifts a shoulder, as if that's all just business-as-usual, then starts to scoop coffee into the filter.
"But that's good, right? So why does Evelyn sound irritated?" Except for the fact that I've come to know Lyle enough to understand that his dream isn't to make it big in blockbusters, it seems to me that big movie roles written for an actor are something an agent should be jumping up and down about. But Evelyn's tone definitely isn't jumpy.
"Noticed that, did you?"
She glances toward the living area where Evelyn and Lyle are deep in conversation. "So, the script for the first movie was awesome when it first came in. Really great character stuff. Lots of meat for an actor to sink his teeth into. He completely covered those pages with notes, he was so into it. I mean, so many notes I had to ask the studio to email a clean copy just so he could read the actual lines."
"What do you mean by 'when it first came in'?"
She makes a face. "After The Price of Ransom started really kicking ass, they wanted to lock Lyle in. So they changed M's character. He went from being a transformed villain who sacrifices himself to save the world to a guy who saves one of the secondary characters, has an epiphany, and joins the happy Blue Zenith family."
She shrugs. "It doesn't suck, but it sure as hell doesn't pop like it used to. But the other three are sure to make a shit-ton of money, and if he signs those contracts, Lyle will be locked in to all three with a significant backend. Percentage of the profits, I mean," she adds when I look blank.
"And to do the three he has to turn down Arizona Spring."
"Pretty much.
So that's it," she says as she pours the now-brewed coffee into four mugs. "By the way," she adds, taking two mugs as I grab the others, "I'm glad we've connected again. And I'm especially happy you're with Lyle. I've always thought that he--" She cuts herself off with a shake of her head, then starts over. "I've always thought that he needed someone."
"Someone real," I say, and when she meets my eyes with perfect understanding, I know that she knows about the call girls. "That's how we met," I say, because I like her and want her to understand. "I was desperate for cash and--"