Would her prep work pay off?
“You’re definitely at the top of the list for Escorted Lives,” Frederick said, but his voice trailed off.
Top of the list meant there was still a list.
Damn.
Sutton needed to get rid of the list. She needed to be the only list.
Frederick glanced at his wife, Janelle. She was seated next to him, but she hadn’t uttered a word. She’d just kept her hands folded together on the table, her lips tightly closed. Janelle’s green eyes were cool and piercing. Her black hair was pulled back in a bun so tight it looked as if the skin were being stretched to her scalp. She was stone, and Sutton thought she might be practicing her best approximation of a statue. But Sutton knew Janelle was the real puppeteer here. She was the reason Frederick was rich in the first place. He’d married into her family money, and she had a hand in all the decisions he made about his films. She might not have the official title of executive producer, but everyone in the movie biz knew that a Frederick Pinkerton movie had to pass muster with the wife before he could work on it.
She was the sort of silent partner who could make or break any deal of his.
Janelle moved, leaning closer to Frederick. She whispered something in his ear.
He nodded, then spoke. “And we were thinking perhaps we could meet your fiancé. Perhaps we could all have dinner?”
Sutton tried not to look confused. She didn’t have a fiancé. “Sorry?”
Frederick’s brows knitted in concern. “I was sure I’d read in the papers that you were engaged recently.”
The papers. An engagement. Of course. Sutton was often mistaken—well, in print at least—for the Broadway actress Sutton McKenna, who had gotten engaged to her manager last week. There weren’t too many Suttons in New York show biz, hence the frequent mixups. Sutton was about to say that there’d been a misunderstanding, but Janelle piped up. “We do so love to have a family atmosphere at our company.”
Janelle gave Frederick a pointed look, and everything clicked for Sutton. Frederick had cheated on his wife over and over with many nubile young things, and word on the street was that Janelle was doing everything to keep him in line. Perhaps that included making sure he only hired attached women to work on his films?
Sutton could read between the lines. They might have mistaken another’s engagement for hers, but perhaps this was the lucky break she needed to nab the film.
She played along, holding up her ring-less hand. “My boyfriend surprised me the other weekend. The ring was just a tad bit too big, so now it’s being resized and I can not wait to get it back on my hand,” she said, mustering up all the glee she imagined a recently betrothed twenty-eight-year-old casting director might feel.
Frederick beamed, Nicholas clapped, and Janelle managed a sliver of a smile.
“Then we cannot wait to have dinner with you and your fiancé on Friday night, and perhaps we can finalize things then,” Janelle said, and it was clear that she was in charge of the hiring. That whatever decision the brothers made about the casting of the film would be Janelle’s choice, and Janelle likely wanted a taken woman working closely with her philandering husband. Funny, considering Sutton had heard from an agent friend that Janelle wasn’t even giving her husband the goods anymore. Apparently, she’d cut him off til he proved he could behave. “Why don’t you come to our penthouse on Fifth Avenue? Just the six of us.”
Friday night was five nights from now. Where in the whole of New York was Sutton supposed to come up with a fiancé in five days? But she had no intention of losing this project simply on account of lacking a man. She’d sort out the details later.
“Absolutely. I’d be most delighted,” Sutton said in a crisp voice.
Janelle stood up to leave. The brothers rose too. “Oh, I just thought of a brilliant idea,” Janelle said. “Perhaps you and your fiancé might like to see the new play that just opened at the St. James. I have box seats for tomorrow, but alas, I have a charity event to attend.” Janelle reached into her Hermes purse, rooting around for tickets but came up empty. “Oh dear. They must be in my other bag. I’ll just messenger them over to you later today.”
“Wonderful. How generous of you. We’ll be so excited to see it,” Sutton said, and now she had little more than twenty-four hours to produce a fictional fiancé to take to the theater.
How hard could it be though? This was her forte. She knew where to find the sexiest men to star in the sexiest man candy roles. She could bring you hot firemen, tattooed bad boys, heroic soldiers, hometown guys with chips on their shoulders, rock star types who made girls throw bras on stage, and all-American athletes who could melt panties.
Now, hours later, as Sutton tapped a Louboutin-clad foot on the floor in her office and stared at a framed photo of her most adorable dog, she knew none of those types were right for this particular role. Sutton had never dated that type of man. She could bluff at the conference table about having a fiancé, but to pull off a dinner with the producers of the film, including that hawkish wife? Wives knew when a relationship was not what it seemed, and Janelle already had her bloodhound nose a-sniffing around her husband’s wandering eye. If Sutton were to pull off this farce of a fiancé, she’d need a man who really was her type, someone she could reasonably like.
But all the actors she’d auditioned for It’s Raining Men were stripper types, beefcake and bravado. This was not a job that necessitated swagger. Sutton had never gone for those kind of guys. Truth be told, she’d always had a thing for hipsters. A little bit of stubble, a little bit of attitude, a tattoo on the arm, jeans that showed off a fine piece of ass.