Behind The Curtain (The Velvet Series Book 1) Read online

  I turned away from him, and pinched the bridge of my nose. Okay. I could do this. I just had to make it through the rest of the day without losing my mind with stress. That shouldn’t be too hard, should it?

  Chapter Eight

  “What the fuck do you think this is?”

  His words echoed angrily around the theatre, which had fallen into a dead silence as his rage echoed out across the room. I bit my lip, trying not to cry. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.

  Allen Ardew had dropped in to visit, as he had said he would – part of me had wanted to ask him to come back at a later date, when we’d had more time to put together the pieces after our shock shut-down, but I was still a little nervous around him and didn’t want to let him down if I could avoid it. So I sucked it up and the lot of us put on a show. Just a shame that he seemed to hate it wit every fibre of his being.

  The entire room was frozen in horror, like we were all trying to pretend that this wasn’t happening. Allen’s eyes were flaring with fury and all I wanted was to run away and pretend like none of this was happening. But if anyone had to step forward and take responsibility for this, it was me. So I did.

  Taking a deep breath, I stepped in front of him and managed to offer him a smile, even though I felt more like screaming.

  “Hi, I’m the director,” I put my hand out to him and he straight ignored it. I couldn’t say that I was surprised. “If you’ve got any specific criticisms, maybe we could-”

  “Yeah, I have some pretty fucking specific criticisms,” he spat in my direction. I dropped my hand by my side, embarrassed at once.

  “The whole thing’s a fucking mess,” He exploded once more. The cast and crew were all still standing around me and they looked humiliated on my behalf, though that might have been me projecting my mortification.

  I had been sure until he’d opened his mouth that he at least liked the play. The way he had sat there, fingers arched, closing his eyes once in a while, I was sure he had been savouring the way the play had been put on. Hell, I was even optimistic for a hot second there, that he actually liked it, that somehow their faith in me hadn’t been terribly misplaced all this time. I had been relieved, ready to hear his criticisms but assuming that there wouldn’t be too many. Well, joke was on me, because now I was standing in front of him getting chewed out like I was a kid who didn’t try hard enough in gym class.

  “This is really the best you could do?” He waved at the stage again, and he stormed off out of the room, into the tech space that was in a small box next to the seating area. I followed him in, and so did Luke and Michelle; I guessed they felt as responsible for this as I did. The four of us were crammed in that little room together and it was more clear than it ever had been that the atmosphere in this place was on the brink of snapping and turning into something dangerous.

  “If you could just give me a few specific pointers,” I began, speaking slowly, taking my time and making sure that my voice didn’t wobble too much. He shook his head and turned to me.

  “Look, honestly, I know that you were a risk,” He began matter-of-factly. “But that’s why we wanted you, because we thought you could bring something fresh to the table. But this…”

  He waved his hand towards the stage, almost hitting Michelle in the face. She shot me a look that told me she was as shocked by this as I was, and I appreciated the solidarity.

  “This is just not what we can put out,” he shook his head, as though it should have been obvious. “You need to get off the project. Now.”

  My heart dropped to my shoes as those words came out of his mouth. Of all the things I’d expected him to come out with this, that, had been the last thing on my mind. It was a matter of weeks until they opened, and bringing someone in to start the whole thing from scratch would be a nightmare. He wouldn’t fire me. Would he? Could he? I strained to remember the details of my contract and whether they had or had not protected me from Acts of Playwright.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Luke jumped in, bristling with anger. He’d kept his mouth shut until now but I could tell that he had been fuming all this time. “You can’t point to one thing that’s not right with this production, you just want to shut it down because you’re not happy with-”

  “Luke,” I cut him off. Last thing I needed was him wading in and making things worse with his defensiveness. He looked over at me, clearly irritated, but lowered his head and allowed me to speak once more.

  “Allan,” I began desperately, hoping that I would dredge up something that would keep him on my side. “Allan, if you just take some time to think about this – the theatre can’t afford a new director, and we only just got our financier back. It’s a question of money-”

  “It always is,” the playwright growled, shaking his head. “And I’m not surprised that they pulled out, if that’s the play you were putting out there.”

  He fell silent once more, and I could actually feel my heartbeat picking up in my chest. Please, God, don’t let him fire me from this thing-

  “But fine,” He waved his hand. “I’ll talk to the theatre first. Don’t do any more work on this fucking disaster until I’ve had a chance to figure out how to fix this, alright?”

  “Alright,” I breathed, thanking God that I had gotten away with it for now. I mean, I was sure that the theatre would crumble to his demands at once, what with the sway he held in the industry, but at least I didn’t have to face up to the horror and humiliation of being fired right in front of my main cast and the man who I had just hooked up with against my better judgement. Allan opened his mouth to speak again, then sighed, shook his head, and walked out of the tech room and out of the theatre.

  “What the fuck was that,” Luke growled angrily, shooting a look between Michelle and me. “I can’t believe he would-”

  “I need to get out of here,” I gasped, and suddenly I realized just how close I was to bursting into tears right there and then.

  I hurried out past the cast and crew and backstage, to where I knew there was a dressing room that wasn’t being used right now. I felt the tears prick my eyes, the horror of what had just happened washing over me all at once. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. I had worked so hard to put this thing together, been so sure that this was the best way to tell this incredible story, and yet he came in and with one wave of his hand all but put the whole thing to bed? How did that work? I knew that he had sway in this industry, more than I ever would, but it all felt so unfair. If he could just tell me what I had done wrong I could fix it, but he seemed determined to just make me guess at everything that he wanted. Any director would be at a loss when faced with that kind of direction.

  I made it to the dressing room and slammed the door behind me before the tears started to come. I panted my hands on the dressing table and heaved in long, deep breaths, trying to calm myself, but I couldn’t – is that what all the critical reviews were going to say, too? Pages upon pages of reminders that I was an inexperienced mess who had no clue what she was doing in this industry? I imagined them, the pages piling up in my brain, and another shot of panic bolted through my brain. I sank to the ground. I couldn’t do this. I could never do this, and I had been crazy to think that I could. I should have turned this down and avoided this entire mess – Luke, Allan, this job, all of it. I would never have stopped second-guessing my decision, but at least it would be done with. It never would have gotten a chance to start.

  Then maybe I wouldn’t be hiding out in this damn dressing room feeling like a grade-A idiot for trusting any of my instincts or decisions with this thing. I should have kept second-guessing myself; clearly that was what worked for me. I should have gone against my gut. But it was too late now, the sets were built, the scenes blocked, and unless we had the time and support to do this all from scratch again, I was just going to have to-

  “Holly!”

  The door opened and I k
new who was going to be there before I so much as turned around. Part of me wanted nothing more than to see him, and part of me wanted to cast him out before he could see the tears in my eyes.

  “Don’t listen to that fuckwad,” He declared confidently, and I almost laughed at how ridiculous he sounded. I dashed the tears away quickly with the back of my hand, not wanting him to see me crying.

  “I don’t think that’s exactly an option,” I pointed out. “He kind of wrote this thing, remember?”

  “Yeah, well, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about or else he would have been the one to direct it,” He shot back, and I opened my mouth to respond but came up with nothing. It was actually a pretty good point.

  “You need to ignore every damn thing that came out of that man’s mouth,” He caught my face between his hands and looked intently into my eyes, as though scanning to find something that he knew was there. “Seriously. Don’t let him get under your skin. There’s no way the theatre is going to pull you, not this late in the game-”

  “You’re not making me feel any more confident in my abilities,” I replied, voice still dull. But I ad to admit that him being here with me right now and so stridently on my side was helping more than a little bit.

  “Okay, well, if he wants to pull the plug on this whole thing then I’ll finance it,” he replied, slipping an arm around my waist and pulling me close. I closed my eyes, pressed my head into his chest just like I had imagined doing that morning when I first saw him. I knew we were tracing the outline of dangerous territory right now, but I couldn’t find it in me to give much of a damn. I needed him, needed someone, and there was something so comforting about knowing that at least he seemed to believe in me. Even if Allan didn’t.

  “You’ll finance it?” I looked up at him, lifting my gaze slowly and a little incredulously as I pulled back from his chest. He nodded, as though he was offended by the implication.

  “Of course I will,” he exclaimed, brushing a strand of hair back from my eyes. “I’ve put too much time and effort into this to let you walk away from it now, Holly. And besides, you really think I’d have stuck around at it this long if I didn’t think you were fucking good at your job?”

  I looked up at him, and just like that, forgot all the good reasons I’d managed to keep in mind that morning about how we needed to keep our distance and stay professional. In that mess of emotion, the only clear thing I knew was that I wanted him. So I leaned up and kissed him.

  As soon as our lips met, just like it had been yesterday, any sense of decency that I might have had slid out of my head at once. Nothing mattered but him. Not the fact that I might be about to be kicked off my job, not the fact that there was an angry playwright out there who seemed to be out for my blood – just the fact that this man wanted me and this man believed in me, and that I was going to take advantage of that.

  He backed me against the dressing table and I hopped up, wrapping my legs around him and drawing him in close. I pushed my hand up under his shirt, roughly raking my nails across his stomach, as he gripped my hair and moaned softly into my mouth. The entire cast and crew was out there, just a matter of feet away, but I didn’t give a damn. I reached down and pressed my hand against his cock, feeling it growing hard as soon as I touched him, and I grinned against his mouth despite myself. I knew this was wrong, but wasn’t that what made it so fucking tempting?

  “Here,” he grabbed my pants and pulled them down, grinding up against me. I grabbed his head and pulled it down towards me, not giving myself time to think about any of this. How much trouble we would both be in if we were caught. How easy it would be to just forget about this play and run off with Luke and let him indulge me the way he wanted to.

  We both undressed as much as we needed to – I kicked my panties off over my shoes and he pulled his jeans down, just far enough that he could take his cock in my hand. He slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a condom, and I raised my eyebrows at me, spluttering with laughter.

  “Always prepared?”

  “You never know,” he grinned, and leaned down to kiss me once more, wiping the smile from my face as he pushed his tongue into my mouth. His touch filled me with endorphins, so much so that I was sure I was getting a little high from the way he kissed me. My head was spinning, going from misery to pleasure in a matter of seconds leaving me struggling to catch my breath. But I wanted this. He sheathed himself quickly and I shifted myself forward on the dressing table, which creaked dangerously below me. But I didn’t give a damn. I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my head into his chest as he pushed himself into me, and the both of us let out this long sigh of what sounded like relief.

  “Mmm,” I sighed as soon as I felt him all the way inside of me. It was different than last night – that had felt tipsier, crazier, like I was less tethered to reality. I was able to forget, for however long, that the two of us worked together and that we seriously shouldn’t be pulling stuff like this. But now, the two of us were actually doing this in the damn theatre and I knew that I couldn’t deny it any longer. I was sober, at work, and wanted him worse than ever before. There would be no hiding from the truth now. This man and I shared something I couldn’t hide from, and for now, I didn’t want to.

  He moved into me hard and with purpose, like he knew what a risk we were running doing something like this at work, but the roughness of his motions matched with the way I could hear him trying to keep the noise low was getting me hotter than ever. I looked up at his face and saw the way it contorted as he tried to make sense of the sensations passing between us without making a sound. I leaned up and kissed him, catching his bottom lip between my teeth and biting down softly, reminding him that I was still here and still needed taking care of; he tucked his hand behind my head and leaned down to kiss me properly, his tongue in my mouth, his hips moving hard against mine. I clung on to him for dear life and prayed that the table wouldn’t give out from underneath us.

  “Touch yourself,” he panted into my ear, grabbing my hand and guiding it towards me clit; I did as I was told at once, stroking my throbbing nub a few times and soon finding a pace that matched with his movement inside of me. The orgasm was building, welling inside of me, borne on the back of everything that had happened the last twenty-four hours, all the stress and worry and desire and panic and need and-

  “Oh,” I gasped as it hit me.

  Words seemed to fall away, articulation fading down to syllables and sounds as the pleasure of it washed everything else out of my head once and for all. Like a tidal wave, like an earthquake, like a forest fire that left nothing in it’s wake. As the feeling swelled and broke across my body, I felt as though this was somehow a fresh start, a release that I needed before I could move on with my life. I shuddered in his arms and he slowed and thrust deeper, pushing himself all the way inside of me, as though savouring the sensation of my pussy clenching around his cock. A few moments later, he let out this deep grunt and came inside me.

  He held himself there for a long, long moment, sending shivers of something I was having trouble putting into words all over my body. There was just something so sacred about this somehow, something that went deeper than just the physical act. I looked up at him, slowly, scared that somehow he wouldn’t have felt the same thing that I did. But as soon as our eyes met I knew that I was in the clear. I could see it, painted all over his face, that he had felt it too, what had felt like an earth-shift below us as we had made love again.

  It was real. That was the difference. After all this performance, hiding behind booze or characters or other people, we had been together in a way that was just the two of us, truly connecting. It flashed through my mind, bright and obvious, and I knew at once that everything was different now.

  He pulled out of me, caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger, and planted a soft kiss on my mouth once more. It was an odd feeling, that tenderness compared with the inten
sity of what we had just done. The best of both worlds. A girl could get used to this.

  “I mean it,” He raised his eyebrows at me as he went to dispose of the condom. “I’ll fund this all myself if I need to. New theatre, new everything, as long as you’re on board.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see,” I hopped down from the table, still a little shaky after what had just happened. “Hopefully it won’t come to that.”

  “But if it does, I’ve got your back,” He promised me. And I knew, from the way he was looking at me to the tone in his voice, that he was being dead serious. I looked back at him for a moment, trying to figure out what to do with that information.

  “Come on, let’s get back out there,” I sighed, dressing as quickly as I could. “I don’t want them figuring out why we’ve been away so long.”

  “Fair enough,” he nodded, and he watched as I made my way towards the door – and I wished more than anything that I could have turned back around and told him what he wanted to hear, what had been brewing inside of me since the first moment I set eyes on him. But I couldn’t. Not yet.

  Chapter Nine

  “Oh my God, I think I’m going to throw up,” I placed my hands on my knees and leaned over, sure that I was about to hurl all over the floor of the backstage area right there and then. Michelle placed a hand on my back to soothe me, but it didn’t do a whole hell of a lot.

  “You’re going to be just fine,” she assured me, but I could tell by the tone of her voice that even she wasn’t certain. It had been a hell of a few weeks and it had taken it’s toll on all of us. I was surprised we’d all survived this far in, to be honest, but here we were – ready to face our first performance to the public.