Panty Dropper (A Sexy Standalone Contemporary Romance) (2 page)

B
y the next day
, Kait had gathered up even more photos of Leo Armstrong and his ex-girlfriends and had them posted all over her wall. She called me into her office, and when I stood in the doorway, she was staring at them with Alexa and Bethany sitting in the chairs in front of Kait’s desk.

“They’re right,” she said, without turning to look at me. “You are most definitely his type.”

“Look, Kait, I’ve been thinking,” I began. I’d spent the whole sleepless night thinking and not much else. This was crazy. I couldn’t do this assignment. I’d blow my so-called cover in the first three minutes. I felt nauseous and I hadn’t even done anything yet. I’d never make it though. “I just don’t think I can pull this off.”

Finally, Kait turned to look at me. Her eyes were a hard gray blue, and when she spoke there was no hesitation in her voice. “You’ll do it, or you’ll find somewhere else to work.”

“I told you Kait,” said Alexa. “She’s not qualified. She’s going to blow it.”

“I’m telling you, I can do it,” said Bethany.

“Sophie is doing it. I have a feeling, and I always trust my gut,” Kait said with finality. “Now let’s get her fixed up.”

We went to the fashion editor’s section, where her office was basically inside the massive closet where all the samples from designers were held. Everything from jeans and dresses to every kind of accessory and shoes, shoes, shoes galore. I wasn’t that into clothes, but even I was impressed with the loot.

“She’s got a great figure,” said Mel, the fashion editor. She dug through the closet, holding up dresses to my frame for quick assessments. “But these might be a little snug for her.”

“Even better,” Kait said. “Put her in the yellow and accessorize.”

They all stood around the fashion closet while I held the dress and shoes Kait had chosen for me with the help of the fashion editor.

“Now all you have to do, darling,” Kait said, “is put the clothes on.”

I felt like an idiot, but at least Mel shot me a sympathetic look. I didn’t know if Kait was always so curt, or if it was me who brought it out in her. As I stood there in that closet full of gorgeous designer clothes—most of which weren’t even in stores yet—I should have been having the time of my life. Instead I felt like a kid raiding a woman’s closet—an unwelcomed kid.

Next stop was Rebecca, the beauty editor’s office. Bethany and Alexa were there as well, hovering and waiting for me to back out, it seemed. As I watched, Rebecca went through her supply of beauty products that made Sephora look like a starter store. Meanwhile, Kait filled me in on what was about to happen—how I would get in with The Panty Dropper.

“Bethany, Alexa and I came up with a backstory last night,” Kait said. I wondered why I wasn’t involved in it, but then again, when I left the office I sort of ran out of the building with the hopes that my first day had all been a dream. A very terrible, horrifying dream. “You are no longer Sophie Scott. You are Sophie Adams, and you’re an aspiring actress. My husband, who is a casting agent, got you an audition today for Epix’s new action film. Something called
Destruction Overload
,” she said, checking her notes. “Just another mindless shoot-em-up movie, same schlock Armstrong always does. The role you’re going for is Grace, who is the wife of a Navy colonel held hostage by terrorists.”

“Of course the wife is like thirty years younger than the Naval colonel,” said Bethany, rolling her eyes.

“Here’s the page you’ll be reading from,” Kait continued. “The scene you’re reading is Grace pleading for sympathy from her captors.”

She handed me a page from a script—a real movie script, something I’d never seen before—and my pulse raced. Going undercover was bad enough, but I’d have to actually
act
as well?

“Don’t look so green,” teased Alexa. “Remember, it’s all a role. All for the article. Just act, and you’ll do fine. We hope,” she added.

Rebecca had wrangled my long hair into soft, beachy waves. And even though she’d put what felt like a ton of makeup on my face, when I looked in the mirror it looked fresh and minimal. My skin glowed like the surface of the moon.

But I didn’t see a beauty. I saw a frightened girl from a small town in New England.

“I don’t know what makes you all think I can do this.”

“You’ll have to prove that you can,” said Bethany.

“Think of the great story you’ll get if this actually works,” Alexa said. “We’d all kill for this assignment. Not just going out with Leo Armstrong, but exposing him for what he really is. So don’t complain. Just do your job.”

“She’s right,” Kait said, looking at me in the mirror before us. “Don’t forget the goal, Sophie. To expose Leo Armstrong for the womanizing bastard that he is. Now,” she said, pulling my long hair back and draping it over one shoulder. “You’re ready to meet him.”

I
tried
my best to tug up the plunging neckline of the yellow dress Kait had chosen for me but it wouldn’t budge. The girls were definitely out today.

“Don’t blow it,” Kait had said before I left, and I wondered if she meant the acting or the story.

I walked into the offices where the auditions were being held. I handed over the paperwork Kait and her crew had created for me and waited my turn in a hallway full of women—all of whom looked like they could easily be models and actresses which, I supposed, they were. I hadn’t lived in Los Angeles for long, but I was quickly learning that the world was full of beautiful people, and most of them lived here. No way would I stand out to someone like Leo Armstrong. I decided to just try my best, and see what happened.

I tried to study my lines but my hands shook and the chill of the hallway made me shiver. Or maybe it was just my nerves.

“Sophie Adams! You’re up.”

I stood on teetering heels and followed a woman in baggy black pants and Chuck Taylors through to another room. There was long table at the back where three people sat closely talking—two men and a woman. A camera on a tripod was positioned on the side and a man in a blue workman’s overall sat eating a sandwich in the corner.

“Here’s your mark,” said the woman. I stood where she pointed and tried to take a deep breath.

“This is Sophie Adams,” the woman announced to the three at the table. “Basically no experience.” She handed them my one-sheet.

“Another virgin,” muttered the man at the center. “Let’s get this over with.”

“You done any work at all, taken any classes?” the woman at the table asked. “The Groundlings maybe?”

“Sorry, the what?” I had no idea what she was talking about, but the deep sigh she gave me told me I should have.

“I’m going to read off you, sweetie,” said the woman who brought me in.

I was confused for a moment because the character in the scene was a man, but I took a deep breath and looked down at my lines. When I looked back up, the man in the center of the table looked up at me, and I froze. There sat Leo Armstrong, his clear blue eyes piercing me from across the room.

“When you’re ready.”

I fumbled with the script, a wrinkled mess in my sweaty hand. I began. “Puh-Please. Um…my boyfriend—husband is very…powerful.” I tugged on my dress, feeling as if the heat had been turned up in the room. I looked at the table before me and realized Leo Armstrong was watching me intently, the weight of his eyes practically physical from across the room. I tried to plow forward, woodenly reciting the lines. “I mean, a powerful
man
. My husband is a very powerful man. He will do what you need—want.
Get
you what you want. Um.”

“What I want is for your husband to realize the grave mistake he’s made by crossing me,” said the woman flatly, reading the lines against me.

Leo Armstrong’s eyes had me locked in place. He didn’t blink or look away, and I realized I couldn’t either. “You don’t want to do this,” I said, and realized I was still looking at him instead of my scene partner. I quickly looked toward the women. “Um, like, I beg you.” I cursed myself under my breath.

“Peggy,” Leo said, standing up from the table with one swift, graceful movement. “Let me take over. I’ll read with her. Maybe that’ll relax her.” Watching him move toward me, I felt like my legs would buckle beneath me. He strode across the floor in sure strides, never taking his eyes off me. If I was going to make it through this audition, I couldn't do it while looking at him. I wasn’t sure I could
breathe
while looking at him.

When he stood before me I looked down at the floor, seeing only his highly polished leather oxfords and dark slacks.

“Start from the top?” he asked, his voice deep and assured. I nodded yes. “When you’re ready,” he reminded me.

I cleared my throat and began again. “Please. My husband is a very manly power.
Powerful man
. Sorry. Um, a very powerful man he will get you whatever you want please.”

There was a pause before Leo said, “Begging won’t help.”

“I’ll beg or plead or do whatever just please let me go let me go please let me go.”

Even though I was saying the lines like a robot, I meant them—I wanted out of there. Immediately. My breath was coming in short gasps and my head was beginning to spin. I wanted to say the stupid lines as quickly as possible so I could turn and run out of the room and never look back—maybe run all the way back to Maine.

“I think we’ve seen enough, Leo,” said the woman at the desk. “Thank you, Sophie. We’ll be in touch.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, and turned to leave. Before I could, Leo took my wrist, stopping me. I looked at his hand, smooth and lightly tanned, his fingers easily circling my small wrist.

He leaned in slightly and said, “A little advice? Eye contact is a good thing.” His thumb ran across my wrist. “Okay?”

I turned my eyes up to look at him, so close I felt the walls closing in. Now I could finally see it all, everything that even the best telephoto lens couldn’t pick up—the sharp lines of his face, the smooth skin of his cheeks, and his lips, full and gorgeous. I had to remind myself of the lies those lips told and the hearts they broke. With heat prickling my face, I turned to leave just as the next girl walked in. Taller, thinner and more beautiful than anyone had a right to be.

“Leo, this is Amber Hastings, also reading for the role of Grace. Sophie, thank you, we’ll call you,” Peggy said to nudge me on my way. I looked toward the others at the table, and noticed the guy in the corner eating his sandwich laughing softly.

As I left I heard someone say, “Isn’t there some vetting process in place? Why are we wasting our time on these amateurs?”

I made my way through the door, brushing shoulders with the girl going in. I wanted to take off at a full sprint, putting as much distance behind me as I could from what was surely the end of my short career in journalism. One thing was clear—I’d blown it.

“
I
promise
, you’ve never seen anything like this,” I said to Ava Marie, my roommate, later that evening. The audition was late in the day so I’d gone straight home afterward. “It was like I didn’t even speak English. I didn’t get one line out correctly. And I heard them making fun of me on the way out.” I bit into another nacho cheese chip with plans to finish the entire bag.

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” said Ava Marie as she stretched on the floor, her legs spread in an almost perfectly straight line.

“No, I promise you, it was. They’re probably all sitting in some fancy bar drinking martinis and laughing over the worst audition they’ve ever seen.” I crunched on another chip, trying not to see Leo Armstrong’s face. I rubbed my wrist where he touched me, getting orange dust on my skin in the process. It felt good to talk about. I didn’t have any friends in L.A.—yet—and Ava Marie was someone who knew the ropes.

I didn’t tell her, but I hoped she could help me with my column, once I finally started on it in the true sense of things. I figured we could go out on the town together, checking out the hot spots. She knew I worked at
Crush
, but I had told her that I was also thinking about getting into acting. In a town like this, it wasn’t unusual. What I didn’t tell her was that I was working undercover on a story to expose Leo Armstrong’s caddish ways.

Ava Marie pulled both her legs together in front of her, flexed her heels and leaned over her knees. She had what could only be described as the perfect body—long, lean, strong but not too muscular. A dancer’s body—which she was. A dancer, I mean.

“I don’t think you get it,” I said, cringing when I thought of the way those people looked at me when I read the lines. Siri had more personality than I did. “There was this guy sitting in a corner eating a sandwich during the whole thing. I think he was the janitor, Ava Marie, and even he was laughing at me.”

“Look, Sophie,” Ava Marie said. “I don’t know you very well. We’ve only lived together a couple of weeks. But one thing you should know about me is that I don’t lie, and I don’t bullshit. So if you’re looking to me to give you sympathy for this one audition you had today, you’re looking in the wrong place. I go on auditions all the time. It’s a full time job that doesn’t pay. Tonight is one of the few nights I have off from my other job at the restaurant and I really don’t want to spend it listening to you whine.”

“I didn’t mean to whine…” I began, stunned by her harsh tone and frankly, a little embarrassed. Since I’d moved into our tiny apartment I rarely saw Ava Marie. She left in the morning for auditions and usually went straight to her job waiting tables on Third Street Promenade.

“Talk to me when you’ve been on seventeen auditions in one week and turned down for every single one. And that happens for weeks on end. I’ve had to audition through stress fractions and tendonitis. My body is in constant pain and my ego is always being smacked down a peg. I’ve been told I’m too fat, that my neck is too short, my torso too long for my legs. On top of it all, I’m dead broke. And I never complain about it.”

“Ava Marie, I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just…venting.”

“Vent to someone back home,” she said, standing up. She looked at me and let out a deep sigh. Her voice softened as she said, “I’m not trying to be mean. It’s for your own good. You can’t let what people say out here say get you down. You’ll never survive.”

My stomach felt heavy. I was totally regretting my dinner choice which, let’s be honest, was a pity party for one.

My phone rang, and unfamiliar number on the screen. I picked it up and answered, hoping it wasn’t Kait looking to get all the gruesome details.

“Hello?”

“Is this Sophie Adams?” a deep and somewhat familiar voice asked.

My heart stopped at the mention of my undercover name. “Yes.”

“This is Leo Armstrong. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

I cleared my throat, which had suddenly become dry. “No. Not at all.”

“I’d like to talk to you about the audition today,” he said. His voice was clipped, formal. “If you’re not too busy, I’d appreciate your coming by my condo.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sure. I can stop by tomorrow…”

“Tonight would be better. If you’re not too busy.”

I looked at the half-eaten bag of chips. My big plans for the night. My stomach was dropping as if I’d just stepped in an elevator that plummeted twenty stories.

“No, it’s fine. I mean, yeah. I’ll come by.”

“Ready for the address?”

When I hung up the phone, Ava Marie said, “You okay? Who was it?”

“Oh, um, a guy from the audition,” I said.

“You got a callback?” she said, and I could see the jealousy on her face, that one audition would go so well.

“No, it was…some other guy. He invited me to his place to run lines.” The quick-thinking lie sounded pretty good, I thought.

But Ava Marie looked at me like I was simple child—one she felt sorry for. “Oh, Sophie. Sweet, innocent Sophie. I don’t know what goes on in Maine, but when a boy calls to invite you to his house to run lines, he probably means something more like running his tongue in lines all over your body.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I know.” Even though I had totally not thought of that. I couldn’t think straight, frankly. Leo Armstrong just called me.
Leo Armstrong
just invited me over to his condo. Holy shit. I didn’t know whether to be excited that I hadn’t blown the audition, or a nervous wreck knowing that the undercover story was moving forward despite my efforts. “I’m not that dumb.”

“You sure about that?” she said.

“Damn, Ava Marie,” I said, offended.

“Sorry,” she said, with a shrug. “I just want to make sure you get it.”

“I get it,” I said with a little extra force. I was in it now. I was playing a role for a breakthrough article. I had to steel myself against the nerves. I looked down at myself. “What am I going to wear?” I couldn’t wear the same dress as this afternoon. This was my second chance to make a good impression on him. I’d totally blown it in the audition so I had to make sure I dazzled him tonight. I headed to my microscopic bedroom to see if anything would do.

I found a red stretchy dress still in a box in my floor. I’d bought it to wear on a date with Paul, my ex-boyfriend. We had planned to drive down to Portland for dinner to celebrate my graduating cum laude. Before I could cut the tags off, he called to tell me that our lives were going in different directions, and we should call it quits before someone got hurt. I didn’t even know at the time it was too late for that.

“Don’t worry,” I told Ava Marie as I took off the yoga pants I’d immediately put on when I got home from the audition. “I know what I'm doing.”

Which was a total lie, but it seemed pretending to be someone I wasn’t was the only way I’d make it through this assignment, so I might as well start now.