Playing Dirty Read Online Free Page B

you gonna deal with seeing him day in and day out?”
    “By being the biggest professional you’ve ever seen. By reminding myself that if all goes well, I can finally pay off that frickin’ balloon payment that’s been hanging over my head.”
    Remembering a discussion with Cade last night that she had almost enjoyed, she flashed her dimples at her friends. “One of the things I’m genuinely excited about is an agreement I made to talk with Cade and his scriptwriter about Miss A to get her part as authentic as possible. So tell me what you guys would like to see included about her.”
    After an enthusiastic conversation about their mentor, Ava looked at her watch and pushed back from the table. “I know this is a bombshell and I’m sorry to drop it on your heads and run, but I’m meeting Cade again this evening at my lawyer’s to go over the fine points in my contract and discuss my job description in more detail. Until that’s taken care of, I don’t plan to sign anything.” Rising to her feet, she looked down at her two friends. “We good?”
    “Of course we are.” Poppy stood as well and gaveAva a hard hug. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt again.”
    “Not gonna happen,” she promised.
    “Don’t forget dinner at Dev’s and my place next week,” Jane added as she, too, rose to give her a hug. “And you step carefully around that man, you hear?”
    “I will,” she said, pulling on her plum-colored Steve Madden wool peacoat, flipping up the collar and picking up the plum, blue and green scarf Poppy’s mother had made her to wind around her neck. “Love you guys.”
    She headed for the door, but paused to shoot her friends a cocky smile over her shoulder. “And don’t worry! I’m gonna kick some serious booty on this job.”

CHAPTER TWO
    I didn’t think I’d ever get used to being in the mansion as an owner after Miss A died. So how weird is it that it feels so strange to suddenly be here as an outsider?
    Nine weeks later
    “S HE HERE YET ?”
    Beks Donaldson, Cade’s production assistant, was slow to pull her attention away from the chart she was putting together at the kitchen table in the Wolcott mansion. By the time she craned around to look at him over her shoulder, he was seconds from tapping the face of his watch with his forefinger—that detested, time-is-money gesture his old man always used to use on him. Fuck. He’d sworn he would never do that to anyone else, so what the hell?
    Annoyed by his slipping control, he found it didn’t help his mood that while Beks didn’t roll her gray-blue eyes, she somehow managed to convey the impression of doing so.
    But all she said before turning back to her chart was a mild, “No.” He noticed she also refrained from reminding him that he’d interrupted her work less than ten minutes ago to ask the same damn question.
    “She’s late,” he growled at the feathered tips of Beks’s Harley-Davidson shield n’ wings tattoo showing on either side of her nape above the neckline of her sweater.
    “Uh-huh.”
    Okay, he was being an idiot. But damn Ava Spencer anyway for keeping him waiting. He considered giving Beks a you-don’t-even-wanna-mess-with-me look, but she didn’t bother to turn around again. He had to settle for a stern, “Let me know when she arrives.”
    “You got it, boss.”
    He went back to the parlor where he’d been working on his own prep work—only to discover that he couldn’t concentrate for shit.
    Dammit, he never lost the ability to focus when it came to work. He’d bled too many buckets, poured too much of his heart and soul into carving out a place for himself in this industry, to allow himself the luxury.
    Not that he didn’t understand what the problem was, of course; he knew exactly where he’d gone south. He was always proactive, accustomed to working through every eventuality ahead of time to avoid spanners being thrown in his works during the actual production. Generally, by the time he was