Exposing Alix Read Free Page B

her eyes and counted to ten. “I’m not hiding
anything,” she said, keeping a careful hold on her temper. “I’m a private
person.”
    “Whatever.” He waved his hand negligently. “I’ll give you
one hundred grand, and I’ll double that if we win the Oscar for Best Picture.
Sound reasonable?”
    Her mouth fell open. One hundred grand? As in, one hundred
thousand dollars? Hurriedly, she worked to regain her composure. “How much?”
    “One hundred thousand dollars.”
    She took a breath. “How long do you expect it to take? I
have a book I’m working on, and I need to get back to it.”
    He eyed her shrewdly. “I need at least a month. We could
be finished by the end of June, if you can start right away.”
    One hundred thousand dollars for a month’s work? Alix
ignored the bit about the Oscar as she feverishly struggled to do the math. She
could pay her taxes and renew the lease on her tiny darkroom. She could live on
the rest for at least a year, assuming she sold a few pictures here and there
in local galleries. A full year to work on nothing but her photographs.
    She could finally finish her book.
    It was a dream come true.
    “Tell me again what you want me to do?” she asked.
    “We’re almost done filming Salva’s Revenge . We did
the location work first and are finishing at the Bolvana studio in LA. You work
with me on the sex scenes. Give me some advice to spice them up or make them
romantic or whatever it is you do that Gunther likes.” His jaw tightened, and
Alix decided Gunther was a very brave man to piss off Ryker Valentine. “We
would shoot together and then look at the dailies and talk about the editing.
But make no mistake—I’m the director. You would just be making
suggestions.”
    “And the film?” she asked cautiously.
    “ Salva’s Revenge is about a woman who believes her
brother has been involved in an international money-laundering ring. She’s got
to unravel the clues to find out what’s really going on and at the same time
throw a bulldog detective off the trail. She starts out using her body to
distract him, but along the way, she falls in love.”
    Alix nodded, trying to remain calm for the sake of the
hundred thousand dollars that now dangled over Ryker’s head. “So it’s a love
story?”
    He grimaced. “It’s an action movie. There’s a romantic
aspect, but it’s secondary. The real conflict is between Salva and her brother,
and later, between the brother and the cop.”
    “You don’t like love stories, I gather?”
    “Love is one of the most basic elements of storytelling. I
couldn’t make movies if I didn’t appreciate that. But all this nonsense about
romance and true love? Stories that are nothing more than fairy tales,
masquerading as real life? No, I don’t have much patience for that sort of
thing.”
    Alix cocked her head and then looked away. His disgust was
palpable. She studied the picture in her hands, knowing he probably thought it
was pornography. He wouldn’t understand what she was really trying to capture.
What was expressed in the eyes of the people making love. “So what you’re
saying is that you’re making a movie that’s a love story, but you don’t believe
in love?”
    He grinned, the quick smile transforming his face. “I
don’t believe in aliens either, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make a movie
about them.”

Chapter Three
     
    Ryker stared into Alix’s
sunglasses, wishing he could see her eyes, get some hint as to the direction of
her thoughts. She frowned, turning away from his gaze to the picture she still
held in her hands.
    He glanced back at the photograph, which she immediately
tipped protectively toward her body. Her fingers were fine-boned and slender,
her wrists narrow. Had he called her a Labrador? He studied her body,
remembering the slim backside pointed his direction outside the house. Perhaps
he had underestimated what lay beneath the surface of Alix Z.
    She threw the picture down on the table. Ryker