Penny felt the eyes of twenty-plus students watching as one foot moved forward. Nerves flicked around her peripheral, but she battled them back. She raised her chin higher. It was now or never. She hadn’t moved out to Los Angeles to soak in a tub of mediocrity.
“What now?” Penny asked once onstage.
Roman’s face melted into a smile as if he sensed there’d been a change in Penny’s attitude. He seemed to like it.
“Good girl,” he murmured, but only for her ears. Before turning to face the class, he gave her a private wink. “I’d like everyone to learn a valuable lesson from Ms. Sands. Taking notes, reading from a book, watching films—while these practices are essential to becoming a strong actor, they are just the beginning.”
He strode with long legs over to the side of the stage and flipped a switch. The theater went dark, and the stage gleamed under the spotlights. Penny couldn’t see anything but stars. Stars, stars, stars, she thought. Not the sort she’d been hoping to find.
“Take a look at this scene.” Roman approached her, gave her a short page. “Get the gist of it.”
“I can’t memorize anything that fast.”
“Aha. I don’t want you to memorize. I want you to take what’s written and make it your own.”
Penny’s heart pulsed against those thin little seedlings growing in her chest. “I’m not good at improv. I prefer to get comfortable with a script before I act.”
Roman contemplated this, resting his hands behind his back as he faced the class. “Tell me, Penny, have you ever experienced a time while acting onstage, writing in your journal, or simply daydreaming where you completely and utterly lost yourself in the moment?”
She cleared her throat. “Um—”
“Where the world blacked out around you? Maybe you had the music turned up so that it pulsed through your veins. Your eyes might have closed, your breathing stopped, your heart raced.”
He paused, letting the words soak in as Penny shivered in anticipation. His voice was like liquid sex. Smooth and sultry, mesmerizing. She’d never met a man quite like him, and as he continued to speak, she found her eyes closing, her core pulsing, as she drifted away on the silky river of Roman Tate’s words.
“Close your eyes,” Roman instructed. “Everyone.”
Penny’s eyes were already closed. She didn’t care if anyone else listened; all that mattered was this experience. It felt revolutionary, as if she’d taken some drug, fallen down a transcendent, Alice in Wonderland–type hole. She needed Roman to continue more than she needed her next breath.
“Maybe it was an action scene, the thirst for blood so strong, you could taste it. The soundtrack beating through your skull, taking you onto a battlefield during the Second World War.” Roman stilled, the room halted. Not a soul breathed. “Or maybe it was a scene of passion, a moment of lust.”
Penny couldn’t tell if she was imagining it or if the feel of a man’s breath on her neck was real. Her eyes closed tighter. Her hands balled into fists. She heated from the inside, filled with a rampant surge of want teased from the depths of her spirit.
“A moment of untamed desire,” Roman said as if reading Penny’s thoughts. “Of the desperate coupling of two souls in wild, manic love.”
Penny wasn’t imagining it. She could smell his cologne now, feel his breath on her exposed shoulder. She wondered if it was his finger tracing down the bare skin of her back or if she was imagining that, too.
“Sweaty sheets, tangled limbs, moans that start slowly, involuntarily.” Roman’s voice was a mere whisper, yet it boomed throughout the studio and kept his audience transfixed. His words grew louder, louder, as he continued. “Until together, with the dark desires of forbidden lovers, the two shout each other’s names into the ether…”
The silence was intense.
“And then break into pieces.”
Roman’s footsteps carried him away from Penny, leaving her to wonder if she’d imagined his breath, his touch. If she’d begun to fall under the spell of Roman Tate.
“Let’s try this again.” Flipping another switch, Roman brought the studio back under harsh spotlight. “Tell me, Penny, have you ever experienced a moment while acting that took you to another place entirely?”
She began to speak, but her voice didn’t work. It felt broken, out of practice, hoarse. When she cleared her throat, Roman smiled as if he knew the charm he’d cast over her.
“Yes,” she said finally. “At times, I suppose I get carried away.”
“Indeed.” Roman’s lips twitched in her direction. “See me after class, will you, Penny?”
“But—” She glanced listlessly at the script in her hand. Her shoulders sagged, and she felt drained of energy. Exhausted, like she might after a particularly intense round of lovemaking. Her creativity had sizzled and then fizzled in the time she’d been onstage. “I thought you wanted me to do a scene?”
“I think my point has been made.” Roman easily turned toward the sea of students. “That will be all for now, Ms. Sands. Please take your seat.”
Penny returned to the torn fabric on her chair and slid her notebook in front of her. She was so distracted, so hot and bothered, that she didn’t notice what happened onstage for the rest of the hour.
It was as if she’d turned a new leaf. Something in Roman’s words had stirred a new longing in her, bringing about a transformation that was all too welcome. She no longer felt broken by her lackluster experiences in a new city. She no longer felt vulnerable and weary, out of control. Instead, she felt empowered. Somehow, she’d experienced a patch of greatness, of genius, in a dingy theater off Sunset Boulevard, surrounded by aspiring actors.
They don’t understand, she thought dully, gazing around at her classmates. They want the fame, the glory, the prestige.
Penny wanted to be an artist. Her very spirit craved it, desired the freedom of expression, the life-changing, soul-twisting call for something greater.
It suddenly seemed that only one man in the entire city—maybe the entire world—understood her. The need to create, to bring to life scenes of blood and death so realistic, an audience could taste the filmy copper on their tongues as they watched life seep away on a screen. Or to bring a burning desire to the audience, spurring racing heartbeats as two forbidden lovers came together on the pages of a screenplay in a sweeping culmination of lust and denial.
Yes, Penny thought. Only one man understood her, and that man stood tall and stately onstage, an undiscovered gem of talent in a sea of shiny stars.
That was when it hit her.
Somehow, over the course of a month and a half, Penny Sands had fallen madly, hopelessly, desperately in love with Roman Tate. And he wanted to see her after class—alone.
TRANSCRIPT
Defense: Ms. Moore, how long have you been babysitting for the Wilkes family?
Olivia Moore: On and off for the last three years. I found the job listing on a corkboard at UCLA when I was a freshman.
Defense: How often would you say you babysit for the Wilkes family?
Olivia Moore: It goes in spurts. Sometimes, it’s every other week. Other times, we go a few months without touching base.