Close Up and Personal (10 page)

Is the studio outside London? It would make sense.

But instead of continuing out of the city, the car turns east again, towards the fashionable dockside district of Shad Thames.

This is where London’s most expensive warehouse apartments are, close to the
artistic areas of Shoreditch and Brick Lane, with sweeping views across the Thames.

The car stops outside a large
, converted warehouse, and the driver announces that we’ve arrived at our destination.

A studio based in a central London warehouse. It must cost a small fortune to run. Maybe
Berkeley has smaller offices which he uses for casting.

The street outside is cobbled and lined with boutique coffee houses and tiny
elegant shops. I look about in confusion. Ahead of me is an entrance of glass and steel, blending effortlessly with the warehouse.

There is a panel of buttons suggesting more than one studio within the building. Do I press one?

I’m spared the decision by the sound of someone descending a set of stairs inside.

Then the metal and glass door opens, and
Berkley’s handsome face is looking into mine.

His brown hair is more tousled than usual, and he’s dressed casually in designer jeans and a yellow T-
shirt which looks to have been bought from one of the nearby trendy boutiques. His feet are bare.

“Come in,” he says, opening the door to let me through.

In the lobby of the building is a chrome elevator and equally shining set of stairs. He makes a quick assessment of both.

“We’ll take the stairs,” he says, and I feel my heart sink another level downwards. He doesn’t even want to be alone in the elevator with me. He really has taken me at my word.

I follow him upstairs three flights and emerge in the penthouse floor. A door has been left open, and on the other side is a beautiful bare-brick apartment.

The enormous lounge is scattered with the kind of designer
furniture which would cost me a year’s salary a piece, and a contemporary kitchen is fitted seamlessly into the far wall.

He waves for
me to go ahead and follows.

I enter, noticing as I do that an entire wall has been glassed, allowing a flowing view across the
River Thames. The wedding-cake turrets of Tower Bridge are in close relief, and in the distance, London Bridge, St Pauls Cathedral and the rest of London’s historic skyline are perfectly framed in the metal beams of the window.

I stop partway in, confused.

“Wait,” I say, “this is your studio?”

Berkeley
comes in after me, closing the door behind him.

“This is my London apartment,” he says.
“I have a studio room here.”

I narrow my eyes at him, trying to make out whether this is professional conduct.

“I thought you were staying at Claridges,” I manage, thinking of his suite.

“I stayed at Claridges last night, because I had an event I wished to host,” he says. “For the most part
, when I’m in London I stay here.”

Oh.
I allow my eyes to travel around the open room. It’s stunning.

“This is a lovely apartment,” I say.

“Thank you.”

“Do you always conduct screen tests from your apartment?”

“This is the first time I have conducted a screen test.”

He leads me over the shining floorboards of his lounge and into an equally large room at the back, where a camera and box-lights
have been set-up for filming. There’s a director’s chair and a stage area taped to the floor, like when I first auditioned.

The memory of what he said about that first audition comes back to me, and I feel the heat in my cheeks rise.

I’m alone with James Berkeley in his apartment.

“You read the script?”

“Yes.” I follow him awkwardly, uncertain of where to place myself. I have never acted to camera before.

“What was your reading of it?”

“I liked it,” I say. “It was like a fairy tale. Like
Beauty and the Beast
.”

He smiles and nods.

“That’s exactly it,” he says. “The story is a classic but told in a modern way. Fairy tales strike at the heart of human nature, Isabella.
Beauty and the Beast
tells of the redemptive power of love. Of how a broken person can be brought back to life by innocence and purity.”

He’s staring at me as he ta
lks, as though there’s a double-meaning to what he’s saying.

“Stand there,” he says, gesturing to the stage space. “And read from scene 5.”

I’m clutching the iPad in my hand, and I whizz through to the scene he means. I look up at him in confusion.

“But there’s only the lead female in this scene,” I say. “Don’t you want me to rea
d the part I’m supposed to play?”

The side of his mouth twitches in that familiar tantalising
smile. His green eyes soften slightly.

“
If you remember, the lead female is the part I was thinking to cast you in,” he says. “At least, if you don’t object.”

Did he say that? I think back to his words in the bar.
Have you ever considered a lead role?
I never assumed he meant to audition me for one.

I open my mouth to explain that I can’t possibly take on a main role, and he raises a single finger to silence me.

“We agreed that you would test this out. All I ask you to do is read.”

I stand with my mouth open for a moment, and then glance back down to the iPad.

Ok. You agreed to this. Might as well keep your word.

There is no doubt in my mind that this screen test will confirm to
Berkeley that he was wrong about me. That I’m not lead material, and especially not in a movie. The idea of the camera close-up on my face makes me want to die.

Berkeley
is behind the camera, positioning it. His gaze is down on some unseen screen, and I realise he is probably panning in on my terrified face.

I do my best to straighten my features.

The truth is, I like the lead character. She’s complex and interesting. Certainly, it beats playing two-dimensional female villains.

I look back to the script. I haven’t learned it this time.

“Read,” commands Berkeley, and the force of his voice makes me wince.

I take a breath and plough into the lines, feeling
the character as much as I am able.

Halfway through
, I realise I am messing up. Berkeley is silent behind the camera, and it comes home to me that I only saw the script this morning. A professional actress might be able to commit herself to a character that quickly. But I’m just a recent graduate with hardly any experience.

I stop reading and put the iPad down. Then I look at
Berkeley. He’s not moving, frozen in his little world behind the camera.

“James?” I say. “Mr Berkeley?
”

He looks up, and his green eyes are charged. Is he angry? The expression makes me want to back away, but at the same time it’s enthralling.

He takes two steps across the small room and grabs me by the waist.

I stare up at him. Are we acting now?

“Isabella,” he groans, and his voice is tight, urgent. “I think we need to renegotiate what we arranged in my suite last night.”

“What?” I am
held in his arms. The force of his emotion is overwhelming.

He leans closer to me so that our lips are almost touching.

“If you had any idea how beautiful you look on that screen…” he says.

Me? Beautiful?

“I refuse to let your talent go to waste,” he says, wrapping his arms around the small of my back and dragging me in closer.

I am powerless, pinioned in his strong arms. I couldn’t wriggle free even if I wanted to.

“But I can’t work each day, watching you on that screen, and not have you at the end of it.”

The words come out as a growl, and he lifts me off the ground, carrying me into another room in the apartment.

A bed comes into view just as he throws me onto it. Then he’s on top of me, pinning me down.

Wait. Do I want this?

In the tumult of emotions, every sense in my body is alive. I realise I’m powerless to resist my own needs. I walked away in the suite. I haven’t the strength to push him away now.

His fingers release the buttons of my dress in seconds and then they go to work on my jeans, undoing them and pulling them free of my legs in one sweep.
I am clad in nothing but a light dress and my panties.

“Since I’ve met you
, I’ve thought about nothing but fucking you,” he says, pulling my dress over my head.

The words bring another
lightning bolt of lust sweeping through me. I can’t resist him.

With my bra exposed
, he slides his fingers over and around my breasts, kneading them with his hands.

I gasp under the pressure.
His grip is strong, almost painful. I can feel his erection pushing against me.

Then he pulls away my panties and tosses them free of the bed.

A whirlwind of feelings are hammering through my heart and body. There’s a deep shame of lying on his bed, naked from the waist down.

But th
ere’s another knowledge too. I want this. For the first time in what feels like forever, I really want this.

He forces a knee between my legs and kicks them apart. Then he slides his thumb in between my legs, running it over and around my clitoris.

“You’re so wet,” he murmurs appreciatively. “I’m going to fuck you so hard.”

“Please,” I beg, “
wait.” The realisation of what is about to happen is hitting home.

He stops, his face confused although his erection, hard against my thigh, knows exactly what it wants.

“You don’t want me to go hard?”

“I’m not very experienced,” I admit, blushing at the confession.

Suddenly, he’s sat up.

“What do you mean by not very experienced?”

Damn. Why didn’t I copy Lorna and spend my graduation year having one-night stands?

“I’ve only had sex with one person,” I say, adding, “at least
I think we had sex.”

“You
think
you had sex?” his voice is incredulous, but there’s a kindness, a concern.

He pulls away a little, so he’s no longer pinning me down.

“I dated my male friend,” I say, mortified that he’s extracting the admission of inexperience from me. Just once in my life, I wish the seductress which people keep casting me as was really true.

My body is
still coursing with desire for him.

“We tried,” I said,
the memory of Jerome’s and my fumblings coming back in lurid detail, “but it was painful. I’m not sure if I had sex or not.”

“I see.” He lets his hand run down the length of my body, considering.

“Do you want to have sex now?”

What a thing to ask!

I look down at my naval. Surely that must be obvious.

“I might read that expression to mean that you do.”

I want him so badly, it must be written in every part of my body.

His hand slides down again between my legs
, and I pull in a quick intake of breath.

“Certainly it feels like you want to have sex,” he considers, and his fingers begin a tantalising
, delicious dance over my clitoris.

The sensation is so powerful
, it’s almost unbearable. I feel a dark, deep heat rising up, spreading up my thighs.

“Has anyone ever made you come before?”
He asks this gently, his fingers continuing their silky sliding movement.

The feeling is building, building. I feel as though I’m about to explode.

“No,” I gasp.

“Have you made yourself come?”

“Yes,” I manage. I would tell him anything, right at this moment. Anything he asked.

“Good. Later you will show me.”

Show him? How I touch myself?
Even his suggesting it makes me want to die of shame.

“
I am not so much of a brute that I would fuck you now, Isabella, after that admission. But the thought of giving you your first orgasm. I can’t help myself. You are so very appealing, lying there.”

He shifts his hand slightly, thrusting his fingers inside me. I breathe in sharply. The sensation is different. Deeper. Rougher.

“You are small,” he says, looking into my eyes. “That is why you have found sex painful. But we can stretch you a little, to accommodate.”

He’s looking into my eyes as if asking permission. I nod, hardly able to do anything else.