Seasoned with Grace (16 page)

Ethan planted his driver firmly on the floor, rested his palms on top of it, and assessed the sharp look in Grace's eyes, trying to determine her level of commitment.

“If I accept this gift, you can't back out on me,” he said.

She shook her head sheepishly, like a schoolgirl in front of the principal, and turned to open the door.

Ethan grabbed her by the wrist and tested her eyes again. This wasn't the first time Ethan had to convince Grace to do something that she didn't want to do. She had been antsy when it came to doing
Sports Illustrated
in a bikini the first time. Grace had agreed, and then she'd frozen up on the set. It wasn't until Ethan had shown up that they'd actually been able to unglue her from her seat in hair and makeup. He groaned inside. Did this mean that he would have to show up on the set of Javier's film as well and walk her through her lines?

Still wary of Grace's intentions, he released her wrist from his vise grip. The look in her eyes served as reassurance that Grace was committed to this film. Whatever gift awaited him on the other side of the door wasn't just another trinket to bribe him to keep his mouth shut and turn a blind eye to her irresponsibility. But there was still a hint of apprehension in her eyes. He recalled the multitude of times that anxiety had coursed through his vein like a virus and had him bent over the toilet in a stall of the men's bathroom before any negotiations or hearings. Each and every time the Lord had guided him through those situations, holding his hand and whispering the right words to say.
God has never forsaken me. Why am I forsaking her? Please help me deal with her, Father,
he prayed silently.

Now that Ethan had released her, Grace opened the door partway and stuck her head and arm out. Ethan couldn't make out who she was motioning to or what she was doing. While she got things together on her end, Ethan figured this was the perfect time for him to let Javier know that they could finally begin filming.

Javier had created a short and tight film schedule for
Pressure.
He claimed he wanted to shoot and edit the picture in under ten months and release it by next fall. Seemed like the perfect plan, and it would leave them with more than enough time for Grace's image to be rehabilitated and for Grace to earn a little Oscar buzz. The role was dark. Grace knew dark. The role was dramatic, and as Ethan simultaneously dialed the number to Javier's studio and watched Grace prep his gift by motioning and jerking her arms up and down like she was a conductor for a philharmonic, he thought that she was definitely dramatic.

Javier's assistant picked up the phone, and Ethan took a seat behind his desk. He exchanged pleasantries with her and explained that his call was of the utmost importance, only to fall silent as Candace entered his office. Ethan fumbled as he searched for the cradle for the telephone receiver, covering his mouth with his free hand to hide the fact that all the muscles in his jaw had collapsed at the sight of her.

The sunlight streaming through the windows bounced off the apples of Candace's cheeks, and with each blink, her eyes seemed to whisper his name from across the room. The hair that he'd become so used to seeing pulled tightly back in a bun now framed her face like loose feathers. He didn't know whether to stand up and greet her or let her keep walking closer to him. Her beauty touched him and filled his belly from across the room. Ethan would have continued watching her float before him if it hadn't been for Grace, who was waving at him, signaling that he should stand up and greet Candace.

He stood and tugged at his collar, trying to tease out the words lodged in his throat. His tongue clung to the roof of his mouth, scraping against the ridges. Candace's presence had awakened both the inward man of his heart and the desires of his flesh.

Clearing her throat and bobbing her head to the side, Grace unlocked the handcuffs that Candace's presence had place on his mind.

“Candace . . .”

“Ethan . . .” Candace said, bowing her head and then raising it partway and looking up at him.

He reached for her hand. She allowed him to grasp only her pinkie. “You look different.”

“Do you like it?” she asked, biting the corner of her lip. Candace raised her head fully and met Ethan's eyes completely.

Oh God, I love it. This is what Adam must have felt when he saw Eve and said you are a “wo-man,”
Ethan thought. He realized that restraint was necessary in terms of both words and deeds. He wanted to pull her in by her waist with both hands and demolish the space between them with his lips. All of him ached for her. He tucked her hair behind her ears and cradled her face in his palms.

“Ethan, we can't—”

“Shhh . . .” he said, swallowing every word of resistance with his own lips.

Candace tried to speak again, but with each syllable she attempted to spit out, Ethan pressed his lips on hers, until she finally gave up her protest. Once their bodies had melded together, Ethan wrapped one arm around her shoulders and the other around her waist. Flicking his fingers back and forth, he dismissed Grace. Later on he would have to compliment her for her bribery tactics.

After a few moments, Candace broke out of his grasp. Breathless, flustered, and radiant.

“Ethan, we can't just go from not speaking to kissing without so much as having a conversation,” she asserted, holding her fingertips to her lips.

“I never stopped speaking to you, Candace.” Ethan placed his now free hands in his pockets. “I've called you every day for the past week.”

“So a phone call was supposed to make up for the fact that I found you with your tongue down Grace King's throat?” She folded her hands across her chest. “How am I supposed to trust you around her?”

Ethan decided that now would be a great time to shout out, “Objection, Your Honor. She's badgering the witness.” Managing his emotions and speaking plainly about them had never been Ethan's forte. Now he was going to have to figure out how to win this trial, even though the jury had reached a verdict before he had the opportunity to issue his opening statement. He'd begun working with Grace with the hope of advancing through the ranks and opening his own boutique law firm. Now she'd sucked up so much of his life, he couldn't even manage something as simple as claiming the blessing that God had clearly sent his way.

“Well?” she said, prodding, tapping his foot with hers. “How am I supposed to trust you, Ethan? Sorry isn't enough.”

“If you weren't interested in working this thing out, Candace, why did you come here?”

Her tough girl facade began to crack like the exterior of a prewar brownstone. Reaching across the gulf of empty space between them, Ethan delicately scooped her hand into his, took a full step backward, and perched himself on the edge of his desk. He studied her eyes and waited for them to respond before her mouth. No words came. Only love and longing seemed to radiate from her eyes and penetrate his skin. The combination of her sultry eyes and pouty lips sent a surge of heat through his body. She couldn't bring herself to say, “I've forgiven you,” but her body spoke to him. Candace dropped her hip and curved her body toward him. Her arms were no longer stiff but hung loosely at her sides. This takeover would not be hostile.

Parting his legs, Ethan pulled her in closer. He was ready to bathe in the warmth of her body. He wanted to nestle his head in the center of her chest.

“How do I know that after my hair goes back in a bun, I take off the Spanx and the lipstick, and I lose the smoky eyes, you're still going to look at me with those same goo-goo eyes?” she sputtered, halting his efforts to craft in his mind's eye a picturesque reconciliation.

“Here's the long and short of it.” He looked down at his hands as he squeezed hers tightly, then began to confess. “She was vulnerable, and I was weak. My flesh was weak for her, but in that moment I learned something.”

“What?” she groaned, dismissing his remarks before he'd made an admission.

“When Grace is around, my head aches.” Ethan dropped Candace's hands, placed his hands on her waist, and looked up at her. “But when you're not around, my side aches. I don't feel good without my rib,” he admitted, collapsing onto her chest. In her arms he felt at ease and free from the burdens that came along with managing someone like Grace.

Candace hesitantly stroked the back of his head. The first stroke was heavy handed and awkward, like she was just looking for a place to rest her hand, but as Ethan secured a position in the groove between her breasts, she continued stroking his head, eventually finding a rhythm that soothed him and reminded him of what was important in life.

With each stroke, he clung tighter to Candace's waist. His heart was beating faster than Usain Bolt could complete the two-hundred-meter dash.

“Ethan . . .” Candace spoke softly to him. “What do you want from me?”

He looked up into her soft brown eyes, which were wide with expectancy. She expected an answer. She deserved an answer. Only, he hadn't prepared for this line of questioning. “Do you think we could discuss this over dinner?”

The corners of Candace's mouth began to fold, indicating her displeasure. There hadn't even been time for him to compare the pros and cons of this relationship and think this thing through logically and systematically. He'd thrown his decision-making system out the window when the firm tossed Grace his way, and now he was deeply buried in a pile of mess.

“I still have to secure a meeting for Grace with the director of this film ASAP and . . .”

“And you don't know if you could be my Adam or I could be your Eve? Well, you better figure it out this evening, busta.” She touched him on the temple playfully, then turned and headed toward the door, a smile on her face.

“I thought love is patient,” Ethan replied, following behind her and extending his reach to grab her hand. He kissed the back of her hand tenderly.

“You're right. Love is patient, and God is love. However, I, Candace, have not yet been perfected. So you better come correct and come quick,” she quipped before slipping her fingers out of his hand and stepping out the door.

Ethan hummed “What You Won't Do for Love,” filling Grace's condo with remnants of what must have been an evening well spent with Candace. The wash and glow of love had adorned him when she'd opened her front door for him at 7:00 a.m., and it had not dissipated after an hour of waiting on her. Grace wanted to be happy for him, but she couldn't bring herself to be happy under these circumstances. He'd shown up at her doorstep, chipper and ready to hand deliver her to Javier Roberts, as if she were a trinket that could be written off as damaged.

Not only had this realization stunned her, but it had also left her utterly incapable of making a single decision. She'd taken off her wig at least three times, unsure whether it made her look too youthful or too sexy. Grace didn't want to stimulate Javier's visual senses in any way. Actually, she planned on showing up there looking disheveled and lost, hoping that he'd back out and release her from her obligation. The slightest hint of disarray was a turnoff for Javier Roberts, and she planned on playing on what she knew to get out of this deal. Ethan's reunion with Candace was supposed to be enough to absolve Grace. Apparently, that aspect of it was an epic failure. Their reunion must have spurred a new focus and sense of vigor in Ethan—landing him on Grace's doorstep.

“Grace, you're not preparing for a fashion show. You know that, right? This is just a sit-down. So hurry up and come down,” he shouted up the steps.

“Yes, Ethan,” Grace whined into the air like a teenager talking back to her crabby father.

With the pressure on her, Grace settled for a slouchy tee under a pin-striped blazer, a pair of distressed boyfriend jeans, nude pumps, and a maroon fedora. She paused in front of her full-length mirror and smiled at her reflection. She'd managed to pull together a funky and fashion-forward look without brazenly flaunting her sex appeal. The rawness of her skin tempted her to put on a splash of makeup, but her inner voice prompted her to appear at this sit-down barefaced.
Javier won't be the least bit interested in you when he sees all your imperfections,
she thought.

 

 

Sunlight cascaded through the rectangular sunroof of the conference room of Javier Roberts's studio, causing the square, open-centered conference table to gleam like brass. The brown table and the clean white lines indicated that Javier was still in his purity phase. Grace couldn't recall how long after she'd started working with him that he transformed into this purist and wanted everything in a natural and untempered state.

Staring at Javier through slits for eyes, Grace took measured sips of the kombucha tea Javier's assistant had placed in front of her when she arrived. It was a wee bit cold, mirroring how she felt inside as soon as he entered the room with the producer and took a seat across from her and Ethan at the conference table.

“I think you're a bit underdressed for this meeting,” Ethan whispered into her ear as Javier and the producer took their seats.

“Ethan, what do you want me to do now? Go home and change?”

“Don't be ridiculous. There's no time for your diva antics today. Javier and Dalton Dally didn't request a sit-down before allowing you on the set to play around.”

“Well, then, let's get this over with,” Grace insisted, rolling her neck and raising her voice slightly. “Make sure everything is legit, and spare the small talk,” she said, pursing her lips tightly. The plan was to not utter a word. It had been a long time since she'd sat in Javier's presence, and she didn't know whether or not she'd be able to maintain her composure when she saw him. Every time Grace even thought about his name and this little stunt he was trying to pull, nothing but cuss words filled the cavities of her mind. There were a few times when she envisioned laying hands on him, and not in the biblical sense. Now she had to keep it together or forget about ever getting close to Horace.

Nothing is guaranteed. You could just walk away from this now.
Walking away from the sit-down before it began seemed like the only logical thing to do, but with Ethan seated to her right and that huge vein pulsating in his temple staring at her, this was virtually impossible. Furthermore, the chance to experience even a sliver of love outweighed whatever torture was bound to be wrapped up in this film.

After shuffling through some papers, Javier clapped his hands together, signaling he was prepared to begin this meeting. Grace directed her gaze to the wing-tip shoes Javier was wearing, instead of to his face, as she listened to what he had to say.

“It really, really is an honor to have Grace make her big-screen debut in my film. I can't imagine what took so long to get you here, but I hope that you're fully prepared to star in a Javier Roberts film.” His shrill voice bounced off the walls of the abandoned factory he'd converted into his photography studio and office.

No words came from her mouth. Grace had disseminated her fair share of lies and had labeled them storytelling while she was growing up, but right now saying she was fully prepared to tackle this role was a fable that not even Mother Goose would write.

“Is everything all right, Ms. King?” Dalton Dally, the film's producer, asked, placing his folded hands on the table. “We're prepared to do all that we can to accommodate your schedule so that the filming doesn't conflict with your other obligations. However, I cannot waste any more money holding up production, waiting for you to get it together,” he stated, squaring up his chest like a bull preparing to pounce on a matador.

Grace glanced at Ethan from the corner of her eye and elbowed him, prompting him to be her voice today.

Clearing his throat and adjusting his tie, Ethan chimed in. “Please excuse Grace's silence. She's delving into the role right now.”

“Is that what this fresh-faced look is all about?” Javier asked, winking at Grace. “I love it.” He shifted slightly in his seat to face his partner. “I told you she would be excellent for this role.”

Grace chewed the inside of her cheek. Her plan had backfired: her appearance had only made Javier more excited about reenacting his violation of her temple on the silver screen.

“We don't plan to waste any of your time. Grace is ready to work and is prepared to be on the set as soon as you need her to be.”

Javier drummed his bony fingers on the wooden table. “We've already begun shooting the scenes that we don't need her in. So, here's what I'm thinking . . .” Rising from his metallic swivel chair, Javier traveled around the conference table and sat down beside Grace. “I'll e-mail you a revised version of the shooting schedule this afternoon. I think we can carve out some time for you to begin shooting next week.” He rested his palm on her shoulder and massaged it gently.

Grace tightened her body under his hand. It felt like she was being stabbed with a thousand t-pins. “That sounds fine,” she said quickly, trying to get out from under his grip and put an end to this meeting.

“We'll begin with the most difficult scenes first, just to get the gory stuff out of the way.” Javier brushed the apple of her cheek with the back of his hand. “Let's take a look at the storyboards for the film, just so you have a visual to work with until you're on the set. How does that sound?”

“That sounds great,” Ethan said, smiling while backing his chair away from the table. “I'll head back to the office and get the PR machine pumping.”

Grace grabbed his arm and whispered through clenched teeth, “Don't leave me alone. Please.” She dug her fingers so deeply into his flesh, she could feel some of his skin rip as her nails cut into his arm. Her arm shook as she held on to Ethan's. Leaving her alone with Javier would be disastrous. He'd greedily undressed her with his eyes the moment he sat down beside her, and his hand was now slowly traveling from her shoulder to the center of her back. If left alone with him, Grace was sure that what had happened before would happen again.

Grace shook her head, trying to shut out the voice she'd heard.

She studied Ethan's lips and disregarded Javier's traveling hand. His lips weren't moving, but she was sure she had heard something. “Ethan, what did you just say?”

“I didn't say anything.”

“Are you sure you didn't say something about a hand?” Grace asked, still clutching his arm both for safety and for clarity.

“I'm sure. But I was about to say, ‘Let go of me, Grace.' You're squeezing the life out of me.” Ethan pulled his arm close to his body and investigated the scratches.

Javier cleared his throat and rested his palm on the center of her back. “You must have heard the voice of God, Grace. His hand is all over this. My dreams and my visions—I mean our dreams—will be on the big screen soon.”

The devil is a liar. God's hand is not in this perversion,
she thought, recalling a Sunday school lesson on how the devil had caused lightning and wind to destroy Job's children's home, but those who saw the event said that fire had fallen from heaven. Furthermore, she reasoned that even if God's hand was in this, when He spoke, it wasn't to people like Grace.