LITMIR.BIZ

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door. ‘You got the flowers….’ There was an attempt at a joke, when Ella really wasn’t in the mood for one. ‘Now do you see why I need a PA? Even flowers I manage to screw up.’

      ‘So you were going to fire me, after you slept with me.’

      ‘No, no, you have it all wrong.’

      ‘I was a dead certainty, was I?’

      ‘Yes.’ He made no apology about it. ‘I was certain that tonight I was going to make love to you.’

      ‘So, how was Marianna?’

      ‘She was everything that you said she was. Ella, please, will you just listen?’

      ‘You don’t want me to hang around and train her up?’

      ‘Ella…’

      She didn’t let him get a word in.

      ‘Because it shouldn’t take long—I’ve streamlined the process….’

      ‘Really!’ Santo’s raised an eyebrow. He actually rather liked her angry. ‘How so?’

      ‘Well, you’re a full-time job, but not a very complicated one. She watched his tongue roll in his cheek. ‘I’ll just hand her the Santo Bag.’

      ‘The Santo Bag?’

      ‘It contains all the essentials.’

      And she took the huge bag she’d been carrying around and adding to for four months now, and tipped the contents onto his bed.

      ‘New white shirt, grey tie, black tie…’ She glanced over and there was a very unrepentant smile curving on his lips. ‘You do seem to attend an inordinate amount of funerals.’

      ‘The company I keep,’ Santo said, because actors lived and played hard as well, ‘and I have a complicated family too.’

      ‘Headache pills,’ Ella said. ‘And sunglasses.’

      Santo said nothing.

      ‘Condoms—you tend to run out an awful lot.’ Tears pricked at her eyes as she remembered a frantic 3:00 a.m. phone call from her boss, and she was so blisteringly angry with him, so completely furious with herself for loving him. Loathing him too, for all he had, however unwittingly, put her heart through, because it had killed to see him with others.

      ‘We shoot in strange locations.’ But he wasn’t smiling now, realising now the depth of her hurt, because until last week there hadn’t been any hint that she even liked him.

      ‘First aid kit and those amazing gel Band-Aids…’ She heard his breathing come angry and hard as she reminded him of one time. ‘Great for carpet burn.’

      ‘I get the message, Ella.’

      ‘Oh, I haven’t finished yet. Antiseptic…’ she continued. ‘Great for scratches.’

      ‘You were jealous.’ He was angry with himself for not seeing it, angry with her too, for all she had put herself through. ‘All that time…’

      ‘Jealous!’ She snorted. ‘I’m not jealous, Santo, I’m sick of it. You don’t need a PA following you around—you need a school nurse!’

      And she hated him for smiling then, hated the stealth of his approach. Yes, she was jealous, had, even though she’d denied it, been hot, spitting jealous and even worse than that, now he knew.

      ‘Do you know what you need?’

      He picked a condom up from the bed and then he tossed it. ‘Oh, that’s right, we don’t use them.’

      ‘Of all the arrogant—’ He hushed her with his mouth, pushed her against the wall with a kiss so violent there was a clash of enamel and she tried to push him off.

      ‘You do need it,’ Santo said, refusing to release her, his hands pushing up her skirt. ‘You need a quick reminder of how good we are. And then we’re going to talk.’

      ‘When you fire me?’ she spat out.

      ‘When I hire you.’ He reclaimed her mouth as he tore at her panties and—love him or loathe him, she didn’t know—all Ella knew was that she was kissing him back. She’d never had angry sex before, had never been caught in a row that came with pure passion. At the return of her kiss he lifted her and she found that he was backing her into another wall, his mouth still on hers as he spoke. ‘I was going to offer you a job….’

      ‘As what? Your on-set tart?’

      Right now she’d take it. She was kissing him back and grappling with his zipper. ‘I hate you, Santo,’ she told him. ‘I hate that you planned this.’

      ‘You love it.’

      He lifted her onto him, and she hated more the legs that so willingly wrapped around him, but then, he’d taken off that shackle. This was no threat to her job. As of now, she didn’t work for him, and she found herself feeling surprisingly free.

      ‘You love it, more than you want to admit to it.’ He was inside her and she was grinding down. ‘You are the most uptight woman I know,’ Santo said, ‘except in the bedroom.’ She was starting to come and trying to hold on to it. ‘Guess what?’ He was battering into her, not just her sex but her head. ‘I accept that…’ He went to say something more, but gave in. She could hear the neighbours banging on the wall as Santo switched to rapid Italian, heard her own moans and shouts as they locked into oblivion. He was right, she loved it. She was just petrified of loving him.

      ‘I have to change rooms.’ She was leaning on him, stunned and a bit dizzy, never wanting to face her neighbours again, but Santo lifted her chin to face him.

      ‘There’s something I came to tell you this afternoon.’ Ella looked up at him. ‘I fired Rafaele.’

      He was an absolute gentleman. He took her shredded panties and put them in the bin, retrieved a wayward shoe and even smoothed her skirt for her as she processed the news. It was huge to fire a director mid-shoot and she didn’t dare hope, didn’t dare dream. He tucked in his shirt and did everything up, a strange attempt to separate this from the bedroom, except she could feel him trickling between her thighs.

      ‘Ella, I have given a lot of thought as to his replacement and I think you would make an amazing director.’

      ‘Santo.’ She ran a tongue over her lip, a lip swollen from passion and the bruising crush of his kiss. ‘I don’t know what to say. Is it because you can’t get anyone else?’

      ‘I have three people who can fly out tonight.’ He scuppered that argument with a flick of his wrist.

      ‘Then is it because…’ She couldn’t even bring herself to say it. ‘Santo, you’re right. I should never have considered you doing me a favour just because we slept with each other.’

      ‘It has nothing to do with sex.’ He was almost stern as he said it. ‘I would never hire for that reason, never. A director’s role is too important. I am only hiring you because I now think you are right for the role. I have given it some serious thought and have come to the conclusion that you would be fantastic—you understand the movie inside out. You have seen the disaster Rafaele has made…’

      Ella nodded.

      ‘And you know what the movie needs.’

      ‘Taylor would never agree.’

      ‘She already has,’ Santo said. ‘There was a lot of trouble on set today. Things turned very nasty and, you’re right, it is not her acting that is at fault. I spoke to her at length. That is when I told her your suggestions and how passionate you are about this film. She is happy to work with you.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Fresh vision is always good,’ Santo said. ‘So here is your chance.’

      She was terrified, because his earlier argument had been right. She

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