* * *
“Garrett, my friend, you made it.” Ray Donovan broke away from a small group near the terrace and met Garrett halfway across the room. They shook hands and Ray pulled Garrett into a full body hug.
“You threatened to pull your next movie if I didn’t.” Resigned, he squeezed back and then stepped away, creating the distance he preferred. “I’m no fool.”
Ray laughed. “You’re all kinds of a fool, but you’re not stupid.”
Garrett shrugged. There was no arguing with the truth.
“Let’s get you some food.” Ray led him to the dining room and the table spread with a diverse array of dishes, pretty, elegant dishes that probably appealed to the many starlets drifting about.
“I’m not really hungry.”
“My friend, you’ve got to eat, you’re wasting away. Get your nose out of the air. Just because food is beautiful doesn’t mean it should be dismissed. This is the best food I’ve ever had at a party. Try the bacon-wrapped meatballs and the chipped beef poofs. I particularly like the spaghetti stuffed garlic bites.” He tossed a bite-size nugget into his mouth.
“So I lost some weight. I had a broken jaw if you’ll remember.” Along with a crushed left leg and shattered collarbone. All compliments of an SUV crashing broadside into the car he was traveling in. He’d lived through it. His father hadn’t.
Garrett felt a pinch at his lack of grief.
“Some? That suit is hanging on you, buddy.”
Garrett glanced down. “So?”
“So, you’re the head of the studio now. You need to dress the part. Here—” Ray picked up the plate of spaghetti bites, tossed on a few mushroom caps and assorted other items “—let’s take this upstairs and you can tell me how you’re doing. Oh, whoa.” An attendant walked by with a plate of chocolate cupcakes. “Diane, be a doll and give that plate to my friend, would you.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Donovan.” The attendant handed Garrett the plate with a smile.
Ray took his booty and walked around the corner to a spiral staircase that took them to a loft overlooking the living area below. A wall of windows offered a spectacular vista of the ocean during the day. Tonight the view consisted of the dancing on the patio below. A four-foot-high glass balcony wall ran the length of the loft.
Garrett sat down in a cream leather armchair and set the plate down on a black glass table. Ray set the food on the ottoman and Garrett took a chipped beef poof. Kudos to Ray. The food was the best he’d had since the accident. He reached for another.
“How’s the leg?” Ray asked.
“Better. Therapist says it’s at 90 percent.”
“Wow, that’s great.” Ray went to the bar. “You were pretty messed up when I visited you in the hospital. So they put a pin in?”
“Several. Total reconstruction of my thigh and knee.” Four surgeries kept him in and out of the hospital for eight months. It’s only during the past two months he’d felt like he got his feet under him again. “Just call me Robo Director.”
“Robo CEO. You’re head of the studio now.”
“There’s something I never expected.” He accepted a Scotch, took a small sip, and set the cup down. He was driving and on meds. He’d come too far in physical rehabilitation to risk a setback now. “I have to admit I’m still wrapping my mind around the fact.”
“Really? You used to have a lot of ideas of what you’d do when you got the reins.” Ray dropped into the ivory bucket chair next to him.
“Not since Dad and I had a falling-out. I told you about that.”
“Sure, he insisted you take on director of creativity for the studio and then overturned most of your decisions.”
“I warned him to stop, but he did it once too often and I quit. He retaliated by blackballing me from the studio.”
“Ah. You didn’t tell me that.”
“Sorry. It wasn’t something I wanted to get around.” Just as he didn’t tell his friend about the studio’s damaged reputation. “Needless to say, I figured I was out of the will.”
But he’d been wrong. Or more likely Dad hadn’t gotten around to changing his will in the past six years. He still didn’t know what prompted the invitation to Thanksgiving dinner. Either way Garrett had his work cut out for him if he wanted to bring the studio back to its former glory. Gossip traveled fast and far in the movie business, which accounted for the loss of contracts. He didn’t want anyone knowing a continuing decline could put Obsidian Studios in financial distress.
“You’re an only child,” Ray pointed out. “The studio has been family owned for ninety years. Obviously in the end blood was stronger thangrudges.”
“I suppose.” Whatever the reason, the studio was now his, and Garrett refused to let it fail on his watch.
Looking for a diversion, he swung the chair around to overlook the crowd below. Absently he reached for another meatball. Immediately he spied the sleek ponytail of his bothersome valet. She stood in a hall just off the entry talking to another woman.
She’d lost her jacket and under it she wore a halter sheath dress square at the neck and ending a few inches above her knees. The little black dress at its classic best. It didn’t cling but draped her lithe figure, hinting at more than it revealed unlike so many of the other dresses shrink-wrapped on the women roaming the room.
His gaze returned to the women in black. He frowned and blinked. Then blinked again, wondering if the one sip of alcohol was enough to have him seeing double. No, there were two of them. The second woman’s dress was scoop-necked and she wore her hair in a lower tail clipped back rather than banded.
“Who are the dynamic duo?” He lifted his chin in the direction of the girls and Ray shifted in his chair to see who he referenced.
“Ah.” His friend’s blue eyes lighted on the women with unerring precision. “They are Lauren and Tori Randall, my event coordinators. They handled the premiere of Pretty Little Witches a few months ago.”
A dark brow lifted at that. Even cooped up convalescing, he’d heard of the successful event.
“The movie flopped,” Ray went on. “But people are still talking about the premiere. When I decided to throw a party, I had my assistant call them. The name of their company is By Arrangement.”
Garrett’s mouth quirked up at the clever name, a nice play on their being twins. Actually the name sounded familiar. Probably in connection with the premiere. The women broke up, his valet heading to the kitchen, the other moving off in the other direction. Garrett turned away. The woman had already taken up too much of his time.
He nailed Ray with a pointed stare. “When are you going to be finished with my house?” He’d rented his place to Ray for his current film project Gates of Peril while he stayed at the family manor adjacent to the studio. The drive was easier on his leg, but he’d like to get away from it on the weekends. “I’m getting tired of the dusty old manor.”
“Not much longer. Maybe a month.”
“A month? What the hell, Ray? I happen to know you’re also over budget.”
“Yeah, but the special effects are sick. Another month and two million should see a wrap.” The director shook his head. “The set is a circus. All kinds of people underfoot. Jenna Vick is stellar, but she just got engaged and she’s distracted by her fiancé. And the effects coordinator has his kids on-site because his sitter was in a fender