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With a bounce in her step and a shake of her breasts, she walked away into one of the many lounges we had set up for the actors.
I shook my head, making my way toward my office. White Lace headquarters was simple, understated. We didn’t need a big space since we always filmed on location. With the exception of the movie posters that littered the walls, you’d think this was just another humdrum office.
I rapped my knuckles on my assistant’s desk and said a quiet, “Good morning.”
Barbara was a middle-aged woman, actually the mother of one of our former actors. Without looking up from her desk, she thrust a folder at me. “Budget reports from the feature.” She finally looked up. “We’re over.”
I cursed under my breath.
“I printed off the new communications campaign.” She knew I hated reviewing things on the computer. For some reason my brain analyzed more carefully in hard copy.
“Heavy focus on social media this time.” One of her eyebrows quirked up at me. Barb had been my assistant since I’d started working for my father full-time four years ago. She kept me organized and on track. I needed her…and she knew it.
“Good. It’s what I asked for.” Our subscription sales for the website were through the roof and I wanted to leverage that online community.
She handed me another folder. “Casting list for tomorrow.” She cocked her head. “Don’t some of these girls take the hint? I see the same names all the time.”
I laughed. “Apparently they don’t.”
I looked down at the casting list, also recognizing a couple of names. A few women had been trying for the last year to score a role in one of our productions, but they just didn’t have it. No matter how much collagen or Botox was pumped into their flesh, they didn’t have that…something. That spark I had a knack for picking out.
My father and I were a good team. I had an uncanny ability to sniff out the next big star. Signing unknowns and turning them into household names was the reason women were chomping at the bit to work here. On top of the excellent working conditions. My father and I worked hard to help them build a brand and create a following.
How did I get this talent? Who knows. Sometimes I think it’s comes naturally. Growing up in a house full of porn stars coming and going, maybe it was inevitable I’d be able to instinctively find the ones who had star quality.
I hid myself in my office, and an hour later Barb stuck her head in. I knew it was her without her even saying a word; her short, red hair was unmistakable from the corner of my eye. “I picked up your tuxedo from the dry cleaners and got your tickets for the gala. You’re all set for Thursday.”
I groaned. I’d forgotten about Thursday. I had received my obligatory invite to the annual gala for Phoenix House, a non-profit that ran six women’s shelters in the city. It was an organization close to my mother’s heart. She had spent a lot of her time and money helping hundreds of women looking for a fresh start. She’d even arranged to have an in-house career counselor on staff, working full-time, ensuring that every woman had the opportunity to make something of themselves. “Thanks, Barb. I had forgotten about it.”
She walked into my office and hung the tux on the coatrack to the right of my desk.
“There are two tickets.” She patted the envelope she’d stapled to the plastic.
“I told you I only need one.” I never brought a date to the gala. The women I dated all had a certain…look, and I’d be damned if I was going to subject them to curious stares and sneers.
“I don’t like you going into the lion’s den without backup.” She crossed her arms over her chest, feet shoulder-width apart, giving me her best motherly stare.
And I appreciated it. She was the closest thing to a mother I’d had in a long time.
“You want to come with me, Barb?”
“Honey, you don’t want to bring an old lady like me as your date.” She winked and approached, placing her hand against my cheek in a nurturing gesture. “You need to find yourself a nice girl, Max. One who isn’t trying to date you so she can get her cooch in a movie.”
I laughed. Despite her age and motherly instincts, Barb was nowhere near appropriate.
“Which is exactly why I go solo. I don’t need to perpetuate the stereotype these people already have of me.”
Showing up with a big-breasted bombshell was only going to make them laugh harder behind my back. Even though the wives that hung off the arms of some of these business tycoons who also donated looked like porn stars themselves.
“You know what those people are like. Why would I bring a woman there to deal with that?”
I never really understood why my mother wasted her time with a charity that for the most part believed our money was laundered, even extorted.
This year wouldn’t be any different. The partygoers would be a bunch of stuffy old men and women, boasting about European vacations and golf memberships, and never about the people they were supposed to be helping. They were only there for the pat on the back.
“Well, then, maybe you should bring a nice girl instead of the floozies you usually date.”
A nice girl? Where was I going to find—
