Heartthrob Read Online Free PDF Page B

do.”
    Kate gave in to the urge to peek out into the other room, to see who possibly could have read her script and not understood instantly that the part of Moses, the slave, was a part to die for.
    The man with attitude was none other than Jamaal Hawkes, one of Hollywood’s spiciest flavors of the month. Except Jamaal was more than a tall, young, dark-skinned black man with well-defined muscles and a harshly handsome, impossibly photogenic face. He had true talent. It was yet to be discovered, though, if he had the discipline and drive necessary to shape himself into a major player.
    He was wearing what had to be a thousand-dollar designer suit that was tailored to fit. His shirt was crisp and white, and he had on gold cuff links and a matching tie clip. His only other jewelry was a small gold hoop earring in his left ear.
    “I’m not going to dance for you, Jamaal,” Victor said quietly. “I want you for this movie, because I think you can do justice to this part.”
    “The slave.”
    As Kate watched, Victor gestured for Jamaal to sit. The young man hesitated until Victor sat down first. He wasn’t as confident as he sounded. But why should he be? Even though he looked and dressed like a grown man, he was only a teenager. Less than three years ago, he’d been living on the bottom edge of the middle class with his social worker mother and two sisters. Now he had a penthouse on Central Park West. He was still new at this game, and learning the rules as he played.
    “Moses is the third biggest part in the movie,” Victor told him. “Your agent wants you to do it because it’s Best Supporting Actor material. And it’s different from the roles you’ve played up to now. That’s good for your career.”
    Jamaal sat down on the very edge of the sofa.
    “
I
want you to do it,” Victor continued, “because I can’t think of another actor who can do justice to this part.”
    “I’m just not sure I want anything to do with playing a slave.”
    Victor nodded. “Have you read the script?”
    Kate went back to the computer, but she left the doorpartly open so she could hear the two men talking. It wasn’t eavesdropping. If Victor knew she were here, he’d invite her to join the meeting. But this way she could listen in and still get her work done.
    “I’ve read some of it,” Jamaal admitted.
    “It’s a good script.”
    “It’s a story about a white man.”
    Victor chuckled. “That’s right. Laramie. Your character, the slave, Moses, was friends with Laramie’s sister-in-law Jane when they were little. And this girl, Jane, she was really into Moses. Even though he was a slave, he was like her hero, you know? And she had this crazy dream that when she was old enough, she would buy Moses and they’d go out west and she’d set him free.”
    “Jane’s a white girl.” It wasn’t quite a question.
    “Yeah. When the story takes place, she’s still very young—only fourteen. And Moses, he’s about your age. Eighteen or nineteen.”
    “And they have a thing going? This little white girl and this slave?”
    “It’s more complicated than that,” Victor told him. “But yeah, there’s definitely an attraction between them, along with this long-standing childhood friendship. Anyway, what happens is, at the beginning of the movie, the plantation owner dies and his son inherits—and this son, Reginald Brooks, he’s a real bastard. He sells off a whole bunch of the slaves—he doesn’t care that he’s separating families, he only cares about money. Moses is sold and taken farther south, and Jane doesn’t see him for about four years. When she does see him after all that time, he’s on the block, being sold again, and he’s wearing chains because he’s a runaway, right? He’s tried to escape to the north, and now they’ve got to keep him locked up because they know if they don’t, he’ll run again. And his old owner—the real son of a bitch, Reg Brooks—he buys Moses back and basically kicks