The First Assistant Read Online Free PDF

ex-wife, Mia, at bay when he was having “meet-ings” with cute young actresses that lasted considerably longer than it took to discuss a five-year plan; in fact, she’d often been the girl in tow on his “business trips” to Napa, so she knew the deceptions and excuses and was determined that they’d never happen again. Lara had pretty much turned Scott around—he hadn’t touched any substance more potent than espresso since their honeymoon at the Meadows Clinic in Arizona and even fooling around had been off his radar (until the last few days with the mysterious actress in his office). Lara was a formidable woman and having a baby and getting her man may have meant her figure had softened, but it had taken none of the angles off her character; she was still as arch and tough as they came, and I didn’t envy Amber at this moment in time as Lara eased herself behind the wheel of her SLK and hot-tailed it over from the Palisades.
    “I can’t find the paperwork for Russell’s new movie,” Amber informed me immediately when I walked in the door.
    “Have you checked the file?” I dumped my purse and went to knock on Scott’s door to deliver his coffee.
    “Of course, do you think I’m completely thick?” Amber said in her cut glass accent, and rolled her eyes. “Oh, and I wouldn’t go in there. I think the actress is back. She just asked if he wanted to put his head between her legs.”
    “Really?” I withdrew my hand before it could make contact with Scott’s door.
    “She sounds as if she’s fifteen.” Amber smiled in a self-satisfied way. “We have to get her out of there.” I grimaced.
    “Rather you than me.”
    “Lara’s on her way over.” I tried to peer through Scott’s wooden blinds, but they were firmly down. Amber’s face lit up.
    “Well, she is his wife. I suppose she has a right to know if he’s being unfaithful.” She smiled.
    “Help me get her out or I’ll tell Scott you used a company courier to have your macrobiotic lunch biked over from Silver Lake,” I threatened. “And I’ll tell him that you burned six months’ worth of irreplaceable paperwork on a bonfire in your wastebasket because you were too lazy
    to file it.”
    “What are you talking about?” I said, taken aback. I couldn’t believe she’d bust me. I blinked in horror.
    “There’s a burn mark on the carpet by your desk.”
    “Do and I’ll kill you,” I spat, but she didn’t seem too convinced by my threat because she just carried on typing,
    “Hmmm, I wonder where the paperwork is for the seventeen-million- dollar contract we’ve just done for Nic. I suppose I should ask Scott if he’s seen it.” But before I could snarl anything back at her, my phone rang. The single ring of an internal call.
    “Hello,” I answered.
    “Lara Wagner’s on her way up,” the receptionist sang.
    “Shit.” I put down the phone and ran back to Scott’s office door. I glued my ear to it.
    “Would you like me standing up?” the girl asked. And she did sound fifteen, Amber hadn’t been lying. Jesus, they were taking their time. Was she introducing Scott to Tantric Sex?
    “Scott.” I knocked loudly. “I’ve got your coffee. And Lara’s here!” I yelled so that he’d hear me through the heavy door of a powerful man’s office.
    “Wassup?” he shouted.
    “Lara’s on her way up!” I repeated urgently.
    “Shit!” I heard Scott shout, as something crashed to the ground. I closed my eyes and prayed that the girl would make it out of his office with a passable amount of clothes on before the elevator pinged at the end of our hallway. At least we were in the movie industry where there’s nothing too suspicious about a girl wandering around in a skirt and bra—that’s all actresses wear all the time, anyway.
    “Lizzie?” Lara stood in the doorway looking circumspectly at me. “What’s going on?”
    “Oh, nothing. Nothing at all,” I said without moving from in front of Scott’s door. It wasn’t as