The Lie

I’m also not surprised there’s some man here to see me, because any time a filmmaker comes in with a proposal or a question or wanting to work with us somehow, they always shuffle them off to see me. I’ve only been here for three weeks and I’m supposed to act like I know everything.

Luckily, I’m pretty good at acting. I mean, at least back in Los Angeles I was.

I get up and leave the office, walking down the narrow hallway with its rock walls and wood floors, before going down the stairs to the main level and reception where Margaret is busy typing on her computer. She stops her flying fingers and nods at the seats by the door, below the range of shitty movie posters.

“This is Professor McGregor from the University of Edinburgh,” she says before going back to work.

A man stands up from the seats and smiles at me.

He’s tall and broad-shouldered, in a black dress shirt and jeans.

Handsome as hell, all cut jaw with the right amount of stubble, high cheekbones and piercing, pale blue eyes.

The kind of handsome that depletes your brain cells.

“Hello,” he says, walking toward me with his hand out.

His smile is blindingly white and absolutely devilish.

“Brigs,” he says to me as I place my hand in his.

His grip is warm and strong.

“You must be Natasha,” he continues.

Right. This is the part where I speak.

“Y-yes,” I stammer, and immediately curse myself for sounding less than poised. “Sorry, I was distracted by…Brigs, you say? That’s an interesting name.”

That’s an interesting name? Man, I’m winning today.

But he laughs and that smile grows wider.

“Yes, well my parents obviously had high hopes for me. Listen, can I have a minute of your time?”

I glance over at Margaret. “Sure. Margaret, is there a room free?”

She shakes her head, not looking up. Usually I have meetings in any of the other offices.

“Okay, well then.” I give Brigs an apologetic look. “Follow me. We’ll have to use my office, and I apologize ahead of time because it’s literally a closet. They keep me like Rapunzel up there.”

I walk down the hall and up the stairs, shooting him a glance over my shoulder to make sure he’s following. I expect him to be looking at my ass because it’s pretty much in his face, and it’s the largest thing in the building, but instead he’s looking right at me, as if he was expecting to meet my eyes.

“Here we are,” I tell him when we reach the top, stepping inside my office and squeezing between the edge of the desk and the wall. I sit down on my chair with a sigh.

“Wow, you weren’t kidding,” he says, hunched over so his head doesn’t smash into the ceiling. “Is there maybe a bucket I could sit on?”

I jerk my head at the stool that’s currently covered by scripts. “If you want to pass me those screenplays.”

He starts piling them on my desk, and takes a seat, long legs splayed.

I peer at him over the pile and give him my most charming smile. I really wish I had bothered to look at myself in the mirror before meeting him. I probably have kale in my teeth.

“So, how can I help you Professor McGregor?”

“Brigs.” That smile again.

“Brigs,” I say, nodding. “Oh, and let me preface our conversation by letting you know I am an intern, and I’ve only been here three weeks and I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“An intern?” he asks, rubbing his hand along his jaw. “Not from my program.”

“I go to school in London.”

“Kings College?”

“No, I wish. I couldn’t afford it.”

“Ah, international student fees. Are you Canadian? American?”

“You mean I don’t sound British?” I joke. “I’m American. And yeah, the fees were too much, even though I have a French passport from my father’s side, though that only went through this year. Anyway, I’m rambling. Sorry. I go to Met for film. It was slightly cheaper.”

He nods. “Fine school.”

“That’s a very diplomatic teacher answer.”

“And I’m a diplomatic teacher.”

God, to have a student-teacher affair with him. But I’m twenty-five and he looks like he’s in his early to mid-thirties, so it wouldn’t be all that scandalous and…

My thoughts trail off when I catch sight of his wedding ring for the first time.

Oh.

Well, that figures.

Still, I can stare at him, married or not.

“So, what brings you here?” I manage to say.

“Well, it’s funny,” he says, running his hand through his mahogany hair. “I came here for one reason, and now I have two.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Okay.”

“One reason is that our program at school has trouble competing with the bigwigs down in London, so we decided that perhaps sponsorship of the film festival would give us the right exposure at the right place. In the end, there can only be so many winners, and when the festival is over and the failed filmmakers want to quit, that’s when we want to steal them, take advantage of their low self-esteem, and bring them into our program.”

I purse my lips. “That’s a very pessimistic way of looking at things.”

“I’m a realist,” he says brightly.

“An opportunist.”

“Same thing.”

Well, we could actually use some more sponsors. “All right, well I’ll have to run this past Margaret and Ted, but I think this is something we’d like to work with you on. What’s the other thing?”