The Lie(9)

I wait for the next train, get off at Charing Cross as usual, and walk to school.





CHAPTER TWO

Natasha

Edinburgh

Four Years Ago




“Natasha, do you have a moment? There’s a Brigs McGregor here to see you.”

“Brigs who?” I ask into the phone. “Is that a first name?” The line crackles and I can barely hear my supervisor Margaret. That’s what they get for sticking me in a closet upstairs and calling it an office. Obviously they were so eager to have an intern here, busting her ass and working for free, that they’d make an office out of anything. I’m grateful I don’t have to type on a toilet.

“Just come downstairs,” Margaret says before hanging up the phone.

I sigh and blow a wayward strand of hair out of my eyes. I’m piled knee-deep in script submissions which should have been the highlight of this job, but since ninety percent of these submissions for the short film festival suck, my days have become exceedingly tedious.

When I first applied for the internship for the Edinburgh Short Film Festival, I thought it would be a good way to get extra experience before heading into my final year of my Master’s degree, especially as I’m targeting my thesis toward the influence of festivals on feature films. At least, I think that’s my thesis. I also thought getting out of London for the summer and checking out Edinburgh would be a nice change of pace, especially from all the dickheads I keep hanging around with at school.

And while I guess those things are true—I am getting good material for my thesis, and I am loving Edinburgh—I didn’t expect to be the company’s little slave girl. Not that I’m little, not with these hips and ass that can barely fit in this damn closet-cum-office, but I’m literally scrambling around from eight in the morning to seven at night, and sometimes I think I’m running the whole show by myself. For example, now they’ve put me on script submissions for the contest they have going (the winning script gets all the equipment to shoot it), and they expect me to pick the winner. While I’m flattered with the responsibility, I’m not sure it should fall into my hands.

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.