Make It Happen - Elyssa Patrick Page 0,2
now, but she would be.
He had an instinct about these things.
Kate snatched the e-mail from his hand and quickly read it. “Oh. My mom actually said that. How embarrassing that she told you everything.”
Sam nodded, feeling even more sympathetic toward Kate. Her mother had been honest in the email, leaving no skeleton unearthed, in the hopes that her daughter would be chosen. It had worked.
Still, family could be a pain, thinking that they knew better. And, well, Kate’s mother wasn’t here, didn’t even live in New York. Kate was the one who would have to be on national television, and face public scrutiny.
He gentled his voice, because he wanted her to do this, so that she could prove everyone wrong. “Kate, can I come in? It can’t hurt to listen to what I have to say. At the very least, I can clean myself up.” He tapped a finger to his cheek and came away with even more chocolate.
She winced and stepped aside to let him and his camera crew into her apartment. “Yes, of course. I am sorry about the chocolate missile.”
“It’s okay. And thank you.” He turned to Charlie, the producer of the show, once the door had shut behind them. A dog was barking from the bedroom. That’s right. Kate had a dog. “Tell them to stop filming.”
“You said to––”
“Not now.” He nodded his head in Kate’s direction. “She hasn’t agreed to appear on the show.”
Charlie cleared his throat, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses, and glanced at Kate. “You’re not going to do the show?”
“We’re still working out the details,” Sam said.
“Okay, you’re the boss, Sam. I’ll tell them.” Charlie walked over to the cameramen, leaving them alone.
Sam stepped closer to Kate. There had to be a way to get her to do the show. Maybe he could appeal to something she actually wanted, something more than the money.
“You lost your job, right?”
“You could say that.” She attempted a careless shrug but failed miserably with the bitterness that tinged her voice.
Ah, so it bothered her. As it should. “And how did that happen?”
Kate glared at him. “I think you already know.”
“I do.” Sam had read all about it and spoken over the phone to Kate’s former co-workers, her friends, and family. They had all said the same thing: the school had been looking to cut teachers due to budget cuts. Unfortunately teachers at the bottom were the first to go.
“To be honest with you, I didn’t really like teaching,” she said, surprising him with her honesty. “But I don’t know what I want to do, and that’s kind of . . . scary.”
He got that. Kate didn’t know how much he got it, but he did. It was scary to not know what direction your life was headed toward. Sometimes, he thought he’d never be on the path he wanted to be on. “Didn’t you major in acting, too?”
“I did, but it’s not as if I went after it.”
“Did you want to?”
She looked at him for a long moment, and he got the distinct impression that she was trying to decide whether to answer him or not. It surprised Sam how much he hoped she would tell him.
And then she nodded. “It was a silly dream, though. Nothing would have come of it, so I didn’t go for it. Maybe I should have, but . . .”
“But . . . what?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?”
Yes, it did matter. And not just for the show. He wanted to know what the “but” was. He wanted to know more. Had she been scared to go after a dream? He could relate to that. After all, it wasn’t as if making over people was what he really wanted to do, either.
God, what was he even thinking about right now?
He needed to convince her to sign on the dotted line, to agree to this madness, and to roll the dice, despite all the evidence that not once in her twenty-eight years had Kate Templar taken a risk.
Moving closer to Kate, Sam thought of his Hollywood connections. It wouldn’t be hard to get her a few auditions, even if she couldn’t act. There were many so-called actresses cast every day because of their image and looks alone. She didn’t need to be the next Meryl Streep. And even better, the acting angle would only work better for the show. It would make It Girl more interesting. And it viewers would love the angle, too.
“I can help you.”
“With what?”
“With acting. I do have connections.