The Siren by KATHERINE JOHN (general ebook reader .txt) 📕

the question I needed to ask him and the embarrassment it would cause me. He wouldn’t spare me any shame—I knew him well enough to know that. But time was running out.

I signaled my teammates to play on without me and joined Cole beneath the shade of a thatched umbrella, where he flopped down on a lounger and groaned. A lanky waiter in a pink polo shirt with a name tag that read “Jamal” appeared holding a menu and a large bottle of spring water, which Cole immediately grabbed and began chugging.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Power,” Jamal said. Like most of the staff, he was African-Caribbean with a lilting accent so musical, I could listen to him read the phone book. “What else can I get you?”

Cole wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes fixed on a cruise ship on the horizon. “I need a shoulder massage. From a woman.” He threw Jamal a pained smile. “My head is pounding. Had a little too much fun in Gen Town last night—you know how it goes.”

Jamal nodded, clearly pleased Cole had acknowledged him. “Yes, Mr. Power, I know how it goes.”

Jamal turned and mimed a shoulder rub to a similarly dressed female employee hovering in the shade of the thatched snack shack at the edge of the tree line. She grabbed a bottle of lotion and started across the sand on sturdy legs, her arm raised to shield her eyes from the blazing sun. There went my opportunity to speak to Cole in private.

“Can I get you anything from the menu?” Jamal asked.

“A green shake,” Cole replied, enveloping Jamal in the warmth of his famous crooked grin. “And Tylenol. Thanks, man.”

“No problem.” Jamal returned his smile. “Anytime.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Power,” the female employee said, stepping under the shade of the umbrella. I scanned her name tag. Tina. I liked to learn names. It came in especially useful working for Cole, who loved to think he knew everyone’s name but always got them wrong, and no one ever corrected him. He had confidently called me Tyler for the first month I worked for him, which I guess would have been an understandable mistake if I were a guy.

“Mr. Power needs a shoulder massage,” Jamal told her before departing in the direction of the snack shack.

“Certainly.” Tina displayed a gap-toothed smile. “How do you like the pressure?”

“Gimme everything you got. I can take it.” Cole dazzled her with his brilliant baby blues before flipping onto his stomach.

Flustered, Tina sank to her knees in the sand and began rubbing Cole’s shoulders. “You guys have fun fishing yesterday?” I asked.

He grunted confirmation. “Bartender last night just about killed me though. Kept making specialties he thought I’d like. He was right.”

From what I’d seen on our golf cart tour when we arrived the day before yesterday, “town” on this tiny island was nothing more than one cobblestone road lined with local shops painted in bright Caribbean colors, anchored by a concrete-block post office so miniature it looked like a children’s playhouse. “There are bars in town?”

“One. If it’s still standing after last night.”

“I’d have loved to join you boys,” I said pointedly. “On the fishing trip, too.”

“I didn’t think you’d want to come.”

I bristled. “Why, because I’m a girl?”

“Because you’re a vegetarian.”

“I’m pescatarian. And anyway, Francisco’s vegan and you invited him.”

“He is? I didn’t know that.”

I sighed. What could I do? At the moment I desperately needed the admittedly liberal paycheck that no one else was willing to give me, so I was stuck with him, and he knew it. Anyway, this certainly wasn’t the first time in my career that I’d been excluded due to my extra X chromosome. Not so many years ago, I’m sure he would’ve said it outright (and would have also likely hired strippers). But times had changed: these days I wasn’t explicitly uninvited; I was just left in the dark—a miscommunication, if anyone raised eyebrows. This move would have been impossible if the handful of other women on the crew were around, but their departments—wardrobe, makeup, script supervisor, and a lone female electrician—didn’t arrive until today.

“You’ll need to call the bar and give them a card. I didn’t have one on me,” he continued.

I was his producer, not his personal assistant, though he rarely seemed to know or care where the line was. Everyone in Cole’s orbit simply did whatever he asked, no matter whether or not it fell within the jurisdiction of their job description. But a night on the town wasn’t in our film budget. “Ben has your personal cards,” I returned.

“It’s a film expense.”

I took a controlled breath. “This is an independent film. You know we’re on a tight budget. Anything you spend on things like fishing trips and bar tabs, it comes out of what goes on-screen.”

His laugh had an edge to it. “You gotta stop worrying about money, half-pint.”

I hated the way he called me half-pint, but he claimed the nickname was a term of endearment and found it hilarious. “It’s my job to worry about money.”

He propped up on his elbows, his lips curled into a smile. “It’s my money,” he said lightly. “Just pay the tab and raise the budget. The more I spend on this movie, the less I pay in taxes. You have any idea how much I pay in taxes?”

“Roughly half, I’d guess,” I muttered.

He chuckled. “Not if you have the accountants I do.”

“If we’re raising the budget, I have a list about a mile long of things we actually need that got cut after Steve—”

He held up a hand. “Enough about fucking Steve.”

I bit my tongue. Fucking Steve was the line producer hired before I was brought on. He’d been used to working on much higher-budget films and had so grossly overpaid for everything at the top of the list that he ran out of money long before he reached the bottom, leaving us scavenging for crumbs to make up the rest of the cost. I’d