accidentally stepped on the old pair when they’d fallen off the desk in her apartment.
“We are, too,” Carroll continued and folded his hands over his stack of papers.
Jenner sat right next to him, smiling across the table at Ava.
“Yes, that’s great,” she continued as she pushed copies of the bound pages toward each of them. When they were both looking down at the cover page, Ava took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“That brings me to this new pitch. Two young African American women spend their weekdays attending competing law schools, drinking and partying on weekends and navigating the murky waters of dating 24/7. This new, vibrant, urban take on sex and young professionals in the city will cater to the twenty-to thirtysomething crowd. A prime time slot would be Sunday evenings. This would be an hour-long show, with a huge draw to advertisers geared toward the female consumer.”
Jenner flipped through the pages of the script and glanced down at them. Carroll did neither. Instead, Ava found him staring at her as he drummed his fingers over his stack of papers.
“We have another idea in mind,” Carroll told her.
Ava was about to open her mouth to speak, but she thought better of it. She always tried to evaluate her words carefully. Something else she’d learned from her mother, or rather because of her mother. Eleanor Cannon said whatever she wanted to say, whenever she wanted to say it. Even if it ended with hurt feelings or offense. Her mother believed that because she was a millionaire, she was entitled to speak her mind and never apologized for doing so. But Ava believed in giving people respect and demanded the same in return.
“I don’t understand,” she replied finally.
“Not that this wouldn’t be great,” Jenner began. “You’ve already proven that you have your finger on the pulse of what viewers want. And your pitch was quite intriguing. But I’m looking for something specific to boost our reality television programming.”
“I see,” Ava said. “I don’t write reality TV shows.”
She rarely even watched them. While they were extremely profitable and most brought in huge ratings and large sums of advertising dollars, they didn’t exhibit the creativity and originality Ava liked to pour into her shows.
“You haven’t yet,” Carroll said, his excited smile spreading widely across his face.
The last time Ava had seen that smile was the day he’d shown up in her trailer on the set in New York to tell her they’d been renewed for a second season. That had been just six hours before she’d returned to her trailer with another man—the man who continued to creep into her thoughts on a daily basis.
“These are notes on the previous show of this kind,” Carroll continued. “We want you to look at these to get a feel for the subject matter.”
“You’ll still have creative freedom to work this out in the way you see fit, but we’re really aiming for the family reunion angle. If you can have a preliminary outline of the show in three months, we’ll be ready to shoot the first pilot right after the first of the year. We already have the time slot selected. It will air at eight o’clock Thursday evening, with its debut on Thanksgiving Day. This will give us time to put a vigorous promotional plan in effect,” Jenner told her.
Carroll was nodding now as he pushed that pile of papers across the table to her.
“Doctor’s Orders is number one in the Thursday at eight slot,” she said slowly, not liking where she felt like this was going.
“We know! We know,” Carroll continued with glee. “That’s why this is so perfect. That’s why you are the perfect one to write this new script.”
“I thought reality shows were supposed to be unscripted,” Ava told him. “If you already have the idea and time slot locked in, you don’t need me.”
Besides, Marcelle, her agent, hadn’t said anything to her about the network wanting her to work on a different project. She’d spoken to her late last night, and they were both pumped about the new pilot idea. Ava wasn’t interested in a reality television show.
“Oh, but we do need you,” Jenner said. “I believe you can bring a fresh slant to this idea and the execution of the show.”
Carroll nodded enthusiastically. “We both believe you can do this, Ava. Especially since you already have a foot in the door with one of the stars of the show,” Carroll continued.
“What are you talking about?” Ava asked. “This is the first I’ve heard of this show at all. How do I know who is starring in it?”
Carroll rubbed his thick fingers together, and Ava could swear his cool gray eyes glowed with excitement.
“His name is Gage Taylor. He just worked on Doctor’s Orders with you,” Carroll said.
Gage Taylor, as in the gorgeous doctor whom she’d spent the last two and a half months acting as if she weren’t attracted to? The man whom she’d finally decided to have once and for all as a celebratory prize for the second season renewal? The guy whom she hadn’t seen since that night, yet had thought about at least once each day in the past two weeks?
“He’s a doctor,” she said after taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly. “Is this show about doctors? Because I really don’t want to work in the same area. That’s why my new show idea is so different from Doctor’s Orders. One is a procedural drama, while the other will be mostly drama, with lots of sex thrown in.”
“No,” Jenner replied. “This show is not about doctors. It has its own fantastic and totally original idea we’re trying to bring across!” Jenner told her. “It’s a reality television family coming back together thirty years after their original story aired. We’re going to call it The Taylors of Temptation: Remember the Times.”
Ava sat back in her chair and stared at them.
“Thirty years ago, Olivia and Theodor Taylor had the first sextuplets born in the town of Temptation, Virginia. The parents are dead now, but we want to bring the sextuplets together again, in Temptation, to see how their lives have changed,” Jenner told her. “The network is already on board with the concept and you writing it. All you have to do is grab your computer and head out to Temptation to get started.”
She had never heard of The Taylors of Temptation. Probably because she was only twenty-seven, and this show would have originally aired before she was born. Gage Taylor had come to her via recommendation from Daniel, her production assistant, whose wife, Leslie, was one of Gage’s patients. Ava had known they’d need a consultant to make sure the story lines surrounding the doctors and the clinic where they worked was as authentic as possible. So she’d taken Daniel’s and Leslie’s word for how good Gage was and ended up enjoying working with him. A lot.
She folded her hands in her lap and shook her head once more. “I do not write reality television,” she told them again.
This time Carroll’s smile disappeared, and the cold edge of those gray eyes rested solely on her.
“Then you don’t write another show for this network,” he said with finality.
Ava couldn’t breathe. She wanted to curse or kick something...possibly Carroll. Instead she kept her lips tightly clamped.
“Look, Ava, we like you,” Jenner began. “Doctor’s Orders is doing very well, and we’d love to continue working with you. To possibly develop other shows with you in the future. But for right now, this is the show we want. Do you understand?”
She absolutely did. They were giving her an ultimatum. One Ava didn’t know if she could walk away from.
Temptation, Virginia
One