Free A Midsummer Night's Fling (Much Ado about Love #1) by Eliza Walker

Tierney’s worktable. “So, Lachlan, who do you play in Midsummer ?” Judging by that glint in his eye and the magnetism in his smile, she already had a fairly good guess. Or a fairy good guess. Ha-ha.
    “He’s your husband’s bitch,” Tierney put in.
    “Huh?”
    Lachlan’s eyebrows tipped up at the inside corners, and he cast a dry glance at Tierney. “I’m playing Puck. If you don’t yet speak Tierney’s language.” Lachlan fixed all his somewhat disconcerting attention on Nicola. “And you’re our new fairy queen. It will be a distinct pleasure to serve you, my lady.”
    This time he did kiss her hand, and Nicola giggled. She was used to the overblown personality of actors, but this was a bit much to take on her first day.
    Nicola opened her mouth to reply to him, but Tierney cut in, “Watch out, Nicola. Lachlan’s the company slut. Goes through a woman a day, pretty much. Better steer clear of him until you’ve had all your shots.”
    Lachlan bared his teeth, but before the moment could twist to higher levels of conflict, the shop door banged open. Max filled the whole doorway with his frame and height and sheer presence, making Lachlan seem very much smaller. Max started toward Nicola, heat and purpose in his gaze.
    Rita fluttered into the room and cut between the two of them, settling onto a stool next to Nicola. “All right, my darlings,” the director chirped out, placing her hands flat on the work table. “Isabelle approved the new fairy costumes yesterday—”
    “ Finally, ” Tierney muttered.
    “So I wanted to talk to you three about what we are going to do for your fairy looks.”
    Max folded his arms and made himself comfortable leaning against the wall. Lachlan, perhaps as a reaction to Max’s blunt stance, sat on the floor at Rita’s feet and pretzeled his long legs into a yoga-like pose.
    “First of all: the hair,” Rita said. “We are going to dye both of you—”
    Both men emitted identical roars of disapproval, then launched into what could only be termed a bout of whining. Manly whining, of course.
    “Not again —”
    “My face peeled off—”
    “It bloody burns —”
    “We aren’t even playing brothers this time—”
    Rita shushed them, flapping her hands. Nicola hid a chuckle behind her palm and looked a question at Rita.
    The director rolled her eyes. “When we did King Lear a few years ago, these two played the brothers, Edmund and Edward—”
    “Edgar,” Max growled. His blond brows were drawn together in a scowl. With his mane of dark blond hair and the scruff on his face, he resembled a lion. An adorable, pissed-off lion. “You are not bleaching my beard. Never again.”
    “Seconded,” Lachlan said, lifting his finger in the air.
    Tierney rolled her eyes. “Oh my God. You wimps . I bleach my hair all the time.”
    “Clearly,” Lachlan said, “dear heart, you are made of sterner stuff than we.”
    “ Anyway, ” Tierney continued Rita’s story, ignoring Lachlan. “When we did Lear , we all thought it would be cool if these two looked more like brothers. So we bleached their hair. Heads. Eyebrows. Beards.” She wrinkled her nose. “In hindsight, the beards were a mistake.”
    “You think?” Max rumbled. He cast Nicola a wounded look. “Our skin started to peel. In our Elizabethan gear, we looked like particularly well-bred zombies.”
    Nicola made a sympathetic moue. “Poor lambs.”
    He sent her a dark look, and she caught herself leaning toward him, smiling into his eyes. But when he tilted toward her, shadowing her face, she did a wide turn on her stool to face the table away from Max. Always away from Max. That was the way to go.
    Rita waved her hands in the air, as if wiping clean the whiteboard of their conversation. “No bleach. Do not get any haircuts before we open. I want all my fairies to have long, beautiful hair.” She dragged her fingers through Lachlan’s luxurious red locks, and he butted his head into her hand like a cat.