Incapable (Love Triumphs 3)

Taylor pulled her hand away. “Who are you?”

“I mean it.”

“Mr Donovan.”

He quit looking at Taylor and faced the new person. “I’m Georgia Fairweather. I’m your engineer. I’ll be looking after the recordings for Pinetti Adland.”

He stood and held a hand out. “Damon.”

A slim, cool hand in his. Georgia Fairweather smelled like freesias. He sneezed.

“Bless you,” she said.

Taylor hugged him. “I’m out.” He heard the door open and a blast of car noises. What was with all the women in his life making him sneeze?

4: Foresight

Damon Donovan was a dish. Georgia shallowed hard when she saw him waiting in reception. Why wasn’t the guy a screen actor? He had the looks to match his lust-inducing voice. The thumbnail photo on his bio was a sad replicate of the real thing. Long legs, impressive shoulder span, deep chest, symmetrical face with a tiny cleft in his chin, as though someone heavy-handed had rested their thumb there too long when he was only half formed. He had one dimple in a slightly crooked smile directed at the dark-haired, heavily tattooed pixie girl he was hanging all over. Was she wife, girlfriend, groupie? Did famous voice actors have groupies?

This was the first time she’d met a famous voice actor. The voiceover artists of her experience were deeply professional people who knew their craft and functioned like any other jobbing actor. Most didn’t make a full-time living out of it. They came, they read copy, they left, they sent an invoice, and waited tables, or taught night school, or drove taxis, while they waited to get paid. They were otherwise anonymous. Not that even the big time talent had the kind of fame that attached itself to screen actors anyway. There were only a handful of people in the industry who were known by their real names and not the characters they voiced, and even then they were coupled together, like Nancy Cartwright and Bart Simpson. And while their bios were richer and deeper, they didn’t include the kind of personal detail the gossip magazines thrived on. No one cared what they ate, wore or who they dated.

What Georgia knew about Damon Donovan, apart from what he sounded like, she’d learned in the half hour she’d had to scan his online Voice Actors Guild profile and the thirty seconds she’d watched him argue with rose tattoo pixie girl.

And then he took her hand and shook it, smiled at her and sneezed, laughing at himself, and what she knew was the sick flick of nervous energy rotating in her guts. He was voice actor royalty. This was her first day, her first assignment for Avocado, she simply couldn’t muck it up, and Trent, who she was supposed to shadow, had taken an urgent phone call and left her to set up alone.

“Damon, please come this way.” She gestured to the door on her right, Studio B, then moved to open it to allow him through.

He really was a looker, easy over six foot, and nicely muscled, but clumsy with it. The way he stepped towards her; didn’t quite align with the open door, then put his hand to the jamb, made her wonder if he was drunk. God! She didn’t smell alcohol on him, so maybe he was stoned, though it would probably help with the bumping into fixtures thing if he took his sunglasses off, but hey, they went with the girlfriend groupie thing and the whole Captain Vox cocky vibe he gave off, though Vox wasn’t drawn nearly as pretty.

She held the second door open between the control room and the isolation booth. He spoke from behind. “Trace of a Brit accent there, Georgia. But you’re an Aussie, right? How long were you in the UK?”

She’d said maybe six sentences and he’d picked the occasional blur in her accent. Damn, he’d be a mimic too. She looked back at him. He had both hands braced on the corridor walls. “I lived there for nine years.”

“You did well not to end up sounding like a Pom.”

He’d pushed his glasses to the top of his head, into the locks of his dark hair. He was smiling and he didn’t sound drunk. Would he have picked the twist in her accent if he was stoned?

“Lor’ luv a duck! That’s assumin’ yew didn’ wan’ ter sound loike one. Know wot I mean, darlin’?” he said, in full cockney. He could’ve been an East End barrow boy. “Nothing wrong with an Aussie accent.” He was back to his own voice.

That Damon Donovan voice had a delicious warm ripple to it, like liquid thrill, sun-warmed leather and muscle car purr. It was smooth like hot chocolate or h

eavy satin. An even, deep modulated rumble that made her momentarily want to lie at his feet and plead with him to rub her tummy.

And he could make it do so many things. He could lower it, and the menace was a chill lifting all the hairs at the back of her neck. He could lift it and sound like he was ten years old. He could funk it up and you’d believe he didn’t have two communicating brain cells.

His repertoire included a range of cartoon characters, a mechanical cyborg and almost any accent you wanted, including a few made up ones, and of course he was the star of the Dystopian Conflict Trilogy.

She held the door and gestured into the booth. “Please come through.”

“After you,” he said, which was sensible in this narrow corridor.

She’d first been inside Studio B an hour ago; she was an unsure newbie as well as being slightly starstruck. She’d spent her career making unknown actors and singers sound better than they’d hoped, given DJs sound effects and correctly cued tapes, and prevented swear words from going to air on the late shift talk radio. Never in any reality she’d contemplated was she showing Damon Donovan to an iso booth.

She went through the doorway and he followed close behind. The room was small, dead to sound, with a long, wide glass window through to the control room. The lighting was low. She had no idea if he’d want to sit or stand to read. Where the hell was Trent?

“I’m assuming you’ll brief me. Ben told me next to nothing about this. I’m going to need you to help me make magic, Georgia.”

She blinked at him. That was kind of flirty, and he’d brought his groupie girl to the studio. Not cool.