Breaking Hollywood Read online

  ‘I’ll come rescue you,’ he said, his square jaw widening into a smile.

  ‘Excellent. Bring beer that time too.’

  There was a comfortable pause for a few seconds. ‘Cara was asking if you wanted to come up to the ranch for a few days. You know she’d love to have you there.’

  ‘I know. Thank you. Maybe I’ll take you up on that.’

  Even as she was saying it, Mirren wasn’t sure that she would. The peace. The solitude. The calm. Those were all the things that let her mind go back, to think about Chloe. If she kept busy, then she couldn’t hear her heart weep.

  ‘I’m starting pre-production now, though, so it might not be for a while. Tell her I say thanks. I do love your wife.’

  ‘That would be two of us, then,’ Lex agreed, without a hint of macho embarrassment. The thought entered Mirren’s mind that although he’d never dream of endorsing an aftershave or fragrance line, if he ever did, it would simply be called ‘True Man’.

  ‘What’s funny?’ he asked, spotting her smile.

  ‘Nothing. Sorry. Was just thinking about how nice that would be to come up and chill out for a couple of days.’

  ‘Anytime,’ he offered again.

  ‘Thanks. So were you in for the meeting with the marketing guys today?’

  ‘Yep. And you know how much I like those. Congrats on the Oscar nominations. You deserve it.’

  Mirren had barely thought about it since she got the news back in January. Three nominations. Best Director. Best Movie. Best Original Screenplay. That was the same category that had given her the first Oscar when she originally came to LA and winning it twice would be a real achievement. Yet somehow, something that should be the height of her professional career had been covered by a curtain of sadness and the realization that gold statues and acclaim meant absolutely nothing compared to real life. Perhaps she’d feel differently next month, when the ceremony came around, but for now, it wasn’t even making its way onto her radar.

  ‘Thanks. I’m thinking it was a sympathy vote.’

  ‘No, ma’am. I’m thinking it was the star performance by yours truly that took the movie to stellar heights.’

  They were both laughing now. ‘Yep, that must have been it,’ she agreed. ‘Your talent is carrying us all.’

  ‘Now that’s a line I should’ve given the marketing guys. “My talent carries us all.” Maybe that would get me out of the At Home special they’re trying to make me agree to next month.’

  This was so typical of Lex. Other stars would love the exposure; he hated it. Other stars begged for column inches; he begged for a quiet life. Not that she was letting him off the hook. This was a business, and while she respected his wishes, they had a movie to sell.

  Feigning gravity, she shook her head wearily. ‘Lex, sometimes you’ve got to take one for the team.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, you sure do. Remind me of that when they’re making me pose like a dickhead.’

  ‘I will indeed.’

  He stood up and tossed his empty beer bottle into the trash. It went in first time. ‘Anyway, I’d better hit the road.’

  Standing, Mirren hugged him. ‘Thanks, Lex. For the beer and the chat.’

  ‘No problem.’

  Before he could bail, the door opened again, bringing another of her favourite men into her day.

  ‘Hey, what’s this? Is this the kinda stuff that goes on in here?’ Logan had one eyebrow raised in question, hands on hips, acting out mock outrage, which he couldn’t hold for long because Lex was hugging him now, thumping him on the back.

  ‘Logan. Good to see you, bud. All good?’

  Logan coughed under the crushing enthusiasm of the embrace. ‘Apart from the fact that I now need a new spine, all’s great. Good to see you too. Been a while.’

  He turned to Mirren. ‘So, do I pass inspection?’ he asked, gesturing to his clothes.

  Mirren did a top-to-toe evaluation. Denim-coloured T-shirt, blue jeans, Onitsuka Tiger trainers, his short blond hair cut over his ears, longer on the top to give him a killer 1940s movie-star look.

  Mirren had never been more grateful that his fame postdated the days of grunge.

  She reached down behind her desk and pulled up her purse, then grabbed her black tailored jacket from the coat stand. ‘You look great.’

  ‘You two off somewhere cool?’ Lex asked.

  ‘Dinner with Mark Bock and his daughter. Apparently, she’s a fan of South City.’

  ‘Yep, my mother is pimping me out.’

  ‘Hey!’ Mirren punched his arm playfully. ‘I am not pimping you out. I’m just . . . being friendly.’

  ‘Yeah, like a python just before it bites.’ Lex nodded.

  ‘You two are ganging up on me. Logan, get in the car before I ground you.’

  The three of them headed out, still laughing. God, it felt so . . . normal. And that wasn’t something she’d felt for a long, long time.

  As soon as the thought crossed her mind, a wave of guilt followed right behind it. How could she even start to feel normal in a world in which Chloe didn’t live?

  Pleasure. Pain. Pleasure. Pain.

  Enough. Without either man noticing, she pulled up her shoulders and forced her mood back onto the happy scale. She had to. Logan needed a mother who was strong enough to show him how to move on from sadness and devastation. She’d spent her entire childhood at the mercy of her mother’s emotions and she’d be damned if her children – no, child – would do the same. She owed him this. And that meant returning to the old Mirren who could laugh and joke and let happiness into their lives.

  At the car park, she hugged Lex again and then slid into the front of her Mercedes and waited for Logan to climb in beside her.

  ‘Thank for doing this,’ she told him, while scrunching up his perfect hair. ‘And I’m not pimping you out. I’m merely consolidating a business relationship while making one of your fans very happy.’

  Logan leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘OK, Mama, let’s go. But if this guy’s a douche, we’re bailing after half an hour. Deal?’

  ‘Deal.’

  22.

  ‘Stay With Me’ – Sam Smith

  Zander

  When he woke, Zander had absolutely no idea what time it was. He thought about switching on his phone to check, but he knew he’d be bombarded with messages, most of them from Hollie, all of them furious, so he got up and staggered to the bathroom to find his watch instead.

  Four p.m. He groaned inside. Four p.m. meant he’d been in London for sixteen hours and it meant that it was only three hours until they had to be at the airport to fly back to the US.

  He stepped into the shower and let the jets of water pound his body. Man, Adrianna was a tougher workout than any amount of stunt training. Not that he was complaining. It may have been sixteen hours, but it ranked up there with the best.

  In ten hours on the gulfstream, they’d only been clothed for take-off and landing. For the rest of the journey, they’d locked themselves in the bedroom, a room so opulent it belonged in one of the Leading Hotels of the World. Crisp white Pratesi sheets, marble side tables and a bathroom carved from walnut with gold-plated hardware. Not that Zander cared. Overblown luxury was nice, but it had never been his thing.

  When they’d landed at Luton, a car had been waiting to take them to the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park in Knightsbridge. The hotel was the ultimate in discretion. They didn’t pull up at the front door, risking stray pap shots or overzealous tourists with camera phones. Instead, Sarah Cairns, the head of communications, greeted their limo as it arrived and whisked them through the entrance of One Hyde Park – The Residences. The iconic tower block adjoined the hotel, cost £1.15 billion to build and contained flats that sold for upwards of £20 million.

  The building was connected to the main hotel by an underground tunnel, allowing them to enter via the new spa and swimming pool.

  Adrianna had already made the booking, but Zander called ahead and upg
raded them to a suite.

  It was a good call. The Park Suite, named for the stunning view over Hyde Park, was sheer luxury, exquisitely furnished, with a bottle of Ruinart champagne on ice, compliments of the general manager, Gerard Sintes. Most importantly, it was utterly private.

  The moment they stepped over the threshold, he picked her up, took her to the bedroom. Eat. Touch. Love. That had been enough for both of them, until sometime around four hours ago, he’d finally fallen asleep. Now he’d woken to find her gone and he realized his body was actually craving her, all his senses screaming for her to return, to touch her, to be inside her.

  Hell, he had it bad.

  So bad he was even developing amnesia about the fact that she was married. This was a first for him. Dating other men’s wives had been strictly off limits all his life. He’d seen the damage infidelity could do.

  His dad, Jono, had regularly come home with a sore face thanks to putting his dick where it didn’t belong. He had the same glib retort every time. ‘Och, you should see the other guy,’ he’d boast, while Zander’s mother pretended not to know why the fight started. Jono had broken his mother. Years of abuse, years of affairs, years of pain. Zander had decided that he wouldn’t travel down any of the branches of his father’s path.

  But then Adrianna came along and he was lost. At first, he had no idea she was married. What a cliché. When he found out, he called a halt, said goodbye, broke off contact . . . but now she was back, and it was time they faced the inevitable.

  Wasn’t it?

  ‘Hello, my darling,’ she purred from the doorway, and he opened his eyes to see her standing there, looking nothing like a woman who had barely slept in twenty-four hours. Her cream suit was, as always, from her menswear line, but tailored to perfection to fit and flatter her shape. Underneath, a black silk blouse. Her hair was tied back in a chignon, her eyes smoky, her lips blood red. Zander’s erection was instant.

  ‘Pleased to see me,’ she said. It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘I was wondering where you’d gone to,’ he replied, watching as she crossed the room to turn on the bath taps and slowly begin to undress. He was so tempted to reach for her, bring her to him, but the view was just as tantalizing and he wanted to enjoy it for a little longer.

  She slipped the jacket from her shoulders as the water gushed from the taps. ‘I had a meeting with my buyers here. The reason I came to London, remember?’ she answered, her amusement making his hard-on start to throb.

  One by one, she opened the buttons on her shirt, before letting it fall onto the cream tiles of the floor. Underneath it, she was naked, her breasts swollen, her nipples hard.

  ‘Keep going,’ he told her.

  Obliging, she undid the button and zip of her trousers and elegantly kicked them off. Completely naked now, except for her heels. That was her thing, he’d realized. Shoes and diamonds. She liked to have sex wearing both. He was about to respond to the invitation when she stepped out of them and into the bath.

  ‘Come. I’ll be lonely in here.’

  He flicked off the shower and joined her, sitting at the opposite end, then gasped as she slid along his legs and mounted him. His hands went to her buttocks as he pulled her tighter, his mouth finding one of her nipples, then the other. The water sloshed out of the tub as she rose and fell, her deep red fingernails piercing the skin on the back of his ripped shoulders.

  ‘Come, come now!’ she ordered. It was all he needed to hear. The guests in every room in the corridor must have heard him roar, his abandonment unleashing an orgasm in Adrianna that made her draw blood.

  There was very little water left to bathe in when they both collapsed, spent.

  Adrianna twisted the taps on to replenish the water. When she relaxed back at the opposite end, Zander picked up her foot and blew the bubbles from it, then massaged it gently.

  ‘So are we going to talk?’ he asked.

  ‘About?’

  ‘Oh God, this is going to be a completely messed-up role reversal here,’ he admitted sheepishly, before going on, ‘About us.’

  Adrianna lay her head back against the curve of the bath rim. ‘Ah, us.’

  Zander playfully bit the end of her toe. ‘Just making sure I have your attention.’

  Adrianna used the other foot to flick water in his face, but he didn’t rise to the bait. He was usually a man of relatively few words, so if he had something to say, he had to get it out before he blew it.

  ‘Look, what we’ve got is pretty special. I’ve never felt like this before, never had this need for someone before. But the thing is, I don’t share.’

  ‘Then we have a problem,’ Adrianna challenged him.

  ‘We do. I’m not going to give you an ultimatum . . .’

  ‘Good. I don’t respond well to those.’

  ‘I guessed that.’ It didn’t take a genius. ‘But I want you with me. Not sharing. Just you and me.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Zander, I’ve told you before. My husband . . .’ She tailed off, pensive. ‘My husband is a very straightforward man. We understand each other. He knows that occasionally I have “special friends”, but he indulges me, as long as it means nothing.’

  Suddenly the water felt like it had turned icy cold.

  She saw the reaction on his face and added, ‘This is more than that, but still . . . I cannot leave him.’

  Why?’ he asked again.

  ‘Because he is not a man to leave,’ she said simply.

  ‘Even if you want to be with me?’

  She sighed wearily. ‘Zander, please don’t do this. My husband and I fit. We work. On all levels.’

  Zander exhaled, feeling his gut twist as he understood what she was saying. It was difficult to argue. What they had was physical, sexual, but not emotional or based on compatibility or hours of conversation. They hadn’t hung out. They didn’t have the same sense of humour. She didn’t know his history or understand what drove him. And he didn’t want her to see inside him. This was why he didn’t do relationships. This was why he preferred to stay alone, detached. It didn’t take an expensive therapist, and God knows he’d met many in rehab over the years, to explain to him that something in his psyche put up a barrier that said, ‘No emotional attachments, no pain.’

  Clearly, he should have stuck to that in this case too.

  Adrianna rose from the water, leaned over and kissed him, tenderly this time. ‘I think our time together is incredible. Can’t it just be that?’ Her pout was irresistibly sexy, her body glorious, her voice intoxicating. Fuck, this one hurt.

  ‘Now we must go, as I have to be back in New York by morning.’

  He knew this already. They’d agreed he would drop her in NYC and then head on to LA.

  They dressed in silence, and on the way back to Luton, Adrianna put her head on his shoulder and slept. Traffic was light, so the journey took barely over an hour, but from setting off to destination, he changed his mind a dozen times about where he should go from here. Did he want to see her again? Of course. No other woman had ever inspired this level of desire in him. And if he was honest, there was a bit of irony there. Over the years, he’d met hundreds of women, slept with many, dated some. But the one woman he’d actually fallen for was choosing a better option.

  She murmured as his shoulders clenched, causing her head to move slightly.

  Back to the point. He didn’t share. Couldn’t stand the thought of her with someone else. And what kind of man was her husband that he seemed to be cool with her seeing other guys? What a freak.

  As the car pulled up to the terminal building, Zander gently shook her awake. The buzz was gone now. This was like the comedown after a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a mountain of coke. And yet he wasn’t ready to say goodbye, was glad of another few hours together on the plane.

  The VIP rep at the airport was waiting for them and rushed them through a side door to a private corridor that took them directly to a wait
ing area for private jets. At the door, a customs official checked their passports and ushered them through to—

  ‘Hello, my dear. And Mr Leith . . .’

  Zander stopped dead. In front of him, looking up from the newspaper he was reading, was Carlton Farnsworth, eyeing them with fairly ill-concealed amusement.

  Adrianna reacted instantly. ‘Darling, what are you doing here? Not that it isn’t a lovely surprise.’

  Zander didn’t trust himself to speak as he watched her cross the room and kiss him. ‘Zander and I had a very successful trip to London. He absolutely wooed our buyers there.’

  It wasn’t a success. He hadn’t met buyers. No one was wooed. Yet every single word that came out of her beautiful mouth sounded like the absolute truth.

  ‘I brought the jet so that we can head back to New York without taking Mr Leith out of his way,’ Carlton Farnsworth replied. ‘I was just saying to Sergei here that you’d been working far too hard lately. Time I took care of you and recharged your batteries.’

  For the first time, Zander noticed the guy in the impeccably tailored, undoubtedly Adrianna Guilloti, black suit, standing in the corner of the room, his face completely impassive.

  He may have been an actor for twenty years, with a string of awards and a billion-dollar franchise, but right then, Zander had no idea how to react to either the husband or the close-protection guy, who had clearly forgotten to pack his sense of humour.

  Adrianna stepped straight in. ‘That’s wonderful, darling,’ she told her husband, her voice warm and engaging. ‘Wonderful.’

  She strutted back across the room and held her hand out to shake Zander’s in a purely professional manner. ‘Thank you, Zander. For the use of the jet and for being the perfect gentleman.’

  Zander had never felt more far from perfect.

  This was so wrong. So, so wrong. And yet what else could he do? Refuse to let her go? Cause a scene? Berate her husband? But then, what had Farnsworth done to deserve that? Zander was the one in the wrong, and right now that guilt was strangling his feelings for Adrianna in a chokehold.