The Oil Tycoon’s Billion-dollar Princess scores big!
The end
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Hollywood Prince
Erin
My hands shake as I walk back to my desk. I knew he was good looking. Okay, I’m lying; he’s not just good looking, he is so far past that I can’t describe it. But I get it now with the smirk and the smoldering look. I can totally see why the ladies flock to him . . . and why he allows them to flock. That smirk speaks volumes.
Placing the coffee cup on my desk, I sit down and look at the computer screen. Counting in my head slowly, I breathe in and breathe out. I lean back in my chair and stare up at the lights. This is a bad idea. I have a feeling this whole thing will be a failure before I start. When the phone buzzes, letting me know it’s time for me to be introduced, so to speak, I get up. Grabbing my own folder that I prepared, I walk down the hallway. Almost like you are walking to the principal’s office . . . or like the movie The Green Mile. I’m not sure which ending would be worse at this point. I swallow and take a deep breath, then I knock on the door and walk in.
Sylvia is the first one I hear speaking. “Erin, I believe you’ve already met Carter.” I look over at him, and his smirk stretches into a full-blown smile on his ridiculously perfect face.
“Erin, what a pretty name,” he says, and I hear the guy beside him groan. Carter reaches over, extending his hand, and I automatically reach out and shake his hand. His hand grips mine, and he slowly moves it, then stops and just holds my hand.
I look over at the other people sitting in the meeting. Ryan just shakes his head when the guy next to him gets up and pulls our hands apart to introduce himself. “I’m Jeff. I’m Carter’s manager.”
I smile at the guy whose beads of sweat forming on his brow and upper lip are becoming awkwardly apparent. “Nice to meet you,” I tell him. Walking over to sit next to Sylvia, I try my best to control the pace of my beating heart. This is a big meeting with the biggest Hollywood player and all his people, and I’m sitting at the table feeling very out of my element. But I know it’s my go big or go home moment.
“We were discussing with Carter the ways to change his reputation,” Sylvia starts and then looks at me, then at Ryan. “Erin will be taking the lead on this, and she will be reporting back to us.”
“Basically,” Ryan says, “if she says do this or do that, then there is a reason, and I need you to respect it.”
“I have no problem doing whatever Erin suggests I do for her,” Carter says, leaning back in the chair.
Jesus, that fucking smirk is on megawatt charge right now, and it’s becoming harder and harder to avert my eyes from his mouth.
“So what are you suggesting exactly?” Jeff asks, and Sylvia looks over at me and just nods her head. It’s enough of a diversion that I’m able to focus so I get ready to pitch my ideas.
“Well, for one, we need to work on his Instagram,” I start and take out some of the pictures that I pulled from his account. “He has twenty million followers, and the only pictures he is posting are of him partying with different women, multiple times a day, coming and going out of different hotels and bars . . . so a lot of female adoration from a personal standpoint, but not so much from the followers on your social media accounts.”
“Twenty million is huge,” Jeff says, and I nod.
“It is, but it has gone down a million over the past six months.” I take out proof of this, handing it to them.
“There has to be a reason,” Jeff says. “Some of the accounts must have been fake or closed.”
“One million accounts are gone. That’s roughly fifty-five-hundred followers per day. He’s bleeding followers, so it could be that people aren’t interested in seeing who he is sleeping with today,” I tell him. “We’ll use Tyler Beckett as a recent example. He grew to forty million followers after he started posting about his wife and kid. Not so much his kid but his home life. He became more personable, someone the masses can connect with, can celebrate their success with, can support. It’s a unique algorithm that works with the female population. It gives the average woman an idea that ‘hey, the love of his life is just like me and maybe someone like him could fall in love with me’ when they see that he’s posting pictures of a normal Sunday morning making pancakes with his wife and child. It’s all about image and the impression, and the debauchery and a partying lifestyle that you have been posting about lately are not something your followers can relate to.”
“Well, considering I don’t have a wife and a kid, everything that you are saying could be a huge problem,” Carter says, and I just look at him.
“Well, considering that you can post about anything else—literally anything—except for how much traffic a certain body part of yours gets on a daily basis, then yeah, maybe it might change.” I’m about to apologize when Sylvia interrupts.
“What she is saying in a nice way is no one wants to know who you are going home with. They care about what you do during the day.” I watch Carter as he takes in all the information.
“They want to know that you are the guy next door,” I say. “They want to see that you get up and you have coffee. You have a dog or a cat. They want you to be like them, and the girls want to see that you have a soft side also.”
“Trust me, honey, there is nothing soft about me,” Carter says, and Ryan slaps the table, getting up.
“This, right here, is why you need her,” Ryan says. “I think you can be the biggest there is, but if you can’t get the people to come to the movies because of your fucking attitude, then it doesn’t matter.” Ryan looks over at me. “I want to be included on this all the way.”
“Not a problem,” I tell him, and then he looks at Jeff.
“I trust you will explain to him how important this is,” he says while the other guys stand and start to walk out. “If you will excuse us, we have to get on a plane.” He looks over at Carter and points a finger, and says, “SIXTY DAYS, Carter . . . don’t disappoint.” No one says anything while the other guys walk out of the room. With the click of the door, it’s suddenly just the four of us in the room.
“Okay,” Carter says, the smirk now missing from his cocky demeanor. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Perfect,” I say. Maybe I can actually do this. I mean, maybe he can be a civil person to work with.
“Let’s meet tomorrow,” he says. “Ten a.m. at my house.”
“Um.” I start to stutter and maybe suggest we just meet here when Sylvia answers.
“That is a great idea,” she says, and I look over at her, trying not to make my mouth hit the floor. “You two need to be on the same page.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Jeff says, and then he starts to get up. “So we will see you tomorrow at ten a.m.”
He said we, so I kind of breathe a little sigh of relief. “That sounds great.” Carter gets up now, grabbing his glasses, and just smiles at Sylvia.
“It’s great seeing you again.” When he turns to me, his eyes change and his smile changes, but I’m the only one who can see the shift. He’s the hunter, and I’m his prey. “Erin, see you tomorrow,” he says and turns to walk out of the room, and it’s only then I notice that I’m not breathing. I was holding my breath, for what I’m not sure. Maybe hoping he wouldn’t notice me at all.
“I don’t know why we couldn’t have the meeting here.” I look at Sylvia who just leans back in her chair.
“He isn’t going to be himself here,” she says, and I know she’s right. “He’s going to have a chip on his shoulder, but if he’s in his home, he’s going to be open more. The guy was just told via a legal and binding contract that he cannot have sex at all for the next sixty days. A man of his proclivities will more than likely have more than a chip on his shoulder. If not now, then in the very immediate future.”
“This is true.” Gathering the pictures, I get up
and push my chair under the table. “How long should I expect to be at his house?”
She looks over at me, and I see her smirk. “Thirty days.” I don’t say anything when she walks past me out of the room, leaving me by myself.
Hollywood Playboy
Jessica
Breaking News: Tyler Beckett is ready to take on the press. Sources say no expense will be spared, and the press will be handpicked. The question is, who will be the lucky ones?
“Knock-knock,” I say, knocking on the big brown door to my editor Stephanie’s office. Laser-focused on her computer screen, she looks up at the unexpected, yet hopefully welcome intrusion and removes her glasses. Her button-down white silk shirt is tied at the neck with a bow sash off to the side, showcasing how put together this woman really is.
“Hey, Jessica,” she says, smiling at me. “Come on in.” She motions with her hands to the empty seat in front of her executive desk, causing her gold and silver bangles to clink together.
“You said to come see you before I head out for the day,” I say, acknowledging the reason I’m invading her space. Walking into her corner office, I’m drawn to the view of the Hollywood sign like a beacon in the distance.
When I walked into this office seven years ago, I intended to get some experience under my belt to add to my resume. I busted my ass in high school and had my master’s in foreign communications by the time I was twenty-two. I had a plan to travel the world and bring people stories that they often didn’t hear about. Aspirations for seeing my byline on articles and published in print and online were what I dreamed about the most.
But here I am, seven years later, getting the juicy Hollywood scoop that people crave. And the best part? I am not just good at my job; I am the best at it. I know every single photographers’ number by heart. If something happens in this town, people call me to offer first dibs on the scuttlebutt.
“Yes,” she answers. “Please sit.” I walk toward her, my long, flowing black skirt moving between my legs as I take a seat in one of the chairs. After crossing my legs, I wait for her to tell me why I’m here. “I got a call today from HillCrest.” She looks at me, rocking back in her chair.
“What now?” I ask. HillCrest is one of the biggest production companies out there. They began with indie films, and then one of their movies blew up and won seventeen Academy Awards. That was fifteen years ago … now, if you want them to back your movie, it means a blockbuster, even if it’s shit. Trust me, some pretty shitty ones have gone on to gross over the one-hundred-million mark that weren’t worth the paper the tickets were printed on.
“I’ll cut right to the chase.” Getting up and walking to the corner window, she keeps her back to me. “Tyler Beckett’s new film.”
“Adrenaline Run?” I ask her, thinking about the chatter of it becoming the biggest box office hit ever, or at least that is the word on the street. The trailers have been playing nonstop for the past two weeks, the billboards are everywhere, and the mass transit ads on every bus around every corner have a larger-than-life picture of Tyler Beckett in all his cockiness. Unless you live under a rock, you know that this movie is coming. “I’ve seen some of the trailers, and I’m not going to lie; no matter how much I want to hate the movie just because of Tyler, it looks like a good one.”
She turns around, now looking at me. “HillCrest is going all out for this film. I mean, all out.” She emphasizes these last words. “They are putting together a press junket.”
“Okay, that isn’t anything new.” I get up and walk over to her, both of us now surveying our respective kingdoms.
“No, you’re right,” she says and then turns to me, “but it isn’t going to be your ordinary hotel junket.”
“Well, then, what are they doing?” I ask her, my interest piqued now. “Knowing Tyler Beckett, it will be a spectacle no doubt.” I’m tempted to roll my eyes.
“Yeah, you can say that.” She turns and walks back to her chair. “It’s definitely something no one has seen or done before, which is why we need to be at the forefront of the promotion.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, he’s so damn irritating,” I say in exasperation. She just stares at me, probably wondering where in the hell that outburst came from. I can’t tell you why I feel like this when it comes to Tyler, but I just do. Maybe it’s because he is always one step ahead of me when I have a juicy scoop about him. It’s like he knows I’m going to blow the lid on whatever salacious deets I have on his latest scandal, so what does he do? He releases a statement of his own right before I publish my story, sinking my breaking news before the ink even dries on the page.
He is known to play hardball, though. Three years ago, I got an exclusive video of him and a certain woman, a married woman even, who just so happened to be his best friend’s wife. They were on a yacht somewhere in the middle of Italy, and the hour before my story was set to run, he put out a press release that they were dating, and she was getting a divorce. Needless to say, I spent much of that night getting drunk and slurring a few choice words for the asshole. I don’t know where his spies are, but they are all around with their ears to the literal ground, so I learned quickly not to show my hand to anyone. But even with that, he remains one step ahead of me. Every. Damn. Time. It’s the most irritating thing.
“Thirty days,” she says, my mind still out in Tyler Beckett Purgatory, so I’m not comprehending what she’s saying. “Jessica, they are going on a thirty-day tour.”
“Thirty days?” I look up at Stephanie, not believing what she’s saying, but then I look back down again. Realizing she’s dead-ass serious, I roll my eyes at the audacity of a tour that lasts longer than some relationships in Hollywood. “That’s insane and dare I say a tad overkill.” I walk back to the chair and sit down. “How the hell are they going to pull that off?”
“They bought a plane, a big ass plane.” She stops talking, allowing that last part to sink in. “A select number of press are going to be traveling with them. They are doing ten worldwide stops. The stop in Paris will be the official movie premiere, then it will end in Australia, but the press tour stops before that in Los Angeles. There is talk of taking a few of you to Australia, but it’s still up in the air right now.”
“That schedule alone is crazy. Can you imagine a whole press tour and the logistics of something of that magnitude?” As I shake my head, my mind’s a whirlwind of what it would take to pull off a press junket that lasted that long.
“I honestly can’t fathom it.” She taps her finger on her desk, staring me down. “But they are taking ten journalists with them.” We stare at each other when she drops the bomb on me. The reason I’m here in her office right now. “You are one of the select few chosen.”
“No.” Sitting up straight, I look her dead in the eye, not even believing what I’m about to say to my boss. But there’s no other way to say it. “Not a chance in hell, Stephanie . . . no way.”
“You know what’s so damn funny?” She wears a knowing smirk on her face as she leans back in her chair, tapping her index finger on her chin. “That is exactly what Tyler said when he saw your name on the list of press members who would be joining him on the month-long tour.”
“He said that because of me?” I ask, shocked. I mean, I’m not shocked but still. “Me?”
“I need to know what that is all about. You aren’t telling me the whole story, and before I send you off to be a part of history in the making with this exclusive opportunity, I want the goods.” She knows I’m holding something back, yet refusing to say a word of truth.
“I have no idea. We don’t exactly run in the same circles.” I think we’ve been in the same room maybe ten times, and during each of those encounters, we were surrounded by hundreds of other people.
“Well, according to Ryan from HillCrest, yours was the only name he dragged his heels about.” Her eyes remain on me, waiting for me to confess all my dirty little secrets.
“Good.” I cross my arms over my stomach, mumbling under my br
eath to no one in particular. “He’s an asshole, and I don’t want to be anywhere near him either.” I think about the times I got cheated of an exclusive story because he got the jump ahead of me to put out his own story. The times on the red carpet when he would walk right past me, only to stop at the reporter next to me. The times I interviewed him, pushing his buttons by asking him questions I knew were off-limits. So it really comes as no surprise that he doesn’t want me on the tour.
“Ryan overrode him,” she tells me. My eyes plead with her to override Ryan even though I know her hands are just as tied as mine are in this situation. She then says the sentence I’ve been dreading to hear since she mentioned a thirty-day press junket and Tyler Beckett in the same breath. “Pack your bags, Jessica. You’re going on tour.”
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Hollywood Princess Page 23