Beautiful Trouble (Dirty Hollywood Book 2)

by Claire Raye

  “I love you too, Lewis,” she whispers. “I know your friendship with V is important to you, which makes it important to me too,” she says, her fingers combing through my hair. “But this,” she adds, her lips brushing against mine. “This is the most important thing to me.”

  And then she kisses me hard, silencing any more words.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ava

  It’s been a little over a week since I had my showdown with Victoria, and while things seem to be a little better between the two of them, things aren’t truly back to normal. And I can’t help but wonder if they ever will be. I came in and uprooted something that had been firmly in place for years, decades even.

  When my alarm sounds, quietly signaling for me to wake up, I’m already there, my thoughts consumed with Victoria and what else I can do to make things better. It’s early, but I roll over and press my body against Lewis’ warm skin. We’ve slept naked ever since my return and while it makes it hard to leave the bed, I can’t imagine it any other way.

  Instinctively Lewis’ arm moves around me and he stirs a little so I whisper, “Why don’t we have dinner with V tonight?”

  “Hmmm,” Lewis replies, his face now nuzzling into my hair as if he’s trying to soothe himself back to sleep with my smell.

  “Dinner? Tonight with V?” I say again, my words a murmur through the silence.

  “Yeah. I’ll text her later.” His words are groggy with sleep and I don’t push it anymore, just slip from the bed to get ready for my day.

  I kiss Lewis good bye and he shifts a little but never fully wakes up, and in that moment my chest aches. I rub a hand over it trying to dull this sudden phantom pain as I look down at Lewis. Today will be a long day, something that never affected me in the past, but now that I have someone to come home to, I hate the idea of being gone.

  I grab my bag and head out the door before the sun even begins to rise, needing to be on set well before six a.m.

  I’ve been working for Noel for a bit now and it really only takes me a few days to learn the routine and schedule of my employer and he’s no different. He rarely makes changes to his schedule at the last minute, he’s very time conscious and he generally eats the same thing. But it doesn’t make him any less demanding and difficult, and from what I’ve heard, he will eventually change things up just to throw me for a loop. Which is why I find myself hitting the small bakery just outside the Tube station: four cranberry orange muffins, a coffee with skim milk and extra hot so when he finally arrives on set it’s at the perfect drinking temperature, because god forbid I microwave it, a small cup of low fat Greek yogurt with the fruit removed and today, just for the hell of it I grab a chocolate croissant because it reminds me of Julia. It reminds me of when my job was easy and I honestly liked my employer.

  Noel isn’t all that bad, but there’s literally no interaction with him. No conversations other than to bark orders at me and review his schedule. His demeanor is cold and formal, with little to no eye contact and I’m waiting for the moment I fuck something up and he loses his shit on me. I’ve been warned by people on the set, people who are part of his staff, but I like to think I can stay one step ahead of him. I’m learning to read his moods, his personality, his likes and dislikes; it’s all part of my job and as ridiculous as it seems that someone should be this catered to, I still do it and I do it well.

  After I have Noel’s breakfast arranged exactly as he likes it, I review his schedule for the day, checking to see if I need to arrange cars or there are any meals that need to be ordered. I then check the temperature of the refrigerator so that the water that is stored in there is the perfect temperature. Moving on to the next fridge, I check that one, because we only store fruit in it. Yep, this is what I do. And to think there are people that really live like this.

  It makes me think of Lewis and what Victoria said, for being as wealthy as she claims he is, he’s far from high maintenance, and maybe that’s what drew me to him. I spend my days waiting on the every need of the rich and famous, and Lewis is just so…simple. I smile a little at the thought as I picture him in a t-shirt and worn jeans, his tattoos on display and his hair tousled.

  The simplicity of being with him.

  He has no expectations of me, and I have none of him. It’s easy.

  My phone chimes out and I pull it from my purse seeing a text from Noel letting me know he’ll be arriving earlier than expected and would like everything ready now. I look around the set trailer and find everything exactly as it should be with the exception of the extra hot coffee.

  Fuck…

  I pull the lid off and quickly begin to blow on it as if I’m trying to cool down a crying toddler’s hot chicken strips while an entire restaurant full of people watches on. I blow so hard I bring myself to the point of passing out and I know the coffee is still too hot.

  Hoping he’s just full of shit and won’t call my bluff, I drop one small ice cube into the cup and return the lid. I swirl it around a little, attempting to melt the ice and cool the coffee down.

  The door to the trailer flies open only seconds later and Noel storms in as if he’s trying to catch me doing something I’m not supposed to be doing. I hand him his coffee and his muffin, and without saying a word, he leaves the trailer.

  Not a good morning or a hello, just grabs his stuff and leaves. In his wake he dropped a pile of papers and his bag. I begin to organize the papers as they scattered when he made a feeble attempt at setting them down, clearly not caring in the least about what’s happened to them.

  It’s a script of the movie he’s currently working on with notes taken in scratchy, messy scrawl in the margins, but when I get to the bottom of the stack, I’m met with something I don’t expect to find: legal separation papers.

  My eyes fall on the names as I scan the document quickly, and a feeling of intrusiveness comes over me. My heart is racing, my eyes wanting to look away, wanting to shove it back under the pile, yet I can’t stop myself from reading it.

  His wife Sadie has signed the papers, but the line where his signature is requested is left blank.

  I’m startled by the sound of the door opening and my fingers tingle with the shock of being caught looking at something that wasn’t meant for my eyes. I quickly shuffle the papers back together, leaving the script on top.

  Noel stops in the doorway as I hover over the table, my eyes wide as I look at him. It’s obvious that I’ve seen what was hidden at the bottom of the pile.

  “She’s bluffing, you know,” he says, callously, his tone neutral, but his stare harsh.

  I nod my head unable to form the words that will make what I’ve seen and what he’s just said seem to come together without incidence.

  “She does this every so often, but it never eventuates into anything.” He reaches for the pile of papers, pulling the separation agreement from the bottom, and hands it to me. “File this under separation documents.” He opens the door to a closet and points to a file cabinet that’s nestled in the back.

  Without any more explanation, he takes the script notes and begins to walk back to the door, but before he steps out he says, “Don’t put ice in my coffee ever again.”

  Fuck

  And back is that tingling sensation in my fingers, the nervousness creeping up my spine and making me swallow hard. I’m usually not affected by this type of pettiness, but something about Noel is rubbing me the wrong way. I shake it off and pull open the drawer to the cabinet, seeing the file at the back, I slide the papers into it. Not wanting to intrude any more than I have, I only glance quickly at the stack I’ve now added the most recent papers to, and I’ll be damned if he isn’t right. There are about eight other separation papers in the file.

  This is why I’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement.

  My phone chimes out again, and assuming it’s Noel, despite him just leaving, I rush over and find a text from Lewis.

  Lewis: Dinner with V tonight at 8. Oliver’s covering the bar.

&nb
sp; Me: great. I’ll def be home by then.

  Lewis: Love you

  Me: Love you too

  I set the phone down and it again chimes out, but this time it’s Noel.

  Noel: Where are you???

  His message is clipped and even though he isn’t speaking directly to me I can tell he’s pissed about something. He knows exactly where I’m at and I’m not the type to follow my employer around like a shadow and so far he hasn’t indicated that’s what he wants either.

  Me: In your trailer.

  As I type out my answer, I’m pulling up his calendar wondering if I’ve missed something, but nothing is popping out at me. I have a briefing with him about his day at seven a.m. and then from there he has a meeting with the producer, lunch scheduled for noon, and very little after that.

  Noel: You should be here briefing me on my schedule. Why the fuck would you stay in the trailer!!

  As much as I want to answer back with some snide comment, I reserve it for myself muttering it as I grab my bag, Noel’s bag and my phone. I slipped up and even though I’m annoyed by his comment I know this is on me. He arrived early but that doesn’t mean the next hour is downtime. I need to up my game again, because Julia made me soft. I had grown accustomed to her lax personality and casual demeanor, never really demanding things from me, just being grateful that she had someone organizing her day for her.

  Noel isn’t going to be that person, and I should’ve known that.

  When I make my way over to where he is, Sadie is sitting next to him and the awkwardness that fills the room is palpable. Her face is drawn up in a scowl, her arms crossed over her chest as she points at notes he has taken on the script.

  “No,” is all she says, shaking her head, and a part of me wonders if this whole separation thing happens when they work together. I can’t imagine it’s easy, their creativity and personalities getting in the way of their relationship.

  “Your idea is shit. This isn’t one of your trendy, coming-of-age teen dark romances here.” His words cut like a knife, but she shows no affect as he continues. “This is a serious movie and I won’t have you bringing it down with clichéd ideas and played out camera angles.”

  Well, fuck.

  I’d be separating from him too if he talked to me like that and low and behold he does because I’m the next in line for his war of words.

  “And you,” he turns to me, his words like a dagger straight to my stomach, his finger pointed in my direction, “when I show up on set early, that’s when the fucking day starts. You work for me not my calendar.”

  I nod my head and instantly begin to read through what his day looks like. When I get to lunch, he throws a hand up stopping me.

  “Read me the menu for lunch.”

  He’s testing me to make sure I have it down exactly and not just the name of the café where he wants me to pick it up. I’ve pre-ordered it since it needs to be ready at a specific time, but I’ll also need to verify everything is correct before I leave with it. Because god forbid something be off.

  “Turkey wrap on whole wheat. No mayo or cheese. Arugula, tomato, sprouts and cucumbers. A side of pineapple, fresh only. If it’s not deep enough in color, send it back. Cut the wrap in two, and make sure it’s wrapped only in wax paper not foil.”

  I look up at him, almost waiting for the validation that I kick ass but knowing I won’t get it.

  He gives a curt nod of his head and then says, “Please note that I have a dinner meeting tonight at six p.m. with Evan Fellows about directing the next film he’ll be producing. You will need to be there to note any information, but I prefer not to have you present during dinner.”

  I don’t dare clarify what that means. I have dinner with Lewis and V at eight and two hours should be plenty of time, but something tells me I’m wrong. I should text Lewis and let him know, but this is the part that always fucks up my relationships. The part where I say I’m going to be somewhere and don’t show, the part where my job suddenly becomes more important than the person I’m with.

  But with Lewis it’s different. I can’t let my job ruin my happiness, happiness that has taken me across the world and years to find.

  I was way wrong about two hours being enough time and fuck my life if I’m not sitting in the back of a Mercedes with Noel’s driver waiting for Noel to summon me into the restaurant. My leg is bouncing wildly as the minutes tick past and when it finally reaches quarter past seven, I grab my phone and text out the apology that I didn’t want to have to give.

  My chest tightens making it hard to breathe and I suck in a ragged breath that does nothing to calm my nerves. Lewis is going to hate this.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lewis

  When I wake, Ava is still asleep beside me. Moving closer, I pull her into my arms and close my eyes again as I trail my fingers lightly down her spine. It was late when she’d finally come home last night, waking me from where I’d been asleep on the couch, with an endless stream of apologies for missing our dinner with V.

  She’d looked completely exhausted. Pissed off and apologetic too, but mostly exhausted and it had made my chest ache to see her like that.

  “It’s okay, Ava,” I’d whispered, pulling her into my arms. “You don’t need to apologize.”

  She’d shaken her head as she’d buried her face against my neck. I could feel her heart pounding against my chest, her fingers gripping my t-shirt and in that second I realized that she’d come home thinking I’d be mad with her.

  Gently easing her back, I’d cupped her face in my hands and brushed a gentle kiss against her lips.

  “I’m so sorry,” she’d murmured against my mouth.

  “Shhh, baby,” I’d whispered. “You don’t have to apologize. It’s all good.”

  I’d taken her to bed then, pulling her against me like she was right now, as I’d stroked her back until she’d fallen into a deep sleep.

  Her hand brushes lightly against my chest and I open my eyes, see she’s awake and looking up at me. “Morning,” I whisper, smiling as I lean down to kiss her.

  “Hey,” she says, propping herself up on her elbow so she’s hovering over me. “I’m so sorry about last night, Lewis. I really thought I’d…”

  “Ava,” I say gently, brushing my thumb along her bottom lip. “You don’t need to apologize. I get it, something came up at work. Your job’s important, baby, it’s okay.”

  “But I ruined your night,” she says, fingers sliding along my collarbone. “And I was the one who suggested dinner in the first place.”

  “You didn’t ruin anything,” I tell her. “Me and V caught up, it would have been great if you could be there, but I get it, really.”

  “You’re sure you’re not mad?” she asks and when she looks up at me I can actually see the worry in her eyes.

  I slide my hand up her neck, cupping her cheek as my thumb runs along her bottom lip again. “Ava,” I start, my eyes meeting hers. “I am never, ever going to be mad at you for doing your job, okay?” She stares down at me, but doesn’t say anything. “Okay?” I prompt again.

  “Okay,” she replies, but I can tell she’s still unsure.

  “Baby, I know you have to work long hours and for people who expect and demand shit at the last minute. I get it,” I tell her. “But it’s never going to make me mad or whatever it is you’re thinking right now.”

  “You say that now,” she murmurs, chin resting on her hand as it lies on my chest. “But it has in the past. Always.”

  I exhale, tucking her hair behind her ear before brushing my fingers down her cheek. “I’m positive,” I tell her. “You amaze me with your dedication,” I add, quietly. “I have nothing but respect for you and the way you do your job, baby, seriously.”

  Ava’s eyes close as she leans in and kisses my chest. “Thank you,” she murmurs against my skin.

  I slip my hands around her ribs, pull her up so we’re face to face. “I love you, Ava,” I tell her, kissing her. “And that means I love all
of you. Even the shitty parts of your job.”

  She finally smiles before settling herself against me again. “He’s such a prick,” she eventually says, almost to herself.

  “Who?”

  “Noel,” she adds, her head on my shoulder. “I didn’t even need to be there last night, but because he’s a self-absorbed twat…” She pauses as I chuckle.

  “Nice use of the word, babe,” I tell her.

  She smiles. “Anyway, being the dick that he is, he of course has to make sure my night is ruined, even though it was all for nothing.”

  I run my hand back up her spine. “You know,” I start. “You don’t have to work for him if you don’t want to.”

  “What?”

  My hand slips around her shoulders. “You don’t have to work for him,” I repeat. “You could just quit or wait until Julia’s back or just do nothing until you find something else you want to do.”

  She lifts her head, her eyes meeting mine. “I can’t just not work.”

  I shrug. “Sure you can,” I say. “You don’t need to work for him if you don’t want to. You don’t need to work at all."

  Ava looks at me for a few minutes, not saying anything as her eyes search mine. We’ve still never talked about the money thing that I know V mentioned to her and I’m wondering if that’s what’s running through her mind right now. Eventually, she smiles and says, “I’ll see how it goes. Maybe he’ll settle down. I think his wife wants to leave him, so I’m sure he’s a bit stressed out.”

  “Sounds like she should,” I mutter. “But listen, if he continues to be a prick to you, don’t think I won’t come down there and sort his shit out.”