That had been almost two years ago, and now she was engaged and couldn’t help wondering if she should call Antonio and tell him. “Hi, Daddy,” she’d say sweetly. “I’m no longer a slut and a whore. Will you come to my wedding and give me away?”
Mr. Double Standard. He should’ve called her, and he never had. Oh well, Lissa had always claimed Antonio was a big disappointment, perhaps she was right.
Nevertheless, Nicci still loved him, although she certainly did not respect him, for his casual way with women had colored her view of all men, forcing her to adopt the motto: Use them before they use you. Up until now she’d run her life that way, unlike dear old Mom, who kept falling in love—or lust, depending on how one looked at it.
Nicci admired the professionalism and achievements of her mother. However, she did not feel particularly close to her. How could she when Lissa always seemed to put her career first, love life second, and trailing a poor third, came Nicci, her only child, to whom she’d given birth when she was twenty and on the brink of becoming very famous indeed.
Nicci often considered it a good thing that Lissa had not had more children, she was hardly mother material.
No, Lissa Roman was a true superstar, destined to be worshiped by millions.
•
LISSA ROMAN worked a camera like nobody else. She had all her moves down and enjoyed making love to the lens. Creating dynamic photographs was one of her strengths, and the camera adored her.
Hard work had never bothered Lissa. In fact, hard work was the way her parents—a strict, midwestern couple—had raised her. “Work hard and don’t expect no thanks,” her father, an austere man incapable of giving affection, had drilled into her. So she’d worked her brains out at school, achieving top grades and getting no words of praise from her distant parents. Even when she was voted top of her class, they’d refused to acknowledge that she’d achieved anything. Finally, at sixteen, after a horrible fight with her parents, she’d run away to New York with her high school boyfriend and never gone back. As far as she knew, they’d never come looking, and she didn’t give a damn.
“Do you need anything, honey-child?” Fabio asked, standing on the sidelines sipping green tea from a leopard-print mug.
“Put on the Nelly Furtado CD,” she requested. “Track four—‘Legend.’ I can’t get enough of that song.”
She always made sure to bring a selection of favorite CDs to every session. Today it was Nelly, Sade, and Marc Anthony. She was very into soul and Latin sounds and was currently planning her own CD, which would incorporate plenty of both. She was also working on a book, sitting with a ghost writer whenever she had the time, working to produce a glossy coffee-table book to be titled A Week in the Life of Lissa.
Like Madonna and Cher, she was known by one name.
Apart from the CD and the book, there was also a movie she might do—a remake of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Nothing signed yet; she was waiting for the right script. And in her immediate future was a one-night stand in Vegas at the opening of an incredibly lavish new hotel, the Desert Millennium Princess, which would pay her three million dollars for the pleasure of her company. Quite an achievement. And then there was her daughter’s upcoming wedding, which Nicci had assured her she could deal with herself.
So Lissa was extremely busy, but not too busy to contemplate her fourth divorce. Currently she was married to Gregg Lynch, a singer/songwriter, ten years younger than her. And thank God her lawyer had insisted that he sign an ironclad prenuptial agreement, because lately she’d begun to suspect that Gregg was composing his love songs elsewhere. And not only that, but over the last six months he’d started showering her with mental abuse.
His constant nagging about things she supposedly did wrong was beginning to get her down. There were times he would pick on the smallest detail and yell at her endlessly. Other times he would berate her for not recording his songs—accusing her manager and agent of mounting a vendetta against him. He’d tried to persuade her to fire them both. “Can’t you see that they’re stealing from you?” he’d yell. “And you’re too dumb and stupid to notice.”
He distrusted her business manager. Loathed her lawyer. Hated her yoga teacher. Criticized her friends. In fact, anyone who worked for or befriended her was on his shit list.
She ignored his insults because she knew that deep down he didn’t mean it. And whenever he indulged in one of his temper tantrums, he always apologized later. She also understood why he was so supercritical. He was furious that he’d never made it, and because of that, he was forced to take his frustration and anger out on someone, and since she was the closest person to him, that someone was her.
The big problem was that she was never quite sure who she was going to wake up next to—the good or the bad Gregg. Unfortunately, they now seemed to exist side by side.
She couldn’t stand him when he was in one of his bad moods. Loved him when he was mellow and caring and supportive—qualities that were fast vanishing.
Lissa was prepared to put up with a lot, but she was no Hillary Clinton. She knew from past experience there was no such animal as the perfect man; the one thing she refused to stand for was infidelity. The moment she suspected that might be happening, it was time to move on, and lately she’d been recognizing the signs only too well: all-night meetings, a renewed interest in his personal appearance, taking one shower a day too many, and developing a paranoid attachment to his cell phone.
As soon as Gregg started exhibiting the symptoms, she’d called the Robbins/Scorsinni Private Investigation Agency and requested a forty-eight-hour surveillance. She’d used the agency on other occasions and they’d never failed her.
It was so depressing that it had to come to this again. Why was it that she had yet to marry a man who could keep it in his pants?
Nelly Furtado crooned over the sound system. Lissa licked her already glossy lips while Fabio fussed with her hair.
“Will we be finished soon?” she asked Max, her publicist, who was hovering on the sidelines with a group of people from the magazine.
“Anytime you want,” said Max, a short, cigar-smoking man who wore flamboyant suits and had a different bow tie for every day of the month.
“One more roll,” the photographer begged. He was young, in awe, and excellent at what he did.
Lissa was always open to young and excellent, it kept her career edgy and fresh.
Throwing her head back, she struck a pose, honoring the camera with a true-to-form provocative gaze. Parted lips, half-closed diamond-blue eyes, an expression of sexual yearning.
Lissa Roman gave great sex. It always paid off.
•
KICKBOXING CLASS OVER—a virtual feast of kicking, punching, and sparring—Nicci hurried into the dressing room, took a quick shower and changed into shorts and a stomach-baring T-shirt, all the better to show off her killer abs, glowing tan, and recent navel piercing. Then she stared in the mirror for a moment, which reminded her that she’d certainly inherited Antonio’s looks. Rich, dark brown hair cropped like a gamine, with long bangs falling into her huge brown eyes, which were fringed with impossibly long, silky, midnight-black lashes. Long legs and a lithe, lean body. Her overly full, sexy lips and high cheekbones were the only clue that she was Lissa Roman’s daughter.
Yes, she decided, she was definitely going to call Antonio. He had to come to her wedding. He was her father, after all, and she needed him beside her on the most important day of her life. It wasn’t like she had any other family—Lissa’s parents were forbidden territory, although Nicci had always harbored a secret desire to contact them, see if they were as strict and unloving as Lissa said.
Grabbing her bag, she headed for the car park, where she climbed behind the wheel of her gleaming silver sports BMW, an engagement present from her fiancé, Evan.
Ah . . . Evan, she thought fondly. A goer. A doer. A man with a mission. Thirty years old and already a self-made millionaire thanks to a string of offbeat comedy movies he’d co
written and coproduced with his brother, Brian.
So intently was Nicci thinking about Evan, that she did not notice the dusty brown van pull away from the curb and fall in behind her car as she left the parking lot and hit Sunset.
Evan and Brian Richter. A younger, hipper version of the Farrelly brothers. Their rise to power had been meteoric—six movies in five years, all of them box-office smashes.
Nicci had met Evan at the dog park on the top of Mulholland. She’d been walking her then-current boyfriend’s Great Dane, and Evan had been trying to control a couple of crazed, large German shepherd puppies that were intent on running riot and attacking as many other dogs as possible. Coolly assessing the situation, she’d gone up to him, grabbed the dog leashes out of his helpless hand, chased down both puppies, and gotten them firmly collared.
“Here,” she’d said brusquely, delivering the two German shepherds back to Evan. “I suggest you hire a trainer.”
“How much?” he’d asked, all spiky brown hair, lanky limbs, and comic-book features.
“How much what?” she’d answered haughtily.
“How much’ll you charge to do it?”
A disdainful look. “You can’t afford me.”
A crooked grin. “Wanna bet?”
What the hell . . . she had no job to speak of, and he seemed vaguely legitimate. “A thousand a week. Cash,” she’d said, challenging him.
No challenge was too big for Evan Richter. “When can you start?” he’d said, admiring her spunky attitude.
And that’s how it all began. A casual meeting, with neither of them knowing anything about the other. He’d only kept the dogs a few weeks, because they were messing up his impeccable house, but by that time Nicci and he were quite inseparable.
That had been five months ago and now they were due to be married in six weeks and she had a wedding to organize with no help from Lissa, whose only suggestion had been to hire a wedding planner.
Nicci sighed. Naturally, she loved Evan. Sort of. Well, he made her laugh, didn’t treat her badly, and gave great head. He could also handle the fact that she had a famous mom—which freaked out most guys.
That should be enough to sustain a long and fruitful marriage . . . shouldn’t it?
Yes. Except there was one tiny, little drawback. Very small. Extremely insignificant.
Nicci loved Evan’s brother too.
And sometimes she wasn’t sure which one of the Richter brothers she loved more.
Chapter Two
* * *
LISSA ROMAN had four best friends, three of them female and one male. They called themselves the New Hollywood Wives and tried to get together at least once a month, which wasn’t easy, because they were all exceptionally busy—except James, who played house-husband to his black male lover, music mogul Claude St. Lucia.
“Look at you ladies go,” James was inclined to say, raising his well-groomed eyebrows. “Why not play it like me and do absolutely nothing? It’s so much easier.”
James was tall and English, with fine aristocratic features and dark blond hair, worn a tad too long. He was extremely lazy, but a loyal friend who could be relied upon to listen to all their problems, and among the four women, that meant a lot of problems.
Lissa never felt the need to visit a shrink, she had James to depend on, although she didn’t tell him everything, and she certainly wasn’t about to reveal her suspicions about Gregg.
Today they were meeting at Mr. Chow’s—a longtime popular hangout on Camden Drive.
Lissa got there first, safely delivered by her permanent driver, Chuck, a large, bald, black man who doubled as her bodyguard. She’d learned the hard way that she couldn’t be too careful. She’d had her share of stalkers, freaks, and overzealous fans. Caution was second nature to her now.
Then James walked in, debonair as usual in a casual Armani sports jacket and perfectly pressed jeans. James loved clothes; Claude loved buying them for him.
Taylor Singer arrived next. Taylor was a tall, striking woman in her mid-thirties, with catlike green eyes, long wavy hair, and well-defined features. She was married to Lawrence Singer, mega Oscar-winning writer/director/producer. Taylor was an actress who had plans to direct and star in her own project—a movie she’d been developing and talking about for two years. So far it hadn’t happened, but with steely determination, and a great deal of help from her powerful husband, she was sure it was about to.
She was followed by Stella Rossiter, a short, dynamic blonde who produced movies with her husband, Seth—a man thirty years older than his pretty, smart-mouthed third wife. Together they were a well-respected, powerhouse couple who consistently made hit films.
Stella was pregnant. Well, actually she wasn’t, she was far too busy to put up with the inconvenience of pregnancy. So a mix of her eggs, fertilized with Seth’s sperm, had been implanted in a surrogate mother. Stella was delighted to inform anyone who would listen that they were about to give birth to twins.
Seth’s three grown children from his two former marriages were not thrilled. Nor were his ex-wives.
And finally, in strolled Kyndra, sultry queen of the divas, making her usual late entrance.
Lissa glanced pointedly at her watch. “What is this—black time?” she demanded good-naturedly.
“Oh, honey,” Kyndra answered in her low-down, smoky voice. “You all would still be sittin’ here come midnight if this was black time!”
Everyone laughed, while Kyndra settled into her seat. She was a voluptuous woman, with a huge bosom, long Tina Turner legs, and clouds of thick, dark curls surrounding a strong, sexual face. She’d been married for twenty-four years to Norio Domingo, one of the most successful record producers in the music business. “Come tomorrow, Norio and I are in the recording studio,” Kyndra drawled. “An’ that’s the last you’ll see of us until our party. So get this mama a lychee martini an’ let’s dish!”
It was Lissa’s lunch, so she signaled the waiter, ordered drinks and all kinds of tempting starters—from chopped seaweed to honey spareribs. The food would probably sit there, as everyone—including James—seemed to be on a permanent diet. But it was a good idea to have it on the table just in case anyone was in an eating mood.
“You’re on, James,” Lissa said, turning to her best male friend. “You always know everything first, so let’s hear the latest.”
Not that she was interested, since gossip wasn’t her thing, but she needed something to take her mind off what she was doing later.
“Well . . .” James said, a knowledgeable glint in his slate-gray eyes. “Did anyone hear about Ricky M. and the two French models?”
“Even better,” Stella interrupted. “I went to one of those ‘how-to-give-the-perfect-blow-job’ parties. Talk about bizarre.”
“I went to one of those,” Taylor said enthusiastically. “Rubber cocks straight out of the dishwasher! And some funny little ex-nurse who tried to instruct everyone how to do it. Can you imagine!”
“Pu . . . lease,” James said. “It’s far too early for this kind of crude nonsense.”
“Ladies,” Kyndra intoned, “if you don’t know how to give the perfect b.j. by this time, then I suggest you pack on up and get your skinny white asses back to where you came from!”
And after that it was all systems go.
•
DRIVING FAST, with one hand on the steering wheel, the other clutching her cell phone, Nicci reached Evan on location in Arizona, where he was shooting his latest movie.
“Busy?” she asked briskly.
“Busy missing you,” he replied.
“How come you always know the right thing to say?” she said, pleased to hear he was missing her.
“Practice.”
“I hate the thought of practice,” she said, screeching to a halt at a red light.
“Huh?”
“Practice means there’s been other women. I hate the thought of other women.”
“No other women,” Evan said solemnly. “I
was a virgin before you. All I did was jack off.”
“Ugh! I’d sooner there were other women!” she laughed, ignoring the man in the Toyota behind her who was busy giving her the finger on account of her abrupt stop.
“No pleasing you today,” Evan said lightly.
“I’m planning on phoning my dad,” she announced, groping for a cigarette in her purse.
“What? To tell him I jack off?”
“You’re weird,” she said, laughing.
“I am,” he agreed. “But you knew that.”
“Uh . . . how’s Brian?” she asked casually, lighting up.
“An asshole, as usual.”
“So things are normal.”
“You could say that.”
The light changed to green, and she shot away, driving too fast, as always. “E-mail me your undying devotion.”
“I already have.”
“Miss you,” she said. “Call me later.”
“Of course.”
She clicked off, a smile on her face. Evan always made her smile, which is more than she could say for most of the men she’d been involved with. Carlos had possessed no sense of humor at all. Looking back, she had no clue what she’d seen in him—apart from his smooth looks and incredible prowess in bed.
Hmm . . . two qualities that shouldn’t count, but definitely did. Sensational sex was hard to come by.
Evan was good in bed. Obliging and considerate. But no way was he wild.
Nicci had a strong suspicion that Brian was the wild one in the family. She also had a nagging itch to find out.
No! she told herself sternly. Stop thinking that way. It’s Evan you’re marrying. Not Brian, who comes on to every woman who breathes and is certainly not faithful and trustworthy like his brother.
Cutting off a white Mercedes driven by a gray-haired letch, she pulled up in front of Starbucks and hurried inside.
Skipping to the front of the line, she winked at the lanky guy behind the counter—a wanna-be actor with bright red hair and crooked teeth. Since he knew her, she didn’t have to tell him her order. “What’s happenin’, Freddy?” she asked, reaching for a cookie on the glass-topped counter.
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