by Meghan March
Copyright © 2016 by Meghan March LLC
All rights reserved.
Editor: Pam Berehulke, Bulletproof Editing
www.bulletproofediting.com
Cover design: @ By Hang Le
www.byhangle.com
Photo: @ Darren Birks Photography
www.darrenbirksphotography.com
Interior Design: Stacey Blake, Champagne Formats
www.champagneformats.com
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Visit my website at www.meghanmarch.com.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
About This Book
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Also by Meghan March
Author’s Note
About the Author
About This Book
DESPERATELY SEEKING RICH, FAMOUS, SINGLE GUY WITH A GIANT COCK TO MAKE MY LYING, CHEATING, SHOULD’VE-BEEN-BORN-DICKLESS EX-BOYFRIEND REALIZE WHAT HE’S JUST LOST.
OH, AND I GIVE GREAT HEAD. JUST SAYIN’.
No man in his right mind would answer that ad.
Except thousands did.
My name is Greer Karas, and I should never be allowed near another bottle of booze again. Because when I drink, my friend and I do stupid things. Like take a page out of my older brother’s playbook and post something completely asinine on the Internet. Waking up with a giant hangover to find my humiliating personal ad has gone viral is not my finest moment.
Cue my look of shock when one of Hollywood’s hottest new bad boys, Cavanaugh Westman, comes knocking at my door and drops his pants to prove that he does indeed have a giant cock.
What he doesn’t have is an explanation for why he disappeared from my life without a word three years ago, only to show up on the big screen two years later, killing bad guys in action flicks.
He wants me again.
What the hell do I do now?
Have you ever done something you know is a bad idea, but you’re being egged on by your best friend, and the heat of liquor pooling in your belly destroys any concern about potential consequences? Yeah, I did that last night, and a hangover isn’t the only thing I’m regretting. Oh no, I’m a go big or go home kind of girl. I should have gone home.
“Oh my God, B, you gotta undo it. Shit. Shit. Shit. I’ll get fired over this!” Panic permeates my words as I jam my hands into my snarl of post-blackout-drunk hair.
My best friend, Banner, named by her übergenius geek of a father for the legendary comic book character Bruce Banner, tilts her head to the side as she studies her phone’s screen. With a wince, she looks up.
I already know what she’s going to say before she opens her mouth. I’m so screwed.
“I’m sorry, babe, but it’s not undoable. It’s pretty much the opposite of undoable at this point. They call it viral for a reason. Even if I delete it from the site, it’s already been shared thousands of times.”
I slump into the couch, my body going boneless. “Fuck my life.” I groan, throwing an arm over my eyes as if that will help shield me from the consequences of my poor judgment.
“Have you checked your e-mail?”
I peek out from under my arm to look at her, like a little kid who watches a horror movie from between spread fingers over her eyes in hopes of being less terrified in smaller doses. My brain is still chugging along at hangover speed, so I don’t quite understand where she’s going with this question.
“Checked for an e-mail from my very snooty, very white-shoe law firm informing me that my employment as an associate attorney has been terminated? No. No, I have not.” Normally I monitor my work e-mail religiously, but right now I’m too chicken to open it.
Banner lays her phone facedown on the gray coffee table between us. “Not that account,” she says, turning and tucking one leg under her on the couch. “The one we set up for the other e-mails. Oh, and don’t forget the direct messages on Twitter.”
My memories of last night may be a little fuzzy, but there are certain things that stand out in vivid Technicolor. Like coming up with a ridiculous password for the e-mail account [email protected], and my new Twitter account with the same handle. I shove my arm back over the slit of my vision.
Jeeeeezus. Hot mess alert. And on that note, I’m so terribly sorry, alcohol, but we need to break up.
I inject some optimism, or maybe just naïveté, into my tone. “No one would really respond to that ad, would they? I mean, it was clearly a joke.”
Banner tugs my arm away from my face and squeezes my hand. I’d like to say it’s a squeeze in solidarity, but it’s probably more along the lines of a you’re my best friend and we both know you’re totally fucked squeeze.
She delivers her words patiently, the way you’d talk to a toddler who doesn’t quite understand actual words yet. “Greer, we used your name. Being that you are who you are, what in God’s name makes you think that people wouldn’t respond?”
Snatching my hand back, I jam the heels of my palms into my eyes. “Can’t you just lie to me? I’m trying to find some way to turn back time so my life isn’t so epically screwed.”
“Sorry, babe. Ain’t happening. You were pretty adamant about it last night, and I wasn’t about to contradict you.” Banner pushes off the couch, and I hope she’s going to get a tranquilizer to put me out of my misery.
No such luck. She crosses to the granite kitchen island and grabs my tablet. Her fingernails are tapping away on the screen when she asks, “What was the password again?”
She waits until I mumble something incoherent in response.
“Come again?”
I stare at the deep purple nail polish that’s chipping on my thumbnail. Why can’t my life be fixed as easily as my manicure? Oh, that’s right, because life isn’t for the faint of heart.
“Greer?”
I look up, mentally begging her to drop it. Do we really need to know the extent of my hum
iliation? I slap my hands down on the velvet sectional cushions on either side of me.
“This is pointless. Even if some whack jobs respond, I’m just going to ignore them and block their e-mails. There’s no point in checking.”
Banner glares at me. “Password.”
Given that I’ve known her since prep school, I know she won’t stop until I cave.
“Ionlysuckbigcocks69.” It comes out on a single breath in a new dialect of the language mumble.
When a crooked smile lit with pure amusement spreads across Banner’s face, I grab a toss pillow off the sectional and fling it at her head.
“Bitch. You already knew!”
“I had to hear you say it out loud. Because it’s fan-frigging-tastic. I might change all my passwords today. They’re clearly not creative enough. It’s like an anthem for women everywhere.”
I scan the area around me for additional projectiles, but come up empty. Why don’t I have more knickknacks?
“It’s not like I came up with it all by myself,” I remind her.
She was just as drunk last night while we laughed over the ad, the personal ad I placed in my real name in the crazy hopes that one particular guy would see it. A guy who clearly wasn’t interested in me before and isn’t now either.
He’s known where to find me for years. It wasn’t until a year ago that I finally figured out where he was.
How messed up is it to go to a movie with your friends and see the guy you had a mad crush on displayed center screen during the previews? The guy who broke your barely twenty-something-year-old heart before you could even get to the naked fun times?
Cavanaugh Westman, Hollywood’s newest bad boy. It didn’t matter that he’d changed, gotten bigger and more dangerous looking. I’d know him anywhere. Shaggy brown hair, curling just over his collar, hazel eyes that you could never predict the color of—anywhere from green to grayish-blue or tawny brown. It didn’t shock me that Hollywood agents had apparently fallen in love with him. His body was ridiculous. Thick, sculpted muscles covered with inked, bronzed skin—
“Holy. Shit. No. Way.”
Banner’s low words drag me from my little trip down memory lane, and I jerk my head in her direction.
“What?”
She holds up the iPad and I shove to my feet, leaving the safety of my cozy couch to join her.
“You’ve got over five thousand new e-mails. And somehow, almost a half million new followers on Twitter, thanks to last night. Color you popular, lady.”
My stomach bottoms out before twisting into a sickly, complicated knot as I take the tablet from her. “Oh. My. God.” My phone vibrates across the kitchen island before I can even begin to read.
My attention snaps to my phone as I dread who might be calling. There are two possibilities, both daunting but one more so: The chair of the professional staff committee from my firm calling to deliver my termination notice. Or worse, my brother.
I shove the iPad back into Banner’s hands and snatch up the phone to check the display. Crey.
“Shit.”
“Is it your brother?” she asks, knowing Creighton well enough from my birthdays and other events over the years.
“Yep.”
“Well, it’s not like he can say much. He practically invented the scandalous viral ad.”
That’s the truth, but it doesn’t mean my brother would want to exchange stories of how we found our respective ways into the gossip rags by posting moronic things online.
No, he won’t find the humor in how much his little sis follows in his footsteps. First, he’ll want to kill my ex-boyfriend, Tristan—who he never liked anyway, and then, he’s probably going to hire me a babysitter in addition to the bodyguard he forced on me last year. We toned down the security a few months back when I threatened to move out of the country to get away from him. Now I only have a driver who ferries me to and from work and anywhere else I need to go. I don’t traipse the streets of New York by myself anymore, especially not late at night.
Holding my phone as it continues to vibrate, I debate how big my lady balls are today. Not so very big.
I let it go to voice mail. Nothing good can come of answering it. I’m too old to be scolded like an errant child, but I have a feeling Creighton won’t agree with that assessment.
Instead, I round the couch to sink back into the safety of its plush cushions. Banner plops down beside me as I slide my phone next to hers on the table. She sets up my tablet facing us both, the list of e-mails mocking me with their subject lines like:
I’LL MAKE YOU MY BAD BITCH
MY COCK WILL ROCK YOUR WORLD
SEND ME A PICTURE OF YOUR FEET
The last one sends a creeper-worthy shiver of disgust down my spine. Apparently my viral ad brings out all the freak shows.
At a time like this, I could use the guidance of my big brother, but I know I’ve fucked up too badly to ask. Humiliation isn’t something I deal with well.
Curling into a ball, I wrap my arms around my legging-clad knees. “What the hell am I going to do now?”
Banner’s slouchy sweatshirt slips down over her shoulder, and she tugs it up before shrugging and offering her sage advice.
“There’s really only one thing you can do—ride the wave of notoriety for all it’s worth. Who knows, you might actually get a rich, hot, famous guy who’s hung like a horse. And then you’ll fuck your way into the sunset and live happily ever after with a big cock in your bed every night.”
I toss my arm over my eyes again and groan. I’m so fucked. And not in the way Banner is hoping.
“Fuck you, Westman. I think you broke my goddamned face!”
I didn’t, but Peyton DeLong is a pussy who would think a bitch slap hurts. If I had tried to break his face, he’d be on his way to the ER right now instead of crying over a bloody nose.
I’m not supposed to be throwing real punches on the set anymore, but sometimes a man’s gotta make an exception. I haven’t heard her name in over a year, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let this prick run it through the mud.
“Then keep your mouth shut and learn some fucking manners.” I pitch my voice low, letting a growl invade, and I’m surprised DeLong doesn’t piss himself where he stands.
Hollywood assholes. They don’t know shit about real life. And I’m one of them now. I stop myself from hanging my head at how far my life has veered off the path I thought it would take.
Mitch Stark, the director who pushed me to make the jump from stuntman to legit actor, strides over.
“If you two can’t figure out a way to get through this without another pissing match, I will rain down hell like you’ve never experienced. You won’t be able to buy yourself a decent role when I’m done blackballing you.”
“He started it.”
My fists ache to shut down DeLong’s whine. Those veneers won’t look so perfect scattered on the ground.
The only reason I accepted this role was because of Mitch. DeLong had been an unwelcome late addition to the cast, and I’ll eat Spam and live in my car on skid row before I’ll ever do another film with him.
“I’m done here.” Without wasting another second of brainpower on DeLong, I stride in the direction of my trailer.
“You walking away from me, boy?”
Mitch is one of only two men I’ll let speak to me that way. For a guy on the downhill side of sixty, he’s got some speed in his gait as he tails me down the dusty path.
Good. Means I don’t need to slow down.
“Thought you were done leveling threats, old man.”
The slicing power of his arctic glare would make many an actor blank on a line or blow a cue, but I refuse to fear him. He stomps up the stairs behind me, the aluminum door slapping against the side of the trailer before it slams shut with us both inside.
“You ever going to lose that chip on your shoulder?” Mitch asks, crossing his arms over his chest. Even at his age, he’s still got power in those muscles, and right now he looks li
ke he wants to take me out back and beat some sense into me. Not a chance in hell, regardless of how much I respect him.
“Probably not.” My answer is surprisingly honest.
“Shame, because any other director would toss you off the set and fine you for what you just did.”
I raise my chin, that chip on my shoulder fueling my response. “Then fine me.”
His steely blue gaze bores into me. “I would if I thought it would make a damn difference.”
He’s right. It won’t.
“What do you want from me, Mitch?” I cross my arms over my chest.
“How about an explanation about what set that shit off? You don’t want a reputation as a loose cannon, Cav. It’ll kill your career so fast, you won’t know what happened.”
While I might not have wanted to be Hollywood’s hottest new action star, I’m not ready to give it up either. I’m hooked. Not only on the challenge of it, but being part of creating something that allows millions of people to escape from their lives for a few hours at a time.
I spent plenty of hours trying to escape my childhood reality holed up in a ratty movie theater watching larger-than-life heroes take on the bad guys. The thought of giving that same escape to a kid like me is more than enough to keep me going, and that’s only part of my motivation.
Although at that age, I wondered why bad guys in movies didn’t win like they did in real life. Some lessons are learned early and often.
“Cav, you gonna give me something here or am I talking to myself?”
I yank open the mini fridge door and snag two bottles of water. Wishing they were beer doesn’t replace the cans I crushed last night.
Almost done with this fucking movie, I remind myself. Then I don’t ever have to work with DeLong again.
I toss one to Mitch and twist the cap off the other before lowering myself into a recliner.
“I wasn’t talking about a bottle of water, kid.”
Mitch won’t let this go until he has some sort of explanation. I can bullshit him, but instead I go with the truth out of respect.