How to Hide a Hollywood Star

by Avoca Gardener

  He ran a hand through his hair, breathed hard. “No, I don’t.”

  “It’s not about the job.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. What’s it about then?” he demanded.

  I sucked in a deep breath, I had to tell him, make him understand, finish this. “It’s about you and me and the fact that there’s no place for us, there’s no fit. You’re my Hollywood Problem. You’re part of another world and I’m not a poor little Cinderella who needs rescuing. I have my own career and my own life and it’s not—”

  “I would give up everything you asked for a chance to fit in your world, if that’s what you want.”

  “You’d give up Anissa?”

  “Never,” he glared at me, “But you’d never ask me to.”

  I hung my head. I wouldn’t, but it hadn’t stopped me wanting to be cruel, to push him away. He didn’t recoil. He stood his ground, stared me down.

  “You’d give up making movies, living in LA, the whole lifestyle of the rich and famous thing?”

  “Yes.” No hesitation, no equivocation. He was scaring me.

  “You can’t mean that?”

  “I’ve been in love exactly three times. With Cecily and it was a chimera, with Anissa and it’s for life,” he said fiercely, “And with you. And I think I’m entitled to know where that’s going to go.”

  My phone rang in my pocket and I snatched it out and hit the speaker.

  “Is he there?” asked Arch.

  “Yes.” I met Rush’s eyes. His focus skewered me to the spot, making it impossible to move.

  Arch said, “Are you being nice to him?”

  “Not especially.”

  “Andi, if you don’t throw yourself in his arms right now, I’m gonna—”

  “What?” I interrupted. “What?”

  “I’m going to be really, really sad for you,” Arch said softly. “Try it, Andi. You might like it.”

  And suddenly all the anger and fear drained out of me. I looked at the beautiful man standing in my verandah, focusing his whole self on me, his intelligent, strong, brave, talented and passionate self. He wasn’t trying to rescue me, change me or control me. He wasn’t trying to jam me into something that would fit too tight and chaff. I was an inconvenience and yet he’d offered me the whole fantasy. I’d stopped myself from believing something like that was possible. Possible for me.

  I didn’t want to be a frightened, angry orange cat any more. I stepped into Rush’s waiting arms and he exhaled hot against my neck. He folded me against his body and I could feel him shake, the tension leaving him too now he had his answer.

  “How are we supposed to do this?” I muttered against his shirt.

  He stroked my back. “Together.”

  It was a great answer. But not enough.

  “I’m not giving up the company.” I lifted my head to watch his face. There were so many ways this wouldn’t work. His life could overtake mine in a heartbeat. I had to be strong now before he sapped all my will power.

  “I should hope not.”

  I laughed at his fierce expression. Not what I’d expected. “What’s it to you? I thought you were rich enough to support a freeloader or two,” I teased.

  “I have an investment to protect.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I invested in you.”

  “You mean your time to chase me down?”

  “I mean my money. If I couldn’t win you with my native charm, and you wouldn’t take my job offer, I needed a new excuse to be near you.” He stroked my hair. “I found a new hall to finance.

  “What new hall?”

  “I’m your silent partner.”

  Holy shit! My jaw dropped. Why hadn’t I seen this coming? I’d been so focused on trying to forget Rush, I’d overlooked the reach and power he had. I’d overlooked his history of scratching an itch like this.

  “What do you want from the investment, what’s the fine print?” I said sharply, suspicion making me pull away from him.

  He realised he’d spooked me. “All I wanted was a way to stay involved with you, no matter how distant. No strings, no tricks. I’ll retire the deal if it makes you unhappy,” he said, his brows drawn.

  It would take some getting used to, but it didn’t necessarily make me unhappy. No Tom, it would make Michael ecstatic.

  “I thought this way you could take Scratch Foundation on as a client.”

  Suspicion gave way to hope. “If I can fit it in my busy schedule.” Maybe desert island dreams could come true. “I’ll have to take it up with my partners.” I shifted so I could put my arms around him and realised I was still holding the call from Arch.

  “Bastards are probably still listening,” said Rush, taking the phone from my hand. “Arch, are you still there?”

  “Six sisters,” said Arch. “Think any of them would ever cook for me again if I didn’t have all the details.”

  “Incredible. Ever heard of privacy?” groaned Rush.

  “Old man, fucking get on with it, we haven’t got all night here,” broke in Shane. “I swear if you foul this up, I’m on the next plane to beat the crap out of you and beg her to take me on instead.”

  Rush took a deep breath, pulled me closer, locked eyes with me and gave me that drop dead gorgeous smile that lit his whole face. “I can’t live with half measures and I’m not good with vague promises. I want my intentions to be absolutely clear. Will you take me and all my Hollywood faults and my rat bastard buddies, my wonderful daughter, my career, my money, my groupies, my misleading headlines, my unfortunate fame and stand against them all with me?

  My knees went to water and my hands shook. A tiny chorus of cheers and whistles from the phone and Harvey whacked his tail against our legs.

  “Will you take me to bed and let me love you?”

  Platonic was over rated and so was running from the shock of this.

  “Will you give me time to explain when I mess up, when I get stuff wrong? And I will.”

  Sainthood was so old fashioned. So long St Francis.

  “Will you let me be with you, however you want, wherever you want, for as long as you want?”

  There was only one question left and only one answer.

  “Andi Carrington, will you think about marrying me one day?”

  “Oh, I’ve thought about it.”

  “And?” Rush inclined his head, his breath caught. “I thought I had that under control, but fuck, you’ve made me nervous.”

  “I’m nervous too.” I was having trouble looking at him.

  “You’ve given me stage fright. But I’m always at my best when I’m a little scared. Tell me.”

  I looked up. “Rush, this is not a performance.” If he thought this was some make-believe scene for a movie we were done for before we began.

  “No, it’s not. It’s my life. I want you to be my life,” he said, his voice breaking.

  I looked into his eyes, wide and wet and I believed him.

  “So?” he said softly, hesitantly.

  I nodded. I’d thought about it so many ways, so many times. Just never in terms of it coming true.

  His grin was broad and his eyes glittered.

  “What the hell’s happening?” demanded Arch.

  “Are you guys kissing?” asked Shane.

  “Just say the word, baby and I’ll lose the entourage?” said Rush, laughing with relief and resting his forehead on mine.

  “Hey!” chorused the entourage, just before he ended the call. We had much better things to do.

  Rush’s arms were tight around me, holding me against his length, his lips warm and insistent, parting mine and melting me to him. My hands were in his hair, my racing heart pressed against his chest. I was thoroughly, hopeless lost in his touch and dissolved in his kiss.

  In the fantasy, the island was fully equipped with the latest conveniences and unmentionable luxuries so decadent they should’ve been illegal. In the fantasy, none of that mattered. There was just him and me, everlasting blu
e skies, calm oceans, fragrant flowers and fruits. He was offering me the fantasy.

  What can I say? I bought it all.

  38: Encore

  January 22

  Hot Hollywood Gossip

  The latest on Tinsel town’s stars

  By Gossip King, Roger Smyth

  Sydney Cinderella gets her Prince

  Heartthrob Rush Dawson protests too much.

  It seems the Hollywood Prince ran a deliberate campaign of misinformation around this time last year during his highly public divorce from the charming, Cecily Vale.

  While lovely Cecily was crying buckets, the handsome Mr Dawson was caught partying in Sydney with firm friends, Shane Horan and Arch Drummond, and photographed in the company of mystery woman, Andi Carrington, joint owner of the public relations company, Arrive.

  The star denied Ms Carrington was the reason for his breakup and in an exclusive with this paper during a fundraiser in the town of Bangalow, persuading me that he and Ms Carrington shared a strictly professional relationship. I guess professional is in the eye of the beholder.

  The truth has finally caught up with Dawson, fresh from directing his first movie and now semi-resident in Sydney. He married Ms Carrington in a private and secret ceremony in the tiny postcode of Possum Creek at the weekend. Horan and Drummond were in attendance.

  The bride reportedly wore a vintage dress owned by a family member. They are rumoured to be honeymooning at Shane Horan’s Hawaiian island home on Maui.

  The couple intend to split their time between Sydney, Los Angeles and New York. Despite repeated requests they declined to be interviewed.

  Acknowledgements

  For the fantastic music of: AC/DC, Cold Chisel, Harry Belafonte, Jason Derulo, John Mayer, Amy Winehouse, Duffy, Cee Lo Green, Adele, The Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra, Jamie Cullum, Harry Connick Junior, Ray Charles, Norah Jones and Nat King Cole.

  Thank you amazing readers: MP, Lou2, SL, MM, JM, VA & JS. It’s basically all your fault we came this far. Thank you MP title guru to the stars.

  A Sample Read from How to Save a Small Town

  The first thing that was wrong was the teabag. Irwin never used teabags. He always had his own little tea ceremony with fresh peppermint tea and a silver teapot with a special strainer, and a fine, white bone-china cup and saucer.

  Cassidy Tyler leaned against the stone bench-top in the staff kitchen and watched Irwin twist the string of an Irish Breakfast teabag around the wet bag and a spoon, and pull. The paper finger holder came away from the string, the teabag split and dropped straight into Irwin’s chosen mug with a splash of hot water. Irwin grunted and flung the whole thing in the sink in disgust.

  Irwin wasn’t a man who did disgust. Irwin was measured and calm and well, unflappable. Today Irwin was flapped and Cassidy’s heart went out to him.

  She hated to see her boss, mentor and friend like this. Irwin had hired her as a promising but inexperienced MBA graduate and over the last five years had made it his life’s goal to share his formidable experience as a management consultant with her. Irwin was a skilled coach, councillor and change manager. He was also the mildest mannered and most considerate person Cassidy had ever met.

  Because of Irwin, she was on the fast track to promotion as a company director. Because of Irwin and his support of her career, she had a six-figure salary, an almost paid off Paddington terrace house and a new BMW.

  But two weeks ago, Irwin’s world fell apart. Bev, his wife of thirty years was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and Irwin was hurting.

  “Are you here to tell me Richard wants to see us?” snapped Irwin, embarrassed about his loss of cool with the teabag.

  Cassidy set two mugs on the bench and proceeded to make a plunger pot of coffee. “I’m here to talk to you. How’s Bev?”

  “Brave and cheerful. I don’t understand how, but that’s the way she is.” Irwin sighed, taking a seat at the table.

  “What about you?”

  “I’m so together I’m letting a teabag get the better of me.”

  “Really? I didn’t notice,” Cassidy said, with a wry grin. She placed a cup of coffee and a milk jug in front of Irwin and sat.

  “Sorry you had to see that.”

  “Ir, it’s perfectly okay. Is there anything I can do?”

  Irwin put his manicured hand over Cassidy’s and was silent. He dropped his eyes to the table. She noticed his normally immaculately pressed shirt was rumpled and his pale blue silk tie was spotted with water. He even looked thinner than usual. For a moment, she thought he might cry and she held her breath. She had no operations manual for what to do if Irwin Waites screwed up brown eyes behind frameless glasses and cried. It scared her to think that rock steady, reliable Irwin was cut adrift from his calm, and tossing about on a sea of pain and loss.

  He broke the silence, but not his eye contact with the table. “I’m so angry, Cas. I thought we’d have years to enjoy ourselves, years without the kids, with no financial pressure and with time to do the things we enjoyed—all the things I made Bev hold off on because I was so busy working. Busy enjoying myself working. But that’s not going to happen now. She won’t ever see the flowers at the Chelsea Show, she won’t ever walk the Great Wall of China, she won’t ever eat tapas in Madrid. And it’s my fault. I always said no, not yet, next year. And now there won’t be a next year.”

  Cassidy turned her hand to grasp his and held it tight. “Oh, Irwin.” Irwin was dry-eyed but she wasn’t, she could feel sandpaper at the back of her eyes and water in her eyelashes.

  “She won’t see Cody graduate or Beth get married. She won’t be a grandma. She...” Irwin stopped but kept a grip on Cassidy’s hand. “I won’t ever forgive myself for being so selfish, for stopping her from having a better life.” He looked up, calm again, composed, but eerily so. “I was so busy watching for peace signs I didn’t see the emu. Always watch for the emu, he’s the most important thing.”

  Cassidy frowned, she had no idea what Irwin was talking about but it was clear that professional, polished, no surprises Irwin Waites was an emotional time bomb primed to go off.

  “Let’s go see Richard, shall we?” he said.

  Richard de Angelo was on the phone when they arrived outside the glass walls of his sizeable office. His executive assistant Claire gave them a bright smile. As the managing partner, Richard was the only staff member to have an office and a personal assistant. Everyone else had a cubical, some more lavishly appointed and better situated than others, but still without any walls and with less than no privacy.

  If you were terse with your mother or had a disagreement with your significant other, everyone in the office knew. If you had a heated exchange with the gas company or a gossip with a girlfriend everyone knew. If you had a Thai jungle curry for lunch everyone knew. Richard behind his glass walls was spared from knowing the details of Brad’s dispute with his landlord and Amanda’s drunken Saturday night, and he liked it that way. As a consequence, Richard was the only one in the office who didn’t know there was something the matter with Irwin and Cassidy knew Irwin liked it that way.

  Richard beckoned them in. “Cassidy, Irwin, take a seat.” He pulled one of his visitor chairs around for Cassidy and when she sat, put his hand on her shoulder, leaving it there for a few more seconds than she thought strictly necessary. Irwin saw it and scowled. Richard was known outside of his earshot as Richard de Lingerer for his penchant for touching the female staff members, not so much in specifically inappropriate ways, but in ways that skated close.

  Richard rested his Italian suited backside against the edge of his desk, long legs out in front, ankles crossed, facing Cassidy and Irwin.

  “Davenport has made another acquisition. I need you guys on it. It’s a printing plant out in the middle of nowhere, in the Turon Valley. He needs a full report on capabilities for transformation or sale. I need you out there to assess things on site.”

  “What kind of printing plant?” asked Irwin.

&
nbsp; “Greeting cards, old tech, hardly any legs left in it as a business model. But the company has a Sydney based merchandising distribution system that’s unlike anything else in the country. It’s the real value of the business. Dare really wants the distribution system, he isn’t interested in the rest of it, but wants to make sure he isn’t leaving money on the table.”

  Dare Davenport was the firm’s most active and profitable client. He was a late thirty something ex-investment banker intent on building a personal empire from nothing but his own smarts. His particular talent was finding struggling businesses and stripping their best assets out, combining them with other businesses and making a killing from the new venture.

  He also had a talent for fast cars, faster women and directness that was way over the border from rude. What Dare Davenport wanted, he usually got. He had the money to pay for it and the ruthlessness to move, hard and fast, steamrolling anyone who stood in his way. Richard idolised him and had hitched his own rising star firmly to Dare’s Milky Way. Cassidy thought he was an obnoxious bully, she knew Irwin thought he was a man trying too hard to compensate for being short.

  “I want both of you out there by the end of the week, two weeks on the ground and then a full report,” said Richard.

  Cassidy shot Irwin a look. There was no way he’d want to be kilometres out of town away from Bev right now.

  “I anticipate that we’ll close all but the distribution system down by the end of the month and sell off the property,” said Richard.

  “What about other buyers for the plant assets?” asked Irwin. There was nothing in his manner to indicate he had bigger concerns.

  Richard stood, signalling the meeting was at an end. “Not a priority, but if we can find a way to do better than mothball the equipment Dare would be happy. I’ll leave you with it. Claire will give you a full briefing pack. Let me see an interim report before it goes to Dare.”