by Clare Naylor
“Oh, that. Sure, wait here,” he said, and vanished into another room. “I’ll go work on my miracle cure.” I heard the sound of running water.
“It’s a great suite.”
“Yeah, it’s nice.” He came back into the room. If he’d been Jake Hudson, he would have come back in his boxers. Or nothing. But, thankfully, he wasn’t. He was wearing the same T-shirt he’d had on all day, and he’d changed into a pair of sweats. “I’m going to put you out of your misery in a minute,” he said, and handed me a cold glass of champagne.
“Good.” I took the glass. “Thanks. I think.”
“Cheers.” He sat down on the chair opposite me and raised his glass. I moved forward and clinked his.
“My savior.” I grinned.
“Well, I happen to think you’re worth saving, so it works both ways, I guess.” He took a sip of his champagne, and I took a mouthful. He sat back in his armchair and looked at me.
Fortunately, he’d dimmed the lights enough for me to be able to pretend that he wasn’t giving me meaningful eyes, so I got up and walked toward the picture window. “You have a great view of the mountains.”
“I do.”
“And the moon,” I added, swallowing half my glass in one go. I was terrible at this kind of thing. I wanted to kiss him, but this dance-of-seduction thing was too stressful. I could feel my ulcer beginning to burn in my stomach. He didn’t respond. And then I realized that he was behind me.
“What about it?” he asked quietly.
“It’s . . . well, it’s pretty. Isn’t it?” I didn’t dare turn around.
“Guess it is.” Luke put a hand on my waist, and I did eventually turn to face him. I mean, I had to, right?
And that was that. Va-va-voom. He kissed me.
And then there was the hot tub. Somehow we made our way incredibly slowly from the kiss to the point where we were standing beside the steaming water on his outdoor deck.
“Was this your miracle cure?” I asked.
“I can always get you a bathing suit,” he said nervously as the water gurgled at our feet.
“It’s fine.” I smiled and lifted my sweater over my head. Luke looked relieved and began to take off my wet clothes piece by piece, dropping first my T-shirt, then my extra T-shirt, then my ugly ski pants, and finally my undies onto the wooden floor beside us.
“I didn’t have this planned.” He looked at me earnestly.
“You could have fooled me.” I laughed and kissed him on the mouth. I didn’t really care if he had stalked me up the mountain and planned every last detail. I wasn’t exactly kicking and screaming.
“Lizzie, are you sure?” He was looking into my face. His uncertainty was almost touching.
“Can we just get in the water and then discuss it?” I said, and dipped my toe into the molten bubbles.
“Of course.” He kicked off his sweatpants and climbed in behind me. The water was steaming up around our faces, and we sat back and shared another glass of champagne. He’d left his in the sitting room. I hadn’t let go of mine, and he’d filled it up for me as we kissed our way across the room and out here onto the moonlit deck.
“I remember you from Daniel’s party. You know that, don’t you?” he said as he stroked a wet strand of hair back from my temple.
“No.” I was surprised. Really surprised. “Are you sure? I mean, there were a ton of girls there. You probably just saw someone else and thought that it was me.”
“I think you were the only girl drunk enough to kiss B-O-B.” He curled one corner of his mouth up into a not-quite-amused smile.
“Oh, God. You did see me at Daniel’s party.”
“You were the only person there who looked like she was really having fun. I liked that.”
“I saw you, too,” I confessed as I let my toes float to the surface of the tub. “I thought you were cute, and I asked my friend who you were.”
“Well, I never.” He seemed immeasurably satisfied with this news.
“Oh, not never. I bet that happens to you all the time.”
“Listen, Lizzie, you think you’ve got Hollywood sewn up. You assume every guy is a lying, cheating, sleazy asshole.”
“In my experience a lot of them are.”
“Which makes you narrow-minded.” He frowned.
“Which is preferable to being brokenhearted.”
“In your book.”
“Well, who else’s book is there?” God, what had happened to the fun stuff? Where’d the kissing go? Obviously my perfume had worn off.
“Well, in my book I’d prefer it if you gave someone like me a chance. I think you’re great. I’ll admit I hardly know you, but I like your . . . vibe.” Even he had to smile at this point.
I raised my eyebrow with what I hoped was gentle sarcasm. “My vibe?”
“Your energy, your boogie, your thing, your fucking body and mind and the thing that you have going on. Whatever the fuck that might be.” He finished up: “I like you, Lizzie.”
“You do?” Now I was the one on the back foot. He liked me. “Really?”
“I’d like to take you out when we’re back in L.A.” He blinked expectantly at me.
“I’d like that.”
The next morning I woke up and found myself locked in by Luke Lloyd’s arms. Which were clamped around me in a viselike grip. I could feel him breathing on the back of my neck, and one of his knees was lodged between my legs. I didn’t move. Not only because I couldn’t but also because I didn’t want to.
“You’re not allowed to go yet,” he whispered, and kissed the back of my neck. I sighed contentedly and slipped back into a dream. I hadn’t shared a bed with a man for a very long time, and certainly not one I liked as much as this.
Thank heavens it was a gray day and there was no sunlight to make me feel like I ought to be doing anything other than lying here and looking at his fingers clasped across my chest and the carnage of last night strewn across the room—the empty champagne bottle floating in the silver bucket full of melted ice, two pairs of worn-out sweatpants and my discarded boots next to my purse on the floor, a champagne glass on the nightstand beside me. Last night had been about as perfect as it got. I felt so at ease with Luke and yet also so spun out by how great it had been to kiss him. How instant and amazing the chemistry had been between us. And in all honesty the best bit had been that this wasn’t just some opportunistic pickup. Luke swore that he had noticed me before. At the party, in the park, at Urth—he’d remembered every detail of our encounters. Which made it oddly and wonderfully real.
I slipped under his arms and writhed out of the bed. I needed the bathroom, and I needed to get to some screenings. Much as I wanted to stay until he woke up and proved himself to be more than just a figment of my fantasy, I also had work to do, and while Scott’s patience might stretch to taking me to the Miramax party or being amused at Jake’s chatting me up, if I wasn’t there this morning to read out his schedule to him and arrange for his driver to come by, he might revoke his decision to fire me. Or yell at me. Neither of which was desirable.
So I loped—cavewoman style, with my shoulders hunched to make myself less noticeable—into the bathroom and helped myself to all the things I needed to ensure that I wasn’t arrested or ostracized when I arrived back in the outside world again.
“You’re going, honey?”
“I have to, I’m sorry.” I sat gently on the bed next to him and kissed his cheek. It felt oddly intimate and . . . well, just plain odd.
“ ’Kay, well, I’ll see you soon, right? I’ll call you. That was fun, right?”
“That was great fun,” I said, and planted another kiss on his shoulder for luck. “See you around.” And I took one last look at him. His eyes were closed shut, and his black hair was like a wild doormat on the pillow, sticking up and crazy. He had the dark, scratchy beginnings of a beard, and the creased white sheets barely covered his chest, which was a warm golden color, doubtless from Moroccan afternoons by the pool.
&nb
sp; “Bye, angel,” he said as he opened one sleepy brown eye and looked at me. I resisted the urge to clamber back into bed with him and stood up.
Then I hit the road. I picked up my purse and made my hushed way out across the warm, plushly carpeted room, stopping to pick up a couple of faxes that had been slipped under the door in the night. God, these boys and their faxes, I thought fondly as I reached down for the shiny bits of paper. I’d almost forgotten that Luke was a producer until now. He’d so cleverly dissuaded me from my prejudices that I had begun to think of him as normal.
The header at the top sheet of paper read WEEKEND BOX OFFICE. I glanced at the columns to see what the number-one movie was and how much it had taken in. This was as automatic for me now as scratching an itch. Then I put the pages onto the table beside the door. The WEEKEND BOX OFFICE fax curled up and slid onto the floor. I picked it up and was about to place it back down on top of the other faxes when I noticed a huge heart scrawled on the bottom of the next page. Next to it were enough kisses to give someone lockjaw. And I do firmly believe that if you read something that wasn’t meant for your eyes and it upsets you, then you’ve only gotten what you deserve. But I read the fax anyway.
Darling Luke,
Paris is lonely without you. Shooting in Tuileries today. Thought of you going headlong into the boating lake that time! Won’t make it back now until early March. J is insisting on reshooting all my outdoor scenes.
À bientot to you and Rocky
Emanuelle ♥♥♥♥×××××××××
“All rightee,” I said under my breath and replaced the fax with my shaking hand. I wasn’t sure which bit was the worst—that her handwriting was beautiful, that she seemed to speak French, that she was an actress—ergo fantastically pretty—or that the asshole in the bed in the other room had lied quite so consummately last night. I took a deep breath and thought calmly about my options:
Go back in and tear the fax into little pieces and let them rain down on him from a great height.
Send a reply fax to the impossibly cute Emanuelle and tell her what a coincidence it was that her boyfriend was about to go headlong into a lake today, too!
Put it on the bottom of the pile and fall in love with LL anyway in the hopes that she got fat from eating too many baguettes and he decided to dump her.
I moved my purse from one shoulder to the other as I pondered my dilemma miserably. Then, feeling the deadweight of my bag, I remembered that I’d been carrying Sex Addicts around for days now. And with that I pulled out the script and a pen and did the only thing that I could do under the circumstances—I scrawled on the front of the script:
I guess that it was just business after all, then! Hope you like the script.
Elizabeth××
Then I left.
23
It’s a perfect night for mystery and horror. The air itself is filled with monsters.
—Elsa Lanchester as Mary Shelley
The Bride of Frankenstein
Banishing my bittersweet memories of Sundance when I returned to Los Angeles had been much easier than I had imagined. For only a day after we got back into the office, Scott had gone on what Lara referred to as a rampage. Apparently this wasn’t the first time this had happened. The last rampage had been three years ago, and it had ended with Lara taking a trip to the hospital, where the best plastic surgeon in town had to stitch up an inch-long cut above her eyebrow. It seemed that one Tuesday afternoon, having had enough of Scott’s tantrums, indecisiveness, blame, and accusations, Lara had finally hurled the Rolodex at his head—but it had hit him on the shoulder instead. This had left Scott needing years of physical therapy. In fact, I had heard him mention a few times that if it hadn’t been for that Rolo, he could have pitched for the Yankees.
Anyway, with his good arm Scott had returned fire with the only thing he could reach—his lucky deck of cards, bought on eBay and signed by Amarillo Slim. The corner of the deck caught Lara right above the eye, and she started to bleed. That put a quick kibosh on the tantrum. Scott’s guilt had been so extreme, as had The Agency’s concern over a lawsuit, that he’d insisted she take a two-week spa trip to Canyon Ranch, fully comped by Scott Wagner, and paid leave happily granted by The Agency in return for her signature on a document waiving all rights to sue.
I was secretly plotting what item I might throw at Scott that would inflict the least amount of damage on his person but would grant me the maximum amount of spa time. My only concern was that Mia had given him a glass paperweight for Christmas (which I was sure I’d seen at Rexall in the clearance bin), and if he hit me in the head with that, I’d certainly miss out on the revitalizing salt glow and The Agency would be tipping the embalmer.
As Lara and I waited in the kitchen in a bid to avoid flying objects, I’d filled her in on the Sundance episode. Luke Lloyd and all. And instead of being scary and judgmental, she told me that Emanuelle, the French tart he was dating, had a tendency toward violent outbursts and that she would very likely maim Luke before she allowed the relationship to end. That gave me momentary pleasure, but then I started to think how much I actually liked that stupid, infidel’s smile of his and how cute he had been when he’d pulled me by the ski poles to the café.
But I hadn’t heard a word from Luke since my return, and I was sure that he’d simply chalked the whole thing up to experience. I also hoped that he regretted being found out just as much as I regretted finding him out. The Sundance fallout had taken a surprising turn when Jake Hudson had shockingly remembered my name and had been calling every couple of days. I had continued adamantly on my path of total inaccessibility, and as a result he would occasionally vary his approach—gradually upgrading the offers. First it had been a few phone calls, then an invite to his house for dinner, next an invite to dinner in a public place. Then, when none of those tempting offers worked, he’d sent flowers. I wasn’t dumb enough to think that I was the only woman on his call sheet, and I’m sure Jake and his love life could have supported Luna Gardens, who did wonderful things with twigs and exotic flowers, single-handed. But the truth was, I didn’t care if half the women in Hollywood received the pretty twigs and lilies that very same day, too—they brightened up my desk and made the entire floor smell delicious for a whole week. So being pursued by Jake wasn’t nearly as horrible as being pursued by Bob.
Similarly, the girls in the office were taking great pleasure in my rejection of Jake the Rake. He had smashed so many hearts in this town that he had become required, if twisted, entertainment, and those in the know were taking bets on when he’d call and what he’d offer next. Courtney, who was keeping the book, had even received a phone bet from one of our top actresses, who had fleetingly fooled around with Jake herself once upon a time. But it wasn’t as though I was callously stringing him along. The first time he’d called after our Sundance trip, I’d told him in no uncertain terms that he had misunderstood the relationship between Scott and me and that I was only Scott’s assistant. Oddly, what I thought would put Jake off for good simply managed to stoke his ardor. I think the gall of a lowly assistant’s turning the golden boy down was too much for Jake to bear, and he’d been thrown into a tailspin, wondering whether he was losing his touch.
Needless to say, after a few days of flowers and dinner offers, he upped the ante and invited me to the one thing Lara had told me not to turn down—Jake Hudson’s biggest premiere of the year. If not his lifetime. Two studios had joined forces and made one of the highest-budgeted films in history, exceeding $180 million. And apparently they’d gone over budget, which meant the real figures were probably closer to $200 million plus. Though the risk was split with a rival studio, Jake Hudson still had an enormous stake in the success of the film. A star was cast in every bit part, and the premiere was going to be the event of the year. Alarmingly, Jake was offering to degrade himself and forgo the arm of a supermodel or movie star to take me as his date. Being high-minded and moral, I immediately agreed to go. Lara assuaged my feelings of hypocris
y by reminding me that it was vital I went in order to prove to myself that I’d overcome my feelings for Luke Lloyd. My only concern had been that I might run into him there, but Lara quickly assured me that he was in France scouting locations for his next film. Yeah, more likely scouting some French actress’s underpants. So Jake got the answer he’d been hoping for, and I got a whole new set of insecurities about how difficult it might be to walk down a red carpet and whether I was tall enough and what dress I might wear.
When the day of the big night finally arrived, I was drafted into a meeting at the last minute to take notes and fetch coffee by Victoria, who I was sure was acutely aware of my plans, because every time someone made a move to leave the boardroom, she would splutter on about some bizarre, not-a-cat-in-hell’s-chance casting idea that she’d had that would make The Agency millions. The whole sorry meeting had finally finished so late that I had to sprint from the elevator to my car and could have matched Michael Schumacher with the speed at which I took those ramps in the parking garage. But as I pulled up to the exit, I was delayed by Daniel, slowly getting into his Aston Martin. Unable to honk and yell, “Get the fuck out of my way, baldy!” I gave a strained smile in his direction and picked the peeling nail polish off my fingernails. At least that would save my having to do it when I got home.
Tall José was helping Daniel put a few brightly wrapped presents in his trunk when the other José came up to my window.
“How are you doing, Lizard?”
“Oh, hi, José. I’m pretty well. I have this big premiere tonight, and I’m running late as usual. How long does Daniel usually take to get going?”