“Don’t you dare think of not going,” Lacie said, her eyes flashing. “I’m telling you, Mom, you’d better go.”
“You can tell me all you like,” Kat said. “But I’m staying home when my daughter’s just been rushed to the hospital, thank you very much. I’ll go tomorrow.”
“But you’re letting Marie down.”
“She’ll understand,” Kat said firmly. “And if she doesn’t, she’s no friend of mine.” She looked at Lacie’s determined face and sighed. “Sweetie, I really appreciate you being so selfless and kind, but please, please don’t get yourself worked up about it. I’ll stay with you tonight, and providing you’re okay in the morning, I’ll go then. Right now I need to change my airline flight.”
Lacie looked at Tyler. “There’s no arguing with her when she has that tone in her voice.”
Kat nodded. “You’re darn right there isn’t.”
Lacie let out a dramatic sigh and flopped down on one of the waiting room chairs. She picked up a fashion magazine. “Well, you may be here, Mom, but I’m annoyed with you, and I’m not speaking to you.”
“Oh, that’s real mature,” Kat said with a grin.
Lacie grinned back in spite of herself. “I’m pregnant, and ever so sick, so I’m exempt from mature duties for now.”
“You’re not that sick. You just said so.”
“Then go to the launch party!”
Kat shook her head with a chuckle, and decided to take a walk outside. She had to give Marie a call to let her know what was going on.
As was to be expected, Marie was most gracious. “Oh no,” she said. “Are you really sure everything is okay with Lacie? Thank goodness you’re there with her. I wouldn’t dream of asking you to come tonight.”
Kat smiled. “Honestly, they think she really is fine. But I couldn’t forgive myself if I left tonight, and then something happened.”
“Quite right, dear. You stay put. See if you can make it later in the week.”
“I think I’ll come tomorrow afternoon, providing she’s well. She’s annoyed at me for staying as it is. I don’t think we’ll last in the same house after tomorrow.”
Marie chuckled. “Okay, Kat. Just don’t rush out here to California on my account. We’re fabulous stars, darling. The world will have to wait for us to be ready. I’ll go ahead with the launch party, but perhaps we can even do another to celebrate you.”
Kat couldn’t believe how kind and generous Marie was. “You’re something else, Marie.”
“Something good, I hope?”
“Nope,” Kat said. “Something absolutely brilliant.”
CHAPTER 7
“Molly Singh here.” She barely gave the phone time to ring. That was Molly’s style, everything she did was done at lightning speed.
She rifled through a stack of papers on her desk as she spoke, her hands moving a million miles an hour.
“Hi, Molly, it’s Keira.”
“Yes, Keira. Thank you for getting back to me so quickly.” Keira Moses was James Strauhan’s public relations agent. Molly, a publisher who loved all things Hollywood, made it her duty to get her foot in the door anywhere she chose, and then to quickly act like she’d always been there.
“We’re trying to publish as many books as possible to counter Marie Moorhead’s book that’s about to be released. We need to have them ready to go as soon as humanly possible. I’d love James to do one.”
“I see,” Keira said. “I’m not sure how well that will go down with him. I’ve floated the idea of an autobiography before, and he’s never been particularly interested. He says his work communicates everything he wants to say to the world.”
Molly smirked. “These artistic types. Well, work on him. Change his mind. Could potentially be millions in the works for him, given the publicity Moorhead’s getting.”
“When I last spoke to him about it, he was getting a legal team ready to sue, in case there was anything remotely defamatory about him in her book. He’s trying to get a copy of the manuscript. Do you think you could send one over to me?”
“I’d love to, dear, but it’s strictly under wraps. But don’t worry, the moment it comes out, he can have someone search his name on the Kindle version, and he can come back with his laundry list.” Molly laughed. “Then, instead of suing, which is going to cost him a whole load of time and money, he can make a rebuttal in his own book and cash in. We’ve got teams of ghostwriters here. A couple of interviews with him, and I’m sure we could have it written in a week or two.”
“A week or two?” Keira said, dumbfounded. “The publishing industry is renowned for being painfully slow and clunky.”
“Not when Molly Singh has anything to do with it. Believe me I can get it done, quick and snappy. He’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.”
“Hmm. Well, I’ll give him the message.”
She didn’t sound convincing enough for ambitious Molly. “Tell you what, give me his number, and I’ll convince him myself. Apply whatever pressure you can, Keira. You’ll have a much easier job handling his public relations by publishing an exciting book full of gory details, compared with a dry court case that won’t be resolved for years given the backlog in the courts. The public doesn’t want to hear about court cases. They want the inside scoop. The gossip.”
“He prefers to stay out of it. You know, to focus on his work.”
Molly snorted. Focusing on a specific actress in particular, she thought. She was desperate to say it out loud, but didn’t want to tip off Keira, and by extension, James, to what she knew. “Well, he’s going to be dragged into it and he won’t be able to stay out of it now, so it’s his decision how he wants to play it.
“He’s got choices. A guaranteed payout where he can paint himself in a great light and win over the public? Or some dry-as-stale-bread court case that’ll cost him a fortune and drag on until after Marie Moorhead kicks the bucket? I sure know which one I’d choose.”
Keira didn’t reply. Molly could hear the cogs whirling in her brain.
“So, what’s James’ number?” Molly asked.
“I’ll have to get back to you on that one,” Keira said. “I’m under strict instructions not to give it out to anyone.”
Molly laughed. “But I’m not anyone, darling. Oh, go on, just go ahead. He’ll thank you for being so clever. And if he doesn’t want to chat, I’ll let it go. Just one quick call. Five seconds at the most. What harm could it do? I’ll take all the blame.”
“Oh, well, all right,” Keira said and gave her the number.
“You’re a smart woman, Keira Moses. I’ll give him a call later. I’m sure we can get him on board, especially when I tell him who else is publishing to counter the claims that are going to be made in Marie’s book. Some of the biggest names in Hollywood. It’s going to be spectacular.”
“Want to drop some names?”
“Sorry again, dear, but it’s forbidden due to a non-disclosure agreement. You know how private these stars can be,” Molly said. “But, tell you what, let’s do lunch sometime soon, and I’ll give you some hints. How about that?”
“Sure, what about next week, say Thursday?”
“I’m sure that would be wonderful. Give my assistant a call Monday to arrange it. Bye now, Keira.” Molly put the phone down before Keira had a chance to reply. As if she had time to meet random PR people for lunches. She had much bigger fish to fry. She just liked to make everyone feel like her best friend. For two excellent reasons. One, they spilled far more information than they meant to, and two, she could bend them to her will.
She took out two manuscripts from her desk drawer and stuffed them into her large Prada tote, reading material for lunch time. Despite working in publishing, Molly wasn’t much of a reader. She was a cutthroat business woman, through and through. But she did have to at least skim the books she was publishing, simply because she didn’t like being left out of the loop. She hated for other people to know things she didn’t know.
Molly he
aded out of the office, not giving her assistant a second glance. Why should she? The woman was getting paid, wasn’t she? What was the point of engaging in pleasantries and idle chatter? It was just a waste of time. The only people she saw as worth talking to were the higher-ups who could bestow glittering bonuses and perks on her. Her career schmoozing techniques had definitely worked well for her.
She was the darling of the publishing company’s CEO, Barry Treager, and she was making sure that he had her next in line for his position when he retired. How she played it with Marie Moorhead’s book, and the books to counter it, could determine whether she took home $500,000 or a million in bonuses this year, and how favorable her chances were for getting the CEO position.
Molly strutted out of the gleaming offices of Enigma House, and beat a familiar path to her favorite pizza restaurant, an authentic Italian place called Luciano’s. Molly was a creature of habit, and she went there almost every single day. Usually she ate the same thing, a large pepperoni pizza and salad, and drank the same wine.
It was the only thing she ate for the day, supplemented by what seemed like a thousand cups of coffee and a thousand cigarettes. She managed to stay stick thin without so much as a whisper of exercise. Her metabolism was fast, just like everything else about her. Anyway, who had time to exercise? Cutting deals was much more important.
Another part of her daily routine was calling her boyfriend Tobias Finchley as she walked to the restaurant. He didn’t pick up, which sometimes happened, so she called seven more times until he did.
“I’m in the middle of something right now, Molly,” he said by way of answering his phone
Tobias was an investment banker and perpetually busy, as was Molly, but when she was free, he had to be free.
“Well, I’m in the middle of something for the rest of the day, so too bad. If you want to hear my voice, it’ll have to be now. You do want to hear my voice, don’t you, Tobias?”
“Yes, of course I do,” he said. “But just for five minutes. I’m in the middle of putting a deal together with some colleagues. I had to excuse myself from a meeting.”
“Big whoop,” Molly said. “Those colleagues of yours think they’re far too important. Especially that boss of yours. How’s he going to feel when you’re his boss in the next year or so?”
“You really think I’ll get the promotion?”
“Of course you will,” she said. “You’d better, or I’ll seriously consider chucking you in for a more successful model.” She laughed, but they both knew it was a distinct possibility.
“So how are your deals coming along?” he asked.
“Brilliant, just brilliant,” Molly said. “Marie’s book is going to be this year’s publishing sensation. I feel it in my bones. It’s going to make a huge splash. None of the other books published this year will stand a chance, especially in the celebrity memoir category.
“Who wants to hear a bunch of washed up old has-beens bleat about their prostates and childhoods and all of that trash? Not when they can pick up some real juicy gossip. From not just one book, Marie Moorhead’s, but numerous ones, and they’re all going to be contradicting each other.
“Won’t it be fabulous? I can see families arguing about who they believe. There will be newspaper stories about it. It will be the cultural phenomenon for the year, and certainly the biggest moment in my career.”
“So far,” he said. “You have many higher heights to reach.”
“Obviously, that goes without saying.” She walked into the pizza restaurant and sat at her favorite table without being shown to it.
“You’re a whirlwind,” Tobias said admiringly.
“Thank you, darling. I must admit I’m in a rather good mood. The only thing that could possibly be better is if Marie Moorhead decided to up and die on me in the middle of her publicity tour.”
“Oh yeah, that would shoot the rankings through the roof.”
“Completely. It would be absolutely and totally show-stopping. Perhaps I could work with her on faking her own death. Do you remember when Michael Jackson ‘passed away’ just before he was to do those hyped-up comeback concerts?”
“Record sales went through the roof.”
“Of course they did,” she said, then chuckled. “They say he’s dead, but I expect he’s sunning his freakish self on some remote paradise island as we speak.” The waiter came over and gave her a glass of wine. She didn’t say thank you or even nod, she just took it. After all, she’d give him a tip when she left. What use was kindness? One couldn’t take it to the bank. “Perhaps Marie would be amenable to such a plot.”
“It would be a stroke of genius if you could work it out right.”
“That it would.” She could hear someone calling Tobias in the background. “Go and see your silly little colleagues, and tell them you’ll be their boss very soon, so they’d better behave themselves. Because when you get to the top and have all the power, you’ll remember exactly how each and every one of them treated you.”
“I like the way you think,” he said. “Bye, Molly. See you in bed.”
They always said that to each other. There was no such thing as a relaxing evening in their home. Both of them frequently worked late in their respective offices, and even if they did manage to come home, they’d still be working.
Some nights, Tobias drank obscene amounts with his city colleagues, and whatever time he came home, he always brought large portions of fast food to fill his belly before bed. Both of them viewed cooking with extreme disdain. It was for people who had time to waste with non-income-producing activities. In other words, time wasters.
Molly ended the call and waited for her pizza, thinking deeply about the fake death of Marie Moorhead. It could work wonderfully. There was nothing Molly loved to do more than plan, and she sat at the table, building new worlds in her head. By the time she paid the bill, she barely even noticed that she’d eaten the entire pizza. She’d been that wrapped up in her inner world. She left a generous tip, just so the waiter wouldn’t begin spitting in her food.
When she left the restaurant to go back to the office, she was still plotting.
CHAPTER 8
Christos Alexiadis was visiting his hometown of Naples, Italy. He enjoyed going back there, and went back as often as he could to be around his extended family.
It wasn’t that he particularly loved, liked, or even missed his family when he was in Hollywood. In fact, they barely crossed his mind. The only one who he’d had any real attachment to was his mother, who had died five years earlier.
The reason for coming back had nothing to do with a familial bond. It was who he became when he was there.
In Hollywood, he was important, but so were many, many other people. It wasn’t all that fun being important when everyone else was, too. His cars didn’t turn heads, because everyone had a supercar. He made sure to buy unusual models as soon as they came out, in custom colors, but they only attracted attention for a couple of months or so, until someone else got something better.
But in his family’s little corner of Naples, he was the king. He flashed his money around, and everyone jumped to catch it in a desperate sort of way, which was very pleasing to him.
He lavished gifts on his family, and enjoyed their indebtedness to him. He particularly liked toying with his father Gio, who had been an aggressive drunk throughout his childhood and terrorized the family, especially Christos’ beloved mother.
It was a marvelous game, one he never got tired of.
Gio had once been young and strong, a laborer in a local vineyard. He could never get a promotion to vineyard manager, not that he’d ever angled for it, because he was much more interested in gambling away what little money he had and chasing women. Christos remembered many a night when he, his mother, and his two little sisters, Dimitra and Katerina, would sit at home, eating unsweetened corn mush, because that was all there was to eat.
They’d wait for their father to come home, hoping he’d be in a g
ood mood. When he was, he always brought back hot bread and cakes. But if he was in a bad mood, he brought nothing except his temper, smashing glasses and calling their mother all kinds of disgusting names.
Now Gio was an old and frail man. The years of smoking and drinking had caught up with him. His bad temper had probably messed with his blood pressure, too, and he was always sick. He was unable to work and survived on Dimitra’s meager wage as a kindergarten teacher. Thankfully they owned the tiny stone house they lived in, so there was no rent to pay. Katerina had emigrated to Canada and had cut off contact with all of them.
It had been a complete stroke of luck that had gotten Christos out of the hellish life he’d been destined to endure. He’d been a gorgeous looking young man in his youth, and he’d been spotted by a modeling scout in Naples. Some photo shoots had led to a film written by an up-and-coming American director, who wanted authentic looking local Italians to play the major roles in his movie.
At that time, Christos didn’t speak any English, but he wowed audiences at the Cannes Film Festival so incredibly well that he was cast in another movie, and given an intensive indoctrination into the English language. When he recited his lines, he didn’t even know what most of them meant.
But soon he caught on, and before long he was starring in major movies. He might have continued to do that, if it weren’t for something that happened when he was making his fourth movie. The studio boss of the movie was incensed about something and came on the set while Christos was filming an emotional scene. He started ranting and raving at the director. When he didn’t get the response he wanted, he pushed over some expensive lighting equipment, and stormed off the set.
Christos’ emotions had been triggered, to say the least. It reminded him of those horrible moments he’d spent at home when he was younger, cowering under the sheets with holes in them, wishing his father’s evil voice wouldn’t wriggle its way into his head.
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