Hollywood Scandal

by Louise Bay

  The yelling got louder.

  “Sounds good.” I turned to find a woman marching toward me. So much for not being recognized. I pushed my damp hair out of my face and took a breath, ready to smile sweetly when asked for an autograph.

  As she got closer, her damp clothes showed off the body of a fifties movie star—all small waist and great legs. Her shirt, weighed down with rain, accentuated her dangerously tempting breasts. Long, dark, wet hair clung against alabaster skin. Her soaked-through skirt treated me to a view of firm thighs and the lacy outline of her panties.

  Fuck, it was like the weather wanted me to see her pussy.

  I didn’t fuck fans—it was my number one rule. But at the moment, I wasn’t fucking anyone. My current girlfriend was a PR stunt and ever since Brian had made me hire a publicist—Sinclair Evans—to clean up my image, I’d been making do with my fist and an occasional old friend from New York. There were two ex-lovers I still saw. I was sure I could trust them and my publicist had them sign non-disclosures for an extra layer of security.

  No fans. No more random models. No more ill-advised one-night stands.

  But my fist just wasn’t scratching the itch, and the woman in front of me was temptation on a stick.

  Maybe I could get away with indulging with a fan just this one time? No. Now was not the time to give in to temptation.

  “Can you hear me?” Brian asked, but I was too mesmerized by the autograph hunter heading toward me to pay attention, even if he was talking about an Anthony Scott movie.

  “Yeah, the line’s bad though. I’m not—”

  “What are you doing, you crazy asshole?” the brown-eyed girl yelled, stomping up the wooden stairs of the bandstand.

  “What?” Brian shouted over the drone of thunder.

  Before I could figure out what was happening, the girl had gripped my wrist with her fingers and was trying to drag me out into the rain.

  “Brian, I’ll call you back.”

  “Are you the dumbest person on the planet?” she screamed, jerking me down the steps of the bandstand before finally letting me go.

  Had I landed a stalker? If so, fucking her definitely didn’t seem like such a good idea. “Look, babe, if you’ve got a pen, I’ll give you an autograph, but I’m not posing for a selfie in this weather.”

  She paused, a scowl seizing her face. “Are you an idiot? Who the hell shelters in a bandstand with a metal roof, on a hill, in the middle of a lightning storm?”

  I swept my hand through my hair and shrugged. “Sorry.”

  She rolled her eyes and turned on her heel. “Unbelievable,” she muttered. “Don’t shelter under the trees, either.” She began to walk away. “We don’t need some dumbassed tourist getting struck by lightning and screwing up our visitor season.”

  Well, whoever the girl was, she wasn’t some stalker who’d followed me from Los Angeles. She hadn’t even seemed to recognize me.

  She didn’t look back, but she did grace me with the most delectable view of her ass as she sashayed away.

  God, I wanted to sink my teeth into that ass. I hadn’t had a woman speak to me like that since high school. They were too busy giggling, gasping or flirting. As I watched the drenched woman walk away from me, I realized the easy conquest had gotten kinda old.

  I stuffed my phone back into my pocket and began to stroll back toward the rental cottage. Maybe I’d take a detour through the park again tomorrow. I wouldn’t mind being accosted by that brown-eyed beauty again.

  Three

  Lana

  I stepped out of the water into a bathroom full of steam. After pulling the towel off the rail, I wrapped myself up in fluffy cotton. I’d been dreaming about my shower all afternoon. Mrs. Wells had been right about the rain. I’d gotten drenched. Luckily, I had a change of clothes at the shop, but I’d felt sticky and cold for the rest of the day. If that crazy tourist hadn’t been hiding out in the bandstand, trying to get hit by lightning, I might not have been as wet through to my bones. But no good deed goes unpunished.

  I twisted my feet on the soft memory foam mat and sighed. I’d gotten so soaked from the thunderstorm that I’d been tempted to turn back and take the afternoon off, but I’d had a ton of orders to fill and a few tourists came by, so it was just as well I hadn’t bailed on the day.

  I wrapped my hair up in a towel, padded into my bedroom and sprawled like a starfish on the bed. It was still early enough for me to do a couple of hours on the new jewelry collection I’d been working on if I got my ass into gear.

  I dried myself off, slung on some yoga pants and a slouchy tee and began to towel dry my hair as I sat on the edge of the bed facing the window. Next door, a car was parked in the driveway. It had that squashed look of a fancy, expensive sports car. Seemed kinda strange for a family car, but maybe they’d brought two?

  I’d left them a welcome package with my number if they had a problem. I didn’t usually tell guests I lived right next door. After the first few renters, I’d learned that if I did, I’d have a constant stream of “What’s the Wi-Fi code again?” or “Where’s good for dinner?”

  I discarded my towel and started brushing through my tangles.

  The light was on in the kitchen next door; someone’s silhouette displayed like a shadow puppet through the white voile blinds. It looked like someone was dancing. A guy. The dad, maybe? Except that it didn’t look like dad dancing. He could move. I laughed, then covered my mouth. I shouldn’t be laughing. He was paying rent. And I certainly shouldn’t be staring.

  The blind rippled and two hands dipped beneath the voile and began to fiddle with the catch. I shuffled down my bed. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to see me. I was away from the window and my lights weren’t switched on, but I didn’t want to take any chances. The blind lifted, revealing a perfect torso—golden skin with clearly defined muscles. This guy was built. The voile was only partially up, so I couldn’t see if the face matched the body but, boy, if it did? My new neighbor just might be the most handsome man I’d ever come across.

  The abs tensed and relaxed as his large hands found the catch on the window and he pushed it open. I froze. Somehow, the lack of that pane of glass between us brought me up short. I needed to stop staring.

  His wife was one lucky woman.

  My cell rang on my nightstand. I grabbed it and answered.

  “Hey, Ruby,” I said, as I held the phone between my ear and shoulder and drew my curtains. That would stop me from being a voyeur. “How’s the Big Apple?” We’d both dreamed of leaving Worthington for the city since we’d been old enough to understand there was a world outside Maine. Together, we’d gone to college in New York. She’d never left. I’d never expected to come back. But here I was.

  And I was happy.

  “Good, though it would be better if you were here. How’s the new collection going?”

  I designed all the jewelry in my shop, but I sent it to a manufacturer in Massachusetts for production. It kept costs down and meant I could keep up with orders coming in online. There was no way I could make it all by hand and anyway it would mean it would be too expensive for the tourist market. In fact, I’d not handcrafted anything since college. The new designs I was working on would probably never get made. “The collar I’m designing is really lovely. I’ll take a picture and send it to you.” The chunky necklace was my favorite of the collection so far. It was designed to be made of gold and took its inspiration from ancient Egypt. I’d drawn it in the shape of a crescent moon, with ribbons of gold filigree layered in an asymmetrical pattern across it. I fingered my collarbone as I spoke.

  “You’ve been working on it for months. You’re not done yet?”

  Ruby and I had this conversation every time we talked about my designs. I was always designing new stuff, but my Bastet collection, named after the Egyptian goddess of protection, wasn’t something I’d just hand off to be manufactured in Massachusetts. These pieces were special and needed to be handcrafted.

  “It�
�s almost there. But there’s no rush.”

  Silence reigned on the other end of the phone. Ruby had always encouraged me to get back to making jewelry again. But I’d been too busy setting up the shop, designing the stock, finding the manufacturer. There were a thousand things to think about. There had been a time that one-off, exclusive pieces were what I thought I wanted to do, but it was more difficult to do that in Worthington when all the buyers and fashion houses were in New York. So I’d abandoned that ambition when I left the city, and now I was content with my little shop. I was still in the jewelry business and that’s what mattered. It had been my dream since my dad gave me my mom’s jewelry box when I was five years old just after she died.

  The jewelry I designed and sold in the shop wasn’t cheap, but it wasn’t so exclusive that a tourist wouldn’t buy a necklace, ring or pair of earrings on impulse. Things were working out pretty well.

  “I just think it would be good for you to get back into the workshop. I remember how much you’ve always loved it.”

  “I did, but life’s busy. The shop takes a lot of my time and then there’s the property next door. Speaking of, do you know how old the kids are in this family?” The body on the dad would suggest they were little, but I hadn’t heard any yelling or screaming.

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “No reason, just wondering.” I peeked through the edge of the curtain as I finished brushing my hair. The silver sports car still stood alone on the drive.

  “I have the email right here. It’s a family?” she asked.

  “Uh-huh.” The kitchen window was still open, but the abs were gone and the floorshow had ended. I released the curtain and headed to my home office.

  “Says here on the form it’s a corporate booking—Lakeside Limited,” Ruby said.

  I paused in the doorway. “I thought you said it was a family?”

  “There’s the family from Boston who’re coming later in the season. Anyway, is there a problem? Their payment went through just fine.”

  “No problem. I must have gotten confused is all.” I’d put gummy bears in their welcome basket. I liked to customize each one so it felt more personal. I guess some corporate guest was getting their sugar fill.

  “I have no idea. The booking details don’t even say how many guests. As long as it’s not a bunch of frat boys, right?”

  Perhaps it was just a couple, then? That would explain the sports car. Maybe they were gay. Surely someone with a body as hot as the one I’d seen could never be straight.

  “So how’s Chas?” I asked as I stood over my desk, laying out the line drawings I’d done of the Bastet collection.

  “We had an argument,” she replied with an exhale. Ruby fighting with Chas wasn’t unusual. I wasn’t quite sure why she put up with him. They seemed to fight constantly.

  “Surely the good sex isn’t worth what he puts you through?”

  Ruby paused before she said, “The problem is I don’t want anything serious—I just want to be seriously casual.”

  I chuckled. “You know you make no sense whatsoever, right?” I moved the drawings around, trying to put them in the order I wanted to paint them in watercolor. I’d already started on the collar.

  “I do make sense. I don’t want a guy I have to see all the time—twice a week works for me. And he doesn’t need to declare his undying love or buy me flowers, he just needs to turn up if I’ve cooked dinner.”

  I winced. “He didn’t show last night?” I’d talked her through my recipe for my shrimp marinade, so I knew she’d put in some effort.

  “No. He didn’t even call. He showed up an hour ago and told me he’d lost track of time in the Hamptons because he was on a bender with the boys. He didn’t even seem sorry.”

  “He knows he’s not in college, right?” We’d been having the same old discussions about Chas since she’d met him. Surely she could find someone more mature. Being on her own had to be better than being with Chas.

  “I’m not sure he does. But his friends are the same now as they were back then, so they do the same things. Weekends are Party Central. Now that he’s rented this share of the Hamptons house for the summer, it’s gotten worse.”

  “Sounds like you need to move on.” I drew a finger along the curved lines of the chandelier earrings I’d started on last night. I decided to work on those, and put the rest of the drawings in a pile on my desk.

  “But I love the sex. I really do,” she whined.

  “No dick is worth putting up with his lack of respect. You’re in the city that never sleeps. There must be plenty of penis in that place.”

  “I’m starting to think you might be right. Maybe I should be like you and let my vagina shrivel up and die.”

  “Hey, my vagina is still alive and kicking.” Her jokes about my desiccating vagina were getting old.

  “If you say so. What else is new? Any hot men washed up on the beach?”

  I groaned as I remembered Mrs. Wells’ prediction. “I saw Mrs. Wells earlier. She told me life was about to get difficult for me, there’s a storm brewing or something. Apparently, some man is about to appear and cause a bunch of trouble.” Was that how she’d phrased it?

  “A man?” she asked, the decibels coming down the phone suddenly multiplying by a hundred.

  “She’s way off. This is Worthington. My life can’t slide into turmoil if I don’t let it. You know she actually stole my yellow scarf?” Which reminded me I needed to retrieve my sodden carpet bag from where I’d left it to dry off on the porch. “So what are you going to do about Chas?” I headed out and found my bag where I’d left it. I pulled my scarf out and hung it over the wooden railing, and arranged the still-wet bag so it got as much air as possible.

  “Mrs. Wells has always been completely on point whenever she’s given me a reading,” Ruby said.

  I wished I hadn’t brought it up. I was never going to hear the end of it. And I didn’t want to think for a moment that she might be right.

  “What else did she say?” Ruby asked.

  I glanced across at the rental cottage. The light in the kitchen had gone off. “Nothing. Ruby, we were talking about Chas.”

  “No we were not. Tell me more about this mystery man. Does he live in Worthington?”

  “I doubt it. I know all eight hundred thirty-two people in this town.”

  “So, she saw travel in your future. Interesting. Maybe you’re finally going to get your ass down here for a visit.”

  I rolled my eyes. I hadn’t been back to New York since I left college early with just enough credit to scrape through graduation. And I had no plans to return. It held too many unpleasant memories. “Seriously. Can we go back to Chas?”

  “If you promise to tell me when this man sweeps into town causing chaos.”

  “Deal.” Any storms that hit Worthington, I’d watch from my porch under a blanket. There would be nothing to tell.

  Four

  Matt

  I hadn’t washed dishes since … well I couldn’t remember ever doing the dishes. Even when I was in New York starting out, I ate takeout precisely so I didn’t have to. But I felt pretty good about the results as I folded the dish towel and placed it on the counter. It felt normal. Brian had tried to convince me to bring my assistant to Maine so they could fetch and carry for me. But I was enjoying having some time to myself. Back in Los Angeles, I worked most of the time. Even when I wasn’t on set, I read scripts, went to industry parties to network, or strategized with Brian and Sinclair.

  Brian and Sinclair hadn’t wanted me to stay in Portland with the rest of the cast and crew. They thought it would be too much temptation. And I agreed to their suggestion of me renting somewhere on the coast. But for different reasons. I knew that I was on the right track and focused. There was no going back to my partying days. But I was looking forward to getting away from Los Angeles. It was good to finally get some downtime, to escape all the pressure that came with being in LA and that I put on myself.

  The
thunderstorm had passed and it was warming up again. Maine was hotter than I expected but there was a nice breeze trailing through the cottage now that I’d managed to get the kitchen window open. I was about to head out to do my daily push-up and crunch routine when my cell rang. I grabbed it from the console table.

  “Hey, Audrey.” I hadn’t been expecting my so-called girlfriend to call.

  “Hello, lover,” she replied.

  I chuckled. “If only I’d been lucky enough to meet you before Peter did.”

  “I still wouldn’t have touched you with a ten-foot pole,” she said. “You’re far too hot, and that always spells trouble.”

  “Gee, thanks. Thank God you’re my girlfriend or I might be offended. What can I do for you?” Audrey and I rarely spoke on the phone. In the six months since we’d signed contracts and begun our “relationship,” we’d been out to dinner, attended award ceremonies and other red carpet events, but we didn’t hang out unless someone was watching. Like lots of Hollywood romances, there was nothing remotely sexual between us. Audrey had been dating her boyfriend, Peter, on and off since high school.

  “Well, I wanted to talk to you about our contract. My agent doesn’t know I’m calling you.”

  That sounded serious.

  “Can we just keep this between ourselves?” she asked.

  “Sure,” I said, opening the door and heading out onto the porch. This place had a swing and everything.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t even ask how filming was going. What’s it called? The Perfect Murder?”

  “The Perfect Wave.” I took a seat on the swing facing the ocean. “We start Monday, but Maine’s beautiful.”

  “You staying in Portland?” she asked.

  “No, the rest of the cast and crew are there, but I’m a little north, in a small town. It’s gorgeous but a little crazy. I saw a woman taking her cat for a walk this morning. She had it on a leash, if you can believe it.”

  “Sounds like something you’d see on Venice Beach.”

  I chuckled, stretching my legs out in front of me. “Yeah, maybe it’s not so far from LA. Anyway, enough stalling, what’s up?”