April, Dani - Superstar (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Dani April

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  She took both Ethan and Brad by their hands and gave a smile back over at Scott who still lagged behind and held Skipper on a leash. “All right, guys, come on. Now I want to show you my house.”

  She took the guys through the house and showed them everything. They were suitably impressed. Adrenaline was rushing through her, and she felt like she had magically turned into a new person, and it felt great.

  “Don’t get too comfortable yet, guys,” she told them when the tour was finished.

  “What have you got in mind, Chrissie?” Ethan asked her.

  “How would you three like to go out on the town in Hollywood and party with a real live superstar tonight?”

  Ethan and Brad looked at each other. They couldn’t hide the grins on their faces. They were now in her world. They had taken care of her in their world. Now that she was back in her element, she was going to show these three the time of their life tonight.

  “Get ready to have some fun tonight, boys,” she told them. “Leave everything to me. You are going to have the time of your lives.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Scott lagged behind Chrissie and his brothers as she showed them around her house. Other than the grand entrance it really was not that big, but it was furnished expensively. Probably the furniture alone in this house cost more than most people owed on their mortgages.

  The backyard was big, and Scott let Skipper outside to run around in the privacy of the eight-foot wall that protected Chrissie from the big bad world beyond. He looked down into the sad eyes of his dog.

  “I think even you know what’s happening here, boy,” Scott told the dog, talking to himself. “She’s only been in our life a few days now, but that girl we knew up in the mountains is gone forever.”

  Scott glanced back inside at the home of the superstar and sighed. “Go have fun, Skipper,” he told his dog as he let him loose from his leash in Chrissie’s back yard. “Because I don’t think I will.”

  He went back through Chrissie’s awkwardly arranged home to catch up with her and his brothers. She had been busy explaining to them about the wild night she had planned for them. Scott wished there was a way he could politely decline. If only his brothers weren’t so thick headed he could clue them in on what was happening. But he was the sensitive one in the family and it would just take his brothers a little longer to realize that they had lost this wonderful girl from their lives.

  Scott couldn’t find his brothers anywhere inside and then looked out the big front windows and saw them standing in the circular drive by Ethan’s truck. He was just as glad to get out of the house anyway so he hurriedly scampered out the front door and over to where his brothers waited. Chrissie was nowhere in sight at that moment.

  “Have you seen her?” Ethan asked him as he came running up to the truck.

  “No, I sure haven’t,” Scott answered. “After today we probably won’t be seeing much of Chrissie.”

  Both of his brothers looked at him suspiciously. They didn’t understand him. They were just too caught up in the moment, and the splendors of the home, and the city surrounding them, too excited about the wild night ahead.

  “What do you mean?” Brad asked.

  “I don’t like Chrissie’s house.”

  “Oh come on, bro!” Ethan exclaimed.

  “I don’t really mean that,” Scott corrected himself and started again. “Her home is beautiful. It looks like the home of a superstar. Only I don’t feel as close to her all of a sudden. Ever since we got into Los Angeles I get this feeling like we’re losing her forever.”

  “Look, man,” Brad said, “this is where she belongs.”

  “She may belong here,” Scott admitted. “But I don’t, and neither do you.”

  Ethan patted him on the shoulder. Scott knew that Ethan, in his own gruff way, was trying to make him feel better. “There’s nothing we can do about that, bro,” Ethan said.

  Scott laughed and looked off at the palm trees. “I’ve got this crazy idea,” he told them. “I was thinking about kidnapping her for real this time and taking her back to the cabin with me. I think that’s the only place we’ll ever be happy together. We certainly can’t be happy here.”

  “You know you don’t really mean that.” Brad punched him on the arm good naturedly.

  “Of course I don’t really mean that I would kidnap her. I care about her too much and she obviously wants to be here. She wants to be here in her home surrounded by her servants, her budding career, and all of this luxury.”

  Neither of his brothers answered him. He knew he had made them feel uncomfortable and that he was just feeling selfish. But the pain wrenching his gut was just too strong to be ignored at that moment.

  “You guys just want to go out and have fun with a movie star tonight.” He realized he was letting too much emotion into his voice. “You all really don’t understand what’s happening here, do you? Maybe I’m just too sensitive. But we’ve lost Chrissie now to all of this.” He looked down and kicked at the lawn. “What the hell, it was fun while it lasted. That time up at the cabin was the best time of our lives. I guess all good things have to come to an end sooner or later, right?”

  “She’s the same Chrissie we knew back at the cabin, bro,” Brad said, although his voice did not sound convincing to Scott.

  Scott smiled at the mental image of Chrissie. “She is gorgeous,” he admitted. “She is just as beautiful as she always has been wearing that short little dress around with the shoulder straps.”

  “I think she has more self-confidence now than what she had before,” Ethan said. “She speaks like and presents herself as an adult. That makes her ten times sexier than she was before.”

  “I’m happy if the three of us had anything to do with bringing about that transformation,” Scott forced himself to reply.

  “I think you’re just jealous, bro,” Brad told him.

  “I’m not jealous of her money.” Scott shook his head and looked down. “But you’re right, I guess I am jealous. I’m jealous because she doesn’t belong to us anymore. She belongs to the whole world again. Ordinary guys like us can’t hope to be anything more than admirers from a distance.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.” Brad raised his voice when he spoke.

  Scott ignored him. “If she only hadn’t been a superstar,” he said, “we could have taken her back home and fallen in love with her. But that’s just not the way things are going to turn out, guys.”

  “She told us to wait for her here,” Brad said, trying to change the subject. “I guess she wants us to drive her out to some fancy nightspot in the truck.”

  “Sounds fun,” Ethan agreed. They were both trying to cheer Scott up.

  Scott made no comment and only hung his head down and inspected the rolling flower beds across Chrissie’s front lawn. Somehow he didn’t think Chrissie needed them to take her anywhere now that she was home. He found himself wishing she would come out of the house wearing a pair of his old jeans and ask them to take her somewhere. He simply wished that Chrissie needed them or that there was something he could do for her. But what could you do for the girl who had everything?

  “Maybe one of us ought to go inside and see what’s keeping her so long,” Brad said.

  “You know chicks,” Ethan told him. “She’s probably doing her makeup or something.”

  “Chrissie isn’t just a chick,” Scott told them.

  Suddenly from around the side of the house there was a roar and then a red Lamborghini merged with the drive and screeched to a halt in front of their truck. The guys were left speechless. None of them had ever seen a sports car like this before up close. The windows were tinted black on all sides, and it was impossible to see inside. As it idled for a moment at their sides, even the engines had a science fiction-like sound to them, purring and humming to some kind of a fantastic cadence.

  The power window on the driver’s side slid all the way down in what seemed to be a
fraction of a second. Behind the wheel was Chrissie. She was positively beautiful in a sequined party dress. The new level of self-assurance about her was wonderful to see, and Scott thought at that moment she could have probably done anything she wanted. She was freshly showered, and her long hair was brushed back over her shoulders. The perfume she wore was probably very expensive and a far cry from that which she had worn yesterday while in disguise.

  “You guys ready to go crazy?” She reached up and flicked down a pair of dark glasses over her eyes completing the image of the Hollywood star.

  “I thought I was going to take the truck,” Ethan said, flabbergasted.

  “This is my town, Ethan. I’m driving tonight,” she corrected him and cocked a sexy smile at all of them. “Now hop in.”

  Ethan and Brad looked at each other and then were quick to comply with her request, Ethan taking the front seat next to Chrissie and Brad squeezing in the tiny back compartment. Scott hesitated. The Chrissie Murphy that he had known for the last few days was getting further and further away from him. Finally, he relented and crawled inside next to Brad.

  Chrissie took them down Hollywood Boulevard and then turned off into what must have been a night club section. When they arrived at the nightclub of choice, there was already a huge crowd gathered outside waiting to get inside. Bright floodlights in every color of the rainbow were attracting attention to the hot nightspot. Apparently, there were other celebrities there because as one couple walked in the paparazzi were flashing camera lights in their faces.

  Scott had never seen such a crowd in his life. He knew he would be out of place here. His palms started to sweat, and he had to take a big breath to calm his nerves.

  “This joint is really packed,” Ethan exclaimed as he took in all the sights outside the tinted windows.

  “It’s Friday night,” Chrissie told him. “This is the best night for parties.”

  “You think we’ll have to wait long to get in?” This was from Brad.

  “You’re with Chrissie Murphy, guys. We won’t have to wait at all.”

  Chrissie didn’t even bother with parking the Lamborghini. She just left it idling with the key in the ignition in the middle of the street and climbed out. “You’ll be a doll and park this for me,” she told the valet who came up to her. The young guy nodded that he would do just as she asked.

  Scott walked behind Chrissie and his brothers and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. Although, he sensed that he was not dressed expensive enough for an establishment like this. Chrissie was rushing ahead, drawn to the crowd and the noise of the nightclub like a magnet.

  “Hey, look, that’s Chrissie Murphy!” Someone in the crowd spotted her the second she stepped up onto the curb. Immediately, the flashes from the paparazzi cameras started going off with Chrissie in the bull’s-eye.

  Chrissie smiled for them and waved to everyone. The crowd around them got bigger, and the three brothers started to lose their place next to Chrissie as more people crowded them from every side. Then Chrissie spotted a group of people she evidently knew and ran off to hug them. When she was away with the other group, more club-goers who knew her came up to inquire about her well-being. It seemed everyone at this place knew Chrissie Murphy, and she knew everyone.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you gentlemen to go to the back of the line.” This was a club bouncer who had approached them. All three of the brothers were large and well-built men, but this guy was so big he even towered over Ethan.

  “Well, we just got here,” Brad told the bouncer.

  “I’m sorry. Please, sir…” The bouncer motioned to the end of the line which was about a block down the street by this time.

  The brothers looked at each other. There wasn’t much they could do or any arguments they could make with this man. They would have to go.

  Then Chrissie was there at their side. “It’s all right, Marcel. They’re with me,” she told him.

  “Miss Murphy…” The bouncer took on a deferential tone. Then he looked over at the brothers. “I apologize, gentlemen. Please proceed.”

  Chrissie laughed and hooked her arms with Ethan and Brad. “Sorry, guys. You ready to have a good time? Come on. Let’s go.”

  The inside of the club was loud and over-the-top spectacular. It was dark with flashing lights and packed to the gills. Scott couldn’t even hear himself think with the blaring dance music playing and hardly had room to move in the crush of people.

  Scott had to struggle to keep up with Chrissie and his brothers as he brought up the rear. He realized if he got separated from them he would probably find himself kicked out on the street within a few minutes.

  My God, this place is a million miles from our secluded little cabin up in the mountains.

  “Back here, guys,” Chrissie told them. “Follow me.”

  “You mean there’s more to this place?”

  “Yes. The front part is just for ordinary people. We don’t have to party out here. The private room in back is for us.”

  Two more bouncers were standing in front of a door in the back covered by a velvet curtain. Chrissie gave them each a pretty smile, and they pulled back the curtains for them to enter.

  “Order anything you want,” she told them. “I have a running tab here, and tonight, everything is on me.”

  The private room was not nearly as crowded as the front one was. The music was just as loud, and the flashing lights in the dark room were even brighter. There were flat-screen TVs mounted to all of the walls, and dance videos were constantly playing over and over again. The private room was large and seemed to be broken into a series of secluded booths, all of which were full.

  It was dark in there, but each time a floodlight would illuminate their space, Scott got a good look around him and at some of the faces in that room with them. Scott had always followed pop culture, music, and films, and inside that room were at least two dozen famous personalities. Scott had to swallow back the intimidation he felt. Yes, he most definitely did not belong here.

  Chrissie showed them where their booth would be and then motioned them to all follow her out onto the crowded dance floor. Ethan and Brad followed after her like kids going to a circus. Those two numbskulls still hadn’t figured out that none of them belonged here yet. They didn’t yet realize their vacation was over, as was their relationship with Chrissie Murphy. Again, Scott wished he had the old Chrissie back with him, the girl who wore his torn, old jeans and played in the snow with him and his brothers. He realized he had never really known this Chrissie Murphy. None of them had. This was the superstar. The girl they had known had enjoyed the time of her life in a one-bedroom cabin, watching grade B horror movies in front of the fireplace, and making love while the cold wind howled outside.

  Was that girl he had started to fall in love with really dead now? Scott wondered and was afraid he would not like the answer.

  * * * *

  Scott sat in Chrissie’s Jacuzzi, staring out the floor-to-ceiling window down at the lights of the city of Los Angeles arrayed before him like stars in the night sky. It was later that night. It must have been about four in the morning. She had kept them out until after two at the clubs. They had hopped from club to club all night. He had seen a thousand wild sights that he had never seen before and would probably never see again.

  When they got back to Chrissie’s home, she wanted to make love. Ethan and Brad were more than happy to comply. The whole club scene had apparently made them horny as hell. Scott, on the other hand, had excused himself, and she told him to make use of the Jacuzzi off her bedroom. As he sat naked and let the water jets pour over his tired body, he heard the sounds of his brothers making love to Chrissie in the next room.

  “What’s wrong?” It was Chrissie. She was naked and headed to the Jacuzzi to join him.

  “I’m fine,” he lied to her. She stepped into the water jets with him and took a seat across from him.

  “Beer?” She wrinkled her nose at his choice of b
everage. “I’m sure Margarita had some champagne out in the fridge.”

  “I like beer better,” he told her.

  “Don’t you find me attractive anymore?” She reached out a hand and ran it up and down his shoulder. “I was disappointed you didn’t want to join us in bed.”

  “It isn’t that, Chrissie. I think you’re beautiful. You were never more beautiful than when you stood up to that old witch of a PR woman this afternoon.”

  Chrissie laughed at the memory. She slid across the water and took a seat next to him, resting her head on his chest. “I asked Ethan if you guys could stay out here with me for a while,” she told him. “I practically begged him because I know I’d feel better if you guys were with me now. But he told me you all had to start back tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Ethan and Brad have to get back to their jobs, but they told me you don’t have a job.” She looked up into his eyes hopefully. “Why don’t you stay out here with me for a while? You could just kick back and relax, and having you with me would be like a really big help to me. My life is about to undergo a lot of changes, and I need you with me now to give me strength, Scott.”

  He took a swig of his beer and did not answer her. He just kept staring out the window at all those lights he was looking down on. She reached up to him and took the beer out of his hand and took a swallow of it herself.

  “You really like that better than champagne?” she asked.

  “I don’t belong here, Chrissie,” he finally explained to her.

  “Don’t be stupid.” She slapped his chest under the water. “This is my house. You can stay here any time you want to. If it’s my dad you’re worried about, well, don’t worry. I plan on speaking to him tomorrow, and if he won’t listen to me, then I’m just not going to see him for a while until he can stop acting like such a dumb dad. But it won’t be easy for me. I’ve never stood up to anyone before, and I’ve never made any decisions in my career. I really need you with me while I go through all this crap now, Scott. Please stay with me?”