Heartthrob (Hollywood Hearts, #1)

by Belinda Williams

  This left predatory stalkers and resentful stalkers. Both very nice-sounding options. If they were predatory they would currently be planning an attack, which might involve a sexual element. That was too scary to contemplate, so I rejected that option. Hardly scientific, but I was sticking with it.

  Which left resentful stalkers. They were motivated by a sense of injustice leading them to frighten or distress their victim. I had to admit, it kind of fit. If they’d wanted to freak us out by completely ruining all of my designs, it had worked.

  That still didn’t explain who or why, both of which would be closely linked. So I started running through everyone I knew so far in Hollywood. From not thinking I had much of a social life since I’d moved here, I realized how many people I’d met. There’d been twenty-five guests at Lena’s Christmas celebration. Not to mention the random people I’d met on the few nights Lena and I had actually hit the town. Or what about the people I’d dealt with when designing? There’d been suppliers and various other stockists I’d gotten to know.

  And that was assuming I even knew the stalker. The thing about stalking, I discovered from my googling, was that it wasn’t restricted to people you already knew. When you were as famous as Lena, complete strangers thought they knew you or wanted to know you.

  I guess that was why Mr. Marc Romero, Hollywood Security Specialist, was on the job. It should have been comforting and it was. I just had no idea what to do in the meantime. Sit around and be stalked? That didn’t sound like much fun.

  Of course there was one other option I couldn’t get out of my head. A name and a face that kept going around and around in my mind until I knew I had to air my concerns. I guessed Lena and Jake would reject it, but it wasn’t like me to stay quiet anyway.

  I hit the stop button on the treadmill and grabbed my towel. Drying myself off as I walked, I didn’t stop to think my bright red complexion might scare Jake off. Him and his painful endorphins were to blame for this new side of me anyway.

  I arrived in the kitchen to find Lena and Jake talking quietly over some of my leftover pancakes. God, two serves of my pancakes in one day for the movie stars. Things must be serious.

  “Faith Martin,” I announced.

  Lena looked startled as she met my eyes, but I didn’t know if it was from my appearance or my words.

  “What about her?” Jake asked.

  “She doesn’t like me.”

  “Ally,” Lena began, “we’ve been through this.”

  “She was there last night,” I interrupted. “She saw me with Jake.”

  “So?” Lena appeared genuinely confused.

  Jake sighed. “Faith can be protective, that’s all.”

  “Protective! I know jealousy when I see it.”

  Jake shook his head. “She’s a friend. A good one.”

  I paused and considered my response. “Good enough that she might want something more from the relationship? Something you don’t see?”

  “I’m not Faith’s type, Ally. Trust me.”

  I did trust him. As for Faith? I wouldn’t trust her if my life depended on it.

  “Jealousy can be a powerful motivator,” I persisted.

  “So what?” Lena asked. “She came over here while everyone was at the after parties and destroyed your dresses?”

  “It’s a good alibi,” I said, really warming to my theory. “Be seen with lots of other famous people, quietly slip away, and then return unnoticed afterward.”

  “If that’s your theory, then it could have been anyone at the after party,” Jake pointed out. “What about Chloe?”

  “Chloe?”

  “Yeah, Chloe,” Jake repeated. “She walked in on us kissing. She could be jealous, too.”

  I frowned and pulled out one of the kitchen stools, suddenly aware my legs were sore and my head hurt.

  Jake pushed his glass of water toward me.

  “Chloe,” I said again. What he said was possible, but I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it. “No way,” I concluded.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Why? Why do you think? She’s too sweet! There’s no way she would ever do something like that.”

  “How do you know? She’s a good actress.”

  “So what? The sweetness is an act? I’m sorry, I just can’t believe it.”

  “Neither can I,” agreed Jake.

  “Then why did you mention her?” I took a long gulp of the water, feeling exasperated.

  “To point out that it could be anyone. Just because Faith comes across as a bitch, doesn’t mean she has it in for you,” Jake replied.

  “Maybe the bitch act is a decoy?” I suggested.

  The two of them stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

  Lena glanced at Jake. “Should we even ask?”

  I ignored them. “It’s kind of like she’s hiding in plain sight. By coming across as a bitch it makes her seem like the obvious option. But because she’s the obvious option you dismiss it, thinking the real stalker would be more crafty than that. But she is crafty, because she’s so obvious. Get it?”

  “No,” Lena said. “It’s probably better we leave this to Marc. It’s his job.”

  “I think we need to get him to check Faith’s alibi.”

  “Ally. I’ve told you. It’s not Faith,” Jake said. He sounded certain.

  “How do you know for sure? I think we should get Marc to look into it.”

  “Fine. Check her alibi. It won’t be her. Shock is making you think too rationally about this.”

  I stared at him. “I’m thinking too rationally?”

  “Yeah. You want it to make sense and you want a neat, tidy answer.” Jake reached over and squeezed my hand. It brought back memories of the beach at Malibu, of promises of getting to know each other better. “Stalking doesn’t make sense. Destroying your designs doesn’t make sense. It’s not rational. It’s emotional.”

  I wanted to point out that Faith could have been acting on emotion, when Lena spoke.

  “I didn’t know any of them.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The stalkers. All four of them were complete strangers. I’d never met them. I can understand how a normal person would expect that they might know their stalker, but we’re not normal, Ally.” She gave me a tight smile. “Not normal in the eyes of everyone else, anyway. We attract this weirdness. I’m sorry that’s extended to you by association.”

  “Stop saying you’re sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. You’re doing your job. It’s not your fault the job attracts crazies.”

  Lena sighed. “I know. I guess what I’m saying is don’t twist yourself up in knots trying to figure it out. That’s Marc’s job.”

  “I thought you didn’t like Marc?”

  A frown touched her lips. “I didn’t say that.”

  “You weren’t exactly pleased to see him.”

  “Probably because every time he’s involved in my life it involves stalkers.”

  It was a reasonable enough explanation, but it felt like she was evading me for some reason. I was too tired to push it, though. Then another, more worrying thought, occurred to me. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t considered it before. “Oh my God. Is this going to be on the news? How am I going to explain it to Mama?”

  I could hear her voice. Mama demanding I come home or threatening to fly to LA to protect me herself. I shuddered. This could get ugly.

  “You won’t have to explain anything,” Lena assured me, “because this isn’t going to hit the news. Marc will make sure of it. We’ve already spoken to Suzie so she’s aware of it, and she knows to keep things quiet.”

  While I’d been running from my life on the treadmill, Lena had been on damage control.

  The stool scraped on the tiles as Jake stood up. “Stella’s probably starving. Are you OK if I get going?”

  No, I wanted to say, but instead I nodded. I wished I could rewind the clock to last night, when my biggest worry was whether to give in to my attraction to Jake. That sud
denly didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore.

  “I’ll walk you out,” I said.

  Lena stood and Jake gave her a quick goodbye peck on the cheek.

  “Congratulations,” he said, and I found myself smiling sadly at the drama that was Lena’s real life.

  We walked outside to his truck and he took my hand.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  “Still want to get to know me?”

  I frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  He shrugged. “It looked like you wanted to run away in there.”

  “From the stalker! Not from you!”

  That earned me a chuckle and he dropped my hand and put his palms on my hips. My confused body buzzed with energy, but it was a good energy. My feet didn’t make any move to go.

  “I’d understand if this was too much,” he continued.

  In response, I put my hands on his shoulders. “I’m not going anywhere.” I’d already buried the fact that I’d considered doing exactly that the night before. I was in shock. And besides, a perverse part of me wanted to find out who was responsible—and then do something horrible like dress them in a plaid seventies jumpsuit.

  “Good.”

  His kiss was just the merest brush of lips and I stood on tiptoes, inviting him to take more.

  “Don’t tempt me,” he murmured. He pressed his forehead to mine. “Suzie and I agreed the safest thing to do is to keep our relationship quiet for now.”

  I pushed away and looked up at him in confusion. “Suzie?”

  “She’s my publicist.”

  “She’s Lena’s publicist.”

  “Mine too.”

  “Oh. You told her about us?”

  He stroked my cheek with his thumb. I closed my eyes and leaned into it. I was powerless not to.

  “Like I said, I’d understand if this was too much.”

  My eyes flew open. “Stop saying that. So what was Suzie’s advice?”

  “Stay out of the media together for now. It will only attract attention and not the good sort if the stalker is focused on you.”

  I nodded. It made sense. And as far as I was concerned, I’d prefer not to attract attention when it came to Jake and me. If we could keep things low-key while we got to know each other that would certainly make things easier. The last thing I needed was Arabella calling with more social media sightings of my love life.

  “Is that OK?” he asked, reading my silence as something different.

  “Of course. So I guess that means you’ll be cooking me dinner then?”

  The serious look in his eyes faded and his mouth curled into that grin I knew I’d never get sick of seeing. “What? Me, cook? While Stella thinks I grill a mean steak, I don’t think it’s going to compare to the Valenti cooking.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m more a dessert kind of girl.” I bit my lip when I realized what I’d just suggested. And that I meant it.

  Jake's grin turned mischievous. “I’ll keep that in mind. Although I should warn you, my desserts aren’t like yours. They’re a lot less fattening.”

  I gave him a coy smile. “I’ll have to get the recipe.”

  He leaned in, his breath warming my ear. “It’s easy. They’re heavy on the endorphins.”

  Chapter 23

  I decided to use my remaining adrenaline by spending the afternoon tidying my workroom. It was a good idea in theory but at the sight of the mess again, I stood on the threshold fighting the urge to burst into tears.

  Lena joined me in the doorway, hands on hips, surveying the mess.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “What does it look like?” she replied. “We’re here to help.”

  Jay and Tim were behind her like some sort of glamorous Hollywood clean-up squad.

  With that, she marched into the room and began gathering shreds of fabric into trash bags they’d brought along. With a sigh, I followed her into the room and did the same. Jay and Tim hauled each bag away when it was full and righted the shelves so we could put my sewing supplies back where they belonged.

  Despite the strangeness of the situation, a sort of camaraderie developed between us. At one point Lena disappeared from the room and returned with the Academy Awards dress. She took it out of the bag and hung it on the clothes rack like a statement of defiance.

  “It’s not my color,” Jay said.

  “I’d say you’re more of a hot pink man,” Tim shot back.

  “Nah, lime green’s my thing.”

  Lena rolled her eyes and joined me at the worktable where I was rolling up a bolt of fabric that had been spread across the length of the surface.

  “At least they didn’t ruin everything,” she commented.

  While I was glad I still had some leftover fabric to work with, I would have preferred whoever it was had left my designs alone. I focused on ensuring the last of the fabric went onto the roll straight.

  “Ah, Ally?” Lena’s hand gripped my arm tightly.

  “What?” I looked up and she pointed to the table in front of us. “Oh . . . ”

  FAKE. FRAUD.

  The words shouted at me in capital letters, and were surprisingly neat given the circumstances.

  I heard Lena bite off an oath and she rushed around me, grabbing a spare piece of fabric as she went. She tried to rub the ‘d’ away but it didn’t budge.

  “Lena.” Jay came to her side and gently removed the fabric from her hand. “It’s evidence.”

  “It’s not going anywhere anyway,” she said, clearly upset that the letters had been written in black permanent marker. She met my eyes and an apology swam in their blue depths.

  I shrugged, discovering I was becoming more robust about this stalking thing. “I guess that answers that question then.”

  “What?”

  “Who the stalker is focused on.”

  Lena frowned, and for the first time since I could remember she looked very close to tears. “You don’t know that.”

  I gestured to the table, which Jay was firing off photos of with his cell phone. “But the evidence is stacking up. Someone clearly doesn’t like me here.”

  Instead of protesting, Lena’s frown deepened and she fell silent watching Jay. When he was done taking photos she walked over to him. “Are you going to send those to Marc?”

  “Already on it.”

  Lena nodded and glanced back to me. “Come on. I think that’s enough for one day.”

  Without a word, I followed her into the hallway, forcing myself not to look back.

  *

  I cooked again that night although Lena begged me not to. I couldn’t help it. My stubborn streak was urging me to march back upstairs and get started on replacing the pieces that had been ruined, but I wasn’t ready to face it. Not yet. Not today. While I’d accepted the stalker was probably after me, staring at the words ‘fake’ and ‘fraud’ while I worked wasn’t really all that appealing.

  Because, deep down, I wondered if it was true.

  I didn’t have any experience. I’d never done the course I’d planned to do, and here I was designing gowns for Lena Lyons. Who did I think I was?

  Lena’s best friend, sure. There was that. But a fashion designer capable of creating clothing that would rival the likes of the world’s leading designers? I felt sick just thinking about it.

  I could almost hear Arabella’s voice in my head, reminding me of the success of my debut gown last night. Was it only last night? It already seemed like a lifetime ago.

  While I couldn’t argue that I’d received some pretty amazing coverage, I was beginning to see it for what it was: a successful cross promotion. Lena was the hottest thing in Hollywood right now. By association, my dress had been deemed hot. Fashionable. Worthy.

  It didn’t actually mean I was a good designer or that I was capable of making a career out of it. I’d just been lucky.

  “Oh my God,” groaned Lena, when she came into the kitchen and found me. “Lasagna?�
��

  “Lasagna,” I said without looking up.

  “Marc better find this nut job soon or I’m going to be out of work. When I said you could cook, I didn’t mean lasagna.”

  “Sorry.” I wasn’t sorry at all. “There’s still time for a quick run before it’s ready.”

  Lena looked at me in disbelief. “A quick run? Your lasagna won’t be burned off by a quick run. It will take a full week of boot camp.”

  I shrugged. “You don’t have to eat it.”

  Lena laughed like I’d just said something really funny. “Oh, Ally. Have you told Jake?”

  “No. Why?”

  Lena laughed again like I was truly hilarious and I frowned.

  “What?” I asked. Maybe the events of the last twenty-four hours had gotten to Lena more than I realized.

  “Let’s undertake a little experiment, shall we?”

  She walked over and picked up my cell phone, which was sitting on the counter, and handed it to me. “Can you enter your code?”

  I did as she requested. “Now what?”

  “Send a text message to Jake saying, ‘I’m cooking lasagna for dinner tonight.’ ”

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  Lena nodded with a satisfied smile.

  I did as she asked and hit send. I went to put the phone down but it buzzed in my hand.

  Lena’s smile intensified. “What does it say?”

  I opened the message.

  “I’ll be there within the hour.” I glanced up at her. “Well, he’ll have to drive pretty fast because isn’t Malibu over an hour’s drive?”

  Lena’s smile was catching and we stood there and grinned at each other.

  “Mind if I invite Chloe?” she asked. “I need reinforcements if I’m going to come out of a Valenti lasagna alive.”

  “Whatever you like,” I said, and I meant it. I really liked Chloe. Then another, not so happy, thought occurred to me. “But you’re not inviting Faith, are you?”

  “No, I won’t invite Faith if it makes you uncomfortable. Just Chloe.”

  I bit off a comment about the sense of inviting a potential vandal and stalker into her home. Lena and Jake seemed convinced it wasn’t Faith, but I still wasn’t so sure.