Cherry Bomb: Forbidden Bad Boys

by Clara Leigh

  “You’re looking good. Nice to see you’re in shape,” Jace says.

  I can’t say the same about him. He looks more squirrel-like than ever. The thick framed glasses don’t help matters. I can’t for the life of me figure out why he hasn’t invested in contact lenses or laser treatment.

  “I hear the docs have given you the all clear too, after your problem a couple of months back.”

  He means when I voluntarily checked myself into a freak farm to secure some genuine me time. Next time, I’m thinking ditch the mobile phone, take a jet to an uninhabited island, drink a shit load of whisky, and… suntan. Seriously, eating organic, and overdosing on mindfulness surrounded by white walls and chiffon scarf-wearing tea-ladies didn’t help me get my shit together. It made me want to score, just to alleviate the tedium.

  The highlight of my freakin’ stay was the trip to the sexual health nurse in order to get educated and have my “lovely ting” checked out, as Stu, my healing buddy insisted on calling it. He’d done it all before: checked himself in every six months to make sure he wasn’t about to crash out from an early heart attack or some sort of stealth bug. I figure he liked the attention. The nurse massaging his dick and sticking a finger up his arse was probably all the action he was seeing.

  Anyhow, there wasn’t anything up with my “ting” other than it not seeing any bloody action for a month.

  “Are we still talking about the cop drama, or have we moved on from that?” I ask, determined to bypass the pointless pleasantries.

  The cop drama is vacuous beyond belief.

  “It’s been rewritten.”

  “Still not interested.”

  “Yeah,” Jace sighs, right along with my agent. “That’s good, because it’s on the back burner. I actually wanted to talk to you about something else.”

  “Thrill me.”

  “Well, it is a thriller,” he says, while eyeballing me through his jam-jar lenses.

  “Spies, serial-killer, big scary animal?”

  “I’d have said it was more action adventure,” my agent, Monty, pipes up. “Kind of things go wrong on an alien planet.”

  “So Sci-fi.”

  “Except low-key. There’s no epic dog-fights, or ‘splosions. It’s about the human interactions.”

  “So more dystopian?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you actually know what it is?” It’s not like Jace to be so cagey. Normally he’s in your face about stuff, has his elevator pitch polished to the nth degree. I don’t think the studios have ever turned him down.

  “You can have more details once you’re signed on. Right now, it’s strictly need-to-know.”

  So, it’s potentially big, but this could just be a ruse. “You’re good with this?” I ask Monty.

  “It’s been six months since your last gig, Dare. You need to keep your face in front of the camera or people start forgetting who you are.”

  “Why me?”

  Jace shakes his head. “You’re kidding, right? You’re the obvious choice. You could phone this in and still be within the running for an Oscar. Not that I think you’re going to do that. I know you always give it your all.”

  “Last time I looked, bad guys don’t win Academy Awards.” That’s what he’s asking me to be, just like all the previous times.

  “I didn’t think you were in this game for the glory.”

  “I’m not in it at all anymore, not unless you can give me a damn good reason to be.”

  “The Borrower,” Lorne coughs into his fist.

  Yeah, thanks Lorne. Like I needed a reminder of my responsibilities. Got to make sure the kiddo’s provided for. Not that she’s likely to starve or anything considering the combined worth of mum and dad.

  “Come on, Dare. Help me out here. I’ve got a shit hot script and a dream team in place. We’re literally ready to go. All I need is your handshake.”

  “The rest of the cast’s confirmed?”

  “Near as dammit, other than the female lead. I know you like to have an opinion on that.”

  “Chemistry’s essential.”

  “Exactly,” he agrees.

  I shake my head. “The thing is, Jace, you’re still offering me the same old schtick as usual. I need a challenge, something to get my teeth into, not another role I can sleepwalk through.”

  An exasperated sigh squeezes between Jace’s clenched teeth. “For fuck’s sake, Dare! What is it you want? Just spit it out and let’s negotiate, so we can avoid the stage where I call in the cavalry and then sit by the phone waiting for your common sense to conclude what everyone else already knows. That not only are you perfect for this role, you want to do it.”

  “I don’t even know what the fuck it is, so concluding I want it is a serious stretch.”

  “You love being a kick-ass, badass,” Chase remarks.

  “Look, I’m going to be square with you. I don’t know if I can stomach another role where I’m the quintessential English villain with no room for redemption.”

  “You want redemption?” Jason makes an ack noise in the back of his throat and shoots me a piteous glance.

  “I want a leading fucking role.”

  His pity only grows. “You’re a bad boy, Dare. That’s what audiences turn out to see you. They love you because you do all the things they never can, and you do it with style.”

  “I can be badass and still play the lead. Look at Bourne… Bond… Deadpool. Deadpool was seriously rocking and seriously badass.”

  “That was a comedy.”

  “The audience liked him for his wisecracks. You’re not a joker, Dare,” Chase remarks.

  “He got offered it and turned it down,” Monty mutters.

  Thanks, Monty. Chase and Lorne look as if they’re about to murder me. “What the fuck, little brother?” Chase swears. “You turned down one of the epic villain parts.”

  “I’m not a fucking villain! Shit, you lot. Have any of you ever considered that I’ve had it up to here—” I raise my hand well above my head. “—with being typecast?”

  “Beats being not cast,” Lorne grumbles.

  “Do this and I’ll see what I can do,” Jace offers. He even manages to look sincere. But it’s too vague a promise. I know how wily the little shit can be. As soon as he has me where he wants me, it’ll slip his mind that he ever offered the possibility of something else.

  “Give me Jack Bold.”

  “What?”

  Okay, that got their attention.

  “Give me Bold,” I say again. “I know you’re hunting for a replacement for Hector Joyce.”

  “Says who?”

  Yeah right. I grin as I shake my head at Jace. I’m not an idiot. The franchise is too huge to drop because the actor playing the lead role isn’t available anymore. Hec got his face splattered all over a hotel room bed eight months back.

  Sure it’s a little bit mercenary to want to jump into his shoes, but the entertainment business is cutthroat.

  “Jeezus, Dare!” Jace pinches the bridge of his nose above the frame of his glasses. “Even if it was purely up to me, which it isn’t – it’s entirely Albertine’s decision – I’m not going to pretend you’d be my first choice for that role. I’m not even sure you’d be my fifth.”

  “But I wouldn’t be your last.”

  “You’ve no track record in that sort of role.”

  “Nor did Hec. He’d done one beer ad before you launched him.”

  “Less baggage. Fewer expectations.”

  “He was screwing the producer,” Lorne mutters.

  Lorne knows all the showbiz gossip. “He got the part because he threatened to tell the guy’s wife.”

  Jace looks mortified. Guess he didn’t know. Wonder if it’s the same producer he has lined up for this new gig?

  Chase shakes his head at me, obviously following my thoughts in that spooky big brother way he does. “Ronnie’s co-producing.”

  Ick! I scratch the very idea of that potential booty call. I make a point of nev
er following in my family’s footsteps. Instead, I go back to pressuring Jace. “So you’re telling me that as the director of a blockbusting franchise you built, you have no control over the casting?”

  “Obviously I have a say. I’m not denying it, but the producer and the studio have the final say. I’m just the guy with the vision.”

  “So put in a word for me.”

  “Shit, Dare. Don’t do this. Don’t be a prick.”

  Oh, I intend to be a grand duke of pricks about this. I sit back in my seat, arms folded across my chest.

  “I can’t… I can’t promise that. You’re untested as a leading man. There’s no telling how the audiences will react to you.”

  “That’s such a bollocks excuse.” Lorne gets to his feet. “They’d lap him up. There are at least a million women out there ready to bang him any which way he’ll have them.”

  “A million bad girls, yeah.”

  “And one very, very good one.”

  He shouldn’t have said that. We both know he shouldn’t have said it, but now it’s out there I don’t regret him making the slip. Every pair of eyes in the room focus fast upon Lorne, all of them eager to learn which brand of purity has the hots for me. And more importantly, whether they can make a profit from it.

  “Who?” Monty demands. Oh yeah, the wheels inside his mind are whirring. The virgin and the playboy is always a winning trope.

  I zip my lips and throw away the key while holding Lorne’s gaze. He mimics my gesture, while barely constraining his grin.

  “Are we to assume you have the hots for her too, baby brother?” Chase asks.

  “They have chemistry,” Lorne answers for me.

  “So if I offered to cast her alongside you, you’d consider doing this thing,” Jace weighs in.

  I laugh, because this conversation is so fucked up, it’s the only reaction left to me. “Listen to yourself. You’re prepared to hire an unknown woman and stick her in a leading role based on nothing more than a sniff of potential scandal.” Everyone does so love to read about the good girl gone bad. “But you won’t give me the equivalent role despite my track record? I think we’re done talking, gentlemen.”

  Jace stands. He doesn’t argue. “Fine, hard way it is.” He shakes hands with me before he leaves. I know that within the hour I can expect a phone call from either parent A or B, possibly both of them if Jace is feeling particularly vindictive.

  “I really think you should take this one,” Monty advises before leaving.

  “I’ll let mum know you’re free all day,” Chase remarks as a parting shot. I throw the remains of my drink at him.

  Lorne slumps onto the couch, the moment they’re all gone. “For what it’s worth, I actually think you should do this one too,” he mutters.

  I don’t argue with him. I let him say his piece. Lorne’s earned that privilege. He has my back, always has. Besides, I want to clarify what he was attempting to achieve by mentioning Flicka Caine. He doesn’t bring her up, so maybe he didn’t mean anything more than what he said to Jace—that we have chemistry you can bank on, and I could totally carry off a leading role.

  “You realise you’re going to get more out of Jace by cooperating with him than thwarting him at every turn. It’s not like he’s offering you bollocks. You might be the bad guy, but at least it’ll be a decent part. And it’s an opportunity to prove yourself.”

  “Squaring off against some big, blond lummox again.”

  “I bloody well wish,” he says and pulls a cushion over his face.

  I spend the next hour wondering when Lorne last had a decent part and realising that I should be grateful for what I have. Someone ought to hire him. He’s a good actor, and has the looks too. It hardly seems fair that he’s constantly passed over.

  -6-

  Felicity Caine

  The forty-eight hours following my meeting with Dare Wilde pass too quickly. I spend the moments between routines and interviews dreaming about what it would be like if he’d said yes… And even more often about what it would be like if I’d said yes.

  It astonishes me how many different variations of Dare Wilde publically fucking me my brain can conjure. I’m not sure I realised there were that many ways for two people to rub up against one another. Guess I’ve never wanted anything in the way I apparently want him.

  Tumblr is my inspiration and my new friend.

  Not that I genuinely want Dare Wilde to ravish me. Life is complicated enough without adding a man like him into the equation. At least that’s what I tell myself after the seventh movie on the trot. Did you know he’s never had a leading role? It’s criminal. He steals every scene he’s in with the complexity of his characters. And, I have to say that while he never gets the girl, nine times out of ten, he bloody well should. One of these days a director is going to be brave enough to make him a leading man and the female population are going to worship him for it.

  Anyway, I’m still convinced that with a few minor adaptations, I can make plan D work. Stumbling at the first block is not a reason to give up. It’s just a cue to make adjustments and try again. Besides, there’s a whole lot of alphabet to get through before I have to resort to plan seX.

  Plan T is currently escorting me to the Royal Opera House for a red carpet event.

  Alas, plan T can’t hold a torch up to Dare Wilde. He might be a stylised bad boy on the surface, but Tyler Beauford is a wannabe at best. Sure, he has the looks—he’s tall and lean with straight teeth and a cute hair do—but, I reckon the most risqué thing he’s ever done is chewing gum on set when he starred alongside Flo and I on the Mirror Girls. He played the dreamboat misfit for two seasons of the high school drama before moving on to a film career. He’s the sort of date that Chinchilla give their stamp of approval to, especially as Tyler holds the dubious honour of being my first screen kiss. It’d so fit their image to have the two of us dating and being sickly wholesome together. Too bad I’m not interested in snogging him. The only man whose kisses I covet are those of a man who rejected me.

  Dare’s supposed to be in attendance tonight. He appeared in several of the big films from last year and is nominated in about twenty categories.

  Yes, I’m praying we cross paths.

  “Did I tell you I got the gig working with J.J. Jones?” Tyler says as we’re being ushered to our seats. “You know I love his films. I’ve been itching to work with him for years.”

  “Wow, congratulations. I’m so pleased for you. Is it a big part?”

  “I bagged the lead, Felicity.”

  “Oh! Oh, wow. That is awesome.” I give him a hug and a heartfelt pat on the back, because I am both impressed and pleased for him. “I guess this could be the start of major things for you? I’d best make the most of this occasion. You won’t want anyone so ordinary as your date in the future.”

  “You’re not ordinary, Flick. You’ve never been that.” His expression turns a little gooey, so I take a step back.

  “Do you know who else is signed up?”

  He shakes his head. “Wilf's hoping he can find out some more about it tonight. Jones has been really stingy with the details. If it was anyone else I’d have smelled a rat, but when he’s this quiet, it usually means he’s got something special in the works.”

  “Wilde,” I throw out as casually as I can. “Don’t those two often team up?”

  Tyler considers this possibility with his head tilted to one side. “They do, yeah.” It’s hard to tell whether he thinks the chance of working with Dare Wilde a good or a bad thing. I suppose starring alongside him puts you at risk of being overlooked, even if it guarantees you a box-office smash.

  Speaking of the devil… I sense Wilde’s presence as we’re being ushered towards our seats. I can’t see him, but the back of my neck prickles and I know he’s close by. I silently curse the fact there are too many people around me, all of them taller, but straining my neck becomes unnecessary, as he’s suddenly right in front of me.

  Damn, he looks good in blac
k tie! Polished… refined… basically, all kinds of wonderful. Still, the look in his eyes when our gazes meet is unfathomable. I’m not sure how he feels about our paths crossing again so soon, but that’s okay, because I’m not sure how I feel about it either now that we’re face to face. I’m sort of curiously thrilled and simultaneously befuddled. My heart’s racing, and I can feel a blush rising across my chest.

  He’s not alone. I don’t know why I’m surprised at this.

  The woman hanging off Dare’s arm is tall, willowy, and impossibly perfect. They are the ultimate Hollywood power pair. Next to her, I instantly feel dowdy, even though I know that’s not true. My dress is tailored to my shape, tight through the waist, so that it cinches my middle into teeny proportions, then long in the skirt so that the voile overlay grazes my ankles. And I’m wearing classic Louboutin’s. Not that this has anything to do with clothes. I simply don’t have her presence.

  Her hair is set in waves like she’s a screen goddess from the golden age. And her smile—oh God, her smile—it lights up the whole goddamned auditorium.

  I’m astonished that Wilde even notices my existence when he’s being blinded by this much glamour.

  “Are you stalking me, Flicka?” he asks.

  Any thoughts I may have just had about sneaking up and gazing adoringly at him while any one of the photographers around snaps our picture instantly vanish. I’d just look like a star-struck idiot. Who’s going to believe we have anything going when he has this bombshell hanging off his arm?

  Damn, this complicates everything. I had no idea he was attached. I’m not selfish enough to muscle in on someone’s relationship, even if all I want to do is create an illusion of togetherness.

  And there’s no way she’s just a casual date. They’re too perfect together.

  “I guess you’re up for an award or two,” I say, ignoring his opening question.

  For a fraction of a second, his eyes narrow as if he’s annoyed, but then he blinks, and the irritation is gone. “Best Actor in a Supporting Role.”

  “Exciting.” The woman squeezes his arm.

  I’m not sure he entirely agrees. I reckon he’s miffed that it’s the supporting role award, and not the trophy for star of the show. In all honesty, it ought to be. He could totally carry a film. The camera loves him.