by Alexa Aston
“Getting to drive her convertible is a gift,” she told him. “It gives me a piece of her again. I promise I’ll treat it with care.” She stood and kissed his cheek. “Thanks for understanding that I need a little space, Dad.”
“I’m just glad to have you back in my life, baby. Leave the dishes,” he told her. “I’ll take care of them. Go see if Ramon can work his magic. Tell him hi for me.”
“Will do.”
Sydney decided to put her suitcase and briefcase in the car now. If she couldn’t get into the salon, she’d make an appointment for the first opening and head straight for the beach. No one would see her out there anyway so if she didn’t get her hair colored, it wouldn’t matter. She really wanted it done by next week, though. If she would be sitting in on casting, she wanted to look her best.
Especially the day Dash DeLauria auditioned.
She huffed. Why should she worry what she looked like because of that guy? She barely knew him. It wasn’t as if they were going to be friends. Possibly business associates if he did land the role, so why would she care about her appearance on his audition day?
Sydney told herself she wanted to look and act professionally. She didn’t want to disappoint herself or her dad. This was the brink of a new career. If she did a good job, it might lead to other ones, apart from her dad’s films.
She would forget the erotic dreams she’d had about Dash last night. Tell herself she didn’t care if he got the part or not. And definitely pretend that she had no interest in kissing him. None. At. All.
Sydney put her luggage into the small trunk and slid behind the wheel of the steel gray BMW. Her hand stroked the leather seat. This had been her mom’s favorite car. Sydney had loved riding around town in it, their hair blowing in the wind. She closed her eyes and pictured her mom the way she liked to remember her, not the skinny, hollow-eyed woman that had fought cancer so desperately and bravely.
She started the engine and pulled out of the garage. Her dad must see that the car was driven and serviced regularly because of how smoothly it started. Sydney pushed a button to let the roof fold back when she stopped at a light. Immediately, warm California sunshine beat down on her.
LA was home. It always had been, no matter how far she’d run. The Midwest had been a huge awakening weather-wise during her college years. She hadn’t thought she’d survive that first snowy winter. New Haven and the east coast had been more in her wheelhouse. Her job kept her too busy to enjoy either New York or Boston when she’d lived in both of those cities.
The City of Angels felt right. Cruising down the street, she realized this town was in her blood and she had no intentions of leaving it again.
CHAPTER 5
Sydney approached the door to the salon. Memories of all the trips she’d made here with her mom rushed at her. Though Ramon had always been willing to come to their house on the night of big red carpet events, her mother liked to get out in public whenever possible. This salon had been a safe haven. Sydney would sit in the chair and watch as Ramon snipped away until he was satisfied. Then he would blow dry the long, auburn locks. She was fascinated by how the hairdresser rotated the round brush and finger-combed each strand to perfection. Her mom said Ramon was the best stylist in the business—and that’s definitely what Sydney needed. The home dye job kit she’d used for years left much to be desired.
As she entered, she didn’t recognize the place. The salon looked nothing like the last time she’d been here. Not only had the décor changed but the colors were wildly different. Smoky grays and sage greens blended in a soothing pattern. Two women waited in plush chairs, a redhead scrolling through her phone who looked vaguely familiar and an ash blond reading a magazine.
A receptionist with slicked-back, dark hair and a great smoky eye greeted her. “Hello. Are you here for an appointment?” She frowned as she looked down at an open planner in front of her, as if she was trying to figure out where Sydney belonged in her schedule.
“I’d like to see if Ramon has any openings today. I’d love if he could squeeze me in.”
The receptionist burst out laughing. “I’m sorry,” she quickly apologized, trying to replace her amused expression. “No stylist here could see you today. Or for a month. Ramon is booked for months.”
Sydney’s heart sank. “I’m really desperate.”
The woman stared at her judgmentally. “Aren’t we all?” She tapped her pencil on the desk in thought. “I can put you on the waiting list.”
It was late March. Maybe she should put it on her Christmas list.
“What do you need done?” a voice asked.
Sydney looked back and saw the phone scroller place her phone in her purse. The woman stood and came over to her. She had copper hair and kind, blue eyes with a slight dusting of freckles across the nose of her pale complexion.
“I’m here for a cut,” the woman said. “If that’s all you need, why don’t you take my appointment?”
“You’d do that? For a stranger?” Sydney asked.
The redhead smiled. “You sounded pretty desperate. I’ve been there and totally understand.”
“I wish I could take you up on your generous offer but I’m afraid I’ll need a lot longer than your slot. I want my original hair color back and that might take some doing but thanks for volunteering. That’s really sweet of you.”
“Ah, mio caro, are you ready?”
Sydney recognized Ramon’s rich voice. She turned and saw that he hadn’t changed a bit. Maybe a few more laugh lines but he still had a head of thick black hair and was pencil-thin.
He gave her a puzzled look and then awareness dawned on his face. “Bellissimo!” He rushed to her and kissed both cheeks. “What have you done to your beautiful hair?” he wailed as he ran his fingers through the strands, lifting pieces of it and rubbing them between his fingers. “Ghastly,” he proclaimed, his nose wrinkling in disgust.
“That’s why I’m here, Ramon. I need to be fixed.” She indicated the woman standing nearby. “This lovely lady was willing to give me her appointment but I think I’ll need a bigger chunk of your time.”
Ramon smiled sweetly at the woman. “You’re too generous, as always, Cassie.”
“Wait!” Sydney cried, making the connection. She could picture the smiling redhead on Rhett Corrigan’s arm, being interviewed by E! reporters. She might have stopped watching movies because of her busy life but she’d always made time for the Oscar’s red carpet night each year. “Cassie? As in Cassie Corrigan?”
“Yes. Have we met?”
“No, but let me introduce myself. I’m Sydney Revere. My dad is Monty Revere. I’m going to be storyboarding No Regrets for him. I was going to call you today to talk about the script before I started working on my grids.” She thought a moment. “Maybe we could visit while Ramon is doing your cut.”
A smiling Cassie shook hands with her. “It’s nice meeting you, Sydney. Your dad’s terrific.”
Ramon interrupted. “There’s no time for the movie business now. Only time for your hair.” He looked at Sydney. “I will spend all day working on you, caro. For old times’ sake and for your lovely mother. It will take time but it can be done. I will strip this drugstore color and try to get as close to your natural auburn as I can. With a special shampoo and conditioner, we can prevent fading and protect it. I’ll glaze it after to intensify the shine and prolong the color. Then, we can see how it grows out. Eventually, we’ll get your natural color back.”
Sydney grinned. Ramon looked very pleased with himself already and they hadn’t even begun.
“I’ll do all of this in-between my other clients so no talk for you two.”
“Then we need to make a lunch or coffee date,” Sydney told Cassie.
“Actually, when I leave here I’m headed out to a place in Malibu we leased a few days ago. Rhett’s just wrapped a film and he wants to take the summer off. I wanted to stay closer in case Monty needed me for anything. Maybe you’d like to come out there for the day?”
Sydney laughed. “I’m going out to Dad’s house in Malibu myself once I’m done here. I thought it would be a great place to work without interruption. Are you free tomorrow?” She gave Cassie her address.
“No way. You’re about four houses away from us. How early do you get up?”
“Early. Habit.”
“Then let me make a suggestion. How about we meet on the beach for a walk and then have breakfast?”
“You’re on.”
They arranged a time and Ramon led them both to the back. Cassie went with the shampoo assistant while Sydney sat in a chair as Ramon clucked over her.
“So much work. You almost ruined your beautiful hair, Sydney,” he chastised. “Only someone with my talent could repair such a mess.”
“I won’t ever do it again,” she meekly promised.
His lips pursed in displeasure. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Ramon rummaged through a drawer and brought out several tubes. He began mixing various bits from each, look every bit the artist he was. Sydney closed her eyes and relaxed, knowing she was in great hands. She started planning everything she wanted to ask Cassie Corrigan when they met tomorrow morning.
Sydney also hoped that she’d made a new friend.
◆◆◆
Dash was antsy. He’d already run five miles and swum fifty laps in the pool, his usual routine on the days he didn’t train with Leo. He’d eaten breakfast with Herc and Tim before they’d left for Disneyland. Herc had to go to the Magic Kingdom at least once a month. Dash wished he could accompany them but it was impossible. The attention he’d draw would put Herc in the spotlight and Dash would never do that to him.
It wasn’t that he was ashamed of his mentally challenged brother. Far from it. He loved Herc with a fierceness that defied logic. He’d been legally responsible for Herc since his dad’s liver conked out and Dash had assumed guardianship. It had been a slow death, years in the making—a combination of drinking his life away and pining for a woman who never looked back when she left.
Dash hadn’t needed his fickle mom then. He didn’t need her or any woman now. He and Herc were fine, with generous help from Tim sprinkled into the mix.
That didn’t mean Dash lived like a monk. Far from it. He had a healthy appetite for sex. He’d kept Ashley Franklin around longer than most because she liked it anywhere, anytime, any way. Though he knew the model was furious with him for dumping her, she was smart. She wouldn’t pick any fights on social media or badmouth him to the press. Ashley knew he’d given her career a boost during their time dating, if you could call it that. She’d booked several new runway shows and even landed a cosmetic company exclusive contract. No, Ashley would smile, say they’d parted the best of friends, share that their careers kept them apart too much, yadda-yadda-yadda.
Thinking of Ashley brought him back to thoughts of Sydney and last night. He’d been blown away by her beauty and poise. He could tell she was smart. Observant.
“Admit it, DeLauria. You want to see her,” he muttered to himself.
Okay, so he did—but Sydney Revere wasn’t a notch on a belt kind of woman. His usual flirting and one-night stand routine wouldn’t cut the mustard.
His curiosity about her had grown after he arrived home and couldn’t find anything recent on her. He scoured the Internet but nothing showed up since she’d married Craig and lost her husband a few months later. Before that? Tons. Pictures of a young Sydney, looking beautiful in a coltish way—long legs, auburn hair down to her waist. He’d always liked a redhead. Her friends were the kids of Hollywood stars or stars in their own rights. With her looks and family background, Dash wondered why the acting bug never bit her.
He especially liked the pictures he found of Sydney with her mom. It was obvious they shared a special bond. As a child, Sydney had resembled Monica Revere, an actress who’d died in her prime. Dash was sorry Monica hadn’t seen the stunning woman Sydney turned out to be, even if she did have an awfully dull sheen to her hair. He figured there was a story behind why she hid her natural color.
Dash wanted to know why.
He picked up his tablet and drilled down again, seeing if he could discover where Sydney had been for the last decade. Instead, he found shots of her at her mother’s funeral, looking stoic and determined as she gripped her father’s hand. The brother he’d seen in the pictures last night stood on her other side, a far off look in his eyes. Birch. Pretty unusual name.
No matter what Dash typed in, though, his search came to a dead end after the wreck that took Craig Thompson’s life. Dash thought it weird, even for Hollywood, that a teenaged Sydney had married a man twenty-five years older, much less a close friend of her father’s. No wedding pictures seemed to exist but he found articles in Us and People after the fact, describing the couple’s spur of the moment elopement. Craig was quoted as saying their honeymoon had been spent in Colorado—hiking, fishing, and chilling.
Dash found photos from Craig’s funeral but not one of them contained Sydney. Speculation said she’d been injured in the accident that took her husband’s life, which would explain why she missed the funeral. Then nothing about her from that point on. No rumors. No thread to follow. Where had Sydney Revere gone? She’d faded from the headlines. Did she hide in a convent in Nepal? Retreat to a deserted South Sea island? Do volunteer work in some Third World country? Had she been hideously scarred and undergone years of plastic surgery?
He knew no one vanished in this day and age but somehow Sydney Revere had managed to do so.
Dash kept digging, going at it from the angle of the brother since he also seemed to be a mystery. He felt gut punched when he found Birch had OD’d at sixteen a year after his mother’s death.
Poor Sydney. She’d lost her mom and her brother within a year of each other. She would’ve been nine when Birch died. Dash tried to think what he was like at that age since he and Sydney shared the same summer birthday. He was playing Little League. Riding his bike. Protecting his brother.
Maybe the combination of those deaths made Sydney go off the rails during her teenage years, running with a much older crowd and going places she shouldn’t have been.
For some reason, Dash felt protective of her.
He continued scrutinizing her past, now approaching it through Monty. The director had a parade of women—some he eventually married—after the death of his wife and son. He must’ve been a lonely man, searching for a replacement for the most beautiful woman in Hollywood and never finding her. Dash found pictures of Monty over the years in Paris. Tokyo. Rio. New York. A different woman on his arm each time.
No Sydney anywhere in sight.
Monty probably left his daughter to her own devices. At home with live-in help while he gallivanted around the world and buried himself in women and work, marrying and divorcing and starting the cycle all over again as he made movies in-between marriages.
A flash of anger sizzled through Dash. Why was he so invested in Sydney Revere? He didn’t know her.
He was intrigued by her. Maybe more than that. Dash felt drawn to Sydney in some inexplicable way, like a magnet that couldn’t help being pulled in a certain direction. He didn’t understand it because he’d never felt this before so he wouldn’t try to. At least not yet.
His cell rang. Very few people had this number. He glanced and saw it read Unknown. Hope drizzled through him as he decided to answer the call.
“Hello, this is Jayla Jefferson, Monty Revere’s PA. If you’re still interested in Mr. Revere’s film, he’d like you to read for the part of Paul Hannigan.”
Dash suppressed the shout that threatened to erupt. Instead, he calmly said, “Yes, absolutely. Tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.”
“Next Thursday morning at ten. At Mr. Revere’s home. He said you had the address.”
“I do,” he confirmed. “Will you send pages over?”
“No,” she said firmly. “You’ll have access to the scene for a few minutes before your audit
ion. Mr. Revere said that would be plenty of time for you to prepare.”
Dash didn’t like Monty going all Woody Allen on him. The quirky director was notorious for keeping a script away from actors, usually making them sign on before they’d read a word of it. From what he knew, it didn’t seem like Monty to be so secretive but Dash didn’t want to blow this opportunity.
“Fine. Put me down. I’ll be ready.”
He disconnected the call and wished he knew something—anything—about the storyline or Paul’s character. This was the first time in a long time that he’d be nervous going into an audition. He had no clue what Cassie Corrigan’s screenplay was about. He’d only heard it existed because of Leo. Dash shared the trainer with Rhett Corrigan. Leo mentioned a while back that Cassie had completed a new script that she was really excited about and that she was shopping for a director. Then Leo revealed that Monty Revere had agreed to sign on.
That’s all it took for Dash to contact Monty and make his pitch last night.
He took a calming breath. He believed he could do whatever the script called for. If Rhett Corrigan could move from action hero to dramatic leading man—and clinch an Oscar while doing so—hell, so could Dash DeLauria. Maybe not the Oscar part but he could be so much more than what he’d already shown on screen if given the chance.
Dash wanted to prove that to himself—and for some reason he couldn’t explain, he wanted to show Sydney Revere, as well.
CHAPTER 6
Sydney put her pencil down and stretched her arms high in victory. “Finished!” she cried, an immense sense of satisfaction rolling through her.
She’d spent the last six days buried in work. After she’d found several good templates online, she’d downloaded copies of different grids, using multiple ones for various scenes. She preferred sketching by hand rather than using her laptop. Both she and Birch had always dabbled in art. She liked using charcoals and a sketch pad, while he enjoyed watercolors and mixed media.