A STELLAR AFFAIR (A Hollywood Bad Boy Romance) (15 page)

“Oh, so help me god…!”

“You know very well I can make you say yes, if I wanted to.”

She made a gagging sound. “Oh god, the gall!”

“C’mon, baby, we can both enjoy the next two months and it won’t even feel like work at all. I can’t date, you can’t date, so why don’t we date each other for real? It’s a win-win situation for you.”

“It’s only a win for your benefit! I have no plan of becoming your sex toy in the next two months! No, thanks!”
 

“What about I be your sex toy? Does that make you feel better?”

She made an angry animal sound and marched faster toward the villa.

“I’ll be your sex slave!” he called out to her.

She stopped and removed one of her beach sandals and threw it at him. “Quit following me!”

She hit him in the shoulder. “Aww, you’re such a sour puss, baby!”

“Oh, but you’re such a douche, asshole!”

“We should be banging by now and not having this silly tiff.”

“We’re not having a tiff. You’re not my boyfriend!”

He shrugged. “I could be your friend with extremely pleasing benefits.”

“I said quit following me or I’ll sic my Dobermans on your ass! They eat assholes for snacks!”

He chuckled. “But you love my ass! I have your scratches to prove it!”

The jerk just loved to have the last word.
 

She flipped him the bird.
 

She was relieved he didn’t follow her into the villa anymore.

C
hapter
T
en

Stoneryder was unfolding
to the public like scenes from the cheesiest rom-com. Ava’s PR team was methodically directing their “relationship” like a daily soap episode and apparently, people were buying it lock, stock and barrel. Since their “first meeting” at the AVMAs, Stoneryder had come a long way and it had only been a week. Hollywood surely had a faster time frame than real life.
 

Wes was amazed by it all. He knew he was famous, but being Ava’s boyfriend had a different level of famous. Libby said his Facebook page likes had increased by nearly a million in the past few days alone. His name was on the list of the hottest trending topics on the internet, along with Ava’s name and Stoneryder itself, meaning, people were searching his name and anything connected to it every second all over the world.

His
“beach date”
with Ava did this. Man, even by his acting standards, that was too much. Too much because he wasn’t acting at all. Those pictures were…real.

Too real. And they were beautiful. He’d kissed a dozen women while the cameras were rolling and he’d never watched any of his movies twice, but he did look at his pictures kissing Ava more than once. Okay, a lot. He’d stared. It turned him on big time.

Twitter and Facebook were full of Stoneryder moments. He’d been exchanging sweet messages with Ava. That was actually the handiwork of Libby and Ava’s publicist manipulating their social media accounts. Stoneryder had a very public relationship going on and it was hard not to take what was openly happening into their private lives.

Ava had refused to take his calls for two days now after their tiff at the beach and he was going crazy. Tim forbade him from seeing her as her PR team hadn’t scheduled a new Stoneryder episode yet. They were going at it like a well-organized film production and he was starting to really resent it. It was hard to treat the whole thing as merely a job where he’d just show up on schedule.
 

He wanted to see Ava everyday. He was dying to be with her again and frustration was building up inside him, testing his patience.
Yet he wanted to keep everything totally private, too. This thing between between them was still undefined and he wanted to take the time to figure it out with her at their own pace, not with Stoneryder’s time warp speed. He wanted them to spend time together with nobody around them, no entourage, no staff, no PR team, no nothing, just the two of them. He was contemplating taking off
 
with her to some secluded place so they can be totally private.
 

This pretending thing was just laughable now. After what happened to him and Ava, he was now pretending to pretend it was all pretense. He was arguably an actor of high caliber based on his awards but he found this “acting job” with Ava challenging to the extreme.

Reena caught them in bed that morning and he was sure Tim knew about it now. Those two probably compared notes like stockbrokers out to make a killing at Dow Jones and Stoneryder was their commodity. But Tim hadn’t really asked him about it and he wouldn’t volunteer the information either. He was never the kiss and tell type, especially about his business with Ava. He wasn’t ready to share it with anybody yet, even though Stoneryder was already being consumed greedily by the public.

The paparazzi’s interest in him seemed to have tripled overnight, too. He couldn’t even go to the gym without someone taking pictures of him, asking him about Ava. He’d kept his answers to a minimum. He would follow the “official” script on that score. He wouldn’t want to compromise Ava’s reputation in any way. But the questions were becoming offensive every passing day. It was hard to turn the other way when they’d throw shit at him like, “Are you guys for real or just using each other?” or “Do you really love her or just using her to land Super X?”

They hit the nail in the head, of course, but he felt stung when slapped with those questions in the face. They were the truth, but strangely now, the truth was mightily offending him, not because of his principles as a professional, but because he simply didn’t want anybody to think he was using Ava in any way.

It had become personal to him.

Real life was indeed stranger than fiction.

They arrived at the restaurant
at little past seven in the evening. Their first official dinner date was open season for the real paparazzi this time around. Reena’s minions let the word out that Stoneryder was going downtown for dinner tonight at Arabella’s, a celebrity-favorite restaurant in West Hollywood
and lo and behold, they were all waiting with their shooters ready at the entrance.

 
Ava spent the few hours earlier in her room, trying to take a nap, but just couldn’t knowing Wes was coming to pick her up at her Beverly Hills mansion.

He arrived earlier than he was supposed to but she didn’t come down from her room to see him. She didn’t want him to think she was excited to see him again.

But she was. Excited like a school girl about to see her crush.
Blech!
She’d written songs in her earlier albums for her high school fans describing this feeling. No wonder they all hit No. 1 at the charts. This was crazy! She’d never even felt this with Tyrone and Ty was her childhood bestfriend and their relationship
 
spanned many years. But it was nothing like she was having with Wes. She met Wes only last week and his impact in her life was nothing less than cataclysmic. It was mind-boggling, the speed of how it developed. The urgency. The anticipation. It was so high school. She didn’t know what whirlwind truly meant until now. And she was 25! Too old for this!

She’d found out from her staff that Wes was with Reena having coffee in the sun room. She’d sneaked out of her bedroom to check them out and she heard their laughter. Like a voyeur, she watched them, her eyes mainly on Wes. Unguarded, he looked relaxed as he listened to Reena talk, laughing at her jokes. She couldn’t stop the jealousy that assaulted her that Reena was making him laugh. She wasn’t as vivacious as Reena. Her humor was mostly sarcastic, but Reena could make even zombies laugh hysterically.
 

Feeling foolish from her petty thoughts, she went back to her room and sulked until it was time for their dinner date. When she came down from her room an hour later, he was waiting for her in the living room, dressed in casual coal black jeans and navy blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up in his arms. His hair was tied up neatly in a pony tail. He was badass perfection.

He took her breath away as usual. Her tummy would probably never settle when he was near. Her pussy would probably never be dry in his presence.
 
She hated him for making her feel like this, for transforming her mind and body into this person she didn’t know anymore.

What stung most was, he was right. She was the biggest hypocrite. Well, he can call her whatever he liked but she wasn’t falling for his games again. Self-respect, hello! She hadn’t arrived at this point in her career just to be a man’s plaything!

Remembering his proposition made her blood boil all over again.
 

“Relax. You’re so strung up like a rat trap. Smile, baby. The cams are rolling. We’re live on the internet.”

His lazy tone aggravated the tension within her. How could he read her so easily? Not many people could. She was a master at poker face, and she was smiling her jaw hurt!
 

The paparazzi came in full force tonight. Understandable as this was the much-awaited Stoneryder sighting since their beach date that every tabloid and online blog known to gossipdom tattled about endlessly.

The paparazzi were relentless, as usual.

“Ava! Wes! Look over here!”

“Are you guys really dating?! Is this official?!”

“Ava, what can you say about’s Skylar’s last interview? She called you a two-faced bitch!”

“Wes, look here, please! Smile!”

“We love you, Stoneryder!”

They both smiled and waved at them but declined to comment, as instructed by Reena.

Wes guided her into the restaurant. The maitre d was already expecting them and took them to their reserved table in a far corner in the open garden, away from the other dining customers.

She heaved a deep sigh once they were seated.

“That was rather…warm,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “That was scary shit.”

“I thought you’d be used to it by now.”

She shook her head. “I’m never used to it.”

“I now understand the perks of being your boyfriend. I think I’m much more popular now than I was last week.”

She gave him a face.

“But I have to get used to being ambushed by a paparazzo in the gym locker room.”

“What?! I’m sorry…are you alright?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. He was at least nice enough not to take a picture of me in my jockstrap.”

She choked on a laugh. “Wesley…! Hush!”

He grinned and picked up the menu. “So, what are we having? Let’s see….” He scanned the
entrée
.

She looked at the menu, too. “This is my favorite here.
Australian lamb chops, curried cauliflower and roasted eggplant.”
 

He smiled. “Great choice. My favorite, too. I’ll have that, too.”

She raised a brow. “Really?”

“Yeah. That’s what I always order here. Watch.” He signaled for the waiter who was standing a few meters away to give them privacy.

The waiter came to their table with a smile. “Mr. Stoner, Ms. Ryder,” he said, his hand ready to jot down their order.

“I’ll have my usual,” Wes said.

“Ahhh,
Australian lamb chops, curried cauliflower and roasted eggplant. Got it.”

Wes gave her an I-told-you-so grin.

She grinned back and looked at the waiter. “I’ll have the same, thank you.”

“Alrighty. Twenty minutes, tops,” the waiter said and left their table.

“So, you have this habit of eating the same food over and over in the same restaurant,” she commented.

“Uh-huh. If I love something, I consume the same thing for years.” He gave her a naughty look. “Like years and years.” His naughty gaze morphed into a serious one that seemed to penetrate her skin in its intensity.

She cleared her throat, feeling hot and bothered. “Don’t you get sick of it?”
Shut up! Stop asking!

He shook his head. “No.”

“Does it apply to your taste in women?”
Oh puhleeeez!
But it left her lips before she could stop it. She felt herself flaming all over. Dammit!