Breaking Hollywood (21 page)

It was a good call. The Park Suite, named for the stunning view over Hyde Park, was sheer luxury, exquisitely furnished, with a bottle of Ruinart champagne on ice, compliments of the general
manager, Gerard Sintes. Most importantly, it was utterly private.

The moment they stepped over the threshold, he picked her up, took her to the bedroom. Eat. Touch. Love. That had been enough for both of them, until sometime around four hours ago, he’d
finally fallen asleep. Now he’d woken to find her gone and he realized his body was actually craving her, all his senses screaming for her to return, to touch her, to be inside her.

Hell, he had it bad.

So bad he was even developing amnesia about the fact that she was married. This was a first for him. Dating other men’s wives had been strictly off limits all his life. He’d seen the
damage infidelity could do.

His dad, Jono, had regularly come home with a sore face thanks to putting his dick where it didn’t belong. He had the same glib retort every time. ‘Och, you should see the other
guy,’ he’d boast, while Zander’s mother pretended not to know why the fight started. Jono had broken his mother. Years of abuse, years of affairs, years of pain. Zander had
decided that he wouldn’t travel down any of the branches of his father’s path.

But then Adrianna came along and he was lost. At first, he had no idea she was married. What a cliché. When he found out, he called a halt, said goodbye, broke off contact . . . but now
she was back, and it was time they faced the inevitable.

Wasn’t it?

‘Hello, my darling,’ she purred from the doorway, and he opened his eyes to see her standing there, looking nothing like a woman who had barely slept in twenty-four hours. Her cream
suit was, as always, from her menswear line, but tailored to perfection to fit and flatter her shape. Underneath, a black silk blouse. Her hair was tied back in a chignon, her eyes smoky, her lips
blood red. Zander’s erection was instant.

‘Pleased to see me,’ she said. It was a statement, not a question.

‘I was wondering where you’d gone to,’ he replied, watching as she crossed the room to turn on the bath taps and slowly begin to undress. He was so tempted to reach for her,
bring her to him, but the view was just as tantalizing and he wanted to enjoy it for a little longer.

She slipped the jacket from her shoulders as the water gushed from the taps. ‘I had a meeting with my buyers here. The reason I came to London, remember?’ she answered, her amusement
making his hard-on start to throb.

One by one, she opened the buttons on her shirt, before letting it fall onto the cream tiles of the floor. Underneath it, she was naked, her breasts swollen, her nipples hard.

‘Keep going,’ he told her.

Obliging, she undid the button and zip of her trousers and elegantly kicked them off. Completely naked now, except for her heels. That was her thing, he’d realized. Shoes and diamonds. She
liked to have sex wearing both. He was about to respond to the invitation when she stepped out of them and into the bath.

‘Come. I’ll be lonely in here.’

He flicked off the shower and joined her, sitting at the opposite end, then gasped as she slid along his legs and mounted him. His hands went to her buttocks as he pulled her tighter, his mouth
finding one of her nipples, then the other. The water sloshed out of the tub as she rose and fell, her deep red fingernails piercing the skin on the back of his ripped shoulders.

‘Come, come now!’ she ordered. It was all he needed to hear. The guests in every room in the corridor must have heard him roar, his abandonment unleashing an orgasm in Adrianna that
made her draw blood.

There was very little water left to bathe in when they both collapsed, spent.

Adrianna twisted the taps on to replenish the water. When she relaxed back at the opposite end, Zander picked up her foot and blew the bubbles from it, then massaged it gently.

‘So are we going to talk?’ he asked.

‘About?’

‘Oh God, this is going to be a completely messed-up role reversal here,’ he admitted sheepishly, before going on, ‘About us.’

Adrianna lay her head back against the curve of the bath rim. ‘Ah, us.’

Zander playfully bit the end of her toe. ‘Just making sure I have your attention.’

Adrianna used the other foot to flick water in his face, but he didn’t rise to the bait. He was usually a man of relatively few words, so if he had something to say, he had to get it out
before he blew it.

‘Look, what we’ve got is pretty special. I’ve never felt like this before, never had this need for someone before. But the thing is, I don’t share.’

‘Then we have a problem,’ Adrianna challenged him.

‘We do. I’m not going to give you an ultimatum . . .’

‘Good. I don’t respond well to those.’

‘I guessed that.’ It didn’t take a genius. ‘But I want you with me. Not sharing. Just you and me.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘Why?’

‘Zander, I’ve told you before. My husband . . .’ She tailed off, pensive. ‘My husband is a very straightforward man. We understand each other. He knows that occasionally
I have “special friends”, but he indulges me, as long as it means nothing.’

Suddenly the water felt like it had turned icy cold.

She saw the reaction on his face and added, ‘This is more than that, but still . . . I cannot leave him.’

Why?’ he asked again.

‘Because he is not a man to leave,’ she said simply.

‘Even if you want to be with me?’

She sighed wearily. ‘Zander, please don’t do this. My husband and I fit. We work. On all levels.’

Zander exhaled, feeling his gut twist as he understood what she was saying. It was difficult to argue. What they had was physical, sexual, but not emotional or based on compatibility or hours of
conversation. They hadn’t hung out. They didn’t have the same sense of humour. She didn’t know his history or understand what drove him. And he didn’t want her to see inside
him. This was why he didn’t do relationships. This was why he preferred to stay alone, detached. It didn’t take an expensive therapist, and God knows he’d met many in rehab over
the years, to explain to him that something in his psyche put up a barrier that said, ‘No emotional attachments, no pain.’

Clearly, he should have stuck to that in this case too.

Adrianna rose from the water, leaned over and kissed him, tenderly this time. ‘I think our time together is incredible. Can’t it just be that?’ Her pout was irresistibly sexy,
her body glorious, her voice intoxicating. Fuck, this one hurt.

‘Now we must go, as I have to be back in New York by morning.’

He knew this already. They’d agreed he would drop her in NYC and then head on to LA.

They dressed in silence, and on the way back to Luton, Adrianna put her head on his shoulder and slept. Traffic was light, so the journey took barely over an hour, but from setting off to
destination, he changed his mind a dozen times about where he should go from here. Did he want to see her again? Of course. No other woman had ever inspired this level of desire in him. And if he
was honest, there was a bit of irony there. Over the years, he’d met hundreds of women, slept with many, dated some. But the one woman he’d actually fallen for was choosing a better
option.

She murmured as his shoulders clenched, causing her head to move slightly.

Back to the point. He didn’t share. Couldn’t stand the thought of her with someone else. And what kind of man was her husband that he seemed to be cool with her seeing other guys?
What a freak.

As the car pulled up to the terminal building, Zander gently shook her awake. The buzz was gone now. This was like the comedown after a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a mountain of coke. And
yet he wasn’t ready to say goodbye, was glad of another few hours together on the plane.

The VIP rep at the airport was waiting for them and rushed them through a side door to a private corridor that took them directly to a waiting area for private jets. At the door, a customs
official checked their passports and ushered them through to—

‘Hello, my dear. And Mr Leith . . .’

Zander stopped dead. In front of him, looking up from the newspaper he was reading, was Carlton Farnsworth, eyeing them with fairly ill-concealed amusement.

Adrianna reacted instantly. ‘Darling, what are you doing here? Not that it isn’t a lovely surprise.’

Zander didn’t trust himself to speak as he watched her cross the room and kiss him. ‘Zander and I had a very successful trip to London. He absolutely wooed our buyers
there.’

It wasn’t a success. He hadn’t met buyers. No one was wooed. Yet every single word that came out of her beautiful mouth sounded like the absolute truth.

‘I brought the jet so that we can head back to New York without taking Mr Leith out of his way,’ Carlton Farnsworth replied. ‘I was just saying to Sergei here that you’d
been working far too hard lately. Time I took care of you and recharged your batteries.’

For the first time, Zander noticed the guy in the impeccably tailored, undoubtedly Adrianna Guilloti, black suit, standing in the corner of the room, his face completely impassive.

He may have been an actor for twenty years, with a string of awards and a billion-dollar franchise, but right then, Zander had no idea how to react to either the husband or the close-protection
guy, who had clearly forgotten to pack his sense of humour.

Adrianna stepped straight in. ‘That’s wonderful, darling,’ she told her husband, her voice warm and engaging. ‘Wonderful.’

She strutted back across the room and held her hand out to shake Zander’s in a purely professional manner. ‘Thank you, Zander. For the use of the jet and for being the perfect
gentleman.’

Zander had never felt more far from perfect.

This was so wrong. So, so wrong. And yet what else could he do? Refuse to let her go? Cause a scene? Berate her husband? But then, what had Farnsworth done to deserve that? Zander was the one in
the wrong, and right now that guilt was strangling his feelings for Adrianna in a chokehold.

Farnsworth shook his hand, his grip tight, his expression giving no hint of jealousy or malice.

‘We’re ready to take you through now, Mr Farnsworth,’ the attendant waiting behind the desk informed them. ‘And, Mr Leith, we’ll be ready to take you through in ten
minutes.’

Zander nodded, barely able to digest the words as he watched Adrianna being ushered towards the door by her husband. This wasn’t how he rolled. This was wrong on so many levels. He
couldn’t let it happen, didn’t have the patience to let it play out. He had to make it clear how he felt, put all the cards on the table, make a case for giving their relationship a
chance to develop into something more than just the best sex he’d ever known. And if she wasn’t prepared to give them that chance, it was time to walk away.

He stepped forward. Time for some truths.

‘Adrianna?’

‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ – Green Day

Sarah

The breeze from the ocean was doing nothing to clear her head, and neither were the caffeine and high-sugar pastry from the store at the end of her street. Marina del Rey had
been Sarah’s third choice of location in which to unpack her suitcase when she’d moved here from Glasgow the previous autumn. Santa Monica was number one, but it was way out of her
price bracket. Venice was next, but the combination of bad parking and tourists made it just a little unpredictable for a female living on her own. So in the end, she’d found a gorgeous but
small one-bedroom apartment in Marina del Rey – a man-made harbour with six peninsulas, around which 6,000 boats were docked. Her home halfway down Tahiti Way gave her a view out onto a basin
packed with yachts and, beyond that, the next strip of apartments on Marquesas Way. The area was largely home to couples and professionals, with families attracted by the still waters of
Mother’s Beach. Sarah rarely went to the sands. Instead, she liked to sit on the balcony once the morning haar had burned off, shaded by the balcony above, and write. The lifestyle pieces she
was doing for several magazines paid some of the bills, reporting on any major LA stories for the
Daily Scot
paid some others. But every month, her savings went down just a little bit
more, making the urgency to get a book deal increase by the week. And no, saving cash by moving in with Davie wasn’t an option.

She’d almost told him about Marilyn this morning.

Almost.

Although she’d promised Mirren that she wouldn’t, it somehow felt disloyal to keep things from him. But what purpose would telling him serve?

There was nothing he could do for now, until Mirren’s PI established if Marilyn was even in the country, so all telling him would do was freak him out.

And Sarah was freaking out enough for both of them.

She’d be stupid not to wonder if Marilyn was behind the attacks on Davie, but even to her ultra-suspicious, crime reporter’s brain, it was unlikely. Marilyn hadn’t been seen
for two decades, as far as Sarah was aware, Marilyn knew no one in LA, and there was no actual evidence that she was here now. The stuff that was happening here was the work of more than one
person. Sure, anyone with a bit of cash could buy any kind of services in this town, and if Marilyn had criminal connections in the UK, then it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to expand them
across the Pond. But still, the chances that it was her who was wreaking havoc on Davie’s life were slim.

Sarah finished her apple fritter, knocked back the rest of her coffee and then took the cup and plate inside. Sometimes writing out on the balcony was tough. There was too much temptation to
watch the yachts go by, peering inside them, looking for a famous face or inventing a whole imaginary life for a stranger. Whole days could pass and her word count would barely budge, so today
she’d rationed herself to breakfast and lunch outside, coming back after meals and working at the laptop that was set up on a gorgeous old console table she’d picked up at the Fairfax
and Melrose Flea Market for fifty dollars. It was the only place where you could peruse five-dollar sunglasses while mingling with a crowd that included stars like Courtney Cox, Victoria Beckham
and Kate Hudson.