Breaking Hollywood (43 page)

‘Horse is lame. Cara said he needs gentle exercise. I’m kinda enjoying myself.’

‘So you don’t want to talk business?’ Hollie asked him.

‘Nope.’

‘Not even if I told you that the
LA Headline
have stalled the air stewardess story?’

Zander kept on walking, Hollie keeping pace with him on the other side of the fence. ‘How come?’

‘I think Lou pulled a couple of strings. The
Headline
belongs to the same publisher as the
Hollywood Post
. She just pointed out that she had it on impeccable authority
that the story was false and that the
Headline
would lose credibility if they ran it and it was then disproved. Not that they had any credibility in the first place,’ she muttered,
her disdain obvious.

‘Cool.’

‘Cool? Is that it? Zander, this buys time to find out what’s going on, and it stops your name from being trashed all over town.’

‘Cool.’

‘Aaaaaargh, you are the most annoying man I have ever met. Seriously. You know, you can be a complete dick. Complete. Matt Damon does not do this. If Matt Damon was the victim of a smear
campaign, he’d fight back. Stand his ground.’

She’d slipped through a gap in the fence now and was walking in front of him, backwards, clearly determined to evoke a reaction.

‘And it’s not all about you, you know? I’ve pulled you out of gutters and strippers’ beds, I’ve bailed you out of jail, I’ve worked with you for ten years,
and I’ve put up with an unholy amount of shit that would have driven a saint to suffocate you in your sleep. You’re a nightmare, Zander Leith. A frigging, full-scale, hot-mess, total
nightmare.’ She stopped now, facing him defiantly, blocking his path. The horse looked relieved to be given a rest.

‘And if you’re not going to go to bat for yourself, I’ve no fricking idea why I’m bothering. Aaaargh! What? Why are you doing that?’ she demanded.

‘Doing what?’

‘Staring like—’

He stopped her when he leaned down, put his lips on hers, brought his free hand up to the side of her neck and kissed her.

And kissed her.

And kissed her.

Until she broke off, pushed him back. ‘Don’t you dare. Don’t do that, Zander.’ Her voice wasn’t angry. It was something else. Something he wasn’t
understanding. What just happened had taken him completely by surprise. It wasn’t planned. And hell, she wasn’t happy.

‘I’m not some chick for you to play with. If you’re going to be an asshole, go do that to someone else.’

She turned on her heel and stormed off, leaving him with a suffocating wave of that familiar feeling. The one he’d had many times before, right after he’d fucked up and right before
he’d discovered the price he was going to pay for it.

‘Run the World (Girls)’ – Beyoncé

Sarah

Sarah sat in one of the study areas, a gorgeous rustic room, with three overstuffed sofas set out round a huge brick fireplace. The walls were lined with old books, the floor
made of stone, with a large rug in the centre.

It was cosy, comfortable, a perfect escape, but most importantly, it was the only room in the house with a TV. It was all very well this home-on-the-ranch stuff, but she still needed to work.
This wasn’t an episode of
Little House on the Prairie
. Davie, Mirren and Zander could afford to take time out, rest up, but she still had rent to pay at the end of the month, and no,
she wasn’t letting Davie cover it.

Thus, here she was, sitting in the study, her laptop connected to the TV screen in front of her so that she had a better view of the videos and images she needed to scrutinize as part of her
research. Today, she was on the ‘Celebrity Feuds’ chapter. Chelsea Handler, Katy Perry, Mel Gibson and Miley Cyrus weren’t coming out of it well.

Footsteps interrupted her flow of thought. ‘Save me. Save me from these guys and horses,’ Hollie begged as she came into the room and flopped, lengthwise, on one of the couches,
before putting a cushion over her face.

Sarah laughed and waited for the barrier to come back down. After a few seconds, Hollie removed it, but not before banging it off her head a few times.

‘Why? Why do we have these egotistical, famous, nightmare men in our lives? Why?’

Sarah shook her head, chuckling. ‘I fell in love with mine. I have no idea what your excuse is.’

‘I needed a job and I thought he was hot,’ came the reply. ‘What can I say? I was young, poor; I needed the money . . .’

The two of them were laughing now. Sarah had only met Hollie a couple of times before they’d come up here yesterday, but she could see now that they had a lot in common. Both organizers,
both logical thinkers, both smart, both utterly infuriated by A-list stars who were a long way from any of the above.

Her attention was broken by a new face at the door.

‘Do you mind if I join you?’ Lauren asked, her expression so warm and sweet that no one could possibly refuse. She came in and sat on the free sofa, directly across from Hollie.

‘Sorry,’ Hollie said. ‘I’m just having a moan.’

‘Ah, I like moans. What’s the subject?’

‘Having to deal on a daily basis with famous men.’

Lauren let out a delighted giggle. ‘Oh, I’m in on this one, sister. Where shall we start?’

Hollie knew that Lauren wasn’t aware of the situation with Marilyn, so she kept it general. ‘How about with the fact that they don’t take enough care of their own
safety?’

‘Ah, that’s not just famous guys. My last boyfriend was a cop. Seriously intense guy – loved the whole danger stuff.’

‘Then you are clearly picking the wrong men,’ Sarah quipped. ‘Have you thought about dating a librarian?’

Lauren was about to answer when Hollie’s phone buzzed and she groaned when she checked the screen. ‘You have got to be shitting me.’

‘What’s up?’ Sarah asked.

‘It’s a Google alert. Apparently Adrianna Guilloti has just announced a new celebrity endorsement, Charles Power,’ she said, naming a famously handsome fifty-something actor
who was still churning out great movies.

‘Isn’t that Zander’s role?’ Sarah asked. ‘So what, has he been cut?’

Hollie swung round to a sitting position and picked up her iPad, but Sarah’s fingers were already flying across her own keyboard.

‘There’s a video of the press conference on the Guilloti website,’ she said, as she clicked through to it and then pressed ‘play’.

‘Son of a bitch,’ Hollie exhaled, as Adrianna Guilloti stood on the steps outside her HQ on Fifth Avenue, her husband on one side of her, Charles Power on the other, a crowd of suits
in the background.

Flashbulbs were going off as she stepped forward to the press podium that had been set up for the announcement.

Hollie, Sarah and Lauren watched, transfixed.

‘Wow, she is one beautiful lady,’ Lauren observed.

‘Yep, for a total bitch,’ Hollie retorted.

Ouch. There was obviously history there and the journalist in Sarah was desperate to ask. She made a mental note to save that one for later, and a physical note on the pad beside her to consider
a chapter on celebrity endorsements.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m delighted to announce that the new face of Adrianna Guilloti menswear is the incredibly dashing Charles Power.’

The applause melted into a flurry of questions from the press.

‘Adrianna, can you tell us why you have replaced Zander Leith?’

‘Has your company cut ties with him?’

‘Can you tell us why?’

Sarah realized that Hollie was holding her breath.

On screen, Adrianna appeared utterly unflustered and answered smoothly, ‘I’m afraid Mr Leith’s schedule no longer allows him to represent our brand, and we felt that the
strength, exquisite attraction and – all pun intended –
power
of Guilloti made us the perfect match for Charles Power.’

Hollie let out a strangled moan. ‘Lauren, your intense, cop ex-boyfriend might have to lock me up, because I want to kill her. I do.’

Sarah wasn’t paying attention, still mesmerized by the screen. Money. Elitism. Glamour. It was all wrapped up right there. Fashion. Another chapter in the book.

The camera panned back as Adrianna took another question and Sarah’s hand snapped the ‘pause’ button.

‘Hey, I know that guy,’ she said, pointing to one of the faces in the crowd. Her frown had commandeered her facial muscles. ‘Who is he?’

‘That’s Adrianna Guilloti’s husband,’ Hollie answered.

Sarah shook her head. ‘No, not him. The guy standing at the back, over at the edge of the screen. How do I know him?’ she mused. ‘Or am I going crazy? He just looks so . . .
familiar.’

Hollie and Lauren studied the face she was pointing at, before Lauren shrugged and Hollie said, ‘No idea. Never seen him before.’

‘Must be mistaken,’ Sarah decided. She wound it back, checked again. Definitely something familiar, but nothing more than that.

Obviously she was so wound up about the Marilyn situation that she was imagining things.

How crazy was that?

Tempting.

So very tempting.

The change of plan, the new location, the surroundings, the other people.

I thought about changing my own plans, bringing forward the inevitable.

Tempting.

But no.

I’ve waited so long for this and I won’t be rushed. Too much planning, too many hours, too risky to change because of a trifling matter like opportunity.

After all, wasn’t that what changed the course of everything in the first place?

Opportunity.

And I’ll take mine when the time is right, when I’m ready. I will watch it, savour every second.

I won’t be controlled by other people.

Because I’m the one who will control them.

‘Slippery People’ – Talking Heads

Davie

‘Thanks for coming up, Mike. Brad, pleased to meet you.’ Davie shook both men’s hands in turn, then gestured to them to take a seat at the long white wooden
table in the kitchen. Both in dark suits, the two of them looked exactly like the ex-cops they were.

Zander and Mirren were already there and got up to greet the new arrivals, looking expectant.

In the story of his life, this was going to be one crazy-ass chapter. They’d been up here for three days now and he could see they’d all reacted to it in completely different ways.
Mirren was still concerned, stressed, but there was definitely an edge of irritation in there too. Zander? He looked totally chilled out. What was wrong with that guy? He got up with the sun every
morning, stayed out with the horses until sunset, and no matter what anyone threw at him, he just shrugged it off. Lost a million-dollar endorsement deal? No biggie. Your assistant is pissed with
you? It’s all smooth, man. Psycho-killer bitch is on your tail? Just roll with the punches. When they were kids, Zander had always been the deep one, the strong, silent type. Davie always
figured it was because he couldn’t be happy, couldn’t show emotion. If Zander loved something, whether it was a toy or a cigarette or, later, a bottle of Scotch, Jono took it away just
for fun. No surprise, then, that over the years, Zander retreated, showed less emotion, until he was this man of stone on the outside and a fucked-up mass of chaos on the inside.

This time had been good for them, though. They’d reconnected, hung out. He wouldn’t put them back in the close-friends category yet, but he was beginning to think maybe they’d
get there.

Mirren opened it up and got straight to it.

‘OK, gentlemen, where do we stand?’

Brad Bernson was the first to pitch in with a reply.

‘Here’s what we know. Marilyn McLean entered the country on the tenth of January. She hired a black GMC, stayed in a motel on Robertson, then moved to another hotel in Santa Monica
for a week.’

‘Past tense?’ Mirren asked. Davie felt the optimism rise. Yes! Past tense. She’d done the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the bus tour of the stars’ homes and then fucked off
back to Glasgow.

‘She checked out four days ago,’ Mike replied. ‘Handed the hire car back, left the motel.’

‘So she’s gone,’ Davie clarified.

Mike shook his head.

Damn.

‘To be honest, we’re not sure yet. We don’t have a record of her on a flight leaving the country, but that doesn’t mean she’s still here. We’ve managed to get
a hold of the manifests for the American airlines, but we’ve got nothing on Iceland Air and British Airways. Both had flights departing around the time she handed back the car. And of course,
she could have travelled somewhere inland. Also, two cruises left the Port of Los Angeles that morning, one for Hawaii and one for Mexico.’

‘So she could be anywhere?’ Mirren asked, clearly furious. ‘How the fuck can a sixty-year-old woman go on the run and two agencies combined can’t find her?’

Both men looked deeply uncomfortable, and Davie felt his own sense of frustration coming into play. He had to get out of there. Needed to get back to the city, back to work. It was only three
days until the Oscars, and there were run-throughs booked for tomorrow and the day after. He’d already decided he was leaving tonight no matter what they said, but the fact that Marilyn could
still be around was going to make it a harder sell to Sarah.

‘What about Raymo and the girl from the plane?’ Zander asked. ‘If they were involved, Marilyn had to have connected with them.’

Mike nodded. ‘Absolutely. We’ve interviewed Raymo and he’s standing by his story that it was a spontaneous attack.’

‘He’s lying,’ Zander replied.

‘In fairness, I think you’re probably right, but we’ve got no proof.’

‘And the girl? Wendy?’ Zander probed.

Brad Bernson sighed, obviously uncomfortable. ‘In the wind.’

There was a silence as this was processed.

‘We have to warn you,’ Mike Feechan spoke again, ‘that it’s not advisable for any of you to attend the Oscars.’