Breaking Hollywood (7 page)

As soon as she made the joke, she regretted it. ‘And no, don’t use that as an opener to a “move in here” conversation.’

He adopted an innocent expression and put his hands up in surrender. Good. Heavy conversation averted. For now.

She sat down on the doorstep, recognizing that the man lived in 30,000 square feet of Bel Air ostentation, had shitloads of drama and hassle going on, a room full of people who were much further
up the importance chain than her, and yet he was here, sitting on a step with her.

‘So how’s it going?’ she asked.

‘Crazy. The network lawyers are shitting a brick in case there’s any measure of liability. The producers are secretly loving it because we ended up with the highest ratings of any
debut talk show in living history. And the
Beauty and the Beats
guys are freaking out because we just lost half the act. It’s a whole big, incestuous cluster-fuck. But hey, did you
hear the bit about the ratings?’

It was impossible not to laugh. Davie Johnston was arrogant, ambitious, ruthless and shallower than an espresso, but when he wasn’t being any of the above, he was also caring and sweet and
so funny he made her sides hurt. Not that she’d admit that to him.

‘God, you’re vile. And you’re needy. And a prima donna. And high maintenance. Shall I go on?’

‘Horny,’ he offered, snaking his hand up the back of her vest top.

‘Well, horny will have to wait. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be in there putting out fires?’ she asked, gesturing into the house.

‘Yep, but we’ll only keep them waiting for ten minutes.’

Sarah leaned over and kissed him teasingly. ‘Why? Are we gonna do it twice?’

‘Yep, and have a cigarette in between,’ Davie added, gently tugging her towards him.

She shouldn’t. He had places to be. Things to be doing. And yet she was somehow sitting on top of him, legs wrapped round his waist, with hands unclipping her bra with the expertise of the
oversexed. Lips locked, he used the quads that had been honed by a million squats to raise them up to a standing position; then he stepped backwards into the house, moved a couple of feet to the
left and pulled open the door to the cloakroom.

One wall was lined with oak shelving, from floor to ceiling, supporting dozens of shoes, hats, sneakers. The opposite wall had rows of coats and, underneath, a myriad of play things:
skateboards, two Segways, a bike and, at the back, a table used for storing hats, gloves, scarves. Or rather, it used to be. As Davie cleared it with one hand, Sarah tore her lips from his for long
enough to whip her vest top over her head. The bra went with it. Davie sat her on the table and immediately dropped to take her nipple in his mouth, her head thrown back, gasping, while her hands
worked at releasing the button on his jeans. Davie licked his way over to the other breast now, flicking the nipple with his tongue, making her groan, pant and work even harder to release his cock.
Mission accomplished, she pushed the jeans down onto his thighs, her hands immediately going round his cock. He stopped her, pushed her back, flicked open her shorts and whipped them down while her
hands reached into his hair, grasping. He pulled her thong off in one movement and then moved back between her legs, his cock raised and swollen. Sarah opened her legs wider to let him slip inside
her, then lay back on the table, her body raised on her elbows, before slipping her ankles over his shoulders, letting him penetrate deeper, harder. She crossed her feet behind his neck, locking
him there, while he put one hand on each of her hips, holding her steady, while he fucked her, hard, fast, deep.

She surrendered to the ferociousness of the movement, lowering her head and shoulders onto the table now too, bringing her hands up to cup her breasts. Her fingers traced the edges of her
nipples, round and round, round again.

‘Fuck, you’re beautiful,’ he gasped, watching every movement, still pounding into her, a sheen of sweat appearing now on a torso that was as ripped as any model on a Calvin
Klein billboard.

The moment he said it, she felt the tingles of an orgasm start at her pelvis and grow, spreading across her stomach, working north, her ribs, her tits, her neck, her head, a sensation of utter
bliss exploding inside her, her scream making his dick take control of his body, pumping harder, harder, harder, holding her tighter, tighter, tighter . . .

‘Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, oh fu-u-u-u-ck,’ he spat, through teeth that were clenched shut, his head thrown back, his eyes closed until every drop of him had left his cock.

Still inside her, he flopped forward, resting his chin in the space gravity had made on her chest, having pulled her breasts to the side. He’d told her many times that it was his favourite
part of her body, mostly because it was rarity in LA. You couldn’t toss a silicon implant down any street without it landing on a female with fake tits, the kind that stayed upright and
immobile when she lay, like Sarah now, on her back.

‘I bloody love you,’ he said, never more handsome than when he was happy, post-coital and still – quite literally – joined at the hip.

Laughing, she ran one finger down the centre of his forehead, over his nose, to his mouth. He clenched his teeth round it, making her yelp.

‘Ouch! No rough stuff. There are clubs you can go to for that.’

‘Yeah, but I’ve lost my gimp mask. I think my girlfriend burned it,’ he told her sorrowfully, making her giggle.

Actually giggle.

Sarah McKenzie, hard-assed journalist, didn’t – in any other part of her life – do giggling.

That was the effect Davie Johnston had on her. He was funny, crazy, wild and she adored him.

Cupping a finger under his chin, she raised his head so that she could push back up onto her elbows. ‘OK, much as that made the earth move, I need to get to work, and I believe
you’re supposed to be handling a dead-rock-star crisis situation. May he rest in peace.’

‘I think Jizzo would approve,’ he told her solemnly.

She took that moment to prise him gently out of her and slide to her feet, grinning. ‘Look, if it’s quiet out tonight, I’ll come back over. Maybe around three. Don’t wait
up, though – I’ll just slide in beside you and you can do all that to me again when you wake up.’

His hand slipped round her neck and he leaned in to kiss her again, lingering this time. ‘I like that idea.’

Eventually, she broke off, laughing. ‘I have to go before I take you up on the doing-it-twice thing.’ Sarah reached out for the nearest coat, giggling again when she realized that it
was Davie’s old Lakers jacket. She slipped it on, showing support for one of Los Angeles’ two basketball teams, while utterly naked underneath.

Davie loved the image. ‘I swear you’re giving me another hard-on. When you’re done with that, leave it out. I’m taking it upstairs, and when you come back, I’m
going to teach you some serious ball control.’

If it had been uttered by any other guy, it would have come off as cheesy, but Davie was in on the joke, blatantly hamming it up, so from him, it was just funny.

When he’d pulled up and fastened his jeans, Sarah went up on her tiptoes and kissed him. ‘I know everything about balls that I’ll ever need to know, thanks. Now go back to
work. I’m going to go wash up and then I’m out of here. Go. Shoo. See you later.’

She followed him out of the cupboard, praying that Ivanka, his overwhelmingly intimidating housekeeper, wasn’t around, then slipped into the foyer washroom directly next to the door. It
was a wet room with a built-in shower, designed by Davie so that he didn’t have to traipse to a shower room on a higher floor if he came in the door wet, muddy or cold from any form of
exercise or sport.

After a quick hose-down, Sarah was dressed and back in the car.

The pap flash explosion was even more relentless on exit than it had been on entry, no photographer prepared to miss a car that might have Davie Johnston in it.

She was ten minutes away, her little red Chrysler convertible pointed in the direction of Studio City, before the spots in her eyes dissipated.

This was a strange life. In what normal world do you watch a rock star dying on air, get mobbed by paps when you drop in to see your boyfriend, shag aforementioned boyfriend in a cupboard and
then spend your nights solo, on Sunset Strip, hanging out in bars, watching the action and cultivating relationships with bar staff and security guys who could give you the heads-up on who was
doing what to whom?

The lights changed and she turned onto North Beverly Glen Boulevard.

The truth was that for all the insanity and craziness of life here, she was happy. After a lifetime of Scottish rain and bluster, she adored the sunshine and the laid-back lifestyle. There was
still a part of her that missed the grit of Glasgow and the intense, down-and-dirty world of the crime desk. There, it was all about the facts. Being objective. Impartial. Here, even the news
reporters were allowed to make a drama out of a crisis.

Covering trite stuff as a freelancer just didn’t give her the same kind of challenge or fulfilment as her old job.

Her cell phone rang through the car’s Bluetooth. The screen flashed up a +44 number that was so familiar she immediately flicked a switch to answer it. ‘Hello?’

‘Are you missing me?’ came the raspy, guttural reply.

Sarah’s smile was instant. Ed McCallum, editor of the
Daily Scot
, the newspaper she’d left behind.

‘Madly. I pine for you every day,’ she replied, realizing he’d never guess just how much truth was in that statement. Ed had been her mentor, an old-school,
whisky-in-the-filing-cabinet, tough editor who bled newspaper ink. There were very few left like him.

‘I can understand that. I’d miss me too.’ His laugh descended into a hacking cough courtesy of twenty Benson & Hedges a day.

Sarah waited a moment. ‘Did you die?’ she checked when he finally stopped.

‘Almost, but no.’

‘Excellent. Didn’t want to be hanging on here all day.’

This time, his laugh was more of a snort than a life-threatening convulsion.

‘Right, ma darling, I’m phoning to see if yer up for a bit of freelance.’

‘Does it pay huge amounts of cash, and will it put me in the running for some kind of career-enhancing award?’

‘Neither.’

‘Neither?’

‘But I’ll leave you my entire worldly goods when I shuffle off this mortal coil.’

‘By the sound of you, that’ll be soon, so keep talking.’

They both knew she’d agree, no matter what it was. She just hoped it would be something meaty that might lead to a big story, one that could give her a profile here too.

Ed paused to dislodge phlegm from his airways yet again before he went on.

‘It kinda follows on from the whole McLean, Leith, Johnston thing you looked at last year.’

The hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention. Apart from the three stars, she was the only person who knew the truth about them. What she’d discovered when she came over to the US
to investigate the relationship between the three friends had been so shocking, so utterly horrific that she’d killed the story to protect them.

‘Carry on – I’m curious,’ she urged him, careful to sound casual and nonplussed so she didn’t alert him to her interest. Ed McCallum could spot a story in a dark
room, in a blackout, while wearing a balaclava backwards.

‘Big-time organized-crime guy Razor Ritchie has been arrested in Liverpool, his worldly goods seized, his operation wiped out. Couple of his crew are squealing like pigs. One of the things
that came up is that the female who’s been shacked up with the crook since anyone can remember has been shouting her mouth off that she’s Mirren McLean’s mother. I sent someone
down to check it out, but the woman’s disappeared. It’s probably crap. Didn’t her mother die years ago?’

Deafening klaxons were reverberating in Sarah’s head. ‘Erm, not sure. Let me look into it and I’ll see what I can dig up. Be good to cover something a bit more interesting than
where Leonardo DiCaprio is parking his penis.’

‘Brilliant. And I wasn’t kidding about the dosh. It’s normal union rates, so the money’s pish,’ he added.

‘I wouldn’t expect anything else. I’m doing it for the love of you.’

‘Magic. Let me know if you dig anything up. If there’s anything there, I know you’ll find it. Thanks, love.’

As soon as he was gone, Sarah realized her fingers were trembling on the steering wheel. Yep, if there was a story here, she had no doubt she’d find it. But as she’d already
established, there were some things that were better left unfound.

It’s my secret. I think that’s what gives me the biggest kick.

This morning, I woke up and realized that I know what I’m going to do.

I know that I’m going to right the wrong.

But I’m the only one who knows.

What does that make me?

It makes me the one with the power.

I have the power to take back what’s mine, to destroy the person who took it away.

I can make them burn in hell.

And I will.

When I’m ready.

Because I know.

I know everything.

‘Rock ’n’ Roll Star’ – Oasis

Davie

‘OK, so, people, listen up – can we please,
please
try not to kill anyone tonight? One celebrity death is a freak event. Two is just carelessness,’
Mellie warned them through their earpieces from her position in the gallery.

The world of
American Stars
was very different from the vibe on
Here’s Davie Johnston.
Now on series fourteen, it was the highest-rated talent show in the country and had
spawned a galaxy of music stars, a gutter of washed-up wannabes, several drug scandals, three sex tapes and an unsubstantiated rumour of sexual encounters with at least one of the judges.

Here’s Davie Johnston
was shot in an intimate studio setting, designed to get the best out of the guests without them switching to performance mode at the sight of a large
audience.