Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46914 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 235(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46914 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 235(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Working for one of the top-rated PR companies in LA is a dream job. Which means I can’t ruin it.
But when I see Weston Wyatt’s phone number by accident on my boss’s phone, I memorize it, telling myself I’ll never text him.
He’s older, and experienced, with millions of women swooning over his Oscar-winning performances and magazine-cover looks.
But one night, on a crazy whim, I type out a text, but I don’t mean to send it. Then the touchscreen of my phone goes on the fritz.
The message sends.
I don’t expect him to reply. But he does.
He even gives me a nickname. Miss Mystery….
So I give him one right back – Mr. Hollywood.
He doesn’t know who I am. But safe behind my phone, I can explore my wildest fantasies.
But women like me aren’t supposed to drive A-list actors to possessive heat, jealous steaminess, or say things like… “You’re mine, Alice. Nobody else’s. Just mine.” Does he really mean it, or are they just words?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER 1
Weston
“The point is,” Aurora says, pacing up and down in front of me. “This Kennedy woman has given us a perfect opportunity to spin this. You didn’t get into a fight just for the sake of it. You got into a fight to defend an innocent woman, and with the intrigue that will come along with a possible romance, I don’t see the downside.”
I sit at the large table, the tall windows showing the Hollywood sign, my jaw going tense as I think about what I have to do.
Pretend I care about a woman I’ve never met.
Pretend the fight I got into with three jackasses wasn’t because they made a sick comment about my dead twin brother.
It was because, apparently, I was the knight in shining armor to a woman I didn’t know.
After the fight, Kennedy came out on social media, claiming the men and I got into a fight because they made some derogatory comments about her.
It was classic LA crap, with this woman seizing on the chance to leech some fame just because she happened to be at the same restaurant.
I was only there to have a meeting with my manager.
I didn’t expect three drunk assholes to swagger over, laughing cruelly, hyenas circling as they used my brother’s name, making skiing jokes – he died in a ski accident – and generally acting like the world’s biggest douches.
“Is something wrong?” Aurora asks.
She’s a tall older woman with features as sharp as her PR strategies, long, manicured fingernails, and hair dyed blonde. She’s had plenty of plastic surgery, like many people I meet in this town.
“I’m not sure I’ll be able to pretend I want this woman,” I say. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to….”
“What’s the alternative?” Aurora cuts in. “Let me tell you… the other option is this. We don’t spin this story in your favor, and all the world sees is the countless videos of you kicking the crap out of these men.”
“They deserved it. And anyway, that asshole threw the first punch when things got heated.”
As a sick twist of fate, no one captured that part on camera, but it made things far easier with the police.
Aurora tilts her head, gesturing broadly so that her billowing sleeves shift around. “Then we should’ve told the truth.”
I shift in my seat, a pulse of rage beating deep in my skull.
It makes me think of being a kid, my twin brother Maxwell and I sparring in the garden as our Dad watched. Or walking miles to the next house to beg for a jug of water.
That same beating in my skull, the same snapping rage ready to leap into life.
“I don’t want to talk publicly about my brother. I don’t want to talk publicly about any of this.”
Aurora walks over to the table, resting her hands against it, staring firmly at me. “Have I ever led you astray?”
I’m forced to tell her, “No.”
Aurora is the best PR guru an actor like me could ask for.
She’s helped me craft an image that just so happens to be true… a reclusive man who simply wants to do his work and move on with his life.
But since I’m an Oscar-winning actor, that’s easier said than done.
“You need to trust me on this. Movie studios are more paranoid than ever these days. They don’t like drama. But if you come out of this looking like a gallant hero… it will make them want you more, not less. Trust me. Anyway, what are you worried about, your girlfriend getting jealous?”
Aurora’s chunky wedding and engagement rings glint in the sunlight, reminding me of her thirty years of marriage, her five kids, an entire life that has nothing to do with acting and PR, and this glitzy grimy world.
She’s teasing as she often does since she thinks I keep my love life secret.
She doesn’t know the truth. I don’t have a love life, and I’m not interested in one.
I stopped caring about that a long time ago.
I don’t even take movies that have a romantic element these days.
It makes me think of how hopeless this situation is, knowing I’ll never find the woman of my dreams, the woman who will fire up my lust and my love, who will make it all worth it.
Does she even exist?
“Seriously,” Aurora says. “If that’s going to be a problem, I’d rather know now.”
“I’ll tell you what I always do,” I say. “I haven’t got a girlfriend.”
She frowns as though finding it difficult to believe me. It’s the response I always get when I tell people I’ve no interest in dating.
A man in my position – people are often giddy to inform me – could have any woman he wanted.
Sometimes, at night, I’ll wake with dreams clinging to me.
Dreams of a family, happy running footsteps, a wife who is smiling at me from the kitchen island with a wavy mane of hair. But my wife’s face is always hazy in my fantasies, her features smokey, and soon the dream passes, leaving me alone.