How messed up is it to go to a movie with your friends and see the guy you had a mad crush on displayed center screen during the previews? The guy who broke your barely twenty-something-year-old heart before you could even get to the naked fun times?
Cavanaugh Westman, Hollywood’s newest bad boy. It didn’t matter that he’d changed, gotten bigger and more dangerous looking. I’d know him anywhere. Shaggy brown hair, curling just over his collar, hazel eyes that you could never predict the color of—anywhere from green to grayish-blue or tawny brown. It didn’t shock me that Hollywood agents had apparently fallen in love with him. His body was ridiculous. Thick, sculpted muscles covered with inked, bronzed skin—
“Holy. Shit. No. Way.”
Banner’s low words drag me from my little trip down memory lane, and I jerk my head in her direction.
“What?”
She holds up the iPad and I shove to my feet, leaving the safety of my cozy couch to join her.
“You’ve got over five thousand new e-mails. And somehow, almost a half million new followers on Twitter, thanks to last night. Color you popular, lady.”
My stomach bottoms out before twisting into a sickly, complicated knot as I take the tablet from her. “Oh. My. God.” My phone vibrates across the kitchen island before I can even begin to read.
My attention snaps to my phone as I dread who might be calling. There are two possibilities, both daunting but one more so: The chair of the professional staff committee from my firm calling to deliver my termination notice. Or worse, my brother.
I shove the iPad back into Banner’s hands and snatch up the phone to check the display. Crey.
“Shit.”
“Is it your brother?” she asks, knowing Creighton well enough from my birthdays and other events over the years.
“Yep.”
“Well, it’s not like he can say much. He practically invented the scandalous viral ad.”
That’s the truth, but it doesn’t mean my brother would want to exchange stories of how we found our respective ways into the gossip rags by posting moronic things online.
No, he won’t find the humor in how much his little sis follows in his footsteps. First, he’ll want to kill my ex-boyfriend, Tristan—who he never liked anyway, and then, he’s probably going to hire me a babysitter in addition to the bodyguard he forced on me last year. We toned down the security a few months back when I threatened to move out of the country to get away from him. Now I only have a driver who ferries me to and from work and anywhere else I need to go. I don’t traipse the streets of New York by myself anymore, especially not late at night.
Holding my phone as it continues to vibrate, I debate how big my lady balls are today. Not so very big.
I let it go to voice mail. Nothing good can come of answering it. I’m too old to be scolded like an errant child, but I have a feeling Creighton won’t agree with that assessment.
Instead, I round the couch to sink back into the safety of its plush cushions. Banner plops down beside me as I slide my phone next to hers on the table. She sets up my tablet facing us both, the list of e-mails mocking me with their subject lines like:
I’LL MAKE YOU MY BAD BITCH
MY COCK WILL ROCK YOUR WORLD
SEND ME A PICTURE OF YOUR FEET
The last one sends a creeper-worthy shiver of disgust down my spine. Apparently my viral ad brings out all the freak shows.
At a time like this, I could use the guidance of my big brother, but I know I’ve fucked up too badly to ask. Humiliation isn’t something I deal with well.
Curling into a ball, I wrap my arms around my legging-clad knees. “What the hell am I going to do now?”
Banner’s slouchy sweatshirt slips down over her shoulder, and she tugs it up before shrugging and offering her sage advice.
“There’s really only one thing you can do—ride the wave of notoriety for all it’s worth. Who knows, you might actually get a rich, hot, famous guy who’s hung like a horse. And then you’ll fuck your way into the sunset and live happily ever after with a big cock in your bed every night.”
I toss my arm over my eyes again and groan. I’m so fucked. And not in the way Banner is hoping.
“Fuck you, Westman. I think you broke my goddamned face!”
I didn’t, but Peyton DeLong is a pussy who would think a bitch slap hurts. If I had tried to break his face, he’d be on his way to the ER right now instead of crying over a bloody nose.
I’m not supposed to be throwing real punches on the set anymore, but sometimes a man’s gotta make an exception. I haven’t heard her name in over a year, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let this prick run it through the mud.
“Then keep your mouth shut and learn some fucking manners.” I pitch my voice low, letting a growl invade, and I’m surprised DeLong doesn’t piss himself where he stands.
Hollywood assholes. They don’t know shit about real life. And I’m one of them now. I stop myself from hanging my head at how far my life has veered off the path I thought it would take.
Mitch Stark, the director who pushed me to make the jump from stuntman to legit actor, strides over.
“If you two can’t figure out a way to get through this without another pissing match, I will rain down hell like you’ve never experienced. You won’t be able to buy yourself a decent role when I’m done blackballing you.”
“He started it.”
My fists ache to shut down DeLong’s whine. Those veneers won’t look so perfect scattered on the ground.
The only reason I accepted this role was because of Mitch. DeLong had been an unwelcome late addition to the cast, and I’ll eat Spam and live in my car on skid row before I’ll ever do another film with him.