Читать книгу: «The Royal Romantics»

Chapter One

If just one more person congratulated her on her loss, she would smack them. Nina gritted her teeth and smiled like a crazy person as she threaded her way through the crowd and along an outdoor walkway. Out on the terrace, she breathed in deeply. Not exactly fresh – no one would call LA air fresh – but the crisp February air was better than the suffocating warmth inside.

This was as close as she could get to crawling into a corner and letting the tears flow.

It’s just an award. It’s an honor to be nominated. There’s always next year. You’re in great company.

The platitudes were meaningless. Everyone in this town knew you were only as good as your next job and right now she didn’t have a next job. The history books were littered with the names of has-beens who came close but never won. And who remembered them now?

But put “Oscar-winner” in front of your name and everyone knew who you were. Oscar-winners didn’t need to screen-test for coveted roles along with every other hopeful in a town filled to bursting with the hopeful, the pretty, the thin.

The bowl of west Los Angeles sprawled beneath her feet, a carpet of lights. No longer needing to keep up appearances, she dropped her smile and rubbed her aching facial muscles.

“Drink this.” Someone pressed a glass into her hand. She sniffed at the dubious liquid before raising her eyes to its donor. Or rather to the wall of chest at eye level, before she looked up higher into a pair of amused green eyes.

She would have smiled again if it didn’t hurt so much.

Dominic Kelly. Even when he wasn’t clowning around, Dom always made her want to smile. He had a way of looking at a woman that made her feel special and beautiful. As if he could see through the hype to the person lost inside.

She didn’t care that he had that effect on all women. She did care that he slept with all the others yet had never made a move on her.

“It’s brandy. It’ll make you feel better,” he said.

“I don’t drink.”

“You’re in recovery?” He frowned, no doubt remembering an evening or two during the filming of their last movie when she’d danced the night away with a lurid cocktail in hand.

“Of course not!” She didn’t blame him for the assumption, though. At least half the people at this party were probably in recovery from one addiction or another. And even though they’d partied together throughout production on the one movie they’d worked on together, she and Dominic really knew nothing about each other.

For that matter, there was no one here tonight who really knew her. They only knew the public image, the person they wanted her to be. The lie.

She lifted the glass to her lips and sipped. Fire burned down her throat and brought tears to her eyes before the alcohol settled in her belly. He was right. It did make her feel better, if for no other reason than that it made her feel like a giddy teen at the prom again. That had been a good night. She’d been a winner that night.

She sniffed, inhaling the decadent scent of her favorite meal a moment before she spotted the In-N-Out box in Dominic’s hand. Her stomach flipped.

“Want to share?” He held up the burger box from the food truck parked outside the party venue.

Her stomach flipped again, but she suppressed it. Ruthlessly. “I only just managed to fit into this dress. One bite and I might split the seams.”

Dom’s gaze swept over her, settling on her hips. Her very-far-from-size-zero hips. She sucked in her stomach, but he only grinned. “That’s a sight I wouldn’t mind seeing.”

“Yeah, you and every camera in there. I don’t think so. I need to sit.”

She wove her way between the sofas scattered around the deck, leaving Dominic and his burger to follow in her wake. A few of the sofas were occupied by people in serious conversation and at least one by a couple making out. Despite her curiosity, Nina refrained from looking too hard to see who they were as she led Dominic toward an unoccupied area of the terrace, shielded from view by potted palm trees.

The scarlet shoes with their three-inch heels were killing her feet. She kicked them off and wiggled her toes. Bliss!

Then she sagged down on the sofa and breathed a dramatic sigh of relief as she put her bare feet up on the glass coffee table.

Dominic’s eyebrows lifted as he sprawled beside her, slinging an arm across the back of the chair, but he said nothing. Though he wasn’t close enough to touch, she could feel the heat emanating off him, and he smelled of the sea. Not the storm-wracked waves that made her stomach clench, but lazy holidays and suntan lotions and laughter.

She resisted the crazy urge to lean in closer to breathe him in. There were cameras everywhere at this party, and that was so not a picture she wanted to see online in the morning, either.

In the town where gossip was a billion-dollar industry, she’d worked hard to keep her image clean. Nooky in a corner of a party was definitely a no-no. Which put it up near the top of the list of things she most wanted to do.

Right behind ‘Eat a burger with all the trimmings!’

She tried not to drool as Dominic tucked into his, and instead looked out at the view and sipped the fiery brandy. Down there, below the roving spotlights that illuminated this party-to-end-all-parties, were real people living real lives. She could hardly even remember what that felt like. As much as she envied their anonymity, their freedom to come and go without their every move scrutinized and torn apart, she wouldn’t swap her place up here on the hill with theirs for anything.

That was her addiction: fame. Being admired, being loved, was something she’d worked very hard for. And while losing might not be fun, at least she’d never need to worry about a mortgage payment again. She was living the fairy tale, with more money than her teen self could have imagined, doing what she loved. And she was adored. She had everything she’d ever wanted.

Almost everything.

If she could just get the one role that would make people sit up and notice, which would make people see her as something more than the ditsy rom-com heroine…

Dominic stretched and propped his expensive Italian shoes on the glass table beside her bare feet. “Last year’s Vanity Fair after-party was a complete crush, but it was much more fun.” He sighed. “Or maybe I’m getting jaded. Nothing is ever as good as it was.”

“I didn’t see you here last year.”

“You didn’t know I was alive last year.”

“That’s not true.” She’d known who he was long before they’d been introduced. She still remembered the first time she’d seen him at some party a couple of years back and asked the hostess who he was.

He was an impossible man to miss. Impressively built, a little rough and rugged in the looks department but gorgeous enough to make most women look twice. Muscled, without looking like one of those malformed bodybuilders. He looked more like a dancer. Of the stripper kind.

But it wasn’t his looks that made Dominic stand out among the crowds of beautiful people in this town. It was his attitude. Though he partied with celebrities, he wasn’t one of the usual sycophantic hangers-on, basking in reflected glory. It was as if he didn’t give a damn what anyone thought. There was the hint of aggression lurking beneath his surface, like a Navy seal or a nightclub bouncer. What woman could resist that bad-boy streak?

And then he’d smile that naughty, crooked smile…

He hadn’t even looked her way that entire night. She’d been stopping traffic since she was 16 and he hadn’t even noticed her. Admittedly, there were so many beautiful people in LA that women who turned heads in London or New York – or Cedar Falls, Iowa – barely warranted a second look here.

She rubbed her bare arms. Wordlessly, Dominic set down his burger and shrugged out of his evening jacket to wrap it around her shoulders.

“Thanks.” She smiled, the first genuine smile since she’d heard the words ‘and the Oscar goes to…’ followed by someone else’s name.

Dom lazed back and contemplated her. “Where’s your entourage tonight? Don’t you usually hunt in a pack?”

She didn’t need to see them to know where they were. Her stylist was taking a well-deserved rest after a hectic day. She’d left her PA, her ‘plus one’, back at the Governors’ Ball. Her agent was inside, working the room, schmoozing all the producers and hopefully trying to get Nina a job that wasn’t yet another rom-com. Her publicist, Chrissie, who’d conned her way into a VF party invite by promising a story to a sub-editor, would be getting her picture taken with as many somebodies as she could.

“Congratulations, by the way.”

Oh no, not Dominic too. She really didn’t want to have to smack him. And she didn’t have much energy left to do it.

“I hear you’ve done very well for yourself since we worked together on Pirate’s Revenge.”

She blinked. Not what she’d expected. “What do you mean?”

Aside from a minor role playing Meryl Streep’s daughter and two very long and tiring promo campaigns for her previous movies, she hadn’t worked since Pirate’s Revenge. Even this nomination was for the movie she’d filmed before her jaunt to Westerwald for Pirate’s Revenge, yet another fairy tale re-imagined. The situation was getting dire. She’d needed the award tonight to break the dry spell.

“You landed yourself a little prime A-list steak since then.”

Ah. She smiled. The one thing that was going very right in her life.

These last few months hadn’t been entirely wasted. Dating fellow actor Paul de Angelo had kept her name in the spotlight and he’d introduced her to more useful contacts in the last month than her agent and manager had done combined.

They worked well together, both driven, both serious about their careers, both happy not to get too much in each other’s space.

It was thanks to Paul she’d been invited to read for this year’s hottest role, the lead role in a trilogy based on the bestselling novels that had been so popular people had camped outside bookstores for days to get their hands on the final installment. That Nina had read the books before they’d turned into a phenomenon had to be significant, right? It was kismet.

Strong female lead roles were hard to come by, and she didn’t want to spend her entire career playing someone’s daughter or the lead’s romantic interest. The accessory.

No, this role was hers.

Except the read hadn’t been the golden opportunity she’d hoped for. It had been something of a novelty playing to a lukewarm audience. A not-very-pleasant novelty.

Paul had been supportive and encouraging. “They just don’t see you as tough enough for the role. You need to show them you’re more than just another pretty face.”

It wasn’t her face they’d been worried about. The casting director’s exact words had been “you’re a little too soft for this role.”

Or, as her agent, Dane, had said, a little less diplomatically, “Lose 20 pounds, get some muscle and some attitude, and you might stand a chance.”

She turned now to Dominic. “Can we meet tomorrow?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Mr. A-Lister not ringing your bell?”

She rolled her eyes dramatically. Trust him to think everything was about sex. Not that she hadn’t already imagined sex with Dominic a few dozen times. “In your dreams. I don’t want to sleep with you. I have a business proposition.”

“Intriguing.” He rubbed his chin, as if the thought of any woman not wanting to fall straight into his bed was something he hadn’t considered before.

“Lunch at Cecconi’s?” she pushed.

“I have a much better idea.” Dominic’s grin was pure mischief. “25 Degrees at the Hollywood Roosevelt serves the city’s best burgers.”

Great, just what she needed. Not. But any self-respecting LA restaurant would serve salads, too, wouldn’t they? “Twelve too early?”

“Twelve is fine.” Dominic looked over her shoulder. “Your minder’s here.”

She turned to follow his gaze. Her publicist bore down on them.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” Chrissie stopped before their sofa and frowned as she looked from Dom’s jacket around her shoulders to Nina’s bare feet, then back to the tumbler in Nina’s hand. Or at least as much of a frown as her perfect, botoxed forehead allowed. “The action is inside.” She waved towards the party. “The cameras are there and all the people who need to be reminded you exist.”

“My feet were sore.” Nina wiggled her bare toes and Chrissie’s frown deepened.

The excuse sounded as lame as it was. Nina was in the illusion business, after all. If she couldn’t stand for half a night in tight heels without hiding the pain, then she didn’t belong here. But admitting to an insane urge to throw something wasn’t going to go down any better.

An actor could trash a hotel room and everyone would call him a rock star, but an actress behaving badly would be labeled as difficult and would never work again. Ask Lindsay Lohan. Nina was struggling enough with the last bit as it was.

With an apologetic shrug for Dominic she slipped her shoes back on and handed him his jacket. He tossed the remains of his burger in a nearby bin and rose with her. “Yeah, this party blows. I’m gonna head over to Elton’s and see if that one’s more fun. Want to join me?”

Chrissie turned narrowed eyes on him. “Who are you?”

“Chrissie, this is Dominic Kelly. He was the stunt coordinator on Pirate’s Revenge. Dom, my publicist, Chrissie.”

Chrissie swept an assessing glance over Dom, her gaze lingering on the muscular chest beneath his dress shirt. A tight and not entirely pleasant smile curved her plumped lips. “You might want to hang around for the next ten minutes. There’s a show you shouldn’t miss.”

It sounded like a warning, but Nina couldn’t fathom why.

Chrissie turned to her. “Be quick. You’re needed inside.”

She hurried ahead and Nina followed more slowly, Dom keeping pace beside her. He sent her a questioning look and she shrugged. Chrissie clearly had something up her sleeve, but Nina had no clue what it was. The only thing she knew was that her stomach had clenched with an anxious sense of foreboding she hadn’t felt in years.

Back in the central party room, her nerves steadied. She looked out across the room heaving with bodies, hundreds of beautiful people making conversation and playing to the cameras. A carnival of glitter.

Party guests came and went from the specially constructed photo booths, and on the far side of the purpose-built, glass-walled structure, a group of dancers gyrated to a rock standard played by the live band.

The party hadn’t yet reached that kick-off-the-shoes-in-abandon phase that happened when celebrities partied together, relaxed in the safety of their own numbers and the absence of fans and hangers-on, but it was headed that way.

No matter which way she turned she saw stars. Actors, actresses, musicians, and singers, supermodels and fashion designers, directors and powerhouse producers. People who were desperate to be loved and admired, people who’d reached the top and who would do anything to stay there. Every single one of them famous and all of them driven. She belonged here and she’d do absolutely anything to stay a part of it.

She caught the eye of an actress she’d worked with a few years ago. The other actress blew her a kiss and Nina waved back. “Bitch,” she muttered under her breath.

Dominic leaned in to whisper in her ear. “I don’t think that kiss was meant for you.”

“You and Jordan?” she asked in disbelief. Ugh. She thought he had more class than that.

“Most adventurous eight hours of my life. Come to think of it, it was probably while the two of you were playing sisters on that TV show.” His grin widened. “Though that was before she started on the botox. I don’t have many standards, but I don’t do botoxed women. Now don’t frown at me like that. There’s a camera headed this way.”

She smiled as if her life depended on it. The urge to hit or throw something was back in full force.

“Would you like your picture taken?” the photographer asked, waving his camera at them.

She and Dominic did the cheek-press, smiling straight into the camera. It was practically an art in this town, but the soft rumble of Dominic’s mocking laugh vibrated through her, spoiling the effect. As the photographer moved on to the next group, she stepped on his foot, not hard enough to inflict pain but hard enough to let him know she didn’t enjoy being laughed at. Or reminded that, if the rumors were true, he’d bedded half this town. The entire female half, with the exception of her.

Dom only laughed louder. “Don’t take it so seriously. That picture will never see the light of day. When they’re sifting through the images to upload they’re going to ask ‘who’s this nobody with Nina Alexander?’ and hit delete.”

He didn’t sound the least perturbed. But then what little she’d seen of him, Dominic was a man so confident in his own skin he didn’t give a damn what others thought. She wished she knew how that felt. She’d spent a lifetime faking confidence.

Dom’s gaze shifted to the stage. “Your new boyfriend really does like the limelight.”

She looked, just in time to see Paul take the microphone from the band’s lead singer. He tapped the mic and a few heads turned. The hum of voices dropped as more and more heads turned at the unexpected interruption.

“Hi everyone, are you enjoying the party?”

The crowd murmured its confused assent. They were here to mingle, to see and be seen. Speeches weren’t part of the program.

“I’m Paul de Angelo.” As if he needed to tell them who he was. “I apologize for interrupting the party, but please bear with me. Would Nina Alexander please join me up here?”

What?!

As Paul looked out over the assembled guests, searching for her, Nina frantically looked for the nearest exit. The anxious knot in her stomach pulled suffocatingly tight.

But there was no hope of escape. The people around her turned and looked, and the crowd’s buzz started again, nearly drowning out the sudden buzz in her head. Then Chrissie was beside her, grabbing her arm and pulling her forward. “Get up there!” Chrissie hissed through impossibly white teeth.

Nina cast a desperate glance back at Dom, who suddenly seemed like an anchor in a tumultuous sea, solid and strong. Then he was swallowed up in the crowd as Chrissie propelled her forward.

On either side of her, people nodded and smiled and greeted her. It was almost like the walk winners did up onto the stage at the Dolby Theatre. Almost.

She couldn’t see their faces or hear their words. The sound between her ears had become a maniacal trill and the anxious presentiment she’d felt earlier sky-rocketed all the way from a knot in her stomach to throw-up territory.

She’d only felt this way once before in her life and that hadn’t ended well.

She reached the stage and Paul leaned forward, extending his hand to help her take the giant step up. Though her body had turned numb, she took his hand and he pulled. She’d dreamed of this night since she was nine, imagined the graceful glide up to the stage on Oscar night in a hundred different ways. This wasn’t how she’d pictured it at all.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, but Paul only smiled as he turned back to their audience. “As you all know, Nina was up for Best Supporting Actress tonight, but didn’t win.”

Great, thanks for rubbing that in.

He raised his champagne glass to the winner, still cradling her golden statuette. “By the way, congratulations, Jen.” The crowd laughed. “But I’m hoping I can turn the night around for Nina.”

Paul set down his champagne glass and got down on one knee.

Her heart crashed to a stop. Far from numb now, her entire body burned. He wasn’t really doing this? Not here, not now?

It was romantic. It was so, so stupid.

He took a black velvet box out of his pocket and held it out before him. “Will you marry me?”

An aaah whispered through their audience, rising in pitch to an oooh as he opened the box and the most enormous diamond ring Nina had ever seen caught the light.

This wasn’t happening. He couldn’t be doing this. Black spots clouded her vision but there was nothing to grab onto, no one to hold onto.

She liked Paul, but she didn’t want to marry him. Marriage wasn’t part of her big plan. Where she came from marriage was a lifelong commitment and she wasn’t ready to give up the single life yet – if ever – and certainly not for someone she barely knew.

Paul was the longest relationship she’d ever had and they’d only met a few months ago.

But neither could she reject Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor, the man most women in this town – in this country – would kill to be with. Not here. Not now.

If she turned him down in front of everyone she’d be branded a heartless bitch. And that wasn’t going to help her win the ultimate in peer awards any time soon.

The silence stretched, the audience growing restless, starting to murmur.

She could say yes and accept another wave of fake congratulations and then tomorrow she could call it off…

Tension etched lines around Paul’s pin-up blue eyes. “You really know how to make a man beg,” he joked.

The crowd tittered, but there was tension in that sound, too.

Paul could take her career places she hadn’t even begun to imagine. They could be Hollywood’s new power couple, the new Brangelina.

On the other hand, she might spend the best years of her life as Mrs. de Angelo, always in the shadow of her more-famous husband – and then find herself out on her ass, replaced by a younger model as soon as her prime was over.

A prime spent with a man whose idea of fun in the bedroom amounted to keeping the light on.

She had to make up her mind.

Saying “yes” now didn’t have to mean forever. Perhaps just until she got the “part of all parts.” Who could it hurt?

She opened her mouth to speak and heard Gran’s voice in her head. Whatever you do in that place, girl, you just remember where you came from. You work hard, you hold your head high, and you don’t ever compromise who you are.

She shook her head.

“What?” Paul obviously hadn’t intended the word to be magnified around the room. It bounced off the walls as people began to cough and snigger.

But their embarrassment had nothing on Nina’s. This was it. This was the end of everything. Turns out she wasn’t prepared to do ‘absolutely anything’ after all.

Marriage for the sake of her career was one of them. Even a fake engagement. It was up there with sleeping her way into a job. Gran would tan her hide if she said yes.

“No.”

This time Paul did speak for the microphone. “You’re such a joker.”

“I don’t want to marry you, Paul. I don’t want to marry anyone.”

He stared at her.

She cleared her throat and tried again. “It’s not you, it’s me. I just don’t think I’m the marrying kind.”

She didn’t need a microphone for her words to carry. They seemed to take on a life of their own, echoing around the vast room.

The moment hung, suspended in time, as she looked into Paul’s eyes and he looked into hers. Then his eyes narrowed, wiping away the disbelief, and the tsunami crashed in upon them.

“Do you know who I am?” he demanded. Then he rose, snapping the black box shut and jamming it into the pocket of his tux. He thrust the microphone back at the band’s lead singer and jumped down from the stage. Fury radiated off him and the whispering crowd parted before him, people stepping back into one another in their haste to give him space.

“You said she’d say yes,” Paul flung at Chrissie as he strode past.

The words sliced through Nina. This was the story Chrissie had promised the sub-editor? Who was she working for anyway?

The music began again, normal conversation resumed, but still Nina stood frozen on the stage. She knew what every one of them would be talking about. Who.

This wasn’t good.

She couldn’t breathe.

She had to get out of here.

She jumped off the stage, no one to help her down now, and the hem of her couture ball gown snagged on the edge of the stage. The fabric ripped, a long, drawn-out sound, but she didn’t care.

“What the hell did you just do?” It was Chrissie, face pale beneath her flawless Californian tan.

“You knew he was going to propose in front of everyone?” Nina took refuge in anger.

“Of course. We had it all planned out. This was supposed to be your big moment. And you just throw it away? How could you be so stupid?”

“You should have warned me!” Because then Nina would never have left the Governors’ Ball for this after-party. She’d still be back at the Dolby Theatre and her career and her reputation would still be intact. She would never have had to make such a terrifying decision in front of everyone.

Tears burned her eyes. She blinked them away. Crying now would only make it worse. What if her make-up ran? But she was tired and over-wrought from what had already been a very long evening, and it took huge effort.

She had to get out of here.

The only exit she knew was the same one she’d entered through, the entrance onto Sunset Boulevard where she’d have to run the gauntlet of half the world’s media.

Yet more cameras.

She couldn’t trust herself to hold it together for the length of that walk. She couldn’t trust herself to hold it together long enough to make it across the room.

“We have to get her out of here.”

Thank heavens. A voice of reason. Relief swamped her as she faced her agent.

It was short-lived.

“Hold up your dress. You’re baring your butt to the world.” Dane grimaced as he gathered up a handful of ripped silk and thrust it at her. “Couldn’t you have worn a sexy thong at least?”

The unshed tears burned all the way to her throat. How long had her supportive granny pants been on display to the entire room? And was Martin Scorsese looking straight at her?

“Would it have killed you to say yes?” Dane continued through gritted teeth. He didn’t even look at her. His gaze scoured the room, searching for a way out, just as she had done. “We’ll say you’re not well. You haven’t been well all week. You didn’t know what you were saying.” He turned to face her at last, giving up hope of a quiet exit. “I’m very disappointed in you. What were you thinking? Paul’s a powerful man in this business. He has a lot of influence, and you humiliated him in public. You can kiss Sonia goodbye now.”

A scalding tear slipped over her fake lashes and down her cheek. These were her friends, her support group. How could they turn on her like this?

“Maybe the press outside won’t have got wind of this yet?” Dane said hopefully.

The look Chrissie sent him answered that one quickly enough.

“I’ll get her out of here. I know a back exit.”

All three of them turned to look at Dominic. The relief in the faces of her agent and publicist would have been insulting if she hadn’t felt the same.