A STELLAR AFFAIR (A Hollywood Bad Boy Romance) (4 page)

Wes Stoner was a walking million-dollar business waiting to happen. With HER.

It was all in her hands.

“Ava!” Reena tugged at her arm.
 

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I heard you. When’s the launching of Skylar’s perfume line?”

“Next week, I think? Why?”
 

She smiled in anticipation.
 

Perfect.

There was no meaner bitch than payback.

C
hapter
T
wo

Wes was getting the lowdown
on the Ava Ryder enterprise as he and Tim rode the limo going to the Microsoft Theater.
 

Ava earned 90 million dollars last year from her successful world tour, fashion and perfume lines. If he were a lesser man, he’d feel insecure. Well, he’d admit to feeling a tad insecure. His earnings last year were crumbs in comparison to her gigantic pie, pun intended, though he was already considered quite bankable by Hollywood standards. Apparently, acting had nothing on world tours and having your own scent. The girl was a walking million-dollar business from head to toe.

As he listened to Tim, he fluctuated from being skeptical, interested, surprised, shocked and incredulous.
 

“Does she even have any real relationships? Why does she need to do this?”
 
He was feeling even more turned off of Ava Ryder as he learned more details of her personality. The girl sounded like a major hustler. Not that he’d never hustled. But this girl took it to a whole new level.

“Haven’t you read the rags even once this year, man? She’s the number one trending topic for weeks, well, aside from you humping that VS Angel in her apartment’s balcony.”

He snorted. “You know seeing my face in the rags is enough to make me suffer a nervous breakdown.”

Tim laughed. “On the contrary, Libby’s quite ecstatic of your tabloid appearances lately,” Tim was referring to Olivia Mann, the shrewd publicist who controlled his media exposure like a huge gambling business. He loved Libby. It was unorthodox for a PR expert but they shared the I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude when it came to the press. Libby didn’t want to change him one bit so he would appeal more in a positive light to the press in general. In fact, Libby encouraged his “bad boy” image. She said he was the most salable badass in Tinseltown. That amused him. He really didn’t give a shit about his personal image as he had nothing to hide. His credo had always been ‘what you see is what you get’. He was only ever concerned of his acting performances—of director feedback and critical reviews. But Libby fully gave her go-signal on this “pretend boyfriend” idea and this was the first time they weren’t on the same page. Libby and Tim were tag-teaming on his ass he was outnumbered.
 

“She gets a daily dose of your topless pics which are apparently the rage lately, thanks to those underwear ads you did and for guesting as a cop going undercover as a stripper in that HBO show. If you keep showing off your butt in inappropriate places, you’ll be the Sexiest Man Alive next year.” Tim sniggered.

That title made him cringe but it would add to his female fan base, so what the fuck, he’d take it. “Tell me more about Ava.”

“Ava is currently in the middle of a media shitstorm.”

“What happened?” He genuinely didn’t know and didn’t give a shit, either but he was a bit curious, plus he wanted some details related to this “acting job” he was getting his ass into.
 

“Pictures of her and her ex-boyfriend, Tyrone Glass, emerged in the rags. Leaked, more likely.”

He knew about Glass, some pop star, like Ava. They used to be in the same band in their younger years, he’d heard. He hadn’t met Glass nor did he like his music. But he liked Ava’s voice, at least. Okay, he liked it a lot. “So?”

“Pictures of them kissing. Don’t you even catch any gossip on Facebook?”

“You know very well I don’t dwell in that snake pit. Libby just fills me in on the shit going on there and Twitter and what’s the other one that sounds like orgasm?”

Tim laughed. “Instagram, idiot.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, that. People hang out too much on social media nowadays they forget to socialize for real.”
 

“And by socializing you mean boning some model in the balcony of her condo for the paparazzi to have a feeding frenzy? How meaningful.”

He smirked. “Touche, mofo.”

“So okay, humor me. What do you do to kill time in between takes? You hardly have any lines in this action movie you’re currently shooting. You can’t screw on set.”
 

He grinned. “Says who?”

Tim rolled his eyes. “Oh, I forgot you’re also banging your co-star in this movie. Still, you can’t do it 24/7. You play Candy Crush, at least? Or the latest craze, Pokemon Go?”

“What the fuck is that?”

Tim sighed. “Anyway, Tyrone’s wife Skylar, you know the reality star, is trying to paint Ava as the scarlet woman.”
 

He burst in a laugh. “Scarlet woman? Geeez.”

“I swear I saw the exact phrase on a blog headline Libby showed me.”

“Isn’t it true?”

“According to Reena, nope. Ava and Tyrone broke up years ago. She wants nothing to do with him but Glass has been trying to get back with her lately.”
 

“So lemme get this straight. The slimeball was cheating on his wife with his ex but he was rejected and now he’s getting back at the ex by destroying her reputation. Now the ex needs to do damage control on her goody-goody image turned scarlet woman and here I come, the knight in shining armor to make everything alright.”

Tim chuckled. “Yeah, you get the picture.”

Wes shook his head, more incensed now. “Jesus, what kind of species are these creatures? They’re not human.”

“You’ll be partying with ‘em in the next two months.”

“I can go Darko-mode on them anytime.”
 

 
“No. You can’t play the villain here, Wes. You have to play Super X, the savior. The knight. Her saving grace.”

“The girl doesn’t even sound like she needs a knight. She’s obviously a vicious shark who can very well slay her enemies by eating them alive.”

“You already agreed to this job. The big boys are happy so far, and they’ll be watching tonight,” Tim reminded him.

Wes sighed. He was beginning to regret his decision now. “What exactly does she want me to do?”

Tim rummaged from his brief case and handed him a sheet of paper. “Read that.”

“What’s this?”

“The script for tonight.”

“No shit. This entire charade actually has a plot?”

“Trust me, the people behind this are professionals, man.”

Professional scammers, more likely, but he kept his thoughts to himself. Tim was part of this team. After tonight, he’d be the better-half of this big scam, too. No point in calling the kettle black.
 

“Can you give me the gist?”

“Make it look like you’re smitten with her at first sight. She will return the favor, of course. That will make people think she’s no longer interested in Glass.”

“Even I will not be that good to fake that.”

Tim grinned. “Wanna bet on that, Oscar boy?”

He grunted. “She expects me to be so good at playing the hero we’d be able to dupe the entire world we’ve fallen madly in love at first sight. Wow. Tall order for a natural-born villain like me, even with my Oscar.”

“Well, she’s not exactly hiring you for your heroic traits. It’s you who’ll benefit from that. She chose you because your personality is the perfect complement to her new album called Heartbreaker. Ava thinks that’s you in real life and I’d agree she’s not off the mark. After saving her from the scandal with Glass, you’ll break her heart in the end. Her new album will be singing the blues. End of the story.”

“But that sounds rather anti-climactic, doesn’t it?”

Tim grinned. “Why, you wanna play her lover for real?”

“No, fucker. But…”

“They wrote the script, man, don’t worry about it. You’re just there to act. Give it your best. Super X is on the line. MY fat commission, too. Eyes on the prize, buddy.”

He fell silent, digesting the information. He couldn’t believe he let Tim talk him into this tabloid-mayhem-in-the-making.

So, this was how Ava Ryder operated. He didn’t know if he’d be impressed or what. She played dirty Hollywood games like a pro, for sure. No wonder she was one of the most successful entertainers of the decade and she was only what, twenty-five?
 

He wasn’t the first man contracted by Ava Ryder to do a pretend romance with her. There were talks that all the men she’d dated were all hired by her PR team. But they all signed non-disclosure agreements, the same deal he’d signed his ass into.
 

Tim told him he’d be getting a cool 5 million dollars for playing Ava’s fake boyfriend for a maximum of two months. All he needed to do was shoot a music video with her, hang out with her at designated spots and play her besotted lover for the paparazzi to feast on.
 

Her team said his part in this elaborate reality show was to be her new “inspiration”. Her muse, so to speak. They won’t really verbally declare they were in a relationship and just let the public speculate about them while they did all the body language of a couple madly in love with each other. That way, it would be easier to “break-up” when the “show” was over. Her fans won’t be too heartbroken of Stoneryder’s demise.
 

Stoneryder.
 

Are you fucking kidding me?!
 

Tim said Ava coined the moniker herself. Did she even realize it literally meant riding his dick? The girl was definitely hard to the core.

Thirty minutes later,
Wes was definitely thinking of Ava riding him anytime, anywhere as she disembarked from her limo.

The media went crazy. Cameras flashed like exploding bulbs in her direction.

He arrived fifteen minutes earlier than her, as planned. He did the routine in front of the press. His fans came in full force, too, screaming his name at the top of their lungs. He really didn’t do awards nights, especially the teeny-bopper types, but he took exception with Comic Con. He loved attending that event as his character Darko in all his battle regalia and meeting with his fans. And well, Cannes, because it was the coolest event of the year, in his book, at least. Truth be told, he hated awards nights, the pomposity of most and the superficiality of some, but he got nominated a lot, so no use avoiding them.

This was the American Music Video Awards or the AMVAs for short, and he would be presenting the Best Video with Ava.
 

He was already at the venue’s main entrance, away from the red carpet but he paused to check her out as she did her thing in front of the press.
 

He was curious. Mightily so.

Yeah, he was definitely curious of his would-be fake girlfriend.

People were screaming her name as she posed for the cams in her tight, platinum gown. Her long, blonde hair cascaded in soft curls down the middle of her back and seemed to be dusted with gold, too. She literally glittered under the lights, but not in a gaudy way. She just…glittered beautifully like the superstar that she was.

Geez, he was waxing poetic about Ava Ryder. Imagine that.

He’d never seen her in person, only in pictures and occasionally on TV whenever he was scanning for shows and one of her videos was on some music channel. He did pause to watch every time. She had a great voice and her music was catchy. She was also super-sexy as only an A-list celebrity should be but he’d always been surrounded by beautiful women in and out of the set, so beauty was commonplace to him.
 

Ava on TV was different from Ava in person.
 
Even from afar, she was hard to miss. She was charming the press effortlessly but it wasn’t her beauty that was holding his attention longer than it should. It was her presence that had him in thrall.
 

Damn. No woman had ever had him in thrall. But that was how he’d describe himself at this moment as he gazed at her, unable to look away.