Blonde Ambition
Copyright © 2004 by 17th Street Productions, an Alloy company
All rights reserved.
Little, Brown and Company
Time Warner Book Group
Hachette Book Group, 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First eBook Edition: September 2007
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover photography (foreground image) copyright Pure/Nonstock
Cover photography (background image) copyright Ken Biggs/Stone
Summary: While Anna’s new job as intern on the hottest television show brings her into contact with an interesting new man and helps her see how possessive Ben has become, Cammie sets her sights on Adam.
ISBN: 978-0-316-02894-3
The Warner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
Contents
Brownie Points for the Pedigree
THE A-LIST
GIRLS ON FILM
For Sam, Emma, and Carrie
“Taking joy in living is a woman’s best cosmetic.”
—Rosalind Russell
I
nside suite 15 at the six-hundred-bucks-per-night Montecito Inn in Santa Barbara, California, seventeen-year-old Anna Percy stretched languidly and took in her reflection in the antique mirror over the Van Lutz chest of drawers. Same long blond hair, classic high-cheekboned, patrician features that she’d inherited from her patrician mother. But for the first time in her life she looked, she thought, wild and free.
Those were two adjectives that never came to anyone’s mind in describing her, she was certain. Cerebral, yes. Cautious—way too often. But wild? And free? The way her best friend, Cynthia Baltres back in Manhattan, was certainly described on a regular basis? Never.
Yet the deed had finally been done. Ben Birnbaum, the guy who at that very moment was bringing her back a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice just delivered by room service, had done it.
Only two weeks earlier Anna had left behind her safe, elite life on the Upper East Side of New York to move in with her father in Beverly Hills. She’d hoped, like so many over two centuries of coming to California, to reinvent herself. As she took the juice from Ben, who looked about as hot sans shirt as was possible without actually igniting flammable objects, she smiled.
Mission accomplished.
“Hungry?” Ben asked. He sat next to her and leaned in for a kiss.
“Starved, actually,” she admitted, sipping her juice. “You’ve kept me prisoner in this room for twenty-four hours without food or water.”
“Prisoner, huh?” He traced a teasing finger down from her collarbone. “I don’t seem to recall any protest.”
Beyond true. But Ben’s lips made Anna forget about food, and senior year at Beverly Hills High, and all the problems with her screwed-up family. She was able to shut down her constantly thinking/planning/analyzing mind and lose herself to the moment. The world outside suite 15 had ceased to exist. The sixty-dollar post-dinner breakfast they’d ordered remained on the tray. There was nothing in the universe but Ben.
R
innng.
Bells kept going off in Anna’s head.
Riiing.
Her eyes flicked open. She could just make out the ceiling fan blades swirling the ocean breezes around their moonlit room.
Riing.
Now she realized the sound was coming from her cell phone in her purse. She vaguely recalled leaving it on the window seat, whose view overlooked the magnificent beach. Ben was asleep on his back, with one arm flung over his head. His short brown hair was tou-sled, and she knew how electric blue his eyes were under the closed eyelids. The bulge of his bicep was golden against the white Egyptian cotton, hand-embroidered sheets.
The ringing stopped. Good. The real world could wait for however long she wanted it to wait. She snuggled against Ben. Her phone rang again.
She turned to see the red numerals on the clock radio. Six in the morning. She sat up with a start, heart pounding. Who’d call twice at six in the morning unless it was a disaster? Or a drunk reaching a wrong number? Damn. She threw back the covers and padded across the room, locating her purse and her Motorola cell phone by the fourth ring. She flipped it open. “Hello?”
“Anna?”
Not a drunk. Her father.
“It’s Dad. Hey, sorry to wake you, but—”
“What happened?” Anna hissed.
“Good news. About Susan.”
Susan? Her sister? He was calling at six in the morning with good news about her sister? Susan hated their father. And with good reason. He’d paid off Susan’s college boyfriend to dump her because he and Anna’s mother had deemed him “inappropriate.” Fifty thousand dollars and the guy was outta there. Anna felt sick again just remembering. So what could be good?
“I’m taking her to rehab. In fact, she insists,” her father went on. “So I’ve kinda got a dilemma here.”
“Hold on, Dad.” Not wanting to awaken Ben, Anna went into the bathroom and closed the door. “Dad, what’s the dilemma? That’s great news.”
“Yeah, but I’m afraid she’s gonna change her mind. And she says she wants to see you before we go. To White Mountains, in Arizona.”
“Where is she now?” Anna asked.
“She went back to the Beverly Hills Hotel.”
“Don’t let her out of your sight,” Anna commanded. Her dad laughed. “Not a chance of that. She’s at her bungalow, packing. I’m in the lobby. And I’ve got her car keys.”
“That’s good,” Anna allowed.
“So, can you come?” Jonathan asked. “For a breakfast before we take off?”
“Sure, Dad,” Anna said automatically, without giving thought to logistics … the ungodly hour … the gorgeous naked boy lying in her hotel bed … the drive … the gorgeous naked boy lying in her hotel bed… . She was just so pleased that her sister had finally decided to make a positive change in her life.
“Where are you? I’ll pick you up,” Jonathan offered.
In Santa Barbara, screwing my boyfriend.
Ha! How freeing it would be to actually say something like that. But it was pure fantasy. The reality was that in true good daughter form, she’d be ready to leave in fifteen minutes and would arrive in Beverly Hills within the half hour.
“Oh, that’s okay. I’m at my friend Sam’s. I can be there in an hour and a half or so. Stay at the hotel. We’ll eat in the Polo Lounge.”
Fortunately Jonathan Percy wasn’t the kind of father who’d give Anna’s answer pause. If she said she was at Sam’s, that’s where she was. No questions asked. Never mind that Sam lived approximately six minutes from the Beverly Hills Hotel.
“Thanks for this, Anna,” her father said.
Anna hung up, went back into the bedroom, and shook Ben awake. He was groggy but focused quickly when she explained the problem. “So I’ve got to go,” Anna concluded.
Instead of jumping out of bed immediately to help get their stuff together, Ben wrapped his arms around her. “What’s with us, Anna?” he murmured. “We’re both trying to fix our fucked-up families. Maybe it’s time they took care of themselves.”
She gently pulled out of his embrace. “I really have to go, Ben.”
His hands dropped to his sides. “I guess I just didn’t want this to end.”
Neither did she. But she couldn’t concentrate on him now. She kissed him quickly—after a fast shower they packed up and departed. Since she’d driven to Santa Barbara alone and Ben had surprised her there, they had two cars and drove back to Los Angeles separately. They convoyed it all the way to the entrance to the Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset Boulevard, where Ben beeped his horn twice and turned toward his parents’ house.
Ten minutes later she was hugging her older sister, Susan, in the Polo Lounge at the world-famous hotel while their father waited discreetly in the lobby.
“I fucking hate myself, you know,” Susan said after they’d embraced.
“That’s a good reason to go to rehab, I guess,” Anna said with a smile.Susan chuckled and sat down at a table for three. “You should hate me, too.” Rather than her usual black-on-black rock-and-roll regalia, she was dressed in a simple pair of jeans and crew neck sweater. “All I do is fuck up your life.”
“Isn’t that what big sisters are for?” Anna quipped. “Poor you,” Susan muttered.
Anna hadn’t been expecting an angry retort. What had she done other than
not
disagree with Susan? Maybe that was the problem. Still, Anna wasn’t up for pretending that Susan’s behavior was anything short of unacceptable. Instead she glossed over Susan’s remark.
“So, what prompted this smart decision?” she asked as a waiter poured her coffee. All around them, on the open-air patio of the Polo Lounge, power breakfasts were in progress. But not the kind of power breakfasts you’d find at the Four Seasons in New York City, where everyone was in suits and ties. Los Angeles was relentlessly informal, and the garb of the Polo Lounge breakfasters reflected that. There were plenty of men in jeans and T-shirts, even tennis clothes. But from the number of scripts open on tables and movie stars who even Anna recognized, it was clear that the Polo Lounge was one of Hollywood’s deal-making meccas.
“Turns out the Steinberg debacle wasn’t enough excitement for one week. So I went to a club,” Susan said self-mockingly—defensively. “I felt like dancing, you know? Don’t you ever just feel like dancing? This chick I knew from Trinity School goes to USC now. We arranged to meet. But the bitch never showed. I got polluted. Really polluted. A bouncer drove me home— Arman or Eman or something. I think.”
“You’re lucky nothing worse happened.” Anna knew she was being blunt but figured that a little fear never hurt anyone.
“I know. That’s why I’ve had enough. The end.” “You think you can stick with it this time?”
Susan shrugged. “I hope so.”
Just then Anna heard someone creep up from behind her.
“May I join you two?”
The two girls looked up. There stood their father, Jonathan Percy. Tall, lean, and tan, he was an investment banker with a very un-investment-banker spiky haircut and movie-star blue eyes. Susan waved him to the open chair at their table, and Jonathan sat down.
“It’s good that you’re driving her, Dad,” Anna said. “Really.”
Jonathan’s eyes slid to Susan’s. “If she doesn’t kill me before I get her there.”
Susan held her palms up. “No weapons on me, Dad.” He attempted a half smile and turned to Anna. “Django should be along any minute. He’ll get Susan’s car back to the agency and bring you home. I should be back in a couple of days at the latest.”
Django Simms was Jonathan’s driver. Cute, young, a jazz musician, and a man of mystery, Django and Anna had hit it off right away. He lived in the guesthouse on the Percy property in Beverly Hills.
“I’ll be fine. And—”
“Anna?”
She looked up.
Ben was standing at the side of their table. The same Ben who’d beeped his farewell at her a few minutes ago on Sunset Boulevard. The same Ben with whom she’d spent the previous day and night in several compromising positions.
“Ben,” Anna said. Which was certainly stating the obvious, but she was just so shocked to see him.
“I wanted to make sure everything was okay,” he explained. Before Anna could muster a response to that, Ben held out a hand to her father. “Hi, I’m Ben Birnbaum.”
Jonathan stood and shook it. “Jonathan Percy. Anna’s mentioned you.”
Anna noticed the ice in her father’s voice. She couldn’t really blame him. Last he’d heard, Ben had broken Anna’s heart.
“Everything’s okay, Dad,” Anna murmured, since her father was still in a killer eye lock with Ben. “Would you like to join us?” she asked Ben, at the same time willing him to spurn her always-gracious-under-pressure offer.
“Sure, thanks.”
Ben pulled up a chair from the next table, then took Anna’s hand. As much as Anna liked him, she felt like snatching it back. What was he doing here, for God’s sake?
“Ben, Ben, Ben,” Susan cooed. “I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.”
Right. The sauna at V’s spa, Anna realized. Her sister had met Ben in the sauna not more than seventy-two hours before. But he’d had his clothes on. Well, not his shirt, maybe, but—