Courting Trouble (36 page)

—Romantic Times Book Review 4 Stars

“Marr’s second novel is frothy, gossipy fun for
US
and
People
magazine addicts.”

—Booklist Review

“Marr’s prose is fast and sharp and she keeps the plots flying….The ripsnorter sequel to
Hollywood Girls Club
revolves around sex and plastic surgery secrets…if it sounds like fun it is.”

—Publishers Weekly

“This is a juicy, delicious read! I just loved the insider secrets and the access to what really goes on in Hollywood—the stuff we suspect happens but is always denied by scary publicists.”

—
Marian Keyes, author of
The Other Side of The Story

“Move over, Jackie Collins!
Secrets of The Hollywood Girls Club
is a steamy page-turner bursting with insider Hollywood gossip. I loved it!”

—
Sarah Mlynowski, author of
Milkrun
and
Ten Things We Did (And Probably Shouldn’t Have)

An Excerpt from
Secrets of the Hollywood Girls Club

RULE 1

There Are No Secrets in Hollywood

Kiki Dee, Publicist

Kiki Dee thought she knew where all the Hollywood bodies were buried—even the ones she had killed—because secrets were her business. Celebrity secrets. Kiki was a secret keeper. As a publicist, Kiki shifted the bright white spotlight away from everything her celebrity clients needed to hide. Their gratitude for her covering up their indiscretions took the form of a check, or cash, whichever they preferred. Kiki collected secrets the way some people collected diamonds or cars. Each naughty tidbit could potentially destroy Hollywood careers. And of course, along with the indiscretions came the clients. Kiki promised to lock the secret in “the vault,” also known as her brain, for a weekly fee. Some called it extortion. Kiki called it commerce.

And Kiki didn’t keep just one secret per client. She’d discovered that once a star accepted that she knew his most depraved act or hidden kink, suddenly all the crimes and misdemeanors came pouring out. Kiki listened to all her clients’ confessions. It was good to have collateral.

But
this
secret, the one Kiki had just witnessed in Dr. Melnick’s office … well, this secret was platinum. This secret had the potential to sink movie studios, destroy high-power industry marriages, and ruin one of the biggest celebrity careers in Hollywood. With this one very big and amazingly well-kept secret, Kiki and her publicity firm, KDP, which had suffered a precipitous slide into the abyss of B-list stars, would be back on top. This secret potentially affected dozens of Hollywood heavyweights. Not to mention the little lovely who was rapidly sleeping her way up the A-list. Kiki would sign two big stars based on this peccadillo. Failing to have her in their corner would result in the release of this salacious bit of gossip to the press. If the truth reached the masses, the two stars could kiss their careers and their paychecks good-bye.

Kiki had proof, and she figured it was worth at least seven figures. But Kiki cared little about the money. No, she desired prestige. The prestige obtained by representing the biggest stars in the world. Prestige and access were priceless commodities in Hollywood, and for Kiki prestige, access, and power made her job almost worthwhile.

Kiki would be thrilled … if she weren’t so nauseated. Her discovery almost made the torture of her lipo, tummy tuck, and
eye
lift worth it. Almost. She gritted her teeth as the Lincoln Town Car came to a fast stop on Wilshire. How had
this
luscious deceit remained quiet? People must know. But Kiki had rummaged through celebrity lives for twenty (okay, twenty-five) years, and she had
never
sniffed a whiff of this treat. She carefully leaned back against the supple black leather of the backseat. It was a short four-block trip from Dr. Melnick’s office to the Peninsula Hotel, but with stitches around her face and the super-tight spandex body glove around her stomach, the ride felt like miles. She knew from experience.

Although painful, the spandex body glove prevented her belly from rupturing. She turned her gauze-wrapped head toward the window and attempted to block from her mind the lipo procedure that Dr. Melnick had just completed, otherwise she’d be sick. She clutched the paper airsick bag that Dr. Melnick’s receptionist (who herself had bovine-fat-enhanced lips and perfectly Botoxed brows) had handed her before the nurse wheeled her out the back exit of the office to her awaiting car and driver.

Boom Boom, Kiki’s ever-faithful and ever-suffering assistant, sat in the backseat holding a BlackBerry in one hand and a cup of ice chips in the other.

“She said it was urgent,” Boom Boom said and scrolled through the e-mails. “Here, look.”

She held the BlackBerry within inches of Kiki’s nose, but Kiki couldn’t read it.
God, Boom Boom could be an idiot. You couldn’t wear glasses right after an eye lift. Where did Boom Boom think they put the stitches?
Kiki leaned her head to the left. She could barely speak. Her lips were swollen (ass fat or bovine, she didn’t even remember at this point), and her jaw hurt.

“Read it,” Kiki mumbled, trying to move her lips as little as possible.

Boom Boom pulled an ice chip from the cup and managed to wedge it into Kiki’s mouth. “Fine. It says, `Kiki, my luv, we need to talk. Urgent news, don’t want to e-mail, call me.’“

Kiki looked at Boom Boom. That was it? That was the e-mail Boom Boom appeared so worked up about? Kiki had worked the public relations gig for a long time, and
urgent
to one of her stars could mean a broken nail without a manicurist on set. This was nothing, especially compared with Kiki’s recent discovery. But still, the e-mail had come from one of her biggest stars.

“When?” Kiki whispered then winced as the Town Car bounced over a pothole. She remembered that bump from the last face-lift, six months earlier.

“Three hours ago,” Boom Boom said. She put on her headset. “Want to roll some calls? We’ve got twenty-five to return.”

Kiki glared at her assistant. She felt doped up on morphine and hadn’t yet taken her Vicodin.

“Lydia called. She needs an answer about press.”

Kiki shook her head and motioned for the pad and pen resting on Boom Boom’s lap.

“Jen wants to know about the CDF fund-raiser,” Boom Boom continued. She handed Kiki the pen. “Also Natalie asked about your trip to the ashram, wants to know if it’s one or two weeks?”

Kiki’s head pounded. She put pen to paper.

“Galaxy just FedExed dailies from the
Take No Prisoners
set and wants you to let them know about the Oscar campaign.”

Kiki finished writing and turned the monogrammed notebook toward her young, wrinkle-free servant. Boom Boom continued to chatter about appointments and calls. Kiki tapped on the pad, and then again with more force, finally requiring Boom Boom to silence her yammering and look at the paper.

A small gasp escaped Boom Boom’s lips as she read Kiki’s short but effective note.

“I’m just trying to be helpful. You don’t have to get bitchy about it,” Boom Boom said.

Kiki turned toward the window and tried not to smile—smiling would have torn at the stitches clamped to the skin behind her ears. Business would have to wait until she was wrapped in eight-hundred-thread-count sheets at the Peninsula. She relaxed as the limo turned into the private entrance to the hotel, and glanced at the notepad in her lap. Two very effective words were emblazoned across the pad:
Fuck you.

Praise for
Can’t Buy Me Love

“Marr delivers a great story, the thrill of romance, and sexy love scenes in this often delightful novel.”

—Romantic Time Book Review

“Maggie Marr does it again! Can’t Buy Me Love is an entertaining hot and heavy high stakes Hollywood love story that’ll keep you turning the page!”

—
Jenny Gardiner, #1 Kindle bestselling author of
Sleeping With Ward Cleaver

“Sharp, sexy prose and a fast-paced plot make Maggie Marr’s
Can’t Buy Me Love
a very entertaining and steamy read! Romance readers will love this book!”

—
Jane Porter, bestselling author of
Flirting With Forty

“Readers will delight in Meg and Cole’s sexy, romantic and charming love story and will find themselves touched by the kind of passion and vulnerability it takes to bring these two ambitious people together for a lifetime.”

—
Marilyn Brant, author of
A Summer In Europe

An Excerpt from
Can’t Buy Me Love

Chapter One

“Is it always this hard?”

For Cole Jackson there was only one answer to Meg’s question: Yes.

Every conquest was the outcome of a hard-fought battle, every win the results of a decimated other side, every challenge more difficult than the last. Otherwise what was the point? With ease came softness and with softness a swift defeat.

Cole yanked at the knot of his cobalt-blue tie, tired of the day-long strangle-hold. On the far side of his office window night sucked away the last light of day as the sweltering orange sun surrendered to the Pacific. The streaks of pink, orange, and fuchsia that decorated the sky failed to captivate Cole. He could witness such sunsets on any horizon, in any city, on any night.

Cole reached for the crystal decanter stationed on the bar in his office. His pour was generous and neat, and the amber liquid shimmered in the final rays of the sun. As he sipped his bourbon heat slid down his throat, but the liquor didn’t scorch him nearly as much as the woman, that after a six month absence, now stood in his office.

 “There are cell phone towers up and down the entire California coastline and the one spot in Los Angeles where I can’t get a signal is your office?”

Meg Parson’s voice was brighter and lighter than the curves of her body would suggest. She shifted her weight and her hip teased forward against her suit skirt. The outline of bone against taut fabric taunted Cole. In a careless moment his gaze roamed over her legs, caressed her skirt, and brushed over the outline of her breast.

Hunger for Meg clutched his belly and twisted hard. Cole turned back toward the ocean and the unwatched sunset—away from Meg. Better to feign interest in the blossom of color on the horizon than to indulge his desires to stare at his colleague and former assistant.

“Hello? Hello?” Meg said into the phone.

In the window, Cole caught Meg’s reflection as she flipped her long sable colored hair over her right shoulder. Her jaw tightened, her lips parted, and she closed her eyes.

His stomach clenched as Meg’s tongue caressed her pout of a mouth. Cole took another slug of his drink hopeful that the liquid heat burning down his throat would distract him from his desires.

No. Luck.

He set his jaw in opposition to his craving and pulled his gaze away from Meg’s indelible imprint on the glass. He didn’t need the reflection, her every sinew was seared into his mind but Meg was off-limits.

In the three years she’d worked for him, Meg made herself indispensable, and he had been fool enough to let her become a necessity. She knew everything about him—from the way he took his coffee down to his shoe size. She ran his business affairs seamlessly. He leaned on her. Depended on her. Cole even began to
need
her and needing anyone was completely intolerable. To need a person was to appear weak. Need allowed vulnerability to take root. Need was the end of strength. No, to need Meg, was completely unacceptable.

 “Yes, hi. This is Meg Parson. I have Cole Jackson for Stan Morton.”