Drop Dead Beautiful (56 page)

“Great,” Cameron sighed, brushing back a lock of natural blonde hair from her eyes. “Can someone please tell me why he always manages to get here early?”

“ ’Cause it gives him more time to sharpen his dirty old tongue,” Lynda answered knowingly.

“How nice,” Cameron murmured, making a face.

“That man talks nothing but sex, sex, sex,” Lynda complained. “I dunno know how you take it.”

“I take it,” Cameron replied patiently, “ ’cause he pays over the top, and one of these days I’ll have enough money stashed away to open my own place.”

Cameron was a stunningly beautiful woman in a sporty casual way. Five feet eight inches tall with a well-toned body, high cheekbones, flawless skin and dirty blonde hair—worn short and spiky with long bangs that drifted sexily above her green eyes.

She’d worked at
Bounce
for almost three years, ever since fleeing Hawaii and an abusive relationship with her Australian husband, Gregg.
Bounce
was the perfect place for her to be. She paid the owner rent and a small commission on each of the clients she brought in. Everything else went straight into her pocket, so she could charge what she liked, and she did. She was twenty-one when she’d first landed in L.A. She could’ve easily followed the actress or modeling route, but that kind of career was not for her; she was after something more substantial, so what better plan than working toward eventually opening her own fitness studio? And since everyone in L.A. seemed to be obsessed with the way they looked, it was a business she could definitely tap into.

Her un-favorite client, Mr. Lord, was indeed waiting. A bizarre figure in red and black bicycle shorts stuffed with what could only be described as a fake penis; a Rat Pack T-shirt circa tour 1965; and a crooked slime-brown toupee perched jauntily on top of his head. He was a writer of crap biographies, stuffed with information gleaned from newspaper files, all out-of-date and totally inaccurate. The celebrities he’d written about regarded him as a pathetic joke who couldn’t write his way out of a corner, but he kept trying.

He threw Cameron a disapproving look while tapping the dial of his fake gold Rolex. “You’re late,” he grumbled. “If I wasn’t so hot t’ fuck you, I’d find myself another trainer.”

What an asshole
, Cameron thought, smiling brightly. She had a mind to dump him as a client. Instead she charged him double her hourly rate, and unfortunately he paid, so she was stuck. She did that with all the clients she wouldn’t mind losing.

“My bad, Mr. L.,” she said, attempting to avert her eyes from the fake bulge in his bicycle shorts. “Let’s get you started. As you’re always telling me—no time to waste, right?”

“You need a boyfriend,” Mr. Lord said, leering at her breasts. “And I’m talkin’ about a man, not some boy. A
real
man who knows how to lick your—”

Cameron tuned him out as he began pontificating about the joys of oral sex—at which he was—according to him— the absolute master. The very idea of Mr. Lord giving head to anyone was repugnant.

Her thoughts drifted to Gregg as they often did. The memories that came up were still painful and difficult to think about. They’d met in his native Australia when she was nineteen and backpacking across the country.

It was lust at first sight. He was six foot three, a muscled twenty-five-year old, and quite a big deal in the surfer world. She was just nineteen and surprisingly still a virgin.

Gregg went after her with a vengeance, soon dropping the several girlfriends he was seeing at the time. After a couple of weeks he’d invited her to move into his ramshackle house on the beach. She’d agreed, provided that Katie could move in with her, and that moving in certainly didn’t mean she would sleep with him.

Hmm … wishful thinking. Gregg was not a man to take no for an answer.

After a few months Gregg received an offer of a highly paid job at one of the big luxury hotels in Maui, and since the money was too good to turn down they’d taken off for Hawaii, full of plans for their future. Six weeks later they got married on the beach at Sunset, and Cameron had felt truly happy for the first time in her life.

They were a golden couple, both so bronzed and tall and blond and beautiful, both so crazy about each other.

For two years everything was more or less perfect until one day—after a surfing accident which put him out of commission for several months—Gregg began to change, turning from a sunny-dispositioned champion surfer into a mean and miserable shut-in who seemed to get his kicks from baraging her with endless tirades of verbal abuse.

At first she was too shocked to do anything. But after a series of vicious arguments she’d decided to fight back.

He hadn’t liked that, and it wasn’t long before he’d turned violent, which was enough to make her realize that things were getting out of control.

She’d attempted to flee in the middle of the night while Gregg was sleeping, taking only one small bag, her passport and the money she’d saved teaching kids to surf. Unfortunately he awoke and went berserk with fury when he realized she was leaving. He beat her so badly that both her eyes were blackened, her arm broken, and blood flowed from a deep cut on her forehead. It was almost as if he was trying to kill her as he’d pinned her to the floor screaming expletives in her face.

She’d managed to grab a table lamp and smash it over his head. Then she’d fled from the house and never looked back.

At the airport she’d booked herself on the first plane to San Francisco, where her backpacking friend Katie was now living with Jinx, a struggling rock musician. Katie and her boyfriend had immediately taken her in, got her medical attention and generally looked after her. She’d stayed with them for several weeks while recovering from her ordeal, and as soon as the cast came off her arm, she’d taken the train to L.A. where she was determined to make a better life for herself and forget about the past.

“What’re you thinking about?” Mr. Lord demanded, sweating his way through a series of arm reps. He didn’t like it when he felt he wasn’t getting Cameron’s full attention.

“Nothing that would interest you,” she answered, keeping it vague.

“Ah, but everything about you interests me,” Mr. Lord said with a toothy leer. “Your magnificent tits, your hot little ass, your—”

“Let’s not get carried away,” she said, interrupting him before he could say any more. “Quite frankly, I’m not in the mood to listen to your chauvinistic crap today.”

“Me? A chauvinist?” Mr. Lord objected. “I love women. I honor them. I love their wet—”

Once more Cameron tuned him out. He talked a good game, but deep down she was sure he was just another dirty old man who couldn’t get it up. And how sad was that?

Chapter 2

“I’m bored,” Mandy Richards announced, sitting cross-legged on the oversized couch in her enormous living room overlooking a shimmering blue swimming pool. “Nothing’s exciting anymore. I’m totally bored.”

Ryan Richards regarded his thirty-two-year-old Hollywood Princess wife with her compact body and glossy auburn hair worn in a ponytail. Sometimes she managed to sound like a whiny teenager; today was one of those days and he wasn’t in the mood to indulge one of her childish fits. But still, she was obviously expecting him to say something.

He didn’t. He kept his silence. Sometimes it was safer that way.

“I said I’m bored,” Mandy repeated, twisting several expensive diamond tennis bracelets on her delicate wrist while throwing him an accusing look. “Didn’t you hear me?”

“Well,” he said at last, “if you’re so bored, why don’t you do something about it?”

His reply did not please her. She threw him a baleful stare. “
You’re
my husband,” she said. “Why don’t
you
do something about it?”

Ryan was not slow, once again Mandy was on the warpath looking for a fight, and once again he was target number one, it didn’t take a genius to figure
that
out. “Sorry,” he said, edging toward a fast exit. “I got a shitload of stuff to take care of today.”

Actually he didn’t have a shitload of anything, but getting out of the house seemed like a wise idea.

“What stuff?” Mandy demanded, her back stiffening. “It’s Saturday, aren’t we supposed to be spending the day together?”

“No,” Ryan said, a tad abruptly. “I thought I mentioned that I’m supposed to be having brunch with that Argentinian director I’ve been waiting to meet, he’s flown in specially. Then I promised my sis I’d drop by and see the kids.”

“Which sis is that?” Mandy sneered as if
sis
were a dirty word. “The one with the jailbird husband?”

“Don’t go there, Mandy,” he warned. Christ! She drove him nuts when she went after his family, and she knew it. “Martin got arrested for a DUI—it could’ve happened to anyone.”

“His
third
DUI,” Mandy said pointedly. “Even Daddy couldn’t help with that one.”

Yeah. Daddy. Mandy’s father. Hamilton J. Heckerling. Movie Mogul Supreme. Uber-producer. Star-maker. Egocentric pain in the ass. Not a conversation took place without her bringing him up one way or the other.

“Where
is
big daddy?” Ryan asked, not really caring, but determined to steer the conversation away from his sister, Evelyn, whom he loved dearly, and whom Mandy couldn’t stand.

“He’s in New York,” Mandy said, uncrossing her yoga-pant-clad legs. “I suspect he has a new girlfriend.”

“Another one?”

“Perhaps that’s where I should be,” Mandy said, hurriedly changing the subject because she did not appreciate discussing her father’s love life—especially with Ryan.

“Where?” Ryan asked, purposely needling her.

“In New York
with
him,” Mandy snapped.

“Well, if you—”

“No!” Mandy said, throwing her husband a sharp look. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d enjoy having me out of the way so you could hook up with some little tootsie whore and play around.”

Jesus Christ! Why did she say such things? Why did she go out of her way to piss him off? Seven years they’d been married. Seven long years, and not once had he cheated on her, although the opportunities were abundant. He was thirty-nine and not bad-looking; above average in fact. He was over six feet tall, quite fit—thanks to daily jogging, with sandy brown hair, intense blue eyes, and well-defined features. He had a kind of younger Kevin Costner vibe going for him—a vibe women found most attractive. He got hit on all the time—actresses, models, young executives, other men’s wives—but he always turned them down. Ryan Richards was one of that rare breed—a man who believed in the institution of marriage. He’d married Mandy for better or worse—and just because it had turned out to be a nightmare did not mean that he should cut and run, although sometimes he yearned to. Neither did it mean that he should cheat the way most of his married friends did. He had principles, and staying faithful was one of them.

It had all started out so well. Mandy—pretty and sweet and caring—had presented herself as perfect wife material.

He’d met her at the premiere of the second movie he’d produced, and even though he was only thirty-three at the time, he was more than ready to meet the right girl. He’d had it up to here with the wannabe model/actress types— they were vacuous, boring, ambitious and too pretty for their own good. Mandy appeared to be the right girl at the right time. “One of these days I plan on raising a family and being there for my children,” she’d informed him. Ryan was impressed.

By the time Ryan discovered who her famous father was, they’d been on three under-the-radar dates, and had extremely satisfying sex several times. Young Mandy was certainly no slouch in the bed department. She’d given him a series of blow-jobs the like of which he’d never experienced before, and he’d been around; nobody could say that he hadn’t enjoyed his single days.

After he’d found out that she was Hamilton J. Heckerling’s daughter he’d decided it didn’t matter—in fact,
it was kind of a kick. And even though everyone warned him about marrying into the Heckerling family, he’d done it anyway.

Foolish.

Stupid.

Dumb.

But he was in love at the time, or at least he’d thought he was.

Their marriage had taken place on a private beach adjacent to Mandy’s father’s twenty-five-million-dollar estate in Porto Vallerta. Ryan had opted for a close family affair, but Mandy had begged him to acquiesce to her wishes. “Daddy doesn’t ask for much,” she’d said, all sweetness and light. “I’m his only daughter. It’s the least we can do for him.”

So he’d given in.

Their wedding was attended by six hundred guests— eighty were his friends and family—the rest of the people he didn’t know, although Mandy assured him they were all important players in the film industry.

So be it, he’d thought. We only have to do this once.

Except it turned out to be once a week, for Hamilton hosted weekly soirees at his magnificent hilltop home in Bel Air, and he expected them to attend every time.

“This is bullshit,” Ryan had complained after the fourth weekend in a row.

“No, it’s not,” Mandy objected.

“I can’t take all this socializing,” he’d said. “It’s not my scene.”

“Daddy calls it networking,” she’d answered. “You should thank him. You’re meeting all the most important people in town.”

“Why would I want to do that?” he’d demanded.

“For your career,” she’d countered. “You never know when you’ll need a favor.”

“My career is progressing very nicely,” he’d said irritably. “In case you’ve forgotten, I have two movies in development, and one about ready to shoot.”

“Daddy thinks you should make bigger movies,” Mandy had informed him. “He thinks you should come work for him.”

“I was under the impression I was doing pretty good on my own,” he’d said dryly.

“It’s just a thought,” Mandy had said, deftly reaching for his fly, because she knew exactly when to stop pushing and concentrate on other things. After all, they were newly married, so it might take some time to turn Ryan around.

But Ryan was no pushover. He might have married a famous man’s daughter, but when it came to the movie business he walked his own path—he needed neither help, advice nor interference from Hamilton J. Heckerling.