Hollywood Wives - the New Generation (19 page)

A huge number of acquaintances tried to reach her, but she refused
to take any calls, realizing that all they were after was juicy gossip
they could pass around.

She threw herself into rehearsals for her Vegas show, and attempted
to ignore the publicity blitz.

Max was beside himself. 'Why didn't you warn me?' he complained,
almost jumping up and down in frustration. 'I need an immediate
statement from you,
something
. Your soon-to-be ex is shooting
his mouth off everywhere.'

'I can't help that,' Lissa answered, feeling surprisingly calm. 'In
a few weeks this'll all go away.'

'Bullshit,' Max grumbled. 'Gregg is money-hungry and vindictive, a
bad combination. He's out to destroy you, Lissa, and
you
don't get it.'

'Do you really think he can, Max?'

'No. However, I'd sooner you gave me a statement showing him up for
the liar he is. The press loves you, but you gotta give 'em
something.'

'I have no intention of indulging in a public showdown,' she said
coolly. 'You know that's not my style.'

'A brief statement does not make it a showdown,' Max spluttered.
'Say nothing, an' the press'll
never
leave you alone.'

'Okay,' she said reluctantly. 'I'll come up with a statement.'

'Soon,' Max warned. 'We'd better get some kind of lid on this before
your Vegas appearance.'

'I understand, Max. I'll get something over to you today.'

The reporter was small, blonde and compact, with an ageless,
well-preserved air about her. Her name was Belinda Barrow, she'd been
on television for quite a number of years, and considered herself
equally as important as the stars she interviewed. Currently she was
the on-camera talent for a weekly half-entertainment, half-reality show
called
The Real News
.

Gregg looked her over and decided she was easy pickings. He needed a
score and she could be it.

They made polite conversation before the cameras started to roll, he
gave her the sincere act, and she seemed to go for it.

As soon as the red light came on, Belinda switched into interviewer
mode. 'So tell me, Gregg,' she said, an eager, almost hungry look in
her guileless hazel eyes, 'you were married to Lissa Roman for almost
two years. If she was as difficult as you
say
, then how come
you stayed married for as long as you did?'

'Lissa is a very insidious woman,' Gregg said, playing to the
camera. 'She gets off on drama. Whenever I attempted to leave, she
always managed to pull me back in.'

'How so?'

'Well… she kinda threatened suicide, told me she couldn't live
without me, that sorta thing.'

'How soon after you were married did you try to leave?'

'It must've been on our honeymoon. I immediately realized she was
unstable. I stayed because I felt sorry for her. And naturally, I loved
her.'

'I see,' Belinda said.
'So
you stayed with her
because you felt sorry for her?'

'Yeah, that's right.'

'Do you realize how many men watching this programme will be pulling
their hair out to hear you say that? After all, Lissa Roman is one of
the most beautiful and talented women in movies today.'

'Beauty's only skin deep, Belinda,' Gregg said, liking the sound of
his own cliche. 'It's what's within that matters. And within Lissa
Roman there lurks a black soul.'

'Isn't that rather harsh?' Belinda asked, playing up the sympathy
angle.

'She threw me out on the street in the middle of the night with no
warning, nothing,' Gregg complained. 'Now I'm virtually penniless. Not
only did I give up my career to help her, I also spent all my own money
on her.'

'That's too bad, Gregg,' Belinda murmured.

'None of this seems to bother Lissa Roman,' Gregg continued angrily,
'although I hope it bothers her fans. I hope that when they realize the
kind of woman she is, they'll stop buying her music and watching her
movies.'

'That's not a very charitable thing to say, Gregg,' Belinda said,
not wishing to come across as a bitch.

'You
didn't have to live with her for two
years,' Gregg snapped.

And so the interview continued in the same vein.

When they were finished, Gregg leaned across to Belinda, feeling
quite pumped up with his own importance. 'When does this air?' he asked.

'Next week,' she said, shuffling her notes. 'I'll edit later.'

'You'll leave in the plug for the CD I'm about to record?' he asked
eagerly.

'Well.'

He decided she needed some extra attention. 'Can I buy you a drink,
Belinda?'

'Sure,' she said, slightly flustered. 'I guess that's possible.'

'Anything's
possible
, right?'

And she nodded her neat blonde head.

A week after their disastrous dinner party, Evan left for another
location. Fortunately his bad mood had not lasted past that one
evening. Since then he'd returned to his normal self - he'd even bought
Nicci a present from Tiffany's, an exquisite diamond butterfly pin with
emerald wings. She already had a diamond engagement ring (six carats),
which, much to Evan's annoyance, she wore on a black ribbon hanging
around her neck, claiming that wearing it on her engagement finger was
too traditional.

'What's this for?' she'd asked suspiciously, when he'd given her the
pin.

'For promising to marry me,' he'd said.

How could she have ever experienced any doubts? He was amazing. They
were destined to be deliriously happy. One wedding coming up.

Antonio had sent her an e-mail informing her of his arrival. It so
happened that on the day he was flying in, Lissa was leaving for Vegas.

Gregg was behaving as badly as everyone had expected, literally
hogging the headlines. He'd even managed to drag Nicci into some of his
stories, calling her the poor little neglected daughter.

Poor little neglected daughter indeed! How
dare
the creep
involve her? She was beyond furious. Gregg Lynch was an untalented
piece of crap. Why did her mom have such bad taste in men?

And yet Lissa had taught her well.
Ignore the tabloids. Do not
answer back. Keep a dignified silence
. Which is exactly what she
did, failing to return the many calls she received from the press.

Saffron dropped by, waving a copy of
Truth & Fact
, a
particularly scurrilous rag. 'Get an eyeful of
this
?' she
announced, thrusting the magazine at Nicci.

On the front page there was a picture of Ramone Lopez in a shirt
opened to the waist, multiple gold chains and tight black jeans. He was
leaning against a wall, leering at the camera. The headline read:
My
Night of Bliss With Lissa Roman
.

'Oh… my… God!' Nicci gasped, horrified. 'I don't believe it!'

'
You
don't believe it,' Saffron snorted, tossing back her
dreadlocks. 'How do you think I feel? I'm the sucker who brought him
into your house.'

'This is unreal!' Nicci said, starting to read the story aloud.
'"Our eyes met and I knew there was something between us that could
never be forgotten. Lissa looked at me and said, "You are the man I've
been searching for." Like what planet is this asshole from?'

'Wait till you read the rest of it,' Saffron said, opening the
fridge and helping herself to a Sprite. 'According to Ramone, they've
formed a bond for the rest of their lives, and she's starring him in
her next video.'

Nicci threw the magazine down in disgust. 'I'm sure Mom's lawyer
will have a major party when he sees this crap.'

'And speaking of parties…'

'Don't tell me
you're
entertaining?'

'Better than that,' Saffron said, with a secretive smile. 'Very
shortly
you
are being kidnapped.'

'Huh?'

'Kidnapped, babe,' Saffron crowed. 'One spectacular bachelorette
night coming up, so be prepared. You'll be blindfolded, taken out of
your house, and you'll have no
idea
what is gonna happen.
Cool?'

'Wow!' Nicci said, thinking it sounded like a blast. 'What'll I
wear?'

'Anything you like. You may not be keeping it on all night.'

'Will I be leaving the state?'

'Maybe,' Saffron said mysteriously.

'You gotta tell me more than that.'

'I don't gotta do anything,' Saffron said, laughing. 'It's all one
big surprise.'

'Fine.'

'How's Lissa doin' with all this bad publicity?'

'She's cool.'

'You goin' to Vegas to see her show?'

'She doesn't think it's a good idea.'

'How come?'

'Cause of all the press,' Nicci explained. 'Lissa has always tried
to keep me out of the papers.'

'That's 'cause having a nineteen-year-old daughter makes her feel
old.'

'Lissa,
old
?' Nicci burst out laughing. She's only forty,
Saff, an' looks unbelievable.'

'I'm tellin' you - having a grown kid makes 'em nutto,' Saffron
insisted. 'Kyndra's the same way, she'd
love
to keep me under
wraps - it pisses her off when I'm in
People
an' shit. But
I'm an actress, so I need all the publicity I can get.'

'Okay, so back to my special night,' Nicci said, decidedly psyched
at the thought of a wild night on the town. 'Tell me when, and gimme
the guest list.'

'It's a kidnap, babe,' Saffron said succinctly, revealing nothing.
'Everything that happens is a mystery.'

'As long as you don't have Ramone strip for me.'

'Girl,
believe
me,
that's
a promise.'

Gregg knew there was one place he was in complete control, and that
was in bed. Nobody had ever accused him of being a dud between the
sheets. He'd always been lucky in that respect, and women were so
stupid that they always fell for his boyish charm and bullshit lines.
All he had to do was turn it on.

Gregg was well aware that he'd better get himself into a new
relationship fast, because since Lissa had thrown him out, he'd been
forced to move into a crummy hotel due to lack of funds. Lissa had
controlled the money. Miss Moneybags's business manager had doled him
out an allowance, which came to an abrupt halt the minute his luggage
was shoved out the door. All he had going for him was his Ferrari.

Man, would he like to show the cunt a thing or two. But what he
needed now was somewhere to stay, and money, so he could hire himself a
sharp lawyer and start figuring out what to do next. Belinda seemed a
likely prospect.

'Where do you live?' he asked, as they entered the Polo Lounge.

'I have a house in the Hollywood Hills,' she said.

Sounds promising
, he thought.

They sat in the Polo Lounge drinking martinis, and he listened as
she poured out her woes. Naturally she had many, considering she was a
woman of a certain age who lived and worked in Hollywood. He reckoned
that although she looked pretty good - probably on account of major
plastic surgery - she had to be at least fifty-two or -three.

They talked for two hours. Or, rather, he allowed her to ramble on.
She let it all out, telling him how she'd been married three times and
how her last husband, a sometime actor, had run off with the pool man.
Then she revealed that her station manager didn't like her, and she'd
had to leave her last job because her co-presenter would not quit
coming on to her. And finally she complained about what a struggle it
was to stay young and fresh-looking - a prerequisite for any woman on
TV.

He managed to look interested. He managed to throw in a compliment
here and there, so that when it came time to leave, she was not averse
to him stopping by her house for a drink. And everyone knew what
that
led to.

By the time he got into her bed she was frantic - it had obviously
been a while. She was a screamer, too, and he worked diligently, making
her very happy indeed, tending to all her needs, including going down
on her for a full twenty minutes, which left a sour taste in his mouth.
It didn't matter. Gregg knew what worked when he was out to achieve
something in a hurry, so he held nothing back.

Apart from his prowess in bed, there was also the added attraction
that he was Lissa Roman's husband. He was sure that Belinda wouldn't
mind boasting that she'd entertained
him
in her bed and that
she
was the replacement for one of the most famous women in the world.

Yes, Gregg wanted more than one night, and he certainly knew how to
go about getting it.

Brian's flying into L.A. for a day,' Evan said over the phone from
Utah, their current location.

'So?' Nicci replied. She was in her car on the way to a final
fitting for her wedding dress, and she didn't want to hear about Brian.
She had him tucked firmly to the back of her mind.

'He'll drop by the house to pick up some papers. They're in the
bottom left-hand drawer of my desk.'

'How come Brian's coming back and you're not?'

'It's crazy here, Nic. This movie is the most difficult I've ever
worked on.'

'I thought that when it came to work you and Brian did everything
together.'

'We do, but he's got to take care of a couple of things in L.A.
He'll only be there one night, so he'll phone you. Where are you now?'

'In the car.'

'Call me from my desk when you get home, and I'll tell you exactly
what to put in the envelope. Don't let Brian anywhere near my desk.
Hand him the envelope and get him out of there.'

'Yes,
sir
.'

What was this? A test? Was God testing her to see if she could be a
good girl in Brian's presence? Not that he'd ever indicated he liked
her, but they'd shared a joint and a couple of moments across the room
at that unmemorable dinner party.