Stand-In Star (4 page)

“Let’s just say you didn’t act much like a sister and, from what Daisy said, I wouldn’t have expected your parents to come either.”

He was right. Their parents had washed their hands of Daisy at the same time Holly had. Her mum’s heart had broken at the discovery a child of hers could be so immoral and show such a lack of respect to other people. But now, they harbored guilt.

Guilt that perhaps they’d been too harsh, too slow to forgive. Everyone made mistakes after all and now her parents would never have the chance to reconcile.

Well…Daisy’s
mistake
had ruined Holly’s life, so forgive her for being less hasty in her remorse. And forgive her for feeling as if she didn’t owe this judgmental stranger anything.

She took an assertive sip of her drink, that familiar rage bubbling beneath her skin. There were supposed to be five stages of grief… She was still, happily, stuck on anger. “You obviously have a theory, then? A reason as to why you think I accepted the offer to stand in for Daisy at the Oscars.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a theory alright.” He smirked. “A theory that you want a bit of her glamour and fame.”

She tried not to blink an eye at the ridiculousness of Nate’s biting words but the insinuation behind them cut deep. He may as well have voiced what she already knew, what had been drilled into her since early adolescence. Daisy was more attractive, more glamorous, more fashionable, more exciting, more
everything
than Holly.

Even her husband had thought so.

Logically she knew it was stupid and futile to let comparisons upset her so much, especially now Daisy was dead, but that was the thing about logic. Emotion over-ruled it every time.

“Sure,” she replied sarcastically, “that’s absolutely what I’m after. I can’t think of anything better than having the public think they own me, people think they have the right to photograph me wherever I go and the media reporting on my every move. Fact is, I’ll never be glamorous like my sister and I certainly don’t want her fame.”

Nate didn’t rise to her sarcasm. He simply shrugged and said, “So why now? Why come now when you wouldn’t come when Daisy was alive? Do you know how much your silence upset her?”

Upset
her
? Holly couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was clear Daisy hadn’t told Nate the truth about their falling out—why would she? And if Daisy didn’t see fit to tell the truth, Holly couldn’t see why she should bother. She didn’t like having to defend herself for something that wasn’t at all her fault. Besides, some clever Australian journalist would uncover the secret slip soon enough. Right now, she just wanted out of here.

She should never have accepted his offer of assistance at the airport—she should have known when something looked too damn good it usually was. But the bottom line was she didn’t owe him anything.

Glaring at him, she downed the last of her drink because her throat was dry and her nerves on edge. She needed to get out of here, now, before she spilled her guts to him. Before she tried to make him see that perhaps the situation wasn’t as black and white as he wanted to believe. He was Daisy’s friend, her lover probably, and Holly shouldn’t dream for one moment he’d take her side over her sister’s.

“Thanks for the drink. I’ll be going now.” She stood and shoved her stool under the breakfast bar.

“Wait.” His voice was firm, commanding.

She shook her head. “I don’t need this.” And started for the hallway and her bags. Daisy was dead. There was no getting past that. Holly didn’t want to go over old wounds, didn’t want to start contemplating guilt—this trip was going to be difficult enough. And she certainly didn’t want to fight about it with someone who already had a bias.

She heard his heavy steps right behind her but refused to turn around. She yanked her suitcase off the ground, threw her laptop bag over her shoulder and headed for the front door. She’d work out the logistics of calling another taxi once she’d escaped.

“Fine. Go.” Nate came up behind her, his mighty shadow falling over her and crawling up the front door. Irritation tainted his words but at least this time she knew he wasn’t going to try and convince her to stay.

She squashed down the tiny niggle of disappointment that started rising in her belly at this thought.

“I will,” she said as he worked the crazy locking system on the front door.

She clutched her luggage tightly and tapped her feet as she waited. When the door swung open, she couldn’t step through fast enough, but she also couldn’t go without having the final word. “Have you ever thought, Nate Devlin, that maybe Daisy wasn’t as perfect as she wanted you to believe?”

With that, she stormed down the drive, thankful when the massive gates opened at her approach. Now, how the hell did she get to the hostel from here?

Chapter Four

The next morning Holly woke to the buzzing of her phone. Bright sunlight stole in through the gap in the curtains, telling her she’d slept far later than she’d intended.

When she’d arrived at the hostel late last night, she’d been happy to find the lobby deserted except for the shaggy, long-haired, half-out-of-it guy at reception. He’d barely been able to hold a conversation, never mind recognize her, so she’d taken precautions and signed in under a fake name. She’d crept into a dorm with eight beds, no people and the distinct smell of smoked pot mixed together with moldy socks. She’d climbed into bed before any of her roomies could return but sleep had been uncomfortable—with fear hanging over her head, and her purse, passport, camera and laptop all shoved under her pillow—and hard to come by with thoughts of sex-God Nate filling her mind. Somehow, eventually, she’d succumbed to a rather deep slumber.

She dug the phone out from under her pillow, then checked the screen and pressed Answer before her best friend gave up.

Stella cut loose without a greeting. “I thought you’d never answer. Please tell me you’re out hunting down a dress. Better still, please tell me you’ve
found
the perfect one.”

“Dress?” It took a moment for Holly’s brain to catch up with Stella’s ranting. She’d welcomed the friendly voice and wished Stella was here with her, which had been the original plan.

Stella groaned down the phone-line and realization dawned on Holly.

“Oh, you mean
that
dress?”

“Of course
that
dress. What boutiques have you checked out so far?”

Boutiques
? Even the thought was enough to rouse a headache. At least it would be if she didn’t already have one. She blamed Nate and the stress he’d caused her yesterday.

Nate… Oh… Thinking about him made other unmentionable parts of her body throb. She pressed her free hand against her stomach. But really, who could blame her? Any woman in their right mind would fantasize about
that
.

“Hello? Are you listening to me?” Stella sounded cranky. A bored chef, she lived and breathed fashion, harboring ambitions to become the next Sarah Burton. Holly knew her own lack of interest often infuriated her friend.

“Sorry, yes.” She reluctantly informed Stella she’d gotten off to a late start today and was only now stepping out to shop. Or at least stepping onto the floor and into her jeans but luckily her mobile wasn’t high-tech enough for Stella to see that. With the phone wedged between her ear and shoulder, she quickly dressed and, trying not to wake the lumps lying in two of the other bunk beds, she whispered down the phone line telling Stella about the nightmare start to her trip.

All the while her mind was on the shopping.

Shopping! Her heart pounded at the thought.

Somehow with all the chaos of yesterday, she’d forgotten she desperately needed to find a dress for the blasted Awards. The thought of walking down the red carpet and immediately being compared to Daisy sickened her. She could pay through the nose for some fancy frock and still not measure up.

“Dammit, I can’t believe the damn chef Awards were scheduled for this week as well. Damn Simon. I should be there with you. You need me. You’re absolutely hopeless.”

“Thank you very much.” Although she wished her friend along for this crazy ride, too, she understood Stella had to be with her long-time fiancé, who’d also been nominated for a prestigious award in Australia. “You’re going to marry Simon. It wouldn’t look good if you weren’t there for him on his night of nights. There are more important things than fashion.”

“Not when it comes to the Academy Awards, there’s not. It’s all about the dress. Even you should know that. What have you been doing all morning? Isn’t it lunch time already there?”

Stella wasn’t the type to waste time lying around and looking at the scenery. If she had six days in Hollywood, she’d be milking every hour and to hell with sleep. Holly glanced around at her scruffy looking lodgings, her traitorous mind thinking about how different this morning could have been if she’d woken up in Nate’s mansion.

“Hellooooooooo? Are you still there?”

“What? Oh yeah, sorry.” She’d been off in some ridiculous fantasy land when really what she needed to do was focus on the facts. Fact One: Stella had a point. She did need to find a dress. Her parents, overjoyed that Holly had agreed to make the trip, had promised to pay any price for the perfect dress. There were all kinds of legal things going on with Daisy’s estate settlement, but they’d inherit all of Daisy’s money eventually. Holly refused to take her share, seeing it as guilt money, but she’d had to concede she did need some help for this trip. She wasn’t destitute herself, but she had a mortgage that she didn’t want to fall behind on.

“I’m on it,” she promised Stella. “Even someone as hopeless as me should be able to find a dress when money isn’t a worry.”

“Exactly. That’s the spirit. And since money isn’t an issue, I’ve taken it upon myself to do you a favor. I’m about to email you a list of boutiques on Rodeo Drive that sell designer gowns off the rack. You don’t have time to have one made especially.”

Rodeo Drive? Good God. She’d never been big on shopping, but even she knew that Rodeo Drive housed some of the most expensive shops in the world. With expense came glamour and status. Two things she didn’t have.

Reading her mind, Stella practically cooed, “You can do it. I’m at the end of the phone line when you need a second opinion.”

“Thanks Stella. What would I do without you?”

“Sometimes I wonder,” replied her best friend. “Now, I’m gonna go so I can send this email. Promise me you’ll send me a photo of the dress before you commit.”

“I promise. Speak soon.”

Holly disconnected, took a deep breath, then picked up her handbag and sunglasses off her bed. She slipped the sunglasses atop her head and gave herself a talking to. She would go to Rodeo Drive. She was here to attend the Oscar Awards for crying out loud. In this city, that
was
status.

She made her way to the local bus stop—reasoning if there were any media-type people watching, they’d expect her to take a chauffeured car. Head down, she paid the driver for a ticket and then slunk into a seat in the middle of the bus. To her benefit, the bus was filled with tourists. Young couples wrapped in each other with the glow of love on their faces. Gray-haired duos with cameras round their necks and money belts round their waists. And at the back a group of what had to be private school teens playing hooky. Most of them were too consumed in staring out the window to take any notice of the girl who’d just boarded the bus, although she guessed she was probably the only one with an Academy Awards invitation in her bag.

She relaxed into her seat enough to look out the window and take in the sights. As they passed the famous Beverly Hills sign, Holly snapped a quick pic on her phone and sent it to Stella. This time she noticed so much more than she had when driving in the car with Nate. Then she’d been consumed by his overwhelming presence and also the presence of the paparazzi. Now she had time to really take things in.

As the bus crawled along the busy street Holly saw shops and restaurants but no industry or advertising billboards, parks and the odd church but no sign of a hospital or cemetery. Perhaps people around here preferred to pretend death didn’t exist. Her stomach twisted as she thought of Daisy. A cold feeling washed over her but she couldn’t tell if it was due to thinking about her sister or the fact the bus had stopped.

Lost in her thoughts she almost missed her stop. She jumped up and nearly tripped as she hastened down the aisle. Stepping onto the sidewalk, Holly glanced ahead of her and gulped. She could already make out the names of elite boutiques. Familiar not because she’d ever shopped in any of them—her most expensive outfit ever had been her wedding dress and she’d been conservative compared to most—but because they were simply international icons. Versace. Ralph Lauren. Prada. Dolce & Gabbana. These were only the start.

Oh. Lord.

It would have been so much easier if Stella were here.

* * *

It had taken years but Nate Devlin pretty much had everything he’d always wanted. He no longer lived in a rundown shack in actual Hollywood but outright owned his architecturally-designed, environmentally friendly house in Bel Air. He had so much money he couldn’t imagine ever being poor again. He had a successful and sought-after business taking photos of the best subjects around—people who loved themselves enough to like being photographed. Neither him, his mom nor his sisters had seen his scumbag of a dad for over a decade. He had overseas vacations whenever he pleased, not only one but two cars worth more than some people’s homes, and a number of women who were happy for him to call on them whenever the urge struck but who no more believed in commitment than he did.

He had it all. Life was sweet. At least it should be, but lately he’d been feeling unsettled.

Not one to usually spend much time analyzing anything, he’d made an exception and tried to work out what the hell was wrong with him. Was it the futility of life? The fact that no amount of money, status or success could stop him getting some terminal illness or being hit by a bus (or in Daisy’s case, a car).

It would be easy to attribute this dissatisfaction with his life to Daisy’s death, only when he started to think about it, it had been gathering steam a good few months before his friend died.

His solution? Work the hell even harder. Learn a new technique, expand the services or courses offered by his off-shoot company, Shooting Stars, or simply take on more clients. He found this worked most of the time. He was ruthless with himself, and if he didn’t want to think about being dissatisfied, he didn’t. But today when he woke up with the alarm and went for his usual morning run, the gnawing emptiness inside him was stronger than it had been in quite some time.

And he couldn’t stop thinking about Daisy’s sister sleeping in that hovel in a shady part of town.

No matter how much he told himself Holly McCartney wasn’t his problem, he couldn’t put her out of his mind.

Things hadn’t improved. He’d snapped through his last session on auto-pilot. Luckily the C-list soap opera actress who had ambitions to hit the big screen big time had barely noticed, so consumed with herself she hadn’t realized he wasn’t a hundred percent on the job. And she’d been an easy subject, pretty thing with all the looks and not much actual talent, so he’d be able to create a superb portfolio for her with what he’d got. That would get her into auditions but after that, she’d be on her own and he didn’t much like her chances of getting any further.

Then, he’d eaten lunch in—take out Thai collected by his PA, Louise—and tried to focus his energies on mentally preparing for the afternoon session. This celebrity was a big one and he couldn’t afford to be distracted. Like Madonna and Cher, she went by first name only. Noella. She’d been the star in the movie Daisy was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for and she was up for Best Actress. She didn’t want these shots for publicity, she wanted them for her fiancé and planned to give them to him as a wedding gift. She wanted intimate, tasteful shots and he knew at least three other top-notch celebrity photographers had failed to please her. He’d allocated all afternoon to shooting her in the studio and the next two days were booked for location shots.

When she’d finally arrived, he’d made all the right gushing noises and ensured every member of his staff fussed over Noella as if she were the Queen, but he couldn’t bring himself to give her the attention she deserved.

He wanted to scream and shout and let out all the tension and anxiety that riddled his body. What the hell was he thinking, worrying about Holly? She was a grown woman who’d thrown his offer of hospitality in his face. Fact she was gorgeous didn’t make up one tenth for her hoity-toighty temperament and her shocking treatment of her sister.

Determined to get his focus back on track, he lifted his camera for the hundredth time that day and prepared to shoot the best photo of Noella she’d ever seen. As his finger pressed down on the shutter, Louise broke through the door.

He glared at her. She knew better than to interrupt him during a session.

“Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Devlin but you’ve got an old friend on the phone and he says it’s urgent. I’ve already told him no a couple of times but he says you’ll want to hear about this.”

“Does this old friend have a name?”

“Big Dog?”

Noella raised her eyebrows at Louise’s response. Nate’s heart slammed into his chest cavity.

“I’ll take it in my office,” he said, knowing Louise would look after Noella. Putting his camera down on a stand, he exited the studio.

“This better be good,” he said five seconds later when he picked up his office phone. He’d worked with Big Dog on the streets when he was a teen. Dog had been all over the globe shooting photos since—still enthralled with celebrities and royalty—and was the only person Nate made an effort to keep in contact with from those days.

“I thought you’d want to hear the latest on Holly McCartney. Isn’t she staying with you?”

“Not anymore.”

“I see.”

That anxiety Nate had been feeling all morning suddenly rocketed to almost unbearable proportions. He gripped the receiver tighter. “Why? What do you know?”

“She’s been spotted on Rodeo Drive. Everyone’s after her.”

“Fuck.” Nate thought of Noella out there expecting him to spend the next two days shooting to her whims. And then he thought of Holly. The little sister Daisy still adored despite their falling out. The least he could do for his best friend—a friend he’d let down when it mattered most—was to make sure Holly was okay. “Dammit.”

He disconnected the call and summoned Louise. “Something’s come up. I’ve got to go. Tell Noella I’ll reschedule. Her shoot and all prints will be free.”

“Reschedule? Free?”

“That’s what I said.”

* * *

Holly all but ran out of another cream-of-the-crop big name fashion boutique. Talk about an experiment in self-torture. Clutching her boutique bags to her side, she walked briskly, keeping her head down and barely taking in any of the neat displays on the sidewalk. Her heart slowed with her steps and she took a moment, leaning against a palm tree and taking a deep, regulating breath.