The Prada Paradox (9 page)

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Advance payment deposited your account.

Amount: $20,000.

Client name: Devi Taylor.

Additional funds to be delivered upon successful completion of mission.

Game commences: 12:01 a.m.

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>>>Player Profile Attached: DT_Profile.doc<<<

Chapter11

“Life is good,” I say, hugging my Prada shopping bag close to my chest. We’re back on Rodeo Drive, heading toward our cars.

Lindy raises an eyebrow. “No more angst about inviting Andy over? No more nasty remarks about Blake?”

“Maybe a few nasty remarks,” I say. “But they can wait until tomorrow. For the rest of the day, I’m basking.”

“You’re too easy.”

I hold up the shopping bag. “Easy? Or expensive?”

She laughs. “Both, apparently.”

“I still can’t believe it. A tote bag. And not the kind with the name of the movie silk-screened on the side. I mean, how classy is that? I didn’t know Tobias had it in him.”

“It probably wasn’t Tobias,” she says, and for some reason, that comment gives me chills.

“What do you mean?” I ask warily.

“Just that Tobias doesn’t really seem like the Prada type. More like the McDonald’s Happy Meal type, if you know what I mean.”

I do know, and I can’t help but laugh. (Well, snort, actually, but let’s not go there.) “Marcia, probably,” I say, referring to Tobias’s assistant. “She’s saved him from many a social and fashion faux pas.”

“Trust me,” Lindy says. “Marcia hasnever saved that man from a fashion faux pas.”

She has a point.

“Listen,” she continues. “I know you want to get home and switch everything from your purse to your new bag, and I want to get back home before the traffic gets truly insane. So let’s do the Lucy shopping later.”

I heave a sigh of relief and agree. I love my goddaughter, but that plan is fine with me.

We part ways, Lindy to maneuver her way down to Manhattan Beach through the four p.m. traffic, and me to drive the fifteen or so relatively traffic-free blocks to my house in the hills of Beverly, as they say in theBeverly Hillbillies.

In other words, ten minutes later I’m home. Lindy, I’m sure, is still listening to talk radio while idling on the 10. Like I said—I love Beverly Hills.

I also love my house. Before the attack, I lived in a darling little bungalow tucked away in the hills just off Laurel Canyon. Pretty and charming, with a great view and little critters that visited me at night, like raccoons and possums and the occasional coyote.

Those critters didn’t bother me.

It was the two-legged vermin that forced me to move, and even though I loved that house dearly, I love my very secure new home even better. This baby is wired for action, and even has a guardhouse complete with three guards on rotating shifts provided by the security firm I hired. (Lucas, Tom, and Miguel, all three of whom get really great Christmas presents from me.)

I’m all about security and privacy these days. You hardly have to be a celebrity to be the victim of a freakish crime, but all the information that had been in the press about me over the years must have fed Janus’s fixation. And probably helped him figure out how to get to me.

That’s one big downside of being a child star. Folks see you grow up on television and in the movies, and they think they own you. Couple that with a psychopathic personality, and you have a whole I’ll-assassinate-the-president-to-prove-I-love-Jodie-Foster thing going.

It’s bizarre. And, yes, it’s a little scary. (Okay, it’s a lot scary.) And that’s exactly why I decided to start keeping a tight grip on the personal information that gets leaked out about me. And why I moved to a house with security roughly the equivalent of Fort Knox.

Too little, too late, you say? Well, maybe. But it helps me sleep at night.

The house was built in the twenties by Greta Garbo, although she never actually lived there. (That little tidbit made for tons of tabloid fodder after I became a recluse. “Spirit of Garbo Infuses Miss Devi, Who Simply ‘Vants to Be Alone.’” Puh-lease!) And although the house is older than my old bungalow, it’s been more thoroughly updated. State-of-the-art kitchen. State-of-the-art electrical system. Fully landscaped. Fabulous privacy fence (complete with security, of course). Video monitors all around the grounds. You name it.

And whereas my old house had been just off the street, my new place is tucked up against the hills and set back away from traffic. The driveway is more like a private road that winds around until you reach my house, tucked in against the hills. The guards check and announce all guests on the property intercom, and then send them through the gate after I give my okay.

A high fence surrounds the property, and it’s under twenty-four-hour video surveillance. It’s also got some voltage running through it, but I don’t advertise that.

The bottom line? I feel safe there. And for someone like me, that’s saying a lot.

Lucas is on shift when I arrive, and I pause to do the chitchat thing.

“How’d the first day of shooting go?”

“Great,” I say. “And the shopping afterward was even better.”

He grins, then nods toward the gate. “Go relax. And have a good night, Ms. Taylor.”

Lucas is an odd bird in Los Angeles—a man who wants absolutely nothing to do with the movie business. He used to be a plumber, but he went back to school to get an engineering degree. He likes the job because it gives him time to study. (That’s his basic overview, at any rate. I know a lot more about the man. Believe me. The background check I ran before I let the security company put him on-site would put the FBI to shame.)

My first order of business when I come home is to switch purses. My new Prada bag is a little bit tote bag and a little bit purse…and one hundred percent perfect. I slip my new laptop in it just to be sure, and it fits like a charm, with two interior pockets for my wallet, makeup, and other girlie things. It even has a pocket on the back that is just the right size for a script, and two additional pockets for sunglasses and a cell phone.

I take my time making the transfer, and when everything is switched over, I center the bag on my kitchen table, take a step back, and just look at it.

Perfect.

And, just in case I sound way too pathetic, might I point out that most women come home from a clothes-shopping spree and try on every single item in front of their own mirror. So my bag adoration is a long way from neurotic or abnormal. Really.

Everything from my old bag (also Prada) fits nicely into this one, and the stuff I don’t need to transfer I leave on the breakfast bar. Since I tend to only carry the basics, nonessentials include the present from Tobias, the parking ticket from the Beverly Wilshire, and the cocktail napkin on which I’d doodled some notes for tomorrow’s scene.

I take the strawberry box out of the bag and put the whole thing in the fridge. I’d meant to give it to Lindy, but I’d forgotten. Now, I consider just trashing it, but that seems a shame. I’ll pass it off to Miguel in the morning as I’m leaving for the set.

The only thing left in the gift bag is the envelope, and I open that now. Inside I find a card monogrammed with Tobias’s initials. I open it to find a block-printed note:

Good job today. The real fun begins tomorrow. Some notes for you:

http://www.YourGivenchyCodeMovieNotes.com

I have to laugh. Because about two weeks before filming began, I was giving Tobias grief for being the most computer-illiterate person on the planet. Looks like he decided to get literate fast, just to show me up.

For a second, I’m tempted to head over to the Web site, but my laptop is already packed away neatly in my new bag, and honestly, I’m just not in the mood to think about work. My script is on the countertop, and so I shove the card inside to deal with later.

Then I step back and consider my options.

In actuality, I should study the script, but all I really want to do is take a shower before Andy comes over. I’d been in such a hurry to shop that I hadn’t bothered to shower in my trailer. And after a day that began at four and wrapped up with a walk through the summer heat and smog, I’m feeling the grime of the city.

Besides, my bathroom is just shy of heaven, and any excuse for a shower is a good one.

It was, in fact, the bathroom that sold me on the house, even more than the security system. The room is huge, with a walk-in shower with eight vertical showerheads for a full-body effect, and two rain-style heads that spray from above. The shower stall is granite and glass, and the phone and the intercom to the gatehouse are just past the water barrier so that even in the shower you’re never out of touch.

The bathtub is insane as well. Lindy swears she’s going to teach Lucy to swim in it, and I don’t think she’s kidding. It’s sunk into the floor and surrounded by candles and bath salts and baskets of luscious-smelling soaps. Stacks of fluffy towels are easily within reach, and my maid, Carla, knows that the one thing that will get my ire up (other than rearranging the purse closet) is letting the towel supply dwindle.

One wall is dominated by a plasma television, another by glass bricks that let in light but distort the view, and another opens directly into one of my closets. My exercise bike and some free weights are tucked in one corner (I have more in the weight room downstairs), and the stereo system is elegantly hidden and operated by remotes that I aim at hidden infrared thingamabobs.

All in all, the room is awesome, just like the house. And I thank my mother for it every day. I’ve earned a lot of money over the course of my career, but my mom is the one who turned “a lot” into “alot. ” The woman has a knack for negotiating and a sixth sense about stocks. She dumped every cent I made as a minor into brokerage accounts, and bought and sold tech stocks at just the right time.

Today, I forgo the exercise bike (shopping was workout enough) and head for the shower. It’s a toss-up between that and a bath, but the idea of getting pounded by steaming hot water appeals at the moment. What can I say? It’s been a stressful day.

I get the jets going, strip off my clothes, and step into heaven. I scrub down with a rosemary mint body wash, then slather my face with Noxzema. I’m a fan of the basics.

The stuff is still on my face and I’ve worked my hair into a good lather when the intercom buzzes, and Lucas’s voice echoes through the room.

“Ms. Taylor? You’ve got a visitor at the—”

Andy.I reach out and blindly slap the intercom button, effectively silencing Lucas. “Lucas!” I shout over the drone of the shower. “He’s here to run lines and he’s early! But go ahead and send him on to the house. I’ll be right there!”

“Will do, ma’am.”

The intercom clicks back to silence, and even though I try to do the fastest rinse ever, I manage to get soap in my eyes and it takes me longer than I’d like. I can’t believe he’s almost an hour early. Finally, I’m squeaky clean, and I bundle my hair in a towel and myself in a big, fluffy bathrobe. I trot toward the stairs, my bare feet leaving damp prints on the hard wood floors.

I reach the front door—breathless—just as the bell rings. I used to have a live-in housekeeper, but having someone else putter around just made me nervous. So it’s just me, alone with the responsibility of opening doors and greeting guests.

“I was in the shower,” I say, even before the door is open. “Just wait down here while I get dressed, and—”

I stop cold, the words caught in my throat. Because this isn’t Andy I’m staring at. It’s Blake. And that’s just a bit more than my already fried brain can take today.

Chapter12

He stands there on my front porch, his stance casual, his grin both quick and sincere. He looks perfectly at ease and sexy as hell. And there’s not one iota of doubt in my mind that this man will be a huge star someday.

I step back away from the door, instinctively pulling the robe tighter. “What are you doing here?” I ask. I turn and head across my foyer toward the kitchen then, and toss my words back casually as I walk. “If you’re coming for consolation that your interview was canceled, you really haven’t come to the right place.” That’s a shot in the dark on my part. I still have no idea why they were striking the set for his interview, but considering Elliot’s reaction, it obviously wasn’t expected. And I’ll admit I’m curious. And I’m not too proud to pry. Surreptitiously, anyway.