The Stars Trilogy (4 page)

Then there was TR (Terminal Romantic), for believing in the impossible, as if she had a terminal disease! Well, her favorite Dare quote was:
Believe when no one else does. Your faith will beat the odds.
Indeed, faith was important for destiny to happen.

She knew it in her heart, all those women were just ‘stop overs’. His destination was really HER. But Dare was having a hard time finding her. So, what was a smart girl to do? Turn into a GPS and make her ‘second coming’ into his life.

She stared at the magazine cover again.

Dare was grinning at Alana, his lips smeared with red lipstick from kissing his ex-wife at the Oscar red carpet. Alana was looking at him with naked longing in her eyes. The actress was still in love with Dare, she could plainly see. They moved in the same world. They could easily get back together.

God, Alana had her chance with him and she blew it. Naiomi had her chance but she let him go, too. Gabby is about to let him go, as well. Now, I want my chance with him. Give me this, please, God. Just one chance, and if I fail, I will go home and put this folly to rest for good. I promise. I swear. Just one chance is all I ask.

Dare Montgomery was her teenage dream. She’d been holding on to that dream for a long, long time now. She hadn’t given up on it yet. Not just yet. She and Dare were meant for each other, she was absolutely sure of that. Once he saw her again, he would know it, too.

They belonged together. He had told her so while they rode the wind aboard the Cyclone many, many years ago.

Just as Dare expected, Kelsey hit the roof when she saw the tabloids.

“What were you thinking?! You’ve done enough damage when you took that floozy to the Oscars for pete’s sake, and now this! And I still don’t get it. Why Taylor of all people? You could have walked with Cate Blanchett!”

Christ, he hated Kelsey’s I-told-you-so moments.

He poured a hefty amount of bourbon in a glass and downed it in one go. “It was her who kissed me. How was I supposed to avoid that, short of embarrassing an Oscar nominee in front of a hundred cameras and 50 million spectators around the world?”

Kelsey zapped him with astute eyes. “Is there something you should be telling me about?”

“Hell, no...”

Kelsey looked at the magazine she was holding again. “Oh man, she still wants you. If she wasn’t such a great actress, I’d think that sparkle in her eyes is loooove.”

He grunted. He’d been around too long to be deluded by common human frailties such as love. Alana wanting him sexually was still very apparent as he was a man with a healthy sexual appetite and she was a woman who indulged in carnal pursuits like a seasoned player. But ultimately, everything will simply fall down to commerce and his stomach for perverted thrill.

Sexually subjugating a woman who had betrayed him repeatedly in the past would bring some shallow satisfaction. But it would be nothing compared to the feeling of disgust that would replace his thirst for justice. After almost a decade and hundreds of millions between them, it was best to just leave things as they were.

“She looks great though,” Kelsey commented in admiration. “Forty-three and still smashing hot.”

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Another Oscar to her belt. Two more and she’d eclipse Katherine Hepburn. Your ex is really something, Dare.”

He didn’t answer. It was true. His ex-wife was a true Hollywood treasure. The real deal.

Alana, who started acting professionally when she was already twenty eight years old was a born genius in the field. With no formal training, she entered Hollywood with a bang in a critically-acclaimed movie that bagged her an Academy Award for best-supporting actress. Her name shot to the heavens like a rocket, shone bright like a firmament and never dimmed. While he had dominated the box-office, Alana had gained the deepest respect of the most credible people in the business for making movies that were not all commercial success but wildly heralded by the critics, something he’d not managed to achieve in the course of his stellar career.

“On second thought, it would actually be good for you if you two are seen together again. She just won an Oscar. That magic will rub off on you and the press will see you as sort of deviating from your usual glossy flicks to the more serious stuff. It would be good for your director image if you can get Alana to star in your next film.”

“Wow, two minutes and you’ve already turned a disaster into a potential gold mine. Genius.”

Kelsey dismissed his sarcasm with a flick of her hand. “That’s what you pay me for, darling.”

“No, I won’t use her that way.”

“I’ll bet my brand new convertible from Drew, she'd be ecstatic to receive a call from you again. It will be good for her career, too. After all, you’re still the highest paid actor in Hollywood.”

From a business perspective, Kelsey had a point. Being seen with Alana again would give his image some sort of ‘respectability’ as a budding director.

Respectability. How he detested the word.

How he wanted to earn it, too.

But not through his first ex-wife’s help.

Fate seemed to have other ideas. He saw a lot of Alana again.

Dare answered his phone that morning and was greeted by a shocking news from Kelsey.

Alana was rushed to the hospital. She was found by her maid in her bathtub, unconscious and nearly drowned. Drug overdose was the alleged reason.

He hopped in the shower and bathed in record time. Just as he was putting his pants on, Kelsey was banging on his door. He opened it as he was zipping his fly.

She rushed into his room. “Get dressed! We need to be at the hospital!” she barked urgently, not looking worried but excited.

He must go to the hospital, of course. Alana may be his ex-wife but she was still...family, in a way. The past was ugly, yes, but in situations like this, the past didn’t matter.

“Ken!” Kelsey shouted on the intercom connected to the wall. “Get your ass up here, in Dare’s room, pronto!”

Minutes later, Ken emerged into the room, looking groggy and disoriented, wearing a robe and pajama bottoms. “What happened?”

“Alana is in the hospital! Get him ready!”

“Is she dead?”

Kelsey rolled her eyes. “Fortunately not! Make him really pretty in a disheveled way, like he was abruptly roused from bed. Lots of press and paparazzi will be there! Quick! We have forty-five minutes max! Alana is still in the emergency room as we speak. Her manager is keeping me posted. We have to be there before the press gets there.”

Ken got to work like a high-performance robot. Barking orders on the phone to wake up his minions, Ken took Dare toward a wing in the mansion where a small team of trained stylists lorded over his body every fucking day of his celebrity life.

Taz took care of his hair and face, Mimi, his wardrobe and Starla, the all-around grooming expert took charge of the rest of his body. They all looked pretty and classy and he wasn’t sure which of them were born naturally female. He didn’t really care as long as Cruz had run a background check on them and they turned out clean. Ken hired them for their respective expertise, not for anything else.

They were waiting for him with bright smiles on their faces. “Morning, Dare!” they chorused.

“Morning, ladies. Sorry to wake you up so early.”

“Always our pleasure!” Taz guided him to sit on a hydraulic chair.

Ken was choosing his outfit from the hundreds of designer clothes lining up the walls of the huge suite that functioned as his closet, spa and private salon.

Kelsey hovered about, instructing him on what and what not to say to the press.

Dare let them work on him. It was after all their job and he was paying them big to make him always look a million bucks for the camera.

Chapter Two

“Eeeeek! I so hate your girlfriend Nicolette Parker!!! Sure, she’s famous and fashionable but she’s a well-known

bitch. Sorry for being blunt but I think you and Camryn Rhodes are a better match. You looked great

together when she appeared in The Wannabes. Cam looks natural and laid back, unlike Nicolette who looks like a walking print ad all the time. I can even like Gerri Everdeen for you or Jessalyn Barr. You’ve dated them before.

Break up with Nicolette!!! I love you!:))”

MANY YEARS AGO

MANILA, PHILIPPINES

CELINE CHECKED HER APPEARANCE in the Victorian mirror in her pink bedroom fit for a princess. She was wearing a pair of super tight, super low-cut stretchable denims and loose, white sleeveless shirt that showed a bit of her chest. She finished the ensemble with a pair of black, high-heeled boots. Her long dark-brown hair highlighted with golden streaks fell way below her shoulders in thick, shiny cascades. Her brother hated her current hair color. He said she looked like a dumb Barbie. Jordan was such a straitlaced snob who only liked conservative fashion in his girlfriends. So boring!

She peeled off a chewing gum from a packet and popped it in her mouth. She picked up her aqua blue shoulder bag and walked toward the wall where a huge framed poster hung. Her Auntie Donna bought this special poster for her from an exclusive prints gallery in Hollywood. It was her most precious possession, an original, blown-up, official Dead or Alive movie poster.

“Oh Dare, I love you so much!” she sighed, gazing longingly at the life-size image of the man of her girlish dreams— Hollywood’s hottest, new superstar, handsome, dashing, absolutely gorgeous, blue-eyed, six-foot-two, dark brown hair, to die for hunk, her ultimate crush, her one and only love, Daryl Montgomery, more famously known the world over as simply Dare.

Tonight, she and her cousin and BFF Shavonne were going to see Dare’s latest action sci-fi flick at the Greenbelt Cinemas. She’d waited almost two months for the movie to be shown in the Philippines. At last, she’d be able to ogle her beloved Dare on the wide screen again.

There was nothing on earth that could compare with the giddy excitement she felt while watching a larger than life Dare Montgomery on the big screen, smiling at her, making her more and more in love with him.

She left her room and went to Shavonne’s room across the hallway. Her cousin was staying with them for the entire summer. “Shav, hurry up! We’ll be late for the movie!”

“In a minute!”

She stood there, impatiently chewing her gum, glancing at her watch every now and then. “Shavonne Lavega!!!” she shouted again. She didn’t wanna miss the two-thirty screening time.

Shavonne opened the door looking grumpy and wearing her fave grunge look–– black from head to toe, a Ramones shirt, a pair of beat up Doc Martens, ripped jeans, messy hair and eyes rimmed by eye-liner heavier than The Cure lead singer’s. “What the heck is so urgent?” she grumbled.

“This is a Dare movie and I’ve been looking forward to this for months! Let’s go!”

She ran toward the stairs. Shavonne ran after her. They descended the grand stairway, bouncing on their feet.

They intercepted her Mom in the expansive living room of their mansion. Marjorie Fontaine-Lavega looked statuesque in her electric blue aerobics outfit. She just came out of their private gym. Standing five-feet-eight inches on her bare feet, she was an ex-Miss Young International and was a professional ramp model in the US when her father, Theodore Lavega, a Spanish-Filipino
mestizo
and the heir to the Philippines’ biggest TV network spotted her at a party hosted by his good friend, Steve Goodwyn. Uncle Steve, now a big time movie producer in LA and her father were classmates in a film course at the UCLA back in the day.

Her mother would often recount the story of how she met her father, sighing and giggling like a teenager. Marjorie was such a sucker for romantic stories and her vast collection of romance pocketbooks could attest to that fact. After almost twenty-six years of marriage, her parents remained in love like newlyweds. She had a high standard when it came to love. Her parents were her yardstick.