Sabrina yawned defiantly, but she buckled up anyway, slipping on a pair of Oliver Peoples aviators to shield her eyes from the sun’s early morning glare. Outwardly, she continued to play the rebel – it was all she knew how to do. Inside, however, she felt her stomach flip over, a combination of last night’s excessive alcohol consumption on an empty stomach and visceral, gut-wrenching fear.
What if Ed was right?
What if she really could lose it all?
No. I can’t. I won’t let it happen. If I have to go back to my life before, I’ll kill myself.
The headlines of Sabrina Leon’s rags-to-riches,
True Hollywood Story
were familiar to everyone in America. Homeless kid from Fresno gets plucked from obscurity by big-shot Hollywood producer Tarik Tyler, becomes a mega-star thanks to her lead role in Tyler’s
Destroyers
movies, and slides spectacularly off the rails.
Snore.
No one was more bored by Sabrina’s past than Sabrina, as she’d made patently clear in Revivals’ group therapy sessions.
‘Hi, I’m Amy.’ A shy, middle-aged woman in a drab knitted cardigan introduced herself. ‘I’m here for alcoholism and crystal meth. I pledge confidentiality and respect to the group.’
‘I’m John, I’m here for cocaine. I pledge confidentiality and respect.’
‘Hi, I’m Lisa, I’m an alcoholic. I pledge respect to the group.’
It was Sabrina’s turn. ‘What?’ She looked around her accusingly. ‘Oh, come on. You all know who I am.’
‘Even so,’ said the therapist gently, ‘we’d like you to introduce yourself to the group. As a
person.
’
‘Oh, “as a
person
”,’ Sabrina mimicked sarcastically. ‘As opposed to what? A dog?’
No one laughed.
‘Jesus, OK, fine. I’m Sabrina. I’m here because my manager is an a-hole. Good enough?’
Things got worse when patients were asked to talk about their childhoods. Sabrina sighed petulantly. ‘Dad was a junkie, Mom was a whore, the children’s homes sucked. Next question.’
‘I’m sure there was more to it than that,’ prodded the therapist.
‘Oh, sure. There were the assholes who tried to rape me,’ said Sabrina. ‘From twelve to fifteen I was on the streets. Poor little me, right? Except that it wasn’t poor me, because I got into theatre, and I got out. I got out because I’m talented. Because I’m different. Because I’m better.’
It was the first time Sabrina had expressed any real emotion in session. The therapist seized on it gratefully. ‘Better than who?’ she asked.
‘Better than
you
, lady. And better than the rest of these junkie sad sacks. I can’t believe you guys actually signed up for this piece-of-shit programme out of your own free will.’
Everyone knew that Sabrina Leon was not at Revivals by choice. That her manager, Ed Steiner, had staged an intervention as a last-ditch attempt to salvage her career.
Stumbling out of a Hollywood nightclub a few weeks ago, with a visible dusting of white powder on the tip of her perfect nose, Sabrina had lashed out at Tarik Tyler, the producer who’d discovered her and made her a star, calling him a ‘slave driver’. Tarik, who was black and whose great-grandmother had been a slave, took offence, as did the rest of the industry, who demanded that Sabrina should apologize. Sabrina refused, and a scandal of Mel Gibson-esque proportions erupted, with outrage spewing like lava across the blogosphere.
Access Hollywood
ran Sabrina’s feud with Tyler as their lead story, devoting three-quarters of their nightly entertainment roundup to a vox-pop of ‘celebrity reactions’ to Sabrina’s ingratitude, all of them suitably disgusted and appalled. Even Harry Greene, the famously reclusive producer of the hugely successful
Fraternity
movies, emerged from his self-imposed house arrest to brand Sabrina Leon ‘a graceless, racist brat’. In one, single, ill-judged night, the tide of public affection and goodwill that had swept Sabrina Leon to unprecedented box-office success – America loved a good rags-to-riches story and Sabrina had been the ultimate poor girl made good – turned so suddenly, so violently and completely, it was as if her career had been swept away by a tsunami.
And when the tide finally receded, she’d washed up at Revivals.
‘There’s no need to be insulting,’ chided the therapist.
Isn’t there?
thought Sabrina
She had to get out of this place.
Two weeks she’d been here now. It felt like two years, what with the early-morning starts, the gross, tasteless health food served at every meal, the boring, self-obsessed patients. All the faux emotion of the therapy sessions, the embarrassing over-sharing of feelings, the fucking hand-holding. It made Sabrina want to throw up. Rehab was such a cliché. And, according to Ed Steiner, she still had six weeks to go.
Now, turning back from the window, Sabrina glowered at her manager defiantly.
‘I’m not working for free, Ed,’ she announced bluntly. ‘Not in a million fucking years.’
Ed Steiner sighed. He was used to spoiled, ungrateful actresses, but Sabrina Leon really took the cake. She ought to be on her knees, kissing his hand in gratitude. Here he was offering her a life-line – not just a role, but the
lead
role in Dorian Rasmirez’s much-hyped remake of
Wuthering Heights
– at a time when she couldn’t get cast in a fucking Doritos commercial. And she was bitching because Rasmirez wasn’t going to pay her.
Why the hell should he? Dorian Rasmirez doesn’t need you, you dumb bitch. You need him. Wake up and smell the coffee.
‘Yes you are,’ he said robustly. ‘I accepted on your behalf this morning.’
‘Well you can damn well un-accept!’ screamed Sabrina. ‘I decide what roles I take, Ed. It’s
my
life.
I
have control.’
‘Actually, according to the release you signed when you admitted yourself into the eight-week programme here,
I
have control. At least over your career and business decisions.’ He handed her a piece of paper. Sabrina glanced at it, balled it up in her fist and threw it to the ground.
‘And it’s a good job I do,’ said Ed, unfazed by this childish show of temper. ‘Let’s not go through this charade, OK, Sabrina? It’s boring, it’s bullshit, and you know I’m not buying it. You know as well as I do that you need this part. You
need
it. Right now no other director in Hollywood would piss on you if you were on fire. Sit down.’
Sabrina hesitated. In jeans and a long-sleeved navy-blue tee from Michael Stars, with no make-up on and her long hair pulled back in a ponytail, she looked about a thousand times prettier than she had the last time Ed had seen her. Healthier too, less scrawny, and with the glow restored to her naturally tawny, olive skin.
This place must be doing something right
, he thought.
All she needs is to lose the attitude.
‘Sit,’ he repeated.
Sabrina sat.
‘Dorian Rasmirez has had his issues,’ he went on, ‘but he’s still a big name, and this is gonna be a big movie.’
Sabrina softened slightly. ‘When does it start shooting?’
‘May probably. Or June. They’re still scouting for locations.’
‘Locations?’ Sabrina pouted petulantly. A location shoot meant months away from LA, from the clubs and parties and excitement that had become her drug of choice. ‘What’s wrong with the back lot at Universal?’
‘Nothing,’ said Ed sarcastically, ‘except the fact that it’s not a Universal Picture. And it’s
Wuthering Heights
.’
Sabrina looked blank. She’d never been big on literature.
‘
Wuthering Heights
? One of the greatest classic novels of all time? Cathy and Heathcliff? Set on wild, windswept moorland?’ Ed shook his head despairingly. ‘Never mind. The point is, it’ll do you good to get out of Los Angeles for a while. Out of the public eye altogether, in fact. We issued your apology statement the day after you came in here, which may have helped a little. We’ll probably do another one before you check out. But it’s still a shit-storm out there. You need to disappear and you need to work. Come back in a year, healthy and happy and with a hit movie under your belt—’
‘A
year
!’ Sabrina interrupted. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
Being away from the LA party scene was bad enough. But the thought of being out of the media glare for so long – of not having her picture taken or seeing her face in magazines – made Sabrina’s heart race with panic. You might as well tell her she couldn’t breathe, or eat. Without attention she would wither and die, like a sunflower locked in a cellar.
Ignoring her, Ed Steiner went on.
‘I know they’re filming some of it in Romania, at Dorian Rasmirez’s Schloss. I’m told that’s worth seeing,’ he added, trying to strike a more cheerful note. ‘Oh, and I didn’t tell you the best part. It’s not a hundred per cent confirmed yet, but it looks like Viorel Hudson’s signing on as Heathcliff.’
Sabrina rolled her eyes.
That was the ‘best part’? What was the worst part? Were they filming it naked in Siberia?
The one, the only, good thing about Dorian Rasmirez’s offer was that it would be a vehicle for re-launching Sabrina back into the box-office big league. If Viorel Hudson was involved, she’d have to fight for top billing, and probably for the dressing-room mirror as well. Rumoured to be unimaginably vain, Viorel Hudson was probably the one man in Hollywood whose sex appeal, and arrogance, rivalled Sabrina’s own. They had never met, but Sabrina knew instinctively that she would loathe Viorel Hudson.
Ed Steiner looked at his watch. ‘I’d better go. I have a meeting at The Roosevelt in an hour.’
Rub it in, why don’t you?
thought Sabrina bitterly.
I have a meeting with a bunch of whining alcoholics and a ‘speerchal’ healer from Topanga Canyon whose last brain cell died in 1972.
‘I’ll bike you over the script tomorrow. Give you something to do between sessions. How’s it going, by the way? This place helping you at all?’
Serena smiled sweetly. ‘Go fuck yourself, Ed.’
That night, staring at the ceiling in her hard, uncomfortable single bed, Sabrina hugged herself and said a silent prayer of thanks.
She’d played it cool with Ed, just as she played it cool with everyone. But she knew what a miracle Rasmirez’s offer was. Dorian Rasmirez was one of the most respected directors in Hollywood. He’d have had actresses lining up to play the part of Cathy. Actresses whom the world wasn’t unfairly branding a racist. But for some reason, Rasmirez had chosen her.
Fate
, she thought.
I was born to succeed. It’s my destiny.
All Sabrina had to do now was to give the performance of her life. And to make sure she out-dazzled the smug, self-satisfied Viorel Hudson.
Still
, she reassured herself,
that shouldn’t be too hard.
If all else failed, she could always seduce Hudson. Once Sabrina Leon slept with a man, her power over him was total.
Hollywood might have written her off. But Hollywood was wrong.
Sabrina Leon was on her way back.
‘Oh my God, Vio! Don’t stop! Please don’t stop. Oh … Jesus!’
Viorel Hudson had no intention of stopping. The girl lying spread-eagled beneath him on the soft-pink bed of the Chateau Marmont’s exclusive Bungalow 1 was Rose Da Luca, currently the highest-paid model in America and number one on most adult males’ ‘fantasy fuck’ lists. Unusually for such a stunning girl, Rose was also good in bed: coy on the surface, but wildly passionate and adventurous underneath.
In fact, scratch adventurous
, thought Viorel delightedly as he felt Rose’s index finger circling his asshole.
She’s filthy. I think I might be in love.
Flipping Rose over onto her knees – much more of that finger and he was going to come on the spot – he entered her from behind, slowing his pace till he could feel her writhe in delicious, agonizing frustration. Looking down at her arched back, and that famous mane of red hair spread over the pillow like a halo, he felt a familiar rush of triumph. It was the same feeling he got whenever he bedded a woman he wanted, or landed a role that he knew countless other actors coveted. For Viorel, the pleasure of any experience was always enhanced by the sense of competition. Acting was fun. Sex was even better. But
winning
… that was the biggest thrill of all.
Nailing Rose Da Luca was actually the final triumph in what had been a uniquely triumphant day. Not only had Viorel signed on the dotted line to play Heathcliff in the remake of
Wuthering Heights
, which meant he would be working with one of his all-time idols, Dorian Rasmirez; but to his surprise (and his agent’s frank astonishment) Rasmirez had offered him five and a half million dollars for the privilege. Five million was the magic number in Hollywood, the number that separated successful film actors from bona fide movie stars. It was a rubicon that, once crossed, pretty much guaranteed you a place in the pantheon of the greats. Until your first big box-office flop, of course, at which point you could slide back down the snake into the twos, or sometimes even lower. For Viorel Hudson, however, it was a win–win situation. Despite his high public profile (last year he’d been named Sexiest Man Alive by
People
magazine, an accolade that he claimed to be embarrassed by but secretly revelled in), Viorel had never earned more than a million dollars on a movie. That was because he’d carefully chosen projects with artistic merit over blockbusters with multimillion-dollar budgets. As a result he was revered by many of his peers as an actor with integrity, an actor’s actor: low-key, professional, devoted to his craft.
In fact, nothing could have been further from the truth. While it was true that Vio preferred to work with good scripts than poor ones – who didn’t? – his apparently eclectic choice of movie roles was actually part of a diligently planned strategy, the purpose of which was to make Viorel Hudson as rich and as famous as possible as fast as possible. By carving out a niche and a name for himself on the indie circuit (he’d already starred in two Sundance winners and this year’s runner-up at Venice), while simultaneously using his publicist to push his image as a mainstream sex symbol, Viorel’s intention was always to make a sideways leap into big-league commercial movies, leapfrogging past his rivals faster than he could have hoped to had he taken a string of small parts in forgettable box-office hits. Even in his wildest fantasies, however, Vio had not imagined that he would sign a contract of this size for at least another three or four years. And to get it for a Rasmirez movie! – to be able to combine the pay-cheque he craved with the genuinely good-quality work he enjoyed – that was really the icing on the cake. He’d have accepted the part for a million, maybe even less. Rasmirez must have been dead set on casting him to have offered so much over the odds. Either that or he was secretly gay and hoping to get into Viorel’s boxer shorts; which, given that Dorian had a reputation as the most happily married man since Barack Obama, was probably unlikely.