A flat-screen TV hung above the credenza across the room. A DVD shelf nearby didn’t hold anything interesting—a collection of Damien’s films, plus some other blockbusters. No porn or unmarked cases. The tray in the DVD player was empty. She should be so lucky as to find her DVD in the DVD tray.
Cici walked back across the room and took another peek out the window—still safe. She walked through the door that connected Damien’s study to his master bedroom. He still had a mirror above his bed? Geez, he was pushing sixty. What a perv. She wondered if he had mounted cameras on the ceiling behind the one-way glass. Cici remembered the thrill she felt the first time Damien begged to film them together. Her rush continued when they viewed the tape. The graphic sounds of their lovemaking, watching Damien’s face contort—it had all turned her on. Perhaps the most aroused she’d ever become was watching herself having sex.
She moved through the bedroom toward Damien’s mahogany closet. In the Hollywood Hills home that Cici and Damien shared while married, the contractor built a safe in their closet to Damien’s specifications. Cici guessed that a similar safe resided in this closet. She pulled open the double doors and walked to the far end of the closet. Yep, a door with a lock.
She tried Damien’s birth date; no luck. What was something that Damien always had on his mind? She tried his monthly alimony payment to his first wife, Amanda. Voila. Cici pulled open the door and there, housed inside, identical to the safe built into their home, sat Damien’s new safe. While married to Damien, Cici had opened the other safe several times—usually after Damien had angered her by having an affair—and taken his black card to subsidize her shoe-buying-benders. Hundreds of thousands of dollars later, Damien still hadn’t changed the combination.
Inside the safe was everything Damien wanted to hide from the world. Cici remembered some of these items from their marriage: gun, fake passports, credit cards, securities, and a couple of film reels. In the second drawer she found several unmarked DVDs. She scooped up the DVDs and tossed them into her quilted Marc Jacobs bag.
She closed the safe and the door behind it, and walked out of the closet to glance out the bedroom window toward the tennis courts. Her heart clutched tight in her chest—the tennis court was empty.
“Cici, what are you doing in my bedroom?”
Cici’s fingers tingled with the sound of Damien’s voice. A chill slithered up her spine—what to say—what to do—but she was an actress. This she could handle.
Cici turned to Damien. She fluttered her eyelashes and cocked her hip. “Looking for you, of course.”
Damien’s eyes roved over her body. “Do you ever age?” he asked. “You still look as sexy as the day we met.” He stripped off his tennis shirt and dropped his shorts to the floor. “But, really, what are you doing in here?”
“No one answered the door, and I was looking for you,” Cici said.
He walked naked across the bedroom and into the bathroom. “You could have called.” His voice echoed off the tile walls.
“I did. How do you think I knew you were here?” The water started to run.
“Want to join me?” Damien stood in the doorway of the bathroom, naked, his cock long and hard, aroused by Cici’s presence in his bedroom.
“While I am flattered,” Celeste said, “I’m still living with Ted.”
“Marriage didn’t stop you. Why should living with someone?”
“Maybe that’s why we ended so badly, because marriage didn’t stop either of us.”
“Maybe.” Damien crossed his arms over his chest. “But, really, what do you need? If you’re not in my bedroom to fuck, then why are you here?”
Revulsion pulsed through her like a slimy substance oozing onto her skin. She couldn’t believe that she once loved Damien, that she had allowed him to define her, that she once was the desperate woman who needed a man like Damien to love her. She became a whore for his desires.
“It seems something has come up,” she said. A lascivious grin danced across Damien’s face as he pulled up an eyebrow and glanced down at his own cock. Cici rolled her eyes. “Cute. Other than that.”
Damien walked back into the bathroom. “How can I help?”
Reflected in the bathroom mirrors, Cici watched Damien lean forward to check out his pores. “You remember your attempt to produce porn?”
“Porn? What porn?”
“The DVD,” Cici said.
“Of?” Damien called.
“Me.”
“I gave it to you.”
“Do you remember what I said, about it ever getting out?”
“Something about collateral? That you know secrets about me, too,” Damien called from the bathroom.
“Well, guess what?”
“What?” He emerged from the bathroom, his eyebrows pulled tight and his lips a thin line—a perplexed look on his face. “What are you talking about, Celeste?”
“Someone has it,” Cici said.
“That’s impossible. I made one DVD, which I gave to you, and I destroyed the original footage. There weren’t any copies.”
“Not impossible. The DVD is out there. People are paying big bucks at high-end sex parties to see me.”
Anger rose like bile—a sour taste in her mouth. Her entire life could shatter because of Damien’s perversions. “Your divorce attorney kept the DVD for a while, didn’t she?”
“This is bad,” Damien said. “Really bad. What are you going to do?”
“Me? Don’t you mean
we
? You and your cameras got me into this mess.”
“Cici, I feel for you, really, but we’re divorced. And, frankly, this isn’t my problem.” He walked toward the shower.
“Damien,” Cici called.
He stuck his head out again; impatience whittled away at any charm Damien’s face still carried. “Yeah.”
“You better rethink your position on helping me or all those secrets I know about you? Well, they won’t stay secret for long.”
*
Cici stood alone in the elevator and watched the numbers light up as she ascended to Lydia’s office. She didn’t trust Damien, but she knew that fear and self-interest motivated him. Over the course of their marriage Cici collected enough dirt on Damien to bury him and his massive Bel Aire home.
The doors opened, and Cici breezed by reception and directly to Toddy, who sat just outside Lydia’s door. Toddy scheduled every component of Lydia’s life, and had listened to Lydia’s calls for the last seventeen years. The details Toddy knew about everyone in Hollywood boggled Cici’s mind. With her connections and experience, Toddy could easily sit in Lydia’s chair and run Worldwide.
When Lydia accepted the job as president of production at Worldwide she offered Toddy an overall production. Toddy declined. She preferred instead to manage Lydia’s life, read scripts, prepare script notes, schedule meetings, and greet celebrities. Cici glanced over at Lydia’s two other assistants, both barely out of graduate school, their desks askew with papers, Post-its, and scripts, feverishly working the phones. Toddy, with one notepad and one pen on her desk, pushed and errant wisp of hair behind her ear and with an ever easy, graceful calm spoke into the phone. She glanced up, saw Cici, and gave her the one-second sign.
“Hello, Celeste,” Toddy said once finished with the call. She stood and leaned over her desk. Her embrace was warm—genuine—and managed to transfer the tiniest bit of calm to Cici. “She’s finishing a meeting. Probably five minutes. What can we get you to drink?”
Assistant number two, now poised like a springer spaniel ready to fetch—waited for Toddy’s instructions.
“Flat water with lemon, thank you.”
Toddy nodded imperceptibly, and the girl leapt up to retrieve the water.
“How are you?” Cici asked.
“Busy. Especially since she decided to rush
Vitriol
into production. We’ve reworked the soundstage schedule, and you can imagine how pissed Sean is since we took both his star and his writer from
Sexual Being
to get
Vitriol
going. And you? You look luscious as ever. How’s Ted?”
“Good, he gets back from Hong Kong tonight.”
“Hong Kong? What’s he doing in Hong Kong?”
Celeste raised her eyebrow. How could Toddy, the epicenter of information at Worldwide, fail to know that Ted traveled to Hong Kong to location-scout for a Worldwide film?
“Location-scouting,” Cici said.
“Oh right, right. I forgot.” Toddy’s ever present calming smiled remained pasted to her face but she glanced down at her paper pad and pen. “Here’s Leigh with your water.”
Lydia’s number two placed a crystal glass and a decanter on the table next to Cici.
“I think I hear them now,” Toddy said as Lydia’s office door swung open and Tyler Bruger, an agent from CTA, walked out of Lydia’s office.
“Cici!” Tyler left Lydia and bounded toward Celeste. She braced herself for the full-court press that would come from Tyler.
“Tyler.” She leaned forward and let Tyler air-kiss each of her cheeks.
“How are you? You look stunning. You know I’d love to buy you lunch someday soon. We miss you at CTA.”
When Jessica left to start her own production-management company, Cici had followed as both a client and a friend. She’d yet to pick up a new agency and doubted she ever would. Why should she? Unagented, she was a hot commodity in the entertainment marketplace, and every agency serviced her—sending her scripts and introducing her to their best directing clients—each agency hoped that they’d do such a good job Celeste would sign with them.
“CTA was my home for many years, but once Jessica left, I couldn’t stay.”
A flicker passed through Tyler’s eyes. “How is Jessica? I haven’t seen much of her since she wrapped
Collusion
—you know I rep the female star of the film, Viève Dyson.”
“Jessica mentioned you worked with Vieve. Talented actress even if she’s a little …” Cici waggled her hand back and forth as her words drifted off. Let Tyler sit with the idea that Celeste Solange, the biggest female star in Hollywood, thought Tyler’s up-and-coming actress was an unbalanced crackpot. A bit of real anger flashed in Tyler’s face.
“Have you seen Zymar’s rough cut of
Collusion
? Viève carried the film. You must be looking forward to working with her?”
Her throat clamped closed and Cici tried not to choke on her water.
What? Looking forward to working with Viève?
She bit back her response. “Oh I am. Of course. There’s nothing like talent.”
“Cici,” Toddy Called from her desk. “Lydia’s ready for you now.” Cici picked up her purse. “Wonderful to see you, Tyler.” She glanced at Toddy sitting at her desk behind Tyler. Toddy looked up at the ceiling and shook her head as if to say, they never learn, the young ones—it takes years.
*
“No. No! Lydia, Viève Dyson cannot play my daughter in this film.” Cici paced in front of Lydia’s desk. “Have you spoken to Mary Anne? You know who Viève is, don’t you?”
“Cici, it’s the only way I can hold this film together. Nathan wants Vieve as his lead and so does Steven.”
“Why Steven? He doesn’t even fuck women.”
“I think it’s coming from Billy. We found out that Vieve and Billy are friends from their London days,” Lydia said.
“I’m too old to play Steven’s love interest?”
Lydia bit down on her upper lip. No, Cici was the perfect age, but according to Steven and his over-sized male ego the woman playing his love interest should be nearly fifteen years his junior.
“Oh fuck him,” Cici burst out. “I wasn’t even born when Steven Brockman started doing movies.”
“He’s very concerned about the public’s perception of his age.”
“And I’m not?” Cici stopped pacing and crossed her arms over her chest as if trying to quash the fire that burned through her. “Lydia, I’m an actress over thirty in Hollywood. Any film could be my last.”
“Celeste, you’re overreacting.”
“Am I? I mean, this little tramp broke Mary Anne’s heart by sleeping with her boyfriend, then Viève dated Holden, who is now dating Mary Anne.”
“Should make for an interesting set,” Lydia sighed and placed her hand over her chin.
“What other demands did Steven make?” Her voice was resigned to losing this fight. Cici flopped into the chair opposite Lydia’s desk.
“Billy gets to be the production photographer for a very handsome fee. Steven wants Billy to shoot his Vanity Fair piece.”
“How are you going to deliver a Vanity Fair cover?”
“I’ve got a call into Graydon, but it’s not going to come cheap. Graydon wants an inside look on a Hollywood film set for his February issue. Perhaps following an actress? A behind-the-scenes piece as she does a major film?”
“Who’d want to do that? A film is stressful enough without some journalist following you around.”
“Well,” Lydia leaned forward and placed her elbows on her desk, “with
California Girl
being an Oscar contender …”
“Absolutely not. Are you kidding me? Let a journalist follow me around on set? With a sex tape, your letters hanging over all our heads, Steven’s boyfriend Billy doing production stills, and Vieve? You must have completely lost your mind to even
suggest
this.”
“A journalist on the set of
Vitriol
is the last thing I want, but striking a deal that gets Billy and Steven the cover of Vanity Fair is the only way to hold
Vitriol
together. Without the Vanity Fair cover for Billy, Steven walks. And without the behind-the-scenes piece with you, no cover for Billy. And with no
Vitriol
, Nathan Curtis walks free in the world with the knowledge of the whereabouts of your sex tap going with him.”
Cici was completely correct—the whole thing was insanity—so many secrets—so many lies—how did Lydia ever expect to keep all of the fibs unexposed?
“No one works the press like you. The public adores you. Every magazine that puts you on the cover quadruples its circulation for that month. I spoke to Kiki, and she thinks it’s a great idea.”
Lydia’s reputation—career—and studio were on the line.
“I get to pick the journalist.”
“Kiki already did. It’s Terri Seawell.”
“Terri Seawell? Oh, Lydia, are you sure?” Cici asked. “You and Jessica have to contain the
Vitriol
set, because with Terri Seawell rummaging around she’s bound to find something.”