Hollywood Prince

by Natasha Madison

  “Shlong?” He laughs. “You know that means I have a huge dick, right?”

  I groan. “What the hell are you talking about?” I scoop up a forkful of eggs and eat.

  “It’s in the urban dictionary. It means not for regular size dicks but for dicks with substantial length and girth.” He winks at me. “You are not wrong in either case.”

  “You have to be the most infuriating person I have ever met,” I tell him, shaking my head.

  “I needed this,” he says softly, and I look up. “After that scene in there, I needed this to take my mind off it.”

  “You can’t do that,” I tell him, dropping my fork. “You can’t be an asshole one second and then be soft and gentle the next.”

  “I didn’t mean to be an asshole. I guess I inherited that from my parents.” He shrugs his shoulders. “And if it’s worth anything”—he leans in—“I will be more than happy to see you naked.” I shake my head, trying to hide my laughter. “Too much?”

  “Too much.” I agree with him. “You know, I don’t know the story of your parents and what’s become of them since, but I do know that at one point you need to stop blaming them and start making yourself unlike them.”

  He laughs. “You sound like my shrink.”

  “Not even trying to be. My parents, thank God, are great,” I tell him. “They were never together. I mean, they dated but were not exclusive. My father could have said sorry, I’m out, but he didn’t. He took it and ran with it. They co-parented me, and I never felt that I was missing anything.”

  “My parents spent every single last cent I ever made by the time I turned eighteen,” he says, leaning back. “Everything. I had nothing to show for all my hard work.” I try not to open my mouth in shock. “They were off living the lavish life, and they stuck me in a one-bedroom condo from when I was fourteen and then stuck me in my fake school house. They would show up when they knew people were asking questions.” Oh my God. “They would swoop in and pretend they were the best parents in the world.” He laughs bitterly. “There is this one picture of us on the red carpet. I was in a mini tux, and my mother actually showed up wearing a mink fur wrap. It was July in Hollywood.” He rubs his face with his hands. “I need a nap.” He gets up and walks to the bedroom. “There is only one bed, but if you want to nap, I can sleep out on the bench.”

  “No,” I say to him. “I’m good. I’m going to get some work done.” He nods his head and falls onto the bed but keeps the door open. He falls asleep on his back, and he didn’t even kick off his shoes. I grab my computer, and instead of working, I end up on Google and go in search of the picture he was talking about. I find that one and so many more, and I want to jump into the computer and smack his parents. You can totally see the sadness in his eyes. I spend way too much time looking at his old pictures, and then I find one of him with a girl. He looks like he’s eighteen or nineteen. I click the picture and then a whole bunch of them pop up. Looking into the room where he’s sleeping, I suddenly feel guilty, like I’m snooping in his black book of sorts. I close the screen and open another and start really working because at the end of all this is the big prize. My career means more than this assignment, and I’m in this for the long game, not for what the next thirteen days will bring.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Carter

  I fall into bed, and I think of the story I just told her about my parents. I don’t know what she does or how she does it, but I just want to tell her everything. She isn’t going to sit there with googly eyes looking at me. No, she is going to sit there and tell me when I’m an asshole. And I have to admit, around her, I’m more of an asshole than I want to be. I stay in bed until someone knocks on the side of my trailer. “Thirty minutes to roll call.”

  I roll off the bed and stretch my arms, hitting the roof of the trailer. Walking out of the bedroom, I see that Erin is typing away on her laptop, and her fingers are going a mile a minute. “Are you going to come on set?” I ask her, opening the fridge and grabbing an orange juice.

  “I am, actually,” she says, turning to me. “I’m going to take a couple of pictures to get the movie Instagram page started and also one with you on the set.”

  “After this scene, I’m off for the rest of the day,” I tell her, looking at the clock. It’s almost noon, and I feel like it’s already bedtime. I nod at her and then make my way to the makeup corner. Mandy is there waiting for me. “Make me beautiful.”

  “There are not enough hours in the day to make you beautiful”—she snickers—“but I can try.” I close my eyes, waiting for her to put the gunk on my face.

  “I’m going to take a picture of him just like that,” Erin says. I open one eye, and she snaps a picture. “‘If you think I’m sexy, come on and tell me so’ is going to be the caption.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Mandy says. “She is going to break the internet.”

  “Not yet,” Erin says, “but I’m going to do my best. Maybe if we can get a shirtless one. The ladies love that.”

  “Sweetheart, if you want me to take off my shirt, all you have to do is ask,” I tell her with a wink.

  “Please, I think I’m going to be sick,” she says, holding her hand to her stomach.

  “I like her,” Mandy says. “She doesn’t fall for your movie star looks or your corny pickup lines.”

  “That she does not,” I say to Mandy and watch Erin in the mirror now as she types away on her phone.

  “All done,” Mandy says. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” I get up and walk to the door.

  “Here we go.” I get into a golf cart and wait for Erin to get in with me. “One scene and I get to go home and shower. I might even nap.”

  “You just took a two-hour nap,” she says from beside me, and I look over.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t really sleep last night,” I tell her, and she looks over at me. I pull up to the warehouse and get out. I hold the door open for her, and we come face-to-face with Jennifer.

  “There you are, Mr. Johnson. I was just coming to get you,” she says. I just nod at her, and she turns and hurries away.

  Ivan’s standing in the same living room set where I filmed this morning. We go over how he wants the scene, and I walk to get into the zone. I’m playing a father whose daughter was kidnapped, and just the thought makes my stomach turn. I never want to have kids, ever, but if I did, I would be the best person I could be for them. I wouldn’t stop searching until my last breath. I try to get the scene in one take, but it takes fifteen, and by the end, I’m emotionally spent. I nod to Ivan when it’s done and look around. Erin is standing on the side with her eyes on her phone. I walk to her, and she looks up, and I see that she has tears in her eyes.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask her, and she just shakes her head. “Are you hurt?” I grab her by her shoulders and almost shake her. “Did someone say something to you?”

  “No,” she says softly. “That scene was crazy good.” I watch as she blinks away tears. Wrapping her in my arms, I just stand here with my chin on her head. After the scene, I was in my head. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, and I struggled with how it was going to be, but this, with her in my arms and hugging me back, was exactly what I needed. I think the last time I really hugged someone was ten years ago, and we all know how that turned out.

  “Are you good?” I whisper, and she nods her head so I let her go but keep my arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” I say as we walk toward the door. “Spoiler alert, he finds the daughter and they live happily ever after.”

  She pushes away from me. “You are the worst,” she tells me. We hop in the first available golf cart and make our way toward my trailer. She gets her stuff, and I change out of my costume, leaving it on the bed. Opening the door, she is there with her phone in her hand. “Four million likes in two hours.” Her face is beaming as she turns the phone around and shows me. “And four thousand comments.” I walk out the door and wait for her.

  “So do they think I'm sexy or not
?” I ask her, walking to the waiting town car.

  “Sorry.” She smirks. “It’s a no,” she jokes, and now it’s me who pushes her. She throws her head back and laughs. I open the car door for her, and she gets in. When we get to the house, I open the door, and she slowly walks up the steps, and then she stops. “What is all this?” she says, and I stop beside her. I look at the room that has so many flowers it smells like a flower shop. Numerous different bouquets fill the room.

  “This is my way of saying I’m sorry, and because I didn’t know which flower you liked, I ordered one of everything,” I tell her, and she walks to a bouquet of roses and leans down and smells it. Her face is glowing. “So I called the shop and ordered everything that I could or, better yet, anything they could get with such short notice.” I look around, and there are roses in white, pink, purple, blue, red, yellow. Daisies, orchids, birds-of-paradise, and tulips. If it’s a flower, it’s in this room.

  “This is incredible.” She looks around, and it really is, but it is nothing like her smile. I would do it all over again to see her smile like that. I mean, I don’t mean I’d be an asshole again, but I would do the whole flower thing again to see her smile like that.

  “This has to be the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.” She walks over to me and gets on her tippy toes and for just one second, my heart stops. My breathing stops, everything stops. Her hands land on my waist as she leans in and kisses my cheek. A simple and innocent move that shifts my world.

  “Anytime, sweetheart,” I tell her, and then I turn and walk away to my bedroom, where I lock myself in the bathroom to take care of my raging hard-on. My cock hasn’t gotten the memo that she’s off-limits. Stepping in the shower with the hot water flowing all around me, I close my eyes and picture her lips on my neck, her hands on my cock, and then my hands in her hair, and I come whispering her name on my lips.

  I debate on a nap, but I choose not to, or else I’ll be fucked tonight. So I walk in search of Erin when I hear pots banging. “Yeah, Mom. You already told me. Sauce then cheese.”

  I walk into the kitchen, and she has changed out of her dressy pants into tight yoga pants with a crop top and has her long hair piled on her head. My cock stirs again. She is standing at the counter with chicken in front of her. “Mom, I have to go,” she says when she finally looks up.

  “What’s going on?’ I ask, looking at two pots on the stove. Walking over, I see one has just water in it while the other has a tomato sauce that is boiling away and splashing everywhere. I lower the temperature and stir it with the wooden spoon that is on the counter.

  “I wanted to do something nice, so I thought I’d make you chicken parm, but I couldn’t really find an easy recipe, so I called my mother,” she says, “and she was going on and on about how to make it, and well, I’m going to wing it and hope for the best.”

  “You did all this for me?” I say in shock, looking at this woman who, for the past four days has taken the brunt of my asshole ways, is going out of her way and winging it to make me chicken parm.

  “I did it for me, too, but mostly for you,” she says and then cracks an egg in a bowl and then another. “If you want, you can search and see if you can find a recipe that is easy.” I just stare at her as she whisks the eggs and then goes in search of bread crumbs. She finds them and empties the whole bag on the plate and then slices the chicken breast into smaller pieces. “Do you think I need to add salt and pepper before I bread them?” she asks me, and I’m still here staring at her. She has turned the kitchen into a disaster, to say the least, but she has done it for me. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. “Carter.”

  “Yeah,” I say, blinking at her.

  “Salt and pepper. Should I put it on the chicken?” she asks me and uses the back of her hand to scratch her forehead. “I think what’s the worst that can happen, right?”

  “I’ll google,” I tell her and go back to get my phone in the room. I have to sit on the bed and get my heart beating regularly. I sit here, and I breathe in and out, and then I see her standing in the doorway.

  “Are you okay?” she asks with worry on her face. “You don’t have to eat it.”

  “No one has ever cooked for me,” I tell her. “I mean, I think my mother did once upon a time, but then she found that it was easier to pop things into the microwave, and then she used to order my meals.”

  “Carter,” she says softly, and I shake my head.

  “No, it’s fine,” I say. “I just need a second to process it.”

  “Do you want me to stay, or do you want me to go?” she asks, and I look at her. This woman pushes my buttons but then brings out something that I didn’t even know was possible. This woman who hands down is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. This woman who tells me to fuck off and then calls me an asshole and forgives me more this week than she should have.

  “If I told you to stay, you would, wouldn’t you?” I ask her the question.

  “Well, yeah,” she says, coming in and sitting on the bed next to me. “Isn’t that what friends do?”

  “I don’t know. Never had any real friends,” I tell her the truth. “I’ve only had Hollywood friends.”

  “I take it those aren’t real friends?” she asks. I notice she has a bread crumb in her hair.

  “Did you turn off the stove?” I ask her, and her eyes go wide. Jumping off the bed, she runs to the kitchen, and I grab my phone and follow her. Luckily, nothing is burned, and the water is boiling.

  “Okay, let me see if we can pull up a recipe and do this,” I tell her, and she turns around.

  “No,” she says loudly. “I want to do this, so go watch television. Or, I don’t know, read your script for tomorrow. I’ve got this.”

  “Are you sure?” I ask her, and she nods.

  “You can make room for us to eat since every surface is full of flowers,” she says. I look around, and she isn’t wrong. The table is so full, as is the living room table and the counter, so I don’t know where to start. When I look back into the kitchen, she is frying the chicken. She looks over at me and smiles. “Watch out Iron Chef, I’m coming for you.”

  I laugh at her when she finally places the chicken in the oven, and she is stirring the pasta. “The pasta is going to be done before the chicken is ready,” she says and groans. “It’s going to be so bad.”

  “It isn’t going to be bad,” I tell her. “Just broil the chicken since it’s already cooked. All you need is for the top to cook.”

  “Great idea, sous chef,” she says and turns the knob. Ten minutes later, she is plating the pasta and chicken parm.

  She brings the plate over to the table that I set while she was cooking. She puts a plate down for me and a smaller one for herself. She sits and looks over at me and laughs. “If it’s not good, we can order something.”

  Cutting a piece of chicken, I put it in my mouth, and believe it or not, it’s the best chicken parm I’ve ever eaten. “It’s really good,” I tell her, grabbing another piece.

  “It isn’t too bad,” she says, and I look back at her and see sauce has splattered on her shirt, and it will probably be stained by the oil splashes, but I wouldn’t change it. “The pasta could use some salt.”

  “Everything is perfect,” I tell her, and I mean it. I eat everything on my plate and even go back in for seconds. “Do you cook for your boyfriend?” I ask her the nagging question that has been looming in the back of my head since Saturday.

  She looks at me, grabbing her bottle of water. “I don’t have a boyfriend,” she says, blocking her mouth with the bottle. My head tilts at her, and she changes the subject. “How do you stay in shape?” she asks me.

  I look at her. “Did you ever have a boyfriend, or were you just fucking with me?” I wait a second for her to answer and then continue. “I work out five times a week,” I tell her, “but honestly, it’s good genes. I guess I can thank my parents for one thing.”

  “You assumed I had a boyfriend, so I let yo
u assume,” she tells me, then again changes the subject. “Well, I definitely didn’t inherit my mother’s boobs,” she says, laughing. “Actually, come to think of it, she is the opposite of me. She’s tall and curvy where I’m just tall and tall.”

  I laugh and then look at her. “You know what they say when you assume something?” I ask her, and this conversation now has us tiptoeing around everything. “You make an ass out of you and me.” She laughs, and then my voice goes soft. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.” I tell her the truth. “And I’ve met a shit ton. But you, you have this easiness to you that brings you so up there that you’re untouchable.” She doesn’t say anything. She just stares at me. “Whether you’re wearing sweats or fancy ass shit, you just walk in, and everyone stops to look at you.” I put my knife down. “You’re stunning, Erin,” I say softly, and then I lean in and kiss her on the cheek, smelling the light citrus she has on. “Now, since you cooked, I will clean.” I smile at her. “Apparently, it’s a universal rule.”

  “Um,” she says, pushing away from the table. “I think now is a good time to shower.” She turns and walks away, and I sit at the table a little longer, thinking about what I told her. About how I wanted to rub my nose on her cheek and then trail soft kisses down to her lips. To see if her eyes sparkle when my lips met hers.

  It’s right then that I realize exactly how fucked I am . . . and that’s not in the good way.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Erin

  “I think all this marketing for the movie is going great,” Sylvia says during our Skype call one week in. “I think we were even trending on Twitter, and Entertainment Hollywood is coming next week, I think Wednesday, to tour the set.”

  “That sounds great,” I tell her as I sit in the trailer waiting for Carter to finish filming his scene. I’ve been awake since two thirty this morning, and it’s almost four p.m. “The movie’s Instagram page is up to twenty-five million.”