Star Struck (Hollywood Heat)

by Laurelin Paige

  “Wow. Big job. I heard you could be up for an Oscar nom.”

  “I’m not getting my hopes up.” Though he was an early front-runner.

  But while an Oscar would be very exciting, he didn’t need it to feel validated. He loved his job. It was one of the top jobs a person could have on a movie, and he’d worked his way up from carpenter to set decorator to set designer to art director before finally landing on production designer. He loved every aspect of his job. He loved working with the director to determine how a movie was supposed to look and feel, and then creating it from scratch. He loved overseeing the set and costume design, and working with the director of photography to make sure his vision would show up the way he wanted on film.

  He loved that he got to select and hire all the people to get it done right—the make-up artists, the costumers. The carpenters.

  “Well, good luck,” Patrick said. “I’d love to see you win a big award. I could say I knew you when. And don’t worry, mum’s the word.”

  The sound of a woman clearing her throat drew Seth to look up behind him. Heather stood with arms crossed and a glare on her face. Had she overheard his conversation?

  “You’re in my seat.”

  No, it didn’t seem she had. He imagined she’d be the type to throw the information in his face if she had.

  She raised her eyebrows as if prompting a response.

  “Yep, I’m in your seat.” Seth scooted back to his own chair. “And now I’m not.”

  Heather slid into her chair and Seth didn’t miss that she inched it away from him as she did.

  That was fine. He didn’t want to be sitting next to her either. The sooner the evening was over, the better.

  Heather seemed to feel the same. “Patrick, I’m leaving in twenty. If you want me to be here for intros, you’d better do them now.”

  Everything on her time schedule. Total diva.

  Patrick glanced at his watch. “Yes, that’s a good idea.” He stood and got the room’s attention by tapping his drink with a spoon.

  Seth barely listened as Patrick introduced himself and welcomed everyone to the event. Then it was time for introductions, starting with Heather.

  Heather’s speech was modest, stating only her experience with the 24-Hour Plays and not reciting her long resume of films and television appearances. She didn’t need to. Everyone knew who Heather Wainwright was.

  When she sat, everyone clapped. Except Seth. He wasn’t trying to blatantly be rude, he just couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge anything about her.

  He stood for his own intro. “I’m Seth Rafferty. It’s my first time at the plays. I’ll be building the set, a new element of this year’s production.” He caught the eye of Neil Phillips, the only other person in the room who knew Seth’s real job experience. “I’ve, uh, been working on film sets for nearly twenty years now. And that’s about it.”

  It wasn’t a lie; he didn’t say he’d been building film sets for twenty years, just that he’d been working on them. And from Neil’s nod, he could tell he got the message across. Neil wouldn’t give him away.

  Seth sat back down, pleased with himself. This was good. Heather would avoid him because he was only a carpenter and he could focus on his job.

  And maybe he’d have to whack off a few times to get her lush lips and orange blossom scent out of his head, but he wouldn’t be the first guy to pleasure himself with Heather Wainwright on the brain.

  Somehow that thought only made him tense up again.

  Yeah, the next few days were going to be a bitch.

  Three

  Heather watched out the tinted passenger window of the BMW as an up-and-coming director walked into the Broad Stage with his assistant. A few feet behind him was a writer she recognized as well.

  “It’s five ‘til nine. I guess I got you here too early,” Lexie said. “Do you want me to drive around?”

  “No. I want to be on time. But only just on time. So let’s sit a couple of minutes. At least until another one of the actors shows up.” Heather heard how she sounded, how her arrival rules seemed like a game. She wished for the millionth time that she didn’t have to be like that.

  But then for the millionth time she reminded herself that this had been the life she’d wanted. The fame and the fortune didn’t come free.

  “You never told me how last night went.” Lexie pushed the recline button on her seat. “Since we have a few minutes.”

  Heather groaned. When she’d left Drebs after the intros the night before, she’d been in no mood to talk. Her encounter with Seth Rafferty had left her furious and frustrated. Sexually frustrated. To the point that even her favorite pink vibrator wasn’t able to ease her need.

  More than twenty-four hours later, her anger had softened, but her confusion had increased. Maybe talking about it would help.

  Problem was, where to begin? “It was terrible.” Seth wasn’t the guy she thought he was. The realization had come with Patrick’s ridiculous announcement. “They’re changing the format. They’ve added a set to the show to be constructed in the same time frame.”

  “That might be cool.”

  Heather gave Lexie her best “Seriously?” look.

  But in the privacy of her car with just her assistant, she allowed herself to give it some real thought. “I guess it might be cool. But it’s totally unnecessary.”

  “And…?”

  Lexie had worked with Heather long enough to tell when she was holding something back. Sometimes it was a good thing. Sometimes not so much. “And the guy who’s building the set is an asshole.”

  “Is he?”

  “He totally called me a bitch.”

  “Just out of the blue?”

  “Sort of.” No, not out of the blue. That’s why she hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Because she’d probably deserved what he’d dished and she didn’t want to admit that.

  She pressed her face against the window remembering how into Seth she’d been before…well, before. And how into him she was after, too. Even though she was pretending like hell that she wasn’t. “He’s also really, really hot.”

  “Oh.”

  Her head snapped toward Lexie. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Lexie fiddled with her nose ring and shrugged. “It means, oh.” Heather continued to stare at her friend until she sighed. “It means I understand your frustration. He’s cute, but you would never fool around with a guy like that.”

  “A guy like what?” Heather held her breath, half dreading, half hoping Lexie would confront her on her shallowness.

  “An asshole.”

  “Right.” Heather nodded, accepting the lie. “That’s exactly the problem.”

  “What else would it be?”

  Of course that wasn’t what Lexie had meant by a guy like that. She’d meant that Heather would never date a blue-collar type of guy. She’d meant it was beneath her. And if Lexie had been brave enough to say it, Heather couldn’t have denied it.

  She was so fucking petty, it made her sick.

  But she couldn’t change how she felt. A lifetime of hard knocks had tattooed her soul, and her conceit was born of her attempt to leave that part of her behind. Heather didn’t talk about it much, but she’d shared bits and pieces of her past with her assistant. Though she didn’t have to explain, she was flooded now with the need to be understood, to validate her emotions, to maybe come to some understanding herself.

  “Do you know what my father said to me the day he kicked me out?” Heather looked straight ahead, afraid of the intimacy of eye contact. “I was sixteen. I’d told him he was a piece of trash. And he said, ‘Trash breeds trash, babydoll. That’s all you’ve ever been, that’s all you’ll ever be.’”

  Her eyes stung with the memory. Her mother passed out drunk on the beat-up loveseat they’d covered with a ratty mustard-colored quilt, her father buzzed from coke, smelling like old food and sweat—the scent he always bore after finishing his shift as a dishwasher for a local rest
aurant. Heather had gotten home late after a show she was in at the community theater and he’d gone off on her, complaining that she didn’t pull her weight around the house. He told her she had to quit all that “acting stuff,” drop out of school and get a real job.

  And in retaliation, she’d told him she wasn’t going to give up her future just because her parents were trash.

  He’d laughed at her. Told her she’d never amount to anything.

  Then he told her to get her things and get out.

  So she did. And she never looked back.

  Well, maybe she did look back. More like kept peering over her shoulder. She had to, since the past found a way of slamming into her from behind from time to time, and keeping an eye out for it at least helped her to be prepared.

  Now, Heather bit her lip before any tears could fall and was surprised when Lexie’s hand landed firm and comforting on her thigh.

  “But you’re not trash,” Lexie said. “And you never were. And even if you messed around with a guy who reminded you of the trailer parks, it wouldn’t mean you were living up to your daddy’s prophecy.”

  “I know.” But didn’t Heather believe exactly that? That if she didn’t rise above her past in every area of her life, then she would prove her father right? Even now, as successful and rich as she was, she always felt like she was just one wrong choice away from being right back where she came from. “I know,” she said again. “But I don’t know. You know?”

  “I know.”

  Heather returned her gaze out the window and saw an actor she knew entering the Broad Stage. “There’s Matt Shone. I should go in.”

  She reached for her oversized bag. But the strap caught on her seatbelt latch and the whole thing tumbled forward, the contents spilling onto the floor of the car.

  Heather cursed as she began shoving items back in her bag. This was totally a sign that she should clean out her purse more often. Did she really need three packs of gum and four different flavors of lip gloss? Not to mention the random papers and trash and parking receipts.

  Her hand closed around her birth control pack—her empty birth control pack—and she cursed again.

  “What’s wrong now?” Lexie asked, pointing her cell phone light toward the floor so Heather could see what she was doing.

  Heather held up the foil pack. “I was supposed to pick up my refill today and I forgot. Can you go?” She’d already missed starting her pack by a day. Maybe two. She didn’t quite remember. Mostly she used them to regulate her period these days anyway since sex wasn’t in her current repertoire.

  “Of course. At your pharmacy back in Bel Air?”

  “Yeah. Do you mind?” Heather felt awful. It would be more than an hour round trip. “I’m really sorry.”

  Lexie shrugged. “No problem. Can you manage the check-in without me?”

  Heather considered. “I’m sure I can figure it out. Just be back to pick me up when we’re done with the intros, which should be around eleven.”

  “Then I’ll see you at eleven.”

  “Cool.” Heather opened the door and stepped out of the car, slinging her purse over her shoulder.

  “Don’t let anyone call you a bitch,” Lexie called after her.

  Heather rolled her eyes but smiled before she shut the door behind her.

  At the entrance of the Broad Stage, she was greeted by a member of the stage crew that she recognized from previous years, though she couldn’t recall her name. Oh, Vera. That was it. The tag on her breast pocket displayed it as a reminder.

  Vera led Heather through the sign-in process. First she took her picture against a black backdrop for the programs and together they composed a short bio. Then there was the equity paperwork that, had she been there instead of driving off to Bel Air, Lexie would have filled out. Heather struggled through it herself, asking for a new form when she’d accidentally written down the real year she’d been born instead of the one she kept on file with Actor’s Equity. It was pathetic how much she relied on her assistant.

  Throughout check-in, Heather kept her eyes on the people roaming the theater. Though she wouldn’t admit it out loud, she was searching for Seth. His call time had been earlier and he was likely already there, probably backstage. But she couldn’t stop hoping he’d pop up in the lobby. She wanted to see him again in the worst way. Wanted to see if that weird attraction she had for him was really as strong as she remembered or if she’d heightened its intensity in her mind.

  But the only people she encountered were writers and directors and actors signing in, as well as the stage manager’s crew leading them.

  When all of Heather’s paperwork was completed, Vera gathered a few of the actors and gave them a tour of the stage while she went through the familiar spiel of how the next twenty-four hours would work. “You have ten minutes until intros start. Everyone will be there and you’ll get matched up with the writers and the directors. There’s six of each. After your intros, the writers will have all night to write their plays, about fifteen pages—fifteen minutes—in length. They’ll include info from your intros in the plays they write, so if there’s something you really want to do on stage that you’ve never done, that’s the time to mention it.”

  Heather bumped hips with Angie, one of the other actresses. “I know you’ve always wanted to smack me. Now’s your chance.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Exactly,” Vera agreed. “The writers have until six in the morning to hand in a finished draft of their play. The directors will arrive at seven. They’ll meet with their crews at eight to discuss tech, blocking, and this year, set construction.”

  Heather’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of set, and the thought of Seth. She barely heard Vera continue with her speech.

  “At nine, rehearsals start. You’ll rehearse all day until the show goes up tomorrow night at seven. The whole she-bang will be over by nine p.m. Then we party.”

  “What will they do with the set pieces after the show?” Matt Shone asked.

  Good point. Just more proof the whole idea was a waste of resources.

  But Vera’s answer surprised Heather. “They’re auctioning them off next month to raise more money for Urban Arts. You can’t imagine how much some people will pay to sit in a chair that was used by Heather Wainwright.”

  Heather smiled weakly. It was true—her discarded trash made tons of money on eBay. Selling the set pieces was a great idea. An excellent idea. Maybe she’d judged the concept too harshly.

  Of course she already knew it had been the guy, not the idea, that had put her in a dither the night before. He’d even rightly called her on it.

  “And what do we do with the props we brought?” This was Matt’s first year at the event and he’d been asking a lot of questions. He was younger than Heather and didn’t run in her circles, but she’d met him a couple of times before.

  She shook off thoughts of Seth. “Share your prop at the intros,” she told Matt. “Then the writers will add them into their plays somehow. It’s wicked funny.”

  “What did you bring?”

  “Uh, uh. You’ll find out when everyone else does.”

  The props were Heather’s favorite part of the intros. Some of the items she’d brought in the past included a clown suit, a Chiquita Banana hat, and a large wooden moose. She’d had to make-out with the moose in that play. It had been the hit of the night. This year she’d brought fur-lined handcuffs. It was sort of on the tame side as far as props went, but a good writer could do something awesome with it.

  Except, now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen the handcuffs when she’d been stuffing her contents back into her bag after spilling it all over the car.

  She slipped away from the group into the vestibule at the back of the theater. Dread began to rise as she rooted around through her purse searching for the prop. Then dread turned into panic when she confirmed its absence.

  Dammit!

  She pulled her phone from its pocket on the side of he
r purse and pushed the speed dial button for Lexie. Before her upbeat voice could get out a proper greeting, Heather jumped on her. “Did I leave my cuffs in the car?”

  “What?”

  “My handcuffs. My prop for tonight. Did they fall out of my purse when I dumped it?”

  “I don’t see…” Heather could hear Lexie moving around in her seat and she silently prayed her searching didn’t cause an accident. “Oh…wait. I do see them.” It only took half a second before she understood the problem. “Shit! I can race back, but I’m thirty minutes away.”

  “That isn’t soon enough. They’re starting in ten minutes. I’m going to have to find something else.”

  She hung up on Lexie mid-sentence and began rummaging around in her bag again, this time searching for a substitute. But everything in her purse was mundane and ordinary. Nothing that could even have been seen on stage from the audience.

  For a brief moment she considered going without a prop. What would they do? Kick her out of the plays? She was the spokeswoman.

  And that was exactly why she couldn’t go without a prop. She was supposed to be the pro, the actress all the newbies would look to. The prop was one of the most important elements. She had to find something.

  She stuck her head in the restroom next to the vestibule. Nothing. Not even a plunger. Then she scanned the empty security desk by the back entrance. Again, nothing. Maybe the small trash container under the desk would work. She kept it as an option but wasn’t ready to end her search for something better.

  She crossed the corridor to the workroom at the side of the theater and looked around.

  Bingo.

  The entire back counter had an array of tools—hammers, saws, screwdrivers, tools she didn’t know the name of. This was where Seth would be constructing the set pieces. These must be his tools. He’d touched these tools, used them.

  She put her hand out and brushed the items as she walked along the counter, enjoying the rush that came from knowing that they belonged to the sexy carpenter. Images of him using them filled her mind, turning her entire body to warm mush.