by North, Cara
Get a Grip
Hollywood Nights
By
Cara North
www.musesandsirens.com
Dedication
For my readers, you are the best and I am grateful for each one of you! Thank you Katie!
A special thank you to my Muse, JG for inspiring my stories.
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright© 2013 Cara North
Cover Artist: Stella Price
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. Contact: [email protected]
Prologue
Ivy had wanted to do this the right way. Over thirty years had passed and she was tired of doing things the right way. Tired of waiting, tired of patience, and she was doing this one way or another. She wasn’t dragging him down the aisle, he was walking there willingly. On the way in, she saw a familiar pair of faces coming out.
“Shay!” Ivy smiled as the woman who used to be her enemy greeted her with a warm friendly smile of genuine happiness. Ivy was certain the man practically aglow standing next to her had everything to do with it.
“What are you doing here?” Shay asked. Her hand was held firm by one of the best documentary film makers around, Jonas Gunner.
“Same thing you’re doing I suppose.” Ivy shrugged.
Then something unexpected happened. Jed spoke to Bo as though they were friends.
“What have you been up to? I came by the studio when I was in LA, but they said you were on set somewhere working.” Jed extended his free hand and Bo took it.
Bo, a quiet guy, seemed a bit flustered. He said, “I’ve uh…been working as a grip for a while. They don’t need me there every day. I just…uh…”
Jed took one look at Bo, and then looked at Ivy. She was looking at Jed so she knew what his reactions were. He let a slow, knowing smile spread across his lips. He nodded and said nothing more about it. They had communicated more with that simple nod than most conversations she had had with people she knew for years.
“Well congratulations!” Shay said and then let go of Jed’s hand to step forward and embraced Ivy.
“To you, too!” Ivy returned the hug. It was nice to be accepted by an old enemy as a friend.
Jed and Shay made their way towards the exit and Ivy looked at Bo. She gave him one last chance to escape. “You’re sure you want to do this?”
“Absolutely.” He nodded.
Her heart thumped fast and hard against her chest. This was it. They were going to get married. She was going to marry a guy she barely knew. He was going to marry her. This good girl was finally going to be bad!
Chapter 1
Bo Bliss considered carefully how he ended up in this situation. All he wanted was to pick up some vegetables for a salad. He was surprised to see her in his local grocery store. He was even more surprised at what he heard.
Ivy was with her agent and notorious press spinner, Dahlia Denny. The stuff Dahlia let get printed about Ivy didn’t make Bo a fan of the woman. However, he didn’t know that side of the business and didn’t care to so he tried not to judge.
Except when it came to Ivy.
She said it loud enough and intentionally for people to hear, “I think I’ll just marry the next guy that comes up to talk to me.”
Bo wasn’t sure he heard her correctly, but the moment the guy across the aisle began walking towards her, he wasn’t about to risk it. He discretely pushed the stack of oranges and sent them tumbling in the guy’s direction as he passed. It effectively slowed him down and caused everyone to look at that guy picking them up rather than at Ivy.
He walked over to where she was selecting a banana and said, “Hello.”
Her big brown eyes looked at him the way she had a few times on set. He wasn’t an actor. He was a grip. Just a sound guy for all she knew. They had spoken briefly on a few occasions. Enough to keep him interested. Enough to keep him hoping that eventually she would be single and he could ask her out.
“Hi,” she said with a bright smile of recognition. “Did you come to marry me?”
“I uh,” he stalled. He was stunned by the question even if it was in jest. “I actually came here for tomatoes, but I saw you and thought I would say hello.”
“Too bad.” Ivy sighed. “Because I don’t need tomatoes. I need a husband. I need one tonight.”
Okay, so she really had jumped the track. He heard the rumors when she left Sleepers, the last film she had been working on. He didn’t believe it. Until now. He had seen this before, but he didn’t think it would happen to her. The orange guy was getting closer. Bo looked at him and realized if Ivy wasn’t kidding, that guy would not hesitate. He said quickly, “Okay.”
Dahlia was Ivy’s agent and the woman Ivy was talking to when she made the announcement earlier. She and Ivy both asked at the same time, “Okay?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, what do I have to lose? I’ve been waiting three years to ask you out for dinner or coffee.”
“I don’t drink coffee,” she interrupted.
He nodded and continued, “Well, I suppose marrying you would guarantee me at least one date, right?”
He looked only at her. He was holding on to the basket in his hand as though it would steady him. He felt a little wobbly, a little vulnerable, and a little nervous. She blinked a few times, licked her lips and looked him over. He could feel the heat rush over his neck and across his face. He was blushing damn it, and he didn’t like it. She said, “Dahlia, I don’t think I need that ride to Vegas anymore. Bo’s going to take me. Aren’t you?”
He cautiously said, “Sure.”
Dahlia, finally realizing her client was not in the sanest frame of mind, said, “Oh no, no, no. We are going to Vegas and have a nice girl’s weekend. You can relax, gamble, and leave the worries behind.”
“Well,” Ivy started. She hadn’t stopped looking at him. Her scrutiny a bit innocent, a bit predatory, unnerved him. She was just as likely to murder him in his sleep as she was to marry him for all he could tell. “What I want, what I had planned to go to Las Vegas for in the first place, was to get married. I’m tired of being a good girl. I have one commitment I promised not to break. I promised my daddy and God I would wait. I’m tired of waiting. Aren’t you?”
He was trying to piece her cryptic comments together. He knew she was a Christian, but at her age, surely she wasn’t saying what he thought he was hearing. The woman had dated Jonas Gunner when they starred in a very sexually charged movie together. Jonas wasn’t innocent, nor was he the kind of guy to spend eight months in a holding pattern. He decided he had to be processing it all wrong. The surreal situation had his brain a bit fogged. After her eyes widened a bit in question he realized she was waiting on him to answer her. “Me, oh yeah. I’m tired of waiting. We can grab a flight tonight if that’s really what you want.”
A part of him hoped she would just settle for dinner.
“Yes,” she nodded. “That is exactly what I want. Let’s go, Bo.”
She took hold of the basket he had in his hand and handed it over to Dahlia. By then, he realized, a few people had made their way to the outskirts of the area to watch and listen. It was normal for people to gravitate towards stars but not outright interrupt them. “Dahlia, I need to get my bag out of your car.”
***
Ivy was sure the man would
back out at any moment. She had just noticed him in the store. She was relieved and excited when he stepped up to say hello. She was afraid the guy by the oranges was going to get to her first. He wasn’t a bad looking man, but she didn’t know anything about him. She reasoned that it would be the same no matter who it was. She didn’t plan to stay married; she just needed to get married in order to lose her virginity. She was tired of waiting for Mr. Right. Settling for Mr. Right-now would have to do.
Then it turned out to be Bo. She only knew his first name, but she had spoken to him in casual conversation for about three years. She remembered the first time she saw him on set. She thought he was an actor. He was part of the sound crew. He stood out in her memory because he wore a t-shirt with her favorite band’s name on it, and because it was weird that he rarely ate what they served on set to everyone. She attributed his diet to the physique she had also noticed for the past three years. She was always disappointed that she couldn’t talk to him more often at mealtime, only on the really healthy food days.
She had been a bit careless a few times and wandered into locations she had no reason to be in just to talk to him. He would always talk and gently escort her out by walking them back to an area she should have been in. He was tall, tan, brown hair, deep brown eyes, and lean lines of hard bodied man. Her pulse always fluttered when he smiled at her. She had been a fool for chasing after one actor or another for sake of publicity when this gem was lying in wait to ask her out for dinner the whole time.
Bo was a quiet guy on set and apparently off set, too. He followed her to Dahlia’s car without a word. She was grateful because her nerves were already wavering on the plan. If he said no, if he backed down, she might have lost confidence in her ability to pull this whole thing off. He didn’t. He had given her a bewildered expression that let her know he was going along with this plan, for now, but he could bolt at any minute.
“Who are you?” Dahlia asked as she handed the luggage over.
“Bo Bliss,” he said simply.
“Bliss? Really?” Ivy watched as some expression crossed Dahlia’s face and recognition of a man she shouldn’t know settled in as he nodded. The next thing Dahlia said shocked Ivy. “Well, I guess being good has its perks after all.”
Ivy frowned at Dahlia who had gone from reluctant to enthusiastic in point zero seconds. “I don’t understand. A moment ago…”
“Ivy,” Dahlia put her hand up to stop her. “I’m not happy about this. But you are right, you need to go on out there and live your life. You are bound and determined to sow some wild oats. I was only going along to try to stop you. I see now that I can’t. So go. You have my number if you need me.”
Ivy groaned in frustration. She had suspected as much, but had held on to the hope that Dahlia was not trying to hold her back. She felt like the only thirty-three year old woman in the world still treated like a child.
She looked from Dahlia to Bo and said, “Where are you parked?”
“Just over there.”
She followed him through the parking lot until they came to his car. She was a bit surprised to see it was a Mercedes. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but with a grip’s salary she sure didn’t expect this. “Nice ride.”
“It gets me from point A to B.” He opened the door for her and then put her bag in the trunk. By the time he got into his car she had made a few mental observations. Bo Bliss was a gentleman on and off set, so far. He drove a luxury vehicle with the top of the line package. The car had every bell and whistle on it.
“You probably want to go by your house to pick some things up, huh?” she asked cautiously. More stops meant more time to think. More time to think meant him coming to his senses and running like hell.
“It’s one night. I’ll pick something up there. It is Vegas after all, they have everything.” He started up the car and then drove the twenty minutes it took to get to the airport at this time of day and that close a distance in virtual silence.
They lucked out with tickets and timing. It took longer to clear security than to fly from LA to Vegas. He was helpful, but not chatty. She wondered if he was having second thoughts about it all. As they walked down the boarding ramp she said, “I bet you didn’t think this was how you would spend your weekend.”
“It beats making a salad and watching re-runs,” he said with a smile. That simple gesture sent a flock of butterflies to her stomach.
“You don’t go out much?” she asked as they took their seats.
“At my age, what is there to do? I’m too old for dance clubs, too young to hang around bars, and you can only go so many times to the museums before you start correcting docents when they make a mistake.” He settled in. He looked at her and said, “What?”
She was stunned. “Exactly how old are you?”
“Thirty-nine.”
“Have you…ever been married before?” She had to ask.
“Nope. I was engaged once. She decided what I did for a living wasn’t impressive and married someone else.”
It was the way he said it that made her ask, “Who?”
“My brother. He’s a lawyer.” He laughed. Ivy didn’t laugh. “It was years ago. It’s all good now. I mean, I think I got the better end of the deal.”
“How’s that?” she asked with a frown. He had to be hurt by it. Who wouldn’t be?
“Well.” He leaned back and turned his head to look at her. His deep whiskey colored eyes were soft, sensuous, and seductive. “I’m here with you.”
Heat flushed through her in ways she hadn’t really experienced before. Sure, she had been turned on before. She spent months making out with one of the hottest guys in Hollywood. Jonas had taught her a lot of things, but they didn’t have sex. They pretended to have sex on screen, and she was pretty sure if that production had to go on for another month she would have given in to temptation. By the end of it, he wasn’t interested anymore. Not like she wanted him to be. Of course, that was the playboy Jonas, until he met his wife, Frankie.
Shifting her thoughts from Jonas to Bo, she recalled that Bo was on those sets when she was practically naked and making out with Jonas. A new heat bloomed and she added, “You know I’m not like my characters.”
“I know.” He winked. Her pulse raced.
“They don’t offer anything on this flight?” Her throat was suddenly dry.
“I think you can ask, but it isn’t even an hour. By the time they got half way through they would be landing. Do you want something other than the water?” he asked sincerely.
She had forgotten about the little bottle of water they gave them when they first boarded and took their seats in first class. She gulped and admitted, “I drank all of mine.”
“Here,” he handed her his. “Are you okay? You look a bit pale.”
“I’m fine. I’m just…I don’t fly well.” She lied. She was getting anxious. She didn’t know anything about this man other than the fact that he had worked as a grip on several of her movies, he had a really nice car, her agent seemed to recognize his name, his ex-fiancé had married his brother, they liked the same music, and his age.
“Relax,” he said. “Sit back, close your eyes, think positive thoughts, and breathe.”
“Are you into all that yoga and meditation crap?” She regretted the last reference immediately as he shrugged in acknowledgement that he was in fact into all that crap as she had called it. Instead of saying anything else to ruin her chances of marrying this guy, she did what he suggested. She sat back, closed her eyes, and breathed. She tried to think positive thoughts but only thoughts about him getting to the altar and then walking out on her during the vows came to mind.
Chapter 2
Bo was still processing the kiss, the vows, and the fact that they were heading towards a hotel room. She was happy. She was happier than he had ever seen her. He was getting cold feet when they ran into Jed and Shay. If Jed Gunner could elope, Bo decided instantly, so could he. What did he have to lose? If this didn’t work out it wa
sn’t like she needed anything from him. Not to mention she didn’t really know who he was. He was going to keep it that way since there wasn’t a pre-nuptial agreement in this bargain.
He opened the hotel door and she started to walk in. On impulse he quickly scooped her up off of her feet and carried her. “It is a threshold after all.”
She smiled again. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to do all sorts of things to her, but he wasn’t sure what she had or had not done before. “It’s a little late to ask about this, but are you on birth control?”
“No.” She blushed. “Should I be?”
Well that threw him for a loop. No answer would be the right answer. Since he was also trying to consummate this marriage he decided, “I can use a condom…if you want me to…”
He let her feet hit the floor. The bag had already been sent up. She looked like a deer trapped by headlights with her big brown eyes unsure, nervous.
Bo was equally unsure about this. He debated it in his mind until reasoning that she was his wife, so having unprotected sex with her wasn’t unusual. He told himself that a lot of luck and timing was necessary for pregnancy to occur. Unfortunately, he was known for both luck and timing. Case in point, he was married to a woman he had been half in love with for the last three years.
“I’m just going to go freshen up,” he said and headed for the bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror and took stock of what he saw. He was almost forty. Ivy was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and he had seen his share of women in this industry. She wasn’t always as crazy as she was right now. He reasoned if he had been waiting his whole life to have sex, and he was her age, he would be just as desperate.
A new sense of purpose, of responsibility, struck him at the thought. It was the confirmation he got from her expression moments ago that she was a virgin. He took several deep breaths and headed back out to face his wife.
