by Maggie Marr
Mary Anne casually glanced to her right, where the big bald man with the newspaper still stood fifteen feet away. He glanced up, his eyes locking onto hers. Alarm bells within Mary Anne instantly went off. Whoever he was, that guy was not a nice man.
“Since I got here.”
“Okay,” Zymar said, still moving forward. “I need you to laugh like I’ve just whispered something very clever.”
Mary Anne tipped her head to the side and gave Zymar what she believed was her most coquettish look. She tossed in some enthusiastic giggles and grabbed Zymar’s arm.
“That was great. Now, when we’re right in front of him, I need you to turn to me, tell me that you love me, and throw your arms around me.”
“But Zy—” Mary Anne checked herself. “Patrick, you and my roommate are dating and I don’t think that—”
“Mary Anne, this isn’t about your roommate. This is about getting past this guy without him calling a goon squad. I don’t have time to explain. So please—”
And with that, Mary Anne threw herself into Zymar’s arms, nearly knocking him to the ground.
“God, I’ve missed you. I love you so,” Mary Anne said, giving Zymar a long, lingering kiss. She pulled away and blushed.
“Wow,” Zymar said, putting his arm around Mary Anne’s waist and grinning at the goon standing next to the door. “It’s good to see you, too.”
Chapter 31
Celeste Solange Barefoot
If you lie nude on a private beach, you don’t have any tan line, and if you make love on a private island for six days, you don’t have any stress. A private beach, a private island, a private life, all in the middle of the Pacific with an exceptional man. What more could a superstar ask for? No shoes, no bags, no cell phones. Barefoot and wearing cotton sarongs. Fresh fruit for breakfast and grilled fish for dinner. It was, unquestionably, paradise. Celeste gazed out at the brilliant blue ocean in front of her. A warm tropical wind breezed through her hair. She was addicted to these early-morning walks, the only time she spent without him on the island. She savored these moments, the quiet joy of solitude, a gift that before this week she had never allowed herself.
Celeste turned and looked at the cottage that squatted forty feet back from and above the beach. It seemed to be an organic part of the island, sculpted to be an integral part of the view. The indoor-outdoor floor plan gave the impression that you were camping on the beach. The ever-present pounding of the surf felt like a heartbeat. An incredible private getaway. Celeste couldn’t believe that he’d rarely used it, that he hadn’t been to the house since his wife died years ago.
She’d learned about the wife and the rest of his life over the past six days, and shared her own journey. His story, a dramatic rise from poverty to become a millionaire five hundred times over. Hers, having fled from a trailer park in Tennessee to become one of the world’s biggest film stars. Two different paths to success, but Celeste was surprised to discover that they bore similar battle scars from their relentless pursuit of it. A myopic and ever-present desire to succeed overshadowed the simple nuances of life.
He’d spent most of his children’s childhoods chasing success. Money, a relentless taskmaster, kept him running about the globe. When finally he felt a sense of career achievement, his daughter was finishing graduate school and his son was college bound. Neither child really knew their father. Unforgivable, according to him, that he squandered that time.
Soon after, he recognized his folly and finally started spending more time with his family. Then his wife, after finding a medium-size lump in her breast, began a long and drawn-out battle with cancer. She’d been a great warrior, he told Celeste, his voice cracking. The death of his wife, he believed, closed his heart forever. Until he met Celeste.
At first he shrugged it off as a schoolboy crush on a larger-than-life fantasy. Every man in America adored Celeste Solange at one time or another. But then he’d met Celeste. His heart actually skipped, he said. His palms began to sweat, and, he remembered, he could barely speak. Celeste had a vague memory of their first meeting but nothing so steadfastly vivid.
“It was at that moment that I knew I had to get to know you,” he told her the second night over snapper.
“That was years ago.” Celeste smiled, sipping her wine. “Why didn’t you get in touch?”
“I like to be sure about things. I’m methodical.”
Celeste remembered very little about their early meetings. She had, however, spoken with him often over the phone, about various scripts his company had for films they wanted her to star in, and she had always found his tone endearing.
“People never understood when I told them you were always so sweet to me on the phone,” Celeste said.
“Most people don’t get that treatment, Celeste,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
“I can’t picture you being mean-spirited.”
“Not mean, never mean. But tough. You can’t succeed in business without being tough.”
“But with me—”
“I don’t have to be,” he said, looking into Celeste’s eyes. “Besides, I know you can be just as tough as me.”
And there was the understanding between them. He’d never been the recipient of Celeste’s hard edge nor she his, and their relationship nurtured the usually unexposed soft spots of their assertive personalities.
Celeste entered the bedroom from the beach. He lay on the luxurious seven-hundred-thread-count white sheets, his silver hair mussed but still beautiful. He was delicious in every way. She couldn’t get over the fact that this was the first time in a life of luxury, stars, exclusive parties, and clubs that she felt happy and whole.
It was as if someone had wiped away a haze through which she’d viewed the world for her entire life and now there was clarity. Clarity, peace, and serenity. The past six days together, she’d embraced them.
Celeste lay down next to him and watched as his blue eyes opened, taking in her and their world. He reached his arm across the bed and pulled Celeste toward him. Without a word he kissed her eyes, her lips, her neck. She felt the joy and heat rising up from inside her, spreading through her body. His lips were moving expertly down her chest as his hands unwrapped the sarong she’d worn for her walk on the beach. They’d explored every inch of each other. She knew about the scar on the small of his back and the teenage DUI that went with it. He, of the welt on her upper back left thigh and the jagged piece of glass she’d fallen on at age nine.
Her lips parted as his tongue explored her mouth, his fingers massaging the wet between her legs. He nudged his knee between her legs, spreading them apart. Her body tingled, ready for him.
Wanting him. Desiring him to take her, to have her, to be his. His blue eyes stared at her as he entered her. Silently their bodies rocked to the rhythm of the waves outside their open door, the speed increasing as the rumbling of the surf engulfed them.
*
Celeste glanced at the clock. He’d been in the bathroom forever. He loved his long, hot showers. It was, perhaps, the only decadent moment each day that he allowed himself. She knew he was a man with amazing self-discipline. These six days together meant all the more because of his workaholic nature. They’d both turned off their phones on the plane. No computers, no television, and no radios. It was bliss. The entire world could be gone and they wouldn’t know it.
But they were flying out today, back to civilization. Celeste glanced at her Chanel bag. She suddenly wanted to know what she’d missed. She reached in, pulled out her cell, and turned it on. Forty-three messages! Only ten people had the number to this, her most private line. She usually got only a couple of calls a day. Any business going on in her absence Jessica could easily handle. But as Celeste scrolled down the list of numbers, Jessica’s turned up almost twenty times. Lydia was next with fifteen, and even her housekeeper, Mathilde, had tried to reach her a few times. What was going on? Celeste only needed to listen to four of the forty-three messages before the whole story unfolded.<
br />
“What are you doing, lady?” he asked in a playful voice as he emerged from the steaming bathroom. “We said no cell phones.”
Celeste held up her hand and smiled at him, hoping not to annoy him. She was trying to catch the end of Mary Anne’s impassioned plea for Celeste to call her.
Celeste flipped shut her phone and tossed it on the bed.
“We have to get back.”
He smiled, watching her bounce across the room in a packing frenzy. “We’re leaving in four hours.”
“What time is it?”
“Nine A.M.”
“No, love, not here, in L.A. What day and time is it in Los Angeles?”
“Let’s see, we’re seventeen hours ahead, so what, it’s four P.M. on Wednesday?”
Celeste stopped and did the math in her head. “Hurry, we have to leave now!”
He smiled again. “Okay, beautiful, whatever you say. I’ll call the pilots. We can be in the air in half an hour.”
Celeste stopped throwing toiletries in her bag.
“I love you. You know that, right?”
He put the phone down and turned to Celeste. “Yes, beautiful. And I love you, too.” His brilliant blue eyes flashed in the morning sun.
Celeste skipped out of the room into the bathroom.
“Hey,” she called as she stepped under the hot water, “how fast can your plane fly?”
Chapter 32
Lydia Albright Wearing Keds
The super-secret screening of Seven Minutes Past Midnight started in less than an hour and Lydia had yet to see Zymar or her film. Her director and the print were both safely tucked away, Lydia knew, in a Best Western in the Valley only three blocks from Arnold Murphy’s executive suite. Hiding in plain sight. Thanks to Mary Anne’s escort two days before.
Mitsy Meyers, surprisingly, was a godsend. Looking and sounding every bit the part of a Midwesterner on vacation in Hollywood, she’d been able to courier messages, food, and anything else Zymar desired to his hotel room without drawing attention. A guy with a beard, baseball cap, sunglasses, and a Eurotrash accent might collect some looks, but a middle-aged woman in khaki shorts and Keds over-pronouncing her o’s at a Best Western in the Valley most definitely blended in.
Lydia had spoken with Zymar ten times in the last two days. He and Mitsy had hit it off famously. She was quite a hustler; in two days of gin rummy she’d cleaned Zymar out of all his cash and his watch. At least he wasn’t bored or hungry. Having company, Lydia knew, calmed his nerves and most likely prevented him from making a foolish attempt to sneak over to Lydia’s.
Lydia peeked out her upstairs bedroom window, the only one with a clear view to the street beyond her security gate. The black Lincoln Town Car sedan with two goons inside sat parked next to the opposite curb, as it had been for the last two weeks.
Arnold was insane. He wasn’t even attempting to be inconspicuous. There was only one reason for the black sedan that was tailing Lydia. Intimidation. But it wasn’t working. Although she felt nervous about the plan and the film, Lydia wasn’t scared.
She was Midwestern. That’s what the mirror reflected, anyway. Her wig, specially designed by Celeste’s stylist, Jonathan, was a perfect replica of Mitsy’s brown helmet cut. The purple floral-print button-down shirt and Bermuda shorts that Jessica had purchased from Target.com, Mitsy assured Lydia, were duplicates of the clothes Mitsy would be wearing when she pulled into the gate.
Lydia glanced out the window. The fluorescent green Scion they’d rented for today finally came rolling up to her gate, the color intended to be especially conspicuous. The two goons in the car needed to get a good look at Mitsy and her ultra-bright car.
Mitsy pulled up and punched a button at the gate, causing the cordless phone Lydia held in her hand to ring.
“Hello,” Lydia shouted.
She hoped the spies had their windows rolled down so they could overhear the exchange.
“Script delivery for Ms. Lydia Albright,” Mitsy yelled into the speaker-box.
“Great!” Lydia yelled back. She pressed the number nine on her phone and watched as her security gate rumbled to life, lumbering backward into the drive. Lydia had parked her black Range Rover in front of her home so that the thugs would get a clear view of it parked safely on the drive.
Lydia waited at her bedroom window until the gate swung shut; she knew the goons couldn’t see anything at the front door as long as the gate was closed. Carrying a white terry-cloth robe, she jogged down the stairs and pulled open her front door. There, standing across the threshold, was Mitsy Meyers, holding a script envelope and smiling. Their outfits and hair were identical.
“Mitsy, thank you so much,” Lydia said, pulling her through the door. “You may have just saved my career, Zymar’s career, and prevented both of us from spending years in prison.”
Lydia threw the fluffy robe over Mitsy’s outfit and grabbed the ten-dollar Kmart sunglasses Mitsy held out toward Lydia.
“My pleasure, dear, truly. I haven’t had this much excitement in years.”
“You’ll stay away from the windows?” Lydia asked.
“And the doors.”
“Vilma knows to tell anyone who calls or comes by that I’m sleeping.”
“Great plan.” Mitsy handed Lydia the keys to the frog-green Scion.
“Yes.” Lydia smiled. “All because of you, a very great plan.”
Jessica, Mary Anne, and Lydia had been stumped on how to get Lydia past Arnold’s goons and to the screening at CTA. Their biggest fear was that Arnold would somehow manage to find out the correct date and time and prevent anyone from seeing the film. But then Mitsy had come up with the bait-and-switch idea.
The screening had become an open secret in town for the last three days. But thanks to Kiki with her PR firm and Jessica with her CTA agents barraging the industry with a variety of locales and dates, Arnold couldn’t get a lock on the time and place. Only those guests specifically invited knew exactly when and where. And none of them would tell Arnold because they actually wanted to see the film.
The buzz in town was deafening.
Lydia put on Mitsy’s sunglasses and glanced in the mirror. She never would have believed that she could pass for a fifty-six-year-old mother of three from Minnesota, but she could and she did. Her stomach tickled from the adrenaline at pulling off this little subterfuge.
“Okay, I think I’m ready.”
“You certainly look like it,” Mitsy said. “Good luck, dear. I know it’ll be fantastic.”
Mitsy pulled Lydia into a hug.
“Thank you for everything. You are simply the best. If this works, it’s all because of you.”
Lydia pulled open the front door and paused as the gate again pulled back into the drive. She wanted to make sure Worldwide’s thugs got a clear shot of the frumpily dressed older woman who five minutes before had entered Ms. Albright’s home. Lydia surreptitiously glanced at the black sedan parked across the street, then stepped toward the bright-green Scion and opened the door. As she drove past the gate, she purposely stopped and looked in both directions before turning right onto Mulholland. She wanted to make sure they both got a really good look at the cheap sunglasses and the very loud purple shirt with orange flowers.
Lydia drove cautiously, checking the black sedan in her rearview mirror for any sign of movement or alarm. She crested a hill and made the curve. Nothing. They weren’t following her. Lydia let out a giggle of glee. Phase one was complete.
*
Lydia pulled the car into the underground parking garage at CTA. Already seven cars lined up at the valet. Per Jessica, the security guards were given strict orders to check the ID of everyone who entered the CTA building. Anyone not on the list didn’t get in. Well, everyone except the middle-aged woman in the purple blouse driving the green Scion. The security guards had special guidelines for that car. As instructed, the guards waved her past the other cars, and Lydia zipped the Scion up one floor and into a prearranged spot. Lauren
, Jessica’s first assistant, stood waiting, her look of concern giving way to a slight smile.
“Thank God,” Lauren said as Lydia emerged from the car. “She’s been calling me every two minutes to see if you’re here yet.”
“Has Zymar made it?”
“Five minutes ago. He’s upstairs in Jessica’s office with the door closed,” Lauren said. “This spy stuff looks fun in the movies, but it really wears me out.”
“You and me both, sister,” Lydia said.
*
Lydia walked into Jessica’s office and all her eyes could see was Zymar. Beautiful, wonderful Zymar. Her heart fluttered. His scruffy beard tickled her face as he kissed her.
“Ahem.” Jessica pretended to clear her throat. Lydia hadn’t noticed that she was even in the room. “I know it’s been six weeks, but come on, we’ve got a screening to do.”
Lydia smiled at her friend. Jessica practically glowed.
“Go get changed, Lyd. You’ve only got five minutes. Security called and almost everyone’s here.”
“Cici?” Lydia asked, a hint of hope in her voice.
“Still no sign.”
Lydia sighed.
“Need a bit of help in there, Lyd?” Zymar asked, a sexy smile dancing on his lips.
“No time for that,” Jessica called from her desk.
Once inside Jessica’s bathroom, Lydia began to shed her Midwestern costume. Mary Anne had packed Lydia’s Armani pants, Donna Karan blouse, and Dior pumps, and left them in the trunk of the Scion. If only she’d been able to find and throw in Cici. It’d been seven days since anyone had seen or heard from her. They would have called in the FBI if she hadn’t left a note with Mathilde. They knew she was on a private island somewhere in the Pacific, but for how long?
Lydia tucked her white silk shirt into her black pants. She pulled off her wig and fluffed her chestnut brown hair. Jessica had finally received a garbled voice-mail message from Cici at nine A.M. this morning, something about landing in Hawaii, when Cici’s phone completely cut out. With five minutes left, Lydia doubted that Cici would see this screening. She just hoped there’d be enough heat to ensure it wouldn’t be the only one.
