Hollywood Husbands

by Jackie Collins

  Praise for Jackie Collins

  ‘Sex, power and intrigue – no one does it better than Jackie’

  heat

  ‘A tantalising novel packed with power struggles, greed and sex. This is Collins at her finest’

  Closer

  ‘Bold, brash, whiplash fast – with a cast of venal rich kids, this is classic Jackie Collins’

  Marie Claire

  ‘Sex, money, power, murder, betrayal, true love – it’s all here in vintage Collins style. Collins’s plots are always a fabulously involved, intricate affair, and this does not disappoint’

  Daily Mail

  ‘Her style is pure escapism, her heroine’s strong and ambitious and her men, well, like the book, they’ll keep you up all night!’

  Company

  ‘A generation of women have learnt more about how to handle their men from Jackie’s books than from any kind of manual… Jackie is very much her own person: a total one off’

  Daily Mail

  ‘Jackie is still the queen of sexy stories. Perfect’

  OK!

  ‘Cancel all engagements, take the phone off the hook and indulge yourself’

  Mirror

  Also by Jackie Collins

  The Lucky Santangelo Cookbook

  Confessions of a Wild Child

  The Power Trip

  Goddess of Vengeance

  Poor Little Bitch Girl

  Married Lovers

  Drop Dead Beautiful

  Lovers & Players

  Hollywood Divorces

  Deadly Embrace

  Hollywood Wives: The New Generation

  Lethal Seduction

  Dangerous Kiss

  L.A. Connections: Power, Obsession, Murder, Revenge

  Thrill!

  Vendetta: Lucky’s Revenge

  Hollywood Kids

  American Star

  Lady Boss

  Rock Star

  Hollywood Husbands

  Lucky

  Hollywood Wives

  Chances

  The Bitch

  Lovers & Gamblers

  The World is Full of Divorced Women

  The Love Killers

  Sinners

  The Stud

  The World is Full of Married Men

  Jackie Collins

  HOLLYWOOD

  HUSBANDS

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or locales, is purely coincidental.

  HOLLYWOOD HUSBANDS.

  Copyright © 2015 by Chances, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work, in whole or part, in any form.

  eISBN: 978-0-9908446-2-4

  Cover design by Kim Koehler; kim@skyrocketmarketing.com

  eBook editions by eBooks By Barb for booknook.biz

  Visit Jackie at her website www.jackiecollins.com and follow her on

  Twitter: @jackiejcollins

  Facebook: facebook.com/jackiecollins

  Pinterest: pinterest.com/jackiejcollins

  To the wives who told me plenty…

  And the husbands who told me more

  than I even wanted to know…

  And special thanks to special friends

  who tried to tell me nothing at all,

  but did not succeed!

  Somewhere in the Midwest…

  Sometime in the seventies…

  The nightmare began for the child when she was fourteen years old and alone in the house with her father. Her brothers and sisters were long gone. As soon as they were old enough to earn a living they left – quickly – and never came back to visit. Her mother was in the hospital, ‘women’s problems’, a neighbour had sighed. The child did not know what that meant, only that she missed her mother desperately, even though she had only been gone two days.

  The little girl was an accident. Her mother often told her that. ‘You’re a late accident,’ she would say, ‘an’ too much work for me. I should be restin’ now, not raisin’ another kid.’ Whenever she spoke the words she would smile, hug her daughter, and add warmly, ‘I wouldn’t do without you, my little one. Couldn’t. You understand me, darlin’?’

  Yes. She understood that she was loved by the frail woman in the carefully patched clothes who took in other people’s washing and treated her husband like a king.

  They lived in a run-down house on the outskirts of town. It was freezing in the winter and too hot in the summer. There were hungry roaches in the kitchen and giant rats that ran across the roof at night. The child grew up with fear in her heart, not because of the vermin, but because of the many times her father beat her mother, and the terrified screams that continued throughout the night. The screams were always followed by long, ominous silences, broken only by his grunting and groaning, and her mother’s stifled sobs.

  Her father was big, mean and shiftless, and she hated him. One day – like her brothers and sisters before her – she would leave, just sneak off in the early dawn as they had done. Only she had more exciting plans. She was going to go out in the world and make a success of her life, and when she had enough money she was going to send for her mother and look after her properly.

  Her father yelled for his dinner. She fixed him a steaming plate of tripe and onions just as her mother had taught her. It wasn’t satisfactory. ‘Slop!’ he shouted, after he’d eaten most of it, belching loudly as she hurriedly removed the plate and replaced it with his fifth can of beer.

  He looked her over, his eyes rheumy, his face slack. Then he slapped her backside and guffawed to himself. She scurried into the kitchen. All her life she had lived with him, and yet he frightened her more than any stranger. He was brutal and cruel. Many a time she had felt the sharp sting of his heavy hand across her face or shoulders or legs. He enjoyed inflicting what he considered his superior strength.

  She washed the solitary dish in a bowl of water, and wondered how long her mother would be in the hospital. Not long, she hoped fervently. Maybe only another day or so.

  Wiping her hands, she made her way through the cramped parlour where her father snored in front of a flickering black and white television. The buckle of his belt was undone, and his stomach bulged obscenely over a grimy tee-shirt, an empty beer can balanced on his chest.

  She crept outside to the toilet. There was no indoor plumbing; a cracked basin filled with luke-warm water was the only means of washing. Sometimes she cleaned herself in the kitchen, but she wouldn’t dare to do that with her father home. Lately he had taken to spying on her – creeping up when she was dressing and sneering at her newly developed curves.

  Wearily she pulled off her blouse, stepped out of her shorts, and proceeded to splash water under her arms, across her chest, and between her legs.

  She wished there was a mirror so that she could see what her new figure looked like. At school three of her friends and she had crowded together in a toilet and examined each other’s developing buds. It wasn’t the same as seeing her own body – she had no interest in looking at other girls’ breasts.

  Carefully she traced the swell of her small nipples, and sucked in her breath because it gave her such a funny feeling to touch herself.

  So intent was she on examining her new body, that she failed to hear the clump of her father’s footsteps as he approached the outhouse. Without knocking he flung open the creaking door before she had time to cover herself. The buttons on his fly were open. ‘Gotta take a piss,’ he slurred. And then, as if working on a slow fuse, he added, ‘What you doin’, girl, standin’ around naked?’

  ‘Just washin’, pa,’ she replied, blushing beet-red as she frantically r
eached for the towel she had brought in with her.

  He was too quick for her. With a drunken lurch he stepped on the flimsy towel, and blocked the door with his bulk. ‘You bin seein’ any boys?’ he demanded. ‘You bin sleepin’ around?’

  ‘No.’ Desperately she pulled at the towel, trying to dislodge it from under his foot.

  He staggered towards her, all beer breath and bloodshot eyes. ‘Are you sure, missy?’

  ‘Yes, pa, I’m sure,’ she whispered, wanting to run and hide in her bed and die of embarrassment.

  He watched her for a long moment. Then he touched himself and grunted loudly.

  Her heart was pounding – signalling DANGER DANGER. She held her breath. Instinct told her she was caught in a trap.

  He fiddled with his thing until it was completely visible, sticking through his trousers like an angry red weapon. ‘Ya see this?’ he growled.

  She stayed absolutely still and silent.

  ‘Ya see this?’ he repeated, his face as red as his weapon. ‘This is what ya gotta look out for.’ He stroked his erection. ‘This is what every boy ya ever meet is gonna want to stick ya with.’

  As he reached for her she began to scream. ‘No! No! No!’ Her voice was shrill and unreal as if it belonged to someone else.

  But there was no one to hear her. No one to care.

  And then the nightmare really began.

  Prologue

  Hollywood, California

  February 1986

  There were two major events taking place in Hollywood on a cool weekend in February 1986.

  The first was a funeral.

  The second, a wedding.

  Some people felt obliged to attend both. Although, of course, they changed outfits for each occasion.

  BOOK ONE

  Hollywood, California

  April 1985

  Chapter One

  Jack Python walked through the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel with every eye upon him. He had money, charisma, a certain kind of power, razor-sharp wit and fame. It all showed.

  He was six feet tall with virile good looks. Thick black hair worn just a tad too long, penetrating green eyes, a two-day stubble on a deep suntan, and a hard body. He was thirty-nine years old and he had the world by the balls.

  Jack Python was one of the most famous talk show hosts in America.

  ‘Hello, Jack,’ cooed a voluptuous woman sprayed into a mini tennis dress.

  He smiled his killer smile – he had great teeth – and looked her over appreciatively, knowing eyes sweeping every curve. Standard greeting – ‘How’s it going?’

  She would have been happy to tell him, only he didn’t break stride, just kept walking towards the Polo Lounge.

  Several more people greeted him along the way. Two tourists paused to stare, and a very thin girl in a red tank top waved. Jack did not stop until he reached his destination. Table number one, a cosy leather booth directly facing the entrance of the Polo Lounge.

  A man was already seated there. A man with a slightly manic look, clad in white sweats, black Porsche shades, and a Dodgers baseball cap. Jack slid in beside him. ‘Hiya, Howard,’ he said.

  ‘Hiya, Jack,’ Howard Soloman replied with a wink. There was something about the perpetual motion of his features which gave him the crazed look. He was always mugging, crossing his eyes, sucking in his cheeks. In repose he was quite nice-looking – the face of a Jewish doctor who had strayed into the wrong business. However, his constant mugging gave the impression that he didn’t want anyone to find out. ‘What was the action last night?’ he asked, restlessly rimming the top of his glass with a nervous index finger.

  ‘You’ve been to one screening at the Goosebergers’ house – you’ve been to ’em all,’ Jack replied easily.

  ‘Good movie?’

  ‘Lousy movie.’

  ‘I coulda told you that,’ Howard said smugly.

  ‘Why didn’t you then?’

  Howard took a gulp of hot coffee. ‘Adventure is finding out for yourself.’

  Jack laughed. ‘According to you no movie is any good unless it comes from your studio.’

  Howard licked his lips and rolled his eyes. ‘You’d better believe it.’

  ‘So invite me to one of your screenings.’

  ‘I always invite you,’ Howard replied indignantly. ‘Is it my fault you never show? Poppy’s quite insulted.’

  ‘That’s because Clarissa has very particular taste,’ Jack explained patiently. ‘Unless it’s a film she’s been offered and turned down, or unless she’s actually in it, she has no desire to see it.’

  ‘Actresses!’ spat Howard.

  ‘Tell me about ’em,’ agreed Jack, ordering Perrier and two eggs over easy.

  Saturday morning breakfast at the Polo Lounge had once been a ritual for Jack and Howard and Mannon Cable, the movie star, who had yet to appear. Now they were all too busy, and it was a rare occasion when they were able to sit down to breakfast together.

  Howard headed Orpheus Studios, a recent appointment and one he relished. Heading a studio had always been his big ambition, and now he was there, King of the whole fucking heap – while it lasted. For Howard, like everyone else in Hollywood, realized that being a studio head was an extremely tenuous occupation, and the position of great and mighty power could be snatched away at any given moment by faceless corporate executives who ran the film industry like a bank. Being a studio head was the treacherous no man’s land between high-powered agent and independent producer. The saving speech of every deposed studio head was: ‘I need more creativity. My talent is stifled here. Too much to do and too little time. We’re parting amicably. I’m going into indie prod.’ In the industry, ‘indie prod’ (independent production to the uninitiated) equals out on your ass. Canned. Can’t cut it. Tough shit. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. And so… most indie prods faded into oblivion after one failed movie.

  Howard Soloman knew this only too well, and it scared him. He had struggled too long and too hard to allow it to happen to him. The one consolation he could think of was that at least when you failed in Hollywood you failed up. Out at one studio – in at another. The old pals act reigned supreme. Also, he was lucky. Zachary K. Klinger – the multi-powerful magnate – owned Orpheus. And Zachary had hired him personally.

  Tapping the tabletop with bitten-to-the-quick nails, Howard said, ‘Since Clarissa wasn’t in the goddamn movie, I guess it was one she vetoed. Right?’

  ‘Her decision made her very happy last night,’ Jack replied gravely. ‘Terms of Endearment it wasn’t.’ He extracted a pair of heavy horn-rimmed glasses from his top pocket and put them on. He didn’t need them to see, but as far as he was concerned they took the curse off his good looks. So did the two-day growth of stubble he carefully cultivated.

  Jack did not realize that the glasses and the incipient beard made him all the more attractive to women. Ah… women… The story of his life. Who would have thought in seventh grade that shy, studious Jack Python would have developed into one of the great lovers of the century? He couldn’t help the effect he had on women. One penetrating glance and they were his. No rock star had a better track record.

  Not that Jack went out chasing. It had never been necessary. From the onset of puberty and his first conquest at fifteen, women had fallen across his path with monotonous regularity. Most of his life he had indulged shamelessly. One, two, three a week. Who counted? A brief marriage at twenty-five barely stopped him in his tracks. Only luck and a certain sixth sense had prevented him from catching various sexual diseases. Of course now, in the eighties, it was only prudent to be extra careful. Plus he felt a more serious image was in order, and for a year he had been desperately trying to live down his lover boy reputation. Hence his relationship with Clarissa Browning. Clarissa was a serious actress with a capital S. She had won an Oscar, and been nominated twice. No bimbette movie star she.

  ‘I’d like to get Clarissa to do a film for Orpheus,’ Howard said, chewing on a bread roll.


  ‘Have you anything in mind?’

  ‘Whatever she wants. She’s the star.’ Reaching for the butter he added, ‘Why don’t you tell her to call me direct. If I operate through her schmuck agent nothing’ll get done.’ He nodded, pleased with his own idea. ‘Clarissa can whisper in my ear what she wants to do, and then I’ll do the dance of a thousand agents.’

  ‘Why don’t you phone her?’ Jack suggested.

  Howard hadn’t thought of anything as simple as that. ‘Would she mind?’

  ‘I don’t think for her. Give it a shot.’

  ‘That’s not a bad idea…’ His attention wandered. ‘Christ!’ he exclaimed. ‘Willya look at that ass!’

  Jack cast an appraising glance at a very impressive rear-end clad in tight white pants exiting the Polo Lounge. Recognizing the sway, he smiled to himself. Chica Hernandez – Queen of the Mexican Soaps. He would know that sway anywhere, although he didn’t let on to Howard. Kiss and tell had never been his style. Let the tabloids guess their smutty little hearts out. Jack never spoke about his many conquests – even though it drove Howard and the other guys crazy. They wanted names and details, and all they got was a smile and a discreet silence.

  Since the start of his year-long affair with Clarissa there wasn’t much to tell. A couple of production assistants, an enthusiastic bit-part actress, a Eurasian model. All one-night stands. As far as he was concerned he had been scrupulously faithful. Well, with a woman like Clarissa Browning in your life you couldn’t be too careful. Their romance was headlines, he had to watch his every move.

  Jack Python was smart, charming, a concerned citizen interested in maybe pursuing a political career one day. (Hey – remember Reagan?) And although he understood women very well – or thought he did – he still believed (subliminally, of course) in the old double standard. It was okay for him to indulge in the occasional indiscretion – after all, a quick lay meant nothing to a man. But God forbid Clarissa ever did it.

  Not that she would. Jack knew that for sure.