by Maggie Marr
SECRETS OF THE HOLLYWOOD GIRLS CLUB
Maggie Marr
SECRETS OF THE HOLLYWOOD GIRLS CLUB
Maggie Marr
Copyright © 2012
All Rights Reserved.
AGENCY INFORMATION
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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For Chad Henderson
You are my everything
M.M.
Praise for Hollywood Girls Club
"Romance, sex…[Marr] clearly knows her way around Hollywood. Saucy… bound to be compared to certain Jackie Collins titles not just because of the Hollywood subject matter but also because Marr brings a similar ferocious energy to her writing."
—Boston Globe
"Marr’s titillating debut…Marr offers plenty of steamy romance. Each woman gets a string of lovers—some winners, some losers—in her bawdy romp."
—Kirkus
"Hollywood powder-puff Marr pulls back the curtain on the wizards of Tinseltown…The girls’ club cutthroat and callous turns out to be a lot like the boys’ club, but cattier and more fun to read about."
—Publisher’s Weekly
"Maggie Marr’s L.A. story of friendships, scandals, and crazy egos is as fun and entertaining as any Hollywood blockbuster."
—Social Life Magazine
"Hollywood Girls Club is about as easy to stop consuming as a bowl of Häagen-Dazs."
—Robin Hazelwood, author of Model Student
"Smart, sassy and brilliantly observed … a funny and sharp exposé of the Hollywood machine."
—Sue Margolis, author of Gucci Gucci Coo
Praise for Secrets of The Hollywood Girls Club
"In her follow-up to The Hollywood Girls Club Marr not only takes readers behind the scenes of Tinseltown, she plummets them into the middle of hot sex scandals, blackmail and illicit affairs. These four powerful women not only manage to stay on top – both in the office and in the bedroom — they keep their friendship strong and their movies hot."
—Romantic Times Book Club Magazine 4 Stars
"Marr’s second novel is frothy, gossipy fun for US and People magazine addicts."
—Booklist Review
"Marr’s prose is fast and sharp and she keeps the plots flying….The ripsnorter sequel to Hollywood Girls Club revolves around sex and plastic surgery secrets…if it sounds like fun it is."
—Publisher’s Weekly
"This is a juicy, delicious read! I just loved the insider secrets and the access to what really goes on in Hollywood—the stuff we suspect happens but is always denied by scary publicists."
—Marian Keyes, author of The Other Side of The Story
"Move over, Jackie Collins! Secrets of The Hollywood Girls Club is a steamy page-turner bursting with insider Hollywood gossip. I loved it!"
—Sarah Mlynowski, author of Milkrun and Ten Things We Did (And Probably Shouldn’t Have)
CONTENTS
Rule 1
Rule 2
Rule 3
Rule 4
Rule 5
Rule 6
Rule 7
Rule 8
Rule 9
Rule 10
Rule 11
Rule 12
Rule 13
Rule 14
Rule 15
Rule 16
Rule 17
Rule 18
Rule 19
Rule 20
Rule 21
Rule 22
Rule 23
Rule 24
Rule 25
Rule 26
Rule 27
Rule 28
Rule 29
Rule 30
Rule 31
Epilogue
About the Author
An excerpt from Can’t Buy Me Love
An excerpt from Courting Trouble
Rule 1: There Are No Secrets in Hollywood
Kiki Dee, Publicist
Kiki Dee thought she knew where all the Hollywood bodies were buried—even the ones she killed—because secrets were her business. Celebrity secrets. Kiki was a secret keeper. As a publicist, Kiki shifted the bright white spotlight away from everything her celebrity clients needed to hide. And their gratitude to her for covering up their indiscretions took the form of a check or cash, whichever they preferred.
Kiki collected secrets the way some people collected diamonds or cars. Each naughty tidbit could potentially destroy Hollywood careers. And of course, along with the indiscretions came the clients. Kiki promised to lock the secret in “the vault,” also known as her brain, for a weekly fee. Some called it extortion. Kiki called it commerce.
Kiki didn’t keep just one secret per client: She’d discovered that once a star accepted that she knew their most depraved act or hidden kink, suddenly all the crimes and misdemeanors came pouring out. Kiki listened to all her clients’ confessions. It was good to have collateral.
But this secret, the one Kiki witnessed in Dr. Melnick’s office … well, this secret was platinum. This secret could sink movie studios, destroy high-power industry marriages, and ruin one of the biggest celebrity careers in Hollywood. With this one amazingly well-kept secret, Kiki and her publicity firm, KDP, which had suffered a precipitous slide into the abyss of B-list stars, would be back on top. This secret potentially affected dozens of Hollywood heavyweights. Not to mention the little lovely who was rapidly sleeping her way up the A-list. Kiki would sign two big stars based on this peccadillo. Failing to have Kiki in their corner would result in the release of this salacious bit of gossip to the press. And if the truth reached the masses, the two stars could kiss their careers and their paychecks good-bye.
Kiki had proof, and she figured it was worth at least seven figures. But Kiki cared little about the money. No, she desired prestige. The prestige obtained by representing the biggest stars in the world. Prestige and access were priceless commodities in Hollywood, and for Kiki, prestige, access, and power made her job almost worthwhile.
Kiki would be thrilled. if she weren’t so nauseated. Her discovery almost made the torture of her lipo, tummy tuck, and eye-lift worth it. Almost. She gritted her teeth as the Lincoln Town Car came to a fast stop on Wilshire. How had this luscious deceit remained quiet? People must know. But Kiki had rummaged through celebrity lives for twenty (okay, twenty-five) years, and she had never sniffed a whiff of this treat. She carefully leaned back against the supple black leather of the backseat. The trip was a short four blocks from Dr. Melnick’s office to the Peninsula Hotel, but with stitches around her face and the super-tight spandex body glove around her stomach, the ride felt like miles. She knew from experience.
Although painful, the spandex body glove prevented her belly from rupturing. She turned her gauze-wrapped head toward the window and attempted to block from her mind the lipo procedure that Dr. Melnick had just completed, otherwise she’d be sick. She clutched the paper airsick bag that Dr. Melnick’s receptionist (who herself had bovine-fat-enhanced lips and perfectly Botoxed brows) had handed Kiki before the nurse wheeled her out the back e
xit of the office to her awaiting car and driver.
Boom Boom, Kiki’s ever-faithful and ever-suffering assistant, sat in the backseat holding a BlackBerry in one hand and a cup of ice chips in the other.
“She said it was urgent,” Boom Boom said and scrolled through the e-mails. “Here, look.”
She held the BlackBerry within inches of Kiki’s nose, but Kiki couldn’t read it. Boom Boom could be an idiot. You couldn’t wear glasses right after an eye-lift. Where did Boom Boom think they put the stitches? Kiki leaned her head to the left. She could barely speak. Her lips were swollen with ass or bovine fat—she didn’t even remember—and her jaw hurt.
“Read it,” Kiki mumbled, trying to move her lips as little as possible.
Boom Boom pulled an ice chip from the cup and managed to wedge it into Kiki’s mouth. “Fine. It says `Kiki, my luv, we need to talk. Urgent news, don’t want to e-mail, call me.’“
Kiki looked at Boom Boom. That was it? That was the e-mail Boom Boom appeared so worked up about? Kiki had worked the public relations gig for a long time, and urgent to one of her stars could mean a broken nail without a manicurist on set. This was nothing, especially compared with Kiki’s recent discovery. But still, the e-mail had come from one of her biggest stars.
“When?” Kiki whispered, then winced as the Town Car bounced over a pothole. She remembered that bump from the last face-lift, six months earlier.
“Three hours ago,” Boom Boom said. She put on her headset. “Want to roll some calls? We’ve got twenty-five to return.”
Kiki glared at her assistant. She felt doped up on morphine and hadn’t yet taken her Vicodin:
“Lydia called. She needs an answer about press.”
Kiki shook her head and motioned for the pad and pen resting on Boom Boom’s lap.
“Jen wants to know about the CDF fund-raiser,” Boom Boom continued. She handed Kiki the pen. “Also Natalie asked about your trip to the ashram, wants to know if it’s one or two weeks?” Kiki’s head pounded. She put pen to paper.
“Galaxy just FedExed dailies from the Take No Prisoners set and wants you to let them know about the Oscar campaign.”
Kiki finished writing and turned the monogrammed notebook toward her young, wrinkle-free servant. Boom Boom continued to chatter about appointments and calls. Kiki tapped on the pad, and then again with more force, finally requiring Boom Boom to silence her yammering and look at the paper.
A small gasp escaped Boom Boom’s lips as she read Kiki’s short but effective note.
“I’m just trying to be helpful. You don’t have to get bitchy about it,” Boom Boom said.
Kiki turned toward the window and tried not to smile, as smiling would tear the stitches clamped to the skin behind her ears. Business would have to wait until she wrapped herself in the luxurious sheets at the Peninsula. She relaxed as the limo finally turned into the private entrance to the hotel. Kiki glanced at the notepad in her lap. Two very effective words were emblazoned across the pad: Fuck you.
Rule 2: Never Let Them See Your Next Move
Celeste Solange, Actress
Heat seared through Cici’s leg muscles as if they would tear from her very bones.
“That’s great, just two more! Come on, Cici, you can do it!”
“That’s what you said eight reps ago,” Cici bit out through clenched teeth.
Celeste Solange glared at her trainer, Liam. The only exercises she enjoyed were sex and shopping, and this endorphin-producing endeavor was neither.
“Almost there,” Liam said.
Easy for Liam—he had to love this kind of pain what with his abdominal muscles poking through his T-shirt. She guessed his body fat to be around 1.5 percent on a bad day. Cici cringed and extended her legs one last time. If her fans could see her moaning and sweating like a sumo wrestler they’d never again believe the ‘I-can-eat-anything-I-want-and-never-gain-a-pound’ sound bite.
Cici’s legs collapsed under her. Her thighs burned.
“Great job!” Liam grabbed her by the forearm and pulled her up. “Nice workout. Walk that off and then we’ll stretch”
“Water.”
Cici limped to the Fiji bottle, lifted it to her lips, and guzzled greedily. She glanced in the full-length workout mirror. Her profile looked good for thirty (fine, thirty-six), though right now her blond hair frizzled around her barrette and sweat dripped down her face.
Tall and lean, with the kind of thinness that curvy women fight to maintain, once Cici passed the big three-oh she worked non-stop to keep the pounds off her five-eight frame. The camera didn’t add ten pounds. Try twenty.
Great film roles were sparse each year, and everyone (Angie, Jen, Nicole, and Sandy) wanted them. After actresses hit thirty, their agents and managers slugged it out to secure great roles for the ladies. Sure, everyone said that forty was the new thirty, and often a forty-year-old appeared on the cover of Us, People, or Star … but how many roles did Julia actually score in the last year?
“Okay, let’s stretch,” Liam said, sitting on the exercise mat in front of Cici.
Between the daily six A.M. workouts (Liam was truly a sadist), visits to her nutritionist, whose mantra was “Raw, baby, everything raw; it’ll turn back the clock ten years,” and Dr. Charles Melnick’s magic Botox needles and microderm, Cici remained stunning.
But for how long?
Cici glanced into the long exercise mirror in front of Liam. Maybe she should consider the knife. A small shudder chased a cool tendril of fear down her spine. She didn’t want to end up the spawn of Dr. Spock, with slanty eyes and Vulcan ears, as had so many women in Hollywood. How could those women fail to recognize one stitch too many?
Cici leaned over her outstretched legs, her nose touching her knees. Charles Melnick did excellent work and he performed her breast-lift. But her face? Did she really want Melnick to stretch the skin on her cheeks up to her ears?
No, she didn’t. But time marched on, and Cici didn’t want the boot marks under her eyes. She exhaled, sat up, and raised her arms overhead.
At her last appointment for Botox, she finally brought up the big F. Charles Melnick worked on the majority of female faces that flickered across the silver screen and was used to the face-lift discussion.
“Cici, my darling, how could I possibly improve on perfection?” he’d asked.
He held her jaw with his hand and turned her face gently first to the left and then to the right. “You eat right, you exercise, and most important, you hydrate.”
“Water, water, water,” Cici said.
“Yes, that and sunscreen. Those two things alone could put eighty percent of the plastic surgeons in L.A. out of business.” He perused her skin ever closer. “But I know the demands on a face such as yours.”
Cici glanced past Melnick to her reflection in the full-length mirror behind him. Fluorescent lighting should be banned. Were those bags?
“It’s part of your burden as a celebrity to be an archetype. A testament to beauty. A goddess.” Dr. Melnick traced a line under Cici’s eyes with his index fingers. “Like porcelain.”
He rolled back his chair and turned. He met Cici’s gaze in the mirror. “So, my darling, what is it? What is it that you think my feeble talents can do for you?”
Cici stared in the mirror. The press often touted her as the modern-day Marilyn Monroe. She still looked beautiful. But anxiousness and fear gnawed at her insides. She had lost her ex-husband, Damien Bruckner, to a seventeen-year-old. What did Cici have if not her beauty and the illusion of youth?
“I’m worried about the lines.” She traced a finger along her forehead and mouth. “Here and here.” They were creases that Ted Robinoff, her billionaire boyfriend and the owner of Worldwide, told her were invisible to everyone but her (and of course Dr. Melnick).
“Darling, these are completely under control with the Botox and collagen.”
“What about this?” Cici asked and tapped the hint of sag under her eye. “And this?” She touched the
bone under her highly arched brow. She had noticed the beginning of an extra fold of skin touching her eyelids.
“Well,” Dr. Melnick said, turning back to her and leaning in closer to her face. “There are a number of options, but the best and the longest lasting is, of course, a bit of surgery.”
Cici’s heart bounced as if snagged by a taut wire line. She’d contemplated surgery but her face was her most precious commodity.
“Darling,” Melnick continued, “you don’t need it. Most women don’t do it until thirty-two, and you’ve just turned thirty.”
Only Cici knew the truth—she was thirty-six, soon to hit thirty-seven. So she was actually four years past due. No wonder younger actresses looked so good.
“No. I think it’s time,” Cici said. “Better too soon than too late.”
“Well, that does make these procedures less noticeable. If you keep up the maintenance while you age,” Dr. Melnick continued appraising Cici’s face in the mirror. “Working on a face such as yours is like trying to repaint the Sistine chapel. I just cannot do it any better than the original master, but if you insist, Connie can schedule you for, when? Next week?”
Cici’s heart thumped and her throat tightened. She hadn’t prepared herself for the possibility of surgery so soon. This was only a consult—a discussion—she wasn’t yet ready to schedule a definite date. Surgery next week?
“I’ve got press and a photo shoot. You know, this whole month is bad. Can we wait until next month? The end of next month?”
“Done. Connie will call to confirm. You’ll be here, in the office. Same-day service; in and out.”
Cici stood and reached for her bag. With the thought of Melnick slicing into her face nausea bubbled in her belly and threatened to overwhelm her. Cold sweat formed on her lip and trickled down her spine.
