Hollywood Baby Affair

“I’ve got a proposal.”

He checked his surprise, and joked, “Odele, I didn’t think you had it in you.”

He had been propositioned by plenty of women, but he’d never had the word proposal issue from the mouth of a Madeleine Albright look-alike before.

“Not that type of proposition. I want you to be in a relationship with Chiara Feran.”

Rick rubbed his jaw. He hadn’t seen that one coming. And then he put two and two together, and a light went off. “You were the one who planted that story about me and Chiara.”

“Yup,” Odele responded without a trace of guilt or remorse. “The press beast had to be fed. And more important, we needed a distraction from another story about Chiara’s father.”

“The gambler.”

“The deadbeat.”

“You’re ruthless.” He said it with reluctant admiration.

“There’s chemistry between you,” Odele responded, switching gears.

“Fireworks are more like it.”

Chiara’s manager brightened. “The press will eat it up. The stuntman and the beauty pageant winner.”

So Chiara had won a contest or two—he shouldn’t have been surprised. She had the looks to make men weak, including him, somewhat to his chagrin. Still, Odele made them sound like a couple on a C-rated reality show: Blind Date Engagements. “I’ve seen the media chew up and spit out people right and left. No, thanks.”

“It’ll raise your profile in this town.”

“I like my privacy.”

“I’ll pay you well.”

“I don’t need the money.”

“Well,” Odele drawled, lowering her eyes, “maybe I can appeal to your sense of stuntman chivalry then.”

“What do you mean?”

Odele looked up. “You see, Chiara has this teeny-weeny problem of an overly enthusiastic fan.”

“A stalker?”

“Too early to tell, but the guy did try to scale the fence at her house once.”

“He knows where she lives?” Rick asked in disbelief.

“We live in the internet age, dear. Privacy is dead.”

He had some shred left but he wasn’t going to go into details. Even Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, was entitled to a few secrets.

“Don’t mention the too-eager fan to her, though. She doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Rick narrowed his eyes. “Does Chiara Feran know you approached me?”

“She thinks I already have.”

All right then.

He surmised that Odele and Chiara had had their talk. And apparently Chiara had changed tactics and decided to turn the situation to her advantage. She was willing to tolerate him...for the sake of her career at least. He shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d already had one bad experience with a publicity-hungry actress, and then he’d been one of the casualties.

Still, they were in the middle of the second act, and he’d missed the opening. But suddenly things had gotten a lot more interesting.

Odele’s eyes gleamed as if she sensed victory—or at least a chink in his armor. Turning away, she said, “Let me know when you’re ready to talk.”

As Rick watched Chiara’s manager leave, he knew there was a brooding expression on his face. Odele had presented him with a quandary. As a rule, he didn’t get involved with actresses—ever since his one bad episode—but he had his gallant side. On top of it, Chiara was the talent on his latest film—one in which he had a big stake.

As if on cue, his cell phone vibrated. Fishing it out of his pocket, Rick recognized the number on-screen as that of his business partner—one of the guys who fronted the company, per Rick’s preference to be behind the scenes.

“Hey, Pete, what’s going on?”

Rick listened to Pete’s summary of the meeting that morning with an indie director looking for funding. He liked what he heard, but he needed to know more. “Email me their proposal. I’m inclined to fund up to five million, but I want more details.”

Five million dollars was pocket change in his world.

“You’re the boss,” Pete responded cheerfully.

Yup, he was...though no one on set knew he was the producer of Pegasus Pride. He liked his privacy and kept his communications mostly to a need-to-know basis.

Right. Rick spotted Chiara in the distance. No doubt she was heading to film her next scene. There was someone who treated him more like the hired help than the boss.

Complications and delays on a film were common, and Rick had a feeling Chiara was about to become his biggest complication to date...

Two (#ufff62d07-427b-5780-a059-cafa2dcecc6a)

“Hey.”

It was exactly the sort of greeting she expected from a sweaty and earthy he-man—or rather, stuntman.

Chiara’s pulse picked up. Ugh. She hadn’t expected to have this reaction around him. She was a professional—a classically trained actress before she’d been diverted by Hollywood.

Sure, she’d been Miss Rhode Island, and a runner-up in the Miss America pageant. But then the Yale School of Drama had beckoned. And she’d never been a Hollywood blonde. The media most often compared her to Camilla Belle because they shared a raven-haired, chestnut-eyed look.

Anyway, with her ebony hair, she’d need to have her roots touched up every other day if she tried to become a blonde. As far as she was concerned, she spent enough time in the primping chair.

She figured He-Stuntman had gotten his education in the School of Hard Knocks. Maybe a broken bone or two. Certainly plenty of bumps and bruises.

Rick stopped in front of her. No one was around. They were near the actors’ trailers, far away from the main action. Luckily she hadn’t run into him after her talk with Odele two days ago. Instead, she’d managed to avoid him until now.

Dusk was gathering, but she still had a clear view of him.