Once upstairs, Diana sat at her dressing table and wondered what Max was doing now. She understood why he had to leave the agency; it was because Freddie had always kept him in the background— kind of like the court jester. But she knew the truth. Underneath Max’s brash exterior lurked a caring, sensitive man. And one of these days she planned on finding out exactly how caring and sensitive he was.
The intercom buzzed. “I’m going for a drive,” Freddie said, his tone cold and flat. “Don’t wait up.”
Not to worry, Diana thought. I have better things to do with my time.
chapter 11
JAKE FOLLOWED KRISTIN INTO her apartment, looked around, and let out a long low whistle. “Some place,” he said, admiring the expensive decor.
“Uh . . . thank you,” she answered nervously. He was right, her apartment was nice. And so it should be; she’d overspent working with a decorator, and the result was soothing and tasteful, exactly what she’d been looking for. She considered her apartment her haven, the one place she could be alone. Now she was bringing Jake—a virtual stranger— into her private domain.
Am I insane? she thought. Why am I doing this?
Because you like him.
No, I don’t like him. I’m merely lonely. I need the arms around me of a man who isn’t paying me. Is that a crime?
Yes, because you’re setting yourself up to get hurt.
“Would you like a drink?” she asked, still feeling ridiculously skittish.
“Wouldn’t mind a beer.” He laughed. “Bet that’s something you don’t have.”
“It’s not my drink of choice, but I can offer you vodka or wine.”
“Not a heavy drinker, huh?”
“I never drink by myself.”
“So you’re a good girl,” he said teasingly.
“Now you’re making me sound boring,” she countered.
“Wouldn’t want that,” he said, coming up behind her and putting his arms lightly around her waist.
She turned in his embrace and began to say something, but he stopped her with his lips, and they were as good as she’d known they’d be.
He kissed her for several long, slow-motion minutes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been kissed, because paid-for sex did not usually involve that kind of intimacy. The sensation was unbelievably heady and yet fraught with danger.
Finally she forced herself to push him away. “I need a drink,” she whispered.
“So do I,” he agreed. “We’re both nervous.”
“You’re nervous, Jake?” she asked, surprised. “Of what?”
“You make me nervous. In fact,” he added with a rueful grin, “you made me nervous the first time I spotted you in Neiman’s.”
“I did?”
“You certainly did. I mean there I was, minding my own business, searching for a tie. And there you were, sitting at the martini bar, looking to break my heart.”
“I was not,” she objected. “If I might remind you—it was you who picked me up.”
“No. It was you who came and sat beside me.”
“Liar! Liar!” she said, enjoying the game. “I was already there—you sat next to me.”
“I did?”
“You did.”
“Then I must be smarter than I thought.”
She laughed softly. “You’re so romantic.”
“Was your husband romantic?”
“Please don’t talk about him,” she said, quickly moving over to a side table where she kept glasses, red and white wine and a bottle of vodka. It was not like she ever entertained—the setup was purely decorative.
Once more, Jake came up behind her. “I’ll play barman,” he said, taking the bottle of vodka out of her hands.
“If you insist,” she said, shivering slightly.
He poured them both a healthy shot. “Where’s the ice?”
“In the kitchen.”
She watched him as he went into the kitchen. He was very watchable, tall and lean with a long-legged stride that she found irresistibly sexy. She could hear the jangling of ice cubes as he removed them from the freezer. When he returned he handed her a glass. “Okay, this is the deal,” he said. “I’m making a toast.”
“To what?”
“To you—because you’re beautiful—inside and out.”
Oh no, Jake, don’t say such things. The truth is that I’m ugly and I never want you to find out
“I know this is all happening fast,” he continued. “But I feel I’ve got to tell you.”
“Tell me what?” she asked, holding her breath.
He took a long beat, then—“This’ll sound like another line—only it’s the truth. I . . . uh . . . I guess I’ve never felt this way before.”
Oh, God! Please don’t get carried away, Jake. Take this for what it is, one night of love. One long, leisurely, unpaid-for night of love.
“How about you?” he demanded, staring at her.
She stalled, pretending she didn’t understand. “How about me what?”
“Jeez!” he said, perplexed. “I’m declaring all kinds of true feelings and you’re stonewalling me. What’s going on, Kris?”
Nobody called her Kris; it felt familiar and endearing. She shrugged. “I . . . I don’t know,” she murmured. “Something . . .”
“Yeah . . . something,” he agreed. And then he was kissing her again, his body pressing hard against hers, his lips insistent and intoxicating.
She felt herself dissolve inside. This was too good to pass up. One night. Didn’t she deserve one night of happiness?
Jake’s hands slid down her shoulders to her breasts and began fingering her nipples through the flimsy folds of her white dress—causing her to catch her breath. She’d faked sexual excitement for so long that the real thing was almost a surprise. She shivered with anticipation; it was as if she’d never been touched there before.
Slowly he started easing her dress off her shoulders. She leaned back, making it simple for him.
He released her breasts from the thin material and bent to kiss them, rolling his tongue around her nipples in a way that immediately started to drive her slightly crazy. She sighed loudly, knowing for sure that she never wanted him to stop.
“You . . . are . . . so . . . beautiful . . .” he murmured, his tongue continuing to arouse her. “So . . . fucking . . . beautiful.”
I’m a professional, Jake, I have to keep in good shape.
“Thank you,” she whispered, wondering if it would seem too bold if she went for his belt and pushed down his pants.
“I haven’t been with a woman in over a year,” he admitted. “Unless sex means something, it’s not for me.”
Words to stop anyone in their tracks. “I . . . uh . . . can understand that,” she managed.
“The reason I’m telling you is so that you know you can trust me.”
Trust him? What did he mean? And then she got it: he was informing her so that she’d be aware he didn’t have AIDS or any other catchable diseases.
Oh God, now he was waiting for her to give him her sexual history.
Well, Jake, it’s like this. I’m a whore. But you can feel perfectly safe because if they touch me I always insist they use a condom. And I visit my gynecologist twice a month. And . . . Oh shit, why am I fooling myself? This silly charade of falling in love has nowhere to go.
And yet . . .
“I haven’t slept with anyone since my husband,” she murmured.
“Well then,” he said, obviously pleased with her reply. “You and I are about to make this a night to remember.”
chapter 12
MADISON HAD THE CAB take her to a late-night car-rental place, and now she sat behind the wheel of a green Ford Galaxy driving toward Salli’s house in Pacific Palisades. No more depending on other people to get around this town.
Her thoughts were full of Salli, as she tried to dredge up every detail of their lunch together. She remembered walking into Salli’s luxurious house— her sense of how unlike New York ci
ty living it was with its big, high-ceilinged rooms leading out to lavish gardens, and an enormous swimming pool. The sun was shining and music was playing in the background. It was the radio, because every so often a male disk jockey would announce his last three choices. She remembered the dogs, yappy little things racing all over the place.
“They’re my babies,” Salli had said, scooping them up in her arms. And then later Salli had confided that she couldn’t have kids—something to do with an abortion that had taken place when she was fifteen. “I was dirt poor,” she’d said with a rueful laugh. “So I guess I got me the town butcher.”
“Is that off the record, or can I use it?” Madison had asked, playing fair because she didn’t want to take advantage of Salli’s almost naive openness.
“Go ahead—print the truth for once,” Salli had answered boldly. “I’m sick of all the lies.” And then she’d really started talking.
Good journalist that she was, Madison had made shorthand notes in her head as Salli rambled on— even though her mini-tape machine was recording every word, because nowadays the lawyers wouldn’t allow the magazine to print an interview unless there was tape to back it up.
Sitting beside the pool, chewing on carrot sticks, because she was on a constant diet, Salli began peeling back the layers of her life.
* * *
Small-town girl Salli got pregnant, had an abortion, won a local beauty contest at the age of fifteen, fought with her widowed father, dropped out of school and took the bus to Hollywood with exactly one hundred and three dollars in her cracked, white patent-leather purse. She had brown frizzy hair, slightly buck teeth and quite a bit of puppy fat. But she was still pretty enough to make heads turn.
She faked her ID and immediately got a job as a waitress in a strip joint out by LAX airport, where she was so impressed by most of the strippers’ attributes that she decided she’d better do something about her own modest 34B’s. With that goal in mind she began saving her money for just such an event.
While she was waiting, a cabdriver boyfriend took a nude Polaroid of her and sent it in to Playboy. Eight weeks later they rejected her as too skinny. This infuriated Salli, who immediately became determined that one day she’d be on the magazine’s cover.
New tits became more important than ever. She found herself an agent and started doing extra work. Naturally, the agent, an older man with grown kids, fell in lust with her. Of course he had no clue she was barely sixteen. She held out going to bed with him until he came up with the money for her new boobs. It took a year because—being a nice family man—he was riddled with guilt. Eventually he left his wife, paid for her operation, and on the night they finally slept together, expired on top of her before consummating the act. It was a traumatic experience, one that Salli did not forget in a hurry.
After that she became an expert tease—never letting any man get too close, although they all tried. Instead she concentrated on making herself the best she could be.
The new boobs gave her a head start; they changed her life. Instead of waitressing, she turned to exotic dancing and began making enough money to continue her transformation from small-town beauty queen to Hollywood starlet. First she dyed her brown hair a Marilyn Monroe platinum blond. Then she had her teeth capped and managed to lose a staggering twenty-five pounds. With her new glamorous look— all big boobs, tiny waist and long legs—she soon found a new agent and began getting small roles on TV shows and in films. If she’d wanted to do porno she could’ve made a killing, but sensibly she opted not to go that route. Instead she specialized in playing dumb blondes with spectacular bodies. An easy task. What wasn’t easy was fighting off all the men. They came on to her in droves—including married famous ones who all had the same excuse: “My wife isn’t into sex, so suck my dick.” Sometimes she did, sometimes she didn’t. She had to like a guy before she did anything.
It was a long haul, but Salli finally made it back to Playboy. This time they were all over her, and not only did she get the cover, but four pages of photographs inside and the centerfold.
Fame at last. Her spread was so popular that a year later she did it again. And then her career really started to take off, culminating in her own TV series, Teach!, and yet another Playboy cover.
Teach! became the Baywatch of the nineties, and Salli became the heroine of horny teenage boys across the world.
Along the way she married an actor, Eddie Stoner, then divorced him two years later. And was currently married to the infamous Bobby Skorch—a man who regularly risked his life for a living.
* * *
Once more Madison wondered what had happened after she’d left. Salli had seemed in such a good mood, upbeat and enthusiastic about her future. She’d told Madison she planned to stay on Teach! for one more year, and then take a shot at movie stardom.
Now it was all over. And there had to be a reason why.
Madison drove determinedly toward Salli’s house.
chapter 13
“I DON’T BELIEVE THIS,” Max said, enraged.
“Howdy, pal,” Howie said, oblivious of his friend’s anger. “I want you to meet Inga.”
Max glared furiously at the exquisite supermodel lounging casually on the leather banquette in a barely there black dress. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he exploded.
“You two know each other?” Howie asked, obviously surprised.
“Not only do we know each other,” Max blustered, “but Inga was my date tonight, and Inga failed to show.”
“Don’t be so silly, Max,” Inga said in her infuriatingly precise accent. “I was not your date. We had a business appointment I could not make. And kindly do not use foul language.”
Max’s famous smoothness slid away as his face contorted with frustrated rage. This Swedish bitch was dissing him, Max Steele. No fucking way! And what the hell was she doing with a lowlife like Howie, his supposed friend?
“Am I in the middle of something here?” Howie asked, all playboy innocence.
“Not at all,” Inga answered coolly.
“Did we, or did we not, have an appointment?” Max demanded, dropping the word “date.”
“A vague arrangement, nothing definite,” Inga said, dipping two fingers into her champagne glass, then delicately licking them in a highly suggestive way.
“Hey,” Howie said, sliding out of the booth. “I’ll be in the head if anyone needs me.”
Max sat down on the leather banquette. “Inga,” he said, regaining his composure, “you were supposed to meet me at Freddie Leon’s house, remember? It was an important sit-down dinner and it was place-carded. Your absence was embarrassing—not to mention rude. You can’t get away with shit like that in this town and expect to work.” He glared at her, waiting for a reaction. “Do you understand me?”
Inga regarded him for a long, silent moment. “Inga does what Inga wants,” she said at last. “And I can assure you, Max, that when the right project comes along, they will be begging for Inga to appear.”
Max was stunned. Just who did this broad think she was?
“Honey,” he said. “Keep on believing that, and you can watch your movie career never take flight.” Abruptly he got up from the table. “I’m off the case—find yourself a new agent.”
Howie was in the men’s room snorting a line of coke from the dark green marble countertop. The attendant, having been handed a fifty-dollar tip, was looking the other way.
“You’re lucky I’m not undercover vice,” Max said, stealing a healthy pinch of the white powder and rubbing it into his gums.
“They’d never get in the door,” Howie said with a manic chuckle. “This place is protected.”
“Protected my ass,” Max snapped.
Howie slipped the small plastic straw into his pocket and swiped the tip of his nose, getting rid of any telltale white powder. “What’s with you and the babe?” he said. “She really break a date with you?”
“Nobody breaks a date with Max Steele,” Max said stiff
ly. “It was purely business and the stupid bitch blew it.”
“I’ve got something I’d like her to blow,” Howie chortled, grabbing his crotch in an exaggerated manner.
“Where’d you meet her?” Max asked, still fuming, but hiding it well.
“Cocktail party at Cartier’s earlier. She was standing there looking hot, so I bought her a trinket.”
“Trinket?” Max questioned.
Howie laughed sheepishly. “So it was a gold tank watch. Big deal. It got me a date, an’ you gotta admit—she’s the business. Makes Cindy look plain.”
“Models are better-looking than actresses,” Max admitted, feeling better as the coke began to take effect. “Although—you gotta remember—they’re also stupider.”
Howie gave a ribald laugh. “I wanna fuck her, not take a lesson in physics.”
“I heard a rumor she’s got the clap,” Max said, his mean streak surfacing.
“No shit?” Howie said, too stoned to care.
By the time they returned to the booth, Inga was gone. “She must be in the john,” Howie said.
With a deep sense of satisfaction Max knew better. She’d dumped on Howie just as she’d dumped on him.
Supermodels! Tall and tan and young and dumb. He’d know better than to ever chase after one of them again.
chapter 14
“WHY DID WE HAVE to leave?” Kevin whined, as Angie recklessly raced his black Ferrari along Sunset. “I was havin’ fun.”
“If that’s your idea of fun,” Angie sneered, “then you like need major detox.”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you, too!” she retorted, screeching the powerful car to a halt at a stoplight. “I’m not into all that phony BS. If you weren’t a friggin’ movie star, those people wouldn’t talk to you.”
“So?” Kevin said belligerently. “I am a friggin’ movie star.”
“You’re not Leonardo DiCaprio.”
“Wouldn’t want t’be,” Kevin said sulkily, thinking that it was about time he dumped Angie. She was too bossy by far, and now that he had two big box-office successes behind him, he could get any girl he wanted. Angie didn’t know it, but she was busy nagging herself out of a gig. “Where we goin’?” he asked, noticing that she’d zoomed past the street where they’d set up house together.