Heartthrob

Brockmann, Suzanne

ISBN 10 : 148299514X ISBN 13 : 9781482995145

Editeur : Blackstone Pub, 2014

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Chapter One
Jericho Beaumont used the pay phone outside the Aardvark Club to call Chaslyn. He automatically hunched his shoulders and turned his face away as a car pulled into the lot and parked, its headlights illuminating him like a follow-spot before being shut off.

As the phone rang, he turned up the collar of his jacket--added protection against being recognized by the college-age kids getting out of the car. But he needn't have bothered.

"Isn't that ...?"

"Doesn't he look like ...?"

The flurry of whispers were drowned out by a louder voice. "Nah, it's only Jericho Beaumont. Hey, Beaumont, where you been? I keep expecting you to do a guest spot on the new Loveboat. Haven't they called you yet?"

Anger flared, but Jed crushed it, stuffing it deep inside, locking it tightly down, ignoring it as completely as the laughter that echoed in the night. And when Chaslyn's roommate Lisa picked up the phone on the fifth ring, his voice was even and perfectly in control.

"Hey, Lisa. It's Jericho. Has Chas left for the wrap party yet?"

Silence. Then Lisa laughed nervously. "Um, Jericho ...Chaslyn left for London five days ago. She got cast in that Linda McCartney bio-pic, remember?" Her voice became tinged with pity. "Didn't she tell you she was leaving?"

"Yeah," Jed lied. "Yeah, she told me, and I, um ...I must've forgotten."

"You didn't know she was gone, did you?" Lisa saw right through him. "You know, she told me you wouldn't notice if she suddenly disappeared. And it took you five days just to wonder where she was, didn't it?"

What could he say? It was the truth. "Yeah."

"God," Lisa continued, "and I was about to be mad at her for dumping you that way. You're such a loser, Beaumont."

She cut the connection without even saying good-bye, and Jed slowly hung up the phone.

His girlfriend had been gone for five days.

And he hadn't even noticed.

It would've been funny--if it weren't so damn pathetic.

The music inside the club was blaring, and Jed worked his way through the sea of humanity to the bar at the back, where the cast and crew of Mean Time were having their farewell bash.

Rhino and T.S. were sitting at the bar, a bottle of Jack Daniel's positioned strategically between them.

"Where's Chaslyn?" Melanie, the makeup head asked as he moved past her table.

Jed didn't stop. "She's not coming. She's already flown to London for her next project."

"Poor Jericho--you're all alone. You must be so sad."

He took the stool next to Rhino, trying to feel sad, trying to care Chaslyn was gone. But the only emotion he could muster up was a vague sense of frustration. And maybe a little envy. Chas had a next project to go to. So far Jed had nothing lined up yet, and the truth was that that hurt worse than her leaving.

He dug deeper, staring into the shot glass filled with golden brown whiskey that Rhino had pushed in front of him, but he still felt nothing more profound than a sense of relief.

Chaslyn had left, which meant he no longer had to worry about hurting her. She had truly cared for him. And he ...He'd liked the sex.

Bernie O'Hara, the character he'd played in Mean Time, had loved Chaslyn's character, Lulu Jerome, with an obsessive passion. It hadn't taken long for the line between reality and make-believe to blur, and five days into the six-week shoot, Jed had wound up in Chaslyn's bed. It should've been no big deal. They were both adults, both unattached.

But Chas didn't realize the heat they generated belonged only to Bernie and Lulu. She didn't realize that underneath Bernie's volatile character, Jed felt damn close to nothing.

That he rarely felt anything at all.

He picked up the glass of whiskey and brought it up to his nose, breathing in the familiar aroma. He closed his eyes, anticipating its smoothness against his tongue, the bite as it hit the back of his throat, the warmth that would rush through him, down to his stomach and outward, all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes.

"You actually gonna drink that this time?"

Jed opened his eyes to see Austin Franz sliding onto the stool on his other side. Franz was a brilliant cinematographer, and one of the meanest sons of bitches in the industry. He'd gotten it into his head that he'd have stood a chance with Chaslyn, had Jericho Beaumont not pushed him out of the running.

Rhino and T.S. shifted in their seats, exchanging a glance.

"Are you?" Franz asked again.

Jed couldn't answer. He never knew for sure if he was going to drink the whiskey or not--not until he got up and walked out of the bar. So far he'd always walked away.

He sidestepped the question, giving Franz his movie star smile, open, friendly. "I just like to smell it."

"You've been sober...how long?" Franz asked.

"It'll be five years next week."

"Shit. That long? You must want to drink that pretty damn badly."

Jed gazed into the shot glass.

"Go away, Austin," Rhino said, his squeaky voice in direct contrast to his girth.

"So what's your next movie gonna be, Jer?" Franz asked.

"Jericho doesn't like nicknames," T.S. supplied helpfully.

Jed's smile was starting to feel decidedly tired. It was public knowledge that he didn't have a next movie yet. He called his agent, Ron Stapleton, twice a day, but apparently, even after being clean and sober for five years, even after showing up every day on time for Mean Time, no one wanted to touch him. The best he had was a potential meeting with the producer of another independent feature. He'd have to fly to Boston, even pay for the airline tickets himself, with no guarantee he'd get the part. And until Ron sent him the script, he wasn't even sure he wanted it. Frustration twisted inside of him. "Nothing's lined up yet," he said cheerfully--an Oscar-worthy performance.

"I'm taking a few months off myself," Franz told him, "and then I'm going into preproduction with Stan for this really hot 1930s gangster story. Stan liked you for the lead, but since I'm producing this time around, I talked him out of it."

He was lying. He was trying to piss Jed off--and it was working. Jed turned his smile up a few notches. "It's just as well. I try not to work with the same director twice in a row."

"Come on, Jericho," T.S. said. "I'll challenge you to a game of video downhill skiing."

"I'll challenge you to a different game. You ever play quarters?" Franz stopped Jed with a hand on his arm.

Franz was holding him so tightly, he would have had to really pull to get away. This was the way bar fights started. He knew--he'd been in enough of them in the past.

He briefly closed his eyes. "Austin, I'm sorry about Chaslyn. I honestly didn't know that you were--"

"Screw Chaslyn." Franz laughed harshly. "Well, shit, you already did that, didn't you? Just forget about it, Jerry. She obviously has. This is just a nice, friendly wager."

"I'm not into gambling."

"One game of quarters. That's all."

Quarters was a drinking game where the players took turns bouncing coins off the bar in an attempt to sink one in their opponent's drink. When a quarter was sunk, the opposing player had to drain the glass. Jed had played plenty in his late teens, but usually with beer, not whiskey.

Franz reached for the bottle of Jack, pouring himself a shot. "One game. If you win or tie, I'll let Stan cast you in the gangster project."

"And if I lose?"

"You win anyway, since you really want to drink that shot. I'd just be giving you a good excuse." He pushed a quarter down the bar.

Jed stared into Franz's eyes, feeling ...what? Anger, yes. The son of a bitch was vindictive and mean-spirited. He wanted to hurt Jed simply for the sake of hurting him and that really pissed him off. But beneath his anger, he also felt ...interest. A glimmer of excitement, a shadow of possibility.

He could win. He used to be good at this. He picked up the quarter.

Rhino clutched at his head. "Jericho--"

"Shut up, Rizinski." Franz was holding another quarter, and he tossed it onto the bar so that it bounced up. It missed the rim of Jed's glass by a good two inches.

Jed hefted the other quarter in his hand. Last time he'd played, it had been with beer mugs--taller, but wider around. He took a deep breath, feeling the smoky air of the bar fill his lungs. The risk was high, but if he won ...

He threw. The quarter bounced, clinking as it hit the side of Franz's glass.

Franz threw and missed. Jed threw, the quarter hitting the glass again, but still not going in.

Twice more each, all misses, and Jed knew he could do it. One more shot was all he needed and ...

Franz's quarter landed dead in the center of Jed's glass with a splash. It settled there, magnified by both the glass and the liquid.

"You got one chance to tie." Franz slid the second quarter down the bar to him.

"Jericho--"

"I can do this, Rhino."

Rhino put his head down on the bar, his meaty arms blocking both his sight and hearing.

Jed picked up the quarter, tracing George Washington's head with his thumb. He knew exactly where to throw it, exactly how much force to use. He could do this. He tossed.

The quarter bounced.

And missed.

"Yes!" Franz laughed, smacking the bar with the palm of his hand. "I win."

The reality of what he'd just done came crashing down around Jed. The glimmer of possibility turned to ash, to soul-numbing despair.

He stared at his shot glass, at the quarter at the bottom. He didn't have to lift it to his nose, he could smell the pungent odor from where he was. He knew how good it would taste, how easy it would go down.

And he knew if he drank it, he'd drink another. And another and probably another. Until he was loaded enough not to care. Until he was loaded enough to beat the crap out of Austin Franz.

"You don't have to drink," Franz said generously. "But if you don't, you better believe you'll never work for me, or anyone associated with me, ever again."

Jed lifted the glass.
Kate gazed at the man sitting across from her, nearly giddy with fatigue. "You think I should marry you ...?"

He was handsome in a bland, spongy, Wonder bread kind of way, with wavy blond hair and very pretty blue eyes. "No, it's not ..." He closed those eyes and shook his head. "It's not what you think," he said in a soft southern drawl. "I'm not doing this for me." He opened his eyes and gazed at her intently. "I'm doing this for you."

"I don't understand." After five hours, she couldn't put much emotion into it anymore.

He closed his eyes again. "I made a promise to Sarah ..." The eyes opened again. Another piercing look. Kate clenched her teeth so that she wouldn't laugh out loud and hurt the poor guy's feelings. ". . . that I'd look out for you. If you're married to me, then you won't have to--"

"Thank you," Victor interrupted. "Mister ..." He searched his clipboard for a name. "Franklin."

"John Franklin," Blue-eyes supplied helpfully. Hopefully. Just like that, the slightly overdone southern accent was replaced by nasal Long Island. "Was that what you wanted? Because I could do it again. Is Laramie supposed to be drunk in this scene, because I can do it more drunk if you want. Or less drunk or--"

"Thank you," Victor said again.

"We've got your head shot and résumé, John," Kate told the actor gently as she stood up and escorted him to the door. "Thank you so much for coming." She poked her head out into the crowded waiting room. "Give us five minutes, Annie."

As the door closed behind the man, Kate leaned against it.

"What the hell was he doing with his eyes?" Victor asked. "Where did that guy learn to act?"

"He wasn't that bad."

"I wouldn't cast him in a dog food commercial." Victor turned to the casting agent who was manning the video camera. "Erase that," he ordered.

Kate pushed herself up and off the door, resisting the urge to throw herself down on the floor to scream and kick her feet. It wasn't her job to have a hissy fit. It wasn't her job to go insane--at least not visibly so. She was the producer of this movie. She had to be the voice of reason and the oracle of calm even when her blood pressure was 800 over 400, the way it was right now.

She could hear a dull roar in her ears as her blood raced through her veins. Looking on the bright side, if her head actually did explode, it was likely that Victor would begin to take what she had to say much more seriously.

Over the past few years--over half a decade now--she'd been the president and CEO of the Supply Closet, an office supply store that she'd built into a multimillion-dollar regional chain. She'd found, in those years, that her normal, soft-spoken delivery didn't always get her the results she wanted, so she'd learned to square her shoulders, raise her voice, and get very, very tough. Most men thought they could steamroll over Kate O'Laughlin, and they probably could. But when she mentally slipped on her Valkyrie maiden breastplate, adjusted the twin horns on her helmet, and let Frau Steinbreaker loose, she could not only make a dent in the roller, but also stop the machine cold.

She hadn't yet felt the need to assume her alter ego with Victor. But she could feel her backbone starting to stiffen--the first sign that the Frau was dying to be unleashed.

"We need to cast this part," she said. That was a simple enough concept, wasn't it? So why didn't he just do it? "We're scheduled to start shooting this movie in less than a month and a half, and until we find our Virgil Laramie, we're not going to get a commitment from any of the other actors. Maybe it's time to take another look at the five hundred actors you've already rejected out of hand?"

Either that, or maybe it was time for her to start whacking herself on the head with a big stick.

Victor's cell phone trilled, and with an arrogance that still drove her mad, even now, after they'd been divorced for close to seven years, he held up one hand, signaling her to wait as he took the call.

To date, Victor had rejected every hungry young actor in Hollywood for this part. Some of them were rising movie stars. Some were hot and happening TV actors. And they all had been willing to take a significant cut in pay--even down to union scale--to do this picture. To take on the meaty role of Virgil Laramie.

Virgil Laramie was a broken, bitter man who returned to South Carolina after a harsh journey to California took the lives of his wife and baby son. He'd returned east and was ready and willing to spend the rest of his life hiding in a bottle of whiskey--until his 14-year-old sister-in law shocked him by asking him to help smuggle a wagon load of runaway slaves out of the county. The girl, Jane, was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and her fearless passion, along with her deep loyalty and friendship for a young black man, slowly brought Laramie back to the world of the living.

The Promise was going to be a chick flick--a love story, a relationship movie. It was also a period piece. The story took place in the South in the mid-1800s, several years before the American Civil War.
With those two serious strikes against it--the fact that nothing exploded and the characters wore old-fashioned clothing and did a lot of talking--Kate knew that chances of the film being picked up by a major distributor would increase a significant amount if they had a name-brand actor attached to the project. Matthew McConaughey. Matt Damon. Ralph Fiennes.

Ka...

Présentation de l'éditeur

Reissue (Original Publication Date: March 1999) THE SEXIEST MAN ALIVE... Former A-list movie star Jed “Jericho” Beaumont had—and lost—it all when prescription drugs and alcohol sent him spiraling out of control. He’s been gone for five years—a lifetime in Hollywood—but he’s finally clean, and he’s ready for a comeback. Jed knows that the character of Laramie in an indie movie called The Promise is the role of a lifetime. He wants it badly enough to sign an outrageous contract with producer Kate O’Laughlin—one that requires Jed to be supervised, 24/7. THE BRILLIANT WOMAN WHO’S HIS MATCH... Kate’s producing the movie of her heart, and although Jericho’s an incredible talent, his reputation is for reckless behavior—which could kill this project that she loves. The only solution is to ensure his sobriety by babysitting her handsome leading man—a job that quickly proves challenging. The two are at odds from the start—and sparks quickly fly... (Set in 1999, HeartThrob is a full length novel of 104K words or 340 pages, originally published in March, 1999, by Ballantine Books.)

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Blackstone Pub
• Date d'édition: 2014
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 148299514X
• ISBN 13: 9781482995145
• Reliure: MP3 CD
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Buchpark GmbH; https://www.buchpark.de; ; Krügerweg 1; Trebbin; Brandenburg; 14959; Allemagne