Shooting Star (Beautiful Chaos) Read online

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1: Star

  Chapter 2: Jake

  Chapter 3: Star

  Chapter 4: Jake

  Chapter 5: Star

  Chapter 6: Jake

  Chapter 7: Star

  Chapter 8: Jake

  Chapter 9: Star

  Chapter 10: Jake

  From the Author

  About the Author

  Arianne Richmonde is the USA TODAY bestselling author of suspense novel Stolen Grace, and the contemporary romance Pearl Series– Shades of Pearl, Shadows of Pearl, Shimmers of Pearl, Pearl, and Belle Pearl. Arianne is an American author who was raised in both the US and Europe and now lives in France with her husband and coterie of animals. She used to be an actress and Shooting Star is inspired by her past career—she is a huge fan of TV, film, and theatre and loves nothing better than a great performance.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you, Nelle, for keeping me going each day. And Dee, Gloria, Letty, Cheryl, and Paula. Paul my amazing formatter at BB eBooks – who has saved me from several meltdowns because he is always there for me. And to my incredible readers and fans. Always yours – you inspire me.

  (A Beautiful Chaos book)

  by

  ARIANNE RICHMONDE

  This is the first book in the Beautiful Chaos novella series:

  All rights reserved. This book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed, translated or publicly performed or used in any form without prior written permission of the publisher, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution, circulation or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible maybe liable in law accordingly.

  Arianne Richmonde 2014

  Copyright © Arianne Richmonde, 2014.

  Kindle Edition

  The right of Arianne Richmonde to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) 2000

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

  Cover design © DonDesigns

  Formatting by: BB eBooks

  You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  THE FIRST THING EVERYBODY wanted to know about me (apart from who I was dating) was how the hell did a nineteen-year-old get (a) so rich and (b) so screwed-up? I asked myself the same thing, daily. When I glanced at myself in a passing mirror I’d say, Hey Star, what happened? And when? When exactly was it that things got so . . . so chaotic? And what, girl, are you going to do about it? I often wondered how I’d been so lucky, but I also took it all for granted. The way movie stars generally do when they feel fame is their birthright.

  Still, I was no fool, every day I counted my lucky stars and knew that at any given click of God’s big fat thumb and index finger, all this could be taken away from me.

  Not that I was some religious God freak. I could count the times I’d been to church on one hand. But when the chips were down I found myself making deals with God. And after I’d hit an all-time low at rehab, I promised God—the last night I was there, in fact—that I’d be a good girl if he could just procure that part for me. The role I’d had my eye on.

  The role I was born to play: Skye in Skye’s The Limit.

  Most people think that actors are super-confident. But no. We’re all terrified. Terrified that we’ll be out of a job. That the last big success was a fluke—that we’ll be discovered as phonies. And that someone more beautiful, more talented or more something-or-other will topple us from our pedestals. The truth is, we are fakes. All of us. That’s the nature of our job. We lie. We trick people into believing we are someone else. When we cry, sometimes it’s real and other times an act. And nobody can tell the difference. We’re so good at what we do that we even fool ourselves.

  Especially ourselves.

  We glimmer on the red carpet. We are glorious. Victorious—but we’re also walking time bombs. Waiting to detonate. Waiting for our secret to be revealed. The big secret being that we’re no better than anybody else.

  We get zits. We look like shit before Hair and Make-up gets their hands on us. People dump us. Hey, even Marilyn Monroe was treated like crap by various men.

  Even goddam, luminescent, Marilyn freakin’ Monroe.

  And although I wasn’t aware of it then, I was as vulnerable as Marilyn when I walked out of that clinic and stepped—in my Choos—into a velvet-carpeted limo, purring like a welcoming pussycat, waiting to take me away from the ugly world of imperfection, back to my cocoon of beautiful chaos, that shone so brilliantly on the outside—like a floating bubble that mirrored a cerulean-blue sky and the sun which glittered its golden rays—blinding all my fans.

  That wonderful, hopeful May afternoon, I knew I was back.

  Back to conquer Hollywood.

  “YOU’RE NOT SERIOUS?” I asked, my jaw on the floor. “You’re joking?”

  Brian carried on calmly chewing gum, the cloying aroma of Juicy Fruit wafting about his Porsche like air freshener. He sank deeper into his seat, his large body oozing with self-satisfied confidence, or what I suspected to be a little fart—although it could have been the new leather of the seat squeaking. “Jake,” he said, “you’ll thank me for this later.”

  “There won’t be a ‘later,’ ” I shot back, my voice rising. “Because there’s no fucking way I’m having that . . . that . . . liability on legs in my movie!”

  “She’s fresh out of rehab. She’s turned the page.”

  “Yeah, for how long? Twenty-four hours? My leading lady needs to give the performance of a lifetime in Skye’s The Limit, not be snorting charlie in her dressing room. This is not some brainless blockbuster, Brian, this is art!”

  “There’s nothing more artistic than the creation of money, Jake. She’s box office. Now, more than ever. You know how much airtime she gets? How many times a day she graces the news, or her photo’s in some magazine?”

  “Yeah, but for all the wrong reasons. My answer is no. N-O. No.”

  Brian picked the gum out from his rubbery lips and stuck it in a Kleenex. He smirked and said nothing. Then crunched the tissue in his fist like a boxer preparing for a punch. His jaw tightened. Little veins popped in his forehead like blue tributaries of a river. “You’ll work with her,” he said solemnly, the smirk now edging into a Robert de Niro sneer; the sneer Bob’s bad characters don when they’re about to do something crazy.

  “Why? Why are you so obsessed with putting her in my film? There are other A-list actresses who would kill for the role of Skye. Why Star fucking Davis?”

  “She’s hot. She’s beautiful.”

  “She’ll come to the set drunk, high on pills, her entourage trailing behind her like slimy snails leaving behind a residue of—”

  “It’s done,” Brian said, cutting me off. “She’s signed. We’ve signed. I’m the producer and I’m calling the shots here.”

  “What?” I yelled.

  “Don’t raise your voice. Okay, it wasn’t me who decided. It was the person I have to answer to.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “HookedUp Enterprises, who is mostly backing this. Pearl Chevalier was determined that Star was right for the part. Which
meant she had her husband behind her, telling me to tow the line and abide by Pearl’s wishes.”

  “I thought they’d sold up.”

  “She still has her fingers in all the Hooked Up Enterprise pies. My hands were tied, Jake.”

  I took a breath and counted to ten. Well, tried to count to ten but broke out at six, “What’s the catch?” Silence. Brian looked down at his fleshy knuckles and a sheepish flicker of guilt spread across his puffy face that spelled I had no choice. “What’s the catch, Brian? I demanded again. “No sane producer is going to take a risk like that without some sort of payoff.”

  “She’s coming in under budget.”

  “What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You know when you take a date out to dinner and she’s like the most beautiful woman in the room? And you’re broke but you want to impress her?”

  Brian was anything but broke. I wasn’t sure where this conversation was heading.

  “And you think she’s going to order caviar or something and you’re worrying about how you’re going to pay the check?—and then she actually says she wants a soda and a salad and you’re like, thank fucking God.”

  “You’re telling me Star Davis just wants a soda? I don’t think so.” The last thing I read about Star Davis was that she only drank Cristal. From 1930s champagne saucers, no less. ‘Simple’ wasn’t her style.

  “She’s basically doing this part for free,” Brian explained.

  “But she commands millions. Twenty million, wasn’t it? Her last movie?”

  “She was desperate for the part of Skye. She knows it’s the role of a lifetime.”

  “She’s doing it for no pay?”

  “Practically. A couple hundred thousand dollars. That’s free in her language.”

  I shook my head. “She’s wrong for the part.”

  “She’s right for the part and you know it.”

  I scraped my hands anxiously through my hair. “I can’t let this happen. This is insane. Insane!”

  “It’s done, Jake. That was the deal. You got creative control except for casting. It’s done and dusted. Your granddaddy and your uncle can’t do a thing about it now so don’t think you can pull the ‘Hollywood Royalty’ card and get them involved in this.”

  Blood rushed to my ears. I wanted to punch him square in the face. But what Brian said was true, although I was loath to admit it and even ashamed on some level. Not ashamed of my granddad or uncle or my father. Hell, no. With seven Oscars between them they were as respected and acclaimed as any film director or producer could be. And I loved them. But a deep-rooted humiliation lodged at the pit of my stomach like a lump of food you’ve swallowed too fast—I’d been born with a shiny golden spoon in my mouth. Rich and privileged my whole damn life. Eternally trying to prove that I merited my present success. That I wasn’t some spoiled British brat basking in the rays of Hollywood nepotism. In fact, my father hadn’t given me a penny since my eighteenth birthday and I was a wealthy man in my own right even though I was still only twenty-six. Had four movies under my belt, all directed by yours truly, one of which had been nominated the year before for a Golden Globe for best screenplay (which I co-wrote and produced). Still, the “lucky bastard-has-never-had-to-do-a hard-day’s-work-in-his-life” label left a chip on my shoulder. A notch out of the smooth marble gleam that was my indisputable success. I was being given a fifty-seven million dollar budget for Skye’s The Limit. Nobody hands out that sort of cash to someone who hasn’t proven himself and I was no exception. But it came with strings attached and I felt like a marionette dancing for the big, Hollywood puppet masters.

  “Look,” Brian said, his chubby fingers barely touching the steering wheel as we cruised along. “It’s not just me. This town’s being run by conglomerates and corporations now, not individuals, you know that. They don’t give a crap about anything but big bucks and returns. These suits don’t care about art. They want ‘bums on seats’ as you Brits say. My advice? Shut the fuck up about Star, do your job and you’ll be nominated for Best Director this time next year.”

  I shook my head. “You’ve really asked for trouble casting her, you know that, don’t you?”

  “She won an Oscar, Jake. She can act.”

  I laughed. “She was nine years old, Brian! Since then her greatest jobs have been blow jobs.”

  “Now you’re being crude.”

  He shoved another stick of Juicy Fruit in his gob and buzzed down his window. A warm spring breeze blew welcomingly into the car. “Why have I got the air-con going?” he said with a chuckle. “It’s a beautiful day outside.” He fiddled with the music control on the steering wheel and Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” blared out. His idea of a joke, obviously.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” I mumbled.

  “Rolled the window down or play this song?”

  “Star Davis,” I said. “Really?”

  “There was no point telling you. I knew you’d never agree.”

  “I should walk away right now. Leave you to stew in your own juices—you can find some other mug director who’ll take her on.”

  “Maybe, but I know you won’t do that. You have too much of your soul already invested in this picture.”

  I looked out of the open window as Los Angeles crawled past in the traffic and exhaled a sigh of momentary defeat. This town was doing my head in. Making me lose sight of reality. The palm trees towering into the azure sky like skinny skyscrapers reaching as high as they could go—everyone reaching beyond their means. Grabbing, aspiring, grasping, taking. Even the trees, goddammit. And the houses on Sunset with their manicured lawns, making you believe that life could be controlled, clipped, neatened. Like my father. A control freak who’d move a pencil one inch to the left if he felt it was out of place. Not on set, no. In his own freaking home! A pencil. And I tried to be like him. Organized. Sharp. On the ball. Controlled. A colonel-in-the-army type. But that wasn’t me and never had been. I secretly welcomed madness with relish. Unintentionally courted it. Nurtured dysfunction as if it were a breastfeeding baby, willing chaos into my life the way some people attract money or women. Right now my mind was rattling with a sort of hectic glee. Star Davis represented turmoil and for some unknown reason it excited me—my curiosity piqued.

  “I wanted an unknown for the role of Skye,” I told Brian, willing my thoughts back to safer waters. A nice, new actress with no baggage, no ego and no “history”—that’s what I need. “I’ve been auditioning at drama schools all over the world. I’ve seen sixty-two actresses. I’d narrowed it down to eight. And now you tell me I’ve basically wasted my time?”

  “You tell the press that very same thing. ‘I saw sixty-two actresses and, you know what? None of them hold a candle to Star Davis.’ ”

  “A candle that’s going to start a fire.”

  “You’ll figure it out, Jake. I mean, let’s face it, she’s met her match—match, haha, no pun intended, Get it? She can set you alight.”

  I didn’t laugh at his joke. “What’s that supposed to mean, ‘met her match’?”

  “Bad boy Jake Wild—you’ve had some good times on the casting couch yourself, my friend. You can’t deny you’ve clocked up quite a reputation over the years.”

  “The couch has been reupholstered, Brian. The past is the past. I don’t take advantage of starry-eyed actresses these days. I’m a professional. I get the job done and don’t screw around with the talent anymore. Ever. Well, as of last week. It’s my number one rule.”

  “Well leave Star in peace, you know what I’m saying? She’s vulnerable. She’s fresh out of rehab and needs to be looked after.” He fixed his piggy gaze on me, a bushy eyebrow twitching ironically.

  “Oh no! Don’t look at me, mate. There’s no way I’ll be her fucking nanny!”

  “You’re the only one, Jake, who can keep her on the straight and narrow. We can’t have her going AWOL in the middle of a shoot. She’ll need to be watched like a hawk.”

  “What abo
ut her sea of bodyguards? her PA, her father, for that matter?”

  “None of them can be trusted. She’s too manipulative. Besides, they’re all on her payroll.”

  “Her father too?”

  “He’s her unofficial manager.”

  “Great ‘manager,’ ” I murmured.

  “Star’s been supporting her entire family ever since she did that diaper commercial when she was two years old. She has a strange perspective on life. She has never been told ‘no.’ So she’s used to being boss, and getting what she wants.”

  “Well she’s not bloody bossing me.” I said that with bravado, yet here I was being ‘bossed’ by the system. Brian. The executive producers, the producers, the moneymen, the money women . . . the goddam accountants. The suits whose faces I’d never even seen. And indirectly, Star herself. She’d slithered her way into winning the part of Skye with her wily ways, by offering herself practically free. Clever girl. She’d probably sucked someone’s dick to get the part. She had me in a corner and I hadn’t even met her yet.

  “And one more thing,” Brian added. “Apparently her house is about to be remodeled and she was planning to move into a hotel for a while. But I don’t trust the idea of Star Davis running around loose in a hotel, you know? Too many distractions—too much booze on tap.”

  “What’s your point?” I said, meeting his eyes with a stony glare.

  “I thought until every shot is in the can it would be a good idea if she stayed in your home—you can make sure there’re no temptations—no drugs or liquor anywhere near her.”

  I stared at him incredulously as he smoothly took a bend, the Porsche revving with a quiet growl.

  He went on, “We can hire our own bodyguard—someone who can’t be bribed by her to slip her anything—he could live in your guest house—the one in your garden? And she could stay in one of your guest bedrooms. So, you know, she’ll be under your roof.” He was serious when he said this.