Taken by the Billionaire
Author: Renee White
Date: 2013-01-06T23:00:00+00:00
Description: Damien Taylor is the hottest bachelor in all of LA. Hot, talented and popular, the British movie mogul can have any woman he wants - and does until Kylie Clark shows up at his office begging for a movie role. Kylie is suspiciously similar to the obnoxious pop star Jenny Clark who Damien had a major falling out with. Discovering Kylie is her sister, Damien is even less likely to hire her. But their undeniable chemistry pushes him to make a move. He offers Kylie the role on the condition that she spends every night in his bed during the movie shoot. But jealous exes and women surrounding him won

1

When she first walked into my office I was pissed off for two reasons. Number one, she shouldn’t have been there in the first place; I’d left specific instructions with Alexandra, my assistant, that nobody, nobody was to disturb me. I had work to do now that casting for the next film was due, thousands of details to manage, and the last thing I wanted during the time I needed to concentrate were pushy, whiny agents trying to get into my face. With my name attached to it the film had the potential to become a huge pie, and of course everyone wanted a slice. Number two, the other reason for my frustration was, that at first glance I thought it was Jenny Clark standing there.

That woman was most definitely persona-non-grata, which is why I was more than a little brusque when I said, “What the hell do you want?”

But a second later, I realized that I mistook that poor woman for Jenny.

The girl did look a lot like Jenny Clark however. Jenny, an undeniably talented and attractive pop star who also managed to be one of the most obnoxious, difficult people I’ve ever worked with. So demanding and intractable that years before I broke contract and walked out on producing one of her music videos.

“Who are you?” I asked, still none too politely, I was busy as hell but also a little curious.

“I’m Kylie,” the girl replied. She took a tentative step further into my domain. “Kylie Clark,” she added.

What piqued my interest in the girl further was her reaction when I mentioned Jenny’s name. “You’re Jenny Clark’s little sister?” I asked.

“I’m her sister,” Kylie confirmed with a nod of her head and ice in her tone. She crossed her arms as her forehead creased in a frown. “Or at least I was; I hate that bitch for what she’s done to me. She’s not any sister of mine now.” The fire in her eyes cooled as Kylie blinked and looked around my office. Her whole demeanor changed in an instant and I figured that she’d remembered whose office she was in, that she’d clocked the Oscar and been reminded that I was The Man. Kylie gave a slight shrug of her shoulders and, almost diffidently said, “Which is kinda why I’m here, Mister Taylor.”

My normal reaction to an unexpected visitor, especially when I’d told Alexandra not to let anyone get past her, would have been to turn the trespasser around and, figuratively speaking, kick their backside out of my office, out of the studio and back onto the streets of LA. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was about her that drew me, something in her looks and the potential for a passionate temperament beneath that ordinary girl first impression maybe? Or did she remind me of a certain Welsh actress?

Either way it didn’t matter too much, the bad blood between Kylie and Jenny piqued my curiosity and I wondered what that demanding egomaniac had done to cause such anger in her sister.

Indicating that Kylie should take a seat I masked my thoughts and feelings with a sarcastic façade. “You don’t get on with Jenny, eh?”

Kylie shook her head. “I hate her,” she replied, eyes sparking again while the words dripped with venom. “She slept with my fiancé.”

The girl’s brimming eyes tugged at me in such a way that I experienced a strong urge to stand up, walk around to the opposite side of the desk and take her in my arms. I knew that pain from my time with Marianne, my ex-wife who cheated on me with my production partner. Obviously he’s now no longer a friend, and due to my influence he’s been struggling to find work lately. Not my proudest moment, and I do feel guilty about giving in to such a petty act of revenge, but a part of me will always believe that he got just what he deserved.

Contempt curdled in my own guts when I thought about how poisonous Jenny Clark could be.

The immoral piece of shit. How could she do that to her own sister?

I don’t intend to come across as all holier than though. In my early days in Hollywood, after the Jenny Clark music video debacle, after I hit the big time, which ironically was partly due to the notorious Jenny, I made my fair share of fuck-ups.

At the time I got rid off Jenny I’d been twenty-six, and so to publically walk away from the job with her might have been a stupid thing to do, and people had been quick to tell me I was crazy. Maybe it wasn’t the best move I could have made, but at that age I wasn’t the kind of bloke to swallow my own knob for the likes of Jenny-fucking-Clark. I’m still the same nine years on.

I was just making a name as a dynamic, hard-hitting director in the business, teetering on the brink of needing a big break to establish myself as a name in the US or I’d be forced to head back to England with my tail between my legs. At twenty-four I’d left the London scene behind and followed the dream to LA, to Hollywood, where I hoped I could carve a niche for myself. It had been early days, but I thrived on the challenge and hard work, driven to do the best job anyone could do. I wanted to be the best. It isn’t just work that I apply that ethos to, it’s anything I undertake. At the time it was the financial outlook that appeared so bleak. To be forced to slink home to the UK wouldn’t have sat well with me. I didn’t like the F-word – Failure.

I got a lucky break. One of the big players heard about the mini-drama (everything in Jenny Clark’s life is a drama), appreciated that I wasn’t willing to take her shit, said he liked my style and offered me a percentage contract on a small-scale film. It was a success story of the Danny Boyle kind; low-budget – or no-budget as I like to tell it now – with unknowns in the cast and some talented but inexperienced crew. I put every ounce of energy into that film. Blood, sweat, tears, the whole works. The hours the cast and crew put in, and the dedication they showed humbled me in a way that still swells in my throat when I think about those days. The film turned out to be a big hit, launching me and some of the cast into the stratosphere. The Oscar is right there on the shelf behind me.

After that I dived into Hollywood in a big way. I knew I had the looks and the appeal that drew the ladies, and of course I cultivated a Hugh Grant posh-boy accent to replace the harshness of London’s east end. It’s typical that since then Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels hit the scene and it suddenly became de rigeur to talk all cockney.

Once I got the money and the power to hire and fire at will I found I loved Hollywood. Before that, when I was broke and almost flat on my arse I’d hated the whole pretentious scene; but when the cash came in and I could indulge myself I soon, I’m actually embarrassed to say now, took up a pretty racy lifestyle.

I’m over the mentalist stage now. It hit me right between the eyes when Stella walked out. Stella was, still is, a sublimely talented actress, a fellow Brit, a beautiful, charismatic Welsh lady who had been willing to give herself to me completely. I’d been behaving like an arsehole, like I was still in my university days, drinking and shagging.

The old clichéd lyrics to Big Yellow Taxi are a real choker because they’re so true, I didn’t know what I had till it went, and I still haven’t found the guts to apologize to Stella. There’s me, who’s meant to be the macho tough guy, afraid of nothing if you believe the gossip in the magazines, the lady-killer with the legendary cock and energy of a stallion, and I’m still ashamed to look her in the eye when our professional paths cross from time to time. The best of it is, the irony of it is that she moved on from me quickly and now has a husband and a little girl. She got her shit together while I mooned over her for months and nursed a broken heart that I entirely deserved. Then the scales of justice balanced properly after I married Marianne and she did the dirty on me.

When the news broke about Marianne cheating, Stella sent me a note, a message so kindly-worded and just so plain fucking caring that it caught me by surprise so much that I sat in my office and cried proper fat tears. It was emotional, as they say in Guy’s films, complete with blubbing and bubbles of snot – the whole works.

I’m over Marianne now, and I might even allow her boyfriend back in from the professional wilderness – The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget. So I’ll try to be wise for a change.

These days I’m loving the whole Stateside thing. A huge plus for me personally, living in America, especially California, is the weather. No more drab, dreary days in London where everyone looks gray and worn and it pisses down for months at a time, or so it seems. I love the ocean and watching all the pretty girls in their bikinis playing volleyball on the beach, all tanned and healthy like a scene from a Beach Boys video. For me LA has everything. I can get a decent coffee at 3am if I need one, order a pizza the size of a garbage can lid and have it delivered, and the climate here is just made for sweeping along on a big motorcycle.

The language fooled me a little at first. Americans speak English? You sure? Not the same English as I do they don’t, but it isn’t too difficult to get a grip on things after a few weeks.

I’ll say arse, the Americans say ass; which always makes me chuckle since to me an ass is a donkey, a mule. “Spank my ass, baby” conjures up a weird image I can tell you.

There were a few comedic moments until I adapted my speech to suit the American ear. “The boot?” the cab driver had asked, looking at me as though I’d molested a nun when I asked, fresh off the plane into LA if I should put my suitcase into the boot of his car. “Put it in the fuckin’ trunk,” he said eventually with a roll of his eyes.

And I quickly got out of the habit of saying, “Give us a fag, mate,” when I wanted a cigarette.

Those and a couple of other little quirks aside, give me California over England any day.

And here was Kylie Clark, spitting fire at the mention of her sister’s name. I’d known her for only a few seconds, but already she intrigued me. I saw something on a higher level than just thinking with my cock; I sensed there was something special about this girl. My erstwhile lover, Stella the Welsh actress sprung to mind. Plus Kylie despised Jenny Clark, a huge bonus point in her favor and so I decided to hear about why she was there in my office.

“Sounds like Jenny,” I replied after Kylie’s revelation about her sister’s duplicity. I leaned back in my chair, with the desk between me and the girl. I spread my arms, saying, “But that doesn’t explain how you got into my office or tell me what you want.”

Kylie fixed me with a stare, a look of such smoldering intensity now that I found myself thinking: I bet she’s incredible in bed.

“I want a job,” Kylie replied, bringing my carnal mind back to Earth with a jolt.

I leaned forward and placed my elbows on my desk.

Fuck it, if I could help the girl I would.

“Do you have a resume?” I asked. Then, clicking my fingers and smiling like I’d just had a brainwave of Einstein proportions I said that I was just about to fire my assistant for letting her get into the office in the first place. “There’s Alexandra’s job if you want it?” I finished.

Kylie smiled weakly at my attempt at humor. I hadn’t been serious about firing Alexandra, not totally anyway, but I would be talking to her later that day. Rest assured, there was no way she would be getting away with it.

Kylie brushed the comment aside and showed what I would come to recognize as her core of steel, single-minded determination. “No,” she said, her tone insistent. “What I mean is I want the lead in your new film.”

Astounded by the ridiculousness of that request I nevertheless kept a poker face and quashed my immediate response of: You’re taking the fucking piss? Instead I replied with, “So you’re an actress?”

Diffident, Kylie’s head dipped as she studied her shoes. “No,” she responded in a small voice. “At least not yet; I don’t have any experience.”

“Do you know how big the budget is on my next project?” I asked gently.

Kylie shook her head.

“Without mentioning numbers,” I continued, “I’ll tell you. It’s huge, probably enough to buy a medium-sized country.” I paused to let that sink in. “It’d be too big a risk,” I added. “As much as I admire your ambition, Kylie, there’s just no way that I can give you that role.”

The contrite manner of a couple of seconds ago vanished in an instant. “What I want, Mister Taylor is a chance to show everyone, especially that bitch and my precious ex-fiancé, that I’m as good as …” She paused and shook her head, knuckles whitening as she clenched her fists “… No,” she continued. “I don’t want to be as good, I want to prove I’m better than she is. And I want to make Rafe sorry he ever cheated on me.”

She went all mental then. Ranting and raving and waving her arms, calling her sister names of the most uncomplimentary nature.

“Mister Taylor,” she hissed, eyes flashing as she finally cooled a little and, passion spent for the moment, slumped back in her chair. “I might not have the experience, but I’m determined.” Kylie’s chest heaved with emotion, the twin swellings of her breasts drawing my eyes. “Please, Mister Taylor, I’ll do anything for that role. I’m begging you. I’m desperate to get back at Jenny. I know you can’t stand her, that’s why I came to you. You know what she’s like. I thought you’d understand better than anyone else in the business. I know you’re supposed to be a tough cookie and that you work your people hard. I’ve heard about your reputation, that you’re all macho and difficult to please. But I’ve also heard you’re totally professional, firm but fair.

“Please give me that role, Mister Taylor. I won’t let you down. I promise. Anything you say, just name it, I’ll do it.”

“You’d bring me coffee whenever I called for it?” I joked, grinning after her complimentary speech.

The girl’s personality shone through when, without missing a beat, she gave a wry grin of her own. “Anytime. Day or night, Mister Taylor.”

“Even at two in the morning? To my house?”

Then, to my surprise, my body responded to the thought of Kylie actually bringing me a coffee in the middle of the night. I could see her, hair all tousled from my bed, her lips swollen from my kisses, swamped by my bathrobe as she handed me the cup and then let the robe slide off her shoulders. I felt my heartbeat quicken in my chest while, as my cock stiffened, I stared into the girl’s face. My tongue felt huge in my mouth as I said in a voice thick with desire, “Would you bring my coffee right to my bed, Kylie?”

She stared at me for a long moment, perhaps deciding if I was only flirting or if my treacly tone meant I had a darker motive in mind.

“I’ll even wear Playboy bunny ears if it’ll get me the job, Mister Taylor.” Then she grinned at me to show that maybe she was only joining in the playful banter.

“That,” I said with a widening smile, my lust simmering off the boil, “would get you’re the role for sure.” I spread my hands in a ‘what can I do’ gesture, paused and then, as gently as I could, let the girl down. “If only you had some experience.”

When Kylie’s face crumpled I felt like shit for my unintended cruelty.

I looked at her sitting there, fractured by her sister’s total disregard for anyone but herself.

“Somebody took a chance on you, Mister Taylor,” Kylie said, her chin lifting, refusing to be cowed.

I admired her guts, after all I was a big player in the industry; I’d have expected my reputation to have intimidated the girl. I’ve read the magazine articles about me; I know my reputation as a macho man with an ego the size of a planet, so I was impressed by what I saw as a rare display of courage. I also saw something in Kylie’s face that again put me in mind of Stella, whom I’d loved and lost.

“You only made it to the big time, Mister Taylor, because someone gave you a chance. And you did, you made it.” She swept an arm to encompass my office, nodding at the unprepossessing statuette behind me. “Someone saw what you were capable of and backed you. That’s what I’m asking you to do now, for me, to take a chance on me.”

That floored me. The simple truth in those words was undeniable. That was exactly how I saw it myself. Another emotion besides lust percolated my thinking, maybe there was something in Kylie. She reminded me a lot of Stella, and I realized that the difference between Kylie and a million other girls was that she excited my imagination as well as arousing me physically.

The embryo of a plan formed in my racing mind, an admittedly dark plan, the fragments slowly coming together in a deep corner even as I nodded in agreement at the truth of Kylie’s words.

“I’ll agree to think about thinking about offering you the part, the lead, but what I want is for you to have dinner with me tonight. I want to get to know you better before I make up my mind. I like you, Kylie,” I said sincerely. “I admire your attitude, I like your looks.” I let my eyes linger on her for just long enough to give her a hint I had an interest in her physically, but not too long so I came across as a perv. “I think you’ve got hidden depths and that you might just be as good as you hope you are. I’ll tell you now, however, that if I do decide you’re right for the part, there will be a condition attached.”

“What condition, Mister Taylor?”

“I don’t want to go into that just now. I haven’t fully thought it through myself. But I’ll tell you something, you’ve struck me in a way that’s got me thinking, Kylie. So what do you say, dinner?”

Of course, Kylie agreed, she just didn’t know what else I had in mind. I needed time to work on her, to get to know her better before I laid all my cards on the table.

***

I stared in admiration when Kylie walked into the restaurant. The girl looked gorgeous in a scoop-necked dress that hinted at her body beneath. In contrast to the slutty style of her sister, who flashed as much flesh as it was legal to expose, Kylie possessed grace and style that went some way towards reassuring me that, if she agreed to the condition, she might just pull off the coup she desperately wanted.

When I stood to greet her I noticed the appreciative glances of the male customers and staff as Kylie walked towards me.

Yeah, guys. Look at her. Aren’t you green with envy?

“You look fantastic!” I said with genuine enthusiasm as I pressed a gentle kiss against Kylie’s cheek. I caught a waft of her scent and felt a stirring in my cock but somehow resisted the temptation to put my hands all over her.

Well aware of my pulsing cock, and so aroused I experienced a reckless urge to take Kylie into the bathroom and fuck her in one of the stalls, I said, “When you burst into my office you looked like the girl next door, now look at you. Fuck, you look hot.”

Kylie blushed a pretty pink as she accepted the compliment with a gracious smile.

She settled onto the chair opposite and appraised me with a frank gaze across the short gap between us. “So,” Kylie began, “Is this some kind of casting-couch deal?”

Bold with a primitive flare of desire I went on the offensive immediately. “If it was, Kylie,” I replied, pouring wine into her glass. “Would that be such a bad thing?”

The atmosphere between us crackled, charged with the insinuation in my question; I knew Kylie felt the same spark when I saw her eyelids flicker for a moment, and although she masked her emotions quickly, lifting the wine glass to her lips and sipping at the expensive red wine I’d chosen, I saw her hand trembling.

“I … I couldn’t do that, Mister Taylor,” she replied, her eyes sliding from my stare.

“Really?” I murmured, and casually laid my hand on the table within an inch of her fingers.

Kylie flinched and stared at the back of my hand like it was some kind of predator about to attack her tender flesh. I saw the vein in the girl’s throat throb with life, and I felt the elemental urge of lust for her I’d experienced in my office while I imagined pressing my lips against that flutter in Kylie’s neck. I also noticed that although she’d flinched she let her hand remain near mine.

Kylie looked into my face, her eyes searching. “I don’t know you, Mister Taylor,” she whispered. “And, after Rafe—”

“—Rafe is an idiot for falling for Jenny’s crap,” I interjected forcefully. “I can tell you now, Kylie, whatever happens, that bloke will regret losing you. I can see you’re special.”

Kylie, as I’d noticed in my office, could switch personalities in a heartbeat, shifting from modest and almost shy to near belligerence quickly. “You’re just saying that so I’ll sleep with you,” she accused acidly, lifting the glass from the table and taking a sip.

“Maybe, maybe not,” I replied, looking directly at her. “But I wouldn’t mess you around. I know how you feel, Kylie. I’ve had a few romantic knocks in my time. I lost a woman once,” I confessed, my voice appropriately sombre. “Not my wife, Marianne, I don’t mean that cheating bitch, I mean someone else from way back, and I’ll regret how I treated her for the rest of my life. I was an arsehole and deserved everything I got.”

“I want to know more about that story sometime later. How did you know I’d like this wine?” Kylie asked, wrong-footing me yet again.

Irritation at Kylie’s apparent indifference at my deeply personal revelation soured my mood, and

I shrugged and lifted my hand from the table as I leaned back in the chair to sip my own wine.

“I didn’t know you’d like it, Kylie. I chose it because I like it.”

“You’re pretty damned confident, aren’t you Mister Taylor, to just assume like that.”

“Don’t you like a confident man, Kylie?” I countered, and leaned in suddenly to bring my face a few inches from hers. With resentment still curdling my guts I spat the words, “I’m confident enough to knock back your sister if she came on to me. I wouldn’t cheat on you like that arsehole, Rafe – what kind of name is that for a man, anyway?”

Our gazes locked, and for a moment I thought I’d gone too far. She might hate the man’s guts but she probably still loved him, which would only make the pain worse. A tiny muscle worked in Kylie’s jaw, and I saw she had half a mind to slap my face. A smack across the chops would have been worth it to see that level of passion blazing in her eyes.

We were close enough to kiss, and maybe I should have kissed her then, just taken hold of her face with both hands and done it.

All the while our eyes fought their battle, long seconds ticking by, neither one of us willing to back down. I imagined the taste of her mouth; I could see myself kissing the pale lip-gloss from those glistening lips.

In the end it was Kylie who succumbed, blinking and looking away.

And at that moment I desired her as much as I’d ever wanted Stella.

I want your body; I want your mind; I will have you, Kylie Clark.

With Kylie’s intense gaze broken I slumped back and plucked the wine glass from the table. Draining it in one gulp to calm my trembling hands I scanned the restaurant. My belligerent stare caused other diners to look quickly away. Hell, I wanted to push the cutlery and crockery off the table, to sweep it clean so I could lay her across it and take her right there and then regardless of the gawking onlookers.

In my head I pictured Kylie exposed to me, her body pouting, slick with her arousal as she stared at the length of me ardent with yearning. Gripping myself with one hand I aimed at her opening and thrust into her. Kylie’s body clenched around my girth as she cried out, gasping when her spongy softness opened to accommodate me.

As I imagined the scene I saw myself reach for her hair and, with just enough force to make her gasp, I twisted a fist through it and pulled her towards my face.

“Kiss me,” I growled, forcing my mouth over hers. “Kiss me while we fuck.”

“Yes,” she breathed in reply. “Anything for you, Damien. “I’m yours. Do anything you want with me.”

Then I heard the real Kylie’s voice. “He hurt me so much,” she said, her chin and bottom lip wobbling. “It’s torn our family apart. My dad is so upset, he just wants us all to get along, but I can’t forgive either of them for what they did.”

“Hey,” I offered, full of sympathy for Kylie’s heartache. “Forget about all that. We’re here to make a deal. You want the role and I’m warming to the idea. I like what I’ve seen of you, Kylie. I meant it when you walked in here tonight. You’re a knockout. You’ve got guts too. And you know, I’ve been watching you talk and I just think…you might tell me I’m full of shit but I think I just might reconsider my previous statement on not casting you in that role. I mean you’ll still have to audition but I think I’d be open to considering it at least.”

“Oh. My. God. Really?”

The tremor in Kylie’s chin ceased immediately. Instead she stared at me with slack-jawed amazement.

“That’s a really attractive look, Kylie,” I grinned, pointing towards her hanging chin. “In England we call that gormless.” I mimed a village idiot look just like hers and laughed. Then, suddenly serious I dropped the bombshell. “Like I said, you still have to audition. But if you audition and you do get through… you get the part on one condition.” I leaned in again for emphasis, my voice dropping to a low tone. “We enter a contract. The shooting takes place in Paris. The shooting will go on as normal but every night when the work is done you spend the night with me. Nobody else. Only me.”

Kylie blinked and I thought her mouth was going to drop open again. “I can’t do that,” she stammered, her face flushed. “I’m not like that, Mister Taylor. And after Rafe, I …”

Sneering when I spoke his name, I asked, “Did Rafe ruin you for other men? Was he so great in bed?”

Kylie’s blush deepened. Embarrassment or anger, I wasn’t too sure which. “Please, Mister Taylor. Don’t speak like that.” She cast an anxious glance about the restaurant. “I don’t know what you think I am, but I’m not the same as Jenny. I’m not some man-hungry slut who sleeps around.”

“And I don’t think you are. That’s part of your appeal, for me anyway. I don’t know why myself, not really, but from almost the first moment I saw you I’ve wanted you. Sure,” I shrugged, “it’s partly sexual. I’m a highly-sexed bloke and you’re a feisty, highly desirable woman.” My gaze raked across the scooped neck of Kylie’s dress. “Of course there’s sex.” I leaned forward and grabbed both Kylie’s hands, our first physical contact other than the kiss on her cheek earlier. “But there’s more, Kylie. I’m hungry for you. I want to experience all of you – your body and your mind. Sure, I could fuck any number of stunningly beautiful women, but that’s just one level, nothing but satisfying a need like eating when you’re hungry. What I feel for you goes way deeper than that.”

“I still couldn’t do it, Mister Taylor. Please, I’ll do anything else. Be reasonable.”

I had to break her, had to make her change her mind. She would submit to my will.

“Was he good?” I asked.

“What? Who?” Kylie responded, puzzled.

I let the silence balloon between us. Oh, there was muted conversation and tinkles of cutlery around us, but we were enveloped by our own bubble of total quiet while we locked gazes again.

Kylie heaved a weary sigh. “Rafe,” she murmured. “You’re talking about Rafe and me in bed, aren’t you?”

“Did Rafe ever tell you he wanted you while you were sat in a restaurant? I mean like we are now. Did he whisper in your ear how badly he wanted you? So much that he could just take you even with all these other people watching? Do you ever think about being watched, Kylie?”

All I got in response was a mute stare.

“What I’d do, Kylie, is I’d tell you to take off your knickers, your panties I mean, and then sit there, right there in that chair and open your legs so I could see you. See that part of you exposed. I’d get you to hike up your dress so that from the waist down your all naked and vulnerable to my whim.

“Does the thought of that turn you on, Kylie? It does me. I’m rock hard right now just picturing us together. That’s just one thing, one game I’ll play with you. We could go to the bathroom right this second. Would that turn you on? That and the fact we might get caught any time. Just think of watching your reflection in the mirror; so hot. Just imagine the thrill of that risk. Of being caught.

“There’s a hell of a lot of trust involved in the games I’d play with you. You’d have to trust me. But I’d look after you too. Could you trust Rafe enough to take risks with him in public places? I’d say that since he betrayed you in such a nasty way that you definitely couldn’t have trusted him. He’d have run and left you to take whatever came your way. I’d never do that, Kylie; I’d look after you.

“Don’t you have fantasies like that? Putting yourself out there knowing you have a man you can depend on. It would be a thrill, such a rush.  In Paris I’ll take you to places nobody knows us and get you to take risks that will make your cheeks burn.

“I’m so hard for you right now, Kylie, and I might just take it out under the table here and let you watch as I stroke it.

“Did Rafe ever say things like that, Kylie?

“Would Rafe make you sit on an old ladder-backed chair with your wrists bound behind your back while he slowly teased you with his fingers and mouth? I’m talking about kissing your neck and stroking your breasts and finding the places on your body that make you squirm while someone, me, explores you.”

Kylie rose to her feet. “Thanks for your time, Mister Taylor. Thanks for the dinner and the wine. And thank you for your offer, but no, I won’t sleep with you.”

I hate the F-word – Failure – and I sure as fuck couldn’t stand to fail with this girl. What I hoped then was that I’d said something that struck a chord with Kylie, and that I’d made her tingle with the possibilities.

Perhaps I’d overdone it, and even if Kylie had been turned on by the ideas I’d laid out there then social conditioning would have prompted her reaction.

Did she entertain any of the kinds of fantasies I’d so graphically painted? Did she have a penchant for something different, something I hadn’t mentioned, or maybe she is just as vanilla as they made them?

Kylie hesitated. I saw the abject look crease her face and knew I’d played my ace card in reminding Kylie of the reason she’d sought me out in the first place.

“Sit down,” I said brusquely.

The girl hesitated again. If she left the chances were I’d probably blown it. I could go after her but that isn’t my style. If she sat back down maybe I had another chance.

“Come on, Kylie. Talk to me.”

She made a move as though to leave, stopped and then cast an anxious look around at the other diners.

“Thank you,” I breathed when she slid back onto her chair.

“Well?” she said, avoiding my eyes.

“Look, I’m sorry. Maybe I went too far. I just haven’t felt a pull this strong for a long time. Hell, I’m giving you what you want. You get the part. It’s your chance. Would the two of us together be so bad? Don’t you find me at least a little attractive?”

Kylie flicked a glance my way. “It isn’t that,” she responded as she picked at the label on the wine bottle with a painted fingernail. “I mean, yeah, you’re quite good-looking.” Kylie shrugged as though to concede an off-hand point. “And you look in good shape.” She rolled her eyes and said, “And yeah, yeah I’ve read the gossip about how big you’re supposed to be and what a studly-good-fuck you are—”

Incredulous, I interrupted her. “—Studly-good-fuck? What the fuck! Who wrote that about me?”

“Whatever,” Kylie responded. She actually smirked and snorted. “So you’re all that, and rich and powerful to boot. But I won’t let myself be … used like that, Mister Taylor.”

“I won’t use you, Kylie,” I said as I reached for the fingers that still picked at the label. “When I say you only sleep with me, I meant that as a reciprocal deal. Yeah, I admit there was a time when I would’ve fucked the crack of dawn if it were possible. But after what I did to Stella and what Marianne did to me, and especially since you’re so fragile at the moment, I wouldn’t do that to you. I know the pain of loss and I just wouldn’t do it.”

I sensed the girl was teetering when she murmured, “Really?” her eyes huge with the question.

“I’m a man of my word, Kylie. Take that to the fucking bank.” I squeezed her hand gently and she looked into my face. “Tell me you didn’t fancy me when you saw me in the office today. Tell me that you don’t feel something too.”

Her eyes continued to search mine as the shroud of silence descended around us again. Kylie nodded, almost imperceptibly, but there was a nod.

“I’ll admit that I’m attracted to you Mister Taylor.”

“And what about the stuff I said earlier. Did he ever do anything like I described?”

“I don’t want to talk about me and Rafe.”

“I meant what I said about fucking in risky places. Where there’s a chance of being caught or even people watching.” She was so close then I could almost kiss her. “Or would you like me to tie your wrists and explore you until you’re screaming? Are you wet for me now?

“Stop it, Mister Taylor,” Kylie whispered.

“I’ll trace ice cubes from the champagne bucket over your breasts and over your stomach.”

“As well as the sex, which will be fucking devastating, we’ll eat and drink and see the sights – the Mona Lisa, the Eiffel Tower, and we’ll take a private boat trip along the Seine and make love as we drift past Notre Dame.”

I paused to let the girl picture it all in her mind’s eye.

“Look at me, Kylie,” I muttered eventually. “Feel how hard I am for you.” I placed her hand on the bulge in my trousers.

The girl gasped and pulled her hand away as though the fire in my cock had burned.

I reached for her hand again and returned it to the ridged outline.

“Are you wet?” I breathed against Kylie’s neck.

“Yes,” she replied on a sigh.

2 – Paris (Kylie)

When I stop and think, not that I’ve had much time to pause and take a breath lately, I still can’t believe I let him talk me into it. I mean I was supposed to all cut up about Rafe, heartbroken and then obsessed by my idea of getting back at Jenny, but Damien Taylor said those things to me in the restaurant, and the way that he said them made my head spin.

When Damien kept on saying all that stuff, right there surrounded by other people who were all – thank God, oblivious, he opened a door to my imagination, a place that felt bad to walk into, good bad, not bad bad – like sexy bad. I got the same wicked, naughty feeling I used to get fooling around with Rafe when my dad was in the house.

Damien kind of hit the right note when he started up with the talk. Of course I was disgusted by the things he said he’d do, but he somehow managed to slide around that and what he said fascinated me too. I couldn’t tell him that what he was saying had my body reacting in the way it was. I could feel a pulse between my legs as I got all wet down there. And that stuff about tying my hands and exploring me, about how he’d excite me and I wouldn’t be able to touch myself – Oh my God did THAT ever make me want to squirm.

His ultimatum, the sexual contract, took my breath away. I was shocked at his audacity. OK, I know he’s got the reputation to be a hard negotiator, but I never expected the condition attached to him giving me the lead role would involve anything so sordid. I’d joked about the casting couch but had no idea he had that he really had that kind of thing in mind all along. At that point, no matter how sexy he’d made me feel, I knew I had to make a stand. If he thought he could just use me for sex he’d never take me seriously. There was no way I’d let him do that.

I rose to leave, even though part of me wanted to stay. The dirty girl voice inside my head told me to stay and take him up on his offer of hot, wild sex, but I couldn’t listen to that voice.

What stopped me from storming out in a righteous huff was the reminder that I’d gone to him in the first place, that I’d wanted to be the big star and outdo my tramp of a sister, the woman with the morals of an alley-cat.

When he told me he understood the pain of loss and that he knew I was fragile and that he wouldn’t cheat on me, he came over as sensitive and caring, and when he said our contract would be exclusive, binding us together, I wanted so much to believe him. Then he started with the sex in risky places stuff, and I felt myself grow getting damp. He talked about hot, nasty sex and tender love-making on a boat on the river.

So here we are, in Paris. I’m seeing the sights, eating in fantastic restaurants and sipping coffee in street cafes and rubbing shoulders with rude Parisians. I saw a guy park his car yesterday, right on the corner of the street, almost blocking a path for pedestrians. The guy actually nudged his way into the space between the other two cars. Literally bumped them with his own car to edge into the gap. How crazy is that!

Shooting on the film is going great, and both Damien and Alexandra Eagleton, his assistant, are being so supportive. Alexandra has become a friend even though she got into a little hot water for letting me trick her into seeing Damien. I don’t know if I’d have had the nerve to actually go through with the acting if it hadn’t been for Alexandra’s support.

Damien tells me I’m an intuitive actress, like I can anticipate his direction before he’s given it. He says it’s because we’re physically intimate and in tune, and that it’s such a turn-on, which makes it better for him than working with the usual air-heads.

And the sex! Oh my God, the sex. Just like with his direction when I’m working, he seems to instinctively pick up on what I need, what I want him to do but am still a little unsure about saying out loud. I might want him to put his hands on me a certain way, or need him to just kiss me in an intimate place that I’m still too uptight to tell him to do outright, but Damien just knows and goes ahead and does it. Damien’s exactly like they say. He’s super confident, tough, can be very aggressive and uncompromising in his dealings with anyone involved in his business. If someone says they’ll do something and then let him down he’s like a dog with a bone, chewing and gnawing until they deliver. And what I’d imagined to be so much hype, Damien’s legendary penis, all true. What’s better is he knows how to use it too, and to top that, he doesn’t just focus on his cock, but takes me to places with his tongue and his fingers that are beyond description. Damien wasn’t kidding when he said he wanted to explore my mind as well as my body. When we’re out together enjoying life he talks to me and really listens to what I say. He’s not worried about offending me if our points of view differ, but he won’t try to bully me or put me down just because we don’t see eye-to-eye, instead he challenges me to justify why I hold an opinion on this or that and we discuss our way around issues.

After I agreed to Damien’s sexual contract, and that moment is kind of hazy in my memory, we didn’t actually consummate the agreement fully until Paris. Once it got out that Damien had cast me as the lead in his film the paparazzi went nuts. His history with Jenny Clark and me being her sister had speculation in the media boiling. I was suddenly so busy with preparations for Paris and dodging the flashbulbs that I didn’t have much time to give Damien’s ultimatum much thought. It was something that was just going to happen.

Eventually.

Damien’s workload was huge, and I saw firsthand just what a powerhouse of energy he is, but even as hectic as his schedule was he still paused and gave me some of his personal time when he sensed I needed it.

To keep me protected from the pushy, invasive paparazzi, Damien insisted I stay at his house.

“Your dad doesn’t deserve to get hassled by those arseholes,” Damien said. “Even though he’s Jenny’s dad too, he won’t be able to handle those pricks and their cameras. You can move into my house. I’m fully secure. And don’t worry about the press, we can just tell them the truth, most of it anyway. After all you’ll be moving in for exactly that reason, because the paps are hounding you you’re under my protection.”

When I arrived at Damien’s house I was anxious and nervous and felt like I wanted to throw up. This was it, the time to pay my dues, and what had seemed so sexy and hot in the restaurant suddenly felt like a sacrifice. I was offering myself up to this god in order to further my own ambition. What the hell had I been thinking? Did I really want to get even with my sister so much?

By the time Damien arrived home I’d been in his house for a couple of hours. My nerves were as taut as violin strings, and if he’d touched me right then I would have screeched like the same instrument in the hands of a novice player.

We ate a dinner that Damien cooked himself, and just because I could hardly eat a bite I could still appreciate he was pretty damned good at cooking. He talked to me and gave me the same red wine we’d had in the restaurant, and after a time, to my surprise, with the wine and Damien’s soothing manner, I found myself calming.

OK, you made a deal. Now it’s time to honor your word. Damien’s fulfilled his part of the bargain, so come on, Kylie, pay up. It isn’t like you haven’t slept with a guy before. It isn’t your first time.

But it felt like the first time. It would be the first time I’d slept with a man for any reason besides love.

When Damien went to shower I steeled my resolve to go ahead and sleep with him. Let’s face it he’s got it all, he’s good-looking, independent, tough, as rich as a Rockefeller …

And when he returned, catching me by surprise he was so quiet moving around, all I could do was stare.

Damien obviously worked out. My God, his stomach and chest could have been carved from marble, while his skin had lost the pasty blue-white of the British and was all tanned. And what gorgeous lean thighs and sculpted arms! His butt was taut and tiny and beautiful, but what had me gawking all bug-eyed was the magnificent curve of his erection.

“Jesus,” I heard myself gasp.

Damien grinned and replied cockily, “Not quite, but it’s an easy mistake to make.” Then he got serious. His face darkened and I’ll admit he scared me a little. “Come here,” he growled.

Like a sacrificial virgin I walked slowly towards him. My stomach flipped and I felt my legs trembling as I approached. God I was so scared of what he would do to me.

Damien’s face softened, his eyes lit up and he smiled tenderly at me. “Don’t worry,” he murmured. “I’d never hurt you.”

When we kissed, my lips tentative against his at first, Damien took my hand and placed it over the iron jutting from his body. My fingers closed around it, not quite able to take the circumference of him in a full grip, and when I felt the heat of that thing in my fist the dam of my reserve collapsed and I began to return Damien’s kiss with increasing urgency.

“Stroke me,” Damien muttered. “Touch my cock and stroke it. Not too hard,” he warned. “I’m not going to cum. I’m going to save that for after I make you cum.”

I didn’t know it at that time, I thought he meant later on that night after we’d made love, but Damien meant for us to both wait until Paris before he’d release us. We didn’t end up in bed together until France, and at that our first time wasn’t in bed.

That first night in his home, Damien bound my wrists with one of his ties and, just as he’d said in the restaurant, made me sit in on a wooden chair in his huge, warm and comfortable kitchen while he kissed my mouth, my neck and my breasts. He licked the length of my spine, swirling his tongue at a really, really sensitive spot right down near my ass. He pushed my legs open and murmured softly when he saw me there, saying how beautiful I was. My face burned when he touched me, his fingers gently splaying me open and he felt how he’d affected me.

He sniffed his fingers, sighing when he spoke of my essence and how he wanted to taste me.

I moaned with desire when Damien stepped back from the chair a pace or two and held himself in both his hands and slowly fisted his own length.

“Look at me,” he growled in that dangerous voice. “Watch while I pleasure myself. It feels so good, Kylie. So fucking good. Do you want to touch yourself now?”

“Yes,” I moaned. “Please, untie me. I want to show you. Please”

But he didn’t, he just kept on teasing me. I don’t know how long he played with me that night all I know is I wanted him. I wanted him in my hands, in my mouth and between my legs. I wanted to feel him moving inside me; I wanted his mouth between my legs, his tongue probing and wriggling and searching, but we never got beyond the teasing.

That incredible mind game went on for the three weeks until Paris. By day we’d both be caught up with our own preparations, but at night Damien would kiss me and stroke me and sometimes, very occasionally he’d split my intimate folds with his tongue to tease me even more. He’d never let it go beyond that, never allowing either of us to climax. During all that time he kept us both in check, was in complete control. Even on the plane he kept on teasing me. It was the same in the limo from the airport to the hotel. By the time we got to the suite Alexandra had booked for me I was ready to explode with anticipation. In all that time since the first night I’d somehow resisted the almost overwhelming desire to touch myself, denying the orgasm I craved. If Damien refused to succumb, then I had to as well.

Despite feeling tired from the flight, I’d been too aroused to sleep even though we were able to stretch out in the first class cabin, I agreed to dinner with Damien. I thought he’d fall on me when we first arrived in Paris, but no the evil bastard kept on playing, tormenting me until I wanted to scream.

In a mild panic I bathed and made sure I was perfectly scented and ready for him should he decide to make his move, even slipping into the tiniest, sexiest thong I owned.

“Here we are,” he said, raising his glass. “In Paris. To us. Cheers.” We chinked glasses in salute.

At the end of the meal Damien looked at me with a heavy-lidded gaze. “The choice is yours,” he rumbled in a low, sexy voice. “We can go back to your suite or we can fuck in the bathroom right here.”

As much as I wanted to let him have me right there in the restaurant I opted for the former. “The hotel,” I muttered, my voice breaking because I wanted him so much. “All night in the hotel.”

We didn’t even undress completely. Back at my room I lunged at Damien before the door had closed behind us. I wanted him inside me as I sucked on his tongue and his hands roamed freely over my body. Damien tore the zipper on my dress in his eagerness to be at me. We were kissing and gasping and clawing at each other’s clothing in a frenzy of pent up lust.

His tongue went between my legs first, sliding over my taut, hot flesh as he took me so quickly to my first climax. Before I’d finished groaning and gasping, Damien hauled me across the plush room by my wrist. I staggered after him, almost falling because my legs felt like jelly and I still wore the heels Damien insisted I wore to dinner.

There was no finesse, no tenderness during the time of our first coupling. What Damien did was, instead of laying me on my back on the huge leather sofa, he made me kneel on its cushions with my elbows on its back. I felt so naked and vulnerable like that, all exposed to his stare with my ass in the air and my dress hiked up to my waist as the bootlace straps hung down to my elbows. Damien leaned low over my back and kissed the nape of my neck. His hands squeezed my bare breasts, his fingers teasing my nipples until they felt bruised and tender.

Then, with my hips thrust back at his command, he ripped the fragile string of my sodden underwear from my body and nudged that bludgeon at my opening. I gasped when I felt him slide inside, his size like nothing I’ve experienced before.

Thank God I was so wet.

Damien began to move and I could feel the tremors starting again. I knew I was close to another powerful climax and pushed back against Damien to urge him on.

Just before I came for the second time, Damien twisted a handful of my hair and forced my head around. It was awkward, knelt there like that while he took me so forcefully from behind, but despite the discomfort I opened my mouth to his kiss.

I groaned and trembled and sighed into Damien’s kiss as I came again.

Then, when the kiss broke abruptly and I felt him suddenly withdraw I heard Damien mutter an obscenity and felt a spattering against my back.

“I’m cumming,” Damien grunted and I realized then that what that rain was that I felt on my skin.

“Oh my God!” I cried. “That’s so hot. You’ve cum on me.”

Nobody had ever done anything so remotely kinky to me before, but far from being disgusted at the stuff sliding over my skin, I only wanted him to do it more, but next time I wanted to watch.

We showered together, locked at the lips as we kissed and kissed until, eventually we tumbled into the bed where, for the rest of that night, Damien made love to me, so tender and caring and attentive that, with Rafe an indistinct bruise on my heart, I felt I was losing control of my emotions.

Today, on set, during the break for lunch, Damien came to the trailer and began to touch me. Then he swept all the make-up and stuff off the table with his arm and just lifted me up and plonked me on it.

It turned me on, just like he knew it would, but I was afraid that I was starting to fall for him. It was turning into something more than sex and I was worried about what might happen in the future.

“Damien,” I gasped. “Please. I’m not sure about all this. I think we’re moving way too fast. I’m scared of being hurt again.”

He instantly let go of me, his face creased with concern.

“Hey,” he said in that drawling accent of his. “We can take it as slow as you like, Kylie.” He smirked and pointed at my nipples pressing against the thin fabric of my tee-shirt. “But I can see you really want me to carry on right now.”

“God, Damien, I do, I do so want you to keep on doing it; I’m just afraid for my heart. It’s so soon after …”

“Shush, Kylie,” Damien murmured, kissing the corner of my mouth while he stroked my hair. “Don’t think about it. Don’t let that guy or your sister affect you.”

Damien reached under me and lifted my ass from the dressing table. His hand slid up my leg and under my short denim skirt.

“Oh, God,” I moaned when I heard a rent of fragile cotton as he ripped the waistband of my underwear. “What are you doing to me?”

“Taking you there,” Damien murmured before he eased down between my legs and pushed my thighs wide open.

I wriggled my butt in my eagerness to get my skirt bunched up at my hips. I wanted him to look at me, to see how hot he made me.

His tongue touched me and I gasped, my fingers pushing through his short, tick hair so I could pull him against me.

“Deep,” I groaned. “Push deep.” I felt him squirming into those private places, his breath hot as it wafted over my swollen center.

His tongue and fingers worked at me, rubbing and probing and causing such tingles and tiny pulses in my flesh that I cried out and arched my back and came so hard on his face.

“Good, eh?” Damien said as he wiped a hand across his mouth. “You having a good time? Am I taking it slow enough?”

That wasn’t the kind of slow I meant and he knew it, but he also knew how much I’d enjoy having his face between my thighs. He kissed me, and the dirty bastard slid his tongue into my mouth and forced me to taste myself.

“Jesus,” I blasphemed when, after that kiss, he dropped to his knees and took me with his mouth again.

We were kissing when my second climax hit with a trembling, almost violent thrashing of arms and legs. I grunted and groaned and squealed as my thighs shivered and my back arched, and I swear I squirted onto Damien’s wrist as his fingers curled and rubbed inside me, insistent and unrelenting as they took me higher than I’ve ever been before.

For the rest of that day I acted my ass off, euphoric on such a rush of emotion caused by Damien that I surprised myself at how good I actually was in front of the camera.

I didn’t know then, but there were forces at work behind the scenes that were conspiring to upset the little world I shared with Damien.

The next day’s filming came and I crashed to Earth.

3

As soon as I saw the word on the page I felt myself go all hot and clammy.

“We just added to the script,” Damien said. “Alexandra had the idea and I think it’ll work.” He looked up from the sheet of paper and I saw is brow crease with concern. “What’s wrong?” Then he grinned. “Oh, don’t worry; it won’t be a real spider that you have to step on. We’ll have a fake one made up for that scene. At first we’ll shoot the scenes of the live one crawling around, milked of venom or whatever the hell they do. You won’t even see the real one if you don’t want to.”

And that was it, or so Damien thought. He didn’t know just how bad my phobia of spiders is. He probably thought I was just being a girl, him being the super-tough he-man and all. But it was worse than just being averse to creepy-crawlies. Just the thought of it made me go cold and goose-pimply and want to vomit.

But when Damien saw my worry, despite his tough reputation he showed that sensitive and caring side that he hid and I felt a rush of emotion for that kindness. There’s been a lot of that over the past few days, those little slides in the pit of my stomach when Damien speaks to me or I catch him looking. I think I’m beginning to fall for Damien Taylor, and when I see him looking at me too, all deep and thoughtful, I wonder if he’s feeling it as well.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell Damien just how frightened I was of doing the scene. Even though the spider would be fake, for me it’s just the same as the real thing. Irrational and a little kooky I know, but knowing on a logical level doesn’t make it any less real in my head.

Alexandra came over, giving me the once over with a weird look on her face. Maybe she thought I was critical of her suggestion? “Everything OK?” she asked,

“Sure,” I bluffed, “just going over the script.”

“Any problem with it, Kylie?”

Why did she sound so snippy? “No, no problem at all,” I replied, a little too enthusiastically as I tried to mask my terror.

Alexandra nodded as she glanced at my sweaty forehead and flushed face. Then, after giving me a final, weird look, she turned to Damien. “I’ve spoken to all the people. We’ll shoot it this afternoon.”

I felt like a condemned woman. Shoot it this afternoon? – They might as well be shooting me instead of a scene in a movie.

My character is a kind of do-gooder Lara Croft figure who is trying to save a small African village from being decimated by a greedy mining conglomerate. In this scene I’m in Paris at the mining company headquarters and am tricked into entering a basement level where they’ve put me in a cage with a deadly spider they’ve brought over from Africa.

It’s a simple scene. Spider sneaks up on me; I see it just before it gets to bite me. There’s a bit of action where it disappears into a crack in the floor only to pop up again ready to pounce. In the end I have to squish it under my boot. Simple.

Determined to fulfill my ambition to burn as a brighter star than my sister I decided to power through the scene. Besides, I didn’t want to let Damien down. Plus it was Alexandra’s idea and I would feel really bad if it all went wrong for her because of me.

“It’s only a fake, it’s only a fake,” became a mantra I kept muttering under my breath.

“You OK, Kylie?” Mike, the sound engineer asked. “I can hear you,” he added, pointed at his huge headphones.

“Fine, fine,” I said in a weak voice.

“OK, let’s go!” Damien called.

And we were off.

It was a disaster. At first I was simply paralyzed with fear, trembling from top to bottom, pale and sweating, as if I’d suddenly come down with the flu. Reminding myself that I wanted to outdo Jenny I dug deep and found some hidden reserve of strength. I muttered my mantra a few times and took a couple of small steps forward. The last I recall before I collapsed was Damien shouting, “Cut!”

When I came round, all groggy and confused, I saw Damien and Alexandra looking down at me. Damien’s face was etched with worry, and I felt like such a wimp. A fake spider, a fucking fake and here I was on the floor after fainting with fear.

After flying so high in the first few days of filming I felt like a complete failure. The heady rush of excitement that caused me to perform so well the previous day had evaporated and I had absolutely no self-confidence left.

“I’ve suspended shooting for the day,” Damien said, his fingers brushing my hair away from my face.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, tears welling as I started to sob.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Damien crooned as he knelt beside me and enveloped my in his arms. “It’s no big deal. Don’t you worry about it.”

I think that’s the moment I started loving him. He was just so kind. I don’t know how much work and time and money I cost him that day, but there he was, just being nice to me. I was suddenly homesick for my dad, and I clung to Damien and let all the anguish pour out of me. It wasn’t just the scene and the fact I’d let Damien and Alexandra – everybody in fact – down, I felt so foolish for flaking like that in front of everyone, and on film as well. I think those wrenching sobs were also for what Jenny and Rafe had done, were cathartic and a sign that maybe I’d come some way towards being repaired. I’d always bear the scars, like a vase that’s been dropped and glued back together. I’d never be the same, but I’d be whole again.

When my sobs had subsided to sniffles, while I was still curled in Damien’s comforting, masculine embrace, Alexandra also knelt and stroked my hair to comfort me. “Oh, my God, Kylie, I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were so afraid of spiders,” she said.

“It isn’t your fault,” I snuffled.

“It isn’t anyone’s fault,” Damien interjected. “Now, come on, Kylie. Let’s get you up and back to the hotel. We’ve got that dinner tonight. You’ve got to look fabulous for the paparazzi. They’ve been hounding us so we’ll give them a photo opportunity later.”

Despite his kindness I still worried about Damien’s real feelings. Was he angry at me despite his outward show of concern for me?

And, as he helped me to my feet and escorted me to the limo, my leg’s as shaky as a newborn colt’s, I noticed a strange expression on Alexandra’s face. She smiled and waved when she saw me looking at her, but I couldn’t quite understand why she’d looked so pleased.

4.

On the evening of my humiliating fainting session on set I forgot all about the odd look on Alexandra’s face. The chaos of being surrounded by a pack of baying paparazzi pushed that scene from my mind. We gave the paparazzi their pound of flesh, and as the cameras whirred and the flashbulbs exploded, while the picture hungry photographers all called out instructions to look their way or to face this way and that, barking at us like a pack of dogs, all I could do was worry about Damien. I was concerned about how he felt about the incident with the spider. Was he secretly pissed off with me? With my self-confidence at basement level I might have been worrying unnecessarily, agonizing over every sentence Damien spoke, over-analyzing and maybe finding hidden meaning behind his reassurances that it was really OK.

I was also unsure about how Damien felt about me. I was falling for him and wondered how he really felt about me deep inside. He’d said a lot of nice things to me, kind and tender murmurs of endearment, especially as we made love, but being so emotionally vulnerable after my day made me question everything.

My cellphone rang and I noticed a quick flick of irritation on Damien’s face when I pulled it from my purse.

I experienced a cold wave of shock when I saw Rafe’s name appear on the screen. My cheeks flushed when I glanced at Damien, but to my relief he’d turned away and was smiling and waving and showing off. He joked with a few of the photographers while I declined the call and turned the phone off. I posed and smiled for the cameras before, finally, Damien took my elbow and steered me into the restaurant, the other cast members following us in.

A fawning waiter showed us to our table, fussing and generally getting on Damien’s nerves.

“I’ll call you over when I’m ready,” Damien said brusquely. The man bent at the waist in a little bow and scurried away from Damien’s dark face.

“I’m sorry, Damien,” I said, concerned that my performance on set had caused this bad mood. “I’ll get over it. I’ll do anything I can to get over my fear of spiders. I’m so sorry,” I repeated. “Please don’t be mad at me because of it.” I reached for his hand. “I owe you so much for giving me this break. I’ll do anything I can to make it right.”

Damien checked around at the other tables to see if anyone could overhear before he looked at me, his eyes cold. “That isn’t what I want,” he said, a tic twitching in his cheek.

I took the twitch to be a sign of how Damien really felt, and that in spite of his reassurances that everything was fine, he really was mad at me.

“I can get counseling or something,” I said anxiously. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal. It’s only a fake spider.”

His eyes chilled me. Oh God, it was all over! He’d made a mistake in giving me the role. I could read it in his face. He was monumentally pissed at me and was having a hard time covering it up. The cracks were showing and I felt so weak and helpless.

“Meet me in the bathroom in five minutes,” Damien said through clenched teeth.

He stood up and almost toppled his chair with the back of his legs as he pushed it away and threw his napkin onto the table.

“Is everything all right, miss?” the waiter asked, almost wringing his hands with concern at Damien’s abrupt exit while some of the others muttered behind their hands.

“Yes, yes, everything’s fine,” I murmured as I fingered the shiny fork nervously. “We’re just a little tired, what with work and everything.”

The guy did his little bow and inclined his head before gliding away and leaving me to an anxious five minute wait.

I excused myself from the group and followed after Damien. When I saw him in the men’s room I gasped. The sight of him standing there with his pants unzipped while he stroked himself roughly held me enthralled. He wasn’t mad at me at all. He was horny!

He looked so sexy like that, swollen and huge and sensationally hard, his eyes hungry while he stared at me. I watched him for a few seconds, feeling my insides melting as my body reacted to the sight of such a beautiful male animal in full-blooded arousal.

A whimper mewled from me and I was overwhelmed with the urge to touch him.

“God but that’s so hot,” I sighed. “I love seeing you like that. And it’s just like you said, it’s such a rush to know we could be caught any second.”

With a glance at the door, half-expecting the pain in the ass waiter to come checking, I lifted the hem of my dress to my waist and walked towards Damien.

He watched me approach, his fist moving more urgently while I felt his eyes lasering onto my underwear.

When I reached him I leaned forward for a kiss, filled with a sudden, desperate need to feel his tongue in my mouth. I wanted his hands on my breasts and between my legs; I wanted the girth of him stretching me while we went at it hard and fast and deep.

I remembered the first time Damien had taken me, when he’d made me kneel on the sofa with him behind. This time I wanted to sit on him, to face him as my body accommodated every glorious inch of his maleness. That way I could watch his face while I moved, my body clenching and oiling with desire. He could maul my tits and pull my face down to kiss his mouth as I milked him to orgasm.

When I tried to push Damien back so his butt pressed up against the sink and I could lift one leg to slide onto him, he stopped me by putting a hand on my shoulder. He slid the underwear to one side with his fingers and went at me with his mouth like he was going to devour me.

His tongue felt incredible, probing and lapping and sliding over my clit. I groaned at the sight of Damien using his mouth on such a private place. It had never been like this with Rafe; I always felt a little uncomfortable about letting Rafe see me in such a vulnerable position, like I was shy or embarrassed at the way my own body might look to him. But with Damien it felt so wonderful when he looked at me down there; I felt beautiful and wild and free; I felt like a woman with Damien, that he was a man who could love me. I wanted to please him, and if he wanted to look at me between my legs, to touch me, to taste me, I was only too happy to flaunt my sex at him. It felt so damned sexy, so naughty.

At first, just as Damien began to pleasure me so expertly with his tongue I kept my eyes on the door. I was certain that someone was going to come in and catch us like that, me with my legs akimbo and my modesty so lewdly compromised. But as Damien’s magic tongue began to charm me, I soon forgot all about being interrupted.

To hell with it, if anyone did walk in I was confident that Damien would handle everything. He’d said as much on the night he’d made his indecent proposal back in LA.

Besides, it was just too good for me to care about anything else.

“Oh, baby,” I groaned. “I’m going to cum.”

Damien got me there quickly and, as I could have bet, he started on me again immediately. I was soon on my way to orgasm number two. During a brief pause, Damien left my pussy and brought his face to mine. I kissed him hungrily, holding his cheeks in my hands as my shoes slid and scraped on the sink surround and Damien used his fingers on me.

After a second juddering and vocal climax, after he got me there again with his tongue, he pulled away from me with a gasp while I slumped panting and breathless to the cold marble floor.

After that I was sure I loved him. What I’d felt when he comforted me after I’d fainted on set, that warm, protective embrace was one facet to the nature of Damien Taylor. I loved that he could be so nurturing when we shot the movie scenes, I loved that he’d looked after me and protected me that afternoon, and I absolutely adored the sexual dimension to this gorgeous, sharp, sensitive man.

I thought Damien’s actions in the men’s room were a sign that he’d forgiven me for the spider incident. But as it turned out I’d been wrong about that from the start. Damien wasn’t bothered by all that anyway, it was something else that had upset him.

He told me what he really felt in no uncertain terms in the limo on the way back to the hotel.

And his words hurt me, shocked me so much that I begged the driver to stop and bundled out of the car.

Before Damien could come after me I hailed a conveniently passing taxi and climbed inside. The driver took me to a nice hotel, not in the same opulent style as the other hotel but decent enough. It wasn’t as though I was used to the high life anyway, and this hotel was more like the standard I was used to. I only needed somewhere to hide out so I could think without Damien finding me.

The clerk on duty looked at me quizzically, no doubt wondering why I looked so upset. He gave me a key after I’d paid using my credit card and I went along the corridor in search of my sanctuary.

I sat on the lonely bed and went over Damien’s words in my head. He’d spoken about how I belonged to him sexually, and that he’d seen Rafe’s name on my phone when it rang, but had only kept up the happy, smiling pretense for the cameras.

“I’ll ruin that arsehole’s career if he makes any attempt to get you back,” he’d growled, his face twisted into a snarl of fury. “You made a deal with me, Kylie. I’ll fucking destroy that wanker if he tries to get you back. Sexually, you belong to me. Don’t forget that. You’re mine. That little scene back in the men’s room was just to remind you.”

So he didn’t really care about me? I was just something to own, his plaything. How could he think I’d go back to Rafe? Hadn’t he listened to me after all?

And to say he’d ruin Rafe’s career just like that, on a whim, like a spoilt kid in a tantrum because someone tried to take his ball. How could Damien be so awful?

I picked up the phone.

“Kylie?” My dad’s warm, familiar, lovely voice caused a flood of tears. “Are you OK, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice strained with concern.

It all came pouring out in bursts as I cried into the phone. I told my father all of it, about the spider and how traumatic it had been and about Damien’s reaction to Rafe’s call.

“Why would this guy care about you and Rafe?” my father asked. “Why should he be bothered about your love life?”

“Oh, daddy,” I blubbed, “I think I’ve fallen for him. Damien, I think I’m in love with him. We’ve been together since we got to Paris.”

“Oh, Kylie,” my father said, soothing me across the miles of Atlantic and time difference that separated us. “So soon after, Rafe? Do you want to come home? Do you want to come here?”

For a second I thought about how good that idea sounded. I could just go home and into the security of my father’s house. I could hide there and forget all about Rafe and Jenny and Damien. I could put all the ideas about making it big and showing my sister how good I am out of my mind. I could put Rafe down as a bad loss, better to have found out what he was capable of before I’d married him. As for Damien, if I could get over Rafe I could get over him too.

My father’s love pulled at me and I yearned for the familiar house, the same old smells and the normality of waking up in my own bed in my own room.

“No, dad,” I murmured. “Thank you, though. I love you but I can’t run home, not in the middle of everything.” Taking a deep breath and cuffing my eyes dry I found I was still as determined to beat Jenny and to put Rafe in his place. As for Damien, well I’d just play it cool and try to push any romantic feelings to one side. It was clear to me now that he didn’t love me.

When I eventually hung up the phone I pictured my dad sitting in his chair, his face drawn with worry for me again. He’d been so cut up with this thing with Jenny, and I knew I’d worried him all over again with my ill-advised confession about Damien.

I felt so sorry for my dad and what we’d put him through, the both of us, me and my sister.

All kinds of doubts and fears visited me that night as I lay alone in the strange bed. Not least of which was the anticipation of Damien’s mood on set the next day.

5

I arrived on set feeling washed out and exhausted after a restless night in my hideaway hotel. A whirlwind of conflicting emotions had kept me awake after the scene with Damien and the phone call to my dad, but I was determined to remain professional and finish shooting the movie. For Rafe’s sake, as much as I loathed him I didn’t want to see his career ruined because of Damien. I wanted to rub Rafe’s nose in it by becoming a name in Hollywood; I wanted him to see what he’d had in the palm of his hand, but what he’d thrown away for ten minutes between my bitch sister’s legs. I needed to speak to Damien and tell him I wanted nothing more to do with Rafe and that him taking revenge on Rafe was just childish.

As for my love life, well, I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do about that. Did I really love Damien or just infatuated with him? I’d never met anyone like him; he turned me on like nobody else ever had. He did things to me, mentally as well as physically, that had me weak at the knees just thinking about it. The guy was an addiction. I’d get my fix and then, not long after, I’d want him again. All it took was a glance, a smile as though we shared some dirty secret. Sometimes it was just the way he moved or spoke to me during filming, he’d catch me by surprise and have my body yearning for his fingers to caress me, for his lips on mine our tongues dancing.

But how could he have said those things to me in the limo? Why was he so damned mean? Was I just a sexual plaything for him? Was he jealous of Rafe? That would be something new – Damien Taylor jealous. And if he was jealous, then did that mean he felt the same about me as I did him? He talked about how I fascinated him, how much he liked me, but I was just so confused and upset by everything I didn’t know who the real Damien was.

It was all such a mess.

When I saw him standing near a camera, his back to me as he sipped coffee from a styrofoam cup, I felt that now familiar heartbeat pulse between my legs. I recalled what he’d done in the bathroom, the way he’d ordered me to hold my legs open for him. The danger of being caught like that, with my hands hooked behind my knees as I exhibited myself to Damien’s hungry stare – What had I been thinking!

Then, as if some sixth sense told him I was there, Damien turned to face me. For a moment he looked so serious, so dark and brooding that I felt a tremor of fear, a sensation that only heightened the yearning at my core.

Suddenly the dark look vanished and, like sunshine on a stormy day, Damien smiled.

“Kylie,” he said. “God, Kylie. I was worried sick. Where were you?”

Attempting to appear cool, I shrugged. “I stayed the night at a little hotel. I didn’t want to be near you last night, Damien.”

Damien shook his head and blew out his cheeks as though relieved to see me. “When Jenny called I thought something had happened.”

I blinked, not believing what I’d just heard. “Jenny? Jenny called? How? What? I don’t understand. What’s that bitch got to do with any of this?”

“Hey,” Damien said, holding up both hands. “Steady on. Alexandra came to my room to tell me Jenny was on the phone. I wouldn’t usually take a call from her, you know that, but she’d told Alexandra that you’d called your dad and were all upset. I only spoke to her to find out what the hell was happening.”

“My dad?” I replied. I thought about things for a few moments, turning the events of the previous night over in my mind. “I did call my dad last night,” I explained. “He must have spoken to Jenny after that.” I shook my head, a little angry at my father for blabbing to my sister. “Great, now she knows about us.”

Damien’s reaction was instant. “What do you mean?” he asked, eyes flashing. “What have you said?”

Feeling stupid and out of my depth and close to tears I looked down at the floor and murmured, “I told my father I loved you.”

I thought Damien would explode with anger, but all he did instead was let his shoulders sag and shake his head.

He looked at me. “You love me?” he said quietly.

Held by Damien’s gaze I nodded. “I think so.” Blinking away the pinprick of tears that threatened to well from my eyes I added, “I don’t want to be with Rafe, Damien. I want to be with you. But you were so nasty to me last night. How could you threaten to ruin Rafe’s career? What kind of bullshit is that? And how could you say things about me belonging to you sexually? You said you wouldn’t use me Damien. Remember? You said that you wouldn’t.”

He dropped the coffee cup and, heedless to the liquid that had splashed up the leg of his pants came to me with his arms outstretched.

“I’m sorry, Kylie. Fuck, I’m such a wanker. I didn’t mean what I said about the contract, not exactly. I was angry and upset because that bloke called you. I wanted to smash his face in, Kylie, that’s why I was horrible to you. I took it out on you because he dared to call you up.” Damien’s fingers gripped the tops of my arms as he stared into my face. “You know what happened with my ex-wife. I have trouble trusting women and the sincerity of my relationships. When I saw Rafe’s name on your phone I went into a spin.”

“You’re jealous of him?” I asked.

“Fuck it,” Damien spat. “Yes, Kylie, yes I’m fucking jealous.”

I asked the obvious question. “Why?”

Damien paused, mouth open as he analyzed his response. “Because I care about you, Kylie,” he said as though only he’d only just realized the implication of those words. “I care about you a lot.” He let go of my arms and ran his fingers over his short hair. “I think I care about you as much as you do about me,” he said, apparently awed by that admission. He didn’t come right out and say he loved me, though. Damien put his hand on my shoulders, slowly rubbing them. “I knew you were special, Kylie, and I know that sounds like some kind of cheesy line but it’s true.”

“I should have known it would be something like that, Damien. Your past I mean. But I meant what I said, I don’t want Rafe. What I want is to be with you.”

“Kylie,” Damien sighed.

“I want to be with you even without the contract, Damien. I don’t want another man. All I need is you.” I grinned and looked quickly around the set. We were still alone so I pressed the palm of my hand against the front of Damien’s pants. I could feel him there, all densely packed into his underwear. “What you did to me last night in the men’s room,” I gasped, suddenly aroused. “That was the sexiest thing ever. If someone had come in …”

Damien spoke, his voice gruff with his own desire. “I was so pissed off about that call that I wanted to teach you a lesson. I wanted to prove that I can make you feel like no other man ever could. You came so hard,” he said, almost moaning. “You were sat up there with your pussy all hot. You looked fucking fabulous in that dress and those shoes, your legs wide open while your face was all screwed up like you were in pain.”

“Do you want to try again Damien?” I asked. “Shall we put last night behind us?”

He nodded quickly. “And I want to meet your father. Now that Jenny knows there’s no telling what she’ll do next. I want to do this properly by meeting your dad and telling him face-to-face just how much you mean to me in case Jenny gets some kind of twisted version to him first. We’re lucky we’ve almost finished the Paris scenes so we can fly back at the end of the week.”

Oh my God! Did I just hear that? He wants to meet my father? “Are you sure you want to meet him?” I asked. “We haven’t exactly got off to a great start. Don’t you want to take it slow?”

“Fuck going slow,” Damien said, a grin splitting his handsome face.

“But what about the spider scene? Shooting that will put us back by at least half a day.”

“I cut it,” Damien replied. “It caused you too much pain and I don’t want to put you through that again.”

I was astounded by that. Damien is notoriously stubborn when it comes to changing scripts, and since he’d already agreed to Alexandra’s suggestion to shoot the spider scene it must have taken a lot for him to turn around like that. “Wow,” I said, returning his grin. You must really mean it about liking me.” I reached out to touch his fingers. “Thank you,” I added seriously. “I’m touched that you’d do that for me.”

Then the crew began to arrive and interrupted our tender reconciliation. But at least we’d cleared the air, and better than that, it seemed that Damien felt the same about me as I felt about him. OK, he hadn’t exactly spoken those three words, but he’d skirted around the edges. I just had to let him warm to the prospect.

We were in love and he wanted to meet my dad! For the rest of the week until we completed shooting, whenever I wasn’t busy on set or out with Damien – or in with Damien and his incredible penis – I couldn’t think of anything else except for how good I felt.

We flew home, and on Saturday night I sat in the back of a limo with my lover on the way to my dad’s house. Our hands lay on the seat between us, fingers intertwined.  I was as nervous as hell about the prospect of the two men in my life meeting. I had no idea what Jenny might have told my father about Damien, but if she had said something to dad it wouldn’t be complimentary.

My father was polite but a little cold towards Damien. It turned out that Jenny hadn’t said a thing and that dad was cool because of the Paris phone call.

“It’s understandable,” Damien said when my dad went to check things in the kitchen. “After all, you’re his little girl. You’ve only recently come out of a relationship that ended because of your own sister; there’s the big feud between you and Jenny, of course your dad is devastated by it. Then I come on the scene and upset you so much you call him from France.” Damien nodded, as he stroked his chin. “I get it, I really do.” He sipped at the whisky dad had given him. “I’d be protective of my daughter too.”

The way he said that, with such sincerity made me glad we’d fixed things up in Paris. The sex was awesome and now Damien was really showing signs of maturity. He might be a few years older than me but he sure acted like a big kid sometimes. The things he said about protecting his daughter gave me a funny feeling inside and I wondered if we’d have kids together.

Dad came back in and, after a few awkward spots, the evening eventually turned out to be a success.

“Do you mind if I stay over with dad tonight?” I asked when my father went to make coffee. “I missed him while I was away and I’d like to spend some time with him tonight. I promise to talk about you all the time and to tell him how great you are.” I leaned in close and snuggled up to Damien on the couch.

“Don’t tell him how awesome I am when I’m making you cum on my face,” Damien grinned.

I laughed and put my arm around him. “Thanks for doing this tonight. I’m really, really happy that you did it. Dad seems to be warming to you as well.”

“Well I’m warming to you,” Damien said with that dangerous glint in his eye. The one that goes with that sly smirk and usually means some kind of game is about to be played.

He turned to kiss me. As usual my body reacted to the taste of him, the smell of him and the press of his hard body against mine. Things got hotter as the kiss went on, both of us revving up until I broke away and saw the tent in Damien’s pants.

“I’ll tell you what,” I whispered. “To show you how grateful I am …”

I reached for his zipper and went in to bring out Damien’s enormous, beautiful package.

“Your father’s only in the fucking kitchen,” Damien muttered, eyes wide at my audacity.

I’d surprised him for sure. “It’s your fault,” I grinned as I slid my ass along the couch and settled an arm across Damien’s lap. I lifted him in my hand and took a long, lascivious lick. “Just like a lollipop,” I said before treating Damien to my tongue again.

“Fuck,” he grunted. “That’s good, Kylie. I love seeing your pretty face as you do that. It looks so wrong. You’re so angelic, to see you doing that to me is just dirty.”

Damien groaned and jerked his hips. I felt the pulse of him in my fist and bent to my task again. Pretty soon he was stifling his groans and moans as I brought him closer to the edge. Aware I only had a couple of minutes, one ear alert to the tell-tale hiss and spit of the coffee machine that would signal that the coffee was ready and my father was due to reappear, I kept on at him regardless of the huge risk. If my father walked in now it could undo all the repair work Damien and I had done that evening, but I so wanted to please Damien, to make him happy that I worked and worked at him with my lips, tongue and hand, taking him into my throat.

He was so big in my mouth that I thought my jaw might unhinge, but I kept taking more and more of him, eager to be the best he’d ever known. I listened to the wonderful sounds of my lover’s enjoyment. To hear Damien telling me how good it felt thrilled me. I loved it when he compared me to an angel; I liked being pretty for him, but what really turned me on was being a devil.

He’d taught me so much in the time I’d known him. Damien took me from being a naïve girl and turned me into a complete woman. Thank God I’d met him. If I’d married Rafe I never would have known how fantastic sex could be. And it wasn’t just the act itself; it was all the mind stuff Damien did too. The time in the men’s room in Paris when we could have been busted at any moment – Rafe would never have even dreamt of doing something so wild and insanely risky.

Being with Damien was such a buzz. I was sure I loved him, and I was fairly confident he loved me too. If I could guide him over the rocks of his insecurities we could enjoy the beach on the other side –The two of us, together.

It didn’t take long before I heard Damien grunt and felt the girth of him pulse between my lips. He poured into my mouth, filling me so quickly with his essence that threatened to spill out of me if I didn’t keep swallowing.

Even then I had to rush to the bathroom to repair my makeup and tidy my hair from where Damien’s fingers had held my head. I also had to wipe any tell-tale traces of what had gone on from the corners of my mouth and my chin.

“We nearly got caught,” Damien whispered later when I kissed him goodnight at the door. “You just got out of there before your father walked back in.” He grinned at me, eyes sparkling. “You’re getting as bad as me,” he said. “Worse in fact. I don’t think I would have taken it as far as you did.”

“I want you tomorrow,” I replied, squirming my body against Damien’s. I laid the flat of my palm against the bulge in his pants. “I want you to do bad, dirty things to me over your desk tomorrow.”

Composing myself after watching Damien walk down the driveway I shut the door and walked into the lounge.

“Nightcap?” my father asked as he held up the whisky bottle.

“A small one,” I replied, and then spent an hour alone with my father.

It seemed like we were back on track. My father revealed he liked Damien but added, “I have reservations, Kylie. He could turn out to be a great guy, just right for you, but you look after yourself.”

“I will, dad,” I nodded. I yawned. “I think I’ll go and take a shower before I go to bed. I’ve got work tomorrow so I don’t want to stay up too late.”

The following day in Damien’s office Alexandra brought in the coffee and newspapers as usual.

Tucked away inside the folds of the LA Times was a trashy tabloid with the screaming headline: KYLIE CLARK HITS THE CLUBS WITH HOLLYWOODS HOTTEST.

Damien picked up the rag between two fingers, disgust curling his upper lip while all I could do was boggle at the outrageous lie.

“What is this>” Damien spluttered, obviously outraged. “You wanted to stay with your dad last night. That’s what you said.” His icy tone was reflected in the cold glint of steel in Damien’s eyes. “And I fell for it. After everything you said to me you go and pull a stunt like this.”

“Oh my God,” I heard Alexandra gasp when she picked up the newspaper and saw the picture accompanying the banner headline.

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Damien blurted.

Before I could react, before I could even make sense of what had occurred in the last twenty seconds, Damien had stormed out in a fury.

I sat there, too shocked to move.

6

Numbed by shock I sat in Damien’s office, literally so surprised at the lies in that rag of a newspaper that I couldn’t move. I could hardly even breathe. It was just so staggeringly untrue. And then there was Damien’s reaction. Had he really looked at me that way and just stormed out?

Eventually, hands and legs shaking, I got up and took one of the containers of coffee that Alexandra had brought in with her when she’d dropped the newspapers on Damien’s desk. I felt sick as I sipped at the coffee, the cup wobbling in my shaking hand.

The tabloid was there, its headline still screaming it’s totally untrue message: KYLIE CLARK HITS THE CLUBS WITH HOLLYWOODS HOTTEST. Hot anger suddenly dispelled the greasy feeling in my stomach. It was an outrageous slur, I’d never been near the club – How could I when I’d been at home with my dad all last night?

Desperate for clues I picked up the newspaper and, with a shudder of distaste, looked for the writer’s by-line. Maybe if I got in touch with whoever had written this piece of libelous crap I’d be able to track the source. When I saw the photograph that alleged to be me I saw it didn’t even show the woman’s face, it was just a photo of a woman from behind. Then, as I studied the detail I noticed, in the background, that some of the people that were gathered around looked familiar. Did Jenny…

Of course, I should have guessed sooner. Who else could have been behind a stunt like this? Who else would have a motive? I studied the picture intently – OK, the girl in the photo, although none of the images showed her face, could have been me from behind. But so could a thousand other girl’s in LA.

I picked up my cellphone and called up a name in the address book. The call rang out, eventually going to voicemail. Frustrated, I spat a swear word and tried another number. Again I got the same response. I reasoned, through cold anger, that Jenny’s friends would either be sleeping at this time of day or they saw my name on the screen and decided to blow me off.

There was one name, though, someone who Jenny thought was one of her toadying sycophants but who had once told me she only hung around on the periphery of that group as a friend of a friend and that she really thought Jenny was a whore.

“Hi, Melissa?” I asked when, to my relief, the call was picked up.

“Hi, Kylie,” Melissa said. “What’s up? Congrats on the movie. I’m so jealous!”

“Thanks,” I replied. “It’s really exciting and I’m so thrilled to have the chance, but I was calling about something else and I wondered if you could help me. Have you seen the stuff in the papers about me today?”

Melissa said she hadn’t, and when I explained the circumstances behind my call she went quiet.

“I was there last night,” she said eventually. “I wasn’t partying like the rest of them because I’ve got a photo-shoot today. It seemed weird at the time,” she added, “but I wasn’t really paying much attention. There was the usual asshole paparazzi hanging around outside the club, but inside there was one guy with a small camera who was taking photos. None of the security bothered him either, which is why I noticed. Then I saw he was with that girl who works for Damien Taylor, you know, your director guy.” She went off at a tangent at the mention of Damien’s name. “Now he’s sexy,” Melissa purred. “OK, he’s older, but so hawt! You should make a move on him, Kylie.”

“I know what you mean,” I replied, steering Melissa back onto the reason for my call. “But you say this guy was taking pictures of Alexandra Eagleton? Damien’s assistant, is that right?”

“That’s her,” Melissa confirmed. If the papers say it’s you, they’ve got the wrong lady ‘cause he was taking photos of her, Alexandra what’s-her-name.”

I chatted to Melissa for a minute, not wanting to be rude to her but inside my head I was screaming.

Oh my God! It was Alexandra in those photos!

But why? Why would Alexandra be involved with one of Jenny’s plots?

The spider incident came rushing back. Alexandra had suggested the scene in the first place. But how could she possibly know about my phobia? Of course, the answer to that was also obvious. Jenny knew about my fear of spiders.

Then I recalled the oddly pleased look on Alexandra’s face when I’d turned to look at her as Damien gently led me off the spider set.

Jenny had told Alexandra who had then engineered the whole debacle.

Jenny I could understand, she’d want to ruin it all for me out of spiteful jealousy, but what was Alexandra’s angle? Was Alexandra trying to get Damien for herself?

Then panic set in when I realized that she’d followed Damien out of the office. She’d deliberately planted the tabloid so Damien would see it, and then, when he’d stormed out – which she could have bet a year’s salary would be his reaction – she followed after him. This could be her chance. She could be on hand to offer comfort, and I could imagine what kind of comforting that would involve.

I needed to get the hell out of the office and find Damien before Alexandra could tell him any more lies.

He didn’t pick up my calls, and when I try for the twentieth time the call went straight to voicemail.

“Shit,” I spat as I burst onto the street outside the studio.

My legs felt weak as I tried in vain to hail a cab. I could feel the panic rising in my chest, swelling in my throat and making it hard to breathe.

“Please, God,” I whimpered. “Not again. Don’t do this to me again. It isn’t him, it’s Alexandra and Jenny. Punish those two. Please.”

Finally I managed to get a taxi to pick me up. I gave the driver Damien’s address. “If you break a few laws I’ll pay you double,” I said shakily as the tears threatened.

We set off with a squeal of tires and the smell of burning rubber.

When we arrived at Damien’s house the gates were closed. I paid the cabbie his well-earned fare and walked up to the intimidating gates. After pressing the code into the keypad the gates swung open and I rushed past their silent, gliding bulk.

Alexandra’s car was parked on the driveway in front of the house and I wondered what that devious bitch had said to Damien – What lies had she told him?

The door was locked and when I rummaged desperately through my purse I couldn’t find the key Damien had given me. Maybe it was there, hiding away in a secret fold in the bottom of my purse, as much a part of the conspiracy that seemed to have formed between my sister and Alexandra. Too frustrated and angry and desperate to search for the key, which could be in another bag after all, I pounded on the front door with the side of my fist.

“Damien!” I yelled at the top of my voice. “Open the door. Don’t listen to anything she’s got to say. Please, Damien, open the door. Talk to me. It’s Kylie. I love you. It isn’t me in those photos!”

I knocked and slapped that damned door until my hands were numb. I could hardly talk for having yelled so much.

Finally, just when I’d decided to find a decent-sized rock and hurl it at one of the windows to get his attention, the door opened.

Oh my God, he was a mess, obviously worse for wear on booze.

“What do you want?” Damien spat. His eyes blazed and I could smell the whisky coming off him. How much had he drunk to be so affected so quickly?

Then I noticed he was in his underwear!

“Damien, please,” I croaked, my voice hoarse. “You’ve got to listen, baby. It’s all bullshit.”

But he didn’t want to know. Wherever he was in that booze-soaked place inside his head nothing I said penetrated.

I saw a movement inside the house, and when I looked over Damien’s shoulder I saw her standing there, smirking at me.

“Go away, Kylie,” Alexandra sneered.

I gasped because she was just about naked herself. Alexandra’s blouse gaped opened, unbuttoned all the way down. I could see she’d taken off her skirt and was down standing there in her panties.

“Damien,” I groaned. “No, don’t do this. Don’t fall for it. Please, Damien.”

Damien peered at me through bleary eyes. I saw a hint of the real man glint there for a second, just a flash of the man I loved. And then his eyes glazed over and he told me to leave.

“I’m done,” he mumbled. “I’ve had it with double-dealing women. Go find someone else to get back at Jenny with. Our contract is off. Just like that time with your fucked-up in the head sister.” The door slammed shut.

Just before Damien closed the door on me, on us and our life together, I saw Alexandra’s smug face, the victory shining in her eyes.

So she’d wanted Damien all along.

And now she had him.

I don’t recall much of what happened next, I’d lost the energy to fight and wanted nothing more than to curl up somewhere and lie down for about twenty years. I must have walked to the gates and into the hateful world beyond. What was the point in bothering anymore? Damien wouldn’t listen, not with the cocktail of whisky in his veins and poison dripped into his ear by Alexandra. It would be better to let it go, to simply give up. How many more times would I have to prove myself to Damien?

Fuck it, let Jenny win. Who cares?

I found myself in yet another taxi, only this time I was outside Rafe’s apartment block.

If anyone had told me that’s where I’d head for I’d have laughed in their face. What possessed me to think I’d find any solution to my problems at Rafe’s place? It must have been some kind of yearning for a time before all this started. Before Rafe and Jenny had done the dirty behind my back I suppose I’d been happy enough. It might be a little like that film with Keanu Reeves – The Matrix – I’d been plugged into the machine, not knowing what the world of hot, impulsive, risky sex with an exciting man could be like, and who knows, maybe if I’d married Rafe I’d never have known, would never have needed to now. Who’s to say I wouldn’t have been happy even? Perhaps that’s why I ended up in Rafe’s apartment with what seemed to be a glass the size of a fishbowl full of wine in my hand – I just wanted to turn back the clock to a time before heartbreak and the topsy-turvy world of Damien Taylor’s emotions.

“Hey, Kylie,” Rafe said in a soothing voice. “It’s OK. You just take your time; take as long as you want. Cry your tears and then tell me all about it.”

So I sobbed and sipped the wine, a Chardonnay I think, not that passionate blood red stuff that Damien turned me on to. I told Rafe everything, blurting it all on a cascade of tears. It all came out: my hopes as an actress, my feelings of helplessness over Damien, how I despised my sister.

I realized then that I’d probably blown my chance at being a bigger star than Jenny. The film would be busted out. They’d have to cast again and rework the whole thing. How much would that cost? Would Damien even bother?

“Shit, Rafe,” I said, spitting the words of bitter disappointment and a hefty dose of self-pity. “How did I end up in such a mess?” I eyed my wine glass stupidly as I wondered where all that wine had gone after I’d tried to take another sip and found the glass empty.

“I’ll get you another,” Rafe said, smooth as ever. He smiled down at me, his eyes soft and tender. “It’s great to have you here, Kylie,” he added before, with a long lingering look he left the room.

I lay across Rafe’s huge sofa and closed my eyes. The wine was working its magic and I felt the cotton-wool fuzz replace the harsh edges of real-life. I’d just drifted into a languid half-dream where I was a big star, the movie had broken records and my world was a lovely place filled with flowers and kittens and Damien Taylor loved me.

I felt Rafe’s presence, sensed him from behind closed eyelids, but was in such a wonderful place that I didn’t want to come back to reality just then. Instead I lay there, limp and compliant as Rafe slid onto the sofa and laid my head on his lap. Then I drifted away again as he stroked my hair.

I started up out of my dream to find someone kissing me. When I opened my eyes I realized that I was sitting up on Rafe’s sofa and, to my horror, found that I was returning his kisses eagerly. With Rafe’s tongue in my mouth, and as his hands began to move over me, his touch familiar regardless of the weeks since he’d touched me, my body responded in the way it had been trained to by Damien.

My nipples stiffened and I felt the pulse between my legs quicken from a low, dull throb to a rhythmic beat. Heat flooded my core and I felt myself moistening. I groaned and slid my tongue into Rafe’s mouth to taste the Chardonnay on his tongue.

“Oh God,” I gasped.

“Kylie,” Rafe sighed, his hand on my breast over my bra. How the hell had my blouse come unbuttoned? “I missed you,” he moaned, his hand sliding down over the rack of my ribs to my stomach. “I’ve missed you and wanted you back so bad,” he added as his hand scooted under the hem of my skirt, which had ridden up high on my thighs. He touched my underwear and his fingers were right on the money. Rafe rubbed at me, creasing my underwear into my cleft as I began to squirm and pant.

“Rafe, oh, Rafe,” I sighed, lifting my ass from the sofa so I could press myself against his insistent fingers.

“I’m sorry about everything,” Rafe murmured, his lips at the hollow in my neck. “I should never have done it. What an idiot I was,” he continued before he spoke the bitch’s name.

That killed it stone dead. It hit me like a train – What the hell was I doing?

“I never should have listened to Jenny,” Rafe said.

And then I was up off the sofa spitting mad.

I was so angry at Rafe for making a move at such a vulnerable time for me. But mostly I was mad at myself. To run to Rafe, the cause of all the shit in my life, had to be one of the dumbest things on my list of dumb things I’ve ever done, so far.

“I shouldn’t be here,” I hissed as I fumbled with the buttons on my blouse. “What was I thinking?” I wriggled my hips to get the hem of my skirt to a modest level, my underwear was wedged into my cleft, but there was no way I was going to dig around between my legs with Rafe sitting there.

“Hey!” Rafe cried, all indignant. “Where are you going? I thought we—”

I cut him off with a snort. “No way, Rafe,” I snarled, my finger jabbing the air as I pointed at him. “I’m sorry I came over here. It was stupid and a huge mistake. I shouldn’t have let you kiss me. There’s no fucking way I’d come back to you. Not after what you did to me with … with her.”

Rafe came up shouting and waving his arms. “I said I was sorry,” he yelled. “I was an idiot. I fell for it. I didn’t know just how much of a fucked-up bitch she is. She’s totally messed up in the head, Kylie,” Rafe ranted on, screwing the tip of a forefinger against his temple. “Don’t you get it? She’s jealous of you. She has to be the winner every time. She told me one time when she was off her face on booze that you got all of your father’s attention. She was the oldest and when Baby Kylie came along all of a sudden your dad had no time for her. She says her own dad dumped her. That’s why she’s like she is. She does the bad shit to get your dad’s attention away from you!”

For a few seconds I just stood there gaping like a goldfish out of water. It sounded incredible, but made sense at the same time.

I stared at Rafe as he stood in front of me. The poor guy was breathless and close to tears. “I’m sorry, Rafe,” I murmured, resisting the impulse to comfort him. He looked so forlorn, and I knew that he’d been hurt by Jenny as well. We were both victims of hers, and whether or not she had some deep-seated resentment for me, Rafe didn’t deserve to be a pawn in her game. “I’m so sorry but I can’t be with you after that. It wasn’t your fault, I see that now. But you were weak, Rafe. You should have loved me more.”

I left him sitting on his sofa, head in his hands.

After deciding I couldn’t take any more drama I headed to the only place left for me to go.

Another cab ride later and my dad opened the door.

As soon as I saw him I burst into tears.

“What is it, honey?” he asked as he instinctively stepped out onto the stoop to hold me.

“It’s Jenny, daddy,” I sniffed, wiping my eyes with the back of my hands. “She’s wrecked everything again.”

I thought I heard my father mutter a few swear words under his breath as he led me into the house with his arm wrapped protectively around my shoulder.

“Ah, shit,” dad sighed. He shook his head. “I don’t know why that girl turned out the way she did.” I told him about what I’d pieced together from Melissa while I sat at the kitchen table and dad prepared dinner. I’d offered to help but he’d just smiled and shook his head, saying he enjoyed doing it and that I’d only get in his way. He said it kindly though, just to show me he didn’t mean it nasty. “I gave her everything she wanted,” he added, mystified at Jenny’s seemingly relentless quest to ruin my relationships. “Every damn thing.”

“Rafe said she’s jealous of me.”

My father paused as he stirred the Bolognese sauce, turning to look at me with a quizzical raised eyebrow.

I went on. “Rafe said that Jenny told him once, when she’d had a couple of drinks, that Jenny told him that after I was born you didn’t have much time for her.”

“Bullshit!” my father exploded. He dropped the spoon into the pan of bubbling, delicious smelling sauce. “That’s just crap. She’s just a spoilt brat, plain and simple.” His jaw worked and I saw his fingers clenching and unclenching. “Goddam but she’s pissed me off!”

Anxious to deflect my father’s anger, and sorry I’d mentioned it and upset him – yet again – I said softly, “Daddy, the sauce. It’ll burn.”

“Shit,” my father blurted as he fished the spoon from the volcanic, bubbling mix. He sighed, his stirring recommenced. “Anyway,” he began, “you stay here again tonight, sweetheart. Forget your sister for now, and forget those guys who aren’t good enough for you anyway. You sleep in your old room again and forget about those two assholes.”

A laugh bubbled from me when I saw my father’s scowl. I don’t know why, he just looked so serious it was comical; all indignant and waving the spoon around.

“I feel better already, dad,” I said as I rose from the chair to give my old dad a hug.

7

At first I lay there with my eyes closed. I didn’t want to open them because I knew it would hurt even more when I did. Everything had that surreal, dreamlike sensation about it; like I wasn’t really present in my own life, as though stuff would go on around me and I wouldn’t really be there. I was thirsty as hell and I could feel that deep ache behind my eyes. I examined my teeth with my tongue – what the fuck had I eaten? My mouth tasted like I’d eaten a skunk, complete with its fur. The hangover, as I knew from experience, would only get worse as the day wore on.

Snatches of the previous day came back to me. The morning was fairly clear. I recalled the story in the paper about Kylie and the pain of betrayal, my heartache, hit me again. I remembered driving home as my mind reeled at what she’d done. Getting to my house and the satisfying snap of twisting the top off the Johnny Walker black – Hello my old friend, we’ve shared some times – is still clear.

I remember Alexandra’s arrival …

Shit. Alexandra!

I opened my eyes a crack, a peep just to ascertain where in the hell I was. I found myself on my side in my own bed. The clock told me it was seven twenty – but whether morning or evening, I wasn’t sure. I groaned when I moved too quickly, the dull throb cranking up to head-splitting levels, an ice-pick of pain.

Moving slowly I turned in the bed. Someone was next to me buried under the cover.

I dared to hope. “Kylie?”

The covers moved and a tousled head appeared. “What time is it?”

“Just after seven,” I replied as the lead sinker of disappointment plummeted into the pit of my stomach.

“How do you feel?” Alexandra asked, drowsily.

Ignoring her question I replied with one of my own. “How much did I drink?” I groaned.

I felt her turn in the bed as I lay a forearm over my eyes. “A lot,” she said. “A hell of a lot. It stinks in here.”

Without taking my arm from my eyes, I didn’t want to look at a face that wasn’t Kylie’s next to me, I said, “What are you doing here?”

The bed moved and I sensed Alexandra get up and move away.

“I didn’t want to leave you alone. You were pretty bad.” She shut the bathroom door and after a pause I heard the toilet flush and then the sound of Alexandra washing her hands. “So I stayed over,” she added as she returned. The bed dipped again when she climbed back in. Her arm went around me and I realized we were both naked.

“Don’t do that, Alexandra,” I snapped. I flung her arm off me and, with a groan, rolled out of bed and stood a little unsteady on my feet. “Thanks and all that but you shouldn’t be in my bed.”

“That wasn’t what you said yesterday, Damien,” she purred back at me with a slow smile spreading across her face. “Nice butt!” she called as, full of self-loathing like acid bile churning in my stomach, I walked to the bathroom.

Who was that bloke guy I saw in the mirror? He looked like shit. Still, he’d earned it. It was Kylie’s fault – smiling sweetly and lying to my face. How could she do that? How could she lie to me, saying she’d be at her father’s only to go gallivanting around the flesh-pots of Hollywood?

But somewhere in the back of my head, where there was no hangover ache, in a lucid part of my consciousness I sensed something wasn’t right about the whole thing. I had a suspicion of something being out of kilter, but being in the early stages of a killer hangover I couldn’t work anything out.

Had I really invited Alexandra into bed? Maybe I would have in the past, a long time ago, but surely I’d moved beyond that kind of behavior now?

I peed a nuclear stream of dehydration into the bowl, grimacing as I imagined the crap I’d put my own liver and kidneys through. As I’d done innumerable times before I swore off the drink and decided a shower would do me good. I stepped under the spray; first as hot as I could stand before I forced myself to endure two minutes of a cold water cascade.

Feeling marginally better after brushing my teeth I padded barefoot but covered by my bathrobe into the bedroom.

Alexandra threw back the cover and, naked, got out of bed.

“Feeling better?” she asked, deliberately taunting me with her body as if to say: Look at what you’re missing.

“Put a robe on, Alexandra,” I growled. “I’m sorry but I don’t need to see you naked. I’ve got a hangover from hell, the film schedule is shot to shit, there’s no fucking lead. On top of that, I’ve lost Kylie …

“The last thing I need right now is to complicate things by fucking you.” It dawned on me then as the possibility that I’d already shagged Alexandra percolated through my whisky-soaked brain. “Shit,” I spat. I looked at her face. “Did we …?”

I’ve known Alexandra long enough to know she can be a calculating bitch. She’s helped me out lots of times during contract negotiations, and I knew she was capable of lying to the Pope’s face if the situation warranted it. I saw something in her expression, a brief shadow that flickered, just for a second, behind her eyes.

She was considering whether or not to lie to me. I sensed it intuitively.

Alexandra sighed and walked towards the bathroom door. “No,” she admitted wearily as she took a robe dangling from a hook behind the door. Alexandra shrugged. “We didn’t do it. You were too far gone to be capable. You passed out about 3pm, woke up at 6, yelled for more whisky and staggered up here an hour later. I undressed you and got in next to you.”

She wasn’t lying! Relief flooded through me. Thank God, I knew I wasn’t that bloke anymore.

It isn’t that Alexandra isn’t hot, because she is. I’d never even seen her in a bikini before, so seeing her naked just confirmed what I already thought, smoking hot body to go with her sharp intellect. Yeah, the old me, the selfish, uncaring Damien Taylor, he would have tumbled her into bed in a heartbeat.

But I didn’t love her; we were colleagues and friends, that’s all, and besides I wouldn’t want to lead her on. It just wouldn’t be right.

And she wasn’t Kylie.

Kylie – what was it about Kylie’s visit that disturbed me so much? It wasn’t the shouting and the screaming, although that had been bad enough. The pain, the anguish at seeing her at my door had been hideous, but there was something else, something that seemed off center when she’d finally run, sobbing, down the drive.

I looked at Alexandra. It was something to do with her.

“I’m sorry, Alex,” I said as the cloudy recollection, that sense of something odd that just wouldn’t coalesce into a solid memory, faded away just out of reach. “But thank God for that. It would have been a huge mistake.”

The woman grinned at me. “Maybe later,” she suggested, one perfectly sculpted eyebrow arching.

“I need a drink,” I said, ignoring Alexandra’s remark. “Of water,” I added. “And some breakfast.”

In the kitchen I poured fresh orange juice and set the coffee maker. Then I set about making the best hangover cure I knew – what we Brits call a fry-up. Bacon, sausage, grilled tomatoes – I even had some Heinz Baked Beans and the iconic HP Sauce with its distinctive label depicting the Houses of Parliament alongside the Thames in London. I added mushrooms and a side of toast and I tucked in with gusto.

Alexandra’s lip curled with disgust when she saw the heart attack on a plate in front of me. “That looks gross,” she sneered, lighting up her staple breakfast of a morning cigarette.

“Reminds me of home,” I mumbled through a mouth full of carbs. I pointed my fork at her. “And I’d rather die of this than smoking myself to death. Much tastier.”

“Reformed smokers,” Alexandra said with a roll of her eyes. Ain’t they the worst?”

With my stomach fully loaded I sipped coffee and tried to make sense of the day before. I felt better already; physically that is, emotionally I was still shot to shit.

I wanted answers.

“What the hell happened yesterday?” I asked as we sat at the kitchen table.

Alexandra lit up her second cigarette of the day. “You found out what Kylie’s really like,” she replied. “A good thing, too.” Alexandra looked at me with a fond expression. “Before you got in too deep with her. Better to find out now than later on.”

“How did you know we’d been seeing each other?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. Alexandra seemed a little too well informed, the newspaper article hadn’t surprised her at all; neither had my reaction to it.

Alexandra dragged on her cigarette. “Oh, come on, Damien,” she said. “Everybody on the crew knows about you two fucking. You know what it’s like. Someone always notices and tells someone else.”

It was true enough; I did know how it was impossible to keep something like that a secret. Alexandra was right and I felt like a wanker for my suspicions.

Then it came to me, the image that I couldn’t quite get into focus. When Kylie had been here, just after she’d left, when I’d turned around and seen Alexandra in the hallway behind me she’d been standing there in her underwear, her blouse flapping and the upper slopes of her breasts swelling over the cups of her bra.

Why? We hadn’t been in the middle of anything. I’d been upstairs changing into a pair of sweatpants when Kylie had started banging on my door, Alexandra hadn’t been anywhere near me.

As I thought about it I only half listened to Alexandra speaking.

“… She’s not the right girl for you, Damien. She’s at least nine years younger than you. What you need is someone more like you. Besides, Jenny says—”

I rounded on the mention of that name. “Jenny says?” I interrupted. “What the fuck would you be doing talking to Jenny Clark?”

Alexandra flushed and crushed her cigarette butt into the remnants of my breakfast. She shrugged but I noticed she avoided my eyes. “I can be friendly with Jenny,” she said with a petulant pout.

“Sure you can,” I replied. Alexandra flinched when she heard the tone of my voice and saw my expression. “But I’m wondering why, Alex.” I started on her then, hitting her with questions, one after the other. I knew that if I kept up a constant barrage that she’d slip up at some stage. I hoped I was wrong; I hoped to hell Alexandra wasn’t guilty of what I suspected her to be, and if it turned out I was wrong then I’d feel like shit for putting her through it.

But I had to find out the truth.

“Did you know about Kylie’s fear of spiders?” I began. “Is that why you suggested the addition of that scene? Did Jenny tell you, Alex? Is that what went down?” Alexandra blinked and opened her mouth to speak, probably still only analyzing my second question as I started again. “Why were you half-naked yesterday when Kylie came round, Alex? What was that about? Why did you stay the night? Who put that story to the press? The one about Kylie?”

Then it came to me – an epiphany: “Who the fuck is it in that picture, Alex? Do you know?”

“It’s ME!” she screamed. “All right? It’s me. I did it. I knew about you and Kylie and I was fucking jealous. Don’t you know, Damien? Don’t you know I want you?”

She flung her arms in the air and let it all spill out while I sat there, numb at first until a slow burn of anger ignited into a flame of fury.

“Jenny told me about the spider thing. I wanted Kylie to humiliate herself and for you to throw her off the set. But you didn’t, you were so fucking good about it. Then, when Jenny saw the two of you at her dad’s house – Kylie giving you a blow-job right there in the lounge—”

“What?” I spluttered. “Jenny saw that?”

Alexandra nodded. “Her dad had called her up to try for some kind of reconciliation when you guys all had dinner there. A fucked up idea but Jenny went along with it to try to get between the two of you somehow. She was late for the dinner but walked right in on you two going at it so hard. Kylie had your cock in her mouth and neither of you noticed her. She said she couldn’t stay to see that and so came up with the tabloid idea as a way of splitting you up.”

“And you went along with it?” I gasped, unable to comprehend the scale of Alexandra’s betrayal. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“I wanted you, Damien!” the loony tune shouted. She poked herself in the chest, her eyes flashing as she snarled like an animal. “I wanted you but that little fucking bitch got her claws into you. I was there every day, right in front of you and you didn’t even notice. She tricked me into letting her in to your office and then stole you away! I would’ve given you head, Damien. I’d do anything for you.”

Alexandra’s chest heaved with emotion, and for a brief moment I felt sorry for her. But what she’d done was beyond the pale.

The anger burst in my chest, white hot fury when I understood that she’d cost me Kylie.

“You know you’re so fucking fired,” I began.

“You can’t do that,” she gasped.

“I fucking can,” I hissed at her, fists clenching on the table top. “You can try to sue me, I don’t give a fuck, and if I see you near my studio or my set again, Alexandra, I swear I’ll fucking swing for you. You’re lucky you’re a woman or I’d be kicking your arse all down Mulholland right now. Get your clothes and get the fuck out of my house.”

“Please, Damien,” she sobbed. “I only wanted you to love me. Please.”

“GET the fuck OUT!” I yelled, the chair toppling behind me as I rose to my feet.

Alexandra fled. She ran out of the kitchen and I heard her crying and rummaging around upstairs until, finally, the front door slammed.

I dressed and drove to the studio. I’d hoped, by some miracle, Kylie would be there, but nobody had seen her and all I got were questions from the crew. They quite rightly wanted to know what was going on, but I didn’t have any answers for them.

“Kylie’s not feeling too good. Take the day off. Come in tomorrow and we’ll start up again from there.”

I got a few looks from the braver guys, people who have been with me for a long time. It was obvious they’d seen the papers or heard about it from somebody else, and since my affair with Kylie was an open secret – well, one that had been blown into the open by the article – they put two and two together and hit the magic number.

Feeling like shit for lying to some good people, loyal people, some were even friends, and with the hangover to contend with on top of all that, I looked all over town for Kylie.

Eventually there was only one more place to look, a place I’d avoided thinking about but where I’d known she’d be all along. It was just that I couldn’t look Roger Clark in the eye. The man must have thought I was a complete arsehole. I’d been sat in his front room with Kylie one night and the next day his daughter turns up distraught, again because of me. That was after upsetting her in Paris. I think if I’d have been Roger Clark I would’ve punched me in the throat as soon as I landed on his doorstep.

Instead Roger looked at me with such reproach, such disappointment, that I wished he’d gone for violence instead. It would have hurt less.

“I can’t let you in to see her, Damien,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “She’s my daughter and I can’t allow anyone to hurt her. Not anymore.”

Damn if that didn’t bring a lump to my throat. I could respect that. This quiet, unassuming man made me feel ashamed. I thought I’d grown since Stella, but Kylie’s father had me beat. He, I realized was what being a real man was all about.

“Please, Roger,” I said, surprised to hear the catch in my voice. “I know I’ve fu—, messed everything up. I know I’ve been a jerk, and I know I’ve upset your daughter again and again.”

It was when I started to cry that Roger looked uncomfortable. He glanced up and down the street and then sighed. “Come in,” he muttered, shaking his head. “You’re making a scene.”

He led me through into the kitchen and I saw him glance nervously up the stairs as we passed.

“I was such an idiot,” I said as I sat at Roger’s kitchen table while he made tea. “I let my own jealousies and insecurities cloud my judgment.” I told Roger about the newspaper article and how I’d gone ballistic. “I should have known Kylie wouldn’t have done it. I should have trusted her,” I lamented.

Roger sat opposite me and sipped tea. He nodded. “Yes, you should have. She was here all that night, Damien,” he said quietly. “Kylie was in this house. We talked after you left; we had a nightcap and she went up to bed. She was excited about the movie, Damien. Kylie was keen to do a good job for you. She wants … wanted to please you.”

“It was Jenny,” I said. “All of it. Kylie told you about the spider scene in the movie?” Roger nodded but said nothing. “Well that was my assistant’s idea. Jenny put her up to it.”

“Is that the same woman who Kylie saw half naked in your house at midday yesterday?” Roger questioned with an admonishing look.

I hung my head. “I know it looked bad,” I mumbled. “But Alexandra took her skirt off and unbuttoned her blouse when she heard Kylie at the door. She wanted Kylie to think something was going on. I swear to you, Roger; on my mother’s grave I swear nothing happened. Nothing.”

I went on, deciding I had nothing to lose except my dignity, and what was that worth next to losing Kylie?

I told Roger about how I’d never known my parents, about how I’d been brought up on a crap estate in London’s east end by my mother’s sister – a diamond of a woman who worked hard and did her best for me and her own three kids.

“I’m not going all Walt Disney on you, Roger,” I said as he made me a second cup of tea. I could have murdered for a fag right then, but I’d given up the cigarettes and doubted Roger would have wanted me to stink up his house anyway. I’d dropped the Hugh Grant rounded vowels by then and continued with, “It ain’t a sob story I’m giving you; I’m trying to explain how it is for me. I’ve never felt more at home with anyone in my life the way I do with Kylie.”

“Damien, please …” Roger began, seemingly embarrassed by me spilling my guts as though this was the Montel show.

“No, Roger,” I insisted, “I know I’ve got a lot to learn, but if you’ll help me I can get it together and make Kylie happy. If we can set aside our differences, put what’s gone on already behind us I can learn from you. I just need the chance. Hell, Roger, I love her.”

It all hung in the balance. I tried to read Roger’s face but all I saw was a nice bloke drinking tea. He looked at me and sighed.

“You know, Damien,” he began, “that was a hell of a story.” Roger paused, his mind working. “But I’m a man who has to think of his daughter. I have to think about what’s best for Kylie.”

My heart sank into my shoes. I’d blown it. I’d spilled my guts for nothing. All of it, the baring of my fucking soul hadn’t been enough.

OK, I could accept it. Roger was right after all. He did have a responsibility to Kylie. Why the hell would he trust me with her fragile heart?

“… I’ll tell you something, though; I admire your courage for coming here. I don’t know if I’d have been able to face a father under these circumstances.” Roger paused again and looked me in the eye. He even reached across the table and took my hand. “I’m going to give you a chance, Damien,” he said quietly. “I’ll go get her and try to get her to talk to you.  I’ll tell her she’s got to talk to you. That’s all I can do right now. If she comes down, and that’s a big if, just because I’m her dad doesn’t mean she’ll listen, but if she does come down, well then it’s up to you to convince her.”

8

My dad turned from the window. “It’s him,” he said.

It welled up inside me: Love for Damien; disappointment, bitter and corrosive because he’d believed a stupid tabloid article instead of me; fear that he’d convince me to try again.

I didn’t know if I could take any more.

“Don’t let him in, dad.” I went quickly to the stairs; I needed to be in my room where I felt safe, where I couldn’t see Damien or hear his voice or smell his familiar scent. “I don’t want to see him.”

At first I heard a mumble of voices at the door. Then, although I’d virtually begged my father not to let him in, I heard them move into the house. I felt a rush of panic when I thought that Damien was coming upstairs – What was my father thinking! But then I heard the rumble of their voices coming from the kitchen.

They were down there forever. I wondered what Damien was saying that took so long. I imagined them down there under different circumstances, the two men I loved – my dad for being such a great father and Damien because I couldn’t help loving him. A little fantasy rolled through my head, one where Damien and my dad were downstairs arguing good-naturedly about soccer. I knew Damien would insist that the game he followed was called football, since the players weren’t allowed to handle the ball, and that he’d be trying to convert my dad into supporting the same team that Damien had watched since he was a kid – West Ham. I could see my dad gently teasing Damien, and Damien, being the man he is, wouldn’t recognize that he was having his leg pulled. He’d get all serious and a little sniffy, and it would be up to me to make some smartass comment that got everybody laughing.

I sighed – Why couldn’t it just be like that?

The knock at my bedroom door shocked me almost right out of my skin.

“Hey,” my dad said as his head appeared.

“Has he gone?” I asked, not knowing which answer I wanted to hear.

My heart leapt when dad shook his head. “No. He wants to talk to you, but he said he’d leave if you said get lost.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

My father shook his head again. “I can’t answer that, Kylie. This is none of my business. What goes on between you two is between the two of you. You’re a grown woman.”

I loved him for that, for not influencing me either way. He wouldn’t poison me against Damien, he’d let me decide, but I knew I could count on his support no matter what came out of it.

Damien looked worn out when I saw him sitting at the table, a cup of tea in his hands. His face brightened when he saw me; he half-stood and then froze, not knowing whether to offer me an embrace or to keep away.

The distance option was the one I preferred.

“I love you, Kylie,” he said. Damien sat down and gave a little shrug. “It’s that simple,” he added. “Alexandra’s fired. She was the one responsible for all this. She’s been friendly with Jenny; she knew you were scared and deliberately set you up. That thing yesterday, when I was drunk and answered the door in my underwear … I’d been upstairs changing, Kylie. I was so fucking angry when you came banging on the door that I didn’t bother getting dressed.”

I wanted to believe him but there was the little detail of Alexandra half-naked to deal with. But he explained that too, and I was inclined to believe him, it fitted with what I imagined that woman to be capable of. After all, hadn’t she deliberately impersonated me and been responsible for that article in the paper?

Damien turned his handsome face towards me. “I’ve been a complete idiot, again. I shouldn’t have believed it, Kylie. Not about you. I’m sorry, I can’t describe how fucking sorry I am.”

He told me he loved me – that was the second time he’d said it – and that if I went back to him he’d do his damndest to never hurt me again.

“Fuck the contract, Kylie,” Damien continued. “Forget it. I don’t just want you sexually, I want the whole deal. I want all of you, and I want you to have all of me. Nobody else. Not now, not ever.”

And then he said it again: “I love you.”

My heart cracked open when I heard the sincerity in his voice.

I smiled. “I love you, too, I said.” And then I went to him.

Dad came in, saw us kissing, and said, “I just remembered I have to go to the mall. See you in a couple of hours.” He paused with his car keys in his hand. “Is Damien staying for dinner, Kylie?”

I looked at Damien, who smiled and nodded, saying, “If that’s all right?”

My face told my father that we’d have a guest at the table that night. He nodded and smiled at me.

“Thank you, dad,” I said, my voice choked with emotion. “I love you.”

“And me you, sweetheart,” he replied as he left the kitchen.

Damien glanced at me. I could swear he actually looked shy.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologized again.

Taking his hand I replied softly, “Come on.”

He followed me upstairs to my bedroom. Once inside I closed the door. Damien stood with his back to the door.

“This is weird,” he said, his eyes taking in the detail of my bedroom. “I’ve never felt this awkward before. It’s like …” His hands flapped at his sides. “Bloody hell, Kylie, I’m actually worried about making a move. What the hell is happening to me?”

“You don’t seem as gung-ho as you usually do, Damien,” I teased with a grin and a sideways tilt of my head. “Are you worried ‘cause we’re in my dad’s house?”

Damien nodded, his eyes widening. “Yeah, maybe a little bit.”

“Would it bother you if I asked you to fuck me?” I replied with a whisper. I watched Damien’s face as I unbuttoned my jeans. “Because that’s what I want right now. I want your big cock, Damien. I want your mouth and your fingers and that gorgeous fucking cock.”

I felt the warmth flood between my legs while the breath caught in my throat from the sudden, urgent need to be loved by Damien Taylor. It was my turn now, my turn to be boss.

“You’re beautiful,” Damien said, sending the same message with his eyes.

I felt beautiful under that intense gaze as I stripped out of my jeans and pulled the tee-shirt over my head. When I reached back to unfasten my bra and felt his stare on my bare breasts it felt like it was the first time I’d ever let him see me naked. Things were so different now. I still felt the same bubbling yearning for Damien to be inside me; I was still oiling with lust between my legs; I still wanted his hands to roam over my body and for his fingers to find that place inside me that made me scream with pleasure, but now he’d declared his love our connection went so much deeper than just being together physically.

Listening to Damien downstairs had shown me how fragile and vulnerable he could be. He had the tough, macho image but wasn’t afraid to bare his soul to me. He trusted me enough to hand me his heart, and for me to carry that dependence was a responsibility I didn’t take lightly.

When I turned my back to Damien I peeled my underwear down my legs, deliberately bending at the waist to reveal the oyster of my sex to him. I knew he could see my pussy pouting between my thighs like that, and I hoped the sight of me so lewdly exposed would inflame him with overwhelming lust.

I heard him gasp a moment before his hands grabbed my hips.

“Oh!” I cried, startled by my lover’s quick, silent approach.

“Kneel on the bed,” Damien growled, his confidence apparently renewed. “Spread your legs and push your hips up.”

I complied, resting straight-armed on my bed with my ass thrust upwards. God, I felt so bare like that, just like our first time in Paris. I knew he could see everything like that, all of me.

“What are you going to do?” I murmured when I felt his fingers splay the cheeks of my ass.

He didn’t speak. I just felt a warm waft of his breath across the moist part of me before his tongue wriggled and squirmed into my pussy.

I gasped as he explored my body with his tongue, groaning when he dabbed at the other dark and intimate place. To feel him there shocked me, but sent a delicious shiver of the taboo through me at the same time.

Damien’s palm swatted down hard on my butt and I yelped with surprise. Twice more I felt the sting of his hand on my ass; I’d never been spanked before and I decided I liked it.

Damien pushed my rump and sent me sprawling headlong onto the bed before he climbed up next to me with his pants undone and the length of him, so urgent and ready in his fist.

“Suck it,” he growled.

Rolling onto my side I got him there quickly with my mouth and my hands. The stuff pumped out of him while Damien knelt on my bed and grunted his release.

Ignoring the slide of Damien’s outpouring over my breasts, chest and stomach, I lay on my back. “Get me there, too,” I squealed. “Lick me, Damien. I need to cum. Please, baby.”

I came twice on my lover’s face before he almost ripped off his clothes and eased his hard body over mine, his tight butt and legs between my widespread thighs. I expected him to go at me like a bull, but Damien grew suddenly tender, his eyes filled with love for me.

We began slowly, moving together as we kissed and sighed and looked at each other, our eyes speaking.

My climax bubbled for ages, simmering gently while I rode the waves of pleasure and coaxed my lover towards his release with my body.

“This is the best ever,” Damien mumbled, his eyes closed tight. He held himself above me while we rocked together. “What have you done to me, Kylie?” he gasped. “Never,” he grunted. “It’s never been this good. Not even with Stella …”

Damien groaned again, twisting his neck as he grimaced with the effort of holding back. “I never want this to end, Kylie. Not ever. I want to stay here, like this, with you.”

Then he began to thrust and jab, his girth stretching me, filling me until I thought he had no more to offer, and then he’d stab at me again and I felt my body taking more of his length.

“Damien,” I gasped. “We can be together. We can do this forever. I’m cumming, Damien,” I groaned.

“Me too,” he hissed. I felt his body tense while he grunted and moaned, and then he pulsed inside me, flooding me with warmth as my arms and legs curled around him so I could hold him tight and never let go.

“I love you,” he sighed as we came together.

I knew then that that the movie would be great and I’d beat my sister, but most of all I knew, this time, I had Damien.