Step Wilde: A Stepbrother Romance (17 page)

“Ms. Holliday will see you-“

I nodded and held up my hands. “Yeah, fine. Thanks a fucking lot, Hailey,” I yelled over his head. “You’re not sick. No way. I know you’re in there enjoying fucking with me, as usual. It’s your favorite goddamn hobby.”

Cat Man finally shut the door and I angrily stormed back into Harrison’s room. I left my still-clean clothes in a messy pile on the floor. I knew that would piss off Harrison.

Good
, I thought. I knew that none of this was his fault but he was my favorite punching bag. He was convenient.

I picked up the phone and held it to my ear. The dial tone buzzed. I had my finger on the button for the front desk when I heard the whir of the electric lock. Harrison was obviously back.

I hung up the phone quickly and dove under the blankets on the sofa bed. If I could feign sleep, I could avoid an awkward interaction.

Harrison whispered my name but I had slowed my breathing down to look like I was asleep. He didn’t press his luck. I fell asleep quickly, diving into dreams of chasing Olivia through cobblestone-paved mazes.

***

The next morning, I woke up to find Harrison gone already. I got dressed slowly, dreading spending a day making out with Hailey in front of the cameras while Olivia watched. When I had my jeans and t-shirt on, I picked up the room phone.

It was time for breakfast in the hotel restaurant with Hailey. But there was no way I was fucking standing outside of her room waiting for her like last night. Never fucking again.

“Hello?” said a man’s voice. Cat Guy.

Fuck
.

“Yeah, I need Hailey. It’s Wilde.”

“Ms. Holliday said she would meet you on set. She is still not feeling well.”

I laughed darkly.

“Oh, she’s fucking me around again? Okay. Great. Tell her I’ll enjoy not having to eat with her.”

I hung up before Cat Man could reply. I called the downstairs kitchen and ordered waffles and bacon. I would regret the meal later during my afternoon workout, but right now I needed comfort food.

I had no idea what Hailey was playing at. She’d never let illness stop her before.

Once she’d played five sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden with a hundred-and-three-degree fever without a single public complaint.

Nothing good could come from whatever she was doing to me. That was all I knew for sure.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

OLIVIA

I tapped my foot against the cobblestones, flipping through the fresh script that Jennifer had just passed to me. It was filled with all of the new edits we’d done. I drank deeply from my cup of coffee.

I usually craved the distraction of work when my life was in turmoil, but work wasn’t an escape when my problem was standing ten feet away from me and I was downwind of his cologne.

The day was cloudy and moody; the first day without sun we’d had. It should have been a relief from the heat, but the temperature was the same. It was just unbearably muggy and uncomfortable. There was only the tiniest breeze blowing.

It was going to be a long day on set.

I’d actually felt my knees go slightly weak when I saw Wilder walk on set. I couldn’t help but think of him kissing my stomach.

That feeling was interrupted when Hailey blew onto set with her entourage. She wasn’t smiling, and there was something menacing surrounding her. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but the air felt different.

A few of the crew members actually took several steps back as she passed them.

“Good morning, people!” Fox called out. His throat sounded hoarse.

“Rough night last night for everyone, I guess,” came Lydia’s voice from behind me.

She had a fresh cup of coffee that she handed to me. I took it gratefully; I had been so preoccupied I hadn’t noticed that I had finished my first cup.

“How was your workout?” she asked.

“Fine,” I replied. I was still staring at Hailey.

“It seemed like it was,” Lydia said drily.

I ripped my eyes away from Hailey and looked at her. She looked like the cat who swallowed the canary.

“What does that mean?”

Lydia pulled her phone out of her pocket and tapped it. A grainy, low-resolution photo popped up. There were hot pink digital question marks surrounding two people.

I squinted.

Then my stomach fell through my feet.

“Oh my God,” I whispered. I pulled the phone away from her and grabbed her arm, dragging her away to where no one could hear us. “What is this?”

Lydia’s expression hadn’t changed. “That appears to be you in teeny tiny workout clothes having your stomach fellated by Roman Wilder’s tongue.”

I held the phone an inch away from my face. It was clearly Wilder in the photo; his tattoos gave him away. But my head was turned the other way. I could have been anyone.

Well, anyone but Hailey. I had a good forty pounds on her frame.

“Who took this?” I asked.

Lydia shrugged. “I have no idea. But I think you, me, and Wilder are the only three people who know that the woman he’s licking is you.”

I glanced around, paranoid. Nobody was looking at us.

“Seriously, we’re the only three who know. Unless Wilder told someone else.”

I looked over at Wilder, who was busy laughing with Aldo the props guy.

“I really don’t think he would do that.”

“Yeah, and I also didn’t think you’d allow an engaged guy to cheat,” Lydia replied. “But here we are.”

“We weren’t
cheating.
He tried to kiss me and I pushed him away. And they aren’t really together,” I whispered hastily. “It’s for publicity. She’s blackmailing him for her next album.”

Lydia chortled. “Wow, well, that’s certainly a new twist on the ‘I swear, he’s leaving his wife’ trope.”

My cheeks burned.

“Okay, everyone. Phones away and I’d prefer if the personal lives of everyone on this set stayed
off set
. Okay?” Fox announced.

There was a murmur and a scurry as people holstered their phones.

“Great, okay. Let’s get to our places, then.”

A few minutes later, I was sitting next to Jennifer, dead-eyed and daydreaming. There was a bitter taste in my mouth as I sat there holding the script and staring into nowhere. \

The set went quiet and the cameras started rolling.

“This is what they want, Margot,” Wilder said to Hailey. They were standing in an alleyway with fake rain pouring over their shared black umbrella. “They want us to tear each other apart.”

Hailey looked up at him with her famous doe-eyes adorned in the perfect wing-tip eyeliner. She paused three beats too long. I saw Fox move his hand to the top of his hat in frustration. Then she spoke.

“Oh, James. Let’s just run
away
together! Where they can’t find us!”

I glanced around at the people standing near me. It looked like I hadn’t imagined it. Everyone looked deeply uncomfortable. I saw a few people let slip some eye rolling.

It was official: Hailey had returned to her wooden acting once again.

Now both of Fox’s hands were on top of his head, his fingers pulling at the worn canvas of his hat.

"CUT!" Fox called out.

He actually sounded angry for once instead of simply and intensely annoyed, which appeared to be his default mode.

"Jesus fucking...
Hailey
. Darling. Seriously. You look like you're acting not only for the back row, but for people currently standing in line to see the Great Wall of China. For the love of all that is good in this world, sweetheart. I need you to stop
acting. So. Hard
."

He tapped a rolled up script against his hand as he emphasized the last three words.

The set was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop even above the sound of distant traffic a few streets over.

"And you," Fox said to Wilder, "You look like you'd rather be eating glass than standing next to this beautiful young woman."

Then Fox did something that made everyone gasp.

He took his bucket hat off and threw it on the ground.

I was surprised to see he had a gorgeously thick, wavy, silver-and-white head of hair. I was expecting a bald spot or maybe some ghastly chemical burn.

"You. Wilder.
You
fucked this up.” Wilder said nothing. “Oh, you have nothing to say? I
told
you to not fuck this up, Wilder. I
told
you.”

Fox had a manic grin on his face as looked around the set wildly.

“It’s not too late!” he cried into the air. “We can do something about this that won’t completely make me the washed-up fool most of my peers think I am.”

He laughed, and he sounded like a man about to break.

Nobody said a word. Even Janna was keeping her distance.

Then Fox clapped his hands together. "I need that blonde girl. The one that Wilder was eye-fucking during the first take. Day one of shooting. Anyone remember that?”

A few people nodded and murmured.

“Right? I wasn’t imaging that? Right? What’s her name? Adele? Adelaide? Something. Something like that."

Fox rubbed his hands together and started weaving between crew members, staring into their faces.

Everyone was whispering now. Surely he wasn't taking about me. There was no way he was talking about me. Then Lydia was suddenly at my side.

"He's talking about
you
. Go!"

I whipped my head to look at her. "How could you possibly know that?"

Lydia rolled her eyes. "I told you. I got a half dozen calls about it when I was back in Los Angeles. Get up before Fox drags you over there.”

Fox was still weaving between people. "Hello? Evelyn? Olympe? Something with a vowel as the first letter. Is she here? Looks a bit like a fat model. Anyone know who I'm talking about?"

I finally found my feet and pulled myself out of the chair.

"My name is Olivia, actually," I said to him. “If I’m the one you’re talking about, that is.”

Fox burst into a grin.

“Yes! You! The hot one! Amazing.” He clapped his hands together again. "You are
exactly
who I'm looking for. And this is perfect, because he actually wants to fuck you
in real life
but he
hasn’t yet
so it could be some believable publicity for the film without destroying your onscreen flames.”

Fox turned around to face Hailey and Wilder. “Ms. Holliday? Get off my fucking set," Fox said, his voice full of cheer. "Unless you want to stick around and see what it looks like when the two main characters in a film actually want to be in the same room as one another."

It was like the entire production held its breath collectively. We were waiting for the bomb to go off.

But it didn’t.

Hailey actually stepped out from under the umbrella and into the fake rain that the stunned production guy had forgotten to switch off. She walked under the raindrops and past Fox, snapping her fingers to call her entourage to her.

She walked quietly over to wardrobe, where she unzipped her dress down to her red, lacy underwear and panties, took off the vintage pumps Lydia had found, and walked off the set nearly naked without a single word leaving her lips.

There was silence for at least sixty seconds as everyone watched her leave. Fox broke the silence.

“Good riddance," he yelled. "Okay, Ms. Olivia. I’m now beginning to remember that you are something having to do with the script-“

“She’s the supervisor,” Janna explained. “And she’s been helping with rewrites.”

Fox held up a finger like a lightbulb had just turned on over his skull.

“Excellent! Then you should probably have most if not all of this miserable
but rallying
-" he added, turning to Jennifer who was standing a few feet away from him - "Script memorized by now. So. You know the scene. Stand on this mark over here-" he pushed me bodily and rotated me until I was on my mark, which was about an inch away from Wilder's body.

I couldn't bear to look at his face, but I could feel his heart beating through his shirt. I was soaking wet having walked through the rain.

"Okay, you have no makeup or hair or wardrobe and now you’re soaking wet, but this is just a test scene anyway,” Fox said in a rush of words. He took a few steps back until he was behind the camera again. “Great. Right there. Top of scene thirteen. Ready? Wonderful," he said with no pauses.

"Speed, marker, ACTION!" he called out.

I looked up at Wilder, and without saying a word, reached toward his face to kiss him. Our lips met. His were soft and warm beneath mine. I felt the entire world go silent around us.

It seemed like minutes before Fox yelled, “CUT!”

Fireworks were going off in my ears and my eyes, and my body was shaking and slightly limp. Fox walked over to Wilder and clapped a hand on his arm.

"Now
that
, dear son, is chemistry."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

OLIVIA

I was sitting in the conference room of the hotel with Fox and Janna.

It was early; before six in the morning. A platter of Italian pastries rested in the center of the conference table next to a black telephone that was on speaker. Some guy from corporate back in Los Angeles was squawking over the line.