Read The Ex Factor Online

Authors: Cate Masters

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Women's Fiction, #Contemporary Women, #Romance, #Anthologies, #Romantic Comedy, #Contemporary Fiction, #Humor, #Collections & Anthologies, #A 1Night Stand Story

The Ex Factor

BOOK: The Ex Factor
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The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement (including infringement without monetary gain) is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

 

Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

 

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

 

The Ex Factor

Copyright © 2014 by Cate Masters

ISBN: 978-1-61333-643-4

Cover art by Tibbs Designs

 

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

 

Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

Look for us online at:

www.decadentpublishing.com

 

 

 

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Also by Cate Masters

 

Dead to Rights

Death is a Bitch

Betting it All

Tonight You Belong to Me

A Hard Day’s Knight

Homecoming

Cinderella Dreams

Sweet Revenge

Cursed

Charmed

Claimed

Blue Moon Over Bliss Lake

A Wedding at the Blue Moon Cafe

 

 

 

The Ex Factor

 

A 1Night Stand Story

 

By

Cate Masters

 

 

 

~DEDICATION~

 

For Gary, always

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

 

A scream rose in her throat, so constricted with rage the sound strangled to an indecipherable gurgle. “Idiot!” Susan Ainsley clutched the laptop so tightly, her arms shook. She fought the urge to hurl it against the wall, even if the resulting explosion of plastic and circuitry would act like a release valve on her frustration.

No point. Destroying her computer wouldn’t kill the gossip sites splashing her ex’s digs at her all over the Web and all over the world. Wouldn’t heal the sting of his underhanded comments. Wouldn’t make her feel better. Not even time helped that. Especially not when Brett Pratt, the other half of their former
it
couple, kept dredging up the past. His embellishments and exaggerations dragged her through the mud, again and again.

Her cell buzzed. After setting down the laptop, she checked the display. Ugh. Brett.

She let it go to voice mail. Despite ranking as one of the highest paid actresses in the business, she could disguise only so much of her real emotion. A chime signaled he’d left a message. A touch retrieved it.

I know you’re angry, but ignoring me won’t help. I’ll try again.

Sure enough, the phone buzzed in her hand.
Immature asshole
. “Hey. I was in the bathroom.”

“Dying your hair a new shade?”

She blinked once, like an extra heartbeat, a method she’d developed of slowing her reaction. Which, at the moment, was to rip out his hair plugs. “No. What’s up?” Let him think she hadn’t seen the articles.

“There’s a new round of dirt in the news. Ignore it. I can’t believe the stupid reporter twisted my words again. I’m sorry they hauled you into it, Susan.”

“Twisted. Your. Words?” What other meaning could one attach to,
my life was so boring, I tried any way I could to escape
? Or,
ending my marriage to Susan helped me move to the next stage
? The next stage of…finding new avenues of publicity? Assholedom?

With the effort to remain stoic, her lip trembled. While he droned out a lame explanation, she blocked his voice by envisioning a strong, sexy, intelligent man—the ideal she hoped would be her 1Night Stand date tonight.

“You know I would never hurt you.” The old Brett slipped in, all sugary sweetness, with that slight slur she used to find adorable but now triggered nothing but annoyance.

“Ditto.” To keep mum through these “media misunderstandings,” it took steely resolve—no, stronger than steel. Titanium? Adamantine? But she refused to react. She wouldn’t let him rob her of her dignity on top of everything else.

Unfortunately, dating other actors spawned new streams of probing articles, recounting in painful detail what she wore, ate, said, how she walked, whether another actress looked better in the same outfit, and always, always wrapping with something about Brett.

Worst of all, the reporter’s preposterous speculations about whether she’d marry again. Not likely, after the husband she’d idolized cheated on her with his goddess-wannabe co-star Anita Hellerton during a movie shoot and lied about it. Then, after returning home from the shoot, teary about his need to grow and move in new directions, stuffed as many possessions as he could fit into his Expedition. He moved, all right…straight in with Anita.

New direction?
Oh, I don’t know. Down wasn’t such a new direction for Brett
. She wouldn’t even mock him when he found out first-hand why Anita’s nickname was ‘Hellkitten’.

Was it any wonder she went out on the town with a different actor whenever possible? The more guys she dated, the more she moved forward with her life. Well, that was the plan, anyway. Speed dating merely proved what she’d long suspected—spending time with other performers made her yearn for solitude. And yearn for someone less concerned with his appearance, posing for paparazzi, and who else might steal the spotlight.

Someone real.

No matter how hard she tried to get away from the subject, Brett always factored into most conversations. Into too much of her life, really. Susan dubbed his unwanted influence on her existence
The Ex Factor
, and vowed to exterminate it once and for all.

Tonight would be the beginning. Right this moment, in fact.
Adios, asshole
.

“Give my best to Anita and the kids.” Her thumb pressed
off
without hesitation, and held it. The cell shut down with a whoosh, like a virtual toilet flushing away all the emotional baggage he’d attempted to dump on her. She wasn’t about to haul it around.

Especially not tonight. How long had it been since she’d gotten excited about a date? A blind date—how perfect was that? With a real man, someone who had a regular job, who worked nine to five. Someone with logical expectations, not pumped up on melodrama and creative angst.

Lauren’s a genius and a sweetie for helping me set this up
. A true friend, worth her weight in gold in the entertainment business. Not naïve enough to think tonight would change her life, Susan still looked forward to the break from the manufactured madness the press generated, and a glimpse into the world she’d long ago left behind. Madame Eve promised to protect her true identity and afford her a night off the media radar.

If she liked it, she might consider going back to life in the slow lane and leave all the glitter-caked crap behind.

“Hope this dream doesn’t end up a nightmare, like my career.” She rose, the view of the valley beyond the wall of windows drawing her to it. So beautiful, but she’d grown tired of having abnormally massive amounts of
stuff
. Part of the package deal of superstardom and, sure, she’d dreamt of having a sprawling home on a secluded hilltop with stunning vistas. Great as it was, it lost meaning without someone to share it with.

One way or the other, that would change.

 

***

 

The driver’s door of the 1994 Jeep Cherokee opened with a creak. Jared Thornwell climbed in and gripped the steering wheel of the sole constant in his life for the past two decades. With the odometer creeping up on three hundred thousand miles, his colleagues razzed him about driving a junker when he could afford any vehicle on the planet. He good-naturedly shot them the single-digit salute.

Until tonight, when he pictured Susan Ainsley in the passenger seat. Would she think him eccentric, or outright crazy? Maybe a tightwad.

I’d give her anything she asked for
. Christ, the danger of a woman like that, whose beauty haunted him like a specter in the night. An amazing, gorgeous specter who inflamed his senses with blind lust. The idea had nearly become his next movie project—a man driven to the heights of insanity for wanting such an unattainable star. Such an apt label for her: star. She was stellar in all respects—talented, intelligent, off-the-charts sexy with a sultry smile whose intense heat left him as parched and needy as a poor soul stranded in the desert.

Why it had taken her so long to divorce Pasty Face Pratt, Jared chalked up to the business they both had the misfortune to love. Illogical, fed by masses of hysterical fans who ate up the hype like candy, the movie industry gave outlet to his own insatiable need to create unforgettable stories. On the downside, it also had a tendency to kill marriages, including his own. His sporadic dating had ceased two years ago when Susan and Brett divorced. At last, the opening he’d prayed for. His chance to make a play for her.

Turned out to be a flop worse than
The Adventures of Pluto Nash
. Each time he tried to approach her, or call her, reality struck.
You’re ten years older than she is. She likes young hunks whose charm’s as smooth as if it were scripted, not someone who holds a reputation for sarcasm, impatience, and disdain for unprofessionalism
. She’d laugh away his offer, and he’d slink away in disgrace.

“So why did I convince Madame Eve to set me up with her tonight?” With an incredulous laugh, he raked his fingers through his hair.
I might as well be a twelve-year-old out with Marilyn Monroe
. A thirty-seven-year-old tween, but every bit as tongue-tied and dreamy-eyed.

Oh yeah, he could imagine how the meet cute would play out. She’d pause in the doorway, stunning in a deep V-cut dress—not unlike Marilyn’s—light glinting off her honey-blonde hair, her eyes. Her pouty lips would part as she scanned the room, revealing perfect teeth and the tip of a tongue, soft and sweet as cotton candy.

Pan out across the room. He’d sit at a corner table, lit by a single candle. Staring at her, like all the other guys in the place. She’d spy the slender vase holding a lone white rose and spray of baby’s breath, the signal he was her date.

It would extinguish the glow of hope in her face, the reverse of Bacall’s close-up in Casablanca, alive with light, and love, and transparent and utter need for Bogey. A momentary blank expression, then she’d plaster on a smile and drag herself over. After a polite hello, she’d sweep into the seat opposite, joke about the coincidence, then, in a tone of mourning, she’d apologize. Reveal someone had talked her into the date. She wasn’t ready.
It’s not you, it’s me
. So cliché.

Pan out again as she rose, graceful and delicate as the white rose—
hmm, literally the rose, or simply exuding the same fragile innocence?
—and flowed out of the room like a scarf in a breeze. Zoom in tight on him draining his martini, flagging the waitress for another.
Keep ’em coming
. Despite protestations from the waitress, the bartender, and patrons he passed while exiting the bar, he’d stagger to his Jeep.
Would the waitress follow and he’d bang her all night, calling out Susan’s name? No, not exactly tortured hero material
. Tires squealing, he’d swerve and weave down the street, picking up enough speed to careen over a steep embankment and plummet to his death, alone and unloved forevermore.

Or—the more likely scenario—he’d wake up with a nasty hangover and haul himself off to work, sarcasm more biting than usual, manners rougher than a seaside boardwalk on bare feet.

BOOK: The Ex Factor
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