Famously Mine: A Contemporary Romance Box Set Read online

  Darian laughs.

  “But yeah,” I finish. “Assuming all of that goes according to plan, she’s in.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Darian says, his voice awed. “You got Elinor Swift.”

  I fight the urge to tell him to hush or knock on wood.

  Elinor Swift is one of the most revered names in Hollywood. If a role doesn’t go to Meryl Streep, it goes to Elinor Swift, and vice versa.

  Having her on the project basically guarantees that a) we get taken seriously and b) the movie itself will be as good as it can possibly be. Elinor won’t accept anything less.

  This is why I had to distract the photographers today. If they’d realized I’d come out of her apartment, they could have published speculations just close enough to the truth to scare Elinor away from the project.

  I’m sure Sienna will understand. Once I tell her.

  “Hey, Darian,” I say. “What’s a good I’m-sorry-you-got-mobbed-by-the-paparazzi gift?”

  “Why, Josh,” he says. “I thought you’d never ask. You know I put up with a lot to be in this relationship with you.”

  “Not you, you dweeb,” I head out to my back deck, and eat my sandwich in the sun while I tell him about what happened with Sienna.

  “Ooof,” he says, when I finish. “You’re brutal, man.”

  “What are you talking about?” I demand. “You know I had to distract them somehow.”

  “Sure, but you didn’t have to throw her under the bus to do it. Why didn’t you pretend to be choking? Or pick a fight with someone passing on the sidewalk? Or get amazing news on the phone and drop just enough details to keep them guessing? You know how rough this town is on women. Especially women who want to be taken seriously for their careers and not for the men they’re dating. Or in this case, not dating. Remember how pissed you were when that P.A. implied she and you were a thing, because it made you look like an unprofessional asshole?”

  “Yes,” I grit out.

  “Well, you just did the same thing. But worse. So why did you do it? Why did you pick this lie?”

  I realize I don’t have an answer for Darian. I roll my shoulders, trying to shake off the thought that I just fucked up way worse than I realized.

  “Joshua? You there, man?”

  “Yeah. Yeah I’m here,” I sigh. “So what’s a good apology gift, in this scenario?”

  “I don’t think that will work,” Darian says. “Anything you give her will feel like a payment, or like the kind of thing a real boyfriend would get for his girl. And both of those things will just make her angrier, from everything you’ve told me.”

  I run a hand through my hair, “You don’t understand. I need to make this better.”

  “Why? So she’ll plan the launch? She’s going to do that anyway. You’re paying her to do that.”

  “No. So she won’t hate me. I don’t want to ruin her life,” I say.

  This time it’s Darian who sighs, “Here’s the thing, Josh. You didn’t ruin Sienna’s life, just like the P.A. didn’t ruin yours. Sienna will get through this. She’ll finish the job and move on. You’ll just be her baggage.”

  I frown. “What do you mean?”

  “You know, a couple years from now, when some guy asks to marry her for real. And instead of just being thrilled, she’ll remember that time you used a marriage proposal to screw her over. But it’s ok. If she’s as smart as you make her sound, she’ll just tell her new dude, and they’ll talk it over, and bond, and she’ll come out of it happier than ever.”

  I don’t like Sienna’s pretend future fiancé. He sounds like an asshole.

  “Look, you were an asshole,” Darian says, unknowingly echoing my thoughts. “There’s nothing you can do to make it up to her. So just apologize, go back to being professional, and let it go. She’ll be fine in the long term. You’ll just be the backstory to her happy ending.”

  It’s hard to express how much I hate that sentence. You’ll just be the backstory to her happy ending.

  But he’s right. I know he’s right. There’s a million reasons Sienna and I don’t belong together, and the fact that I’m the kind of guy who’s hounded by paparazzi is the least of them.

  Still. The backstory to her happy ending. Fuck.

  I hang up without saying goodbye.

  It’s an hour later and I’m staring down at my phone. I’ve pulled up Sienna’s number, but I have no idea what to text her. Finally I just type I’m sorry. But it’s not what you think. Please come over so I can explain.

  Immediately, I see the little dots that show she’s typing. And then they stop. And then they start again. And then stop.

  This is ridiculous. My heart is pounding like this is a goddamn chase scene, all because some woman I met a few weeks ago may or may not letting me explain myself. I chuck my phone on the couch and walk away.

  It dings with an incoming text message, and I jump over the coffee table, scrambling for the phone.

  You want to explain, you’re coming to me. Otherwise don’t bother.

  Without wasting a beat I type, Where do you live?

  I’m in my baseball cap and sunglasses disguise when I have the Lyft drop me off in front of Sienna’s apartment. I don’t think she’d appreciate it if anyone recognized my car in front of her place.

  I stroll up the lawn to her first floor apartment and knock. It’s a cute little building from the 50s, in a quiet-ish neighborhood that’s only about ten percent overpriced.

  The welcome-mat in front of her apartment says Welcome, Bitches in pastel pink cursive. It surprises me since I’ve never heard her swear, but it’s also kind of perfect for Sienna. Tough and soft, all at the same time.

  I’m about to knock again, when Sienna opens the door.

  And something about seeing her is a punch to the gut. She’s not in her normal sharp L.A. business woman clothes. She’s in an old college sweatshirt, and her bare feet peek out from flannel pajama pants that drag on the floor. Her hair is piled up on top of her head, leaving her neck bare and exposed. It’s the kind of thing a woman might wear around a long-term boyfriend to cuddle on the couch on a lazy weekend.

  It’s also the kind of thing a woman wears when she’s home alone and isn’t expecting company.

  Suddenly I’m aware of how much bigger I am than her. How did I not notice that until now?

  I realize how much Sienna’s businesswoman persona is a kind of armor. And for the first time ever, I’m seeing her without it.

  What’s she doing answering the door without her armor on?

  Sienna blinks up at me, and pushes her glasses up her nose, “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  I frown.

  “After I told you I lived on the other side of town. You didn’t text back. I didn’t think you’d come,” she repeats, like maybe I’m a bit dense.

  I brace myself on the doorframe, trying to find purchase in this conversation, “You said you wanted me to come and told me where you were. Of course, I came.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted – oh, never mind. But you’re tipping the pizza guy when he gets here,” Sienna turns away and walks back into her apartment, but she leaves the door open, which I take as an invitation in. I shuck my baseball cap and sunglasses, leaving them on a side table by the door.

  Her apartment is so tiny I have a moment of fear that it’s a studio. My horny subconscious really doesn’t need to know what Sienna’s bed looks like.

  But it’s a brightly lit two-story one bedroom, with soft white carpet, and small potted succulents sitting along the window sills. A narrow but tiny kitchen runs along one side of the room. The rest is simple but comfortable looking furniture in pinks and greens and blonde wood.

  Sienna plops down into a fluffy chair, and I settle gingerly onto the couch. I feel like a lumbering commoner begging for the queen’s forgiveness. And the normal ways I get women to forgive me are really not appropriate in a business setting.

  “Well?” she gestures for me to speak. “Explain yourse
lf.”

  I hesitate, “Well, uh. Do you know who Elinor Swift is?”

  “Do I know– Josh, of course I know who Elinor Swift is. If you’re going to ask stupid questions you can just get out–”

  “She agreed to be in our movie,” I cut her off. “Maybe. There were some qualifications. One of them being that media can’t find out about it until she’s made a final decision.”

  And then I tell her the whole story.

  I’ve just finished, when the doorbell rings.

  The pizza’s here.

  I jump up to answer the door. Sienna gives me a quizzical look.

  “Hey, you wanted me to tip,” I say, and she settles back into her chair.

  But that’s not the real reason. For some reason, I don’t like the idea of some random delivery guy seeing Sienna without her armor on. Which is stupid. A) She’s an adult, and knows what she’s wearing. B) She’s dressed more modestly than a nun. And, most importantly, C) even if neither of those things were true, it wouldn’t be any of my business.

  That doesn’t stop the weird caveman part of my brain that wants to keep anyone else from seeing her with her guard down.

  I open door the door, and realize I’ve made a mistake when the delivery guy almost drops his pizzas in shock.

  Yep, he definitely recognizes me. I take the pizza, throwing in an extra forty and a murmured request to be discreet. But even as I close the door I know it’s a lost cause.

  If you’re famous long enough, you get pretty good at telling who’s going to treat you like a person and respect your privacy, and who’s going to treat you like a trophy and shout that they met you from the rooftops.

  The guy I just met is definitely a #2.

  I set the pizza on the table, peaking at Sienna to see if she’s going to yell at me for drawing more unwanted attention to her. But she’s deep in thought, and doesn’t seem to notice me.

  The pizza smells amazing.

  “Plates?” I ask.

  “Top shelf,” she answers automatically, still deep in thought.

  I grab two plates and dish us both up pieces. I remember a text message conversation where she said she likes red pepper flakes on her pizza, so I get some from her spice rack, and bring it to the living room along with her pizza.

  Sienna finally turns her focus back to me when I pass her a piece of pizza. “So…” she says, and I settle on the couch and take a bite of pizza. The commoner waiting for his verdict.

  “You’re saying we have to keep pretending to be engaged,” Sienna says.

  I choke on my pizza, “What? No. I just had to distract them in the moment. And I’m really sorry I didn’t come up with a better idea. But it’s over. You don’t have to do anything else, other than keep working on the launch party.”

  But Sienna shakes her head, “No. If they figure out we’re not really together, they’ll realize you were playing them. And then they’ll ask why you were playing them. And then they’ll figure it out, and you’ll be screwed. And all my hard work on this launch party will get overshadowed by stories about Elinor Swift pulling out of the project, and how you lost your chance to work with the greatest actor of our generation.” She reaches for the red pepper flakes and covers her pizza with them. Like there are so many red pepper flakes, I can’t actually see the pizza anymore.

  I set my own pizza down, “What are you proposing?”

  Sienna winces. Ok, maybe proposing wasn’t the best choice of words. Still, she shakes it off and looks me in the eye, “I think we should get engaged.”

  My heart stops.

  “Fake engaged,” she hurries to say. “For the press. Until Elinor Swift has signed the contract, and we’ve made it through the launch party.”

  “But what about your professional reputation?” I ask.

  “You’ve already ruined it,” Sienna says bluntly. “And it’s going to stay ruined unless we pull this off, at which point we’ll have a discreet fake break-up. But you need to give me one thing.”

  “Anything,” I say.

  “You become a permanent client at the firm. And you back me up when I tell my boss the truth. And then you give me a fucking glowing review.”

  I take another bite of my pizza to give me time to think about it. Finally I say, “I’m happy to do two and three. But I don’t make business decisions because of who I’ve dated. Or fake-dated.”

  “Fine,” Sienna shrugs. “Then let’s go tell the press we’re not really together.”

  “You’re bluffing. You promised not to say anything about the production company.”

  “I’m not. I’m just telling the world that I’m not fucking dating you. Which is, you know, the truth.” Sienna stands up and goes to get more pizza, taking the red pepper flakes with her, “It’s your choice.”

  And she’s right. It is my choice. So I weigh my options while she drowns another innocent piece of pizza in red pepper flakes.

  Option A: I get the thing I want most in the world, and all I have to do is sign a contract with a capable company that has gone above and beyond to meet my needs on this project. And with the production company taking up more of my own time, it does make sense to off-load more of the non-production related projects to an outside firm like Sienna’s.

  Plus, I get an excuse to spend time with Sienna. Which shouldn’t factor into my decision, but let’s be honest, it absolutely does.

  Option B: I ruin Sienna’s reputation and mine, shoot my production company in the foot, and after the launch party, I never see Sienna again.

  When Sienna comes back to the living room, I’m down on one knee.

  Her eyes widen.

  “Sienna Bridges,” I say. “Will you be my fake fiancée?”

  For a moment she doesn’t say anything, and I start to sweat. Which makes no sense. It’s not like I’m really asking her to marry me.

  But I don’t think my body knows that.

  Finally, she throws me a brilliant smile that makes my chest tighten. “But Joshua,” she says, in a soft, husky voice that my body definitely doesn’t know is fake. She bats her eyelashes, “Wherever is my ring?”

  “First, you promise to make an honest man of me,” I say rising to my feet. “Then, we go ring shopping.” I’ve learned my lesson about springing things on this woman.

  “Deal,” Sienna says, and holds out her hand. We shake on it. “But first,” she says, “we lay down some ground rules.”

  “Let’s hear them,” I say, settling back down onto the couch. Knowing Sienna, they will be lengthy and specific.

  To my surprise, this time she settles on the couch with me. And I know I made the right decision.

  9

  Sienna

  I stand in front of my bedroom mirror and smooth my hands down my dress nervously. Joshua and I have been laying low for a few weeks, only meeting up to work on the launch party. (Pros of a man accidentally ruining your professional reputation and feeling guilty about it: he agrees almost instantly when you tell him where you want to host his launch party).

  Tonight will be our first official outing as a couple. We’re going to the opening of one of his friend’s movies, where we will walk the red carpet, and in general be gross and couple-y in front of a million cameras and Hollywood’s biggest gossips.

  So no pressure.

  Now I’m waiting for Joshua to pick me up and examining myself in the mirror because, apart from everything else, tonight is the night I find out what I look like from every angle, while surrounded by hundreds of professionally beautifully people.

  I went with a gold tea-length strapless dress with a fitted bodice, and a soft flowing skirt. It’s a classic cut, but I think the delicate golden glint of the fabric saves it from looking too old-fashioned. I actually got my hair done, so it falls in soft, retro-glam curls around my face. My lips are a bold red, and my eyeshadow is all delicate browns and creams dusted with gold. My high heels are a gorgeous burgundy, and a good inch taller than I normally wear. Technically speaking, it is the mo
st beautiful I have ever looked in my entire life.

  I’m terrified it won’t be enough.

  There’s a knock at the door, and my heart leaps. It’s that sharp, impatient knock I’ve come to know as Joshua’s.

  I answer the door, and all I can think is, it’s a good thing I’ve had time to build up something of an immunity to Joshua’s beauty, because if I was meeting him for the first time, I think the sight of him in a dark, perfectly fitted suit, crisp white shirt, and wing-tipped shoes, would have me melting into a puddle of lust on the carpet.

  As it is, I merely feel my temperature rise and get a little flustered, “Hold on. Let me grab my purse.”

  I try to ignore the way he’s looking me over from head to toe. I know it’s just a quick check to make sure I look the part. But it feels like more. It feels like… well, like what I was doing to him a second ago.

  But that makes no sense. He’s a literal movie star. I’m just me.

  “Um. Yeah. That’s fine,” for some reason, his voice is rough, and he clears it, looking away. “No rush.”

  I grab my purse — an elegant velvet maroon clutch that matches my shoes — and turn back to Joshua. He’s staring at me again, and I begin to feel the panic rise. I look like an idiot. He can tell I got the dress from Nordstroms Rack, instead of some trendy boutique. Or hell, instead of even regular Nordstroms.

  “Would you just stop looking at me like that!” I burst out. “I tried, ok. You’re the one who started this stupid engagement thing, I’m sorry I don’t look like some perfect red carpet model–”

  “Hey, stop.” Joshua cuts me off gently, and takes my hand. The warmth of his hand calms me a little. But only a little.

  I glare at him.

  Which, inexplicably, makes him grin, “I was looking at you because you’re gorgeous.”

  “I know I’m gorgeous. But that’s not what this is about. This is about looking like I fit in, like I belong.”

  Joshua digs in his pocket, and pulls out a ring box, “Will this make you fit in?”