Loe raamatut: «Hollywood Hills Collection»

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU ALREADY KNOW, don’t you, Freya?’

‘Know what?’ Freya frowned as she attempted to pull up the zipper on her friend Beth’s wedding dress. It had slipped up easily at the final fitting just last week so Freya gave it another tug but it refused to budge. ‘Have you...?’

Freya stopped herself from continuing with the question. She, more than most, knew just how much damage that a throwaway comment about weight could cause and she certainly didn’t want to inflict that pain on Beth. Especially not on her wedding day, but, hell, the dress was tight.

Then it dawned on Freya why she was having so much trouble getting Beth into her wedding dress. Beth had declined Freya’s offer of champagne as they prepared for her late afternoon wedding and the girls’ night in at Freya’s apartment last week had been a very tame affair.

Freya worked it out just a split second before her friend said it.

‘I’m pregnant!’

Oh, Freya was very grateful for that split second because her eyes had screwed closed as yet another friend revealed their happy news, but by the time Beth had turned around, Freya had composed herself and was smiling.

‘That’s fantastic news, Beth.’

‘Don’t pretend that you didn’t know.’

‘I honestly had no idea,’ Freya admitted.

‘I didn’t have even one of the cocktails you’d made!’

‘I thought it was a bit odd,’ Freya admitted, because Beth loved a drink. ‘I just believed you when you said that you were detoxing for the wedding.’

Oh, it had been a tame night. Two of the women were pregnant, one was breastfeeding and now Freya understood why Beth had also declined the cocktails that Freya had prepared. For Freya, it had been a long night of being told, It will be your turn soon, and asked, Are you still not seeing anyone? Her friends didn’t know about her fertility issues, so they hadn’t been deliberately insensitive. She could have told them that day that she’d had blood work done and when Hilary was back from her trip she would be having some further tests to see if she might be a candidate for IVF through an egg donor.

Freya didn’t really open up to anyone, though, not fully.

‘So when did you find out?’ Freya asked Beth.

‘Two weeks ago. I was devastated at first, I have to admit.’

‘Devastated?’ Freya checked. She knew very well that Beth and Neil both wanted a family and so she wondered if they had found out that there was something wrong with the baby.

‘Well, I was very upset,’ Beth clarified. ‘We’ve been saving up for the honeymoon for ages and had paid for all drinks to be included...’ Beth rolled her eyes at the perceived inconvenience. ‘I’m fine about it now.’

Fine!

Freya did her best not to dwell on that word.

Finally the zip was up and she arranged the huge bow on Beth’s dress.

Freya knew that she overthought everything but, really, to use the word fine to describe the news that you were pregnant irked her!

‘Have you told your parents?’ Freya asked once she had unclenched her jaw.

‘Not yet. Neil’s going to reveal the news during the speeches, so we can capture everyone’s expressions. Can you warn the cameraman?’

‘Sure.’

‘You won’t forget?’

‘I never forget,’ Freya said. ‘That’s why you’ve got me planning your wedding, remember!’

Oh, Freya was on edge and trying not to be but Beth really was a bridezilla.

‘Okay, done. Wow. You look amazing!’ Freya said. ‘Simply stunning.’

No one could ever tell when Freya was lying. It was why she was so successful in PR.

The dress that Beth had chosen was a long sheath of ivory tulle, tied in the middle with a huge satin bow.

Like an oddly wrapped parcel, Freya thought.

Worse, Beth had chosen similar for Freya to wear. Hers was knee-length, though, and the shade of Freya’s dress was Antique White. Freya felt as if she was wearing an old teabag. Her brunette hair had been teased into curls and Beth had insisted on red lips for them both. The only saving grace was that the bow on Freya’s dress was smaller.

They looked like two poodles who’d been badly clipped, Freya thought as she stared at their reflections.

‘Are you wearing a bra?’ Beth checked.

‘It didn’t work with the dress,’ Freya said.

‘Well, put some plasters on them,’ Beth said. ‘I don’t want your nipples in my photos.’

There was a knock at the door and, of course, brides didn’t answer doors, so Freya opened it and smiled when she saw Beth’s father, realising it was time for her to head down and check the last-minute details.

‘Right, I’m going to go down and make sure everything is in place,’ Freya said. ‘Enjoy every moment and leave all the worrying to me.’

‘I shall.’ Beth nodded. ‘It’s all set for midnight?’

‘It is.’

‘I want everyone watching us kiss as we ring in the New Year.’

‘They shall be.’

‘Thanks for organising everything.’

‘Well, it’s been a lot more fun sorting out flowers and table plans than getting everyone at The Hills to glam up for the new brochure...’

‘They’re already a glam lot.’

‘I know they are.’ That hadn’t been what Freya had meant but there wasn’t time for all that now. ‘I’ll see you down in the hotel chapel.’

‘Don’t forget the plasters,’ Beth reminded her. Freya smiled and picked up her posy of red flowers to match her red lips then stepped out of the room and let out a very long breath.

Again she had lied. This wedding had been hell to organise.

Two of the hotels that Beth and Neil had chosen as potential venues had explained that their stairways and escalators were for all of their guests, especially on New Year’s Eve. It had been difficult to find somewhere to accommodate all their demands but Freya had achieved it.

The wedding was at five, then dinner and speeches, but instead of being able to relax afterwards she had to keep the cameraman and photographer sober, as well as get two hundred guests out of the ballroom and onto the main staircase. Oh, and her ex, Edward, was going to be there.

As he had been at three other weddings she’d attended this year.

Freya was so over weddings!

She knew that her PR skills were a very large reason that Beth had chosen her to be bridesmaid.

It didn’t offend Freya.

To survive as top PR consultant in LA, you needed to keep in with your contacts. Beth was a journalist, and the many hours that Freya had spent organising the wedding would be returned in kind.

It was called networking and Freya was very good at that.

Freya got to her hotel room to freshen up. She checked her make-up and wished she hadn’t—it was far too much.

She really didn’t like this dress and how much it revealed of her shoulders. Her upper back was bare too and she felt exposed. Freya turned and craned her neck and told herself that everyone in the chapel would be looking at the bride rather than the bridesmaid’s spinal column.

As always, she checked her phone and saw that there were several messages and missed calls from her brother, James.

Work.

Freya knew that it would be.

James Rothsberg was the cosmetic surgeon in LA and for the past six years he had poured everything into The Hollywood Hills Medical Center. It was an amazing facility frequented by the rich and famous. Affectionately known as The Hills, it had everything from obstetrics to intensive care and was the top tier of health care. Two years ago James had asked Freya to come on board and she had put her PR skills to excellent commercial use.

Till now.

It was time to give back, she had told James.

And he’d listened.

Which was why, instead of rolling her eyes at being called late afternoon on New Year’s Eve, Freya called her brother.

‘Hi, James,’ Freya said. ‘You’ve been trying to get hold of me.’

‘I have,’ James said. ‘Freya, I need you at The Hills tomorrow at nine.’

‘On New Year’s Day?’ Freya checked.

‘I’ve just taken a call from Geoff, and Paulo’s condition has deteriorated. I’ve just spoken with Zackary and he’s agreed to come in and be interviewed tomorrow instead of waiting till Monday.’

Freya’s eyes screwed closed as James carried on talking.

‘I need you to be at the interview.’

‘Me?’ Freya tried to keep the quake from her voice. ‘Since when did I sit in on the hiring of medical personnel?’

‘Since you talked me into taking on charitable cases,’ James answered tartly. ‘And, given we’re going to be asking him to donate his skills for nothing...’

‘He already knows that he’ll be doing some pro bono work.’

‘Freya?’

She could hear the question in her brother’s voice at her reluctance to sit in on the interview. After all, Freya had been the one pushing for The Hills to embrace this. Freya had been the one looking into a suitable charity to properly support and now things were finally moving along. But what James didn’t understand was that the very seemingly together, always-very-much-in-control Freya had got herself into a little pickle that her older brother didn’t know about.

There was a big pickle her brother didn’t know about either, namely that the charity she’d found was headed by his ex, Mila Brightman, but it was the other pickle in the jar that Freya was wrestling with now.

She had already been dreading meeting the hotshot cardiac surgeon Zackary Carlton.

Or Zack, as she’d found out he’d prefer to be known.

They had flirted via emails.

Not much.

It felt massive to Freya, though.

‘I need you there tomorrow at nine,’ James said. ‘I’m sure he’s going to have questions about the promotional side of things and I want a press release out saying that we have Zackary on board.’

‘Zack!’ Freya said. ‘He prefers to be called Zack.’

‘Noted,’ James responded. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow at nine. I’ll flick over some details tonight.’

‘Thanks.’

Oh, God.

After the tame girls’ night with her smug married friends, Freya had poured another cocktail and opened up her laptop and located a certain series of emails.

She never got involved with people she worked with. Actually, Freya really didn’t get too involved full stop. But this teeny tiny flirt had been fun and Zack had outright asked if she was single.

Several daiquiris later, when Freya, who took her health seriously and didn’t often drink, had decided to embrace the merits of not being married, she had typed her response back.

Very single. (Don’t tell James.)

And now, tomorrow, she had to face him.

His response had made her blush and it was making her blush now.

I never kiss and tell.

Hopefully he wouldn’t get the role, Freya thought, but who was she kidding? James wanted Zack Carlton on board, so much so that he had him currently housed in a luxury apartment that The Hills owned and was interviewing him on New Year’s Day.

It had been a stupid flirt, a tiny one, but it had been completely out of character for her, and not just professionally. Freya wasn’t a flirty person at all, she was far too controlled for that.

Blame it on the daiquiris.

Actually, she couldn’t because the flirt had started a couple of emails prior to that.

She sighed. He was probably fifty and married with sixteen children. She’d blush about it tomorrow, but right now she had to deal with the wedding.

First, though, she texted her neighbour Red. Freya had a late checkout but hadn’t been intending to use it as she wanted to get home to her little dog, Cleo. Instead, she asked Red if he would let her out and feed her in the morning.

With that sorted she went to go but then Freya caught sight of her bare shoulders; she turned and looked again at her spine.

It had been that sight that had terrified James. Freya could still remember his shocked reaction as he had sat her up so that the doctor could listen to her chest.

‘Freya!’

She had always kept this part of her body covered, hiding her secret, denying to everyone she had a problem, partying her way through her parents’ appalling divorce and pretending she didn’t care.

It was hard enough having high-profile actors as parents and wearing the Rothsberg name, but when that marriage had ended, to have it played out over the media had been agony.

And when a journalist had pointed out that Freya was just a little bit younger than her father’s latest girlfriend, a magazine had taken it one nasty step further and pointed out that Freya was also considerably larger.

Her comfort during the very public break-up had, till then, been food and she’d had to endure the spotlight that had shone on her parents suddenly widening to accommodate both herself and James.

She had rigorously denied herself the comfort of food.

Very rigorously!

And she had also partied hard.

James had hauled her out of a nightclub and, too weak to row with her brother, Freya had collapsed and been rushed to hospital.

There she had been stripped and put into a gown and then James had been allowed back in, and that was when he had seen her spine and the true extent of her problem had been exposed.

Now, fourteen years later, she would stand today with the most loathed part of her body on show and, joy of joys, eat at the top table.

Freya was better now—so, so much better.

Recovered, healed, whatever the best word was, but there were still hurts and repercussions that she had to deal with, and one of the big ones was that she rarely had a period.

Seriously rarely.

Once, maybe twice a year.

‘It’s your own fault,’ Freya told her reflection, and then came away from the mirror and headed out to the elevator.

She got in and closed her eyes, resting against the wall as she angled her neck to release tension. When she opened them, instead of being on the mezzanine level, she was on the ground floor, and looking into the eyes of Him!

‘Well, you prove my theory,’ he said in a deep, sexy voice.

It was Him!

The man she had seen a few days ago.

Freya had been speaking with the hotel’s events coordinator and working out how long they would need to freeze the escalators for, when they’d both stopped talking as the sound of Cuban heels had rung out on the marble floor. And they had stopped talking with good reason. Tall, tanned, with shaggy, curly black hair, he had walked past them in dark jeans and tight T-shirt, carrying a large backpack. He had been just so sexy that he’d simply stopped conversations. Both women had watched him go up to the desk to check in and then shared a guilty smile once they’d finished checking him out.

And now Freya was in the lift with Him.

‘And your theory is?’ Freya asked.

‘That all the good girls are taken.’ He asked her which floor she wanted. ‘I’ve already pressed...’ Actually, no, her selection had been erased. ‘The mezzanine level.’ She watched as long suntanned fingers pressed said level and then he pressed for floor twenty-eight and she wished, how she wished, she had given the thirtieth floor as her choice of destination, just for a minute or two more alone with him.

‘Shouldn’t brides be smiling on their wedding day?’ he asked, and Freya tried to place his accent.

‘Believe me, the bride is smiling,’ Freya said in a dry voice. ‘I’m the bridesmaid.’

‘Did I hear the word maid?’

Freya laughed at the cheeky inference and the slow smile he gave in return had her stomach tighten. Sexy green eyes were looking right at her, and he didn’t make her feel like an old maid in the least...

Freya blinked at her own thought process.

The hotel events coordinator had, when they’d been watching him, sighed that he was probably gay and Freya had said if that were the case, again, then she really had to get out of LA.

Oh, he was so not gay. His eyes might as well be blowtorches because he had her face just turn to fire.

Sadly the doors pinged open.

‘Enjoy the wedding...’ he said.

‘Oh, I shan’t, it’s going to be a very long evening,’ Freya replied, peeling herself from the wall, when she really didn’t want to get out.

‘Yeah, I get it.’ he said. ‘I do my best to avoid weddings.’ He met her eyes. ‘Especially my own.’

Was he telling her that he was single?

She thought back to the flirty emails that she would live to regret tomorrow, but flirting was kind of fun, Freya was finding out, and she was very single.

‘And me,’ Freya said.

The elevator doors were open but the conversation wasn’t closed and he put one big boot out to keep them open as he asked Freya a question. ‘Why did she want a big white wedding on a Thursday?’

‘Because it’s New Year’s Eve.’

‘So it is! Well, thanks for reminding me, I’d be in trouble if I didn’t call home.’

‘You’re Australian?’ Freya asked, now that she’d placed his accent.

He nodded.

‘LA’s a long way from home.’

‘It is,’ he answered. ‘And I’m suddenly lonely.’

He didn’t look lonely in the least, not with that smile.

‘Poor you,’ Freya replied, and met his smouldering gaze. His deep green eyes were thickly lashed and she looked down to a dark red mouth and stubbled jaw.

He was so hot, so direct, so bad, so sexy and her reaction to him so acute that Freya could possibly have forgiven herself if she’d hit the button to close the doors and leapt up onto those lean hips.

‘I’d better go,’ she said, because, yes, she’d better. ‘It was nice to meet you...’ Freya fished for his name.

‘We don’t need names, do we?’

She ought to have been offended, Freya thought. She ought to be very, very offended and yet she wasn’t.

‘Enjoy the wedding,’ he offered, ‘and thanks for messing up my theory.’

‘But I haven’t,’ Freya said, simply unable to resist prolonging this delicious, rare flirt and, just as when she had hit ‘send’ on that blasted email, she offered a verbal response that would be just as hard to retract. ‘I’m not a good girl.’

‘It would seem that you are,’ he answered smoothly, ‘given that you’re about to get out.’

The bow around her middle was killing Freya. She wanted to tear it off, and the dress too, and stamp on them. Instead she stood as his eyes performed a long and slow perusal of her aroused body and Beth would be furious because her nipples were throbbing. They needed his mouth. Oh, yes, they did.

Oh, she was in no position to take offence as his gaze lingered and lingered, because Freya was doing the exact same thing to him. Down that wide chest her eyes went. He was wearing a silver-grey T-shirt and he too had two nipples, she knew that because she counted them slowly and carefully. Then she looked down to his flat stomach. His T-shirt was half-tucked in and she fought not to lift it free. He had on a heavy leather belt that made her thighs want to press together. She looked at the thick bulge in his jeans and was frustrated by the button-up flies, because she’d break her nails tearing at them just to get to him. What the hell was happening? Freya wondered. Because she completely wanted to sink to her knees and to do just that.

It was, for Freya, the oddest feeling. She wasn’t very free in bed and she wasn’t the most generous lover. She just hoped to have her needs met. ‘One for you, one for me’ type of thing, and if her needs weren’t met then she’d lie twitching with resentment. Actually, even if they were met, it was so underwhelming that she lay twitching anyway, wondering why she couldn’t enjoy it. Freya controlled everything that went in her mouth and what she was looking at now wasn’t one of them.

Freya licked her lips, not deliberately but very provocatively, it would seem, because he just grew before her eyes. She watched as that lovely hand that had earlier pressed the button had no choice but to make a little room and he rearranged himself to her eyes.

Freya tore them from his bulging crotch and he gave her a slow, appreciative smile in reward for her lovely effort to get him so hard and so soon.

‘I’m impressed,’ he said.

‘With what?’ Freya breathed. She could hardly speak.

‘It takes great skill to be such a turn-on in that dress.’

And Freya had more than seen just how turned on he was. ‘I have to go.’

‘Then go.’

He didn’t remove his boot from the door, and Freya could either step over his leg or walk around him. The scent of him mingled with her arousal and Freya had this terrifying moment of absolute conviction that she wasn’t going to make it to the chapel in time.

He was sex.

And suddenly, for the first time in her life, so was she.

Freya didn’t walk around him, she put one high-heeled foot over his calf and proceeded to step over the hurdle.

She’d never gotten over them at school and was having the same trouble now.

He was terribly polite, for such a filthy animal he really was extremely polite, because his hand settled on her arm to help her over.

Oh, she needed help because the feel of his warm fingers on her bare skin had Freya wanting to straddle his calf and she knew that the bastard knew it.

‘Do you want to come up for a drink?’ he offered in that low, sexy, deep voice but, really, why bother attempting to be polite? Freya thought. A drink was the very last thing on either of their minds.

‘I have a wedding to get to,’ Freya croaked. ‘I really do.’

‘Then you’d better go, or you’re going to be extremely unpresentable very soon.’

Oh, those eyes, Freya thought, unwilling to leave the heat of his gaze, but then she looked at his mouth as he stated what he’d already achieved.

‘I want to mess you up,’ he said. ‘I want you dishevelled.’

She deserved a gold medal and the national anthem sung in her honour because she had made it over his leg. Freya tried to walk off, she really did, but her muscles were protesting and her damp knickers were demanding that she take them off.

‘Hey,’ he called to her blushing shoulders. She could feel his eyes on her spine and it didn’t make her feel ill, instead it made Freya, foolishly, dangerously, turn around. ‘If the wedding gets to be a bit...’ He shrugged. And then, with utter and no doubt practised ease, he gave her a free pass to heaven. ‘Room 2812.’