After She's Gone (West Coast #3)

After She's Gone (West Coast #3) Page 22

Until she could have the real thing, why not have a little fun?

And she didn’t want to be just another score for Brandon, she wanted all of him, heart, body and soul. The trouble was, she thought, slipping on her panties and hooking her bra in the half-light of the apartment, she thought Brandon wasn’t over Allie. Oh, sure, they’d split for the bazillionth time again just before Dead Heat went into production, but Cherise had wondered about that. The timing seemed a little too perfect for public fodder, a way to propel the on-again, off-again couple onto the front page of the tabloids, movie magazines, and Internet gossip. Brandon loved nothing more than to be “trending” and Allie was no better.

Also, Cherise had seen the way they’d looked at each other when they’d thought no one was looking; not so much with anguish and longing, but as if they’d shared some huge private secret or joke.

Or had it all been in her head?

She’d been in love with Brandon since like for-ev-er. It was all she could do not to fall into his bed and fuck the hell out of him. God, she wanted to. So badly. But she needed more. So much more. And she was willing to sacrifice to get what she wanted.

Hadn’t that always been the way? Since she was a little girl. She’d been the pretty one, the ambitious one. Her sister? Not so much. She’d been the daring one, always ready to take a dare or a risk.

She still was.

She slid on a pair of tight jeans and a sweater. Well, not just any sweater, but one that had been Allie’s from the costume department, one that Cherise had decided to “borrow,” a sweater people might recognize as belonging to or being a knockoff of one Allie had worn in a famous scene where she’d pulled it slowly over her head while straddling her male lead on a picnic table.

Yep. Memorable.

Riley or Reed or Randy had noticed. The sweater was definitely an ice-breaker and nearly any red-blooded man in America would love to see it pulled off by Allie Kramer, or someone who looked like her, while being straddled.

Ryan or Whoever certainly had been turned on. Nearly came before he’d even kicked off his jeans.

She loved that kind of power over men. Hey, it wouldn’t be bad over women either, a power Allie wielded as if it were her God-given right.

Yeah, she thought, slipping outside without a second glance at the bedroom and the sleeping male within. She was glad Allie Kramer was gone.

Glad, glad, glad! She hoped she never came back. Working for Allie had been like being in some kind of indentured servitude or worse. Cherise had been a slave to Allie’s whims, fantasies, frustrations, and ambitions. The woman had called her at any time day or night and yeah, she paid well, but if you figured out that Cherise had been forced to be available twenty-four/seven, she wondered if she’d even made minimum wage.

All for the sake of being the “fabulous, beautiful, incredible Allie Kramer’s” assistant. Well, no more.

She took the stairs and stepped outside to the vibrance and pulse of the city at night. Now that she’d let loose some of her frustrations, she wasn’t ready to call it a night. Not yet.

There was still plenty to do, she thought, the dampness in the air invigorating, the prospect of the rest of her life exciting.

“Mrs. Brandon McNary,” she said aloud. Not for the first time. She loved the sound of it. As long as Allie Kramer didn’t reappear, Cherise figured she had a good shot at making all of her dreams come true. “Mrs. Brandon McNary,” she repeated, a little louder, and tingled inside as she walked on the sidewalk.

She would do anything. Any damned thing, to make certain she became Brandon’s wife. Allie Kramer didn’t stand a chance.

ACT I

She walked onto the balcony of the bed and breakfast. From the second story she heard the hustle and bustle of the city and viewed pedestrians walking briskly into the trendy restaurants and unique shops of this section of town. As a car passed on the street below, she narrowed her view to the West Hills, then leaned over the railing to gaze down the side street where the final scene of Dead Heat had been filmed, to that very spot where Lucinda Rinaldi had been shot and nearly killed.

A pity about that, she thought. The “accident” had turned out wrong.