Anna DePalo - Hollywood Baby Affair

“Rhode Island is the smallest state. Still, the competition must have been fierce.”

“Are you mocking me?” She searched his face, but he looked solemn.

“Who, me? I never mock women I’m trying to score with.”

“Wow, you’re direct. You don’t even like me.”

“What’s like got to do with it?”

“You have no shame.” When it came to sex, she was used to men wanting to bed anyone in sight. This was Hollywood, after all.

“Is it working?”

“Nothing will work, except Odele convincing me this is a good idea.”

Rick frowned. “You mean she hasn’t already?”

It took Chiara a moment to realize he wasn’t joking. “Please. She may have persuaded you to go along with her crazy scheme, but not me.”

“I only went along with it because I thought you’d said yes.”

Chiara watched Rick’s dawning expression, which mimicked her own. “I believed you’d agreed.”

“Stuntmen are made of sterner stuff.” He threw her attitude right back at her.

Chiara realized they’d both been tricked by Odele into believing the other had agreed to her plan. Rick had dared to kiss her because he thought she’d already signed up for her manager’s plot. “What are we going to do?”

Rick shrugged. “About the gathering media frenzy? We’re already bickering like an old married couple. We’re perfect.”

Chiara’s eyes widened. “You can’t tell me you’re seriously considering this? Anyway, we’re supposed to act like new lovebirds, not a cantankerous old married couple.”

“If we’re already arguing, it’ll make our relationship seem deeper than it is.”

“Skip the honeymoon phase?” she asked rhetorically. “What’s in this for you?”

He shrugged. “Have some fun.” He looked at her lingeringly. “Satisfy my fetish for Snow White.”

Chiara tingled, her breasts feeling heavy. “Oh, yeah, right...”

“So what’s your take?”

“This is the worst storyline to come out of Hollywood.”

* * *

For the second time in recent days, Chiara banged open the door of her trailer and marched in. “I can’t pretend to be in a relationship with Rick Serenghetti. End of story.”

Odele looked up from her magazine. She sat on a cushioned built-in bench along one wall. “What’s wrong with him?”

He was too big, too macho, too everything—most of all, annoying. She still sizzled from their kiss minutes ago, and she didn’t do vulnerability where men were concerned. But she sidestepped the issue. “It’s the pretending part that I have trouble with.”

“You’re an actress.”

“Context is everything. I like to confine my acting to the screen.” Otherwise, she’d be in danger of losing herself. If she was always pretending, who was she? “You know I value integrity.”

“It’s overrated. Besides, this is Tinseltown.”

Chiara placed her hands on her hips. “You misled me and Rick into thinking the other one had already agreed to this crazy scheme.”

Odele shrugged. “You were already open to the idea. That’s the only reason it even mattered to you whether he was already on board with the plan.”

Chiara felt heat rise to her face, and schooled her expression. “I’m not signing up for anything!”

Her conversation with Rick had had no satisfactory ending. It had sent her scuttling, somewhat humiliatingly, back to her manager. Chiara eyed the shower stall visible through the open bathroom door at the end of the trailer. If only she could rinse off the tabloid headlines just as easily.

“Fine,” Odele responded with sudden and suspicious docility, putting aside her magazine. “We’ll have to come up with another strategy to distract the press from your father and amp up your career.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

“Great, it’s settled. Now...can you gain twenty pounds?” Odele asked.

Chiara sighed. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. “I’d rather not. Why?”

She’d gained fifteen for a film role two years ago in Alibis & Lies—in which she’d played a convicted white-collar criminal who witnesses a murder once she’s released from jail and thinks her husband is framing her. To gain the weight, she’d indulged her love for pasta, creamy sauces and pastries—but she’d had to work for months with a trainer to shed the pounds afterward. In the meantime, she’d worn sunglasses and baggy clothes and had lain low in order to avoid an unflattering shot by the paparazzi. And she’d been disappointed not to get a Golden Globe nomination.

She wondered what movie project Odele had in mind these days... Usually her talent agent at Creative Artists sent projects her way, but Odele kept her ear to the ground, too.

“Last time I was heavier on-screen, I got a lot of backlash.” Some fans thought she’d gained too much weight, some too little. She could never please everyone.

“It’s not a film,” Odele said. “It’s a weight-loss commercial.”

Chiara’s jaw dropped. “But I’m not overweight!”

Odele’s eyes gleamed. “You could be.”

Chiara threw her hands up. “Odele, you’re ruthless.”

“It’s what makes me good at what I do. Slender You is looking for a new celebrity weight-loss spokesperson. The goodwill with fans alone is worth the pounds, but Slender You is willing to pay millions to the right person. If you land this contract, your DBI score will go up, and you’ll be more likely to land other endorsement deals.”

“No.” Her manager was all about Q scores and DBIs and any other rating that claimed to measure a celebrity’s appeal to the public. “Next you’ll be suggesting a reality show.”

Odele shook her head. “No, I only recommend it to clients who haven’t had a big acting job in at least five years. That’s not you, sweetie.”

For which Chiara would be forever grateful. She was having a hard enough time being the star of her own life without adding the artifice of a reality show to it.

“How about writing a book?” Odele asked, tilting her head.

“On what?”

“Anything! We’ll let your ghostwriter decide.”

“No, thanks. If I have a ghost, I won’t really be writing, will I?” Chiara responded tartly.

“You’re too honest for your own good, you know.” Odele sighed, and then suddenly brightened. “What about a fragrance?”

“I thought Dior just picked a new face for the brand.”

“They did. I’m talking about developing your own scent. Very lucrative these days.”

“You mean like Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds?”

“Right, right.” Odele warmed up. “We could call it Chiara. Or, wait, wait, Chiara Lucida! The name suggests a bright star.”

“How much is an Oscar worth?” Chiara joked, because her idea of becoming a big star involved winning a golden statuette.

“Of course, an Academy Award has value, but we want to monetize all income streams, sweetie. We want to grow and protect your brand.”

Chiara sighed, leaning against the walnut-paneled built-in cabinet behind her. There’d been a time when movie stars were just, well, movie stars. Now everyone was a brand. “There’s nothing wrong with my brand.”

“Yes, of course.” Odele paused for a beat. “Well, except for the teeny-weeny problem of your father popping up in the headlines from time to time.”

“Right.” How could she forget? How could anyone fail to remember when the tabloids followed the story breathlessly?

“How about a lifestyle brand like Gwyneth Paltrow or Jessica Alba has?” Odele offered.

“Maybe when I win an Academy Award or I have kids.” Both Alba and Paltrow had had children when they’d started their companies.

At the thought of kids, Chiara had an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was thirty-two. She had an expiration date in Hollywood and a ticking clock for getting pregnant without spending thousands of dollars for chancy medical intervention. Unfortunately the two trains were on a collision course. If she was going to avert disaster, she needed to have a well-established career—er, Oscar—before she caved in to the public clamor for her to get a happily-ever-after with marriage and children.