Lauren Conrad - Sweet Little Lies - An LA Candy Novel

So Scarlett had decided not to inform Trevor or Dana that Jane was no longer MIA—or that they should move their shoot back to Santa Barbara, as originally planned. She had decided to give her best friend another few precious hours of space and privacy. She had even elected to try to be nice to her parents and put on a good show for the cameras. She could see the finished episode now: “Christmas Eve with the Harps.” Gag! The way it was going, the scene would be almost silent, with only the sounds of utensils clinking against china. She guessed that would end up being perfect for the way Trevor was editing her—the silent, pretty girl and her silent, pretty family.

See how much I love you, Janie? Scarlett thought drily.

What made it even worse was that her parents clearly had no idea how to behave in front of the cameras. Although on this count, Scarlett was sympathetic. It was definitely surreal, trying to act normal (well, as “normal” as the Harps could be) in your home (or in your rented condo in Aspen) with a crew of eight rearranging your furniture, plastering paper over your windows, and bustling around with their high-tech equipment. And then recording your every word and gesture for posterity—at least until Trevor edited the hell out of them.

The only— only —thing that was (almost) saving the day was the fact that Liam was here. Working, but still.

“Are we ready for the soup course?” her mother said.

“Fine with me,” her father replied. “Vichyssoise?”

“No, lobster bisque. I had the caterer make it with skim milk, of course.”

“Of course.”

Scarlett slurped down another oyster (okay, so maybe they were kinda good) as she felt her cell vibrate in her pocket. Great, a Dana-gram. Obviously, the yellow-tricycle story hadn’t cut it.

But when she glanced at the screen, she saw that it was a text from Liam.

DID THEY HIRE THESE PEOPLE 2 PLAY YR PARENTS OR R U ADOPTED AND DIDN’T TELL ME?

Scarlett stifled a giggle. She snuck a peek at Liam, who was behind the camera next to the massive stone fireplace. She could tell that he was trying to keep from laughing, too.

Underneath the table, she quietly typed: NEVER SEEN THEM B4. IM JUST HERE 4 THE OYSTERS.

Liam typed back: HOPE THEY TASTE BETTER THAN THEY LOOK!

WHY R U HERE? DID DANA MAKE U WORK? Scarlett typed.

A moment later, Liam typed back: BEN ASKED 4 THE DAY OFF AT THE LAST MIN SO I OFFERED 2 FILL IN.

Oh, Scarlett thought.

Staring at the bowl of lobster bisque that her mother had just set down in front of her (ew, pink soup?), Scarlett weighed Liam’s statement. Liam had offered to work on Christmas Eve. Did he do this because he had nothing better to do? Or because he was a really, really nice guy and he wanted to help Ben out? Or because he wanted to be in Aspen…to be near her?

Stop it, Scarlett told herself. You’re being an idiot. Yeah, like the guy seriously gave up his holiday to work, just so he could watch your lame family eat pink soup and have nothing to say to one another.

Her cell buzzed again. SO R U COMING 2 MY PARTY? Liam had typed.

Scarlett smiled. “Maybe,” she said out loud, before she realized what she was doing.

“Maybe what, Scarlett?” her father asked her.

Scarlett glanced up sharply. Everyone in the room was staring at her, including Liam, who was obviously trying hard to keep a straight face.

“Uh…yeah…that is, maybe I’ll have more of that, um, delicious soup,” Scarlett managed to say.

Trying to recover her composure, she quickly tucked her phone back in her pocket. Texting with a cute guy in the middle of a shoot was way too dangerous!

Trevor Lord leaned forward and studied the magazines fanned across his desk. Again. Each cover line and photo made him clench his jaw a little harder.

L.A. CANDY STAR

MORE TART THAN SWEET

JANE’S BETRAYAL

IS L.A. CANDY STAR

PREGNANT

WITH JESSE’S BABY?

DID JESSE’S DRUG HABIT DRIVE JANE INTO HIS BEST FRIEND’S BED?

SEE JANE CHEAT!

And on and on. Each headline was insulting, attention-grabbing, and sure to sell issues. And sure to cause problems for the show.

How had everything spun so out of control? With his golden girl at the wheel?

He might’ve expected trouble from the other girls. Scarlett was stunningly beautiful, but she was way too smart, opinionated, and out-there to appeal to a general audience; Trevor had to edit out most of her real personality just to make her even remotely accessible. Madison was the perfect Hollywood cliché, with her dyed-to-the-max platinum hair and penchant for shopping, partying, and guys. But she was constantly bugging Trevor for more airtime; so far, he’d managed to keep her at bay with carefully worded compliments on the theme of “quality over quantity.” Gaby had proven very entertaining, with her ditzy personality and natural talent for getting just about everything wrong. Sometimes she seemed too over-the-top even for reality television.

But Jane…Jane was his find of the decade. Sweet, natural, and vulnerable, she was a person everyone could relate to. She was pretty, but not too pretty. She liked to go out, but she didn’t like to get wasted or do drugs. She worked hard. She was loyal to her friends. She came from a close-knit family.

Even her flaws were relatable. She procrastinated. She made mistakes at her job and got into trouble with her boss. She had arguments with her friends about dumb stuff. She didn’t have the best judgment about guys and went on bad dates once in a while.

Right after the L.A. Candy series premiere in October, Trevor knew that he had a hit on his hands—and that Jane was largely responsible. Viewers loved her. After a couple of flops (fine, so everyone was sick of listening to amateurs sing Rihanna covers and watching strangers hook up on tropical islands), he was back on top as one of Hollywood’s hottest reality producers.

Then things went from great to amazing when Jane and Jesse started dating, and with absolutely no intervention from Trevor. He couldn’t have picked a better boyfriend than the bad-boy son of superstar actors Wyatt Edwards and Katarina Miller, who was always in some tabloid with a starlet on his arm. Jesse also liked to party hard. As in, in-and-out-of-rehab hard.

But Jesse had apparently cleaned up his act when he met Jane. It was love at first sight, and their chemistry was undeniable. Everyone seemed to want to tune in to their romance: Hollywood playboy falls for the girl next door. It was a reality producer’s dream come true.

Trevor clutched his stress ball tighter. He had known that Jesse would eventually crash and burn. Once an addict, always an addict. But Trevor figured that if and when the time came, he would do some creative editing to make sure Jane and Jesse’s romance continued its course, from breakup to makeup to breakup to makeup, without the unwholesome tarnish of Jesse’s issues. The L.A. Candy cameras never showed Jesse misbehaving at clubs (drinking too much, disappearing to the men’s room to do God knows what), and they never would.

But Trevor hadn’t seen this coming: It was Jane who had screwed up. Big-time. Virtually overnight, the “reality producer’s dream” had turned into a nightmare. With Jane and Madison gone, the shooting schedule was total chaos. Trevor and Dana were frantically improvising new and interesting ways to film Scarlett and Gaby: Scarlett Christmas shopping…Gaby taking a boot-camp fitness class…Scarlett checking out the spring courses in the USC catalog with a fellow student…Gaby taking her pint-size, overgroomed dog out for a walk. And filming the two girls together was beyond challenging, since most of those scenes consisted of Gaby having one-sided conversations while Scarlett mocked her and made sarcastic remarks under her breath.