Emily Brontë - Fame and Wuthering Heights

‘Yes you are,’ he said robustly. ‘I accepted on your behalf this morning.’

‘Well you can damn well un-accept!’ screamed Sabrina. ‘I decide what roles I take, Ed. It’s my life. I have control.’

‘Actually, according to the release you signed when you admitted yourself into the eight-week programme here, I have control. At least over your career and business decisions.’ He handed her a piece of paper. Sabrina glanced at it, balled it up in her fist and threw it to the ground.

‘And it’s a good job I do,’ said Ed, unfazed by this childish show of temper. ‘Let’s not go through this charade, OK, Sabrina? It’s boring, it’s bullshit, and you know I’m not buying it. You know as well as I do that you need this part. You need it. Right now no other director in Hollywood would piss on you if you were on fire. Sit down.’

Sabrina hesitated. In jeans and a long-sleeved navy-blue tee from Michael Stars, with no make-up on and her long hair pulled back in a ponytail, she looked about a thousand times prettier than she had the last time Ed had seen her. Healthier too, less scrawny, and with the glow restored to her naturally tawny, olive skin. This place must be doing something right, he thought. All she needs is to lose the attitude.

‘Sit,’ he repeated.

Sabrina sat.

‘Dorian Rasmirez has had his issues,’ he went on, ‘but he’s still a big name, and this is gonna be a big movie.’

Sabrina softened slightly. ‘When does it start shooting?’

‘May probably. Or June. They’re still scouting for locations.’

‘Locations?’ Sabrina pouted petulantly. A location shoot meant months away from LA, from the clubs and parties and excitement that had become her drug of choice. ‘What’s wrong with the back lot at Universal?’

‘Nothing,’ said Ed sarcastically, ‘except the fact that it’s not a Universal Picture. And it’s Wuthering Heights.’

Sabrina looked blank. She’d never been big on literature.

‘Wuthering Heights? One of the greatest classic novels of all time? Cathy and Heathcliff? Set on wild, windswept moorland?’ Ed shook his head despairingly. ‘Never mind. The point is, it’ll do you good to get out of Los Angeles for a while. Out of the public eye altogether, in fact. We issued your apology statement the day after you came in here, which may have helped a little. We’ll probably do another one before you check out. But it’s still a shit-storm out there. You need to disappear and you need to work. Come back in a year, healthy and happy and with a hit movie under your belt—’

‘A year!’ Sabrina interrupted. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

Being away from the LA party scene was bad enough. But the thought of being out of the media glare for so long – of not having her picture taken or seeing her face in magazines – made Sabrina’s heart race with panic. You might as well tell her she couldn’t breathe, or eat. Without attention she would wither and die, like a sunflower locked in a cellar.

Ignoring her, Ed Steiner went on.

‘I know they’re filming some of it in Romania, at Dorian Rasmirez’s Schloss. I’m told that’s worth seeing,’ he added, trying to strike a more cheerful note. ‘Oh, and I didn’t tell you the best part. It’s not a hundred per cent confirmed yet, but it looks like Viorel Hudson’s signing on as Heathcliff.’

Sabrina rolled her eyes. That was the ‘best part’? What was the worst part? Were they filming it naked in Siberia? The one, the only, good thing about Dorian Rasmirez’s offer was that it would be a vehicle for re-launching Sabrina back into the box-office big league. If Viorel Hudson was involved, she’d have to fight for top billing, and probably for the dressing-room mirror as well. Rumoured to be unimaginably vain, Viorel Hudson was probably the one man in Hollywood whose sex appeal, and arrogance, rivalled Sabrina’s own. They had never met, but Sabrina knew instinctively that she would loathe Viorel Hudson.

Ed Steiner looked at his watch. ‘I’d better go. I have a meeting at The Roosevelt in an hour.’

Rub it in, why don’t you? thought Sabrina bitterly. I have a meeting with a bunch of whining alcoholics and a ‘speerchal’ healer from Topanga Canyon whose last brain cell died in 1972.

‘I’ll bike you over the script tomorrow. Give you something to do between sessions. How’s it going, by the way? This place helping you at all?’

Serena smiled sweetly. ‘Go fuck yourself, Ed.’

That night, staring at the ceiling in her hard, uncomfortable single bed, Sabrina hugged herself and said a silent prayer of thanks.

She’d played it cool with Ed, just as she played it cool with everyone. But she knew what a miracle Rasmirez’s offer was. Dorian Rasmirez was one of the most respected directors in Hollywood. He’d have had actresses lining up to play the part of Cathy. Actresses whom the world wasn’t unfairly branding a racist. But for some reason, Rasmirez had chosen her.

Fate, she thought. I was born to succeed. It’s my destiny.

All Sabrina had to do now was to give the performance of her life. And to make sure she out-dazzled the smug, self-satisfied Viorel Hudson. Still, she reassured herself, that shouldn’t be too hard. If all else failed, she could always seduce Hudson. Once Sabrina Leon slept with a man, her power over him was total.

Hollywood might have written her off. But Hollywood was wrong.

Sabrina Leon was on her way back.

‘Oh my God, Vio! Don’t stop! Please don’t stop. Oh … Jesus!’

Viorel Hudson had no intention of stopping. The girl lying spread-eagled beneath him on the soft-pink bed of the Chateau Marmont’s exclusive Bungalow 1 was Rose Da Luca, currently the highest-paid model in America and number one on most adult males’ ‘fantasy fuck’ lists. Unusually for such a stunning girl, Rose was also good in bed: coy on the surface, but wildly passionate and adventurous underneath. In fact, scratch adventurous, thought Viorel delightedly as he felt Rose’s index finger circling his asshole. She’s filthy. I think I might be in love.

Flipping Rose over onto her knees – much more of that finger and he was going to come on the spot – he entered her from behind, slowing his pace till he could feel her writhe in delicious, agonizing frustration. Looking down at her arched back, and that famous mane of red hair spread over the pillow like a halo, he felt a familiar rush of triumph. It was the same feeling he got whenever he bedded a woman he wanted, or landed a role that he knew countless other actors coveted. For Viorel, the pleasure of any experience was always enhanced by the sense of competition. Acting was fun. Sex was even better. But winning … that was the biggest thrill of all.

Nailing Rose Da Luca was actually the final triumph in what had been a uniquely triumphant day. Not only had Viorel signed on the dotted line to play Heathcliff in the remake of Wuthering Heights, which meant he would be working with one of his all-time idols, Dorian Rasmirez; but to his surprise (and his agent’s frank astonishment) Rasmirez had offered him five and a half million dollars for the privilege. Five million was the magic number in Hollywood, the number that separated successful film actors from bona fide movie stars. It was a rubicon that, once crossed, pretty much guaranteed you a place in the pantheon of the greats. Until your first big box-office flop, of course, at which point you could slide back down the snake into the twos, or sometimes even lower. For Viorel Hudson, however, it was a win–win situation. Despite his high public profile (last year he’d been named Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine, an accolade that he claimed to be embarrassed by but secretly revelled in), Viorel had never earned more than a million dollars on a movie. That was because he’d carefully chosen projects with artistic merit over blockbusters with multimillion-dollar budgets. As a result he was revered by many of his peers as an actor with integrity, an actor’s actor: low-key, professional, devoted to his craft.