11
Prologue
The Hollywood Tattler—
Shane Going NC-17?
WELL, LADIES, GET ready to indulge in a sexy lovefest with superhot movie star Tommy Shane. Word is circulating that Shane’s fiancée, screenwriter Madison Reid, is on the verge of selling her naughtily-ever-after screenplay and her hubby-to-be is going to star in it!
Shane, who regularly lands on everyone’s sexiest men alive lists, has played action heroes, romantic leads and innocent soldiers. But my sources tell me this next role—as a mysterious, dangerous man who lures an innocent young woman into his dark sexual fantasies—will be the edgiest, hottest performance of his career.
As if women all over the world didn’t already have enough to fantasize about when it came to this golden-haired Adonis.
Soon, fantasizing will be all other women can do. Because we’re also hearing rumors that Tommy and his fiancée have finally started making wedding plans for next year. Although Shane and Reid—his childhood sweetheart—live in a swanky beachside house in Laguna, they’re heading to the other coast for the nuptial celebration. They will reportedly be having a small, private ceremony with their families in Florida, where they grew up as next-door neighbors.
Can you imagine Thomas Superstud Shane being the boy next door? Be still my heart.
We don’t know a whole lot about the beautiful Miss Reid. But we suspect millions of women around the world would give anything and everything to be in her shoes. Or at least in her bed. I mean, who doesn’t want to know just how much of her sultry screenplay is based on her real-life adventures with Tommy!
Congratulations and good luck you gorgeous lovebirds. I’ll be watching the mail for my invitation.
1
“WAIT, ARE YOU SAYING you want me to break up with you?”
Not sure she’d correctly heard the drop-dead gorgeous man sitting across from her, Madison waited for a response from Tommy Shane. Aka her fiancé, aka the handsomest man alive, aka Superstud, aka Academy Award nominee.
Aka the man who wanted her to dump him right after they’d intentionally leaked details about their hush-hush wedding.
Aka...WTF?
“Yeah, Mad. I do.”
She didn’t get angry, the way most fiancées probably would. She wasn’t the typical fiancée and theirs wasn’t a typical relationship. Not by a long shot. If they knew the truth, most people would say she and Tommy put the “dys” in dysfunctional.
So, no, she wasn’t angry. She was just confused, not sure what was going on. “You’re the one who wanted this engagement.”
“I know.”
“You’re the one who leaked the wedding date to the press.”
“I know that, too.”
“You’re the one who played up the childhood-sweethearts-going-home-to-Florida-to-get-married angle.”
“Yes.”
“You convinced me to leave New York and move out here.”
He shook his head. “But you’re glad about that, aren’t you? Look how well you’re doing. Any day now, you’re going to get a call that one of the big studios is going to produce your screenplay.”
She wished she could be as sure. Madison had confidence in the story she’d crafted and pitched to the studios, with Tommy’s help. But that didn’t make it a done deal, even with his name attached to it as the star. Although, that sure didn’t hurt.
She hadn’t written it with him in mind. She’d seen her possibly murderous hero being someone much more dark and twisted. But he’d read the script, loved it and asked for the role. Who was she to turn down Hollywood’s number one box office draw?
“This isn’t simply cold feet, is it?” she asked, glancing down at the feet in question. “Make that cold ginormous feet.”
“They’re warm and toasty,” he said with a flirtatious grin that would melt the underwear off any woman. Well, any woman who didn’t know him well. “And you know what they say, big feet...”
“Big, fat ego,” she said with a definite eye roll. Tommy Shane had long ago lost the ability to flirt his way around her common sense. She liked him—loved him, in fact—but she was wise to his antics and not susceptible to his looks or his charm.
“So, what do you say? Will you dump me, ASAP, preferably in as public a manner as possible?”
“Dude, seriously? I’d be happy to dump you on your ass so hard your butt cheeks will look like pancakes,” she said, feeling far more relieved than a supposedly blushing bride should. “But I have two questions. First, will anybody buy it?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, why would any woman ever break up with you?”
“Well, I’m gay.”
There was that.
Tommy’s legion of worldwide fans wouldn’t believe it, but his sexuality hadn’t been a secret to her, not for a long time. He might play the part of sex symbol to every woman on the planet, but in his private life, Tommy Shane was strictly attracted to men—lately one particular man—and was very happy about it.
“Yeah, but nobody knows about that. Wasn’t your in-the-closet-ness the reason we got engaged in the first place?”
“Of course.”
“And haven’t we been playing lovebirds to the press to cement your cover story so you can keep those sexy-leading-man roles coming your way?”
He smirked. “Well, it wasn’t for your smoking-hot bod.”
Chuckling, she placed a hand against her smoking-hot hip, knowing she held as much sex appeal for him as a beach ball. The one time she’d tried to kiss him romantically—when they were in middle school—she’d known they lacked any chemistry. It hadn’t taken her long to figure out why. Hell, she should have figured it out in elementary school when the two of them would always fight over who got to be Buttercup when they played Powerpuff Girls.
Although the story they’d fed to the press had been fairy-tale nonsense, there had been some truth in it. They had known each other from childhood. She, Tommy and her twin sister Candace—who’d always played Bubbles to their Buttercup during The Powerpuff Girls days—had been inseparable growing up. He’d climbed into their window for secret sleepovers, had spent long summer days with them at the beach. He had taught Candace how to dance, and Madison how to give a blow job...using a banana, of course. He’d always
