Twisted Hope: Bad Boy Second Chance Romance Read online

  Twisted Hope

  Kayley Cole

  Copyright & Disclaimer

  No part of this book, Twisted Hope by Kayley Cole, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without advance written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, situations and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination and/or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 Kayley Cole. All rights reserved.

  DISCLAIMER

  Recommended for ages 18 and older due to mature situations and/or language.

  Contents

  1. Jake

  2. Ellie

  3. Jake

  4. Ellie

  5. Jake

  6. Ellie

  7. Jake

  8. Ellie

  9. Jake

  10. Ellie

  11. Jake

  12. Jake

  13. Ellie

  14. Jake

  15. Ellie

  16. Jake

  17. Ellie

  About the Author

  Other Books & Previews

  Jake

  Hollywood is a cesspool, and I love it.

  I look through the viewfinder of my 6K Designed Chaos video camera. Leaning against my bed, a strawberry blonde peers back at me. I tilt the camera down, taking in her curves, amplified by her silk camisole and silk shorts. Her pale skin reminds me of a white flag, inviting me back to her territory to conquer her, and at this point I'm certain she'd let me. She's young and filled with that stunning, reckless confidence that the world hasn't squashed out of her yet.

  "Turn. Look at me like I'm the first man you've ever seen."

  She tilts her head, her hand moving over her abdomen. I can imagine my hand sliding under hers, the sleek texture of her camisole under my palm. "...like you're the first man? Like, do you mean the first male I've ever met? Or the first human I've ever met?"

  The most annoying part of being a director is when you have a perfect vision of how everything should look, but nobody can pull it off.

  Luckily, sex isn't that way.

  "The first male," I say, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice. She lowers her eyelashes, but her gaze lingers on me. It's demure, but not the awe-struck or fearful look of someone who has come upon a person vastly similar and vastly different from them. She'd be a terrible actress. She had told me that she's a model, but she won't last long if she can't at least pull off the least subtle of emotions. Her gaze shifts away from me, toward my glass nightstand. There are four lines of coke on it, reminding me of the way the lines seem to waver on the road when I'm tired. I could take or leave the coke, but the woman seems to gravitate toward it like a bloodhound with its nose to the ground. I set the camera on my dresser. I can feel tension climbing up my body. I love the carefree, sexually liberated attitude of women in Hollywood, but so many of them act like work ethic or focus is a cardinal sin.

  "So, what do you think?" she asks. "I'd love to be in a music video, and I've seen all kinds of bands say they'd love to work with you. I love Advanced Recruit, and it would be my dream to work with them."

  "Maybe," I say. "Just work on your acting a little bit. I'm going to get us some more alcohol. Do you want anything in particular?"

  "I drink anything."

  "Right."

  I prowl out of the room, the agitation struggling to burst out from my chest. The lyrics of some shitty pop song are pulsing through the walls, repeating like a high-pitched phantom, getitgetitgetit. All the other shitty Hollywood people at this party are dancing close to each other, some of them leaning against each other because they want to fuck and some of them leaning against each other because they're too high or drunk to keep themselves up.

  I shouldn't resent all this. I made a deal with the Devil and took Hell's throne. Who am I to hate the fact that I have to rule over these idiots that would line up to kiss my ass?

  I unlock the door to my kitchen. Inside, it's a haven of stainless steel and marble. I grab a wine bottle from my refrigerator and two glasses from the wall rack.

  As I pass through the crowds again, I don't hate them. I watch them simmer in their sin, and I think of how great it is that we're all on top. I think of how this whole scene could be filmed, and it would just be people caressing each other, people staring at each other— some with vacant eyes, some with unmatched intensity— and half the people swaying to the rhythm of the music. It would symbolize Heaven in a film. We would all be drowning in our perfection, not sure how to act or react.

  I wedge the wine under my arm in order to open my bedroom door.

  There's a strange smell in the room. It's impossible to get an audience to smell anything in a film, but there can be visual indicators— dimmed lighting, bringing more attention to certain colors or small edits in the film to make everything feel jagged, abrupt, chaotic or like the whole world has slowed down.

  I'm not in a film, but the world seems to have enveloped itself in a slow-motion effect, and my brain feels like it's moving just as slow. In dimmed shades of this room, I recall the image of the woman, her strawberry blonde hair seeming to glow in these hues, gazing at something off-screen, and the camera angle switches, showing the coke, whiter than anything I've ever seen. I let go of the images grinding in my head. I take one step forward and I see her, on the floor, her body rigid as it twitches on the floor.

  I get onto my knees, lifting her onto her side. I need to prevent her from falling onto her back, so if she vomits, she doesn't choke on it while she's seizing, but I need to call 9-1-1.

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  I notice the cord of my lamp, just close enough for me to grab without moving. It's made of clay and has to be around twenty-five pounds. I grab the cord and yank it. The lamp crashes to the floor, shattering on impact. I wait.

  Come on, you sons of bitches! You're always curious about the most mundane things. Investigate the sound. Come find us!

  Nobody comes.

  Now I'm surrounded by broken clay with a woman suffering from a seizure. I pull her up, keeping her on her side. My cell phone is on the nightstand. I take a step forward, the woman's jerking motions making it difficult to carry her.

  A man— an actor maybe— runs into the room.

  "I heard a loud noise. Is everyone..." He stops, staring at the limp woman in my arms. He gapes at me.

  "I didn't do anything," I snap. "She overdosed. Call 9-1-1."

  "Is she going to..."

  "CALL 9-1-1," I repeat, my voice harsher than I intend for it to be. He pulls out his cellphone. I lay the woman down on her side on my bed. Her body has gone limp now, and it looks like she's pissed on her clothes. I look over at my nightstand. All four lines of cocaine are gone. Stupid girl.

  I can hear the man talking to emergency services. I grab one of my pillows and wipe it against the nightstand, then throw it back on the bed. No evidence, no crime.

  The man has stopped talking. I turn to thank him, but now four more people are loitering in the entrance of my room, and the man who had spoken to emergency services is holding his cell phone awkwardly up in the air, its camera aimed at me.

  "What are you doing?" I demand, snatching the phone from him.

  "N...nothing."

  The phone is recording a video. I stop the recording. It would be some cosmic, ironic bullshit if my career was destroyed over a cell phone video.

  "Did you send that recording to anyone?" I ask.

  "N...no. Of c
ourse not. I had j...just started r...recording. Just in c...case the EMTs n...needed it."

  I walk over to my window. It's open, the breeze wafting against my face. In the City of Angels, death or near-death experiences mean nothing unless you're famous enough to have your funeral broadcast on national television. I take one short breath before tossing the phone out the window.

  I hear the man's faint groan as the phone shatters against the patio.

  I turn around to face these five strangers in my room.

  "Someone get a glass of water. A wet washcloth too."

  They all scatter. The sirens break through the sound of the music, oddly following a similar rhythm. Either help or a jail sentence is speeding toward me. I sit down beside the woman and check her pulse. It's weak, but it's not fading.

  I close my eyes. It's just another day in Hollywood, but this will inevitably reach every tabloid. Someone will mention I was in a room with this woman and that she was barely wearing anything. Rumors will spread. If I thought I was in Hell before, it will feel like a heated room in comparison to what's coming.

  Hollywood is a cesspool, and I'm the shit that will sink to the bottom.

  Ellie

  There's that heartbeat right before I bring my pick down against the strings of my guitar and in that split second, I'm not certain of anything. But like I'm pulling a trigger, the sound of the chord brings in a wave of memories, I find my mouth so close to the microphone I can nearly taste the beer on it, and I find myself singing words I had scribbled down in a panic of emotion. The rest of the world erases itself to give me enough space to breathe.

  "When you run away, you act like it's running toward a dream/but you're running from a nightmare that you'll never escape/because it's in your bloodstream/it's in your bloodstream."

  I'm clinging so hard onto my guitar pick that by the time I finish my two songs, my thumb is cramping.

  "Thank you," I murmur into the microphone before stepping off the small stage. Tiny Kaleidoscope doesn't look like the kind of places that launches songwriting careers, but there is always a chance that someone important is around, sniffing for new talent. There are eighteen tables, dim lighting that hides the tiny crumbs that scatter on the floor, and two guitars and a banjo hanging on the wall with multiple signatures on them. Whenever a musician lands a record deal, they get to sign one of those instruments.

  If envy is a monster, mine is a behemoth.

  I set my guitar on an empty table, taking a breath before I have to transform from musician to waitress. I'd written Bloodstream about Jake, but I had to admit to myself that it fits my own life better. He did escape from Saffron, Colorado. I'm too determined to sign my name on one of those guitars to ever leave.

  "Miss Rue?"

  I spin around. A man with tense shoulders and tufts of brown hair coming out from under a baseball cap stands in front of me, a tiny business card in his hands. He smiles at me, but it's the kind of smile a politician has right before he lies.

  "Hello, Miss Rue. I'm David Willard. I'm an A&R Executive for Green Flicker Records. I loved your performance. Do you have a moment to talk?"

  "Of course." I indicate to a nearby table. "Do you want to order anything? I work here too, so I could put the order in."

  "No, no, I'm fine," he says. "I had some chips and guacamole already."

  He sits down at the table. I don't actually have time to talk— my shift starts in two minutes— but this is it. This is where my life begins. I sit down across from him, setting my guitar in between us, which feel symbolic. All that's separating us is my music.

  "So, let me put all my cards on the table: I've been coming here for awhile. I've heard you perform quite a few times and you're excellent each time. You're an excellent lyricist, and your melodies always have something that draws everybody in."

  "Thank you," I murmur, a spark of light flooding in my chest.

  "In one of your performances, you mentioned you were more interested in songwriting than being a performer. Why is that?"

  I clasp my hands in front of me. The next performer is starting to sing and her voice curls around us like a cashmere. "I enjoy performing, but I know I don't have the most amazing voice or the best stage presence. I also don't like the idea of being stuck in the public eye. I've seen how fame can destroy people. I just want to write songs."

  "Well, you're a beautiful woman— the red hair and blue eyes are very rare— and you're young. You're exactly what a lot of people are looking for in my industry."

  "Oh." I shift in my seat. I glance back at the other performer. She is truly beautiful— an angel in human form. "I…I'm just really awkward on stage, though."

  "That can be fixed," he says. "As long as you're willing to play the game, I'm sure Green Flicker Records would love to give you a contract."

  My heart feels like it's stomping against my ribs. "I'd love to have a contract."

  "Great. The one thing we need to talk about is music production. Right now, electronic dance music is huge, and people love it. It's energetic, it's catchy, and it makes people happy even when the lyrics aren't happy. So, you might need to sing the songs a little faster, we'll add a drum machine to it, and people can fall in love with the way you evoke emotions. Additionally, the way you dress like a kindergarten teacher..."

  "I'm sorry," I interrupt. "I truly am. But I don't do electronic dance music. I don't mind it, and I understand what you're saying, but it's not what I write. I only perform softer, slower songs here because it's what my boss wants. I have songs with a faster beat, and I write music that could be considered alternative-rock. But I don't do electronic dance music."

  "Sweetheart, that's what the music producer is there for. We have three Swedish music producers we work with. They're some of the best in the business. I don't know what they're doing in Sweden, but they're doing great."

  "I just don't do that," I repeat, my hands starting to tremble. I move them under the table.

  He leans back in his chair. "You said you wanted this."

  "I do," I say. "But what's the point of doing it if it's not my music?"

  "It is your music. We would just make it so it's catchy. I'm certain your favorite musicians used music producers that changed their songs to make them more engaging."

  "You don't think my music is engaging?" I ask. I never imagined myself as someone with a massive ego, but someone attacking my songs is someone questioning the legitimacy of my memories and emotions.

  "Look." He leans forward again. "I know your music is your baby. I've worked with dozens of musicians. You're very attached to your songs. But if you just work with these producers, you can see how your music can be made better and open yourself up to a wider audience. You're stuck here because people enjoy the songs while they're here, but they're swaying to another song on their ride home."

  "Dancing around naked would help me reach a wider audience too. I'm guessing you'd want that too."

  "I'm not saying that," he says. "It wouldn't hurt, but I'm not saying that. Green Flicker Records would likely expect you to perform though, so you wouldn't always be able to hide behind your guitar."

  "I'm not hiding behind my guitar," I say, glancing down at where the guitar is between us. I hate myself for wishing I could hug it against my body right now.

  He stands up, setting the business card down on top of my guitar strings.

  "If you change your mind, there's my business card. Search my name on the internet sometime. I've turned nobodies into radio darlings. I know you indie types like to look at people like me like I'm an evil corporate asshole, but I'm just a businessman. I know what sells. If you don't want to be stuck in this place for the rest of your life, you should take the advice of people who know better than you."

  I watch him leave. My mind is weaving lyrics around this moment, but I'm so tired, and my mind keeps switching back to Bloodstream.

  You act like it's running toward a dream/but you're running from a nightmare that you'll never escape/becaus
e it's in your bloodstream.

  I should accept the contract. I'll just need to complete one or two albums with the record company, build a following, and then release my own music.

  "Hey! Turn up the TV!" someone at the bar yells. "Our hometown fuck-up is on TV!"

  I spin around. Jake's face looks different on the TV screen— maybe it's the lighting, maybe it's the fame. It's almost like shadows are encompassing his face, making his jawline look even more chiseled. He's the antithesis of LA: dark hair, a 5 o'clock shadow, and eyes that reminded me of the deepest part of the ocean— dark, with flickers of other colors, and a depth that could drown me.

  "It was an accident," Jake says to the reporter. "She was an addict, she got in deeper than she should have. I accept that I should have made certain that drugs weren't snuck into the house, but this is a..." a high-pitched beep cuts out a couple of words, "...where the media is trying to make this out to be more than it is. She's okay now, and she has also stated that it was her own actions that led to this incident. The only reason the police questioned me is because she was in my room when it happened."

  Up until his last sentence, it felt like he was talking about me. She was an addict. She got in deeper than she should have. She's okay now, and she has also stated it was her own actions that led to this incident.

  He was my substance of choice, and I had to break everything I believed in to cut myself away from him. I should want him to serve some prison time finally, but I know it would be pointless. He'd manipulate those inmates better than he manipulated me. So many people are always looking for a leader— a director— and he knows how to fulfill that role until you forget who you are without him.