Promise to Protect: Military Second Chance Romance Page 10

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  Other Books

  New Adult & College series —

  CHAT Me (prequel to CHAT Me Exposed)

  CHAT Me Exposed

  CHAT Me L.A.

  Romantic Suspense book series —

  Twisted Hope

  Twisted Passion

  Twisted Ever After - coming November 2018!

  Twisted Hope

  Jake

  They’ve respected me in Hollywood and LA for years as one of the premier movie and music video directors… until that young model just OD’d at one of my house parties. Now my bad reputation and all the rumors may just end my career.

  Maybe that letter I just found can help me. The one from my old best friend, Andrew.

  His sister, Ellie, betrayed me there years ago, but my old hometown still needs my help after the tornado hit. Saffron, Colorado… I’m coming home!

  Ellie

  Waitressing in this small town isn’t helping my music career. A gig here and there is all I can get, and now my old boyfriend Jake is back to “help out” the locals… just who this town doesn’t need right now.

  I’ve been keeping his secret for years, and he doesn’t even know it. I would have done anything for him… but being young and naïve back then taught me otherwise. Now I know different.

  With their physical chemistry boiling under the surface and Jake more determined than ever to get Ellie’s attention, will a desperate stalker lurking in the shadows finally end things for them?

  Twisted Hope

  Chapter One

  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 sto
p 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 course 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…

  (If you want to see what happens next with Jake and Ellie… click here to get Twisted Hope!)