Shooting Star (Beautiful Chaos) Read Online Free PDF Page A

mean?”
    “Exactly, I don’t want to screw up. This is a once in a lifetime role. This could do for me what Monster did for Charlize or Taxi Driver did for Bobby. I cannot fuck my chances up.” My cell started ringing and I stared at it. Very few people had my number. “Answer my phone, will you, Janice?”
    She strolled over towards me and fished it out from under a cushion on the sofa. She looked at it and raised that eyebrow again. “Hello?” she said and then mouthed to me, ‘Speak of the Devil’—“uh, I’m not sure if she’s available right now—” there was a booming voice down the line that I couldn’t decipher and then, “okay, okay, I’ll put her on.” Janice capped her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “He’s pissed.”
    I took the phone gingerly from her hands. I looked at the screen. It was Jake. My stomach flipped. Why the hell was I getting butterflies when I thought he was such a jerk? “Yes?” I said coolly.
    “Skye,” he said.
    “We’re not on set yet, so you can call me Star.”
    “I’ll get straight to the point. In your contract it stipulates that the studio has the right to determine your accommodation for the duration of the shoot.”
    “Yeah?” I answered, wondering where this was leading. On location I’d stay wherever they had organized—we’d be in the Badlands for a while, and Mexico. I wasn’t worried—I always ended up in amazing hotels with twenty-four hour room service. And now, with my home about to be remodeled, I thought a luxurious stint in The Four Seasons in Beverly Hills would be a great idea—better than a rental. The truth was, I’d spent my whole life in hotels and they felt more to me like home than my own house. No responsibilities. I loved hotels.
    Jake’s gravelly voice went on, “And they reserve the right to have any bodyguard of their choice, or any person deemed suitable, to offer you twenty-four hour security and vigilance.” ‘Vigilance’ was a polite term for ‘spying.’ But still, it was that or nothing. I was hardly in a position to negotiate, so fresh out of rehab. There were other heavier, legal terms that went on for pages and pages in small print in the airtight contract I’d signed. I didn’t bother reading it—I was so desperate to get the part of Skye that I didn’t even go over it with my lawyer. She went ballistic, but with a list as long as my arm of all the A-list actresses vying for the part of Skye, there was no time to procrastinate.
    “So they get to spy on me and have a bodyguard outside my door to make sure room service doesn’t send me up a bottle of Stolichnaya . . . so . . . what’s your point?
    “You’re not staying at a hotel while your house is being remodeled, Star.”
    “Oh no? So where the hell am I going to stay? In a bed and breakfast? I’ve already taken a ridiculously low paycheck so they can damn well get me a decent hotel!”
    “You’ll be staying with me. At my house.”
    My mouth parted in shock.
    “I don’t like hotels,” Jake explained. “I’ve got all my work gear at home so I’m not budging and the producers are insisting that I keep an eye on you. Basically, they want me to be your nanny. I won’t lie, I’ve got better things to do with my time but . . . well, I don’t seem to have much choice in the matter. Very unorthodox that’s for sure. Why they couldn’t just hire someone specific for the job, I have no idea.”
    “Obviously you’re the only one they trust to do the ‘job’ properly because you have a vested interest in keeping me sober. However, Jake, if you’ve got so much to do, like you say, how will you have time to keep such an eagle eye on me? Me ? Star Davis? who’s been known to rappel out of windows in the dead of night by tying sheets together? who has bribed bodyguards and hotel cleaning staff to bring booze and drugs and even dancers and male strippers—”
    “Exactly. Under my roof it’ll be a little bit more tricky for