Hollyweird (12 page)

ALY

The road to hell is supposedly paved with good intentions, and I'm uncomfortably close to hell these days, so I figured it was best to act straightforward with Jameson.

I'm not sure which of the two of us seemed most shocked by my confession.

“Aly, I … ” he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me to a stop.

Looking into his gorgeous green eyes, memorizing the cute spray of freckles across his cheeks and nose, I said, “You don't have to say anything, Jameson.” I wanted him to, but I also feared he didn't feel the same way.

He watched to make sure Des and Missy were far enough away not to hear, but not so far they were in any danger.

“I've fallen for you too,” he said, and my heart soared. “But it's against—”

“The angel code,” I finished sadly. It made sense, of course, but that didn't stop the way I felt. I'd finally found a boy I could give my heart to and loving each other was forbidden. Figures.

He let go of my arm and rubbed his thumb across my bottom lip. A shiver rippled through me.

“The virtue that counteracts
Lust
is
Chastity,
right?” I whispered.

He nodded.

“I'm feeling anything but chaste right now,” I confessed.

When he spoke, his husky voice made me warm and tingly, unlike Dakota's.

“There is
nothing,”
Jameson stressed, “that I want more than to kiss you. Believe me when I say I'm living in the hell of my own temptations.”

I smiled, parted my lips, and softly bit his thumb. What did it say about me that I wanted to tempt this angel right out of his halo?

Ashamed, I stepped back, letting his hand drop away. “We need to come up with a plan to take Dakota down.”

The fierce spark in Jameson's eyes told me he agreed. “I just can't figure out what he's up to,” he said, his brow puckered in frustration as we started to walk up the beach after Des and Missy. “I've been tracking his every move for months. I've got nada.”

I sensed Jameson's anger not only with Dakota, but also with himself. “We'll figure it out. Don't beat yourself up,” I assured him.

“Can't help it. I'm missing something.” His fingers interlaced with mine and squeezed. “First thing first—I've gotta protect you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dakota proved he can get to you even when I'm stalking his every move. I think I better stay with you.”

“Oh, yeah?” I said, delighted with the idea.

“Yeah,” he agreed with a smile. “Hopefully I can put the kibosh on any more sins he swings your way.”

“That'd be nice,” I said with a frown. “We've been snookered three times. Never even saw them coming.”

Jameson stopped a runaway soccer ball with his foot and kicked it back to the two boys playing with it. “Hopefully I will.”

“I just don't get
why
he's doing this,” I said. Three girls from Centennial, Colorado, shouldn't be such a novelty. Yeah, Missy's hunger for fame caught Dakota's attention, but what about these additional attacks? If he just wanted a diversion, small-town innocents arrived in L.A. hourly by the busload. Why us?

Jameson shrugged. “For his own sick amusement. Why else?”

I shook my head. It had to be more than that. “The whole thing doesn't make sense. For one, it's not like he could see how we reacted, except for this last temptation. Any good prankster wants to see the results of his trick.”

Jameson's brows raised. “I hadn't thought of that.”

I nibbled at the edge of my straw. “I just have this hinky feeling that there's something more going on.”

“Like what?”

“Liiike … ” I thought about it for a minute. “Maybe he's diverting our attention.”

“You mean the sins are a distraction so we don't see what he's really up to?”

“Yeah.” My gut clutched in agreement. “Yeah, that's exactly what he's doing. We're looking left while he's doing something right.”

“But what?”

I shook my head. “That's what we have to figure out, but I'd bet reinstating your halo that it has to do with your assignment.”

Jameson kicked the sand in a wide spray. “I need to stop him.”

“
We
need to stop him,” I said as I pitched my cup at a metal trash can. “Let's go back to the hotel and go over everything you know. Talk this through.”

“But that's just it,” he groaned in frustration. “I don't know anything.”

“You've been looking for a
big
”—I bumped my hip against his for emphasis—“aha discovery, but maybe what you need to know is in the small, seemingly unrelated details.”

He shrugged. “Could be. I'll defer to you.”

“And Des. She's great at puzzles. We'll just start at the beginning and go from there.”

He twisted his lips to the side before asking, “And what're we going to tell Missy?”

“Nothing.”

“Aly.” He stopped and took my other hand in his. “I know you're protecting her, but how are you and Des going to Nancy Drew this out without her knowing? Or explain why I'm staying with you?”

I swung our joined hands, but avoided his eyes. “I don't know … ”

He lowered his head to catch my gaze. “Don't you think she's already a bit suspicious of all the weirdness?”

“Have you met my sister in all her blondness?”

He didn't laugh like I hoped he would. “I think you're underestimating her. And we might need her help.”

Was he right? Should I tell her? Secrets always had a way of biting you in the ass. Still, I didn't want to destroy her dreams. “I'm not sure … ”

“I get it,” he said. “You don't want to shake up her world, but not knowing makes her more vulnerable.”

I thought about that and decided he was right.
Forewarned is forearmed
, I said to myself. “Okay, we'll tell her … something.”

His lips quirked. “A version of the truth?”

“Exactly.” I dropped one of his hands and started walking up the beach again. An impatient Missy had dropped to the sand to catch some rays. Des shaded her eyes with her hand and watched us closely. Guess I needed to tell her a thing or two.

“All right,” Jameson said, “we'll tell her Dakota is dangerous—that he's up to something and she should watch her back.”

“Uh huh.” I nodded. “But she won't believe us without some kind of proof.”

“Yet we're going to skip—”

“The whole son-of-Satan/preternaturals-exist thing.”

“Okay.” He seemed to think about it a minute. “She's into everything Hollywood, right?”

I rolled my eyes.
“Understatement
.
Gossip, fashion, fad diets.”

“Psychic to the stars?”

I gave him a puzzled look. “Yeah, she totally believes that stuff. Where are you going with this?”

He grinned and twirled me in a quick circle. “I think I know a way to convince her Dakota's bad and still be true-ish.”

“Ish?” I asked with a giggle.

He pointed to himself and gave a roguish smile. “She's going to get an intuitive reading from Jameson Dagon, Dakota's PA
and
very own psychic.”

Jameson

“You're psychic,” Missy scoffed at me. “Riiiight. And I'm a homely nerd with low self-esteem and secondhand clothes.”

“No, no, it's true, Missy,” Aly argued. “Not you being a nerd—the psychic thing.” The fingers on her right hand were crossed and hidden in her lap. “Jameson's ability is a closely guarded secret. That's one of the reasons why Dakota hired him even though he's so young.”

We were sitting on a plush, coffee-colored throw rug around a squat glass coffee table in the girls' new digs.

Missy flipped her hair over her shoulder and squinted her eyes at me in challenge. “Prove it!”

Exactly what we'd expected, but my palms started to sweat. I'd only used my power once or twice before, and never under pressure. I had to nail this for Aly.

“And don't tell me anything
she'd
know,” Missy said, pointing to her sister, “or it'll just prove you're a fake.”

“I haven't coached him, I swear,” Aly insisted, holding her hand up in pledge.

“He's totally legit,” Des said, and gave me an encouraging wink.

Here goes.

Give me your hand,” I instructed Missy, wiping my damp palms across my jeans.

She looked from Aly to Des and then to me before rolling her eyes and plopping her hand face up on the table. I lifted her hand into my own and stared down at the fine lines threading across her skin. This little bit of “show” was the only advice Aly had given me. I didn't actually read palms; I read minds.

Lifting my gaze to Missy's, I said, “Ask me a question.”

“This is ridiculous,” she huffed and started to yank her hand from mine.

I held tight. “What's the harm in trying?”

She pursed her lips and then closed her eyes for a second. “Okay. Am I going to get the part on
Rich & Famous?”

I closed my own eyes and concentrated, imagining my conscience traveling into her mind, pressing past her barriers and merging with her thoughts.

They totally threw me when they gave me that new script, but I still think I nailed it.

“I can't tell you if you'll get the part,” I said, and then held up my hand to stop her from calling me a phony. “But I
can
say you still killed the audition, even after they switched the script on you.”

Watching her face go from “I knew it!” to “Holy crap!” cracked me up, though I didn't show it. Eyes agog, mouth agape, she stared at me. “How did you—? I never told them that.” She turned her attention to the girls. “Did I?”

Both Aly and Des shook their heads, their own eyes wide in wonder.

“Okay, okay,” Missy said. “This doesn't prove anything. Yet.” She looked at me in steely study. “What about
The
Grooves
?”

I totally tanked that first audition. Too nervous. But I don't think I'm a good fit for a retro punk chick running a record store.

“Hmm,” I murmured as I stared into her palm again. “Don't think so. Rocky audition. Plus, you don't strike me as a punk record-store clerk.”

“Whoa,” she breathed as Des snorted at the idea of Missy in a role better suited to Des herself.

“I don't know,” Missy hedged, shaking her head. “You're in the industry. You could've dug around.”

She yanked her hand away and grabbed her sister's. “Read Aly,” she demanded.

Aly flinched. “Miss, I—”

“What're you afraid of?” Missy asked with a knowing look. “That I'll see through your little prank? Didn't rehearse this part, did you?”

“We didn't rehearse a thing,” Aly said with a frown, but she pulled her hand from Missy and laid it in my own. She bit her lip, a nervous gesture I'd come to recognize and like too much.

“Ask him something only you and I would know,” Missy coached. “Something you haven't even told Des.”

“Okay,” Aly said and then furrowed her brow in thought before a devilish twinkle entered her eyes.

This ought to be good
.
I could hardly wait to see what that sparkle meant.

“Missy was once given a nickname she loathes and I've been forbidden to ever speak it.”

“Allllly,” Missy growled in warning.

“What?” Aly asked with mock innocence. “You told me to ask him something only you and I could know. I've never told another living soul. Not after you forced me take a blood-and-spit oath.”

Missy's cheeks grew blotchy with a mix of anger and embarrassment, but she let the question stand.

I looked Aly in the eye, silently asking her for permission to read her mind. She gave me a subtle nod and I pretended to study her palm while I gently pressed into her consciousness and wondered if she could feel the tickle of my presence, like a butterfly across her mind.

They called her Pissy Missy, because she wet her cot at Girl Scout camp. She was so horrified she made Mom and Dad pick her up a week early.

My lips quirked, but I managed not to laugh. For a second I felt tempted to dig deeper into Aly's thoughts, to find out how she really felt about me. For just a second—until honor won over selfish curiosity. Clearing my throat, I gave Aly's hand a soft squeeze before releasing it. Then I somberly repeated what I'd heard to Missy.

Des didn't bother to mirror my reserve; she squealed with laughter until Missy hucked a throw pillow at her head.

“I was ten and too scared to walk to the bathroom in the dark by myself. There were bears and snakes! I thought I could hold it 'til the sun came up,” Missy protested with a pout.

Des snickered.

“Do you believe him now?” Aly asked her sister with remarkable composure, although the corners of her eyes crinkled with suppressed humor.

“Yeah, he
is
good,” Missy answered with admiration. “That's been a take-it-to-your-grave family secret. So,” she said to me as she plucked at her fingernails, “do you think … do you think I'll ever make it?”

I want it with every fiber of my being. For me. For Mom. I know I've got it. I just need someone else to recognize it.

Hearing this softer, more vulnerable side of Missy made me want her dreams to come true as much as she did.

“You will,” I said, with a certainty I felt deep in my gut. “Just be persistent. Someone smart will discover you. You're too hot for them not to,” I added with a wink.

Missy smiled. “Maybe that someone is Dakota,” she said excitedly. “He's really giving me a chance here.”

I slid my gaze to Aly and gave her a “here we go” look. Shaking my head, I said, “No, it's not Dakota.”

“It's not?” she asked in shock.

“No. I saw something else when I did your reading.” She raised her eyebrows and gave me an expectant look, so I just spit it out. “Dakota's trouble.”

“Please,” she huffed in outrage. “How can you say that? He's your boss.
”

“But Jameson is warning you anyhow,” Aly pointed out. “That says a lot, don't you think?”

Missy gave her little sis a thoughtful look. “Dakota's been nothing but nice to me.”

“”I'm sorry, Missy,” I said. “The guy's a dirt bag. He's got an ulterior motive and he's dangerous.”

“I don't understand,” Missy said.

“Trust me.” I leaned forward and locked my gaze with hers. “He's not what he appears. He uses people.”

“You mean for sex?” she snapped. “Well, he's not getting anything from me.” Then her eyes sorta crossed and went cloudy while her fingers twirled her hair. “Even if he did look positively delicious and divine on the beach. Did you see the way those water droplets cascaded down the length of his—”

I cleared my throat—twice—until she snapped out of her lusty daydream.

“Oh, heh heh,” she giggled self-consciously. “Sorry. But I would never—”

“Right,” I said, knowing the likelihood of her
not
jumping Dakota, given the opportunity, was the same as Simon Cowell's ever wearing a striped rugby shirt. “You need to understand, I'm talking about more than his being a—”

“Hympho, mimbo, Cock Ness Monster,” Des supplied with gritty glee, while Aly stifled giggles.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “He's definitely those and worse. Basically, he tends to abuse people for his own entertainment.”

Missy fisted her hands. “Well, that's just sick and wrong. Getting into this business is hard enough without depraved leeches like that!”

“He's a real Sleazamanjaro,” Desi said with a toothy smile.

“Des.” I shot her an impatient look. “Serious.”

She nodded. “Okay, okay, just one more. I know what business he should buy up next: Hump Towers. Get it? Instead of Trump—”

“Deeesss,” Aly said with something between a groan and a laugh.

Des shrugged her shoulders. “Sorry, back to operation Destroy Dakota. Cause that's exactly what we need to do. Destroy that douche nozzle.”

“If we can't nail him for one thing, we will for another,” I vowed.

“Dude's got that many skeletons in his closet?” Missy asked, clearly aghast.

“You've got no idea,” I said, rubbing my hands over my face at the sheer understatement.

“God,” she moaned. “It's always the sexy, successful ones.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you suggest we do, Jameson?”

“For now I'm staying with you guys,” I said authoritatively while hoping I hadn't hedged my bet too soon. I gave Aly and Des a “back me up if I need it” look. “I want to make sure you're all safe.”

“You really think he's a threat to us?” Missy asked. I knew she felt genuinely worried because she'd allowed her forehead to furrow. Aly had told me that even though her sister hadn't botoxed herself immobile yet, she made a practice of keeping her face smooth at all times.

“Yeah, I really think he's a threat,” I said grimly.

“Okay then, you can stay here,” she said with a little chaperonish disapproval in her voice. “But I'll be keeping my eye on you. Dad would fuh-lip if he knew I'd let a guy stay with us. You better be a perfect gentleman.”

“Of course,” I readily agreed, never meeting Aly's gaze.

“Then I think we better start digging for skeletons,” Des suggested as she pressed the stud on her nose back into place.

“Yeah,” Missy said, ready to jump into the fray. “Let's get a juicy scoop and feed it to the paparazzi piranhas.”

“I like the way you think, sis,” Aly said with a relieved smile.

Whew! I'd done it. I'd managed to warn Missy, and convince her Dakota was dangerous, without rocking the entire foundation of her world, just as Aly had wanted. I slid my gaze to Aly and she mouthed a thank you. Giving her a subtle nod, I realized in that moment that I'd probably give her anything she asked for.

Before I could make a fool of myself by offering Aly the world, Missy said, “That's right—mess with me and the claws come out.” Pawing the air, she gave a menacing hiss that made us all laugh and broke the tension I'd been hogtied in.

“So what do we do next?” Des asked.

Aly shrugged. “Stalk him like the paparazzi, I guess. Go through his trash. Learn everything we can about him.”

Missy snorted. “Why would we do that when there's a ton of people already doing that for us?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Hullo!” she said like she was speaking to a trio of troglodytes. She of the bleached brain. “Just bring me six months of trash mags. You guys cyberstalk websites like Perez Hilton, Page Six, and Just Jared. They'll tell us everything we need to know.”

Aly cocked her head to the side. “You might have a point there, Miss.”

“Who'd ever think the razzis would be helpful?” I asked with a wry laugh, admittedly more than a little impressed with her idea. “All right, give me an hour and I'll be back with magazines, mochas, and laptops.”

“This is so exciting!” Missy said, clapping her hands. “We're celebrity sleuths. Maybe I should pitch
that
as a show.”

“Don't let anyone in or answer the door,” I said as I stood up. “Do you guys want anything else while I'm out?”

“Dinner,” Des answered, rubbing her tummy. “I need me some protein. Especially after all the sugar we inhaled.” She puffed her cheeks out in a barf face.

“You got it. Now hang tight.” I gave Aly a hand up and led her to the door. “As long as you don't answer any knocks you should be fine. I'll hurry.”

“Thanks.” She nodded and then shifted on her feet. “Uh, I need to ask you something before you go.”

“Shoot,” I said, wondering what had suddenly made her nervous.

“Have you ever, er,
eavesdropped
on me before?” she whispered.

“No,” I said fiercely. “Never. I won't lie and say I've never been tempted, but I only use my power for emergencies. I'd never take advantage of you, or anyone, that way.”

“Good,” she said with a sunny smile.

“Your thoughts are your own. I promise.” I gave the ends of her hair a little tug. “Now lock up behind me.”

“Yessir,” she said, and gave me a mock salute. “Don't worry, we'll be just fine.”

Aren't those always famous last words?