Not Famous in Hollywood (Not in Hollywood Book 1) (21 page)

“Poor Jennifer” I murmured.

Griffin looked at me strangely.

“I’m not saying I agree with what she did,
but look at how the people who were supposed to love and care about
her treated her. Her husband barely noticed her and her sister
stole away the only happiness she found.”

“You have got the biggest heart of anyone I
know” Griffin said. “You might want to hold off on the sympathy a
bit. The glasses of juice she gave to you and Eleanor had enough
oleander in it that you would have both been dead within a day. As
it was we barely got Eleanor to the hospital in time.”

“What happened?”

“I got to the house and was coming through
the door when I heard the shot. Luckily I think she was so
surprised that it was you who had caught the bullet and not Eleanor
that I was able to tackle and disarm her. At that point we had cops
and an ambulance there. Eleanor had run leaving you to die when the
gun fired.”

I could tell
by the way Griffin’s mouth tightened that he wasn’t happy with
that.

“The cops found her on her hands and knees
vomiting on the front lawn.”

Now there was a lovely image.

“Once I’d taken Jennifer out of the picture I
put pressure on your wound and came to the hospital with you in the
ambulance. I’ve been here ever since.”

I put my hand against his cheek, rough with
whiskers.

“You stayed with me” I said.

He leaned towards me, his lips barely
brushing mine.

“I wanted to be here when you woke up” he
whispered.

A tear slid
down my cheek and he brought his hand up and brushed it from my
face. Gently he pressed his lips against mine, my face cupped in
his hands. My eyes fluttered shut and I felt the strength and the
softness of his lips as they moved over mine. Increasing the
pressure I felt his tongue flick against the seam of my lips and I
parted them and he deepened the kiss.

“What the hell are you doing to my
daughter?”

I wrenched myself away.

“Mom” I croaked.

“Mom” Griffin repeated snapping out of the
kiss haze we had been in.

Sure enough
there was my mother standing next to Reggie in the doorway ready to
protect and do battle for her firstborn. She was looking at Griffin
with the same look in her eyes that she had when four year old Alan
Vaughan pushed me over in kindergarten. Reggie looked
apologetically at me. Obviously he had filled my mother in on
Griffin’s role in my life. Griffin had a panicked look on his face
and if he had been a lesser man I was sure he would have bolted. In
fact, he still might.

Once again my
mother had managed to destroy any chance of one of her children
having a love life with no effort at all. It was like it was her
superpower.

“So, what’s this I hear about you managing to
get yourself shot?” My mother glared at me.

Of course, because this was all my fault.

Mom sat down on the bed and patted my
leg.

“That’s okay Trudie, I’m going to stay with
you until you’re all better” she said looking at Griffin balefully.
“I’m not going to let anyone hurt my baby girl again.”

Griffin looked over her head at me. I could
see that he was trying to work out if that had been a threat or a
promise. He needn’t have bothered. I knew my mother. It was a
threat.

###

Thank you for reading
Not Famous in Hollywood. If you enjoyed it
, please take a moment to leave a review at your favorite
retailer.

Regards
,

Leonie Gant

Leonie Gant started her writing career at the
age of ten when she stuffed notes in her pencil case full of ideas
for mysteries that Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys should really have
been solving. After years of watching mysteries play out in her
head, in full, sometimes gory color, she decided that writing them
down was the best way to deal with them.

In
her life away from writing, she is a voracious
reader with not nearly enough time to make her way through all the
books that she wants to read. She enjoys bushwalking, sewing and
chocolate, possibly not in that order. She also believes in the
value of trying new things, walking in the rain and enjoying every
moment.

To find out
more
about Leonie Gant and her
books

www.leoniegant.com

Discover other titles by Leonie
Gant

Not Happily Married in Hollywood

Not Talented in Hollywood

Not Happily Married in Hollywood

“Must say, I’m enjoying the view.” The voice
came from behind me as I was reaching over the desk to grab some
paperwork. I wanted to smack my head against the desk. I’d let my
guard down. Stupid rookie mistake. I straightened and turned around
to find the husband of my latest client standing right behind me,
showing a complete lack of awareness about personal space.

“Mr Wesson” I said through gritted teeth.
“Could you please step back.”

“Do you really want me to do that?” he asked
silkily as he stroked a finger down the side of my face.

“Damn right I do” I said, the irritation
evident in my voice.

His eyes flashed as if he wasn’t used to
being thwarted. He wasn’t. I knew this. Especially by his wife’s
personal assistant. Unfortunately for him I’m not just any PA. I
work for Monique Petit. She has a stable of staff who work for the
most difficult of clients and I have a reputation for working the
worst of jobs.

My last job
involved me taking a bullet to save my client’s life. A move I
questioned every day during the six weeks it took to heal from that
particular assignment. During the media frenzy that followed, my
client tearfully praised me as the best personal assistant she’d
ever had, and a friend for life. She then quietly fired me and
rehired her sister who had held the job before me. I had taken a
bullet for her. Her sister had done a video on YouTube outlining
her many, many flaws, yet she was the one who had the job. Of
course Monique ensured that I got a healthy severance bonus out it.
If I was perfectly honest about it I wasn’t really all that sorry
to see the end of that particular assignment.

I was hoping to settle into something a
little more sedate. Instead I ended up with Adele Wesson, one of my
favorite authors. I was so excited to get this job. Then I started
and I discovered why she needed one of Monique’s people. Her new
husband Eric Wesson, was younger than his glamorous wife and had,
to put it mildly, a wandering eye. The man was completely amoral
and was willing to put the moves on his wife’s PA while his wife
was in the room. Eric was quite simply sex personified. It went
without saying he was good looking. His body was perfectly
proportioned. Broad shoulders, slim hips, the body of a swimmer and
I’d seen him in a pool. He was close to perfection. His golden hair
always sat perfectly and his bright blues eyes honed in on a woman
and made her feel that she was the center of the universe. I don’t
know if he exuded some kind of pheromone, but the second he walked
into any room, women just started to fall at his feet, and he was
definitely not a man to waste the opportunity.

Every single PA Adele had employed had fallen
into his bed within a week. I’d started working for Adele two weeks
ago and so far had managed to resist. I’d been given forewarning
regarding what I would be facing. It helped that the criteria
Monique had given me for the job included the terms prudish,
uptight and less likely to give it up than a nun cloistered in a
convent. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted by the
fact she felt I met that criteria. Monique was very much aware that
I was still furious at a certain homicide detective who was too
chicken to face my mother. That probably helped her decide that I
was perfect for the job. After I got shot protecting my last
client, I woke up in the hospital to the face of Detective Jake
Griffin, or Detective Hottie as my friends called him. We ended up
sharing a toe curling kiss, celebrating my alive status, when my
mother walked in on us and scared the big bad LAPD detective
away.

Admittedly she had just flown almost twenty
four hours from the other side of the world after being informed
that her daughter had been shot. She had also, unfortunately, just
been told the story about how Griffin had used an accidental
assault charge to blackmail me into helping him investigate a
murder, by threatening my Australian backside with deportation. The
friend who had picked her up was my lawyer and Monique’s boyfriend.
He may have also waxed lyrical about how the reason her baby was
unconscious in a hospital bed with a bullet wound was Detective
Griffin’s fault. So when my jet lagged, ticked off, panicking with
worry, Mama Bear of a mother walked into my hospital room and found
said Detective with his tongue down my throat, she didn’t react
well. Needless to say Griffin made himself scarce, and in the two
months since, I hadn’t heard a peep out of him. I’ve got to say,
I’m not really happy, and at this stage I don’t care to see him
ever again. As far as I’m concerned, all men are jerks and had
better stay out of my way. According to Monique that attitude put
me in the perfect frame of mind for this job.

My mother stayed to help me, and probably
herself, heal from the trauma of being shot. Two weeks ago I
decided I couldn’t take much more of her special brand of maternal
love and begged Monique for a job. This was the one she threw my
way, thinking it would prove if I was serious about coming back to
work. In the end I decided it was a job and I would get to work
with Adele Wesson. Definitely worth it. Nineteen sexual harassment
incidents later I was beginning to question exactly how much I
wanted this job. It wasn’t as if the guy was dangerous or even
creepy. He was simply persistent and could not understand how I was
resisting him. I could understand though. Men sucked.

“Mr Wesson” I said.

“Please call me Eric” he said leaning in
again, smiling in that melting way he had.

Using the book I was carrying I pressed it
into his admittedly rock hard chest and gave a slight shove.

“Mr Wesson, I am not now, nor will I ever be
interested” I stated as firmly as I could, deciding that at that
moment channeling my Grandma Rita might be the way to go. “What you
are doing is disrespectful to not only your wife, but also to me.
Please accept the fact that I am saying no for now and I am saying
no forever.”

His face crumpled and he looked like he was
about to cry. No way was I falling for that again. The man was not
above using every weapon in his arsenal, even tears to get his way.
I learned that the second day, and had needed to employ a
well-placed stomp of my heel on his foot to extricate myself that
time.

Fortunately for me, showing her usual
exquisite sense of timing, his wife walked in. Adele Wesson was a
gifted author whose books had been translated into award winning
movies. Of course with that much talent she had also been the
scriptwriter. In her late forties, she had lost her adored first
husband only a couple of years ago. Her marrying Eric Wesson had
surprised many, but as I had found out she was a vibrant woman, and
Eric was Eric. Adele swept into the room. With her ash blonde hair
and perfect pixie face, she looked like she could grace a magazine
cover. Her bohemian look meant she always wore loose tops and
skirts with scarves tying back her hair. She stopped her entrance
and looked tiredly at Eric as he had me pressed up against the
desk.

“Eric, please tell me you’re not bothering
Trudie again.”

Rather than looking ashamed and stepping back
as any normal person would, Eric tugged on a piece of my hair that
had come loose from my ponytail.

“We were just being friendly” he said,
looking his wife in the eye.

Pulling my hair out of his fingers and
tucking it behind my ear I clenched my jaw.

“If that is all Mrs Wesson I’ll leave you for
today.”

“Thank you Trudie” she said as I walked past
her. “I am truly sorry.”

I knew she
was. I did not understand her in the slightest. She didn’t seem to
mind what her husband did as long as it didn’t interfere with her
work. I couldn’t do it, but my mum always said I had problems
sharing. As I closed the door I heard the arguing start. It always
happened like that. Ten minutes later though they’d be having sex.
In the two weeks I’d been working in this house I had learned that
relationships are weird and maybe it was better that I wasn’t in
one anymore. After having my heart ripped apart by my ex-fiancé a
couple of years ago I’d only been tempted once and he got scared
off by my mother.

Opening the
door to my apartment I kicked off my shoes. Finding Mom’s leftovers
in the fridge I threw it into the microwave to heat it up. Mom was
in bed so I ended up writing my report for the day including the
three additional incidents with Eric Wesson. I contemplated
admitting that this assignment was too much for me.

I moved
around, my side still sometimes twinging from where I was shot.
Thanks to Monique’s quick thinking and decidedly skewed sense of
priorities, a plastic surgeon had been called immediately after I
got shot to fix the mess the bullet wound had made to my side.
Luckily for my internal organs the bullet had been deflected by my
rib. It had been cracked and the bullet had come out again about a
couple of inches from the entry site. This had made a mess and
Monique, assuming I would be wanting to be bikini ready for summer,
had organized a friend of hers who was a top ranking plastic
surgeon to fix it up. All this was done while I was unconscious or
I would have informed Monique that no matter how good the surgeon
was, I was not going to be bikini ready for summer.