January 10th, 2016
My phone rang through the speakers of my rental car for the fifth time in the last hour, and I sighed. I clutched my hands around the steering wheel in both annoyance and frustration before I tapped the accept button with my right thumb.
“Hey, Mariah,” I greeted without even looking at the screen on my dash to see who it was. I knew it would be my manager. Surely, she had something to bitch about. It was her MO.
“You missed a fitting,” she said, diving right into what I’d already known.
“I’m aware.” I sighed and rolled my eyes toward the sky. “And why aren’t you calling Camilla about this? Pretty sure she’s the one who handles schedules.”
“Because you don’t just miss a fitting when a world-renowned designer is making your dress for the fucking Oscars. Do you have any idea how many phone calls I’ve fielded today regarding this fucking mess?”
“I’m pretty sure my reason for missing the fitting was valid.”
“Oh, honey,” she said, and a sarcastic laugh escaped her lips. “There is no valid reason for missing a fitting with Christiano LaMoore. Death wouldn’t be a valid excuse.”
“Stop being so dramatic,” I said, and I could only imagine the wrinkles forming between my manager’s brows. Beverly Hills probably wouldn’t have enough Botox on hand to solve it. “I called Christiano and explained the situation to him,” I added by way of calming her down. “He didn’t sound upset about it. He completely understood.”
“Are you sure about that?” she questioned, her voice rising with each word. “Because I’m sitting here staring at an exclusive interview with Christiano on Gossip World’s website, and it appears that he wasn’t all that understanding.”
I scrunched my nose. “What do you mean? What did he say?”
“Something along the lines of your being part of the new epidemic of young and entitled Hollywood actresses.”
“That bastard!” I said on a surprised shout. “I told him production was moved up on Cold and I had to leave earlier than expected for Montana. It was either I made the fitting and pissed off my director and quite possibly got kicked off the job, or I canceled the fitting.”
“Well, it looks like he thinks you’re full of shit.”
“The fact that I’ve been driving for two hours in the middle-of-nowhere Montana says I’m not,” I retorted. “Not to mention, it’s literally zero degrees here.” I glanced at the temperature on the dashboard just to clarify what I already knew. “I didn’t know it was possible to be zero degrees. But it’s zero fucking degrees. Trust me, I’d much rather be in LA right now. Although, the traffic isn’t so bad here.”
I loved living in Los Angeles, but the traffic sucked. And it didn’t just suck a little, it sucked a lot. One minute you could be zipping along at a yippee-no-problem-life-is-good kind of pace, and then twenty seconds later, you find yourself squealing to a dead fucking stop. Not to mention, once you actually arrived at your destination, you had to pry your fingers off the steering wheel and look for the nearest stiff drink.
Montana was the exact opposite. I’d driven at least fifteen miles without seeing more than a few semitrucks and maybe one other car on the road. It was damn near eerie how empty the roads were. If I wasn’t positive my GPS was leading me exactly where I needed to be, I might’ve thought I was headed toward something that looked more like Texas Chainsaw Massacre than the small town where my next movie would be filmed.
“Well, unless you start kissing Christiano’s ass and begging for his forgiveness, I guess you can start looking for a new Oscar-worthy dress.”
I sighed. White, luxurious, soft as silk but felt like cotton, the Christiano LaMoore dress was a dream. He was the exact designer most actresses would contemplate giving up their firstborn for. But although I loved designer duds, I wasn’t a slave to fashion. Nor would I be apologizing to a man whose ego was apparently bigger than his fashion line’s price tags.
“Yeah,” I snorted. “Considering I did absolutely nothing wrong, I’d rather remove a limb than ask for forgiveness.”
Mariah laughed, finally dropping her tough as nails persona and succumbing to my stubbornness. She knew I wouldn’t go back on this—not for a dress to the Oscars, not for a fucking Oscar itself. “I guess I’ll start making some phone calls then, huh?”
“Good plan.” I smiled. She was a total pain in my ass most days, but when she wasn’t acting like such a hard-ass, she was actually a good friend. “And, if you don’t mind, find me someone who is up-and-coming and doesn’t have a giant, gold-plated, I’m holier than thou stick up their ass.”
Lucky for me, I still had a few more months before I needed to worry about being red-carpet ready and had time to shop around.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she lilted. “Speaking of the Oscars, have you decided who you’re bringing with you?”
I was currently single, had zero dating prospects, and my last relationship ended after I found my musician boyfriend with his hands up some groupie’s skirt. Obviously, it was an easy answer.
“No one.”
“You can’t go to the Oscars without a date, Ivy.”
“Oh, trust me, I can,” I retorted. “I’m a strong, independent female who does not need a man by my side to feel validated. I am woman, hear me roar.”
“You’re such a pain in my ass,” she muttered. “Ms. Hollywood A-Lister with a mile-long list of eligible bachelors trying to score a date with her, and she doesn’t want to give anyone the time of day.”
“Shall I remind you of the last man on that list I dated?”
“Who? Bradley Romero?”
Gross. He was the most eligible douchebag in Hollywood. One blockbuster movie under his belt and he thought he was God’s gift to women.
“Ew. Hell no. But he’s a perfect example of why I refuse any dating requests that come through my manager.”
“Bradley wasn’t that bad, Ivy.”
I snorted. “He is an arrogant asshole, and you and I both know it.”
Mariah sighed, and I knew that defeated little sound said everything. She knew I was right about Bradley.
“Give it up, girlfriend. I’m not bringing a date to the Oscars.”
“I just want you to be happy,” she responded, and I rolled my eyes.
“You want publicity,” I retorted.
“That is so not true.”
“Oh yes, it is,” I responded on a laugh. “But it’s okay. I still love you.”
“Of course you do,” she stated. Just like me, Mariah was a woman who knew her own worth. “Thanks to me, you had a meeting with Hugo Roman, and now, you are the star in his upcoming movie. People are already comparing you to Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs.”
Hugo Roman was one of Hollywood’s most highly coveted directors. His name was synonymous with powerhouses like Spike Lee and Steven Spielberg. If you had the opportunity to be in one of his movies, you dropped everything and did it no matter what sacrifices you had to make.
And Mariah was right about getting me the meeting, but securing opportunities for me was her job. Trust me, she was compensated heavily, and she’d have a much easier time spending that money than trying to trade for goods with a pat on the back.
Also, Jodie Foster? Jesus, no pressure or anything.
I wasn’t new to the Hollywood game, and I already had one Academy Award nomination under my belt, but having my name anywhere near a legend like that was intimidating. And this movie—Cold—well, it wasn’t the kind of film you walked onto the set of without being prepared.
The instant I’d read the screenplay, I’d known I was born to play this role. It was that gut instinct, that “this is so right” feeling that would keep me from folding under the insane pressure.
“Are you still there?” Mariah’s voice pulled me from my thoughts.
“Yeah…I’m just trying to figure out where in Beverly Hills I’ll have them put your gilded gold statue and if it will be thanks enough for you.”
“Let me think on that some more and get back to you.” She laughed, and I grinned at the windshield.
“Yeah, okay. I’m going to go now before you start asking for an expense account at Tiffany’s. Bye, Mariah.”
I ended the call and followed my GPS as he directed me to take the next exit ramp. Crossing over two completely empty lanes, I was flying high and fast once I hit the even more open back roads of Montana.
Cold, Montana: 4 miles, the sign read, and internally, I rejoiced. I was ready to get out of this rental and into the house I’d be calling home for the next four months.
With the snow-covered mountains in my periphery and another quick glance to the neon green temperature on my dashboard, I verified the city lived up to its name. It was fucking cold. Negative one degrees, to be exact.
The now quiet car became far too silent, and I turned up the radio and quickly found myself bopping up and down to Rhianna’s voice singing “This is What You Came For.”
I smiled in relief as the road yawned wide before me, only a light smattering of traffic in the distance.
A quick glance to the clock told me if I moved my ass, I could be sitting in a hot bath in less than twenty minutes. It was only a quarter after two in the afternoon, and I didn’t have any real obligations until tomorrow morning.
I pressed the pedal to the metal and sped up my pace, weaving in and out of what little traffic peppered the roadway. Montana probably wasn’t used to LA’s version of driving, but I figured all of three semis and a beat-up Chevy pickup wouldn’t pay my hurried tempo too much attention.
Flashes of red and blue bounced off my side mirror and into my eyes at the same time a sudden blast from a siren filled my ears.
I glanced up into the rearview mirror and saw the familiar sight of a police cruiser following closely behind me. The blue and red lights on top of the roof flashed obnoxiously as if to say “Somebody was paying attention! You totally fucked up!”
Considering I was going seventy in a fifty, I really had fucked up.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Welcome to fucking Cold, Montana, Ivy.
“Son of a nutcracker,” I muttered to myself and pulled off to the side of the road. As I came to a dead stop and put my car in park, I wracked my brain for some sort of excuse to get me out of a speeding ticket.
While I waited for the officer to get out of his cruiser and make his approach, I quickly narrowed down my possible options.
“I’m sorry, officer, I’m from LA. I didn’t realize the speed limit was only fifty here. I thought it was seventy.”
No, that wouldn’t work. That only made me sound like an idiot. And the whole LA bit would probably only piss him off more.
“I know I was speeding, but I have diarrhea.”
Ew, that was too gross. And Jesus, if he somehow recognized me and let that white lie hit the tabloids, Mariah would be uberpissed. Forget Beverly Hills—there wouldn’t be enough Botox in the world to fix the wrinkles my fictional stomach problems would cause.
I looked toward the center console and saw a half-empty bottle of water in the cupholder.
What about “I have to pee?” Will that work?
The sound of the cop’s door slamming shut filled my ears, and any rational thought flitted out the window. Panic took over. Grabbing the water bottle in my hands, I tried to discreetly unscrew the cap and pour the rest of it onto my lap.
But before I could get the bottle back into the cupholder, my time was up and the male police officer rapped on my window with his knuckles. Busted.
With dread, I rolled down my window to open the lines of communication between us, and my jaw hit the top of my door at the sight.
Midnight black hair, tanned skin, and dusky blue-green eyes the color of the deepest part of the Caribbean stared back at me. I couldn’t stop myself from doing a double take, and on the second go-round I noted his prominent cheekbones, his well-defined nose and chin, and one tattoo tucked away on the inside of his left arm. It was too intricate to inspect closely, but it was well done. No broken ink-pen, home-tattoo garbage for this guy. And good God, his arms—well, actually his whole fucking body.
And how in the hell was he so tan? Surely, people didn’t actually go out in the sun in this town. At least not in the dead of fucking winter. Limbs would freeze off in these temperatures. Blue balls would be an actual real-life diagnosis.
He cleared his throat, and I quickly moved my gaze back up to his eyes.
Which, to be honest, wasn’t any better. They were the most vivid, all-consuming eyes I’d ever seen. They had the power to draw you in like a magnet and never release you from their powerful hold.
Somehow, someway, I had just been pulled over by the hottest police officer on the planet.
“Are you doing anything in particular with that water bottle?” he asked, his full lips set in a straight line. He was hot, but goddamn, he was serious. Any more hostility on his face and it might just up and shatter.
Instantly, I looked down at the now empty bottle in my hands and the giant wet spot on my jeans. Shit. This looks incriminating….
My heart raced inside my chest as I tried to find an explanation for why I’d poured a bottle of water on myself.
Fucking hell. Mariah will kill me if I end up getting arrested for a fake-piss stunt like this.
“Uh…N-no,” I stuttered. “I was, uh…I was just trying to take a quick drink, and yeah, I guess my nerves got the best of me.”
Hard-ass showed no signs of sympathy.
“Do you know why I pulled you over?”
I didn’t think the real truth held merit, but a vague version of it seemed like the best way to go now that I knew he was unfazed by pants that looked like I’d pissed myself. This guy didn’t seem like he’d award me any points for creativity. “Because I was going a little fast?”
“A little fast?” he repeated, one of his long-fingered hands reaching out to rest on my window sill. He was tall, over six foot by my estimation, and he had to lean down to look me directly in the eye. “You were going seventy-three in a fifty.”
“Wait a minute,” I protested despite his authoritative tone, pointing to the dashboard. “My speed checker thingy said I was going seventy. Not seventy-three.”
For the first time, his granite face showed signs of life, just one pointed corner of his full lips turning to move upward. “So, you were aware that you were going more than just a little fast?”
Shit.
“I was aware I was going seventy, not seventy-three.”
“So, you admit to going over twenty miles per hour over the speed limit?”
Shit, shit, shit. Good Lord, was this guy a human lie detector? And why was my brain not working at full capacity?
“Wait…what?” I questioned by way of tossing out my “I’m a total idiot, but I don’t want you to know I’m an idiot” card.
“You just said you thought you were going seventy—”
“I know I was going seventy.”
“Great. I’ll be sure to note your admission of guilt on the ticket.”
This is not going the direction I wanted it to go…
“Wait—”
“License and registration, please.”
“Are you really going to write me a ticket?” I questioned as I rummaged through my purse and the glove box and, eventually, found the things he’d requested.
“Well,” he said and pointed to his badge with his pen. “Seeing as you broke the law, it’s kind of my job to write you a ticket.”
Is this guy serious right now?
Angry vibes filled the space between us, both his and a whole shit-ton of mine, but I was an actor. I made a lot of money pretending to be something I wasn’t, so for now, I could pretend to be something other than pissed. I went with pitiful. “You’re really going to give me a ticket? I mean, can’t you just let me off with a warning,” I begged. “I’ve just had a shit kind of day, and I’m just trying to get to…” I paused immediately before the rest of the sentence came out of my mouth.
Surely, using my “I’m in need of a hot bath” excuse wasn’t going to help in this scenario.
“You’re trying to get to where?” He raised a challenging brow, any and all signs of good-nature gone again. I was starting to hate how fucking handsome he was without a smile. Most people really needed a smile to transform their face into something spectacular. This guy didn’t need shit.
“To an appointment,” I responded, and his lips thinned. He knew I was lying.
“An appointment? What kind of appointment?”
“A hot bath appointment,” I muttered, finally realizing I just needed to shut up.
I looked down at his chest to find his last name inscribed into a plate on his navy uniform shirt, just above his right pec. Fox, it read. Déjà vu hit me hard. I’d heard that name before. I had no idea where the familiarity came from, but it sure as hell rang some distant bells of recognition.
And seriously? Officer fucking Fox.
Of course, that was his last name. That was totally a hot guy last name.
“Okay,” he said and glanced down at my driver’s license in his hands, “Ms. Ivy Stone.” His body froze then, his eyes moving from the license to me and back again. A little bloom of hope sprung to life in my stomach. Maybe he recognizes my name. Maybe I’m going to get off with a warning, after all.
I watched him closely for a sign that he was cracking, but all I got was a kick to the gut.
Hate, pure and infinite, colored his pretty eyes with smoke as he looked me over again. I was used to scrutiny—but not this kind. This was calculated and venomous and amplified to the nth degree. His opinion of me was undeniable. Officer Fox looked at my pretty red hair, bright green eyes, and long legs, did the math of putting them all together, and came up with disgust.
“Sit tight,” he ground out. “I’ll be back.”
“Are you really going to write me a ticket?” I asked just before he could take a real step, and his body turned back in slow motion.
My pulse thrummed in my neck as he bent down again and speared me with a coldness stronger than the nonexistent degrees outside.
“Are you really going to ask me to let you out of a ticket because you were driving twenty miles over the speed limit so you didn’t miss your so-called appointment? Are you that entitled?”
What. A. Dick.
Silently, I searched for the words, scrambled to come up with something to explain to this man that he had me all wrong, but it was no use. Officer I’m Too Sexy for My Clothes had already made up his mind about me.
Luckily, hate wasn’t exclusive. I could make up my mind about him right back.
I watched as he strolled back to his police cruiser, clouded in untouchable power and douchebaggery. And I decided right then that for as long as I had to be here in this godforsaken icy tundra hell, I’d make sure Officer Fox and I saw as little of each other as humanly possible.