Taken By The Billionaire Read online

  1

  When she first walked into my office I was pissed off for two reasons. Number one, she shouldn’t have been there in the first place; I’d left specific instructions with Alexandra, my assistant, that nobody, nobody was to disturb me. I had work to do now that casting for the next film was due, thousands of details to manage, and the last thing I wanted during the time I needed to concentrate were pushy, whiny agents trying to get into my face. With my name attached to it the film had the potential to become a huge pie, and of course everyone wanted a slice. Number two, the other reason for my frustration was, that at first glance I thought it was Jenny Clark standing there.

  That woman was most definitely persona-non-grata, which is why I was more than a little brusque when I said, “What the hell do you want?”

  But a second later, I realized that I mistook that poor woman for Jenny.

  The girl did look a lot like Jenny Clark however. Jenny, an undeniably talented and attractive pop star who also managed to be one of the most obnoxious, difficult people I’ve ever worked with. So demanding and intractable that years before I broke contract and walked out on producing one of her music videos.

  “Who are you?” I asked, still none too politely, I was busy as hell but also a little curious.

  “I’m Kylie,” the girl replied. She took a tentative step further into my domain. “Kylie Clark,” she added.

  What piqued my interest in the girl further was her reaction when I mentioned Jenny’s name. “You’re Jenny Clark’s little sister?” I asked.

  “I’m her sister,” Kylie confirmed with a nod of her head and ice in her tone. She crossed her arms as her forehead creased in a frown. “Or at least I was; I hate that bitch for what she’s done to me. She’s not any sister of mine now.” The fire in her eyes cooled as Kylie blinked and looked around my office. Her whole demeanor changed in an instant and I figured that she’d remembered whose office she was in, that she’d clocked the Oscar and been reminded that I was The Man. Kylie gave a slight shrug of her shoulders and, almost diffidently said, “Which is kinda why I’m here, Mister Taylor.”

  My normal reaction to an unexpected visitor, especially when I’d told Alexandra not to let anyone get past her, would have been to turn the trespasser around and, figuratively speaking, kick their backside out of my office, out of the studio and back onto the streets of LA. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was about her that drew me, something in her looks and the potential for a passionate temperament beneath that ordinary girl first impression maybe? Or did she remind me of a certain Welsh actress?

  Either way it didn’t matter too much, the bad blood between Kylie and Jenny piqued my curiosity and I wondered what that demanding egomaniac had done to cause such anger in her sister.

  Indicating that Kylie should take a seat I masked my thoughts and feelings with a sarcastic façade. “You don’t get on with Jenny, eh?”

  Kylie shook her head. “I hate her,” she replied, eyes sparking again while the words dripped with venom. “She slept with my fiancé.”

  The girl’s brimming eyes tugged at me in such a way that I experienced a strong urge to stand up, walk around to the opposite side of the desk and take her in my arms. I knew that pain from my time with Marianne, my ex-wife who cheated on me with my production partner. Obviously he’s now no longer a friend, and due to my influence he’s been struggling to find work lately. Not my proudest moment, and I do feel guilty about giving in to such a petty act of revenge, but a part of me will always believe that he got just what he deserved.

  Contempt curdled in my own guts when I thought about how poisonous Jenny Clark could be.

  The immoral piece of shit. How could she do that to her own sister?

  I don’t intend to come across as all holier than though. In my early days in Hollywood, after the Jenny Clark music video debacle, after I hit the big time, which ironically was partly due to the notorious Jenny, I made my fair share of fuck-ups.

  At the time I got rid off Jenny I’d been twenty-six, and so to publically walk away from the job with her might have been a stupid thing to do, and people had been quick to tell me I was crazy. Maybe it wasn’t the best move I could have made, but at that age I wasn’t the kind of bloke to swallow my own knob for the likes of Jenny-fucking-Clark. I’m still the same nine years on.

  I was just making a name as a dynamic, hard-hitting director in the business, teetering on the brink of needing a big break to establish myself as a name in the US or I’d be forced to head back to England with my tail between my legs. At twenty-four I’d left the London scene behind and followed the dream to LA, to Hollywood, where I hoped I could carve a niche for myself. It had been early days, but I thrived on the challenge and hard work, driven to do the best job anyone could do. I wanted to be the best. It isn’t just work that I apply that ethos to, it’s anything I undertake. At the time it was the financial outlook that appeared so bleak. To be forced to slink home to the UK wouldn’t have sat well with me. I didn’t like the F-word – Failure.

  I got a lucky break. One of the big players heard about the mini-drama (everything in Jenny Clark’s life is a drama), appreciated that I wasn’t willing to take her shit, said he liked my style and offered me a percentage contract on a small-scale film. It was a success story of the Danny Boyle kind; low-budget – or no-budget as I like to tell it now – with unknowns in the cast and some talented but inexperienced crew. I put every ounce of energy into that film. Blood, sweat, tears, the whole works. The hours the cast and crew put in, and the dedication they showed humbled me in a way that still swells in my throat when I think about those days. The film turned out to be a big hit, launching me and some of the cast into the stratosphere. The Oscar is right there on the shelf behind me.

  After that I dived into Hollywood in a big way. I knew I had the looks and the appeal that drew the ladies, and of course I cultivated a Hugh Grant posh-boy accent to replace the harshness of London’s east end. It’s typical that since then Guy Ritchie’s Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels hit the scene and it suddenly became de rigeur to talk all cockney.

  Once I got the money and the power to hire and fire at will I found I loved Hollywood. Before that, when I was broke and almost flat on my arse I’d hated the whole pretentious scene; but when the cash came in and I could indulge myself I soon, I’m actually embarrassed to say now, took up a pretty racy lifestyle.

  I’m over the mentalist stage now. It hit me right between the eyes when Stella walked out. Stella was, still is, a sublimely talented actress, a fellow Brit, a beautiful, charismatic Welsh lady who had been willing to give herself to me completely. I’d been behaving like an arsehole, like I was still in my university days, drinking and shagging.

  The old clichéd lyrics to Big Yellow Taxi are a real choker because they’re so true, I didn’t know what I had till it went, and I still haven’t found the guts to apologize to Stella. There’s me, who’s meant to be the macho tough guy, afraid of nothing if you believe the gossip in the magazines, the lady-killer with the legendary cock and energy of a stallion, and I’m still ashamed to look her in the eye when our professional paths cross from time to time. The best of it is, the irony of it is that she moved on from me quickly and now has a husband and a little girl. She got her shit together while I mooned over her for months and nursed a broken heart that I entirely deserved. Then the scales of justice balanced properly after I married Marianne and she did the dirty on me.

  When the news broke about Marianne cheating, Stella sent me a note, a message so kindly-worded and just so plain fucking caring that it caught me by surprise so much that I sat in my office and cried proper fat tears. It was emotional, as they say in Guy’s films, complete with blubbi
ng and bubbles of snot – the whole works.

  I’m over Marianne now, and I might even allow her boyfriend back in from the professional wilderness – The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget. So I’ll try to be wise for a change.

  These days I’m loving the whole Stateside thing. A huge plus for me personally, living in America, especially California, is the weather. No more drab, dreary days in London where everyone looks gray and worn and it pisses down for months at a time, or so it seems. I love the ocean and watching all the pretty girls in their bikinis playing volleyball on the beach, all tanned and healthy like a scene from a Beach Boys video. For me LA has everything. I can get a decent coffee at 3am if I need one, order a pizza the size of a garbage can lid and have it delivered, and the climate here is just made for sweeping along on a big motorcycle.

  The language fooled me a little at first. Americans speak English? You sure? Not the same English as I do they don’t, but it isn’t too difficult to get a grip on things after a few weeks.

  I’ll say arse, the Americans say ass; which always makes me chuckle since to me an ass is a donkey, a mule. “Spank my ass, baby” conjures up a weird image I can tell you.

  There were a few comedic moments until I adapted my speech to suit the American ear. “The boot?” the cab driver had asked, looking at me as though I’d molested a nun when I asked, fresh off the plane into LA if I should put my suitcase into the boot of his car. “Put it in the fuckin’ trunk,” he said eventually with a roll of his eyes.

  And I quickly got out of the habit of saying, “Give us a fag, mate,” when I wanted a cigarette.

  Those and a couple of other little quirks aside, give me California over England any day.

  And here was Kylie Clark, spitting fire at the mention of her sister’s name. I’d known her for only a few seconds, but already she intrigued me. I saw something on a higher level than just thinking with my cock; I sensed there was something special about this girl. My erstwhile lover, Stella the Welsh actress sprung to mind. Plus Kylie despised Jenny Clark, a huge bonus point in her favor and so I decided to hear about why she was there in my office.

  “Sounds like Jenny,” I replied after Kylie’s revelation about her sister’s duplicity. I leaned back in my chair, with the desk between me and the girl. I spread my arms, saying, “But that doesn’t explain how you got into my office or tell me what you want.”

  Kylie fixed me with a stare, a look of such smoldering intensity now that I found myself thinking: I bet she’s incredible in bed.

  “I want a job,” Kylie replied, bringing my carnal mind back to Earth with a jolt.

  I leaned forward and placed my elbows on my desk.

  Fuck it, if I could help the girl I would.

  “Do you have a resume?” I asked. Then, clicking my fingers and smiling like I’d just had a brainwave of Einstein proportions I said that I was just about to fire my assistant for letting her get into the office in the first place. “There’s Alexandra’s job if you want it?” I finished.

  Kylie smiled weakly at my attempt at humor. I hadn’t been serious about firing Alexandra, not totally anyway, but I would be talking to her later that day. Rest assured, there was no way she would be getting away with it.

  Kylie brushed the comment aside and showed what I would come to recognize as her core of steel, single-minded determination. “No,” she said, her tone insistent. “What I mean is I want the lead in your new film.”

  Astounded by the ridiculousness of that request I nevertheless kept a poker face and quashed my immediate response of: You’re taking the fucking piss? Instead I replied with, “So you’re an actress?”

  Diffident, Kylie’s head dipped as she studied her shoes. “No,” she responded in a small voice. “At least not yet; I don’t have any experience.”

  “Do you know how big the budget is on my next project?” I asked gently.

  Kylie shook her head.

  “Without mentioning numbers,” I continued, “I’ll tell you. It’s huge, probably enough to buy a medium-sized country.” I paused to let that sink in. “It’d be too big a risk,” I added. “As much as I admire your ambition, Kylie, there’s just no way that I can give you that role.”

  The contrite manner of a couple of seconds ago vanished in an instant. “What I want, Mister Taylor is a chance to show everyone, especially that bitch and my precious ex-fiancé, that I’m as good as …” She paused and shook her head, knuckles whitening as she clenched her fists “… No,” she continued. “I don’t want to be as good, I want to prove I’m better than she is. And I want to make Rafe sorry he ever cheated on me.”

  She went all mental then. Ranting and raving and waving her arms, calling her sister names of the most uncomplimentary nature.

  “Mister Taylor,” she hissed, eyes flashing as she finally cooled a little and, passion spent for the moment, slumped back in her chair. “I might not have the experience, but I’m determined.” Kylie’s chest heaved with emotion, the twin swellings of her breasts drawing my eyes. “Please, Mister Taylor, I’ll do anything for that role. I’m begging you. I’m desperate to get back at Jenny. I know you can’t stand her, that’s why I came to you. You know what she’s like. I thought you’d understand better than anyone else in the business. I know you’re supposed to be a tough cookie and that you work your people hard. I’ve heard about your reputation, that you’re all macho and difficult to please. But I’ve also heard you’re totally professional, firm but fair.

  “Please give me that role, Mister Taylor. I won’t let you down. I promise. Anything you say, just name it, I’ll do it.”

  “You’d bring me coffee whenever I called for it?” I joked, grinning after her complimentary speech.

  The girl’s personality shone through when, without missing a beat, she gave a wry grin of her own. “Anytime. Day or night, Mister Taylor.”

  “Even at two in the morning? To my house?”

  Then, to my surprise, my body responded to the thought of Kylie actually bringing me a coffee in the middle of the night. I could see her, hair all tousled from my bed, her lips swollen from my kisses, swamped by my bathrobe as she handed me the cup and then let the robe slide off her shoulders. I felt my heartbeat quicken in my chest while, as my cock stiffened, I stared into the girl’s face. My tongue felt huge in my mouth as I said in a voice thick with desire, “Would you bring my coffee right to my bed, Kylie?”

  She stared at me for a long moment, perhaps deciding if I was only flirting or if my treacly tone meant I had a darker motive in mind.

  “I’ll even wear Playboy bunny ears if it’ll get me the job, Mister Taylor.” Then she grinned at me to show that maybe she was only joining in the playful banter.

  “That,” I said with a widening smile, my lust simmering off the boil, “would get you’re the role for sure.” I spread my hands in a ‘what can I do’ gesture, paused and then, as gently as I could, let the girl down. “If only you had some experience.”

  When Kylie’s face crumpled I felt like shit for my unintended cruelty.

  I looked at her sitting there, fractured by her sister’s total disregard for anyone but herself.

  “Somebody took a chance on you, Mister Taylor,” Kylie said, her chin lifting, refusing to be cowed.

  I admired her guts, after all I was a big player in the industry; I’d have expected my reputation to have intimidated the girl. I’ve read the magazine articles about me; I know my reputation as a macho man with an ego the size of a planet, so I was impressed by what I saw as a rare display of courage. I also saw something in Kylie’s face that again put me in mind of Stella, whom I’d loved and lost.

  “You only made it to the big time, Mister Taylor, because someone gave you a chance. And you did, you made it.” She swept an arm to encompass my office, nodding at the unprepossessing statuette behind me. “Someone saw what you were capable of and backed you. That’s what I’m asking you to do now, for me, to t
ake a chance on me.”

  That floored me. The simple truth in those words was undeniable. That was exactly how I saw it myself. Another emotion besides lust percolated my thinking, maybe there was something in Kylie. She reminded me a lot of Stella, and I realized that the difference between Kylie and a million other girls was that she excited my imagination as well as arousing me physically.

  The embryo of a plan formed in my racing mind, an admittedly dark plan, the fragments slowly coming together in a deep corner even as I nodded in agreement at the truth of Kylie’s words.

  “I’ll agree to think about thinking about offering you the part, the lead, but what I want is for you to have dinner with me tonight. I want to get to know you better before I make up my mind. I like you, Kylie,” I said sincerely. “I admire your attitude, I like your looks.” I let my eyes linger on her for just long enough to give her a hint I had an interest in her physically, but not too long so I came across as a perv. “I think you’ve got hidden depths and that you might just be as good as you hope you are. I’ll tell you now, however, that if I do decide you’re right for the part, there will be a condition attached.”