Page 3 of A Star is Scorned

Livvy pressed her foot to the gas and sped away from the Troc, noticing the angry woman marching out the front door. Pulling away with a stranger in the passenger seat was preferable to whatever the alternative was.

Once they cleared the driveway and she peeled onto Sunset Boulevard, Livvy took a second to process the identity of her hitchhiker.

She darted her eyes to the side and was astonished to see a familiar crop of dirty-blond hair, a chiseled silhouette, and the lightly upturned corners of a mouth that seemed to hold a perpetual smirk.

She hadn’t picked up any old straggler who had over imbibed at the club; she’d driven off with the subject of her teenage fantasies and her soon-to-be costar—the one and only Flynn Banks.

“You’re—” she started.

“The man at the bar!” he proclaimed, finishing her sentence with a non sequitur.

“Huh?” She threw him a puzzled look as they pulled up to a red light on La Cienega.

She’d been so flustered by the sight of a strange man leaping into her car that she hadn’t paid attention to where she was going, merely knowing she should drive east to get back to her dumpy little apartment at the Garden of Allah Hotel.

But then she remembered. She grabbed at her head, hunting for the newsboy cap that had flown into the back seat in her alarm, and realized the dark curls that she’d tucked beneath her cap were now blowing in the evening breeze.

He grinned at her, a lascivious, devilish smile that made her feel as if she was driving naked. “You’re not a man.”

“Well, no,” she stated, not knowing what else to say.

“I thought you were a woman, but then I realized you were a man. But you’re not.”

Lord, was this the man she’d spent many a teenage afternoon in a movie palace mooning over? He was a simpleton! “Of course, I’m not a man. Why would I be?”

“You’re dressed like one.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see the Café Trocadero, so I decided a disguise was the best way. I just wanted to see it, to get a sense of it, without anyone bothering me. And no one looks twice at a man.”

“You don’t know the right men.” Flynn grinned, and she could swear that his teeth twinkled in the streetlight. He looked like the wolf that ate Little Red Riding Hood. “Besides, honey, I looked twice at you—and I can promise you I wasn’t the only one.”

Livvy’s mouth went dry at the pronouncement, but she swallowed and tried to ignore it. Her heart was beating a mile a minute. Flynn Banks, swashbuckler and silver screen rogue, was flirting. With her. Her sister would never believe this.

“I’ve never been so thrilled to be wrong in my life,” he purred. She got the feeling Flynn Banks was the type that never admitted they were wrong. She supposed she should be flattered.

When they got to Sweetzer Avenue, she started to cruise ahead, but he stopped her. “Hey, turn around. Malibu’s west on Sunset.”

She raised her eyebrow at him. “And what precisely is in Malibu?”

“My cottage,” he replied matter-of-factly. She started to protest. She may have been gaga for Flynn Banks once, but she wasn’t about to go home with him five minutes after meeting him.

“I can’t possibly go back for my driver,” he added. “That woman back there will skin me alive. Please take me home. I’ll be your humble servant forever.” He made a little mock bow, as much as he could manage while seated in the car.

“That’s really not necessary,” she added, debating whether she should do as he asked.

She couldn’t very well take him back to whatever that was at the Trocadero.

Was he even safe to drive after his frenzied escape?

Or would he be distracted like her father, miss a stop sign, and get run down by a semitruck?

She couldn’t exactly dump a movie star at the side of the road.

Her only course of action was to drive him home.

Even if it wasn’t exactly how she’d planned to end her evening.

Livvy whipped the car around in a U-turn, prompting a Pontiac going west to honk their horn as she swerved in front of them. The near-miss sent her heart pounding, but she tried to quiet it by focusing on Flynn. “I’ll drive you home.”

“You know, some women would consider themselves lucky to be in this predicament.”

That smile again. Livvy shuddered to think what it would do to her if she looked at it full on.

As it was, catching it in her peripheral vision with her eyes on the road still made her insides turn to jelly.

She’d had a photograph of that smile pinned over her bed for three years. But she couldn’t let him know that.

“Lucky?” she scoffed, filling her voice with a skeptical hauteur she didn’t feel. “Lucky to have a strange man jump in their car and force them to drive to an unfamiliar location?”

“But, darling, I’m not a stranger.” He laid his hand on her thigh, clearly trying to see what he could get away with. She tried not to flinch at the sudden blaze of desire his touch ignited in her.

She didn’t know much about men. At twenty-two, she’d been kissed exactly twice, by a high school sweetheart who’d been mostly content to hold her hand. She’d never even called Albert her boyfriend.

Not that she could imagine calling Flynn Banks her boyfriend either.

Because he wasn’t a boy. He was pure, unadulterated man.

Everything about him screamed that she should be very, very careful.

Her throat was suddenly as dry as the Mojave Desert.

Jesus, was it normal to want a man you’d just met this much?

Because she did. More than she’d wanted anything.

“Sure, you are,” she retorted. “I don’t know you from Adam.

” She jostled her thigh, shaking his hand away.

She was grateful now that he’d interrupted her when they’d first pulled away from the Trocadero.

Grateful he hadn’t witnessed her starry-eyed pronouncement that he was Flynn Banks.

She’d only known him for a few minutes, and she could already tell that she needed to establish a more balanced power dynamic between them before they shot so much as a reel of film.

Otherwise, he’d walk all over her. Or worse.

Perhaps if she kept pretending not to know who he was, that would puncture his ego.

“Oh, come now, you know who I am.” He grinned.

She continued to follow Sunset, now driving up into the hills on a winding canyon road.

It was striking. How wild and unfettered Los Angeles was, only a few miles away from the heart of Hollywood.

It felt like a different planet. Not at all like the busy metropolis in her rearview mirror, nor like the quiet woods behind the house where she’d grown up.

But something alien and stark and beautiful.

She kept her eyes on the road, her need to focus in the dimming light helping her sell the lie. “No, I really don’t. Should I?”

He leaned back on the bench seat and rested his arm against it, right behind her back—probably so that if they hit a bump in the road, he could wrap it around her. “Ever see The Captain of Madrid?”

She shook her head. Never mind that she’d seen it about fifteen times, once three times in a single day.

He grabbed at his collar and loosened his tie. He was trying to be nonchalant, but she could see that her feigned ignorance was getting to him. “Okay, how about The Black Mask? The Falcon of the Sea? Lancelot and Arthur?”

His voice rose in pique as she shook her head at each title.

All of which she’d seen dozens of times and could practically recite from memory.

She bit her lip, suppressing a laugh. It was hilarious, really, how easy it was to get a rise out of him.

When she’d fantasized about being romanced by Flynn Banks, like one of the damsels in his pictures, she never imagined he’d have quite such a high opinion of himself.

“You know, I don’t really go to the pictures,” she told him.

She was lying through her teeth now. “I’m more of a reader myself.

You know, a literary type.” It wasn’t a lie.

She had once wanted to be a novelist. Before her life had exploded.

Before everything had gone wrong. Because of the man sitting next to her.

“A bluestocking,” he muttered. “Just my luck.” He added, “But if you’re so bookish, why were you so eager to visit the Café Trocadero?”

Nuts. He had her there. It was a Hollywood hot spot, and there was no earthly reason to be interested in visiting if it wasn’t to gawk at movie stars.

She took a hairpin turn, focusing on the road while trying to devise an answer. “Um, well…” He drummed his fingers on the dashboard, and the sound made it hard for her to think. “The band! I heard the music was some of the best in town.”

“I see.” He didn’t seem satisfied with the answer, but she hoped that he wasn’t going to push any further on the subject. “So, you’ve never heard of Flynn Banks then?”

“Is that a beach cove around here or something?” She opened her eyes wide, trying to really sell the precocious innocent act.

A memory of her school composition book, with Mrs. Flynn Banks scrawled across the cover, flashed through her mind.

She’d written so many stories in there. Adventures and romances that featured heroes not unlike the men Flynn portrayed on screen. He had been her greatest muse once.

He buried his face in his hands. “A beach cove.” He raised his head just enough to give her a sternly raised eyebrow. “No, doll, Flynn Banks is not a beach cove. It—he is, in fact, me.”

She came to the first stop sign in what felt like miles.

They’d crested the hill of the Pacific Palisades by now, and the last of the day’s light had turned the horizon a magnificent orange.

With the sky putting on a show before them, they started their descent back toward the water, the magical crossroads where Sunset Boulevard met the Roosevelt Highway.

Livvy gave him a look, smoothing her face to look as unimpressed as possible. “Oh.”