Page 40 of Mr. Wrong (Hollywood Knights #1)
I’ve been in a coma for two weeks.
Or rather my character, Sage Winters, on Storm Front has been in a coma for two weeks after being disfigured in a brutal rock-climbing accident.
Two weeks in daytime television is like two years in real life.
We all know what it means, even if no one wants to come right out and say it.
“Just man up and tell me what the hell is going on, Jerry,” I demand, tossing tomorrow’s script onto the executive producer’s desk after storming into his office.
A year ago I would’ve been balling in my trailer after being handed a script like this.
Playing Sage Winters, a struggling artist who finds out she’s the long-lost daughter of oil baron, Rhett Winters, and the sole heir to his company and fortune was supposed to be my big break—a steppingstone to better rolls but so far nothing has panned out.
And now they’re getting ready to kill me off.
I can feel it.
“It’s a daytime soap, Dani,” Jerry hedges, eyeing the script I tossed on his desk like it’s about to sprout legs and try to crawl up his ass. “People like the drama.”
“Where’s the drama? I’ve been lying in a hospital bed for the last twelve episodes.”
“You know how it is…” More hedging. “Everyone has to take a turn in the hospital bed. Look at Paige,” he says, referring to one of my co-stars. “She took her turn last year and it landed her an Emmy.”
“Her character was blinded in a boating accident,” I remind him.
“She still had lines to deliver— good lines . Emmy-worthy lines. My character’s jaw is wired shut.
My face is covered in bandages. I haven’t done anything except flutter my eyelashes and twitch my pinky for weeks now.
” I sigh and shake my head. “Just tell me what’s going on, Jer—I’ve been solid since you signed me—I make my call times, even when their last minute. I know my lines. I deliver—”
“It’s the audience, kid.” He cuts in quick like he’s ripping off a Band-Aid. “They just aren’t responding to you the way we’d hoped.”
Hearing him say it—voicing my biggest fear as an actress—sinks me slowly into the chair he offered when I barged in. “What? They don’t like Sage?” I ask, even though I know that’s not what he’s getting at. It’s not my character they don’t like.
It’s me.
“No… fans love Sage,” he confirms as gently as he can. “It’s you. Write-in comments peg you as abrasive .”
Abrasive.
That one stings. Mainly because I know I can be.
I have a tendency to be exactly that. Still, I shake my head.
“No—that can’t be right,” I say, thinking about the dozens of fans that have lined the sidewalk outside the studio gates for the past week, all holding signs that say things like Save Sage and Free Danika.
Someone even started a Twitter campaign to save my character because even they can see the writing on the wall.
“I’ve built a solid fanbase since joining the cast. I know I can be vocal and tend to push back when I think a scene isn’t right for my character but the answer can’t be to just kill her off without even giving me a chance to—” The look he gives me snaps my mouth shut and sucks the air out of my lungs.
“Oh.” The face bandages I’ve been swaddled in for the last two weeks suddenly make sense “You’re not killing off Sage—you’re waiting for my contract to run out so you can replace me. ”
“I’m sorry kid—the decision came down from one of the studio execs last month.” He swipes a hand over his mouth and gives me a helpless shrug. “I just didn’t know how to tell you.”
“ Didn’t know how to tell me ?’” I feel my spine stiffen and my eyes narrow.
“I’m a professional, Jerry. You tell me by—wait.
” I cock my head slightly when my brain catches up with my ears.
“Last month? The decision to replace me was made last month ?” When he doesn’t answer me I slide to the edge of my seat, closing the space between us.
“Was it before or after I found Julia Chase’s husband, naked , in my trailer? ”
Julia Chase is Storm Front ’s queen bee—a B-movie icon who made the jump to daytime television when she married Brent Chase, aging boybander and Mr. Naked himself, nearly a decade ago.
According to her four-page spread in People at the time, the move was made so she could focus on raising their family without having to sacrifice her career but industry chatter says it’s because at thirty-six, she wasn’t getting the movie roles she wanted so she moved on to greener pastures.
When I put two and two together, Jerry looks like he’s about to swallow his own tongue. “Now, Dani just—”
“Let me get this straight…” I lean across the desk and glare. “Julia Chase had me fired because her husband is a disgusting letch and had the audacity to assume that just because I bought one of his CDs when I was eleven, that I’d be over the moon about being given the opportunity to suck his—”
“Did you?” The question comes out hard and fast. We’re done pretending now. We’re done blaming fan comments and contract negotiations. “Because she’s got the studio heads believing that you were the one trying to seduce her husband.”
“Seriously? Make that make sense, Jerry,” I say loudly, even though I know there are people who saw me come in here.
I know there are people standing outside the door with their ears pressed against it, hanging onto every word I say.
“He was in my trailer— naked —when I walked in and as soon as I saw him, I called security.” Even as I say it out loud, I recognize my mistake.
I called security. I made it public. I humiliated him—and her.
Even though she came to me the next day with a tearful, albeit bullshit, explanation for why I found her naked husband in my trailer and she apologized, there’s no way a diva like Julia Chase would let that stand.
There’s no way she wouldn’t do everything in her power to ruin me and my career.
I should’ve seen it coming.
“I’m sorry, Dani.” Jerry gives me a miserable head shake and I can see that he’s telling the truth. He is sorry—whether it’s because I’m being railroaded or because he’s the one who had to break it to me is anyone’s guess. “If there was a way to fix it, I would. You know I would.”
I don’t know that. Like everyone else in this business, Jerry looks out for himself. He agreed to getting rid of me because it was the path of least resistance. The path that saved his job.
“So that’s it.” I give him a firm head nod, feeling the indignity of it swelling in my throat. “Some pill-addled has-been old enough to be my dad whips his dick out and shakes it in my face and because I didn’t understand the rules, I get voted off the island. That’s what’s happening here?”
“Yeah.” Jerry gives me a miserable head nod. “When that has-been is married to Julia Chase, that’s exactly what happens.”
“My contract isn’t up for another month,” I say, shaking my head. “So, I’m just supposed to… what? Lay in a bed and languish until it’s safe for them to fire me?”
Jerry gives me a shrug. “Unless you got a high-priced lawyer up your sleeve or you’re secretly sleeping with Hollywood royalty then yeah—you ride it out and wait for your pink slip.”
“ Sleeping with Hollywood royalty … that’s a good one, Jerry.
” The sad truth is I haven’t slept with anyone, royal or otherwise, in a very long time.
I’ve been so focused on my career, there hasn’t been room for anything else.
Giving him a sigh of my own, I stand. “Can you at least schedule my scenes early so I don’t have to hang around set all day, waiting to flutter my eyelashes every time someone squeezes my hand? ”
“Yeah—I can do that...” He pauses for a beat like he’s in the middle of making a decision.
Mind made up, Jerry sits up in his chair and leans into me, as close as the desk between us will allow.
“Look, kid—call your agent and tell her to start shopping,” he tells me, his voice lowered.
“Once it’s official, Julia’ll start her smear campaign and when that happens…
” He sits back and sighs. “Believe it or not, she’s still got a lot of… friends in this town.”
His message is clear—I can’t beat her. My best hope to keep myself from getting completely blackballed is to secure a contract before the ax falls and I’m out on my ass.
“Thanks, Jerry.” I give him a nod and what I hope passes for a brave smile as I head for the door.