Hollywood on Tap (20 page)

The next morning, Sean blinked against the bright florescent light, bringing his hospital room into focus. White walls. White sheets. White bandages covering his left biceps. The doctors had insisted on keeping him overnight to monitor him because of the probable concussion he’d suffered.

Someone cleared their throat.

He smiled. He’d been waiting for Natalie to show up.

He turned his head. A man stood on the opposite side of the room in a God–awful tiger T–shirt and six–hundred–dollar jeans. He looked familiar.

“Who—” Sean started, then the first hint of Old Spice hit him. “Get the fuck out.”

Hartley Duvin smiled through clenched teeth. “Now is that any way to great your father and manager?”

Instead of the looming, larger–than–life man of horrible rages, his father appeared to be just another average Joe. Thin. Balding. More than a little worn around the edges, but an underlying edge of cruelty remained.

Sean’s past rushed over him in a tidal wave of anger and frustration. It overwhelmed the dull ache in his injured arm and the throbbing making his vision blurry. “You have no right to call yourself my father.”

“You know how I feel about ugly talk, Sean,” his old man growled, as if he still had the power to force Sean into submission. He’d lost that ability the day Sean’s grandmother had died, and the old man didn’t have anything to hold over his son’s head anymore. “There’s an entire media circus set up outside the hospital doors waiting to hear what it’s like to finally see my long–lost son, who just happened to foil a criminal plot. Just like in one of your films. I fully expect a spike in demand for your old movies and memorabilia. Of course, I’ll get me a cut of the profits, since I was your manager at the time of their release.”

Sean sank back against the thin hospital pillow. It made sense. He had never been anything but a breathing paycheck to his father. A means to his own little slice of celebrity. “Crowley told you where I was?”

The tabloid reporter and his father were like two peas in a pod when it came to exploitation.

“Yes, we’ve become friends over the years. He called me two days ago, and I came all the way across the country to this godforsaken town as soon as I could.”

Sean didn’t doubt his dad would travel the world three times over if the payday was right. “What will it take to get you to leave?”

“You on the plane right next to me, with everything timed for our arrival at L.A.X. for full paparazzi effect.”

Sean rolled his eyes. “That’s not happening. Ever.”

His dad responded without hesitating. “It will or else that small–town girl of yours will find herself paying for your stubbornness.”

Sean sat up so fast his head felt as if were going to roll off his neck. “What did you do?”

“Nothing really. Not yet anyway.” That old mean–as–sin glint that had always made Sean’s blood run cold sparkled in his father’s eyes. “Of course, I did break it to her that you were made for bigger things than just some penny–ante brewery. I already have several scripts for you to take a look at.”

Sean’s vision blackened with anger. He was up and out of the hospital bed in a heartbeat. Grabbing his father by the collar, he pulled him close and saw something he never had before.

Fear in his father’s eyes.

“You don’t touch Natalie, the brewery, or anyone in this town. You do and I’ll hunt you down like a dog. The authorities will never find what’s left of you after I get done.”

His old man squirmed in his grasp, but he wasn’t going anywhere. “Is that how you learned to treat your betters in this shithole little town?”

Sean slammed his father against the wall, grabbing his throat and lifting until the old man’s toes barely touched the floor. He leaned in close, not wanting his father to miss a single fucking word of what he was going to say. “I learned a helluva lot more here in Salvation than I ever did from you. I learned how to treat people. I learned that not everyone is just in it for themselves. I learned how to be a man.”

“That’s fucking touching.” Hartley spit out the words as the tips of his toes tapped the floor, no doubt looking for a high spot to relieve the pressure on his neck. “I might cry.”

Something inside Sean snapped. All the rage he’d built up over a lifetime exploded to the surface and he pressed his hand against the old man’s Adam’s apple. A little extra pressure—one solid push—and the bones would snap. His father’s eyes bulged and his face turned red.

Power. Control. Fury. They ran through Sean’s blood like a runaway train and he relished the frightened look in his father’s watering eyes. It would be easy to end it all here. Like this.

He increased the pressure just enough so his father danced on the edge of life and death. How many times had their roles been reversed and his father had him pinned to a wall, wondering if this was it? Too many to count.

Unbridled hatred. That was the lesson his father had passed down to his son, and it wasn’t until this moment that Sean realized he’d learned it so well.

“Salvation taught me a lot, but it was Natalie that showed me the most important thing of all—the kind of person I want to be. And that person is not you.” He let go. His father dropped to the ground, sputtering, sucking in great lungsful of air. “Get the fuck out of here and don’t ever come back.”

Like cowards everywhere, his father wilted when confronted. He scurried to the door and paused. “You’ll regret this.”

“No. I won’t.” Sean sat back down on the bed, but didn’t relax until the door swished shut.

And to think he’d been running for years from that sad parody of a father. What a fucking waste of time and energy. Time to start putting all that to better use. He picked up the phone and called the brewery. He needed to talk to Natalie, and knowing her, she was five points into a thirty–point plan for cleaning up the mess from last night.

“Sweet Salvation Brewery,” Hailey’s cheerful voice chirped.

“Hi, Hailey, it’s Sean. Is Natalie there?”

An awkward silence fell. “Sorry, she’s not available. Can I take a message?”

Fuck. Whatever his father had really told Natalie must have been horrible. “What’s going on, Hailey?”

“Don’t put me in this spot,” she pleaded.

“Please.” A single word more powerful than just about any other he knew.

“She said not to put any of your calls through. I’m sorry.” The dial tone sounded in his ear.

He’d had a lifetime to build up his defenses when it came to the mind games his father played. But Natalie hadn’t. The old man had probably homed in on every perceived weakness and pushed as hard as he could in a short span of time.

What did Natalie always say, find a problem, fix a problem? Well he had one hell of a problem and he was going to do whatever it took to fix it.

Sean closed his eyes. Ignoring the pain racking his body, he did the one thing he’d never done before. He reached for the phone and called the man who’d led his father to him. Rupert Crowley owed him one—and he was going to deliver.

“Hello?” Crowley answered.

“You called my father.”

The reporter hemmed and hawed for a second. “Reunion stories are killer for the ratings. Come on, you’re in the business. You know this.”

The one benefit of being raised by a master manipulator was knowing how to focus right in on what made people tick. When it came to Crowley, that was easy. “What would an exclusive interview with me do for your ratings?”

Chapter Fifteen

A jittery sensation Sean hadn’t felt since before he’d stepped onstage to accept his Oscar buzzed through his body, leaving him anxious and unfocused.

“You ready?” Rupert adjusted his camera for the thousandth time. “We go live in a minute. No second takes on this one.”

“I’m good.” Sean stood on his mark and closed his eyes.

It was an old trick his first acting teacher had taught him: To center himself prior to a take, an actor closed his eyes and pictured the calmest place he could think of and then added in the other sensory details—the smell, sounds, taste, and feeling of it.

He didn’t know what others pictured; maybe it was a beach or field of flowers or some crazy shit. Sean had always pictured the stage of whatever set he was on. He may not have ever had a choice in being a child actor, but being on the set under the bright lights was the only place his father couldn’t get to him with a careless backhand or a vicious remark. It was his safe place.

With a deep exhale, he cleared away the darkness behind his eyelids and revealed an empty stage. On the next heartbeat he added the director, the camera operators and the sound guy. He inhaled the fresh–paint scent of newly finished sets, felt the heat from the Klieg lights and heard the muffled footsteps of the extras waiting on the edge of the soundstage. Everything was in place, but it remained ephemeral and hazy, like a half–remembered dream.

Sweat dampened his palms and a jittery breath broke the mental image into a hundred pieces. Once again he stood alone in his mind’s eye. He couldn’t fall to stage fright. Not now. There wasn’t going to be a second take, he had to get it right the first time. Everything depended on it. Fisting his hands, Sean tried again.

But instead of a stage, he stood in the Sweet Salvation Brewery. Billy, Hailey, Miranda, and all the others were on the edges of his vision, but it was Natalie who stood next to him, with her clipboard and her sweater with all those tiny buttons. He inhaled her honeysuckle scent, felt the softness of her creamy skin and heard the way she called his name in the throes of passion.

Immediately, his nerves faded in comparison to Natalie’s high–definition image.

After a final look at the woman who’d become his everything, Sean opened his eyes.

The camera light blinked on.

Safe in her pristine white office at the Sweet Salvation Brewery, Natalie ran her fingers across the smooth pearls around her neck. For years she’d restored a sense of calm by tracing the round orbs, but today was the first time since she put it on years ago that she felt for the gold clasp. Pinching her fingers together, she grasped it and popped it open. The necklace slid from her neck and clattered to the desk.

She held her breath, waiting for the beginnings of an anxiety attack—the static in her brain, the tightening in her lungs and the blurring in her vision.

It never came.

The horrible ache in her heart remained, but the pearl necklace couldn’t do a damn thing to repair that. She didn’t have a flowchart or an organizational system to fix it either. And for once, she was okay with that. She’d finally taken Max’s advice and made change her bitch. Mostly.

Her office door slammed open and Miranda tore across the room, skidding to a stop next to Natalie’s chair. “Go to
Hollywood and Vine Reports
.”

“Why should I?” She swept her necklace into her top drawer, not ready to discuss the change yet, not even with her sister.

Miranda shot her an epic–level side eye. “They’re going to be live–streaming it, and it’s live on three of the cable news networks too.” She grabbed Natalie’s keyboard. “Here, let me.”

Sean appeared on the computer screen in a close–up shot and her pulse kicked up to heavy cardio levels. He’d shaved his beard, revealing a square jaw with a dimpled chin, and he’d ditched his Sweet Salvation Brewery hat. His wavy hair was artfully tousled and his leather jacket emphasized the dangerous edge to his rugged good looks.

There was no denying who he was now. Sean O’Dell was gone.

And she was glad. Really. Fucking. Glad.

She ripped her gaze away from the screen and bit down on her quivering bottom lip. Her throat tightened with emotion that threatened to spill over and she blinked rapidly. “I really don’t want to see him—”

“It’s about to start. Why isn’t your sound working?” Miranda grabbed the mouse and clicked several times until she got the volume where she wanted it.

“So Sean, what happened?” Rupert asked.

Sean looked directly into the camera, but it was as if he were looking right at Natalie. She couldn’t stop the quaking in her shoulders as the tears came down.

“I’ve spent most of my life pretending to be someone else,” Sean said. “In the beginning it was pretending to be the perfect son to avoid my father’s fists. I got good enough at faking it that people started to pay me to be someone else. I liked it. It was easier than figuring out who I was. But all of it caught up with me and I realized on that stage, with that gold statue in my hand, that I’d been pretending for so long, I had no idea what was real.”

“So you disappeared,” Rupert said from off screen. “Your father was your manager, but even he didn’t know where you went.”

“No.”

“I see.” Rupert paused for dramatic effect. “Doesn’t seem like there’s much love lost.”

Sean just gave him the patented shut–up–and–you’ll–live–keep–talking–and–you–die dirty look. Natalie clasped her hands together in her lap to keep from reaching through her computer screen to smack the obnoxious reporter upside the head.

Rupert cleared his throat. “You’ve done a lot to avoid the press, your family, and anyone tied to the entertainment industry. Why agree to this interview now?”