Chapter Twenty-Five
As Isobel entered LA the overhead boards came and went in a blur of green. She concentrated on the road, looking for any sign of Hollywood. The directions she had printed out were now redundant and she cursed Ryan for his thoughtlessness, and herself for not taking the appallingly expensive sat-nav option that the rental company had been determined to sell her. He had called telling her to go straight to the W Hotel in Westwood and to wait for him, mentioning an engagement with a studio director—even though it was Saturday. “There are no weekends in the film business,” he had told her. “You gotta grab every opportunity you can, or someone else will.”
Feeling as if she had covered every mile of freeway in Los Angeles, she arrived at the hotel and found him alone in the empty bar sipping a cocktail, his eyes locked on his laptop.
“Am I disturbing anything?” she called out.
“Isobel, baby, you made it.” He sprung up, kissing her theatrically as she dropped her suitcase to embrace him.
“I didn’t think anyone in LA worked on a Saturday,” she said.
“Don’t you believe it. In this town you never stop working. Everything go okay on the drive up?”
“Your directions were perfect,” she said. “Just as well there’s only one W in Westwood.”
“Sorry about that.” He grinned apologetically. “But anyway, it’s great to see you.”
“Great to be here,” she said, more out of relief to be out of the smog and the traffic than genuine enthusiasm.
He put his hand behind her head and kissed her again. “You look stunning, it’s going to be an ace weekend.”
“Thanks, but I feel like I’ve been wrung through a mangle. That traffic is something else.”
“Nothing compared to the rush hour.”
“I should be grateful, then.”
He put his hand on her arm. “I’m sorry for the last-minute change, it’s just that something came up and it took longer than I thought. But it’s all good. And you’re here now, that’s all that matters.”
He guided her back to where he had been sitting. “What can I get you?”
“Actually, Ryan, I wouldn’t mind a freshening up.”
“I booked us a special suite. They’re still making it up.” He looked at his watch. “It should be ready in about ten.”
She took the seat he proffered, and he set about putting away his laptop and papers. “So this meeting you had, why couldn’t it wait, I thought you said you had all the backing you need?”
“Getting the financials sorted is the beginning of this project, the platform.”
She rubbed his arm, touched by his boyish enthusiasm, her frustrations from the journey dissipating with his words. “I’m pleased for you, Ryan, you deserve it. And you did the right thing to take the meeting.”
“And it gets better,” he said. “The people I met today have an actress for the lead role in mind. She’s on contract with them, so they’re sure they can deliver. They won’t tell me who she is, but she’s real BO, and she won’t cost a fortune because she’s read the screenplay and loves it. I can’t tell you how important that is, even to professionals. The first question anyone asks is, ‘Who’s in it?’ ”
“So there goes my big break. I always wanted to be in films.”
“I guessed you must have a motive, a classy broad like you hanging out with a loser like me.”
“I’m not a ‘broad,’ and you’re not a loser!” She caressed the back of his hands. “You’re talented and you’ve earned this opportunity.” She took his hands in hers. “Just treat me right, and everything else will be okay.”
The W turned out to be an ultra-modern place staffed by bronzed receptionists with luminous teeth who really did look and sound like they were filling in between movies. He told her that at night the hotel bar, the Whiskey Blue Lounge, turned into the latest watering hole for the Hollywood in-crowd. “It’s a great spot. Maybe not The Pink Palace, but top end.”
He took her out into the garden and to the pool bar, already starting to buzz with the sundown crowd. “I guess the room will be ready now. You want to stay and people watch, or go up?”
“Up sounds good.”
As she stepped into the elevator wall-to-wall images of herself flashed up, and the message, “You’re looking great!”
“How does that work?”
“That’s nothing,” he said. “Wait till you see the mirrors over the bed.”
He let her enter the room first. The bedcovers had been pulled back and the sheet sprinkled with red rose petals. The bellboy put down their two bags and she noticed Ryan slip him a twenty-dollar bill.
“Like it?” he asked.
“You didn’t need to go to all this trouble.”
“No trouble, babe. But I lied about the mirror over the bed.”
She squeezed his hand. “We don’t need one.”
Condensation dripped down a bottle of champagne waiting on ice, next to it a bowl of strawberries and an oversized greetings card that read, “Welcome to Tinsel Town.” She kicked off her shoes and picked up the card. “I didn’t know you had this much romance in you.”
“I do listen sometimes, you know. But to be honest they make it pretty easy here—you just hit the button marked “Concierge”, ask for the love room service, and presto, stuff appears.” He grabbed the champagne. “But we’re here to celebrate, and this ice is melting faster than I am.”
“Have you been rehearsing that one?”
“You bet. There’s a website you can go to for cheesy one-liners. How else do you think movie scripts get written?” He popped the cork and filled two flutes. “To the beautiful Isobel,” he said, clinking his against hers. “May all your dreams come true.”
“That’s not fair—I’m here to celebrate your success, remember?”
“Having you here is more important than all that.”
She took the flute from him and unbuttoned his shirt.
“You want to start in the shower?” he asked.
“You can soap me down later, when I’m all sticky from the champagne you’re going to lick off me.”
“At eighty dollars a bottle?”
“It’s not like I’m asking you to waste it,” she said, pulling his shirt off him.
She left him to take off the rest of his clothes as she slipped out of her own, until they stood naked before each other. He lifted her up in his arms and laid her out on the bed. He scooped a handful of petals from the bowl next the bed and scattered them over her. He lay down beside her and ran his hand down her body from the neck, bringing it to rest between her legs. “I’m not sure we’ll need that champagne,” he said. He rose up above her and she could see that he was ready to take her. He fixed his eyes on hers. “I love you, Isobel.”
She pulled his head down and kissed him, stroking his cheek. “But will you still love me in the morning?”
A wardrobe with three full length mirrors ran alongside one wall and it aroused her to see their own reflection, like watching a scene in a movie yet feeling all the physical sensations of sex. He caught her eye in the mirror. “You wanna watch?” he asked.
“Do you?”
“Well, I guess the mirrors must be there for a reason.” He repositioned her across the bed and stuffed one pillow under her backside and another beneath her head. He lifted her legs high in a v-shape in a way that she could watch the reflection of his thrusting into her. Her body tensed and tingled with the pleasure of it but after a while he stopped his thrusting and, still inside her, caressed her with his fingers in the way that she had taught him that pleased her, and brought her to climax that way, immediately finishing his own journey in a heated rush, his groans of ecstasy adding to her satisfaction. They had never before been so close to simultaneous orgasms, and as Isobel lay there studying him, his breathing slow and rhythmical, she began to wonder, as she had in earlier times, whether she could indeed come to love him.
They had fallen asleep entwined together and Isobel woke first. Light still shone in through the curtains, and Ryan had buried his head under a pillow. She checked her phone to find an instant message from Lance saying “Stumbled across this and thought of you.” She clicked on the embedded link and a British pop video burst onto the screen. She immediately hit the pause button. She glanced at Ryan and let out a sigh of relief, thankful that he had not stirred. Her finger hovered over the ‘save’ and ‘delete’ icons. She hesitated, then jabbed “delete.”
She went to the bathroom, taking the lingerie she had bought earlier with her, and showered, returning to the bedroom in gleaming white silk and lace, like a bride on her wedding night who had discarded her dress. He still had not woken, and she sat at the dresser arranging her hair above her ears, humming to herself.
“How long have I been asleep?" he asked, catching her by surprise.
“Not long, it’s still early.”
“How early,” he said, rising from the pillow.
“Ten past seven.”
“Shit. You should’ve woken me.”
“We don’t need to do anything special, we can stay in tonight,” she said, turning on her stool to face him and provocatively spreading her thighs.
“We’re expected at a party tonight.”
She stood up, statuesque, the length of her long legs exaggerated by the stockings and the bodice cut high at her hips. She twirled around to display herself. “We can party in here.” She went to the bed and kneeled beside him, her hand ferreting under the covers till she found him between his legs. “I don’t mind. I’ve come to see you, not LA.”
He pulled up her hand and kissed it.
“Hey, babe, I’m not a machine, you want to kill me?” he said, laughing.
“It could be a good way to go,” she replied, squeezing him gently.
“I’ve asked you here because I want to treat you, not hide away in a hotel room.” She kissed his neck and shoulders but he cupped her chin in his palm. “And I want to show you off, prove to the doubters that you do exist, this mysterious English princess I’ve been bragging about.”
“Have you told these doubters I’m older than you?”
“Baby, you’re a knockout. You could be a model if you wanted to be. And seven years isn’t older.”
“But fifteen years older than the last girl you were with?”
He kissed her forehead and pushed himself off the bed. “Age is just a number, babe, we’re all getting older at exactly the same rate. Now just give me five to shower,” and with that he disappeared into the bathroom.
She moved to follow him and join him in the shower but sensed from his briskness she would only irritate him. So she settled for unpacking her bag and set about getting ready for dinner. She had brought her favourite black dress with her, one she had not worn for him. She paired it with a pearl necklace and arranged her hair high above her ears. He emerged from the bathroom naked rubbing a towel to his head.
“Jesus,” he said, “who let Audrey Hepburn in here? We’re not going to the Oscars!”
“You don’t like it?”
“Like it? I love it, but smart casual would have been fine.”
“Ladies do not do ‘smart casual’,” she said severely, exaggerating her accent with a playfulness that hid her disappointment, “and I wanted to look my best, this will be the first time I’ve met any of your friends.”
He said nothing and returned to rubbing his hair.
“I’ll change if you think it’s too formal…”
“No, black is always good, even works at funerals.”
“Talking of black, I bought you something.”
She made a show of rooting inside her bag, and pulled out a T- shirt, displaying it against her chest. She laughed as he took in the logo— “My Pen Is Huge.”
“Very funny,” he said, taking it and holding it against him. “At least you got it right in terms of size.”
“I looked everywhere for a message to suit a writer,” she said, before delving into the bag again and bringing out a gift-wrapped box. “This is your real present. And don’t worry, it’s not what you’re thinking.”
He unwrapped the box and took out the cufflinks, taking time to study the certificate of authenticity. “Hey, this is too much. And now you’ve made me feel bad for not buying you something.”
“You booked the hotel and everything.”
She handed him the shirt. “And I thought I’d better get you something to wear them with, just in case you don’t have a shirt with a collar and cuffs.”
“Hey, babe,” he said, before kissing her again.
“You like it?”
He nodded. “Black Armani, so very LA.”
“Are you going to try it on?”
“I’ll save it for later. We need to be over on Sunset Strip by eight or the waiter will give our table away to the first hood who slips him a hundred bucks.”
“I’m almost ready,” she said, looking away. “Just give me three minutes.”
When she came back into the bedroom she had changed from the black dress into a short red leather jacket and the black slacks in which she had travelled up. She had discarded the pearls and had let her hair back down onto her shoulders. She had opted for flat shoes because, in her stocking feet, they were the same height, and she did not want him to be conscious of being shorter. He had, after all, put on the black shirt and wore it loose over white jeans and she smiled, knowing that he had made the effort to please her.
He pulled a brown envelope, crumpled at the edges, from his pocket and handed it to her. “I’ve been carrying this around for a while, but thought I’d wait to give it to you.”
She peered inside to see a wad of dollar bills.
“The three grand I owe you.”
“I didn’t come up for this,” she said, but nevertheless relieved that he had been true to his word on repayment. “You haven’t robbed a bank, have you?”
He laughed. “No, just a bonus payment from Victor. Nightclubs are a cash business. He likes to pay this way. It saves bank charges.”
And tax payments, thought Isobel, feeling uncomfortable to be handling so much cash. “Just give me a minute to work out the safe, I can’t walk around with all this in my purse.”
She secured the money and he offered his arm. “Miss Roberts, our carriage awaits.”
She locked her arm in his. “I’ll trust that it’s not your new silver machine?”
“In this shirt? No way, babe, tonight we’re going in style.”