Luxe Glamour (The Glamour Series Book 5) (6 page)

I made my way from the backstage area to the table reserved for our family. As I approached the table I noticed that Ellen was missing. Where was she? She was always running late and she was probably rushing from the library right now. 

“Excuse me,” I said to the guy sitting in my seat. I plastered my trademark irresistible smile on my face. “I believe this is my seat.”

This guy was all expensive tailoring and Italian shoes, but he seemed a little old school. I would bet he came from old money and had attended private school. He’d probably been fed his baby porridge with a silver spoon. He was too uptight for my tastes.

“Your seat? Are you kidding? I paid a ton of money for this seat. You’re out of your mind.”

Anger built in my chest. This guy obviously had no idea who
I
was. How could he not know who I was? The entire world was finally discovering my talent and me. He must have been living under a rock for the last six months.

“I hate to sound cliché,” I said. “But do you have any idea who I am?”

“Really? We’re in Hollywood? Who
isn’t
somebody here?”

Good point.

Everyone was someone in Hollywood. Except for this guy. Who the hell did he think he was sitting in my seat and refusing to get his ass up? He was hot, yes. Arrogant, most definitely. My type? Not even a little bit.

“No, sir, really, this
is
my seat. I am Sophia Legend. Daughter of Steve Legend, sister to Amanda, Sterling, and Rhett Legend.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder. “Of course there’s our sister Ellen, too, but she’s just a doctor. No big whoop there. Now, please move. As you can see, this table is reserved for the Legend family.” I pointed to the tiny little reserved markers on the table that also had our family name.

“You’re Sophia? Steve’s daughter?” He flashed me a killer smile. Those teeth were all natural—something you didn’t often see in this town. 

I nodded and smiled. Maybe this good-looking guy, who looked as if he should be yachting with the Kennedys, didn’t live under a rock after all.

“Never heard of you.” He turned his attention back toward the stage. This was entirely unacceptable. I wanted to stomp my foot and make a scene but instead I marched over to the event coordinator, Marnie, who was standing at the far end of the room.

“A very, very rude man has taken my seat and he has refused to move.”

She followed me toward our table at the front of the room. We passed by a bunch of sound guys who were still working on the setup.

“There,” I said and nodded my head toward the blonde-haired, blue-eyed guy who looked like a model for Abercrombie and Fitch.

“That guy?
That
guy is Mr. Warren.”

“Mr.
Rude
is what you should call him. Yes, Mr. Warren, whoever he is. He’s sitting in my spot.”

She turned to me and her jaw fell open as though perhaps I had been dropped on my head. “I’m sorry, I can’t ask Mr. Warren to move.”

“What? Why not? This is the Legend table and
I
am a Legend.”

“I understand that, Miss Legend, honestly I do. But are you aware of who Mr. Warren is?”

“A big jerk is who he is.”

“I don’t think so,” Marnie said. “In fact, due to all his philanthropy he is definitely no jerk.”

“Philanthropy?”

“Mr. Warren has donated half of his net worth to charity.”

“Right, okay, that’s absolutely grand. What are we talking? Like a million, maybe five?”

“Three hundred.”

“Million?” I cocked an eyebrow. “And that’s
half
?”

Marnie nodded.

I pressed my index finger to my lips and decided to change tack. “No worries, then, I’ll take that empty chair.” I gestured to a couple of empty seats on the other side of the table.

Some scruffy guy was sitting over there. He wasn’t bad looking and he actually seemed oddly familiar … hmm? Party circuit? Clubs? I wasn’t sure where I’d seen him before. At least he dressed well, even if he didn’t appear to own a razor. His eyes traveled over me. That feeling was familiar. Everyone stared at me. But this guy? I met his gaze and instead of being embarrassed about ogling me he tilted his head and smiled.

A jolt pulsed through me. I reached for the back of one of the empty chairs and he stood and pulled it out for me. His expression with his cocked eyebrow and crooked smile was somewhere between disdain and amusement. I sat and he pressed in my chair and then returned to his seat.

I leaned toward him. A thrill of excitement tingled through my body and trailed along my skin. “Excuse me, do I know you? You look familiar.”

“Nope.” He leaned back in his seat and lifted a bottle of beer to his lips.

A beer bottle? At this table? At this event? My eyes traveled over him. He was wearing Armani, although the suit was a bit dated, totally classic though. He had great teeth and well-kept hands. My gaze landed on his feet. Boots. Scruffy, well-worn boots. My gaze darted back to his face. I just couldn’t place him. My chest tightened and my breathing shortened—there was something about this guy that caused a thrill to race through my body. My nipples tightened beneath my dress.

“Then, if I don’t know you, why are you smiling at me as though we do know one another?”

“We know a lot of the same people.”

How coy. How droll. How annoying. Incredibly attractive, it was clear that he turned me on. A weird sort of aura hovered around this guy. Was he a no-name hanger-on who was trying to appear as though he were a member of the A list? I came to the conclusion he was just a poseur. I’d come across a few people like him since my career took off.

“And how do we know the same people?”

“We are both—”

He was interrupted by a booming voice. “Oh my fucking goodness, is that Trick Williams?”

Daddy’s voice burst across the room. He was big, he was loud, he was amazingly famous and he didn’t care who he interrupted. “I thought you were fucking dead!”

“I’m just living in Idyllwild, which is probably the same thing.”

Daddy laughed and threw his arms around the guy, embracing him as though he were his long-lost son. Daddy pulled back and held him at arm’s length, his eyes roaming over him from head to toe. “Damn, you’re looking good for a guy who’s held together by metal pins and stitches. It’s good to see you. Shit, man, I thought you were a goner for sure. How the hell is Angie?”

Color drained from the guy’s face but his smile remained. Trick … this guy’s name was Trick Williams? He had to be in the industry, or had been. That would explain the Armani suit, the confidence; it even explained the shit-kicker boots. Stitches and pins? How did Daddy know this guy? He was way too young to be one of his cronies.

“Angie is good. She’s helping me run the foundation. I’ll tell her you asked about her.”

“Tell her? Forget that.” Daddy waved his hand and shook his head. “I’ll see her tomorrow. Heard she’s coming to the big Pawtown event.”

Trick nodded. Daddy sat in the chair between us.
Pawtown
? I took in a long deep breath. So this guy, Trick, was involved with the charity Choo wanted me to be a spokesperson for? Great. Choo had probably sent him to Left Coast’s Gala to try and convince me. I leaned toward Mr. Gazillionaire across the table. He still wasn’t paying any attention to me, but he seemed pretty locked onto Daddy. 

“Doll, did you know you’re sitting beside a living legend? Trick is the only man to get the EGOT before he was twenty-four.”

An Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony all before he was twenty-four? That Trick Williams? I pressed my lips together. Of course his face was familiar—I’d been one of twenty million teenaged girls who had drooled over this heartthrob all through my adolescence. 

Daddy slid his gaze from me and back to Trick. “Trick, have you met my daughter Sophia?”

“Not officially, but we spoke briefly before you arrived. Seems she wasn’t so sure I was telling the truth when I said we knew a lot of the same people.” A slick smile slid over his face and he took a long pull from his beer bottle. This Dog-Man was hot, sexy, and somehow a tiny bit irritating. Maybe because once upon a time he’d been more famous than anyone in the room; he’d been as famous as Daddy was today. He’d had everything and left it all to take care of … dogs? That didn’t make sense to me.

“Mr. Legend?” Mr. Gazillionaire was up and out of his chair and was now standing beside my dad. “Joe Warren,” he said as he held out his hand. “We met in Tahiti. I was wondering if we could discuss that film you had in mind.”

Daddy cocked an eyebrow and shook his head. “Joe, good to see you again. It’ll have to wait until after the concert.”

Joe nodded and turned his head away from Daddy as though he’d been scolded. He went back to his seat. Daddy had that effect on people. When Daddy smiled it was magic, but Daddy’s cold shoulder was like an arctic blast. Poor Mr. Gazillionaire. If he’d been sweeter to me I might have helped him a little just now, but since he’d been a douche he’d get no help from me. Knowing he was suffering, a hint of pleasure burst in my chest.

I glanced at Trick. That damned cocked eyebrow. He’d witnessed my exchange with Joe Warren. I had not been my best self. And Trick knew. Damn. He also knew I was enjoying watching Joe Warren squirm. An uncomfortable feeling uncurled in my belly.

So. What. Let Trick judge. He’d walked away from everything any person could ever want. Fame. Success. Money. He was a damn EGOT and now he worked with … dogs? What kind of stupidity had led him to make that kind of decision?  

Trick

“Man, how long has it been since you’ve seen a sea of glorious pussy like this?” Webber waved his hands out in front of him. “I mean Idyllwild? Who the fuck lives in Idyllwild? What you got out there? Middle-aged hausfraus?”

My gaze traveled over the crowd that had gathered at Webber’s pad after the Left Coast Gala. Young and Hot. The Hollywood gold standard. “There is nothing,
nothing
like Los Angeles pussy.” Webber settled back onto his heels and a giant grin spread over his face. “Am I right?” He jabbed me with his elbow. “Am I right?”

I tilted my beer bottle to my lips. Webber—man, he never changed. Most of his contemporaries had settled down, but he just kept pretending he was still twenty-two, always on the lookout for new, nubile young women. His pad was amazing. High in the hills with a view, a pool, and a magnificent parcel of land. It reminded me of my old place that I sold after the accident, before I left Los Angeles for the hills and the land of “middle-aged hausfraus” as Webber called them. Two women walked toward us, one a brunette with long dark hair and the other a blond. Both spectacular looking and each wearing what could barely pass for a dress.

“This is Layla and this is Pammy.” Webber placed an arm on each girl’s shoulders. Damn, Webber’s assessment was correct. How could I have forgotten? Los Angeles did have the most beautiful women on the planet.

“Do you ladies have any idea who
this
guy is?” Without lifting his arm from Layla’s shoulder he pointed at me. I’d been the subject of this game more times than I could count and the game used to end the same way—at least where girls of a certain age were concerned—me in bed with both Layla and Pammy while they let their pre-pubescent and adolescent fantasies play out. Ah, the good old days.

Pammy squinted and tilted her head to the side. She peered at me as though my face were familiar.

“Oh my God, no way! You’re Tommy, from
Holiday High
,” Layla said. 

Guilty as charged.

“I loved you.” Layla smiled and her eyelashes fluttered.

Yes, yes she did. Or she loved the
idea
of me, or she loved the character I had played, or she loved one or all of the four teeny-bop albums I’d released—each had gone platinum. Or maybe she loved the Broadway musical I’d been in when I was eleven—though I doubted it. From the looks of Layla she hadn’t been in school yet when I was on stage.

“You were all over my bedroom walls.”

“You’re Tommy?” Pammy swooned. Her eyes widened. Pammy obviously was getting through life on her looks because there didn’t seem to be much working between her ears.

“Both of you had teenage fantasies? Right?” Webber turned to Layla and then Pammy. “Right?” He was getting a hard-on just hearing how much Layla and Pammy had loved me when they were barely old enough to know what a sexual fantasy was.

“Loved.” Layla pulled a long strand of her hair between her finger and her thumb. Her eyes widened and her lips pursed, causing her features to slip from abject admiration to lust. This shift was familiar. I’d been the beneficiary of this shift many, many times. Before I left L.A. I’d bagged countless nameless, faceless ladies based on my former teen heartthrob status.

“So,” Layla stepped closer. The fabric of her dress brushed against my arm. “Would you like to hear about my fantasies?”

“I would.” Webber nodded and his eyes flashed from me to Layla. “I’d love to hear about
all
your fantasies.”

A smile broke across my face and I shook my head. Webber had no shame. None. He’d capitalize on any opportunity. He knew what he wanted and he absolutely would get it any way he could.

“
Holiday High
was my favorite show!” Pammy said again, as though her brain was on a three-second delay.

“So
that’s
who you are.” The cool voice behind me was familiar.

“Hey, Sophia.” Webber cocked an eyebrow, but kept his arms around Layla and Pammy.

“Webber, Webber, Webber,” Sophia walked around me and stopped in front of Webber. She looked over Pammy and Layla as if appraising a new piece of furniture. “I see some things never change.”

“What can I say? I’m a man of predictable tastes. I like what I like.” Webber’s gaze bounced past Sophia. “Your dad with you?”

Sophia’s smile remained, but her eyes flashed at the mention of Steve. Of course. If she was anything like Amanda or Sterling, she was desperately trying to become a star in her own right, all the while seeking approval from “the great Steve Legend.”