Hollywood Prince (Hollywood Royalty 3)

“There,” she says. “Nothing else is going to help this mug.” She laughs, and I get up. We walk out and see that the sun is slowly coming up. We walk toward the trailer, and I see more and more people showing up. When we get back into the trailer, my wardrobe is there for the day.

“Jeans and a plaid shirt,” Erin says. Shrugging off her jacket, she sits at the table and grabs her bag. I grab the clothes and start undressing in front of her. “Hey,” she says loudly, “go change in the bathroom.”

“What’s the matter?” I hold up my hands. “Stop being such a prude.” And I want to take the words back as soon as they come out because from the hurt look on her face, the comment clearly bothers her.

“If a prude means being respectful, then yeah, I’m a prude,” she says, and if she wasn’t stuck here, I think she would actually get up and leave. “I don’t undress in front of you, so can you show me the same respect?”

“Yeah, well, no one really wants to see you naked, so I think we are safe with that.” And again, I’m wondering how much shit can spew out of my mouth in the same breath. It would seem that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She gets up, and I’m about to go to her, but something stops me. She picks up her jacket and purse and then looks at me.

“You’re right. No one probably wants to see me naked,” she says while she puts her jacket back on, “but I, for one, am not interested in seeing you naked, so stop fucking assuming every double-X chromosome is hard-wired to want to see your dick.” She grabs her bag and starts to walk out.

“Erin,” I say, but she doesn’t stop. She just continues to the door. “Come on.”

“No,” she says, turning around. “I’m not going to be your punching bag anymore. You want to lash out, then get one of your whores to do that to. Or do they only get the good side of Carter?” She opens the door and walks down the two steps, and I hear her heels click on the asphalt as she walks away. I put my stuff on and walk back out, grabbing my phone and texting Erin. I wait two seconds and finally look down and see she hasn’t answered me back, so I call her and it goes straight to voice mail. I walk back to the craft table, and she isn’t there. I walk over by Mandy and find her working on someone else. As I turn to walk away, I crash into the girl from before who was with Ivan.

“Sorry,” she says, listening through her headset. “They are ready for you on the set, Mr. Johnson.”

“Um, yeah, sure,” I tell her.

“I’m Jennifer,” she says. “I’m Ivan’s assistant.” I nod at her and turn to follow her. My eyes roam the room, but I don’t see her anywhere. Stepping out the side door, I get into a golf cart while Jennifer gets in behind the wheel. She drives us right past stage two and three, stopping at stage four. “We are going to be here most of the day,” she says, and I get out, going to the door, and send Erin another text.

Me: Can you please answer me?

I wait to see if the three bubbles come up, but they don’t. When I walk into stage four, I see that the warehouse has two sections. One is a living room and the other is the kitchen. “We are filming in the living room first,” Jennifer says, and I walk over to find Ivan sitting in the chair with his name on it, and next to him is the woman who has me all up in knots. The woman who is making me say shit I don’t mean and driving me crazy. The woman who is going to be the death of me.

Chapter Twelve

Erin

When he called me a prude, it got me in the heart. Fine, I wasn’t out there, and yeah, I didn’t just have sex to have sex. And yes, people did call me a prude because I just couldn’t wrap my head around the idea of casual sex. So hearing it from him hit a nerve, a nerve that had me blinking away the tears stinging my eyes. Then he made the cheap shot about no one wanting to see me naked. Fine, I didn’t really have much to show. My hips were really not there, my booty was just starting to grow since I began doing squats, and yes, I only had a B cup.

I wasn’t going to fight back. I wasn’t going to say anything to him. Instead, I was going to get my jacket on and go back to the house. Except in my haste to get the fuck away from him, I realized I didn’t even have the address to the house. I took my phone out of my pocket and saw that it was way too early to call anyone back at the office for the address, and that is when I bumped into Ivan.