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Jeff rolled his eyes. ‘You and everyone else in this room,’ he scoffed.
Zoe sipped more champagne and felt the amber liquid roll down her throat, hoping it would be an elixir of courage. ‘It’s simple, Jeff. The book comes with me attached as EP, that’s what Hugh and I have agreed, so don’t even think about going over my head. We have a contract even you couldn’t pull apart.’
Jeff was silent. Zoe pushed her chair back and stood up.
‘Think about it and call my office tomorrow if you’re interested, my assistant Paul will patch you through to my cell,’ she said, and made to walk away from the table.
‘Sit down and don’t make a scene,’ he snapped and again, she did as he asked.
Who needs who more? she wondered, as she felt the eyes of passing guests on them and saw waitstaff nervously pacing nearby, ready for the snap of Jeff’s temper.
There was silence, each one holding their cards close to their chest.
‘So you want to make movies, huh?’ Jeff asked finally with a sigh, as though she had just asked for the right to vote. ‘Not many women make it in this business. Do you think you can handle it?’
‘Don’t patronize me because I’m a woman,’ she said politely. ‘I can do any job as well as a man.’
‘I’m not. I don’t care what’s between your legs,’ he laughed. ‘I want to know you can handle the bullshit and the drama when your leading stars hate each other and I’m screaming at you on the phone and the director’s losing the plot and you haven’t slept in a week.’
Zoe smiled. ‘My film wouldn’t be like that,’ she stated.
‘Oh, really?’ Jeff smiled now, and he stared at her for a long time. ‘Why’s that?’
‘Because I would make sure everything was sorted before we got to set,’ she said, knowing she sounded naïve but she believed in thinking ahead, her whole life she had had to be one step ahead of everyone else.
Jeff pulled at the cuffs on his shirt, a glimpse of silver cufflinks caught the light and Zoe’s eye.
‘You can’t always be prepared for what happens while making a movie,’ said Jeff. ‘Life throws curveballs at all of us, even me.’
Zoe felt the room’s eyes on her, the sound of gossip and conjecture about why Zoe and Jeff were talking so intently. She heard laughter and some music, and somewhere a glass smashed but it was Jeff’s eyes boring into hers that steadied her.
‘Why do you want to make this movie, Greene?’ he asked.
‘Because it’s the most beautiful book I’ve ever read,’ she answered truthfully.
Jeff squinted and frowned and then he rolled his eyes and Zoe laughed as she continued.
‘And because it’s box office gold: the man who learns about love only after his wife is declared terminally ill? I mean, what about that isn’t perfect chick-flick fodder?’
‘And the author, do you think he can write a decent script?’
‘Yes, I think he can write a great script,’ she replied, crossing her fingers under the table.
Jeff swilled the Scotch in his glass, drained the last of it, and then cleared his throat.
‘This is the biggest hit in books since fuck knows what,’ he said. ‘I want it to be the best movie Palladium Pictures has ever produced, do you understand? This is the movie people will talk about when I die.’
Zoe nodded, secretly marvelling at Jeff’s ego. Did he come to Hollywood with that intact or did he earn it?
‘I understand,’ she said and then she appealed to his ego. ‘And this is why I’m coming to you,’ she said. ‘I want to learn from you.’
Jeff watched her as she sipped her drink, his eyes narrowed.
‘How old are you?’ he asked rudely, but Zoe didn’t flinch.
‘Thirty-six,’ she said.
‘You’re too old for me.’
Zoe laughed. ‘I don’t want to date you; I want you to teach me. You’re the perfect age to be my wise old teacher,’ she said with a cheeky smile, and she saw a flash of displeasure cross his face.
‘I thought you weren’t into men?’ He smirked, but she swallowed her temper.
‘Oh, I am into men, just not old ones,’ she said. ‘I prefer to leave them to the piranhas with silicone breasts and gold-digging dreams.’
Jeff laughed. ‘God knows there are plenty of those fish in the sea; I even married a few of them.’ Then he looked up at her, his face unreadable. ‘But not many like you, it seems.’
She sensed Jeff’s respect that she could hold her own.
‘Every agent, manager and motherfucker in LA was after this Brit. How the hell did you get him to sign with you, Greene?’
Zoe thought about her trip to London. She remembered the taxi ride to Hugh’s little house and the desolate, drunken state in which she’d found him. She had been shocked. The guy was so self-destructive he made Hemingway seem like a lightweight, but for some reason he had trusted Zoe. She had cleaned him up, brought him back to LA in secret, and rented him a secluded, light-filled house in Malibu where he could write, and dry out. She hadn’t even told Maggie that Hugh was in LA. ‘He trusts me,’ was all she said with a shrug.
Jeff nodded and shook his head. ‘You know I’m gonna try to screw you on the backend deal,’ he said.
‘You can try, but I doubt you’ll succeed,’ she answered, and for a brief moment, she saw respect in his eyes.
‘Come and see me tomorrow. I’ll get my assistant to call yours,’ he said.
‘So we have a deal?’ Zoe asked.
‘No, we don’t have a fucking deal! I asked for a meeting, not to fucking marry you.’
Zoe resisted the urge to punch him in his handsome but arrogant face.
Men like Jeff made her angry. Angry that they had more power than her and angry that she was just as deserving yet was still overlooked because she was a woman.
‘Okay, then you won’t mind if I go and meet with Harvey before you?’ she asked, using one of her last cards.
But what she understood about men like Jeff Beerman was that he hated competition of any kind.
Jeff stared at her, making her feel like she was twelve years old again and under the eyes of the social worker. Judging, assessing, making plans for her that weren’t in her best interest.
A small amount of bile rose in her throat but she swallowed it down with a sip of champagne.
‘Jesus, you’re a bitch, Greene,’ he muttered under his breath.
‘Why?’ she challenged, the heat rising in her cheeks. She couldn’t tell if it was him or the champagne that was making her flushed. ‘Because I want what I want? You get to be ambitious but I’m a bitch? I’m disappointed in you, Jeff. I thought you were better than that.’
Actually, this was a lie. Jeff could be a misogynistic prick, whose three ex-wives would all testify to the fact, but Zoe wanted to give him a chance to dig himself out of his gender-biased grave.
To his credit, Jeff took a moment and then looked Zoe in the eye. ‘You’re right, that was unfair. You’re not a bitch; you’re just a pain in the arse.’
Zoe laughed a little, despite herself. ‘You have no idea how big a pain in the arse I can be.’
Jeff put his hand out over the table. ‘You’ve got a deal,’ he said. ‘Bring yourself to my office tomorrow to discuss the terms.’
Zoe took his hand in hers, feeling the smooth skin of a man who worked behind a desk all day.
‘Thank you, Jeff, you won’t regret it. This movie is going be a huge hit.’
‘It fucking better be. If it’s not, I’m gonna blame it all on you and you’ll never eat lunch in this town again.’
Zoe smiled. ‘That’s okay, I don’t eat lunch anyway,’ she said, and without a backwards glance, she walked out of the room that everyone wanted to be inside.
Outside, in the crisp midnight air, she handed the valet parking attendant the ticket for her Jaguar and shivered, not from the cold, but from the feeling that there was something exciting in the air.
She laughed as she got into the car and she thought about Jeff saying she was too old for him. The last thing she wanted was to be the next Mrs Beerman. She wanted something bigger than that: she wanted to be the next Jeff Beerman.
After nearly twenty years in Hollywood, Zoe Greene had finally got the break she needed, and she wasn’t going to let anything stand in her way.
Chapter 2 (#ue3922b53-1c39-52b3-a21e-b444c5ff5ebd)
Maggie Hall was careful not to trip over the train of Penelope Cruz’s enormous silver ball gown as she manoeuvred through the room to gain a better view of Zoe’s conversation with Jeff Beerman.
The room was buzzing with celebrities catching up, waitstaff trying to keep up with the request for drinks and power brokers shaking hands and comparing egos.
The finest haute couture was being worn by the beautiful as if they deserved nothing less: clothes that hadn’t been worn by anyone else in the world yet but would dictate fashion pages for the next year. Trends were being started, careers were being launched, and deals were being made in every corner of the room.
Arrangements about management, pacts around casting, transactions in marriages and compromises with lovers. It was a cacophony of perfume and ambitions, the perfect night, thought Maggie as she watched a starlet make a play for Brad Pitt and Angelina smile as though indulging one of her youngest children.
Maggie was a people watcher, which was part of what made her a brilliant actress, but she wasn’t trying to play either Jeff or Zoe in a new role. She knew there was something going down, and—given Zoe was both her best friend and her manager—automatically assumed it had something to do with her.
But Zoe had already left the table by the time Maggie got a decent view and she was left talking to Gwyneth Paltrow about colon cleanses.
Damn you, Zoe, she thought, at least tell me which project Jeff wants me for so I can prepare.
Did she need to lose weight or gain it? Change her hair colour from blonde to brunette? Change her body shape with four-hour-a-day workouts?
Transforming herself came naturally to Maggie—she’d being doing it for nearly thirty-seven years. It was being herself she sometimes had trouble with, she thought wryly.
Gwyneth Paltrow had been joined by Willow Carruthers, and the two were now talking about London’s best colonic clinics.
God help me, Maggie thought when she heard her name.
‘Maggie?’ She turned and found herself face-to-face with her ex, Australian actor, Will MacIntyre and his Spanish girlfriend, Stella. Stella glared at Maggie as though she were the worst person in the world, which, to Stella, she probably was.
‘Thank you, I was about to have to make colonic conversation with Goop about her poop,’ she mock whispered and smiled at him brightly. On paper they had been the perfect couple, but things had never been so easy behind closed doors.
‘I like colonics,’ said Stella. ‘They help me lose pounds and pounds.’
Maggie thought about making a comment regarding what Stella was filled with, but left it alone. She didn’t need a scene, not with her mind on Zoe and Jeff’s meeting.
‘You look beautiful,’ Will said, his eyes scanning Maggie in her lilac strapless gown. Stella’s face fell at Will’s words, and for a moment Maggie felt bad for her. Stella would be in the colon clinic tomorrow, trying to rid herself of the ‘pound and pounds’, when in stead she’d be better off just dumping Will, who really was a big shit.
Stella was sexy, a tumble of dark hair, breasts and curves, but Maggie was tall and willowy, and often described as a classic beauty. Tonight her blond hair was drawn into a sleek chignon, accentuating her high cheekbones and piercing blue eyes. And though her Nordic looks afforded her an enviable elegance, Maggie knew it was her trademark smile, the one that warmed her face and lit up a room, that earned her at least fifteen million dollars a movie, plus a cut of the backend. Zoe once famously said that when Maggie Hall smiled, a person would buy whatever she was selling, rob a bank or commit a murder just to keep the light in the room.
Maggie ignored Will’s compliment, not because it wasn’t pleasant but because she knew he’d only said it to annoy Stella, who was now glaring at Maggie as though she was putting a curse on her.
‘How’s Elliot?’ She asked after Will’s son. ‘He hasn’t returned any of my calls.’
Will shrugged. ‘Still in his room, playing video games.’
‘He’s too old for games,’ said Stella impatiently as though Maggie had addressed her. ‘He’s twenty-three, he needs to be out in ze world.’
Maggie shot her a look that made Stella toss her head but turn away from Maggie’s dislike.
Yes, Elliot needed to get back out into the world but the kid did have a reason to stay inside for a while, she thought tenderly. She may not have birthed Elliot but she loved him like her own child.
‘It’s been six months since the transplant. Haven’t the doctors said he can go back to college?’ she asked.
‘He doesn’t want to,’ said Will, looking exhausted just talking about it. ‘He doesn’t want to do anything.’
She and Will had only been divorced for eighteen months, and while Maggie was still single, Will had wasted no time in finding a replacement. Someone younger, someone who would no doubt give him the child they had fought about throughout their eight-year marriage.
‘We have Elliot,’ she had argued at the time. ‘He needs us, and we can’t bring a child into this home when he’s so sick.’
Her argument had contained a thread of truth, but what she had never said was that she just didn’t feel ready to have a child with Will. She thought her body would tell her that the time was right to be pregnant but it never did and when Elliot’s congenital heart condition had worsened, the idea was parked permanently.
But she couldn’t stay in a loveless marriage, not even for Elliot. Eventually she realized she didn’t love Will, and Elliot wasn’t enough of a reason to stay.
She had tried to stay in Elliot’s life—she was the closest thing to a mother that he had and she knew he wanted to see her—but Will’s anger at her leaving him made it difficult.
‘Do you want me to talk to him about it?’ she asked now. ‘He won’t return my calls but I can come over and I can stage a care-frontation.’
Stella rolled her eyes, and Maggie only just resisted the urge to slap her.
‘I see Zoe’s been doing the deal with Jeff,’ said Will, obviously trying to change the subject and taking a large sip of his wine.
The Vanity Fair photographers were circling, looking for a good candid photo of the past couple and the new girlfriend. Maggie took care to smile, radiantly, as she asked casually, ‘What deal is that?’
But before Will could answer, Arden Walker swept into the circle.
‘Hello, darlings,’ she said, but Maggie noticed she only kissed Will, touching his face in a way Maggie knew made him uncomfortable—she could see it in the way his eyes blinked too many times and his jaw tensed.
Poor Will, she thought, Arden Walker would never take no for an answer; she had ambition and charisma in spades, something that poor Stella didn’t have.
Arden worked her charisma the way Stella worked her body, and right now she was clinging to Will’s side like a lemur.
