Taken By The Billionaire

1

When she first walked into my office I was pissed off for two reasons. Number one, she shouldn’t have been there in the first place; I’d left specific instructions with Alexandra, my assistant, that nobody, nobody was to disturb me. I had work to do now that casting for the next film was due, thousands of details to manage, and the last thing I wanted during the time I needed to concentrate were pushy, whiny agents trying to get into my face. With my name attached to it the film had the potential to become a huge pie, and of course everyone wanted a slice. Number two, the other reason for my frustration was, that at first glance I thought it was Jenny Clark standing there.

That woman was most definitely
persona-non-
grata
, which is why I was more than a little brusque when I said, “What the hell do you want?”

But a second later, I realized that I mistook that poor woman for Jenny.

The girl did look a lot like Jenny Clark however
. Jenny,
an undeniably talented and attractive pop star who also managed to be one of the most obnoxious, difficult people I’ve ever worked with
. S
o demanding and intractable that years before I broke contract and walked out on producing one of her music videos.

“Who
are
you?” I asked, still none too politely, I was busy as hell but also a little curious.

“I’m Kylie,” the girl replied. She took a tentative step further into my domain. “Kylie Clark,” she added.

What piqued my interest in the girl further was her reaction when I mentioned Jenny’s name. “You’re Jenny Clark’s little sister?” I asked.

“I’m her sister,” Kylie confirmed with a nod of her head and
ice in her tone. She cros
sed her arms as her forehead creased in a frown
. “Or at
least I was;
I hate that bitch for what she’s done to me. She’s not any sister of mine now.
” T
he fire in her eyes cooled
as
Kylie blinked and looked around my office. Her whole demeanor changed in an instant and I figured that she’d remembered whose office she was in,
that she’d clocked
the Oscar an
d been reminded that I was The M
an. Kylie gave a slight shrug of her shoulders and, almost diffident
ly
said, “Which is kinda why I’m here, Mister Taylor.”

My normal reaction to an unexpected visitor, especially when I’d told
Alexandra not to let anyone get past her, would have been to turn the trespasser
around and,
figuratively speaking, kick their
backside out of my office, out of the studio and back onto the s
treets of LA
. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it w
as about her that drew me, something in her looks and the potential for a passionate temperament beneath that ordinary girl first impression maybe? Or did she remind me of a certain Welsh actress?

Either way it didn’t matter too much,
t
he
bad blood
between Kylie and Jenny piqued my curiosity and I wondered what that demanding egomaniac had done to cause such anger in her sister.

Indicating that Kylie should take a seat I masked my thoughts and feelings with a sarcastic façade. “Y
ou don’t get on with Jenny, eh?
”

Kylie shook her head. “I hate her,” she replied, eyes sparking again while the
words dripped with venom. “
She
slept with my fiancé.”

The girl’s brimming eyes tugged at me in such a way that I experienced a strong urge to stand
up
, walk around to the opposite side of the de
sk and take her in my arms. I knew that pain from my time with Marianne, my ex-wife who cheated on me with my production partner. Obviously he’s now no longer a friend, and due to my influence he’s been struggling to find work lately. Not my proudest moment, and I do feel guilty about giving in to such a petty act of revenge, but
a part of me will always believe that he got just what he deserved.

Contempt curdled in my own guts when I thought about how poisonous
Jenny Clark
could be.

The immoral piece of shit. How could she do that to her own sister?

I don’t intend to come across as all holier than though. In my early days in Hollywood, after the Jenny Clark music video debacle, after I hit the big time, which ironically was partly due to the notorious Jenny, I made my fair share of fuck-ups.

At the time
I got rid off Jenny
I’d been twenty-six, and so to publically walk away from the job with her might have been a stupid thing to do,
and
people had been quick to tell me
I was crazy. Maybe it wasn’t the best move I could have made, but at that age I wasn’t
the kind of bloke to sw
allow my own
knob for t
he likes of Jenny-fucking-Clark. I’m still the same nine years on.

I was just making a name
as a dynamic, hard-hitting director
in the business, teetering on the brink of needing a big break to establish myself as a name in the US or I’d be forced to head back to England with my tail between my legs.
At twenty-four
I’d left the London scene behind and followed the dream to LA, to Hollywood, where I h
oped I could carve a
niche
for myself. It had been early days, but
I thrive
d
on
the challenge and hard work,
drive
n to do the best job anyone could
do. I wanted to be the best. It isn’t just work that I apply that ethos to, it’s anything I undertake. At the time it was the financial outlook that appeared so bleak. To be forced to slink home to the UK wouldn’t have sat well with me. I didn’t like the F-word – Failure.

I got a lucky break.
One of the big players heard about the mini-drama (everything in Jenny Clark’s life is a drama), appreciated that I
wasn’t willing to take her shit, said he liked my style
and offered me a percentage contract on a small-scale film. It was a success story of the Danny Boyle kind; low-budget – or no-budget as I like to tell it
now – with unknowns in the cast and some talented but inexperienced crew.
I put every ounce of energy into that film. Blood, sweat, tears, the whole works. The hours the cast and crew put in, and the dedication they showed humbled me in a way that still swells in my throat when I think about those days. The film turned
out to be
a big
hit, launching me and some of the cast into the stratosphere.
T
he Oscar is right there on the shelf behind me.

After that I dived into Hollywood in a big way. I knew I had the looks and the appeal that drew the ladies, and
of course I cultivated a Hugh Grant posh-boy accent to replace the harshness of London’s east end. It’s typical that since then Guy Ritchie’s
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
hit the scene and it suddenly became de
rigeur to talk all cockney.

O
nce I got the money and the power to hire and fire a
t will I found I loved Hollywood
. Before that, when I was broke and almost flat on my arse I’d hated the whole
pretentious scene;
but when the cash
came in and I could indulge myself
I soon, I’m ac
tually embarrassed to say now,
took up a pretty racy lifestyle
.

I’m over the mentalist stage now. It hit m
e right between the eyes when
Stella
walked out. Stella was, still is,
a sublime
ly talented actress, a fellow Brit, a
beautiful, charismatic Welsh lady who had been willing to give herself to me completely
. I’d been behaving like an arse
hole, like I was still in my univers
ity days, drinking and shagging.

The old cliché
d lyrics to
Big Yellow Taxi
are a real choker because they’re so true,
I
didn’t know what I had till it went, and I
still haven’t found
the guts to apologize to Stella. There’s me, who’s meant to be the macho tough guy, afraid of nothing if you believe the gossip in the magazines,
the lady-killer with the legendary cock
and energy of a stallion, and I’m still
ashamed
to look her in the eye when our professional paths cross from time to time.
The best of it is, the irony of it is that she moved on from me quickly and now has a husband and a little girl. She got her shit together while I mooned over her for months and nursed a broken heart that I entirely deserved.
Then the scales of justice balanced properly after I married Marianne and she did the dirty on me.

When the news broke about Marianne cheating, Stella sent me a note, a message so kindly-worded and just so plain fucking caring that it caught me by surprise so much that I sat in my office and cried
proper fat tears
. It was emotional, as they say in Guy’s films, complete with blubbing and bubbles of snot – the whole works.

I’m over Marianne now, and I might even allow her boyfriend back in from the professional wilderness
–
The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget. So I’ll try to be wise for a change.

These days
I’m loving the whole Stateside thing. A huge plus for me personally, living in America, especially California, is the weather. No more drab, dreary days in London where everyone looks gray and worn and it pisses down for months at a time, or so it seems. I love the ocean and watching all the pretty girls in their bikinis playing volleyball on the beach, all tanned and healthy like a scene from a Beach Boys video. For me LA has everything. I can get a decent coffee at 3am if I need one, order a pizza the size of a garbage can lid and have it delivered, and the climat
e here is just made for sweeping along
on a big
motorcycle.

The language fooled me a little at first. Americans speak English? You sure? Not the same English as I do they don’t, but it isn’t too difficult to get a gr
ip on things after a few weeks.

I’ll say arse, the Americans say ass; which always makes me chuckle since to m
e an ass is a donkey, a mule. “
Spank my ass, baby” conjures up a weird image I can tell you.

There were a few comedic moments until I adapted my speech to suit the American ear. “The boot?” the cab driver had asked, looking at me as though I’d molested a nun when I asked, fresh off the
plane into LA
if I should put my suitcase into the boot of his car. “Put it in the fuckin’ trunk,” he said eventually with a roll of his eyes.

And I quickly got out of the habit of saying, “Give us a fag, mate,” when I wanted a cigarette.

Those and a couple of other little quirks aside, give me California over England any day.

And here was Kylie Clark, spitting fire at the mention of her sister’s name. I’d known her for only a few seconds, but already she intrigued me. I saw something on a higher level than just thinking with my cock; I sensed there was something special about this girl. My erstwhile lover, Stella
the Welsh actress sprung to mind.
P
lus Kylie despised Jenny Clark, a huge
bonus point in her favor and so I decided to hear about why she was there in my office.

“Sounds like Jenny,” I replied after Kylie’s revelation about her sister’s duplicity. I leaned back in my chair, with the desk between me and the girl. I spread my arms, saying, “But that doesn’t explain how you got into my office or tell me what you want.”

Kylie fixed me with a stare, a look of such smoldering intensity now that I found myself thinking:
I bet she’s incredible in bed.

“I want a job,” Kylie replied, bringing my carnal mind back to Earth with a jolt.

I leaned forward and placed my elbows on my desk.