Broken Glamour Read online

  BROKEN GLAMOUR

  Maggie Marr

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  About This Series

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Maggie Marr

  An Excerpt from One Night for Love

  This book is for my B-Town besties

  Barbie H.

  Carrie J.

  Debbie H.

  Kimmy H.

  Kimmy P.

  Leslie F.

  Mary Ann C.

  Molly B.

  Molly M.

  Peggy N.

  Wendy L.

  All my love, forever and for always.

  xoBuffy

  Chapter 1

  Amanda

  “Steven, make them stop!” Kiley Kepner, my father’s soon-to-be fourth wife wailed. A news helicopter hovered above Daddy’s Malibu home obviously hoping to get shots of the nuptials that were about to take place. My dad, Steve Legend, was the second biggest action star in the world and therefore having a helicopter show up at the wedding was not unexpected. Not to me, anyway. I’d attended his two previous wedding ceremonies—both within the last seven years—and it had been the same story.

  Daddy looked pissed. Fatigue darkened the skin under his eyes and lines pierced the edges of his pursed lips. He crossed his arms with a very “make-my-day” kind of attitude, and nodded toward the copter hovering in the sky. “Those sons a bitches,” he said. If he’d had a rocket launcher, I’m pretty sure he would have used it.

  “Security is handling it,” Sterling announced, “but it may be an hour.” My older brother stood to the left of our father, a look of frustration on his face. He tugged at his left cuff. The muscle in Sterling’s cheek pulsed. He had the strong Legend chin with a devil’s cleft in the center and he could have easily passed for an action star himself. His black hair brushed the collar of his crisp white shirt. He looked up at the giant helicopter in the cloudless blue sky then looked over to me. His body language indicated that, along with the hassles of the new chopper, he, too, found our soon-to-be-step-monster an insufferable bitch. The same bitch who had first hit on Sterling himself and who, when her attentions were denied, then pursued daddy-dearest.

  A gust of wind from the chopper blades blasted toward us. I clamped my hand onto my elaborate updo. My father glared at the sky, ignoring the pleas of his soon-to-be wife, and left to enter the house through the French doors. Annoyed at having had no direct response from my father, Kiley stomped toward the stairs, her gown billowing behind her.

  “Oh, Amanda, this is not a very happy wedding day. So far,” Lane Channing, my BFF, commented. That was a bit of an understatement since she’d also endured the long process of helping the bride get ready for the blessed event.

  “No,” I said. “Not very happy at all.”

  I wanted to add that Kiley was a selfish, horrible bitch and she didn’t deserve a wedding day that was picture perfect—in fact, she didn’t deserve a wedding day at all. But I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth, even though they were true and Lane would have agreed with me. I had been too well trained by my mother and my father. I’d spent my childhood in Hollywood and knew never to speak my mind in public. We Legends had a family motto: Diplomacy over Honesty.

  “Kiley looks upset.” Lane made her observation without a whit of snarkiness. She was possibly the nicest person on the planet. Before Kiley got her hooks into my dad, she’d tried to snag Lane’s fiancé, Dillon MacAvoy, the next big action star. Lane moved a loose strand of hair from her forehead and her giant, five-carat engagement ring glittered in the sun. That bling was a bright testament to Kiley’s failure with Dillon.

  “Should we go inside and try and help her?” Lane asked.

  I bit my bottom lip and closed my eyes. Yes, we should, but I didn’t want to tell Kiley how sorry I was that the helicopter was ruining her day. I wasn’t sorry, not at all, and I knew why. An ache thudded in my chest. Kiley was marrying Daddy.

  “Is this hard for you?” Lane asked, her brow furrowed and warm sympathy in her gaze. My chest tightened. There was no answer that I could give, not here, not now.

  “It has to be. I mean, your mother took care of Kiley when her parents divorced and her mother chased rock stars all over Europe.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Until Kiley was ten, my mother practically raised her.” My fingers pressed against my updo, testing for wisps of loose hair. “I’m fine, really,” I said.

  Across the room, Kiley ascended the stairs. She nodded to her bridesmaids and handed off her bouquet.

  “She must be going to her room.”

  “I know it sounds selfish, but I hope this doesn’t happen at my wedding next January,” Lane said.

  “It won’t,” I said. “Because you won’t have Boom Boom tipping off the tabs.” Across the room, Boom Boom Wong, publicist par excellence, yammered into her cell phone. She represented a number of Hollywood A-listers, including Daddy and Kiley.

  Lane’s cheeks tightened and she tilted her chin. “We won’t be having Boom Boom do anything,” Lane said.

  “Smart choice.” Neither of us were fans of Boom Boom.

  My father stood at the bar in the terrace room surrounded by his gaggle of groomsmen. He ignored the exit of his bride-to-be and instead laughed with his groomsmen. Each hand-selected by Kiley to ensure she had an A-list bridal party, a veritable Who’s Who of Hollywood’s rich and famous. There were five of them—a diverse group of young and beautiful stars that also included my father’s sixty-year-old agent, Buddy. There was Dillon MacAvoy, heir apparent to my dad’s action-star crown and Lane’s fiance, my brother Sterling, my cousin Taylor and Ryan Sinclair.

  Ryan was gorgeous in an I-am-an-actor sort of a way. He was also an insufferable, arrogant drunk. I knew all about that character trait. My dad had been a hard-drinking, angry alcoholic until he put the bottle down the year I turned fourteen.

  Laughter burst from the circle of men. My dad stood in the center and his hands waved in the air. After thirty years in the film industry he could tell good stories. Stories that every one of those guys would want to hear.

  “At least they’re having a good time,” Lane said.

  The wrinkle in my heart smoothed with the sound of my father’s laughter and the smile on my brother’s face. They were happy, both of them. That meant everything to me, and as long as Sterling and my father were happy and healthy then, truly, all was right in my world.

  “I love it when they laugh,” I said. “Nothing makes me happier.”

  Kiley’s wedding to my father was simply one more Hollywood event but, for me, it was an event that would change my family. Luckily, I had my brother … and Lane … to help me get through it.

  *

  The ceremony had been pushed twice already and we were now three hours behind schedule. The guests were clearly drunk, the caterer was nearly catatonic over the state of the food, and four waiters had been sent to find more cha
mpagne. After a multitude of delays, security finally managed to put two helicopters in the air to chase away the photographers. The sound persisted, but the low level flybys were gone.

  Now, all we needed was the bride.

  I left the bridal party milling just inside the back doors and went upstairs in search of Kiley. At the top of the stairs I turned right toward my father’s bedroom where I knew she’d retreated earlier in the day.

  “Kiley,” I called out as I turned the doorknob, “I think we’re finally..." I opened the door. “...ready to get...” I stopped in my tracks.

  I froze. In front of me was a giant balloon of bouncing white crinoline. Kiley’s arms were outstretched in front of her body and her hands braced the mattress. Her head bobbed forward and back as though she was being pushed and pulled from behind.

  My father’s bride was getting banged, doggie-style.

  “Ryan,” Kiley breathed out. “Ryan, stop.” Her gaze locked with mine. “Ryan,” she tried again. She pulled away from Ryan and he stumbled forward and fell to the floor.

  A deep masculine sound burst from his chest. He rolled to his back and laughed. His flaccid cock dangled on the side of his leg, his pants around his knees.

  “Saved the whiskey,” he said. His silver flask, a groomsman’s gift, glinted in the sunlight. He tipped a giant shot of booze into his mouth.

  Drunk. As usual.

  Growing up in Hollywood I thought I’d seen everything. But this? This horrible behavior was top of the list.

  “Banging a groomsman on your wedding day? And not just your wedding day, but my father’s wedding day? Even for you, Kiley, this is a new low.”

  Ryan pressed the back of his empty hand to his lips and laughter convulsed his body. The stench of whiskey and sweat wafted up from him as he lay on the floor.

  Kiley’s hands fumbled under her gargantuan skirts. A handy wipe emerged and she tossed it into the trash. She didn’t wash her hands before she started futzing with her makeup. The girl was disgusting.

  “He won’t believe you,” she said.

  A sharp gasp filled my lungs. Sad, but true. My father, the überfamous star, didn’t believe anything he didn’t want to believe. Kiley having sex with Ryan—while true—was a scene that didn’t fit into my dad’s version of life.

  “You might as well turn around and walk away.” Kiley pulled at her false eyelashes in the mirror and glanced at my reflection. “Besides, I know you. You won’t say a word. You’ve always been too scared to tell the truth.”

  A cold trickle slipped down my spine. Doubt enveloped me. I understood the pain of being abandoned by someone I loved. Telling the truth today could mean the end of my relationship with my father.

  Another belly laugh ripped through Ryan.

  “Shut the hell up,” Kiley said.

  He was so hammered. How had he managed to even get it up?

  “Fucking Amanda Legend!” He chortled and curled into a comma-shaped position on the floor.

  “No,” I said, my voice a whisper, “you were fucking Kiley Kepner.”

  My father might not believe me, but I knew the truth. Where was a cell phone when you needed one?

  Kiley turned from the mirror. She stalked toward me, slowly, quietly, and with intent. If I hadn’t been able to see both her hands I would have worried that she held an ice pick that she intended to plant in my heart.

  She stopped inches from me. The too-sweet smell of roses and vanilla filled my nose. She was taller than me. She’d always been taller than me—from the time we were at sleep-away camp to our first year of college when we’d been dorm mates at USC. Kiley was taller all right, but she was also an impossible bitch with big feet.

  This close to her, I could see every line, every blemish, every flaw that hours with a makeup artist should have hidden. Kiley was far from perfect, but her image was perfect for my father.

  “Amanda, he will never believe you.” She reached out and tucked a tiny strand of loose hair behind my ear. “We were friends for a very long time, you and I, and your father wants this wedding, he wants this marriage, he wants this so much that if you tell him what you think you saw, he won’t believe you.”

  My heart thumped hard in my chest. The muscles in my lips tightened, but I maintained my nonchalant expression. Kiley was right. The trickle of fear that dripped down my spine told me what I knew to be true—my father would not believe me. He would assume that I was trying to sabotage his marriage. The chill in my spine hardened to a solid block of ice. Daddy had made it abundantly clear that, despite the parade of women that had marched through his life, he would always, always choose them over me—his child.

  “I suggest that if you want things to remain the way they are,” —Kiley tilted her head to the side—“with your allowance and your credit cards and the pied-à-terre in NY—that you forget what you saw, turn around, walk downstairs, and tell everyone that the bride is on her way.”

  My eyes flicked from Kiley and her big pout of a mouth over to Ryan. He was now attempting to get vertical, but he couldn’t seem to summon the necessary brainpower to button his pants. His fingers fumbled around the waistband.

  “Where are the buttons?” He looked up and a drunken grin wobbled over his face. “Someone stole my buttons!”

  Ryan wouldn’t remember a bit of this in the morning, something Kiley must have counted on.

  “It’s your word, Amanda, against mine. And, really? What would my motivation be? To fuck Ryan? On my wedding day? Especially when I was about to marry Steve Legend? Like your father would ever believe that I would choose to come up here and have sex with Ryan.”

  Again, Kiley was right.

  “But you? He knows that you loathe me. We’ve had so many conversations about this, Amanda, your father and I”— Kiley leaned in closer, her breath hot on my cheek— “after we fuck.”

  Sour bile seeped into my stomach.

  “And I always stand up for you. Put in a good word for you. You know there is something about you that your father just absolutely does not like.” Kiley bit her bottom lip and let her gaze flick upward to the ceiling. “Maybe it’s your obstinate refusal to kiss his ass.”

  Each of one of my vertebrae clicked into place. Pain flashed in my jaw, my mouth locked so tight that the muscles ached in protest. The entire world kissed my father’s ass. I was the sole holdout, the lone survivor. My mother had never puckered up, so why should I?

  “Even Sterling kisses your father’s ass. But you? You refuse and truly, your stubbornness hurts Steve’s feelings.”

  I abhorred the intimacy between Kiley and my father. He was sleeping with my former best friend. Well, not just sleeping with her, but marrying her.

  “If you go downstairs and tell Steve about this he won’t believe you and he may”—she arched one eyebrow and tilted her head to the side—“and this is just a guess, but he may even get a wee bit angry.” A smile curved around her lips. “And not at me, but at you.”

  By now Ryan had managed to button his pants but his zipper was still undone. His fingers fumbled around his crotch.

  Right at that moment I was definitely more well-screwed than Kiley. I knew what I had to do. The only thing that the daughter of Steve Legend could ever do, and I would do it now.

  Ryan

  Amanda Legend was a ballbuster of a knockout. With that black hair and those blue eyes. She was tall with a long neck and long legs. She had a nice handful of little titties … ooh those titties … titties I’d like to taste. The floor pressed into my back. Amanda stood above me. I tilted my flask over my head. A long swig of Mr. Daniel's. Heat seared down my throat and into my belly. Numbness oozed outward from my chest into my arms and fingers.

  Why was I here?

  Wedding. Kiley’s wedding. I rolled to my side. Kiley Kepner was getting married. Who would want to marry Kiley Kepner? Talk about a ballbuster—I mean, she was hot. Smokin’. But the bitch was cold and mean.

  Laughter pulsed through my belly and rolled up o
ver my body. This was too funny. Amanda Legend walking in on me with Kiley, who was about to marry Amanda’s dad.

  Amanda leaned over me with both her hands on her hips. She didn’t think this was funny. No, that face looked as if it belonged on a pissed-off librarian. Amanda Legend a librarian? When she was the most beautiful creature I’d ever laid eyes on? That thought was even funnier than Kiley marrying Steve. My belly twitched and the laugh rolled through my body.

  “This is not funny,” Amanda said. Her tone sounded sharp, but not loud.

  “You … you … as a librarian,” I gasped out. My breath was short from laughing.

  “What?” She squinted her eyes and her face scrunched up as though I’d lost my mind. I laughed even harder at the expression on her face. She turned away from me, toward Kiley.

  I rolled to my hands and knees. I planted my feet under me. Not easy. I couldn’t remember how much I’d had—who the hell cared? This was a wedding! I pulled myself up and sat on my ass. My fingertips grasped the comforter on the bed and I climbed upward. I stood. Fuck, yeah, I was standing. My hand pulled at the belt loop on my pants. Loosey-goosey my head wobbled on my neck.

  Where was my zipper? Where were my buttons?

  “Who stole my buttons?”

  There were two Amandas standing in front of me now. My eyelids squinted. Now there was one Amanda. Her head was tilted to the side and she had a tight look of anger … or disgust … or disdain on her face. Maybe all three. She was one very pissed-off woman.

  “I can’t find my zipper,” I said. Laughter pressed upward from my belly and burst from my mouth.

  Amanda said nothing, shook her head, and walked out the door.

  “Unbelievable!” Kiley said. “She walks into my room without knocking, and suddenly this is my fault?” She directed her gaze at me. Her face was pinched and angry.

  “Ryan, get your pants on.”

  Shit, why were my pants off? Oh right, because of the sex. She wasn’t very good. Not good enough for me to get hard.