Malibu Rising: A Novel - Taylor Reid (top 10 motivational books .TXT) 📗

Japanese. Her mother was Swedish. She was a development executive at the Geffen Company. She hated it when people called her a D-Girl.

Every morning she woke up and donned a leotard, leggings, and leg warmers and then made her way to the gym for the 5:45 aerobics class. Afterward, she showered, ran mousse through her hair, blew it dry, teased her bangs, set it all with hairspray, and then put on her nude hose and one of her power suits. She always doubled up on the shoulder pads.

And then she got in her white convertible and hopped into bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 101.

At work, she read spec scripts and recommended the good ones to her bosses. She gave writers notes. She took lunches with agents and directors at Spago and the Ivy. She scheduled drinks for herself every weeknight with other executives at places like Yamashiro. She kept a Rolodex of every business card she collected. She wanted to run a studio one day. She knew she would be good at it. She knew she could not let anything derail her.

When her boss slipped his hand up the skirt of her suit, she smiled at him and moved away. When a producer chased her around the watercooler, she laughed it off as best she could.

On weekends, she’d hang out with her girlfriends and find a bar on the Sunset Strip—the Roxy, the Rainbow, maybe join the party at the Motley House—and make out with whatever eyeliner-clad metal rocker suited her fancy until the early hours of the night.

Eliza was not looking for love, necessarily. She had other things on her mind. Both long term and short term. She was angling for the head of production opening at work. She was saving up money to buy her own condo in West Hollywood. She had not yet decided if she ever wanted to have children.

But she would welcome a certain type of man in particular: a good man, who was a nice guy, who didn’t play games and understood that her career was important to her, that she could never quit the business, that she was living her dream. A man that could give her an orgasm every night and not expect her to make breakfast in the morning. That Eliza Nakamura would have welcomed with open arms.

But as Eliza stood in the gravel driveway—now listening to her friend Heather and two other girls ponder whether or not to go talk to some actors inside—she was perfectly happy not finding love at all. She had two scripts back at her apartment that she was supposed to finish by Monday morning. She was looking forward to getting that done tomorrow.

And so, she did not go inside. Instead, she hung out in the front yard, talking to her friends.

And Seth hung out in the backyard, looking for love.

Hud grabbed Ashley’s hand. “C’mere,” he said, as he nodded toward the worn path and stairs down the side of the cliff.

“To the beach?” Ashley asked.

“Just for a second, just to talk,” Hud told her. “With no one else around.”

He led her over to the steps gently and when they got down to the beach, the two of them sat on the sand. It was cold, almost wet, having released the heat of the sun.

Hud put his arm around Ashley and confessed. “I fucked up,” he said.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Hud shook his head, buried it in his hands. He should have told Jay long ago. He should have confessed it all to him the moment he realized he had feelings for Ashley, when she and Jay were still together, before he ever slept with her, before he fell in love with her, before before before.

What sort of man sleeps with his brother’s girlfriend?

“I lied to Jay,” Hud said. “I made it seem like I wanted to ask you out instead of … well, you know.”

Ashley braced herself. “And what did he say?”

Hud looked at her. “He said he’d rather I didn’t.”

Ashley frowned and turned her head toward the water. She watched it ebb and flow at its own pace, entirely unhurried.

She hadn’t wanted to push him on this. She hadn’t wanted him to feel like he had to choose. But he might have to. That was becoming clearer to her by the minute.

“I’m going to talk to him tonight,” Hud said. “Again. I really am. I’m going to be firm about it. Explain that I’m very serious about you. And he’s going to understand.”

Ashley watched the waves come in to the shoreline, watched the moonlight bounce off the water, creating ripples like stripes. She caught her breath.

“Hud,” she said. “I’m pregnant.”

11:00 P.M.

Bobby Housman came through the door looking like he’d raided Jordache. He had on black acid-washed jeans, a yellow patterned button-down shirt, and a jean jacket with the collar flipped up.

He was not handsome. He was portly and had a slightly cartoonish nose. He had always known if he was going to make it in Hollywood, it was going to be behind the scenes. That was fine with him. He’d been studying films since he was old enough to watch them, holed up in his parents’ finished basement outside of Buffalo.

And now he was the guy writing some of the biggest hits of the decade so far. Gorgeous, Baby. Summer Break. My Mia. Bobby Housman was thirty-two and considered Hollywood’s new “It” screenwriter. He’d always imagined that if the day ever came when he was the hottest screenwriter in town, he’d shed his crippling inhibitions and have the time of his life. But in reality, success had not done enough to change him.

Three blockbuster comedies under his belt and he still felt like the weird wallflower at the movie premiere, the guy not making eye contact with anyone at the Golden Globes.

But he always liked the Riva party. He’d