Curve Struck (A Celebrity Stepbrother Romance) Read Free Page B

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Chapter Two
    Rushing to the wardrobe room, Melanie found the gold mail and torque tossed on top of the silver version. She hadn't been gone the fifteen minutes Declan had said he'd give the photographer, so either the photographer had changed his mind or he'd managed to royally piss off the movie's star.
    Either way, she needed to get everything put up and hustle her over-cushioned bottom off the lot. The first three outfits were already folded and waiting atop their bins. She put them inside then gathered up the suede boots and leather pants to fold and store. Turning to the chain mail, she swore as she lifted the golden war skirt. Some of the links had locked against one another.
    Chewing at her lip, she tried to tease the links into separating. After five minutes, sweat starting to form on her forehead and her fingers cramping, she remembered the torque she had drilled in half. That damage, no matter how necessary, was enough to have Suzanne go into full bitch mode.
    "Screw it, I'm already doomed."
    She folded the silver chain mail, put it in a bin then tossed the kinked up golden mail on top of it, placed the two pieces of the broken torque plus the gold torque on top, sealed the bin and stacked them on a rolling cart.
    Grabbing her gear, she put it on top of the bin, turned the lights off and hurried with the cart down the hall. Turning onto an intersecting hall, she came face to face with the photographer's assistant. Like her, he was in his mid-twenties, maybe a year older than her twenty-five. She'd seen him on the studio lot a couple of times, usually with someone else's coffee in his hands and a harried look on his face as he tried to make sure he delivered the coffee hot.
    The harried look always disappeared when he saw her, his face contorting into something ugly despite his cover boy good looks.
    You don't belong on a Hollywood lot -- period.
    That's what the look told her.
    "Move," she growled, refusing to let him make a bad day even worse.
    He turned to the side, his lean body flattening against the wall. Once she was past him with her cart, he tossed a verbal grenade in her direction.
    "You don't have to be a bitch about it."
    Rolling her eyes, she said nothing.
    Forget him, forget Declan Bain, too. Her next gig started bright and early Monday morning at a different studio, smaller than the current film's studio and she would be working for a soap opera instead of a summer blockbuster. The position was temporary, the regular wardrobe girl was out on two weeks maternity leave, but it would be a nice break to be down in the minors where the egos were a little smaller and everyone didn't look at her like she needed rushed to the hospital for an emergency fat suctioning and stomach stapling.
    "Assholes," she hissed, hefting the last of the bins onto the storage shelf.
    Shouldering her backpack, she rubbed roughly at her face. Internally calling her boss a bitch, yelling at people, thinking of everyone on the studio grounds as assholes wasn't her. Something was wrong -- several somethings. She was worried about her mom after Nancy's extended stay in England, the almost secret undertone to their short conversations, and the sudden summons.
    But, more than that, Melanie knew she was on edge for the stupidest of reasons.
    Declan Bain -- a mere man no matter how famous or good looking.
    She had known working with him was going to be a problem the first time she Googled his name after starting the gig, something she'd never done with any of the other actors. She didn't care which stars had a significant other, what their childhood had been like, or if they had a dog or a cat or neither. Nothing of that sort had interested her. But, finally, after three years hopping from wardrobe job to wardrobe job, dressing some of the most famous bodies in Los Angeles, she had become star struck.
    She would rather have been hit by lightning, she thought with a rough laugh as she power walked across the lot to meet Cammie.
    At