Hollywood Hit Read Online Free Page B

candle flame still tossing about in the breeze. She looked into Detective Dragatsis’s eyes. “I think…” Nikki licked her lips. “I think that Jeb wanted me in his film. I told him no, that I wouldn’t be in Boundless Bound , but that I would help him get it made.” Her eyes skittered away from the detective and landed again on the flickering flame. “I told him I wanted to produce it.”
    She could remember her multitude of conversations and e-mail exchanges with Jeb. The notes on the script that she’d provided and the rewrites he’d completed based on Nikki’s notes. So much work. So much time. Her bottom lip trembled. And now… now… he was dead.
    Nikki shook her head and bit down on her bottom lip. She pinched the fleshy pad on her palm beneath her thumb and met Detective Dragatsis’s gaze. “Jeb said he understood that I didn’t want to act, but he wanted me to produce Boundless Bound . He asked me to come by tonight to discuss the latest draft of the script. He said he wanted to hear what I thought, what I liked about the new draft, how I thought he could improve the story—”
    “Basically he was trying to get her pregnant,” Cici said, her voice flat with hard-won knowledge. “Metaphorically speaking.”
    Heat trundled through Nikki’s belly with her aunt’s words. Nikki shook her head. A need took hold, a meat hook in her chest. Nikki needed Aunt Cici to know Jeb didn’t want her because she was Cici Solange’s niece but because she, Nikki Solange, had value.
    “That wasn’t it.” Nikki shook her head and stared at the candle flame. “He really wanted to hear what I thought about the story, the writing, the structure.”
    “Well of course he did, Nikki.” Cici tossed a careless shrug. “Every director asks the actor they want for a role what they think. That is exactly how a director acquires an actor who appears ambivalent about a role. They reel you in. Like a fish on a line. How do you see the character? What do you think about the subplot? How did the story impact you?”
    Aunt Cici’s sentences slammed into Nikki, each with the weight of a brick. Nikki shrank farther into the chaise.
    “Plus, my God, you’re a Solange . Ted Robinoff is your uncle. Of course Jeb wanted you to be a part of his film.”
    The final sentences pounded hard into Nikki’s heart. Yet again, Aunt Cici was assuredly right. A bait and switch. Nikki’s fingertips pressed against her bottom lip. She closed her eyes and her brows pressed together.
    She wanted to believe her notes over the last three months, her analysis of character, story structure, and dialogue had been fundamental in making Boundless Bound a better script, which would become a better movie. What if Jeb’s interest in her notes had been a ploy? A ruse to convince Nikki to do the thing she desperately did not want to do—make a film based on her aunt’s success and their shared last name?
    “When Jeb asked me to be in the film I told him no, but I did say yes when he asked me to work on the script.”
    Nikki followed Detective Dragatsis's gaze as it flicked around the patio: a bottle of wine, two glasses, the fireplace, the candles. Her heart skipped faster with how this night appeared.
    “Were you and Mr. Schmaltzer romantically involved?”
    “No!” Nikki nearly bounced from the cushion of the chaise.
    “Please, Mr. Dragatsis,” Cici said with a firm headshake. “Do you really think I would allow my niece to become involved with a man like Jeb Schmaltzer?”
    “I don’t know, Ms. Solange.” Detective Dragatsis turned a tight-mouthed, sub-zero stare toward Cici. “I’m guessing your niece is over eighteen years old.”
    Cici nailed Detective Dragatsis with the don’t-fuck-with-me-or-my-family look. Nikki’s breath shortened. It took a set of balls to give that look to a detective at a crime scene while a dead guy with a blasted chest floated in the pool, and Nikki was the only known suspect.
    “Twenty-two,” Nikki