Return to Celio Read online

  Table of Contents

  Return to Celio

  Copyright

  Praise for Return to Celio

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  A word about the author...

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Return to Celio

  by

  Sasha Cain

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Return to Celio

  COPYRIGHT © 2012 by Sasha Cain

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Arial Burnz

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Faery Rose Edition, 2012

  Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-326-9

  Published in the United States of America

  Praise for Return to Celio

  First place in

  the Virginia Romance Writers Contest

  Finalist in both

  the Valley of the Sun's Hot Prospect Contest

  and

  the Heartland Romance Author's

  Show Me the Spark Contest.

  Dedication

  To my best friend, Lisa,

  for that day we sat on Treasure Island Beach

  and she suggested we write romance novels,

  and to my husband, Bob,

  for believing in me

  and inspiring the hot heroes in all my books,

  and to my mother

  for her mad proofreading skills and her patience.

  Chapter One

  Getting hit in the head by a hysterical drag queen’s stiletto is no way for anyone to start the day. I suppose it was my own fault, though. The day before I’d checked into the hotel with my boyfriend for what I’d believed was to be a romantic getaway in the city I’d dreamed about seeing my whole life, Hollywood. But as it turned out, he misled me, and I just couldn’t stay and listen to one more word out that lying bastard’s mouth.

  I pulled the motel room door shut behind me and took a deep breath of California air. That’s when I heard someone shriek, “You little prick!”

  Then came the assault by footwear. A size thirteen pump with a four-inch heel packs a pretty mean wallop. I definitely saw stars.

  “Hey,” I cried.

  “Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry,” came a tearful voice from above me.

  I looked up as she...or he, hobbled down the stairs on one shoe, sobbing. A plump, little bald man in the parking lot, wearing a rumpled suit, glanced behind him, breaking into a run.

  “That’s right, you better run, you little coward. You can’t handle this much woman,” she/he hollered after him.

  I didn’t want to point out the obvious, but I thought perhaps the unshaven beard stubble and the extremely noticeable Adam’s apple indicated that he was, in fact, too much man.

  He had to be at least six-foot-three, with the shoulders of a linebacker. I’d seen cross-dressers before...well, on TV at least, and they were beautiful, like supermodels. This one? Not so much.

  His royal blue, spaghetti-strapped, sequined dress strained at the seams. The straps themselves dug deep, red trenches into his thick, beefy shoulders. A razor might have really helped...and not just on his face. I swear he had a couple of small animals living under his arms.

  Some sort of bronze, glittery powder, which probably had been applied evenly some time ago, now stood out in cracked splotches streaking his cocoa-colored skin.

  “I’m Bonnie...Bonnie Belle,” he sniffled.

  O-kay, we were going with the woman thing.

  “I am so sorry about the shoe in the head. He just made me so mad.”

  Reaching out, she began rubbing my head where her shoe had hit me.

  “I’m Maggie,” I said, “Maggie Malone.”

  She burst into tears.

  I ducked out from under her hand, before she rubbed me bald, and tried to smile empathetically.

  “It’s okay. I’m not hurt. You startled me is all. Are you all right?”

  “I hate men!” she wailed.

  She pulled a tissue from her bra and blew into it. “Please, call me Bonnie.” Dabbing her eyes, she asked, “How’s my face?”

  “You’re fine.”

  She hobbled over to where her shoe had landed, picked it up, and put it back on. That’s when my snake of a boyfriend decided to come looking for me. I tried to duck behind Bonnie, hoping he wouldn’t see me, but no such luck.

  “Maggie, please, you’re being ridiculous,” he said, ever so condescendingly.

  Stepping out from behind Bonnie, I placed my hands on my hips, glaring at him. “Ridiculous? Did you really just say that?” I demanded.

  He looked Bonnie up and down and snickered. “Nice new friend you’ve made here, Maggie.”

  When Bonnie took a step toward him, he took a step back. Glancing around nervously, he spoke a little more softly. “Can’t we please just go back inside and discuss this calmly?”

  “No, I’m done discussing anything with you. What could we possibly have to talk about? She showed up in our room, Gregg...in our room...and she had a key!”

  Bonnie hadn’t said a word, just volleyed her gaze back and forth between Gregg and me.

  “Maggie, I—”

  “No, I don’t want to hear any more of your lies. If you try to tell me one more time how much you love me, or how you planned this trip for me, or how you’re not fucking your assistant, I swear I’m going to punch you right in your stupid, lying mouth.”

  Bonnie sucked in a breath, narrowing her eyes at Gregg. I nodded at her.

  “Yeah, can you believe it? I found an itinerary in his pocket a couple of weeks ago when I did the laundry. I thought maybe he’d planned this trip to surprise me. What a joke.”

  “Maggie, I did—”

  I held up a finger to him. “Ssshht.”

  Turning back to Bonnie, I went on. “He let me believe it, too, and I did, right up until his assistant, Amanda, showed up in our room...yeah, physically in our room. She waltzed right in with her own key, wearing next to nothing but her big, fake boobs.”

  Bonnie’s eyes widened. “She didn’t!”

  I nodded, staring daggers at Gregg, enjoying watching him squirm. He hated public scenes, but I was beyond rational behavior.

  As if Gregg wasn’t even there, Bonnie asked me, “What did you do?”

  “After I recovered from my shock, I asked her what the hell she was doing there. My God, you should’ve seen the two of them, stammering and stuttering, like a couple of kids who got caught in the backseat of a car. She claimed a work emergency. For a pharmaceutical salesman? I highly doubt it. If I hadn’t become so hysterical, it might have even been funny.”

  The truth was I was running on pure rage and adrenaline. I hadn’t had the chance to emotionally break down yet, but I could feel myself getting close, and I’d be damned before I let Gregg witness that.

  “Maggie, please,” Gregg pleaded.
<
br />   “Gregg, leave me alone. I can’t be around you right now.”

  I glanced from Bonnie to Gregg. I couldn’t help but notice how Bonnie made him look small. I was five-eight and Gregg was only a couple inches taller than me. Bonnie towered over him, not to mention she had considerably more muscle mass. I stared at Gregg’s perfectly-styled hair, held in place by ridiculous amounts of gel, his pretentious, designer clothes, and his cosmetically-altered teeth, suddenly wondering what it was that ever attracted me to him.

  I started to walk away when he reached out and grabbed my arm. I tried to pull away, but he held on.

  “I’m not letting you leave like this. We are going to talk about this.”

  Through gritted teeth I said, “Get your hands off of me right now. I have nothing more to say to you."

  He yanked me toward him as I struggled to get free of his grip.

  “Let go of me.”

  “No, not until you stop overreacting,” he argued.

  I slapped at him but he didn’t let go. With my level of frustration peaked and my emotional overload about to erupt, Bonnie came to my rescue...with a spectacular left hook to Gregg’s jaw. My arm dropped to my side as he crumpled to the ground.

  It took me a minute to breathe. Bonnie shrugged and winked at me. Staring down at Gregg, semi-conscious, uttering gibberish, I burst out laughing. Bonnie eyed me warily, probably wondering if I was insane.

  There I stood in the hotel parking lot, laughing hysterically one minute and then the next I was crying, and I don’t mean a few tears. I’m talking unintelligible, blubbering, with-snot-running-out-of-my-nose sobbing. Bonnie offered me a handkerchief, then crushed me in a bear hug, sniffling herself.

  After a few minutes, I hiccupped a couple of times and took a couple of deep breaths.

  “You wanna get out of here before he comes to?” Bonnie asked, motioning toward Gregg.

  I nodded. “Yeah. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me like this, and I definitely don’t want to hear any more of his bullshit. We shouldn’t just leave him lying here, though, even though I’m seriously tempted.” I fought the urge to kick him. Fumbling through Gregg’s pocket for his room keycard, I asked, “Bonnie, will you please help me drag him back into the hotel room?

  To my surprise, Bonnie bent down, grabbed Gregg, and hoisted him over her shoulder like a sack of laundry. I slipped the card into the slot, swung the door open, and waited while she deposited Gregg onto the bed.

  Turning back to me, she winced, pointing and wiggling her finger at my head. “You may have a bump there. Let me buy you lunch. It’s the least I can do.” She grinned. “I know a little place, a sidewalk café. It is to die for. Anyone who’s anybody in Hollywood goes there. Lots of celebs, and it’s not far from here. It’s just around the corner from one of the biggest studios.”

  I momentarily forgot my plight. Running into a famous actor or a rock star? How cool would that be? God, I was such a tourist. I agreed, probably a bit too eagerly, and off we went.

  Bonnie seemed to know everybody along the way. People young and old smiled and waved or stopped to chat. She asked all of them how they were, appearing genuinely interested when they told her.

  “Is there anybody around here you don’t know?” I asked.

  She smiled. “What can I say? I’m a people person.”

  “That’s nice. Most people wouldn’t bother,” I said sincerely.

  “Well, pretty girl, I am definitely not most people.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I chuckled. We continued walking, chatting up the neighborhood.

  ****

  The crowd at the café hummed with energy; everyone wanting to catch a glimpse of the beautiful and famous. Once we ordered our food, we found a table. I started scanning the crowd, trying to spot celebrities.

  Nobody showed up that I recognized, but that didn’t deter me. I continued glancing around. Bonnie hadn’t stopped chattering since we got there. I had asked her about the guy she’d thrown the shoe at and she went on and on, her voice becoming shriller with every word, about the “dirtysonofabitch,” all one word, who ran out on her.

  “He was fine hangin’ with me last night. Sure, he didn’t mind when I bought his dinner and all his drinks at the club. Oh yeah, Bonnie was just fine for that. I didn’t hear him complainin’ when we went back to the motel neither, but when the sun came up, that squirrely little bastard couldn’t get out of there fast enough. You saw him, his fat ass runnin’ away like I was chasin’ him or somethin’.”

  I perused the crowd, hoping nobody was listening. Fortunately, they all seemed oblivious to Bonnie’s woes.

  “Men suck, ya know?” she declared.

  My thoughts of my own poor excuse for a boyfriend returned.

  “Oh, I’m sorry Maggie. I got so caught up in my story, I almost forgot about that asshole we left back at the hotel.”

  “No, you know what? You’re right, men do suck,” I agreed.

  We clinked glasses. Although, if Gregg hadn’t turned out to be such a dishonest, cheating bastard, Bonnie wouldn’t have hit me in the head with her shoe and I wouldn’t have been in this café with her. Things, all in all, would have turned out considerably differently. Karma is funny.

  She asked me if I wanted to tour one of the studios. When I hesitated, she leaned forward in her chair, grinning mischievously. “C’mon, it’ll be fun and it will take your mind off numb-nuts back there.”

  Really, what did I have to lose? I was kind of stranded here until my flight left the next day, and I’d been dreaming about visiting this city since I was a child. Why should the fact that Gregg was an insincere, narcissistic prick spoil that, too?

  And while Bonnie was virtually a stranger, she’d been nothing but kind and supportive to me. Friendships had been born under stranger circumstances, right?

  I smiled. “Why not? I’m all yours.”

  She took a bite out of her sandwich. I popped a few fries in my mouth, glancing around again. As we finished our lunch, Bonnie suggested an itinerary for the afternoon. I listened, enjoying her company, grateful to have such a knowledgeable guide. So far, California proved to be very different from my home in Missouri.

  By mid-afternoon, we’d walked along Hollywood Boulevard, placed our hands in the prints of our favorite stars, seen many celebrities’ extravagant homes, and next on our agenda was the movie studio tour.

  We stopped at another sidewalk café just to catch our breath and get something to drink. I ordered an iced tea. Bonnie wrinkled up her nose, cancelled my order, and then ordered two cosmopolitans. She winked at me as the waiter walked away. “When in Rome...” she uttered.

  Tapping her long, blood-red fingernails on the table, she stared at me. I ignored it for a minute then finally asked, “What?”

  “I’m just lookin’ at you wonderin’ what’s wrong with that man of yours. What was he thinkin’? You are fine, girl. Look at you, all that wavy hair. What color would you call that? Chestnut, I think. Your skin is flawless. I’d kill for that skin. Hell, you’d need a ladder to climb those legs, they’re so long, and you’re not so bad in the booby department, neither.”

  “Thanks, Bonnie,” I said.

  I knew she was trying to make me feel better, but somehow my self-esteem was still flat on the mat, down for the count.

  “Is he slow, the boyfriend? Oh I know. He’s got a tiny little pecker, right? Those little dick guys always got somethin’ to prove, if ya know what I mean.”

  I smiled, shaking my head, ignoring the question. Then I sighed. “Honestly, I think he’s just a thoughtless bastard. I don’t know. Maybe I’m overreacting.”

  She stared at me open-mouthed, like I’d just sprouted another head. “Overreacting?” she shrieked. “Honey, I’d have kicked that man’s balls in so hard he’d never be using ’em again. And his assistant? That bitch got no class at all. Any woman steppin’ in on another woman’s man, you don’t get no second chances for that shit.”

 
“It’s not like we were friends.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Sisters need to stick together. That ho don’t know the rules.”

  “I guess I shouldn’t be all that surprised. Gregg and I haven’t been getting along lately, and Amanda does look like a centerfold. It’s just...Gregg’s never been an affectionate or passionate guy. It’s hard to imagine him making the effort to pursue a woman.”

  “He pursued you, didn’t he?”

  I shrugged, remembering how my friend’s brother had fixed us up. “It really wasn’t much of a chase.”

  Bonnie’s lips curled up into a smile. “I know just what you need, girlfriend. We’re gonna do this tour, then we’re goin’ back to Bonnie’s place. I’m gonna give you a makeover. After that we’re goin’ out to do some shots of tequila and fix that broke self-image you have.”

  As unsettling as that scenario sounded, a part of me was incredibly curious and excited as well. I found myself looking forward to the idea.

  ****

  After paying our admission, we waited in the lobby until our tour guide came for us. As I listened to him talk, it occurred to me that coming on this excursion without Gregg definitely had its advantages. I could linger at my favorite attractions without having to listen to impatient sighs or aggravated foot tapping.

  Gregg had no interest in movies or celebrities. He would have hated a studio tour. Come to think of it, I should have been suspicious when I discovered the trip to Hollywood to begin with.

  I couldn’t stop my mind from wandering back to the day before. When Amanda showed up in our room, Greg actually tried to defend it by confessing that it hadn’t been a trip for me, but a business trip. How stupid did he think I was? Like that see-through, little net-thing Amanda had been wearing was business casual? Maybe slutty casual.

  No, I was not going to get all melancholy over Gregg. Just because he was a lying jerk didn’t mean my entire trip had to be spoiled. Determined to enjoy myself, I put him out of my mind, focusing instead on the glamour and elegance of my surroundings.

  Desperately needing to answer nature’s call, I whispered to Bonnie, asking her if she knew where the ladies room was. She shook her head and reminded me she had a penis. Right, I forgot. She was a men’s room kind of gal. There’s a mental picture I could’ve done without.