Hollywood Husbands by Jackie Collins Read Free Book Online

uptight with me,’ she snapped. ‘What you do and what I do are two different things.’
    As soon as she’d said it she wished she hadn’t. All his life Corey had played second to her. She was the successful one in the family. He’d never made it. She was at the top of her profession. He had a mediocre job with a public relations firm in San Francisco. He hadn’t even left home until he met and married Marita – who was Hawaiian – and moved with her to California four years ago.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I guess I’m upset. Marita and you seemed so terrific together. What happened?’
    He made a gesture of defeat. ‘I don’t know.’
    Jade found she had lost her appetite. Her brother’s happiness was important to her and his news was a bombshell. She couldn’t wait to get on the phone to her mother and discuss it.
    ‘I wanted to tell you myself,’ he said, getting up and restlessly pacing the kitchen. ‘Mom and Dad know, but that’s about it.’
    ‘Is it irrevocable?’
    ‘’Fraid so. I’m moving to L.A. I’ve got a transfer from the San Francisco office.’
    ‘At last some good news. You can move in with me.’
    Shaking his head he said, ‘I’ve got a place. I’m sharing a house with a friend.’
    The scene became clear. Corey was involved with another woman. Hopefully, when his hard-on wore off he would hurry back to Marita and the baby.
    ‘Can I give you some advice?’ she ventured.
    ‘No, thank you. Look, sis, I’ve got to run. There’s a lot of stuff I have to organize.’
    ‘You only just got here,’ she protested.
    Kissing her forehead he said, ‘We’ll be living in the same town. We haven’t done that since we were kids. It’ll be just like old times, won’t it?’
    The shine was off her day, but she nodded anyway.
    ‘I’ll call you,’ he said, ‘as soon as I’m settled.’
    The moment he left she phoned her mother, who knew no more than she did, and was very upset about the situation.
    ‘Has anyone spoken to Marita?’ she asked.
    ‘Corey says she’s gone back to Hawaii with the baby to stay with her family,’ her mother said.
    ‘Not permanently, I hope?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    As soon as she hung up, she felt an urge to talk to Mark. They had been apart for five weeks and she still had withdrawal symptoms. For six years they had shared each other’s lives. Except he had led a separate life of his own in England, one she was supposed to know nothing about.
    Bastard.
    That didn’t mean she couldn’t miss him if she wanted to.
    Without thinking she wolfed down the rest of the pizza, an act she immediately regretted. Mark would have laughed at her. Sometimes, when she went on eating binges, he called her the Fat American. Hardly a title suited to her slim curves. When they had fights – and it had not been a peaceful six years – she called him the Uptight Englishman. They used to joke about writing a sit-com with the two nicknames combined. ‘It’d be a smash!’ Jade would laugh.
    ‘Only with you in it,’ he’d reply.
    They always used to go on trips together. She enjoyed his world as much as he was fascinated by hers. Twice a year she had accompanied him to Africa on his photographic safaris, and she would certainly miss the breathtaking beauty of waking up in the wilderness with the most incredible dawn skies and the sounds of nature all around.
    Mark Rand.
    He was part of her past.
    She had to stop thinking about him.

Chapter Six
    Wes Money shared a birthday with Silver Anderson, only he didn’t know it, and even if he had he wouldn’t have cared. He was thirty-three years old and getting nowhere fast. The trouble with Wes was that he had no direction in life. Having tried a little bit of everything, he had failed to succeed at anything.
    * * *
    Wes Money was born in a slum area of London to a sometime hooker and her part-time pimp. Childhood was not exactly made in Disneyland; growing up was a tough game, and Wes learned early on in