Vanity by Lucy Lord Read Free Book Online

you’re having. We may have something to celebrate.’
    â€˜What?’ Ben felt an enormous jolt of excitement. ‘Why, what’s happened?’
    â€˜Don’t get your hopes up too quickly, handsome boy,’ said Belinda, loving the power she had over him. ‘Let’s wait for the drinks.’
    It was agonizing waiting until the waiter (a ‘resting actor’, good looking but not nearly as fit as Ben – which was presumably why he was resting) came back with their Margaritas. But Ben feigned nonchalance, complimenting Belinda on her body and business acumen.
    â€˜Well,’ she eventually drawled. ‘Paramount are casting a new movie. It’s gonna be huge, they say, but they always say that …’
    â€˜What’s it about?’
    â€˜The South of France in the 1950s. Saint-Tropez, Bardot, you know.’
    â€˜Oh, cool. And I love that part of the world. I went backpacking along the Riviera with all my drama-school mates in the college holidays ten years ago.’ It was more like fifteen, but Belinda didn’t need to know that. ‘Nice, Antibes, Juan Les Pins, just so we could get a glimpse of the stars at Cannes.’ He remembered them all smoking dope and drinking cheap wine out of their rucksacks on the beach, assuring one another that they’d be up there one day.
If they could see me now, that little gang of mine …
    â€˜You European kids,’ said Belinda, slightly wistfully. ‘So much culture at your fingertips. Anyway, Cannes is the cynical premise behind this venture. The producers think that a movie based on its doorstep might get those uptight bastards to sit up and take some notice of something produced by a MAJOR studio, for once, instead of one of those fall-asleep-in-your-popcorn subtitled crapolas where everybody, like, dies.’ She made a gesture that combined an extravagant yawn with slitting her throat.
    Ben laughed easily. He was amazed by his own patience.
    â€˜And? Do they want to see me, or what?’
    â€˜Oh, honey, of course they want to see you. I wouldn’t be telling you all this now would I, if they didn’t? What kind of a woman do you think I am?’
    She pouted and Ben refrained from telling her.
    â€˜It’s a period romcom, along the lines of
To Catch A Thief
.’
    Ben wasn’t sure how Hitchcock would have reacted to one of his classics being referred to as a period romcom, but he let it pass.
    â€˜So you mean, I’m up for the Cary Grant character?’ It was difficult to keep the excitement out of his voice.
    â€˜Get real, handsome. They’ll only go with a proper, American star for the good guy.’ Wasn’t Belinda aware that Cary Grant was originally from Bristol? ‘No, you’re the bastard Brit who messes with our heroine’s heart.’
    â€˜Silly me.’ Ben laughed again. ‘We Englishmen are always the villains. But, bloody hell, Belinda, that is amazing! When do they want me to read for it? And who are they thinking of for the lead roles?’
    â€˜They haven’t decided yet for the lead, but maybe Scarlett Johansson or Amanda Seyfried for the girl. Somebody suggested Gwynnie, but she’s way too old of course.’
    As Gwyneth Paltrow was about the same age as him, Ben nodded solemnly.
    â€˜And they want to see you in two days’ time, so brush up on your French.’
    â€˜Mate, that’s amazing news,’ said Tom, one of Ben’s new ex-pat buddies, a trust-fund twat who had moved to LA to write a screenplay, thinking that anyone could do it. As he could neither spell nor string two sentences together, Ben thought it unlikely Tom’s masterpiece would ever see the light of day. But he did mean well.
    They were at Soho House LA, with all the other Brits who liked to stick together.
    â€˜But promise us you won’t turn native!’ bellowed Julia, an actress who’d been very successful in London