Smile for the Camera by Tracy Cooper-Posey

 

Confession time:  Every now and again, I like to get down and roll in the dirt with the gossip blogs about Hollywood stars and scandals.  It's wickedly voyeuristic and just plain fascinating for any number of reasons. 

The stars of Hollywood seem to live such totally different lives from mine – so far removed from the mindless nine-to-five, just to begin.  Then there's the clothes and shoes and numerous black tie events they always seem to be attending, along with the hot and cold running limousines and champagne. 

I'm quite, quite sure the reality is different.  I've done enough research to know that being or aspiring to be an A-List actor requires a team of people and an investment of serious money, along with sponsors that include a make-up company, a fashion house that will supply the gowns for all the events, and a jewellery house.  A dedicated personal trainer and dietician aren't luxuries, they're essentials, and a chef is an investment, not a perk.

And that's before the casting call.

Then there's the paparazzi.

Hollywood has a love-hate relationship with these professional freelance photographers. So do most professional athletes and any high profile public figure.

The name paparazzi was coined by the Italian director Frederico Fellini, who called the news photographer character in his film La Dolce Vita 'Paparazzo', which is the annoying sound of a buzzing mosquito.  The idea of snapping photographs of stars out in public began in Italy in the 1950s, and the name "Papparazzo" for a single photographer stuck.  Paparazzi is the plural.

While most laws in most countries do not prevent photographers from taking photographs of public figure in public places, and then selling those photos for profit, which is how the paparazzi earn their living, the getting of those photos is often the source of mild annoyance to extreme vexation for the stars who are the subject of the 'hunt'.

There is certainly no privacy for the subjects at all.  There have been images of starlets with their legs spread as they climb out of cars – sans underwear – and pictures of stars shaving their heads; couples arguing in public and far more.  The question is always…when is enough enough?

After the death of Diana, the former Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed, after being chased by paparazzi through the streets of Paris, there was an investigation and a series of legislations passed that further limited the activities of the paparazzi, preventing them from chasing public figures by car, etc.

Very popular stars, such as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, will arrange decoys and mislead the paparazzi with false intelligence in order to leave their houses unmolested, while upcoming and new stars will court the "pap" and let themselves be photographed deliberately in order to gain more coverage.

But public figures by virtue of the fact that they are "public figures" have less expectations to privacy than the average private citizen.  In most countries a public figure is a legal definition, and their rights to privacy are also defined…and considerably less than you and I get to enjoy.  While many stars have sued the paparazzi for breaches and won, there are many more who have had to put up with the invasions and stalkings all so we can flip over to the blogs on a daily basis to see their images and marvel over the utterly different lifestyle they get to "enjoy".

It was this sort of hounding that I introduced in Blood Knot, along with the idea that Kate, a Hollywood figure, was trying to keep her life private.

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Blood Stone is my 44th title and my ninth indie book.

Nial orders Calum Garrett to get close to Hollywood producer Kate Lindenstream.  Garrett reluctantly complies for he has held himself apart from humans for centuries.  Kate doesn't fall into Garrett's arms, either.  She already has someone for that.  Roman Xerus -- whom Kate knows as Adrian -- and Garrett go way back to the sixteenth century Scottish highlands, but they parted bitterly two hundred years ago.

With Roman's support, Kate battles Garrett in wills and business as he methodically forces himself into her life. However, on the closed-in movie set in the Californian desert, Garrett's calm, orderly world crumbles for Garrett is drawn to Kate.  He has begins to experience real, human feelings.  

Kate doesn't cooperate in the chess game Nial orchestrates, despite being unaware of the strategies swirling around her film set.  Demanding and expecting only the best for her movie, Kate's agenda forces Roman and Garrett to work together to protect her and keep the humans around her ignorant of the Pro Libertatus, the anonymous and all-powerful vampire group who nearly killed Nial, Sebastian and Winter, and shield Kate from the excesses of the League for Humanity.  But could Roman really be with the Pro Libertatus?

There's hidden intentions everywhere, and centuries of repressed feelings, along with at least two different groups that mean them harm.  Then there's the rumours that Kate has found the mythical Blood Stone, the key to unlocking vampire history and lifting their curse.   Who is Kate, really?  Because once Garrett begins to notice, things about Kate don't quite add up, either...

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An Excerpt From: BLOOD STONE
Copyright © TRACY COOPER-POSEY, 2012
All Rights Reserved.

 

Adrian Xerus was a dark mystery to her. She had met him at one of the Golden Globe parties about two weeks ago. Unlike all the stars and industry people at the party, he had been dressed in jeans and a sleeveless tee-shirt that had been displaying every well-rounded muscle in his arms, and the rippling tattoo over each thick shoulder. He bristled with two days' growth and his short, glossy black hair looked like he'd merely pushed his fingers through it upon rising. There was a heavy silver-coloured ring in one ear that glinted in a way that Kate recognised as polished white gold and titanium.

But it was his blue, blue eyes that had caught her attention, and the way he had of looking straight into her and seeing things that no one else did.

For two weeks he had continued to show up at the same events that Kate did. By the second week, he had been arriving at those events because Kate had contrived to let him know where she would be. But she held back from calling it 'dating,' even though he had coaxed her private cellphone number from her by the time the Oscars rolled around.

Three days ago he had disappeared.

Vanished.

Until last night, very late, he had phoned from New York and asked her to meet him here today for lunch. A date. He hadn't said the word "date" at all, but that was what it amounted to. In the two weeks they had been accidentally-on-purpose running into each other it had always been at public Hollywood events, surrounded by peers.

This wouldn't be anything like that. It would be a lunch date.

But the off-hand, casual way Adrian had suggested the meeting had made it so easy for Kate to agree that it hadn't been until after the call that she had realized the implications.

The waiter arrived to take their orders, and Kate got the Cobb Salad, suddenly starving, while Adrian settled for coffee.

"I ate on the plane," he told her, handing the waiter the menus. "And I'm still on Eastern Time."

"So why the sudden trip to New York?" she asked. She was on the verge of adding "You left without a word," but realized that he didn't owe her that much, anyway. "Business?" she asked, keeping her tone as light and uninterested as she could manage.

"Something like that." Adrian's tone matched hers. He put his elbow on the table and rested his head on his hand, so that he could turn and look at her properly. "I hope you didn't stay lonely while I've been gone?" His voice had shifted and become deeper. Sexier.

Kate couldn't help her tiny little in-drawn breath. But it was infinitesimal, and Adrian shouldn't have been able to hear it. She couldn't help the little snapshot images of Greg Evershot, in and out of his tuxedo, that zinged through her mind.

"You didn't," he breathed, a smile starting to form. Kate could hear approval and arousal in those two words, and her body tingled in response. He sat up, studying her.

Kate pursed her lips and stared levelly back at him.

"Who was the lucky guy?" Adrian asked.

"None of your business," she shot back.

His smile broadened. "He can't have been very good if you were still awake at three a.m. talking to me. Ask for your money back, Kate."

Kate laughed a little. "You're being figurative, I hope. Or should I just lay hundred dollar bills on the mattress when I want to have sex with you?"

"You'd need more money than you could raise to pay for a night with me, Kate Lindenstream." There was genuine anger in his voice, mixed up with the sexy provocation and even though Adrian's expression didn't change by a fraction of an inch, Kate could see something in his eyes shift.

Her breath, her heart, even her pulse seemed to stand still. She wasn't imagining it, she knew that. She was a director — it was her job to differentiate between nuances of an actor's line delivery to get the perfect inflection, the perfect line. Plus, she had perfect pitch. And alarm bells were ringing.

Fear.

Kate managed to get her voice to work again. "Are you...you're not...?" A prostitute?

The deathly silence that followed could only have lasted a mere second or two in real time, but it seemed to stretch forever while her pulse thudded in her temples and her throat.

"No one buys or sells me, Kate." His voice was even. Controlled.

She let out a breath she wasn't aware she had been holding. "It's hard to imagine anyone daring to try it. Harder still, you letting them getting away with it," she tossed back at him as lightly as she could.

"Then you've read that much of me right." Adrian hadn't moved from that perfectly still position. It occurred to Kate that he was perhaps full of tension that he was not letting her see.

"The little bit you've shown, yeah," she agreed carefully, trying to make it sound light, and absolutely free of any resentment, because there really wasn't any. They'd both mutually chosen this hands-off, distant circling of each other. They both understood the industry and the games people played because of it, and this wary, slow approach had been just fine.

Had been?

Kate hastily pushed the little voice aside for later consideration.

Adrian drew in a breath. Let it out. Then he lifted his chin to draw her attention to their waiter, hurrying toward them with her salad.

"Lunch," he announced. "Great." He sounded relieved.

Kate wanted to shove the door back open on the subject he was clearly trying to shut down, but instinct told her to hold back on the need to dig deeper.

Kate knew Adrian was bad news. She could tell from his appearance. More, she could tell from her response to him. She knew too little about him, and no one she knew seemed to know anything about him, either. Everyone knew someone who knew him, but no one knew him directly. He was a cypher. He hugged the dark in a land where everyone wanted the spotlight. It wasn't natural.

It made him irresistible to her. Adrian Xerus lay in her future. How badly was he going to screw up her life? How strong a damage shield could she maintain?

Physically, probably none. His voice, his eyes, his big hands and strong arms, those thickly muscled shoulders — the combination preyed upon her weaknesses in the most devastatingly effective way.

Mentally, well, she had been playing power games with the big boys for nearly a decade now. Longer, actually.

Adrian would have to be really good to get around her mentally, so if he had an agenda, she knew she could spot it and neutralize it before he got to play it on her.

So Kate let the thrill of pleasurable anticipation fizz through her body, and picked up her fork. "Okay, lunch," she agreed. "Chit chat and gossip. I'll tell you about the SAG gala and which actress got the most drunk, and you can tell me about the silliest hat you saw on Fifth Avenue. Do you need a ride somewhere after?"

"Hollywood Markets, if you're going that way. My fridge is empty," Adrian replied.

She considered her next appointment, in Van Iuys. "Works for me," she lied, and took her first bite, her hunger now a ravening..

 

BLOOD STONE is the second book in the Blood Stone series

BLOOD STONE is the sequel to BLOOD KNOT.

It is a Plus-sized Novel.

WARNING:  This book contains two hot, sexy alpha heroes, frequent, explicit and frank sex scenes and sexual language.
It includes heart-stopping sexual scenes between the aforementioned sexy heroes, menage  scenes, anal sex and the use of sex toys.  Don't proceed beyond this point if hot love scenes offend you.
No vampires were harmed in the making of this novel.

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Blood Stone is the second book in my best selling erotic MMF paranormal urban fantasy romance series.  It will be on sale on September 14, if not a bit before then. 

The good news?  The first book in the series, Blood Knot, is my #1 best seller, was the Winner of the Coffee Time Reviewer's Recommended Award, was listed as one of Goodread's "Most Drool-worthy Covers", nominated for Erotic Vampire Book of the Year by The Romance Reviews, and received a CAPA Nomination for Best Paranormal Book of the Year by The Romance Studio, December, 2011, among many glowing and rave reviews.  If you're curious about Blood Knot, you can read more here:  http://bit.ly/g9pSw5. 

The really good news?  On the 14^th, when Blood Stone is released, Blood Knot drops down to $0.00 for three days of free downloading at Amazon.

Bookmark Blood Knot on Amazon now:  http://amzn.to/hcrCCf

And bookmark Blood Stone on my website, so you can jump to the Amazon link the day it goes live:  http://bit.ly/TrCuWv

If you want a reminder on the 14^th to go get your free book, sign up to my blog's RSS feed, or to the email feed, or to my newsletter.

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Tracy Cooper-Posey writes romantic suspense, hot erotic paranormal and urban fantasy romances. She has published over 40 novels since 1999, been nominated for 5 CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award. 

She turned to indie publishing in 2011. Her indie titles have been nominated three times for Book Of The Year.   She has been a national magazine editor and for a decade she taught romance writing at Grant MacEwan University. 

She is addicted to Irish Breakfast tea and chocolate, sometimes taken together.  In her spare time she enjoys sewing, history, Sherlock Holmes, science fiction and ignoring her treadmill. An Australian, she lives in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, a professional wrestler, where she moved in 1996 after meeting him on-line.  

You can find her site at http://www.TracyCooperPosey.com.