Gage: A Love Under the Lights Novel Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Ella Fox & Rochelle Paige

  Cover designed by Perfect Pear Creative Covers

  Edited by Editing4Indies

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Gage

  Dear Reader

  1. Morgan

  2. Gage

  3. Morgan

  4. Gage

  5. Morgan

  6. Gage

  7. Morgan

  8. Gage

  9. Morgan

  10. Gage

  11. Morgan

  12. Gage

  13. Morgan

  14. Gage

  15. Morgan

  16. Gage

  17. Morgan

  18. Gage

  19. Morgan

  20. Gage

  21. Morgan

  22. Gage

  23. Morgan

  24. Morgan

  25. Gage

  26. Gage

  27. Morgan

  28. Morgan

  29. Gage

  Epilogue 1

  Epilogue 2

  About the Authors

  Also by Ella Fox

  Also by Rochelle Paige

  Gage

  Gage Ryan was a notorious heartbreaker, on screen and off. A confirmed bachelor, this world-famous actor dashed the hopes of millions of adoring fans when he rejected marriage and commitment: no wedding bells, no baby carriages.

  He'd never had cause to consider the alternative, but that all changed the night he met rising star, Morgan Kelly. Too bad her first impression of him was less than favorable.

  Although their attraction was instant and mutual, Morgan wasn't interested. Hollywood heartthrobs were trouble. Especially Gage, a man used to women who would do anything for his attention.

  Not happening.

  But Gage knew how to go after what he wanted, and his desire for Morgan was stronger than anything he'd ever felt before. Powerful enough to make him reconsider his previously held beliefs on love and longevity. He just had to convince her of how serious he was. It was a good thing he was ready for the chase.

  Dear Reader

  Welcome to the Love Under the Lights series. We began plotting these stories back in August of 2017, and it's been a passion project for us ever since. We always knew that we wanted to co-write with each other, and we're super excited to release Gage, the first of our Hollywood heartthrobs, out into the world.

  Each book in this series will have the ability to be read as a stand-alone. The Love Under The Lights novels will be full-length, sexy, and sweet love stories that will all end with our very favorite thing—a Happily Ever After!

  We hope you love Gage and Morgan as much as we do!

  Happy Reading

  Ella & Rochelle

  *Please note that we've taken a few liberties with how filming and production work in Hollywood and we've also modified the order in which awards are handed out*

  One

  Morgan

  Sheets of rain combined with wall-to-wall traffic made traveling the Los Angeles freeway system worse than usual. It didn’t matter—I was so excited nothing could burst my bubble of excitement.

  “I can hardly wrap my mind around the fact that we’re on our way to the Golden flipping Globes! How nuts is it that you’ve gone from soap opera actress to best actress nominee in just a few years?”

  The question came from my roommate and fellow limo passenger, Allie, who had been my best friend since kindergarten.

  I smiled at her as I finished carefully taking a sip of the water bottle full of cherry Kool-Aid I’d brought from our apartment. I was being extra cautious because if it spilled down my dress or stained the skin around my mouth, I’d be mortified. That didn’t stop me from drinking it, though. You could dress me up, put me into a limo, and send me off to one of the biggest award shows on the planet, but it wouldn’t change that I was a girl who bought Kool-Aid flavor packs from Amazon in bulk.

  “It feels like a dream,” I admitted. “I have no doubt that we’ll be coming here to celebrate you in the next few years, too.”

  She laughed nervously, shrugging me off. “The movie might suck—”

  I understood that she was anxious and afraid to be overly optimistic, but it was my job as her BFF to make sure she celebrated her achievements. Allie’s script was nothing short of amazing. Not only that, but Mason Cleary was also directing it. There was no doubt in my mind that it would be a huge success.

  “You’re an insane person,” I teased. “Don’t downplay all that you’ve already achieved.”

  Allie’s green eyes sparkled as she pushed her golden blond hair back over her shoulder. In addition to being wildly talented, she was also incredibly beautiful.

  “You’re right,” she said “We’re already succeeding almost beyond our wildest dreams Sometimes I find it hard to believe this is all happening. You’re going to win a Golden Globe, Morgan. That’s huge.”

  “Eek, don’t count my chickens before they hatch,” I cautioned. “We both know I’m up against some unbelievable talent. This is my first nomination. Plus, we both know there are tons of people who like to talk smack, like my having started out on a soap opera somehow makes me less than.”

  I frowned as I said it, annoyance clear in my voice. I hated how people had weird attitudes about actors that started out in soap operas. There was a certain stigma to it; an expectation that the only step up you could take was to a sitcom, and even that was iffy.

  That hadn’t been my experience. I’d gone from winning best actress at the Daytime Emmys to snagging a small part in a movie directed by Ben Affleck. That role was expanded when he realized I could act. Now I had a few starring roles under my belt—and one of them was why I was in a limo about to pull up outside the Beverly Hilton Hotel to walk the press line.

  Allie shifted in her seat as she tapped away on her cell phone. “Gloria and Dane just got there and are about to work the line, so they’ll meet us at the table.”

  “Ten-four,” I said, nodding with a smile. Dane Garrison was my relatively new agent, something I was still trying to wrap my mind around since he was a very big deal in Hollywood. Even with a Best Actress nomination, it would’ve taken me several more years to get someone of his stature to consider representing me. I’d hit the lottery because the director of my Golden Globe-nominated film had lobbied hard for him to take me on. Gloria had the ability to do that because she was his mother.

  Gloria Garrison was Hollywood royalty. In the eighties, her popularity had risen to a level equivalent to that of Elizabeth Taylor in her heyday. Everything she’d touched turned to gold, and people were desperate to know everything about her. After a stellar career in front of the camera, she segued to directing nine years ago. Despite her star power, she had to work her tail off to make it happen. Hollywood was funny like that—the number of female motion picture directors was pathetically low. In the seventy-four years since the inception of the Golden Globes, only one woman had ever won the Best Director award. I was hoping by the end of the night, Gloria would follow in Barbra Streisand’s shoes and walk away with the trophy.

  I loved her as a person, adored her as a director, and was thankful she twisted her son’s arm to get him to take me on. I’d been uncomfortable at first, but once Dane told me that in no uncertain terms could his mother have gotten him to agree to work with me if he didn’t think I was worth investing h
is time in, I’d been overjoyed.

  I’d hoped to walk the carpet with Gloria and our producer, but the timing of our arrivals hadn’t aligned. We’d tried to coordinate, but the awful weather from the past few days had everything in LA backed up even more than usual. The limos were taking three or four times longer than normal to do the drop-offs by the tent-covered red carpet.

  The rain was affecting everyone and everything. The sudden deluge of water arrived on the heels of a years-long drought, and I swore it made people crazy. My hairstylist had no choice but to scrap her original hair plan for me because of the humidity. Instead of going with the loose style we’d originally planned, my hair was pulled back and pinned up in a complicated fishtail braid that had been set with what I suspected was equivalent to my weight in hairspray. I imagined that my hair was so firmly in place that a missile would’ve bounced off upon impact.

  The experience of walking the carpet was even more intense than I’d expected, and I’d been warned it would be wild. The tent made things louder, and the confinement within the space made getting around more difficult, especially in a gown. Kerri Anderson, my least favorite actress/human, was just ahead of me in the press line, and I had to force myself not to roll my eyes as I watched her make a spectacle of herself.

  For starters, she’d had her hair dyed to match the trainwreck she was wearing. That meant her once purple hair was now pink on the top and about two inches of the bottom were dyed lime green. It wasn’t attractive in any way, something a good stylist should’ve told her, but considering how ugly the dress was I was betting the stylist in question usually did Romani weddings.

  I didn't think it was wrong to suspect that since the unbelievably tacky gown Kerri was in took up a ridiculous amount of real estate. The top of the dress consisted of scraps of satin that didn't do much to cover her up. Thus, her giant fake boobs were so on display I was certain there'd be a nip-slip by the end of the night. After all, it was her signature move.

  The bottom of the gown was no better. It was tight and had a keyhole slit up the middle that matched the one on the top. I suspected Kerri though the world would stop spinning on its axis if she couldn’t show off her underwear. A ten-foot train further solidified the fashion catastrophe, but what put it on top of the tackiest thing ever list were the hundreds of little golden bells on the train. Even if I’d been farther down the line, I’d have heard her coming.

  Much like Lady Gaga in her meat dress, I knew Kerri would be the talk of the town for the rest of the week as people panned her fashion choice. That was why she’d worn it. She undoubtedly had her fingers crossed that Saturday Night Live would spoof the gown that weekend.

  Having worked with her, I knew her motto was that any publicity was good publicity. The girl was crazy annoying, but there was no getting rid of her, kind of like cockroaches. Kerri got some attention initially because her parents, Ivory and Hanson Anderson, had been tabloid gold while they’d been married. Arguments, affairs, partying, selling stories about each other to keep the attention going—they’d spent years being famous purely because they were in the gossip rags on display in the supermarket checkout line.

  The majority of the reason Kerri became a tabloid darling herself was due to her uncle, Donald Montague, one of the biggest producers in Hollywood. Why he pulled strings for her talentless ass was a mystery to me, but for whatever reason, he did.

  Kerri and I met on the set of the soap opera that had given me my first hit of fame. We’d played sisters—fraternal twins—and the amount of acting it took to pretend to have any kind of connection at all with her was staggering. Plain and simple, the girl was a walking, talking headache. We’d never gotten along great, and as the years went by, not great devolved into not at all. She frequently auditioned for the same roles I did, and anytime I bagged one she’d wanted, I’d see some snarky tweets from her about real talent. As if she had any idea what that was.

  It had been a few months since I’d last seen her, and I’d have been just as happy to keep the streak going. More than once, I caught her looking over her shoulder at me with a snide little smirk as she walked the carpet. The only thing that kept me from flipping her off was the knowledge that hundreds of cameras were capturing every moment.

  Unlike Kerri, I’d chosen a gown I thought was beautiful. Part of the fun of award shows—especially as a nominated actress—was having designers send things for your consideration. The stylist I worked with pulled a dozen looks for me to choose from. The moment I saw the violet fit-and-flare gown, I’d known it was the one for me. Putting it on confirmed it. The sweetheart bodice and hand beaded silk straps were stunning, and best of all, it was moderately comfortable. The back had the most glorious little train—classy, nothing like the hot mess express who jingled her way up the carpet ahead of me.

  A pair of Louboutin Cinderella heels so beautiful they almost hurt to look at and so high, they absolutely hurt to walk in completed my outfit. The shoes weren’t available to the public because only twenty pairs had been manufactured and all were given away, but my stylist had tracked down a pair in my size and was able to borrow them for the evening without having to barter a kidney.

  I ignored the pain in my feet in much the same way I ignored Kerri, which is to say I continued to be dimly aware of both. I was lucky that I hit my stride once I got into the swing of the interview process. One of Dane’s assistants was in charge of moving me from interview to interview, which ensured I wasn’t in any one spot for too long.

  I’d been looking forward to meeting Vaughn Corbett, jokingly known as Mr. Hollywood, because Vaughn interviewing you on the red carpet was a rite of passage. Thus, I was surprised to discover his absence from the carpet. There were whispers about why, but with the Hollywood gossip machine being what it was, there was no way to know for sure. I figured the reason had to be pretty big since he’d been interviewing people on the red carpet for the past seven years. In any event, the girl standing in Vaughn’s area conducting the interviews was an unfortunate choice. She talked about herself a lot and made jokes that fell flatter than the time I tried to bake a cake from scratch.

  After forty minutes of interviews and photos on the carpet, it was finally time to head inside. Needless to say, I was relieved to get off my feet when we arrived at our table in the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton.

  We were dead center in the front of the room. This was due to Gloria’s star power, not because I was nominated, but it was awesome anyway. Dane and Gloria were already seated, along with our producer, Garrett Riordan, and his wife, Shaelyn. She’d been the one to read the script and declare that it needed to be made. That made sense since Dimming Her Light dealt with the loss of a child, a pain she knew firsthand.

  Allie squeezed my hand beneath the tablecloth when we simultaneously saw Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese arriving together at the table next to us. As their wives took their seats, both men came to our table to say hello to Gloria, Dane, and Garrett.

  You could’ve knocked me over with a feather when Steven and Martin proceeded to address me directly, both men telling me what an outstanding job I’d done in Dimming Her Light. I’m not sure how I managed to keep from fumbling through the next several minutes like an idiot. I wanted to ask to take selfies with both but managed to refrain. Barely.

  A few minutes after they left, a waiter came by with a tray of Moët-filled flutes. As I took my first sip of champagne, I finally spotted Jasper Conrad—my former co-star—taking his seat two tables over. Rising from my seat, I hastily made my way through the crowd to him. We hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks because his shooting schedule was insanity, but we sent text messages every week or so. If anyone ever got a hold of either of our phones, they’d quickly find out that we shared a love of memes and pizza.

  Jasper was nominated for Best Actor in a television drama for his role in Doctors Without Orders. While I saw him only as a friend, I understood why women—and a few men—fell all over themselves to get near him. His pier
cing blue eyes, the dimple on his right cheek, and the surfer style of his brownish blond hair were panty droppers. I knew because he used to get panties in the mail daily. He grinned as he rose from his chair to greet me, and I threw myself into his arms with a giggle as he lifted me off the ground.

  “Morgan! I was hoping I’d get to wish you luck before the show started.”

  “I had the same thought about you.” I giggled as he set me back down on my feet.

  “Can you believe this?” I asked. “It’s really happening. We weren’t dreaming. We’re both nominated for Golden Globes. It’s surreal!”

  “I always knew you’d go places,” he said. “It’s why I hitched a ride to your star.”

  I rolled my eyes. “We both know that if anyone hitched a ride to anything it was me. Without you, I’d be on my fourteenth kidnapping.”

  “Well, without you, I’d be on my fifth wife and my ninetieth amnesia event.”

  I snorted and elbowed him in the ribs. “More like the ninety-first,” I countered.

  He didn’t get a chance to answer since someone called our names.

  “Wow, Morgan! Jasper! Looking amazing together as usual! People will be so excited to see their favorite couple out and about. Can I get a photo?”