Unfortunately, Hollywood—like many of its inhabitants—had a wandering eye. There was nothing the town liked more than the “new face,” or discovering the next person who everyone would hail as “up-and-coming.”

And after sixteen years in the business, being an undisclosed “thirtysomething” years old, Jason Andrews was neither of those things.

Luckily, the end was nowhere in sight. Jason’s next movie, Inferno, would be released in just a few weeks and had been predicted to be the blockbuster of the summer. He would follow that tent-pole pic with the legal thriller he was about to begin filming for Paramount, a film for which Marty had high hopes of a third Oscar nomination.

In Marty’s mind, therefore, the only thing Jason needed to do was to keep doing everything exactly as he had for the past sixteen years. Which—from a publicity standpoint—meant wining and dining only the most famous of actresses, supermodels, pop stars, and the occasional billionaire heiress.

Taylor Donovan, however, was none of those things. As far as Marty was concerned, in terms of media exposure, the only thing worse than dating nobody was dating a nobody.

With Inferno about to be released, the public was ready for another full-fledged Jason Andrews romance. And Marty Shepherd—publicist to the stars and eighth most powerful person in Hollywood (once talent and studio heads were excluded)—was determined to give them one.

With these thoughts in mind, Marty picked up the copy of People magazine that Rebecca had handed him earlier that week. He flipped through “The Women of Jason Andrews!” article until he came to the last picture of Jason and the actress who’d been cast as the female lead in the legal thriller—Naomi Cross.

Marty smiled, thinking how nice Naomi looked standing next to Jason. She was an ingénue and a media darling. Even better, she was British, which meant double the UK and European exposure.

Yes, Marty mused to himself, Naomi Cross was just the answer he’d been looking for.

WAY ACROSS TOWN, in a recently purchased five-bedroom home nestled in the heart of the Hollywood Hills, someone else was looking at that very same picture of Jason Andrews and Naomi Cross.

But unlike Marty, Scott Casey was not smiling.

In fact, he was pretty damn pissed off.

His publicist had promised that he was going to be on the cover of that very issue of People, not Jason Andrews. Again.

The story—or so his publicist had said—was supposed to focus on Scott’s move from Sydney, Australia, to Los Angeles. How he had made the decision, given his recent film success, to live full time in the States.

Scott doubted there were few people in America who didn’t already know his story (not that he minded it being told over and over again in GQ, Vanity Fair, Esquire, and Movieline). The interviews all focused on the same basic facts: he had shot to fame little more than thirteen months ago after costarring in the epic fantasy-adventure, A Viking’s Quest. Women had gone absolutely mad for the character he played in the film. In fact, during the five months the movie ran worldwide in theaters, his name was Googled more than any other search term.

It was nothing that Scott, nor any of the people working with him during the production of A Viking’s Quest, had foreseen. In fact, Scott had had to fight just to audition for the role. His look was too “pretty boy” to play a Viking, the director had originally said. But his agent cajoled, pleaded, pulled strings, and got Scott the audition, which eventually led to a screen test. After much deliberation, the director and producers decided that Scott’s picture-perfect handsome face was an interesting contrast to the lead actor’s rugged, unkempt look. And to match his lean appearance, they gave Scott’s character a kick-ass bow and arrow to fight with instead of a clunky sword.

It worked. Boy, did it ever work. On screen, he was fierce and feral—yet somehow graceful at the same time. And when the camera zoomed in and held longingly on his soulful hazel eyes—his blond hair ruffling in the wind—no woman in the audience could help but be breathlessly glued to every frame.

A star was born.

After the release of the film, Scott was immediately labeled Hollywood’s “It Guy” and offered a wealth of the best parts in town. Seizing the day, he went after a role he had dreamed of playing since his high school Contemporary Lit class: the lead in the film adaptation of the novel Outback Nights.

Although it was one of the most sought-after parts in Hollywood, Scott believed himself to be a shoo-in. Notwithstanding the fact that he had launched onto the industry’s A-list virtually overnight, he had the added benefit of actually being Australian. So he went to lunch with the producers and even sacrificed an entire Saturday night of clubbing with his friends to have dinner with the film’s director at his ranch in Santa Barbara. Two days later, his agent called with the big news.

They had offered him the f**king supporting role.

The part of the sidekick, the friend who dies violently on page eighty-eight of the script, whose death spurs the protagonist—the lead actor—to face his adversaries and demons, save the town, and get the girl in the climatic third act.

A lead role that had been offered to Jason Andrews.

The studio had apparently gotten a copy of the script to him last minute, and Jason was interested. It was an unbelievable coup, the producers said, certain that Scott would understand. They simply couldn’t pass on a chance to land Jason Andrews. No one did.

Amidst a string of Aussie-flavored profanities, Scott told his agent in no uncertain terms that he was done playing supporting parts (unless of the indie, Oscar-garnering type, of course). And he certainly was no sidekick to Jason Andrews. Then he angrily took off to Cabo San Lucas to fume in a twenty-five-hundred-dollar-a-night bungalow.