Unraveled by Him Read online

  To all my inspirations

  Chapter One

  September 13, 2014, 6:10 a.m.

  Dawn is breaking, I’m dead tired, but I don’t care, because I’ve just written the last line of Unraveled, my debut erotic novel, and I’m ecstatic. So I hit the send button and e-mail the manuscript to Linda, my editor in Manhattan.

  Right now, the title page reads: Unraveled by Miranda Stone.

  That’s only temporary, though, because my name definitely won’t be on the final book, as I’m publishing it under a fake identity. Half the celebrities in Hollywood would probably run a mile if they discovered that Miranda Stone, ghostwriter to the stars, has published an erotic novel. And I’d be finished in the ghosting business forever.

  So I haven’t said a single word about Unraveled to a living soul, and never will. And even if the book hits the best-seller lists, I won’t ever admit that I wrote it.

  Nerve-wracking but essential, because I’m worried about not just alienating all those Hollywood stars, but shocking my mother, my stepfather, my younger sister, Lindy, and, above all, my eighty-one-year-old grandfather, whom I adore.

  Truthfully, I should have played it safe and stuck to ghostwriting, but I’ve always been a risk taker and a sensation junkie. Which is why I love, love, love writing all about my heroine’s erotic adventures.

  But will Linda love reading about them as well?

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Date: October 1, 2014, 10:00 a.m.

  Subject: holding my breath for your verdict . . .

  Hi Linda,

  I know it’s only been two weeks, but I’m dying to know what you think of the book . . .

  Miranda, x

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Date: October 1, 2014, 10:14 a.m.

  Subject: check your outbox!!

  I didn’t get anything from you, Miranda!!

  Sorry.

  Best regards,

  Linda

  OMG!

  I e-mailed the manuscript of Unraveled to my little sister, Lindy, instead of to my editor, Linda!

  And all because I was over the moon that I finished the book and hit send when I was bleary-eyed and half-dead.

  Half-dead? I want to kill myself!

  The manuscript has my real name on it!

  So now Lindy knows that I’ve written an erotic novel.

  Worse still, she’s already had it for two whole weeks without saying a word!

  The best-case scenario? She hated it and trashed it on the spot.

  The worst? She told Grandpa I’ve written an erotic novel, and he had a heart attack.

  On second thought, Lindy would never do anything to hurt Grandpa. Nor would I, which is exactly why I never want him to find out that I wrote Unraveled.

  Ever since our father left home when I was twelve and Lindy was one, Grandpa—our father’s father—has been more of a father to us than our real dad ever was. And now that our mom moved to Honolulu with my stepfather, Grandpa is our only family living close by. So Lindy and I make sure to spend as much time as possible with him while he’s still around.

  Last year, Lindy, who lives in Astoria, just a couple of blocks from Grandpa, took him into the city to see a Broadway show. I almost went with them, but didn’t because I was dying to start writing Unraveled, and just couldn’t wait. From the first moment I sat down at the computer, every single word flowed out of me like water torrenting down Niagara Falls at a hundred miles an hour.

  Now, though, those same words that poured out of me so effortlessly might be the ruin of me professionally. Depending, of course, on what Lindy has done with Unraveled, and whether or not she’s told anyone that her ghostwriter sister has authored a steamy erotic novel.

  Only one way to find out: go confront Lindy directly. In the nicest possible fashion, of course.

  Over in Astoria, two hours later, in between sobbing: “I shouldn’t have done it, I know I shouldn’t have, but it might work out great in the end. He might even . . .” Lindy is in my arms, emoting all over the place like a drama queen.

  I do my best to comfort her, but still can’t make head or tail of what she’s saying.

  One thing is clear, though: she has obviously read Unraveled.

  Is she appalled that I wrote it?

  Did she hate it?

  Worse still, did she love it and pass it around among her college friends?

  Or, nightmare of all nightmares, did she post it online?

  I feel as if I’m going to explode with anger. But from past experience, I know that if I unleash my redhead’s temper, I won’t just frighten the life out of Lindy, I’ll frighten myself as well.

  So although I feel like shaking her till I get the truth, I force myself to focus on the time when she was still sharing a bedroom with me and I woke up in the middle of the night to find her in floods of tears because she’d dreamed that I had died. The most conclusive evidence ever of how much she loves me. Of course I love her, too, so whatever she’s done with Unraveled, I’ll forgive her. Once I’ve discovered exactly what she’s done, that is . . .

  Meanwhile, she is still sobbing inconsolably.

  Lindy: Sob, sob. “I adored every word of your book, Miranda, couldn’t put it down, and then”—sob, sob—“please forgive me, please”—sniff sniff—“I only did what I did for you because I loved it, and you so much . . .”

  “Did what for me, Lindy? Did what?” I say, struggling to keep my voice neutral.

  She looks up at me with her big blue Bambi eyes and shakes her head.

  “Not what you think, Miranda,” she says, and swallows hard, clearly guilty as hell.

  Time for me to play the bad big sister, after all.

  I look her straight in the eye. “Lindy Rosamund Stone. If you don’t tell me the truth this minute . . .”

  She can see that I really mean business, takes a deep breath, and says the six words that will change my life forever: “I sent Unraveled to Robert Hartwell.”

  Before I can recover from the shock, she has bolted out of the apartment, still sobbing hysterically. For a second I consider running after her, but then decide that if I catch up with her, I may not be able to control my temper. And I’d hate myself if I didn’t.

  So I try to calm myself down by gorging on a Dove Bar. Then I flash back to a Sunday evening two years ago.

  Lindy and I were at my apartment, watching a TV documentary on the notorious media mogul philanthropist Robert Hartwell, one of the most famous, larger-than-life billionaires ever to stride the planet.

  Luckily, I’ve got a photographic memory, an invaluable asset for a ghostwriter—celebrities sometimes have conveniently unreliable memories, so my ability to retain every iota of research I’ve done on them helps me to offer gentle reminders when necessary. It’s easy for me to reconstruct the Robert Hartwell documentary moment by moment.

  The first scene: Robert Hartwell’s spectacular home, Hartwell Castle, a 130-room edifice erected on five hundred acres of prime Long Island Gold Coast real estate in the 1920s for a stratospherically wealthy and eccentric English lord, whose overpaid architects went so over-the-top that they carved a deep moat around the castle, complete with a massive iron drawbridge across it.

  “If only that drawbridge had been up the morning tragedy came calling at Hartwell Castle . . . the tragedy that broke Robert Hartwell’s heart irrevocably,” the narrator had intoned darkly.

  “Irrevocably?” Lindy said.

  �
�Meaning that his heart will never mend again, no matter what,” I said.

  Cut to the exterior of the chandelier-lit Metropolitan Opera House. Next, with the prelude to La Traviata playing over a still of an unutterably dashing Robert Hartwell, side by side with the statuesque Lady Georgiana, regal in a Grecian-style purple chiffon gown, her legendary violet eyes sparkling, her entire being radiating a matchless allure, the narrator announced, “The star-crossed romance of the century was first ignited here at the Met Ball four years ago, when Robert Hartwell and Lady Georgiana first set eyes on each other, and were instantly swept away by what the French call a coup de foudre—love at first sight.”

  “She must have been the best and most beautiful woman who ever lived. And such a saint. If only she had lived happily ever after . . .” Lindy said tearfully.

  “If only he had, as well,” I said, because although I didn’t know then that Robert Hartwell would one day hold the fate of my career in his strong hands, I was far more riveted by him than by the tragic Lady Georgiana.

  And why wouldn’t I have been? Robert Hartwell—heart-stoppingly handsome, his green eyes blazing at Lady Georgiana with unbridled desire—towered over not only her but every other man at the Met Ball that evening. A king among men, and irresistible to practically every red-blooded woman under the sun. Most particularly me.

  “He makes me think of a swashbuckling pirate. Or a glamorous highwayman. Or a knight in shining armor who rescues a damsel in distress, then ravishes her and she loves it,” I said.

  “Main thing—he’s a multibillionaire,” Lindy said.

  “Well, I’d still lust after him even if he didn’t have a dime,” I said, transfixed by an on-screen montage of Robert Hartwell accompanied by Mariah Carey’s “Hero.” Robert Hartwell astride one of his polo ponies, his muscular thighs bulging; Robert Hartwell, macho and windswept, at the helm of his 480-foot luxury yacht, the Lady Georgiana; Robert Hartwell skillfully piloting one of his private planes over one of his South African diamond mines; Robert Hartwell playing a vigorous game of squash on the beach of his private island, Georgiana Key, his arms and legs ripped to perfection. And in each and every shot, Robert Hartwell exuding a dangerously seductive sexual magnetism so potent that it took my breath away.

  Then a flashback to his start in life (born in Chicago, the son of billionaire newspaper proprietor Sir Stanley Hartwell and Contessa Carla Brindisi, heiress to the Brindisi fashion empire), illustrated with a captivating picture of him as a tiny baby, already overflowing with charm, and then another of him as a small boy, staring into the camera, his green eyes fraught with shadows, his little fists clenched tight with so much tension that my heart went out to him.

  “Don’t know why he looks so sad. I mean, he was born with a whole silverware drawer in his mouth,” Lindy said.

  We soon found out. According to the documentary, when Robert was only seven, his father—who had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer—cut his own throat, whereupon Robert’s mother had a nervous breakdown and was committed to an institution.

  “He must have felt that his mother had abandoned him. No wonder he grew up to be such a womanizer,” I mused, going through a mental list of all the stars, models, and society beauties he was said to have dated.

  “He was a womanizer before he met Lady Georgiana, but never since, because he was so madly in love with her, and would be . . . irrevocably,” Lindy said, misty-eyed.

  “Lindy, honey, I think you mean eternally,” I said.

  According to the documentary, after the death of Robert’s father, it was discovered that Sir Stanley Hartwell was a degenerate gambler and had secretly squandered the family fortune in its entirety, so little Robert was left penniless, and his paternal aunt and uncle took him in. This information was accompanied by a shot of a haggard American Gothic–style couple, who, the narrator explained were tough Scottish immigrants who had settled in Nebraska. Fulfilling the conditions of Robert’s father’s will, they’d managed to send him to boarding school in England for a year or two, but they’d balked at paying the fees long-term and the school had quickly shipped him back to America.

  From then on, Robert was put to work on their ranch, toiling long and hard with very little reward. But although he was bone-tired at the end of each evening, he studied through the night and ultimately won a scholarship to college.

  On the first day of his very first vacation, he hitched a ride to California and, lured there by the siren’s song of his father’s gambling gene, ended up at Los Alamitos racetrack. With just a hundred dollars in his pocket, he bet every cent on a 500-to-1 long shot, the horse romped home a winner, and Robert Hartwell had taken the first leap toward building his fortune.

  With his winnings, he started a ten-page local tabloid newspaper, writing and editing it himself, fell wholeheartedly in love with the newspaper business, then purchased a bigger newspaper, then twenty-five more, then thirteen TV stations, then five sports arenas, then an international airline, then a major publishing conglomerate, and more and more, until . . .

  “Robert Hartwell owned the world,” the narrator ended.

  “I so, so wish there was more about Lady Georgiana,” Lindy said longingly.

  The narrator went on: “In the years before he met Lady Georgiana, Robert Hartwell’s overriding obsession—apart from beautiful women and philanthropy (which would ultimately culminate in his billion-dollar donation to the Lady Georgiana Hartwell Foundation for Mentally Disabled Children)—was gambling.”

  Robert Hartwell’s exploits as a high roller were so riveting that even though I’m usually useless with numbers, I can easily recall the details of his gambling sprees in all their unparalleled excess. According to the documentary, he blithely lost $10 million in Vegas over fifteen years, won $28 million in a single London casino over the space of just one week, routinely wagered $300,000 a hand at poker, won $9 million after twenty-four hours solid at the tables in Monte Carlo, and, during one dizzying night in Buenos Aires, actually risked $180,000 on the single toss of a coin, and won.

  Flamboyant and reckless as Robert Hartwell undoubtedly was, according to the documentary, he was also famously generous. Whenever he won big, he made sure that all the casino staff working that night won big as well. A $150,000 tip to the cabaret singer, $100,000 tips to each of the dealers, $200,000 to the casino host, and one time he even paid off an impoverished busboy’s mortgage, because the boy was disabled in a car crash and he felt sorry for him.

  An irony, really, given the tragic destiny that lay ahead for him and for Lady Georgiana. But despite all the trials and tribulations he suffered, the photographs and the brief TV interviews he reluctantly gave over the years (solely to raise the media profile of Lady Georgiana’s foundation) attested that with every year that passed he became more powerful, wealthier, more imposing, and, most important of all, more handsome.

  When the documentary ended, I turned to Lindy with a sigh. “Handsome, brilliant, powerful, and dangerous, with a life story straight out of a Hollywood movie. If only he were looking for a ghostwriter . . .”

  Remembering it now, I feel like throwing up.

  As if Robert Hartwell would ever hire an erotic novelist to ghost his life story! He’d always been at the top of my secret hit list for dream subjects whose life stories I’d love to ghost. Followed by Rihanna, then Jack Nicholson, then Prince Harry. But Robert Hartwell has always been my number one target, and I always hoped that if I ghosted enough bestselling memoirs, he might consider me. But thanks to Lindy, now that he knows I write erotica, he never will.

  Just as I’m feeling utterly demoralized by the damage Lindy has done to my ghosting career, she bursts back into the apartment hugging a gift-wrapped one-pound box of Godiva chocolates, her face blotchy with tears.

  “I’m sorry, Miranda, I really am. But when I read Unraveled, I was so knocked out by it that I wanted to do everything I could to get it
published for you!” she says.

  “But Robert Hartwell!!”

  “Is the number one publisher in the world, that documentary we saw together said. Plus you kept telling me that he is the most handsome man in the universe. So I thought he would be perfect to publish your sexy book,” she says triumphantly.

  “But I’ve already got a publisher for it, Lindy!”

  “Yes, but I didn’t know that!”

  “You weren’t supposed to!” I practically scream at her.

  “Well, then, perhaps Robert Hartwell will read Unraveled and get so turned on by it that he’ll fall passionately in love with you,” she says.

  I bite my tongue and stop myself from yelling, Why would Robert Hartwell be remotely interested in an erotica writer from Hoboken after being married to an icon three times as beautiful as I’ll ever be?

  But there’s no point.

  “Just tell me how you sent the manuscript to Robert Hartwell, Lindy, then perhaps I can work out a way to intercept it,” I say.

  She shoves the Godiva box into my hands.

  “I’m sorry, Miranda,” she says.

  “And?”

  Silence.

  A chill shoots down my spine.

  “Lindy, I know that look . . . you haven’t told me the whole story yet, have you?”

  She shifts her weight from one leg to the other and avoids meeting my eyes.

  “I meant well, Miranda, I really did. It’s just that I remembered the bunny girl we read about in the tabloids . . .”

  “You mean the blonde Playboy bunny Robert Hartwell lost his virginity to when he was sixteen?” I say, confused.

  Lindy nods miserably.

  “I thought that would be the only way of getting your book through all that heavy security at Hartwell Castle,” she says.

  They say that in the seconds before she dies, a drowning woman sees her whole life flash before her eyes. And at that moment, I could see part of mine in the shape of our great-aunt Ella, Grandpa’s younger sister, a former Chicago Playboy Bunny who often used to take care of Lindy when she was a kid.