Passion Play (A New Adult Romance)

By Sarah P. Lodge

I’m eighteen. A virgin. And trapped in this billionaire’s castle!

All I wanted to be was an actress.  But now the only thing I’m playing is his game.

Cameron Scott.  Gorgeous. Dark. Intimidating. A movie executive willing to grant my wildest dreams.  Who would ever have known he was tormented by demons and an obsession with control? Not me.  I mean, who’s like that in real life? I mean, really?

But I have a secret too.  I’m not the women he thinks I am.

Literally.  I’m pretending to be my best friend so I can get a part in his movie!  But the deception has now gone too far…. I never dreamed that such a wealthy powerful man would desire someone like me.  And I’m falling desperately in love with him too.

He can’t find out my secret.  I’ll lose him for sure.  

But how far am I really willing to go to stop him from discovering the truth…

——

A standalone New Adult Romance with a HEA ending.  No cliffhanger.

This 24,000 word new adult contemporary romance is intended for mature audiences.  If you’re not looking for a steamy coming of age story centred around secrets, lies, true love, and a young woman’s sexual awakening, this story is definitely not for you.  

**This novella was professionally re-edited in July 2016**

“How’s that?” I said, dabbing the cut on Cameron’s forehead.

He winced.

“It’s fine.”

I reached around the other side of the bed and grabbed a plaster from my suitcase.

“Bet you’re glad I brought this now.”

He remained stoic, his gaze fixed to me.

I peeled away the paper layer and slowly applied the plaster to his forehead, my fingers grazing his skin in soft strokes.

“Let me see it,” I said, eyeing the area over his ribs.

“Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

Oh course I wasn’t.  The smell of musk and fresh sweat smothered the air, the two of us, completely alone in the bedroom.  Everything silent except the muted thumps of our hearts, the quick shallow breathes.  His skin, so soft and smooth.

Cameron lifted off his shirt.

His torso was compact and muscular, his pecs hard and throbbing.  A pronounced six pack peaked out of his stomach.

“Well?” he asked.

There was no bruises and no cuts.  Just a slight red mark on the left side of the ribcage where he’d been kicked.

I dry swallowed.

“Everything looks good.  Really really good.”

His gaze was still fixed to me. I could feel his eyes bore deep into my own.

“Hey,” I said, my voice quivering. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Before.  That look you had.  It was like you were ready to kill that guy.  But you didn’t.”

“That’s not a question.”

“I guess what I’m wondering is, if I wasn’t there to stop you…”

He cupped the back of my head with his palm, and stroked the base.

“I would have done whatever was necessary to protect someone I cared about.”

My breathing was heavy, his fingers soft against my neck.

“Does that scare you?” he asked.

I nodded.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Forwards Publishing
• Release date: Sep 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781536569988

Sarah P. Lodge

Sarah P. Lodge is the pseudonym of a famous British screenwriter and author.  When she isn’t writing screenplays and novels, she spends most of her time preoccupied with her kittens.

Book preview

Chapter 1

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The thing about acting is, you’re always yourself.

There’s the vocal minority who champion the idea that you become the other person.  No ifs and buts, there’s them and there’s you and now there’s only them in a you-shaped skin.

Some even hold that the character’s essence moulds with your essence, creating a two part half-actor half-character bastard, lumbering along like Frankenstein’s monster giving theatre to the world.

They’re the pretentious idiots.  The ones that clink their champagne flutes backstage as they argue about Meiser’s effect on dramatic metaphors.

So what is the truth?

That there’s only you.  That character you inhabit is nothing but a mask.  They may walk and talk like someone else, but deep deep down, there’s only you.  You can pretend and create a masquerade, effecting those qualities of the other on to yourself - proud, demure, smart, stupid, whatever.

But it doesn’t make a difference.  It’s a deep dark well bricked in the fake person’s skin, but you’re the one sitting at the bottom, naked and alone and afraid.

Katie always held this idea in deep regard.  She’d regale me with its finer points frequently over a chummy glass of red down the Queen’s Arms every Sunday afternoon.  A few glasses later and she’d circle around other topics, but the centre point would still be this idea of whoever you pretend you are, you’re always yourself.  She especially held this true for sex.

Oh Lucy, let me tell you, when a man and a women get down to it and start fucking, it couldn’t be any truer, she said to me one nippy Sunday afternoon.

I sipped my rosé and said nothing.

The amount of lying that goes into sex is unreal.  Of course I love musicals, are you kidding - that’s my favourite movie too, why no Headmaster - I don’t think your wife gives a shit about you at all.  Complete bollocks.

Katie lit a cigarette.

But when it comes down to it, when you’re just two naked bodies smacking groins together in the dark, it’s the real you that’s there in the room.  All those hollow lies melt away and it’s just people embracing each other’s bodies, total and completely.  They see you for who you are, and they want that, and you want them even though you’re both naive and stupid and insecure.  But more than anything, you accept who each other is, their soul now bore to you in all its nakedness, no matter who it is you are deep deep down.  More than accept.  They want you.  The real you.  And that makes you happy beyond compare.

I rolled my eyes.  She always had a flair for the overly dramatic.

But I was used to it by now.  You can’t be best friends with someone since kindergarten if you can’t love them for their flaws.

Not that she had many.  We always had that sisterly love, two kids born barely six months apart who love and hate each other in equal measure.  People used to even confuse us for sisters over the years, which I never understood.  Katie was your archetypal 50s Hollywood beauty.  Cobalt eyes, long golden hair that billowed over her shoulders as she ran, slim and fit, with an ass you could roll a penny off.  And many guys had tried over the years.

Me?  I’m not much to look at.  Plain Jane if ever there was one.

But it wasn’t even about looks.  Six months younger, but she was always so much more confident, so much more real.  She never quit and she always got what she wanted.  God, how I wished to be like that.

She was my ideal through our teens.  I even quit school at sixteen and followed her to London to become an actress.  She’d already been acting in plays back in Shropshire.  But I’d also had my part or two: the chambermaid, the younger tell-me-everything friend, you know the type. But as the years went on, I grew to love the theatre, to love acting and becoming another person.  It became the real me.

Of course, that was bollocks, apparently.

Come on Luce.  Say something, she said.

What do you want me to say?

I dunno, anything.  You’re creeping me out over there.

I took another sip of rosé.

It’s the sex stuff, isn’t it? she asked.

She knew it was the sex stuff.  She’d only said as much to rattle me.

That’s the thing about being best friends for almost your entire 18 years.  You tend to know each other’s in and outs so completely it’s blinding.  My mind’s eye could never wash away the time I caught her getting fingered by her gardener, or when I stumbled upon her mounting Luke Bessit like a angry pony at New Years.  Or all the times she flat out told me how so-and-so with the gigantic erection bent her over a desk/chair/lawn table and pounded so hard she saw Jesus.

The same way she knew that I’d never done anything remotely like that.  That in 18 years, I’d never even been with a guy.  And it provided her so much amusement.

I’ll have another, she said to the barman as he scooped up her empty glasses.  I hadn’t even finished my first.

Katie stared at me as I sipped.  I could almost visualise the cogs spinning behind her eyes.

Have you had a call back from that part you were so excited about last week?  What was it called?  Ms. Gloucester’s Dining Room? she asked.

You were excited, I said.  It wasn’t really right for me.

Not right for you?  Listen to yourself, Luce.  It was the fucking lead.

Exactly.

Katie drummed her fingers against the table.

I just don’t get you.  You know, one day you’ll get tired of all those best friend parts, believe me.

Can we not talk about this?

Fine.

The waiter brought over another bottle of Rosé.

Katie eyed me restlessly.  You got a lot of fucking talent, Luce.  There are producers out there that would die to have you on stage.

Drop it, would ya?

Just audition.  That’s all I ask.

And then what? I said.  Sit in a room with a bunch of magazine cover beauties, all eyes on me wondering what the hell I was doing there?  Producers don’t want someone like me on their billboards.  They want someone like you.

Katie ashed her cigarette.

God.  You know what your problem is?  You over think everything.  You’re awesome, the play is awesome.  Ergo: do it.

I did do it, I said.

For real?  Ms. Gloucester’s Dining Room?  Oh Luce, you’re gonna kill it.

I’m not the lead.  I’m...someone else.

Katie rolled her eyes.  Ugh, the best friend again?

No.  I sunk behind the wine glass.  The maid.

Katie bit her lip.  I’m sorry.

"What’s there to be sorry about?  I’m good for the maid.  I want to play the maid.