Not Suspicious in Hollywood: Not in Hollywood Book 5 by Leonie Gant Page A

all the time I
worked in Hollywood I would have made a different choice.
    Roxy looked surprised. “I wasn’t expecting
you to say that.”
    I hadn’t been expecting it either. “Crystal
is a good friend and I adore her. You being here causes problems and I’m naturally
wired to solve problems. I’m not sure how to fix this for her.”
    Roxy nodded. “I understand. I haven’t been
the best of mothers. I know that.”
    I stayed silent. There was no way I was
going to contradict her self-assessment now.
    “The way John is with his family has made
me have a good hard look at myself. I haven’t been too impressed with what I’ve
seen.”
    I quietly listened to her as I put the
dress back on the rack.
    “I want to do better with Crystal. I have made
so many wrong decisions in my life and most of them centered around her. I want
a way to fix what I’ve done.”
    “Maybe telling her that, rather than me,
would be a good start,” I said.
    Roxy smiled ruefully. “You’d think so but I
seem to have trouble saying those words to Crystal. You seem to be easier to
talk to.”
    I shook my head. “No, it’s just that you
don’t care whether I like you or not. It seems that despite the way you’ve
treated Crystal all her life, you’ve started to care.”
    “I don’t know how to reach her. Maybe too
much has happened for us to ever work things out between us.”
    Roxy looked distressed by that thought. That
more than anything else gave me hope that she really meant what she was saying.
    “How about laying it out there for her.
After everything that’s happened between you I don’t think that anything less
than complete honesty is going to work.”
    Roxy nodded. “I want her to meet John.
Maybe when she sees him, sees the kind of man he is, maybe then she’ll realize
that I’m not the same person I was.”
    “That could be a good idea,” I said.
    “Trudie, I want to say something to you but
I don’t want to hurt your feelings.” Roxy looked nervous.
    That was sweet. I could have told her that,
considering the industry I worked in, she was going to need to come up with
something pretty spectacular to actually manage to hurt my feelings.
    “I want you to go away.”
    I stopped and stared. Although not
particularly insulting to me, it was actually something I’d heard many times
before, I was a little perplexed.
    “I think I need to spend some time alone
with Crystal and I think you being here is going to stop it being as honest as
it needs to be.”
    That was pretty blunt.
    “I’ll just check with Crystal and see if
she’s okay with that,” I said.
    I poked my head into the fitting room. “You
decent?”
    “Rarely,” Crystal called out. “Come in
anyway, I could do with some help with this dress.”
    I squeezed into the fitting room with her.
“What’s the problem?”
    “I can’t quite get this zip to come all the
way up.”
    I looked down at the dress. I had a feeling
it wasn’t going to fit well. Crystal has curves and some of the clothes that
were in these stores were not forgiving of even the smallest hint of an
hourglass figure.
    “Never mind, I can see from the look on
your face that this one isn’t going to work. Can you just get the zip down for
me?”
    I started pulling it down. “As long as you
never mention a word of this to Edwin.”
    Crystal smiled. “I promise.” She turned
around and faced me.
    “I’ve got to go.”
    Crystal’s face fell. “Work call you in?”
    I shook my head. “No, your mom wants me to
leave.”
    “Excuse me.”
    I could see Crystal wasn’t reacting well to
that statement.
    “Your mom wants to spend a day with you.
She’s trying to connect with you, Crystal. I know you brought me here to act as
interference but I really think you should at least hear the woman out. If I’m
here it kind of wrecks the mood.”
    “And what if this is simply more of the
same garbage that she’s been peddling to me my entire life. People