Pretending to Be Us Read online

  Pretending To Be Us

  Taylor Holloway

  Copyright © 2020 by Taylor Holloway

  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.

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  Contents

  About This Book

  Prologue

  1. Peter

  2. Lucy

  3. Lucy

  4. Peter

  5. Lucy

  6. Peter

  7. Peter

  8. Peter

  9. Peter

  10. Lucy

  11. Peter

  12. Lucy

  13. Peter

  14. Lucy

  15. Peter

  16. Lucy

  17. Peter

  18. Lucy

  19. Peter

  20. Peter

  21. Lucy

  22. Peter

  23. Peter

  24. Lucy

  25. Peter

  26. Lucy

  27. Peter

  28. Peter

  29. Lucy

  30. Peter

  31. Lucy

  32. Lucy

  33. Peter

  34. Lucy

  35. Peter

  36. Lucy

  37. Peter

  38. Peter

  39. Lucy

  40. Peter

  41. Lucy

  42. Lucy

  43. Peter

  44. Lucy

  45. Peter

  46. Lucy

  47. Lucy

  48. Peter

  49. Lucy

  50. Peter

  51. Lucy

  52. Lucy

  53. Lucy

  Epilogue

  Admit You Want Me

  Baby and the Beast

  How to get your FREE extended epilogues!

  Also by Taylor Holloway

  Peter Prince is the sexy king of action movies. He’s hot, funny, smart, and confident. A little arrogant, but I can deal with that. And for the next several weeks, our full-time job is falling in love on camera.

  Pretending to flirt, tease, kiss, and ultimately be seduced by him is hardly a chore. In fact, his steely leading man gaze makes it a little too easy.

  But our sizzling chemistry on and off the set is about to combust into an inferno of heartbreak, because I'm pretending to be someone I'm not. I’m not Princess Lucia Bergen of Sweden, European royalty and accomplished actress. Not even close.

  I just wanted a chance to make my mark and take care of those I love.

  I never thought I'd actually get the lead role in a real movie.

  I never thought the sexiest man alive would invite me on a romantic world tour in his private jet.

  If he finds out that I'm not really who I say I am, but just Lucy Bergen, a regular girl whose life is a complete mess, this fairy tale I've stumbled into won’t have a happily ever after...

  ‘Pretending To Be Us’ is a sweet and sexy romance featuring a sarcastic action movie hero and a quirky girl next door on a twisted road to happily ever after. It stands alone with no cheating, cliffhangers, or nonsense.

  Prologue

  Lucy

  The coconut shrimp at the actors’ craft services table were screaming my name. Metaphorically. They weren’t actually calling my name. I wasn’t hallucinating. Not yet, although I hadn’t eaten in almost forty-eight hours. Still, I knew I should ignore their siren song. I also knew I couldn’t.

  My stomach cramped up painfully and my heart rate doubled. I wanted those coconut shrimp. No. I needed those coconut shrimp. Another night hungry was suddenly not an option. The fact that the shrimp were only for the actors, and definitely not for production peons like me, no longer mattered.

  “Are we done for the day?” I heard my voice asking. I was already devouring the shrimp in my mind. There were so many. And they would all go to waste if I didn’t... acquire them. Steal them. Immediately.

  “If Leona doesn’t come out of her trailer, we might be done forever,” my boss Darcy quipped. Her sycophantic, gorgeous companion, Santiago, smiled distractedly and returned to his phone. I hated them both more than ever.

  Darcy was unhappy, which was certainly nothing new because she was one of the most negative human beings I’d ever met, but for once I agreed. The entire cast and crew had been sitting around uselessly all afternoon because our lead actress was having second thoughts about her smooching scene with a guy I’d make out with for free.

  “I’m going to head home,” I told Darcy, starting to feel a bit dizzy.

  “If you leave, you’re fired,” she replied casually. “I can replace you in five minutes.”

  I shrugged, finally fed up with her shit. I was paid on an “as needed” basis, which meant that if we weren’t filming, I wasn’t getting paid. Was that legal? I had no idea, but we hadn’t filmed all day, or the day before, or the week before that.

  “That’s fine,” I told her. “Listen, it was a pleasure, but I need a job that actually pays me money. I can’t do this anymore. I have to survive.” She gaped at me as if noticing for the first time that I possessed the powers of speech. I strode off feeling no less hungry but a bit less abused.

  This formerly interchangeable subhuman assistant was about to get herself some coconut shrimp. I spied the head Crafty who was guarding the shrimp table, a beefy guy who went by Chief. One name. Like Cher. If he had another name, I didn’t know it. But Chief, like Cher, didn’t need a surname. He and his fellow “Crafties” were represented by a union. That meant they got paid whenever they worked, and they made a living wage to boot. Lucky bastards. That put them several levels above me on the hierarchy. I was virtually invisible and hoped it would, for once, pay off. Chief frowned when I approached. Well, so much for the invisibility cloak.

  “You can’t have any,” he said before I could even open my mouth. “I remember you.”

  I gave him my best doe-eyed look and put on a strong, fake Swedish accent. Being the daughter of poor immigrants had few benefits, but faking an accent was one of them. “You know me? But I just arrived yesterday from Stockholm. I had no idea people in the US knew me. I’m not that famous abroad.”

  He blinked. “What? No. I know you. You’re the one who stole the hamburgers at last week’s shoot.”

  I was, yes. I was The Hamburglar. But I could see the doubt in his face. He wasn't sure it was me. My hair had been a different color blonde last week and I’d been wearing it differently. There were lots of changing faces on this production. It was hard to keep them all straight. That meant there was a chance. I leaned into my deception.

  “Me?” I said, placing a delicate palm to my décolletage and drawing myself up to my full five-foot ten-inch height (plus three-inch heels). “You must have me confused with someone else. I’m from Sweden and I just got here. I’m an actress. I’m replacing Lilly Evans in the production. Didn’t you know?”

  Not true on both counts. My grandmother and mother were both from Sweden, but I’m from Dallas. But I grew up hearing Swedish. So, I could fake it. And I was a tall, slender, Scandinavian-looking blue-eyed blonde. It was loosely plausible. As for replacing Lilly in the production? Well, she wasn't in it, but I was banking on Chief not knowing that. His thing was food, not actresses.

  Chief stared at me wide eyed. He looked skeptical but he wasn’t sure. I plunged forward.

  “Anyway, I’d heard from Christoff that you were the best craft services coordinator in the business, and I should come to you with any requests.”

  He blinked. “Christoff said that about me?” Chief's cheeks
were as rosy red as the bottoms of my knockoff Louboutin's. He shifted bashfully from foot to foot.

  Christoff Idlewild, our artiste of a director, had certainly not said that. He’d never spoken to me, and likely never would. I was far, far beneath his notice (unless he needed a coffee or something). But I still nodded knowingly, and Chief looked flattered. Guilt ate at me, but I needed to eat food too badly to listen. It’s amazing how flexible your morality can become when your basic needs aren’t being met.

  “Yes,” I continued, projecting excitement and enthusiasm as best I could through the fake accent. “He said you were the very best. Anyway, I wanted to know if you think you could arrange to have knäckebröd for breakfast tomorrow.”

  “Um, can you spell that?” he asked me, a furrow of confusion appearing on his forehead.

  “Of course,” I replied sweetly and then launched into a convoluted explanation of the umlauts while Chief pulled a notebook from his pocket and started scribbling like a man possessed. While he was distracted, I casually dumped nearly an entire platter of the coconut shrimp into an empty Tupperware container within my big-ass purse (another designer knockoff, this one Fendi). A second platter met the same fate. And a third. All while Chief was being distracted by my explanation of the differences between diphthong pronunciations in southern and northern Skåne (aka Sweden). As soon as I had enough shrimp, I turned tail and ran to my car like a crazy person, skidding around the corners and leaving the cast and crew gaping at me. Chief didn’t even get a word in.

  My heart was still racing when I got to my grandmother’s house in my bucket of rust that pretended it was a car. Stealing made me feel like total scum, but it was hard to regret it when I was this hungry. I knew my grandma and my mom were even more hard up for cash than I was though, so I wouldn’t be dining alone. They always came first for me. I hoped they hadn’t opened another can of those horrible canned beans from the church food pantry. They were expired enough to make me worry about botulism.

  “I have food!” I announced in Swedish as I burst in the back door. “Lots of it. Coconut shrimp!” My grandmother (Mormor in Swedish) and mom looked up in total surprise. I tried to ignore the piles of bills on the coffee table, and I wasn’t going to mention the yellow eviction notice pinned to the front door like an insult. We'd deal with that later.

  “Oh, thank God,” my mom said, looking incredibly relieved. “Because we’re having company, and I wasn’t sure we would have anything for them but canned lima beans.”

  Right on cue, a knock on the door turned into four of my Mormor’s ancient friends. They were probably here for bridge club. I winced. My timing was horrible. This is what I got for sharing. Now I’d be sharing my ill-gotten shrimp with the whole neighborhood. Mormor’s friends were the other immigrant old ladies on our block, and together they formed a tight-knit community of neighborhood busybodies. Despite the fact that my Mormor only spoke Swedish, she somehow managed to communicate perfectly well through just bridge and bunko and the immigrant experience. They were all just as poor as we were or they’d be living somewhere else. My stomach growled, but I put on a smile anyway.

  The old ladies descended on my Tupperware container with keen excitement, praising my mom and grandmother for their generosity and good taste. The look of averted disaster on my family's faces made it worth it—culturally it's a deep and humiliating failure of a Swedish household not to generously feed guests. My mom would have been mortified not to be able to provide a proper meal. In her eyes I’d just saved the day. My stomach disagreed.

  “Aren’t you going to have any?” My mom asked as the last few shrimp were folded into handkerchiefs to take home to hungry husbands and grandchildren.

  I shook my head. “Oh no,” I lied with a smile, “I already ate.”

  Feeling lost, hungry, and guilty, I drove back to my friend Daniel’s apartment. To my abject shock, Darcy was sitting on Daniel’s doorstep. I hadn’t realized she knew where I lived.

  “How was the food?” She asked, cocking a manicured eyebrow at me.

  “Incredible,” I said confidently. I refused to show weakness in front of her. “They were the best coconut shrimp I’ve ever had.” Was she here to yell at me about stealing the shrimp? She could go kick rocks. I refused to admit weakness in front of her. We stared at one another in silence. She broke it first.

  “I enjoyed your performance today. It was extremely entertaining. You’re quite the little actress. Do you speak fluent Swedish?” Darcy asked. There was a look in her dark, keen eyes that made me feel on edge.

  I nodded, feeling suddenly out of my depth. She wasn’t yelling at me? Something was up. “More or less,” I replied. “Why?”

  “I have a proposition for you,” Darcy replied. “Do you want to be a princess tonight?”

  “A what?”

  1

  Peter

  “How many more are out there?” I asked the director. I glanced at the clock, hoping the answer was zero. It was just past nine p.m. and my left foot was asleep.

  “Just one,” she replied. I could tell Vanessa was as tired as I was. “Maybe she’ll be the winner.”

  “Yeah, maybe so.” I didn’t want to get my hopes up. We’d been auditioning actresses for what felt like forever. And we’d made absolutely no progress.

  “After that we’ve got a meeting with the producer, Darcy McClintic. She says she’s got a proposition to help us with the casting. So maybe that will go somewhere,” Vanessa added in a low voice meant only for me. I nodded, desperate for this ordeal to end. If the producer was finally putting her foot down, one way or another, it would.

  Anyone that tells you show business is glamorous is bullshitting you. Promoting movies and going to awards shows might be somewhat glamorous, but the rest? Mostly it’s difficult or dull. Today it was both.

  I was supposed to be starring in an independent romantic comedy based on an adaptation of “Admit You Want Me,” a best-selling novel. It was meant to help me transition from the big budget action films I enjoyed to other types of projects. I had a family legacy to uphold, after all, and that meant not being the only Prince brother who couldn’t get an Oscar nomination. The only problem? We had no female lead. It turns out it’s kind of difficult to shoot a romantic comedy with just the guy. So, for the fourth straight week, we were sitting in auditions.

  “So, who’s next?” My dad, our financier, asked. Emma Williams, the writer, was incredibly particular about the casting of the female lead. Somehow, she and my father would have to eventually agree on someone though. Otherwise it was going to be one boring movie. I’d already made a mental note to myself to never agree to another production that gave so much power to anyone other than the director. Vanessa was in the same frustrated boat. This was her first major production and she’d confided that she regretted all the concessions she had agreed to on the front end.

  “You’ll like this,” Vanessa replied, squinting down at her clipboard and then up at my dad. “Her name is Her Royal Highness Lucia Antonia Bergen, princess of Sweden and twenty-second in line for the crown. She flew in from Stockholm for the audition."

  “A princess?” my dad asked hopefully. He blinked out of his stupor and set down his coffee. “A real one?”

  I stifled a dismissive groan. Our last name might be Prince, but it was only because Palczynski was too unpronounceable for the clerk at Ellis island who was processing the incoming Poles one cold winter’s day in 1911. Despite the considerable fame and fortune my family had achieved in Hollywood over the last two generations, we had not a drop of nobility in us. Much to my father’s dismay.

  Vanessa shrugged and flipped her auburn hair. “I mean, that’s what it says. Her CV lists a few well-reviewed theater productions in Europe and a very large international social media following.”

  My dad sat up excitedly and I melted down into my chair. Huh. A real live princess? My dad was a huge Europhile and famous admirer of royalty, sometimes to a fault. I considered his fascination unpa
triotic. This girl must have heard that my dad had a soft spot for titles and thought it might be her ticket to American stardom. Clever, but I automatically assumed she’d be entitled in more ways than one.

  “Can she act?” I asked. My dad looked offended that I’d even ask.

  “Let’s find out,” Vanessa replied before my dad could, motioning for her assistant to send in the princess. I tried to resist rolling my eyes and then felt them magnetically drawn to the tall, sleek blonde who walked in like she owned the place. My jaw went slack and my cock went hard in two heartbeats time.

  “Good afternoon,” the gorgeous blonde said to the four of us. Her smile was bright, white, and perfect. She looked like she’d been designed for ideal symmetry, with long legs, perfect curves, and the high-cheekboned face of a supermodel. She looked like Grace Kelly reincarnated, only taller and with a much better rack. I could hear her foreign accent in her light, soothing soprano voice. She projected total, unflappable confidence. “I’m Lucia Antonia. I go by Lucy. Thanks very much for having me. I’m excited to be here. Where do you want me for this scene?”