Perfectly Imperfect(16)
It’s been fifteen long years since I starred in my first lead role. Fifteen years of nothing but success that has no chance of slowing down anytime soon. I could stop making movies tomorrow and that success would never die. It used to be the only thing I wanted in life. Acting was my one and only aspiration. It was never a question of if I would become one of the most demanded names in Hollywood—it was always when. Two years after my first major motion picture role, I won my first Oscar. The year after that, another. Multiple awards followed. SAGs, Golden Globes, BAFTA—British Academy of Film and Television Awards—you name it; I hold it in a shiny case in the media room of my Malibu beach house.
But in all of that success, it’s become painfully obvious to me in the last couple of years that I was missing something in my life. The meaningless affairs dwindled down to nothing. The attraction to the women in my normal circles disappeared. I began to see them for what they were, and I’ve been struggling significantly with that.
I want companionship. I want a partner I can build a life with outside the insanity of my celebrity status. I want more for my future than bright lights around me.
Aside from my brothers, my few closest friends, and my parents, there really wasn’t anything left for me. I’ve begun to believe I would never find someone to fill the emptiness haunting me.
Bottom line—I’m lonely. Surrounded by millions and still the loneliest motherf*cker around.
But I will never be lonely enough to settle for one of the vapid, fake women who surround my lifestyle. I want someone real. I need a challenge. I want to feel that connection to someone I’ve never been able to find. That one you read about. The one that makes you feel alive. Awakens you with just a glance. I know it’s out there because I felt it once before; a fleeting feeling gone just as quickly as it hit, but it’s out there … otherwise, the movies they pay me millions to create wouldn’t be instant blockbusters. Everyone dreams of finding that feeling. And until I find it, I’m afraid I’ll spend the rest of my days wandering around like a lost puppy.
Even my agent has noticed a change in my normally full throttled drive. I’ve slowed down on the circuit; taking fewer offered roles, I’m focusing more on producing and directing. If I’m quite honest, I’m not even sure acting is something I want to do anymore. The industry has lost its glamor; I know if I have any hopes of finding that life partner I crave and a chance at making my dreams a reality, being in the spotlight will blind me from the path to find those things.
Who would guess that the real Kane Masters is a lonely little boy wandering around in a thirty-five-year-old’s skin second-guessing every decision he’s made up to this point? If I had just followed my brother, Kyle, in his footsteps outside this life of fame, would I be married now, too? Have kids? Be able to walk the streets without paparazzi swarming me? I’m sure, at the very least, I would be able to form lasting relationships with the absence of the lie-riddled tabloids. Kyle still struggles because of Jessica, his wife’s own fame, but they’ve been able to carve out a life for themselves that seems to work.
“Drop me off here, Cam,” I tell my driver, bodyguard, and friend when he pulls up to my attorney’s office at Buchanan and Buchanan. “I’ll just be a second. I need to see if Steven looked over the contract I had dropped off yesterday and I’ll be right back. Just wait here and I’ll be quick.” He gives me a hard look, and I know damn well it’s because he hates that I brush off the potential dangers my celebrity status brings. “Seriously, Cam. No one has ever caused a scene here before, and I’m just going to be in and out.”
Cam begrudgingly nods but doesn’t reply. I hear him turn up the book he had been listening to before I jumped in the car earlier this morning. Normally, I don’t give a shit what he’s listening to, but he’s been on a romance kick lately and he knows I’ll get pissed if I start getting into a book only to have to stop. Those romance books get me hooked every time.
Call me a *—but there’s nothing wrong with a man who enjoys a good romance book. My dad always said the best way to learn what a woman wants is to pick up some of the smut they love to read so much. Written by a woman, it might as well be a road map to instant pleasure.
I laugh to myself as I take the elevator up and step into the immaculate offices of Buchanan and Buchanan. I look over at the couple standing off to the side and give them a nod. I see recognition flash in the man’s eyes, but the woman next to him catches my gaze.
She’s beautiful—I’ll give her that, even with the shocked recognition written over her features. But her beauty isn’t something that causes me to take a second look. I will never understand why women feel the need to erase everything that makes them soft and feminine to turn themselves into one of those masks you pick up at Halloween. You know, the ones you put on and you could be screaming and carrying on within, but there wouldn’t be a flinch in your facial features.
Fake.
Unattractive.
I move my gaze from her frozen face and look down at her thin body. Don’t get me wrong; I’m sure there are men who love the sleekness of a smaller woman, but not me. I’ve always been attracted to women with curves. Because the women within my inner circle favor—like this woman—to pay for their beauty, the better part of my adult relationships have been with women like her by my side, even though my preferences run differently.