Page 1 of The Singapore Stunt

Chapter One

Kimberly

“Five minutes!” The high-pitched voice arrives seconds after the double tap on my trailer door, causing Ariana, my stunt double, to turn to me and freeze. A brilliant smile appears on her face. She lifts a hand to her mouth, and we both burst into a laugh that nearly shakes the movie trailer.

“Told you,” I laugh, and pull the bulky hoodie over my head.

“Oh my god, Kimberly. I thought you were joking,” she says with a modesty that warms my heart. Ariana is a former near Olympic gymnast and is sweet as the day is long.

“How did you not notice?” I joke. We are on location at the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theater in the heart of Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles. “It’s always the quiet ones you need to pay attention to. They always have the kindest of hearts.”

She points to the door. “Declan?” She says the name of the grip working on the movie production. “He has a thing for me?”

“In the worst way.” My comment causes her dimple to pop, and it takes everything in me not to press my hands to my chest and scream awww. “He only comes by my trailer when we’re about to film a fight scene.”

“Scenes when you will need a stunt double.” She completes the puzzle, and a blush forms on her face. “Times when he knows I’m hanging in your trailer. I think the most he’s ever said to me has been, ‘Can you pass the sugar?’”

“Ooh, how sweet.” We both giggle like high school gossips. You’d never know we are on the set of a high-budget Hollywood movie, one with all eyes of the industry on us. It’s a female-led action movie, one which Hollywood, even after the success of Wonder Woman and Black Widow, hesitates to green-light. That’s not the only reason every eye is on us. Some internet sleuth leaked the fact that the studio has optioned three additional scripts, hoping to turn this into a franchise. A franchise that will rest heavily on my slender shoulders.

It’s a role I fought hard for. From a box office standpoint, I’ve delivered. Two-billion-dollar box office movies in the last three years, Forever and the sequel, Forever and Ever. But both movies were in the romance genre. And both of them had something this one doesn’t: Trace Edwards, the top leading man in all of Hollywood.

I co-starred in an action film filmed primarily in Japan last year. It did well enough, but not blockbuster good. We’re still debating why. Part of my gut knows the truth. It’s a truth I’ll have to face soon enough.

“Are you sure? You’re a romantic at heart,” Ariana says as she steps to the brightly lit mirror and teases her blonde hair. She’s an inch shorter than me, and this close to her, comparing my body to hers is laughable. I’m fit and have been on dozens of magazines, but I don’t have her tight muscles that scream hours in the gym. Then I take a step back. Three feet in either direction and she’s back to being my doppelgänger. Especially when she lets her blonde hair hang in front of her face.

She’s wearing brown contacts to match my dirt-brown eyes. The production team spent a week getting the right shade of brown, the tiniest of details covered in a production of this magnitude. We could pass for sisters.

It took Xavier, our stunt coordinator, a month to find the right stunt person for me. As the lead, he said it was vitally important. The movie has over a dozen physically challenging setups, many of them in close quarters. I raised my hand to do my own stunts, something the studio nixed early on. Not a chance in hell with a picture this big was the message they sent through my agent, too afraid to tell me directly.

What they don’t know is that Ariana and I are close. Over the last four weeks on set, we’ve become good friends. She helps me run lines, and I help her by working with her on stunts. She says I’m a natural, something I’ve heard all my life. What she doesn’t know is that I took an intensive three-week stunt training before the start of the filming. Even to this day, I hide the hard work I put in behind the scenes and let people believe the blonde starlet is a natural. The truth is too upsetting to their preconceived views. With Ariana, my rudimentary skills have improved by leaps and bounds. She’s taught me how to roll, how to twist and use momentum, and how to turn at the right angle for a camera to make it appear I’ve been punched/kicked. Tips only come with experience. I’m hoping that by the time the sequel comes around, I’ll be more engaged in my character’s stunt work.

“You ready for this?” I place my hands on her shoulders. She’s wearing a loose-fitting cotton top with a bodysuit beneath it. Tight Lycra pants complete the outfit that I know well. I’ve worn my version of this the last two days filming this scene. One last set of stunts will complete our work here, and then we hit the road.

She nods and steps toward the door. I block her, reaching for the tiny handle before she does. “Remember, we’re not on a closed set. There will be paparazzi and fans. They’ll be twenty feet away behind barricades. They’ll have cameras. They will scream for you.”

“You mean for you.” She bubbles with excitement.

I give her a wink. “For the next one hundred yards until we’re on the closed portion of the set, to them, you are me.”

“Are you sure? I can put on a hoodie too. They’ll never give either of us a second glance.”

“What? And mess up that hair? Margaret will be pissed if you do that. Besides, you work so hard behind the scenes. You deserve the shine of the spotlight.” What I don’t say is that it gives me the opportunity to walk in the shadows, a treat I’ve not had for the last three years. Ever since the first Forever movie premiered, my life has transformed. I went from a nobody to living in a fairy-tale land of red-carpet events, talk shows, magazine covers, and paparazzi. I loved, loved it for a long time.

After the first Forever movie, I thought I had mastered it all. Turned it into a game and took things for granted. It all blew up in my face in the worst possible way. A public humiliation that nearly took down my career. I’ve been slowly rebuilding my fans’ trust, but I’ve scaled back my public appearances.

I open the door and immediately bite my lower lip. Declan is standing, back pressed to the side of the trailer as if he’s on Buckingham Palace duty. He’s waiting with a massive golf umbrella in his hand. I remember to keep my chin lowered, and he lifts and opens the umbrella.

“Miss Conrad, I can walk with you to the set and block the paparazzi,” he says, and I look up at the sky. An out-of-nowhere sun-shower shut down production for the last twenty minutes. It disappeared as quickly as it arrived, but for the sake of continuity, the director called a time-out for the rain to dry up. Even with the bright sunlight of a mid-eighties-degree afternoon, I still spot water freckles on the side of the trailer.

I give the sweet young grip a wink. “The Miss Conrad you are seeking is right behind me.”

He gives me a confused look, which only lasts three seconds. Ariana lifts her hand toward the umbrella, her fingers brushing against his as she steps down the three steps to the street level. “This is so kind of you, Declan. Aren’t you the sweetest?”

His blush is the cutest thing I’ve seen in weeks. Fourteen hours of intense focus and filming teaches you to appreciate the small things. If love isn’t in the cards for me, it’s nice to see it in the cards for someone as sweet as Ariana.

“This way!”

“Kimberly, turn this way!”

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