Extract from Crazy in Love

Chapter One

Birdie Sederburg, heiress to the Sederburg Golf Resorts fortune, met her boyfriend Dean Stevenson when she bumped into him on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.
            ‘I quite literally bumped into him!’ she would tell anyone who cared to listen. ‘In my Mercedes!’
            What Birdie didn’t tell everyone is that she had been stalking Dean Stevenson for weeks, since being briefly introduced to him at the launch party for PCH. PCH was short for ‘Pacific Coast Highway’, the hot new Californian soap opera in which Dean played trust fund surfer dude and loveable bad-boy Mitch Macdonald. It wasn’t much of a stretch for his acting abilities; trust fund surfer-dude that he was.
            Anyway, Birdie was instantly smitten with Dean’s beach-bum style. She loved his tousled blond hair, his intense blue eyes and the perfectly muscled flash of stomach above the waistband of his Quicksilver board shorts. She dragged her best friend Chipper Dooley (youngest scion of a family who made their money in medium density fibre-board) into the ladies’ room at the nineteen-sixties surf themed party and – after much ‘ohmigodding’ – she told Chipper earnestly, ‘Dean Stevenson is my man. I felt that click. He is the One.’ Alas, though she pouted and posed in his general vicinity for the rest of the evening, Dean Stevenson did not ask for Birdie Sederburg’s number. In fact, he didn’t even talk to her. Neither did he try to track her down after the party, as Chipper had assured her he would.
            But from the moment she was born with the golden golf tee between her gums, Birdie Sederburg had been used to getting what she wanted. And thus, about three weeks or so later, when she saw Dean driving towards her on Sunset Boulevard in his new Lexus SUV with private plates, Birdie decided to take the initiative. Faint heart never won fair soap star. She made an illegal U-turn and slipped into the lane behind him. And when Dean stopped at the next set of traffic lights, Birdie drove right into his rear end. Three times.
            ‘What the f…?’ Dean was understandably furious.
            Birdie was prettily contrite.
            ‘Oh my god!’ She clutched her head in her hands. ‘My foot must have slipped.   It’s these shoes.’ She waggled a narrow ankle and flashed a little red sole. ‘They’re Christian Louboutin. Wedges are such a nightmare. I’m sorry. I am so sorry. Perhaps you should give me your number and I’ll take you out to dinner to apologise?’
            ‘What?’ spat Dean. ‘I don’t want dinner. I just want your insurance details. What the hell were you doing driving in those stupid shoes anyway? You’ve practically written off my car. Do you have any idea how much this SUV is worth?’
            Of course Birdie knew how much Dean’s car was worth. Every time she got even the tiniest snippet of info about Dean Stevenson’s life and habits, she turned to Google. And thus she knew exactly what Dean’s silver Lexus with the red leather trim had cost him. Just as she knew that he always wore a Breitling diving watch (a twenty-first birthday gift from his father) and his preferred surfing shoes were old skool style Vans. He had them in twenty-three different colours. His shoe size was a twelve and a half.
            Though the impact of driving her car into the back of Dean’s Lexus would leave Birdie with back and neck problems that would require months of chiropractic therapy, she was otherwise delighted with the outcome of her daring little plan. He’d certainly had to take notice of her. She recited her cell-phone number out loud. And the number of her landline and her fax machine for good measure. Then, while Dean picked his broken bumper off the hot tarmac and loaded it into the trunk for the drive to the nearest body shop, Birdie perched on the bonnet of her bright blue Mercedes and texted Chipper: ‘Dean Stevenson has my digits!’
            ‘Ohmigod!’ Chipper texted in reply.
            ‘So,’ Birdie turned back to Dean, with a flick of her long blonde extensions. ‘How about Saturday night?’
‘What?’
‘This Saturday night? For that dinner I owe you?’ She dipped her chin and gave him her best ‘Princess Diana eyes’. Vulnerable. Seductive. Ever so slightly mad.
Dean shook his head.
‘Or Friday?’ she asked instead.
No dice.
‘Thursday? I could even manage tonight if that suits you better. Though of course I’d have to cancel someone else…’ Birdie remembered a little too late that a girl should be seen to have options.
            ‘There’s really no need,’ said Dean. ‘I’m sure our insurance companies will sort it all out between them.’
            ‘But you’ll let me make it up to you, won’t you? Personally? I mean, it would make me feel so much better. And you and I meeting again like this after the PCH party...’
‘You were at the PCH party?’ Dean narrowed his eyes.
‘Yes. We were introduced. But you were pretty occupied, being the star of the show and all that. Wouldn’t you say it’s fate that’s brought us together again?’
            ‘Fate? I’d call it bad luck.’
‘Oh, well, the accident. That was bad luck, of course. But… ’
‘I’ve got to get to an interview,’ said Dean. ‘Goodbye.’
‘See you around?’ said Birdie hopefully.
‘Not if I see you first,’ Dean muttered.
            He climbed back into his car and drove off.
            ‘He didn’t say ‘no’ to a date,’ Birdie told herself. Not specifically.
            Ignoring the angry drivers in the queue of traffic building behind her, Birdie took another moment to check her make-up before she headed back to the Sederburg mansion in Bel Air.

Later that same day Birdie sent Dean Stevenson a muffin basket via his management agency. Of course, she had already researched his representation. The day after, having heard nothing and figuring he was probably on some kind of diet that precluded wheat, she sent fruit. The following day, thinking that perhaps he had a fruit allergy, she sent flowers. When she still heard nothing in response, she called the agency and accused Dean’s manager Justin Springer of keeping the gifts for himself.
            ‘But I’m allergic to wheat and pectin,’ said Justin. ‘Also, I suffer from hay-fever.’
            ‘You have to understand that this is important to me,’ Birdie reiterated. ‘I caused a terrible accident and I want to make amends. I’d like to speak to Dean in person to confirm what you’ve been saying.’
            ‘For crying out loud,’ said Justin, when he called Dean straight afterwards. ‘Will you just call this freakin’ girl and put both of us out of our misery?’
            ‘But she’s a nut-job. She drove into me and now she wants to take me out for dinner,’ said Dean.
            ‘Perhaps you should let her,’ Justin surprised him. ‘I’ve had two people ask me whether you’re batting for the other side this week alone.’
‘You what?’
‘At least call to say thank you,’ said Justin paternally. ‘A gift is a gift and it’s not nice to ignore it.’
            ‘I didn’t ask for anything.’
            ‘She’s the Sederburg heiress. She may send a free golf pass next. I would like that. Do as you’re told.’
            And so Dean called Birdie to thank her for the gifts, which had been distributed around the assistants in Justin’s office.
            ‘Really great,’ he told her. ‘Thoughtful.’
‘So you liked them?’ Birdie bounced on her bed with delight. ‘What colour were the flowers?’
‘Orange,’ Dean improvised. ‘Roses. Really lovely. Just right in my dining room.’
‘What?’ Birdie stopped bouncing. ‘Roses? But I told them to send stargazer lilies!’ She made a note to call her florist and demand that the person responsible for the roses got the sack.
Perhaps sensing that someone would lose their job if he failed to describe the contents of the fruit and muffin baskets correctly too, Dean moved swiftly to change the subject. ‘Er, perhaps we could go out for dinner like you suggested?’
            ‘Dinner? Do you mean that?’
            ‘Of course,’ said Dean. ‘The only reason I didn’t agree right away was, er, shock, I guess.’
            ‘Ohmigod!’ said Birdie. ‘Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod.’ She jumped up and down on the spot, flapping her hands and looking a lot like her name.
            ‘It’s just dinner,’ said Dean, already slightly panicky.
            Just dinner? He had no idea.
            They arranged a date for the following evening. It was short notice but Dean had an unexpected gap in his schedule, thanks to the co-star he was meant to kissing on a night-shoot having developed an enormous cold sore. Birdie would simply have to let down the eight friends she was supposed to be entertaining at home. She’d lose a three thousand dollar deposit with the caterers and one of her girlfriends would vow never to talk to her again, but, really, this was so much more important. When he got the news, Dean’s manager Justin secured a table at top celeb hangout The Ivy on Robertson Boulevard. Dean had never particularly liked the food there but, as Justin pointed out, the place was always crawling with paps and this was an opportunity to be seen worth taking.
            ‘Do I really have to do this?’ Dean asked Justin the next morning.
            ‘Are you sure you’re the only person who has pictures of you dressed as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz eating caviar off the Tin Man’s silver-painted abs?’
            Dean had to admit that he couldn’t be certain.
            And so another Hollywood romance was born…