Beauty of Sunset

by Lynne Connolly

  I’d hate it if it made any difference to this relationship. And if any of you are in the LA area give me a shout because I’d love to meet you for real. If you’re going to Romanticon again will you let me know? This time I’ll be there.

  Cam: Give him time, sweetie. Even hunkilicious surgeons have their insecurities and trust is obviously one of his buttons. I’m sure he’ll calm down and then feel like a real jerk (as well he should) when he finds out the truth.

  Hey at least you had the balls to give the cougar thing a try. And who knows if it’s really over, honey. If it is then, hey, remember the good time and move on. Don’t let it weigh you down. Life’s too damn short. But still…don’t close the door on the possibility that it’s not a done deal. Remember men really are from Mars—which makes them an alien species—and we all know how unpredictable aliens are. :)

  Oh I could hug you for coming clean!! You have no idea how many times I’ve almost slipped up and called you Sunset. And honey you know that if there’s anyone in the world who can be trusted it all us gals here. Hell, the things we know about each other could fill a book…a really naughty one at that!

  Romanticon? Yeah baby! I think it’s time for a reunion. Friends, drinks, books, models? Bring it on!!

  Rachel: Vanity had nothing to do with your decision! What you’re supposed to go through life with a broken nose and breathing problems so people won’t think you had a nose job? I’ve seen people come in for emergency problems stemming from this sort of thing. The time to do it is when you did it, not when there’s so much scar tissue that you won’t look normal no matter what you try to do to fix it.

  Do you think part of John’s reaction stemmed from worry about not doing the work himself? Don’t get me wrong he shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions and attacked you at your most vulnerable. (Bet you’d like to be a fly on the wall when he finds out the truth.) I’m just wondering if he completely lost it because he was worried too, not only because he thought you’d broken your promise to him.

  Oh. My. God! I just about fell off my chair when I found out who you were! My first thought was: I’ve been giving sexual encouragement to Sunset?? Me? But you know what? It doesn’t make a damn bit if difference. We all started out in the same boat didn’t we and we’ve done a great job of providing each other with oars. Or were those dildos too?

  Being in this group had just about saved her life.

  Edie closed the laptop when her phone rang and checked the caller. Not John. She knew a clean break was best but it didn’t stop her looking and even hoping even after his shitty behavior to her after her operation. She still didn’t know why he was so furious, why he didn’t wait for explanations even if she’d felt like giving them after his outburst. But she wouldn’t have done that. It would have put her in the wrong. Never ever again would she allow anyone to do that.

  She thumbed the green button. “Hi Randy.”

  “Hey. How you doin’?”

  Randy Norwood had helped her too, just by accepting her. “Not bad. And you?”

  “This ain’t idle chitchat much though I enjoy that too. Listen they want to bring your interview on the Victor Schuman show forward a couple of weeks. Are you good to go or do you want me to turn it down?”

  “What date are we talking about?”

  “The first Thursday in July. Five days. If you don’t want to do it, no problem. We’ll stick to the original date. But there are rumors about you and John Sung, and rumors that you had surgery done. If Sung did it, he’s in violation, isn’t he? So that’s topical now. In the news and good for the book. In a couple of weeks it won’t be so hot.”

  Indignation rose within her and her temper rose. John could survive a rumor like that because they’d been completely ethical, but it could damage the clinic, as it survived on reputation and goodwill. She couldn’t allow it.

  She glanced in the mirror, turned her head one way and then the other. “I’m fine. Take the offer.”

  “You sure?”

  “Perfectly. But I won’t say if I had surgery or not. Only that John Sung never operated on me or advised me.” She stopped, her senses assaulted by memories. John making love to her, sucking her nipples, asking her to promise. Intensely erotic scenes when he’d tempted her into making all those promises about no surgery. Either he cared, or he was a controlling fuck who made Peter look like a pussycat.

  Either way it didn’t matter anymore. John Sung was a memory, nothing else.

  Chapter Nine

  Victor Schuman was a smarmy, snarky middle-aged ex-standup comedian who’d made such a success of his chat show that it was now generally known as The Victor Schuman Show instead of its official title of Hollywood Tonight. His frequently unfair but often funny comments reminded Edie of Patrick Sheraton. But these were only two of the fuckwits who benefited from celebrities’ avid desire for publicity and the public’s delight in hearing about the affairs of other people, the sleazier the better.

  Not that Edie was above all that. She enjoyed Schuman’s monologue at the top of the show even though it held at least one untruth and a stack of insinuations, none of them actionable, none of them about her although she knew she’d been the butt of his jokes a week or so before. She’d been too wise to watch that edition of the program. She might have been tempted to respond.

  Now she sat in the small area still referred to as the “green room” dressed in one of her most elegant dark blue pants and silk shell outfits, wearing discreet diamonds, her hair brushed to a gleaming mass to lie around her shoulders, waiting for her first interview.

  Schuman finished his monologue and introduced the first guest. Edie was to replace the final guest, so she had the spot at the end. She had to wait.

  She’d forgotten how boring these times could be, the wait until your spot, the interminable hours waiting for the right light or for the crew to set up the shot then another wait for more of the same. Every model had her own way of coping and it varied over time. The ones into sewing had completed whole quilts over time. She wouldn’t have to do this much longer. A few TV shows, some author signing sessions and the book would be launched.

  But she’d enjoyed working with the ghostwriter and had, after the initial interviews, written most of the book herself and given it to the writer to polish and perfect. She wondered if she could do it again, this time working on her own. It would be a new adventure. Thanks to John, she was ready to face new challenges. But she feared she’d have a hole in her life now.

  She glanced into the monitor that showed her the shots the cameras were taking. Almost automatically she’d done that when she’d arrived, deciding how she’d sit, how she’d move, even to the tilt of her head. All those lessons so carefully taught, so well absorbed. She’d never stop being a model, not really. It was like learning to drive where learned techniques became automatic. But she didn’t despise herself for it. This was her chosen profession and she’d had to decide early on to take it seriously. That meant learning her best features as well as her worst, how to pose properly so as not to waste the photographer’s time, how to show off the designer creations she paraded on the runway despite the unwearability of some of them.

  She didn’t miss it, not one bit. Nor the press attention nor the photos in the glossies. In fact she was relieved not to have to do it anymore.

  Her eyes narrowed when she saw someone she thought she knew. More monitors showed the angles other cameras were taking and she found one fixed on the audience. Anticipation fizzed inside when she realized she was looking at Cam. Her friend had come and next to her—fuck!

  But yes. She recognized Rachel from a photo on the blog and then she saw others. They’d come to see her. Live, here. They cared enough about her to take the journey to support her!

  Euphoria filled Edie. No other woman had ever cared enough to do that for her. With their support she’d come this far, recovered from her obsession with John and the first nights when, weakened by the surgical procedure and the accident that preceded
it, she’d woken calling his name.

  Fuck him. Fuck all men. She was whole and her own woman. She could do this. Her women friends had helped to set her free.

  Schuman began his buildup. She began to listen properly when he started with the “beautiful” spiel and she knew what was coming. “We know that some of the world’s most famous models, desperate to remain in the limelight, have gone through cosmetic surgery. My next guest hasn’t just done this, she’s written a book that opens the lid on her world. Married to three of the world’s most desirable men, she divorced them all and recently she’s been seen with one half of Hollywood’s most successful plastic surgeon partnership. Did she get pro bono treatment?” A picture flashed up of her leaving the clinic, her nose still bandaged after her operation. She’d seen that picture before—it had been all over the internet the day she’d left to go home. On her own. “Has the man known as Sexydoc finally gone too far and broken his ethical code for the love of Sunset? Let’s find out shall we?”

  And she was on her feet, walking toward the stage, guided by a stagehand. She glanced at the man who was doing his best to leer down her cleavage, but with her height plus the four-inch heels, the little shit probably didn’t have much of a view. Mindful that the camera would attempt the same thing she’d kept exposure to a minimum, sexy without being obvious.

  She strode on to the set and shook hands with Schuman, drawing away when he threatened to kiss her. Too vulnerable from John’s possession, she didn’t want any man to get even that intimate. Not yet anyway.

  Schuman asked the questions about her past, the easy ones about her relatively comfortable childhood and how she started her modeling career. So of course she had to talk about her first husband.

  He had few secrets left and she’d usually chosen to use his example as one to follow. The fewer secrets she had the less the bastards who preyed on her could expose. But she was careful to skim over her second husband Bobby’s sexual preferences, nobody’s business but theirs and Bobby’s current wife.

  Schuman wasn’t very interested in the first two. It was the third, Peter Henderson, he wanted to know about. The one who’d dumped her so publicly. But it didn’t hurt her anymore and she told Schuman why. “Peter doesn’t know any other way. He took me because I was available at the height of my career and I knew everyone. I took him because he was damn sexy.” She had the audience laughing with that one. “But by the time we split five years later, if he hadn’t dumped me I would have dumped him. He found someone else first.”

  “You know his wife is pregnant?”

  She shrugged. If he’d hoped to get a rise from her, he would be disappointed. She really didn’t give a fuck anymore. “I have two wonderful children by Zach. They’re fine adults and I’m proud of them. I hope Peter has as much joy from his children as I have out of mine.” The honest truth, and it earned her a round of applause. What she didn’t say was that Peter had wanted children from her but she’d kept on taking the pills. He’d wanted possessions and trophies, not flesh and blood children. Just as he’d wanted her to become a living Barbie.

  Strange that it didn’t hurt anymore the way Peter had deceived her, used her and then dumped her. Fate had a way of balancing things out. She didn’t have to do a thing about it. He’d get what was coming to him sooner or later. Karma.

  She gave Victor Schuman her best smile, the one that told him she was the sultriest, most desirable thing on two legs. He melted, the expression in his eyes softening. She had him. “I wish Peter all that he deserves. I’m sure he’ll get it.”

  Another round of applause with some laughter. Here lay a danger point, when things were going well and she thought she had Schuman. She’d done enough of these things to know he’d strike soon, hoping her relief and maybe a touch of adrenaline might get her to say too much.

  “I understood that your new book would lift the lid off a number of things. We got the inside story on your marriages so how about the modeling world?”

  “There’s too much for one book. I might do that in the second.”

  “You’re planning another book?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “And more cosmetic procedures?”

  He slipped that in almost seamlessly. No wonder he had the reputation for getting secrets out of the people who appeared on his show. The camera would be zooming in for a closeup, a nice reveal of her face. But she hadn’t been in front of cameras for this long without learning a few things. She froze her expression and turned it puzzled, lifting her chin so she could frown at him. “More?”

  “You aren’t going to deny that you’re seeing cosmetic surgeon Dr. John Sung, are you?”

  She shrugged. “We spent some time together.”

  She was close enough to see the coldness in Schuman’s eyes as he settled in for the kill. “And you were seen leaving his clinic recently with your nose bandaged.” No doubt the screen had flashed that picture up again.

  She allowed a smile to touch her lips. “Ah, I see where you made your mistake. No, I was Dr. Roubiere’s patient not Dr. Sung’s. And the procedure was the result of an accident. I fell and broke my nose.”

  Schuman’s mouth turned up in a sneer and he leaned close, so close she could see the powder congealing in the lines on his face. He was sweating, probably with excitement. She wondered if he came when he got his victims this close. Well she wouldn’t be the cause of one of his orgasms. “You expect us to believe that?”

  She didn’t give an inch, but shrugged. “Believe what you like, it makes no difference to me. Except that Dr. Sung was never my physician in any capacity. Dr. Roubiere looked after me.”

  “Don’t they share patients?” That got him a snigger from a few people in the audience. The double entendre was too obvious for her to find it remotely amusing.

  “They share the business, not each other’s lists.”

  She’d silenced the audience. They needed something, something to win them over to her. Oh fuck, yes, she knew just what would do it. “I saw many people while I spent time with Dr. Sung. Going in and out of the clinic, obviously having surgery done. As many men as women.” She paused, met Schuman’s eyes, smiled right into them. “I could tell you who if you like. I’m not bound by any confidentiality clause.”

  The audience got it. She heard the collective gasp of breath. Schuman had always declared himself totally against cosmetic surgery, some of his most vicious diatribes had been aimed their way. But this close she saw a fine line under the sweep of hair across his forehead. Victor Schuman had had a facelift.

  A voice was easily heard in the sudden hush. “Go for it, Edie!”

  Cam. Wonderful Cam, the woman who had helped her through ups and downs and introduced her to some of the best friends she’d ever had.

  “But of course,” she said, turning the conversation from sour to sweet. “Since neither of us has had a cosmetic procedure we wouldn’t know about that would we?”

  He leaned back. At least he had the smarts to know when he was beaten. “Of course not.”

  The media would crucify him. Well he shouldn’t have gone for her. Bastard.

  Chapter Ten

  Edie didn’t get home until the small hours, after a raucous celebration with the women from the blog. The friendships she’d cemented tonight would last the rest of her life, she felt it to her core.

  Exhausted, she stepped out of the studio car and fumbled for the key to her apartment. Ahead of her, the concierge held open the door of her building, a broad smile wreathing his features. “You really stuck it to that know-it-all Victor Schuman. About time somebody gave him some of his own back.” He chattered until she was in the elevator and the doors were sliding closed, then a change crossed his face. “Ma’am, someone—”

  The rest of his words were cut off as the elevator finished closing and began to rise. Edie slumped against the wall; the evening had taken more out of her than she cared to admit. She wanted a hot bath and then bed.

  How much
better it would have been had she had someone to pamper her and care for her. Maybe she’d find someone in time, but all that she saw when she closed her eyes was a lean tanned face with eyes that burned into her soul. Despair touched her.

  She straightened up and spoke aloud to reinforce the statement. “It’s only been two weeks. I’ll heal.” Determination filled her. She had a life, a good one and she’d do her best to live what was left of it. Without him. The hollow inside her would fill because she’d make sure it did.

  The elevator doors slid open and she walked the two steps that took her to her apartment. Perhaps she’d get out of this place, buy a house, take up gardening.

  She typed her combination into the keypad and glanced at the fingerprint recognizer but it didn’t glow in a silent request for her print. Funny, she thought she’d turned it on when she left. Maybe not. She’d been a little absentminded recently.

  She closed her eyes as she entered and took a deep breath of the potpourri she left in a large china dish on the side table. A calming mixture made especially for her. She’d thought she was finally getting over her misery. Her triumph tonight and the meeting with the ladies of the blog afterward had dispelled it but now that she was on her own again, it flooded back, the dam breached once more.

  A tear trickled from beneath her closed lids and she took a moment to will the others away. Tears did no good. She’d learned that.

  “Don’t cry, Edie.”