by Jae
“Are you okay?” Mrs. Varney asked.
God, how unprofessional! Letting her emotions leak through like this had never happened to her before. She forced a smile, took a tissue from the box she kept on the table for her clients, and dashed it over her eyes. “Yes, of course. I’m just so happy for both of you. You did it. You really did it.”
“Well, we had the best therapist in LA to help us.” Mr. Varney grinned at her.
Claire smiled. “Thank you, but you two did all of the hard work.”
The Varneys beamed at her, then at each other.
Their look of pure happiness hurt, but this time Claire had braced herself against it and was able to switch into therapist mode. “So,” she looked from one to the other, “what do you think needs to happen for your relationship to continue to thrive instead of returning to the way it was when you first came to see me?”
Forty-five minutes later, the small, silver clock on the end table next to Claire indicated that the session was coming to an end. She wished the Varneys all the best and walked them to the door.
When they left the center, she slumped against the doorjamb and stared after them. God, she really needed to get a grip and stop all that staring!
“Hi, Claire.”
A low voice next to her made Claire jump. When she whirled around, she came face-to-face with the last person she wanted to see: Dr. Vanessa West, one of the center’s nine psychologists—and her biggest rival for clinical director once Renata retired in a couple of years.
Claire put on her best professional mask. “Hi, Vanessa.”
Vanessa stepped closer and reached out to touch her arm.
What the heck? Claire stared at the hand on her arm. What’s up with her? They weren’t exactly friends.
“I’m so sorry to hear about your breakup.”
Vanessa sounded sincere, but Claire stiffened. How on earth had Vanessa found out? Claire hadn’t wanted it to become common knowledge at the center. Here she was supposed to be the one others came to for help, not the one with the problem. She hadn’t even taken a day off so she could hole up at home and cry her eyes out. “Thanks,” she forced out. “But it’s okay, really.”
“You’re allowed to be heartbroken, you know? You need to let yourself feel it.”
Claire didn’t appreciate having that therapist voice used on her. “And I would, if I were heartbroken.”
Vanessa blinked. “You aren’t? But Linda said Abby was the one who ended it.”
Dammit, Linda! Why did Abby’s best friend have to run her big mouth and embarrass her in front of everyone? Claire struggled to keep her expression neutral. “It was an amicable breakup, and it happened two months ago. We have both moved on.”
Vanessa raised her perfectly sculpted eyebrows and pierced her with that all-knowing therapist look. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” Claire said. “In fact, I’ve already started seeing someone else.”
They stared at each other.
Claire was just as surprised as Vanessa. Why had she said that? She wasn’t normally one to blurt out ridiculous stuff like that, but now she couldn’t take it back, at least not without humiliating herself even more—and she would rather die than to do that. Her therapist mask firmly in place, she held Vanessa’s gaze.
“Well,” Vanessa finally said, “good for you, I guess. But if you ever need to talk, let me know.”
Hell would freeze over before that happened. Vanessa would use any sign of weakness on her part to gain an advantage. “Thanks. But my girlfriend is a wonderful listener.”
“You’ll have to introduce us sometime.” Vanessa patted Claire’s arm. “Why don’t you bring her to Renata’s party?”
“Uh, I’ll see if she can make it. Now if you’ll excuse me. I’ve got paperwork to do before my next clients arrive.” She stepped back and closed her office door firmly between them before slumping into the chair behind her desk.
God, what had she been thinking? Now Vanessa expected her to show up at the party with a doting girlfriend, and Claire wasn’t even ready for a casual date. She had painted herself into a corner with no way out but forward.
Her gaze went to the phone. Should she call Mercedes and…? No. It was silly. Ridiculous. Dangerous. If any of her clients entertained an idea like that, she would definitely advise against it.
But if she didn’t present a new girlfriend or even fiancée soon, she’d lose the book deal and would go from being a respected couples therapist to the poor woman her colleagues pitied because she couldn’t keep her own relationship going—much less anyone else’s.
She reached for the phone.
As soon as Mercedes picked up, she blurted out, “I’ll do it,” so she wouldn’t have time to back out.
“Uh, do what?” Mercedes asked.
Abby’s blue eyes seemed to watch her from the framed photo, judging her, taunting her.
Claire reached out and picked up the photo. She traced the familiar features with her thumb, but it didn’t bring her the feeling of comfort and safety it had evoked in the past.
“Do what?” Mercedes asked again.
After one last second of hesitation, Claire dropped the photo into the wastebasket with a resounding thud and took a deep breath. “Get a fake fiancée.”
Chapter 3
Two days later, Claire jumped up from the visitor’s chair in Mercedes’s office. “You did what?”
“I put out a casting call.”
“Do I need to remind you that you are not Steven Spielberg? This is my life, not a blockbuster movie!”
Mercedes held up her hands in a placating way. “How long have we known each other?”
“Um, ever since you helped Renata get her book published, so about…five years, I guess.”
“And in those five years, have I ever steered you wrong?” Mercedes continued without waiting for a reply. “There’s a reason directors put out casting calls. If they are trying to fill the role of the love interest, they have actors come in to do a chemistry test.”
An image of Bunsen burners and bubbling chemicals rose in Claire’s mind’s eye. “Chemistry test?”
“Yeah, you know. To see if the actors have a connection that will convince the audience they’re really in love.”
Like Bogart and Bacall or Powell and Loy. Claire nodded to herself. That actually made sense. Kind of. “So you told your contacts in the movie industry…what?” That you’re looking for an actress willing to play the fiancée of a pathetic couples therapist who couldn’t even save her own relationship?
“I kept it as vague as possible,” Mercedes said. “Basically, I told them it’s a special project that needs absolute discretion.”
Discretion was good. Claire’s tension eased. “So how many actresses have you lined up out there?” She pointed to the reception area of Mercedes’s literary agency.
“Just one for today. If this one doesn’t work out, I have a couple of others that look promising. But I thought we should keep the circle small for now and start with the one my friend Jill recommended.”
“Anyone I’d know?” Claire asked.
Mercedes shook her head. “If you would recognize her from a movie, Ms. Huge or someone else at the publishing house might too. We need someone with acting experience, but not a recognizable TV personality. Plus even you can’t afford to hire Angelina Jolie.”
“Right.” Claire squinted over at her agent. “Have you done this before?” Usually, Claire was the one with the detailed battle plan, but now Mercedes seemed to have thought of everything.
“Held auditions for a fake fiancée?” Mercedes chuckled. “Nope. But it’s kinda fun, don’t you think?”
“Fun?” Claire’s idea of fun was a bubble bath and a glass of Pinot Noir, not trying to stop her tattered life from fraying even more by coming up with a harebrained scheme.<
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“Yeah. Come on.” Mercedes patted her on the back. “Let’s go watch her make googly eyes at you.”
“What?”
“Chemistry test, remember?”
“Oh Christ.” Why the hell had she ever thought this was a good idea?
How strange. Lana looked around the waiting room, then glanced at her wristwatch. She was only a couple of minutes early, so where were the other actresses? If an assistant hadn’t told her to wait right here, she would have thought she was in the wrong place.
Usually, at auditions, she was surrounded by at least a dozen actresses who looked like her, all full-figured brunettes in their late twenties who were nervously studying their lines and eyeing the competition.
But this time, she was waiting alone, and there was no script to study. Did the casting director want her to do a cold read?
Her friend Jill hadn’t told her much—or anything, really—about this movie. Apparently, the person Jill had talked to had been pretty secretive and had revealed only that they needed an “unconventional actress for an unconventional project,” preferably a lesbian or bisexual woman.
It was probably some small independent film that no one had ever heard of. But at this point, Lana wasn’t picky about her roles.
In the two years since the accident, her sole claim to stardom had been playing a corpse on a crime show. With just a handful of commercials and her job at the coffee shop, she could barely make ends meet.
“Ms. Henderson?”
Lana looked up. “Yes?”
A Latin American woman in her forties stood before her. “I’m Mercedes Soto. Thanks for coming.”
“My pleasure.” Lana stood and focused on not limping as she followed her down the hall to the audition room.
The first thing she noticed after entering was that there was no camera and no camera operator. Apparently, they weren’t taping the audition. Just how low-budget was this production?
But a badly paid acting gig was better than none.
Lana gripped the folder with her headshot and her admittedly modest acting resume and smiled at the only other person in the room, a woman she guessed to be a few years older than her own twenty-nine. Was she the casting director’s assistant?
No, Lana decided. She was too well-dressed for that. Everything about the woman was refined: her blonde hair secured in an elegant chignon, the turquoise silk scarf knotted around her neck that gave her pale gray eyes a greenish tint, and the formfitting pencil skirt hugging her slim hips.
When the woman crossed the room to shake Lana’s hand, Lana noticed her shoes. The modestly heeled pumps looked as if they had cost more than Lana’s rent.
Definitely not an assistant. Maybe someone sponsoring the movie?
Whoever she was, her expression didn’t bode well for Lana’s chances of getting the part. The woman stared at her with obvious dismay. Had she wanted to cast a different type of actress? Maybe one of those size-zero stick figures? Or was it the scar or the tattoo peeking out from the short sleeve of the blouse she’d bought for the audition?
Lana held her head up high and looked her square in the eyes. She had encountered that attitude hundreds of times in showbiz and refused to let it intimidate her—or let it make her hate the way she looked.
As if she had guessed what Lana was thinking, the woman’s expression cleared. “Hi, I’m Claire Renshaw.” Her tone was carefully neutral, and she didn’t add anything that told Lana what role she played in the production.
“Lana Henderson. Nice to meet you.”
The woman’s hand was slender and felt pleasant—if a little damp—in her own. Why the hell was she so nervous? Was she an actress reading for a role in the movie too?
Lana glanced around. No script on the table. Apparently, they wanted her to do improv. No problem. Lana had learned to work with unexpected situations and could improvise at a moment’s notice.
“Here’s what I want you to do,” Ms. Soto said. “Make me believe you’re madly in love with Claire. You’re comfortable being, um, close to a woman, right?”
Lana smiled. For once, being a lesbian worked in her favor. “Very comfortable.” Playing a romantic scene with Claire Renshaw definitely wouldn’t be a hardship. Even if she was too stuffy and uptight to be Lana’s type, she was undeniably attractive. “Any directions?”
“No,” Ms. Soto said. “Just show me how you’d sell the two of you being deeply in love.”
“All right.” Lana took a moment to center herself, pushed back all thoughts of rent and medical bills, and slipped into the role of Claire’s lover. “Claire.” She dropped her voice to a sexy murmur.
Claire’s gaze flicked to her. A frown wrinkled her smooth brow.
Oh man. That looks like indigestion, not infatuation! Whoever Claire was, she wasn’t a fellow actress. She didn’t give Lana much to work with. God, I hate working with amateurs. But she was determined to land this role, so she took a step closer, right into Claire’s personal space.
The other woman’s body heat engulfed her, and a light, springlike fragrance teased Lana’s nose. Hmm. Nice. She allowed herself to react to it and lean even closer, using her body’s instinctive response to sell them being in love.
If circumstances had been different, Lana might have tried to get the casting director’s attention with a hot kiss, but she had a feeling if she tried that, it would earn her a slap instead of the role. So she gently took Claire’s hand and lifted it to her lips.
Claire watched her with wide eyes, her hand limp in Lana’s grasp.
Definitely not one for improvisation.
Lana turned Claire’s hand around and teased the fair skin at the inside of her wrist with her breath before whispering a kiss on the pulse throbbing beneath her lips.
A visible shudder went through Claire. “Uh, I think that’s enough.” She tugged her hand free and stepped away.
Enough? They hadn’t even improvised a conversation.
“Would you mind waiting outside for a second?” Ms. Soto asked.
Lana perked up. That wasn’t the “don’t call us, we’ll call you” she had expected. Had she done so well that they would now bring in the real actor or actress she’d star with in the movie and test them together?
“Sure. I’ll be right outside.” Lana nearly skipped to the door, despite her protesting leg. In her mind’s eye, she could already see her name rolling down the screen in the closing credits of a romance flick.
Mercedes beamed at her. “What do you think? She was perfect, wasn’t she?”
“Perfect?” Claire echoed. Then, suddenly reminded of that conversation when Abby had broken up with her, she paused and inhaled deeply, trying to wrestle down the rising nausea. “She’s about as far from perfect as you can get! No one will believe for even a second that I’m engaged to someone like her!”
“Why? What’s wrong with her?”
“What isn’t?” Claire shot back. “She’s not my type at all.” She liked women who were successful, sophisticated, and reliable. Someone like Abby. Claire sighed. Lana Henderson couldn’t be more different from Abby if she’d tried. “Did you see the tattoo?”
The short sleeves of the actress’s blouse revealed a tattoo of what looked like a bird of prey. Its wings and long tail feathers were inked in all the colors of the rainbow, while its head and body glowed in hues of red and orange, almost as if the bird were on fire.
“Did you see the scar?” Mercedes asked softly.
Claire’s anger deflated, and she lowered her gaze. “Yes, I did.”
A jagged, purple scar zigzagged horizontally across Lana’s left arm, just above the bend of her elbow. The inked bird spread its wings above it, gripping the scar in its claws as if it were a snake.
If Claire had been in her shoes, she would have chosen a tattoo that concealed the scar rather than one that called at
tention to it—not that she was the type to get a tattoo. She also wouldn’t have worn a short-sleeved blouse that revealed the scar during an audition.
Why on earth had Mercedes thought a woman like Lana Henderson would be a good fit for the role of her fiancée?
Claire blew out a breath. “Listen, I’m not trying to be mean.”
The poor actress didn’t deserve to be judged this harshly. She might actually be a nice person, and with her sun-kissed skin, her dazzling girl-next-door smile, and her wavy, light brown hair, she was definitely pretty. Her voice was sexy, reminding Claire of Lauren Bacall or another sultry movie star from an old black-and-white movie. If she paid more attention to what she wore, Claire thought she’d be downright stunning.
“But she’s not what we’re looking for. We need someone…classy. She had the price tag still sticking out from the back of her blouse, for Christ’s sake!”
“That’s exactly why she’s perfect for the role of your fiancée.” Mercedes held her gaze. “No offense, Claire, but you can be a little…intimidating to other women.”
Claire crossed her arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’re so put-together. So perfect. A stinking rich family, a doctorate from an expensive private university, and a house that looks like a feature in Architectural Digest… Few women can live up to that. What we need is someone more approachable at your side. Someone your readers will be able to relate to. Someone who’s curvy, tattooed, and having the occasional wardrobe malfunction.”
Claire loosened her stance. “You’re the expert. But please tell me you at least ran a background check on her.”
“Of course. There are no skeletons hiding in her closet—and she isn’t either. Jill says she’s out and proud, so no one will bat an eye when she suddenly announces her engagement to a woman.”
“Good, but that’s not really what I’m worried about.”