Allie swiveled toward the sound as Gavin launched himself out of his chair and strode toward the door, muttering, “What the hell is she doing here?”
Ludmilla and a stunningly beautiful brunette burst into the room together. The Polish woman was waving her hands as she protested in her native language. The brunette kept walking as though Ludmilla didn’t exist.
“Gavin, darling,” she said in a British accent, “are you all right? You look as though you’ve been dragged through a shrubbery backward.”
Allie rose slowly, her eyes riveted on the scene unfolding in front of her. The exquisite woman was Irene Bartram, the actress who played Samantha Dubois, Julian’s manipulative love interest. It was disorienting to see her in person, looking exactly like the character in the movie.
Irene was also Gavin’s ex-fiancée.
Gavin dodged the air kiss the actress aimed at him. “You look like you just came out of the hair-and-makeup trailer,” he said with a snarl that indicated it wasn’t a compliment. “Now get out.”
Allie gasped, which swung both of their gazes around to her. The actress scanned Allie from head to foot and dismissed her without comment, turning back to Gavin and resting one graceful hand against his chest. “I know we had a little spat the last time we were together, so I came to apologize.”
Gavin stepped around Irene to approach Allie. “We’ll resume our discussion tomorrow under the same terms. And you’ll receive payment for the hour I didn’t use today.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Let’s hope Irene doesn’t undo all your good work.” He turned away. “Ludmilla, will you help Allie with her coat?”
Allie felt Irene’s gaze on her as she walked to the office door. It made her acutely aware of her soiled shirt, her messy hair, and her lack of makeup. Honestly, though, even on her best day ever, Allie couldn’t compete with the actress’s glossy raven locks, huge brown eyes, and perfect porcelain skin. So what did it matter that Allie looked the worse for wear?
She lifted her chin and met Irene Bartram’s gaze straight on, giving the actress a friendly smile. Irene’s reaction was to narrow those doe eyes.
As she and Ludmilla stepped into the hallway, Allie heard Irene ask, “Who’s the little nurse?”
Chapter 8
“She’s none of your business,” Gavin said as he spun away from the door to face Irene, triggering a spasm in his back. He gritted his teeth until it passed. “And you and I did not have a spat. We had a knock-down, drag-out fight, during which I told you to remove yourself from my life permanently.”
He paced to the fireplace and picked up a poker, jabbing at the fire before he looked at her again. “You do understand the meaning of the word permanently.”
Irene eyed the poker with a half smile. “Are you planning to thrust that through my heart?”
“No, it’s an antique, and I don’t want to break it on a flinty object.” Gavin hung the tool back on its brass stand, growling as his shoulder twinged.
Irene made a fluid gesture acknowledging the insult without looking insulted, and he understood a little of why he’d fallen for her so hard and fast. She embodied all that was most fascinating about his character Samantha Dubois. Or maybe he had just projected those qualities onto her because Samantha was his creation, and, like Pygmalion, he was already halfway in love with her.
Allie felt that Julian deserved better than Samantha, but Gavin wasn’t sure he agreed with her.
“Darling, I came to help you.” Irene drifted down into a chair, tucking her endless legs to one side and crossing her slender ankles in a way that drew attention to them.
Gavin choked on a humorless laugh. “Well, that is unexpected.”
She curved her painted lips into a pleased smile. “I thought we could try some role-playing. I’ll take the part of Samantha, of course, and you’ll play Julian. We can do a little improv to get your creative juices flowing again.” She gave him the same smoldering look she used to tempt Julian on-screen.
“Too bad the cameras aren’t rolling. That would have been a great close-up.” Gavin shoved his hands in his pockets. “Was it your idea to come, or did someone send you?”
“I’m doing an interview with Good Morning America, so I thought I’d drop by.” She floated to her feet and glided up to him, her eyes clouded with concern. “I’m worried about you.”
“You’re worried about your part in the movie.” Gavin reached out and took a curl of her hair between his fingers, marveling at the near blackness. It was natural, as he knew from intimate experience. He wondered if Irene was born self-centered or if her extreme beauty had warped her character.
She mistook his aesthetic appreciation for something warmer and plastered her body against his from knee to chest. To his disgust, physical attraction flared inside him. However, his ardor was quickly doused by a bucket of cold memory. He gripped her shoulders and peeled her away from him. “I’m no longer interested.”
“But we can still be friends, and friends help each other,” she said, accepting his rejection without batting an eyelash. “So I’m here for you.”
“Was this Greg’s idea? Jane said he’d called last week.”
“Greg is also concerned about you,” Irene said. “It’s not surprising, given that he’s been the executive producer on every one of Julian’s movies.”
“I guess you didn’t tell him about our last encounter or he might have ordered you not to come.”
“Greg does not order me, ever.” Irene shot him a look that would have left him dead had it been a dagger.
“Just deliver your message and go,” Gavin said. He dropped into the armchair he’d been sitting in earlier and massaged his tense neck muscles. That brought forth the memory of Allie and how exhilarated he’d felt at the prospect of discussing Julian with her.
What a contrast to Irene, whose presence sent a shock of self-loathing spiraling through his soul. He was the idiot who’d proposed to her. And had gone to bed with her again after their breakup when she’d shown up for his father’s funeral weekend. He had felt utterly alone, and she had offered the illusion of solace. Until he’d overheard her chatting up his stepsister Ruth about the possibility that his unfinished Julian Best manuscript might be somewhere at his father’s house.
“Were you planning to steal the manuscript?” he asked. “Or persuade me to finish it?”
“Are we going to rehash that? I was just making conversation with Ruth.” Her eyes shimmered with tears that didn’t quite spill over. “I came to the funeral to support you, because I know how your stepmother is. I didn’t want you to face her without someone by your side.”
He reminded himself that she was a far better actress than she got credit for. “You left in a hurry.”
“You made it clear you didn’t want me there.”
“I suppose I did.” He had a hard time remembering the sequence of events, because he’d been gripped by a fury that had nearly blinded him. If he had been writing the scene, he would have unraveled the threads of pain, sorrow, regret, betrayal, and, yes, love that fed his anger, but he couldn’t step back and observe it when it had him in its suffocating clutches. “Maybe I overreacted.”
She started toward him, but he held up his hand, palm out. “That doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind.”
“What can I do to change it?”
He looked at her, standing with her arms stretched toward him in a pose of entreaty, and felt the pull of her beauty even as he smelled the poison beneath it. He pushed himself out of the chair. “Nothing. Tell Greg his ploy didn’t work.”
She dropped her arms. “Just answer me one thing. Are you going to write another Julian Best book? Because I’ve been offered other spy film roles, and I’ve turned them down for you.”
“For me? That’s rich.” He laughed with a bitter edge. “I can’t answer your question.”
“You can’t write because you’re still angry with me.”
“Do you think I would screw up a multimillion-dollar movie
deal because of you?”
She made a gesture of impatience. “What else could stop you from writing your book?”
“I ask myself that every day.”
Allie sat on the couch with Pie curled up beside her, googling Gavin Miller and Irene Bartram’s names together. After seeing the snarling antagonism between them, she was looking for clues as to what might have caused it. She found dozens of photos of the two of them walking various red carpets, with Gavin looking magnificent in a custom-tailored tuxedo. Irene was gorgeous, too, of course, but Allie’s eyes always went to the writer.
It made her sad to see the difference in how he looked at the actress in the photos and his expression today. In those happier times, Gavin had an arm curved possessively around Irene’s waist, and his ardent gaze fixed on the stunning woman by his side. Allie sighed. If Gavin ever looked at her with that kind of adoration, she’d melt into a puddle at his feet.
By contrast, while Irene’s body was always turned toward Gavin, she smiled directly at the camera. Allie was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt about the pose. Irene was an actress, and she was there to be photographed.
“So what happened to these two lovebirds, Pie?” she asked, scratching behind the cat’s ears.
She switched from pictures to articles. The standard story went that the two had met on the set of a Julian Best movie and had fallen in love instantly. The photos that went with the gossip showed them walking in and out of restaurants in LA and New York City. Allie spared one glance for Irene’s outfit and then went straight to Gavin in a perfectly fitting suit or khakis, and a white button-down shirt or worn jeans and a black leather jacket. “Yummy!”
His hair was shorter, and his smile seemed easy.
After their engagement became public, there were several posed photos of them, with Irene displaying a ruby-and-diamond engagement ring.
And then the breakup announcement. Irene gave multiple interviews after it happened. She said it was mutual and amicable. They were still friends. There was no problem with her continuing to star in the Julian Best movies.
Gavin had no comment. One gossip site had posted a photo of him looking grim and tight-lipped, but the photographer might have snapped it when Gavin was ticked off over a parking ticket or something.
However, Allie knew what he looked like now, and it wasn’t happy. In fact, he had looked at Irene with downright revulsion.
She scrolled through more articles and stopped at a photo that showed Gavin and Irene standing by a mound of dirt beside an open grave. The actress looked elegantly mournful in a fitted black coatdress, her downward-angled head crowned with a wisp of netting. Gavin wore a black suit and a dark tie. His face was somber and his jaw tight as he stared into the distance.
They held hands with fingers intertwined.
She checked the date on the photo. It was last fall, nearly a year after their breakup. The caption read: Actress Irene Bartram supports former fiancé and bestselling author Gavin Miller at his father’s interment.
Sympathy twisted her heart. The loss of her mother still sometimes blindsided her. But since Irene had been there for him when he needed her, why had Gavin been so rude to her today?
Although Irene hadn’t exactly exuded affection, despite calling Gavin “darling.”
Allie remembered two actors she and Troy had known when they were married, who would spend several weeks demonstrating their love so publicly it was awkward for those around them. Then they would have a screaming fight, also generally with an audience, breaking up and declaring they couldn’t bear to be in the same room with each other. They’d end up at a party together at some point, have sex, and fall passionately in love again. Allie found it baffling and exhausting, but Troy said some people needed that kind of drama to feel alive.
Maybe Irene and Gavin were like that.
Allie couldn’t picture Gavin enjoying an emotional roller coaster, but she barely knew him. With a shrug, she swiped away from her Gavin research and checked her e-mail.
No response to her résumés.
Anxiety wrapped its fingers around Allie’s throat. She picked up the cat and cradled her against her chest, soaking up the comfort of her purring. She turned Pie to face her. “If I don’t get another job soon, I may be dining on Chunky Tuna Feast along with you.”
Chapter 9
Gavin’s fitful sleep had been tormented by sordid, sweaty dreams featuring a slit-eyed, naked Irene beckoning him into a giant spiderweb, which annoyed him for being a terrible cliché. Even his subconscious lacked creativity these days. His waking hours had been unsettled by anticipation of the book signing he’d agreed to do that evening. He cursed as he pictured the endless line of fans stepping up to the table piled with two-year-old books and asking, “When’s the next Julian Best story coming out?” He wasn’t sure whether his nightmares were worse than his waking visions.
Allie’s arrival had been like a fall of fresh snow, clean and bracing. But even Allie’s magic fingers couldn’t release all the tension that the night had speared into his muscles and his mind, so he decided to cancel the Julian Best discussion part of their session. He couldn’t face the many troubles swirling around his super spy.
Yet he found himself reluctant to let Allie leave. Her cheerful presence was a powerful antidote to Irene’s poison and his looming public appearance.
“You look like something out of a Currier and Ives print,” he said as she pulled on a blue wool cap with a yellow pom-pom on top.
The little therapist smiled. “Better than a vision of hell by Hieronymus Bosch.” Her smile faded into a look of concern. “I hope you’ll try the water exercises I gave you. The warmth and buoyancy help relieve stress.”
Not once had she mentioned yesterday’s ugly scene with Irene, but she’d clearly noticed the increase in the tension in his back and shoulders. Even though he’d claimed that the pain level was no different, she’d prescribed additional treatments for him. He needed to remember that she was trained to judge discomfort in many ways, so she wouldn’t rely on his verbal answer alone. He said, “I’ll give it some thought.”
Much to his delight, exasperation flitted across her face for a split second. He loved provoking her into an unedited reaction. However, she said nothing as she picked up the equipment-loaded duffel bag that she wouldn’t let him carry because it was too heavy. When she started toward the door, he frowned. “How do you get to my house?”
“By subway.”
“So you carry your satchel of gold bricks for twelve blocks from the subway stop. Remind me never to get in a wrestling match with you.”
She turned to give him a full body scan that he felt almost as a touch. Heat streaked down to his groin before she shook her head. “You have more leverage, so I wouldn’t challenge you to wrestle.”
Now he couldn’t shed the image of his body and Allie’s interlocked on a floor mat, their skin glistening with sweat as they slipped and rubbed against each other. Pushing that stirring but misplaced picture away, he made a decision. “I want you to save your strength for my back, so I’m going to send a car to transport you to and from our sessions.”
“Send a car?”
“Yes, one of those things with four wheels and a driver.”
A look of temptation followed by regret flitted across her mobile face before she shook her head again. “I can make my own way, thanks.”
Irritation flashed through him. “Oh, for God’s sake, swallow your hillbilly pride or whatever it is. I have half a dozen cars at my beck and call. Might as well use them.”
She thought for another long moment, but this time he couldn’t read her expression. “Thank you. That would be pleasant.”
“Starting now.” He pulled out his phone and texted Jaros to bring the car to the front door.
She plunked her duffel bag down on the floor and huffed out a breath. “Are you being considerate or bossy?” Dismay made her eyes widen. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t gracious.”
Gavin grinned. He’d gotten her to sass him. “I’m being controlling. I told you that writers are like that.”
Instead of giving it back to him, she looked away, her mouth pressed into a flat line. He’d ruined the thing he needed from her today: her sunny good cheer. He cast around for a way to bring it back. “I have to do a book signing tonight,” he said. “I’d like you to come. You can stand behind me and dig your thumbs into my tense neck muscles every time someone asks when the next Julian Best book is coming out.”
She gave him a polite smile and said nothing.
“Well, will you join me?” he asked.
“Are you serious?” Astonishment rang in her voice.
“About you coming, yes. Not about massaging my neck.” The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea of her presence. “It’s at seven at Murder Unlimited in Tribeca. There will be decent wine, which makes it marginally bearable.”
“Um, if I’m not going to massage your neck, why do you want me there?” She seemed baffled by his simple invitation.
“As a true fan, you deserve it. Wouldn’t you like a signed hardcover copy of Good, Better, Best? It will be my gift to you.” That should bring the Allie he knew back.
Pleasure lit her eyes for a moment. Still, she hesitated before saying, “Um, why would your publisher set this up if there’s no new book? It seems sort of . . .”
“Like rubbing salt in a wound?” He could hear the edge in his voice, so he worked to soften it. “It’s a joint signing with a first-time author my editor and agent are excited about. My presence is supposed to draw in more customers.”
“Have you read the new author’s book?”
“Yes, I gave it an enthusiastic cover blurb.”
Her lips curved in a soft smile. “You’re very generous.”
“I was a debut author once.” He remembered the nerves before his first book signing and the fear that no one would show up. That’s why he’d agreed to help out. “Jaros will pick you up. I’d do it myself, but I have to be there an hour early, and I won’t subject you to that boredom.”
The VIP Doubles Down (Wager of Hearts Book 3) Page 8