by Romy Sommer
He shook his head. “My hip, my pain. I can manage it.”
“But you don’t have to live with the pain. A hip replacement is nothing to be ashamed of, and you’ll still have a full range of movement afterwards. Without pain.”
“Will you please keep your voice down?” He glanced past Juliet to the closed door of the guest bedroom. “Have you ever heard of a stunt man with a hip replacement? It’ll take months before I’m back to normal. Months of sitting around, unable to work. And if word gets out that I’m no longer fit, no one will hire me.”
“You always knew this job was going to have a limited lifespan. What did you think you were going to do when you got older?”
He hadn’t. He’d lived every day as it came and not spared a thought for the future. “I’m still young,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of good years ahead of me. When I can’t cope anymore, then I’ll reconsider the surgery.”
“Please don’t wait too long. The better shape you’re in when you have the surgery, the quicker you’ll recover.”
He rolled his eyes. “Is the lecture over yet, Sis?”
She sighed. “I don’t want to see you any more damaged than you are already.”
They’d been having this same argument for more years than he could remember. “I know you want what’s best for me, but I’m not a kid anymore. You need to butt out and let me make my own decisions. And you can tell the others that, too.”
“So your decision is to turn yourself into a glorified fitness trainer for a few weeks? Why? Forget training her. Just get her out your system and move on, the way you usually do.”
He shook his head. “It’s not like that. She’s not like that.”
Juliet shrugged. “If this is really only about training her, then you need to be realistic, Dom. She might have passed the cream test, but she’s still a spoiled celebrity. She’s never going to see this through. As soon as the going gets tough, she’ll be gone. Is she worth damaging your body further?”
“How about I let you know?” He loaded fresh strawberries, yogurt, and a generous handful of granola into the blender and switched it on, its roar drowning out any chance of further conversation. Finally taking the hint, Jules closed her magazine and hopped down from her stool. “I’ll see you on the flip side.”
The kitchen door had barely closed behind her when Nina emerged from the guest bedroom. Not a coincidence, he was sure.
The sweatpants were gone, replaced by tailored trousers and a white frilly blouse that dipped dangerously low between her breasts. He swallowed and forced his gaze higher. She’d done her hair and make-up too. She was back to being Nina the Movie Star again, not the vulnerable woman he’d walked on the beach in the dark with last night.
She slung her bag over her shoulder. “Thank you for helping me out last night. I really appreciate it.”
At least she hadn’t forgotten to thank him.
She shifted awkwardly, as if there was something more she wanted to say, and cleared her throat. “About what I asked you last night…I don’t want you to feel pressurized. You can say no.”
Had she overheard his conversation with Jules? He was man enough that he didn’t want a beautiful woman to see him as weak or feel pity for him. He kept his expression neutral and nodded.
“But will you consider it? If you change your mind, here’s my private number.” She held out a piece of paper with a phone number scrawled on it and he took it silently.
“Goodbye then,” she said and headed for the door.
“Meet me at 25 Degrees at 12 tomorrow.”
She paused mid-stride.
“It’s a day later than we intended, but it’s as good a place to start as any. No promises yet. I need to see what you’re capable of before I agree to anything,” he said.
The smile she threw him was almost enough to knock him off his feet. A man could definitely get used to being looked at like that.
“And wear comfortable clothes; clothes you don’t mind getting dirty in.”
Then she was gone, leaving nothing but the soft scent of her perfume in the air.
Chapter Four
Dom choked on his draft beer as he caught sight of Nina at last. She couldn’t have shouted ‘celebrity who doesn’t want to be recognized’ any louder. The oversized designer sunglasses and headscarf were enough to make anyone look twice, especially here in Tinseltown.
She hovered in the door of the restaurant, nervously scanning the room before she spotted him in one of the back booths and made a beeline for him.
She slid into the seat across from him, her back to the rest of the restaurant, and undid the headscarf. Her long, sleek dark hair tumbled loose.
“Hi.” The coquettish smile she sent him was enough to make up for the 15 minutes she’d kept him waiting.
The waitress who brought their menus was clearly well trained. She pretended not to recognize Nina.
“I’ll have the Number One burger with extra fries,” he said, handing her back the menu.
Nina’s face took on a pinched look for a moment, then she placed her order. “I’ll have a Pellegrino and the chopped vegetable salad.”
The waitress met Dom’s eye. He grinned. He agreed. He’d had such high hopes Nina wasn’t going to be just like every other image-obsessed actress. She’d even passed the cream test.
This was a test his sisters had devised years ago. They deliberately offered a woman a beverage she usually didn’t drink – in a town like LA where every woman was on a diet, cream and sugar were the obvious choices. If the woman caused a fuss, she was written off as high-maintenance. If she accepted the cup and was polite enough to sip, his sisters considered her a keeper.
It was a good test. He’d even used it a few times himself. No one even semi-famous had passed the test before Nina.
“Those aren’t exactly the kind of comfortable clothes I had in mind,” he commented, eyeing the pretty blouse and short skirt she wore.
She shrugged. “What if someone sees me here and takes pictures? Wendy has my bag in the car with a change of clothes.”
“You’ve left your PA waiting outside?” he asked.
“Of course not! She’s running an errand for me and she’ll be back soon.”
Their food arrived quickly. As he dug into the burger, Nina averted her gaze, but she couldn’t disguise the hungry look she cast his fries.
“Go on,” he said with a quick grin. “You know you want to. Besides, you’re going to need to start bulking up. I’m going to make you work off those calories very quickly.”
Her grin as she leaned forward to steal a single fry off his plate was less movie star and more the Nina he remembered. And her satisfied sigh as she savored the fry was the most sensual thing he’d seen in years.
“Aren’t you…?”
Nina smiled and nodded at the two young women who approached their table.
“Could we have our picture taken with you?” the bolder of the women asked.
Dom took the phone handed to him and snapped a few pictures of them posing with Nina, attempting to look as cozy as best friends. By the time the women finally removed themselves, his burger was cold. And Nina had stopped casting lustful glances at his fries. She turned back to him with a half smile. “And that is why I don’t leave home in sweatpants. So when do we start my training?”
“As soon as we’ve eaten and I’m sure you’re not going to pass out from lack of sustenance I’m going to put you through some paces to test your fitness and agility.”
“I have a personal trainer and I work out every day in the gym at my complex. And I used to be a cheerleader in school.” Her smile oozed confidence, but she sounded defensive.
“Sweetheart, that has to have been at least ten years ago. No offence, but I need to know what I’m working with now. And just because you push weights with some gym bunny in an expensive health club does not make you fit.”
He scanned her body, or at least what was visible above the tabletop. She was in good shape
and clearly worked out, but she didn’t have the build of an athlete. For what he’d require from her, she needed core body strength, not legs that would look good blown up on a movie theatre screen.
“I won’t be as easy on you as your trainer,” Dom warned. “I’ll expect a hundred per cent commitment from you. I’m going to make you work and I don’t want to hear any complaints.”
She smiled, full of genuine confidence now. “I won’t complain.”
Several hours later she wished she hadn’t said she wouldn’t complain. Dominic had taken her on his motorbike to a training facility up in the hills, and he’d put her through a commando obstacle course. He’d made her run, crawl through dark tunnels, climb ropes and a series of increasingly steeper and higher barriers, swing across a ravine and jump from a height into a bed of mats.
Her legs and arms ached, she’d scratched her shins, and she wanted to cry from the way her breath tore through her throat. The sun baked down. She was over-hot and dripping with sweat. And there was still one more obstacle to go.
Dom kept pace beside her as she ran as hard as she could up the slope. She didn’t want to imagine how she looked: red-faced, panting, with her hair matted to her face and her t-shirt plastered to her skin. They crested the low hill and Nina baulked at the sight below her.
“You know how to swim?” Dom asked. He had no right to look so clean and able to breath. He hadn’t even broken a sweat.
She nodded. “Swimming pools, yes. But that…”
“That” was an oversized pond. No, it was too wide and too deep to be called a pond, too stagnant to be called a river. And the smell…
Memories she didn’t want hurled themselves at her. She swallowed the gag reflex.
“Showers and cold drinks are on the other side,” Dom said. “I’ll meet you at the clubhouse.” He pointed to the wooden building on the far side.
And then he was gone, jogging away from her with a backward wave and a grin she would have loved to wipe off his face.
She looked back at the water obstacle that lay before her. Fear gripped her stomach and again the gag reflex choked her. After several hours of torment, she no longer felt like sassy, confident Nina Alexander. She felt like the scared, plump kid she’d been in that other life so long ago.
Not just scared. Fear squeezed her chest. She sagged to the ground and eyed the water.
She didn’t need to shoot in water for the movie. Well, there was one scene in the third book… she swallowed. But that’s what stunt doubles were paid for.
She could call Dom back – tell him she couldn’t do this. And she could call this whole stupid thing off and go back to playing the rom-com princess.
She could, but she wouldn’t. She hauled herself up onto shaking legs. Then, drawing in a deep breath and closing her eyes, she jumped.
The water wasn’t as deep as she’d expected. It only reached to chest height. And at least it was cool, unlike that choking, merciless water she remembered. She began to wade. Water weeds caught at her, wrapping around her legs. Panic set in as she struggled against them. But they only gripped tighter.
She couldn’t breathe.
Survival rule #1: don’t panic. Her father had told her this years ago when she’d climbed too high up a tree and gotten stuck on a branch that had cracked beneath her weight. He’d talked her down, slowly, calmly.
She stopped fighting. Tears burned against her eyelids as the old memory choked her even more than the weeds. Survival rule, my ass. Fat lot of good it had done him.
She tried to move again, but the tangled weeds still held her tight. Trapped.
The tears threatened to spill over. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t do this.
She looked for Dom, but he was far away, circling the dam, not looking her way. She tried to shout for him, but the tears clogged her throat and all she managed was a whimper.
The black spots were back, dancing before her eyes.
I can do this. She breathed deeply to calm the surge of fear and panic. I won’t cry. He mustn’t see me cry.
When she no longer saw black spots before her eyes, she held her breath and dived down to yank the strangling weeds off her legs. It took three dives to finally free herself, then she pushed up to the surface and began to swim, slowly, careful to keep close to the surface to avoid the tangling weeds that still seemed to reach out to her with their greasy tentacles.
Her already aching muscles protested with every stroke, but she pushed forward, keeping her gaze locked on the distant building that slowly, slowly grew nearer.
Just another few feet, another stroke… on the far bank she dragged herself out and lay panting in the dry, prickly grass. The relief was so great she wanted to cry. She’d done it. She’d actually crossed it and it hadn’t killed her.
She wasn’t that weak, frightened little girl anymore.
Dom’s shadow fell over her. He held out an outstretched arm to pull her up and she took it gratefully. She didn’t know if she could have stood on her own. Her legs shook so much from the unaccustomed strain, and just a little bit of terror.
“How did I do?” she asked as they headed towards the clubhouse and she finally found her voice again.
“In six weeks I want to see you do it in half the time,” he said.
“Does that mean I’m trainable?”
He nodded, and this time she did cry, a few hot tears leaking down her dirt-stained face. Whether they were tears of joy or fear, she had no idea. She had to do this again in a few weeks? What had she signed up for?
She was so thirsty that she downed the tall glass of water Dom handed her in a minute flat. His eyes crinkled as he watched her. When she was done, she wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. Though the movement probably added even more grime to her face.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked as he took out his cell phone and snapped a picture.
He grinned. “I want to remember this moment. This might well be the first time I’ve seen an A-list actress covered in dirt and mud she actually earned.”
“If that picture ever appears on the net, my people will hunt you down and kill you.” But she said it with a laugh. He was right. The only time she’d ever been this dirty, the dirt had been painted onto her by a make-up artiste. It had taken nearly as long to paint on as it had just taken her to do the obstacle course.
And the only time she’d felt this liberated, this powerful… actually, she couldn’t even remember ever feeling this high. She’d done it. She’d faced one of her oldest fears.
“Anything else to drink?” Dom asked, raising his hand to summon the grizzled older man behind the serving hatch.
Nina nodded. “I’m going to live dangerously. You can make my next one a beer. But I need that shower first.” Though she doubted one shower would be enough to get the mud out of her hair.
The shower only had cold water and no shampoo, but at least she was a little more presentable when she returned to the bar area. Dom’s eyes glinted as she slid onto the chair across from him. Was that admiration in his gaze?
Great! If only she’d known the way to attract his attention was to submit to torture, humiliation, and terror she wouldn’t have wasted all that effort trying to flirt with him during the filming of Pirate’s Revenge.
The beer not only slaked her thirst, it eased a little of the stiffness already setting into her muscles. “So what’s next?” she asked.
“Next I take you home.” His mouth curved upwards in that suggestive half-smile that made her stomach flip.
She straddled the bike behind Dom as he revved the engine. She had to shout her address into his ear over its roar. Then she hung on tight as he headed back toward town. It was already growing dark when they wove through the streets of West Hollywood and into the tree-lined avenue where she lived.
“This is where you live?” Dom helped her off the bike and looked up at the unassuming mid-century stucco building. “I’d have thought after four seasons on a successful TV show, you�
��d have gone for something fancier.”
“It’s not all about money,” she said, with a small smile. “I bought this place the first time the show was renewed and it still suits me fine. I don’t need anything bigger and it’s easy to lock the door and leave if I go away on a shoot.”
And the heavy security ensured at least a modicum of privacy.
Her muscles had already begun to seize up and she needed Dom’s help to remove the helmet, too. Her arms ached too much to hold up. “Besides, I won’t be on top forever, and when the day comes when I’m no longer relevant, I don’t want to have blown everything I ever earned on a lifestyle I don’t need.”
No matter how great the temptation, she’d never over-reach herself and risk being homeless again.
Dominic looked impressed. Wasn’t that just typical? She finally got the man’s attention and she was too tired to capitalize on it. She stood awkwardly beside the bike and glanced around. Looking the way she did right now, she didn’t want to hang around on a public sidewalk any longer than necessary. “Do you want to come inside?”
“Sure.”
He followed her inside, through the security gates with their keypad access, past the guard, and across the cool, quiet lobby to the elevator. They rode up in silence. She let him into her unit, a tight knot forming in her stomach as he looked around without a word.
“Stylish,” he said. But it didn’t sound like a compliment. “How long did you say you’ve lived here?”
“Six years.” Compared to his homely bungalow, her apartment looked unlived in, even clinical. But it was her safe place, her refuge from the constant bombardment that followed wherever she went these days. Very few people were ever admitted past the door.
“You take minimal to a whole new level.” Dom followed her into the open-plan kitchen and leaned against a granite-topped counter as she opened the fridge.