This Is True Love (Exclusive! #1)

by Jamie Wesley

  “Easier said than done. I’ve never been good at that stuff.”

  “You’re a smart woman. Alex wouldn’t have hired you otherwise. You’ll figure it out.” Fliss studied her. Smooth pecan skin, dark brown eyes with a heavy fringe of lashes. “You’re pretty, too. Pete won’t be able to resist that combination.”

  Amanda rolled her eyes. “If you say so.”

  “I do, so say you’ll try.”

  Amanda heaved a dramatic sigh. “You’re not going to give up until I agree, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  Amanda glared, but Fliss didn’t look away, refusing to be intimidated.

  Finally, Amanda threw her hands up. “Okay, fine. I’ll try.”

  Fliss clasped her hands together in delight. “Much better. I have no doubt that you’ll succeed.”

  A shy smile bloomed across Amanda’s face. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Not a problem. I live to help.”

  They watched Alex and Pete battle on the court in silence. Fliss hooted her approval when Pete stole the ball from Alex and went in for a dunk. She sent a cheery smile Alex’s way when he whirled toward her, his lips pressed tight.

  “I guess I should apologize,” Amanda said. She tucked a strand of brown hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her right ear.

  Fliss crossed her legs at the ankles. “For what? Thinking I was set on seducing Pete?”

  “No, that made me sad, not mad.”

  “Then what?”

  “For thinking you were an airhead actress coming in to screw things up because you were bored and lonely after your divorce.” Amanda’s southern accent added a genteel panache to the insult.

  Fliss snorted out a surprised laugh, then side-eyed the other woman. “Thanks for the honesty. Tell me how you really feel.”

  “You’re welcome,” Amanda said with a sly smile. “Want another truth?”

  “Why not? You’re on a roll.”

  “You suck at basketball.”

  “Aww, thanks. You’re just saying that because I blocked your shot.” Fliss patted Amanda’s leg. “It must be hard to be so short.”

  “You mean when you grabbed my arm, which is against the rules. And I’m petite, not short.”

  “Whatever. The shot didn’t go in. That’s all that matters.”

  She met Amanda’s eyes, and they collapsed into giggles.

  “Hey, Fliss,” Pete called out.

  She shaded her eyes with a hand and turned to the court. “What’s up?”

  “Alex beat me. You want to take another shot at him?” he asked with a smirk.

  Not in this lifetime. Not with Alex still out for blood. Not when the memory of his body pressed against hers on the court was still burned on her brain.

  “Nah, she’s good where she is,” Alex taunted before she could decline. “She can’t handle me.”

  Fliss’s eyes narrowed, her competitive instincts overriding her good sense. She climbed to her feet, ignoring her protesting muscles, and stalked over to Alex. She grabbed the ball out of his hands. “Let’s go, smarty-pants. First to five points wins.”

  Less than five minutes later, Alex was systematically backing her down toward the basket.

  “What’s wrong, Alex? Afraid to shoot it against a girl?” She was talking smack, a dumb idea, but she didn’t care because he was toying with her. Again using his size to intimidate and dominate. He outweighed her by a good seventy pounds and had at least seven inches on her. All he had to do was turn around and shoot over her head. But she wouldn’t go down without a fight. Not when everyone’s eyes bored into her back, waiting to see what would happen next. She wanted their respect, and she wouldn’t earn it if she cowered to Alex.

  “Of course not,” he tossed over his shoulder. “Especially since I’m winning.”

  He led four to one. Game point. If he scored, game over. She refused to make it easy on him. She snuck a hand around his waist to strip the ball away. She missed her target, her palm sliding across his toned butt. The shorts, dampened by sweat, clung and molded in the most fascinating way. She couldn’t help herself. She pinched.

  He leaped a foot in the air. When he landed, he turned and scowled. “Really?”

  She snatched the ball away, dribbled to the very front of the basket, and made the easy shot.

  “Fliss,” he said through gritted teeth.

  She shrugged. “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying. Four-two.”

  He shot her a narrowed-eyed glance, grabbed the ball, and started backing her down again.

  “What are we going to do about Phillip?” she asked.

  “You want to talk about that now?” he tossed over his shoulder.

  “Sure. We came out here to give our brains a chance to concentrate on something other than our immediate problems, but brains are funny organs. They’ve been trying to figure out the answer to our problem this whole time. So what is yours telling you?”

  “Besides the fact that you’re crazy?”

  “Ha ha. Oof,” she grunted when he backed her up another step. Her sneakers slid on the concrete, but she kept her balance. Sweat molded his shirt to the rippling muscles of his solid, wide back. Of their own accord, her eyes slid down to his truly amazing butt. Focus, Fliss. And not on his butt. “I’ve been thinking about where things started going wrong.”

  “Me, too. As much as it pains me to admit it, I lost him when I started talking about how much money the movie was going to make.” He paused, shaking his head.

  Now was her chance. She swiped again, but he blocked her hand with his right forearm.

  “You’re right,” she said. “He wanted to know if we really understood his wife. We’ve got to show him that we know what made her tick. What made her special.”

  “I agree, but how do we do that?” Alex turned to face her. He dribbled the ball with one hand and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the other. “We need to do something dramatic. Eye-catching.”

  Fliss considered the question. A chill swept down her spine as an idea popped into her head. Should she voice it? What if he didn’t like it? Didn’t matter. If she was going to become a vital contributor to Crescendo and prove to him that she belonged, she needed to trust her business instincts. “We need to talk to the people who knew Farrah best.”

  “Yes!” Alex’s eyes lit up. A huge, unreserved grin, the one that rarely made an appearance, stretched across his face. It stunned her, rendered her still. Made her wish it would never disappear. He leaped and stroked the ball through the net. “Game.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Three days later, Alex opened the car door and scanned Fliss’s figure as she stepped out and joined him on the sidewalk. He pressed his lips together to hide his amusement at her attempt to dress down. Jeans and a purple button-down shirt were a good start, but it didn’t take a fashionista to note their high quality. Designer duds all the way.

  She looked up at him. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “If you say so. Ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be.” Today would go a long way to making or breaking their chances of winning the Farrah Blake movie sweepstakes. But being back in the Philadelphia neighborhood where he’d grown up was sending his stress levels, already high, skyrocketing.

  “We got this.” She held out a balled hand, her lips curving into a confident smile.

  He laughed and bumped fists with her. A sense of camaraderie had developed between them over the past few days as they planned the trip. They were both determined to succeed, and nothing would stand in their way. If he sometimes found himself distracted by the sweet curve of her lips, remembering how they tasted, remembering how her moans acted as a trigger to his desire, and lost track of what she was saying, well…well, nothing. He ordered himself to concentrate on business and moved on. Like he needed to do now.

  He placed his hand at the small of her back, resolutely ignoring the spark of electricity that swept up his arm as soo
n as he touched her, and they walked up the front steps of the row house. Alex knocked on the door.

  “Who is it?” a thin, reedy voiced called from inside the house.

  “Alex Graham, ma’am.”

  The lock turned, and a lady with gray hair styled into tight curls and a face full of wrinkles peered around the edge of the door. She stared at Alex, then craned her neck and inspected Fliss.

  Alex held out his hand. “Hi. It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Burton. I’m Alex Graham and this is Felicity Chambers.”

  The woman stared at his hand suspiciously before raising her gaze to study Fliss again. “Yes, I guess you look like the girl in the movies. I wasn’t sure you’d actually show up.” She stepped back and opened the door. “Come in.”

  Alex exchanged a glance with Fliss before they followed Mrs. Burton inside the small house, which didn’t look like it had been redecorated since the eighties. Faded wallpaper patterned with green and yellow roses covered the walls. The wallpaper extended all the way into the living room and matched the green velvet sofa and love seat.

  Mrs. Burton invited them to sit down. They sat on the couch, the old piece of furniture creaking underneath their combined weight, while she took the love seat.

  “Thanks for agreeing to meet with us,” Fliss said. “We came to interview you about Farrah Blake.”

  “Yes, I know,” Susan Burton said. “My question is why? She’s been dead a long time, and when she was alive, she kept to herself in her later years. Didn’t come around here much.”

  “We’d like to make a movie about her,” Alex said.

  Mrs. Burton turned her hawk-like attention to him. “The only reason I agreed to do this is because I knew your grandparents. They were proud of you. Good people. Can’t say the same for your daddy, but I suspect you know that. Kind of look like him, but you’re not mean like him. I can tell by your eyes.”

  Alex’s nerves jumped at the mention of the person he tried very hard never to think about. “Thank you. I loved my grandparents.”

  “So why are you interested in Farrah?”

  “She led a fascinating life, and I—we,” he corrected, pointing to Fliss and then himself, “believe it deserves to be told.”

  She eyed him doubtfully. “You’re not going to do some hatchet job on her, are you? Because if you are, I won’t help you. She was my best friend from the moment we met in first grade.”

  First Mansfield, now Mrs. Burton. Were all the people in Farrah’s life mistrusting? He shook his head. “No, we wouldn’t do that. Her life was compelling. We want to tell it as honestly as possible.”

  Fliss scooted forward. “That’s why we came. To get stories from the people who knew her before she became a worldwide star and what motivated her to get there.”

  The elderly woman studied her. “You know something about being a star.”

  “I do, which is why I’m the perfect person to tell her story. I know how crazy and stressful and wonderful fame can be. How it tests our character and reveals it at the same time.”

  “Hmmph. Did you practice that little speech before you got here?”

  Fliss laughed. “No, ma’am, I didn’t. It was that good, huh?”

  Mrs. Burton’s lips tilted up. “Does Farrah’s husband know you’re here?”

  Fliss’s eyes flickered to his before answering. “He doesn’t.”

  “I didn’t think so. He was always overprotective of her. Could be sweet sometimes, but also annoying. He’s making things difficult for you, isn’t he?”

  “Well…I wouldn’t say that.”

  “You don’t have to. I can read between the lines. But I like that you’re circumspect. Means you don’t run around blabbing everything you know the second you find out.”

  “Thank you. So will you help us?”

  Mrs. Burton settled back into the love seat and crossed her arms over her thin chest. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  Alex hadn’t flown across the country to give up easily. He leaned forward. “What can we do to convince you?”

  ***

  “Ladies, you remember Dina Graham’s grandson, Alex?” Mrs. Burton asked.

  Two women, neither of whom could be a day under seventy-five years old, stared at Alex with identical looks of suspicion. He seemed to take it in stride, offering up a reassuring smile. At least the one at the end of the couch, who wore a red Phillies T-shirt, looked amused. Maybe she would be an ally.

  This wasn’t how Fliss had imagined things would go, but if it was the only way, then so be it.

  “You’re going to have to impress the ladies who’ve lived in this neighborhood the longest to get info,” Mrs. Burton had told Alex.

  Clearly confident in his skills of persuasion, he’d readily agreed. So here they were. At the weekly knitting circle meeting. The circle members had arrived a few minutes ago.

  “Dina Graham, you say? I’d forgotten her son had a son,” one of the knitters, Mary, said, peering at him through thick, wire-framed glasses.

  “Yeah, that no-good piece of work,” another basically yelled. Fliss’s eyes flicked to her hearing aid, which clearly wasn’t up to the task.

  “Liza, please,” the Phillies fan, Rachel, if Fliss remembered correctly, hissed, elbowing the loud talker.

  “What?” Liza cried out. “Speak up. You know I hate when you whisper.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes and gestured toward her ear. “Turn up your hearing aid.”

  Liza made a face but complied.

  “Ladies, play nice,” Sue said. She’d insisted they call her that, rather than Mrs. Burton, after they’d agreed to take part in the knitting circle. “Alex and his friend Felicity are our guests.”

  “Is she your girlfriend?” Mary asked, her eyes, made large by the thick glasses, drilling holes into Alex.

  “No, we’re just friends,” he answered with a pleasant smile.

  “Scared to make a move?”

  Fliss couldn’t help herself. She snickered. Alex side-eyed her and sighed. “No. We don’t have that kind of relationship.”

  “Why not?” Mary asked.

  “Yeah, Alex, why not?” Oops. That was her. Probably shouldn’t have said that, but needling him never got old. And okay, she wanted an answer to a question she’d asked herself way too often. Just because she was rarely, if ever, satisfied with the answer didn’t mean Alex felt the same. She met his glare head-on. Bravely if she did say so herself.

  “Because we don’t,” he said. “You know that, Fliss.”

  Her eyes narrowed. Ooh, there it was. His Lord of the Manor tone. She offered up her most chipper smile and snapped her fingers. “Oh, that’s right. Just checking.”

  “Mary, stop being nosy,” Rachel said. She turned to Alex. “Why don’t you tell us why you’re here?”

  “We came to learn how to knit.” Alex offered up a potent, charming smile.

  Rachel flicked her hand at the wrist, clearly unimpressed with charm. “No, you didn’t. You didn’t show up here out of the blue, wanting to know how to knit.”

  “Ma’am, you’re right,” Fliss interjected. Arguing with Alex was not the reason she was here. They could do that any time they wanted, and, knowing their dynamic, probably would as soon as they wrapped up this session. “We also wanted to talk to you all about Farrah Blake.”

  “Aww, I see. Well, that’s not gonna happen until you start knitting,” Rachel said.

  The women opened their knitting bags and took out various projects. Fliss recognized a half-finished scarf, a glove, and two sweaters.

  “Knitting keeps our old fingers nimble,” Sue said, handing them both knitting needles and a skein of blue yarn. She showed them how to hold the needles in their hands and loop the yarn in the needles. “What do you want to make?”

  “Since this is our first time, let’s stick to something simple,” Alex said.

  “Good idea,” Fliss said. “How about scarves?”

  The women demonstrated how to start a project by preparing t
he first row of stitches on the needle with a long-tail cast on. Fliss watched Alex out of the corner of her eye. He picked up the rhythm easily. Was there anything he wasn’t good at? Memories of his magnificent kisses invaded her mind. She shook her head and refocused on her task. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the same natural affinity for knitting as Alex. While trying not to make a mess of the yarn in her hands, she listened to the women gossip about the latest neighborhood goings-on.

  During a half-second lull in the conversation, Alex jumped in. “So what can you tell us about Farrah Blake?”

  Fliss wasn’t surprised. He might give the impression he was patiently biding his time by whiling away the afternoon knitting, but she’d felt the coiled tension in his body next to hers.

  “She was a handful, that’s for sure,” Sue said with a fond smile.

  “Handful is one way to put it,” Rachel said. “She was sweet but spoiled. Her parents gave her everything she wanted and filled her head with stories about how great she was.”

  The women laughed and shared knowing glances.

  “But she didn’t have a mean bone in her body,” Liza said. “She was just focused on making her dreams come true.”

  Fliss stopped pretending to knit. She didn’t want to miss a second of this. This was what they’d come for. The inside scoop. She exchanged glances with Alex. He felt it, too.

  “Do you mind if I get my camera out?” he asked, his eyes shining bright with excitement.

  “Ooh, are we going to be on TV?” Sue asked, patting her curly hair.

  Rachel smoothed a hand down her T-shirt. “I would’ve dressed up if I’d known.”

  Alex put aside his knitting needles and retrieved the small video camera he’d brought with him out of its bag. “No, you’re probably not going to be on TV.”

  In unison, the knitters deflated.

  “But I am making a short documentary about Farrah,” he hastily added. “I want to show it to her husband to convince him to let us make a movie about her.” He stepped behind Fliss, ready to film.

  When he trained the camera on her, Rachel’s eyes widened. She gripped the hem of her T-shirt. “Um, on second thought, I’m not sure this is a good idea. I don’t want to sound dumb.”