by Julia London
Bent to one side, Leah puffed out her cheeks a minute as she considered the question, then released the air. “They sort of lost their appeal,” she said, very matter-of-factly. “You know, when everyone started getting flowers.”
“Hey,” Michael said, holding up a hand, looking damnably sexy. “No one else got orchids.”
“Orchids, roses, whatever,” she said with a shrug, and leaned to the other side. “Just seemed overdone.”
“Okay. But just so you know, you were the only one to ever get flowers from me on Mondays. Every Monday. And you were definitely the only one who ever got orchids.”
“Oh, really?” Leah asked nonchalantly. “I heard you were pretty good about handing yellow roses around, too.”
“Nicole,” he responded with a sigh.
“Nicole. Jill. Lindsey, the P.A.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Honestly, Michael, when did you have time to date all these women? I mean, you’re only thirty-eight, and there are only so many days—”
“I only sent Nicole flowers once,” he said, ignoring her question. “Yellow roses, it’s true—but I sent them because she had been nominated for a Golden Globe award.”
“Huh,” Leah said, and bent at the waist again, hanging down.
Michael squatted down next to her, cocking his head to see her face. “But I didn’t send Nicole Redding flowers because I loved her smile. That was why I sent you flowers. And I didn’t send flowers to Nicole every Monday because I needed to see that smile to make my week. That was your smile that made my day, and I’ve never seen one that could match it or take its place.”
Leah bounced up straight again. She pushed her hands through her hair. “That’s really sweet,” she said. “But I don’t want your orchids.”
Michael blinked. “Okay,” he said slowly. “So what would you prefer? Roses? Tulips? Larkspur?”
“Larkspur?” she echoed. “No. Nothing.” She put her hands on her waist and twisted one way, then the other, because if she looked in his eyes, she’d cave.
“Then maybe you’ll let me explain about Nicole—”
“Hey, no need,” she said quickly. “I get it.” At least she thought she was getting it, and while she wouldn’t mind maybe a little explanation about what exactly had gone on between him and Nicole, she just kept stretching her arms high overhead and looking past him.
But he suddenly stepped in her line of sight and looked at her suspiciously. “Have you been talking to Lucy, by any chance?”
Leah dropped her arms. “Why?”
“Just a guess,” he said with a slight roll of his eyes.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Lucy is my best friend.”
“I know. It’s just that Lucy has a way of . . . let’s just say, coloring things.”
“Well,” Leah sniffed, and pressed her lips together. She didn’t have much to say to that because it was so true. Usually. “Not this time,” she said, and looked to where the other women were milling about. “So when do we start?”
“You and me? Hard to say,” he said with a warm smile. “I’m hoping we start over before we’ve wrapped this film. In the meantime, do me a favor, would you? Tell Lucy that I am very sorry, that I am trying to grovel, and I will do anything for a second chance, so if she has any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.”
Melting. She could feel herself melting a little. “I’ll be sure and tell her all that, and how you are trying to impress me with orchids, just like you try to impress all the girls.”
“Okay, now, we covered that,” he reminded her amicably. “I don’t give flowers to all the girls, and I only gave orchids to you. And besides, you love orchids. You should be impressed,” he added with a captivating grin.
“Aha!” she said, pointing at him accusingly. “But I don’t love orchids anymore. That’s what you aren’t getting.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding thoughtfully. “Message received and duly filed away.”
“Well. Good.”
He glanced down, his gaze roaming her body to her shoes and back. “Hope you’re limbered up.”
“Oh,” she said, nodding adamantly, “I’m limbered.”
He chuckled as he walked away, and she wondered if she’d really just won the battle. And damn, he did look fine walking away, the tenacious, persistent, charming bastard.
She was still admiring his butt when Trudy joined her and looked in the direction Leah was looking. “What did Lover Boy have to say?” she asked.
“Him? Nothing,” Leah said, and turned away. “So how’d you do with Jack?”
Trudy snorted. “I had to take a number. What a dilemma, huh? I want one of the guys, and he hasn’t noticed me. One of the guys wants you, but you won’t take sloppy seconds. . .” She sighed. “It’s enough to make a grown girl come to work without makeup.”
“At least you already have a boyfriend,” Leah muttered, stealing another glimpse of Michael as he stopped to talk to a Starlet, noticing how his smile lit up the whole bay . . . not to mention the Starlet. Christ, there were a lot of women on this film!
“Please,” Trudy snorted. “Rick is easy, that’s all. Come on, let’s go smoke before they begin torturing us for the day.” And linking her arm through Leah’s, Yin led Yang out the door.
THE blocking was more difficult than any of the women had anticipated. They worked through tuck and rolls, then diving belly flops onto the mats. And before lunch, they practiced flying backward, with Jack and Michael catching them.
Over and over again, they flew, and over and over again, Michael caught Leah, his arms going around her, holding her tight. Every catch reminded her of being in his arms—in a cab, on the subway, on Rex’s boat, in bed. Every bit of contact took her back five years, to a man she loved but who had been a lie. Every bit of her memory was really a phantom, of someone who hadn’t really existed, who claimed to have loved her and had left her. That’s what made it so painful now—as tempting as his entreaty was, she couldn’t trust him . . . could she?
By the time the lunch hour rolled around, Leah couldn’t wait to get outside and away from the conflicts in her head.
She grabbed her bag, walked out, and checked her cell. There was a call from her agent, Frances. While Trudy was yakking the ear off of a Serious Actress, Leah walked off in the opposite direction of the commissary and wandered around the back lot, looking for a little peace and quiet to return the call. She finally parked herself on a box and dialed. “Hey, Frances, it’s Leah,” she said when she got Frances on the phone.
“Oh hi, sweetie. Well, the WB folks want a brunette for the part of Chloe, so they are passing on us.”
“But I can dye my hair!” Leah cried.
“There is no need to do that. They are looking for a brunette they like. They just didn’t like you that much.”
Leah’s shoulders sagged.
“Don’t take it personally,” Frances said cheerfully. “These things are all about looks first, talent second.”
“Did they say what they didn’t like?” Leah asked, thinking it might be her delivery, or her hands, something she could work on.
Frances snorted. “Sweetie, they didn’t like you,” she said. “I have to run—the other line is ringing,” Frances said, and clicked off.
Damn. It was a little hard not to take it personally when a casting director just didn’t like you. Leah sat on the box, her chin on her fists, thinking for a long time until the rumbling of hunger in her belly could no longer be ignored. She got up, started walking, heavy-footed, to the commissary.
As she made her way, a man with the dark, sexy look of an Hispanic or Italian actor stepped out from between two buildings. “Pardon me, pretty lady, but have you a light?” he asked with a lovely smile.
“I don’t smoke,” Leah said, wishing that she did in this case, and continued on.
But the man was quickly at her side, walking with her. “Neither do I smoke. Very ugly habit.”
“Then why did you ask for a light?” she asked laughingly,
looking up at him. He was definitely handsome—square jaw, jet-black hair, deep brown eyes, olive skin. “And why do you have a cigarette behind your ear?”
“No!” he exclaimed, his eyes wide. “There is a cigarette on my ear?” He reached up, grabbed the smoke and tossed it aside, then swept his arm wide. “There. You see? I do not smoke.”
She laughed. “I think you do.”
“Ach,” he said, with a dismissive flick of his wrist. “I do not make the line very well.”
“Make the line?”
“Si, si, the line, the line. The man has a line for the woman.”
“Oh,” she said, catching on. “That was a line.”
“Yes,” he said, smiling charmingly and proudly. “Do you like it?”
She smiled. “I have to be honest. It wasn’t very good.”
“No?” he asked, wincing.
“No,” she said, smiling. “Smoking isn’t sexy.”
“Aha. Then you tell me the good line. I will learn it.”
She laughed. “I don’t know any pickup lines. That’s strictly a guy thing.”
“Then how shall a poor man have a beautiful woman like you?”
“Maybe by cutting the crap,” Leah said with a laugh, and veered off on a path to the right that led to the commissary.
“No, no, señorita, do not go!” the man called after her. “I have not provided my name to you.”
Leah turned around, walking backward. “What’s your name?”
“Adolfo! Adolfo Rafael!”
“Nice to meet you, Adolfo Rafael,” she said, gave him a little wave, and turned around, walking away from him.
“Wait, wait!” he cried. “You did not provide your name!”
Leah laughed, waved over her head, and kept walking.
Subject: Re: Him Again
From: Lucy Frederick
To: Leah Kleinschmidt
Time: 12:12 am
I can’t believe he said that about me! Hell if I know what it means, other than maybe, he knows that I know what I am talking about, and how maybe you don’t, so he knows if he wants to get through to you, he needs to get me on board.
Subject: Re: Re: Him Again
From: Leah Kleinschmidt
To: Lucy Frederick
Time: 9:25 pm
Maybe that’s what he meant. But maybe he meant that you tend to put a different spin on things. Sometimes not a favorable spin. Remember that whole thing with you and him at the sushi bar? Who could forget that?
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Him Again
From: Lucy Frederick
To: Leah Kleinschmidt
Time: 12:42 am
Excuse me, but can’t a person make a mistake without fear of being persecuted for the rest of her life? I’ll have you know I haven’t had sushi since then. You tell Mr. Extreme-Bachelor-Can’t-Let-Anything-Go that I am just calling a spade a spade. What’s wrong with that? Whatever. Let him bring you orchids and remind you of all the great sex you had and tell you he’s sorry for the way he treated you, and that he screwed it up really bad, and that he’s changed. But do NOT come crying to me when he turns out to still be a spy or something like that. And anyway, this is supposed to be about me!! MY WEDDING IS ONLY FOURTEEN MONTHS AWAY!! Do you realize how much there is to be done?!?!
Chapter Thirteen
THE week ended uneventfully—Leah didn’t see much of Michael after that afternoon of tuck and roll. He wasn’t hanging around the blocking of the first battle scene, and the soccer mom network (a formidable gossip loop, in spite of the rift between Serious Actresses and Starlets, which Michele said just went to prove that women love to talk trash), said there was some big issue with the studio and the film’s budget, and that Michael and Eli had been holed up in meetings with the director, trying to sort it out.
That was just as well. Leah could actually focus on her job when Michael wasn’t around.
Friday night, Leah, Trudy, Jamie, and Michele went out for a drink and ended up at a club where a bunch of really cute guys who said they were actors—wasn’t everyone, really?—bought them drinks. They danced all night, something Leah hadn’t done in ages and ages. But it was funny—with each guy that asked her to dance, and each guy who bought her a drink, all she could think of was Michael.
She combated his image in her mind’s eye by trying to like each guy who approached her, but by the end of the evening, she was very disheartened. She thought she was so over Michael, so way past comparing him to every guy she’d ever met. But from the look of things on that sorry Friday night, she would never be over him.
Late Saturday morning, a morose Leah was sitting cross-legged on the floor of her living room, staring at the lopsided and unfinished origami peacock, sipping a cup of coffee. Her interest in origami, like her interest in Michael, had been renewed, and as she studied that godawful peacock, she decided she should figure out a way to un-lopside it. It deserved better.
While she was wondering exactly how she’d managed to get it that lopsided, Brad stormed into the room, on his way out. He shoved one arm into a V-neck sweater. “Hey, did you see the package for you?” he asked as he pulled the sweater over his head, and nodded toward the kitchen table as he wrestled his other arm into the sweater.
Leah glanced over her shoulder, saw a small gray box. “Where did that come from?”
“Don’t know. Some driver in a suit delivered it yesterday while you were at work. Okay, I’m gone,” Brad said, and left Leah alone in the house.
Still cross-legged, she inched her way around and stared at the box as she sipped her coffee. She had a pretty good idea who it was from and frowned, because that little shiver of anticipation that ran up her spine was ridiculously shortsighted. She was a fool to trust him. Regardless of the fluttery feelings she got every time he so much as smiled, what he’d done to her five years ago was no small thing.
Okay, so he was sorry for it. What was to say he wouldn’t do the same thing again?
Whatever, curiosity was killing her, so she put her coffee cup aside and hopped to her feet, padding across the wood floor to the kitchen table. She hesitated only a moment before picking up the box.
Van Cleef & Arpels, it said in cursive, silver letters. She slipped the silver ribbon from the box and lifted the lid. There was a note on top—she picked it up, saw that beneath it, there was a small bottle of Van Cleef French perfume— real perfume. She could not help grinning. She knew that perfume.
Leah opened the note first.
Remember the night we went to see Phantom of the Opera? I will never forget how you looked and how you smelled. You wore a slinky long black dress and your hair up. Your favorite perfume was Van Cleef. You never were more beautiful than you were that night. M.
Her smile deepened—she remembered, all right. Michael had surprised her with box seats and dinner at Pierre Au Tunnel, a swanky New York restaurant for her birthday. She’d worn a simple, floor-length black gown that he later removed so that he could have his leisurely way with her.
That memory prompted another delicious shiver as she extracted the bottle from the box. She removed the stopper and inhaled. It was heavenly, just as she remembered. This was her favorite perfume, but she hadn’t been able to afford another bottle since she left New York. The fact that he remembered that it was her favorite was astonishing.
Goddammit, his crap was beginning to work. She could feel herself softening, could feel the ironclad grip she held on her fragile heart starting to ease. She picked up the card again and turned it over. Smart boy. He’d left his cell phone number on the back. She’d once complained about people leaving cards with no cell phone numbers and then never answering their landlines. It had been a running joke with them, checking every business card for a cell phone number.
She dialed the number, but it went to voice mail, for which she was really not prepared, and she
started waving her hand, trying to think what to say while Michael’s sexy deep voice instructed her to leave a message and he’d call back as soon as he could.
When the beep sounded, she still wasn’t ready, and said, “Ah, hey,” like a dork. “I ah . . . I—this is Leah, by the way. I ah . . . I got your gift.” Okay, well that was obvious. She waved her hand harder. “That was really nice.” Nice. That’s what she said when Grandma sent her panties for her birthday. “And I, ah . . . I remember, too,” she said, and squeezed her eyes shut. “So . . . thanks,” she added, and quickly clicked off.
She opened her eyes, looked at the phone in her hand. “Great, Leah. You’ve just made an ass of yourself. I remember, too,” she mimicked herself. “So thanks,” she added with a huge swoon, and with a groan to the rafters, she put the phone down and took her real perfume to her bedroom to try on.
MICHAEL didn’t get Leah’s message until he returned from Malibu, where he’d spent the day with Jack and Lindsey, the production assistant, and one of her closest friends, Ariel, on a yacht Jack had scrounged up somewhere. Michael had only done it as a favor to Jack—he’d called up, sounding desperate. “Hey, I need a favor, and I can’t find Coop,” he’d said, dispensing with any greeting. “I’ve got a yacht lined up, but Lindsey won’t go unless her friend goes, too.”
“Okay,” Michael had said, in the middle of some budget work. “Take the friend.”
“Don’t be a jerk, Mikey. I need a hand here. Come on, come with.”
“What is it with women?” Michael had sighed.
“Who the hell knows?” Jack responded with exasperation. “Just come on. You love this sort of thing.”
Normally, Michael did love that sort of thing. But for the first time in many years, his heart was not into being surrounded by beautiful women on a glorious, sun-drenched day.