Acting Lessons (Off Guard)

by Katie Allen

  Faking a pout, she ducked under his arm through the doorway. “Is it torture being my boyfriend?”

  Even though he muttered the words under his breath, Topher heard them clearly and had to bite back a pleased grin. “That’s the only good part of all this.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Leigh, you are an angel from heaven, but instead of a halo, you have a spatula.” Biting into the still-warm cinnamon roll dripping with icing, Topher couldn’t stop her eyes from rolling back in her head as she groaned with pleasure. “I can’t believe you’re a pastry chef and a cook. Is there anything you can’t do?”

  “I refuse to learn how to change a tire,” Leigh said flatly, although the corners of her mouth tucked in like she was holding back a pleased smile. “If no handy, helpful tire-changer drives by within ten minutes, I call a tow truck.”

  Topher raised the remainder of her cinnamon roll in a salute. “Why would anyone ever want to change a tire? There are so many cute boys who will do it for us, and they’re so eager to help.” She took another bite and chewed slowly, pausing to savor the incredible taste before she swallowed. “I like it when the guy is really fit, so I can ogle him while he works. It’s like watching man-TV so I don’t get bored while I wait for him to finish.”

  James’s hand found her thigh right above her knee, and he gave a warning squeeze. Shoving the last bite of roll into her mouth to hide her smile, Topher resisted wriggling in her chair. If he thought the leg-groping was supposed to keep her from acting up, he didn’t realize that it was more of a carrot than a stick. She’d talk about other cute men all morning if it kept his fingers on her thigh. It was even better than having his hand on her leg the night before. Then, it had been for show, but none of the Golfinis were around to watch now. His fingers were squeezing her thigh because he wanted to squeeze her thigh. The thought made her both wet and happy.

  Jules hurried into the kitchen, looking harassed, although she tried to hide it with her best hostess smile. As soon as she entered, James got to his feet. The old-fashioned gesture was even hotter than his leg-touching. “Guess who decided to surprise us with a Christmas visit?”

  In answer, a woman swept in behind Jules. “Surprise!”

  She was straight-up gorgeous. There was no other word for her. With olive skin, dark hair and light brown eyes that slanted up at the corners, she looked like a classic film actress. Topher had a serious case of cheekbone envy.

  Although James’s face was an impassive mask, showing nothing about how he felt regarding this woman’s unexpected arrival, his fingers clamped around Topher’s shoulder until she squirmed with a mixture of discomfort and arousal. Seriously, there was something wrong with her that James-inflicted pain turned her on.

  “Peyton,” he said evenly, his grip easing to Topher’s relief and disappointment. “I didn’t know you were in the area.”

  “I flew in early this morning to surprise you.” Despite the wintery weather, Peyton was wearing a dress beneath her long coat. Her only concession to the cold and snow was a pair of high-heeled boots. She had the figure of a model, tall and willowy. Rounding the table with annoying grace, Peyton curled her manicured fingers around James’s arms and reached up to kiss first one cheek and then the other.

  Topher barely suppressed a snort. The woman’s accent was unmistakably American, making the double cheek kiss a pretentious, smack-able offense. That violent urge was doubled by the fact that, although she’d made contact on his right cheek, Peyton’s lips didn’t touch the scarred side of James’s face.

  Feeling at a disadvantage in her current sitting position, Topher stood. Even though Peyton still towered over her by a solid eight inches, Topher felt slightly better—not as small and unsophisticated—on her feet.

  The thump of a pan hitting the counter turned everyone’s attention to Leigh. “You’re staying?” The question had a threatening undertone that made Peyton’s eyes narrow.

  “Of course.” Although she smiled, her words had definite sharp edges. “When my job in Paris was cancelled, I decided to spend the holidays with my favorite person.” Her hand stroked James’s arm, and Topher fought the urge to slap it off of him, like she would if a poisonous spider had been crawling on his arm.

  “Paris?” Topher echoed, falling into her role to try to distract herself from her growing need for violence. “Are you a model? I’m an actress, so that’s kind of the same thing, except that models don’t talk or, you know, act. Oh, and you have to be tall to be a model. It’s okay to be short if you’re an actress, which is good, since I’m little.”

  Peyton stared at Topher like she was a cockroach that had just scuttled across the kitchen floor. “No, I’m not a model. I’m an antiquities expert. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  Detaching himself from Peyton’s gripping hand, James stepped close enough to Topher to rest a hand on her lower back. “This is Coco Topher. She’s my guest for the next few weeks.”

  With an unfeigned happy smile, Topher leaned into his side. “By ‘guest,’ he means girlfriend,” she told Peyton in a loud, conspiratorial whisper. “Since I’m sharing his bedroom, I’m, like, an orgasm guest.”

  Leigh’s guffaw almost completely muffled Julia’s gasp of laughter.

  “Excuse me,” Julia mumbled from behind the hand covering her mouth as she rushed out of the door into the hall. Faint sounds of her giggles trickled into the kitchen.

  “Honestly, James.” Even though Peyton wore a tight-lipped, condescending smile, her eyes were shooting lasers of fury. “Aren’t you a little young for a mid-life crisis? I mean, an actress? All of what? Twenty?”

  “Not really your business anymore, Peyton,” he said crisply. “And if this is a mid-life crisis, I’m enjoying every minute of it.” His hand slid across her back to cup Topher’s hip.

  “Aw, sugar-muffin, that’s so sweet,” Topher cooed, turning into him so she could pet his chest.

  Peyton’s face had turned white and red in an unattractively blotchy pattern. Her mouth opened, but before she could say anything else, she was interrupted by Topher’s cell phone blasting “Barbie Girl.”

  “Sorry!” Topher reluctantly stopped fondling James’s chest so she could pull her phone from her pocket. When she glanced at the display, she couldn’t hold back a tiny grimace. Although she was tempted to ignore the call, she knew her mom would just try over and over again until Topher finally picked up. Taking a deep breath, she tapped Accept. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Coco, dear, where are you?”

  Intending to follow Julia into the hall for some privacy, Topher tried to shift away from James. It was like pressing against an unyielding steel band. Apparently, James was not letting her leave the room—or even his side. With a mental shrug, she relaxed against him and resigned herself to thoroughly confusing her mother.

  “I’m at Jamie-Bear’s house. In his kitchen, actually.”

  There was an unsurprising silence before her mom said faintly, “Who bear?”

  She gave a put-upon sigh. “Jamie-Bear. My boyfriend, remember? James Hawkins? I told you bunches of times that I was going to his house for Christmas and New Year’s.”

  “Coco, are you feeling well? Ben, darling, our daughter might have gone a little crazy. Do you think it’s from hanging around all those odd actor people?”

  There was a pause before a male voice spoke into the phone. “Coco? What’s going on?”

  “Hi, Ben.” She wasn’t able to call him Papa Ben to his face—or his ear, actually. He’d have her committed. Because she could feel James’s, Peyton’s and even Leigh’s curious gazes locked on her, though, she tried to lighten her tone to a more Tophie-like level. “Nothing’s going on. Mom just forgot that I told her I’d be at Jamie’s house for Christmas.”

  “Jamie?” His tone sharpened, making her flinch. James must have felt the tiny movemen
t, since he squeezed her hip reassuringly. It felt surprisingly nice to be cuddled during a conversation with her stepfather.

  “Yes, James Hawkins.”

  After a second of silence, he spoke again, sounding much less irritated—almost pleased, in fact. “You’re dating the James Hawkins? Founder of Blue Hawk Group?”

  “Um... I’m not sure.” Tipping her head to look at James, she asked, “Did you found the Blue Hawk Group?” He nodded, one corner of his mouth tipping up as Peyton made a scoffing sound. Ignoring it, Topher returned to her call. “Yes. He’s the James Hawkins.”

  “How long?” Ben barked, although most of the harshness had left his tone.

  Racking her brain to remember the story she’d babbled the night before, she fumbled her answer. “Ah...three weeks?” Topher winced. What was wrong with her? She was able to memorize a full script in just days, but she couldn’t remember one line from twelve hours earlier?

  “Are you asking me?” Ben hated when she turned statements into questions.

  “No.” Her voice was quiet as she rested her forehead on James’s chest, her cheeks flushed from the reprimand. “I just couldn’t remember right away.”

  He must have accepted that explanation, since he shifted topics. “Your mother and I decided not to spend the holidays in Aspen.”

  “Those awful Courtlands were going to be there,” her mother said loudly in the background. “You know how Sally latches on to me like a parasite. I’d never escape her. And once Gordon has a few scotches, he makes the most inappropriate comments.”

  Ben cleared his throat. “We were considering spending some time in California with you, but it appears that you won’t be home. Are you at Hawkins’s place outside Chicago?”

  “Yes. Sorry I won’t see you and Mom for Christmas.” That was a lie. She was actually relieved.

  “We’ll come to Chicago, then.”

  “Chicago?” She winced. It looked like she wasn’t going to manage to wiggle out of seeing her parents over the holidays, after all. “That’ll be...great.”

  “We’ll fly out this afternoon. Is Hawkins there?”

  “Here? As in right now?” Topher cringed at all her statements-as-questions, but she couldn’t help it. She was so confused. “Yes, he’s here.”

  “Let me talk to him.”

  “Wait, what?” The conversation had taken a decidedly unexpected turn, throwing Topher even more off-center.

  “Hand Hawkins the phone.” Ben hated having to repeat himself, and she could hear his sharp irritation.

  Her brain raced, but she couldn’t think of a way to avoid a Jamie-and-Ben conversation. Reluctantly, she held her cell phone out to Jamie, whose eyebrow rose toward his hairline. “Ben wants to talk to you.”

  He gave her a questioning look that she couldn’t answer before accepting the phone. “Hawkins.” There was a pause. “Yes.”

  Topher stared at his profile, trying to psychically reach into his brain and turn up the volume so that she could hear Ben’s side of the call. Jamie’s side of monosyllables and poker face wasn’t giving her anything at all.

  “Do you need me to send a car? Okay, see you then.”

  Dread began to build in the pit of Topher’s stomach. Sending a car meant that they would be driven back to the house, which meant that her parents would be staying... “No,” she mouthed, but she already knew it was too late, even before Jamie ended the call. “They’re coming here?”

  He handed her cell back to her, and she accepted it automatically, her gaze never leaving his expressionless face. “They’ll be here tonight.”

  “My parents are coming here? Tonight?” She cringed, still conscious of the whole statement-as-a-question thing.

  A ladle flew through the kitchen, smacking against the far wall.

  “Fuck a duck!” Leigh snarled.

  After taking one look at the enraged cook surrounded by sharp and heavy potential projectiles, Topher decided a quick exit would be prudent.

  “I’d better let Jules know,” she tossed over her shoulder as she fled. Darting through the door, she almost slammed into Julia. The other woman opened her mouth to speak, but Topher shook her head and shoved her toward the dining room. Only when they were a safe distance from the kitchen did she stop pushing Julia and allow her to turn and face her.

  “What?” Julia asked in a hushed voice.

  Allowing her head to tip forward until her forehead rested on Julia’s shoulder, Topher let out an odd sound, kind of a groaning whimper. “Sorry, Jules. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  Julia grasped Topher’s upper arms and moved her back far enough to meet her eyes. “You didn’t mean for what to happen? Did you kill Peyton?”

  “No, I wouldn’t do that!” Topher said emphatically before making a face. “Okay, so maybe I considered it for just a second when her talons were digging into Jamie-Bear’s arm, but I’m much too squeamish to actually go through with it. I don’t even like to squash spiders. Speaking of spiders, she’s kind of Black Widow-y, isn’t she? Except that she’s probably not a widow?”

  “She’s divorced, not widowed, but I can’t completely disagree with the comparison, and you still haven’t told me what the latest crisis is.”

  Wincing, Topher decided to just spill the news quickly. “Ben and my mom are coming.”

  Julia looked blank for a second before she absorbed the information. “Your parents are coming here?”

  “Yes. Tonight.”

  “Your parents are coming here tonight?”

  “Yes.” When Julia was silent and expressionless too long, Topher couldn’t restrain the torrent of words any longer. “I’m so, so sorry! They were in LA and wondering where I was, so I told Papa Ben about—” she cleared her throat “—dating Jamie-Bear, and he asked to talk to Jamie, who asked if he should send a car, which means they’re not just coming to Chicago, they’re coming here. To this house. Who does that? Who invites themselves to a stranger’s house for Christmas and then takes a private plane across the country to stay with their daughter’s—” she lowered her voice to a whisper for the next word “—pretend boyfriend? No one normal, that’s for sure.”

  “Topher,” Julia interrupted before she could finish her rant. “It’s okay. We have the room, and James is already acquainted with your stepfather.” She patted Topher’s shoulders and then dropped her hands to her sides. “It’ll be a little busier around here than we expected, but everything will be fine.”

  “But Leigh...” Topher sent a hunted look in the direction of the kitchen.

  “Oh, dear.” Following her gaze, Julia lost her determinedly cheery expression. “Is she very upset?”

  Nodding, Topher said in a whisper, “She threw a ladle. And swore about ducks.”

  After a second nervous glance toward the closed kitchen door, Julia shook herself. “Leigh will be fine, too. The roads are being cleared right now, and the rest of the employees will be able to get through before lunch. Once she has some help, she’ll calm down.”

  “Okay.” Despite her response, Topher was doubtful. After all, there’d been ladle-throwing and duck-swearing.

  “Don’t worry.” Julia’s positive smile was back. “It’ll all work out. We were going to do some shopping this morning. Did you want to join us?”

  Spending the morning shopping with the Golfini women and Peyton sounded like hell, but Topher didn’t have the heart to send Julia out to swim with the sharks alone. “Shopping? Uh, duh! Of course I want to go shopping! It’s, like, one of my favorite things ever. Do I have time to take a shower first?”

  “Definitely.” When Julia’s smile eased into something more natural, Topher was glad she’d agreed to go. “Something tells me that Barb’s and Donna’s morning beauty routines take hours.”

  Topher giggled at that, laughing harder
when Julia joined her.

  “What’s funny?” Jamie’s arm caught Topher around her waist and pulled her back against him. She relaxed into him as usual, marveling at how natural it felt to be surrounded by him when they hadn’t even known each other for twenty-four hours.

  “Jules.” Turning her head to smile up at him, she caught sight of Peyton’s scowling face. The woman was standing close to Jamie’s side—much too close. Swallowing the urge to give Peyton a solid shove or perhaps pull her perfect hair, Topher focused on Jamie’s face. “I don’t even remember what she said, but then she started giggling, and she’s the cutest giggler ever, so I couldn’t stop laughing. Are you coming shopping with us?”

  The look of horror that crossed his face almost made her start laughing again. “No. I’m going to get some work done while you’re not here to distract me.”

  She gave a fake pout. “I thought you loved it when I distract you.”

  “I do.” He nuzzled the side of her neck, making her laugh and scrunch up her shoulders at the tickling sensation. “But I’m not very productive when you’re around.”

  When Peyton cleared her throat, sounding irritated, Topher turned her happy smile in her direction. “Are you going shopping with us, Pey-Pey?”

  “What did you call me?” Her tone was frigid. It might have been wrong, but Topher’s smile cranked up another notch at the other woman’s annoyance.

  “Pey-Pey! I like to give everyone cute nicknames, don’t I, Jamie-Bear?” At Jamie’s amused nod, she continued, “Jules is Jules and Dan-Dan is Dan-Dan and Barbie Doll is Barbie Doll and—”

  Peyton held up a hand. “Stop.”

  Obligingly, Topher stopped babbling and beamed at Peyton, who gave Jamie a thoroughly disgusted look.

  “Seriously, James, I don’t understand the attraction. She’s one hit to the head away from being...special.”

  He shrugged, the movement shifting his encircling arm higher around her waist so his forearm brushed the underside of her breasts. “It’s a good thing that you’re not the one dating her, then.”