On the Edge

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “We’ll have to negotiate that with the studio.” Provided she could even get a toe in the door at a studio. Gaining the Rules’ buy-in was only half the pitch.

  “Peanuts,” Blue murmured.

  “What about cross promotion with other reality shows?” Amber was still lobbing her own ideas. “All those Bachelorettes that don’t get chosen? Some tattoo artist with his own show who’s lonely?”

  “We could look into it,” Maddy allowed. “But that’s a tough sell your first season.” Although, Blue had dated his share of reality stars.

  Amber focused on Blue once more. “We have to hope we gain clients through the show’s airing, which means you have to change the Avengers’ outlook on love.”

  “It’s a gamble.” Not one Blue wanted to take if his dour expression was any indication.

  Personally, Maddy was willing to take dour over irresistible sex candy any day.

  “Blue’s put our backs against the wall and this looks like the best option to proactively protect the company.” Amber nodded at Maddy. “If you brought some kind of contract, we’ll have our lawyer review it and get back to you.”

  Chapter 4

  “I don’t like your idea.” Blue opened the office door for Maddy and walked her down the stairs to the parking lot, annoyance reverberating in his bones like slot cars on a tightly looped race track. He’d been about to pick up Cora for golf when Amber had called. A golf game now cancelled. “Why do they get rewarded with a role in a TV show when they’ve made me miserable?”

  “I didn’t think you’d react like Mr. Sunshine to the idea, but as your sister said, you’ve few options left.” Maddy spoke softly, but resolutely, as if she was in a position of power.

  He wanted to knock her off that pedestal. Recalling how sweaty her palms had been when they’d shaken hands, Blue decided a little Come-to-Jesus moment was required. “I wouldn’t make any plans. I’m meeting with my lawyer tomorrow morning. We’re going to bind Kaya up so tight in legal motions she’ll have to dissolve the Avengers to set herself free.”

  Below him on the stairs, Maddy shook her head sadly. “You do remember she’s got a law degree? Even if you reported any of their antics, she’ll have figured out a loophole.”

  “Damn it.” He’d forgotten.

  She turned, her brown gaze laden with empathy.

  He’d expected sarcasm. After all, according to at least six women, he’d exhibited cruel and inhuman punishment when he dumped them. If that was the case, there should have been a George Clooney Avenger chapter long ago.

  But Maddy…She looked at him as if he’d been wronged. Not even Amber looked at him that way.

  Something inside his chest shifted.

  Maddy Polk was dangerous. An open manhole cover. A patch of quicksand. A hairpin curve without a guardrail. And not just because she was a reality show producer with her metaphorical lens focused on Blue. She had a way of looking at him that delved past layers of protection to a place not even he cared to acknowledge.

  The depth in her gaze registered higher on his trouble scale. Steady. Determined. Accepting. His brain notarized and categorized impressions based on her gaze, and came up with a result: Marrying eyes.

  Fortunately for Blue, he had one guideline when it came to women: no commitment allowed. He’d learned that lesson early from his dad, who’d married and divorced three women in three years, and then been a serial dater the rest of his life.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Maddy tucked a lock of shoulder length, blunt-cut, dark brown hair behind one ear. Almost immediately, the ocean breeze freed it again. A step behind her, the scent of flowers beckoned. He almost reached out to smooth the lock back in place, to determine if her hair was as soft as it looked.

  The low grade sex alarm going off in his head was only due to his self-imposed celibacy.

  “Here’s the way it’s going to go down,” Blue said resolutely as he followed Maddy across the parking lot. “If we do this, you’ll run everything by me. Cameras will not be up my ass 24/7.” In an attempt to keep his life Avenger-free he’d temporarily moved out of his Malibu condo and into a rented house in the valley. Not even Amber knew where he was living. “I choose which women get on the show and which don’t. Are we clear?”

  She laughed. Not the tittering, politely controlled laugh he heard so often in Hollywood, but the laugh of a woman who found something – or someone – genuinely amusing.

  He felt her laughter in a primal stirring below the belt, even as his anger cautioned him to slow, focus, control.

  “Now that I know what your demands are.” Maddy’s smile took no prisoners. Her smile said those sweaty palms earlier were a fluke. “Let me tell you a little more about what’s in that talent contract I just left with your boss. Just as soon as I find my keys.” She stopped and dug in her purse, thrusting out her hip to balance the big, boxy bag.

  From what he could see beneath her pink blouse and black skirt, the zipper of which had slid from the middle of her back toward her left hip, Maddy had the kind of curvy, sturdy body a man could appreciate in bed – no worries about her being breakable. She probably ate dinner, too, instead of picking at a salad. There was no ring on her finger.

  Why in the hell wasn’t this woman married? Raising kids instead of raising Cain with his life?

  She had suburbia, not Hollywood, written all over her. Chaste coffee dates oozed out of her pores, not the promise of sex in an elevator with a stranger.

  And yet, the longer they stood there, the more Blue was getting turned on.

  Blue crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her.

  “Found them.” Maddy shook her keys, then dug leisurely around a bit more until she came up with a pair of cheap sunglasses, as if Blue had all the time in the world for her to get her act together and expose to the world that he wasn’t a trained life coach.

  “Where was I?” She slid the sunglasses on. “Oh, yeah. Here’s how it goes. We shoot some preliminary film that hooks a studio exec’s interest, including some initial interviews with the Avengers and with you. We take a break to edit and shop the sizzle reel to a studio. Once we have backing, we put together a pilot – complete with you working your Rules of Attraction relationship counseling – and shop the networks. If someone picks it up, we come back for six to eight weeks of shooting. And you get paid…later.”

  Maddy looked at Blue, brown eyes sparkling, as if she knew he liked her about as much as a traffic jam on the 405, but she didn’t much care.

  It was his dad all over again, imposing his will, taking away Blue’s. The desire to pace, to rant, to make her realize there was no way in hell he was relinquishing control of his life to her pressed on his muscles until he took a step toward her. “Clearly, I need to read this contract. We want creative control.” We meaning him. Amber’s reputation wasn’t on the line here.

  Maddy’s eyes widened slightly as they drifted to his shoulders, shooting almost immediately back up to his face. “In this project, you’re considered the talent. Your responsibilities are to show up and cooperate if you want to get paid. The only control you have is over what comes out of your mouth. The producer – me – has creative control over what gets captured on film and how it’s edited.”

  Blue’s patience crumbled beneath a flood of defensive anger. “I have contacts in Hollywood. If you’re not legit, I’ll know if you’re flying by the seat of your panties.”

  She waggled a finger at him as if he was in grade school. “What I didn’t write into the contract is that there’s no whining. You will not be treated like a prima donna and I will not be your flunky. I won’t get you coffee. I won’t pick up your dry cleaning or clean up after your dog. Cute pup, by the way. I never would’ve pegged you for pink.”

  “They did it to him, okay? These women you want to make into stars.” As comebacks went, it was pathetic. Blue was so far off his game he was sitting on the sidelines.

  “The Avengers did that to him? That’s despicable.” It was t
he first time Maddy and Blue agreed on anything. A brief meeting of the minds. “But let’s be clear. This is your vehicle, not theirs. You spout some Rules of Attraction, targeting their personal challenges, match them once, and they’re gone from the show. And, hopefully, your life. You do want to get on with your life, right? At some point, you’ve got to grow up and move on.” Maddy hitched her purse higher on her shoulder, seemingly ignorant of the fact that she’d accused him of being immature. “I’ve given you a lot to think about when you have a lot on your mind – bank balances, car payments, your sex life…” Maddy glanced over to where he’d left his Porsche Cayenne.

  His windshield had been tagged with a shaving cream penis, a pink thong crowning above it.

  The anger and frustration from weeks of being pranked shuddered through his veins in need of an outlet. He needed to take the edge off with mind wiping sex, preferably with someone who understood him. He stared at Maddy. And for one brief, ill-conceived moment, he imagined plunging himself deep into her. The picture was so vivid, he grabbed her arm, thrusting himself back into reality. “Shit.”

  “I know.” She patted his hand, oblivious to the mental quickie he’d just spent with her. “You’ll want to take care of your windshield before the paparazzi get wind of this, which they will as soon as you sign that contract.” She led him to a classic green Subaru wagon that was caked in dust. “Oh, and if you’re thinking about contacting your old studio directly to make an alternative deal, I should let you know that I’ll be taking an additional five to ten percent of your earnings since I came up with the idea and registered it this morning. I like to do business on the up and up, don’t you?”

  Blue released her, holding her door as she got in. He closed it carefully behind her when she was settled, relying on his good manners to squelch the need to lose his shit right there, a block from the Santa Monica promenade.

  A memory resurfaced. His dad driving him from a soccer game. The squeal of tires. The crunch of metal. For an hour, Blue had been pinned in the Mercedes beneath a crumbling brick wall, fear vacillating with helpless anger. He’d been forced to listen to his dad’s ex-girlfriend tell Dooley over and over again that she wasn’t a charity case, that if he didn’t respect her, she’d T-Bone him again. It was a good lesson in relationship management – get out before things got serious or someone got seriously hurt.

  Maddy waved as she brought the Subaru sputtering to life.

  He wasn’t dating Maddy. So why did he feel like he was about to be T-boned?

  A few minutes later, holding a pair of shaving-creamed panties, Blue dragged his ass slowly back upstairs.

  “I like her.” Amber pushed Maddy’s contract to his side of her desk. “She’s got balls.”

  “Metaphorically speaking.” Blue tossed the thong into the trash, and then sank into a chair, reaching one hand down to scratch Mr. Jiggles behind the ears. “You aren’t seriously considering this are you? My life will be under a microscope.”

  “Like mine wasn’t the last few months? Lyle Lincoln ate me for breakfast!”

  “It’s just…now that I know who’s behind it, I think we should pursue legal action.” He’d find another way to appease the Avengers if the legal system didn’t work. Anything but hawking his dad’s philosophies on film.

  Working with Maddy wasn’t an option. She made him feel…she made him feel… However she made him feel, Blue didn’t like it.

  Amber tapped the contract. “Read it. There’s nothing scary in there. I called Evan’s agent for his opinion. According to Cy, Maddy’s taking all the risk. The film she shoots may never see the light of day, but we could still spin the project in the press. I faxed this to Franklin Kremer to review. If it’s industry standard, I see no problem with it.”

  “Except I swore I’d never use the Rules of Attraction!” He slumped back in his seat, drained and nearing defeat.

  “How do you expect to reach your sales quota without using the Rules?”

  “I’m in denial.” And he’d hold on until the eleventh hour, until he figured a way to beat the terms of his father’s will.

  “Snap out of it. You can spin the Rules any way you want. It’s what you do best – spinning the truth.” Amber shuffled some colored folders on her desk. “Next to reading women, that is.”

  “I have no problem telling these women what kind of man they need. It’s the coaching on camera that’s going to get us in deep shit. We both know Dad’s books and DVDs are situational testimonials couched in the power of positive thinking. I’ll need something more than that if we’re going to keep the Foundation respectable on film. You know the Rules. You’re the C.E.O. Don’t you care that Cora and I are flying blind?”

  “I care. If it wasn’t for the terms of the will – ”

  Blue scoffed.

  “ – I’d tell you what I know, which is only the tip of the iceberg. Dad’s Rules of Attraction are more like guidelines that we’re supposed to apply in our own way. Think of yourself like a trainer at a gym. You have several ways to help people get fit. None of them necessarily wrong.”

  “All within the power of positive thinking?”

  She nodded and sing-songed, “Choose, voice, trust, welcome.”

  “That is so not helpful.” He glared at her. “If you don’t give me the secret handshake, don’t sign that contract. If Maddy films me and I don’t deliver the Rules, people will know I’m a fraud. And if I’m a fraud and an officer at the Dooley Foundation…”

  “Here’s your secret handshake,” she snapped, reaching below her desk. “It’s more than I had. I got approval from legal counsel to give it to you. You’ll figure it out. Plus you’ve got Mr. Jiggles.”

  He jerked to attention in his seat as if expecting dear old Dad to walk through that door with a false expression of caring and twisted ideas about discipline. “Mr. Jiggles knows the secrets of relationship counseling? That’s great.”

  Amber didn’t laugh.

  Blue didn’t care. “So you’re giving me the secret coaching handbook of Dooley Rule? Does it detail the casket punishment?” He’d had to sleep in a casket for a week after driving home drunk from a high school party. No wonder he wanted to be cremated.

  Secret handshake? Secret playbook? Blue wanted none of it. He wanted to go back to his old life and forget this one where it felt as if his dad was a puppeteer, pulling Blue’s strings from the grave.

  “No. I…Blue…” Amber looked as if she’d swallowed something extremely foul tasting. “I’m sorry. I truly am. By the time I realized it wasn’t just me Dad was using as a guinea pig for his life coaching ideas, you already hated me. I can only imagine what hell he put you through since you were never mentioned in any of his books or DVDs like I was. I was older than you. I should have protected you.”

  He shrugged. The sentiment was nice, but no one had been safe from Dooley Rule. “You lived with your mom. I lived with mine. There was no way you could have protected me.”

  Amber blinked rapidly, biting her bottom lip as if trying to hold more back. She failed. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but somewhere along the line Dad changed, and focused on the positive. He was sorry. He wanted us to benefit from the good things he’d learned. Why else would he have left us the Foundation?”

  Blue could think of numerous reasons why, none of them positive, all of them having to do with his dad wanting his sick and twisted legacy to live on. “Just give me whatever the hell you were going to give me.”

  Amber handed him a large mounted poster with psychedelic 1960s colors and flowers, some of which were bent in the breeze, some blooms lifted gloriously to the sun, and some shriveled. “It’s a print I had made from Dad’s collection. You’ll find it…inspiring.”

  “Perfect. The answer to all my prayers. Dad’s doodles. Are we selling these online now?” Why else would Amber have had a print made?

  “No!” She reached for it. “That’s for your eyes only.”

  Blue held the picture back. “Burn after r
eading?”

  “Don’t joke. I’m serious. I know you haven’t read the books or watched the DVDs. Promise me you’ll look at this. Really look at it.”

  Evan appeared in the doorway holding two cups of coffee. “Who’s ready to limbo across the Caribbean?”

  Amber ignored her husband. “Promise me.”

  Blue gave her some nebulous head nods, walked out of her office and into his. He balanced the print on top of his credenza, facing the wall. Given a choice between his dad’s doodles saving him and his lawyer, Blue was betting on his lawyer.

  Chapter 5

  Maddy’s hands trembled as if the steering wheel was registering a 6.0 earthquake. Right there. On Wilshire.

  She’d survived the meeting with the Rules. She’d even come out ahead, considering Blue hadn’t stuck to his denial and tossed her out. That man was dangerous to her composure. He knew being sexy was a tool and he wielded his sexiness like a professional. But he hadn’t succeeded in using it on her, despite her overactive cinematographic imagination.

  And then he’d gone and shown her a glimpse of his human side when he’d been exasperated by the Avenger’s treatment of his tiny poodle. Maddy was touched, especially when she’d caught a glimpse of his SUV – marked with a shaving cream phallus and an Avenger thong. Nasty stuff, that. It would make great television.

  The Rules were going to review the talent contract.

  The earthquake became more severe. She could barely hold onto the wheel.

  What if they signed? Maddy wasn’t ready. Her camera was in hock, along with a pair of wireless microphones. She hadn’t thought about where they’d shoot or created a shot list to detail what were must-haves for her sizzle reel. She didn’t have buy-in from Blue’s Avengers.

  What if they refused to participate?

  Don’t worry. Don’t-don’t-don’t.

  Poppa Bert used to say worrying didn’t fix anything.