“I have.”
Blue’s heart plunged to his Italian loafers.
“But I want to tell you alone.” Maddy waited until Senge and Cora retreated, bickering, to the lobby before offering Blue Senge’s vacated seat.
“Are you filming me?” Maddy looked magnificent. Her eyes blazed. Her cheeks glowed. The green dress embraced her curves. “I couldn’t find a microphone on the table and didn’t want to be too conspicuous looking for one on the wall behind me.”
“No.” But everyone else was filming her and his mind was recording her, ready to store the moment in a mental file under Greatest Love Lost.
“So this is just between you and me?” She eyed him suspiciously.
“It’s always just been between the two of us, Maddy.”
The manager completed his rounds and the restaurant quieted, as much as a room full of nosey people could be quiet.
“Then why the mini-dates? Why the public invitation? You’ve failed. You didn’t find me the perfect man.”
“The mini-dates aren’t over.” He swallowed. “I have one more candidate.”
Maddy glanced back at the lobby. “There’s no one else out there.”
“It’s me.”
That shut her up. And shutting Maddy up was a rare thing. Usually a camera had to be rolling.
He swallowed thickly. “Ask me. Go on.”
A flush crept up her neck to her cheeks. “Don’t be cruel.”
He hated that she didn’t trust him. “I was a fool to believe you’d ever betray me, a fool who couldn’t recognize the greatest thing that ever happened to him had walked into his life and gambled everything without even knowing who I was.”
She blinked, but said nothing.
Nothing was how he felt without her. “You didn’t have any trouble asking the other men,” he said gently. “Come on. You know those are the questions that are important to you. Ask me.”
“All right.” She leveled a gaze on him that was so direct he could tell he was on a knife’s edge with her, ready to be sliced out of her life if he said something wrong. “The man for me is a risk taker. What’s the last risk you took?”
He could have answered glibly, but now wasn’t the time to skate around his emotions. “I put my heart on the line for the woman I love. I gave her a choice of three wealthy, successful men that I knew could offer her something different than I can.”
“So you thought Ren could offer…”
“Fidelity. That man has never cheated on anything or anyone. He believes the best in everyone.” He’d trust Maddy blindly.
“Was Kent supposed to dazzle me?”
“He’d support your dreams. He wouldn’t be Mr. Happily-Ever-After, but he’d be Mr. Right-For-Now.” The fairy tale man.
“And Senge?”
“He’s a true risk-taker, a high-stakes gambler, like you. And he has the Midas touch.”
“Midas isn’t going to be touching me,” Maddy said solemnly. “So, have you ever cheated?”
“You know I haven’t – ”
Maddy threw up her hands. “Really? This is supposed to be a cone of safety conversation. No more lies.”
A round of photos ensued. The manager gave up on crowd control, retreating to the kitchen.
“I’ve never cheated on a woman I was seeing. I’ve been a fool in other relationships though. I’ve betrayed my sisters and tried to cheat you out of something that was very important to you, because I considered my image to have higher priority.”
“That’s it,” Maddy pushed her chair back. Her eyes filled with tears. “You lose.”
“Wait, Maddy. Please, wait. I’ve put everything on the line for you. I told the truth, not just to you, but to anyone who knows how to watch an online video. I’m not hiding behind anything. I’m far from perfect, and I don’t deserve you. But I’ll try. I’ll try so damn hard to be the man you deserve if you give me a second chance.”
Maddy regarded him levelly. “Will you support my dreams in every way? Will you consider them just as important as your own?”
“I will, even if I have to put on a clown nose and an orange wig and dance down Santa Monica Boulevard.” God, help him.
“Why?” she whispered.
In that moment Blue knew he had a fighting chance.
“Because I love you, Maddy.” He dropped onto the floor on one knee. “My dad may have had good intentions, but he scrambled my emotions to the point where any relationship I entered into was doomed to fail.” He smiled. He smiled despite cameras and an audience. He smiled because he loved her more than his reputation or what others thought of him. “But along came you. You had faith in me, even I didn’t.”
She hadn’t moved. Not toward him. Not further back in her seat.
“From the moment you told me to stop working my charm on you, I was hooked.” He willed her to give him a sign that she believed him. That she believed in them. “I may call myself a relationship coach from the Dooley Foundation, but you deserve that honor. You revitalized my belief in love. You resurrected the good things about my relationship with my father. You inspired me to listen to others generously, to see their stories, their fears, their dreams – not the size of clothing they wore or where they worked or what they could do for my career. Without you, I’d be just another shallow man in Hollywood, cursing the other shallow men who cut me off on the freeway.”
“I don’t know what to believe,” Maddy murmured.
“Believe in me, Maddy. Believe in us.”
Cora returned with a large gift box. “Hope I’m not disturbing you. It’s his wedding gift,” she said to Maddy. “Mine is my sincere apology.”
“Incredibly bad timing.” Blue waved his sister away, but not before Maddy opened the box.
She gasped. “Poppa Bert’s albums. But how did you get them? Juan said a wealthy collector bought them the day they went up for sale.” She reached for his hand.
He held on as if he’d never let go. “I made a deal.” He’d compensated the buyer double the purchase price and agreed to be his relationship coach for a year, gratis. And he’d promised the manager, Juan, an introduction to Kaya Anika. The world was a strange place.
“It must have been expensive.”
“It was worth it.” He pulled her into his lap on the floor, ignoring the flurry of cameras. He didn’t care that they were the center of attention if he was cocooned in her love. “You’re worth it. And I’m going to prove it to you every day for the rest of your life. I’ve chosen to love you, Maddy, and never doubt you again. I’ll prove I’m worthy of your trust and love every day. I’m going to hold onto that feeling of love you’ve given me. I’m going to relive that feeling every morning and every night.” He guided her hand over his heart. “Right here.”
Her brown eyes, the ones that saw right through him, widened. “You’re using the Rules?”
He nodded. “I made peace with my Dad and with who I am. I love you, Maddy. Give me a second chance. Marry me.”
She cupped his cheek with her palm, sending a feeling of elation through him. “I have a feeling I should be using leverage so that I never have to do laundry again. You know, I can’t stand anything that needs dry cleaning.”
“You’re going to be a busy producer. I’ll hire a housekeeper.” He leaned in closer. “You do love me, right?”
She nodded.
“And you’ll marry me?”
She nodded again.
“Then repeat after me.” He stood and drew her to her feet. “I love you, Blue Rule.”
“I love you, Blue Rule.” She laughed, a joyful sound that seemed to drown out the noise around them.
He didn’t need her to tell him she was so happy and full of energy that she felt like dancing. He could feel that energy running down her arms and into him. He pulled her close, starting a slow dance that would last a lifetime.
“I seem to recall…” She stopped dancing and cradled his cheeks in her hands. “That the next time you had a truly stellar day, you
were going to show me something.”
L.A. Happenings Column by Lyle Lincoln
…Get your Playboy Avenger thongs and T-shirts on clearance before the end of the month when these ladies close their website for good. Kaya Anika tells me all proceeds will go to the Malibu Small Animal Rescue.
…Cal Lazarus announced he’s cast Portia Francis and Lon Gleason in the lead roles of his next movie. The Princess of the Suburbs pair hope to bring box office magic to the delayed and troubled production.
…I’ve got it on good authority that Cora Rule is now offering relationship counseling, a specialty of the Dooley Foundation. Among her first clients? Vivian Gordon, estranged wife of Flash owner, Jack Gordon. I even hear he’s paying.
The End
Turn the page to read the next installment of the Breaking the Rules series.
It's Only Love Excerpt
It's Only Love
Chapter One
“You’re making that face.”
Cora Rule’s morning’s espresso twerked in her stomach. She crumpled her toes in her zebra Badgley Mischka heels. She wanted to crumple her new client schedule with her new client list, but that wouldn’t be wise in front of her boss.
“You know the face I’m talking about.” Amber, her half-sister and boss, sat in the same chair in which their father had built the Dooley Foundation. She looked like a cross between a centerfold and a red-headed Disney princess, especially in her emerald green, gauzy peasant blouse with gold lacings over her cleavage.
Neither sister took after their father in the looks department, thank God. While Amber was Tinkerbell-short and curvy, Cora was taller than average, less stacked than average, with average brown hair. When she was young, Cora’s supermodel mother had compensated for Cora’s coltish, mediocre appearance by making sure Cora wore the latest fashions. When she was in high school, Lucia made low-cut blouses part of Cora’s fashion repertoire. This was, after all, Beverly Hills. Cleavage was de rigueur and – large or small – a display evened the playing field.
Cora sighed, tugging at the sleeves of last year’s gray, scooped-neck Michael Kors, feeling drab and trapped. In some twisted slight against her mother, her father’s will prohibited Cora from buying new clothes until she achieved her sales quota. If only meeting her sales quota didn’t involve becoming a life coach to a handful of ex-lovers.
Her gaze landed on the schedule again. Relations with ex-lovers always got messy after you put your clothes back on. And estranged wives of ex-lovers? She did not want to go there.
The espresso shimmied in her stomach once more.
The next few days played out in agonizing 3D:
“Brian, I’m here to help you on a path to self-discovery,” she’d say at eight o’clock Saturday morning. The young screenwriter would raise his carefully groomed brows suggestively, so she’d have to add, “A path that doesn’t include sex.” Because Brian was a sex-addict. She often suspected his life had inspired Californication.
Then, on to the next ex at nine-thirty.
She’d smile at Jean Claude and say, “Let me help you overcome your super-sized ego and achieve happiness.” It was a toss-up as to how the stuntman would respond given the last time Cora’d seen him, she’d told him his dick was too small to justify his being such a huge head-case.
And then there was the estranged wife, scheduled for an initial meeting tonight.
Hard to be tactful when she had to say, “Vivian, it takes balls to hang onto a man who wants to divorce you. But sometimes you’ve just got to say what the fuck, move forward, find some balance in your life, and a man who appreciates you.” Because Jack Gordon cared about one thing and one thing only – his NBA basketball team, the L.A. Flash. Anything else was superfluous, including the woman he’d vowed to love until death parted them.
Cora sucked on the sour taste of espresso and frustration.
Luck always gave her the middle finger as it drove past. She’d grown up in Beverly Hills and run in social circles with the area’s young, fashionable, and famous. She hadn’t planned on becoming a life coach or working for her father’s company. She’d graduated from the Fashion Institute, accepted an apprenticeship in Paris, and then Daddy died, tying her inheritance to this job. And guess who could afford the Dooley Foundation’s life coaching fees? Yeah, that’s right. The area’s young, fashionable, and famous. Her acquaintances, her peeps, her exes and the six degrees of separation therein.
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About this Book & the Author
Blue was Amber's right hand man in Amber Rules, although he wasn't always on her side. Now that he's seen that the sales goals his father left them in the will are attainable (and worth a cool three million a year stipend), Blue's a bit more serious about this life coaching thing (although not serious enough to actually learn the principles behind life coaching). But as I discovered in Amber Rules, Blue likes to short-cut things. And I found I really liked to make him suffer because of it. Yes, he's gorgeous. Yes, he can be intimidating. Yes, he inherited his father's love-em-and-leave-em approach to relationships. And so Blue's Avengers were born (in a club scene in Amber's book, if you read closely). These Avengers want Blue to pay for dumping them unceremoniously and pay in the most public way.
The thing that has always fascinated me about reality television and Hollywood is that celebrities often have no filter, and yet, you don't often see people in the public eye taking stabs at someone else in the public eye...publically. The exception was when Chelsea Handler used her show to occasionally get back at Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie for the dumping of Chelsea's good friend, Jennifer Anniston. But that was mild. What would happen if things got a bit more out of control? Everyone has lawyers, right? But a well executed plan of revenge could make Blue very, very nervous. Will Blue learn his lesson? I promise it won't be easy.
Playing for Love (link)It's Only Love (link)All My Love (link)All She Needs is Love (link)Fighting For Love (link)
Melinda Curtis is an award winning, USA Today bestseller who lives in her empty nest with her husband (her college sweetheart), two small dogs (Yorkie-Shitzu mixes), and an average looking cat (Queen of all she Surveys).
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Other Series by Melinda Curtis
Harmony Valley from Harlequin Heartwarming(fun, touching sweet small town romances)Dandelion Wishes (link)Summer Kisses (link)Season of Change (link)One Perfect Year (link)Time for Love (link)A Memory Away (link)A Man of Influence (link)
The Bridesmaid SeriesThe Wedding Promise (link)Always a Bridesmaid (link)Rescued by a Bridesmaid (link)
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