by JoAnn Ross
Three Grooms and a Wedding
JoAnn Ross
Dear Reader,
One of the more enjoyable aspects of my research trip to Los Angeles with my editor was the designing of the apartment building for Bachelor Arms. It is a composite of several wonderful old houses we found in the Melrose and Wilshire Districts. The moment I saw the marvelous Gothic-style turret, I knew I somehow had to fit it into my story.
In this third and final book of the trilogy, both Cait and Lily have now found true love and are engaged to be married. Only Blythe, whose aborted wedding brought everyone together in the first book, Never a Bride, has failed to find her happy ending.
Which, of course, she will, with Gage Remington, the sexy private detective she’s hired. But first they must outwit a killer determined to keep the sixty-year-old truth of Alexandra Romanov’s death buried with the glamorous murdered movie star.
Despite attempts on Blythe’s life, and a shocking revelation that shatters their preconceived notions of love and life, by the time they join the others at the altar, Blythe and Gage will have discovered that love is truly better the second time around.
Happy Reading!
JoAnn Ross
Come live and love in L.A. with the tenants of Bachelor Arms
Bachelor Arms is a trendy apartment building with some very colorful tenants. Meet three confirmed bachelors who are determined to stay single until three very special women turn their lives upside down; college friends who reunite to plan a wedding; a cynical and sexy lawyer; a director who’s renowned for his hedonistic life-style, and many more…including one very mysterious and legendary tenant. And while everyone tries to ignore the legend, every once in a while something strange happens….
Each of these fascinating people has a tale of success or failure, love or heartbreak. But their stories don’t say a secret for long in the hallways of Bachelor Arms.
Bachelor Arms is a captivating place, home to an eclectic group of neighbors. All of them have one thing in common, though—the feeling of community that is very much a part of living at Bachelor Arms.
The Tenants of Bachelor Arms
Ken Amberson: The odd superintendent who knows more than he admits about the legend of Bachelor Arms.
Connor Mackay: The building’s temporary handyman isn’t telling the truth about who he really is.
Caitlin Carrigan: For this cop, her career is her only priority.
Eddie Cassidy:Local bartender at Flynn’s next door. He’s looking for his big break as a screenwriter.
Jill Foyle:This sexy, recently divorced interior designer moved to L.A. to begin a new life.
Lily Van Cortlandt:This vulnerable, loving woman can forgive anything other than betrayal.
Natasha Kuryan: This elderly Russian-born femme fatale was a makeup artist to the starts of yesterday.
Gage Remington:Cait Garrigan’s former partner is investigating a decades-old murder that involves the residents of Bachelor Arms.
Brenda Muir: Young, enthusiastic would-be actress who supports herself as a waitress.
Bobbie-Sue O’Hara: Brenda’s best friend. She works as an actress and waitress but knows that real power lies on the other side of the camera.
Bob Robinson: This barfly seems to live at Flynn’s and has an opinion about everyone and everything.
Theodore “Teddy” Smith:The resident Lothario—any new female in the building puts a sparkle in his eye.
Contents
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
Epilogue
Prologue
IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT. A new day. A new year. A ghostly white moon rode high in the sky, creating a silver glow over the City of Angels.
The hour of celebration had passed. The sounds of “Auld Lang Syne” had given way to the soft rustle of the breeze in the tops of the palm trees. Most of Los Angeles was sleeping, blissfully unaware that one of Hollywood’s most infamous murders was about to take place.
Alexandra Romanov Reardon paced the marble floors of her pink Spanish-style mansion, anxiety radiating from every fragrant pore. A passionate woman by nature, with each long stride her mood swung from furious, to desperate, to anxious, then back to furious.
Where was he? How dare he treat her this way! How dare he humiliate her in front of everyone! Didn’t he know who she was?
Of course he did.
And that, Alexandra thought wretchedly, was the problem.
She heard a car cruise by outside on the silent street. Thinking—praying!—it might be him, she flung open the door and ran down the sidewalk, prepared to throw her arms around her husband, to smother that dark, handsome face with kisses, and, if necessary, plead for forgiveness.
Alexandra had never begged to any man.
With Patrick she feared begging was inevitable. Just as their marriage had been inevitable.
She’d fallen head over heels in love with the tough-talking writer the moment she’d first seen him, across the crowded room at Xanadu Studios’ annual Christmas party.
Less than twenty minutes after meeting, they were making love in the back seat of a cloud white Rolls-Royce convertible.
A week later, on New Year’s Day, Xanadu Studios’ ultraglamorous sex goddess had become Mrs. Patrick Reardon.
Hollywood pundits had given the marriage a month. Defying the odds, Alexandra and Patrick proved them wrong. Today was their first anniversary, and although they were currently experiencing a few problems—all right, Alexandra admitted reluctantly as she watched the taillights of the unfamiliar yellow Packard turn the corner and disappear from sight, a great many problems—she refused to believe that they couldn’t work things out.
Russian enough to believe in fate, Alexandra had known from that first stunning moment of shared recognition, that she and Patrick were destined to be together. For all time. They were soul mates, their love so strong, so everlasting, that nothing—or no one—could ever separate them.
“So where is he?” Alexandra agonized.
It had grown cold. Smoke from the smudge pots that nearby orange growers burned during these winter nights to warm their groves wafted on the salt air. Barely clad in the dangerously low-cut, clinging white satin gown she’d worn to last night’s party, she began to shiver.
Returning inside, Alexandra went into the dressing room adjoining the master bedroom suite and retrieved an ivory negligee from her walk-in closet. She’d purchased the exquisite piece of lingerie especially for tonight and having no doubt that once her husband’s temper cooled, he’d return, she wanted to be ready for the passionate lovemaking that always followed one of their arguments.
She stepped out of her evening dress, leaving it on the floor in a pool of shimmering satin. Standing in front of the full-length mirror, as she did each morning and every night without fail, Alexandra studied her nude body with an unflinching, critical eye.
Understanding that her popularity among moviegoers was based more on her looks than any innate acting ability, she exercised relentlessly, was rigid about her diet, and avoided the harsh California sun with such diligence friends had laughingly accused her of being part vampire.
“Walter is not going to be at all happy about this,” she said with a resigned sigh. That was the understatement of the decade. Frowning as she envisioned the studio executive’s explosive reaction when she told him her news, Alexandra turned sideways, running her palms over the voluptuous curves that raised temperatures in movie theaters all over America.
Studying her body as an
engineer might study a piece of steel he intended to use as a bridge span, she noted that her breasts were visibly fuller, and her nipples appeared darker, more the color of a rich Bordeaux than their usual raspberry hue. Her stomach was still flat. She pressed her fingertips against the flesh beneath her navel, pleased by the firm muscles she encountered. Splaying her fingers at her waist, she realized that it was already beginning, albeit imperceptibly to a less critical eye, to thicken.
Under normal conditions, this minuscule imperfection would send her into a frenzied flurry of leg lifts and waist twists. But realizing that the change in her body was her baby making its presence known changed everything.
Although she never would have believed it possible, Alexandra was actually looking forward to becoming ripe and round with Patrick’s child.
How much had changed in one short year, she thought with a slow smile that overrode her earlier frown. How much she had changed!
When she’d met Patrick she’d been the most envied woman in the world. And the unhappiest.
Now, despite tonight’s heated altercation, Alexandra felt herself to be the luckiest. It would not be easy; she understood that it would take Patrick time to accept her admittedly less than pristine past.
But she also knew that he loved her with a passion so deep that sometimes it almost frightened her. He wouldn’t be able to stay away.
“Especially when he learns about you,” she murmured. Pressing her palms against her stomach, Alexandra imagined her child stirring at his mother’s touch.
She slipped the nightgown over her head. The ivory lace was so delicate it appeared to have been created from cobwebs. Beneath it, her perfumed and powdered flesh gleamed like alabaster.
She did not exactly look like a mother-to-be, Alexandra decided. Actually, she looked like the woman who’d recently been blasted in the Congressional Record by a Southern senator who’d called the waterfall scene in her latest film—Lady Reckless—dangerous for young male minds and an affront against American decency.
She heard the front door open.
Every nerve ending in her body was thrumming with anticipation. She fluffed up her thick sable hair with her hands, licked her lips and turned to greet her husband.
“I’m in here, Patrick.” Her throaty voice offered not contrition, but seduction.
When she was greeted by silence, a frisson of fear skipped up her spine. The day she and Patrick had moved into their new home shortly after their marriage, their neighbor, a contract writer at United Artists, had warned them that the house, which had been the scene of a mysterious death, was haunted.
Live in it and your greatest wish could be granted. Or your greatest fear realized.
Alexandra had worried; her pragmatic western husband had laughed the story off, declaring it the product of the melodramatic screenwriter’s warped imagination.
“Patrick?” This time her voice held an uncharacteristic tremor. She wiped her damp palms on her lace negligee.
As the door to the dressing room slowly opened, Alexandra felt a cooling wave of relief.
“You scared me to death!” she said on a shaky laugh.
The morning dawned bright and inappropriately golden. The day before the premiere of her new movie, Fool’s Gold, based on Patrick’s screenplay, on what should have been her first wedding anniversary, Alexandra was found dead in the dressing room of the mansion she shared with her husband.
The coroner ruled she’d been strangled.
1
IT WAS HER OWN SCREAM that woke her.
Blythe Fielding was bathed in a cold sweat. Gasping, struggling desperately for breath, she could taste the salty tears streaming down her face. The nightmare had come just before dawn, creeping into her subconscious like a black cat on All Hallows’ Eve.
She should be used to them by now, Blythe thought grimly as she struggled to extricate herself from the damp and tangled sheets. But how could one get accustomed to nightly terror? After suffering the threatening images for weeks this one had been the worst so far.
She reached out a trembling hand, managing to turn on the bedside lamp on the second try. She’d discovered the night demons lost their powers when a bright light was turned on them.
Momentarily blinded by the sudden glare, she closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, willing herself to calm. They couldn’t hurt her, she reminded herself. Not really. They were only dreams.
So why did it all seem so horribly real?
The air conditioner was on, sending cool air blowing over her moist skin. Shivering, Blythe climbed out of bed, stripped off her soaked nightshirt and exchanged it for a fresh, dry one.
She went around the bedroom, turning on every lamp, including the lights in the adjoining bathroom. Standing in front of the full-length mirror, she lifted a hand to her throat, absently rubbing the unmarked flesh that strangely, inexplicably felt as if it were burning.
Feeling foolish, but unable to help herself, she went into the living room and turned on all the lights in there, as well.
With the hotel bungalow now ablaze in brightness, she sat bolt upright in a flowered wing chair and waited for morning.
* * *
“YOU LOOK LIKE HELL.”
Cait Carrigan frowned as she studied her longtime friend over the umbrella-topped breakfast table. Film buffs might recognize the Sunset Boulevard restaurant as the one where Woody Allen made New York-centric disparaging remarks about southern California in the movie, Annie Hall.
“Gee, thanks.” Blythe picked dispiritedly at her vegetarian omelet. “It’s always nice to know I can count on my friends for flattery.”
The two friends, one reminiscent of a bright flame, the other as sultry as a Gypsy, created an attractive foil for one another. More than one passing male slowed to admire them, but accustomed to appreciative glances from the opposite sex, neither Cait nor Blythe noticed.
“This town is overflowing with false flattery. What you need is someone to tell you the truth.” Concern shadowed Cait’s expressive green eyes. “Are you still having problems with your Alexandra Romanov project?”
To her international legion of fans, Blythe Fielding was a superstar. To Cait, she was a lifelong friend.
Having recently formed her own production company, parlaying her box office fame into a multipicture deal with Xanadu Studios, Blythe was determined that her company’s first film tell the story of star-crossed lovers, Alexandra Romanov and Patrick Reardon.
The brutal death of the glamorous, tempestuous 1930s sex symbol at the hands of her hot-tempered husband, who’d subsequently been executed for his crime, had been the scandal of the decade.
“Since everything about the project has turned out to be a problem, I’d be surprised if anything did go right,” Blythe answered.
“So it’s not responsible for the shadows beneath your eyes?”
Blythe sighed and absently lifted her fingers to the purple smudges. “I think everything is beginning to pile up on me,” she admitted. “I’ve finally gotten the insurance settlement for the house, but every time I turn around, the contractor has disappeared.”
“He’s probably juggling jobs,” Cait suggested as she spread a thick layer of orange marmalade onto an oversize date muffin. “It’s only been about three months since the earthquake. There’s a lot of reconstruction work out there to do.”
“I know.” Another sigh. “It’s just that I’m getting tired of living in a hotel.”
“You could always move in with Alan.”
Alan Sturgess was Blythe’s fiancé. The earthquake that had caused her lovely Beverly Hills home to be condemned had also resulted in disrupting her garden wedding to the famed plastic surgeon to the stars.
“The subject has come up,” Blythe admitted.
Cait arched a red-gold brow and eyed her friend over the rim of her coffee cup. “Do I hear a ‘but’ in that statement?”
“I don’t know.”
Blythe shook her head and wondered what had
gotten into her lately. It hadn’t been that long ago that she’d thought she’d had her life completely planned.
Since her deal with Walter Stern at Xanadu Studios required her to make two movies of his choosing for every one her production company made, she’d grown resigned to the oversexed, underdressed roles.
As much as she hated being typecast, she’d been willing to do it, in order to win the power to produce. But then the studio had been sold to Connor Mackay, who coincidentally was now engaged to Blythe’s other close friend, Lily Van Cortlandt, and Walter Stern appeared to be on his way out.
And although Connor had assured her of his support for her pet project, Blythe continued to have misgivings about ever bringing the film to the screen.
In addition to the problems with her home, and at work, Alan had been pushing her to set a new date for their wedding. And heaven help her, something was holding her back.
“It’s not that I’m not fond of Alan, because I am—”
“Fond?” Cait jumped on the term like a sleek lioness might spring onto an unsuspecting springbok. “Isn’t that a bit mild for a man you’re about to promise to spend the rest of your life with?”
The morning sun slipped beneath the umbrella. Partly to shade her eyes from the bright rays and partly to shield them from Cait’s intense scrutiny, Blythe slipped on her sunglasses.
“It’s complicated,” she murmured, pretending a sudden interest in the morning traffic streaming down Sunset.
“Love is always complicated,” Cait said with the air of a woman who’d recently experienced her own romantic entanglements. “But, in the end it’s worth the trouble.”
Watching the soft color drift into her friend’s cheeks at the thought of the man who’d finally managed to breach the daunting parapets surrounding Cait Carrigan’s heart, Blythe felt a faint tinge of envy.
“That’s what Lily was telling me last night,” she admitted.
“Lord knows, Lily should be an expert by now,” Cait said. “When she was trapped in that horrid marriage, she probably never imagined meeting a man who adored her—and her baby—like Connor does.”