She did, although Georgie knew her well enough to understand that Meg didn’t really believe it. She could wear even the most outrageous outfits with the same authority as her former supermodel mother, but she still insisted on seeing herself as an ugly duckling. Even so, Georgie envied Meg’s relationship with her famous parents. Despite the messy complexities between them, they loved each other unconditionally.
The doorbell rang, and by the time Georgie reached the foyer, Bram had let in Trevor. “Mrs. Shepard, I presume.” He handed over a gift basket piled with expensive spa products. “I didn’t want to add to his drinking problem by bringing alcohol.”
“Thank you.”
Bram took a slug of scotch. “I don’t have a drinking problem.”
Laura arrived immediately afterward, slightly breathless, her pale, flyaway hair disheveled, not exactly the portrait of a high-powered Hollywood agent, but that was why Paul had hired her. She tripped coming into the house and blanched as Bram caught her arm. “Sorry,” she said. “I haven’t used these feet all day, and I’ve forgotten how they work.”
Bram smiled. “A common problem.”
“Great news.” Laura pecked Georgie on the cheek. “You have a meeting with Greenberg on Tuesday.” Georgie’s hackles went up, but Laura had already turned to Bram. “This is a beautiful house. Who decorated it for you?”
“I did it myself. Trev Elliott helped.”
He and Laura disappeared toward the veranda leaving Georgie staring after him. Bram had picked out the Oriental rugs and Tibetan throws? The Mexican folk paintings and Balinese bells? And what about all those well-thumbed books lining the dining room shelves?
Her father showed up before she could process this new information. His lips felt frosty on her cheek. “Dad, I need you to be decent to Bram tonight,” she said as she led him through the foyer. “Rory Keene’s invited, and Bram needs her support on a project. No put-downs. I mean it.”
“Maybe I should come back sometime when you don’t feel like you have to lecture me as soon as I walk in the door.”
“Let’s just have fun tonight. Please. It’s important to me for the two of you to get along.”
“You’re talking to the wrong person.”
As he walked away, a wisp of memory tugged at her…Her mother sitting cross-legged on a blanket and laughing at her father, who was running across a patch of grass with Georgie on his back. Had it really happened, or was it something she’d dreamed?
When she reached the veranda, she saw that Bram and her father had taken up posts as far away from each other as possible. Bram was charming Laura while her father listened to Trev’s description of the comedy he was currently shooting. Meg appointed herself bartender, and eventually Paul drifted her way. He’d always liked Meg, something Georgie had never understood, since he should have hated her undisciplined lifestyle. But unlike Georgie, Meg made him laugh.
Georgie was suppressing a pang of jealousy when Rory came up the path from the back. Laura tipped over her wineglass, and her father stopped talking in midsentence. Only Meg and Trev weren’t thrown off by the new addition to the party. Bram would have jumped to his feet if Georgie hadn’t clamped her fingers around his wrist to slow him down. Fortunately, he took her cue and greeted Rory in a more leisurely fashion. “The roses could use a little pruning while you’re out there.”
“Sorry. Plants die if I even look at them.”
“Then let me get you a drink instead.”
Meg began entertaining them with stories of her recent travels. Before long, she had everyone laughing as she described an ill-advised kayaking trip on the Mangde Chhu River. Aaron brought out trays with the ingredients for the do-it-yourself kebabs, and they all gathered around to assemble their own. Rory surprised everyone by kicking off her shoes and volunteering to help with the grilling. By the time they were seated at the table with their wine-glasses refilled and plates piled with food, everyone except Bram and Georgie had relaxed.
Bram made the first move in his campaign to earn Rory’s good opinion. He raised his glass and locked eyes with Georgie at the opposite end of the table. “I’d like to propose a toast to my funny, smart, wonderful wife.” His words were soft and filled with emotion. “A woman with a loving heart, an ability to see beneath the surface”—his voice caught oh-so-touchingly—“and a willingness to forgive.”
Her father frowned. Meg looked bemused, Laura a bit dreamy-eyed. Trev seemed confused, but Rory was impossible to read. Bram smiled at Georgie with a heart full of love.
A heart full of bullshit.
Georgie choked herself up. “Stop it, you big idiot. You’ll make me cry.”
They drank their toast. Laura smiled. “I know I speak for all of us when I say how great it is to see the two of you so happy.”
“We both had some growing up to do,” Bram said with all kinds of sincerity. “Especially me. We’ll be nice and ignore Georgie’s marriage to Mr. Stupid. But we’re finally where we want to be. Not that we still don’t have a few things to work out…”
Georgie braced herself for whatever was coming.
“Georgie only wants two kids,” he said, “but I want more. We’ve had some fairly big arguments about it.”
The man had no shame.
Paul set down his fork and addressed Bram for the first time. “With Georgie barefoot and pregnant, it’ll be tough to support your current lifestyle.” He gave a short laugh, an unconvincing attempt to pass off his comment as a joke.
This was exactly what Bram had warned her would happen, but he merely kicked back in his chair and offered up a lazy grin. “Georgie’s healthy as a horse. They can shoot her from the chest up. Hell, I’ll bet she could have a baby and be back on the job the next day. What do you think, sweetheart?”
“Or I could just squat in the middle of the set and give birth right there.”
Bram winked. “That’s the spirit.”
“The unions wouldn’t put up with it,” Trevor said. “A violation of their labor contract.”
Meg groaned.
Bram had won that round, and her father looked sulky as he turned his attention to his plate. Trev told a funny story about his current costar. They all laughed, but a shadow had crept across Georgie’s heart. She wished Bram hadn’t brought up children. She either had to give up the idea of having a baby or find the courage to go it alone. And why not? Fathers were vastly overrated. She could go to a sperm bank, or…
No. Absolutely not!
For dessert they indulged in a rich lemon cake garnished with a few fresh raspberries and a chocolate curl. Afterward, Bram dragged Chaz out from the kitchen. Everybody complimented her, and she blushed furiously. “I’m glad you…like enjoyed it.” She shot Georgie a glare.
“A great dessert, Chaz,” Georgie said. “A perfect balance between tart and sweet.”
Chaz regarded her suspiciously.
Trev had a 6 a.m. call and left, but the others were in no hurry to end the evening even though the wind had picked up and the air smelled like rain. Bram put on some jazz and engaged Rory in a quiet conversation about Italian cinema. Georgie mentally congratulated him for displaying so much restraint. When Rory excused herself to go to the powder room, Georgie slipped to his side. “You’re doing great. Give her plenty of space when she comes back, so you don’t look desperate.”
“I am desperate. At least—” He stared at her hand as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Where’s your wedding ring?”
She glanced at her bare finger. “I accidentally knocked it down the drain while I was getting dressed. You’re just noticing?”
“You what?”
“It’s cheaper to order another one than pay for a plumber.”
“Since when are you worried about cheap?” He spun toward the guests, speaking calmly, but with an underlying tension. “Excuse me for a few minutes. One of my fans is on his deathbed, poor guy. I promised his wife I’d call him tonight.” And just like that, he disappeared.
&nb
sp; She smiled sadly and acted as if deathbed phone calls were all in a day’s work.
Rain began to fall in a gentle spatter that made the candlelit veranda seem even cozier. With all her guests engaged in conversation, Georgie slipped away unnoticed.
She found Bram on his knees, his head stuck under her sink, a plastic bucket and a pipe wrench by his knees. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to rescue your ring,” he said from inside the vanity.
“Why?”
“Because it’s your wedding ring,” he said tightly. “Every woman has a sentimental attachment to her wedding ring.”
“I don’t. You bought mine on eBay for a hundred bucks.”
He pulled his head out. “Who told you that?”
“You did.”
He muttered something, grabbed the monkey wrench, and stuffed his head back inside the vanity.
She was getting a creepy feeling. “You did buy it on eBay, right?”
“Not exactly,” came his muffled reply.
“Then where did you get it?”
“At…this store.”
“What store?”
He poked his head out. “How am I supposed to remember?”
“It was only a month ago!”
“Whatever.” His head disappeared.
“You told me the ring was a fake. It’s a fake, right?”
“Define ‘fake.’” The wrench clanged against a pipe.
“As in, ‘Not genuine.’”
“Oh.”
“Bram?”
Another clang. “It’s not a fake.”
“It’s the real thing?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that from the beginning?”
“Because we have a relationship based on deceit.” He stretched out his hand. “Give me the bucket.”
“I don’t believe this!”
He fumbled for the bucket, his head still inside.
“I would have been more careful!” She thought of all the places she’d left the ring lying around, and she wanted to kick him. “I set it on the diving board when I went swimming yesterday!”
“That’s just stupid.” Water sloshed into the bucket. “Got it!” he said a moment later.
She sank down on the toilet lid and dropped her forehead into her hands. “I’m sick of having a marriage based on deceit.”
He emerged, bringing the bucket with him. “If you think about it, having a marriage based on deceit is all you know anything about. That should be a comfort.”
She leaped up. “I want a fake ring. I liked having a fake ring. Why don’t you ever do what you’re supposed to?”
“Because I can never figure out what that is.” He dropped the sink stopper and began washing off her not-fake ring. “When we get back downstairs, I’m going to pull Rory away. Don’t let anybody interrupt us, okay?”
“Georgie!” Meg called from the bottom of the stairs. “Georgie, you need to come down here. You have a guest.”
How could she have a guest with a guard stationed at the gate?
Bram grabbed her hand and slipped the ring back on. “Let’s be a little more careful this time.”
She stared down at the big stone. “I paid for this, didn’t I?”
“Everybody should have a rich wife.”
She jerked past him and hurried along the hall. Halfway down she stopped.
Her ex-husband stood at the bottom of the stairs.
Chapter 17
Meg tugged nervously on an amber earring. “I told him he couldn’t come in.”
Lance looked as bad as someone so buff could possibly look. He was apparently growing both a beard and long hair for his next action film because he had an inch of unkempt black scrub sprouting from his jaw, and his dark hair hung unevenly around his square face, not an attractive look, although one that was certain to improve after his hair and makeup people got done with him. His coffee-stained T-shirt stretched over the bulging muscles he spent several hours a day maintaining. Narrow braided bracelets, similar to Meg’s headband, but more frayed, hung at his wrist, and he wore sandals made of rope and canvas. Skillful dentistry had shaped his strong white teeth, but he’d never let anyone touch his slightly crooked nose. His press kit said he’d broken it in a teenage street fight, but he’d really tripped on the front steps of his college frat house and been too frightened of surgery to have it fixed.
“Georgie, I’ve left half a dozen messages. When you didn’t call me back, I was afraid—Why wouldn’t you call me back?”
Her fingers curled around the railing. “I didn’t want to.”
Like most of Hollywood’s leading men, he wasn’t exceptionally tall, barely five feet nine, but his granite jaw, manly chin-cleft, soulful dark eyes, and pronounced musculature compensated for his lack of height. “I needed to talk to you. I needed to hear your voice, to make sure you’re all right.”
More than anything, she wanted him to grovel. She wanted to hear him say he’d made the biggest mistake of his life, and he’d do anything to get her back, but that didn’t seem to be happening. She came down one step. “You look awful.”
“I drove here right from the airport. We just got in from the Philippines.”
She forced herself the rest of the way into the foyer. “You were in a private jet. How tough could the trip have been?”
“Two of our people got sick. It was—” He glanced over his shoulder at Meg standing guard behind him. She’d kicked off her orange boots, and the way her bare ankles emerged from her blue leopard-print leggings made her look as though she’d been dipped upside down into a tub of melted crayons. “Could we talk? Privately?”
“No. But Meg has always liked you. You can talk to her.”
“Not anymore,” Meg said. “I think you’re a creep.”
Lance hated not being adored, and distress flickered in his eyes. Good. “Send me an e-mail,” Georgie said. “I have guests, and I need to go back to the party.”
“Five minutes. That’s all.”
An alarming thought struck her. “Photographers are all over the place. If they spotted you driving in—”
“I’m not that stupid. I was driving my trainer’s car, and the windows are dark, so no one could see in. Somebody buzzed me through the gate.”
Georgie didn’t have any trouble figuring out whom. The kitchen had an intercom, and Chaz had to know how much Georgie would hate having Lance show up. Georgie slipped her thumb into the pocket of her chinos. “Does Jade know you’re here?”
“Of course. We tell each other everything, and she understands why I need to do this. She knows how I feel about you.”
“And exactly how is that?” Bram sauntered down the stairs. With his rumpled bronze hair, world-weary tanzanite eyes, and Gatsby whites, he looked like the jaded, overindulged, but potentially dangerous heir to a lost New England liquor fortune.
Lance moved closer to Georgie, as if he needed to protect her. “This is between Georgie and me.”
“Sorry, sport.” Bram ambled into the foyer. “You lost your opportunity for a private chat when you traded her in for Jade. You poor bastard.”
Lance took a menacing step forward. “Stop right there, Shepard. Don’t say another word about Jade.”
“Relax.” Bram rested an elbow on the newel post. “I have nothing but admiration for your wife, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever want to be married to her. Very high maintenance.”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” Lance said tightly.
Even though Bram was considerably taller than her ex-husband, Lance’s perfect physique should have made him a stronger presence. But somehow Bram’s lethal elegance gave him an edge in the macho wars. She couldn’t help wondering how a woman like herself had ended up married to two such impressive men.
She moved closer to Bram. “Say what you need to, Lance, and then leave me alone.”
“Could you…step outside for a minute?”
“Georgie and I
don’t have secrets from each other.” Bram let his voice slip into an Eastwood whisper, circa 1973. “I don’t like secrets. I don’t like them at all.”
She considered rising above her baser instincts, but only for a moment. “He’s very possessive. Mostly in a good way.”
Bram curled his fingers around the back of her neck. “And let’s keep it like that.”
Her flash of amusement proved she’d spent too much time living with the devil. Still, this was her fight, not Bram’s, and as much as she appreciated the support, she needed to handle it on her own. “Lance doesn’t seem like he’s leaving, so I might as well get this over with.”
“You don’t have to talk to him.” Bram dropped his hand from her neck. “I’d like nothing better than a good excuse to throw the son of a bitch out on his ass.”
“I know you would, sweetie, and I’m sorry to spoil your fun, but leave us alone for a few minutes, will you? I promise I’ll tell you everything. I know how much you love a good laugh.”
Meg shot Lance a glare and looped her arm through Bram’s. “Come on, pal. I’ll fix you another drink.”
Exactly what he didn’t need, but Meg’s intentions were good.
Bram gazed at Georgie, and she could see him trying to decide how long and how hard to kiss her. But he wisely underplayed the scene by merely touching her hand. “I’ll be nearby if you need me.”
She’d intended to stay in the foyer, but Lance had other ideas, and he walked ahead of her into the living room. His passion for clean surfaces and hard modern lines would make him contemptuous of this lovely room with its kumquat trees, Tibetan throws, and mirrored Indian pillows. And while Bram’s house was spacious, it could have fit inside one corner of the massive property she and Lance had shared.
She remembered something she should have thought of earlier. “I’m sorry about the baby. Truly.”
He stopped in front of the fireplace, so that the vine curling over the mantel looked as though it was growing from his head. “It’s been hard, but it was early, and Jade got pregnant so easy that we’re not letting ourselves get too upset. Everything happens for a reason.”
What I Did for Love Page 22