by Robyn Carr
Gail dropped her purse to the floor. “No matter how undesirable.”
She’d imbued her voice with enough sarcasm to wither them both on the spot, but it didn’t seem to make an impact. If anything, her words had the opposite effect. It was almost as if she could see them mentally offering each other a high five for scoring a direct hit. They respected her professional ability—she knew that much—but they’d never been particularly fond of her. She and Simon had too often been at cross-purposes, with him trying to do what he wanted regardless of the consequences and her trying to protect his image.
“It’s a fair question,” Ian insisted.
“A sabbatical might be good for him,” she argued, “give him a chance to pull his life together.”
Simon came to his feet. “This is bullshit! You’ll have my name, my ring and two years of my life, and I can’t even climb into bed with you?”
Suddenly Gail realized that this conversation had nothing to do with the topic. He wasn’t attracted to her; he’d made that clear. He was responding to being nudged out of the power position and wanted to get back on top in some way. So he was demanding she make a difficult concession, one that couldn’t be overruled simply by pointing to the fact that it would compromise the campaign.
“Sleeping together is not part of the deal,” she reiterated.
Jaw set, he slammed his glass down on the coffee table. “Fine. I’ll make some sort of discreet arrangement with a third party.”
“No, you won’t! We’ve been over that.”
“It won’t matter if no one knows.”
“Isn’t that the kind of thinking that got you into this mess? Word would get out, eventually. Your bed partners are too anxious to brag about their good fortune.” Besides, she wouldn’t want to lie awake night after night imagining what he might be doing in another part of the house. “Can’t you look at this as a job? Pretend you’re preparing to play a monk and celibacy is key to getting into character? If you can stay focused and put in the time, we’ll all get what we need in the end. Then you can have a whole harem if you want.”
Pivoting, he spoke to Ian as if she was no longer in the room. “This won’t work. I’m already going without alcohol. I’ll be cut off from my friends, in case they see through this...sham of a marriage or—” he made quotation marks with his fingers “—lead me astray. And I’ll be connected at the hip to someone who’ll be monitoring my every move and, no doubt, criticizing it.”
“Stop it,” she told Simon before Ian could respond.
Simon whirled on her. “Stop what?”
“Stop looking for a way out. If you don’t want to do this, fine. But don’t justify blowing up the deal by acting like you would’ve jumped in with both feet if only I’d been reasonable.”
“You’re not being reasonable! It’ll be hard enough giving up alcohol.”
“You said you could do it. I said maybe you should go into rehab instead. We’ll just make matters worse if we attempt this and fail. And you said you weren’t addicted.”
“I’m not addicted, but... God, I could use a little help. A shoulder to cry on, if nothing else.”
She folded her arms. “I’ll lend you my shoulder, if you’ve got to have one, but nothing else. And I won’t be criticizing everything you do,” she added. “If it has no impact on the campaign, I won’t say a word.”
“You won’t have to,” he said. “I’ll be able to see it in your face, which happens to reveal every thought you have. In any event, I have no intention of going without sex for two years on top of everything else. The way I see it, getting lucky every once in a while might be the only enjoyment I’ll experience in two hellish years. Why would I give that up?”
Gail held her ground even though her high heels were beginning to pinch her toes and she was dying to sit. “Because you’ve let your son down and this is the only way to make it up to him, that’s why!”
His hands curled into fists as if he wanted to strike her, or strike something. Maybe it was only verbal, but she’d slugged him where it hurt. She’d had to. If they didn’t stay focused, keep their goals in sight, they’d fail before they ever got started. And she had a lot riding on this, too.
“How hard can it be?” She went on more calmly, hoping to placate him. “You’ve already made it abundantly clear that I don’t appeal to you.”
His eyes, now glittery, roamed over her, making her want to cover herself even though she was fully dressed. “I assumed you’d be better than nothing. But maybe I was wrong.”
“Oh, stop acting like a—” She caught herself before she could call him any names. He was looking for a fight. Why accommodate him? “Never mind. Forget it. No sex. Do I have your agreement?”
“I wouldn’t touch you if you stood in front of me naked and begged,” he grumbled.
Fabulous. She had what she wanted. But somehow it didn’t make her feel any better. His capitulation, and the sentiment behind it, stung enough that she couldn’t resist a final salvo. “Fine, because I have some standards myself, you know, and dissolute movie stars aren’t high on my list of must-have men.”
“That’s the best you’ve got? Dissolute?” Wearing a pained expression, he turned to Ian. “Does anyone in the real world even use that word these days?”
“I’ve seen it in books,” Ian said, his voice speculative.
She rolled her eyes. “I doubt you’ve ever picked up a book. It means—”
“You’re not the only one here with a brain,” Simon interrupted. “I know what it means. And as far as comebacks go, it sucks. Do you think I haven’t heard it all before? That you’re the only person with an opinion on how I live my life?”
All the things she’d wanted to tell him in the past but hadn’t seemed to rise in her throat and propel her forward, until she stood almost nose to nose with him. At six feet, he still had her by a few inches, but the heels helped. “You probably haven’t heard the half of it,” she said, “because I’m the only one who’ll state it plainly, the only one who’s not out to get something from you. Who else will tell you that you need to pull your head out of your ass? The people who depend on you for a paycheck?” She motioned at Ian. “Him? Mr. Suck-up?”
Ian pressed a hand to his chest as if she’d just shot him. “Ouch! I take back what I said. I don’t like you at all.”
Simon ignored him. “Seriously? I hear how rotten I am all the time. My ex has said much worse than you could ever come up with—and she’s said it to the papers so I have the print version in case I forget.”
She’d made some comments that’d been printed, too, but she didn’t want to remind him. “Yeah, well, you can’t trust Bella, either. She’s hurt and she’s angry, and she’s determined to have her revenge. I’m honest, not vindictive. If I tell you something, it’s true. And I’m telling you this—you need to pull your head out!”
“Maybe she’s not so bad at comebacks.” Ian was obviously trying to break the tension, but it didn’t work.
Sending his manager a dirty look, Simon returned to the couch. “You’re not some sort of oracle, Ms. DeMarco, so quit pretending. I won’t take advice from a repressed PR failure with her jacket buttoned up to her neck. And you are hoping for something from me. You want me to save your business and cut you a hefty check when this is all over.”
She put her hands on her hips. “If you’d like to marry someone else, I’ll do the PR for free. But two years of my life doesn’t come cheap. And you’re the one who destroyed my business in the first place. You owe me.”
She thought he’d come right back at her, tell her it was Ian who’d gone after her and not him. But without his name Ian wouldn’t have had the power to pull off what he’d done.
Simon didn’t attempt to argue, however. A sigh hinted at how tired he was. Had he even been to bed last night? He looked like he’d been up
for days. “Maybe I do,” he relented, “but you don’t have to make this so hard.”
She got the feeling that they weren’t talking strictly about sex anymore, but it was more comfortable to respond as if they were. “I’ll be going without, too.”
“You don’t seem to have a problem with it, which doesn’t say much for your love life.”
He’d hit a little too close to the truth. She wasn’t sure whom she’d sleep with even if she wanted a bed partner. Her last relationship ended three years ago; she hadn’t been with anyone since. But she wasn’t about to admit that to him. “Let’s leave my love life out of it.”
In an effort to turn the conversation around, Ian abandoned his seat by the computer and came forward. “Look—” he touched her elbow to get her to face him “—this’ll be a piece of cake for you. What’s so terrible about a couple of years spent eating at the best restaurants, shopping at the most expensive stores and flying around the world?”
Besides the fact that it meant she’d have to endure two years of knowing Simon found her completely unattractive and, worse, unlikable? Could her self-esteem survive such a constant beating?
Simon jumped to his feet, suddenly decisive. “I’m calling it off. She’s not up to the task.”
Gail felt her jaw drop. “That’s it? We just wasted the past two hours?”
“I guess so.”
“Fine. I’m out of here.” Grabbing her purse, she headed for the door.
Six
“Wait!” Ian caught her arm. “Don’t leave. He’s upset, not thinking clearly.”
“He can’t control his emotions and appetites long enough to implement a simple plan, let alone one that’ll be as tricky as this,” she said. “That’s all we need to know.”
“I can do whatever I have to,” Simon said.
“Then why do you need me?” she asked.
With a grimace, he dropped onto the couch, leaned back and draped an arm over his face. “I don’t know. You haven’t helped matters so far.”
Gail told herself to leave, as she’d intended to a moment earlier, but she couldn’t seem to convince her feet. She wouldn’t let him purposely destroy this opportunity to get his life back on track the way he’d destroyed all the others since he started acting out a year ago. He had so much potential. It drove her crazy to watch him self-destruct, especially in the public eye. Regardless of her opinion of him these days, he’d once been her favorite actor. His performances still captivated her.
“You don’t get it, do you?” she said. “No one can do this for you. If you want to see your life improve, you need to stand up and fight.”
“What do you think I’ve been doing?” he mumbled into the crook of his arm.
Fighting the wrong kind of battles. And if he didn’t change that soon, he’d learn how much worse his life could become. “Lashing out randomly in anger isn’t what I’m talking about.”
When he didn’t respond, Ian’s alarm seemed to grow. “Simon, we talked about this. When you hired me back, you said you could do it. You said you would do it.”
“I know.” Deadpan. Resigned.
“So...are you backing out or not?” Ian asked.
Simon muttered something Gail couldn’t decipher; it sounded like a curse. But then he said, “I’m in if she is. I’d walk through fire for Ty. Do anything.”
That didn’t mean he had to be happy about it, and he wasn’t, which would make her job that much harder. “Give me one reason I should trust you to pull this off,” she said.
He lifted his arm so could look at her. “I can pull it off. I’ll pour it on so thick there’ll be times when even you’ll think I’m in love with you.”
More than a little fatigued herself, Gail slumped into a chair. “There’s no danger of that.”
The fact that she’d cracked, shown some exhaustion and weakness, seemed to surprise him. The tension in his body eased. “What about you? You don’t particularly admire me, and you’ve had no experience with acting. Can you be convincing?”
Self-conscious about her clothing ever since he’d made the repressed-PR-failure comment, she unbuttoned the top of her jacket. “I won’t have to be. No one will bother to question how I feel. They’ll take it for granted. Average-looking no-name lands big movie star. Why wouldn’t a girl be happy about that?”
He sat up so he could study her with that intense expression she’d seen him wear so often in the movies. She’d said something that made him think or caused him to reevaluate. After all the bickering and chafing at their new roles, she couldn’t imagine what it was. But acute interest transformed his face from dark and brooding to arresting, and she found it impossible to look away.
“Even if we do everything we can, it’ll take some luck for this to work,” he said at length.
“Yes,” she agreed.
A frown tugged at his lips. “These days I’m not sure I can depend on luck.”
She tucked the fine hairs that’d fallen around her face behind her ears. “Feel free to hire a real actress, if you think it’ll help.” She hoped he would. Then she could have him return as merely a client, which would be enough to protect her business, and life would go on as usual.
Ian jumped back into the conversation. “Simon, no. We don’t want anything to do with a woman who might be interested in using you to get famous. You never know what someone like that will do. I say we stick with what we’ve got. Gail’s a known entity.”
“She’s inflexible.” He spoke in the third person even though his gaze never wavered from her face.
“She’s trustworthy.” Ian shifted his gaze to her, too. “That’s more important than flexible. Two years will go by quicker than you think.”
Gail held her tongue. She got the impression Simon was testing her to see how she’d respond. But despite what he said about her, criticizing him further wouldn’t help. She had a feeling he already thought the worst of himself. At least she gave him credit for his talent.
“There’s just one more thing,” she said.
Stretching out his legs, Simon crossed one ankle over the other—another deceptively casual pose. “What’s that?”
“My father.”
Lines formed on his forehead. “What about him?”
When she’d agreed to be Simon’s “wife,” she’d been thinking of it primarily in the context of PR advantages. She’d been so focused on how to pull it off, she hadn’t considered the impact it would have on her other relationships—probably because, until now, L.A. and what she did here had always felt so removed from Whiskey Creek. Despite being a small town of barely two thousand, it was a world unto itself. But news of her marriage would travel everywhere. There’d be no way to keep it from getting back to her family and friends. She had to allow for that, prepare for it. Which meant she had to include them in the process.
“Before the wedding, we’ll need to take a trip to my hometown so I can introduce you to everyone.”
He didn’t consider that for even a second. “Absolutely not. I’m not going to some Podunk town to be judged by your family.”
Her friends would be just as hard on him, maybe harder. She’d hung out with the same crew since grade school. But she wasn’t about to mention that. “If we don’t enlist their support, my father or brother will drive to L.A. to convince me that I’m making a mistake marrying someone with...shall we say...such a tarnished reputation.”
Ian spoke up. “So go to your mother. Tell her you’re in love, get her to intercede.”
Gail straightened in her seat. “I don’t have a mother.”
Simon was still watching her. “Why not? Is she dead?”
“No, but she might as well be.” Gail hadn’t seen her in twenty years. “We don’t have a relationship.”
Ian raked his fingers through his hair.
“We’ve got everything else worked out. This can’t be that hard. Tell your father he has nothing to worry about. You’ll get a big settlement even if your marriage turns out to be the worst thing you ever did.”
“News of the prenup will be in the press,” she said. “We have to make sure it is. It has to look like love and only love is the reason we’re getting together.”
“So?” he argued. “You’ll be receiving other money.”
“But I can’t tell anyone about that, not without letting them in on our little secret.” To Martin, having her marry someone he’d consider morally bankrupt would be bad enough. Getting paid for it would be worse. “Anyway, he doesn’t care about money. That’s not what matters to him.”
“What does?” It was Simon who asked. She could tell he was leery of the answer. Knowing her father, he had reason to be.
“Me.” Martin DeMarco also cared about character. But a list of Simon’s faults had come from her own lips as recently as a few days ago, when she’d last spoken to her dad. In retrospect, what she’d said during that phone call was unfortunate; telling Martin she was marrying Simon O’Neal would be no better than announcing she was marrying Charlie Sheen or Tiger Woods. “That means we’ll have to visit, show him you’re a changed man.”
“Forget it,” Simon said. “I’m a good actor but even I’m not that good, or I wouldn’t need to be doing this in the first place. If your dad is such a stickler, he won’t accept me even if I grovel.”
“So what do you suggest?” she asked.
“You’ll just have to cut ties with him for a while,” he replied.
“What?” She tightened her grip on her purse. “I can’t disappear from my network of family and friends for two years.”
Finished with his drink, Simon set it aside. “That’s what you’re asking from me, isn’t it?”
“It’s your image that needs improving! Your associates are the ones who threaten that, not mine.”
“I don’t care. Considering everything I’m giving up, you can make a sacrifice, too. I have enough to deal with. Why should I put up with people who are convinced I’m the devil out to drag you off to hell?”