“Of course I do.” Leta smiled as she hugged Georgia. “It’s good to see you.”
“You, too,” Georgia mumbled. Oh man. This was a lot to take in.
Cole bent down until he was eye-level with the little boy. “And how are you, buddy?”
“I’m an army man.” The kid pulled out a toy laser gun and aimed it at Cole. “You better look out.”
Leta rolled her eyes. “Manny, stop that. Your uncle’s at work.” She turned to Georgia. “Manny is into all things military, now.” She ran her fingers through the boy’s blond locks affectionately. “He wants to be just like his dad when he grows up.”
Cole held up his hands in mock surrender as his grin widened. “An army man, eh?” He stood and placed his hand at his forehead, giving the young guy a salute. “Yes, sir.”
The boy lowered his gun and saluted back, apparently satisfied with Cole’s obedience. “Where is the enemy?”
Cole lowered his hand and considered his nephew. “I think I saw them hiding behind the director’s chair, sir.”
The boy gave a curt nod. “Let’s go then.”
“Okay. You first.” The boys took off toward the other side of the stage.
“Your husband is in the military?” Georgia asked.
Leta sighed. “Doing his second tour in Afghanistan.” She smiled at Georgia, but her eyes were full of sadness. “He’ll be there another six months.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well. Such is the life of a military wife.” She watched Cole and Manny for a moment in thought. “Thank God he has Cole. My brother has been really good with him.” Leta glanced at Georgia. “Cole had always been fond of kids. He’ll make a great father someday.”
A dark shadow formed in Georgia’s chest as she thought about the baby she had lost. She watched Cole as he chased his nephew around the set. Both of them were laughing and smiling like kids in a schoolyard during recess.
“He wants to be a father?”
“Oh yes. I think children is the only thing he loves more than acting.”
Manny squealed as Cole lifted him over his head. After a quick twirl, he set the kid down on the ground and tickled him until he was rolling around on the floor.
“Okay, that’s enough.” Leta moved away from Georgia and toward the boys. “I don’t want Manny’s animal crackers and juice to end up on the studio floor.”
As she moved, Cole whispered something into Manny’s ear. The boy nodded in agreement and the men stood as one, aiming fake guns at Leta.
“You better not come any closer,” Cole said.
“Yeah, or we’re going to blow you up,” Manny said.
“Come on guys, that’s enough.”
“Bang! Bang!” Manny shouted.
Georgia blinked back tears as Leta faked her own death and the boys did their victory dance. Leta was right. Cole was good with children. He’d make an excellent father someday. Just not with her.
She was broken. Her miscarriage had proved that. She had no idea if her body could even carry a baby to term. What was she thinking? Not only was she no longer a party girl, but she didn’t even know if she could give Cole what he so obviously wanted—children of his own.
“We should all go out to dinner together,” Leta said as Cole helped her off the floor. “I want to hear everything about this new project.”
“Only if Georgia can come too.”
“Of course.”
Cole glanced in her direction. “Georgia, are you all right?”
“What?” Georgia wiped a tear away with her fingers. “Yes, I’m fine. Must be allergies.”
“You have allergies?” Cole stepped away from his sister and nephew. “Do you need medicine?”
“No, I’m fine, really. I just, I have to go.”
She turned toward her dressing room.
“Wait.” Cole grabbed her hand and waited until she looked over her shoulder at him. “At least come to dinner with us.”
“No, I can’t.” She sniffed back more tears. “I’m sorry.” She ignored Cole’s confused expression and quickly retreated to her dressing room. She managed to make it back and close the door before the tears started falling once more.
“Stupid girl.” She swatted at her tears as she threw herself into her makeup chair. Pulling out her phone, she swiped the screen to look up the phone number for a cab. The last thing she wanted to do was to suffer through a dinner watching Cole and his nephew. The two looked so perfect together. Seeing them interact only made the pain worse. The sooner she got out of this place and home, the better.
Her browser automatically opened to a search engine, and current news stories scrolled through a flash player beneath the search bar. The stories were the typical gossip and personal improvement pieces, and normally Georgia wouldn’t pay much attention to them, but one familiar picture caught her eye.
The picture was of her and Cole at the club Friday night, dancing. Under the picture was the headline Cole Anderson is never without a lady.
Before she could think better of it, Georgia clicked on the picture and opened up the article. Scanning the contents, her gaze settled on the last paragraph.
Will love last the second time around? Not likely. Cole loves to play the field, as evidenced by the fact that on the evening shown here, he arrived with not one but two ladies who were most definitely not his costar. Already he has been seen making the party circuit while Georgia sits at home alone. This reporter feels that he seemed much more at ease with Regina, and holds out hope that Cole will come to his senses and the power couple will soon be back together.
Setting down the phone, Georgia leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. The reporter was right. This was never going to work. She and Cole were too different, and wanted different things. He was a party boy, an extrovert who had a different woman on his arm every week. He had money, power, and influence to spare. She was just a lowly rehab graduate, trying to put the pieces of her life back together. She had lost most of her Hollywood contacts, and had to prove her worth all over again. He wanted to live in the limelight, she wanted to flee it. If they had children, he’d probably want to parade them around for the media, while she’d want to keep them out of the spotlight as much as possible.
It was crazy to think that a relationship would ever work. She was much better off alone. But if that was the case, then why did the prospect of giving Cole up leave such a big hole in her heart?
A knock on her door jarred her from her thoughts.
“Georgia?” Cole asked through the door. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes with a tissue from the makeup counter.
Cole opened the door a crack and stuck his head inside. “Are you sure you don’t want to come to dinner with us?”
“No, I’m fine. Thanks.” She plastered on what she hoped was a convincing smile.
“Do you want me to drop you off at home?”
“No, that’s okay.” She picked up her phone and waved it in the air. “I’ve already called a cab.”
He started to her for a moment before responding. “Okay. If you need anything, just text me, okay?”
“Don’t look so concerned. It’s just allergies, that’s all.” To prove her point, she blew her nose into her tissue. “See?”
“Okay.” His smile seemed warm and genuine. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Okay.” Georgia waited for the door to close before wiping her tears once more.
Chapter Ten
“I have no comment on my brother’s personal life.”
Leta Anderson- Palecki
Something about this didn’t feel right. Back when they were dating, Cole didn’t remember Georgia mentioning allergies. In fact, all week she had seemed perfectly fine. Allergies might explain the watery eyes and stuffy nose, but they didn’t explain the sadness he saw in her eyes, or the way she couldn’t quite meet his gaze when she talked to him. There was something else going on, he was sure of it.
“Are you ready to go?” Leta asked.
“Bang, bang!” Manny shot at his knee, and Cole absently ran his fingers through the boy’s hair.
“I’m going to have to take a rain check on dinner.”
“How come?”
“Something came up.”
She flashed him a suspicious look. “You mean Georgia Evans came up.”
He felt the heat rise to his cheeks. “It’s that obvious, huh?”
“Everyone knows you never got over her.” She nudged his elbow. “Go on. Manny and I can take in a movie. I’ll be in town for a couple of days. We can do breakfast tomorrow.”
“Sounds perfect.” Cole gave her a big bear hug. “Thanks, sis.”
“No problem.” She playfully punched him in the arm. “Just don’t screw it up this time.”
Cole frowned. “She was the one who left me, remember?”
“I’m sure she had a good reason.” She bent down next to Manny. “The guy is always the one to blame.”
Cole rolled his eyes as she explained to Manny that he would see his uncle in the morning.
“No!” The little boy whined.
Cole bent down next to his nephew. “We’ll collect information about the enemy and meet again at oh-nine-hundred hours, soldier.” He schooled his face into a serious expression.
Manny stopped whining and saluted. “Yes, sir.”
Cole saluted back. “Until then, obey your mother.”
“Yes, sir.” He bumped his fist with Cole and straightened.
“You’re so good with him.”
“It’s a gift,” Cole joked, standing.
Leta laughed. “Okay soldier,” she said to Manny. “Let’s go home.” She steered Manny toward the exit as Cole headed toward Georgia’s dressing room. With each step, he became more and more determined to corner Georgia and make her tell him what was going on. It seemed as if they had been making real progress lately. She was opening up and they were connecting. Something had happened with Leta that spooked her and he was determined to find out what.
He was so close to getting her back. He wasn’t about to let some unknown entity stand in his way.
As he came closer to her dressing room, he slowed his steps. Georgia’s voice rose up from behind the closed door. It was obvious she was talking to someone. Cole told himself that he was just listening for a break in the conversation so that he could enter, but as the seconds passed, he became more and more uncomfortable with what he was hearing.
“I can’t do this anymore, Sharon,” Georgia said. “I can’t work with Cole.”
Cole knew that Sharon was her agent. She’d the same woman represent her back when they were dating.
“I don’t care about my career anymore. You have to get me out of this.”
Cole leaned in closer to the door and put his hand on the polished wood. Had he gone too far with the scene earlier?
His gut said no. Georgia had loved every minute, every thrill.
“You don’t understand!” Georgia’s voice rose shrilly. “I saw him with his nephew today. It brought back too many memories.”
Cole had to strain to hear Sharon’s voice. It sounded grainy and full of static. He guessed that she had her on speaker phone.
“I know that it must have been painful to watch,” Sharon said. “But Cole didn’t bring his nephew on set to upset you. You said yourself that his sister’s visit was a surprise.”
“It doesn’t matter. The whole thing was still painful.” Georgia said. “It reminded me of everything I lost.” She sniffed. “And of everything I can never have.”
“Oh come now, save the drama for the screen. Lots of women have miscarriages and go on to have healthy children.”
Cole stilled as Sharon’s words sliced through him. Georgia had had a miscarriage?
She had been pregnant with someone’s child?
The realization was like a knife in his gut.
“You don’t know what it was like . . . to leave everything behind to go through that rehab program. I did everything I was supposed to do and I still lost the baby. I’m cursed.”
“Honey, you are being too hard on yourself.”
“I can’t continue filming, Sharon. Every time I see him it brings everything back. It hurts too much.”
“If you want a career in show business, then you have to, honey.” There was a slight pause, and then Sharon continued. “Does Cole know what happened to his baby?”
Wait. What?
His baby?
Georgia had been pregnant with his baby? That was why she’d run away?
Wildness clawed at his insides. Shoving open the door, Cole stalked inside the dressing room. Georgia gasped and turned in her chair as he closed the distance between them.
“You were pregnant?” Cole roared as he placed his palms on the chair’s armrests, trapping her in the cushioned seat.
“Cole—”
“Maybe I should go,” Sharon said through the phone on the dresser. “I’ll talk to you later, Georgia.” The soft click indicated that she had disconnected.
Cole didn’t know what to say. Every muscle in his body was frozen in shock and his mind blanked with pain. She was pregnant. Not only had she hidden that pregnancy, but she’d gone through the pain of losing that baby on her own.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He hated the fact that his voice shook, but he was… he didn’t know how to process this. “Is that why you broke up with me?”
“I—”
He stared at her sapphire eyes, bright with unshed tears. “It was, wasn’t it? You didn’t think I could handle being a father. You thought I’d leave you.” He pushed off the chair and began to pace, needing to do something to vent this anger.
“It wasn’t as if either one of us were in any shape to be parents.”
He stopped and stared at her. “But you didn’t even give me the choice.” He waved his hands in the air. “You just got up and left.”
“I didn’t find out about the pregnancy until after we broke up.”
“But you still didn’t tell me.”
“I was in rehab.” She stood and fisted her hands at her sides. “They wouldn’t let me talk to anyone.”
“I can’t believe this.” He pushed his hair out of his face and started pacing again. “I want to kill you.”
She recoiled against the chair. “You wouldn’t—”
He stopped pacing once more and flashed her a disgusted look. “You really don’t know me at all, do you?”
She hesitated, then lifted her chin. “I know that you weren’t too hurt by me leaving. The following weekend the tabloids reported you with another woman.”
“She was a friend.”
“And the one after that?” She pointed at his chest. “You bounced from bimbo to bimbo while I struggled through rehab. While I carried your baby!”
“I was trying to forget!”
“It didn’t seem too difficult—”
“It was fucking hell, Georgia.”
“Yeah, must have been hell fucking all of those women—”
“You left me.” He flexed his fingers at his sides. “I tried calling you, but you disconnected your number. I stopped by your apartment, but your landlord said that you had moved out.” He closed the distance between them. “Tell me, Georgie, what the hell was I supposed to do?”
She stared at him for a long moment, not responding.
“Jesus.” He wanted to shake her, but instead stepped back toward the door. “You just don’t get it, do you? I was shattered, Georgia. I thought you were different, but then you told me that I was nothing more than a player looking for the next party. In that moment I knew that you saw me just as the rest of the world saw me. Cole the playboy, the one who never takes life seriously. The problem is that it’s all a game, Georgia. It was part of the package I’m selling to the media. It’s not who I really am. I thought you knew that.”
Georgia blinked back her tears. “But those women.”
; “Were an act. Most were just friends. Some I had sex with, sure, but only after months of trying to track you down. Did you know that I went to that rehab clinic?”
“You what?”
He nodded. “When they made the announcement in the media, I went to see you, but I wasn’t on the approved list. I was told that you weren’t allowed to see anyone, so I left you a note.”
“I-I never got it.”
“No, I don’t think you did. If you had it, then you’d know how messed you I was—how messed up you made me.” He pointed at her and stiffened his jaw. “You were the only one who understood me, Georgia, the only one I trusted.” He lowered his hand. “I thought you trusted me, too.”
“I did—”
“You kept my baby from me!” Cole roared.
Pain sliced through Georgia’s chest as she realized what she had done. “I lost the baby in rehab,” she whispered. “It was during the time when they wouldn’t let me talk to anyone on the outside.”
“What about after, when you left?”
She shrugged. “It didn’t seem important anymore.”
“Not important?”
“What was I supposed to say, Cole? Congratulations, you’re a father. Oops, sorry, my mistake. I lost the baby. You can go back to your whores now.”
“They aren’t my whores. Haven’t you been listening?” He ran his hand over his face as a myriad of emotions crossed his features. “You should have told me, Georgia.”
“I couldn’t.”
“It was my baby, too.” He jerked open the door and stepped out into the hall. “It was my baby too.”
Chapter Eleven
“Do I still drink? Sure. I drink lots and lots of tea.”
-Georgia Evans
The atmosphere on the set was a nightmare.
Georgia was starting to understand just how hard it had been for Cole when she’d refused to interact with him outside of their scenes. Things with Cole were still a mess—he had just shut down. Completely.
Kevin was starting to get irritated, enough so that she had wanted to talk to Cole about it after the shoot, but Kevin had dragged him aside for some talk about his character and Georgia hadn’t wanted to hang around like a lost puppy. So instead, she’d headed to a nearby coffee shop and purchased some green tea, content to people watch for a few hours. After draining her cup, she realized that she wasn’t quite ready to go home to her empty apartment just yet, so she ordered a second.
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