Star of His Heart

by Brenda Jackson

  A smile touched the corners of her lips. “You have a niece?”

  “Yes, Kendra. She’s my older brother’s little girl and, I hate to say it, but she’s perfect.”

  She chuckled. “I believe you. And there’s a store in walking distance on Hollywood Boulevard. I’m headed that way myself to pick up something from the art supply shop.”

  He turned the idea over in his mind only once before asking, “Mind if I tag along?”

  He did his best not to watch the way her lips were tugged up in a smile when she said, “Sure, you can tag along, as long as we don’t talk about work. We need to give our brains a break.”

  He jammed his keys in his pocket as he resumed walking by her side. It was a beautiful August day, and he had a beautiful woman strolling alongside him. Things couldn’t get any better than that. “So what do we talk about?” he decided to ask her.

  She slanted her head to look at him. “You.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hey, we talked about me yesterday.”

  Her mouth twitched in a grin. “Yes, but all I know is that you’re from Napa Valley and you have a niece.” She chuckled. “I guess I could go by what I’ve heard and—”

  “Read in the tabloids,” he said, finishing the statement for her.

  “No, I don’t do tabloids. It would be nice if others didn’t do them either, then they would go out of business.”

  He glanced over at her and laughed. “You don’t like the right of free speech?”

  She laughed back at him. “More like the right of sleazy speech. Ninety percent of what they print isn’t true, but then I guess that’s the price of being a star.”

  He smiled, liking the way the sunlight was bouncing off her hair, making it appear even more lustrous. He liked the short cut on her. “Yes, it’s one of the detriments, that’s for sure. I just go with the flow. As long as I know what’s true about me and what’s not, I don’t lose any sleep.”

  She didn’t say anything for a while, and then replied, “I hate being in the spotlight.”

  She kept looking ahead, but he’d heard what she said. Clearly. If that was true, he wondered how she managed it, being a Wellesley. The company her family owned was so connected with this industry, and had been for close to thirty years, they were practically an icon in Hollywood.

  He had researched information on Limelight when he’d returned to the States from abroad. He had even considered contacting them to handle his affairs before he’d chosen Curtis, who’d been a friend of a friend to whom he’d owed a favor. But he wouldn’t hesitate to consider them again when his contract with Curtis ended. Lately, he’d begun feeling as if he was making his own contacts. Everyone he knew handled by Limelight was pleased with its services. Not once had they ever been made to feel like they were a passenger instead of a driver.

  “Being in the spotlight doesn’t bother me,” he decided to say. “It comes with the territory. But then, my family is well-known in Napa Valley, so I got used to having a mike shoved in my face, only to be quoted incorrectly.” He could recall a number of times when he’d been referred to as “the playboy Chambers” while Hunter had always been considered the one with a level head. The responsibly acting Chambers.

  “And it doesn’t bother you?” she asked.

  He met her gaze. “A distortion of the truth will bother most people, and I’m no different. However, I don’t lose sleep over it,” he said, shifting his gaze to study her features.

  But he had a feeling she would.

  There had to be a reason, and the question rested on the tip of his tongue.

  But he had no right to pry. This woman owed him nothing, had no reason to divulge her deep, dark secrets and innermost feelings. Not to him. They weren’t husband and wife. They weren’t even lovers. Nor would they ever be.

  No, he reminded himself, he was trying out the friendship thing.

  Chapter 5

  Rachel could feel the power of Ethan as he walked beside her. And although it sounded strange, she could feel his strength. Not only did she feel it, she was drawing from it.

  The very thought that such a thing was possible should be disconcerting, but instead the knowledge seemed to wrap her in some sort of warm embrace. That in itself was kind of weird since they’d decided to just be friends. She was fine with that decision. In fact, she refused to have things any other way. She didn’t mix business with pleasure and she had too much on her plate to become involved in a serious relationship.

  The last guy she had gone out with that she’d truly liked had been Theo Lovett. That had been a couple of years ago. They had dated for almost six months before she’d found out the only reason he’d been interested in her was as a way into her family’s business. Luckily, she’d overheard him bragging to a friend on the phone when he’d thought she was in the shower and out of hearing range. Theo’s explanation that he’d only been joking with his friend hadn’t made her change her mind when she had kicked him out that day.

  She stepped out of her memory and into the present. Apparently she’d missed some of what Ethan had said while she’d been daydreaming, because he’d changed the subject and was talking about his family.

  “My older brother’s name is Hunter. There is an eight year difference in our ages.”

  She glanced over at him. Despite the fact he was a lot taller than she, walking side by side they seemed to fit, and their steps appeared to be perfectly synchronized. How was that possible with his long legs and her short ones? He’d evidently adjusted his steps to stay in sync with hers. It was a perfectly measured pace.

  “There is a nine year difference in me and my sister’s ages,” she said.

  “Really? Was your sibling as overprotective as mine while you were growing up?”

  Rachel made a face. “Boy, was she ever. She was ten when our parents were killed in a plane crash, and I was one. Our aunt and uncle became our legal guardians, but somewhere along the way my sister, Sofia, thought I became her responsibility. It was only when she left for college that I got some breathing space.”

  “Are the two of you close now?”

  “Yes, very. What about you and your brother? Are the two of you close?”

  “Yes, although I would be the first to admit he was somewhat of a pain in the ass while we were growing up. But I can appreciate it now since he covered for me a lot with my parents.”

  She could imagine someone having to do that for him. She had a feeling he’d probably been a handful. “Was your family upset when you decided not to enter the family business but to forge a path in a different direction?”

  The corners of his lips lifted in a wry smile. “Let’s just say they weren’t thrilled with the idea. But I think it bothered Hunter more than it did them,” he said. “The Chamberses have been in the wine business for generations, and I was the first to pull out and try doing something else. He lay on the pressure for me to stay for a while but then he backed off.”

  He placed his hand at the center of her back when others, walking at a swifter pace than they, moved to pass them. She could feel the warmth of his touch through her blouse. She breathed in deeply at the feeling of butterflies flapping around in her stomach.

  “What about your family?” he inquired, not realizing the effect of his touch on her.

  “Once I explained things to Uncle Jacob and Aunt Lily, they were fine with it. They wanted me to do whatever made me happy. But Sofia felt it was part of our father’s legacy, that I owed it to him to join her and Uncle Jacob at Limelight. I had made up my mind on how I wanted to do things with my future, so instead of letting there be this bone of contention between us, she backed off and eventually gave me her blessings to do whatever I wanted to do with my life.”

  She chuckled. “As a concession, I am letting Limelight Entertainment handle my career. I’m one of their clients.”

  They paused a moment when they reached the security gate. They had deliberately walked the expanse of the
studio lot to avoid running into the paparazzi that made the place their regular beat. Now that they were no longer in safe and protected territory, she noticed Ethan had slid on a pair of sunglasses. He had kept on his medical scrubs and had a stethoscope around his neck, and she wondered if anyone seeing him would assume he was a bona fide doctor walking the strip on lunch break.

  She pulled her sunglasses out of her bag, too, although it had been years since she’d had the paparazzi on her tail. When she was younger, they’d seemed to enjoy keeping up with the two Wellesley heirs. She’d always found the media’s actions intrusive and an invasion of her privacy. She could recall all the photographs of her as a child that had appeared in the tabloids. That was the main reason she much preferred not being the focus of their attention again.

  She glanced over at Ethan when his hand went to the center of her back again. It was time for them to cross the street, and he was evidently trying to hurry her along before traffic started up again. Her pulse began fluttering, caused by the heat generated from his touch.

  They increased their pace to make it across the street. She checked him out from the corner of her eye and saw how sexy the scrubs looked on him. They had agreed to be just friends, she reminded herself. And it meant absolutely nothing that they had a few things in common. Like the fact that they were both renegades. That they were both members of well-known families. That they both had siblings who’d chosen to go into the family business. Overprotective, older siblings who meant well but if given the chance would run their lives.

  Rachel inconspicuously scanned the area around them and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the paparazzi was nowhere in sight. But then they were known to bounce out from just about any place. Hopefully she and Ethan looked like a regular couple out on a stroll during their lunch hour.

  A couple who were just friends, which was something she could not forget.

  “You are such a good uncle.”

  Ethan glanced at Rachel while accepting his change from the girl behind the counter at the Disney Store. Had he used his charge card his cover would have been blown. Even through his sunglasses, he could see the woman was looking at him, trying to figure out if he was a doctor or someone she should know.

  He smiled at Rachel. “I’d like to think so, especially since I doubt very seriously that Hunter will have any more children,” he said, accepting the bag the cashier was handing him.

  “Why is that?”

  “He lost his wife in a car accident,” he explained as they headed for the exit. “He took Annette’s death hard and hasn’t been in a serious relationship since. It’s been three years now.”

  “Oh, how sad.”

  “Yes, it was. Hunter and Kendra were in the car at the time of the accident and survived with minor injuries,” he said. He paused a moment and then added, “Kendra was three at the time and very close to her mother. She felt the loss immediately and withdrew into her own world and stopped talking.”

  The eyes that stared into his were full of sorrow and compassion. “She doesn’t talk?”

  He released his breath in a long and slow sigh, wondering why he was sharing this information about his family with anyone, especially to a woman he’d only met yesterday. But there was something about Rachel that was different from most women he’d met. For one, she wasn’t trying to come on to him or jump his bones. It was as if she saw him as a person and not some sex symbol, and he appreciated that.

  “She talks now, but not as much as she should for a child her age,” he responded. “And she talks more with some people than with others. I happen to be one of those she will talk to most of the time. But it took me a while to gain that much ground again after the accident.” He recalled the time he had come home from France to give his brother and niece his support. “But a part of Kendra is still withdrawn and so far no one has been able to fully bring her back. She’s been seen by the best psychologists money can hire. They practically all said the same thing. Kendra suffered a traumatic loss, and until she’s convinced in her mind that she can love someone again, become attached to that person without losing them all over again, she will continue to withdraw into her own little world.”

  He checked his watch and figured they needed to head on back. Prior to stopping at the store, they had stopped by an art supply place and picked up some new brushes. She’d told him that she liked dabbling with paints on canvas every once in a while and had promised to show him some of her work one day.

  As they began retracing their steps back toward the studio lot, he had to admit he had enjoyed his time with her and knew that he was going to enjoy having her as a friend. An odd thought suddenly burned in his brain. What if they became more than just friends? He quickly forced the notion out of his head. The fact of the matter was they were just friends, or at least they were trying to be.

  He glanced at her and saw her scan the surrounding area. He could tell she was nervous about the possibility of being seen by the paparazzi. So was he, but only because it bothered her. Despite the fact that only minutes ago he’d vowed not to pry, he couldn’t stop the question now.

  “Why do you avoid the spotlight, Rachel?” He could tell his question surprised her and suspected her reasons were deep-seated.

  “I just do,” she said.

  She tried to act calm, like his question wasn’t a big deal, but he sensed that it was. “Why?”

  She frowned up at him, and the first thing he thought was that he’d made her mad. He hadn’t meant to, but a part of him wanted to push her for an answer.

  “Well?” he asked.

  She didn’t say anything as they kept walking. She had stopped glaring at him and was staring straight ahead. He’d almost given up hope for a reply when she began speaking. “I told you my parents were killed before my second birthday. Since my uncle and aunt who adopted us couldn’t have any kids of their own, my sister and I became known as the Limelight heirs. For some reason we made news, and the paparazzi followed us practically everywhere we went—school, church, grocery stores…you name it, they were there. I couldn’t tell you how many times when I was a little girl that I got a mike shoved in my face or my braid pulled by a reporter to get my attention. It was…scary.

  “Things only got better when I went away to college. By the time I returned, the media interest was on someone else, thank goodness. But every once in a while someone tries to connect the dots to see what Sofia and I are up to. She doesn’t mind being in the spotlight and uses it to her advantage.”

  Ethan took in what she said. The thought of someone harassing a child to get a story angered him, and knowing the child had been Rachel angered him even more. It was interesting that he felt such protective instincts for her.

  A flicker of some sort of alarm flashed through his brain but he chose to ignore it. No matter what his mind thought, there was no way he would get in too deep with Rachel.

  Chapter 6

  Rachel stood by the window in her uncle’s study and gazed out at the ocean. The sun was going down and she enjoyed watching it. Just like she had enjoyed being on the set the past two weeks.

  Frasier and John were pleased with the tempo of the series. Ethan was working out perfectly as Dr. Perry, and the blossoming on-the-air love affair between the gruff doctor and the resistant Dr. Duncan had pretty much heated up. They had shot a love scene yesterday that had pushed the temperature on the set up as hot as it could get for prime-time programming.

  She could definitely say she was pleased with this assignment and looked forward to going into work each day. The more time she and Ethan spent together during filming, the more they talked and bonded as friends. She found him fun to be around, and the two of them would laugh together about some of the actresses’ hot pursuit of him. A few had tried some outlandish things to get his attention. Like the time Jasmine Crowder summoned him to her trailer to help rehang a photo that had fallen off the wall. Instead of going, Ethan had sent one of the cameramen, Omar Minton, in his place. Poor Oma
r had walked into the trailer to be met by a half-naked Jasmine draped across the sofa.

  That had been just one of many times during the past week that Ethan had had to foil seduction plots. Just the fact that he’d done so impressed Rachel, and she would be the first to admit that she was seeing him not as the superficial playboy she’d originally thought he was but as a focused, hardworking actor. That was another thing they had in common. They believed in professionalism on the job.

  “Lily said I’d probably find you in here.”

  Rachel turned at the sound of her uncle’s deep voice and smiled. Since she’d been only one year old when her parents had gotten killed, she didn’t have a solid memory of them the way Sofia did. But what she did remember was her aunt and uncle being there for them, raising her and Sofia as their own. Rachel appreciated having been part of a family in which she’d always known she was loved and always been encouraged to use her talents in whatever way she wanted to do.

  She’d learned from her aunt and uncle that her mother was a successful artist, and several of Vivian Wellesley’s paintings were on the walls in this house as well as in a number of art galleries across the country. Vivian had passed down her talent and love of painting; Rachel really enjoyed the time she spent putting color to canvas. She was definitely her mother’s daughter.

  And Sofia was definitely her father’s. She had stepped into the role of the savvy and successful businessman that he’d been. And because Sofia had been the only child for almost nine years, she had been the pride of her parents’ life and definitely the apple of her father’s eye. Sofia had worshipped the ground their father had walked on and was still doing that same thing even though their parents had been dead for twenty-five years. Sofia thought John Wellesley was the most amazing person to have ever lived.

  The man standing before Rachel was John’s identical twin.

  “Uncle Jacob,” Rachel greeted, crossing the room to give her uncle a hug. She’d seen pictures of the brothers from years past, and to see one was to see the other. That said, she knew if her father had lived he would have matured into a rather handsome man. And at fifty-five, her uncle was definitely that, with a charm and charisma that should be patented. Ethan had told her about the close relationship he had with his niece, and she had fully understood because such a relationship existed between her and her uncle.