All About Evie

by Beth Ciotta

  I opened the bathroom door and leaned against the doorjamb, feeling foolish and confused.

  Arch sat at the desk, his callus-free fingers attacking the keyboard of a laptop. My first thought was that he was writing me out of the script. My second thought was that he looked nearly as sexy wearing sweats and a baggy T-shirt as he did wearing a towel. Nearly.

  “You held my hand when we hit that bad patch of turbulence. You engaged me in a game of movie trivia to distract me from getting sick.” His knowledge of the classics floored me. Michael used to disappear when I indulged in any film dated pre-Technicolor. I cleared my throat, tucked my hair behind one ear. “Thank you for being so understanding.”

  “Thank you for not hurling on me.”

  “So am I, you know, fired?”

  “For what?”

  “For getting wasted on the job.”

  “This job requires an actress who can convincingly play the role of Sugar Dupont whenever in public,” he said, typing and talking at the same time. How did he do that? “You followed my cues and stayed in character even though you were pissed. That’s bloody impressive, yeah?”

  I blushed at the compliment. “Well, thank you. Except, I wasn’t angry.”

  He glanced at me over his shoulder.

  “Wait. Don’t tell me. Across the pond, pissed is slang for trashed. Heard it in a movie.” I shifted my weight, angled my head. “So what are you? Scottish? British? Irish?”

  “Aye.” He pushed out of his chair. “Are you hungry?”

  I blinked at the swift change of subject. Plus, I wasn’t clear on his answer to my question. Maybe he was a little of all three. Aye was Scottish, right? But pissed…wasn’t that a Brit thing? Yet at other times I caught a twinge of a “Danny Boy” lilt.

  I glanced around the generic hotel room. “Where are we, anyway?” Surely I would’ve remembered boarding a honking-big cruise ship. Granted, I’d been looped—I’m one of those people who gets fog-brained on cold medicine—but not that looped.

  “An airport hotel. Tomorrow morning we’ll cab over to the cruise port, board the ship. That’s when the real work begins.” He snatched a room service menu from a side table, gave it a three-second glance, then passed it to me. “It’s half-past eight and I haven’t eaten since morning.”

  Come to think of it, neither had I. “I could stand a little something.” Like a big, juicy cheeseburger and a plate of fries smothered in brown gravy. I settled on a mixed salad and bottled water with lemon. After seeing Arch’s body, I was more than a little self-conscious about my soft spots. Tomorrow I might even do aerobics. Gag.

  He shifted back to his laptop, closed the file he’d been working in and shut down. “You want a sandwich with that salad?”

  Yes. “No.”

  “Hung over?”

  No. “Yes.” Sort of. Mostly, I wanted to tone up overnight. Like that was going to happen. But, hey, that’s what I do. Dream. Imagine. Pretend. According to my mom, my free spirit was at the root of all my problems. If I’d gone to college like my brother, I would have had a teaching degree to fall back on. Instead, I was looking at life as a gorilla.

  “Why dinnae you shower?” Arch said as he moved toward the phone. “Change into something comfortable?”

  “As in skimpy?” The notion appalled and intrigued me. Talk about confused.

  His lips twitched. “Would you be comfortable eating dinner and going over your character profile in your bra and panties?”

  “Are you asking Sugar or me?”

  “You.”

  “Then, no.”

  “Didnae think so.”

  His cocky grin liquefied my bones. Wow. Instead of melting into a puddle, I dropped to my knees and popped the latches of Big Red.

  Arch chuckled and reached for the phone. It chimed, which was weird since he was calling out. He replaced the receiver and snagged a cell phone off the desk. “Yeah?”

  He really needed to work on his greetings.

  “Are you mental?” He jammed a hand through his damp waves. “Bugger off, mate. It’s too late.”

  I tried not to listen. Okay. That’s a lie. My curiosity kept me from discreetly escaping into the bathroom. I dawdled over my suitcase, located my toiletry bag and picked through my loungewear.

  “Why dinnae we leave it up to Evie?”

  I froze at the sound of my name, looked up just as Arch reached down and handed me his phone.

  My skin sizzled from his touch, brief though it was. Without a word he settled on the bed, kicked back—ankles crossed, hands behind his head. Like me, I guess he intended to eavesdrop.

  Heart pounding, I sat back on my heels, pressed the cell to my ear. “Yeah?” Lame greeting. An Arch greeting. But the best I could manage since I didn’t know who was on the other end of the line.

  “Do not get on that ship with Arch.”

  Michael. “Why not?”

  “I made a mistake, hon. Come home.”

  My stomach knotted. I broke into a clammy sweat. Don’t puke. Don’t puke. Was he talking about Sasha? Suddenly, after a year of hootchy-kootchy with Miss January of the Beach Hut Babe calendar, he wanted to reunite with me? Insane hope surged through my blood. “What are you saying?”

  “You’re not up to this job.”

  Good thing I was sitting, otherwise, my knees would’ve buckled. I clenched my jaw, cursed the dreamer in me and willed my heart to keep beating. “Why not?”

  “For one you get seasick.”

  “I have Dramamine.” I wish I had a pill to cure me of you.

  “I don’t trust Arch.”

  “I don’t trust you. But we still work together. Sort of.”

  Dead air.

  He was probably trying to formulate an excuse for my lack of bookings without targeting my age. Somehow I resisted the urge to launch Arch’s phone against the wall.

  “I wasn’t thinking straight when I booked you on this,” he finally said. “I was in a hurry and you were…”

  “Desperate?”

  “Yes, dammit.” He sighed. “Come home, Evie. I just got a call from Dooley’s. They’re looking for someone to host karaoke on Tuesday nights.”

  “Pass.”

  “Something else will come up.”

  “Something already did.” I scooped up my toiletry bag and a change of clothes, forced myself to my feet. “I’ll see you in eight days, Michael.”

  He lowered his voice, and I had to wonder if Sasha was within earshot. “I don’t want you to get hurt, hon.”

  “Like Arch said…too late.” I thumbed off the power, calmly placed the phone on the desk. I headed for the bathroom without looking at the man my ex didn’t trust. I didn’t want to consider why. My brain was already reeling. “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  “I’ll order room service.”

  I waited until I was in the shower, hot water pounding, before I gave in to tears.

  CHAPTER SIX

  LIFE WAS CRUEL.

  I watched Arch inhale a deluxe burger and fries while I picked at my salad. I didn’t even like salad. He also swilled beer while I sipped calorie-free, flavor-free water.

  The waiter had forgotten my wedge of lemon.

  “Do you always eat like that?” I asked.

  He aimed a ketchup-drenched fry at my boring rabbit food. “Do you?”

  “I’m watching my weight.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re kidding. Are you or are you not in entertainment?”

  “I’m a man,” he said by way of an answer. “Men like curves.” He chewed the fry, swilled more beer. “Let’s go over it one more time, yeah?”

  Considering my generous hips, I think he just complimented me, but I couldn’t be sure, and I wasn’t going to ask. Bad boy was all business now. Michael’s call had dampened his playful mood. I wasn’t happy about the call, either, although I felt better since the cry in the shower. I couldn’t wash away the hurt, but I did manage to rejuvenate my body. Swapping Sugar’s tight clothes for
drawstring pants and an oversize Betty Boop T-shirt also helped. Ah, comfort.

  I’d taken longer in the bathroom than I’d intended, but no way, no how was I going to face Mr. Manly Man on our first night together sans beauty products.

  After drying my hair, I slathered my skin with French Vanilla lotion then applied mascara and sheer pink lip balm. Anything more would have been ridiculous considering we were going to turn in after dinner.

  “Would it help if I gave you the written profile?” Arch asked, offering me a sheet of paper from his notebook. “Gave you more time to absorb? I know it’s a bit of information.”

  I ignored the profile, stabbed a tomato wishing it were a meatball. Michael would have ordered me the burger without asking. Even though the salad held the appeal of grass, I decided it was kind of nice being in the company of a man who didn’t know me any better than I knew him. I decided now was a good time to dazzle Arch with one of my special skills.

  “My name is Sugar Louise Dupont, maiden name Jones. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.” Something he’d revised since I’d adopted the accent on my own. “I’m a singer. Was a singer. A Vegas lounge lizard to be exact.” Another revision since I was too short to be a showgirl. “I bounced from stage to stage, man to man, looking for the perfect fit.” I batted my lashes. “Then I met you. It was love at first sight, well, for you, anyway. No wonder. You had a front-row seat at the midnight show as I performed “Fever” in a skintight gown—red—cut down to my navel and slit up to my thigh.”

  I ignored his knee-melting grin and plowed on. “You sent a bottle of champagne backstage. Attached was a romantic note. An original poem that won my heart. I adored you before we even met. Later that night you took me out to dinner, swept me off my acrylic stilettos. One week later we were married in Gabriel’s Chapel of Love. All told we’ve only known each other for one month, hence we’re still learning the details of one another’s lives. Convenient,” I said, ditching the tomato for a cucumber. “In case you screw up.”

  Arch leaned forward, picked at the label of his bottle. “I willnae screw up.”

  “Neither will I.” I leaned in, as well. “I’m a quick study.”

  “So I’ve noticed.”

  “My improvisational skills rock.”

  “Witnessed that on the plane, yeah?”

  The plane. “About that. I just want you to know, I’m not much of a drinker.”

  “I gathered.”

  “I mean, I’m not a lush. I’ve just had…It’s been a rough…day.”

  “Want to talk aboot it?”

  “No, thanks.” I nibbled on a cucumber.

  He took a long pull of his beer, settled back in his chair. “Right then. Tell me aboot Charles Dupont.”

  Every now and then I was ultraconscious of his accent and I found myself smiling because, gosh, it was sexy. About sounded like aboot and will not came out willnae. We won’t talk about what his tongue did to Rs. A nimble tongue like that could probably—well, we won’t go there.

  He quirked a brow as if to say, what’s the holdup? I didn’t want to explain that I was aroused by his accent. So, I repeated everything he’d told me, down to the year his first wife died and the names of his deceased pets and estranged children. Not that I was trying to impress him.

  Well, yeah, I guess I was.

  He lived on an estate in Connecticut—Charles, not Arch. Came from old money. I, Sugar, didn’t know where it originated exactly, only that he had tons of it. Yup, Charlie was loaded. He was also a writer. Published under a pseudonym. Unlike Sugar, the man shunned the spotlight.

  He also shunned women his own age.

  He’d sprained his ankle, hence the cane, after tripping while chasing me around the room in the midst of playful sex.

  Too bad that was only part of the profile. Sounds like fun.

  Arch leaned back in his chair, considered me with those lightning eyes.

  Zap.

  Yeah, boy, I felt that. Interest.

  “You’re good.”

  “Thanks.” If those casino execs would’ve paid attention when I’d delivered that copy, they, too, might have been impressed with my memory skills. It felt good to be appreciated. “You’re not so bad yourself.” It wasn’t my style to gloat—even though I was sort of needy in the compliment department just now—so I turned the attention on him. Besides, I truly was impressed with Arch Reece the Actor. “When I first saw you, I thought you were, like, I don’t know, sixty.”

  “Prosthetics.”

  “I get that, and I’m in awe. I’ve never explored anything outside of traditional theatrical makeup. But it’s more than that. Your body language, the costume. You came off like a foppish tycoon with the hots for a brainless bimbo. Just like in Some Like It Hot. Although, Tony Curtis?” I snorted. “Try Truman Capote.”

  Actually, he’d more closely resembled a bespectacled Sean Connery, post-James Bond. Like Arch, Connery possessed a timeless charisma. No way was I confessing a bad case of thigh-sweats for either man.

  One side of his mouth kicked up. “If you recall, I did say Curtis with a twist, yeah?”

  “Yeah.” That was another thing about his accent. Three-quarters of his statements sounded like questions, even when he didn’t finish with his signature, yeah? I remember I used to think the same thing about the dude in The Highlander TV series. Why does everything sound like a question, and why do I find that so sexy? Of course, the whole package was sexy…like Arch.

  Zing. Zap.

  I squeezed my legs together. Best not to think about Arch’s package.

  “By the way,” I added, while pushing aside my salad, “if this weren’t a slapstick murder mystery, I’d be totally offended by Sugar’s stereotypical personality. I know lots of casino lounge singers—hello, I’m one—and none of them—” I paused “—well, ninety-eight percent of them are not brainless bimbos.”

  “If you remember, Sugar was originally a showgirl, and who said anything aboot a murder mystery?”

  I opened my mouth to defend dancers who just happened to be comfortable wearing pasties on their nips and balancing extravagant headpieces on their pretty noggins, but I got sidetracked by that murder mystery part. “I just assumed, I mean, we are acting in an interactive production of some sort, right?”

  “Is that what Stone told you?”

  “No. He said that I’d be playing a ditzy character and that I needed to participate in passenger activities.”

  “That’s the sum of it.”

  “There’s no show?”

  “It’s more of an illusion.”

  “Like magic?”

  “Like smoke and mirrors.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “For the greater good.”

  What did that mean? “Is there a production manager, director, someone in charge?”

  He spread his hands wide. “You’re looking at him, love.”

  “You’re the whole enchilada? Cast, crew, management?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  I didn’t know. I’d heard of a one-man or-woman show, but those generally took place in a theater. I thought back to something he’d said earlier today. The world is our stage. I guess he meant that literally. Needing to work off the anxiety sparking along my spine, I pushed away from our makeshift dining table, stood and paced. “Can you be more specific about our purpose? That greater good thing?”

  “No.”

  Huh. Well, okay, this was just weird.

  He shifted in his seat, rested his forearms on his thighs. His sleeves rode up and I got another glimpse of those defined biceps. That Celtic tattoo sensitized my body like foreplay. Tribal. Hot. Yowza.

  “Here’s the deal, Evie. I need you to play Sugar, my attentive wife. I need you to be the life of the party, yeah? A social butterfly. I want you to have a fantastic time on the ship.”

  “Do I look like I just fell off of a turnip truck?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I stopped in front
of him, hands on hips. “You’re paying me a lot of money to have fun?”

  “I’m paying you to create a unique deception.”

  My pulse fluttered at the word deception. “Is it illegal?”

  “No.” He looked me dead in the eye, his expression serene as a monk. “We good?”

  It took me a second to catch my breath. Those eyes of his were…I don’t know. Mesmerizing, I guess. They made you want to say yes, to anything. This guy was flipping dangerous.

  So, why wasn’t I backing away?

  “Just so I have this straight. The goal is to deceive someone. Someone bad, I guess, since we’re doing this for the greater good. That would also explain Michael’s mention of risk. That bad person, I guess he’s dangerous.”

  So much for serene. The flash of annoyance was brief, but I caught it before he broke eye contact and nabbed the beer bottle. “You’re safe with me.”

  I believed him. It wasn’t the fact that he looked as though he could pound the hell out of “The Rock,” it was more the sense that he could talk himself out of a pact with the devil.

  Oh, yeah, I was curious about this man. I was curious about a lot of things, but he’d made it clear that we were operating on a need-to-know basis. And, hey now, there was a thought—maybe the less I knew, the better off I’d be.

  “Michael doesn’t think I’m up for this job,” I said more to myself than Arch.

  He stood, putting us toe-to-toe and warping my brain cells with a heady dose of machismo. “What do you think?”

  I peered up at him, wet my lips. “I think I love a challenge.”

  He grinned. “My kind of girl.”

  Blood thundered in my ears like a rocker’s bass drum—louder, harder. Oh, crap, my heart was going to pull an Alien and burst through my chest. Wouldn’t that be lovely?

  I waited for him to touch me. My hair was in my eyes. Why didn’t he reach up and tuck those rebel locks behind my ears like they do in romance novels? Yes, I read them—what’s not to like about happily-ever-afters? Someday, I fully expected mine.

  Arch was not following the script in my head, so I revised it. I brushed my own hair out of my eyes, held his gaze. Talk about a challenge. “I’m crazy about you. Can’t keep my hands off of you.”