Exposing Alix (3 page)

“And the film?” she asked cautiously.

“
Salva’s Revenge
is about a woman who believes her
brother has been involved in an international money-laundering ring. She’s got
to unravel the clues to find out what’s really going on and at the same time
throw a bulldog detective off the trail. She starts out using her body to
distract him, but along the way, she falls in love.”

Alix nodded, trying to remain calm for the sake of the
hundred thousand dollars that now dangled over Ryker’s head. “So it’s a love
story?”

He grimaced. “It’s an action movie. There’s a romantic
aspect, but it’s secondary. The real conflict is between Salva and her brother,
and later, between the brother and the cop.”

“You don’t like love stories, I gather?”

“Love is one of the most basic elements of storytelling. I
couldn’t make movies if I didn’t appreciate that. But all this nonsense about
romance and true love? Stories that are nothing more than fairy tales,
masquerading as real life? No, I don’t have much patience for that sort of
thing.”

Alix cocked her head and then looked away. His disgust was
palpable. She studied the picture in her hands, knowing he probably thought it
was pornography. He wouldn’t understand what she was really trying to capture.
What was expressed in the eyes of the people making love. “So what you’re
saying is that you’re making a movie that’s a love story, but you don’t believe
in love?”

He grinned, the quick smile transforming his face. “I
don’t believe in aliens either, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make a movie
about them.”

Ryker stared into Alix’s
sunglasses, wishing he could see her eyes, get some hint as to the direction of
her thoughts. She frowned, turning away from his gaze to the picture she still
held in her hands.

He glanced back at the photograph, which she immediately
tipped protectively toward her body. Her fingers were fine-boned and slender,
her wrists narrow. Had he called her a Labrador? He studied her body,
remembering the slim backside pointed his direction outside the house. Perhaps
he had underestimated what lay beneath the surface of Alix Z.

She threw the picture down on the table. Ryker resisted
the urge to grab it from the haphazard pile in which it had landed. Something
about the black-and-white image had been burned into his retina. The scene was
captivating, the movement and emotion leaping off the paper. In the moment he
had held the photo, he felt the pleasure of the scene, knew those people were as
comfortable with each other’s bodies as they were with their own. The woman’s
eyes were heavy-lidded, her lip caught ever so slightly between her teeth. The
man’s hands rested at her hips, fingers splayed across her flesh.

Who was Alix Z that she could take something most people
couldn’t talk about, much less watch, and make it so unforgettable? Neither of
the people in the photograph were exceptionally attractive, but their
imperfections only enhanced the scene. They were as far from Hollywood as he
could imagine, and yet the image was a hundred times more sensual than anything
he’d seen in LA.

Even if he didn’t believe in the emotion, he couldn’t
argue with the visceral impact of her work. Or the fact that his groin
tightened just from looking at it.

“So, do we have a deal?”

She did not meet his eye, straightening a pile of pictures
into a neat stack. He looked back at the table’s surface and realized there
were hundreds, literally hundreds of pictures like the one he had picked up.
They were all of the same couple, making love in a number of different
positions. And they all radiated lust, heat, and a palpable sense of pleasure.
He leaned over, unable to stop himself from taking a closer look.

Alix threw out an arm, brushing him across the chest. “I
think it’s time for you to leave.”

He straightened, surprised at the sudden lurch of desire
that the brief moment of contact had elicited. What was
wrong
with him?
He shook his head, suddenly unable to tear his gaze from the woman standing
only a foot away.

“Ryker?”

He swallowed, paralyzed. At that moment, Alix’s hair
caught a hint of sunlight, and something brown and simple transformed into a
sparkling display of red and gold.

She had the most extraordinary scent, he realized, earthy
and spicy, like sandalwood and salt water.

It made him want to lick her neck. Taste the lightly
tanned flesh almost entirely hidden by her bulky clothes.

Unbidden, his hand came out and gently removed the glasses
from her face. “It’s hard to talk to someone when you can’t see their eyes,” he
said.

She froze. He felt her jaw tremble as he touched her
cheek. Then the glasses came off, and he caught his breath.

She was extraordinary. Round green eyes and dark lashes,
winged eyebrows that reflected the stubborn determination he’d seen in her
earlier. Her face was a classic oval, the full lips he’d been watching in
perfect proportion to her high cheekbones and smooth forehead.

He needed to kiss her. It was absurd, likely the
combination of a long day, a lot of frustration, and the undeniably exciting
pile of pictures on the table beside her. Whatever the reason, the urge was
overwhelming.

And Ryker had never been the sort to deny his urges.

#

As the Adonis in her living room leaned forward, giving
every indication of intending to plant his movie-star lips on hers, Alix shook
herself from her reverie and took a quick step back. She didn’t care how
beautiful he was, how warm and inviting his skin, how sensual the scent of him.
Right now, he was just another hot-to-trot guy who had gotten turned on by her
pictures. In a flash, Rex had jumped to his feet and inserted himself between
them. Gently, he bumped his nose against Ryker’s knee.

The famous black eyes shuttered, and Ryker took a quick
step back. His hands came up as he shook his head and chuckled, though the
sound was a little forced. “Easy, Rex. No need to raise the alarm. I’m not
going to touch her.”

Alix spun around, needing a moment without his image
dominating her gaze. She focused on the rag rug by the front door, and the
weathered wooden bench that held her collection of newspapers and bottles
waiting to be recycled on her next trip to Florence. She took a breath. She
could handle Ryker Valentine. She’d known plenty of men like him. He thought, because
of her movies, that she’d be an easy lay. He wasn’t interested in the real
Alix, and she wasn’t interested in the real Ryker.

If there was a real Ryker.

“Rex doesn’t like it when people come too close,” Alix
said, trying to sound casual. Flippant. She picked up her iced tea from the
coffee table and took a sip, glaring at her hand until it stopped shaking. He
was going to think she was one of his sex-starved groupies. She turned back to
face him.

“Does Rex’s mistress feel the same?” he asked.

“That’s a bit personal, don’t you think?”

His eyes mocked her, seemingly unconcerned that he’d just
tried to kiss her and she’d refused. “You know how tight things get on a movie
set. If we’re going to work together, we might as well start getting to know
each other now, while we aren’t surrounded by fifty other people having
simultaneous crises of epic proportions.”

He walked over to the thick oak mantel that surrounded the
hearth and picked up a five-by-seven print in a pewter frame. As he studied the
picture—Alix graduating with her MFA, flanked on either side by Gunther
and Elias Laboznikov, her thesis advisor—Ryker’s gaze flicked back and
forth between her and the photo. Alix wanted to cross her arms over her chest
to protect it from his prying eyes. Even with her bulky clothes, she felt
exposed, somehow vulnerable.

Could he tell she wasn’t wearing a bra?

“Graduation? You and Gunther must be pretty close, then.”

“I’ve known him for some time,” she said tightly.

He waited for a moment, as if expecting her to say something
more. When she did not, he continued, “And the other man—Laboznikov,
right? I’ve heard he can be a real prick.”

The last was said almost admiringly. “He’s tough,” she
admitted. “But an incredible teacher. I learned a lot from him. Now I don’t
mean to be rude, but all this ‘getting to know you’ seems a bit premature. I
haven’t decided yet if I’ll help you.”

“Oh, you will,” he said, still looking at the picture.
“Remember? I had you at ‘Labrador.’”

An unwilling smile teased the edges of her mouth. “I told
Gunther I wouldn’t give you an answer until I’d called him.”

“I’ll let you make that call, then.” He looked around.
“You do have a phone, don’t you?”

Alix grabbed a pad and a pencil from a drawer in the
kitchen and handed it to him, careful to ensure that their hands did not meet.
“Why don’t you write down your number for me. I’ll let you know when I’ve made
a decision.”

#

Ryker Valentine left as unexpectedly as he had arrived,
without protest or further conversation. As soon as his car—if it could be
called that—disappeared from sight, Alix collapsed into her favorite
armchair and cradled Rex’s head between her palms. She smoothed the soft skin
between his eyes.

“I don’t have much choice, do I?”

He whined and leaned his ninety-pound frame against her.
Golden eyes looked up adoringly. “You’re a really good faker, you know that?
You looked downright fierce.”

She’d adopted Rex while filming her last movie. She’d been
living alone in a small one-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica. It was far
enough from the studio that she was able to get some mental distance from the
work she was doing, but the long commute led to a lot of late nights, when she
felt nervous coming home alone, not knowing what waited inside. Her movies had
attracted considerable attention, and though she’d managed to avoid most of it,
it only took one nut job to change a person’s life forever. Besides that, on
the rare occasion that she
had
tried to date anyone, Rex had given her
comfort that things would never go further than she wanted.

Rex had been abandoned and looked fierce enough to deter
most families from considering him—certainly anyone with small children.
But the SPCA volunteers had assured her that he was not nearly as aggressive as
he appeared. They speculated that Rex had been abandoned because he was
too
nice.

“You could have bitten Ryker,” she said. “That would have
been fine with me.”

She was the one who deserved the bite. For a second, she
had actually contemplated letting him kiss her.

Groaning, she stood and extracted her cell from the pocket
of her raincoat before pulling it off. She punched a familiar number into the
phone and waited.

“Alix?”

“Gunther, you bastard, what were you thinking?”

He laughed. “I was thinking that I want the Oscar this
time. Ryker needs a little help, and I can’t think of anyone better for the
job.”

“I hate LA. I told you I never wanted to live there
again,” she said flatly.

“I know you
say
you don’t like LA, but be serious.
Everyone likes LA. It’s simply absurd to pretend otherwise.”

Gunther Hartcourt had come to America when he was in his
forties, a restless millionaire who owned three newspapers, a fashion magazine,
and a designer clothing line. He also dabbled in hundreds of other small,
artistic ventures, including funding a number of art galleries. He lived in New
York for several years, working in theater and photography, but at the same
time, he became fascinated by Hollywood and its unique mix of art, money, and
politics. His uncanny sense of style, not to mention a driving ambition to
bring the stories he loved to life, led him to try his hand at producing, which
he found to be a perfect match for his ability to adapt his personality to his
audience. Directors found him charismatic and determined. Studio executives
called him shrewd and calculating. Agents and actors found him charming to a
fault.

To Alix, he was simply the closest thing to a father she’d
ever known.

“And I don’t want to make more movies.” She put her hand
over her eyes. Lame. She already sounded lame, and they’d just begun to fight.

“Yes, yes, I know,” he said. “You’ve been telling me that
for years. It’s a terrible waste of an extraordinary talent, but I’ve accepted
there’s nothing I can do about it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t
work
on a little movie, does it?”

Alix heaved herself off the couch and walked to the
kitchen table, where she began absently flipping through the closest stack of
pictures. “I need to finish my book, Gunther. I need time, uninterrupted time
to pull everything together. I’m close now. Really close. Maybe just one or two
more couples and I’m there. I can’t go running off right when I’m so close to
the end.”

His voice was patient, long-suffering. “Alix, let’s have a
little reality check, all right? You’ve been working on that book for three
years. You’ve got thousands of photographs and have done sessions with at least
twenty couples. You’ve been telling me that you need one more session for
almost a year now.”

Alix set down the pictures and closed her eyes as she
dragged the elastic from her hair. She tried not to focus directly on his words
as she shook her head and redid her loose ponytail. “But this time it’s true.”

“You’re on the verge of bankruptcy. You can’t keep taking
pictures and spending money on a darkroom without bringing anything in. You’ve
said you won’t accept a gift from me, let alone another loan. So this isn’t
rocket science. Take the job,
liebling
. You need the money, and you need
to get out of that house.”

Her heart sank. “Is this a pity job, Gunther? If it is,
I’m not interested.”

He sighed. “Unfortunately, no. I like Ryker a lot. He’s a
good man, and over the past couple of years, he’s become a friend as well. But
when it comes to women, he’s a cold bastard. You saw
Garden of Eden
,
didn’t you? Tell the truth now; I won’t let it go to his head.”