Genuine Lies (14 page)

“Must you always have a hand on me?” she asked under her breath.

“No.” But he didn’t remove it. “Now, tell me, whom would you like to meet?”

Since temper didn’t make a dent, she tried ice. “There’s no reason for you to entertain me. I’ll be perfectly fine on my own.”

“Eve would have my hide if I left you alone.” He steered her through the laughter and conversation. “Particularly since she’s decided to try her hand at heating up a romance.”

Julia nearly choked on frothy champagne. “Excuse me?”

“You must realize she’s got it into her head that if she throws us together often enough, we’ll stick.”

Julia looked up, inclined her head. “Isn’t it a shame we have to disappoint her.”

“Yes, it would be a shame.”

It was obvious his intentions clashed with Julia’s. She saw the challenge in his eyes, felt the sudden charge in the air. And hadn’t a clue how to respond to either. He continued to smile as his gaze lowered to her mouth, lingered there, the look as physical as a kiss.

“I wonder what would happen—” A hand clamped Paul’s shoulder.

“Paul. Son of a bitch, how’d they manage to drag you out here?”

“Victor.” Paul’s smile warmed as he grasped Victor Flannigan’s hand. “It just took a couple of beautiful women.”

“It always does.” He turned to Julia. “And this is one of them.”

“Julia Summers, Victor Flannigan.”

“I recognized you.” Victor took Julia’s offered hand. “You’re working with Eve.”

“Yes.” She remembered clearly the devotion, the intimacy she’d witnessed in the moonlit garden. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Flannigan. I’ve admired your work tremendously.”

“That’s a relief, especially if I manage a footnote in Eve’s biography.”

“How is Muriel?” Paul asked, referring to Victor’s wife.

“A bit under the weather. I’m stag tonight.” He held up a glass full of clear liquid and sighed. “Club soda and I tell you, these affairs are hell to get through without a couple of belts. What do you think of the gathering, Miss Summers?”

“It’s too soon to tell.”

“Diplomatic.” Eve had told him as much. “I’ll ask you again in a couple of hours. Christ knows what they’ll serve. Too much to hope it’ll be steak and potatoes. Can’t stand that damn French stuff.” He caught the understanding glint in Julia’s eyes and grinned. “You can take the peasant out of Ireland, but you can’t take the Irish out of the peasant.” He winked at Julia. “I’ll be by to claim a dance.”

“I’d be delighted.”

“Impressions?” Paul asked when Victor wandered off.

“So often an actor seems smaller offscreen. He only seems bigger. At the same time, I think I’d feel comfortable sitting in front of a fire with him playing canasta.”

“You have excellent powers of observation.” He put a finger on the side of her jaw to move her face to his. “And you’ve stopped being angry.”

“No, I haven’t. I’m saving it.”

He laughed and this time swung a friendly arm around her shoulder. “Christ, Jules, I’m beginning to like you. Let’s find our table. Maybe we’ll eat before ten.”

“Goddammit, Drake, I detest being nagged.” Eve’s voice was impatient as she took her seat at the table, but her face was placid. She didn’t choose to have the rumormongers muttering over the fact that she was sniping with her press agent.

“I wouldn’t have to nag if you’d give me a straight answer.” Unlike his aunt, Drake was no actor and scowled into his drink. “How am I supposed to promote something when you won’t give me anything to go on?”

“There’s nothing to promote at this point.” She lifted a hand in salute to familiar faces at an adjoining table and shot a smile at Nina, who was laughing with a group in the center of the room. “In any case, if people know what’s going to be in the book, there won’t be any anticipation—or sweaty palms.” Just thinking of it made her smile, and mean it. “Concentrate on pumping up this project I’m doing for television.”

“The miniseries.”

She winced at the word—she couldn’t help it. “Just spread the news that Eve Benedict is doing a television
event”
“It’s my job to—”

“To do as I tell you,” she finished. “Keep that in mind.” Impatient, she finished off her champagne. “Get me another glass.”

With an effort, he controlled a flurry of sharp words. He, too, knew the value of public image. Just as he knew the killing edge of Eve’s temper. Seething, he rose, then spotted Julia and Paul crossing the ballroom. Julia, he thought, and his eyes cleared of resentment. He would get the information Delrickio had requested. She was the source he could tap.

“Ah, here you are.” Eve lifted both hands. Julia took them, felt the slight tug and realized she was expected to lean over and kiss Eve’s cheek. Feeling more than a little foolish,
she complied. “And Paul.” Well aware curious eyes had turned their way, Eve repeated the ceremony with her former stepson. “What a staggering couple you two make.” She shot a glance over her shoulder. “Drake, make sure we all have more champagne.”

Glancing up, Julia caught the tightening of his lips, the quick and lethal glint in his eye. Then it was replaced by a dazzling smile. “Nice to see you, Paul. Julia, you look lovely. Just hang on while I play waiter.”

“You do look lovely,” Eve said. “Has Paul been introducing you around?”

“I didn’t see much need for it.” Settling back, Paul scanned the room. “Once they see she’s sitting with you, they’ll figure it out and introduce themselves.”

He was exactly right. Before Drake returned with the wine, people began to trickle over. All through dinner, Eve sat like a queen granting audience as other luminaries table-hopped, always making their way to her throne. As crème brulée was served, a thin-haired, amazingly fat man waddled over.

Anthony Kincade, Eve’s second husband, had not weathered well. In the past two decades he had put on so much weight that he resembled an unsteady mountain crammed into a tux. Each wheezing breath caused an avalanche of flab to jiggle over his stomach. The journey across the room had turned his face the bright pink of a two-day sunburn. Jowls waggled, and his trio of chins swayed in tandem.

He’d gone from being a husky, literate director of major films to an obese, weedling director of minor ones. Most of his wealth had been amassed in the fifties and sixties in real estate. Lazy at heart, he was content to sit on his comfortable portfolio and eat.

Just looking at him made Eve shudder to think she’d been married to him for five years. “Tony.”

“Eve.” He leaned heavily on her chair, waiting for air to fight its way into his lungs. “What’s this crap I hear about a book?”

“I don’t know, Tony. You tell me.” She remembered what fine eyes he’d once had. Now they were buried under layers of flesh. His hand pressed on the back of her chair—a thick meat patty with five stubby sausages. Once those hands had been big and bruising and demanding. They had known and enjoyed every inch of her body. “You know Paul and Drake.” She reached for a cigarette to coat some of the bile in her throat with smoke. “And this is Julia Summers, my biographer.”

He turned. “Be careful what you write.” With his breath back, his voice had a hint of the full-throated power of his youth. “I for one have enough money and enough lawyers to keep you in court for the rest of your life.”

“Don’t threaten the girl, Tony,” Eve said mildly. It didn’t surprise her that Nina had come to the table to stand silently at her other side, ready to protect. “It’s rude. And remember”— she deliberately aimed a stream of smoke toward his face— “Julia can’t write what I don’t tell her.”

He clamped a hand on Eve’s shoulder, hard enough to have Paul starting out of his chair before Eve waved him down again. “Dangerous ground, Eve.” Kincade sucked in another spoonful of air. “You’re too old to take risks.”

“I’m too old not to take them,” she corrected him. “Relax, Tony, I don’t intend for Julia to write a word that isn’t the sterling truth.” Though she was quite sure her shoulder would ache in the morning, she lifted her glass. “A good dose of honesty never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it.”

“Truth or lies,” he murmured. “It’s a long-standing tradition to kill the messenger.” With that, he left them, weaving his way through the crowd.

“Are you all right?” Nina murmured. Though she kept a placid smile on her face as she leaned over, Julia could see the concern in her eyes.

“Of course. Jesus, what a disgusting slug.” Eve tossed back champagne and grimaced at her crème brulée. The visit had ruined her appetite. “Hard to believe that thirty years ago he was a vital, interesting man.” A glance at Julia made her laugh. “My dear child, I can see those literary wheels turning.

We’ll talk about Tony,” she promised, patting Julia’s hand. “Very soon.”

The wheels were turning. Julia sat silently through the after-dinner talks, the comedy act, the glossy production number. Anthony Kincade hadn’t been annoyed by the possibility that Eve would reveal their private marital secrets. He’d been furious. And threatening. And there was little doubt in her mind that his reaction had pleased Eve enormously.

The reactions of the men at the table had been just as telling. Paul had been ready to haul Kincade off by his flabby nape. The man’s age and health would have made no difference. The flash of violence had been very real and very shocking when it had sprung from a man sipping champagne from a tulip glass and wearing a tux.

Drake had watched, taking in every detail. And he had smiled. Julia had the impression that he would have continued to sit, continued to smile if Kincade had wrapped his beefy fingers around Eve’s throat.

“You’re thinking too much.”

Julia blinked, then focused on Paul. “What?”

“You’re thinking too much,” he repeated. “We’ll dance.” Rising, he pulled her to her feet. “I’ve been told when I’ve got my arms around a woman she finds it hard to think at all.”

“How did you manage to tuck that ego in your tux without it showing?”

He joined other couples on the dance floor, then gathered Julia close. “Practice. Years of practice.” He smiled down at her, pleased by the way she fit into his arms, excited by the fact that the dress dipped in the back, low enough so he could slide his hand up and touch her flesh. “You take yourself too seriously.” She had the loveliest jaw, he thought. Very firm, slightly pointed. If they had been alone, he would have given himself the pleasure of taking a couple of gentle nips at it. “When you’re living in fantasyland, you should go with the flow.”

There was no dignified way she could tell him to stop skimming those fingers over her back. There was certainly no safe way to admit what the sensation was doing to the inside of
her body. Like tiny electric currents, they set off a charge that had her blood sizzling.

She knew what it was to want. And she didn’t choose to want again.

“Why do you stay here?” she asked. “You could write anywhere.”

“Habit.” He glanced over her shoulder toward their table. “Eve,” When she started to speak again, he shook his head. “More questions. I must not be doing this right, because you’re still thinking.” His solution was to draw her closer so that she was forced to turn her head to avoid his mouth. “You remind me of taking tea on the terrace of an estate in the English countryside. Devon, I think.”

“Why?”

“Your scent.” His lips teased her ear and sent out shock waves. “Erotic, ethereal, cunningly romantic.”

“Imagination,” she murmured, but her eyes were drifting closed. “I’m none of those things.”

“Right. A hardworking single parent with a practical bent. Why did you study poetry at Brown?”

“Because I enjoyed it.” She caught herself before her fingers could tangle in the tips of his hair. “Poetry is very structured.”

“Imagery, emotion, and romance.” He drew back far enough to look at her, close enough that she could see her reflection captured in his eyes. “You’re a fraud, Jules. A complex, fascinating fraud.”

Before she could think of a response, Drake strolled up and tapped Paul’s shoulder. “You don’t mind sharing the wealth, do you?”

“Yes, I do.” But he backed off.

“How are you settling in?” Drake asked as he picked up the rhythm of the dance.

“Fine.” She felt an immediate sense of relief and wondered that she could have forgotten how different one man’s arms could be from another.

“Eve tells me you’re making considerable progress. She’s had an amazing life.”

“Yes, putting it on paper will be a challenge.” He moved her gracefully across the floor, smiling and nodding at acquaintances. “What angle are you shooting for?” “Angle?”

“Everyone has an angle.”

She was sure he did, but merely tilted her head. “Biographies are pretty straightforward.”

“The tone, then. Are you going for a year-by-year foray into the life a star?”

“It’s early to say, but I think I’ll be taking the obvious approach, writing about the life of a woman who chose a demanding career and made herself a success, a lasting success. The fact that Eve is still a major force in the industry after nearly fifty years speaks for itself.”

“So you’ll concentrate on the professional end.”

“No.” He was digging, she realized, carefully but deep. “Her professional and personal lives are interlinked. Her relationships, marriage, family, are all vital to the whole. I’ll need not only Eve’s memories, but documented facts, opinions, anecdotes from people she was or is close to.”

A different tact, he decided. “You see, Julia, I have a problem. If you could keep me abreast of the book, the content, as you went along, I’d be able to plan the press releases, the hype, and promotion.” He offered her a smile. “We all want the book to be a hit.”

“Naturally. I’m afraid there’s little I can tell you.”

“But you will cooperate as the book takes shape?”

“As much as possible.”

She dismissed the conversation as the night wore on. There was still enough starry-eyed girl inside Julia to be rattled when she was asked by Victor to dance, and by other of the flesh-and-blood counterparts to the shadows that flickered on movie screens.

There were dozens of impressions and observations she wanted to write down before the evening faded to a dream. Sleepy, more relaxed than she’d thought possible, she slipped back into Paul’s car at two A.M.