Heartthrob (23 page)

“It would be great if it was something that’ll make you look like you come from Hollywood.”

Kate crossed her arms and lifted an eyebrow. “You want skintight silver sequins or cleavage?”

So much for his heart rate. And so much for his thinking he was finally starting to figure her out, too. “You have a dress that …” She’d made him so afraid of offending her, he couldn’t even say the word
cleavage.

“For a Hollywood-type party, absolutely.” She shrugged. “I guess I figure as long as people are going to stare, I might as well give them something to look at.”

“So wait a minute. Let me get this straight. It’s okay if hundreds of people check you out, but
I’m
not allowed to look?”

Kate nodded, suddenly completely serious. “It
is
a contradiction, isn’t it? I can’t explain it. I like dressing up. I even like having people look at me. Sometimes. I guess it’s the closest I come to acting these days. But when someone looks at me maliciously—”

“Whoa. I was never being malicious.”

She made a face. “Bad word choice. I mean …” She shook her head. “I’m not sure there’s a word for what I mean. But when a man looks at a woman’s body with the intention of trying to intimidate, or somehow put her in her place, to imply she’s nothing more than a pair of breasts, even if it’s not intentional—”

“The other night—I wasn’t trying to intimidate you.”

“Weren’t you?” Her eyes were such a heavenly shade of blue.

It would’ve been like trying to lie to God. “At one point I was, yeah,” he admitted. “But most of the time I was just … I don’t know. Fantasizing? If I was implying anything, it was that I really like what I see when I look at you.”

“My body,” she said quietly. “There’s more to me than my body, Jed. And if you don’t stop staring at my breasts, you might never see that.”

She turned away, as if assuming he would be unable to come up with a rebuttal to that. She was right. “I’m going to go pack,” she continued. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll meet you back here in fifteen minutes, okay?”

If he wasn’t speechless before, he was now. She was leaving him alone? Unguarded? For fifteen whole minutes?

It was stupid how happy that made him. So she trusted him to stay out of trouble for fifteen lousy minutes. Big friggin’ deal.

But it was.

It was a very big deal.

Jed turned away, afraid he was going to do something
really
stupid, like burst into tears.

He made himself frown, made himself remember Kate O’Laughlin was the woman who had forced him to sign away his freedom for a part in her movie. He should be feeling angry that she didn’t trust him for more than fifteen minutes on his own. He should be mad as hell that she treated him like a troublesome child, telling him not to go anywhere. Where the hell did she think he’d go? Across the street to the bar?

Jed let himself get good and angry.

Anger was far more familiar than happiness. It was easier to push down and negate.

Happiness scared him to death.

Kate fastened her seat belt as the jet started its approach into Montgomery.

She couldn’t believe she was here, hundreds of miles from the action, with only her cell phone and her laptop to connect her to her multimillion-dollar movie. She’d never been particularly good at delegating, and even though Annie had reassured her that the world would continue to
spin even if Kate weren’t available to orchestrate the sunrise and sunset, she had her doubts.

It wouldn’t be so bad if she’d been able to get a return flight to South Carolina at eleven
P.M.
, or even midnight. But the next available flight wasn’t until tomorrow morning. It wouldn’t get them back into Grady Falls until mid-afternoon at the earliest and—

“Kate.”

She looked up from her view of the clouds outside of the aircraft and into Jed’s gorgeous hazel eyes.

“I’ve been wondering. Why did you come back, you know, to Hollywood? If there ever was a place where people are judged by their looks, it’s in this business.”

“Why did
you
come back?” she countered.

He looked past her, out the window, at the tops of the clouds. “Because all I’ve ever wanted to do was act. It’s something I need to do.” His eyes shifted, and he met her gaze for the briefest of instants before looking away. “I feel safe when I get inside a character. I don’t have to worry about …”

He was speaking so softly, she leaned forward to hear him. “What?”

He glanced at her and smiled. “No fair. I asked about you.”

“You don’t have to worry about what?”

“I’ll tell you, if you tell me what happened to you in eighth grade.”

This time, the clouds outside the window caught
her
attention.

Jed laughed softly. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. So why did you come back? You were making a fortune selling paper clips.”

“That’s exactly why. I was making a fortune selling
paper clips
,” Kate told him. “I wanted to do something creative—to make a movie. If I couldn’t be in front of the cameras, I wanted to be behind them. With the money
from the stores, I finally had a chance. Of course, if
The Promise
fails, I’ll be out a lot of cash. So I’ll go back, focus on The Supply Closet stores for a few years—until I get the funds I need to get back into the game again.”

He tried to stretch out his legs, but they were flying coach, and there wasn’t enough room. “It just seems funny to me that you’d want to be involved in a business that’s so exploitative. Didn’t it bother you to have to dress up and, well, virtually sell yourself to raise money to fund your project?”

A man across the aisle had been saving a little bottle of whiskey for the descent. He opened it carefully now, and poured it into a plastic cup. Jed was trying not to watch.

What would he do if someone handed him a glass? He’d told her he’d gone into a bar while filming
Mean Time
, held a shot of whiskey to his nose, but didn’t drink. How many times could he do that before his willpower crumbled?

He turned and looked at her now, waiting for her response to his question. She wondered if he even knew that for several long seconds, his complete focus had been on that whiskey across the aisle.

“It did bother me,” she answered him. “It does bother me. You know, every time someone new comes onto the set, they come into the production office, and I have to watch them look at my name and my title of coproducer on the office door, and then look at me. I know their first impression is that I’m some kind of bimbo. They think I’m there only because I’m Victor Strauss’s ex-wife, and that I couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the actual production of this movie. If Victor’s not around, they go to Annie to get their questions answered because she looks more like what a smart professional woman should look like—at least in their miserable, narrow-minded perception. But don’t think I didn’t run into that while I was
acting CEO of The Supply Closet. It’s not a stereotype that’s confined solely to Hollywood, believe me.”

Kate snorted. “Show me the scientific studies that prove that a woman’s IQ is directly disproportionate to her bra size. It’s only a myth, but it’s one we’re all guilty of perpetuating. God knows I’ve done it myself—I’ve used the ‘little ol’ me’ strategy to catch a business opponent off guard, to fool them into thinking I was harmless.”

She looked directly into his eyes. “Tell me honestly. When we first met, was your initial thought ‘Wow, I bet she’s a card-carrying member of Mensa,’ or ‘Wow, I bet she’d look great jumping topless out of a cake?’ ”

Jed laughed. “How can I possibly answer that?”

“Honestly,” she replied. “But you don’t need to answer, I already know.”

He nodded. “Cake.” He held her gaze, and for several long, dizzying moments, she was unable to look away. “I’m guilty,” he admitted. “And I’m really sorry.”

“I forgive you,” she whispered. “Do you forgive me for doing whatever I could to protect my movie?”

He leaned toward her, and for one heart-stopping moment, she was certain he was going to kiss her. “Cut my leash, and I’ll forget it ever happened.”

Once again, she was trapped by his gaze. “I’m sorry, Jed, I can’t do that.”

“Sure you can. If you wanted to, you could.”

“Maybe,” she said. “But I don’t want to.”

He looked away, but not before she saw a flare of anger in his eyes. As she watched, he glanced again at the now-empty cup of the man sitting across the aisle.

“You didn’t actually think I’d say yes, did you?” she asked.

“Yeah, I guess maybe I did,” he told her. “I mean, now that you’re starting to know me …”

But she didn’t know him at all. She knew only what he
wanted her to know. She knew that while he’d successfully fought his urge to drink for five years, his hold on his addiction was tenuous at best. And slipping fast.

She was scared of him, but mostly scared
for
him.

No way in hell would she trust him on his own.

“I guess then I need to ask you a favor,” he said. He cleared his throat. “See, I haven’t exactly made the stipulations of my contract public knowledge, and I’d prefer it if people didn’t find out about the round-the-clock supervision thing.” He took a deep breath. “I was hoping you could help me save face tonight, and pretend to be my … well, girlfriend, I guess. Significant other. Lover. Whatever you want to call it. I mean, why else would you have come along, right?”

Kate stared at him.

“Please? Just do me a favor and pretend you like me.”

He actually looked as if he were afraid she’d turn him down. With uncertainty glinting in his eyes, he looked so much like Laramie.

“All right,” she found herself telling him.

His smile of relief was genuine.

At least she thought it was genuine.

He was, however, the best actor she’d ever met in her life.

Jericho didn’t need clothes to make him attractive. Kate knew that firsthand. But the sight of Jericho Beaumont in a tuxedo was undeniably breathtaking.

The tux was a rental, but despite that, it looked as if five tailors had slaved for hours to fit it exactly to Jericho’s precise measurements.

He wore his long, dark hair slicked back into a ponytail, and because of that, he looked almost stern. Except when he smiled. Which he was doing quite often. In fact, he was smiling almost continuously down into her eyes as he held her close, out on the dance floor.

It was like being in the middle of an A-list Hollywood movie.

Kate could barely even remember what David and his wife Alison looked like. Traffic had been heavy, and the limo they’d taken from the airport to the Stern’s suburban house had been delayed. There’d been little time to do more than say hello before Kate had been shown to a guest room to change into her evening clothes.

Alison was a pretty blonde. David was short and thin—pure energy in human form. His hair was dark—at least she thought it was. And he hadn’t stood still long enough for her to see the color of his eyes behind his glasses.

They’d taken the same limo to the hotel where the dinner was being held, and Kate knew she’d made small talk with her host and hostess, but she couldn’t remember what the conversation had been about, or what she’d said.

All she knew was that from the moment she’d stepped out of the guest room dressed in what she called her “mermaid” dress, all she was aware of was the glint of heat in Jericho’s eyes.

She’d gone with sequins, not cleavage, but her dress was no less sexy despite that. Silver and glittery, the neckline may have been cut just above her collarbone, but nothing about it was conservative. The sequin-covered fabric was stretchy, and the sleeveless dress fit like a second skin, molding itself to her breasts, leaving very little to the imagination. It hugged her body all the way down past her knees, flaunting her figure, and then tapering out slightly at the bottom, reminiscent of a mermaid’s tail.

It was absolutely nothing like the starched-shirt suit she’d worn when Jericho had first come to her office. And back then—had it only been just a few weeks ago?—she never would have believed it possible if someone had told her she’d be wearing her mermaid dress tonight—and actually enjoying the appreciation in Jericho’s green eyes.

More than enjoying.

She was hopeless. Just a few days ago, she’d lit into him for looking at her. Tonight, she wanted him to look. Something had changed. Or maybe it was because the look in his eyes wasn’t predatory. He wasn’t trying to intimidate. On the contrary.

“Thank you for doing this,” he said as the band finished its song.

Kate knew exactly what he was talking about. The fact that she was pretending to be involved with him. Pretending to be his
lover.
Touching his arm, brushing her lips across his cheek, giving him long, lingering looks …

Go ahead, a voice in her head taunted. Say what you’re thinking. Say,
it’s completely my pleasure.
“It’s been awhile since I’ve had an opportunity to do any acting,” she murmured instead.

Yeah, right. Deny that you are enjoying this, five hundred percent. Deny that the sensation of this man’s arms around you while you dance isn’t quite possibly the nicest thing you’ve ever felt in your entire life. Deny that you’re not getting off on your own little fantasy here, pretending that this man isn’t Jericho, but rather Virgil Laramie and—

Kate tried to shut down the noisy little voice in her head as Jericho took his arms from around her and they both applauded the swing band.

“All the men are looking at me and wondering what I did to get you to come here with me.” His eyes crinkled at the edges as he smiled. “What they don’t know, huh?”

“Just think about how they’d be looking at you if I were Bob Hollander.”

He laughed as the band kicked into another song—a slow, romantic version of “Harlem Nocturne”—and Kate tried desperately not to want his arms around her again.

“Are you thirsty?” he asked. “You know, it’s okay with me if you want to have a real drink. I mean, alcohol. Wine. A martini. I don’t know—whatever you like.”

She had to laugh at that. “You don’t really think I drink martinis?”