All of her friends expected him to be their sugar daddy, and so did she. His own friends had disappeared long since. The women he went out with, and now Brianna, made their wives uncomfortable. Victor felt they were just jealous. It never occurred to him that they thought he was a fool, and Brianna unbearable. She never talked about anything but plastic surgery and the gossip she read in movie magazines. He wasn’t looking forward to an evening of hearing about which Hollywood couple had broken up, who was sleeping with or cheating on whom, and whose facelift or new breasts looked the best. But it was the life he had chosen for himself, high-stakes marriage with a gold digger half his age. He never thought about it that way, although her insatiable appetite for his money had begun to frighten him. None of his clients had ever met his wife, although Brigitte had run into him at a nightclub one night and told Tallie she looked terrifying. She would never have expected somber, sedate, mousy Victor Carson to be married to someone like her. And he had looked proud when he introduced her to Brigitte, which was even worse. Brigitte thought he should have been embarrassed to be seen with her. She was expensively dressed, but it didn’t help. The obvious designer labels and flashy diamond necklace and ring didn’t alter the fact that she looked like someone he had rented for the night, not invested in for a lifetime. To Brigitte, Brianna looked like a colossal mistake.
Brianna’s friends were already waiting for them at Mr. Chow when they arrived, and they had brought another couple with them whom Victor had never seen before. They ordered everything that appealed to them on the menu, two expensive bottles of wine, cocktails before that, and champagne with their dessert. Victor could feel his credit card straining when he paid the bill, but Brianna looked happy when they went home. She sank into a bubble bath and thanked him for a nice evening, and then she asked him when they were leaving for Europe.
“I haven’t made the reservations yet,” he told her honestly from her bathroom doorway. She had remodeled his apartment when she moved into it, which had also cost him a fortune, and she had a gigantic pink marble bathroom. “I just heard about a big audit I have to cooperate with for one of my clients. I don’t think I can get away until that’s been taken care of.” Otherwise he would delay the start of Tallie’s next movie or lose her investor, and he would lose an important client, which he could not afford to do, and he was too conscientious to do that anyway. Victor was meticulous about his work.
“Are you saying we’re not going?” She looked instantly suspicious.
“No, I’m just saying that I won’t know when for a few weeks. But we’ll go, I promise.”
She nodded, mollified for the moment, and he felt as though he’d gotten a momentary reprieve from the pressure she always put on him. And just as he was about to leave she announced that she wanted to redo their bedroom. It was a new idea, and yet another way for her to spend his money. “I heard about a new decorator I want to try. She did J-Lo’s bedroom,” Brianna announced with a determined look. Victor didn’t answer, he just quietly disappeared into his closet to undress and put on his pajamas. He sat on a stool he had in there, and thought about what lay ahead if he was going to try and keep Brianna with him, and he wanted to cry when he thought about it. Other than robbing a bank, or winning the lottery, he had no idea where to find the money to satisfy her. Her demands were getting bigger, and the funds he had left were dwindling day by day.
Chapter 4
HUNT CAME TO Palm Springs to stay with Tallie the day after. They spent a nice evening at the hotel, although Tallie finished late, but Hunt never minded. They lay out by the pool for a long time late that night and chatted. He told her that everything was in place for the audit to begin the following week, and then he asked her if she’d talked to Victor Carson.
“Not lately,” she answered. “I usually have Brig talk to him. She called him about the audit. Why?”
“Nothing. He sounds incredibly stressed about something. Maybe he’s insulted that we’re doing the audit. It’s a smart thing to do anyway.” Hunt was sensible and cautious about business, although he spent a considerable amount of money, but he could afford it.
“My father always said that too. He’s been bugging me to do one for years. He never trusts anyone. He was a lawyer for too long.” And then she remembered what Brigitte had told her about meeting Victor’s wife at the nightclub. “Apparently, he’s married to a real bimbo, half his age. Maybe she’s giving him trouble.” Hunt laughed when she said it.
“He doesn’t look the type. He looks so dull and respectable, I figured he’d be married to some nice conservative old lady.” He assumed Victor was older than he actually was. Tallie always had too. He looked ten years older than his age.
“Maybe that’s the one he left for this one. Sometimes guys go a little crazy at his age. Just warn me if you ever decide to dump me for a bimbo or a younger woman.”
“I’m not that old yet,” he said, smiling at her from a deck chair. “Besides, I love what I’ve got.”
“You never know,” she teased him. “Give it a few years, you might want some twenty-year-old bimbo too.”
“I hope not. If that ever happens, just shoot me. Besides, I can’t afford one.” He could, but he didn’t want to.
“Maybe he can’t either. Maybe that’s why he sounded stressed. I can never understand why guys do that. Someone half my age would just make me feel older.”
“Men think it makes them look young and virile, instead of old and foolish,” Hunt explained. It was a phenomenon they saw a lot in Hollywood, but Tallie had never known Hunt to lust over young women. He was totally focused on her, and devoted to her. She thought not being married kept their relationship alive and fresh, and that was how she intended to keep it, and Hunt had never objected. He didn’t want to get married again either. They shared that point of view.
He told her about the agents he’d talked to that day, about the potential stars of their next film. They had two locked in already, the biggest ones, and two who were almost sure. The last hurdle they had to get over was the audit, and they both knew it wouldn’t be a problem. Their finances were in good shape, and their last movie had made a fortune. The audit was just a formality to satisfy their investor, and not a concern to either of them.
After shooting the next day, Tallie had given the cast the weekend off, and she and Hunt drove to Santa Barbara. He had rented a beautiful house in Montecito for the weekend, and they were both looking forward to it. Brigitte went back to L.A., and Tallie was going to drive back up to Palm Springs with her on Monday morning. It was going to be a treat to have a weekend to relax and get away from the film. Tallie always got new ideas when she got a little distance from it. She would wake up in the middle of the night, and make notes on a pad she kept next to her bed. And this weekend was no different. But most of all, she and Hunt enjoyed each other’s company. They walked on the beach, slept late, and went out to dinner, and by the time they got back to L.A. on Sunday night, Tallie felt as though she’d had a vacation, not just a weekend.
She felt alive and fresh when she left for Palm Springs with Brigitte at four o’clock on Monday morning. She chatted with Brigitte all the way there and told her about the weekend. Brigitte said she’d had a couple of dates but didn’t volunteer with whom, and Tallie assumed they couldn’t have been important, or Brigitte would have said more about them.
And she reminded Brigitte to call Victor Carson a couple of times that week and see how the audit was going. She was expecting everything to go smoothly, and Brigitte assured her she’d do it.
Tallie and Hunt both had a busy week ahead, and he warned her that he didn’t think he’d be able to come to Palm Springs. She promised to come back to L.A. when she could, but she had a lot to do too. She didn’t want the location shoot to fall behind.
And by six o’clock that morning, Tallie was off and running, and she didn’t stop till midnight that night. The cast was utterly worn out by then, but Tallie was still going strong. Brigitte smiled as she watched her in action. There was no one in the world like her.
The independent audit got under way as planned. The firm that was doing it was based in San Francisco, and they were cool and businesslike when they went to Victor’s office, and asked for what they needed. They used his conference room to spread out Tallie’s books and accounts, and they had brought their own computers. There were two accountants, and they had brought two assistants with them. And they kept to themselves all week. Now and then they asked Victor for an explanation or some substantiation as they pored over her general ledger, and they offered very little comment. But Victor found it stressful anyway. He felt as though they were checking his work and
