What I Did for Love

shoestring, another plus.”

Peters was a great director, but Georgie couldn’t imagine him being willing to work with unreliable Bram Shepard. “Is Hank interested or committed?”

“Interested in committing. And I have a leading man to play Danny Grimes. That’s part of the deal.”

Grimes was a fabulously multidimensional character, and it didn’t surprise her that lots of actors would be interested. “Who did you get?”

He twisted off the bottle cap. “Who do you think?”

She stared at him, then groaned. “Oh, no…You’re not.”

“A couple of acting lessons…I’ll be able to handle it.”

“You can’t play a part like that. Grimes is a complex character. He’s conflicted, tortured…You’d be laughed out of town. No wonder you can’t get financing.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He took a slug of water.

“Have you really thought this through? Successful producers need a reputation for something other than gross unreliability. And the way you’re insisting on playing the lead…Not smart.”

“I can do it.”

His intensity unsettled her. The Bram she knew only cared about pleasure. She considered the possibility that she didn’t understand him as well as she thought, and not just because of his interest in Tree House…She hadn’t seen any signs of drug abuse, and he spent hours every day in his office. He’d even gotten rid of his old, disreputable friends, which was odd for a guy who’d hated being alone. Alcohol and pathological arrogance seemed to be his last vices.

“I’m going for a swim.” He disappeared toward the pool.

She went to her room to change into shorts and a tank. If the screenplay was as good as he said, everyone in town had to be waiting for his option to expire so they could pounce on the project themselves. The leading role would go to the male Flavor of the Month instead of the actor best equipped to handle the part, which in any case wouldn’t be Bram. He’d handled Skip Scofield brilliantly, but he didn’t have the skills or the depth to tackle anything more emotionally intricate, witness the lightweight roles he’d taken on since then.

As she was slipping into her most comfortable pair of sandals, her head shot up. “Bastard!”

She charged downstairs and across the veranda to the pool, where he was swimming laps. “You jerk! There isn’t any Skip and Scooter reunion movie! That was a smoke screen you threw up to hide what you were really doing.”

“I told you there was no reunion movie.” He dove under.

“But you made me think there was,” she said the instant he resurfaced. “This stupid fake marriage…My money was just a bonus, wasn’t it? Tree House is the real reason you agreed to cooperate. You couldn’t afford to be the second man in recent history to break sweet Georgie York’s heart. Not when you need the honchos to believe you’ve turned into a solid citizen so they’ll take you seriously.”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

“I have a problem being misled,” she said.

“It’s me you’re dealing with. What did you expect?”

She stalked across the pool deck as he swam toward the waterfall. “If people believe my respectability has rubbed off on you, you’ve gone a long way toward improving your chances of getting your movie made, now haven’t you?”

“You shouldn’t call the sacred bonds of holy matrimony ‘stupid.’”

“What sacred bonds? The only reason you’re finally telling me the truth is because you want to get in my panties.”

“I’m a guy, so sue me.”

“Don’t speak to me ever again. For the rest of your life.” She stalked away.

“Fine by me,” he called after her. “Unless you’re planning to say dirty words, I don’t like a woman who talks too much in bed.”

The phone he’d left by the side of the pool rang. He swam to the edge and grabbed it. She stopped to listen in.

“Scott…How’s it going? Yeah, it’s been crazy…” He switched to the other ear and climbed the ladder. “I don’t want to say too much on the phone, but I have something I know you’ll be interested in. Let’s meet at the Mandarin tomorrow afternoon for a drink so we can talk about it.” He frowned. “Friday morning? Okay, I’ll shift a couple of things around. Hey, I need to let you go. I’m late for a meeting.”

He flipped his phone shut and grabbed a towel. She tapped her toe. “Late for a meeting?”

“It’s L.A. Always be first to end the call.”

“I’ll remember that. And you’re not getting another penny from me.”

Instead of returning to the house, she stomped out to his office. The idea of Bram being willing to work at anything unsettled her. But at least his disclosure about the screenplay had given her something to think about other than whatever metaphysical part she’d played in the loss of Lance’s baby.

She ripped open the manuscript box that was supposed to contain the Skip and Scooter reunion script and tilted out a neat stack of porno magazines with a blue Post-it note on top. the real thing is so much better.

As Bram headed up to his workout room, he wondered what stupid-ass weakness had made him tell Georgie about Tree House. But she’d looked so frickin’ tragic when she’d heard about Lance and Jade’s baby-that overdeveloped sense of responsibility popping up again-and somehow he’d let the truth slip out only to immediately regret it. Failure already hung over him like a mushroom cloud. With the odds stacked so high against him, the fewer people who knew how much Tree House meant to him, the better. That especially applied to Georgie, who couldn’t wait for him to fail.

He didn’t bother changing out of his wet trunks but went right to his workout room. A ballet barre had appeared a couple of days ago. One more invasion of his private space. What would he do with his life if Tree House slipped away from him? Go back to guest roles as vapid playboys? The idea turned his stomach.

He put on an Usher CD and eyed the elliptical machine with distaste. He wanted to be outside, free to run for miles in the hills like he used to, but thanks to his Vegas misadventure, he was trapped.

At least he had the room to himself. Watching Georgie go through her stretching routine had become torturous. She tied up her hair before she worked out, so that even the nape of her neck became an erogenous zone. Then there was the sexy extension of those long legs. It said something about his life that getting down and dirty with Little Orphan Annie had gone to the top of his thrill list.

But he couldn’t dismiss her as easily as she dismissed herself. She had an unconscious sex appeal that trumped big tits and phony posturing. Nobody was going to catch Georgie York flashing her goody bits in public.

Or in private…Something he was growing increasingly intent on changing. She might hate his guts, but she definitely liked the packaging they came in. Georgie didn’t know it yet, but her days of wasting away over the Loser were coming to an end.

Who said he only cared about himself? Liberating Georgie York had become his civic duty.

Chapter 12

Two more days passed. Georgie was in the kitchen, trying to figure out how to make one of Chaz’s delicious smoothies, when she heard a noise coming from the front of the house. Seconds later, Meg Koranda exploded into the room like a frisky young greyhound who’d been kicked out of obedience school so many times her owners had given up trying to train her. In this case, her owners were her adoring parents, screen legend Jake Koranda and Fleur Savagar Koranda, the Glitter Baby, a woman who’d once been America’s most famous cover girl and who was now the powerful head of the country’s most exclusive talent agency.

Meg hurled herself at Georgie, bringing the smell of incense with her. “Ohmygod, Georgie! I only heard the news when I called home two days ago, and I took the first plane out. I was at this fabulous ashram-totally isolated from the world-I even got head lice! But it was so worth it. Mom says you’ve lost your mind.”