What I Did for Love

He dropped his black bag on the chair. “You’re not my personal trainer, either.”

“Did you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

She thought she was making progress. He let her fix him lunch now, and he’d stopped bringing junk food with him because he knew she’d find it and toss it out. It had only been three weeks, but she was pretty sure his gut was starting to shrink. “Laps for half an hour before you can go home tonight. I mean it.”

“You might think about working on yourself for a while instead of other people.” He heaved himself into his chair at the computer. “Taking care of your personality disorder for one thing.”

“I like my personality disorder. It keeps the creeps away.” She smirked. “Although right now that doesn’t seem to be working too well.” Aaron wasn’t really a creep. He was a decent guy, and she secretly admired how smart he was. But he was totally clueless. And lonely. If he’d only do what she said, she thought she could fix him up enough so he could get a girl. Not anybody hot, but somebody smart like he was.

“Lunch is at twelve-thirty,” she said. “Be on time.” As she turned to go back downstairs, she saw Georgie standing in the office doorway, filming the whole thing with her video camera.

Chaz slammed her hands on her hips. “That’s illegal, you know. Filming people without their permission.”

Georgie kept her eye glued to the camera. “Get a lawyer.”

Chaz stomped into the hallway and headed for the back stairs. Georgie was the last person she wanted to talk to right now. Yesterday, when Georgie got home with Bram, they’d both been acting weird. Georgie had beard-burn on her neck, and she wouldn’t look at Bram, who kept smiling at her in this kind of smart-ass way. Chaz didn’t know what was going on with them. They thought she hadn’t figured out they’d been sleeping in separate rooms-like Georgie knew how to make a bed so it looked halfway decent. So what had happened yesterday?

Chaz thought about how much money she could make if she went to the tabloids and told them about the famous newlyweds and their separate beds. Maybe she’d do it, too, if it would only hurt Georgie. But she wouldn’t hurt Bram.

Georgie trailed her down the back stairs. “Why do you give Aaron such a hard time?”

Chaz could have asked a few questions of her own, like why Georgie gave Bram such a hard time, and what had happened yesterday, and why Georgie had still slept in her own bed last night? But she’d learned to keep what she knew to herself until she had a reason to use it.

“I’ve got a better question,” Chaz said. “Why haven’t you tried to help Aaron? He’s a mess. He can hardly walk upstairs without practically having a heart attack.”

“And you like to clean up messes.”

“So what?” This whole camera thing was weird. She didn’t know why Georgie kept filming her or why Chaz didn’t just refuse to talk. But every time Georgie came after her with that camera, Chaz found herself blabbing away. It was like…like talking about herself to the camera somehow made her important. Like her life was special, and she had something worth saying.

They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Georgie followed her into the kitchen. “Tell me what happened after you left Barstow.”

“I told you. I came to L.A. and found a place to stay off Sunset.”

“You hardly had any money. How did you make rent?”

“I got a job. What do you think?”

“What kind of job?”

“I have to pee.” She headed toward the small bathroom off the kitchen. “Are you going to follow me in here, too?” She shut the door and locked it. Nobody would ever make her talk about what happened when she got to L.A. Nobody.

When she came out, Georgie had disappeared and Bram was finishing a phone call. She picked up a dishcloth and wiped the counter. “Tell Georgie to stop following me around with that camera,” she said as he hung up.

“It’s hard to tell Georgie anything.” He pulled the iced tea pitcher from the refrigerator.

“What’s with her anyway? Why does she keep doing it?”

“Who knows? A couple of days ago I saw her filming the women who clean the house. She was talking to them in Spanish.”

Chaz wouldn’t admit it, but she didn’t like the idea of Georgie filming anybody but her. “Good. Maybe she won’t bother me so much.”

Bram fingered his cell phone. “Have you done it yet?”

She opened the dishwasher and stuck in the glasses from breakfast. “I’m thinking about it.”

“Chaz, there’s a big world out there. You can’t hide here forever.”

“I’m not hiding! Now do you mind? People are coming to dinner tomorrow night, and I have a lot of things to do.”

He shook his head. “Sometimes I don’t think I did you a favor by giving you a job.”

He was wrong. He’d done her the biggest favor of her life, and she’d never forget it.

That afternoon, as Georgie got dressed for the paps, she kept asking herself why sex with a bad boy was so much more thrilling than getting it on with a decent guy. Even if that decent guy had left her for another woman. So why had she made herself sleep alone last night? Because yesterday had been too good. Too much fun. Too deliciously debauched. So mindless and uncomplicated she wasn’t ready to spoil it with real life. She’d also wanted Bram to understand she hadn’t turned into a pushover just because that had been the most thrilling sexual escapade of her life. But shutting him out had taken all her willpower, and she didn’t like the knowing look he’d given her when she’d said she was sleeping alone.

They left the house for a midmorning coffee run and photo op. She decided the best way to restore a sense of normalcy was to pick a fight. “Stop humming.” She scowled at him across the passenger seat. “You only think you can carry a tune.”

“What’s eating you? Not me, unfortunately.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Hey, what happened to your famous sense of humor?”

“You.”

“I guess that’d do it.” He started humming a few bars of “It’s the Hard-knock Life” just to provoke her. “You were a lot friendlier yesterday afternoon. A lot.”

“That was lust, pal. I was using you.”

“And doing a damn fine job of it.”

She didn’t like the way he refused to join her in the fight she needed to have with him. “You shouldn’t have said you remembered what happened that night in Vegas when you really didn’t.”

“Process of elimination. I guarantee that one of us passed out before the deed was done, because if we’d finished up, I’d have remembered.”

For once, she was inclined to believe him.

The paps surrounded them when they emerged from The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Georgie thought about the zillions of photos she’d seen of celebs carrying either coffee cups or water bottles. Since when had dehydration become an occupational hazard of fame?

“Right here! Look here!”

“Any plans for the weekend?”

“Are you guys still solid?”

“Like a rock.” Bram tightened his arm around her waist and whispered, “If you were really as tough as you pretend to be, you wouldn’t have run off to your nice safe bed last night.”

She beamed up at him. “I told you. I got my period.”

He beamed down at her. “And I told you I didn’t give a damn.”

Lance had given a damn. He’d been nice about it, but sex with a menstruating woman wasn’t his thing. Not that she’d really gotten her period.

“Obviously I haven’t made myself clear,” she whispered, playing the role of the female sexual predator as shutters clicked around them. “You passed your audition yesterday at Provocative. From now on, your only function is to service me. When and where I want it. And I don’t want it right now.”

Liar. She wanted it all right, and she wanted it with him. Yesterday’s experience had been so incredible specifically because she’d been with gorgeous, useless, depraved Bram Shepard. Sex didn’t mean anything more to