behaved much better. It was the kind of men she met in the film business. She liked the fact that Hunt was honest, true, and solid. He wasn’t as exciting as the other guys in some ways, but she wasn’t looking for excitement, she wanted a man she could love and trust. Otherwise, why bother? She had come to that conclusion a long time ago, and had learned it the hard way, after being burned too many times. He was essentially and profoundly a kind man. He mentioned to her before he hung up that everything had gone fine when he took her father for his tests, although he thought he was looking a little thin.
“I know. His housekeeper says he doesn’t eat enough,” Tallie said, sounding worried.
“I should go over and cook for him sometime,” he said thoughtfully.
“As though you have nothing else to do,” she said.
“I can make time. I love your dad, he’s a great guy. We had a good time today. I think he was a little nervous before we went. I told him all my new jokes, and he was fine by the time we got there.”
“Thank you for doing that,” she said, genuinely touched. These were the things that made her love Hunt, and there were a lot of them. He was an extremely thoughtful person, and he had always been equally good to Max. The two of them got along very well. Max had been fourteen when Tallie started dating him, and after a little initial resistance, she had relaxed. And by the time Hunt moved in a year later, it seemed like a natural evolution to all of them, even Tallie’s father, who was a little more old-fashioned about things like that. He called Hunt his “son in love.”
Tallie settled in at the hotel in Palm Springs that night. She was happy that things were going well on the film. None of the usual nightmares had happened, like problems with insurance, investors, actors who got sick or tried to break their contracts, hated each other, or got injured on the set. Those things didn’t happen to her often, but when they did, it was a mess. Tallie always tried to avoid problems by hiring actors with reputations for being reliable, and getting all the kinks in their contracts worked out beforehand. Hunt was brilliant at handling those details, which was why their joint productions were such a success. She loved working with him. He was the best producer she’d ever had. And Tallie drove herself hard, was tireless in her efforts to get the best performance possible out of each actor, and the best writers and scripts she could. She deserved the remarkable reputation she had.
And she was content relaxing at the hotel that night. She and Brigitte went for a swim at the pool, and Brigitte had arranged for a massage for Tallie in her room, which Tallie said afterward was heavenly. She suggested Brigitte get one too, which was a perk Brigitte thoroughly enjoyed. The lifestyle that Brigitte shared with Tallie, and benefited from because of her, suited her to perfection. Thanks to Tallie, she led a star’s life.
Victor Carson was staring at a mountain of papers, files, and spreadsheets on his desk. He had been Tallie’s financial adviser for fifteen years, and other than the details Brigitte handled, his firm did all the accounting for her. And when Brigitte called to tell him about the audit for the investor, he almost groaned aloud. It was a headache he just didn’t need. His life was complicated enough as it was. His own problems were precluding everything else. He didn’t know why they were requiring an independent audit. All he needed were a bunch of hostile auditors taking all his records and files apart and demanding explanations for them. Tallie’s affairs were in good order, but an audit would be incredibly time-consuming, even with someone else doing it, and possibly more so, if he had to explain everything to them. Normally, he and Brigitte handled everything and it was smooth as silk. He just didn’t have the time to spend on this, but there was no way he could say that to Hunt or Tallie. He was having personal problems, although he would never have admitted it to them. He now handled Hunt’s taxes as well as Brigitte’s. But right now, he had his hands full at home.
Women had always been Victor’s nemesis. His first wife had cost him a fortune in alimony and a settlement twenty years before when she discovered that he had a mistress, a beautiful Italian model. He left his wife for her and married her. He had had two children with his first wife, and had twins with the second. Two years later she adapted to the American ways he had taught her, left him for someone much younger than he was, and took him to the cleaners. She’d eventually gone to Paris, married someone there, and he hadn’t seen his twin daughters in eighteen years. They were strangers to him, and he had been paying child support for them until that year. Fortunately his two older children were now adults and employed, and their mother had remarried, but for several years he had been supporting two ex-wives and four children.
And more recently, some bad investments made by his own financial adviser had lost him a considerable amount of money. He took far better care of his clients than he did of his own affairs. And at sixty-two, he had fallen madly in love with a young aspiring actress, and married her after a sexually charged weekend in Las Vegas. He had promised to use all his connections in Hollywood to help launch her career, which had turned out to be not as easy as he’d thought. As it turned out, Brianna had no talent, her screen tests had been a disaster, and the only work she’d been able to get was as a bathing suit model at trade shows, which was not what she’d had in mind.
Victor had just turned sixty-five, Brianna was twenty-nine and threatening to divorce him if he didn’t make good on his promises to establish her career in either movies or TV. She was great in bed, but not on the screen. And she hadn’t slept with him in six months anyway. She spent all her time getting plastic surgery, shopping up and down Rodeo Drive, and demanding money from him. She had threatened to leave him only the week before, and he didn’t want her to. As impossible as she was, she was a breath of excitement and glamour in his otherwise dull life and he was crazy about her. She seemed like the perfect trophy wife to him. He loved going out with her on his arm, and watching other men look at him with envy, or so he thought. Anyone who had spent an evening with her would have pitied him instead. But he was besotted and didn’t want to lose her, whatever it took. And the truth was, with his recent financial losses, he couldn’t afford her anymore, and he didn’t want her to know. He could barely cover her shopping habit. She was constantly angry at him and demanding things, or trying to improve on body parts she had already had altered before. She had had her first set of implants redone, a tummy tuck, a buttock lift, and recently had liposuction on her thighs. But whatever it took to keep her, he was willing to pay the price. It was cheaper than alimony and a settlement. But he didn’t know where to get the money from anymore. He felt like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat.
He was much too busy juggling his own money to want to spend time on Tallie’s audit, which would be time- consuming. He had just promised to take Brianna to Europe, and if he reneged on that now, he was sure she’d leave him. She wanted to go to Brazil to check out a plastic surgeon there. His life had been a descent into hell for the past three years, and losing a large amount of money recently was putting his life and marriage at risk. There was no question in his mind that if Brianna knew, she’d leave him. Flat. His children would be happy if she did, but Victor would be devastated.
He left his office at eight o’clock that night and went home. Brianna was waiting for him, and the result of her day’s catch was still in shopping bags near the front door. He winced when he saw the familiar names. Dolce and Gabbana, Roberto Cavalli, Neiman’s, and Chanel. It was a full-time job for her, and as far as she was concerned, the only reason to be married to a man his age. Victor Carson was not an exciting man, and he looked older than his age. He wasn’t attractive, and Brianna was only interested in what he could do for her. He always meant to diet but never got around to it, and had never been to a gym in his life. And he had lost his hair in his early thirties. But he adored his beautiful young wife and was totally dazzled by her. Other men longed for expensive cars, or large blocks of real estate, or dreamed of success. All Victor ever wanted was a beautiful young woman in his bed. It had cost him two marriages and some very heavy debts so far, and he was well on his way to the same fate again. Unless he won the lottery, there was no way Brianna was going to stay with him.
“You’re late,” she said petulantly when he walked in.
“I had a lot to do today,” mostly trying to figure out how to pay her bills, but the upcoming audit for Tallie had caused him additional work. He had to get his assistants working on organizing her files.
“I want to go out to dinner,” she pouted at him. She had had her lips modeled on Angelina Jolie’s and had a fearsome pout.
He didn’t want to tell her he was exhausted and wanted a quiet evening at home. “Where did you have in mind?” He never denied her anything, and now wasn’t the time to start.
“Mr. Chow,” she said with a gleam in her eye. She loved seeing the stars who went there, and the paparazzi gathered outside. It was loud, trendy, expensive, and the food was very good. It was definitely the place to be and to be seen.
“All right. I’ll call and see if we can get a reservation,” he said quietly.
“I already did,” she said with a broad smile. “We have to be there in ten minutes. I invited Carla and John to join us.” They were her friends, not his, ordered the most expensive things on any menu, and fancy wines, and never reached for the check. And they were her age.
