'The one that called you a willowy, titian-haired gypsy with smoky eyes?'
'It's not funny, Parks.' Brooke shoved the paper aside.
'It's not tragic, either,' he pointed out. 'They should mind their own business.'
Leaning back, Parks nibbled on a fry. 'You'd probably be the first to tell me that being in the public eye makes you public property.'
Brooke scowled at that, knowing they were precisely her words when they'd discussed the poster deal. 'You're in the public eye,' she countered. 'It's the way you make your living. I don't. I work behind the camera, and I have a right to my privacy.'
'Ever heard of guilty by association?' He smiled before she could retort. Instead of a curt remark, she let out a long sigh. 'At least they're accurate,' he added. 'I've often thought of you as a gypsy myself.' Brooke picked up her cheeseburger, frowned, then bit into it. 'I still don't like it,' she muttered. 'I think…' She shrugged, not certain how foolish she was going to sound. 'I've always been a little overly sensitive about my privacy, and now…what's happening between us is too important for me to want to share with anyone who has fifty cents for a paper.' Parks leaned forward again and took her hand. 'That's nice,' he said softly. 'That's very nice.'
The tone of his voice had fresh emotion rising in her. 'I don't want to hole up like a couple of hermits, Parks, but I don't want every move we make to be on the evening news, either.'
With a bit more nonchalance than he was feeling at the moment, he shrugged and began to eat again.
'Romance is news… So's divorce, when it involves public people.'
'It's not going to ease up with the de Marco campaign, either, or if you decide to take that part in the film.' She took another French fry out of its paper scoop and glared at it. ''The hotter you are, the more the press will buzz around. It's maddening.'
'I could break my contract,' he suggested. 'Don't be ridiculous.'
'There's another solution,' he considered, watching Brooke swallow the French fry and reach for another. ''What?'
'We could get married. Want some salt for those?'
Brooke stared at him, then found she had to search for her voice. ''What did you say?''
'I asked if you wanted some salt.' Parks offered her a tiny paper packet. 'No?' he said when she neither answered nor moved. 'I also said we could get married.'
'Married?' Brooke echoed stupidly. 'You and me?'
'The press would ease off after a while. Quietly married couples don't make news the same way lovers do. Human nature.' He pushed his sandwich aside and leaned toward her. ''What do you think?''
'I think you're crazy,' Brooke managed in a whisper. 'And I don't think this is funny.'
Parks gripped her arm when she started to scoot out of the booth. 'I'm not joking.'
'You-you want to get married so we won't get our picture in the paper?'
'I don't give a damn if we get our picture in the paper or not, you do.'
'So you want to get married to-to placate me.' She stopped struggling against his hold on her arm, but her eyes filled with fury.
'I've never had any intention of placating you,' he countered. 'I couldn't placate you if I dedicated my life to it. I want to get married because I'm in love with you. I'm going to marry you,' he corrected, suddenly angry, 'if I have to drag you, kicking and screaming.'
'Is that so?'
'Yes, that's exactly so. You might as well get used to it.'
'Maybe I don't want to get married.' Brooke shoved the food in front of them aside. 'What about that?'
'Too bad.' He leaned back, eyeing her with the same simmering temper with which she eyed him. 'I want to get married.'
'And that's supposed to be enough, huh?'
'It's enough for me.'
Brooke crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him. 'Kicking and screaming?'
'If that's the way you want it.'
'I can bite, too.'
'So can I.'
Her heart was thudding against her ribs, but Brooke realized it wasn't from anger. No, it had nothing to do with anger. He was sitting there, across a laminated table littered with food from a twelve-year-old's fantasy, telling her he was going to marry her whether she liked it or not. Brooke discovered, somewhat to her own amazement, that she liked it just fine. But she wasn't going to make it easy for him.
'Maybe winning the series went to your head, Parks. It's going to take more than a temper tantrum to get me to marry you.'
'What do you want?' he demanded. 'Candlelight and soft music?' Annoyed that he had scuttled his own plans, he leaned over again and grabbed her hands. 'You're not the kind of woman who needs scenery, Brooke. You know just how easy it is to come by and how little it means. What the hell do you want?'
'Take two,' she said very calmly. 'You know your motivation,' she began in her cool director's voice, ''but this time tone down the force and try for a little finesse. Ask,' she suggested, looking into his eyes, 'don't tell.'
He felt the anger, or perhaps it had been fear, slide out of him. The hands that held hers gentled. 'Brooke'- he lifted a hand and pressed her fingers to his lips-'will you marry me?' Parks smiled over their joined hands. 'How was that?'
Brooke laced the fingers with hers. 'Perfect.'
Chapter 11
What was she doing? In a sudden panic, Brooke stared at herself in the free standing long-length mirror. How could things be happening so fast and be so much out of her control? A year ago-no, even six months ago- she hadn't known Parks Jones existed. In something under an hour, she would be married to him. Committed. For life. Forever. From somewhere deep inside her brain came a panicked call to run and run fast. Brooke hadn't realized she'd made a move until she was summarily jerked back into place.
'Be still, Ms. Gordon,' Billings ordered firmly.
'There are two dozen of these little buttons if there's one.' She used a complaining tone, though privately she thought Brooke's choice of an ivory satin gown with its snug bodice and flowing skirt was inspired.
A good, traditional wedding dress, she decided, not one of those flighty trouser suits or miniskirted affairs in scarlet or fuchsia. Billings continued to fasten the range of tiny pearl buttons in back.
'Stand still now,' she ordered again as Brooke fidgeted.
' Billings,' Brooke said weakly, 'I really think I'm going to be sick.'
The housekeeper looked up at Brooke's reflection. Her face was pale, her eyes huge, made darker by the merest touch of slate-gray shadow. In Billings 's staunch opinion, a bride was supposed to look ready to faint. 'Nonsense,' she said briskly. 'Just a case of the flutters.'
'Flutters,' Brooke repeated, creasing her brow. 'I never flutter. That's ridiculous.'
The Englishwoman smiled fleetingly as Brooke straightened her shoulders. 'Flutters, jitters, nerves every woman born has them on her wedding day.' 'Well, I don't,' she claimed as her stomach muscles quivered.
Billings only sniffed as she finished her fastening. 'There now, that's the last one.'
'Thank God,' Brooke muttered, heading for a chair before Billings caught her.
'No, you don't. You're not putting creases in that skirt.'
' Billings, for heaven's sake-'
'A woman has to suffer now and again.'
Brooke's opinion was a short four-letter word. Lifting a brow, Billings picked up a hairbrush from the vanity. 'A fine way for a blushing bride to talk.'
'I'm not a blushing bride.' Brooke swept away before Billings could apply the brush. 'I'm twenty eight years old,' she continued, pacing. 'I must be crazy, I must be absolutely crazy. No sane woman agrees to marry a man in a fast-food restaurant.'
