Page 121 of What I Did for Love
“My once-retiring P.A. has turned into quite the media mouthpiece.”
“At least somebody’s watching out for you. What’s going on, Georgie?”
She tried to pull it together. “I’m moving into Trevor’s house. You’re not. It’s a good solution.”
“A solution towhat?” He jerked off his sunglasses. “I don’t understand that part—why this happened all of a sudden—so maybe you’d better explain it.”
He was so cold, so angry. “Our future,” she said. “The next phase. Don’t you think it’s time we get on with our lives? Everybody knows you’re working, so it won’t seem strange for me to spend the summer in Malibu. Aaron can keep planting his stories if that’s what you want. You can even show up for a couple of very public beach walks. It’ll be fine.” It wouldn’t be fine at all. Any contact she had with him from now on would only prolong the agony.
“This isn’t how we decided we’d handle it.” He jammed the stems of his sunglasses into the neck of his T-shirt. “We have an agreement. One year. I’m holding you to it, every second.”
He’d insisted on six months, not a year, but she let that go. “You’re not paying attention.” Somehow she pulled off Scooter’s innocent act. “You’re working. I’m at the beach. A couple of public appearances. No one will suspect a thing.”
“You need to be at the house. My house. And I seem to have missed your explanation about why you’re not there.”
“Because it’s long past time I started setting a new course for my life. The beach will be a great place for me to take my first steps.”
The shadows of an African tulip tree cut across his face as he moved closer. “Your present life course is just fine.”
She played the mildly exasperated female even as her heart broke. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. You men are all alike.” She picked up her towel and clutched it to her chest like a child’s lovey. “I’m going to take a shower while you cool down.”
But just as she turned to walk back into the house, he stopped her cold.
“I saw your audition tape.”
Bram watched Georgie’sexpression change from confusion to puzzled understanding. He wanted to hold her, shake her, make her tell him the truth.
Her fingers grew slack on the towel. “Are you talking about the tape Chaz recorded for me?”
“It was great,” he said slowly. “You were great.”
She stared at him with her big green eyes.
“You nailed it, just like you promised,” he said. “People underestimate me as an actor. It never occurred to me that I was doing the same to you. We’ve all done it.”
“I know.”
Her straightforward response unnerved him.Hehadn’t known, and when he’d seen the tape, he’d felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach.
Last night he’d sat in his darkened bedroom and watched it. As he hit the play button, the blank wall in Georgie’s office had come into focus, and he heard Chaz’s voice off camera. “I’ve got things to do. I don’t have time for this crap.”
Georgie stepping into the frame. Her hair was severely parted, and she wore a minimum of makeup: light foundation, no mascara, the barest hint of eyebrow pencil, and a shockingly deep scarlet mouth that couldn’t have been more wrong for Helene. The camera caught her from the waist up: an austere black suit jacket, a white shell, and a set of intricately twisted black beads.
“I mean it,” Chaz said. “I need to start dinner.”
Georgie pierced Chaz’s bluster with Helene’s icy imperiousness instead of her normal friendly puppy-dog manner. “You’ll do as I say.”
Chaz muttered something the mike didn’t catch and stayed where she was. Georgie’s breasts rose ever so slightly under the suit jacket, and then a smile—a fucking ice-pick smile—curled over the bottom of her face and made that scarlet mouth seem absolutely right.
You think you can embarrass me, Danny? I don’t embarrass. Embarrassment is for losers. And a loser is what you are, not me. You’re a zero. A nothing. We all knew it, even when you were a kid.
Her voice was low, deathly quiet, and completely composed. Unlike the other actresses they’d auditioned, she didn’t emote. No teeth gnawing or scenery rattling. Everything underplayed.
You don’t have a friend left in this town, but you still think you’ve gotten the best of me…
The words poured out of her, cold fury prowling behind her bloodred smile, perfectly capturing Helene’s selfishness, her guile, her intelligence, and her utter conviction that she deserved whatever she could grab. He sat spellbound until finally, with that smile frozen like black ice on her lips, she came to the end.
Remember how you used to make fun of me when we were in school? How hard you laughed? Well, who’s laughing now, funny man? Who’s laughing now?
