What I Did for Love

Chapter 8

Georgie swam for nearly an hour the next morning in the sheltered pool. Yesterday she’d let him see how much he’d hurt her, and displaying that kind of vulnerability was a luxury she couldn’t repeat. Not anymore.

As she was getting out, she heard a voice coming from the path that ran behind the shrubbery. “Settle down, Caitlin…Yeah, I know. Have a little faith, sweetheart…”

Bram moved on before Georgie could hear any more. As she wrapped herself in a towel, she wondered who Caitlin was and how long it would be before Bram sought out one of his mystery women for extramarital sex.

She combed her wet hair with her fingers, tucked the towel under her arms, and went inside to rummage through the refrigerator. As she pulled out a carton of blueberry yogurt, Chaz came in and dropped a pile of mail on the center island. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stay out of the refrigerator. Everything’s organized the way I like it.”

“I won’t move anything I don’t eat.” Chaz was a monumental pain in the ass, but Georgie still felt sorry for her. She didn’t really believe Chaz was Bram’s lover, but she did believe Chaz was in love with him. Remembering the pain of that particular disease, she took a fresh tack. “Tell me about yourself, Chaz. Did you grow up around here?”

“No.” Chaz pulled a mixing bowl from the cupboard.

She tried again. “I can’t cook much of anything. How did you learn?”

Chaz slapped the cupboard door closed. “I don’t have time to talk. I need to get a head start on Bram’s lunch.”

“What’s on the menu?”

“A special salad he likes.”

“Fine by me.”

Chaz grabbed the dishcloth. “I can’t cook for both of you. I already have too much to do. If you don’t want me to quit, you’ll have to take care of yourself.”

Georgie licked the inside of the yogurt lid. “Who said I don’t want you to quit?”

Chaz’s face flushed with anger. Georgie understood, but Chaz’s hostility was making an already awful situation that much worse. She pulled a spoon from the drawer. “Make lunch for two, Chaz. That’s an order.”

“I take my orders from Bram. He said he’d never interfere with how I did my job.”

“He wasn’t married when he said that, but now he is, and your Godzilla act is getting old fast. You have two choices. You can play nice, or I’ll hire my own staff, and you’ll have to share your kitchen. Somehow I don’t think you’d like that.”

She and her yogurt headed back outside.

As Georgie’s footsteps faded, Chaz pressed her fists to her belly, trying to hold in all the hatred that wanted to spill out. Georgie York had everything. She was rich and famous. She had great clothes and a big career. Now she had Bram, and only Chaz was supposed to take care of him.

Outside the kitchen windows a hummingbird flew onto the veranda. Chaz grabbed a paper towel and opened the refrigerator door. The milk wasn’t where she’d left it, and a couple of the yogurt containers had fallen over. Even the eggs were on the wrong side of the shelf.

She straightened everything and wiped a smudge from the door. She couldn’t stand the idea of another person in her kitchen. In her house. She pitched the paper towel into the trash. Georgie wasn’t even that pretty, not like the women Bram went out with. She didn’t deserve him. She didn’t deserve anything she had. Everybody knew she was only famous because her old man had made her a star. Georgie had grown up with everybody kissing her ass and telling her she was hot shit. Nobody had ever kissed Chaz’s ass. Not once.

Chaz gazed around her kitchen. The sunlight coming through the six narrow windows made the blue accents in the tiles sparkle. This was her favorite place in the world, even better than her apartment over the garage, and Georgie wanted to wedge her way in.

She still couldn’t believe Bram hadn’t told her he was getting married. That hurt the most of all. But something wasn’t exactly right. He didn’t treat Georgie the way Chaz had imagined he’d treat a woman he loved. Chaz made up her mind to figure out exactly why that was.

Georgie stayed out of sight while Aaron supervised the movers unloading her things. By late afternoon, he had her office set up, and she’d unpacked the wardrobe boxes that had taken over her bedroom but held only the clothes that weren’t in storage. By the time Aaron left, the walls had closed around her. Even though her Prius sat outside in the driveway, she couldn’t go anywhere by herself, not the fourth day of her marriage, when every photographer in town was staking out the house. She settled down to try to read.

Much later Bram found her standing by her bedroom balcony doors giving herself an internal pep talk about things like independence and self-identity. “Let’s drive to the beach,” he said. “I’m going stir-crazy.”

“It’ll be dark soon.”

“Who cares?” He rubbed his knuckles over his golden beard stubble. “I’ve already smoked two packs of cigarettes. I need to get out.”

So did she, even if she had to go with him. “Have you been drinking?”

“No, damn it! But I will be if I’m stuck here much longer. Now do you want to go or not?”

“Give me twenty minutes.”

As soon as he left, she consulted the “Super Casual” section of the three-ring binder Aaron kept updated with Polaroid photos of all the pieces in Georgie’s wardrobe, accompanied by April’s instructions on how they fit together. Maybe one day Georgie would have the luxury of leaving the house without worrying about how she looked, but she couldn’t do it now. She chose her Rock & Republic jeans, a corset top, and a simple Michael Kors kimono cardigan that April had noted would “pull the look together.”

Georgie was capable of dressing herself, but April did a better job of it. The public had no idea how clueless most celebrity fashion icons were, and how much they depended on their stylists. Georgie was forever grateful that April continued to help her out.

The paps waited for them at the end of the driveway like a pack of hungry dogs. As Bram pulled out, they stormed his Audi. He maneuvered through, but half a dozen black SUVs quickly fell into place behind them. “I feel like we’re leading a funeral cortege,” she said. “Just once I’d like to be able to walk out of the house with bad hair and no makeup and go someplace without getting my picture taken.”

He glanced in the rearview mirror. “There’s nothing worse than a celebrity complaining about the hardships of fame.”

“I’ve been dealing with this ever since Lance and I started to date. You’ve only had to put up with it for a few days.”

“Hey, I get photographed.”

“Sex videos don’t count. And let’s see how cheery you are after another couple months of this.”

He braked for a stop sign, and they were nearly rear-ended, so she left him alone to concentrate on his driving.

The traffic was only moderately horrendous, and their entourage stayed with them all the way to Malibu. Several more SUVs joined the funeral procession, even though the paps had surely figured out Bram was headed for one of the semiprivate beaches.

First-time visitors to Malibu were always surprised to see long stretches of highway lined with private garages butting up to the road and forming a solid wall that restricted beach access to all but the privileged few who lived there. Just past Trevor’s house, Bram pulled off the road in front of one of the sets of dun-colored garage doors. Moments later, they were walking through Trev’s former beach house, the one he’d put up for sale.

Outside, the night was a romantic cliché. Moonlight frosted the tips of the waves. The surf lapped at the shore. Cool sand squished between her toes. The only thing missing was the right man. She thought about that scrap of conversation she’d overheard earlier with the mysterious Caitlin and wondered how long it would be before she found herself drawn into a second scandal involving another woman.

He slowed his steps as they neared the water. A ribbon of moonlight silvered the tips of his eyelashes. “You’re right, Scooter,” he said. “I was a jerk that night on the boat, and I apologize.”

She’d never heard him apologize for anything, but too much hurt and shame lingered inside her for a few words to make a difference. “Apology not accepted.”

“Okay.”

She waited. “That’s it?”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know what else to say. It happened, and I’m not proud of myself.”

“You wanted to get off,” she said bitterly, “and there I was, standing so conveniently in front of you.”

“Hold on.” Unlike her, he wasn’t wearing a sweater, and the breeze pressed his T-shirt against his chest. “I could have gotten off with any of the women on the boat that night. And I’m not being arrogant. It’s just the way it was.”

A wave splashed her ankles. “But you didn’t. You chose dumb-ass here instead.”

“You weren’t dumb. Just naïve.”

She needed to ask him something, but she didn’t want to look at him, so she leaned down to turn up the cuffs of her jeans. “Why did you do it?”

“Why do you think?” He picked up a beach stone and hurled it into the water. “I wanted to put you in your place. Knock you down a few pegs. Show you that even though Daddy made sure you got top billing and a bigger paycheck, I could get you to do what I wanted.”

She stood up. “Nice guy.”

“You asked.”

The fact that he’d finally owned up to his bad behavior made her feel a little better. Not good enough to forgive him, but good enough to accept that she had to somehow coexist with him while they were trapped in this farce of a marriage. They began walking again. “It was years ago.” She stepped around a sand turtle some kids had made earlier. “No lasting harm done.”

“You were a virgin. I didn’t believe that bull you handed out about being with an older man.”

“Hugh Grant,” she said.

“You wish.”

She snagged a flyaway lock of hair and pushed it behind her ear. “Hugh told me I was sublime. No, wait. That was Colin Firth. I get those aging Brits I slept with mixed up.”

“A common problem.” He sent another stone flying into the water.

She gazed up at the single star that had begun to shine. At a beach party last year, someone had told her it wasn’t a star at all, but the International Space Station. “Who was she?”

“Who?”

“The woman I heard you whispering to on your cell this morning.”

“What big ears you have.”

“All the better to catch you cheating.”

“Isn’t it a little early for me to cheat? Although you have to admit, the honeymoon’s been a real bust-out so far.”

She dug her heels deeper into the sand. “When it comes to vice, I never underestimate you.”

“You’ve wised up.”

“It wasn’t just the sex, Bram. It was everything. You got handed the opportunity of a lifetime with Skip and Scooter, and you blew it. You didn’t appreciate what you had.”

“I appreciated what it got me. Cars, women, liquor, drugs. I had free designer clothes, a collection of Rolexes, big houses where I could hang out with my buddies. I had the time of my life.”

“I noticed.”

“The way I grew up-if you had money, you spent it. I loved every second.”

But his pleasure had come at the expense of so many other people. She shoved up the sleeves of her sweater. “A lot of people paid a big price for your fun. The cast, the crew.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve got me there.”

“You paid a price, too.”

“And you won’t hear me complaining about it.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

His head came up. “Shit.”

“What-?”

He pulled her hard against him and crushed her mouth in a fiery kiss. One hand slipped under her T-shirt at the small of her back, the other cradled her hip. A wave caught them, and the surf swirled around their ankles. Perfect moonlit passion.

“Cameras.” He ground the word against her lips as if she hadn’t already figured that out.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and tilted her head. Had they really thought they’d have privacy, even on a supposedly private beach? The jackals always found a way in. She wondered how much the pictures would bring. A lot.

Their kiss grew hotter. Deeper. Her breasts flattened against his chest, and the tips began to tingle. She felt him growing hard.

He settled his thumb into the soft flesh along her spine. Forced his thigh between her legs. “I’m going to feel you up now.” His hand moved over her rib cage to her breast. The hand no photographer could see. He caressed her through her bra, and dirty little cesspools of illicit arousal swirled through her body. It had been a long time, and this was safe, because it was all so phony. And because it would only go as far as she let it.

His fingers traced the swells of her breasts above the cups, and he whispered against her lips, “When we stop playing games, I’m going to take you so hard and so deep you’ll want it to last forever.”

His crude words sent a surge of heat sizzling through her, and she didn’t feel one bit guilty about it. They had no personal relationship. This was purely physical. Bram could be a stud she’d hired for the night.

But a stud went home when he’d done his job, and she reluctantly extracted herself from his arms. “Okay, I’m bored.”

His fingers brushed her hardened nipple before he stepped away. “I can tell.”

The breeze lifted her hair from the back of her neck and left a trail of goose bumps behind. She pulled her sweater tighter around her. “Well, you’re no Hugh Grant, but your technique has definitely improved from the bad old days.”

“Glad to hear it.”

She didn’t like that silky note in his voice. “Let’s go back,” she said. “I’m getting cold.”

“I can fix that.”

She’d just bet he could. “About that woman you were talking to on your cell today…” She walked faster.

“Are we back to that again?”

“You should know…If I die while we’re married, all my money goes either to charity or to my father.”

He came to a dead stop. “I don’t exactly see the connection.”

“You wouldn’t get a penny.” She picked up her pace. “I’m not making any accusations, just setting the record straight in case you and the friend you were talking to on the phone start thinking about how much fun you could have living off my money.”

She was mainly being a smart-ass to irritate him. Still, Bram was broke and had no morals, so she felt marginally better for having made sure he understood there was no advantage in plotting her premature death.

His heels kicked up the sand as he closed the distance between them. “You’re an idiot.”

“Just covering my bases.”

He grabbed her hand, more like a prison warden’s than a lover’s. “For your information, there was no camera. I just wanted to get my kicks.”

“And for your information…I knew there wasn’t a camera, and I wanted a few kicks myself.” She hadn’t known, but she should have suspected.

The breeze sighed, the waves lapped. She wasn’t done antagonizing him, and she leaned against his arm. “Skip and Scooter, together in the moonlight. How romantic.”

He retaliated by whistling “Tomorrow” from Annie, just the way he used to do whenever he wanted to piss her off.