When Lightning Strikes (5 page)

“Oh, quit being such a prude,” he said with a roll of his eyes.
“We’ll be married. It’s not like you’d be standing on a street corner. And if
you won’t let me get it anywhere else, I need to know we have some sort
of…arrangement, in case I get desperate.”

“Desperate?”

He didn’t bother to apologize. He’d been cross all morning,
supremely unhappy with the problem as well as the solution. But Simon was always
cross these days. The only thing that mattered right now was procuring a
commitment to the no-sex rule, just as she had with the no-alcohol rule, so
they’d both be going into this with the same expectations.

“I understand that you’re trying to be practical,” she said.
“And I realize two years is a long time for…a man of your age and, uh,
limitations.” She smiled, knowing she’d just jabbed him back. “But our
relationship isn’t real, so we won’t be sleeping together no matter how
desperate you become.”

“Why the hell not?” he demanded, finally losing the battle with
his temper.

“Because I’m not an object! And we don’t even respect each
other!”

There was more to it. For one thing, after the sex goddesses
he’d been with, he was certain to find her lacking. And what could she possibly
gain? Nothing. Sleeping with Simon would only set her up for future
disappointment. It wasn’t as if she could expect the relationship to last, even
if she wanted it to.

Fortunately, she could stand on principle and wouldn’t have to
explain the more embarrassing reasons behind her refusal. “Look, don’t make a
big deal out of this, okay? This is acting. You don’t
really
get to sleep with the female leads you pretend to make love
to in the movies, do you?”

Too late, she realized that might not be true off-set and
couldn’t believe she’d let her tongue get so far ahead of her brain.

“Only eighty or ninety percent of them,” he responded, and Ian
began to laugh.

When she shot Simon’s manager a dirty look, he laughed even
harder but tried to speak through it. “Come on, we all know the number of women
who fall at his feet. Why pretend otherwise? In any case, you can’t expect him
to give up the good life—”

“You were with me on this!” she complained. “We talked about it
last night.”

Obviously sensing how easily their deal could fall apart, Ian
sobered. “I agreed that he couldn’t have any extramarital affairs. I
didn’t
agree that he couldn’t screw his own wife.”

She’d said no sex, right after no alcohol, and he hadn’t
corrected her. “But I won’t really be his wife!”

“You’ll be legally married.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

Finished emailing her the photos, he closed his computer. “It
means he should be able to sleep with you if he wants.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Then what else is he supposed to do?”

“He could try exercising a little self-restraint!”

“Like you?” Ian asked. “Someone who wouldn’t know how to have
fun if it came up and bit her on the ass?”

Fun had never been her top priority. Her mother had walked out
when Gail was eight. Since then, she’d had too much to prove to her father and
brother. “That won’t change my answer.”

Ian expelled a loud sigh. “He
will
be exercising some restraint. If he gives up booze and refuses the women who hit
on him, he’ll be exercising a lot of it. But you have to be realistic. If you
take other women away, you have to provide
something
else instead.”

Gail dropped her purse to the floor. “No matter how
undesirable.”

She’d imbued her voice with enough sarcasm to wither them both
on the spot, but it didn’t seem to make an impact. If anything, her words had
the opposite effect. It was almost as if she could see them mentally offering
each other a high five for scoring a direct hit. They respected her professional
ability—she knew that much—but they’d never been particularly fond of her. She
and Simon had too often been at cross-purposes, with him trying to do what he
wanted regardless of the consequences and her trying to protect his image.

“It’s a fair question,” Ian insisted.

“A sabbatical might be good for him,” she argued, “give him a
chance to pull his life together.”

Simon came to his feet. “This is bullshit! You’ll have my name,
my ring and two years of my life, and I can’t even climb into bed with you?”

Suddenly Gail realized that this conversation had nothing to do
with the topic. He wasn’t attracted to her; he’d made that clear. He was
responding to being nudged out of the power position and wanted to get back on
top in some way. So he was demanding she make a difficult concession, one that
couldn’t be overruled simply by pointing to the fact that it would compromise
the campaign.

“Sleeping together is
not
part of
the deal,” she reiterated.

Jaw set, he slammed his glass down on the coffee table. “Fine.
I’ll make some sort of discreet arrangement with a third party.”

“No, you won’t! We’ve been over that.”

“It won’t matter if no one knows.”

“Isn’t that the kind of thinking that got you into this mess?
Word
would
get out, eventually. Your bed partners
are too anxious to brag about their good fortune.” Besides, she wouldn’t want to
lie awake night after night imagining what he might be doing in another part of
the house. “Can’t you look at this as a job? Pretend you’re preparing to play a
monk and celibacy is key to getting into character? If you can stay focused and
put in the time, we’ll all get what we need in the end. Then you can have a
whole harem if you want.”

Pivoting, he spoke to Ian as if she was no longer in the room.
“This won’t work. I’m already going without alcohol. I’ll be cut off from my
friends, in case they see through this…sham of a marriage or—” he made quotation
marks with his fingers “—lead me astray. And I’ll be connected at the hip to
someone who’ll be monitoring my every move and, no doubt, criticizing it.”

“Stop it,” she told Simon before Ian could respond.

Simon whirled on her. “Stop
what?
”

“Stop looking for a way out. If you don’t want to do this,
fine. But don’t justify blowing up the deal by acting like you would’ve jumped
in with both feet if only I’d been reasonable.”

“You’re
not
being reasonable! It’ll
be hard enough giving up alcohol.”

“You said you could do it. I said maybe you should go into
rehab instead. We’ll just make matters worse if we attempt this and fail. And
you
said you weren’t addicted.”

“I’m
not
addicted, but…God, I could
use a little help. A shoulder to cry on, if nothing else.”

She folded her arms. “I’ll lend you my shoulder, if you’ve got
to have one, but nothing else. And I won’t be criticizing everything you do,”
she added. “If it has no impact on the campaign, I won’t say a word.”

“You won’t
have
to,” he said. “I’ll
be able to see it in your face, which happens to reveal every thought you have.
In any event, I have
no
intention of going without
sex for two years on top of everything else. The way I see it, getting lucky
every once in a while might be the only enjoyment I’ll experience in two hellish
years. Why would I give that up?”

Gail held her ground even though her high heels were beginning
to pinch her toes and she was dying to sit. “Because you’ve let your son down
and this is the only way to make it up to him, that’s why!”

His hands curled into fists as if he wanted to strike her, or
strike something. Maybe it was only verbal, but she’d slugged him where it hurt.
She’d had to. If they didn’t stay focused, keep their goals in sight, they’d
fail before they ever got started. And she had a lot riding on this, too.

“How hard can it be?” She went on more calmly, hoping to
placate him. “You’ve already made it abundantly clear that I don’t appeal to
you.”

His eyes, now glittery, roamed over her, making her want to
cover herself even though she was fully dressed. “I assumed you’d be better than
nothing. But maybe I was wrong.”

“Oh, stop acting like a—” She caught herself before she could
call him any names. He was looking for a fight. Why accommodate him? “Never
mind. Forget it. No sex. Do I have your agreement?”

“I wouldn’t touch you if you stood in front of me naked and
begged,” he grumbled.

Fabulous. She had what she wanted. But somehow it didn’t make
her feel any better. His capitulation, and the sentiment behind it, stung enough
that she couldn’t resist a final salvo. “Fine, because I have some standards
myself, you know, and dissolute movie stars aren’t high on my list of must-have
men.”

“That’s the best you’ve got?
Dissolute?
” Wearing a pained expression, he turned to Ian. “Does
anyone in the real world even use that word these days?”

“I’ve seen it in books,” Ian said, his voice speculative.

She rolled her eyes. “I doubt you’ve ever picked up a book. It
means—”

“You’re not the only one here with a brain,” Simon interrupted.
“I know what it means. And as far as comebacks go, it sucks. Do you think I
haven’t heard it all before? That you’re the only person with an opinion on how
I live my life?”

All the things she’d wanted to tell him in the past but hadn’t
seemed to rise in her throat and propel her forward, until she stood almost nose
to nose with him. At six feet, he still had her by a few inches, but the heels
helped. “You probably haven’t heard the half of it,” she said, “because I’m the
only one who’ll state it plainly, the only one who’s not out to get something
from you. Who else will tell you that you need to pull your head out of your
ass? The people who depend on you for a paycheck?” She motioned at Ian. “Him?
Mr. Suck-up?”

Ian pressed a hand to his chest as if she’d just shot him.
“Ouch! I take back what I said. I don’t like you at all.”

Simon ignored him. “Seriously? I hear how rotten I am all the
time. My ex has said much worse than you could ever come up with—and she’s said
it to the papers so I have the print version in case I forget.”

She’d made some comments that’d been printed, too, but she
didn’t want to remind him. “Yeah, well, you can’t trust Bella, either. She’s
hurt and she’s angry, and she’s determined to have her revenge. I’m honest, not
vindictive. If
I
tell you something, it’s true. And
I’m telling you this—you need to pull your head out!”

“Maybe she’s not so bad at comebacks.” Ian was obviously trying
to break the tension, but it didn’t work.

Sending his manager a dirty look, Simon returned to the couch.
“You’re not some sort of oracle, Ms. DeMarco, so quit pretending. I won’t take
advice from a repressed PR failure with her jacket buttoned up to her neck. And
you
are
hoping for something from me. You want me to
save your business and cut you a hefty check when this is all over.”

She put her hands on her hips. “If you’d like to marry someone
else, I’ll do the PR for free. But two years of
my
life doesn’t come cheap. And you’re the one who destroyed my business in the
first place. You
owe
me.”

She thought he’d come right back at her, tell her it was Ian
who’d gone after her and not him. But without his name Ian wouldn’t have had the
power to pull off what he’d done.

Simon didn’t attempt to argue, however. A sigh hinted at how
tired he was. Had he even been to bed last night? He looked like he’d been up
for days. “Maybe I do,” he relented, “but you don’t have to make this so
hard.”

She got the feeling that they weren’t talking strictly about
sex anymore, but it was more comfortable to respond as if they were. “I’ll be
going without, too.”

“You don’t seem to have a problem with it, which doesn’t say
much for your love life.”

He’d hit a little too close to the truth. She wasn’t sure whom
she’d sleep with even if she wanted a bed partner. Her last relationship ended
three years ago; she hadn’t been with anyone since. But she wasn’t about to
admit that to him. “Let’s leave my love life out of it.”

In an effort to turn the conversation around, Ian abandoned his
seat by the computer and came forward. “Look—” he touched her elbow to get her
to face him “—this’ll be a piece of cake for you. What’s so terrible about a
couple of years spent eating at the best restaurants, shopping at the most
expensive stores and flying around the world?”

Besides the fact that it meant she’d have to endure two years
of knowing Simon found her completely unattractive and, worse, unlikable? Could
her self-esteem survive such a constant beating?

Simon jumped to his feet, suddenly decisive. “I’m calling it
off. She’s not up to the task.”

Gail felt her jaw drop. “That’s it? We just wasted the past two
hours?”

“I guess so.”

“Fine. I’m out of here.” Grabbing her purse, she headed for the
door.

6

“W
ait!” Ian caught her arm. “Don’t leave.
He’s upset, not thinking clearly.”

“He can’t control his emotions and appetites long enough to
implement a simple plan, let alone one that’ll be as tricky as this,” she said.
“That’s all we need to know.”

“I can do whatever I have to,” Simon said.

“Then why do you need me?” she asked.

With a grimace, he dropped onto the couch, leaned back and
draped an arm over his face. “I don’t know. You haven’t helped matters so
far.”

Gail told herself to leave, as she’d intended to a moment
earlier, but she couldn’t seem to convince her feet. She wouldn’t let him
purposely destroy this opportunity to get his life back on track the way he’d
destroyed all the others since he started acting out a year ago. He had
so
much potential. It drove her crazy to watch him
self-destruct, especially in the public eye. Regardless of her opinion of him
these days, he’d once been her favorite actor. His performances still captivated
her.

“You don’t get it, do you?” she said. “No one can do this for
you. If you want to see your life improve, you need to stand up and fight.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing?” he mumbled into the crook
of his arm.

Fighting the wrong kind of battles. And if he didn’t change
that soon, he’d learn how much worse his life could become. “Lashing out
randomly in anger isn’t what I’m talking about.”

When he didn’t respond, Ian’s alarm seemed to grow. “Simon, we
talked about this. When you hired me back, you said you could do it. You said
you
would
do it.”

“I know.” Deadpan. Resigned.

“So…are you backing out or not?” Ian asked.

Simon muttered something Gail couldn’t decipher; it sounded
like a curse. But then he said, “I’m in if she is. I’d walk through fire for Ty.
Do anything.”

That didn’t mean he had to be happy about it, and he wasn’t,
which would make her job that much harder. “Give me one reason I should trust
you to pull this off,” she said.

He lifted his arm so could look at her. “I can pull it off.
I’ll pour it on so thick there’ll be times when even
you’ll
think I’m in love with you.”

More than a little fatigued herself, Gail slumped into a chair.
“There’s no danger of that.”

The fact that she’d cracked, shown some exhaustion and
weakness, seemed to surprise him. The tension in his body eased. “What about
you? You don’t particularly admire me, and you’ve had no experience with acting.
Can
you
be convincing?”

Self-conscious about her clothing ever since he’d made the
repressed PR failure comment, she unbuttoned the top of her jacket. “I won’t
have to be. No one will bother to question how I feel. They’ll take it for
granted. Average-looking no-name lands big movie star. Why wouldn’t a girl be
happy about that?”

He sat up so he could study her with that intense expression
she’d seen him wear so often in the movies. She’d said something that made him
think or caused him to reevaluate. After all the bickering and chafing at their
new roles, she couldn’t imagine what it was. But acute interest transformed his
face from dark and brooding to arresting, and she found it impossible to look
away.

“Even if we do everything we can, it’ll take some luck for this
to work,” he said at length.

“Yes,” she agreed.

A frown tugged at his lips. “These days I’m not sure I can
depend on luck.”

She tucked the fine hairs that’d fallen around her face behind
her ears. “Feel free to hire a real actress, if you think it’ll help.” She hoped
he would. Then she could have him return as merely a client, which would be
enough to protect her business, and life would go on as usual.

Ian jumped back into the conversation. “Simon, no. We don’t
want anything to do with a woman who might be interested in using you to get
famous. You never know what someone like that will do. I say we stick with what
we’ve got. Gail’s a known entity.”

“She’s inflexible.” He spoke in the third person even though
his gaze never wavered from her face.

“She’s trustworthy.” Ian shifted his gaze to her, too. “That’s
more important than flexible. Two years will go by quicker than you think.”

Gail held her tongue. She got the impression Simon was testing
her to see how she’d respond. But despite what he said about her, criticizing
him further wouldn’t help. She had a feeling he already thought the worst of
himself. At least
she
gave him credit for his
talent.

“There’s just one more thing,” she said.

Stretching out his legs, Simon crossed one ankle over the
other—another deceptively casual pose. “What’s that?”

“My father.”

Lines formed on his forehead. “What about him?”

When she’d agreed to be Simon’s “wife,” she’d been thinking of
it primarily in the context of PR advantages. She’d been so focused on how to
pull it off, she hadn’t considered the impact it would have on her other
relationships—probably because, until now, L.A. and what she did here had always
felt so removed from Whiskey Creek. Despite being a small town of barely two
thousand, it was a world unto itself. But news of her marriage would travel
everywhere. There’d be no way to keep it from getting back to her family and
friends. She had to allow for that, prepare for it. Which meant she had to
include them in the process.

“Before the wedding, we’ll need to take a trip to my hometown
so I can introduce you to everyone.”

He didn’t consider that for even a second. “Absolutely not. I’m
not going to some Podunk town to be judged by your family.”

Her friends would be just as hard on him, maybe harder. She’d
hung out with the same crew since grade school. But she wasn’t about to mention
that. “If we don’t enlist their support, my father or brother will drive to L.A.
to convince me that I’m making a mistake marrying someone with…shall we say…such
a tarnished reputation.”

Ian spoke up. “So go to your mother. Tell her you’re in love,
get her to intercede.”

Gail straightened in her seat. “I don’t have a mother.”

Simon was still watching her. “Why not? Is she dead?”

“No, but she might as well be.” Gail hadn’t seen her in twenty
years. “We don’t have a relationship.”

Ian raked his fingers through his hair. “We’ve got everything
else worked out. This can’t be
that
hard. Tell your
father he has nothing to worry about. You’ll get a big settlement even if your
marriage turns out to be the worst thing you ever did.”

“News of the prenup will be in the press,” she said. “We have
to make sure it is. It has to look like love and only love is the reason we’re
getting together.”

“So?” he argued. “You’ll be receiving other money.”

“But I can’t tell anyone about that, not without letting them
in on our little secret.” To Martin, having her marry someone he’d consider
morally bankrupt would be bad enough. Getting paid for it would be worse.
“Anyway, he doesn’t care about money. That’s not what matters to him.”

“What does?” It was Simon who asked. She could tell he was
leery of the answer. Knowing her father, he had reason to be.

“Me.”
Martin DeMarco also cared
about character. But a list of Simon’s faults had come from her own lips as
recently as a few days ago, when she’d last spoken to her dad. In retrospect,
what she’d said during that phone call was unfortunate; telling Martin she was
marrying Simon O’Neal would be no better than announcing she was marrying
Charlie Sheen or Tiger Woods. “That means we’ll
have
to visit, show him you’re a changed man.”

“Forget it,” Simon said. “I’m a good actor but even I’m not
that
good, or I wouldn’t need to be doing this
in the first place. If your dad is such a stickler, he won’t accept me even if I
grovel.”

“So what do you suggest?” she asked.

“You’ll just have to cut ties with him for a while,” he
replied.

“What?”
She tightened her grip on
her purse. “I can’t disappear from my network of family and friends for
two years.
”

Finished with his drink, Simon set it aside. “That’s what
you’re asking from me, isn’t it?”

“It’s
your
image that needs
improving! Your associates are the ones who threaten that, not mine.”

“I don’t care. Considering everything I’m giving up, you can
make a sacrifice, too. I have enough to deal with. Why should I put up with
people who are convinced I’m the devil out to drag you off to hell?”

“Because you’re the one who has to face down what you’ve done.”
Why did her sacrifice have to be equivalent to his? She hadn’t screwed up her
life the way he had.

“Not with your father looking on I don’t. I just have to
survive the next two years without doing anything stupid. The rest is up to
you.”

“Why are you making this so difficult?” she demanded.

“You started it.”

“Going without sex isn’t the same as giving up my family and
friends!”

“I think it’s pretty equal,” Ian inserted, but both she and
Simon ignored him. They were locked in battle.

“I make some concessions. You make some concessions,” he said.
“How’s what I’m doing so unfair?”

He was attempting to punish her, but she wouldn’t let him.
“You’d know if you had a family to bother with!”

When a muscle jumped in his cheek, she realized what she’d just
said and had no idea how she’d allowed herself to be so callous, even to someone
who provoked her as much as he did. His father, a dissolute movie star himself,
had conceived Simon with his wife’s sister. For obvious reasons, the
relationship between father and son had always been strained. His father’s wife
refused to have Simon anywhere near her. And his mother, who’d been disowned by
the rest of the family for sleeping with her sister’s husband, had died of
breast cancer when Simon was ten. After she was gone, he’d been moved from the
small house he’d lived in until that time to his father’s estate, where he’d
been raised by the hired help that slipped in and out of Tex O’Neal’s life, not
all of whom were particularly reliable. Rumor had it that the one nanny Simon
had loved most had gone to prison for embezzlement.

“I’m sorry.” Her cheeks burned as she gaped at him.

He glared back. “I’m not going anywhere close to your family,”
he said, and got up and walked out.

“Simon, you okay?” Ian’s expression filled with so much concern
that Gail was tempted to believe he really cared about his employer, beyond just
the paycheck, but Simon didn’t respond.

“Did you have to go that far?” He turned to face her once it
was clear that Simon wasn’t coming back.

She was so busy kicking herself she didn’t need him to pile on,
too, but she couldn’t blame him. “I didn’t mean it. I—I’m overwrought. Couldn’t
sleep a wink last night. Other than that, I have no excuse.”

“You’re in the public-relations business, damn it!”

“I wish I could take it back.” She honestly hadn’t meant to
hurt Simon, hadn’t realized she could. He seemed so…impervious. Still, she
prided herself on using restraint and diplomacy especially in difficult
situations. What had gotten into her?

Sinking onto the sofa, she tilted some of the ice left in
Simon’s glass into her mouth. She’d turned him down when he’d offered her a
drink, but she shouldn’t have. She needed something to relieve her dry throat,
and she was rattled enough not to care where she got it.

“For what it’s worth, he’s going through hell,” Ian said.

She set the glass, now empty, back on the table. “You’ve
mentioned that. But he’s not the only one, okay? I don’t like this any more than
he does.”

“Of course you don’t.” He made a noticeable effort to calm
down. “You’re out of your comfort zone, and that’s understandable. But…can’t
you…I don’t know…put out for him once in a while? Just to help him stay on the
straight and narrow? I bet he’d agree to meet your dad if you do.”

She smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand. “Tell me
you’re kidding.”

“No! Come on, what would it hurt? You’ll be married so it won’t
be illegal
or
immoral. Even Mother Teresa couldn’t
object.”

When she didn’t respond, he seemed encouraged.

“It might be something you’d enjoy,” he added. “He could loosen
you up. Teach you a few things. If this marriage is going to work, he’ll need an
outlet.”

“I am
not
going to become his
blow-up doll.” Something to be used and tossed away when he was done, something
that would never mean anything to him. She had to live with herself when this
was over.

“Forget it. I shouldn’t have brought the subject up again.” He
shrugged. “Time will take care of it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ll see. You’re going to want it as bad as he does. I mean,
you’ve got to have
some
physical desires of your
own. You’re what, thirtyish? And not bad-looking. A bit pale, maybe, but if you
were to forget the business suits, let your hair down and laugh once in a while,
you could get laid.”

She held up a hand in the classic stop position. “Please, don’t
try to cheer me up.”

“Just my two cents,” he said with an attitude that indicated he
was as obtuse on this as he sounded.

“Could you shut up for a second, please? I need to think.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets while she tried to sort out
her thoughts and feelings, but silence didn’t offer the clarity she’d hoped for.
She kept coming back to two things. She couldn’t bear to cast her employees
aside. And she couldn’t return home in defeat. Whether she liked it or not, that
left her with only one option—to ignore her frustration and unhappiness and
marry Simon.

But the second she said, “I do,” she’d step into the spotlight
that followed him mercilessly and attract far more attention than she’d ever
feel comfortable with. And if Simon refused to make an appearance in Whiskey
Creek, her father would be positive that she’d turned out as disloyal as her
mother, and her friends would feel snubbed and betrayed that she hadn’t included
them in the “courtship.”