Dying to Have Her

by Heather Graham

  “Serena, you know how I feel about you,” Joe said.

  “Um. How?”

  “Like a father, just like a father. Then, of course, there’s the show …”

  “Yes, exactly. Valentine Valley. And you feel just like a father in regards to the show, too, right, Joe?” she asked softly.

  “I did create it,” he reminded her. “Serena, I know you’re independent, but I also know that you’re an intelligent woman who would never jeopardize her own safety.”

  “I don’t ever jeopardize my own safety,” she said. “That’s why I don’t need a bodyguard.”

  “Serena, would you put yourself at risk,” Joe queried her, “when it’s totally unnecessary? When we do have the ability to provide you with extra protection. Would you put us all at risk?”

  Great. Now he was making her look really bad, like a sulky child, heedless of the concerns of others.

  “All right, fine,” she heard herself saying. Calmly, maturely. “You want me to have a bodyguard. I want a normal life.” She spun around, staring at Liam. “I need some distance,” she told him. She wasn’t referring just to work.

  “Don’t worry,” he said laconically. “I’m not moving in.” He seemed amused, as if the thought that he might get a bit too close was ludicrous. “You haven’t noticed me yet, have you?”

  Noticed him yet? This time she felt an incredible sense of righteous outrage.

  “Yet?” she snapped, turning on Joe. “You hired him already—what? days ago!—and he’s been watching me, and no one informed me?”

  “We didn’t want you to be upset, Serena,” Joe said.

  Liam stepped forward, placed a hand on her arm, and turned her around. “Don’t get all crazy. I haven’t been peeking in your windows or anything.” Staring at him, she wanted to scream. It was there again, that something in his voice that made her want to leap out a window. Disdain. As if he wouldn’t bother to peep in her window. He’d seen it all. Not worth it.

  She looked from his eyes to his hand and back to his eyes. “Don’t touch me,” she said softly.

  He moved his hand, not a flicker of emotion touching the ebony of his eyes. “I’ve trailed your car,” he continued flatly, “and watched your house, just making sure no one followed you or accosted you.”

  She turned to Joe. “How could you do this to me?” she demanded.

  Joe lifted his hands helplessly. “Serena, we love you.”

  She was going to explode. She had to get out of there—away from Liam. “Keep your distance!” she snapped.

  Ink-dark lashes fell over his eyes. “Your every command is … my pleasure, Serena,” he assured her.

  She put her hands on his chest and shoved past him— but certainly didn’t move him an inch. She started out the door, started to slam it again. She was behaving very badly. She wanted to be poised and calm. She would be poised and calm, if it killed her.

  He caught the door before it could close and followed her, at a distance. They went to the elevator and up to the dressing rooms. She barged into her room, slamming the door after her.

  He didn’t try to follow.

  “Damn him!” she swore.

  Then she nearly jumped a mile as a scream erupted from the corner of her dressing room. Spinning around, she saw that Jennifer was there, sitting in the plush rocker with her baby, who had been frightened by the violence of Serena’s entrance.

  Jen gave Serena a look of dismay. “You woke him!”

  “Oh, God,” Serena exclaimed. She walked over to Jennifer, who looked tired, and reached for the baby. “May I, please? I’m sorry, Jen, but—what are you doing here, in my dressing room? I didn’t see you there, I didn’t know—”

  She plucked the wailing baby from his mother’s arms and smoothed his little head, crooning to him, as Jennifer explained, “We were all called in for the big meeting. My dressing room is still off-limits—I don’t know what they’re looking for, but it’s taped off. I came here, knowing that you, my dear friend, would welcome the baby and me with open arms. I could have gone to Conar’s room, of course, but I do get to see my husband with wonderful regularity, while I don’t see you all that often now while I’m off the set.”

  “Oh, Jen, I really am sorry. You are always welcome here, you know that. I just didn’t see you, or this precious little bumpkin. Hey, sweetheart, it’s okay, see, you’re getting quiet now, I didn’t mean to make that big, big noise.”

  The baby gulped, stared at her, waved a tiny fist her way, then smiled and leaned against her shoulder, at peace again. His body gave a little shudder as he quieted down.

  “Thank God he loves you,” Jen murmured.

  “Thank God he’s totally reasonable, merely indignant at his life being interrupted, but more than willing to accept an apology.”

  “Oh, Lord, what’s up?” Jennifer asked, coming to claim the baby. She took him carefully from Serena and gently put him in his car seat carrier. He gave another little shake, waved his arms, and sighed into stillness.

  Serena sat down hard on the chair in front of her dressing table.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this—I need a drink. No, total anesthesia. Oh, hell, maybe someone could just shoot me.”

  “Serena, what in the world is the matter?” Jennifer asked.

  Serena raised her arms and let them fall, then said indignantly, “They’ve hired a bodyguard for me.” Then her eyes narrowed. “But come to think of it, you probably know, don’t you?” she demanded.

  Jennifer was quiet, but she looked guilty as all hell. Serena stared at her, shaking her head. “You did know all about it?”

  Jennifer’s continued silence assured Serena that her suspicions were true.

  “Of course. Naturally, you knew that they had hired Liam. Conar would have known, and Conar would have told you,” Serena said accusingly.

  Jennifer cleared her throat. “I only found out yesterday. And I’ve been distracted because of the baby’s ear infection. But I really didn’t think you’d be that upset. You told me that the … thing between you and Liam was over. A long time ago. You didn’t behave as if it had been a horrible breakup. You were cool about it, as if it was a decision you had made. And before, when you and Andy were divorced, you came to work more cheerfully than ever before, and you were as kind as humanly possible to Andy, and you even did love scenes with him.”

  “Because I was desperate to divorce Andy.”

  “Well, think about the things you said when you split with Liam. You said that it just wasn’t working out; you were into breakfast in bed and he wanted to cook snakes on rocks in the desert, or something like that.”

  “Did I say that, really? That he wanted to cook snakes on rocks?” Serena murmured. She should have been honest about it all—to Jennifer, at least. Ah, but there had been the matter of her pride. To Liam Murphy, she just hadn’t been worth the effort.

  “Yes, actually. Those were almost the exact words you gave me.”

  “I lied,” Serena murmured.

  “Great. To me. Your best friend. You lied.”

  “You’re his best friend’s wife.”

  “And I’m still your friend!”

  Serena was silent for a moment. “He walked out on me,” she said after a moment.

  Jennifer gasped, instantly indignant on Serena’s behalf, even if Liam was one of her husband’s best friends. “He just walked out on you? No explanation, no—”

  “No,” Serena admitted, “he didn’t just walk out quite that simply.”

  “Well, then …”

  “He yelled a lot first.”

  “And I take it you’re trying to tell me that you didn’t say anything back?” Jennifer asked dryly.

  “Oh, yeah. I had a lot to say.”

  Serena exhaled, remembering. And oddly enough, she could remember Liam exactly as he had been that day. They had been at his house. They’d both been off; they’d planned to spend the day together. And the phone had rung—her cell phone. It had been Joe Penn
y about the plot line and a private meeting he wanted to have with her and Andy before starting out. Liam had seemed amused and tolerant when she’d first answered the phone, though he reminded her that he’d actually told his boss he was out of town for the weekend, just so that they could have time without a phone ringing. They’d had conversations before about her being off the schedule, then running in at a moment’s notice. She said that he did the same thing, but he had told her he was a cop. He didn’t seem to realize how many times he had run out on her. But that was different in his eyes. His work was serious. That was the point. He was a cop. She was an actress. According to his way of thinking, his job gave him the right to break dates, fail to show up, and depart at a moment’s notice.

  She’d definitely resented his assumption, though she’d tried for a long time to understand. He hadn’t returned the effort. Like Jeff and Melinda, he didn’t take her work seriously.

  She could remember the casual way Liam had been sprawled on the bed, shoulders, legs, and chest very bronze beneath the white flat of a sheet thrown over his middle, his elbows folded behind his head on the pillow. When she hung up, he told her that it wasn’t necessary for her to go right then—she could arrange a meeting with Joe the next day.

  But Joe had sounded angry, and she felt she couldn’t put the meeting off. She was still feeling a bit irritated as well over a flare-up she’d had with Liam about a few pictures that had made their way into the papers. So, after the phone call, she walked over, kissed his forehead, then headed for the bathroom and the shower, explaining, “I’ve got to go.”

  She’d barely been in the shower a minute before the curtain opened and he was standing there, naked head to toe, gorgeous.

  “I’ve never seen anything more tempting in my life,” she had teased, “but I’ve got to go. It’s important.” His cold, hard expression made her heart falter a little.

  She remembered taking her hand, could even remember the way the water dripped from it as she placed it on his chest. “All right, well, maybe I could be a little late …” she’d told him in her sexiest voice, the one that supposedly made half the red-blooded American males who ever flicked a channel changer want to go to bed with her.

  Not Liam. He took her hand, dropped it, and stared into her eyes. “No, Serena. I’m worth more than a few minutes. We’re worth more than a few minutes. I’ve gone along with all the hoopla, the papers, the guys at the station asking me about you in all these places with your arms around all these other guys, and I haven’t flown off the handle once.”

  “What a liar! You fly off the handle all the time. You nearly broke my arm dragging me away from the news-stand the other day when that silly gossip rag printed that shot of Manny Martinez kissing my cheek—”

  “He wasn’t kissing your cheek, and you were naked.”

  “I wasn’t naked! I don’t know how they got that shot. It was taken on the set somehow when he was guest-starring as the Italian music craze at Prima Piatti—”

  “Yeah, right, everything with you is a pub shot, and I’m supposed to look the other way.”

  “It was on the set—”

  “Yeah, it was on the set, and then there was the article about you and Manny Martinez doing a lot more than steaming up the set, and you went right along with that.”

  “I didn’t go along with it. It’s not that easy to sue—”

  “Forget it, Serena, forget it.”

  “I will not forget it!”

  The water was hot, streaming down around them. He was getting soaked, and so was she, and steam was rising. “You take off all the time—because you’re a cop. Cop! I think the word means God to you. Sometimes, instead of being so superior, you could try being supportive.”

  “A cop is different!” he flared.

  She was mad already. That made her madder. And the madder she got, the more she wanted to hit him. So she did hit him. With both wet fists, right on the chest, and she stepped out of the shower still hitting him. “You know what I do for a living, you’ve always known what I do for a living, and you’ve no right to think you’re better—”

  “I never said better!”

  “And as to the stupid pictures, you know the magazines will print anything, and—”

  “And I know that you can correct people, and that you can stop some of it. Then, if you’re not sleeping with every male who does a guest appearance on the show, you should—”

  “You bastard! What a horrible thing to say!”

  “Yeah, it is, right? But the magazines write it all up, and you don’t change any of it!”

  She faltered slightly. Joe had suggested that she let the last article, implying a lot, saying nothing, slide. So she’d done so.

  “If you believe any of the rot you read, if you have any doubts about me, go—just go!”

  “I’m going!” But he’d been backing away while she’d pounded his chest, and he suddenly caught her hands, and she came against him, and in all her life, she’d never needed anything more than to feel the pressure of his body against hers. She wasn’t sure who started it, but he was kissing her, or she was kissing him and they were both soaked and burning and it wasn’t just her, because when she ran her hands down the length of his body, he was aroused, really aroused, and that aroused her, and she couldn’t have pulled away from him if the “big one” had struck California. And the way he made love, getting every little lick of water off her body, merging with her as if they were one, she felt as if she exploded into a physical rapture that surely brought them into a new place of being, and with something so wonderful, he had to understand; they’d talk calmly, and rationally, and …

  It was his house, but he was up before she was breathing normally.

  He could dress with the speed of lightning. While she was still there, stupidly staring at him, thinking she had just been to heaven and back.

  “I can’t do it, Serena. I can’t.”

  “What—”

  “If you can’t see that you need a private and personal life, I can’t do it. Your minutes are great, but I don’t want a few minutes.”

  “You’ve lost me completely—”

  “No, I never had you.”

  “Liam, this is crazy. You leave all the damned time.”

  “I’m a cop. And even being a cop, I don’t have a quarter of the ‘emergencies’ that you do.”

  “Liam, that’s a lie. You’re behaving like a jealous idiot.”

  “Serena, I can tolerate a lot. But you’re not even playing the same game.”

  He was reaching for his jacket.

  “You’re walking out on me—now! After—”

  “Seems as good a time as any.”

  “This is your house!”

  “Yes. Lock the door when you leave, please.”

  She wasn’t even sure what she called him then. A number of things. She wasn’t sure what he said back to her—he was already on his way out.

  “Serena,” Jennifer said. “Serena!” she persisted, jolting her back to the present. “Talk to me. Tell me what happened. I’m your best friend and you lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie to you—it wasn’t working.”

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t like my schedule.”

  “Really?” Jennifer said skeptically. “It was that simple?” Then her eyes opened even more widely. “Serena, you didn’t … you didn’t go running out on him in … in the middle of something?”

  Serena was appalled that she could flush so easily. “No.”

  She had left Liam’s house in tears, still believing he would call, apologize.

  He didn’t.

  And she had never picked up the phone to call him. He had meant what he had said. He was out of her life. She’d left a few things at his place. A robe, a few shirts, jeans, makeup. He’d packed them all up neatly—and used Fed Ex to get them back to her. She’d left one message on his machine, informing him that he was a rude, unreasonable asshole and she never wanted to see him again. He left
her a message in return, telling her he’d do his best to oblige.

  She’d never felt so lost and alone in her life.

  He had hurt her ego. She hadn’t been so rudely dumped in—forever. But it wasn’t her pride that hurt so badly. She had fallen in love with him. She hadn’t really wanted to go tramping in the Southwest wilderness, but she had loved the idea of diving trips to out islands, of simple days of just being with him. She had loved the sound of his voice, his laughter, his touch, the way he looked sleeping, and awake. The feel of his arms …

  But she hadn’t been wrong; she was certain of that. She was an actress, and she had a right to be an actress. She felt strongly that every woman had a right, to a career, just as every woman had the right not to have a career if she chose to stay home and manage a household and raise her children.

  “I think he wounded your ego,” Jennifer said.

  “Hey, this is Hollywood, remember? I know the ropes—it’s like majoring in rejection. You know that.” Her friend was still staring at her. “Jen, it just wasn’t working. He was always a cop first.”

  “He’s not a cop anymore.”

  “Private investigator. The same, but worse. It’s not just that. I don’t like the things he does in his free time. Camping. Yuck. Bugs and smelly sleeping bags. And besides, he’s seeing someone. And I …”

  The thought trailed off. I’ll never set myself up for a fall like that again.

  There was a tap on her door. Jennifer leaped to her feet, ready to shush anyone coming in loudly. Serena walked to the door, ready to throw it open and accost Liam.

  But it wasn’t Liam. Doug was standing there, well dressed and handsome as usual, but wearing his sunglasses. Inside.

  “Doug! Hey, come in.”

  “Quietly,” Jennifer warned.

  He stepped in, closed the door, and headed right for the sofa. He sat. They both stared at him. “Well, aren’t you going to ask me how my night at Kyle’s place went?”

  “Oh! Yes, of course,” Serena said. She’d forgotten that he’d gone to Kyle Amesbury’s place.

  “Kyle’s place?” Jennifer said suspiciously.

  “We ran into Kyle Amesbury—now in charge of whether or not his company continues to give us our advertising dollars,” Serena explained.