Love in the Limelight Volume Two: Seduced on the Red CarpetLovers Premiere

by Ann Christopher

  “Hurry up,” he grumbled. “It’s lonely out here.”

  “Okay.”

  Okay. She shut the door again and tried to think. What did she do? Should she tell him now or should she confirm with her doctor before she went off half-cocked? Maybe she wasn’t pregnant after all, and this would be a big scare for nothing.

  The blaring red 99% accurate! on the blue box in the trash can put an end to that desperate speculation. Yeah, she was pregnant. In addition to the breast thing and the nausea thing, she just knew. There was a baby in there. And she couldn’t be happier about it.

  Still, they’d never talked about their future and she was supposed to leave for Mexico soon. Hunter couldn’t very well run the winery from L.A., but he hadn’t asked her to stay here with him, either.

  Other hadn’ts?

  He hadn’t told her he loved her.

  He hadn’t raised the subject of their future.

  He hadn’t exposed her to his daughter and his parents except in very small doses, as though he didn’t want them getting the wrong idea about her place in his life.

  He hadn’t ever talked about Annette and whether he was over her.

  He hadn’t looked like he was over Annette when he’d stared at their wedding picture earlier.

  The doubts crept, one by one, into her mind, banding together and gathering strength to use against her, like a pitchfork-carrying mob. When they’d all assembled, they formed one unmistakable truth:

  Hunter might not be happy about this.

  What the hell would she do then?

  The distant bleat of her cell phone distracted her, pulling her away from her increasingly dark thoughts. She should get that. It might be Rachel calling about tomorrow’s arrival time, assuming, of course, that it wasn’t Rachel calling to say, yet again, that she wasn’t coming.

  Taking a deep breath, she hurried out to the living room, where Hunter was sprawled on the sofa watching ESPN and looking sulky, with Willard drowsing on the floor at his feet. They both looked around at her appearance and Hunter picked her blinking cell phone up from the coffee table and passed it to her.

  “Thanks.” She glanced at the display. “It’s my agent. I’ll just be a minute, okay?”

  His jaw tightened. There was definitely something off about him tonight; was it the whole wedding picture thing still? Maybe. She’d have to ask after she got off the phone.

  “Okay,” he said, his gaze shifting back to the TV.

  Clicking the phone on, she headed back into the bedroom. “Hey, Susan.”

  “How’s Napa?” Susan asked in her usual crisp tone. She’d never been one for niceties and always wanted to get them out of the way ASAP so she could get to the only part of any conversation that interested her: money. “You ready to get back to work?”

  “Well,” Livia began.

  “We need you in Cabo in two days for the fittings, right? So you’d better start packing your little bags. Or were you going home first?”

  God. Livia slumped on the bed and rested her head in her hands, sudden exhaustion making her crazy. Ten minutes ago she’d discovered she was pregnant with a man who’d never even said he loved her and she was supposed to talk travel logistics and photo shoots?

  “I’ll just go straight there.”

  “Good. And Giancarlo’s hosting a dinner party for you that night. Only about fifty people, nothing big.”

  “A party?” Was this some sort of a cruel joke? Another stupid dinner party given by another one of her idle-rich friends when her life was at such a dramatic crossroads? “This is the first I’m hearing about that.”

  “It’s an early surprise. For your birthday. So don’t let on, okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow to check in.”

  Checking in was Susan-speak for accepting a ridiculous number of new assignments and scheduling Livia’s time for the next six months or so. Since Livia would be preparing to give birth, and since she’d already decided to take an extended break from modeling even before she found out she was pregnant, she’d have to put the kibosh on that plan, but it could wait until tomorrow. One big conversation per night was all she could handle, and she and Hunter had a baby that needed discussing.

  “Great,” she told Susan. “Bye.”

  Hanging up, she went back to the living room and perched on the coffee table in front of Hunter. He sat up, looking grim, turned off the TV and swung his feet to the floor. Willard yawned his overwhelming enthusiasm for her arrival and went back to sleep.

  “Hi,” she said. “Maybe we should talk.”

  “You’re leaving,” he said flatly.

  “Yeah. I have a photo shoot in Cabo San Lucas. It’s been scheduled for a while.”

  “And a party.”

  So he’d heard that, eh? “There’s always a party.”

  “I see.”

  Those golden eyes of his were dark now, and his shoulders were so rigid that they might have been replaced with a slab of concrete. The tension radiating from him felt black and dangerous, like a negative force field, and she watched him scrub his hands over his head and across his tight jaw with growing anxiety.

  Finally he met her gaze and they stared at each other for several beats. The whole time she searched for a sign of the laughing man who’d made love to her in his truck earlier that day, tried to find evidence of his existence, but he was so far gone right now he might have only ever been a figment of her imagination. Right now, the only thing she could see was the cold, aloof man who’d confronted her in the parking lot the day they met, and it terrified her.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

  He shrugged and raised a wry eyebrow, and the gestures were so casual and unspeakably wrong for this moment that they were like slaps to the face.

  “So this is it, then.”

  She licked her dry lips and took a deep breath, trying to formulate a scenario where those words and that detached look on his face didn’t add up to things being over between them.

  “This is…it?” she echoed.

  “Well, we knew it couldn’t last, right? Now it’s time for you to leave Napa and go back to your shoots and your parties and your life.”

  “What about you?”

  Another dismissive shrug. “I’ll stay here.”

  Oh, God. Blinking back sudden hot tears, she looked at Willard’s sleeping body and tried to pull it together. Falling apart now wouldn’t solve anything and neither would begging. Though her pride told her to keep her big mouth shut and not make this moment more awkward than it needed to be, her stupid heart forced her to reach out, to try.

  “But we’ll see each other, right? We can fly back and forth because it’s only a couple of hours, and I don’t see why we couldn’t—”

  A crooked smile distorted one corner of his mouth. “What’s the point?”

  “I thought the point was that we cared about each other. Am I wrong?”

  That, for the first time, put a dent in his composure. Resting his elbows on his knees, he dropped his head between his hands and squeezed his temples so hard she was surprised she didn’t hear his skull crack.

  Forever passed, and then another forever, and then he raised his now red face and ran his tongue along his lower lip in a clear attempt to keep his composure. It didn’t work. He was fighting back a grimace that made him look like there was something disgusting in his mouth that he needed to spit out.

  “This isn’t about us caring for each other.” He wouldn’t look at her and could barely get the words out, his voice was so rough with gravel. “This is about what will work and what won’t work.”

  Okay. Okay, so she needed a minute to choke back the rising sob of frustration and fear, and for some of the burning in her throat to cool enough for her to talk. Breathe, girl. Breathe. You can do this. Think of the baby.

  Blinking furiously and pressing her lips together until they’d gone numb, which was better than the quivering they’d been doing, she focused o
n the logical argument. “If we care for each other enough, Hunter, we can make it work.”

  At last he looked at her and she wished he hadn’t. His golden eyes were nothing but a sheet of ice now, a wall of amber behind which he’d locked himself down so tight she’d never be able to get close to him.

  “How can it work?” His tone was so light and conversational they could have been discussing whether a three-pronged plug could fit into a two-pronged outlet. “You think I’d ask you to sacrifice your career for me? Or maybe you think I’d be just fine leaving the winery and, I don’t know, spending my days on the beach in Malibu and my nights attending movie premieres and restaurant openings with you? Is that it?”

  Wow.

  Way to hit below the belt, Hunter. Way to slice through all her attempts at compromise and make her feel vulnerable, foolish and, best of all, shallow. If ever there was a time for her to just shut up and walk away, this was it, but she just couldn’t let him go. What they had together couldn’t be destroyed so easily.

  So she swiped away the embarrassing tears that trickled down her cheeks, took yet another deep breath and swallowed enough of her remaining pride to try again.

  “It doesn’t have to be about sacrifice. This is my last shoot for a while and then my calendar is free. I could do whatever I wanted. And they have these newfangled inventions called airplanes, don’t they? We both have cell phones and email. Why couldn’t we try for a while and see how—”

  He stared at her with not one spark of pity in his hard eyes. “When did a long-distance relationship ever work?” he wondered. “And how could my young daughter and I fit into your glamorous world of celebrities and fashion and parties?”

  Something snapped inside her. Broke neatly down the middle, leaving the two ruined parts to disintegrate to dust. Much as she’d wanted to be calm, gracious and classy, she couldn’t do it when he was this anxious to destroy everything they’d shared.

  “Those are just excuses,” she shrieked. “Excuses! If you don’t love me enough to try, then why don’t you just say—”

  “Don’t.” The big L-word made his mouth contort with disbelief or discomfort or something terrible like that, but, hey, at least he didn’t laugh right in her face. “Don’t do this, Livia.”

  A lightbulb went off over her head, bringing this whole situation into terrible HDTV clarity, and she had to ask, even if the truth killed her.

  “This is about Annette, isn’t it?”

  The name made him flinch and wasn’t that a clue enough for her dimwitted brain? “What about Annette?”

  “I saw you.” The rising hysteria was making her voice shake and she backed off for a minute, shuddering with her effort to remain rational and lower the volume. “I saw the way you looked at her picture tonight.”

  Cursing, he dropped his head again, squeezing it between his fisted hands as though he’d love nothing better than to smash his skull and end this excruciating conversation. Which was just too damn bad because he owed her at least this much of an explanation.

  “And I’m wondering if you’re not over her yet. I’m wondering if you’ll ever be over her.”

  When he raised his head this time, he was deathly pale and still, his eyes feverishly bright. And his voice was absolute and unyielding as he threw a live grenade into the middle of all her hopes and dreams, blowing them to kingdom come.

  “No,” he said softly. “I’ll never get over my wife.”

  *

  Livia consulted her list in the bright-morning sunlight and surveyed her bag, which was packed to the gills with various little Napa Valley purchases and would, therefore, be a lot harder to close and zip than it’d been when she came nearly a month ago. Her toiletries were still in the bathroom, but she’d remembered her camera, her shoes, not that she’d brought that many pairs, and her Jackie Robinson biography, so she could cross all those off the list. The only other things were—

  Someone knocked at the front door.

  Since it wasn’t Hunter’s brisk and assertive knock, she didn’t really care who it was, but the car to take her to the airport may have come a little early so she should probably answer it.

  Taking a final inventory as she passed through the living room—no forgotten shoes half-hidden under the sofa, thank goodness—she opened the door.

  “Rachel!”

  Screeching like ten-year-olds, they latched on and hugged as though they hadn’t seen each other for fifty years of desperate searching. Since Livia was a giantess and Rachel was a cute little pixie, Livia swept her off her feet and swung her in a circle, which Rachel tolerated with good grace. Then Livia plunked her back down and, keeping her at arm’s length, checked her out to see how she was doing.

  Boy, was she glad to see her.

  She needed a friend after the horrible night she’d had.

  “You look great.” Livia smoothed Rachel’s dark Halle Berry hair and admired her turquoise necklace; Rachel always wore the prettiest artsy jewelry and whatnot, which probably had something to do with her eye for color and her success as a makeup artist. If you wanted a great accessory, Rachel was the one to consult. “I thought you weren’t coming until later.”

  “We got bumped up to an earlier flight.”

  “Come on in.” Taking her hand, Livia led Rachel into the living room, where they both sat on the sofa. “What’s new? What’d you decide about the wedding? You got my emailed pictures of the chapel and all, right?”

  “Yup. It’ll be here in about a month.”

  “A month!”

  “Oh, and the merger is going through.”

  Wow. So Limelight Entertainment Management, the agency that represented Livia and had been started by Rachel’s parents before their death twenty-five years ago, would merge with their rivals at A.F.I.

  Sofia, Rachel’s sister and second-in-command at Limelight Entertainment Management, hated A.F.I. and had been fighting her uncle for months, arguing against the merger.

  This was going to be interesting.

  “I can’t believe it,” Livia said. “I never thought it’d happen.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Where’s Ethan?”

  “He’s catching up with Hunter.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Livia glued that painful smile on her face and focused on keeping her expression from falling at the mere mention of his name. If she didn’t watch it, she’d slip up and do something to clue Rachel in that she’d just had the love affair of her life, and she wasn’t ready to discuss Hunter, her feelings for him or the baby with anyone. Not even Rachel. “Did you meet him?”

  “Yeah. It’s a shame he’s so ugly. A real tragedy.”

  Livia tried to laugh.

  “But is he always this glum? He looked like he’d lost his best friend, his house and his dog. Is that what running a winery does to a person?”

  Livia shrugged, her gaze shifting away from Rachel’s. This was dangerous territory and they really needed to talk about something else.

  “Come to think of it,” Rachel said, taking a closer look at Livia’s face with those eagle eyes of hers, “he looked a lot like you look. Have you been crying? You have, haven’t you? Your eyes are all swollen.”

  “Rachel,” Livia began, trying to work up a plausible denial but it was already too late.

  “Oh, my God! You and Hunter?” Rachel clapped her hands over her mouth, trying to stifle a giggle of startled comprehension and excitement. “I’m right! There’s something going on with you, isn’t there?”

  “I can’t get into it, Rachel.”

  “But—”

  “Rachel.” Livia held up a hand, pressed her lips together and struggled not to cry. “Please. I can’t do this right now. Please understand.”

  “Oh, honey.” Rachel squeezed her arm in a show of concerned support. “Do I need to kill him for you?”

  Livia spluttered out a laugh. “I’ll let you know, okay? Right now, I just need to get out of here. I think Mexico will do me some good.”
/>   Sometime during the long and difficult night, when she wasn’t replaying the coldness in Hunter’s eyes and the lack of inflection in his voice as he hit her with the joyous news that he’d never be over his dead wife, she’d convinced herself that the trip to Mexico, though inconvenient, was exactly what she needed.

  She’d throw herself into her work, get some sun and think. The time away would give her some perspective and, hopefully, enough emotional distance to manage this situation. In a few days, she’d come back, tell Hunter she was pregnant and would raise the baby whether he decided to be involved in their lives or not, and it would all be good.

  In a few days.

  Right now, though, all was not good.

  “How about another hug?” she asked Rachel. “I could use one.”

  “You got it, girl.”

  Holding her arms wide, Rachel pulled her in close, and Livia, feeling exhausted and empty, rested her head against the reassuring warmth of her friend’s chest and wished she could stay there forever.

  Chapter 14

  This was so hard.

  This was so incredibly, unspeakably, unbelievably hard.

  Livia loitered outside the doghouse, blinking back her tears and trying not to fall apart. Kendra had ignored her with steadfast determination for the last five minutes and Livia was nearing the end of her depleted emotional reserves.

  “Kendra,” she called again. “Please.”

  No answer from the dark depths of the doghouse. The flashlight was out today, intensifying the gloom inside. Even Willard, who was also in there with Kendra, had his face turned away from Livia, as though she was also letting him down and he didn’t plan to let her forget it anytime soon, if ever.

  Swiping at her face, she made a quick decision and sat down. “If I’m not welcome in the dragon’s den today,” she said, “I’ll just sit by the entrance. I hope that’s okay.”

  No answer but at least now she could see what was going on in the den. Kendra sat in the far corner, with Willard’s big head in her lap and her stuffed diplodocus hugged to her chest above that. As Livia peered inside, Kendra stared off in the other direction, resolutely refusing to either acknowledge her presence or accept her goodbye.