by Jae
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www.ylva-publishing.com
OTHER BOOKS BY JAE
The Hollywood Series:
Departure from the Script
Damage Control
Dress-tease
Just Physical
Portland Police Bureau Series:
Conflict of Interest
Next of Kin
Change of Pace
The Moonstone Series:
Something in the Wine
Seduction for Beginners
The Vampire Diet Series:
Good Enough to Eat
Coitus Interruptus Dentalis
The Oregon Series:
Backwards to Oregon
Beyond the Trail
Hidden Truths
Lessons in Love and Life
The Shape-Shifter Series:
Second Nature
Natural Family Disasters
Manhattan Moon
True Nature
Nature of the Pack
Pigeon Post
Under a Falling Star
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to all of my readers who wrote me an e-mail, demanding that Jill, who was a supporting character in my novel Damage Control, get her own novel. As you can see, I take instructions well!
A big thank-you also goes to my critique partners, Alison Grey and RJ Nolan, and to my beta readers, who encouraged and helped me along the way: Andrea, Anne-France, Amy, Christiane, Danielle, Erin, and Michele.
I’m also grateful to my editor, Lauren Sweet, whose amazing insight into plot and structure helped shape this book.
PROLOGUE
The last time Jill had been seriously sick was when she came down with pneumonia at the age of seven, but in the last two months, she’d spent more time in doctors’ offices than on set or in her own house. She grinned halfheartedly. I doubt I’ll get a lollipop for good behavior this time.
She sat in the waiting area, leafing through a five-month-old magazine without really reading it. The clock on the wall above her was ticking noisily, each tick sounding as loud as a drum. Or maybe it was the thumping of her heart that was filling her ears.
Calm down. It’s just your damn leg, not something life-threatening. Normally, Jill was an incorrigible optimist, but she had a bad feeling about this.
None of the many health-care professionals she’d seen in the last eight weeks had been able to help her or at least find out what was wrong with her leg. The pins-and-needles sensation in her left big toe, which she had blamed on the pointy-toed shoes she had to wear on set, had spread to the entire foot and then up her calf. Now her left leg was numb from her toes to her hip.
Her blood tests looked normal, though, and so did an X-ray. They had ruled out diabetes, Lyme disease, vitamin B12 deficiency, orthopedic problems, and a trapped nerve. Rest hadn’t helped, and neither had physical therapy. She was beginning to think they suspected her of being a hypochondriac—one more wannabe Hollywood diva who thought the world was a stage and delivered a rendition of The Dying Swan every time she had a simple cold.
Finally, Dr. Stevens had scheduled an MRI. After weeks of waiting…waiting for appointments, then waiting for the results, she might finally find out today what was wrong with her.
“Ms. Corrigan?” a nurse called. “Dr. Stevens will see you now.”
A lump formed in Jill’s throat. She followed the nurse down what felt like the longest hallway she had ever encountered. She white-knuckled her cane as she took a seat across the desk from Dr. Stevens. His puke-green walls hadn’t gotten any more attractive since her last visit.
“So,” Dr. Stevens said. “How are you doing?”
She wished he’d cut out the small talk and get right to the point. “Fine,” she said. Describing her symptoms again wouldn’t do her any good; he already knew them.
“That’s good.” He nodded repeatedly, shuffled his feet beneath the desk, and peeked at the report in front of him.
Even when she craned her neck, she couldn’t make out any of the words.
He fingered the report. “I have good news and bad news.”
Jill gritted her teeth. Oh no, she would not allow him to play this game with her. She had never been one to draw out things unnecessarily, and she wasn’t about to start now. Firmly, she put both hands on his desk. “Just tell me, please.”
“It’s not a brain tumor.”
Jill blew out a breath. After he had sent her to get an MRI scan of her brain and spinal cord, she had halfway suspected that he was thinking she might have cancer. Okay, this had to be the good news. What was the bad news, then? Nothing could be worse than a brain tumor, right? She leaned forward. “What is it, then?”
“Well, diagnosing it is a real challenge because there’s no one specific test that can confirm it all by itself, but…” The doctor stared at the radiology report instead of looking her in the eyes.
Clearly, he had failed Bedside Manner 101. She rapped her knuckles on the desk to make him look back at her. Her cane, which she had leaned against the desk, thudded to the floor, but she didn’t care. “But what?”
Dr. Stevens scratched his nose. “From the symptoms you’re describing and that episode of blurred vision you experienced a couple of years ago—”
“That just lasted for a day or two, nothing like this.” She waved at her leg. “And I was under a lot of pressure to find roles back then, so it was probably just stress.”
The doctor slowly shook his head. “I don’t think so. The bright spots on the MRI indicate areas of inflammation in the CNS, and with your history of neurological symptoms, I’m pretty sure it’s MS—multiple sclerosis. It’s an autoimmune disorder, which means that your immune system attacks the protective sheath around your nerve fibers…”
Jill didn’t hear the rest of what he was saying. The two letters echoed through her mind. MS. She tried to remember what she had heard about it—which wasn’t much. Isn’t that what Mr. Rosner has? Her parents’ neighbor was in a wheelchair, unable to even lift a hand.
“No,” she said loudly, interrupting the doctor midsentence. “That’s not possible, is it? I’m only twenty-five.”
Dr. Stevens’s gaze softened. “I’m sorry to say so, but that’s a typical age for the onset of MS.”
A numbness of a different kind spread through her, shackling her to the chair, while her thoughts raced at a frantic pace, bombarding her with questions and grim images of what the future might hold for her. Finally, she managed to get out one of them. “Will I end up in a wheelchair?”
The doctor lifted his hands and then dropped them to his lap. “There’s no way to tell. The course of MS is different for everyone. You seem to have the relapsing-remitting type, which means that you’ll experience flare-ups followed by periods without symptoms. They might change and get worse over time, but it’s impossible to predict the course of your disease.”
“Periods,” Jill repeated, trying to understand how her life had changed so drastically in such a short time. “How long?”
“Like I just said, it’s different for everyone. If you’re lucky, maybe one or two relapses a year.”
Jill suppressed a snort. At the moment, she didn’t feel very lucky. “If I really have MS…” Saying it out loud made her head spin. “Is there nothing I can do to treat it?”
“Of course there is. I’ll refer you to a neurologist, who’ll discuss treatment options with you. He might want to put you on a round of corticosteroids to treat your recent attack. And there are medications that can delay flare-ups.”
“But there’s no cure?”
The doctor sighed. “No. At least not yet.”
Silence spread through the room until Dr. Stevens asked, “Do you have any other questions?”
Jill had hundreds of them, but she couldn’t grasp any of them long enough to voice it, so she just shook her head.
He stood, handed her a stack of brochures, and a card. “That’s the address of a local support group. You might want to go to a meeting.”
Jill took the brochures and the card without glancing at them or saying anything. She left the doctor’s office on legs that felt even shakier than before. For what felt like an eternity but might have been just minutes, she sat in her car without starting the engine and stared through the windshield, not seeing a thing. Something pricked behind her eyes, but no tears would fall.
“Okay. Get a grip.” She clutched the steering wheel with both hands, trying to ground herself in reality. “This isn’t the end of the world.”
Then why did it feel as if it were?
After two days of pacing around her house, sleeping just for an hour or two at a time, sheer exhaustion finally forced Jill to sink down onto the couch. She eyed the brochures lying there. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached out and took the one on top.
She’d started to read it yesterday, but after encountering words such as bladder issues, choosing a mobility device, and daily injections, she had quickly put the brochure away. Now she forced herself to read on, even though her stomach clenched with every word. Was this really what her future would hold?
“Come on. You can do this. You’re not going to let this disease defeat you,” she said out loud, as if that would make it true. Without allowing herself to stop, she reached for the next brochure. This one was titled “Getting Help” and listed counseling and self-help group options.
Jill imagined herself sitting in a circle of chairs and wheelchairs, telling perfect strangers about any bladder issues she might develop. She shook her head and smiled despite herself. No, a support group wasn’t for her.
The last page of the brochure listed other places to get support—including family members.
Jill groaned. Oh shit. She hadn’t even thought about her parents and James. Did she really have to tell them? It wasn’t as if they were a big part of her life. They saw each other maybe once a year, and all her mother ever talked about on the phone was Jill’s brother, perfect James, who—unlike Jill—had the right kind of job and the right kind of relationship. But since Jill had strayed from that path of perfection when she’d come out and moved to Hollywood, they hadn’t supported her when she’d struggled to find roles, nor had they been there for her when her first girlfriend had broken up with her.
It made no sense to get them involved, she decided. If she ended up needing help, she’d be better off paying someone for it. Maybe she’d hire a housekeeper. That way, she could save her energy for important things, not for ironing and cleaning, which she hated anyway.
Now ready to find out more about how to manage this damn disease, she opened her laptop and clicked through a few websites, reading bits and pieces until she finally ended up on the YouTube channel of a young woman. It was a video diary that described life with MS. She watched the entry on diet tips and then one about exercise, glad to hear there was something, however small, she could do.
The next video started automatically. The subject—MS and relationships—made Jill reach for the touchpad to click over to the next video. She was single, and starting a new relationship was the last thing on her mind right now. In fact, she didn’t think she’d ever get involved with anyone again. She didn’t want to live with MS, so how could she do it to a person she loved?
But the young woman’s voice, now choked-up instead of upbeat as it had been in the previous videos, made her stop and listen.
“It’s not that I don’t get it,” the woman in the video said, sniffling. “I mean, living with the prospect that he might one day have to feed me and dress me and push me around in a wheelchair… That’s a lot to take in. No one wants to take on that kind of responsibility at twenty. Everyone warned me, telling me how much of a burden the situation is for the partner of a person with MS and how MS puts a lot of strain on a relationship. But I wanted to believe that we were different. That we would make it. Through the good times and the bad, right?”
The young woman pulled a tissue from a box, then another one and finally a third. “He didn’t even wait until I was out of the hospital. He just moved out without much of an explanation, other than saying he felt trapped and couldn’t do it anymore.” The rest of her words were unintelligible because she was sobbing into her bunch of tissues.
Jesus. That asshole just abandoned her.
After a minute of crying and venting, the woman calmed enough so Jill could understand her again. “Why can’t he be more like Michael? He takes such good care of Sara, drives her to doctor’s appointments, and even helps her with bathing and dressing.”
Jill wasn’t sure that was any better. Just because a couple stayed together didn’t mean they were happy. How could they be under such circumstances?
She tapped the touchpad and closed the browser. Her determination grew to never, ever put herself—or someone she loved—in that position. It was better if she stayed alone. Someone in her situation had no right to tie a partner to her and expect the poor woman to take care of her. That burden was hers and hers alone.
She had always been the take-it-or-leave-it type when it came to relationships anyway. While she’d been in love a time or two, she’d never been the clingy type who had to be in a relationship or feel lonely.
With a decisive nod, she closed the laptop. Staying single would be for the best.
CHAPTER 1
Eighteen months later
“Susana?” Jill called toward the kitchen. “I’m heading over to Grace’s. Can you set the alarm when you go? And don’t feed you-know-who too many treats while I’m gone.”
“Me?” her housekeeper called back in her most innocent tone. “I don’t do that. He just likes to keep me company in the kitchen because he’s a real love sponge.”
Jill snorted. “Yeah. That and an anything-edible-that-dropped-to-the-kitchen-floor sponge.” When she reached for her car keys and walked to the door, Tramp came running from the kitchen.
“Oh no.” She shook her head and pushed him back a little. “You stay here with your grandmother.”
“I heard that.” Susana Rosales stepped into the hall, combing back her salt-and-pepper hair with one hand. “I’m not old enough to be a grandmother.”
“Not yet,” Jill answered with a grin. “I hear Tomás finally has a girlfriend.”
Susana beamed at her. “Sí. It seems seeing you naked didn’t traumatize him for life after all.”
They looked at each other and started laughing.
A year ago, it hadn’t been a laughing matter at all. Jill sobered as she thought back to the day she had discovered that taking hot baths was no longer a good idea. The heat had made her MS symptoms flare, and she had nearly passed out before managing to make it out of the tub. She’d stumbled out of the bathroom—and into the arms of Susana’s sixteen-year-old son, who had just stepped down from a ladder after changing a lightbulb in her room. It had been a toss-up as to who had been more mortified: Jill or Tomás.
“Traumatized?” Jill repeated and shook her head. “Nah. If anything, seeing me naked would have spoiled him for other women.”
Susana flicked the dish towel she’d tucked into her apron in her direction and tsked. “Go, or I’ll tell Tomás not to mow your lawn after all.”
Laughing, Jill escaped out the door and to her car. A push of a button on her remote control opened the wrought-iron double-swing gate in front of her home in Glendale. She felt like a character in a spy thriller as she guided the car onto the street, peekin
g left and right to make sure no paparazzi were lurking.
After she had come out as a lesbian and a woman with MS last June, they had followed her around as if they were a starving pack of wolves and she a tasty rabbit, even though they hadn’t given her the time of day before. That’s Hollywood for you. You have to die, go into rehab, or at least get diagnosed with a chronic illness to get any attention.
When she was sure the coast was clear, she drove to Grace’s cottage in Topanga Canyon. The hidden home had been a safe haven for Grace and her girlfriend, Lauren, when they first got together. Jill had spent some time up in the cottage too, especially last year, during the media frenzy after she had been forced to reveal her MS to the public. Back then, Lauren had still been her publicist, but in the past months, she had become a friend.
Grace’s SUV and Lauren’s Honda Civic were in the driveway when Jill reached the end of the steep dirt path.
Ooh, great! Jill parked her bright red Beetle convertible and rubbed her hands. She couldn’t wait to find out what the casting director of Shaken to the Core had said. Would he give her the lead role in the historical drama Lauren had written—or at least let her audition for it? She had been captivated by Lauren’s script from the moment Lauren had shown it to her. It wasn’t just the historical setting and the suspenseful action scenes of two young women trying to survive the earthquake and fires of 1906. This was finally a script with not just one but two strong female characters. Truth be told, Jill was sick of always playing the witty sidekick or the dorky best friend. Now, with Lauren putting in a good word for her, she might finally have a chance to prove herself in a more challenging role.
Grace opened the door wearing a turquoise bikini that was almost the same color as her eyes.
Not that Jill was looking into her eyes. Her gaze was drawn down to her friend’s generous cleavage. She stared for a second, startled by the unexpected sight and the reminder that her libido was still alive and kicking.
