by Pamela Aares
“You’re up, right?” The light tone of Linda’s voice sounded tight, forced.
“Sure. How’s everything going with the project?”
“God, Cameron, I really didn’t want to call you. But it’s looking worse than bleak. The Swiss funds got diverted to tsunami relief. I mean, I understand, but we were counting on that funding to leverage the World Bank.”
“What about the U.S.?”
“That’s why I’m calling. We need leverage. Press. And we’ll need it most right after Christmas. The vote for the funding will happen in mid-January. Tracy thought you could maybe do an interview or two.” She paused. Because Tracy Milton, the president of the UNICAN foundation, took no prisoners, Cameron had a pretty good idea what was coming next. “And, well... Tracy thought that if you could get that guy who came down and saw the project firsthand to do an interview—”
“What guy?”
“The ballplayer.”
“Jake Ryder?”
“Yeah. I mean, he’ll be going to the White House in January too, according to Tracy. He could speak about his firsthand experience with the program. About the need for the U.S. funding. And directly to the president.”
Cameron sank onto the grass. There had to be another way. “No go, believe me.”
“Couldn’t you try?”
Linda hadn’t been appointed the project leader for her looks. She was savvy and tenacious.
“What about the Dominian government? Can’t they lean in?”
“Those bureaucratic bastards? The big news down here is a new resort going in, in San Pedro. New revenue and all that. The developers are dazzling the pols. Drinking water is the last thing on their minds. And they don’t have any clout in the States. Without funding from the U.S., this project is toast. We’ll have to start all over.”
“I’ll set some interviews up,” she promised, already dreading doing it.
“And the ballplayer?”
“Probably not. I’ll do what I can.”
Her heart sank as she ended the call. If she was going to do what she could to help the people of the bateyes, it wasn’t going to be anything close to a pleasant day.
Jake heard the crash of surf and snapped his eyes open. He’d slept so deeply that it took a minute before he realized where he was. He reached a hand out and came up with only rumpled, cool sheets. No Cameron.
He sat up and ran a hand through his hair. He’d broken rule number one.
But he’d sure had a hell of a time breaking it.
As for rule two, his three-date rule? No way in hell did he want to stop seeing Cameron.
He stumbled into the kitchen and rummaged through the cabinets. He came up with a French press and a bag of coffee.
“I was going to make that,” Cameron said from the doors that opened to the ocean.
“Coffee-making is one of my key kitchen skills.” He poured steaming water from the kettle over the grounds. And then he made a beeline for Cameron, pulling her into his arms and planting a kiss on her lips. It didn’t take a genius to read her stiff body language, and he dropped his arms and stepped back.
“Let’s have some coffee,” she said, avoiding his eyes and looking down at the floor. “And then we need to talk.”
His thoughts scrambled around in his brain, searching for a problem. Had he done something he hadn’t been aware of? He’d been forceful a time or two, but not rough. And she’d met him all night, measure for measure. That was a truth he knew as well as he knew his name.
She dodged around him and went to the counter.
“Would you like some toast?” she asked as she placed the coffee press and two mugs on the table and then poured coffee into each. “Do you want creamer? I only have soy. But it’s delicious.”
Toast? Coffee creamers? She had to be kidding. It was scenes like this that had inspired rule one in the first place.
“Cameron, stop. Sit. You might as well tell me what’s got you riled.”
The hot coffee burned his tongue. He’d known better than to take a gulp, but right then his brain was screaming, and not just for caffeine.
The chair she pulled out screeched against the hard floor. She blew on her coffee, took a tentative sip. She put the mug down and flattened her palms against the table. And only then did she meet his gaze.
“I would like for you to consider speaking with the president about the bateyes. Tell him what you saw firsthand. And maybe speak with the press.”
A ping of heat burst behind his eyes. She hadn’t heard anything he’d said about his aversion to publicity. Or had she? Was she simply steamrolling through his objections?
“I’m not going to Washington, so I won’t be seeing the president. As for the press, I don’t like publicity. I don’t do publicity. I don’t sell myself for the pleasure of others. And I don’t see how I can make that any clearer.” He kept his voice soft, but a major part of him wanted to rage. “Is this your way of saying last night was intended to melt my defenses and have me override my better judgment?” Coffee sloshed out of his mug as he slammed it down on the table. “I don’t appreciate being used. Not for anything.”
As soon as the words left him, he wanted to take them back. All his rash words did was add fuel to the brewing fire.
“I don’t use my body to gain favors.” She stood and pointed to his coffee mug. “I can give you that to go. You’ll make better time if you miss traffic. I need to leave for a hair appointment.”
She was smooth, he’d give her credit for that. And she was lying about the hair appointment. He’d seen a similar scene in the film of hers that he’d watched, similar dialogue. So she had played him. Well, he wasn’t up for being scripted. And getting out of there was likely the best thing he could do for both of them.
“I’ll call you,” he said as he grabbed his gear bag. A stupid exit line if ever there was one.
“You don’t have to. Just go.”
Jake drove the 405 like a maniac. But even hotshot driving moves didn’t calm his broiling thoughts. He slammed his hand against the steering wheel. It was the same old, same old. Didn’t he ever learn? Maybe the entire date had been a setup, just like with Scarlett Lee. Except he wasn’t an inexperienced seventeen-year-old. And Cameron hadn’t used him to put stars in her crown. But damned if it didn’t feel exactly the same.
He leaned on his horn, and the guy in front of him shot him the finger. Fine. He deserved it. He backed off the guy’s bumper. No use killing himself on a freeway. Not the way he wanted to die.
As the exits zoomed by and he got closer to LA, he rehearsed in his mind why he didn’t let the press close, why he kept his private life private. But no matter how carefully he argued his reasons, one thing nagged back at him—he’d been stirred by Cameron. And in a way he hadn’t expected. He knew she’d been fully with him last night, that what he’d felt flowing between them had been real. That just made the whole situation worse.
He got his agent on speakerphone.
“Tony? Put off Nike. I’m not in any place to be able to think about that right now.”
“Jake, it’s an easy million.”
“Easy for you.”
“Okay, I’ll stall them.”
“Tell them no.”
“Sleep on it for a few weeks. You have until the first of the year to decide.”
“It’ll still be no.”
“You didn’t ask about my golf game. What’s got you in such a twist?”
“How was your golf game?”
“Brilliant. If I hung up my clubs, I could go out on a high. Never have to sweat a sand trap ever again.”
“But you won’t.”
“I don’t give up. Not on tough games. Or stubborn ballplayers.”
“Might be time to start.”
“You need to get laid.”
“I’m hanging up, Tony. Call me when you hear about my contract with the Giants. And would you send your assistant to my hotel and have him ship my bag to my apartment? I’m driving straight thr
ough to San Francisco. I’m done with LA.”
“I meant to tell you—you know that cover spread in Star Weekly magazine?”
“Don’t go there.”
“Just sayin’. You’re the buzz right now. She’s one of the hottest babes in Hollywood.”
“I’m hanging up now, Tony.”
He clicked off the call. He didn’t need his agent to tell him how hot Cameron was. Under his anger, his body still hummed. An intense tune he hadn’t known he had in him.
Chapter Ten
Cameron zipped her suitcase and glanced around her townhouse. She was ready to get out of Los Angeles. The sprawling city was her least favorite place to spend the holidays. Packing to head up to Trovare to spend Christmas with Sabrina should’ve lifted the deep cloak of melancholy smothering her. But the look in Jake’s eyes when she’d pressed him to help with the UNICAN project had haunted her all week. As had his harsh words implying—declaring—that she’d set him up. How could he even think that she’d have sex with him just to get him to do her a favor?
Sadness brushed at the edges of her anger. She should’ve heeded the dolphins; maybe they had been trying to rescue her. Trying to keep her from repeating her past, from falling for another man who didn’t have the slightest care for or clue about the issues that touched her heart.
Her head ached from all the fruitless thinking. She had turned every moment, every conversation with him over and over in her mind. Was she repeating the past? Why had she been so compelled to invite him into her world? She knew one answer—the force that had driven her to connect with him had felt like a hand from the heavens, driving her with a power she hadn’t wanted to resist. But now? Now that he haunted not only her thoughts and her dreams but also her body? Now she imagined it had been a hand from hell. Wouldn’t that be a kicker?
She left a note for her housekeeper instructing her to soak the maidenhair fern in the living room once a week for the two weeks she’d be away. The plant had been a gift from her agent after she’d broken up with Elliott. Something green to lift your spirits, Roberta had written in the accompanying note.
She set the fern in the sink, doused it with cool water and ran her fingers over the delicate foliage. It was going to take more than a fern to knock her out of the funk that had settled in like a squatter refusing to be evicted.
Traffic was the usual LA snarl as she drove to the café on Rodeo Drive. She’d agreed to do an interview that Roberta had set up. Had promised Linda she’d get some press for the UNICAN project at the same time.
Even cafés on Rodeo Drive had maître d’s. The man escorted her to a front table looking out toward the street. A young woman rose as she approached. She couldn’t have been more than twenty, twenty-two at the most. But Roberta had said one of the senior staffers was doing the article. Maybe she’d remembered the details wrong. Her head hadn’t been clear since the morning with Jake.
“I am so honored that you agreed to do this interview,” the young woman said. “I’m Vivienne Thomas. But you can call me Vi.”
Cameron shook Vi’s outstretched hand. Eager. Cameron recognized the signals. LA was full of eagerness bordering on obsession. It was a town where making it to the big time was a religion. But as she met Vivienne’s gaze, she remembered her own eagerness. And her heart cracked. After all, wasn’t deep excitement for doing something you loved a key to embracing life? She’d learned that lesson firsthand from her mother. And many times the hunger for life, the drive to achieve a dream, had served her well.
“I’m happy that you could do this on such short notice, Vi.”
“An interview with you? I’m thrilled. Just thrilled.”
Vi’s sweet enthusiasm washed over Cameron’s misgivings like a balmy breeze.
“You have the questions my agent sent?”
Vi tapped the notebook she held. “Right here. Why don’t you tell me about your UNICAN project first off?”
Cameron told her the concise information that Linda had sent in the briefing docs—all about the need for clean water in the villages and about the lives that would be saved.
“The Water for Life project is a model program. It will show that getting safe drinking water to even the most remote regions is doable. The technology is there, but the political willpower and the funds aren’t. Not yet.” She stopped. Linda had cautioned her not to come down too hard on the Dominian government and on the bureaucrats wasting time while people suffered and died.
“What was it like, in the villages?”
Cameron told her about the clinic. About the children who wouldn’t have to suffer from dysentery if only there was better hygiene, better education and a source of clean water.
Vi frowned at her glass. “I never really thought about all this before, that people—kids—didn’t have water that was safe to drink.” She smiled at Cameron. “Did you have any fun down there?”
The girl—Cameron couldn’t help but think of her that way even though they were probably only a few years apart—had won her heart. “Well... I did do a bit of dancing.”
“With anyone fun?”
“Off the record?”
“Of course.” Vi put her pen down. “Sisterhood, right?”
“I danced with one very intriguing man.” And just like that she was back in those first electric moments with Jake in Dominia. Memories and sensations flooded her.
“Dancing is my favorite pastime.” Vi wriggled in her seat. “You can lose yourself in it.” She tilted her head. “Did he steal your heart?”
“Ah... No. Not really. He was a ballplayer.” She laughed, but as the memories raced in, she remembered Jake’s harsh accusation at her cottage and, her smile faded. “An arrogant superstar. I swear that the next man in my life will be a regular guy. You know, the kind who doesn’t know a thing about films and ratings and Hollywood. Maybe a guy who knows how to build things. Or fix things.”
Vi giggled. “Let me know if you find one of those men—especially if the one you find has a twin brother. LA is short on regular guys and way too full of arrogance.”
Vi’s phone sounded. She glanced at the screen. “Jeez, I can’t believe this. I have to run. They only give me half an hour for lunch. They work us lowly interns like slaves.” She tucked her notebook and phone in her purse. “Now, they may not use this at Vanity Fair. But I have a couple places that are interested if I can’t get my editor to bite. It’ll be big, I guarantee.”
A clear ring of a bell sounded in Cameron’s brain. Intern? Not running in Vanity Fair? Maybe she was just being paranoid. She’d be calling her agent as soon as Vi left the café, that was for sure.
“You have the photos my agent sent?”
“Oh, yes. They’re great. I loved the one of you with the kids. So sweet. And I found some others I like.”
“How about you run this by me? I can have my agent fact-check it for you.” Cameron’s self-preservation instinct was waking up from the spell she’d been under.
“Sure thing.” Vi jumped up from the table. “Thank you so much. You have no idea how hot this will be.”
And that was exactly what was beginning to trouble Cameron. She must’ve been out of her mind to speak so frankly about her personal life.
When she arrived home, Cameron texted Roberta and then remembered that she’d gone to Saint Barts for Hanukkah. That would explain why her first two calls had gone to voice mail. Just as she was boarding the plane, Roberta texted back.
Rothstein at VF changed his mind. He thinks a cover for you in March when your next film is in production would be better. Of course I said yes! It’s lovely down here. But I miss my cat. Crazy, huh?
Though Cameron wanted to know why Vanity Fair had sent an intern to do an interview if she was going to have a cover, she didn’t want to spoil Roberta’s vacation. She hadn’t taken time off for over two years and deserved the break. Besides, maybe she was just being paranoid. Vi had seemed like an honest type. Young and eager, but genuine. Maybe she’d gotten caught in the mix-
up as well. But the niggle in Cameron’s belly told her she was fooling herself.
Great. A cover, thanks. Have fun for me! Cameron texted back.
She almost added a smiley face, but it wouldn’t have been honest, so she just pressed Send. Then she called Vanity Fair. The receptionist reported there was no Vivienne Thomas at the magazine. When she asked about interns, the woman put her on hold. When she returned, she told Cameron that there was no one by that name in the intern program either. Cameron knew from the receptionist’s tone that probing would do no good; they hadn’t sent Vi, or whatever her name really was. She’d been had.
So much for the sisterhood.
A little research would turn up the UNICAN information. The girl had been savvy to lead with that. And Cameron should’ve known to shut up as soon as personal information was on the table.
There was nothing she could do about the information she’d shared too freely. Some lessons came harder than others. Like the one she’d learned from Jake Ryder. Letting him into her heart had been her worst move yet.
When she got to Trovare later in the week, she’d ask Sabrina to help her figure out who to call to get some fast press in opinion-shaping venues for the project in Dominia. And she’d sink herself into a Christmas season in the country and try to forget about Jake.
Jake’s mother swiped her passport out of his hands.
“Don’t look at that. They didn’t tell me when they were taking the picture.”
Jake laughed. He hadn’t thought his mother had a vain cell in her body. But the trip to Europe—to spend Christmas in Rome—had her razzed.
“Mom, only Italian immigration agents will see it. You’re not out to impress them, are you?”
“I know what that photo looks like,” she huffed. “And it doesn’t expire for ten years.” She wiped her hands on her apron and gestured to the stove. “I’m going to pick up your dad. All you have to do is turn the chicken when the bottom side is nice and golden brown. And don’t forget to turn off the oven when the timer sounds.” She narrowed her eyes. “Am I crazy to leave you alone in the kitchen?”
