“Hunter, you have to let this go,” Alex said softly. “It’s Justin’s life, his decision.”
“I could stop it.”
Justin rose off his stool. “I’ve done everything you’ve ever asked of me, Hunter. Now it’s time to let go. I’m thirty-two years old. This is my life, my decision.” Then Justin grinned that beautiful grin. Justin had been born with an ability to charm, a characteristic that Hunter knew was missing from his own gene pool. “Come on, bro. Come to dinner and then to the theater with us. Lady Amelia awaits.”
Alex said, “Hunter, you’re coming out with us tonight if we have to drag you down your private elevator feet first.”
“Why didn’t Mother come up with you two?” Hunter tried one more delaying tactic.
“You know her. Doesn’t do elevators, cell phones, or computers. Ever the English Lady, our Mum.”
“With a dick for a brother,” Justin said.
“Oh, you mean the one who wouldn’t loan us a dime when we needed it, the one with the blond hair and green eyes who looks like your older evil twin?” Alex said sweetly.
“I’m ignoring you, Alex.” Justin spun his stool around. “This is me ignoring you. And you,” he did the two finger pointing thing at Hunter, “no more putting us off, brother. To the theater you are a-going.”
“Then let’s get it the hell over with.” Hunter pulled his jacket off the back of the couch.
In the back seat of the limo, Amelia Wainwright Cameron reposed as regal as a queen, her white hair arranged in an upsweep, her rose silk dress draped over her diminutive figure, her shoes by Prada. Amelia might wear thirty-year old dresses, but her shoes were always up to date. ‘I have giant sons,’ she told anyone who questioned her about her footwear, ‘if I don’t wear high heels, they tower over me. They do anyway, but it makes me feel better.’ Hunter knew that under her usual air of dignified calm his mother shared his worries about Justin being recalled into the war zone.
As the men climbed in the limousine, Justin and Alex on each side of Amelia, Hunter facing them, Amelia did her best to hide how proud she was of them and said in her best I-mean-business voice, “What are you boys up to now?”
“Nothing, Ma. We were just helping Hunter get his jacket. We want him to look his best tonight.” Justin put on his most innocent look and leaned forward to flick an imaginary piece of lint off Hunter’s shoulder.
“It’s never ‘nothing’ with you lot. And don’t call me Ma. You know how I hate that.”
“Yes, Ma.”
Amelia sighed. “Could we please go before I forget myself and try to take my youngest son over my knee?”
“It’s Hunter’s fault, Ma,” Justin said gleefully. “He started it.”
“Oh, my dear boy. Hunter never ‘starts’ anything. But with you lot, he usually ends up finishing it.”
After they had eaten dinner in a Moroccan restaurant and the limo pulled away from the curb, Justin said, “Can’t wait for you to see Liz Farnsworth, Hunter. She is one hot babe. And she’s even from our home town.”
Ah. That’s why they’d come en mass to fetch him. They wanted him to see the hottest new actress on Broadway in action. “You do remember your mother is sitting beside you,” Hunter said. “You might want to moderate your language.”
“Hunter, give it a rest.” This from Alex. “Mom understands about hot babes. She is one herself. And take it from me, Liz Farnsworth is absolutely gorgeous.”
“I am not a ‘hot babe’. The very idea,” Amelia protested in her upper-class English accent, but her lips lifted in a smile. Her sons were not above dishing out blatant flattery to her and she wasn’t above loving it.
Hunter thought his brothers had to know they were wasting their time. He didn’t date actresses. Actresses were practiced liars, they did it for a living. He hated the theater for another reason. There were always paparazzi hanging about under the marquee and the minute they spotted Hunter, flash bulbs went off. Back in the days when he was scrambling for a living, he’d pleaded for media attention for his first completely renovated hotel. He hadn’t gotten it. Now it gave him great satisfaction to know he could ignore the press at will.
The flash bulb jockeys were out in full force tonight. Hunter moved to step out of the limo, but Justin caught him by the arm. “Stay here, bro. Alex and I will run the gauntlet for you and Ma.”
He felt a little rush of gratitude and for once, did his brother’s bidding without countermanding them.
Inside the theater, Amelia, her shoulders back, her head high, followed the usher down the aisle, her tall sons following. Heads turned. Whispers echoed through the theater. It was a rare sight to see this handsome trio of men and their regal mother being escorted to theater seats.
“We need to get out more often,” Alex said.
“Speak for yourself,” Hunter grumbled. Out of old habit, he stood aside to let Justin, Alex, and Amelia take the inside seats. Hunter always had an aisle seat. If the producers put together an inferior product that didn’t deserve Hunter’s time, he walked out and called a cab. It was clear now that his brothers were anxious for him to see the woman who was the lead in the show. He couldn’t imagine why. He’d never dated an actress. He’d wanted substance in his women. Yeah, you married a doctor and how did that work out for you? The thought of his ex-wife Jane’s betrayal stung. He slouched down in the seat, steeling himself to endure.
Chapter 2
Stardom. Fame. Exhilaration. Exhaustion. This was what it was like, finally attaining that elusive starring role. When she was chosen for the part of Anna, Liz Farnsworth was a relatively unknown name. The producers hyped it like a Cinderella story, even though she was no stranger to Broadway. She’d been appearing in chorus lines and minor roles for thirteen years. After the announcement of the show’s cast at the final callback, people clustered around her like bees to honey.
There was a whirlwind of activity, her days filled with rehearsal, magazine covers to pose for, interviews, (how does it feel to land the lead in such a well-known and beloved show) and appearances on late night television. All of this had to be done to promote the show before it opened. But somewhere along the way, Liz began to feel the strain. It was such an up and down thing. It was, stand still and get trussed into a corset, now smile for the camera in a photo shoot, it was “no, Liz, we changed the blocking of that scene, remember? You should be on the other side of the king.” There were periods of overwhelming elation followed by sleepless nights brought on by agonizing periods of self-doubt, wondering if she could really pull this off.
But at last the show opened and all those peripheral obligations went away. She could breathe a sigh of relief. Now her sole focus would be her performances. The revival was only scheduled for a run of six weeks. With such a short run, Liz was determined to give every single audience her absolute best performance.
Sitting in her dressing room, Liz relaxed into that odd combination of elation and fear, that aura of heightened sense that always preceded a good show.
Then it was time to go, and she entered the wings to await her cue to cross the treacherous bridge while dressed in a humungous hoop skirt and granny shoes with heels.
Things went smoothly until her song, “Getting to Know You.” All twenty of the king’s children were on stage. Usually the kids were well-trained in their roles, but tonight, four year old Joel who was as big as a minute and a particular favorite of hers, got antsy during the number. Once, in the middle of a run through, Joel had stood up and announced that he had to go potty. Liz couldn’t let that happen during a performance. She continued singing, all the while watching Joel get to his feet and look as if he were going to run off the stage. Liz bent down and scooped Joel up to twirl around with him in her arms and pretend to dance with him while she sang. At the end of the song, Joel planted a big, smacking kiss on Liz’s cheek. This brought laughter and applause from the audience. Liz set the boy down on his feet so he could run off stage with the rest of the children, but Liz coul
d hear Sal’s voice now. “You’re a genius. That’s a keeper. Do it in every performance.”
At the end of the first act, Alex rose and leaned past the still seated Justin and Amelia to rag on Hunter. “Hey, old man. You’re still here. Not as bad as you thought, eh?”
“No, not as bad as I thought.”
He’d been watching Liz so closely that he caught her slight concern about the little boy during her song. When he saw Liz doing what was undoubtedly a spontaneous action, lifting the boy into her arms, he realized that not many actresses would have acted so altruistically. Liz had been willing to share her spotlight with the little guy. He also realized that the emotion radiating from the stage as love for the king’s children was rooted in reality. She really cared for these kids.
Alex cocked his head. “You look shell shocked, Hunter. Liz Farnsworth is quite wonderful, isn’t she?”
“She’s a very talented actress.” She was more than talented. She was a beautiful, desirable woman and she played the part of Anna with such tenderness, as if those children really were hers. He’d always wanted children. He supposed his longing was heightened by the fact that he was almost forty, and the possibility of having a family of his own grew less likely with each passing year.
Intent on keeping his face expressionless, Hunter sat there waiting. He couldn’t let his brothers see how impatient he was for the second act begin.
He tried to resist that magnetic pull she had for him. He kept reminding himself that he was in a theater and he was watching a talented actress create a world that didn’t exist. But by the time she did the polka with the king, she had Hunter enthralled. His feet wanted to move in time to the music. His body wanted to respond to the rhythm. His arms wanted to hold her, feel her lithe body move with his. He could almost feel himself lying in bed with her, feeling her respond to his kiss, his touch.
Damn it, he wasn’t one to fantasize about a woman. He needed to regain his senses. But when Liz sat with the dying king, it seemed that her face expressed every emotion he’d been feeling since Justin told him he was leaving. He was one with her, body and soul.
The show ended and the cast lined up for bows. When Liz came on stage, he stood up immediately to give her his standing ovation. His action must have drawn her eyes to him. He could swear she stared straight at him. Then the curtain swished shut and the patrons began gathering up their jackets.
“Hunter, I got you a pass to go backstage,” Alex said. “You could tell Ms. Farnsworth what a great job she did.”
Go backstage? Hang about her dressing room like a stage door Johnny? Not in this life. “I’m sure she’s aware that she performs well.”
“You liked her, didn’t you?”
“I liked her performance….because that is what it was. A performance.”
“Don’t you think it would be fun to find out what she’s like in real life?”
“No, I don’t think it would be fun.” It would be about as far from fun as I could possibly get. It would be mind boggling, and if I got her into bed, mind blowing. It would also be…disastrous. She was a dangerous woman, this Liz Farnsworth. She almost, but not quite, had him believing that there was a woman in the world who could look past his tendency to be stodgy and rough-edged, a woman who would love him for the man he was. What was he thinking? That an actress could be realistic? No, that wasn’t possible. And as for his dreams of a wife and family…that ship had sailed. He would spend the rest of his life alone and lonely, concentrating on his business and his family.
Liz had seen him. Hunter Cameron and his mother and brothers were in the audience tonight and when Liz came out to bow, he’d stood up. At six feet four inches tall, it was hard to miss the guy.
She knew who he was, of course. He had grown up in her hometown of Rochester and the press there had gleefully reported every step of his success, complete with pictures. A renovated hotel in Hawaii. There he was in an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and flowered shorts, a Hawaiian hula dancer on each side, but it was Hunter who caught the eye with that muscular body and those long legs. A hotel in St. John. Hunter with his arm slung over Justin’s shoulder, his face tanned and smiling. A hotel in St. Thomas. Alex looked uncomfortable as he posed with Hunter and a bikini-wearing beach bunny. And a hotel in St. Croix. Hunter again, this time with both his brothers. They came, they saw, they conquered the Virgin Islands.
Liz remembered a dream she’d had looking at those pictures. She lay on the sand of a tropical island beach with the sea rolling over her legs, wet and salty. Hunter Cameron’s hard body captured hers underneath him, creating heat in every part of her. The ocean waves rolled in as he looked into her eyes and slowly stripped off her suit and took possession of her body…
The stage curtain dropped. Liz’s body still stung with sexual arousal as she came off the stage. When Jennifer, the Asian woman who played Tuptim caught Liz’s arm, it took all her concentration to come back to reality.
“Did you see that really tall guy who stood up only when you came out? That’s Hunter Cameron. He rarely attends the theater, and rumor has it he dislikes actresses. He sure seemed to like you.”
“I doubt that very much,” Liz said, smiling. “I doubt if he even knows who I am.”
Chapter 3
The next morning, Alex let himself in Hunter’s office and walked through to his apartment. He found Hunter in his library, sitting behind his mahogany desk, his fingers wrapped around a cut glass tumbler with a finger of whiskey left vacillating in the bottom. “Hey. Get off your butt and let’s go.”
Hunter stared at his whiskey glass as if it were a crystal ball and he could see his life unfolding. “I’m not going with you to the airport.”
This was the Hunter it was hard to love, this obdurate, unreasonable donkey of a Hunter. “You’re a real prick, you know that, don’t you?”
Hunter gave him that look beneath his dark eyebrows that told Alex he was fighting a losing battle. “I can’t watch Justin get on that plane.”
“How about this? How about once in your life you stop worrying and think positive? All your life, you’ve worried like hell about this family and nothing bad ever happened to us.”
“Maybe that’s because I’ve been worrying.”
Alex slapped his head in mock despair. “Why do I even try to argue with the eternal pessimist?”
“I’m not a pessimist. I’m a realist.”
Alex leaned against the library door, trying to think of anything that would shake his older brother loose from that chair. “Hunter, Justin will be looking for you to see him off.”
“He’ll understand.”
“If he does,” Alex said, “I’d like him to explain it to me. If anything did…happen, you’ll regret it like hell that you didn’t see him off.”
Hunter flinched at the harshness of Alex’s words. “He’s got you and Lynne and Mom. He won’t miss me.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. Okay, okay, I can’t stand here and argue with you any longer. I gotta go. You do remember we’ve got that charity thing tomorrow night, don’t you?”
“I remember. I’m not going.”
“What is this, your mourning period? You should be proud of Justin, proud that he is honoring his commitment, proud that he’s the kind of man you raised him to be.”
Hunter jumped to his feet, sent the rolling chair back to bang against the bookcase behind him and swept the whiskey glass off the desk to crash on the floor and shatter.
Alex didn’t move. At last, his brother was showing some emotion. For Alex, it was a be-careful-what-you-wish-for moment. “That’s a waste of good whiskey,” he said in a calm, slow voice he might have used on a crazy person. “But at least now I know what’s been eating you. You think it’s your fault that Justin is going.”
Hunter turned eyes gone deep and dark with agonized emotion to Alex. “Well, isn’t it?”
“I thought when we reached the age of thirty, you’d stop thinking of us as your responsibility. When are you g
oing to acknowledge the fact that we have minds of our own? Justin going off to honor his commitment may be a result of your guidance, but so is the fact that he is a multi-millionaire. Geez, Hunter, don’t you think Justin and I knew you were scared to death that we’d raise hell just like you used to do before Dad died and that’s why you were so hard on us? And don’t you think we were smart enough to turn ourselves into little model citizens so we wouldn’t add to your burden?”
“I guess I never thought about the fact that you two were just as smart as I was.”
“Justin is a grown man and an honorable one. He’s also rich as hell, thanks to you. If you can’t bear to see Justin off, then you are going tomorrow night to the charity ball if I have to drag you out of this apartment feet first.”
“I need another drink.”
“You’d better clean up the broken glass. Then what you need is a shower and a shave. No more drinking.” Alex walked gingerly over the broken glass and put his hands on Hunter’s shoulders. “You are not responsible for us now. We’re big boys. We’re all grown up.”
“Tell Justin that I…will miss him.”
“Shall I tell him you love him, too?”
“He knows how I feel about him.”
“Wouldn’t hurt you to say the words.” Alex used his hold on Hunter to draw him into a brotherly hug. He felt Hunter stiffen, but Alex just hugged harder. If there was one prayer Alex sent constantly to heaven, it was for a woman who could love Hunter, warts and all. “Won’t hurt you to know that I love you, bro. And don’t you forget it.”
The Next night
The Hilton Hotel ballroom
Hunter hated coming here, he hated trying to eat the damn finger food while he stood balancing a plate, he hated having to make conversation with people he knew only slightly. He wanted to be home. He wanted to sit in front of his computer and search for viable properties and then talk by email to Justin. He’d memorized Justin’s message. Arrived in Kabul 1800. Flight bumpy as hell but got here in one piece. Now my ass is freezing. Great meal in the mess hall. Already miss you, grumpy bear. You go to that charity ball, you hear? One of us needs to be where the beautiful women are.
Wanting Hunter: Book 1 in the Cameron Family Saga Page 2
