Stripped

by Edie Harris

  Put yourself first. She thought she had been, with every job she took, each one leading to Vendetta, to the house…and to Declan.

  Declan, who danced with her.

  The sound of approaching footsteps didn’t break her reverie, but that unexpected male voice did. “Fiona. I’m so happy I caught you.”

  Christopher Lunsford.

  FOURTEEN

  Nothing killed an erection quite like having your girlfriend’s father walk in on you getting busy.

  Declan grimaced as he strode across the soundstage, tugging at the hem of his waistcoat, checking the buttons at his cuffs. For all that he’d ruffled Fiona but good, his costume remained pristine.

  Wes, standing with a small group of people near the crypt set, came into view, a baseball cap tucked into the back pocket of his jeans, his long-sleeved black shirt shoved up to his elbows. As Declan veered toward him, Marta appeared, hurrying to cut off Declan’s approach. The dresser appeared a touch frazzled, her mood for once matching her wild, graying curls, flowery bohemian skirt, and colorful geometric jewelry. “Declan, you’re here.”

  He frowned when she stopped in front of him, halting his progress to where Wes stood. “What’s wrong?”

  “Christopher Lunsford just showed up without any warning.”

  Christopher Lunsford. The man whose role as Count Vargas he’d taken over and, for the past five weeks, made his own. If Lunsford was here that could only mean one thing.

  He wanted Vargas back. “Is this why Wes wants to see me?”

  Marta reached up as she nodded, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with the pad of one thumb. “You need to look like a serious actor, not like you’ve been kissing my favorite makeup artist in your trailer.”

  His gaze shot to hers. “How did you—”

  “Sweetheart.” The word was a reprimand. “I know everything.” She stepped back as she gave his elbow a reassuring squeeze. “You are supposed to be here, not Christopher Lunsford. Remember that.”

  Declan reached Wes just as Sadie sauntered up, an incongruous figure with her pageboy cap and Victorian knickers, straight black hair falling nearly to her waist as she planted her hands on slender hips as she studied the blond man facing off against Wes. “Chris.”

  “Sadie.”

  She gave Lunsford a pointed look. “Aren’t you meant to be in rehab right now?”

  “My thirty-day stint ended yesterday,” he answered, bland pleasance oozing from his overly tanned face. “I didn’t figure you guys would move forward while I was…away.”

  Obviously irritated, a scowling Wes crossed his arms over his chest. “If there’s a production schedule, I’m going to keep to it. We’ve got a Christmas Day opening for this film. We didn’t have a month to wait for you to get your shit together, Chris.”

  “We had a contract.”

  “Had being the operative word here. You broke it when you were arrested.” Wes shook his head. “You know better than to be here without your agent. You shouldn’t have come.”

  Lunsford’s gaze flicked over Declan from head to toe, his lip curling in an almost-sneer. “And you shouldn’t have recast my role.”

  Wes’s broad shoulders lifted in a casual shrug. “Like I said, we had a schedule. Plus, he cost less than you.”

  While Declan struggled to absorb that sting, Lunsford, the golden boy, shot them a slickly practiced smile. “There’s a saying about quality, Wes, and getting what you pay for.” He rocked back on his heels, the very image of supreme confidence. “You need me.”

  Sighing, Wes gestured toward the soundstage door. “Go home, Chris. Get healthy. Do some damage control on your career. There will be other films.”

  Lunsford stepped closer, dropping his voice to a confidential murmur. “Damage control is why I need this part. You know the buzz on Vendetta.”

  Wes’s tone was brusque. “And you know as well as I that any so-called buzz on a movie that hasn’t even finished shooting is bullshit. Let it go, and move on. You’re not Vargas anymore. Declan Murphy is.”

  Glowering, Lunsford stalked away with a muttered, “Fuck that noise.” They watched as he banged through the door and disappeared from sight.

  Everyone released a collective breath when the door slammed behind the movie star.

  Wes grabbed the ball cap from the back pocket of his jeans and settled it on his head. He turned to Declan. “You know I just said that stuff about you being cheaper to make him go away, right?”

  Declan tried to unclench his jaw, found that he couldn’t, so he shrugged.

  With a shake of his head, Wes clapped a hand on Declan’s shoulder. “I made a mistake all those months ago when I didn’t cast you the first time, man. There’s no one out there but you who could play Vargas. No one.” The director turned to walk away, toward the crew congregating around Camera Four, near the crypt set. “And don’t you dare tell your agent this, but I’d have made the studio pay double Lunsford’s salary if I’d known the quality I would be getting with you. You’re gold, Dec. You’re fuckin’ box-office gold.”

  “Hey.” Sadie poked Declan in the ribs after he’d been standing there in stunned silence, watching Wes’s retreating back. “You look like you’re going to faint. Shall I go fetch the smelling salts?”

  Shaking himself, he shot her an elated grin, tugging her petite frame to his side in friendly camaraderie with an arm hooked around her neck. “Take it back.”

  She struggled playfully against his hold. “Or perhaps we can get you to the chaise longue in the palazzo before you flutter gracefully to the floor.”

  “Are you calling me a girl?”

  “No. I’m calling you a cheap date.” Sadie shook her head—at least, as much as she was able to in the vise of his elbow and forearm. “One little compliment, and you’re as gooey over Wes Jackson as a film critic during awards season. It’s pathetic, Murphy.”

  He shoved her away good-naturedly. “You’re not gonna steal this from me, Bit,” he declared, reverting to her character name without thought.

  “I swear, if I hear one, ‘He likes me! He really likes me!’ from you—”

  “Oh, shove off.” He wanted to see Fiona. Had to see her, really, and tell her what had just happened. She was who he wanted to share his excitement with, who he wanted to pick up and spin around and laugh and shout with, because he’d made it. It didn’t matter that they weren’t finished with even the first block of filming—Wes Jackson had called him gold, and that meant something in this town.

  Something? Hell, it meant everything in this town, and he couldn’t wait to tell her.

  He couldn’t wait to tell her he loved her.

  Five weeks, five months—people fell in love that fast all the time. But Declan? He feared it had only taken him five minutes. “Tell Wes I’ll be back.”

  “Let me guess,” Sadie mused. “You’ve got to see a man about a horse? No, wait.” She tapped a finger to her lips, playful, teasing. “A woman about a scar.”

  Heat climbed his neck from his high collar. Perhaps he and Fiona hadn’t been as subtle about their romance as he’d believed, but he simply smiled as he headed for the soundstage door. “Something like that, yeah.”

  Dusk had fallen, leaving the lot blanketed in shadow for those few minutes before the lights came on for the night. The purple, pink, and gold sky highlighted the neat rows of trailers nearest the stage, his among them. He’d noticed Rick returning to the building but hadn’t seen Fiona with him, and there was no way she could’ve snuck past him, even with the ruckus over Lunsford.

  Before they were together, he had felt as though he were noticing her too much. Now it seemed as though he couldn’t see her enough. He was starving for her, the taste, the touch, the very sight of her.

  She came into sight, not far from the door to his trailer…and not alone.

  He watched as Christopher Lunsford lifted a hand, as if to tug the silky ends of Fiona’s ponytail. When she jerked back, away from his touch, something sinister clenched i
n his stomach, and he started toward them again, quicker now. A handful of meters away, and he could finally overhear what Lunsford was saying.

  “—know about your relationship with Jackson.”

  “I don’t have a relationship with Wes. We’re friends.”

  Lunsford laughed softly. “I’m just saying that, maybe, you could talk to him. This film is important to me. Isn’t it important to you?”

  “Of course it is.” Her arms were crossed over her midsection, shoulders tight, looking as though she’d rather be anywhere but there, standing in front of a three-time Sexiest Man Alive. “But there’s nothing I can say to Wes. It’s his movie.”

  “Word around town is that you’ve got his ear.” He sidled closer. Too close. “Do you remember when we met during screen tests?”

  Declan’s jaw clamped shut as Fiona nodded warily.

  “I said we’d be friends. I’d love to be friends with you, Fiona.”

  “I think I’m going to have to say ‘thanks, but no thanks.’ I’m fairly set when it comes to friends at the moment.” Her chin lifted, eyes flashing from behind the lenses of her glasses. “So whatever it is you think I can do for you, I can’t. More importantly, I won’t.”

  Declan couldn’t stay silent any longer. “Fi?”

  At the sound of his voice, Lunsford stiffened and fell back a step, giving Fiona some much-needed air as he shot Declan a killing look.

  Declan moved closer, until he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Fiona. “Everything okay, darlin’?”

  “We’re fine. But we’re also done.” For a brief moment, she leaned into Declan’s side, gaze never leaving Lunsford. “Talk to Wes, Christopher. Not to me.”

  “He already did,” Declan informed her, trying to ignore the primitive pleasure he got from Fiona’s subtle claiming of him, but he stood a little taller, anyway. “Thanks for stopping by.” It took every ounce of his skill as an actor to muster up a polite smile, but at least Lunsford seemed able to read the cues.

  After all, he was an actor, too. White teeth flashed as he raised both hands, a gesture of innocence, and began backing away from them. “It was nice seeing you again, Fiona.” Without a word to Declan, Lunsford jogged away from the lot toward the rows of parked cars. A moment later, lights flashed on a low-slung silver Ferrari, and then Lunsford was tearing out of the studio in a spit of gravel on asphalt.

  Running a palm down her spine, Declan turned Fiona to face him, unable to keep the concern from his face or his voice. “Are you really okay?”

  “Mmhm.”

  Oddly, she didn’t relax under his hands. After so many days together, he was used to his slightest touch making her melt. “It’s been kind of a day, hasn’t it?”

  She nodded. “You have no idea.” Glancing up at him, she gave a halfhearted smile. “I left my makeup bag in your trailer when we….” A blush tinged her cheeks as she stepped out of his arms. “I’m just going to grab it real quick. I—” But she shook her head and disappeared into the trailer, returning a second later and closing the door quietly behind her.

  Hefting the bag, she settled the strap on her shoulder, knuckles white where she clutched it over her chest. “Can I ask you something?”

  He used a fingertip to push her glasses higher on her nose, smiling when she frowned at him and adjusted them herself. “Anything.”

  “What are your plans?”

  “My plans?”

  “For when we finish filming. When Vendetta’s done.”

  He shrugged, hands finding the pockets of his trousers as a new tension strung his shoulders taut. “I’ve got another project startin’ in August.”

  She swallowed visibly. “You hadn’t mentioned.”

  “You hadn’t asked,” he retorted, wondering why he suddenly felt on the defensive.

  “I’m asking now.”

  That tension started to slowly creep down the backs of his arms. “A movie version of Othello. I’m playin’ Iago. We’re filming in Cape Town—it’s why I was there before flying into L.A.”

  “How long is filming?”

  “Two months.”

  “And after that?” Her voice sounded strained.

  Pulling his hands from his pockets, he shrugged again, jerkily. “A three-episode miniseries with the BBC. Press tour for Vendetta. I’ve got a stack of scripts in my hotel room and Molly, my agent, is breathing down my neck to tell her which I’m interested in auditioning for, movies and TV alike.” All good things, in his mind.

  All great fucking things, actually. Box-office gold, Wes had said. Declan supposed they’d find out soon enough, as excitement at the prospect dispelled some of his tension.

  “So, what you’re saying is…we’d be apart, for months at a time.”

  Wait. That’s what this was about? “I could fly here. Or you could fly to wherever I was.”

  “I don’t have that kind of money, Declan.” Her chest rose and fell in a sharp exhalation. “I’m trying to buy a house. Pretty much every spare penny’s going toward that.”

  “Then I’ll pay for your plane tickets.” For all that, as Wes had pointed out, he was being paid far less than Lunsford would’ve been, Declan was earning what he personally considered a rather obscene paycheck from this film, not to mention what he’d already made overseas. Their relationship could work, if they wanted it to. If she wanted it to.

  She was shaking her head before he’d finished his sentence. “I don’t want to argue with you about money, but I’m telling you right now I wouldn’t be comfortable with that. Thousands of dollars, just to see me for a few days here and there? I have a job. You have a job. It doesn’t make sense. Hell, you don’t even live in this country. I’m not having a Skype boyfriend. Neither of us would be happy with that.”

  “But…I love you.” The words spilled out before he could doubt their wisdom. “Fi, I’ve fallen in love with you.”

  Her lips parted, but she shook her head. Vehemently. “No.”

  Frustration slashed at him. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”

  “That’s not what we are.” Her jaw clenched. “It’s not what we were supposed to be, when this started.”

  “How do you know?” It took far too much effort not to reach out and touch her, but self-preservation was foremost in his mind…and if he touched her now, something inside him might break, irrevocably. “We never talked about where this was gonna go, so what’s to say it can’t go here?” Why couldn’t he be allowed to love her?

  Or perhaps… “You don’t love me.”

  She said nothing, gaze focused somewhere over his shoulder.

  In the end, it didn’t matter whether or not he touched her—things were breaking inside him anyway. “Fi.”

  She looked at him, a wealth of emotion in her eyes. “I woke up and started thinking about houses, remember? First thing in the morning, what do you think about?”

  You. I think about you. But saying as much was a complete impossibility now, with the fists of her refusal to confirm or deny her feelings battering his tender heart. “I’m allowed to make plans,” he murmured, recognizing anger as it thundered through his veins. “I’m allowed to think flyin’ to foreign countries and livin’ out of a suitcase for three months at a time is the coolest fuckin’ job in the world, and I’m certainly allowed to put my career first.” Except that he hadn’t. In his mind, he’d already started putting Fiona first, putting them first, together.

  “I know. I…I want you to.”

  He scoffed. “Do you really? Because it doesn’t sound that way. Seems more like you want me to choose one over the other—work or you.” And maybe, just maybe, he would have picked her.

  Not anymore.

  Resisting the urge to scrub a hand over his ravaged chest, he took a step back, away from where she stood clutching the strap of her makeup bag. “I think you’re right, Miss O’Brien. This isn’t what we’re supposed to be—people who love each other.” Oh, Christ, his chest. “I won’t be stickin’ around after we wrap the second block i
n Venice. So it’s probably better that we end this now, don’t you think? Before it gets…messy.”

  “It’s already messy.” Her voice was a strained whisper.

  “I bloody well know that, darlin’.” Turning on his heel, he left her to stand and stare after him.

  And rather hoped she went blind from the effort.

  FIFTEEN

  “Night, Fi!” called Amy, one of the other key artists, as Fiona grabbed her purse and headed for the makeup trailer door. “See you in two weeks!”

  Fiona nodded. “See you.”

  Nine o’clock at night in Los Angeles meant the sun had gone down, but the city glowed with the lights from the skyline. Most of the cast and crew would be going out into that strange darkness to celebrate finishing the first block of shooting, which Wes had called a wrap only two hours earlier—an announcement met with cheers and hugs, and the mass invitation to one of her father’s famous backyard barbeques tomorrow afternoon. Amy and Beth had tried cajoling her into hitting the town with them this evening, but she’d managed to put them off, pleading fatigue.

  The truth was, she just wasn’t in the mood.

  She hadn’t been in the mood for much of anything in the way of socializing for three weeks, since that awful night outside Declan’s trailer, when he’d told her he loved her…and then left her standing there, alone and confused, panicked and elated.

  It wasn’t fair, how he’d given her practically no time to process before stalking off in a pout. But it also hadn’t been fair to him, how unprepared she’d been to hear his confession.

  Before Rick had barged in on them, before everything had changed, she had been so scared to rock the boat. What if it was just a fling to Declan? What if she said something, and then all of the amazing sex went away? What if things ended and it got awkward between them professionally?

  It hadn’t been a fling.

  The amazing sex did go away.

  But, oddly enough, after a few days of zero conversation during his time in her makeup chair, they’d latched onto a form of stilted professionalism. He would very politely ask how her day was going, and she would compliment him on a scene or two that she’d been able to catch. On the surface, they were no different than any other cast-crew pairing.