el Duffy, the Darth Vader of the paparazzi, trapped them in his lens. Georgie experienced the odd sensation of floating out of her body and taking in the whole disaster from a spot somewhere above her head.

“Congratulations,” Duffy said, clicking away. “In the words of my Irish grandmother, ‘May you be poor in misfortunes and rich in blessings.’”

Bram just stood there, his hand on the door, his shirt buttoned wrong, and his jaw wired shut. He was leaving it up to her. This time she wouldn’t let the jackals get the best of her, and she plastered on her Scooter Brown smile. “It’s nice to have your grandmother’s blessing. But what for?”

Duffy was overweight, with ruddy skin and an unkempt beard. “I’ve seen a copy of your marriage license, and I talked with the guy who performed the ceremony. He looks like a seedy Justin Timber-lake.” Duffy continued to shoot as he spoke. “It’ll be all over the wires within an hour, so you might as well give me the story. I promise I’ll send you a great wedding present.” He shifted his angle again. “How long have you been—”

“There’s no story.” Bram whipped an arm around Georgie’s waist and yanked her back into the building.

Ignoring trespassing laws, Duffy caught the door before it closed and followed them in. “Have you talked to Lance? Does he know about this?”

“Back off,” Bram said.

“Come on, Shepard. You know the score as well as I do. This is the biggest celebrity story of the year.”

“I said back off.” Bram lunged for Duffy’s camera.

Georgie, with the ounce of sanity she had left, grabbed his arm and held on. “Don’t do it!”

Duffy quickly stepped back, took one final shot, and ducked out the door. “No hard feelings.”

Bram shook her off and started after him.

“Stop it!” Georgie blocked the door with her body. “What good will smashing his camera do now?”

“It’ll make me feel better.”

“That’s so you. Still trying to solve problems with your fists.”

“As opposed to smiling at any asshole who points a lens in your direction and pretending life’s just peachy?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “The next time I decide to deck somebody, stay out of my way.”

A busboy came into the hallway, forcing her to stifle a hot retort. They headed for the service elevator and rode up in furious silence. When they reached the suite, he kicked the door open, then whipped his cell from his pocket.

“No!” She snatched it from his hand and raced with it to the bathroom.

He rushed after her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She tossed the cell in the toilet before he could grab it back. He pushed her aside and stared down into the tank. “I cannot believe you did that.”

Scooter had once accidentally dropped Mother Scofield’s ancestral photo album into the garden fountain, then spent the rest of the show trying to cover her tracks. In the end, Skip had saved her by taking the blame. That so wasn’t going to happen this time. “You’re not calling anybody until we figure this out together,” she said.

“Is that right?”

Her chest heaved, and she focused all her anger on him. “Do not screw with me. I’m an American icon, remember. Lance barely got away with it, and he was Mr. Squeaky Clean. You’re not, and you won’t.”

His clenched-jaw reflection in the mirror wasn’t reassuring. “We’re going with my original plan,” he said. “In exactly one hour, your publicist and the one I’m about to hire are going to release a statement. Too much liquor, too much nostalgia, remain good friends, bullshit, bullshit.” He stalked out of the bathroom.

She went after him as she’d never gone after Lance. “A bubble-headed pop star might be able to get away with a Vegas marriage that lasts less than twenty-four hours, but I can’t, and neither can you. Give me some time to think.”

“No amount of thinking is going to make this little scrape go away.” He headed for the phone next to the couch.

“Five minutes! That’s all I need.” She pointed toward the television. “You can watch porn while you’re waiting.”

“You watch porn. I’m finding a publicist.”

She tore around the couch and once again slapped her hands over the phone. “Do not make me toss this one in the toilet, too.”

“Do not make me tie you up, lock you in a closet, and toss in a match!”

Right now that didn’t sound so horrible. And then—

An impossible idea came to her.

An idea so much worse than any murderous plot he could come up with…

An idea so unbearable, so revolting…

She backed away from the phone. “I need alcohol.”

He jabbed the receiver in the general direction of her head. “Kerosene burns hotter and faster.” She must have looked as sick as she felt because he didn’t immediately start to dial. “What’s wrong? You’re not going to throw up, are you?”

If only it were that simple. She gulped. “J-just hear me out, okay?”

“Make it quick.”

“Oh, God…” Her legs had begun to buckle, and she sank into the chair on the other side of the couch. “There’s a…” The room started to spin around her. “There might be…a-a way out of this.”

“You’re right. And I promise, I’ll have fresh flowers delivered to your grave once a month. Plus your birthday and Christmas.”

She absolutely could not look at him, so she stared at the creases of her gray slacks. “We could…” She cleared her throat. Swallowed. “We could s-stay married.”

Thick silence filled the room, followed by the piercing bleat of a telephone left too long off its cradle.

Her palms were sweating, and her cheeks burned. He set the phone back on its hook. “What did you say?”

She swallowed again and tried to pull herself together. “Just for—for a year. We stay married for a year.” Her words sounded wheezy, as if she was squeezing them through a kazoo. “A—a year from today, we announce that—that we’ve decided we’re better friends than lovers, and we’re getting a divorce. But that we’ll love each other forever. And—Here’s the important part.” Her thoughts tumbled over one another, then focused. “We—we make sure we’re seen together in public after that. Always laughing and having a good time together so neither of us gets painted as a”—she caught herself just before she said “victim”—“so neither of us gets painted as a villain.”

The bits and pieces came together in her mind like a sitcom episode on crack. “Slowly, we let the story leak that I’ve started fixing you up with some of my girlfriends and that you’re fixing me up with a few of those cretins you hang out with. Everything incredibly friendly. All Bruce and Demi. No drama, no scandal.”

And no pity. That was the important part, the only way she’d be able to keep it together. No more pity for pathetic, heartbroken Georgie York who couldn’t hold on to love.

Bram was still stuck at the beginning. “We stay married? You and me?”

“Just for a year. It’s—I know it’s not a perfect plan”—a mind-numbing understatement—“but given the circumstances, I think it’s the best we can do.”

“We hate each other!”

She couldn’t fold now. Everything was at stake. Her reputation, her career, and most of all, her battered pride…

Except it was more than pride. Pride was a surface emotion, and this went deeper—all the way to her sense of identity. She faced the painful truth that she’d lived her entire life without making a single important decision of her own. Her father had guided every step of her career and her personal life, from the jobs she took to how she looked. He’d even introduced her to Lance, who’d dictated when they’d get married, where they’d live, and a thousand other things. Lance had announced they’d have no children, and he was the one who’d delivered the verdict that had ended her marriage. For thirty-one years, she’d let other people chart her destiny, and she was sick of it. She could either continue to live by the dictates of others, or she could set her own path, however bizarre.

A frightening—almost exhilarating—sense of purpose came over her. “I’ll pay you.”

That got his attention. “Pay me?”

“Fifty thousand for every month we stay together. That’s over half a million dollars, in case you can’t add.”

“I can add.”

“A post prenup,” she said.

Once again, he jabbed a finger toward her head. “You did this on purpose. You trapped me just like you tried to trap Trevor. This was what you had in mind all along.”

She jumped up from the chair. “Even you can’t believe that! Every minute I spend with you is misery. But I care more about my…career than about how much I hate you.”

“Your career or your image?”

She wasn’t discussing her self-worth issues with the enemy. “Image is career in this town,” she said, giving him the easy answer. “You know that better than anyone. It’s why you can’t get a decent job. Because nobody trusts you. But the public does trust me—even through all this mess with Lance. My reputation will rub off on you. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose by going along with this. People will think you’ve reformed, and you might finally be able to get a decent job.”

Something flickered in his eyes. She’d picked the wrong argument, and she quickly switched direction. “Half a million dollars, Bram.”

He turned his back on her and wandered over to the balcony doors. “Six months.”

Her boldness faded, and she gulped. “Really?”

“I’ll go along with this for six months,” he said. “And then we renegotiate. You also have to agree to every one of my conditions.”

Alarm bells shrieked. She struggled to pull herself together. “Which are?”

“I’ll let you know when the time comes.”

“No deal.”

He shrugged. “Okay. No deal. This was your idea, not mine.”

“You’re being completely unreasonable!”

“I’m not the one who wants this so badly. Either we do it by my rules or I don’t play.”

No way in the world was she doing it by his rules. She’d had her fill of that with her father and Lance. “Fine,” she said. “Your rules. And I’m sure they’ll be eminently fair.”

“Oh, yeah, you can count on that, all right.”

She pretended not to hear. “The first thing we should do—”

“The first thing we’re doing is getting hold of Mel Duffy.” Suddenly he was all-business, which was unnerving, since Bram never paid any attention to business. “We’ll tell him he can take exclusive photos right here in the suite, but only if he turns over his shots from downstairs.” He gazed at her along his sublimely shaped nose. “He didn’t get my good side.”

Bram was right. The photos Duffy had just taken would make them look more like fugitives than blissful newlyweds. “Let’s get to work,” she said. “You remember how to do that, right?”

“Don’t push me.”

She notified the switchboard to hold the calls that would soon flood in, and Bram set about locating Mel Duffy. Three hours later, she and her dearly detested bridegroom were both clad in white, courtesy of the Bellagio’s excellent concierge service. Her dress had a bustier top, a handkerchief hem, and some strategically placed double-sided fashion tape to make it fit. Bram wore a white linen suit and an open-collared white shirt. All that white against his tanned skin, tawny hair, and rakish stubble made him look like a pirate who’d just stepped off a luxury yacht to plunder the Cannes Film Festival.

She phoned her people—all of them but her father—with the news. She did a halfway decent job of professing her joy and excitement at being married to the Playboy of the Western World, but it wouldn’t be nearly as easy with her friends. She deliberately left messages on their home voice mail so she didn’t have to speak to them directly. As for her father…One crisis at a time.

Bram came up behind her while she was in the bathroom. If she let him walk all over her now, there’d be no retakes. He needed to see a whole new Georgie York.

She picked up the lipstick wand she’d just set down. “I don’t share my makeup,” she said. “Use your own.”

“Is this stuff really nonsmear? I don’t want to get it all over me when I french you.”

“You’re not frenching me.”

“Wanna bet?” He crossed his arms over his chest and planted a shoulder against the doorjamb. “You know what I think?”

“You actually think?”

“I think all that crap you were spouting off about protecting your career is bogus.” The doorbell rang. “The real reason you want to go through with this farce is because you never got over me.”

“Oh, gee, you found me out.” She elbowed him hard as she passed through the doorway.

Bram caught her before she reached the living room, and he tousled her hair. “There. Now you look like you just tumbled out of bed.” He headed for the door. “Smile for the nice photographer.”

Mel Duffy lumbered in, bringing the smell of onion rings with him. “Georgie, you look gorgeous.” He studied the room, then gestured toward the balcony. “Let’s start out here.”

A few minutes later, they were posing by the railing with the sun sinking and their arms entwined around each other’s waists. Duffy took some close-ups of the bride and groom laughing over the plastic diamond, then suggested Bram pick her up.

Just what she didn’t want…Bram Shepard dangling her thirty stories above the ground.

Her filmy white skirt swirled around them as he swept her into his arms. She dug her fingers in his bicep. He gazed down at her, his face all lovey-dovey. She slipped her palm inside his jacket and lovey-doveyed him right back. She wondered what it would be like not to fake emotions she wasn’t even close to feeling. At least this time, she’d chosen her path, and that had to count for something.

Duffy shifted position. “How about a kiss?”

“Exactly what I had in mind.” Bram’s voice was liquid sex.

She manufactured a silky smile. “I was hoping you’d ask.”

He dipped his head, and just like that, she was sucked back to the past—the day of their first on-screen kiss.

She’d stood by another railing then, one that looked down on the Chicago River near the Michigan Avenue Bridge. As usual, they were spending the first couple of weeks shooting exteriors before they returned to L.A. to film the rest of what would be their fifth season. It was a Sunday morning in late July, and the police had temporarily closed off the area. Even with a breeze blowing in from the lake, it was already nearly ninety degrees.

“Is Bram here yet?” Jerry Clarke, their director, called out.

“Not yet,” the A.D. replied.

Bram hated early-morning calls nearly as much as he’d come to hate playing Skip, and Georgie knew for a fact that Jerry had assigned a production assistant to get him out of bed. Her hands curled over the railing. She couldn’t wait for today to be over. A year might have passed since the ugly night on the boat, but she still hadn’t forgiven him for what he’d done or forgiven herself for letting him go so far. She coped by pretending he didn’t exist. Only when the cameras began to roll and he turned into her Skip Scofield with his gentle, intelligent eyes and worried, caring expression did she let down her defenses.

They’d dressed her that day in a skinny, but not too skinny, T-shirt and a short, but not too short, cotton skirt. The producers had begun letting her have more auburn added to her hair, but she still hated the curls. Not only did the network own her hair, but they owned the rest of her, too. Her contract prohibited body piercing, tattoos, sexual scandal, and drug abuse. Apparently Bram’s contract forbade nothing.

The director exploded in frustration. “Somebody go find the son of a bitch!”

“The son of a bitch is right here.” Bram slithered forward, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, his bloodshot eyes at odds with his light blue knit shirt, pressed chinos, and preppy wristwatch.

“Did you have a chance to look over the script?” Jerry said with open sarcasm. “We’re doing Skip and Scooter’s first kiss.”

“Yeah, I read it.” He pitched a cigarette butt through the railing. “Let’s get this bullshit over with.”

As she stood there in her girl-next-door clothes, she hated him so fiercely she burned with it. Those first few years, she’d been so determined to see him as a moody romantic figure waiting for the right woman to redeem him, but he was really just a garden-variety snake, and she was a sucker not to have figured that out right away.

They ran their lines and found their marks. The cameras began to roll. She waited for the magic to begin as Bram transformed himself into Skip.

SKIP!!!(Gazing tenderly at SCOOTER)

Scooter, what am I going to do with you?

SCOOTER

You could kiss me. I know you don’t want to. I know you’re going to say that I’m—

SKIP

Trouble.

SCOOTER

I don’t mean to be.

SKIP

I wouldn’t have it any other way.!!!(SKIP looks searchingly into SCOOTER’s eyes, then slowly kisses her.)

Georgie felt the hard touch of his lips, and this time the magic didn’t work. Skip’s lips should be soft. And Skip shouldn’t taste of cigarettes and insolence. She pulled back.

“Cut,” Jerry called out. “Is there a problem, Georgie?”

“There’s a problem, all right.” Bram scowled at the camera. “It’s eight fucking o’clock in the morning.”

“Let’s do it again,” the director said.

And they had. Again and again. It was only a simple stage kiss, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make herself believe Skip was kissing her, and each time their lips met, she felt as though she was shaming herself all over again.

After the sixth take, Bram stormed off and told her to go take some “fucking acting lessons.” She shouted back that he should swallow some “fucking mouthwash.” The crew was used to temperament from Bram, but not from her, and she was ashamed. “I’m sorry, everybody,” she murmured. “I don’t mean to push my bad day off on you.”

The director coaxed Bram back. Georgie reached inside herself and somehow managed to use her own churning emotions to show Scooter’s confusion. They finally had their take.

And now here she was again, doing something she’d never thought she’d have to repeat. Kissing Bram Shepard.

Bram’s mouth closed over hers, his lips soft as Skip’s should have been. She began her mental retreat to the secret place she’d hidden in so many years ago. But something was wrong. Bram no longer tasted of late nights and seedy bars. He tasted clean. Not clean like Lance, who had an Altoids addiction, but clean like—

She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she knew she didn’t like it. She wanted Bram to be Bram. She wanted the sour taste of his condescension, the tainted bile of his disdain. Those were both things she knew how to handle.

She waited for him to try sticking his tongue down her throat. Not that she wanted him to—God, no—but at least it would be familiar.

He nibbled at her lower lip, then slowly set her back on her feet. “Welcome to married life, Mrs. Shepard,” he said in a soft, tender voice even as his hand, hidden in the folds of her skirt, pinched her bottom.

She smiled with relief. Bram was finally acting like himself. “Welcome to my heart…,” she said just as tenderly, “…Mr. Georgie York.” Beneath his jacket, she jabbed him in the ribs as hard as she could.

It was dark outside when Duffy left, and the management had slipped a message under the door. The switchboard was swamped with calls, and a horde of photographers had gathered outside. She turned on the television and saw that the news of their marriage was out. While Bram changed his clothes, she sat on the edge of the couch and watched.

Everyone was shocked.

No one had seen it coming.

Since only the bare-bones details were available, the cable news outlets were trying to fill out the story with comments from a string of so-called experts who knew absolutely nothing.!!!“After the devastating end to her first marriage, Georgie has returned to the comfort of the familiar.”!!!“Perhaps Shepard’s grown weary of his playboy lifestyle…”!!!“But has he really reformed? Georgie’s a wealthy woman, and…”

Bram came out of the bedroom in a fresh pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. “We’re leaving tonight.”

She muted the remote. “I’m not exactly anxious to drive to L.A. with a herd of photographers chasing us. As Princess Diana would say, ‘Been there. Done that.’”

“I’ve taken care of it.”

“You can’t even take care of yourself.”

“Let me put it another way. I’m not staying here. You can either come with me or explain to the press why your new husband is leaving alone.”

He was clearly going to win this skirmish, so she conjured up a sneer. “You’d better know what you’re doing.”

As it turned out, he did have the situation taken care of. A paneled plumbing van waited for them at the darkened loading dock. He tossed their suitcases inside and slipped the driver a couple of folded bills from his wallet. Afterward, he gave her an arm-up into the back, then climbed in himself and shut the door.

The interior smelled like rotten eggs. They wedged themselves into a space near the doors, drew up their knees, and set their backs against their luggage. “We’d better not be going all the way to L.A. in this,” she said.

“Were you always so whiny?”

Pretty much, she thought. At least this past year. And that was going to change. “You worry about yourself.”

The van lurched away from the loading dock, and she fell against his side. Her life had come to this. Sneaking out of Vegas in the back of a plumbing van. She rested her cheek on her bent knees and closed her eyes, trying not to think about what lay ahead.

SCOOTER

I never look up at the stars.

SKIP

Why’s that?

SCOOTER

Because they make me feel too small. Less than a speck. I’d rather stick my hand in a lion’s cage than look at stars.

SKIP

That’s crazy. Stars are beautiful.

SCOOTER

Stars are depressing. I want to do big things with my life, but how can I when the stars only remind me of how small I really am?

Eventually the van pulled off the highway and came to a stop on a bumpy dirt road. Bram dropped to the ground. She poked her head out. It was pitch-black, and they were in the middle of nowhere. She climbed down and walked gingerly around to the front of the van. The headlights picked out a wooden sign reading jean dry lake. Next to it, a tattered poster advertised some kind of rocket-launching festival. Bram was talking to the driver of a nondescript dark sedan. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, so she stayed where she was.

The van driver passed her carrying their luggage. “I really liked you in Skip and Scooter,” he said.

“Thanks.” She wished more people would say they liked her in one of her movies.

The sedan’s driver got out and put their suitcases in the trunk. Both men climbed into the van and pulled away. She and Bram stood alone, only his burnished hair shining in the moonlit darkness.

“They won’t keep quiet about this,” she said. “You know they won’t. It’s too juicy a story.”

“By the time it gets out, we’ll be long home.”

Home. She couldn’t imagine them trapped in her small rental house. She’d have to find another place quickly—something large enough so they’d never see each other. As she opened the car door, she checked her watch. It was two o’clock; only twelve hours since she’d awakened and found herself in this mess.

Bram slipped behind the wheel. He drove fast, but not recklessly. “A friend is driving my car back to L.A. in a couple of days. If we’re lucky, it’ll take that long before anybody figures out we’ve left.”

“We need a place to live,” she said. “I’ll have my real estate agent find something fast.”

“We’re moving into my place.”

“Your place? I thought you were house-sitting in Malibu.”

“I only stay out there when I want to get away.”

“From what?” She kicked off her sandals. “Wait. Didn’t Trev tell me you live in an apartment?”

“Is there something wrong with apartments?”

“Yes. They’re small.”

“Have you always been such a snob?”

“I’m not a snob. This is about privacy. From each other.”

“That’s going to be a little tough with only one bedroom. Although it’s a pretty big bedroom.”

She glared at him. “We’re not living in your one-bedroom apartment.”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but that’s where I’m living.”

Now she got it. This was how he intended to handle everything. It would be his way or the highway.

Her head ached, she had a stiff neck, and she saw no advantage to arguing about this until they got to L.A. She turned away and closed her eyes. Deciding to take control of her life was the easy part. Carrying it off would be a lot tougher.

She woke at dawn. She’d fallen asleep against the passenger door, and she rubbed her neck. They were driving up a winding residential street lined with houses hidden behind massive foliage. Bram glanced over at her. Other than heavier stubble, he didn’t show any signs of his sleepless night. She scowled. “Where are we?”

“In the Hollywood Hills.”

They passed a high ficus hedge, rounded another bend, then turned into a driveway set between stone pillars. A sprawling russet stucco and stone Spanish colonial house came into view. Bougainvillea twined around a Moorish bay made up of six arched windows, and trumpet vine climbed a round, two-story turret that angled off at one end. “I knew you were lying about the apartment.”

“This is my girlfriend’s house.”

“Your girlfriend?”

He pulled up in front and turned off the engine. “You have to explain to her what happened. It’ll go better if she hears the story from you.”

“You want me to explain to your girlfriend why you’re married?”

“Am I supposed to let her read it in the papers? Don’t you think I should be a little more sensitive toward the woman I love?”

“You’ve never loved anyone in your life. And since when have you only had one girlfriend?”

“There’s always a first time.” He unsnapped his seat belt and got out of the car.

Georgie hurried after him toward a one-story arcaded entry porch paved in blue and white Spanish tiles. Assorted terra-cotta planters sat between three small twisted stone columns the same russet color as the stucco. “We’re not telling anybody the truth about this,” she whispered. “Especially a woman who’s going to have an understandable need for revenge.”

He stepped up onto the porch. “If she’s as serious about me as I think she is, she’ll keep her mouth shut and wait this out.”

“And if she’s not?”

He lifted one eyebrow. “Let’s be honest, Scoot. When have you ever known a woman not to be serious about me?”