“Seriously? This is what my life has come to? A fake marriage?”
Suddenly finding it too much of a distraction, Simon put the football game he’d recorded on his DVR on pause. Ian was hoping to retain his job, so it was understandable that he’d come here with some crazy idea that was supposed to save the day. But even if it had been a good idea, Simon doubted he’d take him back. In his opinion, Ian had revealed some disturbing character flaws.
Then again, Simon knew he probably wasn’t anyone who should be pointing a finger.
Ian sat on the edge of his chair. Showered and ready for the rest of the day, his sunglasses dangling from one hand, he looked refreshed and energetic, which counted for more than anything he’d had to say so far. His manner made him convincing. Simon needed someone who felt ready to tackle the world. He felt as if he’d just been hit by a truck.
“It wouldn’t be fake,” Ian said. “It would be real.”
“That makes it worse. I’d be acting my own life.” Simon brought his recliner upright. He spent a lot of time in this room. It had no windows, so it was completely dark if he wanted it to be, and that helped whenever he had a headache. It was comfortable, too. After barging into Gail’s office and ranting like a madman early this morning, he’d come here to calm down and recover from a raging hangover. But he wasn’t succeeding, at calming down or feeling better. Every time he thought of Gail and that rape charge, he wanted to put his fist through a wall. And although beer sometimes helped with a hangover, it didn’t seem to be doing much today. His head pounded as though it might explode.
What he needed was sleep. He hadn’t slept well in weeks. But nothing he did, short of pills, made sleep possible.
“This is what you come to me with?” he asked Ian. “This is how you plan to prove your worth?”
Surprisingly, his manager—possibly ex-manager; Simon was still trying to decide—didn’t back down. He was completely convinced he had the answer to all of Simon’s problems. “Yes. It’s brilliant.”
“It’s crazy!” He winced. Raising his voice had been a mistake. “There’s got to be another way out of the mess I’m in,” he added more calmly. “I’ve got more money than I know what to do with. Let’s put it to good use.”
Ian shook his head. “Money’s not enough this time, Simon. You need a more drastic solution.”
“This is drastic, all right,” he responded with a humorless chuckle. “Are you listening to yourself? You’re suggesting I pay Gail DeMarco, a woman I don’t even like, to be my wife.”
“She’s a PR professional, the best in the business. We can’t expect her to give up two years of her life for free.”
“Two years?” The sour taste of the beer was making his stomach queasy. He should’ve eaten something.
“You’ve got to create a track record of stability, give her time to build the illusion of peace and happiness, a life in control.”
Simon said nothing. He was too busy trying to subdue his nausea. Maybe he didn’t want to admit it to Ian, but he knew one thing—he couldn’t go on like this. He’d known that for a while.
“Think about it,” Ian said. “You won’t have much to do with her. It’s mainly for appearances. You get married, you lie low, you get Ty back and then you part amicably. This is a PR campaign, not a marriage in the normal sense. You’re taking it way too seriously.”
“Then you marry her.”
“I would if it’d help.”
Simon tried to picture Gail as his wife and couldn’t. They’d worked together too long in carefully defined roles that rarely crossed into their personal lives. And what he’d seen of her on a personal basis hadn’t impressed him. Talk about a straight arrow. Could he tolerate having this person in his life on a day-to-day basis? “Who picked the length of time?”
“She did. But it’s a worst-case scenario. If our plan works sooner than expected, we can make adjustments.”
He sure as hell hoped it wouldn’t take two years. At the moment, Bella had full custody of their son and, thanks to a hard-ass judge who’d ranted on about his “moral corruption,” she’d managed to deny him visitation rights. Yet she was leaving Ty with one nanny after another while she had surgery to fix cosmetic flaws that didn’t exist, took expensive trips with men she’d barely met and tried too hard to be seen, to be part of the Hollywood “in” crowd, as if she wanted to be famous herself. After his mother died, Simon had been raised by nannies. He didn’t want that for his son.
“It beats rehab,” Ian murmured when Simon didn’t respond. “Something has to be done.”
Surely marriage would do more for public perception than a rehab program. But it would only work if he could get his drinking under control.
He turned his beer around and around in its holder. “How much is she charging?”
“The price of the wedding photos. Whatever we sell them for, that’s what she’ll get. She’ll even negotiate the sale and handpick the placement so we get maximum publicity.”
“People magazine will want them. And they’ll pay a couple mil, at least.”
“That’s a lot, but it’s money you wouldn’t have without her, so she’s essentially paying for herself, right?”
He didn’t care about the money. He just wanted to understand the setup. “Apparently you two have thought of everything.”
Ian smiled. “This will work, Simon. If you’ll let her take charge for a while, do everything she tells you, you’ll get Ty back. I fully believe that. Will you meet with her?”
“Not today.” He wasn’t sure he could trust himself not to lay into her again. Every time he remembered that whole assault thing, he wanted to go ape shit.
“Tomorrow, then?”
Why not? It was worth a shot. Gail DeMarco wasn’t the most appealing woman in the world, but she was better than the alternative. “Fine.”
Ian slapped his knees and stood. “Fantastic. So...are we good? Are we back in business?”
Simon hated to give in so easily, but in his current condition he didn’t have the wherewithal to do much else. “Yeah, I guess so. For now,” he added grudgingly.
“You’ll be glad you hired me back. I promise. But...”
“What?” Simon said when he hesitated.
“No drinking tonight, okay? I don’t want Gail to see you like this.”
Simon gave him a wry smile. “You think she’ll walk out on two million dollars?”
“I know she will. Her reputation will be on the line. She’ll only do it if she believes we can succeed.”
He was probably right. That was partly why Gail had always made him a little defensive and uneasy. His money didn’t matter to her. Neither did his fame. And he wasn’t too strong in any of the categories that did.
* * *
It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Pale October sunlight drifted into the living room of Simon’s Beverly Hills mansion through a series of large front windows, but Gail barely noticed. They’d just come in from outside, where Ian had taken pictures of her and Simon wrapped in each other’s arms, their mouths only millimeters apart as if they’d just kissed or were about to. They planned to kick off the campaign by leaking those suggestive photographs to the press. It was all calculated and arranged. It meant nothing. And yet...standing so close to Simon had left Gail a bit breathless.
She tried to pretend otherwise, but Simon immediately threw her off balance again.
“What about sex?” he asked, taking a seat on the sofa, while she stood closer to Ian, who had his laptop on a table and was downloading the pictures.
Gail had been planning to cover this herself. She just hadn’t found the nerve. “What do you mean?” she asked, stalling while she formulated her response.
He held the club soda he’d poured himself. “You’ve told me that from this minute on I can’t drink a drop of alcohol. You’ve negotiated your price. And you’ve covered how we’ll make the marriage look real by leaking information and photographs to the press. You’ve even had Ian take the pictures you plan to start with.” He motioned to his manager. “He’ll be emailing them to you any minute. Don’t you think it’s time to address how we’re going to handle our marriage on the inside? I’m assuming I can’t cheat—”
“Of course not. That would endanger the whole campaign!” she broke in.
“So what am I supposed to do?” He slid one hand down his thigh as he shifted, adjusting the fit of the faded jeans he wore with a simple T-shirt and expensive-looking house shoes. “If we were talking about two months it might be different. But we’re talking about two years.”
Dressed in a standard business suit, since she considered this a business meeting, she fiddled with one of her buttons. “I realize that sounds like a long time.”
“Damn right,” he said. “An eternity. You’re not suggesting I go without, are you?”
Hoping he’d explain why her answer had to be what it was, Gail looked at Ian. But he merely glanced up from his computer and arched his eyebrows, implying that this one was all hers.
“Thanks for jumping in to break the bad news,” she grumbled.
He grinned for the first time. “It’s kind of funny to watch you flounder. I’ve never seen a grown woman turn so red.”
She grimaced. “With my coloring, it doesn’t take much.” Which hardly seemed fair, since the two of them were tanned to a perfect café au lait despite the fact that summer had ended two months ago.
Ian’s grin stretched wider. “I’m starting to like you, you know that? For someone who’s so uptight and controlling, you’re not bad.”
God, he made her sound like her father. She cringed at the militant image that presented. But she was her father’s daughter. She’d heard that before. She’d even inherited his freckles and strawberry-blond hair, both of which she hated as much as his intensity.
“I don’t care if you like me or not,” she said. But it wasn’t true. She was the worst kind of type A, worse than her father, because she was also a pleaser, which meant she’d work herself to death to meet everyone’s expectations, no matter how unreasonable they might be.
“Is there an answer in my near future?” Simon shook his drink, causing the ice to clink against the glass.
Lifting her chin, she addressed him herself. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I expect you to go two years without sex. That’s what the job requires.”
He took another drink of his club soda as if this didn’t bother him, but a subtle tightening around the mouth and eyes said otherwise. “So you’ll be my wife in name and pocketbook only.”
“Basically. Although I’ll be signing a prenup, so I’ll have enough to make you look generous and in love, but no access to your millions. You’ll pay for our wedding rings and the kind of wardrobe your wife should have. The sale of the pictures will cover my contract.”
She got the impression he was circling, searching for vulnerability, like a buzzard.
“A rock on your finger and a few clothes. That’s all you’ll need from me to get you through the next two years?”
“That and some privacy. Once I’m Mrs. O’Neal, my business should recover on its own. I say we go our separate ways behind closed doors, don’t you?” How else would they survive suddenly being shackled to each other, two people who were so opposite and ill-suited?
“For the most part...yes.”
She’d expected him to be more adamant that she keep her distance whenever possible. He’d had no interest in her on a personal level before. In the past year, neither had he listened to anything she’d told him professionally, despite paying a hefty monthly retainer for her guidance and advice. He was only listening now because he’d bottomed out.
“We’ll need personal space and time alone,” she went on. “Considering the number of mansions you own, having our own space shouldn’t be a problem.” There was definitely room enough for two at his twenty-five-thousand-square-foot home in Belize, for instance. Room enough for her to handle her business remotely, with Serge’s and Josh’s help; it would grow by leaps and bounds as soon as word of their union got out. Simon could...read scripts or whatever he did when he wasn’t shooting a movie. “We should live a few weeks here and a few weeks there—preferably out of the country as much as possible. That’ll help us keep ahead of the paparazzi, control which details get out.”
He pursed his lips. “You won’t miss sex? It won’t be hard for you to sleep alone for two years?”
She gestured carelessly. “I’ll miss it, but...my world doesn’t revolve around getting lucky. I’m a mature adult. I can delay gratification until our marriage is over.”
If he got her hint that he should be able to do the same, he didn’t let it deter him, didn’t act the least bit chastised or embarrassed. “And if I feel more strongly about not having to go so long?”
She curled her fingernails into her palms. “I’m afraid you—you don’t have any choice. It’s the only way this will work.”
“You could change your mind.”
That was what he’d been getting at all along. Gail’s anxiety rose until the muscles in her back felt like rubber bands twisted to maximum torque. “I’m sorry. That’s not going to happen.”
He jiggled one knee, an obvious sign of agitation. She’d seen him do it before when he was on edge or growing impatient—or anytime he had to sit still for too long. “What if I let you keep the ring? A big diamond. One of your choosing.”
Of course he’d think he could buy anything he wanted. He was richer than God. And every decision they’d arrived at so far had been reached through negotiation. But he had to understand that this was different. She had her limits. “I won’t trade sex for money.”
“Oh, quit being such a prude,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “We’ll be married. It’s not like you’d be standing on a street corner. And if you won’t let me get it anywhere else, I need to know we have some sort of...arrangement, in case I get desperate.”
“Desperate?”
He didn’t bother to apologize. He’d been cross all morning, supremely unhappy with the problem as well as the solution. But Simon was always cross these days. The only thing that mattered right now was procuring a commitment to the no-sex rule, just as she had with the no-alcohol rule, so they’d both be going into this with the same expectations.
“I understand that you’re trying to be practical,” she said. “And I realize two years is a long time for...a man of your age and, uh, limitations.” She smiled, knowing she’d just jabbed him back. “But our relationship isn’t real, so we won’t be sleeping together no matter how desperate you become.”
“Why the hell not?” he demanded, finally losing the battle with his temper.
“Because I’m not an object! And we don’t even respect each other!”
There was more to it. For one thing, after the sex goddesses he’d been with, he was certain to find her lacking. And what could she possibly gain? Nothing. Sleeping with Simon would only set her up for future disappointment. It wasn’t as if she could expect the relationship to last, even if she wanted it to.
Fortunately, she could stand on principle and wouldn’t have to explain the more embarrassing reasons behind her refusal. “Look, don’t make a big deal out of this, okay? This is acting. You don’t really get to sleep with the female leads you pretend to make love to in the movies, do you?”
Too late, she realized that might not be true off-set and couldn’t believe she’d let her tongue get so far ahead of her brain.
“Only eighty or ninety percent of them,” he responded, and Ian began to laugh.
When she shot Simon’s manager a dirty look, he laughed even harder but tried to speak through it. “Come on, we all know the number of women who fall at his feet. Why pretend otherwise? In any case, you can’t expect him to give up the good life—”
“You were with me on this!” she complained. “We talked about it last night.”
Obviously sensing how easily their deal could fall apart, Ian sobered. “I agreed that he couldn’t have any extramarital affairs. I didn’t agree that he couldn’t screw his own wife.”
She’d said no sex, right after no alcohol, and he hadn’t corrected her. “But I won’t really be his wife!”
“You’ll be legally married.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
Finished emailing her the photos, he closed his computer. “It means he should be able to sleep with you if he wants.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Then what else is he supposed to do?”
“He could try exercising a little self-restraint!”
“Like you?” Ian asked. “Someone who wouldn’t know how to have fun if it came up and bit her on the ass?”
Fun had never been her top priority. Her mother had walked out when Gail was eight. Since then, she’d had too much to prove to her father and brother. “That won’t change my answer.”
Ian expelled a loud sigh. “He will be exercising some restraint. If he gives up booze and refuses the women who hit on him, he’ll be exercising a lot of it. But you have to be realistic. If you take other women away, you have to provide something else instead.”
Gail dropped her purse to the floor. “No matter how undesirable.”
She’d imbued her voice with enough sarcasm to wither them both on the spot, but it didn’t seem to make an impact. If anything, her words had the opposite effect. It was almost as if she could see them mentally offering each other a high five for scoring a direct hit. They respected her professional ability—she knew that much—but they’d never been particularly fond of her. She and Simon had too often been at cross-purposes, with him trying to do what he wanted regardless of the consequences and her trying to protect his image.
“It’s a fair question,” Ian insisted.
“A sabbatical might be good for him,” she argued, “give him a chance to pull his life together.”
Simon came to his feet. “This is bullshit! You’ll have my name, my ring and two years of my life, and I can’t even climb into bed with you?”
Suddenly Gail realized that this conversation had nothing to do with the topic. He wasn’t attracted to her; he’d made that clear. He was responding to being nudged out of the power position and wanted to get back on top in some way. So he was demanding she make a difficult concession, one that couldn’t be overruled simply by pointing to the fact that it would compromise the campaign.
“Sleeping together is not part of the deal,” she reiterated.
Jaw set, he slammed his glass down on the coffee table. “Fine. I’ll make some sort of discreet arrangement with a third party.”
“No, you won’t! We’ve been over that.”
“It won’t matter if no one knows.”
“Isn’t that the kind of thinking that got you into this mess? Word would get out, eventually. Your bed partners are too anxious to brag about their good fortune.” Besides, she wouldn’t want to lie awake night after night imagining what he might be doing in another part of the house. “Can’t you look at this as a job? Pretend you’re preparing to play a monk and celibacy is key to getting into character? If you can stay focused and put in the time, we’ll all get what we need in the end. Then you can have a whole harem if you want.”
Pivoting, he spoke to Ian as if she was no longer in the room. “This won’t work. I’m already going without alcohol. I’ll be cut off from my friends, in case they see through this...sham of a marriage or—” he made quotation marks with his fingers “—lead me astray. And I’ll be connected at the hip to someone who’ll be monitoring my every move and, no doubt, criticizing it.”
“Stop it,” she told Simon before Ian could respond.
Simon whirled on her. “Stop what?”
“Stop looking for a way out. If you don’t want to do this, fine. But don’t justify blowing up the deal by acting like you would’ve jumped in with both feet if only I’d been reasonable.”
“You’re not being reasonable! It’ll be hard enough giving up alcohol.”
“You said you could do it. I said maybe you should go into rehab instead. We’ll just make matters worse if we attempt this and fail. And you said you weren’t addicted.”
“I’m not addicted, but... God, I could use a little help. A shoulder to cry on, if nothing else.”
She folded her arms. “I’ll lend you my shoulder, if you’ve got to have one, but nothing else. And I won’t be criticizing everything you do,” she added. “If it has no impact on the campaign, I won’t say a word.”
“You won’t have to,” he said. “I’ll be able to see it in your face, which happens to reveal every thought you have. In any event, I have no intention of going without sex for two years on top of everything else. The way I see it, getting lucky every once in a while might be the only enjoyment I’ll experience in two hellish years. Why would I give that up?”
Gail held her ground even though her high heels were beginning to pinch her toes and she was dying to sit. “Because you’ve let your son down and this is the only way to make it up to him, that’s why!”
His hands curled into fists as if he wanted to strike her, or strike something. Maybe it was only verbal, but she’d slugged him where it hurt. She’d had to. If they didn’t stay focused, keep their goals in sight, they’d fail before they ever got started. And she had a lot riding on this, too.
“How hard can it be?” She went on more calmly, hoping to placate him. “You’ve already made it abundantly clear that I don’t appeal to you.”
His eyes, now glittery, roamed over her, making her want to cover herself even though she was fully dressed. “I assumed you’d be better than nothing. But maybe I was wrong.”
“Oh, stop acting like a—” She caught herself before she could call him any names. He was looking for a fight. Why accommodate him? “Never mind. Forget it. No sex. Do I have your agreement?”
“I wouldn’t touch you if you stood in front of me naked and begged,” he grumbled.
Fabulous. She had what she wanted. But somehow it didn’t make her feel any better. His capitulation, and the sentiment behind it, stung enough that she couldn’t resist a final salvo. “Fine, because I have some standards myself, you know, and dissolute movie stars aren’t high on my list of must-have men.”
“That’s the best you’ve got? Dissolute?” Wearing a pained expression, he turned to Ian. “Does anyone in the real world even use that word these days?”
“I’ve seen it in books,” Ian said, his voice speculative.
She rolled her eyes. “I doubt you’ve ever picked up a book. It means—”
“You’re not the only one here with a brain,” Simon interrupted. “I know what it means. And as far as comebacks go, it sucks. Do you think I haven’t heard it all before? That you’re the only person with an opinion on how I live my life?”
All the things she’d wanted to tell him in the past but hadn’t seemed to rise in her throat and propel her forward, until she stood almost nose to nose with him. At six feet, he still had her by a few inches, but the heels helped. “You probably haven’t heard the half of it,” she said, “because I’m the only one who’ll state it plainly, the only one who’s not out to get something from you. Who else will tell you that you need to pull your head out of your ass? The people who depend on you for a paycheck?” She motioned at Ian. “Him? Mr. Suck-up?”
Ian pressed a hand to his chest as if she’d just shot him. “Ouch! I take back what I said. I don’t like you at all.”
Simon ignored him. “Seriously? I hear how rotten I am all the time. My ex has said much worse than you could ever come up with—and she’s said it to the papers so I have the print version in case I forget.”
She’d made some comments that’d been printed, too, but she didn’t want to remind him. “Yeah, well, you can’t trust Bella, either. She’s hurt and she’s angry, and she’s determined to have her revenge. I’m honest, not vindictive. If I tell you something, it’s true. And I’m telling you this—you need to pull your head out!”
“Maybe she’s not so bad at comebacks.” Ian was obviously trying to break the tension, but it didn’t work.
Sending his manager a dirty look, Simon returned to the couch. “You’re not some sort of oracle, Ms. DeMarco, so quit pretending. I won’t take advice from a repressed PR failure with her jacket buttoned up to her neck. And you are hoping for something from me. You want me to save your business and cut you a hefty check when this is all over.”
She put her hands on her hips. “If you’d like to marry someone else, I’ll do the PR for free. But two years of my life doesn’t come cheap. And you’re the one who destroyed my business in the first place. You owe me.”
She thought he’d come right back at her, tell her it was Ian who’d gone after her and not him. But without his name Ian wouldn’t have had the power to pull off what he’d done.
Simon didn’t attempt to argue, however. A sigh hinted at how tired he was. Had he even been to bed last night? He looked like he’d been up for days. “Maybe I do,” he relented, “but you don’t have to make this so hard.”
She got the feeling that they weren’t talking strictly about sex anymore, but it was more comfortable to respond as if they were. “I’ll be going without, too.”
“You don’t seem to have a problem with it, which doesn’t say much for your love life.”
He’d hit a little too close to the truth. She wasn’t sure whom she’d sleep with even if she wanted a bed partner. Her last relationship ended three years ago; she hadn’t been with anyone since. But she wasn’t about to admit that to him. “Let’s leave my love life out of it.”
In an effort to turn the conversation around, Ian abandoned his seat by the computer and came forward. “Look—” he touched her elbow to get her to face him “—this’ll be a piece of cake for you. What’s so terrible about a couple of years spent eating at the best restaurants, shopping at the most expensive stores and flying around the world?”
Besides the fact that it meant she’d have to endure two years of knowing Simon found her completely unattractive and, worse, unlikable? Could her self-esteem survive such a constant beating?
Simon jumped to his feet, suddenly decisive. “I’m calling it off. She’s not up to the task.”
Gail felt her jaw drop. “That’s it? We just wasted the past two hours?”
“I guess so.”
“Fine. I’m out of here.” Grabbing her purse, she headed for the door.