Chapter Five
When Quinn returned to the patient lounge to find Luke sitting in the midst of the calming blue and white room, it occurred to her that nobody had accompanied her to a medical appointment in a very long time. She’d dealt with the sprained knee quietly, on her own, not wanting the press, or worse, the Dirty Games producers, to find out about the injury.
Hollywood was a cutthroat place. Most everyone worked an angle, but Quinn found an almost refreshing honesty to the naked ambition. She’d played the game long enough to know the score. Confidences had an uncanny tendency to find their way into the spotlight. She couldn’t afford for her dirtiest laundry—the ugly facts surrounding her knee injury, or her current situation—to be hung out for public view. Those details would hamper Callum’s attempts to get clean and get his career back on track, and could send hers off the rails as well, if the producers panicked about her fitness for the role. Eddie, she trusted, but even then, not with everything. The need for extreme discretion had narrowed her support network considerably. Like, to herself. She wasn’t used to having someone in her corner at times like this.
Luke wasn’t there out of friendship, or to offer support, but still, seeing his imposing frame parked in a chair waiting for her was strangely reassuring. Watching his miss-no-detail eyes scan her face for any sign of distress left an unaccountably warm feeling in her chest. She crossed the room and lowered herself into the seat beside him.
“How’d it go?” He looked completely relaxed with his arm slung across the back of the blue, upholstered chairs, and his right ankle propped on his left knee. He held out the cell phone she’d given him to hold while she’d spent thirty minutes in an MRI suite being crammed into a magnetic tube where metallic items were prohibited.
She took the phone and shrugged, trying to muster up a breezy response when, in truth, thirty minutes of lying there while the machine did its thing had sucked away her energy. A mellow fog she associated with lack of sleep blanketed her. “Fine. The technician said the results would be ready in about twenty minutes.”
His eyes narrowed. “Did they give you a Xanax or something?”
“Oh for God’s sake. No. I don’t suffer from anxiety. I’m not a basket case, despite what you think.”
“Hey, a lot of people get claustrophobic in the tube, or they don’t like the noise. That hardly makes you a basket case.”
“Well, I was only waist deep in the machine, and I wore headphones to block out the banging. I’m not drugged. Just tired.” And hungry. And grumpy.
To cover the yawn trying to slip out, she craned her neck and looked around the otherwise empty room. Comfortable and upscale, just like the resort this cutting edge wellness center served. A guest could come to Paradise Bay for anything from an extreme makeover to a stem cell treatment, and recover in the comfort of the adjacent resort.
A flat screen along one wall was tuned to a daytime talk show. The magazines scattered on the dark wood tables between the chair groupings focused on fashion, celebrity gossip, or parenting. Not a Men’s Health in the bunch. She couldn’t imagine him finding any of it remotely interesting. “You must have been bored out of your mind.”
He tapped the screen of his own phone and slid it into his pocket. “I managed.” When he withdrew his hand his fist was closed, and she realized he’d retrieved the earrings she’d also given him to look after. She held out her hand for them, but he ignored it, and pulled the back off one of the diamond forget-me-not studs Callum had given her when she’d won the lead role on Pep Rally. Back then, he’d still had money to spend on a sweet, brotherly gesture of support. Those days were long gone. Now he needed her support, and she needed this role in order to continue to provide it.
But then all thoughts of Callum or anything else fled, because Luke leaned close. The sunburst of amber around his pupils captured her attention. Faceted, like a tiger’s eye, and every bit as mesmerizing. Tiny rivers of gold streamed through the winter lake pools of his irises, presenting a contradiction of hot and cold, wild and contained, just like the man himself. She held her breath while he eased the post through her earlobe, and then locked the back into place. While he inserted and secured the other earring, she had a sudden, unaccountably vivid image of him biting the earrings out. Using his teeth to divest her of all adornments. Tear away every trapping of civility. Every tiny defense. She shuddered, and imagined him using the same attentive, oh-so-meticulous care to find and exploit her most repressed needs.
All the tightly strung warning systems inside her went lax. She swallowed, ordered herself to stop staring at him, and managed to drag her gaze away from his fascinating eyes. Instead, it dropped to his mouth. Not necessarily a better choice. His lips looked firm and capable. Enticingly mobile, especially as they formed a word.
They paused, expectantly, and she realized he’d asked her a question.
“Huh?”
She could almost imagine the taste of his lips. There wasn’t an ounce of softness to him, but if she crashed her mouth against his, those lips would give. And then they’d take. They’d part, and the very act would force hers open, too. Open and vulnerable, and…
“Hungry?” As he repeated the question, he reached into a bag at his feet and pulled out a square box. “I ordered lunch while you were gone.”
She had to pull her slack mouth closed to respond. “Thanks.” Mentally shaking herself, she accepted the beige box. Just holding it reminded her she was hungry. Starving, actually. Her hands shook a little as she popped the top of the cardboard clamshell to reveal… Oh nooooo. “What is this?”
“Grilled chicken and kale salad.” He handed her napkin-wrapped plastic utensils and a bottle of water before adding, “Bon appetite.” Then he popped the lid on his container.
The spicy aroma of something mouthwatering surrounded her. He dug in and lifted a forkful of rice drowned in a sauce chocked full of peppers, onions, and God only knew what other goodness. Her stomach growled.
“I want what you’re having.”
He took an unrepentant bite, and closed his eyes to savor the flavor. Finally, he swallowed and shook his head. “Nope. Sofrito is not on your approved diet for the next six weeks. Neither is rice, for that matter.” So saying, he enjoyed another bite.
“Why not? I see peppers in there, and onion—”
“And carbs. Carbs my body needs for energy. You need to burn through your body’s stored energy reserves, which means we restrict calories and make every single one of them meaningful. Lean protein will account for most of yours. Fiber from green vegetables like spinach, kale, and broccoli will help you feel full. No processed food. No added sugars.” His gaze turned pointed. “No alcohol for the duration. I trust that’s not going to be a problem.”
None whatsoever. After this morning, she didn’t care if she never drank again. She gave his sofrito one last look, and then stared at her joyless chicken on its bed of roughage. “When I filled out the meal questionnaire, I indicated there were three things I couldn’t live without. Starbucks, chocolate, and ice cre—”
“No, no, and no.”
“None of it for six weeks?” Even she heard the whine in her voice.
“I penciled in two treats. One when you hit the halfway point—if you make it that long—and one when we’re done. Again, if—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She batted the disclaimer away with a wave of her hand. “Thank you for your vote of confidence.”
He ignored her interruption. “Otherwise, you eat what I say, when I say. And it’s going to look a lot like this.” He pointed to her lunch. “Understood?”
Fuuuuck. For an answer she sawed off a chunk of chicken, stabbed it onto her fork along with a leaf of kale, and shoved it in her mouth. Forcing herself to chew took more effort, but somehow she managed.
“Good.” His lips lifted in a grin, and he helped himself to more of his lunch.
Don’t complain. She took another bite of her chicken and chewed. He expected her to complain, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of…“God, does it have to be so…boring?”
“The purpose of this food is to nourish your body, not entertain you. Entertain yourself with books, activities, conversations—”
“Okay, then. Let’s talk.” Figuring she might as well know the extent of her losses for the next six weeks, she went with, “What other basic human rights have I surrendered to you, besides the ability to choose what I eat, and what I wear? Oh, and when I wake up.”
His lips quirked. “You can wake up any time you like, as long as it gets you to the gym at nine a.m. I own you from then until we’re done for the day, with the exception of two fifteen minute breaks—provided you earn them—and lunch.”
Days on the set started earlier, and frequently ran very late. She knew how to put in long hours, but spending so much time, one-on-one, with him gave her a slight rush of panic. “I need a definite end time. I didn’t put my entire life on hold when I boarded a plane for Paradise Bay.”
“Me, either. I still have a business to oversee, and I’ll be doing it long distance for six weeks. We’ll knock off each day around three p.m.—give or take—and you can run back to your villa and call your boyfriend, or—”
“I’m not involved with anyone,” she said through gritted teeth, just managing to hold back the you big jerk dancing on the tip of her tongue. “But I have lines to learn, scripts to read, calls to return. I realize you don’t find my job terribly worthwhile, but you’re not the only one with other obligations.”
Obligations, and a vacation he’d shuffled as a favor to his friend, which must have been painfully inconvenient. The question she’d been dying to ask since the day he’d agreed to train her resurfaced. “What massive debt do you owe Eddie, that he could guilt you into this?”
Luke nodded to indicate he’d heard her, then swallowed and took a drink of water. Then he said the name of an A-list actress.
“I don’t understand. What’s she got to do with anything?”
“When I first started out as a personal trainer, I worked for a very well-established guy who had a lot of industry clients. More than he could handle, actually, because they’re all insanely demanding. Anyway,” he continued when she would have interrupted to stick up for the fellow members of her craft, “I met Eddie through him, and ended up becoming his trainer. We got along. This was a decade ago, and we were both at similar stages in our respective careers. He brought her to one of our sessions. She was his boss’s client at the time, and up for a big role. He thought she might benefit from working out regularly, but she was resistant so he used me as bait.”
She nearly choked on a mouthful of water. “Bait? She’s a human being, not a mantle fish.”
He shook his head. “It says more about me than it does her. I was young, eager to make a name for myself in a competitive field, and easily caught up in what seemed, at the time, like a very accomplished person’s life. There I was, a redneck kid from Crooked Creek, Texas, who’d ridden a football scholarship to Southern California, and then transitioned that into an exercise science degree when I blew out my ankle halfway through my second year. She was beautiful, successful, and sexy as hell, and suddenly I was moving in her sphere. After a few one-on-one sessions, I was in her bed. Six months later, she asked me to take her on full-time—drop my other clients so I could travel with her, accompany her on set, and focus exclusively on her. She needed me.”
A hot emotion she didn’t care to identify burned through her blood. He’d taken pains to tell her they weren’t going to mix business with pleasure, but he obviously did it sometimes. For the right woman. “Did you?”
“Rookie move.” His quick laugh held very little amusement. “I was such a fucking amateur. She’d never looked better, and was a walking advertisement for my services, so my client list was growing by leaps and bounds. But yes, like the dumb-ass twenty-two-year-old I was, I agreed to her request. Eddie warned me not to, but I didn’t listen.”
The quick storm of heat subsided a little. “What happened?”
“Predictable story. I made her my priority, but she didn’t do the same. Any plans I attempted always took a backseat to her career. I ranked behind her agent, her manager, and her publicist, and every one of us knew it. She had a lot of demands on her, but God forbid I suggest I needed more to be happy than to simply hang out in her life. Saying that amounted to a betrayal in her eyes.”
“Wow. Basically, ‘Be here for me, on my terms, or you’re a bad person’? You must have been incredibly hurt.”
“I was fucking miserable,” he said with such blunt honesty, her heart actually twisted for him. “I couldn’t give her what she wanted and still respect myself. It took a few cycles of teary arguments and hurled accusations, but eventually I thought we reached a mutual decision to call it quits. I walked away feeling like we’d treated each other decently, other than the fact that she hadn’t actually paid me in months, but whatever. I could get work. Except I couldn’t. I contacted all those people who’d begged me to take them on and got nothing but silence.”
Okay, yes, he’d been naive, but still, fury rose on his behalf. “She blackballed you?”
He nodded. “I finally called Eddie. He asked around and found out she’d badmouthed me to everyone short of the press. None of those contacts I’d made would touch me with a ten-foot pole. I was facing the possibility of having to pull up stakes, and head home to disappointed looks from my parents, friends…an entire town that thought I was living a fast, glamorous life out in Cali, full of people they only saw on TV or in the pages of magazines. Instead, they’d know I’d been chewed up and spit out, in large part because of my own ego and stupidity. Thankfully, Eddie didn’t let that happen. He quietly referred a few up-and-coming clients my way, mostly on the sports side of his business. I got results, earned favorable word-of-mouth, and rebuilt my career. If it weren’t for him risking backlash from one of his firm’s biggest clients, I’d have been back to square one. He went out on a limb for me after I did something boneheaded, and I owed him.”
She swallowed that information, along with the final bite of chicken. “Is she the reason you don’t like working with actors?”
He laughed and put his lunch aside. “She didn’t have quite that much sway over me. I’ve worked with scores of actors over the years. Sports and entertainment clients made up most of my business for a long time. Some have been amazing, others frustrating. I do credit her with teaching me a valuable lesson about mixing my professional life with my personal life.”
An impulse to argue his conclusion gripped her. Not your business. “So, if your experience with her didn’t put you off this industry, what did?”
“Don’t take it personally.”
Now she laughed. “Pfft. Of course not. Why would I take your utter lack of esteem for my chosen profession personally?”
“Because it’s not directed at you, but it’s personal to me. About five years ago, at the request of a client who was involved with a charity for injured armed forces personnel, I took on a vet who had lost a leg in the line of duty. He’d struggled with weight since the injury, and had just been diagnosed with type-two diabetes. This guy wasn’t after washboard abs or a V-cut. He didn’t give a shit about looking good for the camera. He needed to get control of his blood sugar, and reclaim his health.
“It wasn’t easy, but we did it, and working with him changed me as fundamentally as it changed him. His determination energized me, and reminded me I had the skills to help people make life-altering improvements. I could continue to use those skills to line my pockets even though I’d started to question the value of my work, or I could get a new goal in place and set about making changes of my own. Over the following years, I took on more clients with substantial health challenges. Training athletes and celebrities pays well—”
“No kidding.” She still got a serious cramp in the vicinity of her wallet when she thought about the cost of this six-week boot camp.
“The money allowed me to buy a facility, add staff, and concentrate on clients with serious weight management issues and all the accompanying complications. We don’t merely offer physical training. It’s everything—diet, habits, mindset—we help identify and tackle all the obstacles between the individual and their optimal health. We’re small, but we’re good, and we get results. Even so, it’s taken a lot of energy and focus to evolve the business to where it is today. I have a great team in place, and a comfortably full roster of clients. I’m finally at the point where I could consider stepping back for some personal time.”
Well, damn. Now that she knew his situation, his arrogance started to seem more like the genuine frustration of a man caught between a need to recharge, and his vow to a friend. She didn’t really know what to say. “Just so you know, I didn’t ask Eddie to—”
The waiting room door swung upon with a squeak, and then someone drew in an audible breath.
“Holyyy Shiiittt. You’re Quinn Sheridan!”