Glitter Baby (Wynette, Texas #3)(55)

“Do you believe that? Do you really believe she’s only thinking about your welfare?”

“Yes, that’s what I believe.” She wouldn’t let anyone but herself criticize her mother. “I know how important the scene with Matt and Lizzie is. I’m really going to try on Monday. If I really try—”

“You weren’t trying on Friday? Come off it, kiddo. This is Uncle Jake you’re talking to.”

She shot up off the couch. “Don’t do that! I hate it when you do that. I’m not a child, and you’re not my uncle.”

Suddenly his eyes narrowed and his jaw set in a hard line. “We needed a woman to play Lizzie. Instead we hired a kid.”

His words should have wiped her out. They should have broken her into a million pieces and sent her flying from the house in tears, but they were too outrageous. She stared into that tough face and felt a primitive surge of excitement. He wasn’t looking at her as if she was a kid. Beneath those shielded blue eyes, she glimpsed something she’d never seen before, something she could easily identify because she’d been feeling it so long herself. Despite his hostility, Jake wanted her.

Her skin broke out in gooseflesh. In that moment, she understood everything Lizzie understood, and she knew exactly what gave Lizzie her power.

“The only kid in the room,” she said softly, “is you.”

He didn’t like that. “Don’t play games with me. I’ve played them with the best, and believe me, you’re still minor league.”

He was deliberately trying to hurt her, and she could think of only one reason. So she’d run. She settled back on the couch and slipped her fingers into her hair. “Is that so?”

“Careful, Flower. Don’t do anything you’re going to regret, especially when you’re wearing that dress.”

She smiled. “What’s wrong with my dress?”

“Don’t mess around, okay?”

“How could I mess around?” she said with fake innocence. “I’m minor league, remember?”

His brow furrowed. “I’d better drive you into Morro Bay. There’s a nice inn where you can stay.”

Sunday Morning Eclipse would finish shooting in two weeks, and she might never see him again. If she needed to prove to him that she was a woman, now was her chance, while she wore this silly string dress with its illusion of flesh and its short hem that showcased the legs he couldn’t stop looking at. She saw the desire in his eyes. A man’s desire for a woman. She stood and walked over to the window. Her hair swished across her shoulders, the gold hoops skipped at her ears, and the little string dress played peekaboo with her hips. She tugged on one of the hoops and turned to face him, her heart pounding. “You seem jittery. Is there any reason?”

His voice snagged on a rough edge in his throat. “Maybe it’s because you’re not looking as ugly as usual to me tonight, Flower. I think you’d better go.”

She summoned all her cover-girl tricks. She leaned against the glass, angled her hips, and extended her legs. “If you want me to go…” She bent one knee just until it opened enough to expose the inner curve of her thigh. “…you’ll have to make me.”

Something inside him seemed to snap. He slapped his glass down on the bar just as he’d done in a dozen films. “You want to play games? Okay, baby. Let’s play.”

He started coming toward her, and she belatedly remembered this wasn’t a movie but her real life. She told herself to get out of his way, but he caught her before she could take a step. Her hips bumped into the window. He curled his hands around her arms. “Come on, kid,” he whispered. “Show me what you’ve got.”

His head swooped down, and he closed his mouth over hers. His teeth ground into her bottom lip as he forced her mouth open. She tasted whiskey on his tongue and tried to tell herself this was Jake. His hands slipped under her dress to her panties. He slid them down just far enough to cup her bare buttocks. When he pulled her hard against him, her newfound sense of power evaporated.

He pushed her dress higher, and the fly of his jeans scraped the bare flesh of her stomach. His tongue probed her mouth. He was too fierce. She wanted soft music and beautiful flowers. She wanted sinuous bodies blurred beneath a soft-focus lens, not this raw carnal attack. She pushed against his chest. “Stop.”

The harsh sound of his breathing rasped in her ear. “This is what you want, isn’t it? You want me to treat you like a woman.”

“Like a woman, not a whore.” The lover of her daydreams had vanished. She pulled away from him and stumbled toward the front door, desperate to get outside before she burst into tears. But she needed her purse. Her car keys. She turned back to get them in time to see him pick up the telephone.

Her lust-crazed attacker had vanished. He looked tired and sad. She studied him more closely, trying to see him with her head instead of her bruised heart. Suddenly he became as transparent as one of the glass walls in this cantilevered house.

He spoke into the receiver, all business now. “Do you have a suite available for tonight?”

She walked toward him, her keys and purse forgotten.

He fixed his eye on the fireplace so he didn’t have to look at her. “Yes. Yes, that’ll be fine. No, just one night—”

She took the phone from him and set it back on its cradle.