Marry Me at Christmas (Fool's Gold #19)(46)

“And the rest is history?”

Jonny grinned. “Pretty much.”

“Did you keep cleaning your friend’s pool?”

“For a year. Then he cut me loose.”

Madeline liked that he’d kept his word. She wondered how many other people, in his position, would have blown off the promise.

“Do you like acting?”

“It beats a real job.” His humor faded. “I know what I do is about entertaining people. It’s not saving lives or changing the world, but that’s not an excuse to phone it in. I want to do my best. To be at work on time, knowing my lines. I want to be in shape and have whatever fighting skills I’m going to need for the current project.”

“You take pride in your work.”

“Yeah. Too hokey?”

She shook her head because saying “Exactly right” could complicate things. The pretty face had been appealing enough, she thought wryly. The actual man was even more of a temptation. A problem she didn’t need and wasn’t sure how to handle.

“Do you film all over the world?” she asked.

“On some movies. It’s always strange to go into a foreign country and yet be a part of the movie. We bring in nearly everything. It’s like a strange movie-set community.”

“Do you get a chance to see the sights?”

“Sometimes. It depends on what we’re filming and how big my role is. There have been movies where there’s a subplot that doesn’t include me and others where I’m in every scene.”

“Are you recognized everywhere?”

He shrugged again. “Sometimes. It’s strange to have people speaking a language I’ve never heard come up to me and start talking.”

She checked the timer, then used a spatula to take cookies off the sheet. “I have a friend—Felicia. She’s supersmart and knows everything. She talks about how despite how technology has changed us, we are, at heart, still primitive people. We react to fear the same way, only now the threats aren’t a big tiger that’s going to eat us. She says that it’s important to know the most important person in the village. That being connected to the power means getting shelter and having enough to eat.”

She put down the spatula. “The need to be close to that powerful person hasn’t changed, but because we don’t have a village in the same way, we’ve transferred our allegiance to celebrities. We want to be close to them, to know them, to be a part of their lives.” She sighed. “I’m saying it all wrong.”

“No, you’re not. I get what you’re saying. That happens to me a lot. People think they know me because they know my character. Or they tell me they know we could be good friends.”

Or the women want to sleep with him, although she appreciated that he didn’t bring up that one.

“But they don’t know anything about me,” he continued. “What they see on the screen isn’t real. I’m not a hero. I’m just a guy.”

“A good guy,” she said before she could stop herself.

He smiled at her. “I’m keeping my dark side hidden until after the wedding.”

She laughed. “Does the dark side have a cape? Because that would be really cool.”

* * *

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly. Madeline checked in with Isabel, who teased her about being snowed in and promised to lock up Paper Moon. Madeline heated the lasagna for dinner and was pleased that her rolls turned out. Jonny opened a bottle of wine for them from his cellar. At about seven-thirty the power went out. They sat in the dark for twenty seconds, then the generator kicked in and the lights were restored.

After cleaning the kitchen, they took a plate of her cookies and headed for the media room.

“I’m very excited,” she admitted as they walked down the hallway. “Do you have your awards on display?”

“No awards,” he told her, leading the way through a double door and flipping on lights.

“I know you’ve won something,” she insisted. “I read about it somewhere.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever awards there are I keep in my manager’s office. Annelise is a much better steward of those kinds of things.”

She took in the large room. There was a big black leather sectional facing a huge television. While she couldn’t see any speakers, she had a feeling Jonny owned a sound system that could make the house shake. Oddly enough, he also had a record player and a stack of old vinyl records on a small table in the corner.

Instead of artwork, he had framed movie posters on the wall. Not his, but posters from old movies from the thirties and forties. On the back wall were built-in shelves filled with hundreds of DVDs.

“Nice,” she said as she set down the cookies and crossed to the collection. “What don’t you have?”

“Nothing I was in.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “I don’t need to see what I did. I’m not egotistical enough to have to watch myself. Besides, my movies are like cotton candy. They dissolve in water.”

“You’re not giving yourself enough credit. Your movies are a great escape for people. They have fun. They remember them and quote the lines.”

“It’s not Shakespeare.”

“You do know that his work was considered trashy back in the day?”