What I Did for Love (Wynette, Texas #5)(106)

The guests were eating this up. Even her father. Poppy’s glossy, inflated lips formed a triumphant smile. A muscle ticked in the corner of Bram’s jaw. Poppy had no right to stage something this personal without consulting them.

Bram clenched his teeth and rose. “Put on your game face.”

Georgie told herself it didn’t mater. What was one more public performance after so many? Her crystal gown rustled as she stood.

Dirk elongated his vowels like a game-show host. “Dad. Come up and join them. Mr. Paul York, everybody! Bram, choose your best man.”

“He chooses me.” Trev shot up, and the guests laughed.

Georgie felt as though she were suffocating.

“Georgie, who’s your maid of honor going to be?”

She looked at Sasha, at Meg and April, and thought how lucky she was to have these wonderful women as her best friends. Then she cocked her head. “Laura.”

Laura’s face registered shock, and she nearly tipped over her chair as she got up.

They assembled at the bridal bower. Her father, Trev, Laura, and the reluctant bride and groom.

Dirk thoughtfully turned his back to the room so that Bram and Georgie were facing their guests, then he cupped his hand over the microphone. “Is everybody ready?”

She and Bram gazed at each other, and a moment of perfect, un-spoken communication passed between them. He lifted an eyebrow. She told him with her eyes exactly what she thought. He smiled, squeezed her hand, and pulled the microphone away from Dirk.

“A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walked into a bar…” Everyone laughed. Bram grinned and brought the mike closer. “Thank you all for your good wishes. Georgie and I appreciate them more than we can say.”

Off to the side, Poppy started chewing on her bottom lip. Bram’s speech wasn’t on her program, and she obviously didn’t like pesky clients interfering with her agenda.

Bram released Georgie’s hand and gestured toward the bower. “As you can probably tell, this ceremony is a surprise. But the truth is, while we both understand the allure of watching Skip and Scooter get married, Georgie and I aren’t those characters, and this doesn’t feel right to either one of us.”

Georgie slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and smiled for the nice people.

He covered her fingers with his own. “I’m tempted to say some very sentimental things about Georgie right now. How warmhearted she is. Sweet and funny. How she’s my best friend. But I don’t want to embarrass her…”

“It’s okay.” She leaned into the microphone. “Embarrass me.”

He laughed, and so did the crowd. They exchanged another of their kisses followed by a long loving glance while Bram surreptitiously felt her up and she pinched him on the ass.

And then, out of nowhere, her knees started to shake. Really shake. Earthquake shake. But this earthquake was happening inside her.

She’d fallen in love with him.

All the blood rushed from her head. She absorbed the awful truth. Despite everything she knew, she had fallen in love with Bram Shepard, the self-absorbed, self-destructive bad boy who’d stolen her virginity, wrecked a television show, and nearly destroyed himself.

Bram glittered beneath the chandeliers, his burnished beauty and masculine elegance designed for the silver screen. She could barely breathe. Just as she was finally learning to be her own person, she’d sabotaged herself by falling in love with a man she couldn’t trust, a man she was paying to stay by her side. The breadth of the calamity made her dizzy.

He finished his speech, and they wheeled out the wedding cake, a multitiered wonder of icing lace and confectionary hydrangeas topped by a pair of Skip and Scooter dolls dressed in wedding finery. Bram fed her the first piece, getting only a dab of frosting on her lips, which he kissed away. She somehow managed to return the favor. The cake tasted like heartache.

Afterward, April drew her aside to change out of her magical crystal gown into the modified cameo-blue flapper dress they’d chosen for dancing. Georgie moved through the rest of the night in a flurry of perpetual motion, dancing and laughing, her hips moving, her hair stinging her cheeks.

She danced with Bram, who told her she looked beautiful and that he couldn’t wait to get her in bed. She danced with Trev and her girlfriends, with Jake Koranda, Aaron, and her father. She danced with her costars and Jack Patriot. She even danced with Dirk Duke. As long as her feet were moving, she didn’t have to think about how she would save herself.



Bram loomed over her as they stood in his foyer a little after two in the morning. His black bow tie hung loose at his neck, his shirt collar open. “What the hell do you mean, you’re sleeping in the guesthouse?”

Georgie was still a little drunk, but not so drunk that she didn’t know exactly what she had to do. She wanted to cry…or scream, but there’d be plenty of time for both later. “I have to audition for you on Tuesday afternoon, remember? Sleeping with you three nights before gives me an unfair advantage over the other actresses.”

“That’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Somehow she managed to conjure up the sass of the old Georgie, the Georgie who’d once again fallen so stupidly in love. “Sorry, Skipper. I believe in fair play. It’d be on my conscience.”

“Fuck your conscience.” He pushed her against the wall at the base of the stairs and started kissing her. Deep, invasive kisses with a stubborn edge. Her toes curled in her shoes. He shoved his hand under the hem of her little blue flapper dress and nipped at the upper slope of her breast as it curved above the bodice. “You make me crazy,” he murmured against her damp skin.