What I Did for Love (Wynette, Texas #5)(29)

It wasn’t much larger than a two-car garage, with the same red barrel–tiled roof and stucco exterior as the main house. The two front windows were dark, but she heard a phone ringing from the back and followed a narrower path toward the sound. Light spilled through an open set of glass doors onto a small gravel patio that held a pair of lounges with chartreuse canvas cushions and some potted elephant-ear plants. Vines climbed the walls around the open doors. Inside, she saw a homey office with paprika-colored walls and a poured-concrete floor topped with a sea grass rug. A collection of framed movie posters hung on the walls, some predictable like Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront and Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, but others less so: Johnny Depp in Benny & Joon, Don Cheadle in Hotel Rwanda, and Meg’s dad, Jake Koranda, as Bird Dog Caliber.

Bram was on the phone as she entered. He sat behind an L-shaped wooden desk painted a dark apricot, an ever-present drink at his side. Built-in bookcases at one end of the office held a stack of the trades, as well as some highbrow film magazines like Cineaste and Fade In. Since she’d never known Bram to read anything more challenging than Penthouse, she tagged them as another of the decorator’s touches.

He didn’t look happy to see her. Tough.

“I’ve got to let you go, Jerry,” he said into the receiver. “I need to get ready for a meeting tomorrow morning. Give my best to Dorie.”

“You have an office?” she said as he hung up.

He hooked his hands behind his neck. “It belonged to the former owner. I haven’t gotten around to converting it into an opium den.”

She spotted something that looked like a copy of the Hollywood Creative Directory near the phone, but he flipped it shut when she tried to get a closer look. “What morning meeting do you have?” she said. “You don’t do meetings. You don’t even do mornings.”

“You’re my meeting.” He nodded toward the phone. “The press discovered we’re not still in Vegas, and the house is staked out. We have to put up a set of gates this week. I’ll let you pay for them.”

“There’s a surprise.”

“You’re the one with the big bucks.”

“Deduct it from the fifty-thousand a month I’m paying you.” She gazed toward the poster of Don Cheadle. “We need to make plans. First thing tomorrow we should—”

“I’m on my honeymoon. No business talk.”

“We have to talk. We need to decide—”

“Georgie! Are you out here?”

Her heart sank. One part of her wondered how he’d managed to find her so quickly. The other part was surprised it had taken him this long.

Shoes crunched on the gravel path outside the guesthouse, and then her father appeared. He was conservatively dressed as always in a white shirt, light gray trousers, and tasseled cordovan loafers. At fifty-two, Paul York was trim and fit, with rimless glasses and crisp, prematurely gray hair that caused him to be mistaken for Richard Gere.

He stepped inside and stood quietly, studying her. Except for the color of his green eyes, they looked nothing alike. She’d gotten her round face and stretchy mouth from her mother. “Georgie, what have you done?” he said in his quiet, detached voice.

Just like that, she was eight years old again, and those same cold green eyes were judging her for letting an expensive bulldog puppy get away during a pet food commercial or for spilling juice on her dress before an audition. If only he were one of those rumpled, overweight, scratchy-cheeked fathers who didn’t know anything about show business and only cared about her happiness. She pulled herself together.

“Hi, Dad.”

He clasped his hands behind his back and patiently waited for her to explain.

“Surprise!” she said with a fake smile. “Not that it’s really a surprise. I mean…You had to know we were dating. Everybody saw the photos of us at Ivy. Sure, it seems fast, but we practically grew up together, and…When it’s right, it’s right. Right, Bram? Isn’t that right?”

But her bridegroom was too busy reveling in her discomfort to chime in with his support.

Her father studiously avoided looking in his direction. “Are you pregnant?” he asked in the same clinical voice.

“No! Of course not! This is a”—she tried not to choke—“love match.”

“You hate each other.”

Bram finally uncoiled from his chair and came to her side. “That’s old history, Paul.” He slipped his arm around her waist. “We’re different people now.”

Paul continued to ignore him. “Do you have any idea how many reporters are out front? They attacked my car when I drove in.”

She briefly wondered how he’d found her back here, then realized her father wouldn’t let a small thing like an unanswered doorbell stop him. She could see him now, tramping through the shrubbery and emerging without a single hair out of place. Unlike her, Paul York never got ruffled or confused. He never lost his sense of purpose, either, which was why he found it so difficult to understand her insistence on taking a six-month vacation.

“You need to get control of this publicity immediately,” he said.

“Bram and I were just discussing our next step.”

Paul finally turned his attention to Bram. From the beginning, they’d been enemies. Bram hated Paul’s interference on the set, especially the way he made sure Georgie never lost her top billing. And Paul hated everything about Bram.