What I Did for Love (Wynette, Texas #5)(55)

She couldn’t let herself cave. “How do I know I won’t be good at other kinds of parts when I’ve never had a chance?”

“Do you have any idea how hard Laura is working to get you a meeting with Greenberg?”

“She should have talked to me first.” As if Laura would even think about consulting her.

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He looked tired, which made her feel guilty. It hadn’t been easy for him, widowed at twenty-five with a four-year-old to raise. He’d dedicated his life to her, and all she had to give him in return these days was resentment. He slipped his glasses back on and picked up his fork only to set it back down. “I’m guessing this laziness of yours—”

“That’s not fair.”

“This lack of focus, then, is Bram’s influence, and frankly, it scares me that he’s passing his unprofessional attitude on to you.”

“Bram doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

As she pushed around her risotto, she waited for him to point out how much more cooperative she’d been during her marriage to Lance. Her father and Lance had seen eye to eye about everything, so much so that she’d often thought Lance should have been his kid instead of her.

But Paul was picking his battles. “They’re planning to release Bimbo Vampire over the Fourth of July weekend next year. A perfect summer movie. It has blockbuster written all over it.”

“Not if I’m in it.”

“Don’t do that, Georgie. Negative thoughts bring negative results.”

“Cake Walk is going to tank. We both know it.”

“I agree they made some bad decisions, and that’s why you need to have your name linked with Bimbo Vampire as soon as possible. All this publicity has given you a window of opportunity that won’t come again. If you pass on this, you’ll regret it the rest of your life.”

She suppressed her anger by reminding herself that her father always looked out for her best interests. From the beginning, he’d been her staunchest champion. If she lost out on a part, he’d tell her the casting agents were the losers. That was the thing about him. He’d always done his best to protect her. He’d even refused to let her take the starring role of a child prostitute when she was twelve. If only his protectiveness had been rooted in love instead of ambition.

Once again, she considered how things might have been different if she hadn’t lost her mother. “Dad…If Mom hadn’t died, do you think you’d have gone on with your own acting career?”

“Who knows? It’s useless to speculate.”

“I know, but…” The risotto was too salty, and she pushed it aside. “Tell me again how you met.”

He sighed. “We met in college our senior year. I was playing Becket in Murder in the Cathedral, and she interviewed me for the college newspaper. Attraction of opposites. She was a complete scatterbrain.”

“Did you love her?”

“Georgie, it was a long time ago. We need to focus on now.”

“Did you?”

“Very much.” The impatient way he bit out the words told Georgie he was only saying what he knew she wanted to hear.

As she gazed down at her uneaten risotto, she found it ironic that she’d grown more comfortable with her disreputable husband than with her own father. But then she didn’t care about Bram’s opinion.

Maybe one of these days she’d stop caring about her father’s.

Before the end of their lunch, Georgie’s guilt got the better of her, and she invited him to dinner that weekend. She’d ask Trev, too, and make Meg stick around. Maybe she’d even call Laura. Her puppet agent was good at keeping conversations going, and with Bram and her father tossing darts at each other, she’d need a mediator.

Chaz threw a fit when Georgie told her she intended to hire a caterer. “My meals have always been good enough for Bram and his friends,” she declared, “but I guess you’re too high class.”

“Fine!” Georgie retorted. “If you want to cook, then cook. I was only trying to make it easy on you.”

“Then tell Aaron he has to help me serve.”

“I’ll do that.” She had to ask: “What friends of Bram’s did you cook for? He doesn’t seem to have a lot of people hanging around.”

“Sure he does. I cooked for his girlfriends. For Trevor. And he had that big director guy, that Mr. Peters, over a couple of months ago.”

Hank Peters really had met with him. Interesting.



The bad publicity from the balcony photos finally began to die down, but she and Bram needed to make another public appearance before it started up again. On Thursday, two days before the dinner party, they visited Pinkberry in West Hollywood. Bram hadn’t commented on their lack of a sex life in days. It was disconcerting. He behaved as if sex weren’t even an issue, except he couldn’t seem to keep his shirt on, and he touched her arm whenever he went by. Georgie had started to feel as if she were burning up.

He was playing her.

The West Hollywood Pinkberry had become a celebrity favorite, which meant the paps always hung around. Georgie chose navy slacks and a scooped-neck white blouse with a row of six retro red plastic buttons down the front. It had taken her an hour to get ready. Bram was still in the jeans and T-shirt he’d pulled on that morning.