What I Did for Love (Wynette, Texas #5)(7)

Too late, Daddy.

“It’s important that you rise to the occasion. I’ve e-mailed Aaron a statement to post on your Web site telling the world how happy you are for Lance. I’m sure you know—”

She jammed the delete button. Why couldn’t her father just once behave like a father instead of a manager? He’d begun building her career when she was five, less than a year after her mother’s death. He’d accompanied her to every cattle call, orchestrated her first television commercials, and forced her to take the singing and dancing lessons that had won her the starring role in the Broadway revival of Annie, the part that had led to her casting as Scooter Brown. Unlike so many other parents of child stars, her father had made sure her money was wisely invested. Thanks to him, she’d never have to work again, and while she was grateful he’d watched after her money so well, she’d give up every penny to have had a real father.

She stepped back from the phone as she heard Lance’s voice. “Georgie, it’s me,” he said softly. “We arrived in the Philippines yesterday. I just heard about a story in Flash…I don’t know if you’ve seen it yet. I—I wanted to tell you myself before you read about it. Jade is pregnant…”

She listened to his message all the way to the end. She heard the guilt in his voice, the entreaty, the pride he wasn’t a good enough actor to conceal. He still wanted her to forgive him for leaving, to forgive him for lying to the press about how she hadn’t wanted a baby. Lance was an actor, with an actor’s need for everyone to love him, even the woman whose heart he’d broken. He wanted her to hand him a free pass on guilt. But she couldn’t. She’d given him everything. Not just her heart, not just her body, but everything she had, and look where it had taken her.

She sank down against the couch. It had been a year, and here she was. Crying again. When was she going to get over it? When was she going to stop acting exactly like the loser the world believed her to be? If she kept on like this, the bitterness eating away inside her would win, and she’d turn into a person she didn’t want to be. She needed to do something—anything—that would make her look—that would make her feel—like a winner.





Chapter 2




What would Scooter Brown do? That was the question Georgie kept asking herself, and that was how she ended up crossing the outdoor patio at The Ivy to a table right by the restaurant’s famous white picket fence. Scooter Brown, the spunky orphaned stowaway who’d hidden in the servants’ quarters of the Scofield estate to keep herself out of foster care, would have taken charge of her own destiny, and it was long past time for Georgie to do exactly that.

She waved at a big-name rapper, acknowledged a talk-show host, and blew a kiss toward a former Grey’s Anatomy star. Only Rory Keene, the new head of Vortex Studios, was too absorbed in her luncheon conversation with a C.A.A. honcho to notice Georgie’s arrival.

Item number one on Georgie’s new list: Be seen with the perfect man. With that humiliating photograph of her staring at the sonogram of Lance’s baby plastered everywhere, she had to stop hiding and do what she should have done months ago. Today’s lunch date needed to be big enough news for everyone to forget her stricken expression.

Unfortunately, the perfect man she’d chosen for her first date hadn’t arrived, forcing her to sit at an empty table for two. Georgie tried to look as though she was happy to have a few extra minutes to herself. She couldn’t get mad at Trevor. Maybe she hadn’t been able to convince him to get married, but at least he’d agreed to step into her media circus for a few weeks.

The Ivy was an L.A. institution, the perfect place to see and be seen, with an army of paparazzi permanently camped out in front. Celebrities who dined at Ivy and pretended to be annoyed by the attention they received were the world’s biggest hypocrites, especially those who sat outside on the patio where the weathered picket fence ran alongside the sidewalk and busy Robertson Boulevard.

Georgie settled under a white umbrella. Drinking wine at lunch could signal she was drowning her troubles in alcohol, so she ordered iced tea. Two women paused on the sidewalk beyond the picket fence to gawk at her. Where was Trevor?

Her plan was simple. Instead of avoiding publicity, she’d court it, but on her terms—as a single woman having the time of her life. She’d spend a few weeks with one perfect man, a few weeks with another. She wouldn’t date any of them long enough to suggest a serious love affair. Just fun, fun, fun accompanied by lots of photos of her laughing and enjoying herself—photos that her publicist would make certain were well distributed. She knew a dozen great-looking actors who were anxious for publicity and understood the rules of the game. Trevor would kick off her campaign. If only he weren’t so averse to being on time.

And if only the whole idea of voluntarily encouraging publicity weren’t so repugnant.

Five minutes ticked by. She’d dressed exactly right for the occasion in the outfit her talented stylist had picked out for her—a black cotton sundress with wide scarlet piping at the bodice and a scatter of free-form tan and brown leaves tumbling down the short, narrow skirt. Matching ankle-wrapped brown wedges and amber earrings completed the look of casual, offbeat sophistication that suited her better than either frills or slut-clothes. She’d had the dress skillfully fit to camouflage her weight loss.