What I Did for Love (Wynette, Texas #5)(86)

With the possible exception of Chaz, Bram decided, he was the only one happy about the quarantine. He’d planned to pitch to Rory last night only to have Lance show up, but now he had the rest of the weekend to get her alone, and she couldn’t keep avoiding him forever.

Between the helicopters and the snake incident, no one wanted to go in the pool. A few of them congregated in the kitchen, and he noticed Georgie beginning to mess around again with the video camera. Chaz started to bristle, and he quickly stepped in. “Georgie, why don’t you practice your interviewing techniques on Laura? A female agent in the Hollywood shark pool and all that.”

“I don’t want to talk to Laura. I want to talk to Chaz again.”

“Only because the housecleaners aren’t here,” Chaz sneered. “She loves talking to them.”

It was unusual for him to feel like the only adult in the room. “How about interviewing Aaron then,” he said with what seemed to him great reasonableness.

“I’m not interested in talking to men,” Georgie snapped. “Fine. I’ll interview you.”

“Make him take off his clothes,” Meg piped up from the kitchen table. “It’ll spice things up.”

“Great idea,” he said. “Let’s do it in the bedroom.”

Georgie finally recalled her role of loving wife. “Don’t tantalize me like that when we have company.”

A series of semipornographic images flashed through his head. Who’d have figured Georgie would turn out to be such a firecracker? From the beginning, her sexual bossiness had turned him on. Unlike other women, she didn’t give a damn about arousing him, and somehow that only aroused him more. The sex part of this phony marriage had turned out to be a lot more fun than he could have imagined. So much fun that he’d started to feel a little uneasy. He only had room for one person in his life, and that was himself. Chaz had been an accident.

By late afternoon, everyone’s cell phones and PDAs were running out of power. Only Rory, who’d had a charger and a spare phone included in the package left by the gate, continued to work. Laura announced that being without a phone was making her hyperventilate, and she asked Georgie to sing, but there was no piano in the house, and Georgie declined. As much as he teased her about her Annie past, she was fun to listen to with her big voice and inexhaustible energy. Maybe he’d get a piano in here to surprise her.

Jade settled in his library with a book on international economics, Georgie disappeared with Aaron, and the others drifted off to the screening room. Bram headed out to his office with a glass of extra-strong iced tea, a less harmful addiction than his earlier ones.

He picked up the script his agent had sent over. With all the publicity from his marriage, he was seeing a few more scripts than he used to, but the parts hadn’t changed: playboys, gigolos, an occasional drug dealer. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen something that wasn’t a piece of crap, and after reading only a few pages, he realized this was no different. He wanted a cigarette, but he took a slug of iced tea instead, checked his e-mail, then headed back to the house so he could get down to the real work of the day.

Rory had moved her center of operations to a corner of the veranda. Even though it was Sunday, she’d been on her phone all afternoon, making and destroying careers, but now she was hunkered over her laptop. He wandered to the table where she was working and, without waiting for an invitation that wouldn’t come, took the chair across from her.

“As much as I appreciate your hospitality,” she said without looking up, “unless you want to talk about the weather, you’re wasting your time.”

“I guess that’s better than wasting Vortex’s money.”

She looked up.

He extended his legs and settled back in the chair, playing it cool, even though his guts were in a knot. “You’re one of the smartest women in town. But right now you’re being stupid.”

“It’s usually best to begin a pitch with flattery.”

“You don’t need flattery. You know exactly how good you are. But your personal grudge against me is getting in the way of your normally excellent judgment.”

“In your opinion.”

“Caitlin Carter has gotten greedy. If you wait until my option expires, you’re going to spend a lot more money for Tree House than you will now. How are you going to explain that to your board of directors?”

“I’ll risk it. And you’re the one who’s being stupid. If you turn over Tree House now, without any restrictions, you’re guaranteed a credit as associate producer—”

“Meaningless.”

“—and you’ll actually make money on your initial investment. But if you stay stubborn, you’ll end up with nothing. I can get that picture made. What more do you want?”

“I want the picture that’s in my head to get made.” He fought to stay cool, but this meant too much, and he could feel himself losing it. “I want to play Danny Grimes. I want a guarantee Hank Peters will direct.” He came out of his chair. “I want to be on the set every day making sure the script I’m delivering is the one that gets shot instead of some studio * stepping in and deciding he wants to add a f*cking car chase.”

“I wouldn’t let that happen.”

“You have a studio to run. You wouldn’t even notice.”