Lovegame(2)

The lunch rush is over, but the small sidewalk café several blocks off the main see-and-be-seen drag that makes up so much of Los Angeles’s entertainment-based culture continues to do a brisk business as Veronica Romero slides into the seat across from mine.

She’s all bright eyes and smiles, all shiny blond hair and tight jeans and colorful gemstones glittering on every finger. Her blouse is white—her signature color—and oversized. Her shoes are high heeled, and the telltale soles of Christian Louboutin are the same shade of crimson as her lips. And yet there’s a casualness about her, an openness, that I don’t think anyone expects when they think of Hollywood’s most powerful—and highest paid—actress. As she introduces herself, I even catch a glimpse of the elusive dimple that many speak of but few ever get the chance to see.

It’s charming, and so is she.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she tells me in the throaty rasp that has sent shivers down the spine of many a red-blooded male through the years, myself included.

“You’re not.” A quick glance at my watch speaks to the veracity of my answer. “I’m always early.”

“I like that in a man.”

It’s a canned response, one that I can’t help thinking is beneath her. At least until I see the dimple flash again and realize she’s poking fun—at herself as much as at me and the artificiality of this situation.

“So, how do you like L.A.?” she asks after ordering a sparkling water from the hovering waiter. The patrons might not have noticed she’s here yet, but the waitstaff certainly has and they circle like buzzards around a freshly killed carcass.

“It’s…” I pause, try to think of a description that isn’t a lie but that also won’t offend this Beverly Hills–born-and –bred icon.

She just laughs, though. “Yeah. That’s what I figured. Thanks for doing this”—she gestures between the two of us—“out here. I just couldn’t fit in a trip to New York this week.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s my job to come to you. You’re the star, after all.”

“And you’re the Pulitzer Prize–winning, New York Times bestseller who’s slumming by doing this piece.”

I crook a brow. “Writing the cover article for Vanity Fair is never slumming. Doesn’t matter who you are.”

“Funny. That’s exactly how it feels to be on this side of the story, too.”

She grins at me—and it’s not the exotic—sexy—man-slaying—grin that graces so many movie screens. It’s softer, more human. The goddess with feet of clay.

“What does it feel like?” I ask after the waiter has delivered her water and taken our order—a grilled salmon salad for her and a burger for me. “To be on that side of the story?”

She reaches up, toys with one perfect, golden lock of hair, and for a moment—just a moment—a shadow falls over her face. It’s gone almost before I can register it and then she’s tossing her hair, stretching languorously, yawning delicately, one pale, fine-boned hand pressed to her mouth.

“Are we there already?”

“Where is ‘there’ exactly?”

“The boring interview questions.”

“And here I was trying so hard to be interesting…”

“Oh, you don’t have to try.” Her smile is impish now, inviting me to share the joke. “I’ve spent the last few days trying to cull down the million or so questions I want to ask you.”

Now both my brows are up. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how these interviews are supposed to work.” This one in particular, considering I have a limited amount of time with her and so many, many things to figure out. Only a few of which are also part of Vanity Fair’s agenda.

“Interview-shminterview. Let’s just have a conversation. You ask me a question and I’ll answer it. Then I’ll ask you one and you answer it.”

“Oh, so that’s how a conversation works.”

“Yes, well, one never can be too careful with writers. You people are…”

“Crazy?” I offer.

“I was going to say eccentric.” She tries out an innocent look. It might work, too, if she didn’t have a body made for long, sweaty, sex-filled nights and a mouth made to—She tries out an innocent look. “But crazy works, too.”

It really does. But then, there are all kinds of crazy in the world. “I prefer honesty to diplomacy.”

“Well, that’s certainly unique.” She makes a face at me—eyes crossed, tongue out, nose all scrunched up. She looks ridiculous and still far too gorgeous. “And total bullshit if I’ve ever heard it. In this town, nobody prefers honesty.”

“Yes, but I’m not from this town.”

“That,” she says as she squeezes an extra lime into her sparkling water, “is a very good point. And now that it’s out there, I really will insist on asking you questions. And you answering them.” She pokes a finger at my chest for emphasis. “Honestly. Since it’s your thing.”

“Quid pro quo?” I suggest.

She sighs. “I suppose. If you insist upon thinking of it that way.”

“Is there another way to think of it?”