AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She grabbed the sandals and shoved in one foot.
“Stop it, Bram,” Trev said.
But Bram wasn’t done with her. “Remember when you fell in the lake wearing Mother Scofield’s fur coat? Or what about the time you released that cage of mice at her annual Christmas party?”
If she didn’t react to his baiting, he’d stop.
But Bram had always loved slow torture. “Even on our wedding day, you got into trouble. A good thing we never actually shot that show. I heard I was going to knock you up on our honeymoon. If the network hadn’t pulled the plug, I would have sired a little Skip.”
Her fury erupted. “It wasn’t a little Skip! It was twins! We were supposed to have twins—a girl and a boy. Obviously, you were too high to remember that small detail.”
“Immaculate conception, I’m sure. Can you imagine Scooter naked and—”
She couldn’t take any more, and she spun toward the house, one shoe on, one in her hand.
“I wouldn’t go, if I were you,” he said lazily. “Ten minutes ago, I spotted a photographer crawling into those shrubs across the road. Someone must have seen your car.”
She was trapped.
He raked her with his eyes, one of his many unpleasant habits. “You haven’t taken up smoking by any chance, have you, Scoot? I need a cigarette, and Trev refuses to keep a carton around for his guests. He’s such a Boy Scout.” Bram arched a flawless eyebrow. “Except for his filthy habits with members of his own sex.”
Trevor tried to ease the tension. “You know I only put up with him because I secretly lust after his buff body. Such a pity he’s straight.”
“You’re too fastidious to lust after him,” she retorted.
“Look again,” Trev said dryly.
It wasn’t fair. Bram should be dead by now, killed by his own excesses, but the bony body she remembered from Skip and Scooter had grown tough, its wasted elegance transformed into hard muscle and long sinew. Beneath the sleeve of his white T-shirt a tribal tattoo banded a formidable bicep, and his navy swim trunks revealed legs with the taut, extended tendons of a distance runner. He wore his thick, bronzed hair rumpled, and the pale skin that had been as much a part of him as a hangover had disappeared. Except for the air of decadence that clung to him like a bad reputation, Bram Shepard looked shockingly healthy.
“He works out now,” Trev interrupted with an exaggerated whisper, as if he were divulging a juicy bit of scandal.
“Bram never worked out a day in his life,” she said. “He got those muscles by selling what was left of his soul.”
Bram smiled and turned his badass angel’s face to her. “Tell me more about this plan of yours to get your pride back by marrying Trev. Not quite as interesting as the pubic hair conversation, but still…”
She clenched her teeth. “I swear to God, if you breathe a word to anybody—”
“He won’t,” Trevor said. “Our Bramwell has never been interested in anybody but himself.”
That was so true. But she still couldn’t bear knowing he’d overheard something so humiliating. She and Bram had worked together from the time he was seventeen until he was twenty-five. At seventeen, his selfishness had been thoughtless, but as his fame had spread, his behavior had become more deliberately reckless. It wasn’t hard to see that he’d only grown more cynical and self-centered.
He drew up his knee. “Aren’t you a little young to have given up on true love?”
She felt a hundred years old. Her fairy-tale marriage had failed, putting an end to her dreams of finally having a family of her own and a man who’d love her for herself instead of what she could do for his career. She flipped her sunglasses back over her eyes, weighing the danger of the jackals lurking outside against the danger of the beast in front of her. “I am not talking to you about this.”
“Ease up, Bram,” Trevor said. “She’s had a tough year.”
“The downside of being worshipped,” Bram replied.
Trev sniffed. “Nothing you’ll ever have to worry about.”
Bram picked up her abandoned margarita, sipped, and shuddered at the taste. “I’ve never seen the public take a celebrity divorce so personally. I’m surprised none of your crazed fans set themselves on fire.”
“People feel like Georgie’s family,” Trevor said. “They grew up with Scooter Brown.”
Bram set the glass down. “They grew up with me, too.”
“But Georgie and Scooter are basically the same person,” Trevor pointed out. “You and Skip aren’t.”
