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Jenna reflected back on the last time she’d seen him. She’d been at the Metropolitan Opera with a date. They’d been sipping champagne at intermission when she felt as if the temperature in the lobby had dropped by degrees. Icy fingers teased the ridge of her spine and she’d turned. Eric, a few yards away, stood unmoving, his eyes a rapt and unblinking stare. She’d felt a sudden rush to go to him and confess a long-buried secret. But Bree sauntered over and coiled her arm around his. Eric’s wife had been a vision of scarlet satin and shimmering diamonds, her hair twined into an elegant knot. She’d raised dark brows and looked directly at Jenna. Bree’s ruby glossed lips were slanted into a virtuous smile, but the smug glint in her eyes saidhe’s mine now, I’ve won.
Jenna shook loose the memory and tossed the sneakers to the ground. Leaning against the porch railing, she wondered, as she always did, if she’d made a mistake on another long-ago night—the night she’d boarded a private jet under the cover of darkness to flee Hollywood. Through the years, she’d led a transient life masked by omissions and lies. Her daughter knew nothing about the past or that Eric Laine was her father. She was too young to know about the cruel reality of fame.Damn Eric, and his divorce. And damn the press for slipping Jenna’s stage name Angel into their stories.
If her secrets were revealed, her life would be turned wrong side out.
****
The next morning, despite the weight that threatened to unbalance the quiet life she’d established, Jenna was at her shop at the usual time. Her landlady Cheryl, a member of the town’s auspicious Baldwin family, pattered over. Bracelets jingled on her wrists, and chains tinkled across the bodice of a pink tweed jacket. She carried a fussy little purse that also dangled from a chain.The woman wore enough metal to compete in a joust.
“You-hoo, I need to speak to you for a moment.”
Jenna turned.To you. Of course.Cheryl, who reigned supreme over the royal court of Cromline never spokewithanyone. She spokeatpeople, the flighty timbre of her voice as weightless as her frivolous subject matter. As she neared, her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’ve had some complaints from the other tenants about the loitering in front of your store.”
Jenna replied with a saccharine smile. “It isn’t loitering. It’s customer turnover. The last owner of this shop carried ugly scarves and brooches and went out of business in six months.” With a sweep of her arm she pointed to her window display. “Now that I carry rhinestone tiaras and purple mascara…your rent is on time.” She purposefully stretched her mouth into an even wider crescent. “Your daughter Tiffany is my best customer.”
Cheryl simpered but her expression didn’t disguise the prickly glint in her eyes. She turned as her brother-in-law strode over. Ash Baldwin possessed the relaxed attitude of a politician yards ahead in the exit polls. “Ladies.” He gave Cheryl an obligatory nod and promptly turned his handsome grin and attention to Jenna. “I’ve scheduled a time for the electrician to come by and fix that fluorescent light that’s been shorting out.”
“What?” Cheryl’s voice was an irritated objection. “According to the lease, Ms. Black is responsible for all interior—”
Ash folded his arms and pressed them tight against his broad chest. “Shouldn’t you be opening up the real estate office? It’s after nine.”
Cheryl’s cheeks blushed a schoolgirl pink. “Of course. I’ll see you over there in a bit.”
As she tottered away, Jenna slipped through the door of her shop with Ash ambling close behind. “She’s actually right. I am responsible for routine maintenance.”
He inched a bit closer and grinned. Though his eyes were a color caught between sky and ice, they expressed a dreamy luminosity when he smiled. “I can’t have my favorite tenant doing business in thedark.” The word dark was delivered in a silky pour of intimacy.
Jenna took a quick step behind the counter to put three feet of glass between them. Although Ash had the fair-haired, good looks of an NFL quarterback, he was still her landlord and encouraging his flirting might not be a good idea.
“I’ll make a deal with you,” he began. “Go to the Chamber of Commerce banquet with me. We can discuss what to do about that annoying broken light.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t want any special favors. You know what they say about business and pleasure.”
His smile broadened, but his eyes dipped into a heavy-lidded invitation. “I do. Go to the dinner with me as a friend, and as a friend I’ll change out that fixture.” Giving her no chance to refuse, he turned, and with an easy, athletic gait strode from the shop and slipped into his classic convertible.
Chapter Three
Nick Lombardo was waiting at the arrival gate at Hollywood-Burbank Airport in Eric’s luxury SUV. With its layers of iridescent, blue-black paint, the vehicle glittered as bright as the Mojave’s night sky. Eric hated the damned truck. Bree had only bought it because SUVs were “the thing to have.”
“If I knew you were going to be all dressed up, I would have picked you up in a limo, boss.”
“This thingisa limo…one with four-wheel drive. And I’m not your boss.”
The statement was true. Nick and Eric were friends who’d met years ago when Nick was head of Jenna’s security team. Now, though the two men were business partners and owned a fleet of limousines, the gargantuan Brooklyn native still moonlighted as Eric’s bodyguard.
“If youweremy boss I’d quit,” Nick teased. “You’re one moody son of a bitch lately.”
Eric threw his bag in the back and slumped in his seat. As the car rolled into traffic, he glared at his friend. He glared through the window at scrubby grass dotting the mountain vista beyond the freeway. He glared at the loose change lying in the car’s pearly leather console. He glared at everything in his sightline.
Nick commented on his surly expression. “Looks like your vacation didn’t improve your mood. I’ll be steering clear. I know first-hand what you’re like when you’re pissed off at something.”
Eric narrowed his eyes. “Not something…someone. And by the way, I’ve been trying to get rid of you for years, but you never take the hint. I’m starting to think you’re gay for me.”
Nick laughed. “Sorry, buddy. You’re not really my type.”
“That’s too bad. You can at least cook.”
Nick laughed again, and after a bumper-to-bumper grind on the Ventura Freeway, he dropped Eric off at Jack Morrissey’s estate. The Hollywood icon, more father to Eric than his own had ever been, insisted he move into the guest cottage while he sorted out his divorce.
