Susan Phillips - What I Did for Love

He leaned back and closed his eyes again. He looked like a bored aristocrat taking in the sun-a deceptive image, since he was a high school dropout who’d been raised on Chicago’s South Side by a deadbeat father. “I hope you hid your razor blades, Trev. Word is that our Scooter has a death wish now that life’s dealt her such a cruel blow. Personally, I think she should celebrate finally getting rid of that moron she married. Jade Gentry must have lost her mind to let herself be taken in by Mr. All-American. Tell me the truth, Scoot. Lance Marks can’t get it up, can he?”

“I see you’re still a perfect gentleman. How reassuring.” She had to escape without looking like she was running away. She made a play of slowly rising from the chair and sauntering over to fetch her sandals. Too late, she realized she couldn’t remember where she’d left them.

He opened his eyes and gave her the lazy, mocking smile that had annihilated so many otherwise sensible women. “I read that the happy couple is back on foreign shores doing more of their well-publicized good work.”

Lance and Jade had spent their honeymoon on a humanitarian trip to Thailand. She’d never forget their press release. “We want to use our celebrity to spotlight Jade’s pet cause, the exploitation of children in the sex industry.”

Georgie didn’t have a pet cause, at least nothing that went beyond writing some generous checks. She looked frantically around for her shoes.

Bram pointed the tip of a lean finger toward the base of the chaise where she’d been sitting earlier. “Their campaign to beef up laws against child-sex tourists is heartwarming. And while they’re battling Congress, I hear you’ve been power shopping at Fred Segal.”

Just like that, her self-control snapped. “I truly hate you.”

“Impossible. Scooter could never hate her beloved Skip. Not after he spent eight years of his life getting her out of those crazy little jams.”

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.”

“Thank God.” Bram rose from the chaise. “I still hate that uptight little preppy prick.”

But Georgie had loved Skip Scofield. She’d loved everything about him. His big heart, his loyalty, the way he’d tried to protect Scooter from the Scofield family. The way he’d eventually fallen in love with her silly round face and rubber-band mouth. She’d loved everything except the man Skip turned into when the cameras stopped rolling.

The three of them had fallen back into their old pattern-Bram on the attack and Trevor defending her. But she wasn’t a kid any longer, and she needed to defend herself. “I don’t think you hate Skip at all. I think you always wanted to be Skip, but you fell so far short of the mark that you had to pretend to despise him.”

Bram yawned. “Maybe you’re right. Trev, are you sure no one’s left any weed lying around? Or even a cigarette?”

“I’m sure,” Trevor said, just as the phone rang. “Don’t kill each other while I answer that.”

Trevor went inside.

She wanted to punish Bram for being exactly who he was. “I could have been trampled to death today. Thanks for nothing.”

“You were handling it. And without Daddy. Now that was the real surprise.”