His interest in the gun gave Georgie a chill, and she quickly intervened. “You can’t have one. You’re way too hotheaded to be armed.”
Bram chucked her under the chin in a way that made her itch to slap him. He gave her a quick, businesslike kiss that couldn’t have been more different from the intimate one they’d exchanged a few minutes earlier. “I can’t get used to the way you worry about me, sweetheart,” he said. “How did you get over here?”
“There’s a gate.”
Bram nodded. “I’d almost forgotten. Apparently the original families were good friends.”
Georgie wondered why Rory was in a house leased by the studio instead of in a place of her own. “Bram forgot to mention that you lived next door.” She slipped her hand behind his back, an affectionate gesture except for the sharp pinch she gave him to retaliate for the way he’d chin-chucked her.
He winced. “Sure I mentioned it, sweetheart. I guess there’s been so much going on that it slipped your mind. Besides, this isn’t exactly a get-to-know-your-neighbors kind of neighborhood.”
It was true. Pricey estates separated by high walls and locked gates didn’t make for a block party atmosphere. In the Brentwood neighborhood where she and Lance had lived, they’d never met the nineties pop star in the house next door.
Georgie’s gaze wandered to Rory’s Glock. “We’d better let you go back to bed.”
Rory slipped her nightgown strap up on her shoulder. “I doubt if any of us will get much sleep after this.”
“Good point,” Bram said. “Why don’t you come over to the house? I’ll put on a pot of coffee and heat up some of my housekeeper’s cinnamon rolls. You’ll be our first official company.”
Georgie stared at him. It was the middle of the night. Had he lost his mind?
“Another time. I need to catch up on some reading.” Rory gave him her coolest look, then shocked Georgie by offering a quick hug. “I’ll call you as soon as I talk to the security company.” She turned back to Bram. “Be good to her. And, Georgie, if you need any help, let me know.”
Bram’s fake good humor slipped. “If she needs any help, I’ll take care of it.”
“I’m sure you will,” Rory replied in a manner that suggested she wasn’t sure at all. She walked away, the folds of her nightgown concealing her gun.
Bram waited until they were on their own side of the wall before he spoke. “If the tabs run any of those shots, we’re going after them.”
“They probably won’t,” she said. “Not here. But there’s a big market in Europe, and then they’ll hit the Web. We won’t be able to do anything about it.”
“We’re suing.”
“Our marriage will be long over before a lawsuit reaches the courts.”
“What do you suggest? We just forget the whole thing? This doesn’t bother you?”
The truth was that she’d gotten numb. “I hate it,” she said.
They walked silently across the yard. She shouldn’t be so upset. The photos of the two of them would lend legitimacy to her sham marriage. But she felt almost as violated as the day the paps had caught her looking at the sonogram. “I’m going to bed,” she said, when they reached the house. “Alone.”
“Your loss.”
She was heading up the steps when an interesting piece of the puzzle that made up Bram Shepard fell into place. “Rory has something to do with your reunion show project, doesn’t she? That’s why you were sucking up to her at The Ivy two weeks ago. And that embarrassing invitation to heat up cinnamon rolls…”
“Babe, I suck up to anybody who might be able to get me a decent acting job.”
“That’s pathetic. But I’ll admit it’s enormously gratifying to watch you grovel.”
“Whatever it takes to get ahead,” he said lightly.
Sleep was beyondhim, so Bram went to the pool. Life had become way too complicated, he thought as he stripped and dove in. He’d hoped this idiotic marriage would make things run smoother for him, but he hadn’t factored in how protective Rory was of Georgie.
He flipped to his back and let himself drift. Every time he tried to dig his way out of the tunnel he’d fallen into, another cave-in threatened to bury him. Georgie thought it was all about money. She didn’t know that he needed respectability more. And he didn’t want her to know. He intended to make sure Georgie continued to see him as the bastard he’d always been. His life was his own, and he wasn’t letting her into any part of it that mattered.
He hadn’t always been a loner. Growing up without a real family had made him quick to create an artificial one from the guys who’d eventually bitten him in the ass. He’d thought they were his friends, but they’d been users—spending his money, exploiting his connections, and eventually setting him up for that damned sex tape. Lesson well learned. Looking out for number one meant going it alone.
Georgie wasn’t a user, but that didn’t mean he wanted her rooting around in his psyche, figuring out how much he needed to create a new life for himself. She’d known him too long, she saw too much, and she was dangerously easy to talk to. But he couldn’t stomach the idea of having her watch him fail, a possibility that grew more likely every day.
