Once again, he jabbed a finger toward her head. “You did this on purpose. You trapped me just like you tried to trap Trevor. This was what you had in mind all along.”

She jumped up from the chair. “Even you can’t believe that! Every minute I spend with you is misery. But I care more about my…career than about how much I hate you.”

“Your career or your image?”

She wasn’t discussing her self-worth issues with the enemy. “Image is career in this town,” she said, giving him the easy answer. “You know that better than anyone. It’s why you can’t get a decent job. Because nobody trusts you. But the public does trust me-even through all this mess with Lance. My reputation will rub off on you. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose by going along with this. People will think you’ve reformed, and you might finally be able to get a decent job.”

Something flickered in his eyes. She’d picked the wrong argument, and she quickly switched direction. “Half a million dollars, Bram.”

He turned his back on her and wandered over to the balcony doors. “Six months.”

Her boldness faded, and she gulped. “Really?”

“I’ll go along with this for six months,” he said. “And then we renegotiate. You also have to agree to every one of my conditions.”

Alarm bells shrieked. She struggled to pull herself together. “Which are?”

“I’ll let you know when the time comes.”

“No deal.”

He shrugged. “Okay. No deal. This was your idea, not mine.”

“You’re being completely unreasonable!”

“I’m not the one who wants this so badly. Either we do it by my rules or I don’t play.”

No way in the world was she doing it by his rules. She’d had her fill of that with her father and Lance. “Fine,” she said. “Your rules. And I’m sure they’ll be eminently fair.”

“Oh, yeah, you can count on that, all right.”

She pretended not to hear. “The first thing we should do-”

“The first thing we’re doing is getting hold of Mel Duffy.” Suddenly he was all-business, which was unnerving, since Bram never paid any attention to business. “We’ll tell him he can take exclusive photos right here in the suite, but only if he turns over his shots from downstairs.” He gazed at her along his sublimely shaped nose. “He didn’t get my good side.”

Bram was right. The photos Duffy had just taken would make them look more like fugitives than blissful newlyweds. “Let’s get to work,” she said. “You remember how to do that, right?”

“Don’t push me.”

She notified the switchboard to hold the calls that would soon flood in, and Bram set about locating Mel Duffy. Three hours later, she and her dearly detested bridegroom were both clad in white, courtesy of the Bellagio’s excellent concierge service. Her dress had a bustier top, a handkerchief hem, and some strategically placed double-sided fashion tape to make it fit. Bram wore a white linen suit and an open-collared white shirt. All that white against his tanned skin, tawny hair, and rakish stubble made him look like a pirate who’d just stepped off a luxury yacht to plunder the Cannes Film Festival.

She phoned her people-all of them but her father-with the news. She did a halfway decent job of professing her joy and excitement at being married to the Playboy of the Western World, but it wouldn’t be nearly as easy with her friends. She deliberately left messages on their home voice mail so she didn’t have to speak to them directly. As for her father…One crisis at a time.

Bram came up behind her while she was in the bathroom. If she let him walk all over her now, there’d be no retakes. He needed to see a whole new Georgie York.

She picked up the lipstick wand she’d just set down. “I don’t share my makeup,” she said. “Use your own.”

“Is this stuff really nonsmear? I don’t want to get it all over me when I french you.”

“You’re not frenching me.”

“Wanna bet?” He crossed his arms over his chest and planted a shoulder against the doorjamb. “You know what I think?”

“You actually think?”

“I think all that crap you were spouting off about protecting your career is bogus.” The doorbell rang. “The real reason you want to go through with this farce is because you never got over me.”

“Oh, gee, you found me out.” She elbowed him hard as she passed through the doorway.

Bram caught her before she reached the living room, and he tousled her hair. “There. Now you look like you just tumbled out of bed.” He headed for the door. “Smile for the nice photographer.”

Mel Duffy lumbered in, bringing the smell of onion rings with him. “Georgie, you look gorgeous.” He studied the room, then gestured toward the balcony. “Let’s start out here.”

A few minutes later, they were posing by the railing with the sun sinking and their arms entwined around each other’s waists. Duffy took some close-ups of the bride and groom laughing over the plastic diamond, then suggested Bram pick her up.

Just what she didn’t want…Bram Shepard dangling her thirty stories above the ground.

Her filmy white skirt swirled around them as he swept her into his arms. She dug her fingers in his bicep. He gazed down at her, his face all lovey-dovey. She slipped her palm inside his jacket and lovey-doveyed him right back. She wondered what it would be like not to fake emotions she wasn’t even close to feeling. At least this time, she’d chosen her path, and that had to count for something.

Duffy shifted position. “How about a kiss?”

“Exactly what I had in mind.” Bram’s voice was liquid sex.

She manufactured a silky smile. “I was hoping you’d ask.”

He dipped his head, and just like that, she was sucked back to the past-the day of their first on-screen kiss.

She’d stood by another railing then, one that looked down on the Chicago River near the Michigan Avenue Bridge. As usual, they were spending the first couple of weeks shooting exteriors before they returned to L.A. to film the rest of what would be their fifth season. It was a Sunday morning in late July, and the police had temporarily closed off the area. Even with a breeze blowing in from the lake, it was already nearly ninety degrees.

“Is Bram here yet?” Jerry Clarke, their director, called out.

“Not yet,” the A.D. replied.

Bram hated early-morning calls nearly as much as he’d come to hate playing Skip, and Georgie knew for a fact that Jerry had assigned a production assistant to get him out of bed. Her hands curled over the railing. She couldn’t wait for today to be over. A year might have passed since the ugly night on the boat, but she still hadn’t forgiven him for what he’d done or forgiven herself for letting him go so far. She coped by pretending he didn’t exist. Only when the cameras began to roll and he turned into her Skip Scofield with his gentle, intelligent eyes and worried, caring expression did she let down her defenses.

They’d dressed her that day in a skinny, but not too skinny, T-shirt and a short, but not too short, cotton skirt. The producers had begun letting her have more auburn added to her hair, but she still hated the curls. Not only did the network own her hair, but they owned the rest of her, too. Her contract prohibited body piercing, tattoos, sexual scandal, and drug abuse. Apparently Bram’s contract forbade nothing.

The director exploded in frustration. “Somebody go find the son of a bitch!”

“The son of a bitch is right here.” Bram slithered forward, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, his bloodshot eyes at odds with his light blue knit shirt, pressed chinos, and preppy wristwatch.

“Did you have a chance to look over the script?” Jerry said with open sarcasm. “We’re doing Skip and Scooter’s first kiss.”

“Yeah, I read it.” He pitched a cigarette butt through the railing. “Let’s get this bullshit over with.”

As she stood there in her girl-next-door clothes, she hated him so fiercely she burned with it. Those first few years, she’d been so determined to see him as a moody romantic figure waiting for the right woman to redeem him, but he was really just a garden-variety snake, and she was a sucker not to have figured that out right away.

They ran their lines and found their marks. The cameras began to roll. She waited for the magic to begin as Bram transformed himself into Skip.

SKIP

(Gazing tenderly at SCOOTER)

Scooter, what am I going to do with you?

SCOOTER

You could kiss me. I know you don’t want to. I know you’re going to say that I’m-

SKIP

Trouble.

SCOOTER

I don’t mean to be.

SKIP

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

(SKIP looks searchingly into SCOOTER’s eyes, then slowly kisses her.)

Georgie felt the hard touch of his lips, and this time the magic didn’t work. Skip’s lips should be soft. And Skip shouldn’t taste of cigarettes and insolence. She pulled back.

“Cut,” Jerry called out. “Is there a problem, Georgie?”

“There’s a problem, all right.” Bram scowled at the camera. “It’s eight fucking o’clock in the morning.”

“Let’s do it again,” the director said.

And they had. Again and again. It was only a simple stage kiss, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make herself believe Skip was kissing her, and each time their lips met, she felt as though she was shaming herself all over again.

After the sixth take, Bram stormed off and told her to go take some “fucking acting lessons.” She shouted back that he should swallow some “fucking mouthwash.” The crew was used to temperament from Bram, but not from her, and she was ashamed. “I’m sorry, everybody,” she murmured. “I don’t mean to push my bad day off on you.”

The director coaxed Bram back. Georgie reached inside herself and somehow managed to use her own churning emotions to show Scooter’s confusion. They finally had their take.

And now here she was again, doing something she’d never thought she’d have to repeat. Kissing Bram Shepard.

Bram’s mouth closed over hers, his lips soft as Skip’s should have been. She began her mental retreat to the secret place she’d hidden in so many years ago. But something was wrong. Bram no longer tasted of late nights and seedy bars. He tasted clean. Not clean like Lance, who had an Altoids addiction, but clean like-

She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she knew she didn’t like it. She wanted Bram to be Bram. She wanted the sour taste of his condescension, the tainted bile of his disdain. Those were both things she knew how to handle.

She waited for him to try sticking his tongue down her throat. Not that she wanted him to-God, no-but at least it would be familiar.

He nibbled at her lower lip, then slowly set her back on her feet. “Welcome to married life, Mrs. Shepard,” he said in a soft, tender voice even as his hand, hidden in the folds of her skirt, pinched her bottom.

She smiled with relief. Bram was finally acting like himself. “Welcome to my heart…,” she said just as tenderly, “…Mr. Georgie York.” Beneath his jacket, she jabbed him in the ribs as hard as she could.

It was dark outside when Duffy left, and the management had slipped a message under the door. The switchboard was swamped with calls, and a horde of photographers had gathered outside. She turned on the television and saw that the news of their marriage was out. While Bram changed his clothes, she sat on the edge of the couch and watched.

Everyone was shocked.

No one had seen it coming.

Since only the bare-bones details were available, the cable news outlets were trying to fill out the story with comments from a string of so-called experts who knew absolutely nothing.

“After the devastating end to her first marriage, Georgie has returned to the comfort of the familiar.”

“Perhaps Shepard’s grown weary of his playboy lifestyle…”

“But has he really reformed? Georgie’s a wealthy woman, and…”

Bram came out of the bedroom in a fresh pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. “We’re leaving tonight.”

She muted the remote. “I’m not exactly anxious to drive to L.A. with a herd of photographers chasing us. As Princess Diana would say, ‘Been there. Done that.’”

“I’ve taken care of it.”

“You can’t even take care of yourself.”

“Let me put it another way. I’m not staying here. You can either come with me or explain to the press why your new husband is leaving alone.”

He was clearly going to win this skirmish, so she conjured up a sneer. “You’d better know what you’re doing.”

As it turned out, he did have the situation taken care of. A paneled plumbing van waited for them at the darkened loading dock. He tossed their suitcases inside and slipped the driver a couple of folded bills from his wallet. Afterward, he gave her an arm-up into the back, then climbed in himself and shut the door.