The tabloids screamed:

Brave Georgie’s Heartbreak

Valiant Georgie Suicidal as Lance Declares, “I never knew real love until I met Jade Gentry”

Georgie Wasting Away! Friends Fear for Her Life

Even though Lance had a much more successful film career, she was still Scooter Brown, America’s sweetheart, and the tide of public sentiment turned against him for abandoning such a beloved television icon. Lance launched his own counterattack. “Unnamed sources say that Lance desperately wanted children, but Georgie was too busy with her career to take time out for a family.”

She’d never forgive him for that lie.

Trevor came out on the deck balancing a white leather tray with margarita glasses and a matching pitcher. He gallantly ignored the tears trickling from beneath her sunglasses. “The bar is officially open.”

“Thanks, pal.” She took the frosty margarita from him and swiped at her cheeks as he turned away to set the tray on the white patio table. She couldn’t talk to him about the sonogram. Even her best friends didn’t realize how much having a baby meant to her. That pain had been a secret one. A secret today’s photos would expose to the world.

“We wrapped Cake Walk last Friday,” she said. “Another bomb.” She couldn’t afford three box-office flops in a row, and that’s what she’d have once Cake Walk was released. She set her drink on the deck without tasting it. “Dad’s really upset about this six-month vacation I’m taking.”

He sank into a molded plastic tulip chair. “You’ve been working practically since you came out of the womb. Paul needs to cut you some slack.”

“Yeah, that’ll happen all right.”

“You know the way I feel about how he pushes you. I’m not saying another word.”

“Don’t.” She was already too familiar with Trev’s generally accurate opinion of her difficult relationship with her father. She wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled them tight to her stomach. “Divert me with some good gossip.”

“My costar gets crazier every day. If I even think about doing another film with that woman, kill me.” He adjusted his chair so his shaved head was in the shade. “Did you know she and Bram used to date?”

Her stomach clenched. “Birds of a feather.”

“He’s house-sitting-”

She held up her hand. “Stop. I can’t talk about Bramwell Shepard. Especially not today.” Bram would have watched her get trampled to death this afternoon and never lost the smile on his face. God, she hated him, even after all these years.

Trev mercifully changed the subject without questioning her. “You saw last week’s USA Today poll, right? Favorite sitcom heroines? Scooter Brown came in third after Lucy and Mary Tyler Moore. You even beat out Barbara Eden.”

She’d seen the poll and couldn’t bring herself to care. “I hate Scooter Brown.”

“You’re the only one who does. She’s an icon. It’s anti-American not to love her.”

“The series has been off the air for eight years. Why can’t everybody let it go?”

“Maybe those perpetual reruns blasting out all over the globe have something to do with it?”

She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head. “I was a kid when the show started, only fifteen. And barely twenty-three when it ended.”

He took in her red eyes but didn’t comment on them. “Scooter Brown is ageless. Every woman’s best friend. Every man’s favorite virgin.”

“But I’m not Scooter Brown. I’m Georgie York. My life belongs to me, not to the world.”

“Good luck with that.”

She couldn’t let herself do this any longer. Perpetually reacting to external forces. Unable to set her own counterforces in motion. Always acted upon. Never acting. She drew her knees closer and studied the rainbows she’d asked her manicurist to paint on her toenails in the vain hope of cheering herself up. If she didn’t do this now, she never would. “Trev, what would you think about you and me having a little-a big romance?”

“Romance?”

“The two of us.” She couldn’t look at him, and she kept her eyes on the rainbows. “Falling very publicly in love. And…maybe-” She pushed out the words. “Trev, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time…I know you’re going to think it’s crazy. It is crazy. But…If you don’t hate the idea, I was thinking…we should at least consider the possibility of…getting married.”

“Married?” Trevor’s feet hit the deck.

He was one of her dearest friends, but her cheeks burned. Still, what was one more monumentally humiliating moment in a year filled with them? She unlocked her arms from her knees. “I know I shouldn’t be dumping this on you out of nowhere. And I know it’s weird. Really weird. I felt that way when I first started thinking about it, but when I considered it objectively, I couldn’t see a big downside.”

“Georgie, I’m gay.”

“You’re rumored to be gay.”

“I’m also really gay.”

“But you’re so deep in the closet hardly anybody knows.” The fresh scrape on her ankle stung as she eased her legs over the side of the chaise. “This would finally put an end to the rumors. Face it, Trev. If the frat-boy crowd ever finds out you’re playing for their team, your career is gone.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” He rubbed his hand over his shaved head. “Georgie, your life is a circus, and as much as I adore you, I don’t want to be dragged into the center ring.”

“That’s the point. If you and I were together, the circus would stop.” As he sat back down, she went to his side and knelt there. “Trev, just think about it. We’ve always gotten along. We’d be able to live our lives the way we want-without any interference from each other. Think about how much more freedom you’d have-we’d both have.” She rested her cheek against his knee, just for a moment, then sat back on her heels. “You and I aren’t an odd couple like Lance and I were. Trevor and Georgie are a boring match, and after the first couple of months, the press will leave us alone. We could live under the radar. You wouldn’t need to keep going out with all those women you have to pretend to be interested in. You could see who you wanted. Our marriage would be the perfect cover for you.” And for her, it would be a way to make the world stop its pity party. She’d have both her public dignity back and a kind of insurance policy to keep her from ever again throwing herself off an emotional cliff for a man.

“Think about it, Trev. Please.” She needed to let him get used to the idea before she mentioned children. “Think how liberating it would be.”

“I’m not marrying you.”

“Me either.” A horrifyingly familiar voice drifted across the deck. “I’d rather stop drinking.”

Georgie shot to her feet and watched Bramwell Shepard saunter up the stairs from the beach. He stopped at the top, his mouth quirking with calculated amusement.

She sucked in her breath.

“Don’t let me interrupt.” He leaned against the rail. “This is the most interesting conversation I’ve eavesdropped on since Scooter and her friends debated dyeing their pubic hair. Trev, why didn’t you tell me you’re a fairy? Now we can’t ever be seen in public together again.”

Unlike Georgie, Trevor seemed relieved by the interruption, and he pointed his margarita glass in the general direction of Bram’s sun-drenched head. “You fixed me up with my last boyfriend.”

“I must have been wasted.” Her former costar took her in. “Speaking of wasted…You look like crap.”

She had to get out of here. She glanced toward the doors that led back into the house, but a frail ember of dignity still lingered in the ashes of her self-respect, and she couldn’t let him see her run. “What are you doing here?” she said. “This isn’t an accident.”

He nodded toward the pitcher. “You two aren’t really drinking that shit, are you?”

“I’m sure you remember where I keep the real liquor.” Trev eyed her with concern.

“Later.” Bram folded his long frame onto the chaise across from the one where Georgie had been sitting. The sand clinging to his calves sparkled like tiny diamonds. The breeze frolicked in his crisp golden-bronze hair. Her stomach twisted. A beautiful debauched angel.

The image had come from an essay written by a well-known television critic not long after the debacle that had ended one of the most successful television shows in history. She still remembered.

We can imagine Bram Shepard in heaven, his face so perfect the other angels can’t bring themselves to cast him out even though he’s drunk up all the sacred wine, seduced the pretty virgin angels, and stolen a harp to replace the one he gambled away in a celestial poker game. We watch him endanger the entire flock by flying too close to the sun, then plunging too recklessly toward the sea. But the angel community is mesmerized by the fields of lavender in his eyes, the rays of sun weaving through his hair, so they forgive him his transgressions…until his last dangerous plunge drives them all into the muck.

Bram rested his head on the back of the chaise, a position that outlined his still-flawless profile against the sky. At thirty-three, the softer edges of his pleasure-seeking youth had hardened, making his lazy, glittering beauty even more destructive. Bronze threaded his blond hair, cynicism tainted his choirboy’s lavender eyes, and mockery lurked at the corners of his perfectly symmetrical mouth.

The fact that someone so utterly without scruples had overheard her conversation with Trevor made her ill. She couldn’t flee, not yet, but her legs were giving out. “Why are you here?” She sank into one of the tulip chairs.

“I started to tell you,” Trev said. “Bram sometimes uses my other house down the beach, the one I’m trying to sell. Since he’s made himself unemployable, he doesn’t have anything better to do than laze around and bother me.”

“I’m not exactly unemployable.” Bram crossed his sandy ankles. Even the arches of his feet were as gracefully curved as the blade of a scimitar. “Just last week I got an offer to humiliate myself on a new reality TV show. If I hadn’t been stoned when the call came in, I’d probably have accepted. Just as well.” He waved an elegant hand. “Too much work.”

“Point made,” Trev said.

She frantically scanned the sand for photographers. This was a private beach, but the press would do anything to get a photo of her with Bram again. Skip and Scooter publicly reunited after all this time. Her stomach churned at the thought of someone as predictably evil as Bram Shepard becoming part of her public nightmare.

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?”