Susan Phillips - What I Did for Love

“I don’t. You bought mine on eBay for a hundred bucks.”

He pulled his head out. “Who told you that?”

“You did.”

He muttered something, grabbed the monkey wrench, and stuffed his head back inside the vanity.

She was getting a creepy feeling. “You did buy it on eBay, right?”

“Not exactly,” came his muffled reply.

“Then where did you get it?”

“At…this store.”

“What store?”

He poked his head out. “How am I supposed to remember?”

“It was only a month ago!”

“Whatever.” His head disappeared.

“You told me the ring was a fake. It’s a fake, right?”

“Define ‘fake.’” The wrench clanged against a pipe.

“As in, ‘Not genuine.’”

“Oh.”

“Bram?”

Another clang. “It’s not a fake.”

“It’s the real thing?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“Why didn’t you tell me that from the beginning?”

“Because we have a relationship based on deceit.” He stretched out his hand. “Give me the bucket.”

“I don’t believe this!”

He fumbled for the bucket, his head still inside.

“I would have been more careful!” She thought of all the places she’d left the ring lying around, and she wanted to kick him. “I set it on the diving board when I went swimming yesterday!”

“That’s just stupid.” Water sloshed into the bucket. “Got it!” he said a moment later.

She sank down on the toilet lid and dropped her forehead into her hands. “I’m sick of having a marriage based on deceit.”

He emerged, bringing the bucket with him. “If you think about it, having a marriage based on deceit is all you know anything about. That should be a comfort.”

She leaped up. “I want a fake ring. I liked having a fake ring. Why don’t you ever do what you’re supposed to?”

“Because I can never figure out what that is.” He dropped the sink stopper and began washing off her not-fake ring. “When we get back downstairs, I’m going to pull Rory away. Don’t let anybody interrupt us, okay?”

“Georgie!” Meg called from the bottom of the stairs. “Georgie, you need to come down here. You have a guest.”

How could she have a guest with a guard stationed at the gate?

Bram grabbed her hand and slipped the ring back on. “Let’s be a little more careful this time.”

She stared down at the big stone. “I paid for this, didn’t I?”

“Everybody should have a rich wife.”

She jerked past him and hurried along the hall. Halfway down she stopped.

Her ex-husband stood at the bottom of the stairs.

Meg tugged nervously on an amber earring. “I told him he couldn’t come in.”

Lance looked as bad as someone so buff could possibly look. He was apparently growing both a beard and long hair for his next action film because he had an inch of unkempt black scrub sprouting from his jaw, and his dark hair hung unevenly around his square face, not an attractive look, although one that was certain to improve after his hair and makeup people got done with him. His coffee-stained T-shirt stretched over the bulging muscles he spent several hours a day maintaining. Narrow braided bracelets, similar to Meg’s headband, but more frayed, hung at his wrist, and he wore sandals made of rope and canvas. Skillful dentistry had shaped his strong white teeth, but he’d never let anyone touch his slightly crooked nose. His press kit said he’d broken it in a teenage street fight, but he’d really tripped on the front steps of his college frat house and been too frightened of surgery to have it fixed.

“Georgie, I’ve left half a dozen messages. When you didn’t call me back, I was afraid-Why wouldn’t you call me back?”

Her fingers curled around the railing. “I didn’t want to.”

Like most of Hollywood’s leading men, he wasn’t exceptionally tall, barely five feet nine, but his granite jaw, manly chin-cleft, soulful dark eyes, and pronounced musculature compensated for his lack of height. “I needed to talk to you. I needed to hear your voice, to make sure you’re all right.”

More than anything, she wanted him to grovel. She wanted to hear him say he’d made the biggest mistake of his life, and he’d do anything to get her back, but that didn’t seem to be happening. She came down one step. “You look awful.”

“I drove here right from the airport. We just got in from the Philippines.”

She forced herself the rest of the way into the foyer. “You were in a private jet. How tough could the trip have been?”

“Two of our people got sick. It was-” He glanced over his shoulder at Meg standing guard behind him. She’d kicked off her orange boots, and the way her bare ankles emerged from her blue leopard-print leggings made her look as though she’d been dipped upside down into a tub of melted crayons. “Could we talk? Privately?”

“No. But Meg has always liked you. You can talk to her.”

“Not anymore,” Meg said. “I think you’re a creep.”

Lance hated not being adored, and distress flickered in his eyes. Good. “Send me an e-mail,” Georgie said. “I have guests, and I need to go back to the party.”

“Five minutes. That’s all.”

An alarming thought struck her. “Photographers are all over the place. If they spotted you driving in-”

“I’m not that stupid. I was driving my trainer’s car, and the windows are dark, so no one could see in. Somebody buzzed me through the gate.”

Georgie didn’t have any trouble figuring out whom. The kitchen had an intercom, and Chaz had to know how much Georgie would hate having Lance show up. Georgie slipped her thumb into the pocket of her chinos. “Does Jade know you’re here?”

“Of course. We tell each other everything, and she understands why I need to do this. She knows how I feel about you.”

“And exactly how is that?” Bram sauntered down the stairs. With his rumpled bronze hair, world-weary tanzanite eyes, and Gatsby whites, he looked like the jaded, overindulged, but potentially dangerous heir to a lost New England liquor fortune.

Lance moved closer to Georgie, as if he needed to protect her. “This is between Georgie and me.”

“Sorry, sport.” Bram ambled into the foyer. “You lost your opportunity for a private chat when you traded her in for Jade. You poor bastard.”

Lance took a menacing step forward. “Stop right there, Shepard. Don’t say another word about Jade.”

“Relax.” Bram rested an elbow on the newel post. “I have nothing but admiration for your wife, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever want to be married to her. Very high maintenance.”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Lance said tightly.

Even though Bram was considerably taller than her ex-husband, Lance’s perfect physique should have made him a stronger presence. But somehow Bram’s lethal elegance gave him an edge in the macho wars. She couldn’t help wondering how a woman like herself had ended up married to two such impressive men.

She moved closer to Bram. “Say what you need to, Lance, and then leave me alone.”

“Could you…step outside for a minute?”

“Georgie and I don’t have secrets from each other.” Bram let his voice slip into an Eastwood whisper, circa 1973. “I don’t like secrets. I don’t like them at all.”

She considered rising above her baser instincts, but only for a moment. “He’s very possessive. Mostly in a good way.”

Bram curled his fingers around the back of her neck. “And let’s keep it like that.”

Her flash of amusement proved she’d spent too much time living with the devil. Still, this was her fight, not Bram’s, and as much as she appreciated the support, she needed to handle it on her own. “Lance doesn’t seem like he’s leaving, so I might as well get this over with.”

“You don’t have to talk to him.” Bram dropped his hand from her neck. “I’d like nothing better than a good excuse to throw the son of a bitch out on his ass.”

“I know you would, sweetie, and I’m sorry to spoil your fun, but leave us alone for a few minutes, will you? I promise I’ll tell you everything. I know how much you love a good laugh.”

Meg shot Lance a glare and looped her arm through Bram’s. “Come on, pal. I’ll fix you another drink.”

Exactly what he didn’t need, but Meg’s intentions were good.

Bram gazed at Georgie, and she could see him trying to decide how long and how hard to kiss her. But he wisely underplayed the scene by merely touching her hand. “I’ll be nearby if you need me.”

She’d intended to stay in the foyer, but Lance had other ideas, and he walked ahead of her into the living room. His passion for clean surfaces and hard modern lines would make him contemptuous of this lovely room with its kumquat trees, Tibetan throws, and mirrored Indian pillows. And while Bram’s house was spacious, it could have fit inside one corner of the massive property she and Lance had shared.

She remembered something she should have thought of earlier. “I’m sorry about the baby. Truly.”

He stopped in front of the fireplace, so that the vine curling over the mantel looked as though it was growing from his head. “It’s been hard, but it was early, and Jade got pregnant so easy that we’re not letting ourselves get too upset. Everything happens for a reason.”

Georgie didn’t believe that. She believed things sometimes happened just because life could really suck. “Still, I’m sorry.”

His shrug made her suspect he was secretly relieved. She heard a distant rumble of thunder and wondered how she could ever have loved this man with his shallow emotions and flexible passions. She’d given him tears and entreaties, but she’d never once unleashed her anger. No time like the present to fix that.

She moved toward him. “I’ll never forgive you for the lie you spread about me not wanting children. How could you do something so cowardly?”

He was taken aback by her attack, and he picked at the frayed bracelet on his wrist. “It…was an overzealous publicist.”

“That’s a lie.” Her anger erupted along with a flash of lightning. “You’re a liar and a cheat. You had dozens of chances to correct that story, and you never did.”

“Why are you being so hostile? What was I supposed to say?”

“The truth.” She closed the distance between them. They were nearly the same height, and she looked him squarely in the eye. “Except being honest would have made you look like even more of a jerk to the public, and you couldn’t stand that.”

He started to sputter. “Don’t talk to me about jerks? How could you marry that ass?”

“Easy. He’s hot and he worships me.” Truth and lie rolled up together.

“You’ve always hated him. I don’t understand how this could happen.”

“There’s a thin line between hating someone and finding the grand passion of your life.”

“Is that what this is about? Sex?”

“Definitely a big part of it. And I do mean big.”

That was just plain mean. The fact that Lance wasn’t super-endowed had never bothered her, but it bothered him, and she should be ashamed of herself. She wasn’t. “Bram’s insatiable. I’ve spent so much time naked lately, it’s a wonder I still remember how to wear clothes.”

He’d always refused to acknowledge any problems with their sex life, and he turned his back to examine the Moorish carving on the mantel. “I don’t want to fight with you, Georgie. We’re not enemies.”

“Think again.”

“If you’d just called me back…I have enough guilt. I don’t know how he did it, but I know he coerced you, and I want to help. I have to help you get out of this.”

“Fascinating. Except I don’t need help.”

“The fact that you married him…” He turned to face her again. “Don’t you see? Not only is it bad for you, but it cheapens what we had together.”

At first she was too stunned to respond, and then she laughed.

He puffed up, all injured dignity. “It’s not funny. If he’d been someone decent…Our relationship was true and honest. Just because it didn’t last doesn’t mean it wasn’t right at the time.” He stepped away from the fireplace. “If you married Bram of your own free will-and I’m having a hard time believing that-but if you did, you’ve tainted our relationship and demeaned yourself.”

“Okay, you have officially overstayed your welcome.”

Lance plowed on. “He’s a player. He’s lazy, aimless. The guy’s a drunk and a drug addict, for god’s sake. He’s nothing but a bum.”

“Get out of here.”

“You’re not going to tell me the truth, are you? You’re still too angry. Then tell me this…What would you have done if you were me? What if you’d met the love of your life while you were married to someone else? What would you have done?”

“Easy. I’d never have married someone who wasn’t the love of my life in the first place.”

He flinched. “I know you think what I did was unforgivable, but I’m asking you to look at it a different way. Try to see that what happened with Jade and me could never have happened if you hadn’t shown me what it means to really love someone-with your whole heart.”