Brandon was the one who’d given up on them. He was the one with doubts, urges, unfulfilled desires. This was not about her.
Her jaw set, Sophie swung the door open. Tomorrow morning, Lucas Grant was arriving for a four-week recuperation spell after injuring himself on set, according to Julia Jenkins. Sophie had tonight to look over the strict diet she’d been sent and familiarize herself with the kitchen.
Both tasks that she could handle with one hand tied behind her back, despite what Brandon had said about her.
“Bastard,” she said under her breath. It felt better to be angry. If she wasn’t angry, she had the feeling she was going to be very, very sad. And she wasn’t ready to deal with that yet.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Lucas threw down his bag and looked around. He’d known the Jenkinses for a long time—ever since John had taught him drama at NIDA, in fact—but he’d never realized quite how loaded they were until now. The Blue Mountains “house” that Julie had offered him for his recovery was, in fact, a sprawling estate, complete with heated in-ground pool, caretaker’s lodge and a spectacular seven-bedroom main house with high, arched ceilings, imported stone floors and every modern convenience. If he didn’t already own three houses of his own—L.A., New York, Sydney—he’d almost be envious.
He guessed if he had to be stuck on crutches, there were worse places to be, and not many better.
Frowning, he glanced down at the bulge his newly acquired knee brace made beneath his jeans. He’d torn his ankle ligaments, as well as the medial ligament in his knee. The whole of his foot was bruised and slightly swollen, although it was hard to tell since most of it was hidden by removable neoprene braces, designed to hold his ankle and knee in the correct position while his tendons healed. The doctor had told him it was a miracle that he hadn’t broken anything, considering what had happened.
It had been two days since the accident, and his leg still hurt like hell. Fortunately, they’d given him some serious Tyrannosaurus-Rex-strength painkillers—as well as strict instructions to take it easy for at least four weeks. Which was why Derek had insisted he take Julie up on the offer of her mountain hideaway. Lucas had a film scheduled to begin shooting next week, and the whole production had been delayed to allow him time to recover. The studio had insurance to cover this sort of situation, but Lucas wasn’t exactly the golden-haired boy right now.
He shrugged the thought off as he dropped his crutches beside the bed and flopped backward onto the king-size mattress. Four weeks wasn’t going to kill anyone—him or the studio. Yeah, he’d stuffed up a little. But it wasn’t as though he’d meant to slip and collide with the balcony railing. If it hadn’t been for that biography…
Crossing his arms behind his head, Lucas stared at the ceiling. It was bloody quiet up here in the mountains. No hum of traffic, no people moving around, no chatter of voices in distant rooms. The only sound he could hear was the faint chirrup of birds in the gum trees outside.
Peaceful. Huh.
After about five minutes of peaceful, he started to get a little twitchy. He wasn’t used to having time on his hands. Usually he spent at least two hours a day training—weights, running, yoga for flexibility. If he wasn’t actually shooting a film, he usually had costume fittings, makeup tests, meetings with studios, meetings with Derek or meetings with anyone else who wanted a piece of him, not to mention all the promotional commitments for new releases such as interviews and photo shoots. At night, there were premieres, openings and parties to attend…. His cup runneth over, as it were. Just the way he liked it.
Except for the next four weeks. Frowning, Lucas had a sudden vision of how the next month was going to pan out—lots of birds tweeting and him lying around like this wishing he was elsewhere. In his mind, time slowed to a turtle’s crawl, days stretched into weeks, weeks into months, months into—
Shit. Maybe coming up here alone was a bad idea. In the hospital, doped to the eyeballs and copping flack from the studio and Derek, a little peace and quiet had seemed extremely desirable.
But not this much peace and quiet.
Sliding his cell phone from his pocket, Lucas scrolled through his address book and punched speed dial. The phone rang once before a familiar voice picked up.
“David, mate, how are you?” he asked.
“Lucas. You’re still alive, are you? Heard you got drunk and fell off a balcony or something,” David Gracie said, laughing down the line.
Lucas and David had trained together at NIDA, and after a slow start David was now knocking back offers to appear in multimillion-dollar films, his star firmly on the rise.
“A slight exaggeration. Just got a dodgy knee for a few weeks,” Lucas explained lightly. The joys of being famous—everyone knew his business about two seconds after he did. “I’ve got a few weeks off, anyway, and I was wondering whether you wanted to grab a few warm bodies and come hang in the Blue Mountains?”
“Mate, I’d love to, but I’m about to head out to L.A. Maybe another time, yeah?”
“Sure, man. Absolutely.”
Ending the call, Lucas scanned his address book for another likely suspect.
“Hey, Mikey, how you doin’?” he asked as another acting buddy picked up.
But Mikey was in the middle of a theatrical season at the Opera House playing King Lear. In fact, it seemed all his old friends were tied up with something over the next few weeks. Some of them had day jobs now, having given up acting for something more reliable. Others had families, God forbid. No one was free to come play in the mountains. His thoughts flew to L.A., where there was always someone kicking around, ready to party. But there was no way any of his drinking buddies were about to jump on a plane and travel halfway around the world to stop him expiring from boredom.
“Damn.” Giving up for the moment, Lucas tossed his phone to one side and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The painkillers were starting to wear off, and his ankle and knee were throbbing like bastards.
The real issue, however, was his isolation. How the hell was he going to stay sane for four whole weeks of nothing?
Vaguely it occurred to him that there was something faintly pathetic about being so reliant on other people and stimuli to help him get by. What kind of man couldn’t stand a few hours of his own company, let alone a few weeks? Maybe he ought to tough it out up here to prove to himself that he could. Some early nights, a bit of clean living. Maybe it would even do him good.
Tension crawled up his back and into his shoulders at the very thought.
“Stuff it.”
Grabbing his phone again, he rang Derek, rolling his eyes when it went through to voice mail. Typical, the one time he actually wanted to talk to the guy.
“Listen. This stupid mountain idyll thing was a big mistake,” he told Derek’s voice mail. “Call me back and we’ll make other plans.”
Ending the call, he reached for the side pocket on his suitcase and found the painkillers he’d been prescribed. Tossing back a couple, he gritted his teeth until the world began to blur at the edges a little.
“That’s more like it,” he muttered to himself.
