moment she had been waiting for came all too soon.
After thanking the Academy, his agent, and his director, Joey grew quiet. For a long, intense moment, he continued to stand before his spellbound audience. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. As his silence lengthened, he looked odd and blank-faced and suddenly very ill at ease. His dark face paled. Hard lines bracketed his mouth. His grip tightened threateningly on his gold-plated statuette.
For a tough guy, he sure looked afraid.
Every bit as afraid as he’d looked that night in the hospital.
Still, without speaking, he leaned into the mike. Glaring white light bathed his chiseled features. A muscle in his tanned cheek twitched as if long-suppressed emotions raged so close to the surface he couldn’t hold them back.
Then his cynical black gaze targeted her, and his deep, raspy voice wrapped her. For an instant he was that unsure, cocky boy she’d loved, and they were the only two people in the world.
Terror gripped her. Once that special, measured look had been meant for her alone. The only time she’d ever seen his hard features go still like that was right before he shut his eyes to kiss her. As he stared at the cameras, he broke into that special smile that had belonged only to her.
The smile died.
“I wish I had someone in my personal life to thank. But I don’t. God, here I am. You’d think I was the luckiest guy alive. But hell... I’m probably the loneliest.”
He had been a lonely little boy, too.
Joey had been bean-pole skinny in ragged, dirty jeans that always rode too high on his ankles. His hair had hung long and lank. Scorned by the teachers, ridiculed by the other kids. She remembered the way he’d sat hunched over in the back of the classroom, reading books he’d checked out of the school library to escape the bitter reality of his childhood. She remembered how sometimes she’d used her ballpoint pen to shoot spitwads at him. How once she’d hit Mrs. Vanderfort who’d then pounced on Joey. How he’d taken the abuse with an insolent smile and then later teased her. “Someday, Heather, I’ll make you pay for your crimes.”
The man on television stood up straighter. His deep tone roughened. His fathomless black eyes bored into her. “But there is someone... someone who has proved to be... unforgettable. So, Heather.... Babe, if you’re out there, I’m gonna thank you right now because I may never get another chance to. You were the first person to ever believe in me. The only real—I wish...we could go back and start—” He sounded choked. “Oh, God—”
Flushing darkly, he turned to the half-naked goddess in the slit gown. “I’m making one helluva fool of myself over a woman who threw—” Then, as if he suddenly realized the magnitude of what he’d so publicly revealed, he ducked his black head and bolted off the stage. The crowd stood up and cheered him as he ran for cover. The only person not standing and not clapping was the breathtaking Daniella. When he sat down beside her and reached for her hand, she snatched it away to finger the diamonds at her throat.
Heather’s eyes were burning as she punched the remote, freezing Joey’s stark visage on her screen. Indomitable pride was carved into his strong, handsome face. Stubborn rebellion. But there was anguish, too. His genuine pain wrapped around her heart and wouldn’t let go. She felt a shuddering deep within herself.
Both her parents and the town they had grown up in had despised him for being Deo Fasano’s son. Joey had felt less than nothing in that town. Maybe now he had the world’s acclaim, but tonight she had seen an even deeper pain in his eyes than she’d seen when she’d told him goodbye in the hospital.
Don’t do this, babe. Don’t leave me. You know I can’t make it without you.
Her grief and guilt over Ben had been so profound, she’d blocked out his pain.
Thank God, he’d made it...without her.
Heather wanted to call him and congratulate him—
No.
He’d called her, hadn’t he, when she’d won the—
When he’d asked her what was wrong, she’d hung up on him. He’d called back. She hadn’t picked up, but when he’d rasped his number into her recorder, she’d written it down.
There had been nights when she’d pulled it out and looked at it as if it were some last link to him.
Quit staring at that oversexed, conceited, rebellious, hot-blooded man who couldn’t keep his hands out of your pants. Don’t even think about calling him.
You can’t stop thinking about me, babe. If you marry anybody but me... I’ll haunt you in your bed. There’ll be three of us on your wedding night ....
Funny, how every time she kissed Larry, that obnoxious raspy voice of Joey’s started heckling her.
He doesn’t quite have my knack, now does he, babe?
But that would stop.
She was going to do what was expected of her for once and be happy about it. The well-ordered structure of Laurence’s life would smooth any rough edges in her being. Nicky, who had been asking why he didn’t have a father, would have one. Julia could relax and give her entire soul to her chosen vocation. Heather’s parents would be thrilled to have her respectably married.
A shadow passed over her face as she thought of how much her mother and father had suffered. It was up to Heather to make it up to them.
But her tears wouldn’t quit as she stared at the torture in Joey’s frozen face.
Joey had been able to read her heart and her forbidden fantasies with unerring accuracy. Once his wild, quirky soul had been a perfect match for hers. He had been her best friend. He had shared every thought that was in his heart as Laurence, who worked long hours at his law practice, never did.
That was then.
This was now.
Her love for Joey had come at a terrible price.
Joey was image; Laurence was substance. Hadn’t her career taught her the terrible danger of confusing the two?
Joey’s bedroom exploits in Hollywood were legendary.
Laurence was decent and reliable. He respected her. A happy marriage took time, work, commitment, and compromise. Sex appeal was the least important ingredient. She wanted to be safe. Larry was safe.
What about love? rasped that forbidden voice.
What about Nicky?
What would happen when Joey found out about Nicky?
Two
Joey. Daniella. Mac.
Superstar. Supermodel. Superagent.
The fallout from what Joey had said and done on stage surrounded the three passengers in the stretch limo like a poisonous gas as they sped through the night dark. Mac’s handsome black face smoldered with enigmatic misery as he stared out the window at the whizzing headlights.
