messed up by her choosing drugs over her own kids.”
Archer didn’t want to talk about his mother. He’d put her in a mental drawer and slammed it shut a long, long time ago. Locked it and thrown away the key, too.
Had his grandmother not taken in the five young Prescott children, there was no telling how badly they all would have turned out. As it was, with the help of her fierce love, they’d all gotten their lives together. The oldest Prescott, Jackson, was a movie star and part owner of the studio producing this movie. Brother number two, Steve, was a retired Marine officer and stunt coordinator in the movie business now.
In an effort to get out from under Steve’s long shadow, Archer had joined the Army and become a search-and-rescue pilot. It satisfied his need for reckless living. Channeled his wilder impulses into a profession where they were an asset and not a problem. Hell, somewhere along the way, he’d grown up, too.
Archer took a pull from the cold beer Steve had served him. “Okay, so she’s got a past. That doesn’t necessarily make her our saboteur.”
Steve commented, “I’ve got a guy looking into peeking into that sealed record. I want to know if she has a violent past or not.”
Archer had a very hard time picturing sweet, innocent-seeming Marley Stringer hurting a fly, let alone another human being.
“Are you interested in this girl?” Steve demanded.
“No!” he lied.
“Then why are you defending her so damned hard?”
“Hey, bro. I’m not defending her. I’m just not declaring her guilty and convicting her in my mind before I hear her side of the story.”
Steve stared at him long and hard. “You willing to make a run at gaining her trust?”
Ha. Steve did want him to get close to her and see what he could learn about her. “You want me to sleep with her and get her to pillow-talk with me?”
“Jeez, no. I just meant you should make friends with her. Put yourself in a position to keep a close eye on her. But I need you to take a suspicious mind-set into the project. Keep your head in the game. This girl could not only be dangerous, but very dangerous.”
“How about I agree to keep an open mind about her guilt or innocence?”
“Fine. Just keep your zipper closed, eh?”
Archer raised his beer bottle to his brother. “I dunno, dude. She’s not a horrible-looking girl.”
“This is important, Archer. Serendipity Studios is a young company, and they’ve invested a crap-ton of money in this movie. If it fails, the studio could go under. We’ve got to find out who’s screwing with this film. And fast.”
“Yeah, yeah. I got it. She’s not as innocent as she seems, and we’ve got to nail her if she’s behind the accidents.”
* * *
Marley threw open her door, indignant, to admit Tyrone. “Who are you calling chicken? I about died today, I’ll have you know, and I didn’t even pee my pants!”
The makeup artist was pulling a rolling suitcase behind him and barged into her room without invitation. “Sit your butt down on that chair, and don’t give me sass. And get that nasty sweatshirt off. Put on the shirt you’re gonna wear on your date so you don’t smear my art.”
Overwhelmed and out-attituded, she headed for her closet. And froze. What to wear? “It’s not a date,” she mumbled as she stared at her horrible clothes.
Tyrone peered into the closet over her shoulder and, tsking, eventually pulled out a simple white, oxford button-down blouse. “Here. Wear this. I’ve got a scarf that’ll make it less dreadful.”
She went into her bathroom and slipped on the shirt. She peered at herself in the mirror, and a plain, mousy, faintly academic woman stared back at her. This was crazy. Archer would never give her the time of day, let alone seriously consider dating her. Who would ever be interested in that unexciting girl in the mirror? She emerged reluctantly, only because she was convinced Tyrone would bust down the door and drag her out if she didn’t come out voluntarily.
“Sit. Close your eyes and no talking. I’m an artiste and I need to concentrate on my work,” he announced.
Never in her life had anyone applied makeup to her, and it was a strange sensation. Tyrone sprayed some sort of defrizzer on her hair and put it up in hot rollers—a first for her—and kept up a running commentary under his breath, discussing with himself how not to overwhelm her fragile coloring, how to pull together the gold tones in her hair with the pink tones in her skin and how best to highlight her eyes. It must have taken him close to an hour to finally be satisfied with his work. He alarmed her mightily for most of the last half of it with his patter about channeling Marilyn Monroe, how Marley was a retro flashback to fifties pinup girls and the possibility of her being the reincarnation of the sexiest woman in movie history.
Marley tried to get a word in edgewise and make an argument for Elizabeth Taylor as the sexiest actress ever, but Tyrone silenced her so he could outline her lips with an outrageously red liner pencil. The man did not fight fair.
Finally, he announced, “There. Done. Observe my masterpiece.”
Marley opened her eyes and looked in the mirror.
Who. Was. That?
She stared at the stranger before her in complete incomprehension. Tyrone wasn’t kidding. She did look like Marilyn Monroe. Her blond hair fell in the same soft waves around her face, and with that dramatic eyeliner, light eye shadow and scarlet lipstick, she totally looked like a poster child for the 1950s. There really was something of the wide-eyed, sex-kitten innocence of Marilyn Monroe about her. Freaky. She even had dimples like the movie icon.
She gestured a hand at her reflection and declared in shock, “But I don’t look like that.”
“Girl, I didn’t transplant a new face onto you. That’s you. All I did was decorate your assets.”
“But...”
“But you look fantastic. Get over it. I’ll teach you how to do it for yourself, and then you can always look like this.”
Her entire being cringed at the idea of walking around looking like a sexpot all the time. Mina did that. Not her. Although Mina went more for the leather-and-lace look.
Everyone—okay, men—would pay far too much attention to her like this. Attention that made her acutely uncomfortable, thank you very much. Because...well, because of the whole virginity thing. But a little voice at the back of her head whispered that it had nothing to do with her virginity. Her dirty little secret was that she wasn’t even the least bit interesting or lovable.
“Now put on the shortest skirt you’ve got and go get you that flyboy. If you don’t have screaming-hot sex with that man tonight, I’m going to be deeply disappointed.”
The idea of screaming-hot sex with Archer sent her brain into blank, blue-screen-of-doom overload.
Was it possible? Could she once and for all ditch her
