An Offer He Cant Refuse - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,19
Hollywood set that cruised so freely about town. Their presence was, after all, what had put the place on the map, and those who made their living off the rich and famous - which was all of them to some degree or another - regarded celebrities with the same affection as highly paid nannies for charming, yet overpampered children.
Looking at the impossibly lovely Missy Banyon, Tea tried hard to feel accordingly. But it was one thing to let a Hollywood couple be given the best table in the room and quite another to confront one of People magazine's Most Beautiful People across your own. Dropping her gaze to her empty glass, Tea tugged on her sleeves, dusted off nonexistent lint, and hoped she appeared as invisible as she felt. As the awkward teenager inside of her started to awaken again, her hand wandered toward the star-shaped bowl of saturated fat nibbles in the center of the table.
Which was whisked out of her reach as the drinks were delivered. In record time, Missy drank down two Cosmopolitans, then used a napkin to pat her overpuffed lips. "If you must know," she said, as if they'd been pressing her for details all along, "Raphael and I are having a terrible argument."
A surfer could ride the waves of animosity rolling from the vicinity of the bar. "You don't say?" Tea responded. "I couldn't tell. It must be all those acting lessons the two of you took together during your courtship."
Missy frowned, Tea's wry tone going right over her head. 'Those were PR lies made up by our publicists for the press. During our so-called courtship, I was filming Neon Nights in Tokyo. And that's what our argument is about." She rounded on Johnny, nearly poking her cupcakes against the lapels of his jacket. "Did your first kiss involve tongue, or not?"
The question must have amused him, because his smile dug a dimple deep in his left cheek. It was one of those masculine, completely uncherubic dimples that made a woman want to cross her legs.
Well, at least it made Tea cross her legs. Missy Banyon moved in for the kill, getting close-up close to Johnny. "Tongue... or no tongue?" she breathed.
"Definitely no tongue. I was eight years old and it was the last day of second grade when I screwed up my nerve to lay one on my teacher, Miss Skerrit."
The elementary school reference seemed to lower some of Missy Banyon's heat. She backed off a few inches and then turned to skewer Tea. "You, on the other hand, were seventeen. It involved tongue and you didn't like it."
"Sixteen," Tea corrected, startled. "And if Smelly Kelly O'Hara had cornered you at the parish's Friday night teen dance, you wouldn't like it either."
"I don't know about that," the other woman said, directing her attention back to Johnny. "It's what Raphael's so mad about. He thinks that because I liked my first French kiss, that I'm not pure enough to be a Frenchman's wife. Now, I ask you, does that make any sense?"
Johnny had backed as far into the corner as he could and Missy followed. Over the woman's loose curls he sent a white-of-his-eyes look toward Tea.
Oh, it must be hell to be a handsome man, she thought without sympathy. And she very much doubted that a man like Johnny Magee needed any kind of help in the female department. But then she sighed and pushed herself into the conversation anyway. "I thought your argument was about Neon Nights."
It was good enough to send the actress pivoting toward her again. "It was. It was about my co-star from the movie, who, I mentioned to Raphael, happened to have his first kiss and his first lover at the same age as me."
"Soul-kiss mates," Tea murmured.
"Exactly." Missy beamed a smile that would have made a paparazzo's mortgage payment. "Now he's offended by my sexual history and my co-star's."
Tea shrugged. "Sorry."
Missy's eyes narrowed. "Maybe you could go over there and keep Raphael company, you know? You'd have to take off that ugly jacket, but I'm guessing you have at least a C-cup underneath there. Or on second thought, leave it on. He thinks he likes the Puritan type."
"No," she and Johnny said together.
Missy aimed her pout at Tea. 'Then at least tell me how old you were when you first had sex."
"What?"
"Never mind." Shaking her head, the other woman picked up her next drink. "It was some time between sixteen and menopause, right?"