Waking Up to You Overexposed - By Leslie Kelly Page 0,1
of rumors about movie stars.” Tommy wasn’t the first Hollywood celebrity to worry about in-the-closet stories, and he wouldn’t be the last.
He rested his head on the back of the couch and stared at the ceiling. “I’ve also gotten a few veiled threats.”
Oh, hell. “What do you mean? Threats from who?”
“Just somebody I had a fling with last year.”
“Blackmail?” she said, indignant on his behalf.
“Not yet. But it could get there. He’s making rumbles about supposedly having some kind of proof.”
Candace glowered at him for being careless. “Tell me you didn’t let some dude take pictures.”
“Do I look mentally challenged?” He sounded indignant.
“Sorry.”
“And before you ask if I left DNA on a Gap dress, let me explain. It was just some text messages.”
“They can be faked,” she said, waving an airy hand.
“Yeah, but look at what happened to Tiger.”
True. Text messages could definitely come back to bite you. She made a mental note. Next time you’re about to break up with someone, borrow his phone to destroy the evidence first.
He turned to face her. “So you see why this is so important? With that tabloid article hinting I was going to settle down with you, I think I can put out the fires for a while. Once I nail this franchise, I can get haughty and walk away to do high-minded indie films.”
Haughty wasn’t hard for Tommy, although she knew it was a pretense. He was almost always in character. Right now it suited him to act the part of spoiled Hollywood star. But playing the role of her husband? That would take some Oscar-worthy skills.
“Please, Candy, I’m begging you,” he said. “Just give me a few years—five max. You and I both know it wouldn’t be the first five-years-to-hide-the-fact-that-I’m-gay marriage in Hollywood.”
Five years. Could she really give up five years of her life? Okay, so she was only twenty-six, she wasn’t seeing anyone and had no interest in settling down and having babies until she was in her thirties. Still...it was quite a commitment.
“And there’ll be no prenup. You’ll get half of whatever I earn.”
Her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
He saw her reaction and pounced. “You know you could use the money, since you won’t let me lend it to you. You can help out your parents and your sister, give your grandfather the money to get that broken-down winery he bought last year up and running.”
That was all true. Curse him for understanding her well enough to know exactly which buttons to push.
“And it’ll be fun. We’ll walk the red carpet together.” He dropped an arm over her shoulders and pulled her close. “I’ll be all romantic when I give my Oscar acceptance speech and thank the wildly sexy woman who made it all possible.”
Hmm. That sounded like fun.
“There is still one big problem,” she finally said. “I like sex. Five years is a long time to go without it.”
“You don’t have to,” he insisted.
“Eww,” she said, shoving his arm off her. “That’d be like having sex with my brother. My gay brother.”
“I wasn’t talking about me! You can have affairs.”
“Tacky. Besides, that’d really cause some gossip. I’m already on the radar of those leeches.”
She hated that, truly. Being the subject of gossip was infuriating, and she doubly hated the idea that some people might have decided she got her start in Hollywood because of Tommy. If anything, he’d gotten his first break through her. He’d come to visit her at work at one of the studios one day, met a casting director and the rest was history.
“Look,” he said, “we both know you’ve got a gazillion gigabytes of internal memory when it comes to sex. You’ve already stored up experiences that helped you through dry spells in the past.”
She couldn’t argue that, but did stick out her tongue at him. It wasn’t nice of him to point out all those dry spells, usually caused because Candace had a bad habit of going out with guys who were far more focused on material things and their own ambitions than they were on her. “Your point?”
“My point is, I’ll send you on a trip to France for two weeks. You can boink your way from Bordeaux to Paris, free from the paparazzi. Once you back up some orgasms on your libido’s hard drive, you can come home and we’ll announce our engagement.”
He always managed to make her laugh. “And what if my vaginal computer crashes? Am I supposed to zip off to a bordello to do an