Duets™

Two brand-new stories in every volume…twice a month!

Duets Vol. #69

Popular Barbara Daly serves up a delightful Double Duets this month featuring the smart, sexy, sassy Sumner sisters, Faith and Charity. The Telegraph Herald says this about Barbara’s books. Look for “…a delicious blend of humor, seduction and romance as refreshing as a day in New England.”

Duets Vol. #70

Cheryl Anne Porter returns with the second book in her humorous miniseries A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE DELIVERY ROOM. This talented writer always delivers “a funny ride—a roller coaster of fun and adventure.” Joining her is Silhouette author Kate Thomas with a neat premise. What does an overburdened working woman need these days? A stay-at-home “wife!”—in the form of the sexy, ever helpful hero!

Be sure to pick up both Duets volumes today!

You Call this Romance!?

Are You for Real?

Barbara Daly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

You Call this Romance!?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

Are You for Real?

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

You Call this Romance!?

“I’m under a good bit of stress,” Faith confessed.

It occurred to her that she could talk about her stress to Cabot and at the same time take the first step toward her goal of seduction.

He nodded, a font of wisdom in a navy blazer. “You’ve lost so many jobs, you expect to lose this one. But don’t worry. I’m going to give you great references.”

She was touched. “Even after all the mistakes I’ve made? That’s sweet.”

“Downright noble, I’d say.” A smile twitched at his lips, then disappeared. “You’re good at this job. You need a little self-confidence, that’s all.”

“And brake shoes.” Self-confidence was all very well, but it didn’t pay the rent.

His brow furrowed. “What?”

“And tires.” But the job, the brake shoes and the tires were putting less stress on her at the present time than Cabot himself. She needed to get him into a loverly mood. Arouse him. Steer the conversation in a different direction…if she could just figure out where the oars were.

Dear Reader,

Do you have a sister? I’m so envious if you do! Growing up an only child, I was always fascinated by the relationships among sisters. I observed that they seemed to divide up the personality traits, and the oldest got first choice. If she chose to be “the smart one,” the next sister was “the pretty one.” If a third sister came along, she might be “the artistic one,” or “the athletic one.” Or, of course, “the wild one.” I knew of one sad case in which the older sister was “my sweet baby” and the younger, “the other one.”

Since I couldn’t have sisters of my own, I simply had to invent some. The Sumner sisters, Faith, Hope and Charity, divvied up the personality traits all right, but not according to any of the current literature on birth order! Hope’s the middle child, but she’s always been the leader. (For the story of her tumble into love, read A Long Hot Christmas, Harlequin Temptation, December 2001.) Now, with Valentine’s Day approaching, it’s hearts and flowers for Faith and Charity and two romantic stories from me to you.

Barbara Daly

Books by Barbara Daly

HARLEQUIN DUETS

13—GREAT GENES!

34—NEVER SAY NEVER!

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

859—A LONG HOT CHRISTMAS

To David Ernstmeyer and Kate Carpenter, my heartfelt thanks for taking care of my kids when they got too old to listen to me.

1

CABOT DRENNAN STARED at the woman across the wrought-iron table from him. She meant more to him than anyone else in the world at this particular moment in his life. She meant what Charlie McCarthy meant to Edgar Bergen all those long years ago, what Judy Garland meant to the Metro Goldwyn Mayer studio, what Groucho meant to the Marx Brothers, what Larry and Curly meant to Moe.

Tippy Temple—blond, beautiful, angelic, today’s supporting actress and with Cabot’s expert advice and assistance, tomorrow’s biggest box-office hit—was hysterical.

“I’m gonna kill ’im, Cabot,” she screamed, her exquisite mouth twisted into something downright ugly. “That…” From that mouth came a string of expletives that sent chills up Cabot’s spine—chills of fear that the neighbors might be listening. “He can’t do that to me. He promised!” She burst into tears.

Cabot watched in despair. These were not the pretty tears that had run down her pristine face in A Kiss to Build a Dream On. They were tears of the purest, most vindictive rage.

One thing you could say about Tippy. She was a damned fine actress.

The tears ceased abruptly as Tippy reached for a cigarette. “I’m gonna call home and get a contract put out on him,” she said. “I’m gonna tell ’em to kill him slow, cut off his…”

“Tippy!”

“…toes one at a time and then his…What?” Sulkily she blew a stream of smoke through the nostrils of her perfect nose.

“There’s nothing we can do to Josh Barnett,” he said, struggling for a calm he himself did not feel. These were his hopes and dreams going up in smoke, as it were. “Josh agreed to marry you for the publicity, and he’s backed out on us. It was his right. It’s not like money changed hands, or we signed a—” Thinking it over, Cabot decided not to bring up the word contract again. “—a legal document.”

Tippy’s face contorted again. “He did more than back out, that…”

Cabot winced as another string of expletives bristled through the smoke. He’d had no idea there were so many pejorative phrases in the English language. “He eloped with Kathy, that…” Now the adjectives turned on Kathy Simpson, the star who’d beaten Tippy out for the lead in Kiss and now, it seemed, had stolen the co-star, Josh, as well. Tippy’s scowl deepened. “I’m gonna get her taken out, too, that…”

“Tippy, we must be calm and think this over.”

“Oh,” she said with a sudden breeziness, “I don’t need to think it over. I know exactly how I want it done. I’ll have the mob asphyxiate her with hair spray.”

Cabot closed his eyes. “That’s not what I meant. What I meant was, we need to think what to do next. I’ve already scheduled the chapel, the flowers, the reception. All we need is a groom.”

She threw her slender, golden arms up in the air. “Well, ain’t that just great. All we need’s a groom. Yeah, sure. So whadda you gonna do? Tour the agencies? Ask ’em, ‘Hey, who’ll marry Tippy? Anybody’ll do.’ You think that won’t get around in a New York minute?”

Tippy also surprised him occasionally with her intelligence, which was hard to see through the smoke. “Of course not,” he said, although that possibility had been going through his mind. “If Josh leaks the news to anybody, we’ll spread the word that you ditched him for…for…somebody else,” he finished lamely.

“Who?”

“That is the question,” he admitted.

He was unnerved to see that she was gazing at him speculatively. She stubbed out her cigarette, reached for a stick of gum, chewed it vigorously, pursed her full, sweetly bruised mouth and blew a bubble, all the while gazing at him with those big blue eyes.

“I’ll give it some thought,” he said hurriedly. “While I’m thinking, I’ll move right ahead with the honeymoon plans. You just relax, calm down, don’t spend another minute worrying about it. Leave it all up to me.”

She took the gum out of her mouth and deposited it in a tissue. The big blue eyes filled with tears in a way that made her look like the on-screen Tippy again. “I really had hopes for Josh and me,” she said in a soft, wistful voice that carried not a hint of Brooklyn in it. “I thought maybe we’d fall in love for real, live happily ever after just like in the fairy tales. But Kathy won, on-screen and off, and my heart is b-b-broken.” She burst into the most beautiful sobs he’d ever heard.

FLYING DOWN THE FREEWAY in his powerful sports car, he pondered what he was going to do now. Tippy Temple had talent, looks, a frightening determination, everything it took to succeed. From that point on it was up to him, her publicist, to see that she did succeed. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to move her toward stardom. And his career would take off along with hers. Just one big star would make him among the most sought-after publicists in the film industry.

He needed that.

So he had a little challenge here. Josh Barnett, Hollywood’s latest heartthrob, had backed out, had eloped with an actress who’d already made it, figuring Kathy could do more for his screen career than Tippy could. Or maybe Josh had actually fallen in love with Kathy Simpson during the making of Kiss. It happened sometimes. Cabot growled softly. Forget love. He had to be thinking about who was going to marry Tippy.

Did the “who” really matter? Wasn’t the wedding what it was all about? Tippy saying her vows while every local television station filmed her, the video of her splashy honeymoon picked up by the national film news programs, Tippy’s declarations of happiness alongside the photographs in Variety. It was all about Tippy getting married. Who cared who the groom was?

Might as well be…

Aw, no. I don’t want to. But who else am I going to get? He thought and thought. In the old days the Hollywood studios took care of arranging marriages, dates, even children for their stars. Now the job was up to publicity agents like him. He chewed his lower lip and thought some more. Tippy was right. He couldn’t go after an endless number of groom prospects without the word getting out that her marriage was nothing more than a publicity stunt. This town fed on gossip—a low-fat, low-carb, high-energy diet. That’s why everybody was so thin.

There was only one answer, and Tippy had figured it out faster than he had. He’d already compromised his principles by dreaming up this sham marriage as a way of boosting Tippy to stardom. What would one more compromise matter?

A lot, that’s what. He wouldn’t do it.

Unless he had to.

PALM FRONDS RUSTLED in the gentle breeze, making drowsy whishing sounds. The sand gleamed golden, warming her feet as she stepped dreamily toward an ocean of everchanging green and blue, white tipped, frothy and enticing as a key-lime pie.

“Faith?”

Her loose, lacy white shirt slipped down her tanned shoulders as she neared the shore, and with an impatient gesture she flung it to the sand, longing for the touch of the sun-warmed water against her desire-heated skin. She…

“Faith Sumner!”

…walked straight into the Caribbean and drowned.

“What!” said Faith as the palm trees folded. “Oh, Mr. Wycoff! Was there something you wanted?”

“A travel agent. That’s what I wanted, Miss Sumner. Not Sleeping Beauty.”

“Why, thank you,” Faith said, feeling herself blush a little, “but I was certainly not sleeping. I was concentrating intently on the many details of Mr. and Mrs. Mulden’s trip to the Cayman Islands. There are, as you know, many details, numerous, important details to fill in.” Don’t apologize, her younger sister Hope had told her. Be assertive.

“You were obviously daydreaming,” said Mr. Wycoff, looking down his stubby nose at her, “and the Muldens are expecting you to have finalized these many, numerous, important details by five this afternoon.”

“And that’s exactly what I will have done,” said Faith. Whirling to the computer, she saw the screen saver her youngest sister Charity had custom-designed for her. Words moved across the monitor in waves: Focus, Faith. Focus, Faith. She wiggled the mouse and was thrilled to see that it was the Muldens’ file that appeared on the screen. “Hotel confirmation number,” she murmured, stabbing at the keyboard. Mr. Wycoff strode back to his private office. “Bicycle rental confirmation number. Boat trip to…”

He waited for her on the shore, his legs apart and his arms folded over his chest, his darkly tanned body massive and virile in snug black swim briefs that left no doubt that his desire equaled, even surmounted, hers. She moved toward him slowly, the saltwater sliding off her slickly oiled skin in sheets, and his gaze roamed her shamelessly, bringing a hot flush to her face and a tingling sensation between her thighs that intensified with every step. They were face to face. She reached into the waiting picnic basket and pulled out the cut-glass dish filled with luscious tropical fruit.

Fresh pineapple, dripping golden juice, slippery wedges of deliciously scented mango, long, thin slices of papaya garnished with slivers of fresh lime and mint leaves.

“A bite of pineapple,” she murmured, “to cool off those hot eyes of yours.”

“Nothing beats a great pineapple, but not now.”

Faith shrieked, leaped straight up from her chair and spun to face the man she’d just been fantasizing about on the beach.

Except they weren’t on a beach. They were in the bright white environment of Wycoff Worldwide Travel Agency—”We make your dreams come true”—in the Westwood area of Los Angeles, surrounded by the hum of telephones, computer beeps and the voices of the four other Wycoff agents and their clients.

There were a few minor differences in the man himself. For one thing, he was wearing a three-piece suit, not a small, tight black swimsuit. For another, she wouldn’t exactly describe his gaze as “hot with passion.” “Hot with annoyance” was more like it.

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to organize her hair, her skirt, her blue silk sweater set and her mind all at the same time as she collapsed back into her desk chair. “I guess I was, um—” Might as well use the same line on him that had more-or-less worked with Mr. Wycoff. “—was concentrating so hard on my work that I didn’t see you come in.”

He wasn’t buying it. “Annoyance” was no longer sufficient to describe his mood. He looked like a bomb on a short fuse. Except for those things, he was identical to the man on the beach—big, dark haired, tanned, more or less drop-dead gorgeous. Just looking at his scowling face was reawakening the bothersome tingle.

This was no time to tingle. It was time to focus, and focusing on him would not exactly be painful.

“Please sit down. How may I help you?”

He sat down hard in the chair beside her desk, simultaneously handing her a card he’d fished out of the breast pocket of his suit coat. “You can plan a honeymoon for my client,” he said as if he would rather be tied to a stake and surrounded by dry firewood than planning a honeymoon.

Faith had to wrench her gaze away from his mouth in order to glance at the card. His lower lip was so full and curved so sensuously he should have been wearing a fig leaf over it. “‘Cabot Drennan,’” she murmured, “‘Publicist to the Stars.’ Oh, my goodness, what an exciting job. Well, Cabot…” Mr. Wycoff said to go straight for first names, unless you were talking to him. “There’s nothing I enjoy more than planning honeymoons. In fact, honeymoons are my specialty.” That wasn’t quite the truth, but it was the direction she intended to go in and she’d been doing a lot of research on her own time—and quite a bit more on Mr. Wycoff’s. “What sort of location were you thinking of?” Her own dream honeymoon havens began flitting through her mind.

“Someplace with good light and a dependable electrical system.”

She blinked. “And an air of romance, I would imagine,” she said hopefully. “Have you considered the Cayman Islands?” It would be so efficient to send this client honeymooning right along with the Muldens.

“How’s the phone system there?”

Faith slid her gaze down from his close-cropped head of black hair to his chocolate-brown eyes. “Well, I’ve been online with many of the hotels there this week, but I don’t suppose that makes me an authority on the subject. There’s Rio de Janeiro,” she said, warming to her task. “What could be more romantic?”

“Too far.”

“Mexico, then. It’s closer to L.A., if your client is concerned about being too far from home, and the coastal towns have some lovely resorts with absolutely private bungalows, perfect for a…”

“Privacy is the last thing she wants.”

Odder and odder. “Has she considered a cruise?”

“You’re trapped on a cruise.” A muscle twitched tensely in his cheek.

“She’s already trapped, in a manner of speaking,” Faith said earnestly. “Once she promises to have and to hold, in sickness or in…”

His face reddened with impatience. “I didn’t come here for a lecture on family values.”

“How about the coast of Maine?”

“Too cold. She’ll have goose bumps in the photos.”

“Oh. Of course. She’ll want to take a lot of pictures for her memory book.”

He heaved a deep sigh. “She’s an up-and-coming young actress.” For a moment his eyes shifted left and he seemed uncomfortable. “I’ll be taking a crew along to make a video of the honeymoon.”

“A video? You’re going to film this woman’s honeymoon?”

“Yes.”

Faith straightened, locked her knees tightly together and pursed her lips. “Well. I’m very sorry,” she said, “but we at Wycoff Worldwide wouldn’t consider being a party to that kind of film. I’m afraid you will have to look elsewhere for travel assistance.”

He half rose from the chair. As big as he was, it scared Faith a little, but she stiffened her backbone. Standards were standards, and she was not going to make the arrangements for a porn flick.

“I don’t intend to film that part of the honeymoon, for God’s sake,” he said in a deep growl that thinned out his sexy lower lip until it was nearly normal.

“In that case,” she squeaked, “we at Wycoff are happy to assist you.”

He sat down again, his lower lip relaxed, and Faith was faced with a whole new issue, most of it going on below the waistband of her flowered silk skirt.

“Look—” He stared at her left breast.

Feel free to touch the display. But he wasn’t actually looking at her breast. He was looking at the rectangular silver pin just above her left breast, the one with her name on it.

“—Faith, this is a fairly simple thing I’m asking you to do. I want you to make the arrangements for a honeymoon in an accessible location with top-flight technological services—” he halted for a moment, looking thoughtful “—and dependable beauticians and manicurists—” he paused again “—and it has to be a well-known honeymoon spot.” His glower returned.

Faith swiveled her chair a little to face him more fully, just as she’d learned to do in People Skills, the only course in the Travel Agent program she hadn’t daydreamed her way through. But the instructor hadn’t mentioned what to do if, when her knees brushed the client’s, it sent a shot of electricity through her entire body. As though he’d felt it too, his gaze briefly melted over her.

“I’m sure I can make your dreams come true,” she murmured. “I mean, her dreams.”

He snorted. “But can you make the reservations?”

Faith took a deep breath, gave herself the condensed version of her sister Hope’s lecture on presenting herself positively and said, “Of course. First we’ll find the location of her dreams. That may take a little research.”

“Time is money. You never have enough of either one.”

He had a way with words. “Tomorrow,” she said. “By tomorrow I’ll be able to offer you a choice of desirable locations and we’ll proceed from there.”

“Today would be better.”

Today she had to get the Cayman Islands organized to receive the Muldens. “I’ll do my best,” she promised.

“I was thinking Reno.”

She stared at him blankly. “It’s certainly well-known as a spot for quick marriages,” she said. “Is this a quick marriage? Oh, dear,” she said at once, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I was just thinking how many truly romantic places there were and wondering…”

“The hotel is your problem, not the romance.” If anything, he looked even grimmer and less romantic than he had before. “The thing about Reno,” he went on, “is it’s close and it’s got all those hokey round beds and pink rooms and AC current.”

“It does have those advantages.” She felt deeply disappointed in him. A publicist who looked like a romantic fantasy should be able to rise above Reno, or even Niagara Falls. Not that Reno wasn’t a lot of fun and the Falls weren’t fantastic, but you only got one honeymoon, and it ought to be…

“I sense you don’t approve.”

Faith jolted in her chair. “My job is to send her where she wants to go,” she assured him, “not to approve or disapprove.”

“So make it Reno,” he said. “Tippy will be crazy about Reno.”

“Tippy?” Faith said, and then it hit her. “You’re not talking about Tippy Temple.”

For a moment he looked uncomfortable. “Yes. You’ve heard of her?”

“I saw her interview on the Scott Trent Show and liked her so much I rented her movie.” Faith felt breathless as she lapsed into a reverie about the romantic film she’d watched last weekend.

“Her first big movie, I think,” she said. “A Kiss to Build a Dream On. She may not have been the lead, but she was the star as far as I’m concerned.” She sighed. “She’s beautiful, and so sweet. Oh, the way she gave up Josh Barnett to the heroine, what’s-her-name, was the most touching, the most heroic act. I’m so happy she’s found her true love in real life.” She focused her gaze on Cabot. “May I ask, would it be too personal a question, who she’s marrying?”

In the silence, she watched a variety of expressions cross Cabot’s face. His eyes widened, then narrowed as he chewed on his lower lip, and at last he settled for lines of grim resignation.

“Me,” he said.

2

THERE IT WAS. He’d made his decision, sitting across from the cutest little woman he’d ever met, looking into her gray eyes and realizing it was time to fish or cut bait.

Maybe he wasn’t so much cutting bait as cutting off the light of sudden attraction he’d seen and recognized in those eyes, and responded to in a big way. Cute little persons weren’t on his agenda right now. Little stars who deserved to be big stars were. When he had a stable of successful clients, he’d be free to look for the kind of woman he’d like to spend the rest of his life with, the kind of woman…

The kind of woman who’d lose that light of sudden attraction the second she heard he was already spoken for. That’s what Faith Sumner had done. The dreamy quality of her gaze was gone, replaced by a look as severely professional as he guessed a butterfly like Faith could manage.

FAITH DIDN’T REALIZE she’d been daydreaming about honeymooning herself with Cabot Drennan until he hit her with the news that he was the lucky man who was marrying Tippy Temple. That ended the never-fully-realized daydream.

However gorgeous he was, however beautifully he personified the man she would someday love and be cherished by, she had to give up this particular man forever. Even in her dreams. She could never deprive someone as lovely as Tippy Temple of the man of her dreams.

Or the honeymoon of her dreams.

So she relinquished her own happiness. Her heartbreak would be brief, since her daydream hadn’t lasted long. She faced Cabot Drennan squarely and said, “Tippy is not going to want to honeymoon in Reno. She’ll want to go to the most romantic place in the world. Paris. Venice off-season, or a private villa on the coast of—”

“My cell phone won’t work in Europe.”

Faith gazed at him for a long, long moment. “An isolated lodge in the Rockies?”

“No.”

She leaned toward him a bit. “A tiny bed-and-breakfast in Vermont?”

“No.”

“In Napa Valley?”

“No.”

Her voice hardened. “A private car on a coast-to-coast train.”

“No.”

“Williamsburg, Virginia? You can live out your fantasies in Colonial costume.”

He gave her a look of scorn. “No.”

“Rent San Simeon—you know, the Hearst estate about halfway up the coast? It’s a national park, but I think you can rent the bungalows.”

He showed his first flicker of interest. “Hmm. Phone, electricity. We could bring in the hairdressers and manicurists and all the other paraphernalia. Rent another bungalow for the crew. Yeah. Find out how much it costs.”

Feeling hopeful, Faith spun to her computer. Charity had been one of those kids who taught the rest of the family how to use their first computer. Thanks to her coaching—bullying was more like it—Faith was fairly computer-literate. In a few minutes she had her answer.

“No,” Cabot said when he heard the price.

Thoroughly frustrated, Faith collapsed back against her chair. “All right, I’ll get to work on accommodations in Reno, but please do this one thing for me?”

His expression said he’d done all he could just by sitting there listening to her ridiculous suggestions.

“Talk to Tippy about this first.” Faith was sure the angelic Tippy would have a fit, an angelic fit, of course, about going to Reno, and Cabot would be back, humble and subdued, to take a look at that little bed-and-breakfast in Vermont or the isolated lodge in the Rockies.

“Of course. Then we’re through for now?”

Unfortunately. “Yes.”

“You’ll get right to work on it. You won’t wait for Tippy’s answer.”

“No,” Faith lied. Of course she would. And while she waited, she’d finish up the Muldens’ arrangements.

“I’ll call you early tomorrow morning.”

“How early?” Again the look on his face stopped her. Wordlessly she handed him her business card, which listed her office number, home number, cell phone number, pager number and e-mail address. She was grateful Wycoff printed cards for its agents. She’d never be able to memorize all those numbers.

He took the card, got up and started for the door. Faith watched his every movement, the stride of his long legs, the roll of his broad shoulders, the way his hand wrenched at the door handle. She got up to follow his progress across the street, where he swung smoothly into some sort of small, gleaming silver sports car. He looked terrific in sunglasses.

She stood at the window for a long, long moment, unable to keep herself from resuming her daydream of that tall, dark, domineering man turning into so much custard in her hands. Melting under her touch, while she slyly hid the fact that she was melting too, turning into a river of—

“Faith…” It was Mr. Wycoff right behind her, issuing a warning.

“Yes, sir,” Faith said, whirling, “the Muldens. By five.”

She’d just reached her desk when the telephone rang. She heard the scratchy static, the fade-in, fade-out sounds of a car phone. “You forgot to ask me when,” the voice said.

“Cabot?” She knew it was Cabot because the bottom sort of dropped out of her stomach, and she could feel the flush climbing her cheeks, prickling up into her scalp.

“How can you make reservations when you don’t know when the honeymoon is?”

“Well, of course there are the preliminary steps, the general approach, the data-gathering—what are the best hotels and so on and so on.” She was gesturing a lot, she noticed, which wasn’t going to help make her point over the phone.

“Bull. You forgot to ask. We’re getting married on the Fourth of July. Independence Day. You see the irony.”

“Yes,” Faith said faintly.

“And there’s also the fireworks connection. Ought to make good copy.” His voice picked up speed. “Less than six months between now and then. I’ve got a lot to do and I have to know where I’m doing it. So get going.”

He hung up. Faith sat still for a moment, feeling stunned. Good copy? Electricity? Lighting? Were these things a man should be thinking about when he was marrying a lovely, sweet-as-she-was-pretty starlet like Tippy Temple? The one thing Faith knew was that Cabot Drennan was in for a hot honeymoon. But that would make good copy, too.

Focus, Faith. Focus, Faith, Focus…

“Okay, okay,” she muttered to the screen saver, and with considerable effort, turned her mind toward scuba-diving gear for the Muldens.

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Cabot was back at the house Tippy had rented in the chic Bel Air district, sitting beside her at the pool. At high noon on a perfect Southern California January day, she was turning Nordic-golden before his very eyes while he sweated in his three-piece suit.

“Reno! Awesome! I feel better already,” Tippy said, popping her chewing gum at him. “Get us one of those honeymoon suites with a round bed, okay? And a Jacuzzi. I’ll look great in a Jacuzzi.”

Tippy kept her weight down to nothing by smoking and kept her cigarette count down by chewing bubblegum in between cigarettes. Just now one of her all-time biggest and best bubbles practically obscured her slim, lovely face. Cabot steeled himself for the eventual…

Pop! “The arrangements are underway,” he said. “I’ll keep you posted.”

“Gr-r-eat,” Tippy said. Her lower lip began to tremble. “An’ I really appreciate you bein’ willin’ to marry me, after that…that…” Tears welled up.

“Don’t cry, Tippy,” Cabot said, thinking, Don’t start up with the swearing! “It’s my pleasure. I mean, what’s a publicist for?”

One huge droplet slid down her flawless skin as she gazed at him earnestly. “This is going to work for me, isn’t it, Cabot? The publicity? Just a little publicity is all I need, right?”

“Jack and I are sure of it,” he told her, feeling more kindly toward her. Her agent, Jack Langley, had hired him to promote her to the top ranks and Cabot was determined to do it. She deserved a break, this kid from Brooklyn with no connections. So did he, for that matter, a kid from Hollywood with no connections beyond the ones he’d worked his butt off for. And he wasn’t going to let his conscience get in a twist about this thing he’d agreed to do. Whatever Tippy’s private faults, she was, damn it, a good actress.

He felt a smile curving his lips. Good enough to fool that travel agent, Faith Sumner. He’d spotted her from the front door of the agency and had known at once she was the right agent for the job. With her head obviously full of dreams, she’d never figure out that this marriage was made in a publicist’s office, not heaven.

She was a pretty little thing. He kept thinking of her as being little. She was about five-five, he’d guess, but with all that curly blond hair floating around her face—hair a lot like Tippy’s, actually—and the fluttery way she had about her, she seemed smaller than her size and could easily pass for eighteen.

Her gray eyes were like dark pearls.

Back on track, Drennan. “Tippy,” he said gravely, “you do understand we have to keep this quiet.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

He hoped she said “I do” and not “Shoo-uh” when they made their vows. “We can’t let anybody figure out this is just a publicity stunt.”

“I unnerstan’ poifectly, Cabot.” Tippy switched from gum to tobacco. “We’re in love and we’re gonna get married.”

Right. Here he was, getting married to a woman he felt sort of protective toward and that was it. And he was doing it entirely to get her name, and his, in the papers. And he figured if the marriage didn’t do the trick, the not-so-discreet divorce would.

He fanned the smoke away from his face. “I went to a low-key travel agency in Westwood,” he explained. “They’ll be less likely to figure it out than one of the agencies around here, and even if they figure it out, less likely to talk.”

She turned huge blue eyes on him. No longer wet, now they were calculating. “Low-key? Are you sure they can do it up classy-like?”

“I’ll see to it that they do.”

“Maybe we ought to do a dry run.”

“A what?”

“You know. Rehearse the honeymoon. Go see what this low-key agency set up for us. Take the crew along. Finalize a script for the video. Work on the lighting. Try out the bed. Find me a psychiatrist. See if there’s a good pastrami sandwich anywhere. Check out the Chinese restaurants.” She stubbed out her cigarette and reached for a fresh pack of bubblegum.

He was startled, as always when Tippy’s hard-headed practicality showed itself. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “It’ll be expensive,” he warned her, knowing she was rapidly spending the money she’d made from the film Faith had rhapsodized about.

“It’ll pay off.” She blew a huge bubble.

It had better. On the way to the car, Cabot fiddled with his cell phone, got out Faith’s card, started to punch in her office number, then decided not to call her yet. It could wait until morning.

A dry run. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

“RENO’S PREMIER HONEYMOON HOTEL. Six spectacular honeymoon suites, featuring water beds, his-and-hers baths with Jacuzzis, his-and-hers dressing rooms…”

Why not his-and-hers beds? Snuggled into her own bed, which was much cozier than a water-filled bed sounded, Faith gazed at the laptop monitor that showed a lurid suite reminiscent of one you’d see in the movies of the fifties. The white-carpeted room was huge. At least, it had been photographed from an angle to make it look huge.

The heart-shaped bed, swathed in pink satin, was the central feature, naturally.

She cuddled a little more deeply into her mound of pillows as the ache of frustrated desire began its climb through her center. She could envision Cabot Drennan, dressed in a paisley silk dressing gown and nothing else, turning down that bed and tossing her, dressed in Passion perfume and nothing else, onto it. Resolutely she substituted a fuzzy image of Tippy Temple for the clear image of herself. If she couldn’t allow herself even the briefest, most fleeting thought of sharing that bed with Cabot, at least she was giving him up to a woman who deserved him.

Still, it was disappointing to meet the man of her dreams on the eve, so to speak, of his marriage to another woman.

“…magnificent Olympic pool, saunas, dramatic casino, big-name entertainment, twenty-four-hour room service.”

She sighed deeply. Honeymooners would like that—room service at any time of the day or night.

“…European-trained hairstylists and manicurists on the premises, full range of business services…”

This perked her up a little. Cabot would like that, too. He’d need a break from Tippy now and then, surely. While she had her hair and nails done, he could catch up with life at his office. Maybe even call his travel agent to tell her—

—that he’d made a terrible mistake! That he wished he could take it back! Annul the marriage! Come back to Los Angeles to the woman he really…

Yes, this hotel, the Inn of Dreams located right in the heart of downtown Reno, seemed to be exactly what he was looking for.

An e-mail alert popped up in the corner of the screen. Faith opened it. “Hold off on the July reservations until we talk. I’m coming in to your office when it opens. C. Drennan.”

Her heart beat a rat-a-tat. Could it be? Were her dreams about to come true?

She leaped out of bed, whirled back to save the data she’d gathered on a diskette to take with her to the office and then darted toward the shower. She had exactly thirty-nine minutes to make herself presentable and beat Cabot to the agency. It was going to be a stretch.

CABOT PACED UP AND DOWN in front of Wycoff’s Worldwide wondering why no one was there at two-and-a-half minutes before nine. How could you start working at nine if you didn’t get there well beforehand, have your coffee, go through your In box, be ahead of the game before the day actually began? He’d e-mailed his agent that he’d be there at opening time. He’d expected her to be waiting at the door.

He’d wanted her to be waiting at the door.

What was he doing here anyway? Now that he’d seen who he was working with, now that he’d decided to trust her, why hadn’t he just relied on the telephone. He did everything else on the telephone. Well, almost everything else. At this stage in his life, he didn’t do much that couldn’t be done on the telephone. But it was too late now. He’d said he’d be here and he was here, and where the hell was she?

Exactly at nine, it all happened in a perfectly synchronized fashion. A portly man came to the door and unlocked it at the same time two women and two other men materialized on the sidewalk. Neither of the women was Faith. The group outside forged to the inside, carrying Cabot along with them as they said good-morning to each other and the portly man, then the Wycoff group paused expectantly, waiting.

A minute later Cabot found out what they were waiting for. He heard the squeal of worn tires, the roar of a car engine that needed a new muffler, the grinding of brakes that needed new linings. And in another moment Faith flew through the door, her hair surrounding her face like a golden cloud, her eyes as wild as pearl-gray eyes could get and her silky gray pantsuit in need of a pressing.

A ray of sun shot through the window and straight through her hair, and for a second, Cabot was blinded. He stared at the apparition, trying to still the pounding of his heart.

He strongly felt that he ought to fall to his knees and repent for something or other, and he’d gotten so hard so fast that he actually had something specific to repent.

But the cloud of fire and mist that was Faith Sumner rushed toward him, smoothing her suit with one hand and her hair with another, and gradually reality seeped back.

“Oh, Cabot, sorry you had to wait. Mr. Wycoff—” she turned to the portly man “—sorry to be late. I…”

“Don’t waste time apologizing,” Cabot interrupted her. He gestured toward her desk. “My plans have changed and I have exactly seventeen minutes to explain the situation.”

He observed with satisfaction that the other travel agents immediately began slinking toward their work stations. Wycoff opened his mouth, then closed it and went through a doorway into what was undoubtedly his office, a private one where he would be protected from the hustle and bustle of the actual work.

Faith simply sat down at her desk and gazed at him with a peculiar light in her eyes. So he sat down, too.

“When did you get here?” she asked testily.

“Eight fifty-seven.”

“Were they already here?” She gestured around the room at the other agents.

“No, they all sort of appeared at once just as that guy unlocked the door.”

“How do they do it?” Her expression pleaded with him to understand. “How do they get here exactly at nine, not a minute early, not a minute late? I swear some alien power beams them to the front door.”

“You were only one minute late.” He didn’t know where his forgiving attitude had come from. He supposed it was coming straight from his groin, which still hadn’t stopped acting hopeful.

“When I’m one minute late they’re all standing in the center of the waiting area staring at me when I come in.” Her shoulders drooped.

She was wearing mascara, but only on one set of blond lashes, and her lipstick, something pale pink and shiny, was crooked. He was fascinated, but he couldn’t let on.

“I don’t care,” he said gruffly. “Here’s my problem.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, “your problem.” She whirled and reached down to her computer. After she’d pushed several wrong buttons, she finally got the right one and the monitor began to show signs of life. Next she reached into her handbag, fished around, began hauling things out—a wrench, a sandwich, a paper-clipped bundle of coupons, a tube of stain remover, a romance novel—and eventually pulled out a diskette in an ordinary white envelope. “Got it,” she said, waving it at him before she tried to jam it into the CD slot, then into the Zip drive slot and at last, with only the one alternative remaining, slid it smoothly into the A drive.

He waited, tapping one finger on the arm of his chair, trying not to notice the tilt of her perfect little nose, her pale, creamy skin, her small, slender hands as they wreaked their havoc.

She turned back to him, looking triumphant. “Now,” she said. “You mentioned a change of plans.”

“Yes. Don’t make the July reservations yet.”

“No? Are you sure?” Her voice softened. So did her face.

“Yes. Make them for the second weekend in February.”

Inexplicably, her face fell. “Of course. Certainly. If I can get reservations. You’re, ah, moving the wedding back? Oh,” she sighed as a calendar mysteriously appeared on the monitor, “that’s the weekend before Valentine’s Day! Instead of skyrockets, you’re going for hearts and fl—”

“No,” he interrupted her. “I’m doing a dry run.”

“A dry run. Of your honeymoon.”

“Anything wrong with that?”

Faith could think of about a million things wrong with that. She considered listing them. Then she considered the new muffler she needed and the funny way her car sounded when she put on the brakes. Her final consideration was the most important. This was her thirteenth job since she’d finished undergraduate school with a degree in languages and no skills beyond French, Spanish and Italian. She had to make this one last.

“Of course not,” she said smoothly.

“Okay. So book me a honeymoon suite for the nights of the eighth through the tenth.”

She hesitated. “It may not be easy so close to Valentine’s Day.”

“Don’t anticipate trouble.” That impatient growl again.

Something about his voice sent her whirling to the screen. “The hotel I’ve chosen…” she began.

“Just make the reservation.”

Silently, feeling oddly sulky, Faith punched at the keyboard, moved the mouse around on a mousepad that had the word Focus! printed on it in capital letters. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but they’re fully booked for…Oops!” Startled, she drew back. “Somebody just broke up.” A slot, in fact a deluxe theme suite, had opened up before her very eyes. “Our most popular theme room,” they described it on the Web site. She cast a sideways glance at Cabot, feeling he’d somehow done it himself, broken up a couple who had a reservation in his hotel for his room.

“So grab it!” He was half out of his chair, reaching for the mouse.

She grabbed it.

He heaved such a sigh she was sure he was wondering what error in his otherwise impeccable judgment had led him to walk up to her workstation yesterday when all around them automatons were chatting with contented-looking clients while quietly doing everything perfectly, serene, unharried smiles painted on their faces.

With the room safely booked, she asked him, “Shall I reserve a wedding chapel in Reno?”

“No.” He growled the word. “I don’t intend to be married by Elvis.”

“That’s more of a Las Vegas thing,” Faith explained.

“The answer’s still no. The ceremony will be here and we’ll fly to Reno. I’ll need two limos from the Little Chapel in the Pines to LAX and two waiting at the Reno-Tahoe airport.”

“One for each of you?” It came out like a squeak.

Another sigh. “No, one for the crew.”

“Oh, yes, the crew.” It wasn’t her place to tell Cabot Drennan she thought his honeymoon plans sounded less than romantic. She went to the Web site of her favorite limousine service, the one with plenty of long, long, white, white cars, which they decorated with flowers when they carried a wedding party.

She frowned. Flowers that would freeze if they had to drive over any mountain passes between the airport and Reno. Maybe they used fake in February. Maybe they used fake all the time. How would she know? She’d never ridden in one.

“What are you thinking about besides my limos?”

She turned to confront his accusing glare. “Fake flowers,” she said before she could stop herself.

“Good idea,” he said. “Tell the limo service I want them to cover the lead car in fake flowers.”

“No problem.” They’d love it.

“Then look up the restaurants in the area and choose five of them.”

“Five?” She couldn’t help herself.

“Two lunches, three dinners. And limos to take us. No flowers.”

“Oh.” She turned to him, wondering if she was doing the right thing. “The hotel features twenty-four-hour room service.”

“That’s very interesting information. Now book the five restaurants.”

“Won’t you at least want breakfast in bed?” She was feeling sorrier for Tippy Temple’s raging hormones by the minute. She knew Tippy Temple’s hormones had to be raging at the prospect of being Cabot’s bride, because her own hormones were raging just sitting across from him watching him glower at her.

“Okay. Breakfast in the room. After the hairdresser and manicurist leave. Book one of each every morning at seven.”

A night with Cabot Drennan could certainly mess a woman up. On the other hand, she couldn’t imagine a night with Cabot Drennan would end at seven in the morning.

“Coming right up. How about a massage?”

“Too time-consuming. And I wouldn’t want to film it.”

“It might relax both of you.”

“We’re already relaxed,” he said tightly. “No massage.”

She sighed. “I’ll get to work on the restaurants.”

“Nothing exotic. Tippy’s a salad girl. Meat, potatoes, salad, good wine list. And a bar,” he added, sounding glum about the prospect even as he specified it. “We need a smoking section.”

“Tippy smokes?” An uneasy feeling slid through her body. She remembered reading something about…When Cabot hesitated, she moved the mouse around and found what she was looking for. Her uneasiness intensified.

“No,” he said finally. “I might want an occasional cigar. Or somebody in the film industry might join us for dinner. You know. Just covering all the bases.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” She expelled a sigh of pure relief. “Because the Inn of Dreams advertises itself as Reno’s only no-smoking hotel. I was worried to death there for a minute.”

“Stop worrying,” Cabot said, his brows drawn together in what Faith would describe as a worried frown. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow.” He got up.

She really hated to see him leave. She really hated thinking she could get all this together by tomorrow. It would take more focusing than she thought she could manage, especially with the elusive scent of his aftershave lingering around her workstation, the daydreams already appearing on the margins of her mind. Daydreams of her sharing this strange, much-too-organized honeymoon and throwing it at once into spontaneous, passionate chaos.

“O-kay,” she said, feeling warm and dreamy.

His frown deepened. “You’ve got a funny look in your eyes.”

“What kind of look?” She locked away the daydreams.

“Never mind. It’s gone.” And so was he. She didn’t even let her gaze follow him to the door. She didn’t have to. She’d already memorized every nuance of his body.

3

IN LOS ANGELES ALONE, forget Pasadena and Malibu and all the other contiguous communities, the ratio of travel agents to customers had to be one to ten, and he’d somehow picked the one who made him look at what he did for a living and find it detestable.

Creating an image for a client, a job he was good at, could be described two ways. One was simply bringing out the best in a person.

His father had needed nothing more than some decent promotion. The guy had been a great actor. He’d provided a comfortable living for the family doing bit parts. But he’d never made it to the big time. At last he’d given up trying, ended up teaching drama at a small Midwestern college and acting with the local community theater. He was the reason Cabot had become a publicist in the first place. He’d wanted to do for actors what he wished someone had done for his father.

Nothing detestable about that.

The other way of describing image making was that you were inventing a whole new person out of lies. Tippy was invented.

Cabot realized he was chewing his nails. Twenty-five dollars for the essential executive’s manicure these days and he was chewing his nails. He needed to do something with his hands. Of course, he was driving with his hands, but in L.A. that didn’t count. He had to call Tippy, but after he’d punched her number into his car phone, he was hands-free again.

“I want to take you to dinner,” he said as soon as he’d gotten her on the line.

“Shoo-uh,” Tippy said, ending with a big popping sound. “Where? You gonna get a photographer? Get us in Variety?”

“That depends,” Cabot said mysteriously.

“Well, I got a new dress and I wanna be sure we’re going someplace worth wearing it.” She sounded cross.

“Wear it. We’re going to Spago.” The restaurant was always packed with celebrities. Incentive. That’s what he needed here. Motivation.

She cheered up right away. Of course, he also heard the ominous sound of a lighter flicking on and the whoosh of breath that meant she’d inhaled a long, satisfying drag from a cigarette.

It would not be an easy evening.

Several hours later he was seated across the table from her. Her streaky blond hair was fluffed out in a cloud that reminded him way too much of Faith’s hair and her skin had just the right degree of tan, golden and smooth. Her lipstick was pale. Her fingernails were pale, too, and perfect. She was utterly gorgeous in a dress made of two or three or—well, one too few layers of blue chiffon that made her the focal point of the entire room of beautiful people.

The waiter hovered. Cabot ordered drinks. The second they arrived, Tippy, with extraordinary grace, pulled out a cigarette and held it up expectantly.

“We’re in a no-smoking section,” Cabot said.

“What the hell were you doing putting us in the no-smoking section?” Her face was sweet. Her tone wasn’t.

“You need to get in training,” Cabot said.

“What for?” She tapped the cigarette on the table.

“For the dry run. We’re booked into a no-smoking hotel.”

“So switch hotels.”

“Can’t. They’re all full. It’s the weekend before Valentine’s Day.”

“Well, screw ’em,” Tippy said. “Put on the pressure. Pay somebody a little cash under the table.” Her face was still sweet. She really was one great actress. Only Cabot could see the tic starting to twitch in the corner of her left eye.

“I’m working with a travel agent,” Cabot said. “I don’t think she’s the put-on-the-pressure, a-little-cash-under-the-table kind of person.”

“Screw her too.” She punctuated each word with a jab of her swizzle stick, the one that had come with her extra-dry straight-up martini and had once had olives impaled on it.

Cabot felt a hard red flush of anger rising to his face and squelched it by sheer strength of will. “You don’t want to do that. She’s one of your biggest fans.”

“She is?” Sudden interest gleamed in the baby blues.

“Absolutely. She sees you as the saint, the martyr you played in Kiss. Now Tippy,” he said indulgently, “a big part of my job is to establish your image in the media minds. Your job is to maintain that image. Have I got this right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, this travel agent believes in your image. She booked the no-smoking hotel by accident, I think.” Here Cabot paused for a moment, reflecting that Faith Sumner probably did a good many things by accident. “She’d be deeply, deeply disappointed in you if I told her you couldn’t make this one little sacrifice, not smoking for a weekend. You might lose a fan. You can’t afford to lose a fan. Not even one.” This was a subtle reminder that she hadn’t made it to the big time yet. There was still room for a little humility, a little accommodation.

She contemplated him coolly, never losing the sweet smile. “I think you got a little thing for this travel agent,” she said.

The color rose again to Cabot’s face. “Absolutely—”

“You’re not thinkin’ about backin’ out on me, are you? Like Josh?”

“—not. I’ve made a commitment…to your career.” He added after a brief hesitation, “And I intend to follow through on it.”

“That’s a promise.”

“Yes.”

“Scout’s honor?”

“Scout’s honor.”

She gazed at him. “Okay, then.”

“Okay what?”

“Okay, keep the friggin’ no-smokin’ hotel.”

“Thanks,” Cabot said gratefully. “I promise you we’ll have a decent time. I’ll stock the room with chocolates and—”

“Whaddya mean ‘we’?”

“Pardon?”

“If you think for one minute I’m goin’ on that dry run with you you’re dumber than I figured. Not smoke for a whole weekend? Fageddaboudit.”

“Tippy…” Cabot looked up to see a waiter hovering over them. “Salads,” he said, “one Caesar, one Cobb, and bring me the wine list. No, just bring us a bottle of something. I don’t suppose you have any hemlock stashed away in the back.”

“Is that a California, sir, or a French…”

“He was kidding,” Tippy said, melting the waiter with a long, long look, then turning the look on Cabot.

It didn’t faze him. He glared at her from across the table. “You expect me to do the dry run alone? Pose for the video by myself?”

“You’d look precious in my going-away suit,” Tippy said, “but no, this is the movies, baby. You take a double.”

SO HERE HE WAS AGAIN, back at Wycoff Worldwide and feeling like a fool. But this time, what he had to do wasn’t the kind of thing you could do on the phone.

Just to show himself, and her, that it wasn’t anything about her that had brought him back, he gave her a scowl as he walked right past her and straight to the head honcho’s office.

He peered in. Wycoff, a portly man with a bulbous nose, sat behind his desk leafing through travel brochures, like a man planning his own vacation. “Harrumph,” Cabot said.

Wycoff lifted his head, but he didn’t look happy to see Cabot standing there. “May I help you?” he said in an unhelpful tone.

“Yes.” Cabot strode in and sat down, refusing to be put off. “Name’s Cabot Drennan. Your agent Faith Sumner is working with me on my honeymoon arrangements and I…” He paused, fascinated by the dull-red color suffusing Wycoff’s face.

“Say no more. I’ll set you up at once with Miss Eldridge. Miss Eldridge has been with me for thirty years, and she—”

“I don’t want Miss Eldridge. I want Miss Sumner.” Feeling that a dull red flush might be climbing his face, he added hastily, “to go on working with me.”

“You do? She hasn’t somehow booked your cruise on a Russian oil tanker or found you a hotel where an Elderhostel is in session and the food is cafeteria style?”

“Of course not,” Cabot snapped. The man was a pig. He disliked him intensely. “She’s been terrific,” he lied. “Over-the-top. If you had a few more agents like her…”

Now Wycoff blanched and Cabot decided he’d gone too far. He’d only known Faith for two days, but already he could tell he didn’t want more than one of her in his life. Although having her in his life would be…What am I saying? What am I thinking?

“What I mean is,” he said, starting over, “that I have a request that might sound, I mean right at the beginning, until you understand the concept, sort of unusual.” Since Wycoff’s eyes were darting right and left as if he were looking for help, Cabot barreled right ahead. “I want Ms. Sumner to take the honeymoon with me first.”

Wycoff lumbered up out of his chair. “Mr. Brandon, I must—”

“Drennan,” said Cabot.

“Mr. Drennan.” Wycoff wasn’t a whole lot taller standing up than he had been sitting down. That’s what Cabot would call short legs. “What you suggest is absolutely out of the question. It’s indecent. I could get sued.”

For a minute there, Cabot had thought Wycoff actually cared about Faith, in which case, he’d try to forgive the man for being a pig. Now he didn’t have to. “What I mean is that I want her there to check out the arrangements in person, on site. It’s called ‘advancing’ the event,” he added in case Wycoff needed a buzz word to make things clear. “It would be like standing in for the bride, the way a maid of honor does at the wedding rehearsal. I’d want her to take her complaints to the hotel staff, smooth things out before the actual honeymoon.”

Wycoff was thinking about it. It was a good sign.

“My intended is a film star,” Cabot threw into the silence. “Wonderful woman, but you know how temperamental actresses can be. I just want things to go well.”

“A movie star?”

Those were magic words in Los Angeles, maybe anywhere. “Yes. We haven’t made the announcement yet, or I’d tell you her name.”

The man’s mouth was clearly watering.

“Agent Sumner could do my PR firm a great service,” Cabot said solemnly. “But of course I wanted to get your approval first. Then you can talk to her, see how she feels about it.”

“I assure you, Mr. Drennan, that if I’m convinced it’s a good idea, Miss Sumner will do as I ask.”

“I thought that might be the case,” Cabot said, and settled back, satisfied.

FAITH SAT at her desk staring at the Focus, Faith screen saver and contemplating the loss of yet another job. It was the only reason Cabot could possibly have for bending Mr. Wycoff’s ear.

Once again she’d failed. Where had she gone wrong? Because however well suited she seemed to be for a job, something always went wrong.

Succeeding as a travel agent at Wycoff Worldwide was important to her. The time Hope and Charity had put into coaching her and designing screen savers and mouse pads, that alone was enough to make this job important, to say nothing of the fact that they’d paid for her training.

And she was the oldest. According to the current literature on birth order, she was supposed to be the leader, the competitive one, the…

“Faith!”

…one to carry on the family work ethic, the one most likely to…

“Faith Sumner!”

…walk into Mr. Wycoff’s office and get fired. As she staggered forward on leaden feet, she discovered that the feet were wearing unmatched shoes. They were the same color, pearl gray to match her suit. It was the heel height that was different. This meant she’d also taken a mismatched pair to the shoe shop for resoling, which meant that now she’d have to take these two shoes in as well, which would cost twice as much, and the higher-heeled pair hadn’t even needed resoling.

Leveling herself by walking on one toe and one heel, she stuck her head through the doorway of Mr. Wycoff’s office. “You called?” Her knees buckled under her and her throat closed up. “Sir?” she squeaked.

Cabot Drennan lounged gracefully in one of Mr. Wycoff’s visitor chairs, his right ankle crossed over his left knee, looking more serene than she’d ever seen him look. Getting someone sacked must be a real mood-lifter for him. She’d been too agitated earlier to notice how he was dressed, but it had to be Casual Friday at his office because he wasn’t in his three-piece suit. He was in khaki shorts, snowy-white running shoes and an even snowier polo shirt. The white gleamed against his all-over tan, and his dark eyes gleamed as he slowly raised his gaze to her face.

But it wasn’t Friday. It was Tuesday…no, Wednesday. And his eyes weren’t melting over her. She was melting under their steady assault.

“Sit down, Faith,” he said. “I have a project to discuss with you.”

“I CAN’T DO THAT,” Faith protested. “Go on your honeymoon? Stay in the honeymoon suite and have all those manicures and go to all those restaurants as if…Well, I can’t. It’s just too weird.” She could hardly breathe. Just sitting there beside Cabot was making her heart pound and generating other unusual symptoms, both pleasurable and distressing. These were not feelings one should have in a gray suit while sitting in one’s boss’s office. But on a honeymoon…

Going on Cabot’s honeymoon was what she wanted to do more than anything, but not like this. Not as a proxy to be coiffed and made up and positioned and photographed, but as a bride, to be loved and cherished. Loved, at least. Frequently and with passion. She was fairly sure that was one task she could focus on without difficulty.

She drew in a sharp breath as he uncrossed his muscled legs and leaned toward her. “Travel agents check out hotels and resorts all the time, don’t they?” he said. His look and his tone were persuasive.

“Well, yes.”

“I believe you spent a weekend at the Sunny Sands resort on the Gulf Coast during the summer.”

Mr. Wycoff’s voice startled Faith. It was the first time he’d spoken since he summoned her in, and she’d almost forgotten he was in the room. “Yes,” she said, “I did do that. It was an experience I’ll never forget.” It had been a nightmare, free or not. She had no difficulty comprehending why she’d been chosen to receive a complimentary weekend on the Louisiana coast in the searing heat of late August with a hurricane approaching. Her boss had chosen her, hoping she’d blow away in the storm, or be eaten to death by mosquitoes, which dived even faster with a tailwind.

“Same thing,” Cabot said. His voice pressured her like a firm caress, seeking acquiescence. “Except I’m comping you, not the hotel. I just want you to go there, go through all the motions. That way I’ll know the honeymoon will…will…”

For the first time he seemed to flounder. Faith found him even more charming floundering than being so perfectly self-assured.

“Everything will go just the way a very special person’s honeymoon should go,” he finally concluded.

This brought Faith’s mind firmly back to the real bride, the beautiful Tippy Temple. It also stilled her heart a little, cut down on the tingling sensations that made her want to wriggle in her chair. In short, she’d just gotten a shot of reality. If he wanted Tippy to have a perfect honeymoon, maybe he did have a romantic streak.

And it was her job, wasn’t it, to make her clients happy?

“Advance work of this sort could come to be an important part of your job.” Mr. Wycoff’s voice carried a cold note of warning. “Especially as Wycoff Worldwide ceases to be merely a neighborhood standby and becomes a mover and shaker in the film industry travel business. I see this coming, Miss Sumner.” He cast a significant glance toward Cabot. “In the very near future.”

One occurrence doesn’t equal a trend. That was the thought that went through Faith’s mind. It was so alien to the thoughts that usually went through her mind that she couldn’t imagine where it had come from. She could hardly say it aloud to Mr. Wycoff in front of the “occurrence” in question. What her boss was saying was that if Faith wanted to keep her job she would be his stepping stone to the film industry by taking Cabot Drennan’s honeymoon, like it or not, and making him so happy that he’d rush right back to his office to spread the Wycoff name around.

She was suddenly aware that they were both staring at her. Mr. Wycoff’s stare was impatient bordering on exasperated, but Cabot’s was something else altogether. His dark, winging eyebrows were slightly lifted, his eyes were warm and a smile played around the corners of that suggestive mouth.

He knew he’d get his own way eventually, and it just tickled him to death.

“Well, Faith?” Mr. Wycoff spoke again, undoubtedly wishing he could get back to his daydream of being “travel agent to the stars.”

She was cornered. She’d held this job longer than any other, feeling each day that she was poised on the brink of dismissal. Mr. Wycoff did not like her, and she was confident he was just looking for a reason to fire her. She could not lose this job. She could not, one more time, call her sisters and then her parents to announce that she was unemployed.

“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of it,” her boss said in a complaining tone.

She didn’t intend to tell him, either. She’d better pull herself together and act normal about the whole thing or Cabot would know why she was making such “a big deal” about pretending she was Tippy Temple for a long weekend. So she straightened her shoulders and firmed up her chin.

“Come to think of it, neither do I,” she said cheerfully. “Okay, I’ll go to Reno on…well, on whatever day we reserved the suite.”

“In the limousine with the fake flowers all over it.”

She stared at Cabot. “You really want to rehearse the whole thing?”

“Everything but the marriage ceremony.” He smiled at her. “We’ll start with the going-away-suit part.”

“We?”

“Don’t forget the second limo for the crew.”

“We?”

“Rooms for everybody. And make all those restaurant reservations. We’ll start with dinner on—”

“You mean you’re going too?”

His eyebrows lowered until they almost met at the bridge of his nose, and he looked at her as though she were truly a dim bulb. “Well, of course. How else can I plan the shots, check the lighting, oil the gears for the real thing?”

“Silly me,” she said faintly.

“So now that that’s settled…” Mr. Wycoff said.

“I must be going,” Cabot said. He rose from his chair and herded Faith out of the office and back to her workstation. She was sorry because now he was behind her and she’d been looking forward to watching him walk again, checking out his height again—six-two, six-three—She wanted to get a closer look at his shoulders and his buns, of course, and while she was at it, the muscle tone of his calves. She hadn’t been able to take it all in when he’d had himself covered up in a three-piece suit.

Back at her desk, she called Charity’s cell phone and reached her at her new job, then let Charity patch in Hope, who was shopping for office space in New York. She and her new love were going into business together, and Hope was the Real Estate Task Force.

“What’s up?” Hope said briskly, while Charity said, “You okay, Faith?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Faith said. “I was just wondering what you wear in Reno in February on your honeymoon.”

It really made her crazy when they squealed like that at the same time. She held the phone away from her ear until the squealing faded a little and then said, “Not my honeymoon. Ha. Gotcha.”

“You twit,” Hope said.

“Whose honeymoon?” Charity said.

“Tippy Temple’s.”

“Tippy Temple’s getting married?” Charity’s tone was hushed and reverent.

“You know her?” Faith asked.

“Who’s Tippy Temple?” Hope asked.

“Someday you should take time to catch up on pop culture,” Charity scolded her. “Tippy Temple’s in that movie…”

“…’A Kiss to Build a Dream on,’” Faith supplied.

“…and she’s fantastic. So sweet…”

“…and I’m going to Reno to fill in for her.”

“Wait a minute,” Hope said.

“Oh, Hope,” Faith said, “not on their real honeymoon. This is just a rehearsal.”

“A rehearsal for what?” Hope was clearly in a militant feminist mode. Faith had imagined that falling in love would change Hope a little, but apparently she’d been mistaken.

“For the video. I mean…” she halted, realizing she was getting in deeper with every word that came blabbing out of her mouth. “Hope,” she said firmly, “it’s business. You’ll just have to trust my judgment.”

“Who’s the groom?” Charity said.

Faith couldn’t stop herself. “Oh-h-h,” she said, sighing, “you mustn’t tell a soul, of course, but he’s a publicist named Cabot Drennan, and he’s everything Tippy deserves, the stuff dreams are made of—tall and tanned, strong and forceful, successful and…”

In the silence, she realized what her sisters already knew, that her judgment was not to be trusted, especially not by her.

4

“I’VE GOT AN ANSWER FOR YOU.” Charity sounded abrupt. That meant she was not at her new job, but at one of her remaining modeling sessions and wearing shoes that were too tight.

“Oh, thanks,” Faith said. “What was the question?”

“What to wear on a honeymoon in Reno. I was talking to the stylist, and he—”

“It’s a moot point now,” Faith said, cutting her off. “My trousseau just arrived, courtesy of Cabot Drennan, ‘Publicist to the Stars.’”

“Wowie. He’s doing it up right,” Charity said. “Well, come on, tell me, what’d you get?”

Feeling like Cinderella, Faith unzipped one bag after another. “There’s a pale-blue silk suit. With a matching straw hat. And clutch bag.”

“Your going-away suit,” Charity said, sounding dreamy for once.

“Tippy’s going-away suit,” Faith corrected her. “And here,” she said, unzipping another bag, “is a…oh, I see, it’s a layer of crumply silk over a layer of satin. The color of vanilla ice cream. And a cashmere shawl that matches.” She pulled the shawl around her shoulders and snuggled into it, relishing the softness of the wool.

“A dinner dress for your wedding night.”

Faith took a breath. “A dinner dress for Tippy’s wedding night.”

“Oh. Right. I keep forgetting.”

“Tippy won’t wear this same dress, of course,” Faith said. “She’ll wear something similar.” She paused. “Probably a size smaller,” she concluded grimly.

“Oh, Faith, stop it. If you were any thinner you’d disappear. Hurry up and unpack some more. They’re going to call me soon. At least I hope so. My feet are killing me.”

Faith unzipped and reported, unzipped and reported. Another fantastic dress, a white silk pantsuit. Bikinis and cover-ups. “You ought to see this,” she said finally. “It’s a pale-blue satin dressing gown just like the one Lauren Bacall wore in that forties movie, the one about—”

“No underwear?”

Neither Charity nor Hope shared her passion for the romantic old movies and were quick to cut her off when she launched into the plot of one of them. Too used to the maneuver to be offended, Faith riffled through the stack that was piling up on her bed. “No.”

“No tempting teddies, black lace bikinis?”

“No. Of course not,” she said a moment later. “They won’t be photographing Tippy in her underwear.”

“Bummer. I’ll send you some money,” Charity said at once. “Go out and buy yourself some luscious—”

“Absolutely not,” Faith said. “I have plenty of underwear. Just not the kind…” She caught herself. She’d almost said, Just not the kind I’d like Cabot to see me in. It was fortunate Charity couldn’t see her blushing. “Not the kind Tippy will take on her honeymoon.”

“But you’d feel more romantic if you were wearing sexy underwear under those slinky clothes.”

This time when Faith took her deep, stress-reducing breath, she also counted to three. “I don’t need to feel romantic. I don’t want to feel romantic, because it’s not my honeymoon.”

Her impatience faded at once when she was distracted by the note that was attached to one of the handbags in the pile. “Make an appointment at Ricardo’s on Rodeo Drive to be fitted for shoes.”

“Isn’t that thoughtful?” she said to Charity after explaining that her silence was not, in fact, an indication of rage. “My shoes are going to fit.”

“Lucky you,” Charity groaned. “Oops, my turn. Gotta run.”

AT THE SAME TIME he imagined Faith would be trying on her travel wardrobe, Cabot was having an argument with the stylist who would accompany his camera crew to Reno.

“No,” he said. “Absolutely not. That’s going too far.”

“It’s no different from putting a wig on a double.”

The stylist, a young man with a roosterlike haircut and a diamond stud in one ear, sounded waspish. His shrunken black T-shirt rode up to show his navel, which brandished a ring set with a matching diamond. But he was good. He had to be good to afford diamonds that big. He had to be good for Cabot to hire him. Look what he’d done for Tippy already, the way he’d groomed her for those television interviews. Made her look like an angel. But Cabot wasn’t backing down on this one.

“We’re talking about her eyes, Joey,” he said firmly. “I don’t want you messing with her eyes.”

“A pair of blue contacts isn’t ‘messing with her eyes,’” Joey said, rolling his own, which were a suspiciously unnatural shade of turquoise. “Blue contacts and she’ll be a perfect double for Tippy.”

“She doesn’t need to be that perfect.”

“What? What? This is Mr. Has-to-be-Perfect I’m hearing? If you want a good take on the lighting she needs blue eyes. Period.”

“She’s not getting them. Period.” Cabot figured he weighed twice what Joey did. When it came to a showdown, the guy didn’t have a chance. He’d sulk for a day or two, and the whole time in Reno he’d be saying, “Well, if her eyes were the right color…” But Cabot had gotten to be an expert at handling sulky people.

He didn’t want Faith to lose those pearly-gray eyes. That was where he was coming from. When the truth was, it might be a good idea for her to lose them. He was pretty sure he needed to know her better, but that was an indulgence he’d have to postpone until after the dry run, after the wedding, after the honeymoon, after the divorce….

After the confession.

“Well,” Joey said, putting a fist on his hip. “I refuse to back down on the hair. You promised you’d send her to Tippy’s hairdresser.”

“I promised and I’ll send her. If she’s agreeable.” Faith’s hair was already enough like Tippy’s that…There I go again.

Joey tossed his head, but the crisis was over. Cabot went back to scripting the video, plotting potential shots, glancing from time to time at his one-year calendar. October, November. It might be that long before he could even ask Faith to go to a movie with him. The time loomed ahead of him, tedious and lonely.

A FEW THINGS WERE MISSING from the picture. Her mother and sisters should be with her, fluttering around her, making sure she’d remembered everything. While her body zinged with anticipation, what she was anticipating was a weekend of top-level frustration. Her groom had ignored her from the moment she agreed to go on the honeymoon. But she looked uncontrovertibly bridal, even if she didn’t feel that way.

She was dressed in her blue going-away suit; the rest of her clothes were packed in the three-piece set of tapestry luggage with golden leather trim that Cabot had had delivered the day before. The limo she’d hired to take them to the airport would be along soon. Everything was fine, at least as fine as it could be under the circumstances. So why did she have this niggling feeling she’d forgotten something?

Of course she’d forgotten something. She always forgot something. Usually it was something replaceable—toothpaste, panty hose, a nail file. Then again, she’d once left for Europe without a passport, and she’d made that wretched trip to the Gulf Coast without her credit card, had gone to a baby shower without the present and on one memorable occasion, had started out for the travel agency without her skirt.

Fortunately, her landlord had been leaving for the office at about the same time and had mentioned the omission to her in the most tactful way someone could mention a thing like that. He’d said, “I see the micro-mini is back in style.”

So the question was what had she forgotten and could she remember what it was before it was too late to do anything about it.

She stepped swiftly into the kitchen to be sure she’d turned off the coffeepot—she hadn’t—and the iron—that was still on, too. Even then the niggle didn’t go away. If anything, it gained intensity.

She ought to take a coat. Reno could be warm even in February, but one of the restaurants was in the Sierra Nevadas that surrounded the town. She had a yummy new coat, too, a Christmas present. She got it out, tossed it on her pile of luggage and waited for a feeling of comfort to settle in now that she’d checked that item off her mental list. It didn’t.

She lived in this tiny dream cottage behind the Mathiases’ large, elegant house in return for keeping an eye on the house during their frequent absences and watering their dozens of houseplants, since their staff traveled with them. She’d watered the plants thoroughly yesterday afternoon and explained to them exactly how long she’d be gone, since the ficus tree, in particular, was prone to anxiety attacks. She’d set the alarm system and notified the neighborhood security watch that she’d be away for the weekend. It was probably just a bad habit to feel nervous before a trip because of the sure and certain knowledge she’d forgotten something important.

She picked up her little blue clutch bag and the folder that held all their travel information, took a quick peek in the mirror at the slant of her blue straw hat and started for the front door just as the doorbell rang.

Her driver. She was ready exactly on time. Pretty good, for her.

A vase of daisies sat on the small round table she used for eating and everything else. Maybe the flowers were responsible for the niggle. She should have thrown them away. The water would smell vile by the time she got back, but there wasn’t time to do anything about it now. She hesitated, then plucked one daisy blossom out of the bunch, tossed it up in the air as if it were the bridal bouquet—and caught it herself.

A good omen, even if the contest had been fixed.

She opened the door to a grinning, freckled driver who hoisted her luggage and steered her down the flagstone walkway and around the Mathias’ house. In front of the main house, he gestured grandly toward the curb. “Enough flowers for you?” he said.

Stunned, Faith eyed the long white limousine, relieved that the Mathiases were not at home to see what their impoverished renter was using for transportation these days. The car was awash in flowers, old-fashioned English garden flowers mingled randomly with huge tropical blossoms in the most garish colors imaginable. They were arranged in swags strung through wreaths, with the occasional sheaf to add visual interest. “It’s a leftover Rose Bowl Parade float,” she said at last.

“No way! Parade flowers are real. These are made of the purest virgin plastic.”

“I sensed, somehow, that they were.”

“Indestructible at the highest speeds, in rain, sleet or snow.”

“Are we anticipating any of those things today in Southern California?”

“High speeds, maybe.”

Faith gave him a sharp look, but he seemed to be serious and quite proud of his vehicle. “Do the doors still open?” she asked him, and they were on their festive way.

Twenty minutes later they reached the Little Chapel in the Pines, and Faith caught her first glimpse of Cabot. It seemed like centuries since she’d last seen him, and he took her breath away. In his black suit, black shirt and black tie, he stood on the cobblestone pathway that led from the historic chapel to the street. Surrounded like a god among mortals by the camera crew with their equipment, he gave every appearance of a man who was issuing orders.

He shot one arm out in front of him and gestured behind himself with the other. Then he stuck both arms straight out to the sides and swiveled a little. Every movement was filled with a masculine energy that quickened Faith’s pulse. She especially liked the swivel. She hoped the driver didn’t notice she was drooling.

And then he caught sight of her. She could tell he’d seen her, could see his expression change, could sense his awareness of her. He took a step toward her, then another, almost like a man sleepwalking.

“If you’re having second thoughts, now’s the time to run.”

“What?” The voice of the driver had broken the spell and Faith hurriedly gathered herself up to get out of the car.

“Just kidding,” the driver said as he got out and came around to her door.

Cabot was still behaving like a sleepwalker, taking one slow step and then another, but, Faith observed with disappointment, his focus was not on her but on the limousine. Furthermore, the camera crew had fallen into step behind him, and they all marched toward her like a live version of Night of the Living Dead.

He had reached her side. “Don’t hurt the driver’s feelings,” she whispered hurriedly. “I’ll be sure you have something a bit more…ah…restrained for your honeymoon.”

“This is very…flowery,” he said.

“I think it’s too…” Faith said.

“It’ll really show up on film,” the cameraman said. He seemed transfixed.

“Like a zit on your nose,” Faith said, “but I can…”

“Speaking very frankly, Raff,” drawled a crew member, the one with the rooster haircut and an enviable diamond stud in one ear, “I’ll have to insist that we restrict the flowers to moderate zone species or tropicals. Not both.” He gazed at the car another moment, his head tilted to one side. “Or to pastels or vivids, but not both.”

“Pastels would…” Faith began.

“It could handle sheaves or wreaths,” said the one female member of the crew.

“But not both,” they chorused together, and at this point, Faith simply chimed in.

“So what I think we’re saying, Cab,” said the cameraman, “what I think we’re all in agreement on here—do I have this right, Chelsea, Joey, Miss…whatever?—is that the car…”

“Could be toned down some,” Cabot said. “But not much. Tippy will like it. Okay, you guys, let’s get to work.”

But for a moment he lingered, staring at the garishly decorated car. He had to stare at the car, because if he let himself look at Faith he would risk embarrassing both of them. He hadn’t let himself go back to the agency or participate in the fittings and hair-dresser visits. Three weeks had gone by, and now he was struck all over again by her sheer loveliness. While Joey the stylist had the ability to make Tippy look like an angel, Faith was an angel. In the pale-blue suit, her hair floating out from under the broad-brimmed hat, she was a vision of sweetness and beauty.

Faith was what he wished Tippy could be, or could be turned into.

“Shoo-ah,” he could hear Tippy saying.

He could sense the tables turning on him in the worst possible way. He didn’t have the slightest problem going on a platonic honeymoon with the real Tippy, while the weekend with Tippy’s “double” was going to be a struggle with his conscience from this moment on.

Make that retroactive to the day he met her.

“Talent,” barked the cameraman, “get in position outside the chapel door.”

“Raff,” Cabot called across the churchyard, starting in Raff’s direction with Faith in his wake, “we are not ‘the talent.’ We are a bride and groom—”

“Real groom, fake bride,” Faith interrupted.

“—who want a professional-looking wedding and honeymoon video.” He turned away from Faith in order to give Raff a hard, meaningful look.

He’d had to tell the crew the truth. They’d worked with him many times before, and unlike Faith, they were way too savvy to buy the idea of a honeymoon video that had to be scripted and rehearsed. They were also professionals, as aware as he was that a slip of the tongue could cost them their careers. No one outside their little circle could know the truth. Jack Langley had even conned that worthless twerp Josh Barnett into believing Tippy had actually fallen for her publicist. But Cabot had a feeling that however innocent Faith was, she was a lot smarter than Josh Barnett. Raff needed to watch his words.

“Sorry, boss,” Raff said. “Old habits, y’know. I keep forgetting this job’s personal.” His grin was unrepentant.

Still, feeling sure that Raff wouldn’t let him down, he glanced at Faith to find her beautiful eyes infused with ominous suspicion. Cabot’s stomach tightened up.

Faith had started to worry about the bride she was doubling for. The way Cabot had said, “Tippy will like it,” it being that Celebration of Plastic that was the going-away car, indicated his complete lack of understanding of Tippy Temple’s personality, her hopes and dreams. Each example of this insensitivity made Faith more sure that Cabot had not consulted Tippy about the arrangements, but was instead barreling ahead in his forceful fashion toward a glitzy media splash of a honeymoon that would offend the daylights out of his true love.

She didn’t intend to let him get away with it, but there was nothing she could do about it now, because Raff had just said, “Okay, let’s do a take of the leaving-the-church scene,” and Joey had echoed, “I want to see a little snuggle-up moment,” and all the stray thoughts that had been going through her head flew out when Cabot put his arm around her shoulders.

“Oh, yummy. So sweet. Okay, that’s good,” Joey was saying. “You got it, Raff? Can you stand a little taller, Miss…whatever…” His diamond stud flashed in the morning sun.

“Her name is Faith Sumner,” Cabot said a bit irritably, “and of course she can’t stand any taller. Just get on with it.”

Get on with what? She really didn’t want to get on with what they were getting on with right this minute, which was Cabot’s arm holding her closer and closer, snuggling her into the warmth of his shoulder, turning the warmth into raging heat.

“Tilt your head, honey.” Joey again. “Chelsea, get the light right there on her…that’s it. If she were just a smidge taller, and if her eyes were blue…”

Faith fanned herself. Joey rushed forward with a powder puff and plunged it onto her nose. Faith sneezed. Chelsea rushed forward with a tissue. A spotlight rocked on its tripod just behind her, and she tossed the tissue to Faith with one hand and rescued the light with the other.

“Oh, for…” Raff said disgustedly. “Can we just get a shot or two here?”

“The sooner the better,” Cabot said, and before Faith had a chance to register his grim tone, he tightened his hold around her shoulders, tilted her chin up, which made her grab for her hat, gave her an intimate smile and settled his mouth over hers.

That was when the real trouble began. At the first touch of Cabot’s lips, Faith made a firm, if unilateral, decision that she would go on kissing him for a year or so, continuously, no breaks, maybe win some kind of kissing contest. Her mouth melted into his, velvet against velvet, as her insides bubbled like a hot spring.

Her body relaxed into his, seeking him as if it had its own script, her breasts brushing his chest. She sensed his tongue searching for hers, then retreating, holding back. Why would he be holding back? Tentatively she met him halfway, jolted by the electrifying surge of first contact.

“Hold it!” Raff barked.

Of course she would hold it. Hadn’t she already promised herself to hold it forever and ever and ever?

“Cut!” she heard above the pleasant buzzing in her ears, and Cabot dropped her as if she were a hot saucepan.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered into her ear. “I don’t know what happened there.”

“No, it was my fault,” Faith murmured back. “I—” I what? “I was trying to seem taller by, ah, reaching up like that.” Murmuring was a good idea anyway, since she was having trouble talking.

“No, I overstepped…”

“No, I overacted…”

“No, I…”

“Help her into the car next,” Raff said. “Great job, you two. But next time, Miss…ah…”

“Her name,” Cabot said through his teeth, “is Faith. Surely you can master one name. This is my final warning, all three of you. Her name is Faith. She is not ‘she’ or ‘her’ or ‘Miss Whatever.’ Faith. Got it?”

And while he issued his ultimatum, Faith thought, Next time? Omigosh, can I survive a next time?

5

DAZED FROM KISSING FAITH, which had been the surprise of his life and had shaken him to his jaded core, Cabot wasn’t sure what to do next. One thing he did observe was that they got plenty of attention on the way to LAX in the garish limo. Tourists lifted their cameras and snapped pictures when they pulled up to the terminal, and they’d do the same thing in July, not even knowing that Tippy Temple was about to step out of the car. When you were in his line of business, attention was a good thing.

Once he’d gotten his little party settled in first-class, with Faith beside him in the window seat and the video crew scattered out in front of him where he could keep an eye on them, it seemed time for small talk. Any kind of talk would do except talk about that kiss and its impact, and since the kiss was all he could think about, he didn’t have a clue how to begin. “Nice suit” wouldn’t work, because she hadn’t had anything to do with choosing it.

Joey and Tippy had chosen it, had chosen the entire trousseau. Tippy loved shopping with Joey. Cabot wished he’d thought to ask Joey if he’d like to marry Tippy, since it was only for show.

Modern Day Pygmalion Story: Stylist Marries His Creation. Cabot could see the headline in his mind’s eye, and wished he could see it on the cover of Variety. And People. And Vanity Fair. If Tippy were marrying Joey, he, Cabot, could spend this weekend profitably, which in his addled state meant kissing Faith numerous additional times. And doing more than kissing, if she wanted to.

He wondered if Faith’s mental processes felt like his did right this minute—electrical impulses leaping from right brain to left, from front to back and skittering off on the diagonal. If so, he felt sorry for her.

“…and I’m finally figuring out what my sister Charity has been going through as a model,” Faith was saying, “except that her shoes never fit. Maybe that’s why she’s so determined to be a scientist instead. Comfortable shoes.”

Since she’d come to his rescue, effortlessly supplying the small talk he couldn’t seem to dredge up, Cabot thought he’d better help. “Let me guess,” he said. “You have another sister and her name is Hope.”

“Yes. How about you?”

He gave her a sidelong glance to find that she wasn’t even smiling, when that lovely, surprisingly wide mouth seemed to smile so easily. She seemed nervous. Fear of flying? I don’t think so. Fear of me is more like it.

“One sister, which I thought was one too many when I was a kid. She’s married, now, with two kids. She’s an artist, he’s a stockbroker. I don’t know what they talk about.”

“I told you about Charity,” Faith rattled on after her brief interest in Cabot’s family. “Hope’s a big businesswoman in New York. We’re all so different. Hope and Charity got all the brains, though.”

She sounded so glum that Cabot found himself wanting to make her feel better. “Being brainy doesn’t necessarily make you successful,” he suggested, “and being successful doesn’t mean you’re brainy.” It sounded good, but he wasn’t sure he’d said anything meaningful. “You’re a good travel agent, and that’s not easy.”

She suddenly whipped an earnest gaze around to him and he felt himself melting under it, or at least some of him was melting and some of him was impersonating a stalagmite.

“Do you really think I could be a good travel agent?” she asked him.

He shifted uneasily in the upholstered seat that would magically become his life jacket if he needed one.

“Because it’s practically my last chance to succeed,” she said mournfully. Her mouth tilted down at the corners. Cabot wanted to settle his fingers right there and tilt it back up. “I’m thirty years old and my résumé reads like a terrorist’s dossier.”

“Now I can’t believe you ever…”

“I haven’t caused any actual explosions—well, a fire or two—but disaster strikes on every job I’ve ever held. First there was the Marrakesh caper.”

“That sounds…”

“Yes. Very exciting, doesn’t it? And I thought it would be. A very famous author—you’d recognize his name if I dared to say it aloud even now—hired me right out of college to be his research assistant. He was writing a thriller set in Marrakesh.”

Cabot settled in. It seemed he was going to hear the story of her life, which was better than discussing the fact that he hadn’t acted very professional when he kissed her. “He sent you to Marrakesh?”

“He sent me to the library. He wasn’t about to let go of enough money to send me to Marrakesh. Unlike you. You’ve spent a fortune already researching your own wedding! And I think that’s wonderful. Tippy deserves that kind of thoughtfulness.”

She was gazing earnestly at him again, but there at the end he thought her gaze slid off to the right a little. “It’s tax deductible,” he said without thinking, because what he was thinking about was Faith’s full pink mouth. Forget the mouth! “I’m charging the dry run to my firm,” he added, improvising rapidly, “because I can apply the kind of information we’ll be gathering to my other clients.”

“Would have been for him, too,” Faith said. “Tax deductible, I mean. Anyway, I was slaving away in the M stacks and files, and then—” she paused, and a dreamy look came over her face “—one day when I was doing an online search for ‘Moroccan Meteorological Trends’, I noticed a book called Explore Madagascar, and then another one, The Romance of Mozambique, and Don’t Miss Macao. So of course I had to find out what those places were like.”

“You forgot about Marrakesh.” How could she forget about Marrakesh when she could remember the names of three books she’d read maybe eight years ago that weren’t even about Marrakesh, the topic she was supposed to research. The flight attendant hovered over them, and although Cabot didn’t drink martinis, the word just fell out of his mouth, probably because it was alliterative.

“Oh,” Faith was saying to the woman, “I’d love some white wine, but I’d better not. I’ll have—”

“What about a Mai Tai?” Cabot said. “Or a Manhattan.”

“I was about to say tomato juice,” Faith said, giving him an odd look. “I’m barely competent stone-cold sober. And this may be vacation time for you, but I’m working.”

While the attendant got the drinks, it occurred to Cabot that Faith was spilling out the story of her work history to make a point, and that the point might come as unpleasant news for him and his current enterprise.

“So how did the job end?” he asked as soon as he’d taken a restorative gulp of vodka.

Her mouth turned down again. “I woke up one morning and realized he was expecting me to hand him his Marrakesh background the very next day and I had almost nothing for him but basic geography and a printout of a Web site for tourists. So I checked out every old movie that had been set in Marrakesh and filled in the details from those.”

“Uh-oh,” Cabot said, “most of those were probably made on an MGM lot.”

“But still,” she argued, “I figured that somebody at MGM would have done better research than I had. Unfortunately, they’d done that research in 1938 or ’39 or ’40.” She sighed deeply. “He had to set the book in 1941 and make it a World War II espionage story.”

“And it bombed.” He was getting bombed, too.

“No, the publisher promoted it as his first historical novel and it stayed on the bestseller list for sixty-three weeks.”

“But he’d already fired you.”

“And I’d already taken a job as interpreter for an aide to the ambassador to Argentina. Want to hear about that?”

“Well, I…”

“That was going well—I’m quite fluent in Spanish,” she murmured modestly, “until one day I got distracted during one of his conversations with a lobby group—something about beef. I hadn’t listened to what he was saying, so when it came time to translate I had to make something up.” She halted, then turned to him, looking quizzical. “Do you remember that little civil uprising in Argentina about seven years ago? When the beef producers marched on Buenos Aires?”

The last drops of vodka dribbled down the front of his shirt, but Cabot didn’t care. “You did that?” he said. He felt as if he were strangling.

It was suddenly crystal clear what the point of Faith’s story was. Every job she took ended in disaster. And what she was now was a travel agent, his travel agent, Tippy’s double.

And she was warning him that she was all too likely to blow it.

The question was how? He could think of many, many ways. That was a big part of his job as a publicist, thinking of all the ways something could backfire. So he would spend the next four days creeping warily through a dark forest, waiting for the ogre to pop out and eat him alive.

And little did she know, this beautiful, delicate woman who sat beside him in an obvious state of performance anxiety, that inside him was an ogre threatening to pop out at any moment and nibble her into a passionate frenzy.

HE’D BEEN WRONG. He wasn’t going to spend the next four days creeping through a dark forest. The ogre manifested itself right there at the reception desk of the Inn of Dreams in downtown Reno. “What do you mean you don’t have three additional rooms reserved?”

“Um, Cabot…” Faith murmured.

“I mean, we have two rooms for your crew and a honeymoon suite for you, Mr. Drennan, and you’re pretty darned lucky we had that cancellation, because this is the weekend before Valentine’s Day.”

Cabot gazed at the man for a long moment. “Excuse us for a second,” he said, and pulled Faith over to the side. She was wearing a stricken expression.

“I forgot to book a room for myself,” she whispered.

“You forgot to book a room for me,” he corrected her. “And the hotel staff thinks we’re really on our honeymoon, right?”

“Well, of course,” Faith said. “If they thought we were just advancing the honeymoon, they wouldn’t treat us the same way they’ll treat you and Tippy in July.”

That, at least, made sense. “You didn’t register in Tippy’s name.”

Her eyes were very wide and very gray. “Of course not. We’re registered as Mr. and Mrs. Cabot Drennan.”

Something lurched inside Cabot’s stomach, but he stoically ignored it. “Well, let’s see what we can do about this,” he said gruffly, and herded her back to the desk. “We really have to have three extra rooms,” he told the clerk. “As you can see,” and he gestured back toward Raff, Joey and Chelsea, who milled about restlessly, sensing a problem, “I have three crew members of various, um, sexes and persuasions.” This was merely an excuse. Raff and Joey were rooming together. That third room was for him, and every second he spent with Faith made the need for a room of his own more crucial.

The clerk merely shrugged.

He knew a stone wall when he saw one. “Excuse us again,” Cabot said, and withdrew his people into a huddle in the artificial shade of an artificial potted palm.

“Okay,” he said to his entourage, “it looks like we have to get along with two extra rooms. I’ll share a room with Raff and Joey can bunk in with Chelsea.”

“No!” Joey shrieked as he stamped his foot.

“Why not?” Cabot said, aware that Faith’s lovely gray eyes were following the conversation anxiously.

“You promised me Raff,” Joey said, and fell into a pout.

“Hey, hold on a minute,” Raff said, scowling. “If Chelsea has to share with somebody, it has to be you.”

“That’s right, Joey,” Cabot said. “I can’t share with Chelsea.”

“Unless you want Carlos to break your neck,” Chelsea said in a soft, gentle voice with an accent that spoke of a Southern upbringing. “He’s real rigid about things like that.”

“Ah,” Cabot said. He’d met Carlos, a wrestler, whose adoration of Chelsea was the only indication that he possessed a brain, and the only indication that inside the quiet Chelsea was a tiger about to escape from the zoo. He sent a meaningful glance around the group, then settled it on Faith.

“We’ll have to manage somehow, I guess,” he said. “It is a suite, after all. It’ll have a living room. With a sofa. I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

“No, I’ll sleep on the sofa. This is all my fault and I’ll accept the consequences.”

“Don’t argue. Tradition decrees that the biggest person sleeps in the smallest space.”

She could see the exasperation in the lines around his mouth. “We’ll break with tradition. I will definitely—”

He whirled and went back to the desk clerk. They all followed him like baby ducks. “You must have an extra single room somewhere,” he said.

The desk clerk wore the look of an about-to-be-discovered movie star. “In Carson City, maybe,” he drawled.

Cabot gave up. “Okay. Fine. Show us to our rooms.”

The look he gave Faith started out as a withering one. He wasn’t sure how it turned out.

“SO WE’LL SEE YOU GUYS LATER,” Cabot told the crew.

“Nope, you’ll see us now,” Raff informed him. “We have to work on the ‘carry over the threshold’ scene.”

Faith supposed you couldn’t expect a professional video-making crew to put romance into what was, for them, a livelihood. For her, too, she reminded herself swiftly. She’d better be thinking of it as the “carry over the threshold” scene, too.

Cabot’s mouth was set in a grim line. She was sure he’d rather drop her over a cliff right this minute than carry her over a threshold.

“Okay, then, follow us up.” He went from annoyance to resignation in a split second.

They were pretty noticeable, Faith thought, the five of them trotting along behind a bellhop dressed the way bellhops dressed in the old movies, when they delivered luggage to gorgeous women in blue satin dressing gowns.

Raff the cameraman was loading his gun, so to speak, Joey was making darts and dashes at her with a makeup pencil, trying to correct her eyebrow line on the run without destroying her vision and Chelsea was screwing lights into sockets, while she struggled not to trip over tripods that kept opening of their own accord.

“Here we are, folks,” sang the bellhop. “Try to get my left side,” he said sotto voce to Raff as he flung open the door of the suite.

“Da-dum! Welcome to the Tahoe Jungle Suite!”

“Ah-h-h,” Faith moaned.

“Me Tarzan,” Cabot muttered.

The five of them hovered outside the door of the suite. “I can’t go in until I’ve had some food,” Joey said.

“I’m not going in without hip waders,” Raff said. “The bride and groom can test the waters while we set up for the shoot.”

Cabot still didn’t move any farther into the room, so neither did Faith. She was not Jane, and she was afraid to try it alone. Something might drop down from the ceiling, like an anaconda.

The Tahoe Jungle Suite was the realization of a decorator’s worst nightmare. Vines twisted up the walls and across the ceiling to form a canopy over a jungle of large-leaf plants, plants with a shine that said, “Plastic!” The “suite” was really one large room, and in the seating area, hammocks replaced sofas. The hammocks were fitted with pads covered in tiger-print satin fabric. The end tables and the coffee tables resembled sections of tree trunk. Plastic tree trunk. With round Lucite tops.

Faith focused on the bed. Enormous, resting on a platform painted to look like a rock ledge, it was the focal point of the room. The base was made of twisted boughs. Plastic boughs, of course. More animal prints—leopard, zebra, cheetah—covered the duvet, the many pillows. It looked like there’d been a massacre of endangered species.

She looked back to find Cabot staring at a hammock. Imagining himself there, maybe.

“I didn’t ask what the room theme was,” Faith said limply. “I thought hearts and flowers.”

The bellhop gave her a you’re-not-from-around-here-are-you look. “This is the weekend before Valentine’s Day,” he said. “The hearts and flowers were booked fifteen months ago. The rest of the year, this is our most popular suite.” He did another sweep with his arm. “You have your visual effects,” he said dramatically, “and your audio effects!” He pushed a wall switch and the space resonated with the caws of tropical birds, insect twirps, a distant waterfall and a swishing sound that Faith decided was probably the anaconda waiting patiently to pounce.

“Really gives the place character,” the bellhop said. He nodded with satisfaction, and his tall, boxy hat bounced on his head.

“It does do that,” Cabot said.

Faith couldn’t bring herself to look at him. He had to be dying from sheer disgust. It was too much to hope he might be dying to laugh.

“It’s fine,” he said.

“No, it’s not,” Faith said.

“Yes, it is,” Cabot said. “Tippy will like the ambiance. You ready out there, guys?”

“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Raff called back.

“It’s show time, folks,” Cabot said. “Hold on a minute. I want to splash some water on my face first.”

The next thing she heard was a roll of thunder, a crackle of lightning and a sound from Cabot that, if his voice weren’t so masculine, she might have called a scream. As the waiting crew muttered curses and flung down their equipment to dash to the rescue, the bathroom door opened. Cabot emerged, water dripping from his hair and clothes, clutching a leopard-print towel.

“I guess that wasn’t the light switch after all,” he said, deadly calm.

“It was your rain-forest effects,” Faith said.

He stared at his crew for a long, silent moment. “We’ll ‘cross the threshold’ tomorrow,” he said in the same overly calm voice. “When the rainy season has passed.” He slammed the door in their startled faces.

He glared at her, then turned his back and opened his suitcase. She gazed at his back, watching the elegant, black, soaking-wet suit crumple up, then opened her own large bag the bellhop had positioned on a luggage rack.

“When’s dinner?” Cabot said, pulling things out of his suitcase and depositing them in a zebra-striped dresser.

“We have an eight-o’clock reservation,” she said, hoping she’d remembered right.

“We have to stay here until eight?” There was an edge of panic in his voice.

She could understand the panic. She couldn’t wait to get out of this place herself.

“It will be eight by the time we’ve unpacked and freshened up and…” It hit her like brand-new information that she was sharing the Tahoe Jungle Suite with a man she found almost irresistible. “And it will be time for dinner before you know it. Cabot…”

“What?” he said, sounding impatient as he unzipped a leather bag and pulled interesting-looking items out of it. Socks, underwear, turtlenecks…

Faith accepted the sad but true fact that everything about Cabot interested her, even his underwear. “I realize this isn’t the mood you want for your honeymoon,” she said. “By July the demand for hearts and flowers will slow down, and I’m sure I can—”

“I already said,” he answered her, bent over a suitcase, “Tippy will like it just fine.”

This time the familiar words didn’t annoy her. She felt sympathetic, amused, willing to educate him. He didn’t have a clue as to what a woman would like. Except that the woman would like him. What woman could keep herself from liking him. Wanting him. Loving him. Giving herself to him…

“I’ll confirm the reservation,” she said, and hastily involved herself in her unpacking.

Makeup and toiletries, the beautiful outfits with their matching shoes and handbags, belts, chiffon scarves, pashmina stoles. Jewelry—stunning, fake, and, Cabot had told her, borrowed. The pale-blue dressing gown. With shaking fingers she scrambled through the bags, unzipping pockets and ripping open Velcro cubbyholes before finally giving up the search.

That thing that had been niggling at her as she was leaving town—now she knew what it was. She’d forgotten to bring a stitch of underwear.

6

CABOT PULLED A SWEATER over his head, and just as he’d reached that point of no return, with both arms in the air and his head still trying to push through the turtleneck, he heard Faith say, “I need to do a little shopping.”

“Forgot something?” He wanted to say, something else, but restrained himself.

“Ah, yes, a thong or two.”

Nah, she couldn’t have said that. His head popped through the sweater. “What?” He could see her now, and her face was flushed pink.

“A thing or two,” she mumbled.

Female stuff probably. All he needed to put the perfect shine on the weekend was a surrogate bride with PMS. For a second he tried to imagine Tippy with PMS, but he didn’t have to imagine it. Tippy acted like a woman with PMS all the time. “There are shops in the hotel. Go buy your stuff and I’ll…” He would lie down quietly on some animal’s skin and try to recover from Faith, from the tackiness of the room, from having to share the tackiest room in the world with Faith, all of those things. He might even experiment with the hammock, find out just how bad the night was going to be.

“Don’t forget to confirm the restaurant reservation,” he couldn’t keep himself from adding. “Let’s see, I’ve got all those written permissions to film. You got a separate table for the crew, right?”

“A sep—yes, of course,” she said hastily.

“Because I don’t want to treat them like staff. They’ll do the filming between courses, and they’ll be less obtrusive if they have their own table. Did you get the chart telling you what to wear when?”

“Ah…” She scrambled for a minute through a folder that had little pieces of paper sticking out randomly from three sides. “Yes.”

“Be back in time to change.”

“Yes, Sir,” she said, and saluted smartly.

He had to admit he was being a nag. “Sorry,” he said, “it’s a bad habit.”

“Everything will be fine,” she said, and gave him a sunny smile as she tripped out the door, her little blue crocodile sandals not making a sound on the three-inch-thick jungle-green carpeting.

HER SMILE FADED as she raced through the hotel, which seemed to be one endless casino, looking for a private spot. At last she found a small foyer with a marble bench and collapsed onto it. With shaking hands she took the restaurant reservations sheet out of the folder and dialed the number of that night’s restaurant—the nicest one in the hotel—on her cell phone.

“Confirming a reservation for two this evening in the name Drennan,” she said in her best travel agent’s voice.

“Yezz, of courzz,” came the purring response. “We’re eggspecting you.” The voice cooled slightly. “You are the ones who are going to be vilming.”

“Yes,” Faith said. “We’ll also need a nearby table for three, same time,” she added, and held her breath.

“That is quite impozzible,” the voice intoned at last. “We are vully booked.”

“But it’s very important,” Faith said. What had she thought the crew would do? Stand around their table filming them having dinner all evening? “My job depends on it.”

“I’m sorry about your job, but I can’t make a table where there izz no table.” The purr was rapidly turning into a snarl.

“Oh, but you can,” Faith said with enthusiasm. “Just set up an extra table for three next to our table. We don’t mind being crowded.”

“Miss, zizz is not our style at Arturo’s of the Inn of Dreams.”

“Would you tell me your name, please?” Faith said, feeling desperate.

“Mario.”

“Mario,” she said, “maybe I should come into the restaurant and discuss this with you privately.” So if necessary, she could slip him fifty dollars of her total liquid assets—one hundred thirty-six dollars and change. “I hesitate to tell you over the phone who will be filmed this evening, but she has strong democratic tendencies and will be appalled if her film crew doesn’t have its own table.”

“Izz this ‘she’ you refer to a…famous person?”

“Very.”

“In politics?”

“Oh, heavens no.”

“In the…film industry?”

There it was again, that sound of reverence. “I’m not at liberty to say,” Faith said primly. “Her public is very demanding. She values her privacy.”

“Ah-h-h,” breathed Mario. He sounded as if he were starting to pant. “Well, let me see, Mizzz…”

“I’m their travel agent,” Faith said.

“I think if we juggle here, and stagger there…” He seemed to be plotting it out visually. “Yezz. We will have that zecond table ready for your party, Mizzz…”

The purr was back, intensified. She’d saved herself fifty dollars. She wasn’t bad at this stuff, just always a little late. Now she had to do the same thing four more times, the two lunches and the two other dinners. She punched viciously at her cell phone.

AN HOUR LATER she stood in front of the hotel’s lingerie shop. Bad news, from the window display of silk and lace in Valentine colors of red and white. But surely they had plain white cotton panties and bras hidden away in the drawers, and she had about enough credit left on her credit card for two sets she could keep washing out.

“I need some underwear,” she told the clerk.

“Doesn’t everybody?” she simpered. “What sort of thing were you looking for?”

“Panties and bras. I forgot mine.”

“Ooh, do I ever have some pretty things for you.” She whipped out a white silk thong edged in lace and a bra that neither did nor hid anything, as far as Faith could tell.

“No, no, I was thinking more along the lines of…”

“Something more seductive. Aha.” The woman laid out another matched set on the counter. This time the thong was black, covered in embroidered red hearts, and the bra was red with two large black hearts forming the cups. “This has been a hot number the last few days,” she said.

“It would be a hot number any old time,” Faith said. She felt rushed and flustered, and yet she couldn’t keep from imagining herself wearing all those hearts, ambushing Cabot at the door of their own tiny honeymoon cottage.

And visions of that insidious sort were exactly the reason she needed to be buying plain white cotton panties and bras. “I’d prefer something simple,” she said, “cotton, preferably.”

“Cotton?”

“Cotton,” Faith said firmly.

“We only have one cotton line,” the woman said, casting a dubious glance at Faith. “But—lucky you, it’s on sale.”

“Wonderful,” Faith said. “I’ll take…” She looked down at the counter. They were cotton all right, thin cotton animal prints.

“Mix and match,” the clerk said gaily. “Wear the leopard with the zebra, or be conservative and wear tiger top and bottom.”

“They’d go well with my room,” she murmured.

“Oh! Are you in the jungle suite? Lucky you!”

“Uh-huh,” Faith said. The panties were, of course, thongs. The bras scooped so low that Faith wondered why anyone would bother to wear one of them. “I don’t suppose you have a camisole,” she said.

“No, I’ve got a teddy,” the clerk said.

“No teddies,” Faith said sharply. She was running out of time. “I need something to sleep in, too,” she said. She thought about Cabot, and added, “A pair of pajamas, long-sleeved pajamas with long pants. Neck-to-ankle coverage.”

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