“Did you get my flowers?” Wolf asked as they stopped near the pool to take in the hundreds of floating water lilies illuminated by just as many floating candles.
Alexandra’s stomach immediately knotted. “I did.”
He turned his head, looked at her. “I’m sorry I was held up—”
“No apologies or explanations required.”
She was trying to be poised, but the tartness of her answer gave her pain away.
“You saw the photograph of Joy and me at Nobu,” Wolf said.
Had there been a photograph in another paper? Her heart felt strange. Tender. Almost fearful. “No. I just read a little blurb about your dinner in the local paper.”
He was still looking at her. “There’s nothing between us, Alexandra.”
She nearly hung her head and then thought better of it. She was wearing vintage Armani tonight, an exquisite ivory pleated gown that the stylist had brought over yesterday. With the gold-heeled sandals on her feet and the gold band wrapped around her arm she felt beautiful, like an Egyptian priestess or maybe a princess, and she didn’t want anything to ruin that.
“It’s none of my business,” she answered calmly.
“But it is, at least until our contract ends.”
She managed a droll smile. “You’re too good an actor.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we both know the truth. I’m not the kind of woman you usually date. I’m serious, industrious. I like the quiet evenings in and you—” she broke off and smiled brighter “—are the bad-boy playboy, notorious for all-night parties.”
He swore under his breath, a short, sharp, profane curse that caught her by surprise.
Alexandra blinked at him. “I’ve never heard you curse before.”
He took her chin in his hand, lifted it up. “I wish everything was as simple as you make it out to be. I’d love for life to be so black-and-white, but it’s not. And you, sweetheart, don’t know me.” His dark eyes burned into her, promising, punishing. “You know nothing about who I really am, and maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s better to let you remain sweet, inexperienced, naive.”
Alexandra didn’t have time to answer or defend herself. People were heading their way, flocking toward Wolf as though he were a beacon of light.
Concealing her chaotic emotions, Alexandra quietly stood next to him. Wolf appeared to have many industry friends. He’d been a Hollywood force for nearly ten years, but it was only in the last two years, since winning the Oscar for Boys in Belfast, that he’d become viewed as a serious talent.
Waiters passed glasses of specialty cocktails on gilded wood trays—cocktails like pomegranate martinis and Lemon Drop shooters—and the crowd around Wolf grew louder and more jovial as the drinks were consumed.
Alexandra tried not to wiggle while she stood for the first hour at Wolf’s side, but it was difficult not to feel self-conscious given the amount of skin her cream Armani gown exposed.
Fortunately Wolf didn’t forget her. Several times in that long hour he broke off his conversation to introduce her, point someone out or try to explain a reference, making sure he included her as much as he could. He even once reached out and touched her upper arm as he talked to yet another woman who’d come to congratulate him on his exceptional performance in his last film.
Two more young women were approaching Wolf now, both stunning, one very fair with straight waist-length blond hair and a figure that looked as though she could model for Victoria’s Secret, and the other a sexy, sultry brunette that reminded Alexandra of Wolf’s former flame, Joy Hughes.
As it turned out, the blonde was a model for Victoria’s Secret and she introduced her friend, a former Miss Venezuela who’d come to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.
Despite Alexandra’s presence, the women flirted outrageously with Wolf, touching him, laughing, leaning seductively toward him, showing cleavage Alexandra would never have. But once again Wolf put his hand on her arm, rubbed it as if to reassure her, and some of Alexandra’s tension eased. That was until Paige, the Victoria’s Secret model, tripped and sent her red pomegranate martini flying—all across Alexandra’s exquisite ivory Armani dress.
For a moment Alexandra just stood there, her bare shoulder wet and sticky, her breast and fitted bodice a splash of pale red, with little droplets of red staining the long straight skirt.
A seven-thousand-dollar vintage gown ruined.
She stared at Paige in shock, her gaze riveted to the model’s empty glass. Empty because the cocktail was now all over her gown.
For a moment she could think of absolutely nothing to say—at least nothing polite, because on the inside she was livid, fuming. How could a model that pranced down a runway in four-inch heels and enormous white angel wings trip over nothing? And not just spill her drink but dump the entire contents over Alexandra and only Alexandra?
“Are you okay?” Wolf asked, his arm encircling her, bringing her closer to his side.
“I’m fine,” she choked out. But she wasn’t fine. She was shaking, trembling in her heels. Her lovely dress was ruined and there would be no easy exit from the party, not with a stain like this.
Wolf flagged down a waiter and requested some soda water and a towel. “Soda water might help,” he said.
She nodded, forcing a tight smile. “I’m fine, it’s fine,” she repeated, but her voice had grown husky. It was humiliating being Wolf’s pretend girlfriend, humiliating playing a role and being ignored by everyone and pretending she didn’t notice their condescension when Wolf introduced her.
But she understood their snubs, understood why they didn’t care to meet her or remember her. Wolf had a reputation for dating and discarding young Hollywood starlets. And being young and reasonably pretty, people probably assumed that Alexandra—Wolf’s newest plaything—would soon be gone. These people weren’t going to try to impress someone or even be kind to someone who wasn’t important.
And she wasn’t important. Not to anyone here.
Shame filled her, shame at so many different levels. She shouldn’t have signed the contract. Shouldn’t have let her own ambition get before her morals. Shouldn’t have allowed herself to be used.
Just because she wasn’t an actress or a model or someone powerful in Hollywood didn’t mean she wasn’t valuable.
“I’m sorry.” She struggled to maintain her composure. “This is so embarrassing.”
“It’s not at all.” Wolf suddenly looked at Paige and Lulu and gave them such a dark, ferocious look that both women scuttled away. With Paige and Lulu gone, he drew her closer. “And you couldn’t embarrass me, so don’t say things like that.”
Blinking back tears, she glanced up, and the depth of his concern made her see yet again that he did wear a public mask, a coolly amused mask, as though he were always laughing at life. Laughing at himself. But she was just beginning to realize that underneath the mask he wasn’t laughing at all. “I should go before the entertainment reporters and photographers spot me looking like this.”
She took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders. “Now let me just slip out now so no one can get pictures of us together. You stay here and do what you have to do.”
“I’m not going to let you leave alone. If you want to go, we’ll go together.” Wolf reached inside his tuxedo for his mobile phone. “I’ll call for the car.”
She covered his hand with hers so he couldn’t make the call. “You have to stay. Aren’t you making