Jules frowned. “You can’t seriously be considering her request? You have surgery scheduled. It’s not as if you need her money, and she sure as hell doesn’t need you. That uppity publicist has a Plan B to set her up with some poor schmuck who doesn’t mind running around at the beck and call of a celebrity, so let them get on with it.”
He rummaged in the refrigerator and didn’t make eye contact. Why had the thought of Nina with someone else, even if it was nothing more than a set-up, made him lose his appetite? “I can reschedule the surgery.”
“Please think about this carefully, Dom. You can’t afford to leap first then look.”
When had he ever done anything so rash? “Risk assessment is what I do for a living. So trust me to know and understand the risks.”
“And healing broken bodies is what I do for a living, so you should trust me. You know what the doctor said. You need to stop pushing yourself or you’re going to damage your body beyond repair. Fix the damage that’s already been done before you can barely walk! And until then, you need to stop running.”
“The moment they start cutting through muscle and putting metal body parts inside me, my career is over. What am I going to do with the rest of my life?”
There it was, that specter that had hung over him for months now. His job was who he was. It was the reason he got up every morning. Without it, he’d be lost.
He was still a few years shy of forty; too old to re-train, too young to retire.
He’d be the first to admit that agreeing to prepare Nina for this role was a convenient way to buy himself more time to figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his life.
He shook his head. “My hip, my pain. I can manage it.”
“But you don’t have to live with the pain. A hip replacement is nothing to be ashamed of, and you’ll still have a full range of movement afterwards. Without pain.”
“Will you please keep your voice down?” He glanced past Juliet to the closed door of the guest bedroom. “Have you ever heard of a stunt man with a hip replacement? It’ll take months before I’m back to normal. Months of sitting around, unable to work. And if word gets out that I’m no longer fit, no one will hire me.”
“You always knew this job was going to have a limited lifespan. What did you think you were going to do when you got older?”
He hadn’t. He’d lived every day as it came and not spared a thought for the future. “I’m still young,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of good years ahead of me. When I can’t cope anymore, then I’ll reconsider the surgery.”
“Please don’t wait too long. The better shape you’re in when you have the surgery, the quicker you’ll recover.”
He rolled his eyes. “Is the lecture over yet, Sis?”
She sighed. “I don’t want to see you any more damaged than you are already.”
They’d been having this same argument for more years than he could remember. “I know you want what’s best for me, but I’m not a kid anymore. You need to butt out and let me make my own decisions. And you can tell the others that, too.”
“So your decision is to turn yourself into a glorified fitness trainer for a few weeks? Why? Forget training her. Just get her out your system and move on, the way you usually do.”
He shook his head. “It’s not like that. She’s not like that.”
Juliet shrugged. “If this is really only about training her, then you need to be realistic, Dom. She might have passed the cream test, but she’s still a spoiled celebrity. She’s never going to see this through. As soon as the going gets tough, she’ll be gone. Is she worth damaging your body further?”
“How about I let you know?” He loaded fresh strawberries, yogurt, and a generous handful of granola into the blender and switched it on, its roar drowning out any chance of further conversation. Finally taking the hint, Jules closed her magazine and hopped down from her stool. “I’ll see you on the flip side.”
The kitchen door had barely closed behind her when Nina emerged from the guest bedroom. Not a coincidence, he was sure.
The sweatpants were gone, replaced by tailored trousers and a white frilly blouse that dipped dangerously low between her breasts. He swallowed and forced his gaze higher. She’d done her hair and make-up too. She was back to being Nina the Movie Star again, not the vulnerable woman he’d walked on the beach in the dark with last night.
She slung her bag over her shoulder. “Thank you for helping me out last night. I really appreciate it.”
At least she hadn’t forgotten to thank him.
She shifted awkwardly, as if there was something more she wanted to say, and cleared her throat. “About what I asked you last night…I don’t want you to feel pressurized. You can say no.”
Had she overheard his conversation with Jules? He was man enough that he didn’t want a beautiful woman to see him as weak or feel pity for him. He kept his expression neutral and nodded.
“But will you consider it? If you change your mind, here’s my private number.” She held out a piece of paper with a phone number scrawled on it and he took it silently.
“Goodbye then,” she said and headed for the door.
“Meet me at 25 Degrees at 12 tomorrow.”
She paused mid-stride.
“It’s a day later than we intended, but it’s as good a place to start as any. No promises yet. I need to see what you’re capable of before I agree to anything,” he said.
The smile she threw him was almost enough to knock him off his feet. A man could definitely get used to being looked at like that.
“And wear comfortable clothes; clothes you don’t mind getting dirty in.”
Then she was gone, leaving nothing but the soft scent of her perfume in the air.
Dom choked on his draft beer as he caught sight of Nina at last. She couldn’t have shouted ‘celebrity who doesn’t want to be recognized’ any louder. The oversized designer sunglasses and headscarf were enough to make anyone look twice, especially here in Tinseltown.
She hovered in the door of the restaurant, nervously scanning the room before she spotted him in one of the back booths and made a beeline for him.
She slid into the seat across from him, her back to the rest of the restaurant, and undid the headscarf. Her long, sleek dark hair tumbled loose.
“Hi.” The coquettish smile she sent him was enough to make up for the 15 minutes she’d kept him waiting.
The waitress who brought their menus was clearly well trained. She pretended not to recognize Nina.
“I’ll have the Number One burger with extra fries,” he said, handing her back the menu.
Nina’s face took on a pinched look for a moment, then she placed her order. “I’ll have a Pellegrino and the chopped vegetable salad.”
The waitress met Dom’s eye. He grinned. He agreed. He’d had such high hopes Nina wasn’t going to be just like every other image-obsessed actress. She’d even passed the cream test.
This was a test his sisters had devised years ago. They deliberately offered a woman a beverage she usually didn’t drink – in a town like LA where every woman was on a diet, cream and sugar were the obvious choices. If the woman caused