“Yes, of course,” Gwen said, pushing a strand of her hair behind her ear, stepping aside and pulling June, her dog, away from the doorway. Lost in her concern for Nicki, some part of her noticed the man’s height and broad shoulders as he passed by her. He smelled of rich leather and just a hint of a spicy male scent. She glanced past him, spotting the SUV he’d driven to her ranch. For a member of one of Hollywood’s most powerful families, the Hudsons, to make a personal visit to her in Montana, something terrible must have happened.
Gwen’s stomach clenched in fear. “Please go ahead and tell me. Is she in the hospital?”
“No, we put her in rehab,” Luc said, resting his hands on his hips. “She was arrested for driving drunk. Driving the wrong way on a one-way street. The police clocked her speeding thirty miles over the speed limit. She narrowly missed a head-on collision with a family of four returning from Disneyland.”
“Oh my God,” Gwen said, feeling her blood drop to her feet. A sick dizziness rolled over her, and she felt her knees dip. Luc’s strong arms caught her, drawing her against his hard chest.
His eyes searched hers. “Do you need to sit down?”
She nodded. “I think so,” she said as he guided her toward the overstuffed sofa in the sitting area at the front of her ranch cabin.
“Where’s the kitchen? I’ll get some water for you,” he said.
“Straight down the hallway,” she said, resting her head in her hands, castigating herself. If only she could have made Nicki listen! She’d repeatedly begged Nicki to get out of the fast lane, but Nicki had ignored her. Her younger sister had been determined to make a name for herself one way or another, and lately there’d been much more attention paid to Nicki’s partying than to her acting abilities.
Luc returned with a glass of water and shook his head when she started to rise. “You’re still pale,” he said.
She took a sip of water and inhaled a shallow breath. “I should go to her.”
“You can’t,” he said. “No one is allowed to see her during the detox phase.”
She stared at him. “Not even a family member?”
“No one,” he said. “It was a condition of getting her into this rehabilitation center. It has an excellent success rate.”
Unable to sit any longer, Gwen rose to her feet. “I tried to get her to stop. I was able to persuade her to come out to the ranch for a few days. I hoped the fresh air and peace and just being away from the party scene would help. But her friends were always calling and sending her text messages. She got antsy and left early. I made her promise she would be more careful.”
“She’ll get the help she needs now.”
Gwen fought the tears that filled her eyes. “I feel like such a failure. I should have—”
Luc put his hand over her shoulder. “She’s an adult, free to make her own choices, right or wrong. You couldn’t control her.”
Intellectually, she knew he was right. She would have said the same thing to someone else in these circumstances, but it didn’t stop the combination of guilt and helplessness gnawing at her.
Taking a deep breath, she felt a rush of gratitude for the Hudsons. They had gotten her sister to a safe place. “Thank you so much for taking care of her. I would have liked to have been the one to have been there for her, but at least she’s getting help. It could have turned out so much worse.”
He replied with a slow nod and gave her a long considering glance. “Everyone wants Nicki to get better. The problem is that this has happened at a critical time for Hudson Pictures. Nicki was supposed to be preparing to do promotion for The Waiting Room. Her stint in rehab could damage the way this movie is perceived by the press and the public.”
Gwen remembered the PR routine from her years of acting. Although she’d left a promising acting career and Hollywood behind, she would have to have had amnesia to forget the promotional sprint required for movies—interviews with magazines, entertainment and news shows, public appearances.
“That is difficult,” she acknowledged, then shrugged. “But with Nicki in rehab, there’s really nothing that can be done.”
Luc met her gaze with a resolution that made her uneasy. “I disagree,” he said in a velvet voice with an underlay of steel. “In this case, the press needs a distraction. After taking care of Nicki last night, we held an emergency meeting and came up with a solution.”
Gwen shrugged again, not sure why she needed to know this information. Her concern was Nicki, not Hudson Pictures. “I’m glad.”
His lips rose in a crooked grin of irony. “We’ll see.” His amusement faded as quickly as a flash. “In order to keep the focus off Nicki, an announcement was made to the press last night. The announcement was that you and I are engaged.”
Shock slammed through her. Gwen stared at him in disbelief. She blinked, shaking her head. She couldn’t have heard him correctly. “Excuse me?”
“As far as the press is concerned, you and I are engaged to be married.”
Gwen shook her head faster. “Oh, absolutely not. I don’t even know you. I don’t want to know you,” she added to underscore her refusal. “Part of the reason I left Hollywood was to get away from the public relations racket that never stopped. No—”
“It’s already done,” he said in a firm voice. “If you don’t want your sister’s reputation to go down the toilet, then you’ll cooperate.”
The coolness in his voice dug at her. She took a second look into his eyes and glimpsed a ruthlessness that made her shudder. “This almost sounds like blackmail, ” she said.
“Call it what you want,” he said. “I’m good, but I can’t perform miracles. Your sister has made a huge mess, and someone’s got to clean it up. Allowing The Waiting Room to tank because of her lack of maturity and discipline isn’t going to help anyone, including her.”
Gwen couldn’t fight the urge to defend her sister. “You know nothing about the hurt Nicki has gone through. When my parents divorced it was at a very critical time for her, and she might as well have been orphaned for all the attention they gave her. She’s been struggling with the damage ever since.”
“That’s what therapy is for,” Luc said. “No one’s life is perfect. At some point you have to grow up and take responsibility for who you are and what you want. Nicki is overdue.”
Even if there was a bit of truth to his words, Gwen couldn’t forgive his lack of compassion. “Easy for you to say that no one’s life is perfect. I suspect yours has been pretty damn close. The perfect powerful Hudsons.”
He shot her a wry smile. “The reason you think we’re perfect and powerful is because I’ve done my job with the press. Just as I’m now doing my job for this movie and your sister.”
Her sister was an afterthought, of course. His attitude infuriated her. “Nice try, but I can’t believe it will work. I can’t imagine that anyone would be interested in me anymore,” she said. “I’m no longer in the Hollywood scene. As far as the paparazzi are concerned, I lead a quiet, boring life rescuing horses on my uncle’s ranch. And that’s they way I intend to keep it.”
“Again, that’s where you’re wrong. You were a darling. Women wanted your combination of beauty and strength. Men just wanted you. Your last film came out a year ago, and when the DVD comes out in two weeks, it’s projected to be a top seller.”
Gwen swore under her breath. “So in PR terms, I’m one of the flavors of the moment,” she said and felt the prospect of participating in Luc’s scheme tighten around her like a straitjacket. “It still won’t work. I have the ranch.”
“The