“This is your big break, Diana,” my agent had almost shouted. “You just got offered the girlfriend role in the biggest summer blockbuster. It’ll make your career. Another actress fell through at the last minute, and she suggested you...”
“Who suggested me?” I’d said, confused.
“Someone with good taste, that’s who. Movie will start shooting a few weeks after your due date,” he said, cackling with glee. “How’s that for perfect timing? You’ll have three whole weeks to lose the baby weight before you need to report to Romania...that won’t be a problem, will it, kiddo?”
Lose thirty pounds in three weeks? “Um...” Then I was distracted by the other thing he’d said. “Romania?”
“For three months. Romania is lovely in the fall.”
I was dumbfounded. “But I’ll have a newborn.”
“So? Bring the baby with you. You’ll have a nice trailer. Get a nanny.” When I didn’t answer, he said hastily, “Or leave the kid here with its dad. Whatever you want. But you can’t turn this role down, Diana. Don’t you get it? It’s a starring role. Your name will be above the title. This is your big chance.”
“Yeah,” I’d said, wondering why I didn’t feel more thrilled. Of course I would say yes. I had no choice. Wasn’t this what I’d wanted, what I’d dreamed of and strived for? This kind of luck didn’t happen every day. But as I imagined losing thirty pounds in three weeks then taking my newborn off to live in a Romanian trailer, all I felt was exhausted. “I...have to think about it.”
“Are you kidding?” He’d been stunned. “If you’d turn this down, I’m not sure how much I can help you in the future,” he’d said warningly. “I need to feel like we’re on the same team.”
“I understand.”
“I’ll call you for your answer first thing tomorrow. Make it the right one.”
I didn’t know what to do. I was tempted to talk it over with Edward, but I had the feeling he’d just tell me he supported whatever I wanted to do. Heck, for all I knew, he’d come to Romania with me. So much had changed.
So where was Edward now? I was two hours late. Had he given up waiting for me and left, to walk off his irritation with a stroll on the beach? Malibu was a beautiful place. I should know. I was the one who’d talked him into renting this place.
The very first day he’d come to Beverly Hills, he’d recklessly told me he planned to buy a nearby house, on sale for twenty million dollars. “I want to be close to you.” Privately, I’d thought he was out of his mind; even more privately, I thought if he lived forty minutes away, it would be a case of out of sight, out of mind and he’d stop pursuing me. So I’d convinced him he should instead rent a beach house getaway.
“You have to help me pick out the house,” Edward had agreed. Backed into a corner, I’d consented. The estate agent had taken us to ritzy McMansions all over town, but I hadn’t loved any of the newly built palaces, all of them the same with their seven bedrooms and ten bathrooms, with their tennis courts and home theaters and wine cellars. When Edward saw I wasn’t interested in them, he wasn’t either. Finally, in an act of pure desperation, the estate agent had brought us here.
Built in the 1940s on Malibu Beach, this cottage was squat and ugly compared to the three-story glass mansions around it. When Edward saw it, he almost told her to drive on.
“Wait,” I’d said, putting my hand on his arm. Something about the tiny, rickety house had reminded me of my family home in Pasadena, where I’d lived when I was a very young child, before my father had died.
When he saw my face, Edward was suddenly willing to overlook the house’s flaws. Good thing, because there were so many. No air conditioning. The kitchen was ridiculously tiny and last remodeled in 1972. The wooden floorboards creaked, the dust was thick and the furniture was covered with white sheets. When I pulled the sheet off the baby grand piano, a dust cloud kicked up and made us all cough, even the estate agent.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here,” she said apologetically.
“No,” I’d whispered. “I love it.”
“We’ll take it,” Edward said.
But where was he now? I went heavily up the creaking stairs to the second floor. I’d been up here only once before, when we’d toured the house with the estate agent. It was just a small attic bedroom with slanted ceilings, and a tiny balcony overlooking the ocean.
As I reached the top of the stairs, the bedroom was in shadow. I saw only the brilliant slash of orange and persimmon to the west as the red ball of the sun fell like fire into the sea.
Then I saw Edward, sitting on the bed.
And then...
I sucked in my breath.
Hundreds of rose petals in a multitude of colors had been scattered across the bed and floor, illuminated by tapered white candles on the nightstands and handmade shelves. When Edward saw me standing in the doorway, in my sundress and casual ponytail, he rose from the bed. His chest and feet were bare. He wore only snug jeans that showed off his tanned skin, and the shape of his well-muscled legs. Stepping toward me, he smiled.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I can see that,” I whispered, knowing I was in trouble. Knowing I should run.
He lifted a long-stemmed red rose from a nearby vase. Leaning forward, he stroked the softest part of the rose against my cheek. “I know your secret.”
I blinked. “My...my secret?”
Leaning back, he gave me a lazily sensual smile. “How you tried to resist me. And failed.”
“I haven’t. I haven’t agreed to marriage or fallen into bed with you. Not yet,” I choked out. Then blushed when I realized the insinuation was that I soon would.
His smile lifted to a grin. He nodded toward a pile of books in a box in a corner of the room. “I just got that box this afternoon from Mrs. MacWhirter. It seems you left something, buried in your bedroom closet at Penryth Hall.
I looked down at the open box. Sitting on top was the faded dust jacket of the fine manual written by Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley, Private Nursing: How to Care for a Patient in His Home Whilst Maintaining Professional Distance and Avoiding Immoral Advances from Your Employer.
“Oh,” I said lamely, looking back at Edward with my cheeks on fire.
He gave a low laugh. “Didn’t do you much good, did it?”
Biting my lip, I shook my head.
Tilting his head, he looked at me wickedly. “What do you think Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley would say if she saw you now?”
I looked down at my hugely pregnant belly, which strained the knit fabric of my sundress. “I’m not sure she’d have the words.”
“I think...” He ran his fingertips lightly over my bare shoulder, turning me to face him. “She’d tell you to marry me.”
A tremble went through my body. My bare shoulder pulsed heat from the place when he touched me.
Scowling, I glared at him. “Do you always get your own way?”
Lifting his hand, he cupped my cheek.
“Ask me tomorrow,” he said softly.
And Edward fell to one knee before me.
I stared down at him, my mouth wide with shock. “What are you doing?”
“What I should have done long ago.” He looked up at me in the small, shadowy attic bedroom. “You know I want to marry you, Diana. I’m asking you one last time. With everything I’ve got,” he said quietly. “All I