No one could play Tess Canton the way I do.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right. But you’re letting the character take over your life.
And it’s not pretty.”
Her face screwed up in anger and she bounced up from the couch, his jacket swinging around her. “Oh, so now you don’t even think I’m pretty?” She started crying.
Jarett sighed and held up his hands. “I didn’t say that. Of course you’re pretty. You’re beautiful, Taylor.”
She managed a smile through her tears. “You think so?”
“Yes,” he said levelly. “Now, are you going to the cast party, or are you going to disappoint your fans?”
She inhaled, then sighed prettily. “I’m going to the cast party.”
“Good.” He stood up.
“Do you have to go, Jarett?” Her face crumpled, and his chest squeezed at her desperate tone.
He wished he could help Taylor, but his sympathy didn’t extend to having an empty physical relationship with her. He’d promised his best friend, David, that he’d take care of his sister until David returned from Haiti to step in. In addition to the bond they’d forged when David and Taylor’s parents had taken him in as a teenager, he and David had joined the Air Force and trained side by side for four years. They were closer than most brothers, and Jarett would gladly have put his life on the line for David. Although some days, he thought the two-year promise he’d made to his friend would be the death of him.
“I have to get a car lined up for tonight,” he said with the best smile he could muster. “And another guard to help me keep the, um, freaks at bay.”
“Okay. Do you want your jacket back?” she teased.
“I’ll get it later,” he said breezily, backing away before she could take it off and offer it to him.
She sighed. “What would I do without you, Jarett?”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he said sincerely, then handily changed the subject.
“Your hairdresser is downstairs ready to have a stroke.”
She drove her hands into her wild, white-blond hair. “Okay, send him up—tell him I’m jumping in the shower.” A yawn overtook her and her entire body seemed to deflate with fatigue.
“No pills tonight,” Jarett said with a pointed look.
“No pills,” she agreed, although her voice was less than convincing.
He left her suite and found Rosie to let her know that Taylor was back on track for the time being, but as he walked downstairs, Jarett’s booted feet were heavy. He had a bad feeling that Taylor was going down the same path many ill-fated starlets had taken before—drugs, alcohol, and ultimate destruction if she didn’t get help soon.
He felt guilty as hell that her infatuation with him seemed to be driving her closer to the edge.
In reality, he knew Taylor struggled with low self-esteem. She craved approval, especially from her intensely religious family. At times, it seemed as if she behaved so outrageously just to get their attention.
He also suspected that her preoccupation with him was rooted in the fact that she couldn’t have him. She knew her family would be scandalized if the two of them became involved. But he wasn’t willing to sleep with her just to prove his theory. Instead he held out hope that someday she’d meet a decent guy who would make her feel good about herself. To date, however, all her boy friends had been first-class losers.
But the worst part of the entire situation was that, at one time, he had fancied himself to be in love with Taylor. When he and David had joined the Air Force to travel the world, Taylor had been a gangly girl of twelve. When they returned to Wheeling, West Virginia, she was a voluptuous woman of eighteen. He’d been enchanted by her, and Taylor had made no secret about the fact that she’d waited for him. But the Gumms had trusted him completely, so he’d set aside his feelings and discouraged her advances.
When Taylor announced that after graduation, she was going to L.A. to become an actress, Mr. and Mrs. Gumm were horrified, especially since they’d tried to shelter their daughter from the ways of the world by banning TV and rock and roll music from their household. But when they realized their stubborn little girl was not to be denied, they agreed to let her go, as long as David and Jarett went along to look after her.
From the get-go, Jarett had hated L.A., but he was more worldly than either David or Taylor, so he’d stayed to make sure nobody got into trouble. The three of them had shared an apartment. He and David had gotten work in the security business, and took turns accompanying Taylor to auditions. She’d landed enough modeling shoots and commercials to keep her spirits high. David, on the other hand, was miserable. So when his father had presented him with a two-year missionary opportunity in Haiti, David had happily left Taylor to Jarett’s charge.
Nobody knew that Jarett had been miserable, too. Taylor was coming into her own as a woman and tempting him at every turn in the close quarters they shared. At the same time, some of the less pleasant aspects of Taylor’s personality were also coming to light—she had a cutting tongue, a dirty mouth, and was prone to outlandish tantrums when she didn’t get her way. And when Jarett had made it clear they wouldn’t be lovers, she’d retaliated by bringing a string of bozos back to their apartment.
But she’d continued to perform well, and on one of Jarett’s security jobs, he’d had the occasion to do a favor for Mac Peterson, a first-class talent agent. The man had agreed to interview Taylor, and had taken her on. When she’d landed the role of Tess Canton on Many Moons, Taylor became an overnight sensation. Publicity agent Sheila Waterson came on board to manage Taylor’s public appearances, and Jarett had taken over her personal security. Her photo was now one of the most downloaded images on the Internet, and one of her swimsuit posters was the number five bestselling poster of all time.
They had created a monster, it seemed.
Jarett signaled the flustered hairdresser to go on up to Taylor’s suite, then walked to the phone to call Peterson. “Taylor’s going to the cast party,” he assured the man on the line.
“Thank Gawd,” Peterson said, his British accent seemingly more pronounced today. “Do you think you can keep her away from the booze?”
“I’ll try.”
“And everything else?”
“Again, I’ll try. But I can’t be with her every second.”
“Seeing as how I’ve been on the phone for the last hour covering her tracks for that nasty little table dance she did at Zago’s, I think you’d better stay as close as possible. Ditto for the Chicago trip, Jarett. She’ll be under the network’s microscope. No more see-through frocks.”
He sighed. “Fine time for Sheila to be out of town.”
“Sheila’s managing too many high-maintenance personalities. I’m counting on you to handle Taylor until Sheila returns from Mexico with her kleptomaniac rock star.”
“You know I’ll do my best.”
“Yes, I do, Jarett. Taylor’s bloody lucky to have you.”
He thanked the man, then hung up. An ache had set up at the base of his skull. He walked to the window of the opulent living room and looked out over the cramped, arid landscape—houses sat on every possible inch of ground, and crisscrossed power lines ruined what might have been a passable view. The only color relieving the sea of red tile roofs were dots of blue—swimming pools. The people in this neighborhood preferred concrete to grass.
It was selfish he knew, but he was practically counting the days until David returned. By then Taylor would be almost twenty-one and he could walk away with a clear conscience. He was tired of fake people and big crowds and