Flawed (Ethan Frost 4)

“What does it feel like?” I ask after the waiter has delivered her water and taken our order—a grilled salmon salad for her and a burger for me. “To be on that side of the story?”

She reaches up, toys with one perfect, golden lock of hair, and for a moment—just a moment—a shadow falls over her face. It’s gone almost before I can register it and then she’s tossing her hair, stretching languorously, yawning delicately, one pale, fine-boned hand pressed to her mouth.

“Are we there already?”

“Where is ‘there’ exactly?”

“The boring interview questions.”

“And here I was trying so hard to be interesting…”

“Oh, you don’t have to try.” Her smile is impish now, inviting me to share the joke. “I’ve spent the last few days trying to cull down the million or so questions I want to ask you.”

Now both my brows are up. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how these interviews are supposed to work.” This one in particular, considering I have a limited amount of time with her and so many, many things to figure out. Only a few of which are also part of Vanity Fair’s agenda.

“Interview-shminterview. Let’s just have a conversation. You ask me a question and I’ll answer it. Then I’ll ask you one and you answer it.”

“Oh, so that’s how a conversation works.”

“Yes, well, one never can be too careful with writers. You people are…”

“Crazy?” I offer.

“I was going to say eccentric.” She tries out an innocent look. It might work, too, if she didn’t have a body made for long, sweaty, sex-filled nights and a mouth made to—She tries out an innocent look. “But crazy works, too.”

It really does. But then, there are all kinds of crazy in the world. “I prefer honesty to diplomacy.”

“Well, that’s certainly unique.” She makes a face at me—eyes crossed, tongue out, nose all scrunched up. She looks ridiculous and still far too gorgeous. “And total bullshit if I’ve ever heard it. In this town, nobody prefers honesty.”

“Yes, but I’m not from this town.”

“That,” she says as she squeezes an extra lime into her sparkling water, “is a very good point. And now that it’s out there, I really will insist on asking you questions. And you answering them.” She pokes a finger at my chest for emphasis. “Honestly. Since it’s your thing.”

“Quid pro quo?” I suggest.

She sighs. “I suppose. If you insist upon thinking of it that way.”

“Is there another way to think of it?”

“As fun.” She lifts her water to her lips, takes one long, thirsty sip. I very deliberately don’t watch the way her throat works as she swallows. “You do know what fun is, don’t you?”

Fuck. I expected a lot of things from this interview. I never expected to like her.

“I believe I’m familiar with the concept, yes.”

“I hoped you would be. I know there probably isn’t much fun in true crime, but you can improvise a little, right?”

“Is that what you do with your scripts? Improvise?” She gave me the opening and I can’t resist sliding in with the first of my questions. “I’ve heard working with you always involves the unexpected.”

“No answers to your questions until you promise that you’ll answer some of mine.” Her smile is bright white and beaming.

This may be my first celebrity interview of this ilk, but I know when I’m being taken for a ride. I’m pretty sure this wide-eyed, friendly approach works on most of the Hollywood journalists she runs into, but I’ve spent the last fifteen years of my life interviewing people whose lives—not just their livelihoods—depend on their ability to lie. Murderers, policemen, federal agents, witnesses, family members of the victims, not-so-innocent bystanders. I’ve interviewed them all, and those varied experiences let me see, all too clearly, the calculation lurking in the depths of those world-famous violet eyes.

Recognizing it doesn’t keep me from taking the plunge, however. Some things are inevitable, after all. And calculation isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Sometimes it’s prudent.

Sometimes it’s fun.