Fake (West Hollywood 1)

“So three jobs, then. You’re hardworking.”

I shrugged. It wasn’t a big deal. Like everyone else, I have bills to pay.

“College?” he asked.

I pushed back my shoulders, sat up straighter. Not that I was defensive about the topic or anything. “I dropped out during my second year. You?”

“Acting at USC.”

“But you’re from Phoenix originally, right?”

He cocked his head. “You Googled me? Checked me out on Wikipedia?”

“Um . . .”

“It’s fine, Norah,” he said. “Research for the job, right?”

“Right.”

“What’d you find out?” All relaxed, he sat back in his chair. With his legs spread and an arm lying on the table. The most at ease I’d ever seen him. Still, there remained a tension to him, a dissatisfaction of sorts.

“Well, you’re thirty-six years old. Born and raised in Arizona, but you’ve been a resident of LA since you were eighteen.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You have two younger sisters. You’ve appeared in twenty-eight films and a few television shows,” I recite from memory. “A supporter of the World Wildlife Foundation and a Dodgers fan. And you were declared Sexiest Man of the Year a while back. Congratulations.”

“Thanks,” he said drily. “It was good PR. I’ll give it that.”

Outside, a scattering of lights lay spread out across the nighttime city. And far off in the distance, the ocean did its majestic thing.

“That’s pretty much it,” I said.

“No rumors or innuendo to add to the list?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m sure you’re aware of what they say about you. There’s no need for me to repeat any of it.”

His fingers tapped out a soft beat against the table. “You must be curious about Liv and that whole fucking mess.”

“It’s none of my business.”

“Yeah, but you’re bound to get asked about it, eventually.”

“At which point I’ll tell whoever is asking that everyone has a history,” I said. “Whoever you were involved with in the past has nothing to do with us here and now. They couldn’t possibly compete with how pure and true our love is. Why we make Cinderella and Prince Charming looks like a pair of losers.”

He snorted, and it was a sort of vaguely happy sound. Score one for me.

“Or something along those lines.” I shrugged. “Whatever you and Angie want me to say.”

“Got any acting experience?”

“Not even a little.”

Another almost-smile. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. Just be yourself.”

Glad one of us was a believer.

“Tell me about you.”

“Oh come on,” I said. “I know you had a private detective do what was no doubt an extensive background search. The lawyers mentioned it a time or twelve.”

He just looked at me. “Yeah, Norah, I did. Then I asked Angie to read the report and tell me if anything in particular stuck out as being a problem. It didn’t, so that was that.”

“You didn’t read it?”

“No.”

I wasn’t sure if I was insulted or relieved. A bit of both, maybe.

“Tell me about yourself,” he prodded again.

“Thirty years old. You already know about the year and a half of college,” I said. “Born and raised locally.”

“What did you want to study?”

“Business, maybe. I hadn’t really decided.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“Life happened.” I rubbed my hands along the sides of my wide-leg jeans. Pale blue and very nice. Because Patrick Walsh’s live-in girlfriend didn’t hang out at home in saggy old yoga pants, thank you very much. “You know. Things just . . . don’t turn out the way you expect.”

He nodded and let it go.

Who’d have guessed that one day I’d be sitting across from Patrick Walsh discussing my life and its various failures? It was tempting to keep pinching myself just to check that I was awake. The whole situation was bizarre. Crazy. A Hollywood heartthrob and a house in the hills. It was all I could do not to stare about me in wonder. And there was small chance I’d fooled him about not being bedazzled. He had to be well used to peasants like me staring at him in abject wonder. Which was really just a nice way of saying I was objectifying him. An awful but damn hard thing not to do. I mean, the man was basically proof of God and I now lived with him. Lucky I’d packed my vibrator.

Which made me think of something else I’d been wondering. “Why didn’t you just get a girlfriend?”

He chin jerked up. “Hmm?”

“You’re rich and handsome. It can’t be hard for you to find company. You weren’t tempted to get a real girlfriend to see you through this?”

“No,” was all he said.

Fair enough. I shut my mouth.

“I’ve had enough drama,” he said after a minute. There was a hardness to his gaze now. Like a wall had been erected keeping me firmly out. As if he wasn’t intimidating enough already. The very idea of touching him, of acting familiar enough to sell this whole girlfriend charade, was absurd. He obviously neither invited it nor wanted it. “Are you seeing anyone?”