Changing Roles

“Why?” Tony asked.

Shelby looked at me for a moment. “Because it’s my smile. He has hundreds of them, and a lot of them are what the public sees. But in private, the smile I get is the one that tells me how much I’m loved. It’s the most special one of them all. And in the mornings, when he’s still drowsy and not ready to face the world, he still has that sweet, wonderful smile for me.” She looked at the camera with a shrug. “Maybe before you read the rags and all the lies they print, you should remember the person they’re talking about is real. Not a character.” She laid her hand on my arm. “He’s someone’s son. Part of a real, breathing family. Friend. Human first, actor second. He acts for a living, and he gives it his all. He doesn’t deserve the lies. None of them do. They give so much of themselves to entertain. Let them have a little privacy in return.”

I had no choice but to kiss her again—camera or no.

She was bloody brilliant.

When Tony addressed me, I liked being able to confirm that Shelby was divorced, and would have been sooner if the wanker hadn’t been hiding and living under an assumed name while using the money he had stolen from her to do so.

“Shelby is older than you,” he stated, lifting an eyebrow. “Does that concern you?”

“No.”

“Hollywood is known for valuing youth above all else.”

“Then it’s a good thing it’s not Hollywood I’m in love with,” I retorted. “I didn’t fall in love with her age. I fell in love with her soul. Her mind. Her tenderness.” I winked. “Her turkey sandwiches and how sexy she looks in red helped, of course.”

Tony chuckled. “So the future doesn’t bother you?”

“It would if she weren’t a part of it,” I said. “My mum is older than my da. Never made a bloody bit of difference to them or to me growing up. Shelby is thirty-three. I’m twenty-eight. Next month, I’ll be twenty-nine, and it’s four years. Makes no difference. As my mum says, it’s a number. When Shelby’s fifty-five and I’m fifty, it won’t even make anyone blink. It shouldn’t now either.”

“Good way to look at it.”

I held Shelby’s hand. “It’s the only way to look at it. Bottom line is, if it were reversed and I were older than her, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. I’d be patted on the back for snagging a younger woman. We need to change our mind-sets.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “It sounds as if Peter Pan is growing up.”

I rolled my eyes. I hated that nickname, although at one time, I deserved it. “About bloody time, I think.”

He asked a few more questions about our beginning, and I gave a witty rendition of how we fell in love, leaving out most of the idiotic stuff I had done over the course of our relationship.

When Tony asked about the ring on her finger, Shelby blushed, and we confirmed it was what it looked like, and we were engaged. He asked her how I proposed, and I held my breath, hoping the words “He did it while trying to fuck me with his ginormous erection” didn’t leave her mouth.

She smiled softly as she answered. “In his own unique way, Tony. As only Liam could.”

“Did you do anything to celebrate?”

Her lips quirked. “I had OJ,” she quipped and started to chuckle.

Tony looked at me. “OJ?”

I nodded, trying not to laugh. “Nothing says love better than a big shot of OJ, Tony.”

His brow furrowed. “The party-boy actor celebrates his big moments now with orange juice? That’s a little, ah, different.”

I had to roll my eyes. The press had decided I was a party boy and dubbed me as such. It was never accurate.

“We have OJ as often as possible,” Shelby assured him. “Liam hand-squeezes it for me.”

I wrapped my arm around her, chuckling. “I do.”

Tony looked confused. “You take your OJ seriously.”

Shelby started to laugh. “You have no idea.”

I grinned as I realized something, watching her amusement as we shared our secret joke. Everett was right; I did make her silly. And I loved that fact. I made her laugh, and she made me…better. In everything.

He shrugged. “Well, whatever floats your boat.”

Shelby laughed harder and I joined her, pulling her closer as I chortled into her hair, knowing I had found the perfect woman for me.

Tony looked at us like we were nuts.

And we were—for each other.24LiamSix Months LaterI walked out of wardrobe, shoving material into my bag, anxious to get home. We’d done an overnight shoot, and Shelby had stayed behind. One night away became two, and the sap I had become—I missed her. I hated being away from her now at all.

Not looking where I was going, I ran right into Douglas, who shook his head as he stared at the item I was carrying.