All Over You (6 page)

The story of her life.

It was almost enough to make her hate his car, too. But that would be taking things too far.

Wordless, she slid into the passenger seat and reached for the scarf and sunglasses she habitually carried in the side pocket of her handbag.

“The seat-belt catch is a little tricky…” Mac began to explain, but Grace had already snapped hers shut.

While he occupied himself with starting the car, Grace deftly tied the scarf over her hair and swapped her office frames for the cat’s-eye sunglasses she’d inherited from her grandmother.

Then she turned her face away from him, signaling her absolute lack of interest in any conversational gambits he might choose to throw her way.

For the hour and a half it took them to drive to Santa Clarita, it appeared he didn’t choose to throw anything her way at all. After the first five minutes of silence, he simply reached across and flicked on the stereo. She noted out of the corner of her eye that he’d had a suitably low-key CD player installed so as not to destroy the original dash. It was the same model she’d been eyeing for herself for the past six months, trying to justify the expenditure when there were other, more mundane things to fix on her car.

Damn him.

Her irritation only grew when she recognized the track he’d put on. Nina Simone’s “Sinner Man.” One of her favorites.

It was no wonder that she was feeling particularly snippy by the time she stepped out of the car at the winery. So far, he’d managed to subvert all of her preconceptions about him, and she was finding it very disconcerting. She was also quiveringly aware of him. Every breath he took, every shift of his hands or body — she was blindsided by how attractive she found him…and how vulnerable that made her.

Shedding her scarf but keeping her sunglasses, she didn’t bother looking behind herself to see if he was following as she headed for the front doors of the winery. Let him keep up, if he could.

She realized instantly that he wasn’t — she’d become so damned attuned to him so quickly that the absence of his presence behind her was like the sun disappearing behind a cloud. She paused in the shadows of the entranceway to check on him discreetly and saw that he had stopped to take shots of the location with a small camera.

Humph. A good idea, she supposed. Maybe he was more than just a life-support system for a whole lot of muscle.

Determined to get the inspection over and done with, she stepped into the coolness of the interior and began to look around. The entrance hall was attractive but small. She couldn’t help but wonder how it would translate on-camera. Following the signs, she walked through to the main tasting room and gift shop. Again, it was pleasant, but she wondered whether the art department would be able to dress it to the level of glamour required for the special.

She knew the moment Mac joined her and watched him survey the space out of the corners of her eyes. He snapped off a couple of shots, and she tensed as he moved toward her.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“It’s nice. Homey and cozy,” she said.

He nodded neutrally and looked around some more. He had such a great profile. She wanted to reach out and run her finger along his nose, rub her palm against his five o’clock shadow, run her tongue along the full curve of his lower lip.

“What’s wrong — not enough bling for your liking?” she asked coolly, furious at herself for staring at him.

He took his time answering, his blue gaze pinning her for a long beat. She had no idea what he was thinking.

“It’s cozy, like you said. But Gabe comes from money. The wedding needs to be lavish, over the top,” he said, turning to study the room again.

Even though she agreed with everything he was saying — or perhaps, because of it — Grace found herself defending the location.

“I know it’s probably not up to your own personal high standards, but I’m sure we can get a hot tub installed and borrow some of the bunnies from the Playboy mansion,” she said sweetly.

He raised an eyebrow, then shot her a slow, appraising look.

“I’m going to go look at the grounds,” he said, “and then you’re going to tell me exactly what stick you have up your ass.”

Grace spluttered angrily but he just walked away. She glared after him, unable to resist the lure of that perfect butt, even though he’d spoken so rudely to her.

Kind of the same way she’d been speaking to him. She was painfully aware of the fact that she’d regressed to elementary-school sexual politics to cope with her stupid awareness of this man: be mean to the handsome boy and he wouldn’t guess that she liked him. It was petty and immature.

But it was all she had — and by God, she was clinging to it.

M
AC TOOK DEEP BREATHS
of the fresh, earth-scented air. It had taken all his willpower not to tear into her back there. He’d hoped to disarm her, befriend her, find some common ground during their drive. Instead, she’d given him the silent treatment. And now she was taking shots at him again.

He didn’t consider himself a hot-tempered kind of a guy, but he had his limits. And she was straining at them.

What really pissed him off was the fact that he still found her attractive. He didn’t kid himself — while his face was on national TV, he was never going to have a problem getting laid. But it had been a long time since he’d gotten any buzz out of that aspect of his fame. He’d had his share of relationships and flings with women in the business — mostly actresses, although his only long-term relationship had been with a makeup artist, Kerry, with whom he’d lived for several years. Keeping a relationship alive was tough enough at the best of times, but when the shifting sands of Hollywood vagaries were added into the mix, Mac figured it was pretty much impossible. Most of the women he met were beautiful, with tanned, sculpted bodies. They all wanted fame in some way — be it through notoriety, association or their own achievements. Why live in L.A. otherwise? Not even a dyed-in-the-wool L.A.-lover would claim it was a beautiful city. Nope, L.A. was a city where dreams and ambition came first and love a pale, sickly second.

He didn’t even know if he believed in love any more. He’d seen so much greed and ugliness over the past few years that cynicism was practically a religion for him. He had a couple of regular lovers who he saw on and off — more off than on lately, if he was being honest with himself. His sex-drive was at an all-time low. Yet, here he was, faced with the obvious disdain and contempt of a rude, sharp-tongued shrew and his gonads were trying to get in on the action. How goddamned contrary was that?

Running a hand through his hair, Mac squinted off into the distance and forced his mind to the matter at hand. Pulling his slim-line digital camera from his pocket, he fired off a few shots, but his heart wasn’t in it. His gut told him this was not the location to make the episode sing. He might not be the most experienced director in the world, but as an actor he’d played his part in innumerable soap weddings. This place just wasn’t right.

The sound of full-throated feminine laughter cut throughthe silence, and he looked over his shoulder to see Grace approaching, arm in arm with a gray-haired guy who looked to be in his late fifties. Grace was laughing up into his face, her cheeks rosy, hips wiggling as she walked with him.

It was like getting a peek behind the curtain during an audience with the Great and Powerful Oz. The hard-nosed witch he’d been dealing with all day was gone and in her place was a sparkling eyed, fun-loving woman who radiated charm.

So why was
he
getting the Alexis Carrington treatment?

As though on cue, Grace’s smile slid from her face as she spotted him and her body stiffened.

Mac grit his teeth. He was getting a little sick of feeling as though he had a personal-hygiene problem.

“I’ve just been talking to your lady friend,” the older man said. “Name’s Rusty. I’m the winemaker here.”

“Rusty took me on a tour of the winemaking shed,” Grace said coolly.

“Great,” Mac said. “You’ve got a lovely place here.”

“Oh, I’m not the owner. I just work here,” Rusty explained.

Grace patted Rusty’s arm confidingly.

“Don’t worry about Mac — he figures that because his life is like a game of Monopoly, the rest of us are all land barons and heiresses.”

Mac’s nostrils flared and he shot her a hard look. She gazed off over the marching rows of vines as though she’d done nothing more contentious than comment on the weather.

“Actually, the wife’s a big fan, Mr. Harrison,” Rusty said, ruddy color staining his cheeks. “Do you think you’d mind…?”

Mac smiled, ignoring the hyena on Rusty’s arm. It wasn’t the winemaker’s fault that Grace was a bitch.

“Not a problem, it’d be my pleasure.”

Rusty pulled a small diary from his pocket and offered up an empty page.

“What’s your wife’s name?” he asked.

“Alison,” Rusty said, craning his head to see what Mac was writing.

Finishing his inscription, Mac signed his name neatly.

“There you go.”

“And, also…?” Rusty asked, producing his cell phone with built-in camera.

Signaling his agreement, Mac waited while Rusty handed the phone over to Grace so he could pose with Mac. A smile, a click and Rusty was offering up his sheepish thanks before heading back to his work.

As one, he and Grace began walking back toward the car. They hadn’t taken two steps before she tilted her head slightly as though she was contemplating a difficult riddle.

“I’m surprised you don’t keep head shots on you,” she drawled. “You’re taking an awful risk — what if someone snaps you on a bad-hair day?”

The sunlight glinted off her dark cat’s-eye sunglasses and the last shreds of Mac’s patience evaporated.

“Right, that’s it,” he said tightly, grabbing her arm and hauling her the last few feet to the Corvette.

“Do you mind? Get your hands off me!” Grace said, outraged. She twisted her arm in his grasp, trying to escape.

He just tightened his grip.

“You’re not going anywhere until you tell me why you’re being such a grade-A bitch. And before you say ‘bite me,’ you might want to think about how long a walk it is back to L.A.”

Finally she succeeded in pulling her arm loose.

“Would you like me to shine your shoes after I’ve finished kissing them? That’s what you’re used to, isn’t it?” she sniped.

“Have it your way.”

Without another word, Mac got into his car, gunned the engine and left her for dust.

T
HE THING ABOUT STILETTOS
was that they looked great. They elongated the leg, transformed the calf muscle and gave a girl an extra few inches in height. They were sexy, stylish fashion must-haves, essential additions to any woman’s arsenal.

And they were totally unsuitable for a two mile trek on a gravel road.

Pride was a terrible, terrible thing Grace admitted after the first blister had burst on her heel. She could have walked the handful of steps required to take her back into the winery so she could use their phone, having discovered she’d left her own cell phone at work. Even now she could be lounging in shady comfort, chatting with Rusty over a nice glass of red while she waited for a taxi. But pride had dictated that she instead make her way down the long driveway to the main road and then traverse the apparently short distance to the craft shop she’d remembered passing on the way in so that no one at the winery knew that her handsome, famous escort had blown her off and driven away without her.

The first blister blossomed halfway down the drive. By the time she’d reached the main road, it had burst and been replaced by brothers and sisters on both feet.

Striking out to her left, she made it another hundred feet before the spike heel on her left shoe snapped off in an ant hole. Swearing like a trooper, Grace whipped off her shoe to examine the damage. It was a clean break, and she heaved a sigh of relief. She knew a shoe wizard who would be able to resuscitate her prized vintage Roger Vivier green-suede peep-toes — some solace, at least.

Tugging off her other shoe, she let out a gasp of pure ecstasy as she flexed her overheated foot. Her relief was short lived — by the time she’d traversed another fifty feet she was hobbling from walking on the sharp gravel.

The worst thing was, she had no one to blame but herself. She wanted to blame Mac — oh, how she wanted to — but she knew that she was the only one responsible for her current situation. She’d been a sniping, vitriolic, sarcastic cow all day and the man had copped her abuse like a gentleman. But even gentlemen had their limits, and now she knew Mac’s.

After ten more minutes of cursing and pain, Grace shook her head. There was no way she was going to make it to the shop. It wasn’t even a speck on the horizon — it was obviously miles off. She looked toward the vineyard, biting her lip. There really was nothing for it but to walk back and eat a large slice of humble pie before asking Rusty to call her a cab. But before she went anywhere, she was giving her poor, tortured feet a break. A rail fence separated the road from the open pastureland that fed into the rows of vines, and she stepped over a drainage ditch and climbed between the top and bottom rails so she could sink her feet into the cool grass. It felt so good that she rested her butt on the bottom rail and closed her eyes, relishing the sensation.

But as much as she wanted to concentrate on only the cool of the grass on her sore, hot feet, she couldn’t stop her mind from picking at the tangled mess she’d made today. She’d gone a little overboard on the protecting-herself thing. She’d been unprofessional. She’d been stupid. She’d been the queen bitch from hell, basically. And she wasn’t particularly proud of herself.

She had a lot of excuses lined up: he pushed all her buttons, reminding her of age-old resentments and ancient insecurities. He was the epitome of so many of the values she’d fought against all her life. And, to her everlasting embarrassment, she had a crush on him that she knew would never be reciprocated.

But none of it was good enough when put in the balance against her poor behavior. Beneath all the sass and the attitude and the Bette Davis drawl, she was a fair woman. She owed him an apology. Big time.

Her eyes were still closed when she heard the sound of a car approaching and slowing to a halt. Even if she hadn’t recognized the distinct burble of the Corvette’s engine, she would have known it was Mac by the way all the small hairs on her arms stood on end.

Secretly, she’d been hoping he’d relent and return for her. It had taken him nearly an hour, but he had. It didn’t escape her attention that she’d kept him waiting for an hour back in the office, too. He hadn’t looked as though he cared, but he had. He’d just bided his time and waited for an opportunity to serve her up some of her own medicine.

Clever.

Swiveling, she ducked her head beneath the top rail and peered at him.

“Ready to go home now?” he asked.

He’d pushed his sunglasses up into his hair and there was a distinct challenge in his gaze. Her eyes dropped to the Popsicle he was holding in one hand. While she’d been vandalizing her shoes, he’d been snacking.

A wry smile found its way to her mouth. He knew how to rub a woman’s face in her wrongdoings, that was for sure.

“That would be very nice, thank you,” she said, determined to show him she’d learned her lesson.

Crouching and easing through the rails, she stepped back over the drainage ditch. He pushed the passenger door open for her, but she hesitated before crossing the threshold.

“Before I get in — I owe you an apology,” she said uncomfortably. She was eternally grateful for her sunglasses — at least they afforded her a tiny skerrick of protection from his bright, hawkish gaze.

“I’m listening,” he said.

She took a deep breath. “I have been beyond rude all day. I’m sorry. It was entirely my problem — nothing to do with you — and I took my bad mood out on you,” she said, fudging the last part but figuring he really didn’t need to know that the reason she’d been such a harpy all day was because she hated herself for finding him almost irresistibly attractive.

There was a long pause before he reached across to the glove compartment and pulled out a second Popsicle, still in its wrapper.

Offering it to her, he jerked his head. “Get in,” he said.

He’d bought her a treat. Bewildered, she slid into the car, unconsciously wincing as one of her blisters brushed the carpet. He frowned.

“Did you hurt yourself?” he asked.

“Blisters,” she explained, too busy tearing the wrapper off her Popsicle to elaborate.

His glance dropped to her broken shoe, lying on the floor.

“And you broke your shoe?” he said.

“It’s repairable.” She shrugged, taking a big, deliciously cool bite of tangy raspberry ice.

He gave her an intent look before signaling and pulling back out onto the road.

She polished off her treat and he silently passed her a travel pack of tissues to wipe her sticky hands.

“Thank you.” She hesitated a moment, then reminded herself that she still had some ground to make up. “Does this mean I’m forgiven?” she asked, forcing herself to be light.

He shrugged. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether you’ll have dinner with me tonight.”

Grace jerked her head around to look at him. “You’re kidding.”

“That’s my price for pretending today never happened,” he said, eyes hidden behind his own sunglasses now.

“Why would you want to have dinner with me when I’ve been a total bitch all day?” she asked honestly.

He didn’t take his attention off the road. “We need to have a decent working relationship,” he said.

“Okay, I agree with that. But dinner really isn’t necessary, is it?” she asked. The thought of spending more time with him — of sitting opposite him for a meal, being unable to avoid looking into that stunning, unforgettable face — was too, too overwhelming.

“I think it is.”

She could hear the determination in his tone. He’d offered his deal — forgiveness for dinner. She closed her eyes. Why-oh-why hadn’t she picked someone completely outside her world to be her fantasy lover? Hell, why hadn’t she picked someone really safe, like Elvis or Jim Morrison?

She opened her eyes again. “Okay. Where do you want to meet?”

“I’ll pick you up,” he said.

This time, she didn’t even bother trying to argue.

G
RACE
W
ELLINGTON
was a revelation. The thought crossed his mind somewhere between their appetizers and main courses that evening.

By the time he’d arrived at her low-rise art deco apartment block to collect her, he’d had two hours to regret his impulsive invitation. Why prolong the misery of a genuinely shitty day by extending it into dinner? But he’d always been unable to refuse a challenge — and Grace was definitely challenging.

The moment she’d opened her door to him, most of his doubts had turned to dust. Somehow, in the time between dropping her off at the production offices and navigating his way to her Venice Beach apartment, he’d forgotten how striking she was. The smell of her heavy, musky perfume smacked him in the nose even as his eyeballs boggled at all the delights they were being offered. Her breasts looked incredible in a fitted, high-necked-but-still-sexy pale-yellow dress featuring about a million little buttons down the bodice. Her hips got their fair share of attention, too, since her skirt hugged her curves like nobody’s business. Her toes peeped out from between the straps of a pair of elegant red-suede stilettos and he’d felt an instant surge of desire as she brushed past him.

The feeling had only intensified when she’d slid into his car and run an unconsciously sensual hand along the upholstery. It wasn’t until they were halfway to the intimate little restaurant he’d chosen in Malibu that he’d realized she was half lit. Not actually drunk, but definitely…relaxed. At first he’d been annoyed, but then she’d started to let her guard down. And now he was officially intrigued.

The cold-eyed, hard-nosed sourpuss of earlier in the day had been replaced by a lighthearted woman with a quick wit and a ready laugh. It was as though the earlier Grace had been sketched in black and white and at last he was being treated to the Technicolor version.

“I love mushrooms,” she purred now as her main course was delivered. “They’ve got everything — aroma, texture, taste. Don’t you think?”

He wondered if she was aware that she was running her fingers up and down the stem of her glass. And if she knew what it was doing to him.

“I’m a big fan of the pea, myself,” he countered.

“The pea?” She smiled, ready to be amused. He liked that about her.

“Why not? It’s small, it’s green, it rolls. Design, color, movement — the pea has a lot to offer.”

She shook her head and looked vaguely annoyed. “There you go again, surprising me.”

“Let me guess, you had me pegged as a potato kind of guy?” he asked.

She took a slug of her wine and shook her head for the second time. One of her elbows found its way onto the table and she leaned forward to accentuate her point.

“You’re an actor. You’re supposed to be one-dimensional. We’re supposed to be talking about how great you are,” she said.

There was just the slightest slur in her words, enough to make him shake his head subtly when the waiter approached, wine list in hand, hoping to secure an order for a second bottle.

“But, instead, we’re talking about vegetables. And music. And architecture. And our favorite movies,” she said.

She sounded put out.

“This bothers you?” he asked, slicing into his panfried snapper.

“Yeah, it bothers me. The way I figure it is this — some people in life get the looks, others get the smarts. You can’t have both.”

“Why not?”

She looked genuinely outraged. “It’s not fair. Good looks
and
smarts — there’s no defense against that,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows and reached for the lemon wedge on the edge of his plate.

“Defense? Is there some kind of war going on that I don’t know about?” he asked, squeezing lemon juice over his fish.

“Oh!” she said suddenly, jerking back.

He glanced up and realized that his lemon wedge had misfired and squirted her in the eye.

“I’m sorry — are you all right?” he asked, half standing and leaning forward.

She pulled her glasses off and blinked a few times. Then she smiled.

“Nice shot,” she said, tongue in cheek.

Smooth, really smooth,
he chastised himself. The only time she’d unwound with him all day, and he tried to blind her. Feeling guilty, he plucked the heavy black frames from her fingers.

Her eyes widened. “It’s okay, I can clean them myself,” she said when he began drying them on his pristine napkin.

“At least allow me to exorcise my guilt,” he said, caught in the unobscured magic of her green gaze.

He’d noticed her eyes before — their exotic tilt, their color — but her glasses had always provided a chunky barrier to her thoughts. Now he felt as though he could see straight through to her soul.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, tugging at the neckline of her dress uncomfortably.

“You have amazing eyes,” he said, staring into them intently. “What color is that? Like sea foam. But greener.”

“Moldy green,” she said dismissively. “That’s what my sisters used to call it.”

“Jealousy is a curse,” he said.

“Oh no, they’re not jealous of me,” Grace quickly corrected him, reaching for her wineglass again. “They’re stunning, all of them.”

He shrugged, unconvinced. In his experience, brothers and sisters only took shots at the qualities they most envied in their siblings.

“They are,” Grace defended. Her long earrings brushed the creamy skin of her neck. “They even get paid to be beautiful — Felicity’s a weather girl, Serena is an actress and Hope’s a model. So there’s nothing for them to be jealous about where I’m concerned.”

For the first time, he sensed vulnerability beneath her tough-broad demeanor. First she was sexy and amusing, now she was vulnerable. He felt as though he was being treated to the dance of the seven veils, except it was Grace’s disguises that were dropping away instead of veils.

“Felicity, Serena, Hope and Grace. Let me guess — your Mom’s Catholic?” he asked. He’d long since finished cleaning her glasses, but her eyes were too beautiful to hide. He set the frames on the table. If she wanted them, she could ask for them — in the meantime he was going to enjoy the view.

“As Catholic as it gets,” Grace said, rolling her eyes. “I still blame Dad for not stopping her with the names.”