Queen of His Heart (5 page)

She stiffened at the sound of the velvety smooth voice. She knew exactly who was on the other line. “Oh, hello, Mr. Armstrong.”

“Please. My friends call me Keenan.”

“All right,
Keenan
. What can I do for you?”

“Well, I hope I didn't call you at a bad time.”

“No. No. I'm just getting in from my parents'.” She folded her arms and leaned back against the sink. How was she going to do this?
Just tell him.

“Actually, I was just calling you to tell you that I ran everything by my business partner and she's on board.”

Jalila didn't know exactly what that meant.

“First thing tomorrow I'm going to make some calls. We're going to pitch the idea to a couple of studios next week, but I just wanted to tell you that I have a positive vibe about this whole thing. I'm sure that we can get picked up by ABC.”

Jalila tried to digest all the information he was unloading.
ABC? The ABC?

“Of course, we'll be racing to make the fall schedule. Nitara—that's my business partner—she's going to post an open casting call in all the trade papers tomorrow. Plus, she'll reach out to a few casting directors.”

“Casting call.” Jalila frowned. “Are you just lining up actors?”

Keenan laughed. “No. I wouldn't curse you like that.”

She sighed in relief. “Oh, thank God.”

“Been down that road?”

“I got a T-shirt around here somewhere.”

His laughter deepened and sent a wave of delicious tingles throughout her body.

“Are you nervous?” he asked suddenly.

She weighed whether she should lie. “A little bit.”

“Good. I would've been worried about you if you weren't. But don't worry, I'm going to take good care of you.”

Something about the way he said those words warmed Jalila's heart and strung a wide smile across her lips.

“So you can trust me. I'm not going to let any crazies or stalkers anywhere near you.”

If he's part of that crazy Hollywood crowd, I wouldn't trust him any further than you can throw him.

Jalila tried to push her father's words to the back of her head. “How do you know what kind of men to screen for? Surely you haven't figured out my type just by scanning my YouTube videos.”

“You could always tell me your type.”

Was it just her imagination or had his voice dipped lower? It was incredibly sexy and was turning her knees into Jell-O. “Well.” She cleared her throat. “Ideally?”

Keenan chuckled. “Yes. Pretend you have a blank canvas. What kind of man can win your heart, Jalila?”

Jalila mulled over the question as she left the kitchen and headed upstairs.

“Do you even know what you want?” he teased.

She smiled. “I've always dreamed that my future husband would be tall, dark and handsome.”
You sort of fit the bill.

His laughter continued to rumble through the line. “All women say that. What about personality?”

“Of course, he would have to be kind, funny, generous and thoughtful.”

Woof!

“Oh, and he would have to be a dog lover.”

“All right. Sounds simple enough,” Keenan said, glancing over at the table to see Chips inching toward his plate holding the discarded bones. “I see you, Chips.”

Chips glanced around as if to say, “Who me?”

“Oh. I didn't know that you had company. I'm just chatting away.”

“No. No one is here. Chips is my always-starving dog.” He laughed and handed over another bone—nearly taking off one of Keenan's fingers.

“Aww. What kind of dog do you have?”

He smiled. “Great Dane.”

Jalila's excitement exploded. “Get out of here! And you named him Chips? You know there was another dog in a great horror movie named Chips?”

Keenan bobbed his head. “Yeah. I named him after the dog in
Dawn of the Damned
.”

“So you love horror movies, too?”

“When I was younger it was always a great excuse to curl up with a date.”

Jalila rolled her eyes. “I should have known.” 'Course, she suspected that women didn't need much of an excuse to cuddle with him. She suspected that broad chest of his was actually one hell of a security blanket. And here she was in her bedroom, pulling off her clothes to get ready for bed! “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.” Keenan rinsed off his plate and set it in the dishwasher.

“Why me? I mean, there are millions of women with my story and plenty of them are on YouTube, a lot of them a lot more popular than I am. I don't think I even have a thousand subscribers.”

Keenan entered his bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed and removed his shoes. “You have what we call in the business a certain je ne sais quoi. The camera loves you and I think what you have to say is relevant to the state of what women—heck, men and women—go through trying to find that special someone.”

Even you?
Now that she thought about it, what was
his
story? She had noticed at the spa that he didn't have a ring on his finger, but that didn't mean anything in this town. Now they had been talking for nearly an hour and it was edging close to midnight. Should she ask?

“I haven't been out in the dating scene too long myself,” he admitted, during the silence. “I've been divorced for five years.”

Jalila relaxed at being spared from asking the question herself. “I'm sorry.”

“Don't be.” He sighed and leaned back against the row of pillows along the headboard. “Truth be told, we
simply outgrew each other. We were high-school sweethearts and probably should have broken up after the prom like everyone else.”

After thinking about her own romantic missteps, Jalila had to agree with him. “So are you from L.A.?”

“Born and bred. My father used to own the number two GM dealership in the whole state of California a few years back. Now he and Mom are spending their retirement traveling the states in a fancy-schmancy RV, which means they call me and my sister often. Each week they alternate who wants to kill whom.” He chuckled. “It's usually my mom wanting to throttle my father for either getting lost or for refusing to ask for directions. But they're crazy about each. I wish I knew their secret.”

“Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if my parents' obscene lovey-doviness spoiled me,” Jalila said.

“I doubt that.” Keenan yawned. “There's nothing wrong with wanting what our parents have. Honestly, I'm a little jealous of them sometimes. I doubt it will ever be me. I may be a bit jaded now.”

Jalila yawned as she snuggled under her comforter. “Maybe you should search for your soul mate on TV?”

Keenan climbed into bed. “Nah. I belong behind the camera, not in front of it.”

“Who knows, maybe one day you'll change your mind.”

“Yeah. Who knows?” He heard her yawning again and fought his reluctance to hang up. “I'd better let you get some sleep.”

“I'm not tired.” Her words probably would have
been more convincing if she hadn't yawned at the same time. “Okay. Maybe I'm a
little
tired.”

Keenan's now-familiar laugh rumbled through the line. “G'night, Jalila.”

“Night.” She disconnected the call and smiled against her pillow. It was no surprise that she dreamed about a certain handsome Hollywood producer whose only interest in her was to help her find another man.

Just her luck.

F
or the next two weeks Keenan was a man on a mission. He shopped the treatment for his reality show,
Queen of Hearts
, to every studio in town. So far he had received two No's and three Maybe's. Up until now, Nitara, Dee Dee and Jalila's best friend Martina had handled the interviewing and eliminations. Thanks to Excedrin and Pepto-Bismol, they'd whittled the twenty thousand applicants down to a hundred. It hadn't come without cost. Every day, Nitara complained that she was close to pulling her hair out, and that she'd forgotten just how many self-absorbed losers lived in L.A.

When his meeting with possible financers wrapped early, Keenan decided that he would help in cutting down the one hundred remaining contestants to twenty-five.

“Wow. How generous of you,” Nitara mumbled, rolling her eyes. In her mind most of the hard work was already done. “I thought that you wanted to leave the tedious work to us.”

“I never used the word
tedious
. I believe I said
the most important work
, but only because of your superior—”

“You're making me nauseous.”

Keenan leveled his dazzling smile on Nitara and her irritation melted away almost instantly.

“At least I come bearing your favorite treat—cupcakes,” he said, winking.

Dee Dee and Martina popped up from their chairs and raced toward the tray of desserts.

“Oh, thank God. I'm sooo starving.” Martina moaned and in one bite reduced the cupcake by half.

“My, what a big appetite you have,” Keenan joked while staring at the woman's fire-engine-red hair.

Martina leveled him a look that almost devoured him. “You have no idea.” Slowly, she licked the icing off the rest of her cupcake, leaving no doubt to what she was referring to.

Keenan cleared his throat and returned his attention to Nitara and Dee Dee, who were busy choking back their own laughter.

The office door opened and a handsome, well-dressed gentleman strolled through the door.

“Hello.” Dee Dee moved toward him. “Are you here for the casting call?”

“Yes. I'm Dr. Englehart.” He jutted out his hand with a nervous smile.

Keenan looked him over, thinking he was in pretty good shape, but he took an instant dislike to the guy. Maybe it was the guy's shifty eyes, Keenan thought, or maybe it was because if the lights were turned off, he was sure the man's teeth would glow in the dark.

“Yes. Yes,” Nitara said, stepping forward. “Just go down the hall there and then take the first door on your right.”

“Thank you,” Dr. Englehart said, his voice deepening perhaps for Keenan's benefit.

Once the
doctor
strolled away, Keenan turned his disapproving frown toward the three women who'd checked out the guy's butt and were busy fanning themselves.

“What's wrong with him?” Nitara and Martina challenged.

“He's a little…short, don't you think?”

Nitara rolled her eyes and said flippantly, “Everyone's short next to you.”

Keenan frowned and glanced over at Dee Dee. “What do you think?”

Dee Dee finally jerked her head away from the hallway. “Huh? What?” Her gaze swung between her two bosses. “What did I miss?”

“See?” Nitara thrust up her chin. “He's good eye candy.”

Keenan's incredulity quadrupled. “Is that all we're screening for—eye candy?”

Nitara's hands flew to her hips. “What are you talking about? The man is a doctor and he makes great money.”

That wasn't good enough. “Oh, yeah, right. A doctor. What kind of doctor?”

Dee Dee scanned her clipboard. “A pediatrician. Says he loves children. He even has full custody of his two daughters.”

“Custody? He was married before?”

Another glance at the clipboard. “Yep. Lasted four years.”

“No divorcés,” he ordered.

“What?” Nitara glanced at the other two women, who were watching their fight with great fascination. “Why would
you
have a problem with divorcés?”

Okay. He didn't have an answer for that. “I mean…” He bit his lips for a moment, but no ready explanation came.

All three women crossed their arms.

“I'm waiting,” Nitara said.

“Well, we have a bachelorette who's never been married and I just think that, uhm, maybe we should fix her up with someone who hasn't been married as well. Less baggage.”

“I kinda see where he's going,” Dee Dee said, rescuing him.

“Yeah.” Martina bobbed her head in agreement. “Who wants someone's leftovers?”

“Thank you.” Keenan puffed up his chest.

Nitara rolled her eyes, signaling that she wasn't buying it. “All right. All right. We'll cross out all the divorcés. Anything else, your highness?”

He reached for Dee Dee's clipboard. “Well, let's see who else you have on the list.” He scanned the forms.
“First of all, we can cut out all these short dudes. Five-five, five-seven…What is this? Most of these guys wouldn't be allowed to ride half the rides at Disneyland.”

“Are you serious?” Nitara snapped.

Keenan tried to ease the tension by softening his tone. “I'm just saying that Jalila is what—five-ten, six feet in heels? It doesn't seem right to match her up with some jerk that might have a Napoleon complex.”

Nitara stared at him—hard.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I'm just saying.”

“Then I'm just saying that you're working my last nerve.”

“Actually, I think he makes another good point,” Martina interjected.

“What?” Nitara turned on the woman as if she'd just planted a knife in her back.

“Welll…” Martina glanced over at Dee Dee for backup, but saw that the woman was content to let her bosses duke it out. “Jalila does tend to date more tall losers than short ones. I personally don't date short men. It's too much like dating a little brother or something.”

“Then why didn't you say something before now?”

“I didn't think about it until he brought it up,” Martina said simply.

Nitara gave them all a mutinous look. “Fine! No short guys.”

“See?” Keenan threw his arm around Nitara's shoulder. “I'm already helping. Now let's go see who else we got.”

Nitara groaned. “Something tells me that this is going to be interesting.”

 

An hour later, Keenan had pared their hundred potential candidates down to twenty-five. The three women sitting around him at the makeshift interview table had long ago tossed up their hands and folded their arms at Keenan's seemingly incomprehensible reasons for eliminating candidates. Most were either too tall, shifty-eyed, too nerdy, too muscular, too lean and Nitara's personal favorite—Keenan's insistence that one of the guys he'd seen on
America's Most Wanted.

“Great. That wasn't so hard,” Keenan said, handing Nitara her marked-up list.

“Piece of cake,” she agreed sarcastically.

Martina was the only one who perked up and smiled adoringly at him. “I, for one, am impressed with your instincts.”

Nitara glanced at her watch. “It's five o'clock and I'm calling it a day.” She jumped out of her seat.

“Going home to
cook?
”

“Don't start with me. I'm not in the mood.”

Martina stood and forced her way into Keenan's personal space to the point that he had to take a step back. “You know I'm a good cook?”

His eyebrows arched in amusement. “Is that right?”

“Yeah.” She closed the distance between them again. “Maybe I can make you a nice home-cooked meal?”

“Uhm, er…” He stole a glance over at his business
partner, who looked on the verge of cracking up. “I'm going to have to take a rain check on that.”

Martina twirled a finger through her bright red hair. “All right. But I'm going to hold you to it.”

Keenan's cell phone rang, rescuing him from this awkward conversation. When he answered the call, he received the news that he'd been waiting for.

 

It was never a good idea to feed dogs table scraps. It could spoil the dog so that he'd refuse to eat dog food and constantly beg for yours. But once a year, Jalila broke her own rule, on Cujo's birthday. She fired up the grill and threw on a big, fat, juicy steak.

Just the smell of the grilling meat excited Cujo to the point that he ran around the yard like a frantic jack rabbit. “I bet you know what day it is,” Jalila sang while capturing Cujo's reaction on video.

Woof! Woof!

Minutes later, he returned to her side, carrying his large metal bowl between his huge teeth.

“Are you a little impatient, boy?” She took the bowl from his mouth and then lifted the large steak from the grill.

Cujo leaped into the air in an almost perfect pirouette. Jalila laughed and served Cujo his birthday dinner, singing, “Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Cujo. Happy birthday to you.”

Woof!

“Good boy!” As she leaned down and rubbed the side of his belly, a sound caught her ear. Jalila stood
still until she heard it again. The doorbell, she deduced, and headed back into the house. “Coming!” She wasn't expecting anyone, and when she opened the door, she was rendered speechless.

“Hello. I hope I didn't catch you at a bad time,” Keenan said, smiling.