High-Stakes Bachelor. Cindy Dees
if she’d just ruined the prettiest face in Hollywood.
“It doesn’t feel broken,” she announced. “But you’ve got the mother of all nosebleeds.” She stuffed his nostrils with gauze and ordered, “Tilt your head back.” She called out to no one in particular, “Is there somewhere he can lie down?”
“My office,” Adrian replied thickly. Guy must get queasy at the sight of blood.
In stunt work, guys got banged up all the time. Cuts and scrapes were all part of a day’s work. She guided Jackson’s hand to her shoulder and followed Adrian’s assistant to the director’s office. His big palm gripped her bare skin lightly, and her bones felt oddly small and fragile under the heat of his hand. A shiver of something unidentifiable ran through her.
“Okay, Jackson. We’re at the couch.” She guided him down to a leather sofa. “On your back.”
“Let me guess, you’ve been dying to get me flat on my back on a casting couch,” he joked.
“Oh, baby, oh, baby, oh,” She intoned as she tucked a throw pillow under his head. Keep it light. Impersonal. He’s a freaking movie star.
“Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”
She took a closer look at his nose. It was swelling across the bridge and turning red. His left eye was puffing shut, too. “You’re lucky that club was covered in foam. Looks like you may still get a shiner, though.”
“Great. A black eye from a girl. I’m never gonna hear the end of this.”
“I’m so sorry—” she started.
He cut her off immediately. “My fault. I wasn’t paying attention and zigged when I should have zagged. I was distracted.”
“That phone call?” she asked sympathetically.
He huffed in obvious exasperation at the memory of the offending phone call. She recognized that sound from countless times listening to guys grouse about their relationships. “Woman trouble?”
He scowled. “You could say that.”
“Anything you want to talk about?” She winced as soon as the words left her mouth. That was her. Ole shoulder-to-cry-on for every guy she knew. They all went to her for advice about chicks. Apparently, having the same reproductive apparatus as their girlfriends made her some kind of expert.
Which was a load of crap, by the way. She didn’t know squat about women. Hell, she hardly knew how to be one, herself. And she had no idea how to do a relationship. It wasn’t like her own past had given her any sterling examples to go by. After the disaster—God, was it two full years ago now?—she’d pretty much sworn off men.
Jackson rolled his eyes. “My grandmother is haranguing me to settle down, find a nice girl and get married. She’s just antsy to get a great-grandkid, and figures that, out of all my brothers and sisters, I’m her best prospect. She’s being a total pain in the ass.”
Jackson Prescott was looking to get hitched? Wow. Talk about an eligible bachelor.
“I don’t even have a girlfriend.” He added, scowling, “No matter what the damned tabloids say.”
Really? Interesting. Oh, get over yourself. He’d never take a second look at you. Aloud, she commented, “You could have an actress friend fake an engagement with you to shut up your grandmother for a while. Or, you could just skip the wife and go straight to the baby. People don’t have to get married to make babies.”
“So I should, what? Pick up some random chick in a bar and get her pregnant to shut up my grandmother?”
She shrugged. This flavor of woman trouble went well beyond her ability to give advice on it.
“I don’t even like going to bars,” he grumbled.
Shut the front door. “Seriously?” she blurted.
Someone barged in just then with the plastic bag of ice she’d asked for on the way in there. She stole a hand towel from the sink in Adrian’s bathroom, wrapped the ice in it and laid it gently on Jackson’s face. She felt for the guy; she would have no idea how to go about picking up a woman if she were a man.
In an attempt to be helpful, though, she commented, “There are other places besides bars to meet women. I hear there are good pickings in the produce section of grocery stores. Apparently, if you act clueless when a hot girl comes along, she’ll stop and help you.”
Jackson retorted, “I would have to actually be in the market for a girlfriend for that to work.”
Oh. Something way down deep inside her deflated at the news that he wasn’t interested in dating. It was nothing personal, of course. She was just reacting on behalf of her entire half of the species. Jackson Prescott was a hell of a hunk that some woman ought to get to enjoy.
She replied cautiously, “I have to say, I doubt you’d have all that much trouble finding a woman willing to have your baby.”
Warmth uncurled inside her at the thought of holding his baby in her arms, shocking her into momentary silence. Where in the hell did that come from? Had her biological clock just started ticking? Heck, she wasn’t in the market to have a kid any more than he was.
He lifted aside the ice pack to stare up at her. Was that a speculative gleam in his gorgeous eyes? Surely not.
A little panicked at the direction her thoughts were taking, she pushed the big ice bag back down onto his nose, which also had the effect of covering his eyes and taking his distracting hazel gaze off her.
Thoughtful silence was all that emerged from the towel for the next couple of minutes. Then, “What’s your name, 127?”
“Ana. Anabelle Izzolo.”
“You have zilch by way of acting credits, Anabelle Izzolo.”
She didn’t need a box-office giant to point that out to her. She was well aware of her lack of credits. She’d been taking acting classes as part of her plan to become a stuntwoman, but it was hard to get work if you hadn’t already had some previously.
“But the chemistry between you and me is exactly what we’re looking for.”
“For...what exactly?”
“The lead actress in our film. Assuming you can act.”
Lead? Actress? Her mind went completely blank. He was right. She was totally unprepared to do anything like that. But what kind of idiot would she be to say so? Chances like this came along once in a lifetime. Once in a very lucky lifetime.
“I can act,” she blurted, then added hastily, “I bet I could convince your grandmother I was having your baby.”
He started to snort with laughter but cut the sound short with a groan of pain.
“Quit moving around so much. I almost had the bleeding stopped, but now you’ve got it going again.”
“Pushy, aren’t you?”
“No. Just trying to stop a nosebleed. That only makes me sensible,” she declared.
He laughed again, but carefully. “So here’s the thing. We’re going to have to convince the primary investors in the film to go with an unknown leading lady. My name should carry the box office...we’ll have to spin it as the debut of an exciting new star. It could work if we market it right...”
“Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?”
“Nope. Just keep being you. Oh, and I’m going to need to have supper with you, tonight.”
“Why?” She was immediately suspicious. It probably didn’t help that her last real date...that fateful one two years ago...had started out as a dinner invitation from a big good-looking guy. He’d been the star of the high school football team, and all the girls had swooned over him, too.