Only for You Page 29

  “Ah, well, that explains it,” Rill said, seeming to deflate a little. Gia noticed Katie’s worried glance at her husband. “When you don’t have a name, you’re sort of screwed.”

  “Rill’s mother absolutely refuses to breathe a word about his father’s identity. So Rill decided a couple months ago to start seeing what he could find out on his own,” Katie explained quietly.

  “And no luck so far?” Seth asked.

  “I keep running into dead end after dead end,” Rill said, shrugging broad shoulders.

  “You have your birth date and place of birth?” Gia asked, her heart going out to him. Something told her this was a very old, haunting question for Rill Pierce. Katie must have seen that look, too, because she reached over and covered Rill’s hand with hers. He glanced at her and gave her a small special smile before he took her proffered hand in his, squeezing it.

  “I have a birth certificate. My mother said the father was unknown,” Rill said heavily, brushing the back of Katie’s hand with his fingertips.

  “Didn’t you tell me once that you had two uncles still living in Ireland? Your mother’s brothers?” Seth asked. “They can’t provide you with any leads?”

  “Just speculations. Besides, Ray and William are currently on sabbatical.”

  “In jail, in other words,” Katie told them under her breath.

  * * *

  Gia decided there was a little of herself in Jessie. He was also an only child; he might have a weakness for children too. Besides, he was still close to boyhood, wasn’t he? This rationalization gave her an excuse to volunteer to watch over Daisy in the living room while the others cleaned up in the kitchen. While they were playing blocks together, Daisy got up and unceremoniously dropped a book in Gia’s lap.

  “Read?” she asked hopefully.

  “Okay,” Gia said gamely, standing and sitting on the couch. She beckoned Daisy, lifted the little girl into her lap and began to read.

  Several minutes later, Gia looked up toward the end of How to Catch a Star to see Seth leaning against the entryway, watching her broodingly. For once, she’d caught him in an unguarded moment. She paused, her mouth falling open when she took in his expression. It was some strange combination of conflict, frustration, longing . . .

  . . . And heat.

  For some reason, seeing his feelings so clearly on his face acted like a lit match to her own emotions. All the uncertainty she’d experienced after they’d made each other burn in the movie theater flamed high inside her once again.

  “Jessie, you’re a godsend,” Katie said, walking into the room. Seth straightened, his expression going stony. Katie looked back at him. “He’s so good with kids.”

  “Yeah. He is,” Seth muttered, holding Gia’s stare.

  “Mommy and Daddy will finish the star book with you. It’s bedtime, Daisy girl,” Katie said, lifting her daughter into her arms.

  “No, Jessie,” Daisy said, stretching her arms out to Gia.

  “You’ve made quite the impression,” Katie told Gia approvingly. She turned back to Daisy. “Daddy will start your book over from the beginning. That’s two whole readings of the star book,” Katie bargained.

  “No.”

  “Those are the terms. Do you want to say good night to Jessie and Uncle Seth?”

  Daisy bumped her cheek against her mother’s chest, an adorable scowl on her face.

  “We should be going anyway,” Seth said, stepping fully into the room. Gia stood up from the couch. “Thanks, Katie, the dinner was delicious.”

  “Oh, please, don’t go yet. It won’t take us long at all. Rill reads really fast,” Katie mouthed over her daughter’s head. “I wanted to talk to you about the birthday gift I’m thinking of getting Joy, and I need an artist’s opinion.”

  Seth agreed.

  “Don’t pout, Daisy. Don’t you want to thank Uncle Seth again for the Daisy-kin?” Daisy hesitated, but then turned suddenly, her arms extended toward Seth. He leaned down and received a wet kiss on his cheek. He twitched a pigtail fondly. Seth looked like he thought the kiss more than adequate payment for his pumpkin carving. Gia said good night to the sleepy-looking, too-cute little girl.

  She looked up at Seth once they were alone in the living room.

  “What were you thinking?” Gia whispered.

  “When?” he asked blankly.

  “When you watched me reading to Daisy a little bit ago.”

  His mouth slanted. “Nothing,” he said, but she knew he was lying.

  In the distance, she heard Rill’s deep voice. She exhaled in frustration. “Right. Nothing. Just like you weren’t thinking anything in particular in the theater today.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, an edge to his tone.

  She threw him a dark glance, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. Volatile. From Seth’s sudden fierce expression, she guessed he was too.

  “Come here,” he said quietly, grabbing her hand. He led her through the kitchen and opened the front door, pulling her onto the front porch. Even through her sudden storm of uncertainty, Gia acknowledged it was a beautiful night. She inhaled a breath of cool, crisp, leaf-scented air.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked her once they stood on the porch steps, millions of stars sparkling above their heads.

  “I don’t know exactly,” she said honestly in a choked voice. “Why did you do that? Why did you seduce me in that movie theater?”

  “Because I wanted you. Why do you think?” he bit out quietly. He paused and turned to her midway down the steps, still holding her hand. Gia pulled it from his hold.

  “It was like you were trying to . . . tell me something. Prove something,” she hissed. She felt strangely out of control and embarrassed about it. Why had her unrest chosen that moment to break free? It had something to do with the unguarded conflict she’d seen on his face as he’d watched her reading to Daisy.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with infuriating calmness.

  “Don’t give me that shit. I know you don’t like actresses, but it’s like . . . it’s like you’re mad at me for being one. It’s like you wanted to trump my job. That’s what you were doing in that theater!”

  A gust of wind made the woods seem to sigh around them. His silence in the face of her outburst made her uncomfortably aware of how stupid she sounded.

  “What do you want me to say, Gia? That I’m happy you’re an actress? Because that’s not true. Things would be a lot simpler if you were an accountant or a lawyer or just about any goddamn thing but a movie star living in the spotlight. Thriving in it,” he added darkly under his breath.

  “For a decent guy, you can be a real ass sometimes.”

  “Were you acting in there?” he asked, seemingly unaffected by her accusation. He pointed to the living room.

  “What?” she asked, furious and confused.

  “With Daisy. You look like a complete natural with kids,” he seethed, stepping closer toward her.

  “It wasn’t an act,” she spat. “I love children.”

  He reached up and palmed her jaw, his fingertips digging slightly into the muscles of her neck. She flinched back, but he tugged her closer, so that their mouths were only inches apart. Her heartbeat started to pound in her ears.

  “Do you plan to have kids someday?” he breathed out, his face lowering over hers.

  “Yes.”

  “What are you going to do? Disguise the whole family every time you go out in public?”

  “Plenty of celebrities have kids, Seth. Your niece and Everett Hughes probably will someday. Or are you going to try to talk Everett into changing jobs as soon as Joy’s pregnant?”

  “I probably will suggest it if the occasion arises,” he replied sardonically. “He won’t listen to a word of it.”

  “I’m not surprised. He’d be c
razy to listen to you. I know I’d never sacrifice what’s important to me just because of your stupid, smug opinions.”

  “If you think I’m asking you to sacrifice a fucking thing, you’re completely misunderstanding me,” he said before his mouth seized hers.

  * * *

  His mind had gone blank with a cyclone of fury and want. He knew that as he kissed Gia brutally, but it didn’t quiet his sudden flash fire of lust. He wanted her like hell. Not just here in these peaceful woods.

  Everywhere.

  But it would never work. He’d suspected that as he sat in that theater today, and maybe that was what was making his hunger for her cut at him. He wasn’t surprised Gia had told him just now she would never sacrifice her career for him. He didn’t want her to. How could he? She was like a pure flame up there on that screen, her honesty and beauty and warmth enthralling every watcher.

  Did she really think he was so stupid as to ask her to stop acting? Not in a million years. She would just resent him for it. Acting made her happy.

  And despite all his misgivings and his biting sarcasm just now, he knew one thing for certain.

  He wanted Gia to be happy.

  He sensed the moment when their conflicting energies fused into one fire. She began kissing him back furiously, gripping his hair and pressing close to him. He dipped his knees to align them better and palmed her hips and ass. Gia moaned raggedly when he consumed her even more greedily, her back arching to accommodate him. She gripped his ass and squeezed. Hard. Her nails dug into him. Everything faded away for a crazy, lust-numbing moment.

  Everything.

  “Oh my God,” someone said at the far reaches of his brain. “OH MY GOD, stop it, Seth!”

  Shit. Katie.

  Even as the realization hit him about what was happening, he only reluctantly broke his kiss with Gia and looked around. Sure enough, Katie stood on the porch a few feet away from them looking totally floored. If the situation weren’t so serious, Seth would have found her expression hilarious. Rill had frozen in the action of holding open the storm door as he came onto the porch. Seth slowly moved his hands off Gia’s ass to her waist, but kept her pressed tight against him.

  “I can explain, Katie—”

  “What the hell are you doing? That’s your nephew,” Katie accused in a high-pitched voice, shock ringing in her tone.

  “That’s not his nephew,” Rill said. Seth noticed Rill was peering narrowly at Gia in the dim light from the porch light. Seth glanced down at Gia’s face and knew everything was exposed. It wasn’t that some of the pink of her mouth was starting to show through because of his forceful kiss. No, it wasn’t Seth’s disguise that turned Gia into Jessie. Not entirely. It was Gia’s acting that did that. Apparently, their kiss had dissipated the acting magic. It didn’t surprise him. There was nothing so honest as what happened when they touched.

  Gia stared up guiltily at Rill and Katie, clearly a pretty young woman caught red-handed.

  Rill stepped onto the porch and looked down at Gia intently. Seth felt Gia snatch her hand away from his ass and start to back out of his arms. Seth held her fast.

  “That’s not even a boy,” Rill said, frowning. “Jesus. Aren’t you Gia Harris?”

  Twenty

  Seth had left several lights on, but the house in the woods still looked empty and . . . different somehow than the house they’d left earlier today.

  “Are you sure Rill and Katie aren’t pissed at us?” Gia asked shakily when Seth turned the key in the ignition.

  They hadn’t talked much during the drive home. Both of them had managed to be patient and apologetic, explaining things to a stunned Rill and Katie. But telling their story to the Pierces hadn’t really required conversation between Gia and Seth. What had happened on that front porch before they’d been discovered seemed to hover between them like a suspended bomb.

  “They’re not mad. Once we explained, they got that we were doing it for a good reason,” Seth said quietly, his deep, gruff voice in the darkened cab of the car causing her neck to prickle. “And you saw how Rill’s brain latched on to the whole thing. It’ll be fuel for his writing and directing, trust me.”

  Gia gave a bark of tired laughter as she recalled what Seth was referring to. In her mind’s eye, she saw Rill sitting at the kitchen table, his chin in his hand as he stared at a rumpled, embarrassed Gia. After the kiss and the discovery, they’d gone inside to try to explain what was happening.

  “That’s amazing. That’s weird,” Rill had said distractedly after they relayed most of the story.

  “What’s weird—aside from the obvious?” Katie added, rolling her eyes.

  “Now that I look at Gia, I can’t believe I didn’t see it. It’s like watching a master magician. First, it was the break in the reality of seeing you two making out. That jarred my brain and signaled something wasn’t right. But then you stopped acting, when you two were—” Rill had waved his hand vaguely between them. “Right, Gia?”

  Gia had swallowed thickly. “I guess so. I wasn’t really thinking about Jessie.”

  Rill had smirked. “And all of a sudden, the truth was right there, clear as day,” Rill laughed, glancing at Katie. “I can’t believe I ever looked at her and thought she was a boy.”

  “Me either,” Katie had agreed.

  “She cast a spell, some kind of enchantment. It’s mind-blowing. I work with actors all the time, and I watch them ‘turn on a role’ like they’re stepping into a costume, but my God . . . I’ve never seen it done that well before. Don’t tell Everett I said that,” he’d said under his breath to Katie.

  Katie had laughed. “Everett would be the first to agree if he’d been fooled by that spectacle.”

  “Given Seth’s skill and your talent, I’ll bet there’s no role you couldn’t tackle. So far, I’ve only seen Shadow Mistress, and I thought you were really good,” Rill had told Gia. “But I’ll say this now from firsthand experience: You’re an exceptional actress.”

  “She’s only going to get better too. Gia is just getting started when it comes to her career.”

  Gia had blinked upon hearing Seth’s quiet comment. Their gazes met and held. Her chest suddenly got tight. Katie cleared her throat, and Gia had realized she’d been locked in Seth’s golden-eyed, somber gaze.

  It was like he’d been stating the inevitable.

  “You realize Rill will probably be wanting you for his next movie now. I’ve never seen him so impressed,” Seth said presently.

  Gia exhaled. At one time, even the remotest chance of doing a movie with Rill Pierce would have sent her into a euphoric mood. Tonight, it felt like a weight was pressing down on her spirit.

  “All I realize at the moment is how tired I am,” she said quietly, unbuckling her seat belt.

  “Gia,” Seth halted her when she reached for the door handle. “About what I said on the porch—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Seth. I just want to go to bed.”

  She turned to look at him as she interrupted. His face looked shadowed and hard.

  “Okay,” he said. Her heart sank a little when he agreed so readily.

  She’d already removed the wig by the time she reached the bedroom. She couldn’t wait to take off the rest of the disguise. After everything that had happened that day, Gia felt exhausted, but weirdly agitated, too, like she wanted to jump out of her own skin. It was as if her brain and spirit and body were all in a fight.

  All because of Seth.

  “Do you need me to help with the binder?” Seth asked from behind her.

  “No.”

  She realized how sharp she’d sounded when she turned to see Seth halt dead in his tracks. She regretted her harshness, but she just wasn’t up to having Seth unzip the tight corset. Not now, she wasn’t, especially when she considered all those times he’d done it before, and her defenses ha
d crumbled. “It’s gotten a little looser since I first started wearing it,” she explained lamely.

  Seth nodded. “I’ll just grab some things and sleep in the other guest room tonight.”

  “Seth, I didn’t mean—”

  “You need some privacy,” he said evenly, grabbing some clothing from the bureau drawer. He walked toward her, his face a mask, his stare on her unflinching. “Maybe we both could use a little space tonight,” he said before he left her standing there alone.

  * * *

  As the minutes passed, she regretted her sharpness with him more and more. After she’d gotten into the large bed alone, her discomfort only amplified. All her thoughts pained her.

  If you think I’m asking you to sacrifice a fucking thing, you’re completely misunderstanding me.

  She cringed internally thinking about the whole volatile exchange. She’d read more than she should have into what had happened at the movie theater. Of course he wasn’t asking her to change anything about her life. How stupid could she be? He’d made it clear their relationship would last only while they were here in these woods. She wasn’t ever going to change her acting career for Seth.

  So why was she upset about him declaring he’d never ask her to?

  Because part of you wanted him to demand both of you make compromises so that you could be together, not just here, but in Hollywood. Part of you wanted him to suggest that you make concessions on both sides because the relationship was worth fighting for.

  She stifled a moan of misery and moved restlessly on the bed. She’d clearly been influenced by seeing happy couples all day that had overcome obstacles, like Chance and Sherona, and Rill and Katie. It had been her error to put Seth and her in the same category.