American Diva (3 page)

Audrey complained to Lucas, but Lucas rolled his eyes and sighed. “It is
one
weekend, Audrey.
One
. Surely you can handle an intense fan in the middle of a tropical paradise for one weekend. Can’t you understand what this does for us?”

She hated the way he said it, like she was being a diva or something. “You didn’t say I had to
handle
it when that creep broke into my house,” Audrey reminded him.

“That’s right, because then you
should
have been alarmed. But Marty Weiss doesn’t want to hurt you. He wants to put you on an alabaster throne and suck your toes. There is a difference in the two types of stalkers.”

“Maybe to you,” Audrey snapped.

Lucas grinned, put his arm around her, and kissed her cheek. “Just grin and bear it. It’s almost over.”

Audrey did not grin. But that night, after her concert was over and Marty was practically prone on the sand, weeping with joy—or more likely, too much rum—she slipped out the back way, grabbed one of the ATVs provided for the pleasure of the LaRue party, and headed for the other side of the island. The
peaceful
side of the island. The side that drunken Marty and his drunker pals could not reach without serious assistance.

 

 

After a day of hooking up sides of beef to the zip line, Jack Price was pretty sick of the island, Chicago natives, and party gigs in general. To make matters worse, Marnie and Leah were determined to hook him up with one of the caterers.

He avoided those two like bird flu. It seemed that since Eli and Marnie had hooked up a couple of years ago, the rest of the guys had likewise gone down like tin ducks in a shooting gallery. Michael and Leah had actually
married
a couple of months ago, and even Cooper was seeing Jill regularly now. Now, everyone was “concerned” about Jack.

Okay, so Jack was experiencing a bit of a dry spell in the feminine companionship category. He realized he was getting to the age—thirty-five—where it was time to put up or shut up if he ever wanted to have kids. But it wasn’t exactly happening, and it damn sure wasn’t going to happen with the caterer. Leah and Marnie acted as if they could hardly stand his single status. It was suddenly their ambition in life to see him happily involved with a woman. It didn’t matter that Jack was okay with being single. He figured he was just a cowboy who was best on his own. And besides, now that the guys were settling down, Jack had a new goal.

For years he’d thought TA was the best gig a guy could ever hope for, particularly after coming off a career in the Air Force where he’d learned to fly practically anything. He loved to fly, but at TA, he’d found his second calling—he loved the feature film stunt work they did, loved the movie business in general, and loved the extreme sports outings they arranged. Granted, a couple of their extreme gigs haven’t been his cup of tea (a wedding, coaching twenty women to do some pretty wild stunts, and now this one), but he was usually up for anything.

What he wanted was to start his own flight school. But flight schools were expensive—in addition to needing a good, reliable plane, he’d need a hangar, an airstrip, and enough money to get a business off the ground.

He had the plane—an old Cessna Grand Caravan, which he thought was brilliantly designed. But his had an engine problem. He was rebuilding the engine himself, in an old hangar he’d rented in Orange County. If he could get the plane up and running and pass all the FAA inspections, the next step was to infuse enough cash into a down payment to purchase the hangar and start up the school.

That was a hell of a lot easier said than done. He did well with TA, but not well enough to have
that
sort of cash on hand. So Jack was biding his time, rebuilding his plane, and saving every dime he could make.

Frankly, he didn’t need a woman around who would prompt him to spend his cash on stuff like flowers and weekend getaways and, God forbid, a
ring
. Which was why, when the rest of the TA guys and their significant others trekked to the other side of the island to catch the Audrey concert, he opted for some alone time on a moonlit beach with nothing but a bucket of beer and his iPod. It was the only way to avoid the matchmaking attempts of Leah and Marnie.

He walked on a path lit with tiki torches, maneuvered one of the big double chaise lounges out from beneath the cabana, and dragged it down to the beach. When he had situated it just so—directly under the full moon, a few feet away from the receding tide but close enough he could still smell the salt—he dropped his bucket of beer next to the lounge, stretched his arms high above his head, and looked out over a Pacific Ocean whose surface was illuminated by the moon.

Sweet
.

He’d been waiting for this for three full days and was going to enjoy the hell out of it. Tomorrow, they would pack up and move on, but tonight, he was going to lie under the stars and the moon on a private beach without a soul around and just chill.

He started to sit down, but realized he’d forgotten his iPod. He left the chaise and the bucket of beer and walked back to his cabin to find it. Only he’d misplaced it, and it was another half hour before he made his way back to the beach, thirstier and even more ready to relax. But as he walked down the path, he noticed a movement on his chaise—some . . . some
person
was lying in
his
chaise.

Oh no.
Oh nonononono
.

Jack picked up the pace, striding across the sand until he was standing beside the chaise, staring down in disbelief at the woman who’d hijacked it.

She was wearing a gauzy white top and dark Bermuda shorts. Her feet were bare, and her hair, blond and curly, spilled around her shoulders. As if taking his chaise wasn’t injury enough, she was holding one of his beers. No, wait—she was
drinking
one of his beers. And then she had the nerve to look at him as if
he
was bothering
her
.

Audrey LaRue might be a huge pop star, but in this corner of the world, that was
his
chaise and
his
beer on
his
private beach.

“May I help you?” she asked with a definite tone.

Jack shifted his weight onto one hip. “Yeah, you can help me. You can get off my chaise and go somewhere else. Like maybe, the other side of the island.”

“
Your
chaise?” She sat up, twisted around, and looked at the chaise. “I didn’t see your name on it. There are loads of these things on the island, so how do you figure this one is
yours
?”

“Because I am the one who dragged it down here and set it up with
my
beer,” he said, gesturing toward the bottle she was holding, and the bucket, situated at a perfect arm’s length.

Audrey looked at the bottle, took a deliberately long swig of it, then lowered it. “Finders, keepers. So if you don’t mind, I am in serious need of peace and quiet.” And with that, she settled back, shifting her gaze to the ocean.

“Yeah, well, so am I,” he said, and nudged the chaise with his knee. “Get up.”

“Uh-uh,” she said, shaking her head and the blond curls. “I’m not moving. You would not believe my weekend. I
really
need to just chill or I may explode.”

“Get up,” he said again.

She did not move a muscle, held as perfectly still as a marble statue.

His pulse was beginning to pound at his temple. Jack nudged the chaise again, a little more forcefully. “Get up or I will
pick
you up and deposit you somewhere you won’t like,” he warned her.

She glanced up at him, incredulous. “Is that a
threat
?”

“Damn sure is.”

She gasped—but quickly recovered with another drink of beer as she looked at him curiously. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Jack Price. And just who the hell are
you
?”

He’d meant it only in the rhetorical sense, but Audrey LaRue, Superstar, blinked with great surprise. Then she snorted. “You know who I am,” she said with a flick of her wrist.

He knew very well who she was—but he did not like her attitude one bit. “No, I
don’t
know who you are,” he insisted. “Other than a woman who has hijacked my chaise and my space and my
beer
.” Which, to his way of thinking, was about as low as any woman could go.

But Audrey was obviously mesmerized by the idea that someone did not know her. She eyed him—all of him—skeptically. “You know who I am—you put me in that line thingy today.”

“I put a lot of people on the zip line today. Are you getting up, or am I going to have to move you?”

“
Seriously?
” she said, swinging her long legs over the side of the chaise. “You seriously don’t know that I am . . . Audrey LaRue?”

“I don’t know you are Audrey LaRue or anyone else. Why should I?”

Her mouth dropped open. She was clearly unable to fathom that there might be a person on the planet who didn’t know who she was. She slowly stood up, the top of her head reaching his chin on his six-foot-three frame. “Because I’m a
singer
,” she said, squinting up at him as if he were an alien subspecies. “I
sing
.”

Jack shrugged.

“Perhaps you have seen my picture on the cover of
Cosmo
?
Seventeen
?
People
?”

Good lord, her ego was enormous. “No, but speaking of singing, I would like to enjoy some of my tunes,” he said, waving his iPod at her. “So you need to go somewhere else,” he suggested, and before she could speak, he moved around her, passing so close that his shirt brushed against hers, and flopped down on the chaise. “But thanks for warming it up.” He reached down for a beer. “Good night.”

Audrey gaped at him. Then she glared at him. “
Fine
,” she snapped, slammed her empty beer bottle down on the wide wooden arm of the chaise, and stalked off, her arms swinging, her stride long and sure.

Jack watched her go—or rather, watched her derrière bounce along—then smiled triumphantly, plugged in his earbuds, and cranked up his iPod.

Diva
. He’d worked too long in Hollywood not to know all the signs of a woman entirely too full of herself, and
that
chick was entirely too full of herself.

It made him glad he only had four Audrey LaRue songs on his iPod.

He settled back, drinking his beer, watching the ocean move like one living thing, thinking about his plane and the wiring specs for it. He was just opening his second beer when he was startled by a rap on the top of his head—a hard knuckle rap. “
Ouch
,” he said, and sat up, his hand on his head, and jerked around.

She stood arms akimbo, her legs braced apart, her smooth, flat belly bared, and the small diamond in her belly button winking at him only inches from his nose. He had an overwhelming and insane desire to press his face against that creamy flesh, but wisely looked up into her green eyes instead. “
Yes?
” he drawled.

“Okay,
Jack
. I’m sorry I took your beer,” she said, as if that solved everything.

“Apology accepted. Good-bye.” He turned away.

“Okay, all right . . . and your chair,” she added. When that didn’t get a response, she dropped down on her knees next to him. “But the thing is, this chair is the only one I can find on this side of the island that’s on the beach, and this beach is really the only
private
part of the island, and I am
desperate
for some peace and quiet. So listen, I’ve got an idea. I’ll
pay
you for it.”

“The beer?” he drawled. “Or the chaise?”

“Both. I’ll pay you a thousand dollars for both,” she said, gesturing to the chaise and the bucket of beer next to it.

This chick was whacked. She probably was used to snapping her fingers for whatever she wanted and having it magically appear. Jack shook his head. “Not on your life. Buh-bye now,” he said, wiggling his fingers at her.

“Come
on
!” she cried, slapping her palms on the arm of the chaise. “One thousand bucks is a lot of money for a chaise that doesn’t even belong to you!”

“No way am I giving it up,” he said easily, and wiggled his fingers at her again. “You’re wasting your time, LaRue.”

“Okay. Fine.” She popped up and marched around to the end of the chaise to stand in front of him and his view of the ocean. “I’ll give you
two
thousand.”

Jack gasped. Sat up. “
Two
thousand?” he squealed with false excitement. “
Really?
”

She recognized that he was making fun of her and fell to her knees on the edge of the chaise. “Why not?” she demanded. “Is this really that big of a deal to you? Can’t you just get another chaise?”

“I could. But I don’t want to. I am tired. I want to relax. I don’t think you have any idea how much work goes into a weekend like this. I have been looking forward to a little downtime to myself for three days. I laid this out, and I am not going to just give it up for a pretty smile or a mere two thousand dollars.”

For some reason, that made Audrey smile sweetly, and Jack could feel it trickle down his spine. She leaned forward; the gauzy top gaped open and he could see the voluptuous mounds of her breasts encased in a lacy red bra. “Then how about three thousand?” she asked silkily.

He could not help but laugh at her tenacity. He casually took another swig of his beer, taking her in. She was really beautiful—long lashes, lips that would, under normal circumstances, make his mouth water. A toned, tan, and superbly fit body, which he idly wondered how she managed to maintain, given her lack of prowess on the zip line. But Jack knew if he showed the slightest amount of interest, she would take his setup on the beach and not even remember his name the next morning. He grinned and shook his head. “No dice.”

“Oh my
God
,” she groaned, and swiveled around until she was seated at the end of his chaise, her back to him, blocking his view. She sat that way for several moments, staring out at the ocean. “Could I at least have another beer?” she finally asked over her shoulder.