High-Stakes Bachelor Read online

  “Thanks,” she mumbled behind unmoving lips as he applied lip gloss. For doing a no-makeup look, he sure was putting a lot of makeup on her.

  “Take a peek.”

  She turned in the chair and looked at the lighted mirror behind her. Whoa. “Is that me?” she breathed. She looked fresh, young...and kind of beautiful.

  “It’s not a trick mirror,” Tyrone retorted.

  Her shoulder-length blond bob, which was not at all like the current fashion of long, flowing, wavy locks, swung around her face, the tips turning in a bit to frame her jaw. Her gray-blue eyes looked huge, and her lips were just pink enough not to get lost beneath her cheekbones.

  “Camera’s gonna love you, baby,” Tyrone said encouragingly.

  “Thanks. Let’s hope the director does, too.”

  “Jackson’s coproducing this film. You gotta impress both him and Adrian to get this gig.”

  Ahh. Hence Jackson’s earlier joke about putting in a good word with the producers. “Got it. Thanks, Tyrone.”

  “Go get ’em, kid.”

  She stepped out onto the bright green mat and looked around. The atmosphere was electric. She could get hooked on this. Choosing to reinvent her life in the film industry had been a great decision.

  A cell phone rang, and she looked up in time to see Jackson Prescott scowling down at his caller ID. He rolled his eyes and moved away from the mat to take the call. She figured it must be a woman to have elicited that look of disgust. Last night’s lay, maybe?

  Her stomach dropped in disappointment. It wasn’t like she was ever going to be in his league, though. And if she got a part in the movie, he’d also be her boss. This put him firmly off-limits. She couldn’t recall which actress the tabloids had him matched up with this week. But he went through women like chewing gum.

  Clipboard lady from before came over to her. “Hi, I’m Sheila. Adrian’s assistant. The guys want to shoot a combat sequence with weapons. I see from your résumé that you’ve studied kendo, so I assume you’re okay with that.”

  Ana had obsessively studied various martial arts ever since the attack two years ago. The fast-moving Japanese form with bamboo swords was, in fact, one of them.

  On cue, a kid who must have been with the prop department trotted up to her and handed her a foam club. It looked like driftwood on steroids. She swung the craggy piece experimentally. It had about the same heft as a baseball bat. “It’s heavier than a kendo sword, but I can handle it.”

  The brunette moved away, and a man approached her. “I’m Crash. Fight choreographer.”

  “Not a reassuring name for a man with your job,” she responded drily.

  He grinned. “I specialize in car stunts. But today, I’m gonna teach you a quick fight sequence with that toothpick.”

  She paid close attention as he walked her through the choreography until she had the sequence memorized. Gradually, they sped it up to full-out. It was a dance between the two of them, really.

  Adrian signaled that he was ready to shoot, and Jackson pocketed his phone. He joined her on the mat and someone passed him a king-size club, which he swung a few times, getting the feel of it. Apparently, he already knew the choreography.

  “Places, everyone!” Adrian called. “Quiet on set, please.”

  She stepped into the middle of the mat and took up a fighting stance, feet apart and knees bent. Jackson did the same, towering over her. Lord, just being close to him made her heart beat faster. The guy was like a high-powered electromagnet.

  “Almost doesn’t seem fair to beat up a squirt like you,” he teased.

  She snorted back, rising to the bait. “Big, clumsy lunk. You’re gonna have to catch me first.”

  He grinned at her taunt and leaped at her. He was flipping fast for a guy his size. Step. Swing. Dodge, slide left. Spin. Jump. Swing. Swing. She chanted the choreography in her head by rote.

  Ka-pow.

  Her arm jarred from the impact of her club on Jackson’s face.

  “Jackson!” she cried out as he doubled over, swearing. “You were supposed to spin right, not left!”

  “Yeah, I got that memo just now,” he muttered in a voice muffled by his hands.

  She spied blood dripping from between his fingers. “Medic!” she shouted. Adrian was backing away from Jackson, looking sick to his stomach. No one responded immediately to her shout, and Jackson was bleeding all over the place. A sports trainer in high school, she leaped into action. She whipped off her green camo T-shirt and wadded it up. “Here. Use this to catch blood while I find a first aid kit.”

  Good thing she’d worn a camisole under her shirt today. She looked around frantically and spotted a big red cross on the far wall. She raced over to the first aid kit, yanked the briefcase-size metal box down and sprinted back to Jackson.

  “What did I hit? How hard?” she asked urgently.

  “Nose. Clocked me good.”

  “Lemme see.” He was reluctant to take her shirt away from his face, and she had to physically peel his fingers loose. She reached up to gently squeeze the spot she’d hit.

  “Youch!” he yelped.

  Nothing crunched or wiggled under her fingertips. If his nose was broken and she’d pinched it like that, he’d have howled to the rafters, not just squeaked a little. Crud. She was going to get sued into the Stone Age 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. Ana had kept in touch with him after graduation, as he’d attended the same college as her on a football scholarship.

  “Consider it part of your callback.”

  The hallway door opened before she could come up with a polite way to turn him down but still get the dream acting job. “How are we doing in here?” Adrian asked from the doorway. He seemed leery of charging in and finding pints of blood spilled on his floor.

  Nervous, she jumped to her feet. “Good. I think we’ve got things under control,” she declared with false cheer.

  “Thanks for your time this afternoon, Miss Izzolo,” Adrian said politely. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Oh, God. The classic Hollywood brush-off. Don’t call us; we’ll call you. She’d clobbered the star of the movie and wrecked her shot at fame and fortune, after all. It had been a fun fantasy for the five minutes it had lasted. Ah, well. Maybe she could still break into stunt work, someday.

  She headed for the locker room to retrieve her cheap nylon gym bag and get back to her regularly scheduled life. She threw open the locker door and stared in dismay. Her bag was shredded. As in literally shredded. Her extra audition clothes were in tatters, and what little makeup she had was smeared all over the rags formerly known as the only decent clothes she owned.

  What the heck? Who would do a thing like this? And why?

  Chapter 2

  Jackson had no idea what to do about casting the lead actress part in the film. His gut shouted at him to go with Anabelle Izzolo, the unknown with the wild talent. But just as surely, the movie’s investors were going to want him to go with a more established actress. Someone like Shyann Brooklyn.

  The tall blonde had been last to audition today. Although Shyann looked great on film, he doubted there was room for him on the silver screen with her and her ego. She was nasty, self-centered and not all that bright, either. He doubted she would have long-term staying power in the business. A few films from now, after the public got its fill of looking at her, it would dawn on everyone that she couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag.

  His phone vibrated. It was a text from his grandmother to call her. Meddling woman. Oh, Minerva was well-meaning enough, but a royal pain sometimes. Too bad he loved her so damned much.

  His father, a soldier, had died on active duty, and his mother had drowned in her grief and wasted away on sleeping pills until she’d finally OD’d. Gran had taken in the whole passel of Prescott kids, him, his three brothers and his twin baby sisters, and raised them all. Minerva had married young herself, and his parents had married right out of high school. As a result, Gran was far from ancient and was energetic, nosy and felt within her rights to boss all of them around. She was a classic iron-fist-in-a-velvet-glove type.

  And right now, he was ignoring her.

  He shoved his phone into his pocket and stepped out into the studio’s parking lot. The blistering California sun slammed into him. The soundsta
ge he and Adrian had built was inland far enough not to catch the ocean breezes that cooled the California coast. But the price had been right on the sprawling piece of property. Beads of sweat popped out on his brow as he threw a leg over his Harley and cranked it up. The powerful engine revved between his legs and, as usual, gave him a bit of a hard-on.

  He rolled out of the parking lot and spotted a familiar figure standing at the bus stop in front of the studio. Ana Izzolo looked about ready to burst into flames in the blazing heat. There was one bus in Serendipity, California, and it operated on no discernible schedule. She could be standing there for another hour.

  He pulled to a stop in front of her. “Can I give you a lift?”

  “I’m okay. I’ll catch the bus.”

  “Hop on. It’s hot as hell out here. No telling when the bus will come along.”

  “That’s nice of you, but I’m staying in the north end of town. Don’t you live the other direction?”

  They were talking Serendipity here. The entire town could fit on a postage stamp. He could go from one end of Main Street to the other in approximately sixty seconds, and that included having to stop at the one traffic light in the whole town. He unhooked his spare helmet from its perch on the backrest and held it out to her. “Hop on.”

  She hesitated, but eventually took the helmet from his outstretched hand and strapped it on her head. She slid her leg through the gap between his rear end and the backrest, and settled herself behind him. Abrupt awareness of her hot little crotch nestled against his butt roared through him. Day-umm.

  Her arms snaked around his waist, which had the effect of mashing her breasts against his back informatively. Soft. Springy. Resilient. Well, that answered that. Her female assets were real. Good to know. He’d never been a fan of hard and lumpy implants.

  You’re about to be her boss. Behave yourself. Nope. His body wasn’t listening to reason. His erection swelled until his jeans were uncomfortably tight. Good thing he was sitting on the bike and not trying to walk.