Taming Hollywood's Ultimate Playboy
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“I’m helping you, Liam,” Grace said, in what she hoped was a tone that brooked no argument. Even if she had to come back for the bag, she wouldn’t have the thing smacking into him and upsetting his already precarious balance. A second later and she had his arm over her shoulders and her own around his waist, “If you have the whole floor, no one is going to see me helping.”
A nod and he leaned, letting her take some of his weight, confirming how much his leg was hurting. As they made it into the suite, she began issuing instructions.
“We’re going to need crushed ice, and find one of the rooms to set up and have the press people come here instead. We need a table, a chair, long tablecloth...and a footstool that can be hidden behind the fabric.”
“Two chairs,” the man at her left said, probably taking notes the way he rattled off her requests.
She turned Liam toward the closest comfortable-looking chair and kept arguing. “One chair. The reporter is going to stand. Or sit across the room. Or away from the table. Or levitate. I don’t care. If they’re at the table, they might bump his ankle or crash their feet into the stool. We don’t want them getting curious for any reason and looking, right?”
“Right,” Liam confirmed, nodding to a different chair to indicate his seat of choice.
A moment later, she had freed herself from the heat and natural cologne of his body to deposit him in the chair, his foot propped up on a table with a cushion padding the heel. “This will have to do until we get the other set up.”
“Grace?”
She stopped and turned to look at him.
“Thank you. I suddenly feel like my brain isn’t functioning at full power.”
“When did you last take medication for pain?”
“I took something this morning.”
“Any reason you can’t take anti-inflammatories? Any kidney problems?”
He shook his head.
“Good. They’ll help more, reduce swelling. I am also going to...” She paused and directed her attention back to the one remaining assistant. “Get some food up here. Also, the room you set up in should be close to a bathroom.”
“Why?” Liam’s question came from behind her.
“Because you’re going to take a diuretic, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
“And you don’t want to have to walk a bunch to get to and from it.” Having tasks to occupy herself with helped. Top of the list now: water. She detoured to the bar and came back with a fresh, cool bottle of water and, after she’d rifled through the work bag the woman had lugged in, fished out a few blister packs with the medicine Dr. Rothsberg had agreed to. “Take this. And this.”
“What’s that?”
“Potassium. If you take this diuretic, it will flush the potassium from your body. So you take it with potassium.” At least he was still with it enough to ask the right questions and not just blindly take any medicine handed to him.
“The other? The pain medicine, it’s not narcotic, right? Not the anti-inflammatory mixed with something you get with a prescription?”
There was a sound in his voice that made her stop and look at him, like a pinch or something else causing pain. It took her a second before she worked out why. His parents. How could she have forgotten about their addiction?
“No narcotic in it,” she said softly. “It’s a prescription-sized dose of ibuprofen, but we’re faking it by taking extra over-the-counter versions of the same drug. Nothing addictive...” She regretted the word before it had even fully passed her lips. Some words had a chameleonlike ability to become hurtful depending on who heard them. With his history, and his recent addict ex-girlfriend... If she was going to be working with him, she’d have to be more mindful.
Before the statement could settle, or turn the room acid, she changed to what they needed to do. Work could always save them. “How long do we have to get you settled before the interviews have to start? And what time do you have to get ready for the premiere?”
One of the assistants, Tall, Blond, and Slight—or Miles, as the others called him—answered, “As soon as possible on the interviews. Most of the reporters are here already, and from there about four hours before he has to get dressed.”
She stood a little straighter, knowing that her words were going to irritate them. “Okay, then make sure it’s no more than two hours for the reporters. He needs a couple hours with his leg up higher than his head, and iced.”
“Liam?” Miles looked around her to their boss.
“She’s in charge this afternoon,” Liam said, all but pulling the words from her mind. “And if we have to sacrifice a few angry reporters in order to put in a satisfying show on the carpet, then that’s what we have to do. If you’re worried, double them up. Bring in two at a time. Limit the number of questions they can ask. We can keep them moving. You gave them all the script, right?”
“Script?” Grace asked, zeroing in back on him.
“Miles puts together all the information that we want them to have, they hand out copies and that keeps me from having to repeat myself. Sometimes they want a direct quote in my own words and the copy we’ve handed out is wasted, but usually they are a good way of shortening interviews.”
Miles added, “I’ll limit them to three questions. Or maybe a time limit would be better. Three questions or...seven minutes.”
“How many crews are there?” The math started sounding more than ridiculous.
“You don’t want to know,” Liam said. “They were planning to have four hours to do this, but I threw a wrench into things by going to The Hollywood Hills Clinic for you first.”
And she needed to be there in order to intercede, but Liam didn’t want people seeing her shirt. “Do you have clothes here? Other than the ones for the trip and the premieres?”
He nodded. “Why?”
“The crews are here and Shopper Tom hasn’t had enough time to get something here for me to wear. Thought maybe I could snag one of your button-downs and wear it instead of the polo until he gets here.”
He nodded toward his female assistant. “Show Miss Watson what’s available in the wardrobe. The shirts I wore when I leaned out for that role eight months ago would probably work best.”
Grace followed the woman.
He’d leaned out?
In general, looking at Liam’s chest was a bad idea if Grace wanted to keep her wits about her, but she couldn’t help herself now. His shoulders were broad, had always been broad. How much weight had he lost for a role? Everything looked normal to her with his clothes on... What other tortures was he putting his body through for this job?
What would she have put her own through to turn pro? More than was sane. She’d done plenty during rehab when she’d been hanging onto a shred of hope. She had just never managed to get back there.
CHAPTER THREE
SOMEHOW GRACE HAD made herself the boss of Liam and his assistants, and Liam didn’t have any desire to dissuade her from that course of action.
She got the crews in and out, and guarded the door in between. And the shirt she’d selected from his clothing didn’t fit. Hell, it might as well be the only thing she was wearing for the way it distracted him. The collar unbuttoned deeply enough to tease at her cleavage, and the material tied in a knot at her waist, granting glimpses of solid abs and golden skin. No way would she be mistaken for a medical professional in that. She looked like his girlfriend or his lover, bossing everyone around and protectively fetching him water while still nagging him about this and that.
He liked that idea way too much.
But only because it was the perfect cover. No other options there.
If she didn’t watch it, the story the reporters took away would be that Liam had dumped Simone and caused her to turn addict...so that he could shack up with the golden vixen managing his suite and tending to his needs while his assistants stood by and looked at her balefully. Yep, it all but screamed The Other Woman.
She escorted the fourth crew back and came back to him, alone as she did every time. “How are you? Do you need a break before the next?”
“I do. I need to use the...facilities.” He gestured. “And I won’t ask you to stick around there, but someone to lean on would be appreciated.”
“Just a second. I have crutches with me.”
“You brought them anyway? How?”
She dug into the big duffel and started pulling out parts. Somehow, in that big bag of supplies, she’d managed to break down and stash a set of crutches. She flipped metal bits this way and that, pressed buttons, and adjusted the height. “Don’t worry, when you’re seated again, I’ll stash them under the sofa so no one can see them. I just want you using them anytime you’re not in front of the public. I’m serious, Liam. You are damaging that further every time you put your weight on it, and there is a window where you can get away with it, but past that it’s going to heal wrong and you’ll sprain it again. You’d be surprised by how little pressure a weakened ankle can withstand before it rolls out of the socket. Pain is a signal. It’s supposed to dissuade you from acting like a he-man.”
Arguing was futile.
“Fine. Give them to me. It might shock you to hear this, but I don’t want to do more damage than I have to. I’ve rated it as high as I can beneath the top priorities.”
She helped him get the crutches positioned right, and walked beside him toward the bathroom.
“What do you think you’re going to have to give up by bowing out of these premieres and interviews?”
“It wouldn’t take much to wreck the momentum my career has gained in the past two years. You know how the gossip is. You don’t have to make huge scandalous mistakes for the climate to turn. People are already mad at me about Simone, and that’s all speculation. I could keep making a series of small mistakes or demonstrations of bad judgment and the tide would still turn, just not as sharp a turn as if I went around punching people and biting the heads off live kittens.”
He felt it before he even looked down and saw the face she pulled while walking beside him. She turned her lips in and bit them, the way she’d liked to do to hide smiles, or keep from saying something she shouldn’t. Simone. She wanted to ask about Simone, how could she not?
No way. He wasn’t up for talking about his ex with the woman he’d spent years comparing all his former girlfriends to.
“I know that’s a silly example. What I want you to know is that I need to make the most of it while I’m in the position I’ve managed to reach. Do the most work I can, bank it for the inevitable downturn. And in the meanwhile get the best parts and stretch myself—increase the work that people think I’m capable of.” He swung into the bathroom and turned to try and drill the importance of his words into her. “The next project is a really good one. It’s also the kind of work that will keep me from being stuck in either the rom-com hero or action hero typecasts when I get too old for those kinds of parts.”
She opened the bathroom door and waited for him to enter. “I’ll wait out here.”
It closed with a click and Liam shook his head. No comment on what he’d said. She thought he was being unreasonable just out of stubbornness. Or, worse, she thought it was ego. That his pride would sacrifice his leg if it meant the chance to prowl the carpet and be told how awesome he was.
He caught his reflection in the mirror as he passed it, scowling so deeply that he had to pause. Even speculating that she held him in anything but high esteem made him feel fifty pounds heavier, and it showed on his face.
Afterward, while avoiding looking into the mirror, he washed his hands and grabbed the crutches again.
“Door.” He’d let her wait on him if she wanted to take it this far. “You think I’m being ridiculous.”
“I think that you think you’re invincible. I remember feeling that way myself, but when it goes? It’s a really rude awakening.”
“Liam?” Miles called from the door. “The media are getting restless.”
“Right. Let me get settled and then bring in the next person. Wait at least ninety seconds.” The crutches were awkward at first, but he’d played parts where they were needed in the past. His body remembered the way of it soon enough. He picked up speed to his seat, sat, and thrust them at Grace. “I’ll take care of settling my foot with the ice on it.”
His group were competent and cautious people and he even fully trusted two of the three of them, but having Grace take care of things felt the most secure.
When this was over, he’d have to make sure she knew how much this meant to him. Maybe she’d stop looking at him that way then. Maybe he’d stop looking at himself that way.
He should probably also give his group bonuses. He’d seen Miles—his longest-employed assistant—giving Grace the stink-eye at least twice today.
With a quick bend and tuck, she stashed the crutches beneath the sofa and out of sight. Liam made a point of not watching her bend over.
Twenty minutes and another trip to the lavatory later, she was helping him back to the chair and paused to have a look at his foot before putting the ice back on it. “It’s working. At least we have that. If the swelling keeps going down, your insane plan might actually work. Providing you can stand the pain. How’s it doing right now, on a scale of one to ten?”
He could lie—and the professional side of his personality almost demanded it. If he told her that it was a solid four even when he was sitting still, and that it shot up to seven or seventy-five when he walked...
“It’s pretty sore,” he said, shaking his head. “And it is worse when I walk on it. The crutches are helping, but I’m only using them here.”
“We’ve been over that,” Grace said, heading toward the couch with the crutches. “But you didn’t say a number.”
“Three when I’m sitting.” It wasn’t really a lie. All these numbers were subjective. It just felt like a lie.
“And when you’re on it?”
“I don’t know. Six.”
She straightened with a grimace and a shake of her head. “Before you go, if you insist on going, I’ll give you a staggered dose of painkillers to help a little more. But you remember this tomorrow when sitting is a six and walking is a ten.”
* * *
With the new rules limiting the number of questions they could ask, and doubling up on crews, they managed to get them all through with only a little extra time shaved off the required rest period Grace had given him.
And the remainder of it, all one hour and forty-seven minutes he’d spent flat on his back on the floor, his leg propped up on the seat of the chair he’d spent the afternoon in, his foot above the level of his heart, seemed like the easiest way to accomplish that.
However hard he’d thought it’d been to avoid her, he now fully recognized how much he’d missed just seeing her. Even considering the tension in their first minutes and the frequent flashes he saw in her eyes when she looked his way, things were going much better than he would have hoped.
She still thought he was being completely foolish, but she was getting him through what he needed to. And what he really needed now was another trip to the damned bathroom. Note to self: great for reducing swelling but lousy if you’re not glued to the en suite.
“Grace!” he yelled from the floor. “Is my time up?”
“You have one minute, but I guess we can get you up early. Why? Do you need something?” She asked the question so innocently, he almost missed the teasing light in her eyes—small as it was.
“Uh-huh.”
“Can you wait until I’ve had a second to look at it and tape it if possible?”
“Do we really need to delay? It’s a quick trip.”
“Yes, but any time with your foot down it’s going to start swelling again.”
And she’d made enough of a deal about it earlier that he didn’t want to test her patience with him. Funny, he usually had a harder time letting go of his way than that.
“All right. If you can do it fast. Like in five minutes.”
“I’ve taped on the sidelines. I can tape an ankle in under two minutes, but I need a couple more minutes to see your ankle once we’ve got the wrap off.”
A minute later, she’d moved her supplies over and offered him a hand from the floor. “I thought you didn’t want me to put it down.”
“I want you to stand up and sit in the chair so I can tape it easier. You know, so I can get the tape under it without you having to strain to keep it off my lap and I don’t have to give myself backache bending and twisting to get in past the seat back.”
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