It reads like a Hollywood script!

Yohanna

I’m not looking for romance. I’d rather just focus on my career; it’s what I’m good at. Love?

Not so much.

Lukkas

It’s been years since I’ve dated—legitimately. Yes, the paparazzi have shot me with beautiful women, but they’re just photo ops. (shaking his head vehemently) I’m not looking for love. Not me! Not again!

Yohanna’s mum

I tell her all the time, “Get married!

It’ll solve all your problems!” (breathing exasperatedly) But does she listen? When is she going to learn that Mother knows best?

The Matchmaking Mamas

We haven’t met a bachelor or bachelorette we can’t match. (smiling sweetly into the camera) Today: single … Tomorrow: in love!

This is what the critics are saying: “Finding your soul mate has never been so much fun!”

Her Red-Carpet Romance

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred books for Harlequin, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, marieferrarella.com.

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To

Mary-Theresa Hussey

in loving gratitude

for all the good years

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

Cecilia Parnell reached into her pocket to take out the key her client had given her, then stopped midway and pulled her hand out again.

The initial movement had been automatic. She had the keys to all of her clients’ homes. Ninety percent of her clients were at work when she and her cleaning crew arrived; the other 10 percent usually preferred to be out when their homes were rendered spotless from top to bottom.

A firm believer in boundaries and privacy, Cecilia made it a policy never to use the key when she knew her client would be home. And today Yohanna Andrzejewski was home. She knew that because the young woman had specifically requested to see her.

Cecilia assumed the request had something to do with some sort of dissatisfaction with the quality of the work her crew did. If so, this would be a first, since no one had ever registered any complaints, not in all the years that she had been in this business.

Pressing the doorbell, Cecilia took a step back from the condo door so that Yohanna could see her when she looked through the peephole.

But it was obvious that her client didn’t bother checking to see who was there. The door opened immediately, giving Cecilia the impression that the young woman was standing right behind the front door, waiting for her to arrive.

“Thank you for coming, Mrs. Parnell,” Yohanna said, closing the door behind her. She sounded breathless, as if she’d been running.

Or perhaps crying.

“Of course, dear—” Cecilia replied kindly.

She was about to say something else when she turned and really looked at the young woman for the first time. Yohanna, usually so bright and upbeat that she practically sparkled, not only looked solemn but almost drained of all color, as well. Cecilia stopped walking. The mother in her instantly kicked in.

“What’s wrong, dear?” she asked, concerned.

Yohanna took a deep breath and then let it out. It sounded almost like a mournful sigh. “I—I’m afraid that I have to let you go,” she murmured, appearing stricken and exceedingly uncomfortable.

For the life of her Cecilia couldn’t think of a single reason why she and her crew were being dismissed. She screened every one of her people very carefully before she hired them. Her daughter was a private investigator, so background checks were very easy to run. All of her employees had been with her for at least two years if not longer, and each one of them did excellent work.

Something else was going on.

“May I ask why?”

Yohanna’s eyes widened as she realized the natural implication of what she had just said. She was quick to correct the misunderstanding.

“Oh, no, it’s not anything that you or your crew have done. If anything, they’re even better than when you first started cleaning here. I’m really thrilled with the job you’ve been doing.”

Confusion creased Cecilia’s brow. “Then, I don’t understand. If you’re happy with our work, why are you letting us go?” The moment Cecilia asked the question, she saw the tears shining in the younger woman’s intense blue eyes. “Oh, darling, what’s wrong?” she repeated.

This time, not standing on any formality, Cecilia took the young woman into her arms and hugged her, offering her mute comfort as well as a shoulder to cry on.

Ordinarily, Yohanna kept her problems to herself. She didn’t like burdening other people, especially when there was nothing they could do to help or change the situation. But this time, she felt so overwhelmed, so helpless, not to mention betrayed, the words just came spilling out.

“I was laid off yesterday,” Yohanna told the sympathetic woman. “I can’t afford to pay you.”

It was obvious that uttering the words was excruciating for Yohanna.

Cecilia gently guided the young woman to the light gray sofa and sat with her.

“Don’t worry about paying me. You’ve been a wonderful client for four years. We’ll work something out. That’s not important now. Tell me exactly what happened,” Cecilia coaxed.

Yohanna took another deep breath, as if that could somehow shield her from the wave of pain that came with the words. Being laid off was a whole new experience for her and she felt awful.

“Mr. McGuire sold the company to Walters & Sons,” she told Cecilia, referring to the man who had owned the company where she had worked. “The deal went through two days ago, before any of us knew about it. Their head of Human Resources called me into her office yesterday morning and said that they wouldn’t be needing my services since they already had someone who could do my job.”

Cecilia could just imagine how hard that must have been for the young woman to hear. One moment the future looked bright and secure, the next there was nothing around her but chaos and upheavals.

“That’s simply awful,” Cecilia sympathized. “Let me make you some tea and you can tell me everything.” She rose from the sofa. “Did you know any of this was coming?” Cecilia asked as she walked into the kitchen.

Yohanna followed, looking, in Cecilia’s estimation, like a lost puppy trying to find its way home.

“No, I didn’t. None of us did,” she said, referring to some of the other people she worked with. “I went to work for the company the year before I graduated college. Nine years. I was there nine years,” she proclaimed. “McGuire’s was like home to me. More,” she emphasized, and then added in a quiet voice, “No one there berated me for not having a love life.”

Cecilia took a wild guess as to the source of the berating Yohanna was referring to. It wasn’t really much of a stretch. “Not like your mother does?”

Yohanna nodded and pressed her lips together, trying to get hold of herself. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” she apologized, “but I just got off the phone with her.”

Admittedly, when she’d told her mother about being suddenly laid off, she’d been hoping for a positive suggestion. Or, at the very least, sympathy. She’d received neither. “My mother’s solution for everything is to get married.”

“She just wants to see you happy,” Cecilia told her as she filled the kettle with water from the tap.

“She just wants grandchildren,” Yohanna contradicted. “I don’t think she’d care if I married Godzilla as long as she got grandchildren out of it.”

An amused smile played on Cecilia’s lips. “The subsequent grandchildren from that union would be much too hairy for her liking,” she quipped. Placing the kettle on the stove, she switched on the burner beneath it.

“But the immediate problem right now is to get you back into the work force.” Cecilia had never been one to beat around the bush. That was for people like Maizie Sommers and Theresa Manetti, her two best friends since the third grade. They were far more delicate and eloquent in their approach to things. She had always been more of a blunt straight shooter. “What is it you do again, dear?”

“A little bit of everything and anything. Make sure that everything is running smoothly, keep track of appointments, meetings, suppliers. Make calls... In short, I guess you could call me an organizer. I take—took,” she corrected herself, “care of all the details and made sure that everything at the office was running smoothly.”

Cecilia nodded, the wheels in her head turning quickly. “I know people who know people who know people,” she said, making something vague sound positive. “Let me make a few calls. We’ll see if we can’t get you back in the game.”

In more ways than one, Cecilia thought. Wait until I tell the girls we might have another project on our hands. The mention of the young woman’s mother’s mindset had not gone unnoticed.

“You really think so?” Yohanna asked, brightening a little. “I’d be eternally grateful for anything you can do to help.”

Cecilia smiled at the young woman. “Leave it to me,” she promised confidently. Among all the people she and her friends currently knew—and that was a lot, given the nature of their businesses—there had to be someone who could use a sharp young go-getter like Yohanna.

Just then, the kettle emitted a high-pitched whistle. The tea was brewed.

“Ah, I believe it’s playing our song,” Cecilia said cheerfully, crossing back to the stove. In her head she was already calling Maizie and Theresa. They were going to want to hear all about Yohanna and her present predicament. “Everything’s going to be just fine, dear,” she promised, filling the teacup to the brim. “You just wait and see.”

“I hope so,” Yohanna murmured. But at the present moment she was having trouble mustering enthusiasm.

Chapter One

“You know, for a man who currently has the number one movie at the box office for the past three weeks, you really don’t look very happy,” Theresa Manetti commented to her client as she paused for a moment to stand by Lukkas Spader.

In the catering business for more than twelve years now, Theresa quickly surveyed the large room where she was presently catering the popular producer’s impromptu party, a last-minute send-off that he was throwing for his departing assistant, Janice Brooks.

Tall, with broad shoulders and a broader smile—a smile that was conspicuously absent at the moment, Theresa noted—the thirty-six-year-old wunderkind, as those in higher places tended to dub him, shrugged.

“I can’t rest on my laurels, Theresa. In this cutthroat business, you’re only as good as your next project.”

Theresa narrowed her eyes as she studied the young man. That wasn’t at the heart of his problem. She could tell by the lost look in his eyes.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” the woman asked. “Don’t bother denying it, Lukkas. I raised two silver-tongued lawyers, I can see beyond the facade. You’re young, good-looking—I’m old so I’m allowed to say that—and the world is currently at your feet. Yet you look as if you’ve just lost your best friend. What’s bothering you?”

Lukkas shrugged. Admitting that the woman had guessed correctly wasn’t going to cost him anything. Besides, he liked this woman whose catering service he’d used half a dozen times or so. There was something about Theresa Manetti that reminded him of his late mother.

“You’re not old,” he told her and then grew more serious when he said, “She’s leaving.”

“She,” Theresa repeated, looking around the room to see if she could spot the woman Lukkas was talking about.

He nodded. “Jan.”

Theresa looked at him in surprise. “You mean the young woman you threw the going-away party for?”

She couldn’t see them as a pair, but if he didn’t want this Jan leaving, why was he throwing this party for her? Why wasn’t he trying to convince the young woman to stay?

Lukkas frowned as he nodded. “She’s following her heart and marrying some guy in England she met while we were in production on My Wild Irish Rose.” As if a lightbulb had suddenly gone off in his head, he realized what his caterer was probably thinking. That this was a matter of the heart. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said, quickly setting Theresa straight. “I’m happy that Jan’s happy, but I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.”

“Why?” Theresa asked, curious. “What is it that she does?”

“She keeps me honest and organized,” he told her with a dry laugh. Because the woman was still looking at him, waiting for a viable answer, Lukkas elaborated, “I’m the one with the ideas and the energy, the inspiration. Jan’s the one who makes sense of it all, who simplifies my chaos and makes sure that everything gets done on time.”

Aware of the level of work involved in what Lukkas did, that certainly sounded like a taxing job, Theresa thought.

“And you don’t have anyone to take her place?” she ventured. At the same time Theresa realized this wasn’t a matter involving the heart. Lukkas seemed genuinely happy that his assistant had found someone to love so this wasn’t something that could be fixed with a good match.

A pity, she silently lamented. She and her friends hadn’t had a good challenge in almost a month. All three of them ran their own respective businesses, but nothing truly made them come to life like pairing up a couple and moving their lives along; lives that would have otherwise just gone their own separate routes, never bumping into one another, never discovering the pot of gold that was waiting for them at the end of the rainbow.

Thinking of that made her recall the poker game she and her friends had played last Monday. The card game was really just an excuse to get together, unwind and occasionally talk about a possible new opportunity for them to play Cupid. Last Monday, Cecilia had spent most of her time talking about a young woman named Yohanna Something-or-other—the last name was a tongue twister at best. Apparently the young woman had just lost her job and was also too sweet and adorable—Cecilia’s exact words—to be without a soul mate.

“Jan is going to be hard, if not impossible, to replace,” Lukkas was saying.

Theresa smiled at the much-sought-after producer. He was single. He was exceedingly handsome. He was perfect. “Don’t be too sure,” she said.

He turned toward her. “You know someone?”

Theresa’s smile was warm and genuine—and very encouraging. “Dear boy, I always know someone.” Theresa’s eyes were fairly sparkling at this point.

Watching her, Lukkas thought that this woman must have a trick or two up her sleeve. Right now, he needed to find someone to replace Jan. A competent someone. “Tell me more. I’m listening.”

* * *

A little less than twenty-four hours later Yohanna Andrzejewski found herself standing on Lukkas Spader’s doorstep. The Lukkas Spader, big-time producer of some very special movies.

Part of her thought she was dreaming. The other part was exceedingly nervous. That was the part that had allowed her knees to feel like Jell-O.

Taking a deep breath and telling herself to calm down, she leaned over and rang the doorbell. And then smiled. The doorbell played several bars from the first movie the producer had ever made: Dreamland.

She closed her eyes, recalling the rest of the score.

And that was the way Lukkas first saw her, standing on his doorstep, her eyes shut and swaying to some inner tune.

“Can I help you?”

The voice was deep and sexy. Startled, her eyes flew open.

The man was even better looking than his pictures, she realized as she frantically went in search of her tongue. It, along with her brain, had gone missing in action. It took a second for her to bring about the reunion.

“I’m—” She had to clear her throat before continuing. “Yohanna Andrzejewski. I’m here about the job opening,” she added after a beat.

He’d been expecting her. Glancing at his watch, he saw that she was early. A hopeful sign, he thought. “I’ve been expecting you,” he told her. “Follow me.”

She fell into step behind him. “You answered your own door,” she noted, slightly surprised.

“Had to,” he told her. “It hasn’t learned to open itself.”

She laughed. “I was surprised that you have a house in Newport Beach,” she confessed. “You’re not all that far from where I live.” Initially anticipating a long commute for the interview, she’d been relieved when she was told that he would see her in his Orange County home.

“Things are a little chaotic here,” he admitted. “I haven’t finished getting all the furniture yet. I think of this as my home away from home. Don’t get me wrong, I love Hollywood.” Entering a first-floor bedroom he’d converted into an office, Lukkas crossed to his desk, took a seat and gestured for her to take a seat on the opposite side. “But sometimes you just have to get away from the noise just so you’re able to hear yourself think.”

“Yes, sir,” Yohanna responded.

The smile on her lips was almost shy. He was amused but also somewhat skeptical about whether this petite, attractive young woman was equal to the job he needed doing.

“I noticed on your résumé that your last job was with a law firm.” He raised an eyebrow as he took a closer look at the dark blonde sitting before him. “Are you a lawyer?” He was aware that most law school graduates had to begin at the bottom of the heap if they were even lucky enough to land a position with any firm.

“No, sir.”

“Don’t do that,” he told her.

She hadn’t a clue what he might be referring to. “Do what, sir?”

“Call me sir,” he specified. “You make me feel like my father—not exactly a feeling I cherish,” he added more or less to himself.

Even so, she’d heard him. “Sorry, si—Mr. Spader.” She’d managed to catch herself.

“Even worse,” he told her. “My name is Lukkas. Think you can manage that?” Yohanna nodded vigorously. “Good,” he pronounced.

Letting her résumé fall to his desk, he moved his chair in closer and leaned over, creating a feeling of intimacy. “So tell me, Yohanna with-the-unpronounceable-last-name, just what makes you think that you can work for me?”

As a rule Yohanna had a tendency toward modesty, but she had the distinct impression that the man interviewing her didn’t value modesty. He valued confidence. She’d always had people skills, skills that allowed her to read others rather accurately. Lukkas Spader didn’t strike her as a man who had the patience to work with meek people.

However she had a feeling that he respected—and expected—honesty. “Mrs. Parnell—”

He held up his hand, stopping her right there. “Who’s Mrs. Parnell?”

“She’s friends with Theresa Manetti, the woman who—”

He stopped her again. “I know who Theresa Manetti is,” he told her. “Go on.”

Yohanna picked up the thread exactly where she had dropped it. “She said you needed someone to organize your schedules, your notes and keep up to the minute on all the details of your projects.”

He studied her for a long moment. She couldn’t glean anything from his solemn, thoughtful expression. “And that would be you?” he finally asked.

Yohanna detected neither amusement nor skepticism in his voice. He was harder to gauge than most. Not to mention that the man was definitely making her nervous. Not because he was so good-looking but because she really wanted to get this job. She wasn’t good at doing nothing.

Yohanna pulled herself together. She was determined not to let the producer see how nervous he made her. His world was undoubtedly filled with people who fawned over him. She wanted him to view her as an asset, not just another fawning groupie or “yes” person.

“That would be me,” she replied, silently congratulating herself for not letting her voice quiver as she said the words.

The next moment she was relieved to see a smile playing on the producer’s lips. The fact that the smile also managed to make him almost impossibly handsome was something she tried not to notice.

It was like trying not to notice the sun.

“You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?” he asked, amusement curving the corners of his mouth.

Yohanna raised her chin ever so slightly, an automatic reaction when she felt she was being challenged. “I know my strengths,” she replied.

“Apparently so does Mrs. Manetti,” he told her. “When we spoke, she spoke very highly of your qualifications, and I respect her judgment.”

He continued looking at her, as if trying to discern if she was as good as the older woman had led him to believe. The silence dragged on for a good several minutes.

Yohanna had met the woman he was referring to only briefly. They had exchanged a few words and the interview had been arranged. There had been no time for Mrs. Manetti to form an opinion about her abilities one way or another.

She could feel herself fidgeting inside, and her pulse rate began to accelerate. All she could think of was that she really needed this job. She’d only been out of work for a couple of days, but the thought of prolonged inactivity had her already climbing the proverbial walls. Not to mention that she had enough money in the bank to see her through approximately one month—one and a half if she gave up eating.

As a last resort she could always move in with her mother, but as far as she was concerned, living under a freeway overpass was preferable to that. Her mother had been decent enough when Yohanna was growing up, but in the past eight years, only two topics of conversation interested her: marriage and children, neither of which was anywhere in Yohanna’s immediate future.

She was fairly confident that living with her mother even for a day would swiftly become catastrophic.

Lukkas continued doling out information. “If you became my assistant, you’d be keeping irregular hours at best. I’m talking really irregular,” he intoned, his eyes on hers. “And you’d be on call 24/7. Are you up for that?” he asked, looking at her intently.

“Absolutely,” she assured him with as much confidence as she could muster.

But Lukkas still had his doubts. “You’re not going to come to me in tears a week or two from now, saying that your husband is unhappy with the hours you’re keeping and could I give you a more normal schedule, are you?”

“I don’t have a husband, so that’s not going to happen.”

But Lukkas wasn’t satisfied yet. “A fiancé? A boyfriend?”

“No and no,” Yohanna responded, quietly shooting down each choice.

Lukkas still appeared skeptical. “Really? Not even a boyfriend?” His eyes never left hers, as if he considered himself to be an infallible human lie detector—and being as attractive as she was, the young woman couldn’t possibly be telling the truth.

“Not even a boyfriend,” she echoed, her face innocence personified.

“You’re kidding, right?” he said in disbelief. How could someone who looked like this woman not have men lining up at her door, waiting for a chance just to spend some time with her? He knew this was none of his business or even ethical for him to ask, but curiosity urged him on.

“No,” she replied. “I just never experienced that ‘walking on air’ feeling, si—Lukkas,” she quickly corrected herself.

“Walking on air,” he repeated. “Is that some sort of code?”

“More like a feeling,” she explained then added quickly, “I’ve never met a man I felt I had chemistry with. In other words, I didn’t experience any sparks flying between us. Without that, what’s the point?” she asked with a vague shrug.

“What, indeed?” he murmured, thinking back, for a second, to his own solitary life. It hadn’t always been that way.

Talking about herself always made her feel uncomfortable. Yohanna was quick to return to the salient point of all this. “The bottom line is that there isn’t anyone to complain about my hours even if they do turn out to be extensive.”

“No ‘if’ about it,” he assured her. “They will be extensive. I’m afraid that it’s the nature of the beast. I put in long hours and that means so will you.” Again he peered closely at her face, as if he could read the answer—and if she was lying, he’d catch her in that, too. “You’re all right with that?” he asked again.

“Completely.”

“You haven’t asked about a salary,” he pointed out. The fact that she hadn’t asked made him suspicious. Everyone always talked about money in his world. Why hadn’t she?

“I’m sure you’ll be fair,” Yohanna replied.

Again he studied her for a long moment. He didn’t find his answer. So he asked. “And what makes you so sure that I’ll be ‘fair’?”

“Your movies.”

Lukkas’s brow furrowed. He couldn’t make heads or tails out of her answer. “You’re going to have to explain that,” he told her.

“Every movie you ever made was labeled a ‘feel good’ movie.” As a child, the movies she found on the television set were her best friends. Both her parents led busy lives, so she would while away the hours by watching everything and anything that was playing on the TV. “If you had a dark side, or were underhanded, you couldn’t make the kinds of movies that you do,” she told him very simply.

“Maybe I just do it for the money.” He threw that out, curious to see what she would make of his answer.

Yohanna shook her head. “You might have done that once or twice, possibly even three times, but not over and over again. Your sense of integrity wouldn’t have allowed you to sell out. Especially since everyone holds you in such high regard.”

Lukkas laughed shortly. “You did your research.” He was impressed.

“It’s all part of being an organizer,” she told him. “That way, there are no surprises.”

There were layers to this woman, he thought. “Is that what you consider yourself to be? An organizer?”

“In a word, yes,” Yohanna replied.

He nodded, as if turning her answers over in his mind. “When can you start?”

There went her pulse again, Yohanna thought as it launched into double time. Was she actually getting the job?

“When would you want me to start working?” she asked, tossing the ball back into his court. It was his call to make.

He laughed shortly. “Yesterday.” That way, he wouldn’t have lost a productive day.

“That I can’t do,” she told him as calmly as if they were talking about the weather. “But I can start now if you’d like,” she offered.

Was she that desperate? he wondered. Or was there another reason for her eagerness to come to work for him? Since his meteoric rise to fame, he’d had friends disappoint him, trying to milk their relationship for perks and benefits. As for strangers, they often had their own agendas, and he had become very leery of people until they proved themselves in his estimation. That put him almost perpetually on his guard. It was a tiring situation.

“You can start tomorrow,” Lukkas told her.

She wanted to hug him, but kept herself in check. She didn’t want the man getting the wrong impression about her.

“Then, I have the job?” she asked, afraid of allowing herself to be elated yet having little choice in the matter.

“You can’t start if you don’t,” he pointed out. “I’ll take you on a three-month probationary basis,” he informed her. “Which means that I can let you go for any reason if I’m not satisfied.”

“Understood.”

He peered at her face. “Is that acceptable to you?”

“Very much so, s-si—” She was about to address him as “sir” but stopped herself, uttering, instead, a hissing sound. “Lukkas,” she injected at the last moment.

“I’m currently producing a Western. We’re going to be going on location—Arizona. Tombstone area,” he specified. “Do you have any problem with that?”

She wanted to ask him why he thought she would, but this wasn’t the time for those kinds of questions. They could wait until after she had entrenched herself into his life. The fact that she would do just that was a given as far as she was concerned now that he had hired her.

“None whatsoever,” she told him.

“All right. Then go home and get a good night’s sleep. I need you back here tomorrow morning at seven.”

“Seven it is. I’ll be bright eyed and bushy tailed,” she responded, thinking of a phrase her grandfather used to use.

“I’ll settle for your eyes being open,” he told her. “See you tomorrow, Hanna.”

Yohanna opened her mouth to correct him and then decided she rather liked the fact that her new boss was calling her by a nickname, even if she didn’t care all that much for it. She took it as a sign they were on their way to forming a good working relationship.

After all, if someone didn’t care for someone else, they weren’t going to give them a nickname, right? At least, not one that could be viewed as cute. If anything, they’d use one that could be construed as insulting.

“See you tomorrow,” she echoed. “I’ll see myself out,” she told him.

Lukkas didn’t hear her, his mind already moving on to another topic.

Yohanna had to hold herself in check to keep from dancing all the way to the front door.

Chapter Two

The landline Yohanna had gotten installed mainly to placate her mother—“What if there’s a storm that takes out the cell towers? How can anyone reach you then? How can I reach you then?”—was ringing when she let herself into her condo several hours later that day.

Yohanna’s automatic reaction was to hurry over to the phone to answer it, but she stopped just short of lifting the receiver. The caller-ID program was malfunctioning, the screen only registering the words incoming call.

Frowning, she stood next to the coffee table in the living room and debated ignoring the call. Granted, everyone she knew did have this number as well as her cell number, but for the most part, if they called her, it was almost always on her cell phone, not her landline. That was for sales people, robo calls and her mother.

Which meant, by process of elimination, that the caller was probably her mother.

Yohanna was really tempted to let her answering machine pick up. Talking to her mother was usually exhausting.

But if she ignored this call, there would be others, most likely coming in at regular intervals until she finally picked up and answered. Her mother had absolutely unbelievable tenacity. She would continue calling, possibly well into the evening, at which time her mother would make the fifteen-mile trip and physically come over. Her hand would be splayed across her chest, as she would dramatically say something about her heart not being up to taking this sort of stress and worry.

Yohanna resigned herself to the fact that she might as well answer her phone and get the inevitable over with.

Taking a deep, bracing breath, she yanked the receiver from its cradle and placed it against her ear—praying for a wrong number.

“Hello?”

“It’s about time you answered. Where were you? Never mind,” Elizabeth Andrzejewski said dismissively. “I’m calling you to tell you that I’ve got your room all ready.”

Yohanna closed her eyes, gathering together the strength she sensed she was going to need to get through this phone call.

Until just a minute ago she’d been walking on air, still extremely excited about being hired. She would have been relieved landing any job so quickly, on practically the heels of her recent layoff, but landing a job with Lukkas Spader, well, that was just the whip cream and the cherry on her sundae.

However, dealing with her mother always seemed to somehow diminish her triumphs and magnify everything that currently wasn’t going well in her life. Her mother had a way of talking to her that made her feel as if she was a child again. A child incapable of doing anything right without her mother’s help.

Yohanna knew that, deep down, her mother really meant well; she just wished the woman could mean well less often.

“Why would you do that, Mother?” she finally asked. She hadn’t used her room since she’d left for college and moved out on her own.

“So you’ll have somewhere to sleep, of course,” her mother said impatiently.

“I have somewhere to sleep. I sleep in my bedroom, which is in my condo, Mother, remember?” Yohanna asked tactfully.

She heard her mother sigh deeply before the woman launched into her explanation.

“Well, now that you’ve lost your job, you’re not going to be able to hang on to that overpriced apartment of yours. You should sell it now before the bank forecloses on it.”

Yohanna was stunned. Where was all this coming from? She’d had this so-called “discussion” with her mother several years ago when she’d first bought her condo. Her mother couldn’t understand why “a daughter of mine” would “waste” her money buying a “glorified apartment” when she had a perfectly good room right in her house. She’d thought that argument had finally been laid to rest.

Obviously she had thought wrong.

“The bank isn’t going to foreclose on me, Mother,” Yohanna informed her. “My mortgage payments are all up-to-date.”

“Well, they won’t be now that you’ve been fired,” her mother predicted with a jarring certainty.

“Laid off, Mother,” Yohanna corrected, trying not to grit her teeth. But there was no one who could make her crazier faster than her mother. “I wasn’t fired, I was laid off.”

“Whatever.” The woman cavalierly dismissed the correction.

“There is a difference, Mother,” Yohanna insisted. “One has to do with job performance. The other is a sad fact of modern life. In my case, it was the latter.”

“Potato, potato,” her mother said in a singsong voice. “The bottom line at the end of the day is that you don’t have a job.”

The words suddenly hit her for the first time. “How did you find out?” Yohanna asked.

She hadn’t told anyone about her layoff except for Mrs. Parnell, bless her. Granted, the people that she’d worked with knew, but a lot of them had been laid off, as well. She didn’t see any of them sending her mother a news bulletin. They didn’t even know her mother.

So how had her mother found out?

“I’m your mother,” Elizabeth Andrzejewski replied proudly, as if that alone should have been enough of an explanation. “I know everything.”

“You’re not omnipotent, Mother,” Yohanna told her mother wearily. “Spill it,” she ordered. “Just how did you find out about the layoff?”

The silence on the other end of the line began to stretch out.

“Mother...” Yohanna began insistently.

Elizabeth huffed. “If you must know, I went to the office to surprise you and take you out for lunch today. Imagine my surprise when I walked in and found out that you didn’t work there anymore. Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, sounding as if she had been deeply wounded by this omission of information.

“I didn’t want you to worry—or get upset,” Yohanna answered.

That part was true, although there were many more reasons than that why she had kept the news to herself. Specifically, she didn’t want to have to fend off her mother’s offers for “help,” all of which revolved around getting her to move back home. She’d moved out once, but she had a feeling that next time would be a great deal more difficult.

“You didn’t want me to worry.” Elizabeth practically sneered at the words. “I’m your mother. It’s my job to worry about you. Now, I won’t take no for an answer. I’ll come over tomorrow morning to help you pack up your things and—”

Her mother was more relentless than a class-five hurricane, Yohanna thought. But she was not about to throw up her hands and surrender.

“I’m not selling the condo, Mother,” she began patiently.

“All right, rent it out, then,” her mother advised, frustrated. “That’ll help you cover the cost of the exorbitant mortgage until you’re about to get back on your feet again—”

“Mother, I am on my feet.”

She heard her mother sigh again. This time, instead of sounding dramatic, there was pity in her mother’s voice.

Irritating pity.

“There’s no need to put up a brave front, Yohanna. Lots of people lose their jobs these days. Of course, if you had married Alicia Connolly’s son, that nice young doctor, you wouldn’t be in this predicament, wondering where your next dollar is coming from.”

Her mother was referring to a setup she’d had her hand in. As Yohanna recalled the entire excruciating event, it had truly been the blind date from hell as well as ultimately being the reason she had vowed to never allow her mother to set her up with a date again.

“For your information, Mother,” she said, enunciating each word so that her mother would absorb them, “I am not wondering where my next dollar is coming from.”

“Well, then, you should be,” Elizabeth told her with more than a touch of indignation in her voice. “The bank isn’t going to let you slide because of your good looks, which, as you know, you’re not going to have forever,” she added, unable, apparently, to keep from twisting the knife a little bit. “Which reminds me. My friend Sheila has this nephew—”

Although she was always somewhat reluctant to keep her mother in the loop—mainly because her mother always found something negative to say about the situation—Yohanna knew that the older woman was not about to stop trying to manipulate her life—big-time—unless she told her mother that she was once again gainfully employed.

“Mother, stop, please,” she pleaded. “I don’t need to move back into my room or to rent out my condo.”

“Oh, then, just what is your brilliant solution to your present problem?” Elizabeth asked.

I’m talking to my present problem, Yohanna thought.

However, she kept that to herself, knowing that if she ever said those words or similar ones out loud, her mother would be beyond hurt. She couldn’t do that to the woman no matter how much her mother drove her up a wall.

“I’ve got a job, Mother,” she told her.

“Honey, I told you that you don’t need to pretend with me.” It was obvious by her tone of voice that her mother simply didn’t believe her.

“I’m not pretending, Mother,” Yohanna answered, struggling to remain calm and clinging to what was left of her dwindling patience.

“All right.” She could all but see her mother crossing her arms in front of her, fully prepared to sit in judgment. “And just what is this ‘job’ you’ve gotten so suddenly?” Before she could tell her, Yohanna heard her mother suddenly suck in her breath. “You’re not doing anything immoral or illegal, are you?”

It was more of an accusation than a question. Among other things, her mother, an avid—bordering on rabid—soap opera fan, had a way of allowing her imagination to run away with her along the same creative lines that many of the soap operas she viewed went.

“No, Mother. Nothing illegal or immoral.” She really hadn’t wanted to tell her mother until her three-month probationary period was up, but, as with so many other things that involved her mother, she found that she had no choice in the matter. “I’m going to be Lukkas Spader’s assistant.”

“And just what does this man want being assisted?” Elizabeth asked suspiciously.

“Lukkas Spader, Mother,” Yohanna repeated, stunned that her mother didn’t recognize the name. “The producer,” she added. But there was apparently still no recognition on her mother’s part. “You know, the man who produced Forever Yours, Molly’s Man, Dangerous.” She rattled off the first movies that she could think of.

“Wait, you’re working for that Lukkas Spader?” her mother asked, sounding somewhat incredulous.

Finally! Yohanna thought. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

Suspicion leeched back into Elizabeth’s voice. “Since when?”

“Since this morning, Mother, when Mr. Spader hired me.”

Elizabeth obviously wasn’t finished being skeptical about this new turn of events. “And what is it that you say you’re going to be doing for him?”

Yohanna silently counted to ten in her mind before answering. “I’m going to be organizing things, Mother. Movie things,” she elaborated, knowing how her mother tended to think the worst about every situation. Given the choice of picking the high road or the low one, her mother always went the low route.

As proved by her mother’s next question. “Are you telling me the truth?”

Yohanna rolled her eyes. This was not a conversation that a thirty-year-old should be having with her mother. Anyone listening in would have thought her mother was talking to someone who was twelve. Maybe younger.

“Of course I’m telling you the truth, Mother.”

To her surprise, instead of continuing to harp on the subject, she heard her mother give a huge sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God. Now, remember not to mess anything up, understand?”

“I’m not going to mess anything up, Mother.” And then it hit her. She knew what her mother was thinking. Yohanna nearly groaned. Her mother never gave it a rest. Never. “He’s my boss, Mother,” she said in a sharp warning voice.

“So?” Elizabeth asked defensively. “Bosses don’t get married?”

Enough was enough. She was not having this conversation. “I’ve got to go, Mother. I’ve got some things to take care of before I go in tomorrow.” It was a lie, but it was better than slamming the receiver down in the cradle, which she was very tempted to do.

Rather than attempt to pump her for more information, her mother surprised her by saying, “Go get some new clothes. Sexy ones. These Hollywood types like sexy women.”

There was no point in arguing about this with her mother any longer. She had never known her mother to admit she was wrong or that she had overstepped her boundaries. Not even once.

There was no reason for her to hope that her mother would suddenly come to her senses at fifty-seven and turn over a new leaf.

For better or worse, this was her mother.

“Yes, Mother,” Yohanna replied in a near-to-singsong voice. “Bye.” And with that, she hung up, promising herself to get a new phone—one with a working caller ID—the first opportunity she got.

* * *

Yohanna didn’t remember when she finally closed her eyes and fell asleep.

All she knew was that it felt as if she’d only been asleep for ten minutes before she opened her eyes again and saw that, according to the clock on her nightstand, it was quarter to six.

Spader wanted her at his Newport Beach home by seven.

Stifling a groan, she stumbled out of bed, then somehow made her way down the stairs and into the recently remodeled kitchen.

If she was going to get anything accomplished, she needed coffee. Deep, hearty, black coffee. Downing one cup fortified her enough to go back upstairs, take a shower and get dressed. All of which she did at very close to top speed. She needed to get out and on the road as quickly as possible.

She didn’t anticipate any large traffic snarls from her home to Spader’s but there was always a chance of a collision and/or a pileup—and she didn’t like leaving anything to chance.

She also didn’t like calculating everything down to the last possible moment. On time wasn’t her style—being early was.

Fueled by an enormous amount of nervous energy, Yohanna was on the road less than half an hour after she’d woken up.

Twenty minutes after that, she was parked across the street from Spader’s impressive three-story house. As usual, she was early and, ordinarily, she would walk up to the front door and ring the bell. She just assumed that to most people, being early was a plus. But Lukkas Spader might be one of those people who actually didn’t like anyone arriving early, possibly before he was ready to see them.

She needed to find that little detail out before tomorrow morning. In the meantime, she looked at her wristwatch and continued to wait, parked directly across from his slightly winding driveway.

Which was where the patrol officer who tapped on her driver’s-side window found her.

Startled by the knock—her mind was elsewhere—Yohanna looked up at the officer. To say she was surprised to see him was putting it mildly.

The officer motioned for her to roll down her window. Which, after one false start, she did.

“Is there something wrong, Officer?” she asked him, even though, for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine what that could be, or why he’d want to speak to her in the first place.

“You tell me,” he replied, waiting. When she continued watching him without saying a word in response to his flippant remark, the officer appeared to be losing patience as he asked, “Mind telling me what you’re doing sitting out here all alone like this?”

“I’m waiting until seven o’clock,” she explained. To her, it was all very logical.

“What happens then?” he asked.

She found the officer’s tone just slightly belligerent, but told herself it was her imagination. “I knock on Mr. Spader’s door.”

The officer didn’t seem to believe her. “And then what?” he demanded.

“He lets me in.” Why was he asking all this? she wondered. She certainly didn’t look unsavory.

“That the plan?” the officer said sarcastically.

Yohanna began to feel a little uneasy. “I don’t think I understand.”

The officer blew out a breath, sounding as if he was struggling to keep from raising his voice. “Look, honey, why don’t you just drive off, buy yourself some popcorn and watch one of the guy’s movies like everyone else does?”

The officer clearly didn’t understand. “But Mr. Spader is waiting to see me.”

“Sure he is,” the officer said in a humoring voice. “You look like a decent kid. Stalking never ends well. Not for the stalker, not for the person they’re stalking. So why don’t you just—”

“Wait, what?” Yohanna cried, stunned at the very suggestion the officer was making. “I’m not stalking Mr. Spader,” she insisted. “I work for him.”

“Suuure you do.” He stretched out the word, mocking her before he suddenly became stone-cold serious. “I don’t want to take you in, but you’re really not leaving me much of a choice here, lady. Now, for the last time, start your car and go home—”

“Ask him,” Yohanna cried quickly. “He’ll tell you that I work for him. Just go up to his door and knock.” She was almost pleading now.

If she didn’t show up the first day, she might as well kiss the job goodbye. And even if she wound up having the policeman escort her to Spader’s door, the producer still might hand her her walking papers. No one wanted to knowingly work around trouble.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? So you could tell all your little crazy loser friends that you got to see Lukkas Spader up close and personal-like. Sorry, I’m not in the business of making your pathetic little fantasies come true. Now, this is your last chance to go free—” he began again.

“Please, I’m telling you the truth, Officer. I work for Lukkas Spader. He told me to meet him here at seven this morning and I was just waiting until seven before knocking on his door. I am not stalking him,” she insisted.

Still apparently unconvinced, the police officer frowned.

“You’re not leaving me any choice. I warned you.” One hand was now covering the hilt of his service weapon, ready to draw it out at less than a heartbeat’s notice. “Get out of the car. Now.”

One look into the man’s eyes and Yohanna knew the officer wouldn’t stand for being crossed. He wasn’t the type to suffer any sort of acts of disobedience quietly or tranquilly.

Keeping her hands out where he could see them, Yohanna did as the police officer ordered. She got out of the car slowly.

“Is there a problem, Officer?”

The question came from someone standing directly behind the officer. Yohanna leaned over slightly to look, praying she was right.

She was.

It was Lukkas.

Yohanna’s heart went into overdrive.

“No, sir, Mr. Spader. I just caught another stalker. This one’s not as intense as the other one was, but she looks like trouble all the same.”

Lukkas smiled as he stepped to the officer’s side and looked at her. “She does, doesn’t she?”

Chapter Three

“Do you want to press charges?” the police officer asked, looking expectantly at the man standing next to him.

Stunned, Yohanna’s eyes widened considerably as she stared at the man she had thought was her new employer. Had her signals gotten somehow crossed and she’d misunderstood him yesterday?

No, that wasn’t possible. He hadn’t given her anything in writing, but she remembered every word he’d said and could recite them back to him verbatim. Her very precise photographic memory was part of what made her so good at organizing things. It also helped her take care of what needed to be done—and then remembering where everything was hours, even days, later.

She was about to nudge the producer’s memory a little so this officer could move along when she heard Spader tell the man, “No, not at this time, Officer.”

The police officer was still eyeing her as if she was some sort of a criminal deviant. She needed her new boss to say something a little more in her defense than a barely negligible remark.

“Mr. Spader, tell him I work for you,” she requested with more than a little urgency.

The corners of Lukkas’s mouth curved just a hint as he turned toward the officer and said, “She does, actually. This is Hanna’s first day. She’s here a little early,” he commented. “But that’s a good thing.”

The officer removed his hand from his weapon. “Oh.” There was just a sliver of disappointment in the man’s voice. He glanced from the producer to the woman who had almost been arrested. “Sorry about that, but it’s better to be careful than let things ride and then be sorry.”

The apology was halfhearted, but Yohanna considered it better than nothing. She inclined her head, silently indicating that she accepted the officer’s rather paltry excuse.

A huge range of emotions swirled through her like the wind gearing up before a storm. This was a whole different world that she was signing on for.

She focused on the one piece of information she had picked up out of all this. “You had a stalker?” she asked Lukkas incredulously. She’d occasionally read about things like that happening, both to famous celebrities as well as to average, everyday people, but it had never touched her life or happened to anyone she actually knew.

Until now.

“What happened?” she asked him.

Lukkas didn’t answer her and gave no indication that he had even heard her. Instead, what he said was, “Ready to get started?”

She took that to mean that the subject of his past stalker was off-limits. While her curiosity was still rather exceedingly ramped up, she could understand why the producer wouldn’t want to pursue the subject. This was obviously something out of Spader’s private life and she was just an employee—a new employee at that—hired on a probationary basis. That didn’t exactly make her someone he was about to bare his soul to within the first few minutes of her first day on the job.

So she buried the question as well as her growing and somewhat unbridled curiosity and cheerfully replied, “Absolutely,” to his question.

But even with her ready and eager to get started, it turned out that the producer wasn’t quite ready to go back into his house just yet.

Instead, he took out what looked like a weather-beaten wallet from his back pocket. When he opened it, she realized that he wasn’t holding a wallet. What Lukkas had in his hand was a checkbook.

The next moment he had turned toward the officer who was still standing there. “I heard that the department is collecting ticket money for their semi-annual basketball-for-charity game,” Lukkas said as he began to write a more than substantial check to the Bedford Police Department, earmarking it for the basketball game.

Seeing the sum, the officer beamed, instantly forgetting all about the arrest he had been deprived of. “Yes, sir.”

“Here.” Lukkas tore out the check and handed it to the officer. “This might help a little.”

Looking again at the sum the producer had written in, the police officer’s eyes seemed about to fall out of the man’s head. Yohanna thought that perhaps the number hadn’t quite registered when the man had first glanced at the check.

“Yes, sir, it sure would,” the officer said with no small enthusiasm.

“Keep up the good work,” Lukkas said, turning his back on the man and striding back to his house.

Yohanna tried to fall into place beside the producer. She found herself all but racing to keep up with him. In the background, she heard the patrol car driving away.

Glancing over his shoulder, Lukkas asked, “Am I walking too fast for you?”

“No,” Yohanna answered stubbornly, doing her best to move even faster.

He stopped abruptly at his front door. Fueled by momentum, Yohanna almost crashed into him. Had he not caught hold of her shoulders just then, her body might have wound up vying for the exact same space that his was in.

Hiding his amusement, Lukkas held her in place for a moment. “Never be ashamed to admit the truth,” he told her, referring to the answer she’d given him.

Rather than meekly accept the castigation, she lifted her chin ever so slightly and asked, “Does that work both ways?”

He didn’t answer her immediately. He took his time, as if he was weighing something.

“Yes,” he said after a beat.

She decided to see if he actually practiced what he preached. “Then, did you have a stalker?”

Releasing her shoulders, instead of being annoyed, Lukkas laughed. “Touché,” he acknowledged, inclining his head.

Then he pulled open the front door. He’d left it unlocked earlier when he’d come out to see what was going on.

Yohanna just assumed the man was going to leave the question she’d repeated hanging in the air, unanswered. To her surprise, as she started to enter the house, she heard him say, “Yes, I had a stalker. It was a few years ago.”

Closing the door behind them, Lukkas began to lead her through the house to the room he’d converted into his office. The same place where he had conducted her interview yesterday.

This time, since she was just a shade less nervous than she had been the day before, she took in more of her surroundings. Rather than modern or austere, the furnishings struck her as comfortable with warm, friendly lines. She wondered if her new boss had done the decorating himself, or if he had hired someone to do it for him.

Maybe he’d left it up to the woman she was replacing, she mused.

“Did they catch the person? The stalker,” she clarified. Since Lukkas had opened up a little, she did her best to follow up on the subject. The more she knew about her employer, the more efficiently she could serve him.

“Why do you want to know?” As a rule, Lukkas didn’t like being questioned. He turned the tables on his new assistant. Every word she uttered painted that much more of a complete picture of her.

“Just curious if there was still someone out there who felt they had the right to a piece of your life,” she told him.

He thought that was rather a unique way of describing his stalker. Maybe there was more to this woman he’d hired than he’d thought, which was all to the good in his opinion.

“There’s always someone out there, Hanna,” he told her. “But if you’re asking specifically if that misguided young woman is liable to pop up outside my window at a time of her choosing, the answer’s no. To the best of my knowledge, she’s still being treated as an inpatient at a psychiatric facility.” This time he stopped right outside his office door. “Anything else?”

She got the distinct impression that the topic of conversation was to end right here, at his door. She wasn’t quite sure if that meant she had stepped over some invisible boundary, or if the tone of voice he was using was just the way he sounded when he spoke to someone who was working for him.

If he decided to keep her on, she supposed she’d find out.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Go ahead.” There was no indication that he was running out of patience as far as she could see—which was good.

“Shouldn’t I have filled out some sort of paperwork for your human resources department?” Yohanna asked.

Although overjoyed to actually be working, especially for someone like Lukkas Spader, there was still a small part of her that was highly skeptical about the validity of the entire arrangement. That left her wondering if perhaps, at the end of the day, she was not only off the record but completely off any books, as well.

Lukkas made no answer.

Instead, he pushed open the door to his office and silently gestured toward his desk.

There, lying on the blotter, away from the rest of the disorganized array that covered more than seven-eighths of his desk, were several pristine white pages stacked one on top of the other.

Crossing over to his desk, Yohanna saw that they appeared to be meant for her. Her first name was written on the top sheet.

“I would have put down your full name,” he told her. “But there’s no way in hell I would have spelled it right.”

She smiled at that. Her last name had been misspelled more times than she could count.

“It took me two days to learn how to spell it when I was a kid. I thought about having it legally changed a couple of times,” she confided, even though she had never gone through with it.

“Don’t,” he told her. “It has character. This is a place that tends to spew out carbon copies,” he said, referring to his industry. “Being unique is a good thing.” He paused for a moment. “When you finish with those, I’ll give you a number and you can fax them to Human Resources,” he told her. “Then we’ll get down to the real work.”

Yohanna had already sat down and begun filling out the employment forms.

* * *

Lukkas looked up from the preproduction notes he’d been working on. The center of his back was aching, the way it did when he remained immobile for a long period of time. It was due to an old college football injury, reminding him that he wasn’t a kid anymore. He didn’t like being reminded.

He glanced at his watch.

It was past seven-thirty in the evening. More than twelve hours since he’d gotten started. Not that that was unusual. He was used to driving himself relentlessly whenever he was working on a project, especially at the very beginning of it.

He was also used to his people wearing out and leaving before his own day ended.

He had to admit he was surprised that this new woman not only hadn’t said anything about the amount of time that had passed since she’d arrived at his house, but she appeared to be keeping up with the grueling pace he had set for himself.

Empty cardboard containers were piled up in the wastepaper basket beside his desk, evidence of the food they’d consumed. He’d sent out for lunch, but that had been close to six hours ago.

He felt his own stomach tightening in complaint, and he was accustomed to this sort of pace. He expected to hear Hanna’s stomach rumbling at any second. He had no doubts that the woman probably thought he was some sort of an inhumane slave driver.

Pausing, he studied her unabashedly. She seemed to be oblivious to it, but that was probably an act. She didn’t strike him as the type to be oblivious to anything in her immediate surroundings.

“You tired?” he asked her.

“No,” she answered as she went over the notes he had completed earlier and handed to her. He’d wanted her to familiarize herself with what was involved on his end of preproduction. He planned to take her every step of the way just once. After that, she had to sink or swim on her own.

Raising her head for a split second to look in his direction, she assured him, “I’m fine.”

“What did I say about the truth?” he asked her.

“Ah, a pop quiz. You didn’t tell me about that.” Her quick grin faded as she gave him the answer he required. “To never be afraid to admit it.”

He nodded and then said, “Let’s do this again. You tired?”

For a second Yohanna debated repeating her denial, but obviously that wasn’t what Spader wanted to hear from her.

“Maybe a little,” she allowed, even though it was against her nature to complain.

When he kept on looking at her, as if his eyes were drilling right into her mind, searching for the truth, Yohanna mentally threw up her hands and said, “Exhausted, actually.”

The smallest of smiles briefly made an appearance on his lips. “There, that wasn’t really so hard, was it?” he asked.

“It wasn’t actually easy, either,” she told him. “Especially since I wasn’t sure what it was you wanted to hear,” she admitted.

“The truth, Hanna, always the truth,” he stressed. He put his pen down. Right now, this was more important than the notes he was making. “You’re not going to do me any good if I have to read between the lines anytime I ask you a simple question. I need total honesty from you,” Lukkas told her.

She spoke before she could censor herself. “No one wants total honesty. They just want their version of total honesty.”

The words surprised him and managed to catch him completely off guard. He scrutinized her for a long moment, as if trying to decide something. “How old are you, Hanna?” he finally asked.

“Thirty.”

He noticed there wasn’t any hesitation before she volunteered the number. Most women over the age of twenty were coy when it came to the age question. She really was unique, he thought.

“Thirty, and already so cynical,” he commented.

But Yohanna had a different opinion about her view. “Not cynical,” she contradicted. “Being completely honest a hundred percent of the time is really cold and unfeeling.”

He leaned back in his chair, rocking slightly as he regarded her. “How do you figure that?”

“For instance, if a girlfriend asks you if what she has on makes her look fat, she really doesn’t want to know that she looks fat. What she really wants is to hear how flattering the outfit she’s wearing looks on her.”

“But if it really does make her look fat?” Lukkas asked, curious as to what her thought process was. “Aren’t you doing that friend a disservice by not telling her the truth?”

Yohanna shook her head. “If it really does look bad on her, she’ll figure it out on her own. She wants to hear flattering words from you.”

“You can’t be serious,” he protested.

“Completely,” she insisted. “What your friend will come away with is that you cared more about her feelings than making some kind of point by being a champion of the truth.”

“In other words, you’re saying it’s all right to lie,” he surmised.

“If you can’t bring yourself to tell her a little white lie, say something nice about the color. Maybe it brings out her eyes, or makes her skin tones come alive.”

“In other words, say anything but the word fat,” he concluded.

She nodded. The smile began in her eyes and worked its way to her lips in less than a second. He found himself being rather taken with that. “Fat only belongs in front of the word paycheck or rain cloud.”

“That’s two words,” Lukkas pointed out, not bothering to hide his amusement.

Yohanna suddenly became aware that she had been going on and on. Her demeanor shifted abruptly. “Sorry, I talk too much.”

“You do,” he conceded. “But lucky for me, so far it’s been entertaining.” Lukkas grinned, then after a beat, asked, “How’s that?”

She wasn’t sure what he was asking her about. “Excuse me?”

“I just threw in the truth, but then said something to soften the blow. I was just asking how you thought I did, if I got the gist of your little theory.”

For a moment, as her eyes met his, Yohanna didn’t say anything.

Was he being sarcastic?

Somehow, she didn’t think so, but that was just a gut reaction. After all, she didn’t really know the man, didn’t know anything about him other than the information she’d gleaned from a handful of interviews she’d looked up and read yesterday before she’d come in for the interview.

Taking a chance that the producer was really being on the level, she smiled and said, “Very good,” commenting on his “behavior.”

“I wasn’t trying to lecture you, you know,” she told him in case he’d gotten the wrong impression. “I was just putting my opinion out there.” And then she shrugged somewhat self-consciously. “My mother says I do that too much.”

He instantly endeared himself to her by saying, “Your mother’s wrong.” She had to really concentrate to hear what he had to say after that. “There’s nothing wrong with offering an opinion—unless, of course, you’re delivering a scathing review on one of my movies. Then all bets are off.”

“Has anyone ever done that?” she asked incredulously. Then, in case he didn’t understand what she was asking, she repeated his words. “Given a scathing review about one of your movies?”

He didn’t have to think hard. He remembered the movie, the reviewer, what the person had said and when. Why was it that the good reviews all faded into the background, but the one or two reviews that panned his movie felt as if they had been burned right into his heart?

“Once or twice,” he answered, keeping his reply deliberately vague. The reviews hadn’t exactly been scathing, but they had been far from good.

“Well, they were crazy,” she pronounced. “You make wonderful movies.”

He laughed at her extraserious expression. “You don’t have to say that,” he told her. “You already have the job.”

“I’m not saying it because I want this job, I’m saying it because I really like your movies,” she insisted. “They make me feel good.”

“Well, that was their intention,” he said, carrying the conversation far further than he had ever intended. He rarely discussed his movies this way. He spent a lot of time on the mechanics of the movie rather than the gut reaction to it. The latter was something he felt would take care of itself. It was just up to him to set the scene.

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