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“She’s sort of hard to get to know. What does she do for fun?” Rourke shamelessly pumped Jacey for information about Portia.
“Laundry? Seriously, I don’t know. She keeps to herself. Hey, what’s with the interest in Portia? Twelve rich girls aren’t enough selection for you?”
“Of course not. I mean, of course they are. I was just curious about her since we’ll be working together. I’m not interested in her that way.”
The minute the words left his mouth, he realized they were patently untrue.
2
“HERE ARE the dossiers on the women you’ll be meeting this evening at the predinner cocktail party. You’ll find a variety of blondes, brunettes and redheads with varied interests. They do have three things in common. They’re all women,” Portia joked. Well, only sort of joked. The “female” contestant on Make Me Over had surprised everyone when she’d revealed that “she” was a “he.” “They’re all beautiful and they’re all wealthy. You’re the most envied man in America.”
O’Malley took the booklet and leafed through it.
Portia watched Terry and Jeff, sound techs, check out the wiring and test the sound nearer the divan. They’d planned the meet-and-greet cocktail party in this room. Reminiscent of a Moorish castle, the entire house was a masterpiece of intricate tilework, carved wooden doors, arched doorways and a maze of high-ceilinged hallways that led to private quarters and a central Turkish bath that boasted live palms. The mingled scents of almond, sandal-wood, frankincense and myrrh perfumed the air. It was opulent, with more than a hint of decadence, and a most fitting setting for a handsome man and his harem. Actually, and this twist delighted Portia, the house had originally belonged to a 1930s actress infamous for keeping a retinue of lovers on hand, a reversal of the classic male/female harem roles.
This room, the salon, was particularly lavish, with rich fabrics, low sofas, muted lighting and a high ceiling painted to resemble a velvet night sky alight with hundreds of stars. Doubtless these very walls contained the echoes of pleasure, perhaps with more than one lover at a time.
Was it her conversation with Sadie, the sensual setting, or the totally gorgeous bachelor beside her that had forbidden images teasing at the back of her mind? Images of her supine, being pleasured on that low divan by a tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired man who bore a striking resemblance to O’Malley were inescapable.
Ruthlessly, she swept aside the mental picture. Any pleasure given or received in this room, at least of the carnal nature, wouldn’t involve her. Portia’s delight would be in the subsequent ratings. One of the twelve women and O’Malley would play out that love scene. And it was her job to see that it happened. Sex sold. Sex pulled in viewers. And ratings meant she’d done her job well.
O’Malley finished thumbing through the photos and bio sheets. “You’re right. They’re all women.” He grinned, which notched up his sex appeal to a devastating level. “They’re definitely attractive and they all have that monied look about them. Have you met them? Were they nice? What do you think?”
Portia squashed the tingling response that slid down her spine and reminded herself that Rourke O’Malley was just another pretty face.
She’d met them. Nice and money, while not mutually exclusive, certainly didn’t go hand in hand. Nor did money ensure good taste and decent conduct. All the women had massive egos and she could foresee more than a little jealous bickering. And that would make for good footage. Portia smiled. “I’ve met them and I think you’ll find this very interesting. And very gratifying.”
“Good.” O’Malley shifted the papers into his other hand. “I know where this question is going to get me, but I’ve got to ask anyway.”
Here it came. The inevitable twist question. The “winner” had been promised her own TV show. It was weird, but hey, it had worked. Any of the women’s fathers could probably buy a network, but they all wanted to compete for their own TV show, which should, once again, translate to good footage as they all tried to show how outrageous and at home they could appear on the camera. Of course, she couldn’t reveal this to O’Malley. Terry and Jeff moved to the other side of the room, checking the audio cables running along the baseboards. Must be a snafu. She’d better check with them when she wrapped this up with O’Malley. “Go ahead. Ask away.”
Anticipating his question and distracted by potential sound problems, she didn’t really listen to the question, she just answered what she expected him to ask. “Even if I knew, I couldn’t tell you.”
He quirked one dark brow. “You can’t tell me why you don’t like me?”
He’d asked why she didn’t like him? A flush crept up her face. Portia had realized early on that one of her greatest assets was her ability to get along well with pretty much anyone and everyone. She had a knack for putting people at ease. People found her easy to talk to. The fact that she never offered personal information in return usually worked to her favor. Mostly people wanted to talk about themselves. “I thought you asked about the twist.”
He waved his hand in dismissal. “I never expected that you’d tell me anyway. I know I’m not a virgin, so that’s out the window.” His blue eyes twinkled devilishly and Portia wasn’t sure whether he was making fun of himself or flirting with her, or perhaps both.
But she did know a slow heat seeped through her at the visual supplied by her recently activated imagination—O’Malley naked, thrusting between a woman’s naked thighs. “I’m sure. Many times over.”
O’Malley shrugged. “Many is a relative term. I’m not a player. And I can only hope you don’t slip in a transvestite like on that other show.” He grinned, and Portia smiled in return. Most drop-dead gorgeous men took themselves far more seriously than O’Malley.
“No surprises there.” The production crew had managed to save that show, but afterward the executive director, Burt Mueller, threatened to can the entire screening crew if another transvestite revealed him- or herself on one of his shows. In typical Burt Mueller fashion, he’d declared he wouldn’t become known as the Transvestite Forum Network. She reassured Rourke again. “They’re all real women.”
“For certain?”
“For certain.”
“That’s good to know,” he said.
She bet it was. Portia’d seen a few looks pass between some of the male crew that clearly said they didn’t want to think about the point when a guy might figure out the “woman” carried the same equipment they did.
“You still haven’t answered my question. Why don’t you like me?” Despite his easy smile, his eyes were serious.
“I don’t dislike you.” And she didn’t. Not exactly. She was wary. When he’d been on the set of The Last Virgin, she’d dismissed him, categorizing him the way she did all narcissistic men. But O’Malley refused to be dismissed or categorized and that wasn’t a good thing. His low-key charm and good looks raised Portia’s red flags. It was akin to instinctively knowing a pretty red berry you found in the woods might look good and taste good but wasn’t necessarily good for you. However, she was supposed to be working with him and keeping him happy. She reiterated her earlier assertion. “I don’t dislike you at all.”
“I think you’re splitting hairs.”
O’Malley was more discerning than she’d given him credit. “I have a job to do. I can’t allow myself to get too close to our cast members.”
“I just feel like you know everything about me and I know nothing about you.”
She shook her head. “Contestants pretty much agree to open their lives up to the public. It’s the price of celebrity. But there’s the difference. You’re a participant. I’m behind the scenes. And I like it that way.” She personally thought anyone who agreed to come on to one of these shows wasn’t dealing with a full deck anyway, which was statistically frightening when you considered the staggering number of applicants flooding the screening sites. Andrea and Zach from The Last Virgin had been exceptions. She’d heard through the studio grapevine that Sarah Donovan and Luke Richards from Surviving Sarah and Charlie Cuesta and Sam Ryan from The Great Chase weren’t flakes either. Thank goodness, though, for all those other quirky people in the world because it meant she had a job.
“You’re here for a love fest. I’m here to make sure it goes well for you. End of story.” She smiled, but they both knew she meant it.
Honestly, if she hadn’t known better, she’d swear hurt flashed in his eyes before he answered her smile with his own. “You’re absolutely right. I apologize for overstepping boundaries.”
Now she felt even more awkward, as if she’d extracted an apology that wasn’t owed. “Don’t worry about it.” She checked her watch, relieved to see it was time to end this. “Okay, I should let you get back to your room to shower and change.”
How many times had she said that to a man in similar circumstances and never thought a thing about it? What was wrong with her that she suddenly had a disturbingly erotic image of O’Malley naked, dripping wet, surrounded by a thick cloud of steam? And found it totally, inappropriately arousing.
She glanced back down at the clipboard in her hands, not because there was anything important there, but because it gave her somewhere to look other than at him. “Wardrobe will be along to your room in an hour or so. And I’ll meet you there in an hour and a half to go over any last-minute questions.”
O’Malley’s smile held an edge. “Ah, yes, so you can expertly orchestrate my—what was it?—love fest.” He gave her a nod of dismissal and walked away.
Portia stood in the middle of the room and watched his broad-shouldered retreat, until the door closed behind him.
“So, are you the newest member of the fan club, Portia?” Terry called from across the room, his voice teasing.
Startled, she almost dropped her clipboard. Damn, she’d been so caught up in watching him walk across the room, she’d forgotten about Terry and Jeff.
“You boys know better than that. I don’t do fan clubs.”
Bottom line. She orchestrated. He participated. And that was that.
“HOLD STILL for one more second…” Cindy from wardrobe tugged his black tie into place. She stepped back and surveyed him with a critical eye. A knock sounded on his bedroom door.
“Come in,” he called over his shoulder. Portia had said she’d arrive in an hour and a half. She was punctual. Behind him, his bedroom door opened and closed.
He knew without turning that it was Portia. Yeah, she was scheduled to be here, but he could feel her. Tiny hairs stood up on the back of his neck and adrenaline surged through him.
Cindy tweaked his tux jacket and smiled. “Your mama will be proud and those women don’t stand a chance.” Cindy, with her cheerful attitude and nonstop chatter, rather reminded him of his mother. “Honey, you are yum-my.” She winked outrageously at him and looked over his shoulder. “Makes you wish you had a spoon so you could eat him up doesn’t it?”
Laughing—how could you not laugh at such outrageous hyperbole—and she was obviously teasing him rather than flirting—he turned to face Portia.
Her answering smile struck him as a bit forced. “He’s lucky I left my spoon in my room.”
Her cool gaze flickered over him, having just the opposite effect on his temperature. Forget a spoon, he mentally urged her. His body tightened and his heart pounded at the thought of her mouth against his skin, her scent mingling with his. What was it about her that drew him to her? She wasn’t beautiful in the accepted sense of the word, but she was arresting, exotic, intriguing, frustrating—and she got under his skin.
Cindy’s two-way radio went off. Tamsin, the lead makeup artist, came across after the initial squawk. “Cindy, Ms. Freeman needs you ASAP.”
Rourke had skimmed through the dossiers again, after his shower and before Cindy arrived. Lissa Freeman was heiress to a mind-boggling real-estate fortune, who’d spent the last year hanging out in Europe. What the dossier didn’t include, but the media had more than adequately covered, was the havoc Lissa had wrecked along the way. She was a dark-haired, petulant time bomb given to explosions when things didn’t go her way. Of course, he as well as anyone knew you couldn’t and shouldn’t believe all the media hype.
The radio clicked again. “I don’t need you ASAP, I needed you five minutes ago.”
Okay. Maybe you could believe the media. That peremptory tone could only belong to Ms. Freeman.
Cindy headed for the door, smirking. “Bet she doesn’t have a clue you heard that. Bet she’ll use a different tone with you.”
Rourke chuckled. “No doubt.”
The radio clicked again. “Are you on your way? I don’t have all night.”
“Okay, I can’t resist and she deserves it,” Cindy said to Rourke and Portia. She clicked the two-way. “I’m almost finished with Mr. O’Malley and then I’ll be right there.”
“Oh. Take your time. There’s no hurry.” Butter wouldn’t have melted in Lissa Freeman’s mouth this time around.
Cindy laughed and shook her head. “Take care of him,” she said to Portia. “We’re putting a guppy into a tank full of sharks.”
A guppy? He laughed to cover his sudden nervousness. Him, patently incapable of small talk, among twelve socially adept women. Right. “I object to being called a guppy.”
Cindy waved her radio. “You know what I mean. Take care of him, Portia.”
“I have the utmost confidence he’ll be fine,” Portia said. He was glad one of them did.
The minute the door closed behind Cindy the mood shifted and Rourke was aware of being in his bedroom alone with Portia Tomlinson, a woman he found both bewitching and aggravating.
He was aware of the bed with its massive carved headboard and gossamer curtains tied back with silken cords, the lush carpet underfoot, the sensual suggestion of the entwined couple in the gilt-framed reproduction of Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss” adorning the wall, the copy of the Kama Sutra on the bedside table, the muted lighting, the sheer elegance of Portia’s upswept blond hair, her no-nonsense suit paired with sexy designer shoes, and most of all, her scent.
Rourke spoke to fill the space with something other than the sexual tension strumming through him and permeating the room. “Lissa Freeman just narrowed my choices down to eleven.”
“You should meet her with an open mind. She’s probably got a bad case of PDS, predate syndrome,” Portia said.
“Would you talk to someone like that even if you were nervous over a date?”
“No. Probably not, but you should still give her another chance.”
What would Portia be like on a date? Cool and reserved? What did she do for fun? To relax? What excited her?
“Okay,” her voice came out low and husky. She stopped and cleared her throat. Maybe she was as affected by him as he was by her. “So, we should go over any last-minute questions you have.”
Rourke tried to focus on the women he was about to meet instead of the one in front of him, but he was totally captivated by the way the shadows played across Portia’s skin and hair. He reminded himself the real purpose of being here was not to admire the straight line of Portia’s nose or the sensual curve of her mouth, but to give the network their show, pick up his prize money, and keep Nick’s butt out of jail. “Do you have any pointers on tonight?”
“Only one, really. We’ve set up a champagne fountain in the salon. You might want to go easy on it since you’re the star.”
“Not a problem. I’m not a big drinker.” Some of the guys on the set of The Last Virgin had complained about the minimal alcohol served. “Why didn’t we have a champagne fountain on the last set?”
“This is a different show altogether and the dynamics have shifted. Sexist or not, alcohol flowing freely among lots of men and one woman just doesn’t work. But you know sex sells the ratings. You’re a sexy man and they’re beautiful women, so Lauchmann ordered champagne to loosen things up.”
“I manage fine without ‘loosening up my dates’ with alcohol,” he said, just to set the record straight. Then he moved on to her comment that had caught and held his attention. “You think I’m sexy?”
“Of course I do.” Her expression remained pleasant and neutral, making him all the more curious as to what was going on in her head. “And that really doesn’t mean anything. I consider a Ferrari a work of art. I can admire it, but it doesn’t mean I want to drive one.”
He didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to know this conversation was about much more than a car. And he knew he was going where he shouldn’t, but he went there anyway. “What if you were offered a test drive?”
“They only want you to drive if you’re interested in buying, and I can’t afford a Ferrari.”
“What if it was a no-strings-attached test drive?”
“I’d pass. It would only make me want what I know I can’t have. I’m a realist.”
So was he, but he also had dreams, fantasies. Somewhere beneath that cool cover, surely she had fantasies as well. “And what is it about the Ferrari that appeals to you?”
“The same thing that appeals to everyone else. Beautiful, sexy lines. Perfectly proportioned. Responsive. I’ve read that it shifts hard and fast, but smooth. All of that power under the hood.” Her eyes glittered. “All the women you’re about to meet can afford Ferraris, probably more than one.”
What exactly were the rules of engagement? And what did it take to shake her up the way she shook him up inside? “What if I want to bring one back to my room?”
“I don’t think a Ferrari will fit in here.”
So she wasn’t shaken, but she did have a sense of humor. “I was asking more along the lines of one of the women.”
Portia looked pointedly at the large bed. “That’s certainly your prerogative. I believe there’s room for all twelve. And of course there aren’t any cameras in here.”
“How can I be sure there isn’t a Minicam with a microphone tucked away somewhere?”
“Because I’m telling you there isn’t. You’ll just have to trust me on this.”
Given the studio’s twist on the last show, parading Andrea Scarpini before the world as the last virgin, he’d be a fool to trust the studio or anyone associated with the studio. “So, if I want to bring one of them back here for… privacy… it’s okay?”
She glanced toward the bed. “Absolutely.”
“And if I bring back a different woman every night?”
“A different one every night or more than one, it’s up to you.” Ah, she could play the part of cool and collected, but the flush that suffused her neck and face was all too telling. She walked over to the nightstand and opened it. Rourke did a double take. The drawer held several boxes of condoms. “We take your welfare very seriously. If you find you’re running low, just let me know.”
This was worse than when his parents had put a brown-paper bag filled with condoms in the medicine cabinet when he was in high school and told him it was better to be safe than sorry.
Rourke laughed, both amused and offended. So much for needling Portia to get a rise out of her. He hadn’t signed on for stud service. “I think that’s an adequate supply.” Hell, he hadn’t run through that many condoms in a lifetime. And twice when he was working out at the gym, his back had gone out. Running through that many condoms would probably put him in traction.
“The only rule is everyone has to be willing. No means no.”
“And does that no work both ways? What if one of them comes on to me and I’m not interested?”
“I suppose you’d handle it much the same as you would on a date at home.”
“Maybe. But at home, I’d have the option of just not calling her again.”
