Leah blinked. “Huh. Well . . . I’ve thought about you, too.”
He could just imagine she had. “But I thought nice things,” he said with a lopsided grin. “Great things. Killer things. Things I can’t forget, and I’d really like to talk to you. I’d like to tell you that I wish—”
“Michael?”
His name startled him, and he jerked around. Nicole Redding was staring up at him, her hands on her tiny hips, her lips pursed and her frown deep. “Nicki,” he said with a false smile. Why in the hell did she have to show up now? He mentally kicked his own ass for having slept with her. She’d been trouble from the get-go.
“Well, hello, stranger,” she said in a tone that made him cringe, and gave Leah a once-over before lifting her face to be kissed.
Michael reluctantly put his hand on her elbow and pecked her cheek, Hollywood-style.
She reared back, squinting up at him in a way that made her multimillion-dollar face look very bitchy. “I didn’t know you were in town.”
“Yeah . . . I just got in.”
“Costa Rica, I heard.”
“Yep.” Why was she here? Why didn’t she go back to Bel Air where she belonged?
“So what are you doing here? Film? A woman? Or both?” She laughed at her little dig.
Michael didn’t laugh. “Neither. But thanks for asking.”
“I guess T.A. is doing the stunt work for War, huh?”
“Looks like.”
“Lucky me,” she said with a frown. “I’ll get to see the guy who—”
A loud screech startled them both, and Michael turned to where Leah had been standing. She was in her car, backing out, and her car was making an awful screeching sound.
Nicole coughed as the smoke from Leah’s tailpipe blasted them. “—the guy who dumped me,” she finished.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Michael said, waving a hand in front of his face to dissipate the smoke spewing out of the back of Leah’s car. “Don’t be like that. It was mutual and you know it.”
“It wasn’t mutual,” she whined, waving her hand, too. “I never once said I wanted to break it off.”
“Maybe you didn’t say it, but when you started having those late-night sessions with the director, I didn’t think you were exactly committed to our little affair, either.”
She tossed her head at that. “Do we have to stand here in that junker’s exhaust?”
“No. That junker is leaving,” he said, and watched Leah drive away with only one functioning brake light.
“Jesus, they should outlaw those things,” Nicole said. “All right, all right, Michael, the car is gone, you can look at me now. God, that’s so typical of you. Production hasn’t even started, and you’re already hitting on some actress.”
“I’m not hitting on her.”
“Whatever,” Nicole said with a dismissive flick of her wrist. “I’m going to go get a drink. You want one?”
Frankly, he could use a drink, and Nicole could be fun when she loosened up a little. “Okay, but no sushi bars,” he reminded her.
She smiled. “No sushi, you wimp. Just let me get my things.”
She gave him a come-hither look that might have sent a less experienced man to his knees before stepping around him and moving on. Michael turned around, watched Leah’s car sputter around the corner, and shoved both hands through his hair.
One ex-lover. One ex-love of his life. So far, not a particularly great start to a film he’d been so damn certain was a gift from Guy Universe.
Subject: Re: YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE!!
From: Lucy Frederick <[email protected]>
To: Leah Kleinschmidt <[email protected]>
Time: 11:10 pm
Ohmigod, I think I am going to die. Leah, Leah, please do not do anything completely stupid because you know you have a tendency to be really stupid when it comes to guys. You CANNOT talk to him! I mean, okay, obviously you have to TALK to him, but you can’t let yourself TALK to him, TALK to him, do you understand? I hope I don’t have to remind you how you laid on the couch for six months after he did what he did. You were a friggin’ basket case! You ate an entire box of Fruit Loops in one sitting! Just pleeeease promise me you will remember that he walked out on you, that out of the clear blue, he announced that he was leaving and that was the end of that. He had no regard for your feelings or what you guys had shared for almost a year. I don’t care if he is still really hot, he’s an asshole! They call him the Extreme Bachelor for chrissakes!
P.S. When we were on the phone, I wasn’t laughing about your humiliating fall. I was laughing at you playing dodgeball. You’re too much a goon to play dodgeball.
Subject: Re: Re: YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE!!
From: Leah Kleinschmidt <[email protected]>
To: Lucy Frederick <[email protected]>
Time: 8:30 pm