Love Me True

Flashbulbs popped, blinding him.

“Faster,” he hissed over his shoulder when she stopped and began to pull her dress down and stick her chest out, simpering and flirting with the cameras.

“Smile for the nice man, Joey,” Daniella ordered.

“Hug her!” a girl screamed.

“Kiss her!”

Encouraged, Daniella’s hand snaked around his neck, her red, gooey mouth covering his. “Kiss me, you undersexed bastard. Make it look good. After all, you’re an actor.”

He fought her. For a second more her lips and arms imprisoned him before he broke free.

Inside it was no better.

Mac’s party was frantic. When Joey stepped through the door, the music stopped. Everybody froze and stared. This awkward interval was followed by a spontaneous burst of applause started by a radiant Titania. In a room filled with gazelle-thin beauties, Titania’s buxom figure in her white-sequined gown made her seem larger than life.

Joey nodded to her and then waved the guests to go back to whatever they’d been doing. For a moment longer he lingered at the entrance, watching Mac’s endless number of guests, mostly starlets—coming and going. They crowded around Mac and Titania, standing three and four deep at the bar. Mac and Titania were soon having the time of their lives. Then the band started playing, and rock music hit Joey like a tidal wave. Above that roar, people started yelling.

“Speech! Speech!”

“Thank me, Joey,” a pretty girl teased.

Everybody laughed except Joey, whose grim smile got harder.

“Lonely, lonely superstud.”

God—Suddenly a fierce yearning for bleached limestone hills and the creek with its woodsy smells made him ache for the peace and sanity of his Texas ranch.

“I’ll go home with you, Joey,” another girl whispered.

Joey’s gut coiled tighter; his mouth twisted. Would he ever learn to handle this inconvenient side of fame—the constant stares, the never-ending invasion of his privacy? He walked straight into the room, engaging no one’s eyes, especially no female’s.

“Could I get you something, darling?” The girl who pounced had glossy black hair. Her laser-bright eyes made too many promises.

“I’m with someone.”

“Not any more, lover.” She pointed at the dance floor.

Joey spun. Daniella was dancing cheek to cheek, body to body with Zachary Ranch, his director.

Joey charged toward them. He hated like hell to be rude to Mac and Titania, but the strange, sick-at-heart mood that had gripped him on that stage had him wild with panic again. The only way he could stay here was to get wasted or stoned. He didn’t do drugs, so he had to get out of this town. Out of this state. Back to Texas where people cut him down to human size. Back to Texas before Heather got married.

Joey pulled out his cell phone and punched in his pilot’s number. His orders were brief.

Joey pocketed his flip-phone. “Let’s go, Danny.”

She snuggled against Zach.

Joey tapped her arm.

When Zach tried to ease her free, she clung like a magnet. “Zach and me, we’re having fun.”

“Stay then.” Joey’s dark tone implied he didn’t care what she did. He was a little surprised when she followed him.

Outside, they had to run the gauntlet of his fans again. Much to Louie’s dismay, when the mother of a little girl on crutches thrust a notebook toward Joey, he patiently signed it. Even though the crowd mobbed him, and Louie screamed for him to get in the car, Joey gave the little girl an encouraging word and a hug.

It took them thirty minutes to reach the airport. Howard, his pilot, was climbing aboard the Learjet and settling himself into the cockpit when the limo zoomed up.

Joey joined Howard and guided the jet down the runway until he got clearance to take off into a black, starlit sky. Reluctantly, he handed Howard the controls and went back to Daniella, who snapped her eyes shut and ignored him. He tossed his Oscar into a seat and sprawled at the other end of the jet He slept all the way to Texas.

With only a few hours left of the night, they walked through the door of his ranch house

He was opening windows to let in the smell of cedar and the warm, night air, when the phone rang.

Daniella grabbed it and then slammed it down.

“Who—?”

“Some creepo breather.” She sashayed, hips undulating, to the bathroom.

Joey checked his Caller ID.

No name.

No need.

He knew Heather’s number by heart.

Damn. He flushed at the memory of his idiotic, inexplicable confession on stage. She was the last person he wanted to talk to. He’d been half out of his mind. Fame made him crazy. Millions of people loved him. Millions of strangers.

Not that he wanted the real thing. His coming home didn’t have anything to do with Heather Wade.

He’d flown home to ground himself. The press had printed so many damn lies about him, he didn’t know who he was. It was as if the real Joey Fasano had ceased to exist. Posters of his tough face and body papered the world. The media made him into a sexual god, a macho warrior. But the real man felt even more invisible than he had when he’d been a nobody. When had his own life gotten so out of hand? What the hell could he do about it?

Heather. She’d called.

He felt a weird sensation inside his chest. It was as if his flesh were being flayed, sliced.

Forget her.

An uneasy stillness descended over him. He wanted to hate her, to forget her—but it wasn’t that easy.

Joey sighed. Despite his own meteoric climb to fame and fortune, despite his pretense at style, he was just an actor which meant he was upstart trash in Heather’s world. Her fiancé was a blue-blooded prince from old money. Joey played bad-boy outlaws that thrilled shallow, mass audiences. He didn’t know squat about opera or deep literature. He couldn’t stand tea parties or debutante balls.

The bathroom door opened and Daniella, having shed everything except her black, stiletto heels, swayed toward him.

Her blond hair was wild and unrestrained. She was gorgeous, and it worried him that he wasn’t aroused.