Love Me True

From the second he’d crawled out of his cradle and cast his moody-broody, black eyes on Heather, who’d lived on the ranch next to his, he had oozed way too much charm for a girl of her madcap, irreverent nature to resist.

Six years ago, Heather had finally come to her senses and had told him to get out of her life or else—or else being her father. Until tonight, when Joey had seared her with his megawatt, know-it-all grin and thanked her—her—on live television, she would have sworn they were through with each other forever.

After all, she was marrying the man of her father’s dreams in a week.

After all, Joey had made tabloid headlines recently by fishing the world’s most gorgeous supermodel naked out of his swimming pool.

But Joey had cradled his Oscar to his chest like a baby as he’d hunched over the podium and thanked first the Academy, his agent, and his director. Joey had gone blank for a second. Then he’d thanked her, Heather, the girl from his past, instead of the Lady Godiva of the tabloids.

He’d said she was unforgettable.

Dear God. Heather didn’t want anything Joey Fasano said or did to affect her ever again. His charm was superficial; his taste in women trashy.

Heather was an heiress, a retired photojournalist, a philanthropist, a mother. Her fairy-tale life was perfect without him.

Right.

Her life was a charade. She was such a consummate actress, she sometimes fooled even herself.

Static flickered on the silent screen of Heather’s television.

Why had she taped the Academy Awards show tonight, of all nights, when she had known Joey was up for Best Actor?

Why hadn’t she ignored her messages and gone to bed? Why wouldn’t his raspy voice stop inside her brain?

Why? Why? Why? Nothing about her feelings for Joey had ever made sense. Except they were intense So intense, she’d been running from them for years.

Thus, Heather sat huddled in a ball of misery beside the low table in her bedroom chewing the red nail polish off her long fingernails as she obsessed about Joey. Without thinking she slid two photographs together on the polished oak surface so that the smiling dark faces of the identical little boys lay side by side.

At the startling resemblance, she whitened. Huge dark eyes. Devil-may-care grins. Matching cowlicks over their left temples.

Now that she was moving back to Texas, sooner or later, Joey was bound to find out. She understood her fear. But she didn’t want to think about why Joey had stirred her so deeply on other levels.

Heather Ann, promise us you won’t ever tell Joey about Nicky.

Her parents and Julia had looked so white and stricken as they’d stood beside Nicky’s crib that she’d promised... again.

Heather’s long, golden, wavy hair was swept away from her solemn face into an elegant chignon. Her mother’s diamonds glittered at her throat. With her bare feet tucked beneath the red gown and her lips free of lipstick, she looked more like the disheveled wild-child Joey had loved than the sophisticated young woman of society at the fund-raiser.

Images, especially those on film, always affected her too profoundly. The particular pictures that quickened her pulse were of five-year-old little boys with curly black hair and jet-dark eyes that flashed with mischief as they dangled upside down from a tree.

A stranger would have thought the pictures were of the same boy. But Heather had taken one twenty years ago beside the clear waters of a spring-fed creek in central Texas and the other only yesterday on the muddy bank of the brown bayou in her backyard.

A stillness descended upon her as she touched the yellowed photograph of the boy in ragged cutoffs.

“Joey—”

He’d been an innocent boy then. Tonight, the man had seemed painfully bitter and edgily dangerous.

When she brought his picture to her lips, a single tear traced down her cheek.

Once the only man for her had been Joey Fasano. Joey, who kissed with his eyes closed. Joey, who was a bad boy by day but whose face was as innocent as an angel’s when he slept.

Joey’s teasing black eyes that had always looked straight into hers and recognized her true self.

The soft, damp Louisiana air was warm and scented with roses and rain as it sifted across the wide verandas of Belle Christine, once her grandmother’s home, now hers. Perhaps it was the antebellum mansion standing proudly on its slight rise behind the Mississippi’s levee, surrounded by ancient live oaks dripping with moss, that made Heather feel not only her fear but the past and Joey’s appeal so keenly. For old houses have a timelessness, a link to the past, that modern homes lack. Suddenly the poor, ambitious boy with his head full of dreams seemed far more real to her than the polished mahogany surface of the antique escritoire beside her canopy bed or the bladelike leaves of the banana trees rustling outside against the exterior walls of her home.

Joey.

Again she was seventeen and the torn leather upholstery on the backseat of Joey’s ancient Chevy was scratching her bare thighs. Joey’s hands fumbled with the buttons of her blouse while his hot mouth explored the sweet mysteries of her body. For as long as she could remember, the highborn Heather Wade had felt the lowborn Joey Fasano pulsing in her blood.

Forget him.

Your love for him nearly destroyed you and everybody you loved.

At twenty-six, Heather was beautiful, rich, and envied by all. She was high society. Big rich. Texas royalty. Her father, who put money and power above all else, had set up a trust fund for her so she would never have to worry about money again. Her stolid bridegroom was ambitious.

But there was a shadow-side to her seemingly perfect life. A childhood illness had taken her older sister, Alison, when she was ten; later, her brother, Ben, had died in a car wreck. As her parents’ sole surviving child, Heather felt enormous pressure to make them happy.

In her third year as a photojournalist, Heather had taken a picture that had won her a Pulitzer. But the coveted prize that should have made her career, had ended it. When she’d announced her retirement, jealous colleagues had been exultant. Her family had been equally thrilled. Only Joey had called to ask what was wrong. Shaking, she’d slammed the phone down. When it had rung again, she’d run outside to avoid hearing it.

She twisted her diamond engagement ring till it cut her finger. She had to put Joey out of her mind.

Most girls would have given anything to be marrying Laurence. Her mother kept telling her that marriage would complete her as her career hadn’t. Thus, when Laurence, who was older and wiser, had led her into the purple shade of the camphor tree in her rose garden, she had not resisted when his arrogant gaze had held hers while his cold hands slipped an engagement ring on her finger.

Laurence had bought a house high in the hills overlooking Austin and signed the deed over to her as a wedding gift. He had given her carte blanche with the finest decorator in Texas. Her thrilled mother had since taken charge.

Numbly Heather had addressed a thousand engraved wedding invitations. Ten bridesmaids’ dresses had been created out of exquisite pink brocade. They would honeymoon m Maui. Julia had obtained a sabbatical from her order to care for Nicky during the wedding festivities and honeymoon.

Everybody told Heather she was the luckiest girl alive. She sucked in a quick breath, picked up the VCR remote control, and defiantly jabbed Rewind, pausing on Joey’s face. For a long moment, she stared at the television, her glazed, intense emotions blinding her so that she saw nothing and heard nothing. Somehow in that crushing silence as Joey’s features wobbled, invisible defenses inside her began to crumble.

She had fallen in love with Joey years before their adventures in his Chevy. When she was five he’d invited her to his hideout and seduced her into that game of doctor that had resulted in endless lectures from her mother and father, who had told her Joey was worse than his drunken father.

But Joey had been too much fun to resist. Despite their fathers, Heather’s clandestine friendship with Joey had blossomed into love.

Then Ben had died, and so had her world.

Later, after Joey had become a world-famous movie star, she’d figured he’d forgotten her. Even when Joey had returned to Wimberley, the town they’d grown up in, and started buying land despite her own powerful father’s attempt to stop him, she’d clung to that illusion. Hadn’t he snubbed her the two times she’d seen him on the town square?

Then tonight, in front of millions, Joey had gone and done this wild and crazy thing that touched her wild and crazy heart.

Heather’s frantic gaze swept to her white, virginal wedding dress and its faux Renaissance beaded bridal cap and veil which hung in a plastic bag on a high hook above half a dozen hand-tooled leather suitcases. Next she looked at her camera equipment, stacked in a separate pile of black duffel bags in a distant corner since she was unsure about taking them.

All was in readiness for the long drive to the Texas hill country tomorrow.

Heather tipped the wine bottle and refilled her goblet for the fourth time. She barely felt the thin, cool crystal against her lips; barely tasted the warm red wine that slid too easily down her throat.

Tears pooled in her violet eyes as she touched the play button.

Dear God, why am I doing this to myself?

It’s 2:00 a.m. I’ve got a long drive tomorrow. And I’m not a morning person.

Heather’s head throbbed. She felt tense and achy. Four photograph albums from her high school days, loose pictures, mostly of Joey, spilling out of them, lay in a tumble at her feet. Looking through them had brought back the past, had made her weepily nostalgic. Joey had loved her. Truly loved her.

Go to bed.

She shook her bright head and gripped the remote control.

Play it again, Sam....

Heather was still trembling when Joey Fasano’s molten image blazed into focus.

Lord. He was magic on film. She was the first to be bowled over by him, to capture his special magic with a camera. If ever a rugged, male face was created to arouse and seductively provoke the female mating instinct, Joey’s was.

He’s trash. Like his father.

But as irresistible as dark, gooey chocolate.

Dusky skin stretched over ruthless, rawboned features. And, oh, why had God given him that sensual, kissable mouth that could tempt a girl to madness? Even on television Joey’s intense, black eyes burned too deeply and too hotly. His devastatingly bitter smile saw through her rich girl defenses and made her pulse skitter.

Get a life.

He’ll hurt you again; hurt your family; hurt Nicky even more.

You belong to Laurence.

Heather stared wordlessly at Joey whose long hair was tied at the nape in a ponytail. The tuxedo accentuated the breadth of his powerful shoulders and the narrowness of his waist. She was keenly aware of dangerous, sinewy muscles rippling beneath well-cut cloth.

The rough boy she’d loved was gone. This new, older, elegant version was somehow leaner, meaner, smoother, tougher. A darkness had entered this man’s soul and was etched into the hard planes of his arrogant face. He had played pirates, bikers, gypsies, warriors, mercenaries—irreverent, unrepentant scoundrels all of them. This battle-worn giant who lit big screens with his smoldering love scenes and know-it-all smiles was a stranger.

So, why after all these years could the mere sight of this embittered warrior and his saying she was unforgettable make her head pound and her womb ache? Her throat go dry? Her brain go comatose?

His raspy voice mocked her.

No more wine for you, babe.

If only he didn’t look so much like her darling Nicky.

Their uncanny resemblance turned her skin to gooseflesh.

Beneath dark, slashing brows, Joey’s hot black eyes seared and seduced her. His gaze lured her with promises even as he kept his own dangerous secrets.

Heather’s palms grew clammy.

No more dangerous than her own secrets.

His companion of the night, supermodel Daniella Wolfe, was slim and tall. With masses of gold ringlets and huge violet eyes, Daniella meant to dazzle.

She looks like me. Why do his girlfriends always look like me?

Again Joey’s roughened voice scoffed. Don’t flatter yourself, babe. What’s it to you if I dig leggy blondes?

Heather’s head buzzed when Joey leaned too far back in his seat just like he’d done in high school to taunt the teachers when he hadn’t known the answers. His gorgeous mouth was curled into that same cocky smile he’d worn when her rich crowd had snubbed him because of his bad clothes.

Even if you won’t tell your father about us, you aren’t ever going to forget me, Heather Wade... or what we did together... in bed... in the woods... in my hideout.

Her hands fisted against her chiffon-clad thigh. Yes, I will. I will, too, forget you, Joey. I have forgotten—

God created me just for you, babe.

“Maybe the devil put a hex on me,” she’d replied sassily.

The reverend once called me the devil’s spawn. You’re mine.

Joey had been the first boy to kiss Heather full on the mouth. The first boy to French kiss her. Indeed, he had claimed plenty of those long, wet kisses before seducing Heather when she’d been a naive seventeen. At eighteen, he’d been a virgin, too. There had been lots of firsts with Joey.

Lots of firsts. Lots of only’s.

From what she’d read in the tabloids, Joey no longer discriminated when it came to women. He had a revolving bedroom door. He was Hollywood’s sexiest, reigning superstud.

So—that’s his business!

The next camera shot zoomed in on the number one sex goddess who stood up on the stage holding an envelope. Strobe lights flashed behind her. The world-famous actress with the little girl voice looked like she’d poured her voluptuous body into a sequined, tubelike black gown that was slit to her navel. Beside her towered the biggest cowboy star in the business.

The long slim envelope was ripped open.

“—the nominees for Best Actor are—”

Heather gripped the remote control harder as the names of films and stars were read in the actress’s feather-soft tone.

“—the winner is—”

Applause exploded in the auditorium, drowning out the end of her sentence.

Joey’s name pulsed through Heather as she lifted her empty wineglass and then set it down, resisting the temptation to refill it again.

Now. Now he would go white with shock and then swagger up to the stage, stare into the camera with his bleak, level gaze and say it.

Heather’s breath stalled in her lungs.

No more. Turn it off. Don’t put yourself through it again.

The camera followed the tall, dark man striding down the aisle with pantherlike grace in his elegant tux. The audience rose and gave him a thundering ovation.

Heather’s blood heated in anticipation.

You got it bad, babe.

Still, her violet eyes remained glued to his powerful image.

The moment she had been waiting for came all too soon.

After thanking the Academy, his agent, and his director, Joey grew quiet. For a long, intense moment, he continued to stand before his spellbound audience. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. As his silence lengthened, he looked odd and blank-faced and suddenly very ill at ease. His dark face paled. Hard lines bracketed his mouth. His grip tightened threateningly on his gold-plated statuette.

For a tough guy, he sure looked afraid.

Every bit as afraid as he’d looked that night in the hospital.

Still, without speaking, he leaned into the mike. Glaring white light bathed his chiseled features. A muscle in his tanned cheek twitched as if long-suppressed emotions raged so close to the surface he couldn’t hold them back.

Then his cynical black gaze targeted her, and his deep, raspy voice wrapped her. For an instant he was that unsure, cocky boy she’d loved, and they were the only two people in the world.

Terror gripped her. Once that special, measured look had been meant for her alone. The only time she’d ever seen his hard features go still like that was right before he shut his eyes to kiss her. As he stared at the cameras, he broke into that special smile that had belonged only to her.

The smile died.

“I wish I had someone in my personal life to thank. But I don’t. God, here I am. You’d think I was the luckiest guy alive. But hell... I’m probably the loneliest.”

He had been a lonely little boy, too.

Joey had been bean-pole skinny in ragged, dirty jeans that always rode too high on his ankles. His hair had hung long and lank. Scorned by the teachers, ridiculed by the other kids. She remembered the way he’d sat hunched over in the back of the classroom, reading books he’d checked out of the school library to escape the bitter reality of his childhood. She remembered how sometimes she’d used her ballpoint pen to shoot spitwads at him. How once she’d hit Mrs. Vanderfort who’d then pounced on Joey. How he’d taken the abuse with an insolent smile and then later teased her. “Someday, Heather, I’ll make you pay for your crimes.”

The man on television stood up straighter. His deep tone roughened. His fathomless black eyes bored into her. “But there is someone... someone who has proved to be... unforgettable. So, Heather.... Babe, if you’re out there, I’m gonna thank you right now because I may never get another chance to. You were the first person to ever believe in me. The only real—I wish...we could go back and start—” He sounded choked. “Oh, God—”

Flushing darkly, he turned to the half-naked goddess in the slit gown. “I’m making one helluva fool of myself over a woman who threw—” Then, as if he suddenly realized the magnitude of what he’d so publicly revealed, he ducked his black head and bolted off the stage. The crowd stood up and cheered him as he ran for cover. The only person not standing and not clapping was the breathtaking Daniella. When he sat down beside her and reached for her hand, she snatched it away to finger the diamonds at her throat.

Heather’s eyes were burning as she punched the remote, freezing Joey’s stark visage on her screen. Indomitable pride was carved into his strong, handsome face. Stubborn rebellion. But there was anguish, too. His genuine pain wrapped around her heart and wouldn’t let go. She felt a shuddering deep within herself.

Both her parents and the town they had grown up in had despised him for being Deo Fasano’s son. Joey had felt less than nothing in that town. Maybe now he had the world’s acclaim, but tonight she had seen an even deeper pain in his eyes than she’d seen when she’d told him goodbye in the hospital.

Don’t do this, babe. Don’t leave me. You know I can’t make it without you.

Her grief and guilt over Ben had been so profound, she’d blocked out his pain.

Thank God, he’d made it...without her.

Heather wanted to call him and congratulate him—

No.

He’d called her, hadn’t he, when she’d won the—

When he’d asked her what was wrong, she’d hung up on him. He’d called back. She hadn’t picked up, but when he’d rasped his number into her recorder, she’d written it down.

There had been nights when she’d pulled it out and looked at it as if it were some last link to him.

Quit staring at that oversexed, conceited, rebellious, hot-blooded man who couldn’t keep his hands out of your pants. Don’t even think about calling him.

You can’t stop thinking about me, babe. If you marry anybody but me... I’ll haunt you in your bed. There’ll be three of us on your wedding night ....

Funny, how every time she kissed Larry, that obnoxious raspy voice of Joey’s started heckling her.

He doesn’t quite have my knack, now does he, babe?

But that would stop.

She was going to do what was expected of her for once and be happy about it. The well-ordered structure of Laurence’s life would smooth any rough edges in her being. Nicky, who had been asking why he didn’t have a father, would have one. Julia could relax and give her entire soul to her chosen vocation. Heather’s parents would be thrilled to have her respectably married.

A shadow passed over her face as she thought of how much her mother and father had suffered. It was up to Heather to make it up to them.

But her tears wouldn’t quit as she stared at the torture in Joey’s frozen face.

Joey had been able to read her heart and her forbidden fantasies with unerring accuracy. Once his wild, quirky soul had been a perfect match for hers. He had been her best friend. He had shared every thought that was in his heart as Laurence, who worked long hours at his law practice, never did.

That was then.

This was now.

Her love for Joey had come at a terrible price.

Joey was image; Laurence was substance. Hadn’t her career taught her the terrible danger of confusing the two?

Joey’s bedroom exploits in Hollywood were legendary.

Laurence was decent and reliable. He respected her. A happy marriage took time, work, commitment, and compromise. Sex appeal was the least important ingredient. She wanted to be safe. Larry was safe.

What about love? rasped that forbidden voice.

What about Nicky?

What would happen when Joey found out about Nicky?

Two

Joey. Daniella. Mac.

Superstar. Supermodel. Superagent.

The fallout from what Joey had said and done on stage surrounded the three passengers in the stretch limo like a poisonous gas as they sped through the night dark. Mac’s handsome black face smoldered with enigmatic misery as he stared out the window at the whizzing headlights.

If Joey was red-faced and guilty with self-loathing, Daniella’s dark silence was equally oppressive as the sleek, black car pulled up in front of L.A.’s trendiest restaurant where Mac was throwing Joey a party.

Her dark brows knitting, Daniella turned on Joey. Then the screaming crowd rushed the car, their hoarse cries drowning out her outburst.

Thank God. Joey was in no mood for another tongue-lashing.

Joey had slouched against the door while Mac had tried to cajole Danny out of her mood by praising her latest Vogue cover, but she’d stiffened and notched her exquisite nose even higher.

Finally, even Mac lost patience. “Honey, give him a break. He’s gonna have a hard enough time living that sappy speech down.”

Daniella’s glossily painted mouth had tightened. “His fans’ll love it! Poor, poor Joey, pining for some long-lost love—How does that make me look?”

Joey had had it with Daniella. She hadn’t even waited for the ceremony to end before she’d attacked.

As if he didn’t despise himself enough. He didn’t know why he’d thanked Heather. She was the last person he should have mentioned. She was marrying Larry Roth. He didn’t give a damn about her anymore.

This was supposed to be the happiest night of his life. Instead, he’d stood on that stage, drinking in the applause, feeling the heat of the lights only to wonder why he felt no rush of exhilaration. He’d come so far, in such a short time. No way would he ever forget growing up as the town drunk’s son, or his jobs as dishwasher, waiter, and bouncer. Or the cockroach-infested apartments in dangerous neighborhoods, or that awful opening night when he’d sunk so low he’d stripped naked in that back-alley play and then lost his nerve and leapt offstage. A producer had chased him with a video camera and caught a full frontal view. Joey had grabbed a lady’s sweater and jammed it against his crotch while she shrieked. From time to time that clip was still played.

But Mac had been in the audience that night and had thought Joey was magic. Mac had tracked him down, gone to his apartment and rammed a fist on the front door.

“Who the hell are you?” Joey had demanded, putting the chain on at the sight of the huge, muscular black man looming in his doorway.