Two Sexy!

Meg jumped up, an apology on her tongue. Until she got an eyeful of the blond bombshell. She blinked. “You’re…Taylor…Gee.”

The woman gave her a tight smile. “Smart kid. I’d like a private dressing room, please. And an ashtray, pronto.”

4

KATHIE WOULD NOT BELIEVE this, she simply would not believe this! Feeling a little light-headed, Meg carried an armful of show costumes to the dressing room where she’d taken Taylor Gee. The brawny guy in black, some sort of bodyguard she now realized, stood outside the curtain, his hands clasped behind him. He made it a point to be alert every time the door opened, but he didn’t appear menacing. Still, she wondered what weapons he harbored under that jacket—a woman who looked like Taylor Gee probably attracted all kinds of weirdos. From the looks of him, though, he could probably handle just about anything….

He smiled as she approached and her throat went dry. “Should I knock?” she whispered.

“Go on in.”

Oh, that voice. Meg swallowed and cleared her throat loudly before she opened the curtain a fraction of an inch and peered inside.

“Come in and close the curtain,” the starlet said without looking up. She was punching in a number on a tiny purple cell phone with a pencil. Those three-inch-long nails had their limitations, Meg guessed.

She hesitated, hoping another customer didn’t need her help right away. Rebecca hadn’t left her cheat sheets for what to do when a megacelebrity stopped by. Maybe she should have put an Out To Lunch sign on the door.

“I’ll let you know if you’re needed out here,” the man in black said.

She nodded gratefully, then entered the dressing room and closed the curtain behind her in one quick motion. She stood frozen, her arms full, while she waited to be acknowledged. Taylor Gee had made herself at home in the large red dressing room, scattering the contents of her purse—makeup, brushes, a bottle of water, coins, dollar bills, prescription bottles—over the upholstered cushions on the three benches that formed a U. She appeared to be conferring with a thick schedule book that lay open in front of her. A long thin cigarette dangled from her mouth. She took a drag and leaned her head back to exhale straight in the air just before she spoke into the phone.

“Jules, this is Taylor. I’m in town for a benefit, and I need the benefit of a facial.”

The woman was too beautiful for words. Between her tangle of white-blond hair and her golden tan, she fairly glowed. She wore a pink suit with flowing pants and a matching sweater with a feather boa collar. Her shoes were black and pink zebra print stilettos. Everything about her oozed sensuality and femininity. In contrast, Meg felt like peeling wallpaper.

“Oh, I knew you would work me in! I’ll see you around three-thirty. Love you, too, sweetie.”

The offhand way the woman tossed around endearments made Meg feel backward. She didn’t even have a pet name for Trey, the man who had proposed to her.

Taylor pushed down the antenna and bounced the phone on a cushion toward the pink leather bag that Meg assumed had cost a small fortune.

She stood and kicked off her shoes as if they were discount knock-offs and took another drag on her cigarette. This, Meg realized, was when she should have told the woman that the fire marshal frowned upon smoking in retail businesses. But she didn’t say anything because she suspected that even the fire marshal would make an exception for Taylor Gee.

“Did you bring everything I selected?”

Meg nodded, marveling that they were nearly eye-to-eye without Taylor’s stilettos. Taylor Gee just seemed so much larger than life that Meg assumed she was taller than her own five feet seven inches. “Yes, and a few extra.”

Taylor smiled, displaying a dazzling array of white teeth, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Good girl. Now hang those up and help me out of these clothes.”

Meg did as she was told, although she hoped that the woman didn’t expect her to, um, watch.

Taylor removed her jewelry and tossed it in a pile on a nearby cushion. Meg prayed nothing got lost.

“Unzip me, please.”

Taylor turned her back and held up her glorious hair with one hand. Meg swallowed hard, then stepped forward to slide down the pull of the fine zipper. The feather collar and the cigarette smoke tickled her nostrils, but she would have imploded before she would have sneezed on the starlet’s back.

The sweater came off—not an easy feat with Taylor still holding a lit cigarette—and landed in a far corner. She wore a sheer pink bra that was a little short of modest. Then she leaned over and stepped out of her pants. They landed opposite the sweater. Taylor turned and stood before her, a miniscule bra and a pink thong away from full disclosure.

Meg turned quickly and reached for the first outfit, a body-glove dress made out of blue iridescent fabric. “My sister designs most of these pieces—” She stopped when the filmy pink bra when flying past her to land near the sweater.

Busying herself with removing the gown from its hanger, Meg turned her back and kept her eyes averted. But Taylor snatched the dress from her, and Meg couldn’t help but get an eyeful of what had every man in America drooling.

Meg was no prude…she grew up with a sister, for heaven’s sake. She’d seen other women naked. Sort of. At the shower room in college, in the steam room at the YMCA, in National Geographic. But there was a difference in nudity for the sake of practicality and nudity for the sake of, well…being seen.

The woman was well-endowed, all right. And perky. Incredibly perky.

Taylor bent over to step into the dress, and Meg was exposed to yet another angle of the woman’s incredible body.

“I, um, think I hear another customer,” Meg said, gesturing toward the curtain.

Taylor pulled the form-fitting dress over her breasts and snapped the straps into place. She frowned toward Meg. “Well, go if you must. But come back quickly.” She reached into the neckline of the dress, grabbed her left breast and hefted it higher. The binding fabric of the dress held it in place. When she reached in to adjust her right breast, Meg fled.

JARETT TRIED NOT TO STARE at the young woman who emerged from the dressing room, but he had to satisfy his curiosity—was his imagination playing tricks on him, or did this bespectacled shopgirl bear a striking resemblance to Taylor?

It wasn’t just the large eyes or the high cheekbones or the chiseled nose that had struck him when he first walked in and saw her without her glasses. But throw in the full-blown mouth, the height, and the slender build, and she could be Taylor’s cousin. And if the loose jeans and baggy sweater concealed what he suspected they concealed, she could be her sister.

At the moment, though, she was looking a little shell-shocked from her brief encounter with Taylor, and he could guess what had transpired in the dressing room. Taylor simply didn’t understand the concept of modesty, while this poor girl looked as if she might have been valedictorian of her private Catholic school. Indeed, she was tugging at the neckline of her T-shirt, as if she could stretch it into becoming a turtleneck.

“I, um, thought I heard another customer,” she said, scanning the vacant shop. She stabbed at her glasses in what he had observed, in the short time he’d been here, to be a nervous habit.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Taylor can be a little…overwhelming.”

She tugged on her neckline again. “I’m still trying to adjust to the fact that she’s even here. I mean, I thought celebrities had people to shop for them. And this isn’t exactly Rodeo Drive.”

“Taylor does what she pleases. Your display windows caught her eye. She won’t mind if you say she was here if it will help your business, but I have to ask that you not say anything until she’s gone. The press has been relentless lately.”

She nodded, wide-eyed, as if the idea of revealing Taylor’s whereabouts hadn’t even occurred to her. Her naïveté was refreshing.

“I’m Jarett Miller,” he said, for no other reason than he wanted to banish that deer-in-the-headlights look from her face.

“M-Meg Valentine,” she said. “I assume you’re Miss Gee’s bodyguard.”

He smiled at her formality. “And longtime friend.”

A genuine smile curved her mouth. “I’m sure Miss Gee is glad to have someone close to her who she can trust. Would you like a cup of coffee, Mr. Miller?”

He’d been up most of the night with Taylor on one of her crying jags. “That would be nice, thanks.”

The intriguing sway of her retreat convinced him that, curve to curve, she could hold her own against Taylor. Funny how one woman with spectacular looks wound up on television, while another woman with spectacular looks wound up tucked away in a little retail shop.

Meg returned with one cup of black coffee.

“None for you?” he asked with a nod of thanks.

Her smile lit her beautiful green eyes, veiled behind the black-rim glasses. “Not on an empty stomach.”

He checked his watch. “We’re keeping you from your lunch.”

“No, that’s fine,” she said with a musical laugh. “I’m grateful for the business. And flattered. My friends and I are big fans—we never miss Many Moons.”

He couldn’t explain the effect her quiet voice had on him. Everything about her was simple and elegant—her hairstyle, her clothing, the way she moved her hands, the carriage of her shoulders. Her precise enunciation told him she was scholarly. In fact, nothing about her demeanor lent itself to the kind of woman who would own a costume shop, but neither did she seem like the kind of woman who would settle for being a clerk in a costume shop.

Her hands were bare except for a ring on her right hand, a single pearl mounted in a simple gold setting. The type of ring a girl might receive as a graduation present from her parents. She wore an inexpensive, practical watch. It was hard to guess her age—maybe twenty-four or twenty-five? The fussy braid in her light brown hair added to her ethereal appearance. At first glance, Meg Valentine was almost…mousy, and the fact that he knew better made him feel as if he were in on a wicked secret. Explicably, he wanted to know everything about her, and for once, he wished his time was his own so he could ask her to dinner.

From inside the dressing room came an impatient sigh. “Is that girl out there finished with whatever she left to do? I could use some help.”

At times he wanted to wring Taylor’s neck for her rudeness, but she was like a tall, difficult child with no respect for anyone else’s feelings. And a reprimand from him would send her into a downward spiral that he’d spent hours trying to cajole her out of. So, much like a weary father, he made excuses for her.

“She’s tense about an appearance tonight for a children’s benefit,” he said in an apologetic voice. It wasn’t far from the truth—as promised, Taylor hadn’t taken any pills over the last twenty-four hours so she could be in top form tonight. But the lack of a mood-booster had left her irritable—more so than usual.

Meg nodded, her face soft with understanding. “I can’t imagine how stressful it must be to be in her shoes for even one day.”

“Am I talking to myself in here?” Taylor shouted.

Jarett gritted his teeth while Meg dashed back inside the dressing room. From the murmur of their voices, Meg’s soft, pleasing one and Taylor’s high-pitched grating one, it appeared that Taylor was delighting in bossing Meg around. In between customers, the poor girl left and returned to the dressing room a half-dozen times, her arms full of glittering clothing. Every time the curtain opened, a cloud of cigarette smoke billowed out.

An hour later, Meg left the dressing room for what he hoped was the last time. Taylor stuck her head out and gave him a sly grin. “Want to see?”

He opened his mouth to decline, but she grabbed his arm and yanked him inside. To prevent a scene, he set his jaw and humored her as she posed in a long red dress with a neckline that plunged to her navel, and a front slit that hit mid-thigh. “What do you think?”

“It’s…nice,” he agreed, coughing mildly into his hand. The cigarette smoke was as thick as fog.

She narrowed her eyes and with a wrenching twist, ripped the slit higher, high enough to reveal that she wasn’t wearing panties. “What about now?”

He summoned all his patience. “I hope you have something more demure in mind to wear to the children’s benefit tonight.”

She frowned. “My publicist committed me to wearing a gown by a new designer, and it’s absolutely horrid—it has sleeves, for heaven’s sake.”

His mouth twitched. “Imagine that. Are you ready to check out?”

She nodded to a pile of clothing on the cushions. “I’ll take those. Would you take care of it for me, darling? And remember to buy every size in the shop.”

To minimize the chance of someone else showing up in the same outfit. Taylor was nothing if not predictable.

“Sure,” he said, picking up the clothes.

“Wait,” she said, then lifted the red dress over her head. “I’ll take this one, too.” She tossed the garment on top of the pile, then stood in all her naked glory, a challenging light in her deep blue eyes. “Looks comfy enough in here to lie down, doesn’t it, Jarett?”

Every now and then, he was reminded of Taylor’s penchant for dangerous sex. Jarett’s stomach turned. “Behave, Taylor. And get dressed.”

He exited the dressing room and approached the counter where a young girl and her mother were buying pink satin gloves. Meg was smiling and talking to the girl, chatting about school and little-girl things. She seemed like a natural with children, and he wondered if she had any of her own.

“Goodbye,” she said as her customers walked away. “Have fun at the dance.”

He piled the clothes on the counter.

“Is Miss Gee finished shopping?”

He nodded, enchanted by her smile, and by the tiny stud earrings in the lobes of her ears. With as much diplomacy as possible, he explained about Taylor wanting to purchase every size available of the garments she’d picked. Meg blinked.

“That’s going to be expensive.”

“I’ll be paying in cash.”

She swallowed. “Okay. Give me a few minutes to wrap everything.” She worked quickly, and when the total was tallied, she looked up with a little wrinkle between her eyebrows. “That will be f-fourteen th-thousand, one hundred and twenty-five dollars. And thirty-nine cents. Sir.”

He withdrew a thick wallet and counted out the money in large bills. “Thank you for your hospitality to Taylor. And to me.”

She nodded, placing the bills in the cash register tray with shaking hands. “You’re very welcome.”

“Good luck, Meg Valentine.”

She looked up, and pushed her glasses higher.

Her green eyes widened slightly and something…electrical passed in the air between them.

Her lips parted, and a flush made her cheeks grow pink. She blinked rapidly and her chin jerked to the right, as if she were startled, or taken back.

“Jarett,” Taylor said behind them, sounding irritated.

He turned. She had emerged from the dressing room, dressed, thank God, in her pink suit.

“Jarett, I need to be zipped up.” She sighed and stomped up to him like a sulky teenager.

He complied, aware of Meg’s eyes on them as he fumbled with the small zipper key. From the way she averted her gaze, she thought he and Taylor were lovers. And even though it wasn’t the first time someone had thought as much, the fact that chaste little Meg Valentine with the braided hair and the big green eyes thought so suddenly mattered to him.

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