Hollywood Husband, Contract Wife

“I have the money.”

“Yes, but—”

He was leaving Culver City behind and heading for Santa Monica. “But what?”

“But you could do a lot of good with that money. You could feed starving children and build houses for the homeless and things like that.” She stopped talking, bit her lip, stared at her hands, inspecting the spa manicure she’d gotten at the salon yesterday. “I know it’s none of my business. I just wish I had the means to help more people. I think we should all help more people.”

Wolf looked at her for a long, silent moment. “I agree,” he said quietly before returning his attention to the road.

They traveled in silence down Santa Monica Boulevard and then north on Highway 1 wrapping the coast toward Pacific Palisades and scenic, craggy Malibu.

Wolf drove well, fast but confidently, and with the cliffs to the right and the sea to the left, Alexandra felt as though she were part of a movie or some reality television show.

He had been unusually quiet since she made her comment about helping others, but she wasn’t sorry for thinking people should help others and she wasn’t sorry for thinking an expensive car like this was a waste of money. He could buy whatever he wanted and she could think whatever she wanted. They weren’t really a couple. They didn’t have to agree.

Finally Alexandra couldn’t take the silence any longer. She made a pitiful stab at conversation by asking him, “Are you excited about the new film?”

“Excited?” Wolf repeated, his upper lip curling. “I wouldn’t say I’m excited, but I will be glad to work again. Working distracts me. Keeps my mind off other things.”

It wasn’t the answer she’d expected. She’d imagined he enjoyed acting, thought he would have found a certain fizz factor from being one of the most highly acclaimed actors in the business. “What things?”

His eyebrow arched as he glanced at her. “We all have ghosts and demons.”

“And you won’t tell me yours.”

“No.”

Alexandra didn’t know if it was his expression or the caustic curve of his sensual mouth, but she felt the strangest flutter inside her middle as though she were nothing but naked nerve endings.

“Do you ever go home?” she asked suddenly, not sure where the question came from but curious about him, curious about his past as well as those ghosts and demons he’d just mentioned.

He shot her a long, assessing glance from beneath his lashes. He knew what she was doing, too. “Ireland or Spain?”

“Which is home?”

“Both, I suppose. I’m bilingual and was raised in both countries.”

“Your mother was Spanish.”

“From Cadiz,” he answered, slowing for the traffic light looming ahead. “I was born in Cadiz, but when I was twelve my parents divorced and I moved with my father to Dublin. Spain is home in ways Ireland could never be, but I’m comfortable in Ireland, I like the people.”

“And yet now you’re here, in America.”

“It’s what the career dictated.”

Alexandra stole a glance at him from beneath her lashes. “Do you ever regret becoming an actor?”

He hesitated before answering, shifting gears down and then, after the light changed, accelerating until he pulled into the parking lot for the Malibu Coffeehouse.

Turning off the engine, he turned to look at her. “Every day,” he said grimly.

After getting their coffee, Wolf drove to one of the scenic turnouts on Highway 1 and parked. Climbing from the car, they moved to the cliff’s edge to savor the view.

Wolf drew a deep breath, breathing in the stinging salty air off the Pacific Ocean. He loved the ocean, loved the cliffs of Malibu and Pacific Palisades. This area reminded him of Ireland’s southern and western coasts, especially when the soupy fog rolled in, covering everything in a misty, mournful gray.

If it weren’t for the ocean, Wolf didn’t think he would have survived so many years in Southern California. He hated L.A. He hated the falseness, the superficiality, the attitude and airs. People in his business—like so many people in Los Angeles—were afraid to be real, human.

They were afraid of their bodies, their age, their flaws, their frailties. Women here went to ridiculous lengths to be beautiful: nipping, tucking, tightening, enlarging, enhancing, sucking, smoothing. They worked on themselves endlessly, refusing to age naturally, fixated on how they looked, how others perceived them, how attractive they were in comparison to other women.

God, he missed real women. He missed wit and banter, laughter and smiles that made the eyes crinkle and foreheads wrinkle instead of ghastly BOTOX-frozen faces. He’d love to share a drink with a girl who could tell a proper story, eat a bag of chips and not immediately worry about her thighs. Sometimes Dublin seemed too far away, and in those moments he missed his old life—the ordinary life before he’d become a celebrity—more than he could say.

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