All Over You, page 19
“Yep. Did you have some questions? If it’s about the contract, I should confess up front that I’m a complete legal dufus,” he said.
Serena shook her head, then bit her lip. It was odd seeing someone who looked so much like Grace use one of Grace’s little habits. Not that Serena and Grace looked that much alike or he wouldn’t have been fooled by Serena’s stage name. But the resemblance was there, now that he knew to look for it. They had the same amazing, creamy skin. The same nose. Grace’s eyes were green to Serena’s pale-blue, however, and he much preferred their exotic tilt. Grace’s mouth was more generous, too — wider and fuller. Judging by conventional standards, Serena was the more beautiful. But Grace had her sister beat in his book. She was the whole package, a gorgeous face and a hot body, all of it powered by a mind like a steel trap. It might not float some guys’ boats, but it did a lot for him. He was figuring it would do enough for him to last a lifetime, in fact.
“Have I got spinach in my teeth?” Serena asked self-consciously.
He realized he’d been staring, and he laughed guiltily.
“Sorry, I was just looking for the family resemblance. I took your audition over to Grace’s last night to celebrate — you have no idea how long we’ve been looking for Tania — and I was pretty thrown when she told me you were her sister. You should have said something at the audition,” he said. “Not that it would have made a difference to the outcome, but it would have made up for not being invited to that family dinner you guys had a few weeks’ back.”
It was a joke, but Serena didn’t laugh. Instead, she looked sick.
“God, this is just getting worse,” she said. She looked around the office as though she was searching for something to throw up in. Since there wasn’t anything, Mac fervently hoped he was wrong.
“Hey. Um, maybe you ought to sit down,” he said, jumping up to offer her his own chair.
She shook her head. “I’m okay. I just didn’t know you and Grace were…seeing each other.”
He shrugged philosophically. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Grace is the best keeper of secrets I’ve ever met. But you must know that.”
Serena swallowed noisily. “She didn’t always used to be like that. She used to be the most open person in the world.”
Okay, now she was going to cry, he was fairly certain. Not only did he not have a sick bucket, he didn’t have a box of tissues, either.
But Serena was blinking rapidly and taking a deep breath.
“I’ll just say what I need to say, and then I’ll leave,” she said with determination. “I can’t take the part. I wanted to tell you in person because I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea. But I guess you must know why I’m here, since you know Grace so well.”
She looked utterly miserable and the tears that had been threatening finally welled up.
“I’m so sorry. I’ll get out of your hair,” Serena said.
“Don’t be silly. Couple of tears won’t kill me — have you seen how many women work on this show?” he joked.
“I hope it doesn’t muck you around too much, me not taking the part. I should never have gone to the audition. It was stupid, but my car broke down and I really needed the money….”
Since she’d refused his offer of his chair, Mac sank back into it and Serena parked her butt on the corner of his desk. In the calculating budding-director’s part of his brain, he hoped it was because she wanted him to talk her into taking the part. The last thing he needed was to have to recast when he’d already found the perfect actress.
“Sounds like a pretty good reason for taking the part to me,” he said lightly, testing the waters.
Serena stared at him, her blue eyes wide and luminous with tears. She was one of those rare women who could cry and remain beautiful and she looked the picture of tragedy.
“How can you even say that, now you know who I am?” she said. She sounded a little annoyed, as if Mac had just put his hand on her knee or something.
That was the second time she’d referred to some knowledge he was supposed to have, something to do with her identity. He frowned, suddenly remembering last night and the way Grace had reacted when she’d seen her sister’s face on her television screen. For a second he’d got the old feeling from her as she smiled and explained who Serena was. Then she’d left the room for a few minutes before returning to ask all the right questions. The feeling that she had withdrawn from him had faded and he’d let the moment go.
“You know that thing I was talking about before, about Grace being a good keeper of secrets? I think we might be stumbling through the middle of one right now,” he said. “You want to tell me what it is you think I already know, Serena?”
If it was possible, Serena’s face got even paler.
“God, you don’t know any of it? Shit,” she said.
The sick look was back, and more tears. Mac stood and put his hand on her shoulder, stooping to make eye contact with her.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked gently but firmly.
GRACE HAD WAITED till the end of the day to drive out to the studio to confess all to Mac. She’d almost convinced herself that he wouldn’t be fazed, that she wouldn’t see a return of that frustrated look that had been such a frequent feature of the early days of their relationship. She should have told him ages ago. Claudia was right. Damn her.
Why hadn’t she? Part of it was genuinely that she hadn’t wanted him to look at her with pity. She didn’t need his sympathy. Perhaps it was as simple as the fact that she didn’t want to acknowledge it. Sadie had called the Owen-Serena thing the most important thing in her life. She hated to think of it that way. It was part of the reason she’d moved on when she’d found out about Owen — she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge how hurt she’d been, how devastated. If she never talked about it, it hadn’t happened. Her reasoning had almost been that simple.
But now it was all unraveling. She’d snapped at Serena at the family dinner, despite having told herself and the world for four years that she’d forgiven her sister. And now she was filled with rage that her sister had dared to step onto her turf at the Boulevard. Grace was only just now beginning to realize that she hadn’t forgiven her sister — not by a long shot. Ever since she’d seen Serena’s face staring at her from her own TV last night, anger had been percolating inside her.
Her sister had crept into her life and stolen her lover. She had destroyed the world that Grace had created with Owen, the future they’d imagined with each other. Serena had seen something — someone — that she wanted and she’d taken it, with no thought to the consequences for Grace, her own sister.
Because they were the closest in age, she and Serena had played together the most when they were children. They’d plaited each other’s hair, jumped rope, had Barbie doll adventures together using homemade miniature furniture and mom-made clothes. Then puberty had intervened and boys had become the most important thing, and the world had been divided into the beautiful and the not-so-beautiful for Grace. She’d started staying home from the beauty pageants, working on articles for the school newspaper or going thrift-shop trawling with her beloved Nana Wellington. Naturally, she and Serena had drifted apart, but they’d still been sisters. Grace had still agonized over getting the perfect Christmas or birthday gift for her sister and looked forward to the occasional dinner or movie with Serena.
And Serena had abused that trust. She had chosen her own comfort and desire over that of a loved one.
Grace was trembling as she negotiated her way through the warren of corridors, on the lookout for Mac’s temporary office. She realized all of a sudden that she didn’t just need to tell Mac about it all — she wanted to tell him. And not only because of the situation they were in, but because she knew he loved her and that somehow, by sharing her pain, she could somehow move through it, rather than pushing it aside and pretending it didn’t exist.
She’d tried that for four years, and it hadn’t worked worth a damn — witness the merry dance she’d led Mac on and her ongoing battle with intimacy.
Spotting the door she was looking for, Grace took a deep breath, rapped once sharply and opened the door.
What she saw sent bile bubbling up the back of her throat and pure, unadulterated rage ricocheting around her body.
Mac was standing in front of Serena, who was seated on the corner of his desk in a classic come-on pose. His hand was on Serena’s shoulder, his head lowered toward hers. They looked cozy. Close. Like two people on the verge of something.
Grace’s lip curled even as her hands found her hips and she slipped into Bette Davis mode instinctively.
“Didn’t take you two long, did it?” she drawled.
Mac dropped his hand, a frown creasing his forehead as he instinctively stepped away from her sister. Too late — Grace had already caught him red-handed.
Images from another long-ago scene flashed across Grace’s mind — Owen’s contrite face, Serena scrabbling desperately for something to cover herself as Grace stood, aghast, trying to comprehend what she’d walked into. And all around them, leaning against the walls of Owen’s studio, hanging from the walls, dozens of portraits of Serena. Serena laughing. Serena crying. Serena in ecstasy. All nudes, all amazing, Owen’s best work. A damning, graphic homage to her sister’s beauty and evidence that the man that Grace loved had been betraying her systematically with her sister for months on end.
Serena had a hand pressed to her mouth and was shaking her head, but Grace had nothing to say to her. She fixed her gaze on Mac, the man she’d thought she was in love with.
“All the talk, all the big promises. But when it came down to it it’s always the same, isn’t it? Little head rules big head. I hope she’s worth it, Mac. Owen thought so — he spent six months screwing her behind my back,” she said, turning away before her anger deserted her and the hurt lapping at her ankles rose up to engulf her.
She’d believed in Mac. Stupid stupid stupid.
Mac lunged forward and grabbed her arm before she could get to the door.
“Wait — this isn’t what you think,” he said.
Maybe it was the feel of his hand on her skin when she knew he’d just been touching Serena. Maybe it was the ridiculous leap her heart made, wanting to believe him. Whatever the reason, the outcome was the same: she lost it.
Spectacularly. Wrenching her arm free from his gasp, she swung her open palm at his face and slapped him so hard his head rocked.
“Don’t you ever lay a finger on me again. I don’t want to hear your voice, see your face, nothing. You have lied to me over and over and you’ve thrown away everything that we had. You make me sick, you bastard, sick to my stomach with your bullshit about trust and friendship and the future,” she screamed. “Go screw yourself, and take that faithless slut with you. You deserve each other.”
Then she was out the door, her hand stinging from its impact with his face, her body vibrating with rage.
10
GRACE HAD NO RECOLLECTION of the drive back to her apartment. She slammed her way inside, still trembling with anger, but there was no one to scream and yell at so she wound up pacing, her hands clenched into fists.
She kept seeing the red imprint of her hand on Mac’s shocked face, wishing that she’d punched him and kicked him in the balls and really hurt him, the way he’d really hurt her.
Because it was useless to pretend he hadn’t. He’d cut her to the bone.
The sound of someone pounding on her front door broke her feverish pacing and she made a bet with herself that it would be Mac. She was reaching for the phone, ready to call the police and have him charged with whatever they could come up with when she heard her sister’s voice.
“If you don’t let me in, Grace, I’m going to kick this goddamn door down,” Serena hollered. “I’ll get a rock and smash this little window and open the lock or I’ll go to the nearest Home Depot and get an axe and hack my way in.”
Grace put the phone down and resumed pacing. She felt sick with reaction as her adrenaline ebbed and she rushed to the bathroom to retch into the basin. She was washing her mouth out when she heard the unmistakable sound of glass shattering and she realized her sister hadn’t been making empty threats.
Outrage welled up inside her and she stalked through her apartment to the front hallway just as Serena was letting herself in.
“How dare you come in here,” Grace said, her voice low and venomous. She felt as though her body would split open with anger, as though mere flesh and bone could not contain her white-hot rage.
To her utter astonishment, Serena’s chin came up and she lunged forward, shoving Grace hard in the chest, just like a frustrated child at the end of her tether. Grace staggered backward, lost her balance and fell flat on her butt.
Serena loomed over her, her face ugly with emotion.
“Just shut up and listen for five seconds! You could have killed yourself driving like that on the freeway. I thought you were going to die when you cut in front of that truck. And all for nothing. Nothing happened between me and Mac just now. I went to see him to tell him I couldn’t take the part. Then he told me you two were in a relationship and I figured he must know about me and Owen and I got emotional. But he didn’t know and I was just about to explain to him when you walked in.”
Grace glared mutinously at her sister.
“I don’t have to listen to this,” she said, trying to get to her feet again.
Serena pushed her down again and held her there, her face just inches from Grace’s as she made her case.
“Do you really think I would do that to you again?” she asked, her voice breaking. “Do you really think I would hurt you like that again?”
Her face crumpled and she began to cry. Letting go of Grace’s shoulders, she sank to the ground until she was huddled in an abject squat.
“I know I deserve every bad thing you’ve ever thought about me, but you have to believe me, Gracie, there is not a day that goes by when I don’t regret what happened with Owen.
“I hate myself for what I did to you. I know I am a horrible, horrible person. But I have learned from that mistake and I would never, ever do that to you or anyone ever again,” Serena said.
Looking at her sister’s huddled form, hearing the sincerity in her voice, Grace knew she was speaking the truth. Nothing had happened with Mac. Somehow, though, it didn’t seem to make a difference to the maelstrom of feelings swirling inside her. She’d had four years to think about Serena’s betrayal. They’d never really talked about it, except for one awkward conversation when Serena had offered up a bunch of feeble excuses and Grace had assured her she forgave her.
The first of many lies that Grace had told herself.
She’d never been able to understand why her sister did what she did or forgive her her actions. Owen, too. How could the man who had slept beside her every night for five years — who had been inside her body, who’d dried her tears and cheered her victories — throw away everything that had happened between them so readily? It was unfathomable to Grace, who prized her friendships and family above all else. She would rather die than hurt Sadie or Claudia or any of her sisters the way Owen and Serena had hurt her.
“Why?” she demanded suddenly, needing to know after four years of silence.
Serena didn’t seem to hear her and Grace stretched out a foot and none too gently nudged her sister with it.
“Why? Why did you sleep with him?” she yelled, unable to contain the anger inside herself.
Serena lost her balance and rocked back onto her ass. Her face was a wet mask of running makeup and tears and she sniffed mightily as she nodded.
“Okay, okay. This conversation has been a long time coming, I know,” she said.
She swiped at her tears with her hands, wiped them dry inelegantly on her jeans. “Four years ago I had just turned thirty,” Serena began.
“I know how goddamn old you are. I’m your sister!” Grace said belligerently.
Serena grabbed her handbag from the floor nearby and threw it at Grace, narrowly missing her head.
“Just listen. You want to know and I’m telling you. This is the only way I know how,” Serena yelled.
Grace glared at her, but didn’t say anything else and Serena started talking again.
“I’d just turned thirty and I’d been going to auditions for nearly ten years. And I still hadn’t scored a break. Every week I was out at auditions, being told I was too tall, too short, too brunette, too skinny, too fat, too whatever that made me unsuitable for the parts I wanted. You don’t know what it’s like wanting something you can’t have, Grace. You’ve succeeded at everything you’ve ever put your hand to. You got great marks in school, you edited the school paper, you got a scholarship to UCLA and you walked out of university and straight into a job with a production company.”
“This isn’t about me. This is about why you threw away twenty-eight years of being my sister so you could hop into bed with my boyfriend,” Grace said contemptuously.
Serena’s jaw tightened and she looked as if she might cry again, but she stuck to her guns.
“When I turned thirty and I was still a waitress and not an actress, I made a deal with myself. I was going to quit, give up and do something else. Except I couldn’t do it. Every time I tried to think of another life to live, I came up blank. I wasn’t smart enough to go back to college and qualify for anything, and I’m hopeless at all things admin-related. I realized that if I stopped trying to be an actress, then I had to accept what I was — a thirty-year-old waitress who was going to become a forty-year-old waitress and then a fifty-year-old waitress.
“That scared the crap out of me, Grace. And I was still freaking out when I saw Owen again at Mom’s fiftieth birthday party. I always thought he was a nice guy. Then he called me a few weeks later and asked me to sit for him. He explained that he had an exhibition coming up, and he needed a model, and he wanted that person to be me.
