“You should have continued eavesdropping. I told him waitress training is extensive and that I had to go through four years of schooling.”
As her friend burst into a fit of giggles, Maggie swiped the guy’s credit card through the outdated register and waited for the printer to spit out the receipt. She tucked the bill, a pen and some mints inside a sleeve of plastic and then glanced at her watch.
Ten-thirty. God, when was this night going to end? Normally she didn’t mind her shifts at the Olive Martini. The job paid her bills, the tips were great, and she couldn’t say she didn’t have fun. The staff at the Olive was like a big happy family, the customers their interesting—and often completely insane—surrogate children.
But sometimes, no matter how entertaining the crowd was, Maggie just wanted to finish her shift and get the hell out of there.
Tonight was one of those times.
“Again with that look,” Trisha chided, wagging her French-manicured finger. “Don’t worry, you’ll be playing mattress hockey soon enough. I, on the other hand, will be fetching beers for Lou while he makes love to the television.”
Maggie’s mouth lifted in a grin. “Well, you know what they say—a good Tony is hard to find.”
If Ben Barrett saw one more photographer lurking in the bushes, he’d go into cardiac arrest. Or worse, slam his fist into someone’s jaw. The latter was so appealing, his palms actually tingled, but he knew as well as anyone how pointless picking a fight would be. The paparazzi would jump all over the story: Violent Movie Star Assaults Innocent Photographer!
And then his reputation would take yet another hit, his agent and publicist would freak out, and Ben would be forced to make dozens of morning-talk-show appearances to explain to his fans why he’d knocked someone’s lights out.
That’s how it always went. You decide to be an actor and you say goodbye to your privacy. Didn’t matter that half the stories the tabloids ran were bull. If you left the house with a runny nose, you snorted cocaine. If you had lunch with a male friend, you were gay. If you shoved a photographer out of your face, you had anger problems.
Ben had dealt with this shit for ten years, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. Growing up in small-town Iowa, he’d viewed acting as his ticket out of there. He’d never been happier than the day his drama teacher invited a talent agent to one of his performances. But, along with escape, acting had given him a sense of pride. He was good at pretending to be other people, and his first few years in Hollywood were some of the most rewarding of his thirty-two years.
Until, of course, the challenging roles had been replaced with mindless-hero personas, and the public suddenly decided he was nothing more than a toy to play with.
So he’d left. Said sayonara to LA and moved to New York, though the Big Apple certainly hadn’t been his first choice to lay roots. A house in Colorado or Montana, that’s what he’d wanted. A place right up in the mountains, so that if the press wanted to harass him they’d have to work for it. Hiking up a cliff would certainly deter at least half of those nosy bastards.
Of course, his agent balked. With Ben’s reputation currently on shaky ground, the worst thing he could do was disappear into some out-of-the-way forest. “If you want to leave Hollywood, fine,” his agent had said. “But stay in sight.”
So New York it was.
“Hey, aren’t you—”
Ben pulled the rim of his Yankees cap lower so that it shielded his face, then bypassed the middle-aged woman who’d just stopped in her tracks and stood there gawking at him. He didn’t let her finish her sentence, just hurried along Broadway and tried to disappear in the lively Friday night theater crowd.
Absolutely fucking ridiculous the way he had to skulk around like this, but damn it, he needed some peace and quiet. He’d bought a house on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and moved in last week, but had the press left him alone to settle in? No way in hell. They stood on the curb in front of his brownstone day and night, night and day, until Ben wanted to tear every strand of hair from his head.
He hadn’t slept in seven days. Hadn’t been able to leave the house without being barraged with questions. Were you with Gretchen the night she died? Did Alan Goodrich know about the affair?
So many damn questions. He didn’t want to deal with them anymore. Or ever. Not when he still hadn’t sifted through the emotions he felt over Gretchen’s death.