“What irony?” I asked, looking away as I pulled out my phone. “And you mind if I record this conversation?”
“Yeah, I do,” he said, putting his hand over mine.
I looked into his face. He wasn’t kidding, and it wasn’t just some excuse to touch me. He’d probably be more honest if he thought I wasn’t recording him, anyway. “Okay,” I said, but as I slipped the phone back into my jacket pocket, I hit record anyway. “So? What irony.”
He sat back in the chair, resting his head against the high wooden wall of it, so that he was looking at me between his lashes. He’d switched back into flirt mode, it seemed. “The irony is that my Dad wants to keep it quiet, while my sister wants to be the lead story on TMZ.”
I turned that over in my mind. “You think this is just a publicity stunt?”
He gave a wink and took another sip of beer. I wasn’t sure what to make of him. For someone whose sister was missing, he seemed unconcerned. Last night he’d told me his family all hated each other, but I’d assumed that was just hyperbole. “Have you spoken to your father about this? Your mother?”
“No and no. Wouldn’t know how to get in touch with Mom right now anyway. She’s trying to schmooze her way into bed with some director, so he’ll cast her in his next film.” His mother, Micheline Beaumont, was a once-well-known supermodel who had turned to acting in her native France. Her career had never really taken off outside Europe, and when she and the twins’ father had divorced, she’d left them stateside with him. That much, I’d researched on my own.
I wondered exactly how Miller felt about it all, but couldn’t think of a way to ask that wasn’t just nosy. I settled for, “You’re not worried about your sister?”
If I wasn’t mistaken, it was irritation that flashed through those hazel eyes. “Am I my sister’s keeper?” he said grandly. Sometimes he got that actorly air about him, I’d noticed. It was cute, or would have been, if I didn’t need firm answers to my questions.
“Why aren’t you worried?” I persisted. “If you know something I don’t, I’m all ears.”
He ran his fingers through the condensation on his glass, making little puddles on the tabletop. “I mean, I don’t know, I guess I was worried alittle,” he conceded. “At first.”
“At first?”
He’d been performing, I saw then: performing as the spoiled Hollywood rich kid, and I only picked it up then because he dropped the act completely. “All that stuff you were talking about last night—about your family? I guess it made me think about mine. My sister and I, we don’t talk. Much. But last night—” His eyes met mine, accusing. “—you left me all antsy with no relief, so I couldn’t sleep. And I was drunk, too. So I texted Annie. Asked how she was doing.”
“And?”
“She texted me back, literally just before your gate-crashing stunt. She’s fine.” He leaned forward on folded arms, and under the table his legs entwined with mine. “I mean, if you need the paycheck, man, keep looking for her. But it’s a waste of time. She’s just pulling a media prank to get attention.”
If he was saying that his sister was a publicity hound, that jived with what I’d picked up during my brief research this afternoon. But this close up, I could see flecks of gold and emerald in his irises, and my mouth throbbed as I remembered the feel of his lips under mine. I didn’t want to break the spell. His knee rubbed against my inner thigh. “I don’t need the paycheck,” I said at last.
“Then I guess you’re done here.” He sat back, dismissive, and the warmth of his legs disappeared from mine. “Thanks for dropping by, though.”
“I don’t need the paycheck, but Idoneed to satisfy my Boss—and your father. So I’m gonna go ahead and ask you a few more questions.”
Those lovely eyes rolled, and he downed another few mouthfuls of beer before sighing in a way that told me I was wasting my time and his.
“You’d be doing me a favor,” I cajoled. That seemed to work.
“Hit me,” he grumbled.
I asked again about the last time he’d seen her in person, and he told me it was about two months ago, when they’d caught up here at home for dinner while their father was in town. “Dad’s in and out of LA, but he likes to pretend we’re a real family when he’s here. So we have to drag our asses to dinner and play nice once a month. She bailed on dinner last month, though.”
“And did Anaïs seem different in any way, last time you saw her?”
“Anniestrivesto be fucking different. She loves to stand out. But no, not the way you mean.” He ran his fingers through the condensation that had dripped from his beer glass to the tabletop, spreading one little puddle into a doodle—a heart.
“Has she been seeing anyone?”
“She only ever dates if it’ll raise her profile.”
Relationships as a business arrangement? It wasn’t unheard of in Hollywood, especially for closeted actors and actresses. “Is your sister a lesbian?” I chanced.
He laughed at that. “She’s like me. She might flirt with the ladies now and then, but she loves the D too much to ever switch teams.”
“Can I…” I began, and trailed off as his knee pressed back against my inner thigh. “Can I see these texts she sent you this afternoon?”
He waited a beat and then grinned. “I mean, yeah, sure, why not? But I can’t show you right now. Left my phone down at the pool, man.”
