Acting Lessons (Off Guard) Read online

  “Told you it was a stupid plan.”

  “Hey, you agreed to do it!”

  Topher sighed. “I know. Let me think... Okay, so can we abandon the plan? Get me out of here before they arrive, tell your mom and uncle we had a huge fight, broke up, and you and Barb are back together?”

  He stared at her. “In less than an hour, we broke up, you left, I reunited with Barb, and she and her parents are coming to visit? They’re supposed to believe that?”

  “You can tell them the truth, have someone drive me back to the airport, and Barb will never know.”

  Danny actually pouted at that one. “I don’t want to tell them. James will never let me live it down. He might even cut me off for lying to them. He has this thing about lying—hates it. Besides, Mom and James will never keep their mouths shut about you. They can’t stand Barb. They’ll love the opportunity to throw you in her face.”

  Flopping back on the bed, Topher covered her eyes and bit back a scream of frustration. “How about partial truth? I get the hell out of here, and you tell your family you didn’t mention the break-up to Barb and now she’s coming and to please keep their mouths shut about me because you don’t want to die?”

  “That might work,” he said slowly after a pause. “Except...oh, shit.”

  She uncovered one eye so she could glare at him. “No more oh-shit moments please.”

  Pointing toward the window, he just shook his head.

  Topher followed his pointing finger and bounced off the bed. “Snow! Look how pretty it is.” She moved toward the window and looked out at the falling flakes. “Wow. It’s really coming down.” A gust of wind blew hard against the glass. “Um...and sideways. This is kind of a blizzard, isn’t it? Oh, shit.”

  “Yep,” Danny agreed, still slumped on the bed. “You’re not going anywhere. Barb told me they were just a couple miles away when she called. I guess the roads are so bad they’re barely moving.”

  “Maybe they’ll get stuck in a snowdrift?”

  “Topher. Not helpful.”

  “Fine.” Still watching the snow swirl outside, she tapped her bottom lip and thought. “Just because I’m here doesn’t mean I have to be your girlfriend.”

  He grunted skeptically. “So why are you here?”

  “Friend of the family?” she asked hopefully, but then scrunched her nose. “Frick, that is pretty weak, isn’t it. Some kind of employee maybe?”

  “You’re too pretty,” he said, shaking his head. “No matter who we say you are, Barb’s going to take one look at you and see you as competition. Her competition. And Barb does not handle competition well.”

  With a frustrated growl, she ran a hand through her hair and tugged on it until her scalp protested. “Okay...thinking, thinking, thinking...”

  “That’s really annoying.”

  “Shut it. I’m trying to keep us both alive here. You dragged me into this, so the least you can do is keep quiet about my annoying habits.”

  He grumbled but didn’t say anything comprehensible, so Topher took that as a win.

  “So what if I’m not her competition?” she asked slowly, the idea still forming in her mind as she spoke. “What if I’m completely off-limits to you?”

  “How would you work that?”

  “What if I was your uncle’s girlfriend?”

  * * *

  They argued about it, going around and around in circles until it was almost time for dinner. Barb and her family were due to arrive any minute.

  “Do you have a better idea?” Topher finally asked in frustration.

  Danny glared at her. “No.”

  “Then you go tell your uncle your scary girlfriend is coming and that he needs to play along or you’ll wake up with a decapitated horse head in your bed.”

  “Fine.” He was still pouting but at least he’d moved off the bed toward the door. “What are you going to be doing?”

  “I’m getting ready for dinner.” She grinned wickedly. “Wait ’til you see what I’m wearing.”

  His expression thawed a little and he gave an amused snort. “Looking forward to it.”

  He headed in one direction to find his uncle and she went the other way to her assigned room.

  “Finally,” she sighed as she closed the door behind her. Flopping down on the bed, she stretched her arms out and smiled, enjoying the peace. She opened her eyes and glanced at the clock on the bedside table. With a bitten-off curse, she bounced to her feet. There was no time to wallow in her solitude.

  She yanked off her boots, hopping around the room as she tugged. Her top and skinny jeans followed. Pulling the silvery-blue dress out of her suitcase, she gave it a shake, pleased to see the silky material didn’t hold wrinkles. She slid it over her head and it slipped over her body, ending at mid-thigh. Eyeing her reflection in the full-length mirror, she resisted the urge to tug at the hem.

  Twisting around to examine the back, she groaned. There were definite panty lines showing. She changed her bikini briefs for a thong, making a face as she pulled up the skimpy fabric. She hated thongs. Now she was going to feel like she had a permanent wedgie all night.

  Another glance at the clock had her hurrying to the bathroom. She quickly brushed out her straight blond hair and touched up her makeup, using a heavy hand with the pink lip-gloss.

  After sliding her feet into her strappy silver shoes, she took a couple of steps and then had to catch her balance.

  “Maybe these are a little too high.” She glared at her feet. “Let’s see if I can make it to the dining room without breaking my neck.”

  Squaring her shoulders, she headed for the door, bracing herself for another round of pretend girlfriend, this time with a different guy.

  “I’m such a fake-girlfriend slut.” Grabbing the doorknob, she yanked open her door and headed into the fray.

  * * *

  She entered the living room cautiously, concerned that the Golfinis had beaten her to the table. When she only saw Danny, his mother and hot James huddled in an intense yet quiet conversation, she breathed a relieved sigh and clomped into the room.

  “Mama Jules, Uncle Jamie!” She shouldered her way into their tense circle. “Did Dan-Dan tell you that ginger demon is coming?”

  “He did.” James shot Danny a sharp look. “He was just attempting to explain why.”

  “I forgot they’d been invited.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Julia snapped, glaring at her son. “I didn’t know she was no longer your girlfriend until just a few hours ago.”

  Feeling the seconds ticking past, each one bringing them closer to the Golfinis’ arrival, Topher tamped down her impatience and plastered on her vapid expression, adding some annoyance, as well. After all, her fake boyfriend’s real girlfriend was about to show up. If Topher had actually been dating Danny, she would’ve been rightfully pissed. “I’m like super-duper mad at Dan-Dan right now, but he said that the carroty witch’s dad might cut off his guy parts if they find out that Dan-Dan broke up with her and didn’t tell her, so I suppose we should help so that Dan-Dan doesn’t get chopped to bits. Did he tell you his genius plan?”

  James was giving her the scorching look again. “Yes.”

  Tossing her hands in the air, Julia groaned. “This is ridiculous. Why not tell them the truth? In order to end a relationship, both parties need to know it’s ended. You’re going to have to break up with Barb eventually, Daniel.”

  “I don’t know, Mama Jules. What if she, like, rips out my hair or something?” She petted the strands. “I really like my hair. My hairdresser, Ernesto, told me it’s a work of art and should be framed and hung in the loo. I don’t know why he wanted to put my hair in the bathroom, though. Maybe so other girls could see it and be jealous?”

  Momentarily distracted from the conversation, James
and Julia stared at her with their usual horrified yet amused expressions.

  “The Louvre.” James closed his eye for a second, as if gathering strength.

  “Huh?”

  “He meant it should be hung in the Louvre.” When she opened her mouth, he shook his head, cutting her off. “Never mind.”

  “Mom, Uncle James, please,” Danny pleaded. “Just play along until they leave. After New Year’s, I’ll find a way to let her down gently. Sometime when there aren’t any innocent bystanders around.” He shot a look at Topher.

  Judging by the expression on James’s face, he was about to object when his cell phone buzzed. He slid his finger across the screen and held it up to his ear. “Yes?”

  After a moment, he gave a silent sigh. “They’re expected. Let them in.” He stabbed at the screen as if pretending his finger was a knife and Danny was the phone. “The Golfini family is at the gate.”

  “Are we doing this?” Danny asked, and all three of them looked at James with anxious expressions.

  “Fine.” He looped an arm around Topher’s shoulders and tugged her hard against his side. “C’mere, darling.”

  Chapter Four

  After a quick game of rock, paper, scissors to determine who would have to greet the Golfinis, a cranky Julia headed for the front door, dragging Danny with her.

  “Not the Christmas vacation you’d probably been expecting, huh?”

  Topher looked up at James in surprise. “It’s okay, Uncle Jamie. You’re really nice. I don’t mind being your pretend girlfriend until Dan-Dan finally breaks up with the carroty witch.” Circling her arms around his waist, she gave him a tight hug, taking the opportunity to bury her face into his chest. She wasn’t above using the unfortunate circumstances to cop a feel of the hot uncle. “Plus you smell yummy.”

  “You probably shouldn’t call me Uncle Jamie if we’re supposed to be dating.”

  “You’re right!” She batted her eyelashes at him. “You’re so smart, Unc—I mean, Jamie-Wamie.”

  “No.”

  “Jim-Jim?”

  “Jesus. No.”

  “Jamie-Bear?”

  “Fuck it. Fine.”

  Topher tightened her arms around him again. “You’re such a huggable Jamie-Bear.”

  Although she felt his chest move with a heavy sigh, he wrapped an arm around her, his huge hand covering her hip. Topher felt a flash of desire so strong that she jumped a little.

  The Golfinis entered, forcing her to tear her mind away from her lustful thoughts. “Tiny” was actually an enormous, dark-haired mountain of a man with a flattened nose and smirking mouth, looking more like the muscle than the mafia boss he was reputed to be. His wife, Donna, matched Barb, red-haired and skinny, although she was thirty years older than Dan’s girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Pretend ex-girlfriend. Giving up on trying to figure it out, Topher gave her head a small shake.

  Putting on a vapid smile, she dropped her arms from James and took a step forward. Well, she tried to take a step forward but the heavy arm around her didn’t move, so she relaxed back into his side. She couldn’t say she was too disappointed she had to keep touching him.

  “This is Coco Topher,” Julia said as Topher hid her automatic wince at the name. “James’s...ah, friend. Topher, this is Mr. and Mrs. Golfini and their daughter, Barb.”

  Barb shot a look at Julia that was so sharp it made Topher cringe.

  “Right, how could I forget.” Julia’s voice was even, although her smile tightened at the corners. “Barb is Daniel’s girlfriend.”

  “Nice to meet y’all.” Topher winced inwardly. When had her character turned Southern? All the Golfinis were freaking her out, from not-so-tiny Tiny to his sharp-faced wife and their bitchy demon spawn.

  “So, Coco.” Tiny’s gaze did a quick up-and-down run of her body that left Topher’s skin crawling. “How long have you and Hawkins been together?” He put a suggestive and gross emphasis on “together.”

  “Please call me Topher, Mr. G. Coco makes me sound like a fuzzy little poodle. Not that poodles aren’t super adorable, ’cause they are, especially in those little doggie sweaters, but I’d rather be Topher-adorable than poodle-adorable, you know what I mean?” she babbled, mostly as a delay to give her time to think up a backstory for her and James, but also because Tiny’s creepy manner was bad enough without hearing his smarmy voice saying her hated name. She tipped her face up to see James watching her with the tiniest smirk. “How long has it been, Jamie-Bear?”

  He shrugged, his expression blanking. Topher wondered if he was having a moment of stage fright. Improvisation wasn’t for everyone.

  “About two weeks, wasn’t it, sweetie?” she prompted. “Remember, you took me to that restaurant for our first date, the one with the totally cute waiter, and you got jealous when I mentioned how totally cute he was, but then I told you that you were, like, tons hotter than any guy in the whole place, in the whole world, probably, and he was obviously gay—not you, Jamie-Bear, but the waiter—so I should get a free pass for calling him cute, and—”

  “Three weeks,” he broke in, cutting her off smoothly. “That was three weeks ago... Tophie.”

  Topher had to fight away a grin at his obvious discomfort at saying the nickname. She plastered on a look of horror. “You’re right, Snuggle-kins! How could I forget an entire week? That’s like...half of our relationship!”

  A glance at the Golfinis showed a range of emotion, from Tiny’s lustful leer to the two redheads’ expressions of superiority mixed with a giant helping of curled-lip disdain. She gave all three a wide-eyed smile.

  “But three weeks for us is like three years for any other couple, since we’re, like, soul mates or something. I was reading this book about soul mates, and I told Jamie-Bear, ‘Sweetie-pie, this is just like us, only we’re not vampires, which is a good thing, since drinking blood would be super-ew, and the guy in the book is, like, hundreds of years old, and you’re not nearly that old yet.’”

  Julia’s shoulders were shaking at this point. Topher knew to keep her eyes off the other woman or she would lose the composure to which she was desperately clinging.

  “Anyway—” she seriously needed to redirect this conversation away from herself before she was rolling on the floor, clutching her stomach from laughing so hard “—enough about me and my sweet ’ums. It’s snowing really hard. Was driving here, like, totally scary?”

  “It wasn’t bad until the last few miles,” Tiny said. “Our driver’s originally from Alaska, so he knows how to drive in snow.”

  Donna made an irked sound. “If we’d been any closer to the airport when the blizzard started, we’d have turned around and returned to California.” Her tone was annoyed, as if she would’ve preferred to be anywhere but where she was.

  “Well,” Julia said in a determinedly cheerful voice, “I’m sorry to hear you had an unpleasant drive, but we’re so happy to have you here.”

  Topher shot a quick glance her way, impressed with Julia’s almost-believable sympathy. Their eyes met in a moment of complete understanding, a look much too quick and smart to fit with her fluff-headed persona. Topher broke eye contact as soon as she realized her mistake, but she knew she’d messed up. Quickly turning her attention to James, she cuddled into his side and walked her fingers up the front of his shirt. His hand tightened around her hip.

  “Shall we eat?” Julia gestured toward the doorway. “I’d suggest cocktails first but you must be starved after your trip.”

  As Julia led the Golfinis toward the dining room, Topher tried to muffle an amused snort in James’s arm.

  “What’s so funny?” he murmured in her ear.

  She shivered as his breath brushed her skin. “I was just thinking that Donna and Barb probably aren’t hungry since they’ve already had their daily gluten-free cracker.”r />
  As James chuckled, she bit the inside of her lip, knowing she’d been too snarky for her Tophie persona. She tried to bury the comment in babble as he steered her toward the dining room. “My friend Peyton went on a diet where all she ate were squares of sugar-free finger Jell-O and Wheat Thins. Reduced-fat Wheat Thins, of course.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  She nodded. “I know, right? So gross. She should’ve at least eaten low-fat Triscuits instead.”

  James blinked. “That doesn’t...” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

  He held her chair for her at the dining table. Smiling at his half-angelic, half-ruined face, she thanked him, amazed how much easier it was to pretend fondness for James than it had been with Danny. With Danny, she naturally fell into a bickering, sibling-like pattern, but it was so easy to cuddle and fawn over her Jamie-Bear. The name jolted her out of her thoughts. Jamie-Bear? Since when did she think like Tophie?

  “Please excuse me,” Julia said as she headed toward a hallway Topher hadn’t explored yet. “I’ll be right back with the salads.”

  Donna’s nose wrinkled as if Julia had just said she’d be back with the cat turds. “Don’t you have help for that?”

  “Oh!” Topher bounced out of her chair. “I can help! I’m a...” She paused, wondering if her character would even know what a barista was. “Um, a burlesque!”

  The two redheads made choking sounds as the lust levels in Tiny’s gaze rose to truly disgusting levels.

  Julia turned around, her eyes big. “You’re a burlesque dancer?”

  “Dancer? No.” She almost turned to Danny before correcting herself and looking at James. “Love-muffin, what’s the name of my job?”

  He blinked and opened his mouth but Danny chimed in before James could take a guess.

  “You’re a barista,” he said. Barb’s head whipped around and her glare fastened on her boyfriend. He visibly wilted. “That’s...um, that’s what you told me, Uncle James, isn’t it?”