Scar Flowers by Maureen O'Donnell Read Free Book Online Page B

grew greater, the challenge larger. This was her art. Never before had she risked so much—or thought that she might fail.
    She picked up the phone, thinking of Faith, but when the dial tone changed to a busy signal, she hung up.
    Leah kicked off her shoes, toppling a book from the pile at her feet. A thick paperback about fight choreography. She pushed it with her toe. Her chest heaved. A ragged breath escaped her , and she covered her face with her hands.
    Rapid knocks sounded at her door, and Paul called her name. She sat up and pulled a compact out of her purse, dabbed the corners of her eyes , and touched up her lipstick while he knocked again. She slipped her shoes on and let him in, pausing first to push the shopping bags of new clothes into the closet.
    “Two more weeks on the set,” she said as she resettled her -self at the desk. “That’s all I need. I can see you on the weekend, and then I’ll fly back.”
    “I’m not going to lie for you anymore. I can’t.” Paul stood just inside the door, jingling the change in his pockets.
    “You didn’t object to my being Nadia at the film festival.”
    “That’s not the point. I didn’t know you were going to get hired onto the picture!”
    “It is the point. You’ll lie when it gets you what you want, and when it’s my turn , you back down.” Leah tapped a pen against the hotel-logo scratch pad.
    “Yes, I’m backing down. This is my career we’re talking about, not some bet you say I made. If Mercer finds out , he’ll know I knew you’re not Nadia—”
    “Then he’s going to . . . what? Admit that he hired me by mistake? I don’t think so.” Leah propped one foot up on the bottom shelf of the desk, the slit in her skirt opening on a few inches of thigh.
    Paul sat on the couch and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not something you do, lie about someone you hire on a film. I’d be slitting my own throat.”
    “You’ve already presented me to everyone as Nadia, and your throat is intact.” She leaned back in her chair. “No one will find out. I’ll quit before there’s a chance I’d have to do any work. A family crisis or a sudden illness should do it.”
    Paul gripped the armrest. “Then why get hired in the first place? You don’t know anything about fight choreography. He’ll find out.”
    “I knew enough to convince him to hire me. How hard could it be?”
    “And what happens to the picture after you quit and we have no choreographer?”
    Her stomach sank. How had she missed seeing the threat to Paul’s work?
    But she could not stop now, when she was so sure. She would make it up to him.
    “You’ve said production schedules get changed all the time for stars’ hangovers and acts of God. The fight scenes can be delayed until a replacement is found.”
    “Not the schedule!” His hands shook. “I know they change, but they shouldn’t change because of me. Not because of me.”
    “It’s not your fault.” She lowered her voice, kept her words even. Never push them, not more than they can take. Let them come to you. “Paul. Would you like to trust me farther this time? It’s your decision. Maybe sacrifice is a better word, to have so much faith. But I’ll be there to watch over it. I know how hard you’ve worked at your career.”
    “Like a saint, you mean?” An edge of sarcasm touched his voice, but his hands were steady. “Do I want to trust you like that?”
    “Out of trust . . .” she prompted.
    “ Comes closeness. I know. But you’re not my therapist.” He crossed his arms. “How can you be so sure this will be all right?”
    He’ll do it. And I’d better not be wrong. “Paul. I know what your work means to you. If I’m wrong about Simon, you win our bet. Set the stakes. Anything you want.”
    “What, as in you buy me dinner if you lose? It’s not worth it.” He crossed his legs and jiggled his foot, his gaze creeping across her knees and toward her lap.
    “I mean you can ask for whatever you