Page 14 of A Star is Scorned

Judy shook her head in exasperation. “Yes, Mother.” But she gave Livvy a wink. Judy sighed deeply and leaned back against the pillows. “A sailing trip to Catalina sounds divine.”

Livvy wrestled the other cushion and whacked her sister with it. “Cut it out!”

Judy started tickling her until Livvy was breathless with laughter.

“Okay, okay, stop, stop.”

Judy barely lifted her hands. “You promise to at least try to have fun? Dating Flynn Banks used to be your dream.”

Livvy rolled her eyes. “Don’t remind me. I didn’t know what he—”

But Judy interrupted her, tickling her with abandon and causing her to shriek with laughter once more.

“Okay, fine, I promise to try to have fun!” She gasped each word in between helpless giggles. She didn’t admit that having fun with Flynn Banks was exactly what she was afraid of.

***

Livvy checked the piece of paper in her hand yet again and breathed a sigh of relief as she turned into the parking lot of the California Yacht Club.

Flynn had hastily scrawled directions to the marina on the back of a script page yesterday, but navigating the roads of Los Angeles, she’d gotten lost multiple times.

She’d found herself on the edge of an oil field before having to redecipher his messy handwriting and backtrack to where she’d made a wrong turn.

She checked her watch, the plain black-leather strap loose around her wrist. Thank God she’d left early.

Despite her multiple detours, she was still on time.

She put the car in park and looked grimly at the reporters lining the edge of the docks.

They were no doubt here for her and Flynn.

She paused and rolled her shoulders, trying to relax.

The lunch setup had been child’s play compared to this. Now, she really had to sell it.

This was her first official “date” with Flynn.

In addition to their posed lunch, they had taken some photos during fencing rehearsal, staging some flirtatious shots with a bare-chested Flynn.

But this was something else entirely. She would be on Flynn’s turf—his sailboat—and would face a crowd of reporters who knew him already.

She was fresh meat for their hungry camera lenses.

At least they would only be on the dock at the start and on a skiff at the finish line.

There was no room for them on Flynn’s boat.

But that meant she would be alone with him all day.

Well, not entirely alone—she imagined there would be some kind of crew.

But away from the controlling hand of the studio, at any rate.

After she parked, she made her way to the marina and the crowd of reporters, her stomach twisting in knots.

“Miss De Lesseps, give us a smile,” one of them crowed, and she did as they asked, hoping they couldn’t see her naked terror.

“Here to sail with the pirate himself, are you?”

“Er…” What was she supposed to say to that? Some part of her brain remembered she was supposed to be helping Flynn polish his image. “Oh, well, he only plays a pirate in the movies.”

The crowd of photographers laughed. “Try telling that to him,” replied a tall man in a gray fedora, pointing in the direction of the dock.

She followed the direction of his hand and peered through the metal gate that separated the sidewalk from the gangway to the dock.

There was a flurry of activity occurring at each boat slip, with people tying knots and heaving things on and off the decks. Which one was Flynn’s?

Her eyes caught on a boat with a black sail, before she noticed the boat’s name. Sea Monkey. Painted beside it was a cartoon drawing of a small capuchin monkey in a pirate hat, brandishing a sword. It was the spitting image of Rallo.

Livvy giggled. It was adorable how much he loved that monkey. But the press pool had a point. Flynn hadn’t exactly made his sailboat an incognito vessel where he could escape the prying eyes of the press and the public. The entire thing screamed, “A silver-screen swashbuckler owns this beauty!”

“So, Miss De Lesseps, is Flynn finally going to win the Catalina Regatta this year?”

Oh God. She had no idea. She didn’t have the faintest notion how good of a sailor Flynn was or what his chances were in this race.

But Flynn was nothing if not confident, so she plastered the best self-assured grin to her face and replied, “Flynn’s going to win.

Easily. This race is honestly beneath him. ”

“Oh ho ho,” one of the reporters cried while they all scribbled what she’d said in their notebooks.

“You know he’s come in second the last three years?” another reporter asked, staring at her with a deep skepticism.

Rats. She needed to ask Harry to be sure to have the PR department send over informational sheets for her to study before these dates.

“Sure I do,” she lied. “But this year he’ll have his lucky charm by his side.

” She winked at the reporters, feeling like a complete fool.

But for some reason, they seemed to buy it.

“Well,” the man who’d mentioned Flynn’s race record said. “Then we look forward to photographing your moment of victory in the Avalon harbor when you cross the finish line.”

“See you there, boys!” She saluted them like a sailor and struck a pose for the camera, hoping that she could make a run for it. She needed Flynn to keep her from sticking her foot in her mouth.

One of the photographers crept up behind her and mock whispered in her ear, “Be sure he doesn’t make you walk the plank.

” She felt his hand gently graze her backside.

She hated men like this. Ones who pretended they were looking out for your welfare, when really they just wanted to take advantage of you.

At least Flynn was honest about who he was.

She put all of her weight into her right heel as she stepped back and trod on his foot.

He grunted in pain, and she pressed harder before springing forward.

“So sorry, I thought you were a piece of rope.” She batted her eyelashes at him, playing dumb.

Crooking her finger into a hook, she struck a pose for the other reporters.

“Arrrrr, mateys.” The cameras flashed and she smiled before gripping the handle of the gate behind her and sprinting down the gangway.

She wore cloth moccasins, grateful for the closed-toe shoes as she picked her way through coils of rope and worked to avoid any particularly splintery bits of the dock.

She had tried to dress for the occasion, wearing jeans and a cap-sleeve red sweater, a dark-blue silk scarf tied around her neck.

Her father was a navy man, though the closest she had ever come to a sailboat was a miniature one she’d played with as a girl.

But she’d always believed dressing for the job was the best way to project an air of confidence.

She’d passed her first test anyway, mugging for the cameras.

“Liv?” a voice asked. Flynn’s tan face popped up from behind the mast. He wolf-whistled as he took her in, and she couldn’t help but blush.

“Don’t do that!” she hissed, trying to make sure no one could hear her.

“What? Admire the girl who’s captured my heart?

” Flynn teased. He said it loudly for the benefit of the men on the dock.

She looked back and watched them all scribble furiously in their notepads.

She smiled in spite of herself. “Come aboard.” He waved his arm, urging her to step onto the ship.

“We shove off in around fifteen minutes.”

He turned to the thick rope he was winding around a piece of metal as she nervously eyed the back of the boat, wondering what the best approach would be.

He looked back at her. “Don’t tell me you’ve never been on a sailboat before!”

She grimaced and nodded.

“This isn’t like when you told me you had ‘some’ experience with fencing, is it?”

At that, she outright laughed. Flynn had a wicked sense of humor, but she liked it. Probably a little too much. “No, no, I really have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Perfect, no time like the present to learn.” He stepped onto the lip of the boat, looking more like a stevedore than a movie star in a pair of dark slacks, a tight white T-shirt that accentuated his generous biceps, and a matching white captain’s hat.

It worked for him though. He looked roguish and windblown and absurdly handsome.

He extended his hand and Livvy took it, feeling the calluses of his palm close around her fingers as he helped her step up. She placed one foot on the edge of the boat and paused as it swayed underneath her. The noisy click of the cameras whirred in the distance.

He chuckled. “Come on, I’ve got you. I promise.”

She gingerly lifted her other foot from the dock and stepped aboard, losing her balance and tumbling straight into the solid wall of his chest. She let out a muffled oof before he placed his hands on her waist, lifted her up, and deposited her on the deck.

Someone, she was certain it was Mr. Gray Fedora, crowed suggestively.

But Flynn didn’t react. Nor did he remove his hands immediately, instead letting them linger, making sure she had steady footing.

He was looking at her earnestly, one of his eyebrows raised.

“You all right?” Livvy could tell that he wasn’t asking so that he could elongate this picture-worthy moment. He genuinely wanted to know.

She met his gaze and something passed between them, an electric current of want that was gone as quickly as it came.

It was just that he looked so very much like the hero of one of his films right now—the sun hitting his face, turning his hair to burnished gold.

The sight of it made her feel like a teenager again, longing for a man who wasn’t real.

Flynn cleared his throat and swiftly dropped his hands. She found herself mourning the loss of them, missing the sensation of the rough edges of his fingers digging into her sides and the safe feeling it filled her with.