Genuine Lies

out more about him—as it pertained to Eve. She was already certain he was the little boy Eve had spoken of to Brandon. The young boy who had liked petitsfours. It was difficult for Julia to picture Paul as a child hoping for a treat.
    What kind of mother figure had Eve Benedict been? Julia pursed her lips as she considered. That was the angle she needed to explore. Had she been indulgent, careless, devoted, aloof? After all, she had never had a child of her own. How had she reacted to the smattering of stepchildren who had woven in and out of her life? And how did they remember her?
    What about her nephew, Drake Morrison? There was a blood tie between them. It would be interesting to talk to him about his aunt, not his client.
    It wasn’t until she heard the voices that Julia realized she’d wandered deep into the garden. She immediately recognized Eve’s whiskey tones and just as immediately noticed a faint difference in them. They were softer, gentler, with the richness that enters a woman’s voice when she’s speaking to a lover.
    And the other voice was as distinctive as a fingerprint. That deep, gravelly rasp sounded as if the vocal cords had been scraped with sandpaper.
    Victor Flannigan—the legendary leading man of the forties and fifties, the dashing and dangerous romantic lead in the sixties, and even into the seventies. Now, though his hair gone white and his face was deeply lined, he still brought sensuality and style to the screen. More, he was considered by many to be one of the finest actors in the world.
    He had made a trio of films with Eve, brilliant, fiery films that had provoked a flood of rumors about the fire offscreen. But Victor Flannigan was married to a devout Catholic. Rumors about Eve and him still buzzed from time to time, but neither added the fuel of comment to the flames.
    Julia heard the sound of their merged laughter, and knew she was listening to lovers.
    Her first thought was to turn quickly and start back to the guest house. Journalist she might be, but she couldn’t intrude on so obviously private a moment. The voices were coming closer. Going on instinct, Julia backed off the path and into the shadows to let them pass.
    “Have you ever known me to be ignorant about what I was doing?” Eve asked him. She had her arm through his, her head inclined toward his broad shoulder. From the shadows Julie realized she’d never seen Eve look more beautiful or more happy.
    “Yes.” He stopped and took Eve’s face in his hands. He was only a few inches taller than she, but built like a bull, a solid wall of muscle and bulk. His white hair was a mane of silver in the moonlight. “I imagine I’m the only one who could say that and stay alive.”
    “Vic, darling Vic.” Eve stared into the face she had known and loved half of her life. Looking at him now, seeing the age, remembering the youth made tears back up in her throat. “Don’t worry about me. I have my reasons for the book. When it’s finished …” She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, needing badly to feel that strong pump of life from his pulse. “You and I will curl up by the fire and read it to each other.”
    “Why bring it all back, Eve?”
    “Because it’s time. It wasn’t all bad. In fact”—she laughed and pressed her cheek to his —“since I decided to do it, it’s made me think, remember, reevaluate. I’ve realized how much pleasure there is in just living.”
    He captured her hands to bring them to his lips. “Nothing in my life has given me more than you. I’ll always wish—”
    “No.” Shaking her head, she cut him off. Julia could see the glint of tears in Eve’s eyes. “Don’t wish. We’ve had what we’ve had. I wouldn’t change it.”
    “Not even the drunken brawls?”
    She laughed. “Not one. In fact, sometimes it pisses me off that you let Betty Ford dry you out. You were the sexiest drunk I’ve ever known.”
    “Remember the time I stole Gene Kelly’s car?”
    “It was Spencer Tracy’s, God love him.”
    “Ah, well, we’re all Irishmen. You and I drove to Vegas and called him.”
    “It was more to the point what he called us.” She pressed close, absorbing the scents that were part of him. Tobacco,peppermint, and the piney aftershave he’d used for decades. “Such good times, Victor.”
    “That they were.” He pulled away from her, searching her face, finding it fascinating, as always. Was he the only one, he wondered, who knew her weaknesses, those soft