Genuine Lies

malice as well as humor. “There will besome who won’t be pleased to see their names and their little secrets in print.”
    “And there’s nothing you like better than to stir the pot,” Paul murmured.
    “Nothing,” Eve agreed. “And why not? The sauce sticks to the bottom and burns if it isn’t stirred now and again. I intend to be frank, brutally so. I won’t waste my time on a celebrity biography that reads like a press release or a fan letter. I need a writer who won’t soften my words or exploit them. Someone who will put my story together as it is, not as some might want it to be.” She caught the expression on Paul’s face and laughed. “Don’t worry, darling, I’m not asking you to take the job.”
    “I gather you have someone in mind.” He took her glass to freshen her drink. “Is that why you sent the Robert Chambers bio over to me last week?”
    Eve accepted the glass and smiled. “What did you think of it?”
    He shrugged. “It was well done for its kind.”
    “Don’t be a snob, darling.” Amused, she gestured with her cigarette. “As I’m sure you’re aware, the book received excellent reviews and stayed on the
New York Times
list for twenty weeks.”
    “Twenty-two,” he corrected her, and made her grin.
    “It was an interesting work, if one was into Robert’s bravado, and machismo, but what I found most fascinating was that the author managed to ferret out a number of truths among the carefully crafted lies.”
    “Julia Summers,” Maggie put in, debating hard and long over another piece of candy. “I saw her on
Today
when she was doing the promotion rounds last spring. Very cool, very attractive. There was a rumor that she and Robert were lovers.”
    “If they were, she maintained her objectivity.” Eve made a circle in the air with her cigarette before crushing it out. “Her personal life isn’t the issue.”
    “But yours will be,” Paul reminded her. After setting his glass aside, he moved closer to her. “Eve, I don’t like the ideaof your opening yourself up. Whatever they say about sticks and stones, words leave scars, especially when they’re tossed by a clever writer.”
    “You’re absolutely right—that’s why I intend for most of the words to be mine.” She waved away his protest, impatiently, so that he saw her mind was already made up. “Paul, without getting on your literary hobby horse, what do you think of Julia Summers professionally?”
    “She does what she does well enough. Maybe too well.” The idea made him uneasy. “You don’t need to expose yourself to public curiosity this way, Eve. You certainly don’t need the money, or the publicity.”
    “My dear boy, I’m not doing this for the money or the publicity. I’m doing it as I do most things, for the satisfaction.” Eve glanced toward her agent. She knew Maggie well enough to see that the wheels were already turning. “Call her agent,” Eve said briefly. “Make the pitch. I’ll give you a list of my requirements.” She rose then to press a kiss to Paul’s cheek. “Don’t scowl. You have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”
    She walked with perfect poise to the bar to add more champagne to her glass, hoping she hadn’t started a ball rolling that would ultimately flatten her.
    Julia wasn’t certain if she’d just been given the world’s most fascinating Christmas present or an enormous lump of coal. She stood at the big bay window of her Connecticut home and watched the wind hurl the snow in a blinding white dance. Across the room, the logs snapped and sizzled in the wide stone fireplace. A bright red stocking hung on either end of the mantel. Idly, she spun a silver star and sent it twirling on its bough of the blue spruce.
    The tree was square in the center of the window, precisely where Brandon had wanted it. They had chosen the six-foot spruce together, had hauled it, puffing and blowing, into the living room, then had spent an entire evening decorating. Brandon had known where he’d wanted every ornament.When she would have tossed the tinsel at the branches in hunks, he had insisted on draping individual strands.
    He’d already chosen the spot where they would plant it on New Year’s Day, starting a new tradition in their new home in a new year.
    At ten, Brandon was a fiend for tradition. Perhaps, she thought, because he had never known a traditional home. Thinking of her son, Julia looked down at the presents stacked under the tree. There, too, was