Genuine Lies

I can for the body God and the surgeons have given me. And not give anyone the satisfaction of saying she was beautiful—once.” She broke off to swear for a moment while her arms throbbed. “Some people claim to be addicted to this. I can only think they’re very, very sick. How many more?” she asked Fritz.
    “Twenty.”
    “Bastard.” But she didn’t slacken pace. “What are your impressions from last night?”
    “That a very high percentage of the people there cared as much about the charity as they did the publicity. That new Hollywood will never have quite the same class as old Hollywood. And that Anthony Kincade is an unpleasant and potentially dangerous man.”
    “I wondered if you’d be easily dazzled. Apparently not. How many more, you son of a bitch?”
    “Five.”
    Eve swore her way through them, panting like a woman in the last throes of childbirth. The more vicious her oaths, the wider Fritz’s grin. “Wait here,” she ordered Julia, then groaned to her feet and disappeared through a door.
    “She is a lovely woman,” Fritz commented. “Strong.”
    “Yes.” But when she tried to imagine herself pumping iron as she cruised toward seventy, Julia shuddered. She’d damn well take her flab and like it. “You don’t think all this might be too much, considering her age?”
    He lifted a brow as he glanced toward the door where Eve had gone. He knew if she had heard that, she would do a great deal more than swear. “For someone else, yes. Not for Eve. I am a personal trainer. This program is for her body, for her mind. For her spirit. All three are strong.” He moved toward one of the windows. Beside it was a massage table and a shelf cluttered with oils and lotions. “For you I design something different.”
    That was a subject she wanted to veer away from. And quickly. “How long have you been her personal trainer?”
    “Five years.” After choosing his oils, he used the remote to change the music. Now it was classical, soothing strings. “She has brought me many clients. But if I had only one, I would want Eve.”
    He said her name almost reverently. “She inspires loyalty.”
    “She is a great lady.” He passed a tiny bottle under his nose and reminded Julia of the bull, Ferdinand, smelling flowers. “You’re writing her book.”
    “Yes, I am.”
    “You be sure to say she is a great lady.”
    Eve came back in, wrapped in a short white robe, her hair damp, her face pink and glowing. Without a word she walked over to the table, stripped as carelessly as a child, and stretched out on her stomach. Fritz draped a sheet modestly over her hips and went to work.
    “After hell comes heaven.” Eve sighed. She propped her chin on her fists and her eyes glowed into Julia’s. “You may want to include that I put myself through this hideous business three times a week. And while I hate every minute of it, I know it’s kept my body looking good enough that Nina has to turn down an annual offer from
Playboy
, and my endurance up so that I can endure a ten- or twelve-hour shoot without collapsing.In fact, I’m stealing Fritz away when I go to Georgia on location. The man has the best hands on five continents.”
    He blushed like a boy at the compliment.
    While Fritz used those hands to knead and relax Eve’s muscles, Julia centered the conversation on health, exercise, and daily routine. She waited, patient, while Eve slipped back into her robe and exchanged a very warm, very intimate kiss with her trainer. Julia thought of the scene she’d witnessed in the garden and wondered how a woman so obviously in love with one man could flirt so blatantly with another.
    “Monday,” he said with a nod at Julia as he tugged on sweats. “I start your program.”
    “She’ll be here,” Eve promised before Julia could politely decline. She was grinning as Fritz hefted his gym bag and strode out the door. “Consider it part of your research,” Eve advised. “Well, what did you think of him?”
    “Was I drooling?”
    “Only a little.” Eve flexed her limbered muscles, then slipped a pack of cigarettes from her robe pocket. “Christ, I’m dying for one of these. I don’t have the heart—or maybe it’s the nerve—to smoke around Fritz. Fix us another drink, will you? Heavy on the champagne in mine.”
    While Julia rose to obey, Eve took a deep, hungry drag. “I can’t think of another man in the world I’d give these up for, even for a few hours.” She blew out another stream