Hollywood Husband, Contract Wife. Jane Porter

flutter inside her middle as though she were nothing but naked nerve endings.

      “Do you ever go home?” she asked suddenly, not sure where the question came from but curious about him, curious about his past as well as those ghosts and demons he’d just mentioned.

      He shot her a long, assessing glance from beneath his lashes. He knew what she was doing, too. “Ireland or Spain?”

      “Which is home?”

      “Both, I suppose. I’m bilingual and was raised in both countries.”

      “Your mother was Spanish.”

      “From Cadiz,” he answered, slowing for the traffic light looming ahead. “I was born in Cadiz, but when I was twelve my parents divorced and I moved with my father to Dublin. Spain is home in ways Ireland could never be, but I’m comfortable in Ireland, I like the people.”

      “And yet now you’re here, in America.”

      “It’s what the career dictated.”

      Alexandra stole a glance at him from beneath her lashes. “Do you ever regret becoming an actor?”

      He hesitated before answering, shifting gears down and then, after the light changed, accelerating until he pulled into the parking lot for the Malibu Coffeehouse.

      Turning off the engine, he turned to look at her. “Every day,” he said grimly.

      After getting their coffee, Wolf drove to one of the scenic turnouts on Highway 1 and parked. Climbing from the car, they moved to the cliff’s edge to savor the view.

      Wolf drew a deep breath, breathing in the stinging salty air off the Pacific Ocean. He loved the ocean, loved the cliffs of Malibu and Pacific Palisades. This area reminded him of Ireland’s southern and western coasts, especially when the soupy fog rolled in, covering everything in a misty, mournful gray.

      If it weren’t for the ocean, Wolf didn’t think he would have survived so many years in Southern California. He hated L.A. He hated the falseness, the superficiality, the attitude and airs. People in his business—like so many people in Los Angeles—were afraid to be real, human.

      They were afraid of their bodies, their age, their flaws, their frailties. Women here went to ridiculous lengths to be beautiful: nipping, tucking, tightening, enlarging, enhancing, sucking, smoothing. They worked on themselves endlessly, refusing to age naturally, fixated on how they looked, how others perceived them, how attractive they were in comparison to other women.

      God, he missed real women. He missed wit and banter, laughter and smiles that made the eyes crinkle and foreheads wrinkle instead of ghastly BOTOX-frozen faces. He’d love to share a drink with a girl who could tell a proper story, eat a bag of chips and not immediately worry about her thighs. Sometimes Dublin seemed too far away, and in those moments he missed his old life—the ordinary life before he’d become a celebrity—more than he could say.