Married Lovers Read Free Page B

film industry.
    So be it , he’d thought. We only have to do this once .
    Except it turned out to be once a week, for Hamilton hosted weekly soirées at his magnificent hill-top home in Bel Air, and he expected them to attend every time.
    “This is bullshit,” Ryan had complained after the fourth weekend in a row.
    “No, it’s not,” Mandy objected.
    “I can’t take all this socializing,” he’d said. “It’s not my scene.”
    “Daddy calls it networking,” she’d answered. “You should thank him. You’re meeting all the most important people in town.”
    “Why would I want to do that?” he’d demanded.
    “For your career,” she’d countered. “You never know when you’ll need a favor.”
    “My career is progressing very nicely,” he’d said irritably. “In case you’ve forgotten, I have two movies in development, and one about ready to shoot.”
    “Daddy thinks you should make bigger movies,” Mandy had informed him. “He thinks you should come work for him.”
    “Are you kidding me?” he’d said, outraged. “I certainly wouldn’t want to work for your father. I make small independent movies, that’s my style.”
    “Sometimes style is not enough.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means that if you did work for Daddy, you could do anything you wanted.”
    “I was under the impression I was doing quite well on my own,” he’d said dryly.
    “It’s just a thought,” Mandy had said, deftly reaching for his fly, because she knew exactly when to stop pushing and concentrate on other things. After all, they were newly married, so it might take some time to turn Ryan around.
    But Ryan was no pushover. He might have married a famous man’s daughter, but when it came to the movie business he walked his own path–he needed neither help, advice nor interference from Hamilton J. Heckerling.
    A year into their marriage Mandy reluctantly admitted defeat when it came to Ryan’s career. He was indeed his own man, and she could do nothing to change that. At least she’d persuaded him to accept her father’s wedding gift–a house in the flats ofBeverly Hills with six bedrooms, lush gardens, a pool and a tennis court.
    At first he’d objected. “It’s way too big,” he’d said.
    “Not when we have children,” she’d replied, cannily playing the family card. “Besides, Daddy will be heartbroken if we turn him down.”
    After arguing about it for a couple of weeks he’d finally given in, and they’d moved into the house on Foothill. He’d had to admit that the idea of a large family appealed to him. He’d been raised with three sisters and loving parents, so family was extremely important, he couldn’t wait to start one of his own.
    Unfortunately it was not to be. Over the course of their seven-year marriage, Mandy had become pregnant three times. She’d lost the first two babies to miscarriages, and their third baby was stillborn.
    It was heart-breaking for both of them. It was also the main reason he stayed, for how could he desert her after all she’d been through? It wouldn’t be right, and throughout his life Ryan had always tried to do the right thing.
     
    “Okay, Mandy,” Ryan said impatiently. “I have to get going.”
    “If you must,” she said in an uptight voice. “What time will you be home?”
    He hated being questioned, but Mandy could never resist going there.
    “Around five,” he answered vaguely.
    “Don’t forget we’re having dinner with Phil and Lucy at the beach,” she reminded him. “ Geoffrey’s . It’s our check. We should leave before six. One never knows what the traffic will be like on P.C.H. and you know how I hate being late.”
    Funny, coming from a woman who always kept him waiting.
    “Got it,” he said, finally making it to the door.
    Geoffrey’s restaurant with Phil and Lucy Standard wasn’t such a bad thing. Phil was a close friend, and Lucy could be entertaining when she wasn’t zoned out on her favorite Vicodin/Xanax