From Fake to Forever (3 page)

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He shot up his index finger and held it in front of her face. “Wait a damn minute. I don’t need to come up with any excuses to meet women. I do just fine on my own. Just fine.”

Missy shook her head in wonder. “This is so cool. My sister and Ben Capshaw are having an argument right in front of me. Where’s my video camera when I really need it?”

Sandra ignored her sister and proceeded to turn that perfect nose of hers right up in the air at him. “I saw you looking at me at the playground. Did you honestly think I was going to fall for what you were doing? I mean, really, what kind of idiot gets himself stuck in a children’s slide?”

He looked down and faked a cough, hoping it was before she saw him blush. When did he become such a pansy? He couldn’t believe he was actually blushing. Could things get any worse?

“Wait a minute,” she said, sounding skeptical. “You…you were really stuck?”

Things were starting to get worse.

Her mouth dropped open, and she began to laugh—the kind of laugh that would have been music to his ears if she were laughing
with
him and not
at
him.

Things were definitely worse.

He folded his arms. “It could have happened to anyone.” Yeah, right. It could have happened to any idiot. “That tube looked a lot bigger than it really was.”

Missy’s face contorted, and she made the time-out sign. “Wait. How did you get stuck in a slide again?”

“Can we just drop the slide thing?” he asked between his teeth. He ran a hand through his hair and let out a huge rush of air. “Let’s just get back to why I’m here.”

Sandra wiped the tears from her eyes and tried for a more composed face. She failed three seconds into it. “Okay. But I’m not sure what a Hollywood type like you is doing here, exactly. I mean, besides working on your Houdini tricks,” she said with a chuckle.

Missy clasped her hands together. “Sandra, brace yourself. Ben Capshaw wants to use our little preschool for research for a movie role he’s up for. Isn’t that so cool?” she said, beaming.

Sandra immediately sobered. “Research? In this small town? In our preschool? Why would Ben Capshaw want to use our facility? There are plenty of other ones with a much higher enrollment.”

“Well, that’s just it,” he explained. “My agent set this up because one, I don’t have a lot of time to waste. I read for the role but don’t know if I have it yet. I want to be ready if and when I do. Plus, with just the handful of you here on staff, it’s going to be a lot easier to keep my anonymity.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but we can’t help you.” She walked away from him and into her office, dismissing him like an unwelcome solicitor. She turned around. “Thanks for the laugh, though.”

He shot out his arm and blocked her from closing her office door on him again. He was close enough now to catch a subtle scent—he wasn’t sure what. Maybe some kind of fruit. Whatever it was, it was
way
too sweet for a woman this sour. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? You and your sister already signed the agreement.”

Her eyes darted to her sister. “I signed an agreement?”

Missy smiled guiltily. “Oh, yeah, that. I might have…uh…kind of…uh…slipped that document under your nose without telling you what you were signing.”

“What?”

Ben stuck his fingers in his ears. “I’m not hearing this.”

“They’ll pay us for as long as he’s here. Plus, I thought it was a great opportunity to get some free publicity,” Missy rushed to explain. “I thought you’d love it—once you allowed the idea to soak in a while.”

“What free publicity?” Sandra cried. “Mr. Movie Star”—she jerked her thumb at him—“doesn’t want anyone to know he’s here!”

Ben cleared his throat. “Ah, but once I’m gone, you’re free to use my name. You know, Ben Capshaw was here, would send his own kid here if he had one, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Yeah,” Missy chimed in. “Just think what it’ll do for next year’s enrollment.”

“What exactly makes you think people are going to want to send their child to a preschool just because Ben Capshaw graced it with his presence?”

Her sister bit her lip. “Wouldn’t they?”

“
No.
I know I wouldn’t. Besides, it totally undermines the quality of our school.”

He took a step closer, his eyes narrowing. “Hey, now wait just another damn minute. I don’t think my being here is going to undermine anything. I’m a professional.”

“You’re an actor,” she said flatly.

Ben blinked. It suddenly occurred to him that Miss Sandra had many, many problems with him—starting with his appearance and traveling all the way down to his profession. Huh. This was interesting in itself, because most women fell over their toes when a celebrity was in front of them. Especially if he paid even the slightest bit of attention to them, such as he was doing. Case in point was her starstruck sister, Missy. So his first instinct had been correct. Sandra
was
different from other women. She wasn’t impressed with his actor status at all.

What was wrong with her? She was practically un-American. He’d worked with Steven Spielberg and Julia Roberts! How could she not be impressed? But no, this woman couldn’t care less. He had a sneaking suspicion she treated the garbage collector with more respect.

The way she stood there like some snooty, anticelebrity goddess, combined with his damaged ego, pushed him over the brink of reason. Did it really matter if he was able to do his research at her preschool? He had more than enough confidence in his own acting ability to give a good performance. But at this point he wasn’t about to let her stand in the way of perfecting his craft and was equally determined to make it as difficult as possible for her to get her own way. As much as he hated to do it, he had no choice but to play dirty. He sighed.

“That’s fine,” he said with forced agreeability. “I’ll have my attorney talk to your attorney, and we’ll all get it settled sooner or later.” He shrugged and turned to leave.

Sandra placed a firm hand on his arm. “Wait. Did you say lawyers? Why do there have to be lawyers involved?”

He felt tremendous satisfaction at knocking the ice princess off her frosty high horse, but he kept his expression blank. “Well, you know,” he said, waving his wrist back and forth, “our lawyers are going to have to settle the whole contract agreement you signed. Not to mention the plans I had to be here with you. This is costing me a lot of time. Time I could have been using to work on other projects.”

Actually, he had no other projects at the moment, and he also had no idea whether he would even have a legitimate lawsuit, but the way the women paled, they had no idea, either.

Damn, he was a good actor.

The sisters exchanged worried looks, then Missy spoke first. “Since we, um, already signed the agreement and all, couldn’t we just let him hang around for a few days, Sandra? I mean, what’s the harm? We could probably use an extra hand with the children anyway.”

Sandra let a few moments pass, apprehension crossing every millimeter of her beautiful face. Then she looked at Missy’s hopeful expression and sighed. “Okay. Only for a few days,” she added over Missy’s excitement. “I assume there was a criminal background check done.”

“Yes and thanks,” Ben told them. “That’s great.” All he needed was a few days to get into character anyway. He’d get the part and then hello, Oscar.

“You can observe my class,” Missy offered with a wide smile. “This is going to be so much fun.”

Fun? Right. Ben tried not to make a face. In this particular place, he didn’t believe fun was possible. But he nodded anyway then stole a glance at Sandra. She looked unconvinced, too. No big surprise there.

“You’re going to have to clean yourself up, Mr. Capshaw, before the children see you,” she told him matter-of-factly.

He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Absolutely. I understand. I’ll shave and come back tomorrow, then. No problem.” And to prove he was a nice guy and there were no hard feelings, he tried giving her one of his patented dazzling smiles—the one the camera just loved.

It didn’t work on her.

He didn’t know why he’d expected it would. That woman didn’t know the first thing about fun.

Chapter Two

Sandra closed the door and leaned both hands on her desk—just in case her legs gave way.

Ben Capshaw.

Ben Capshaw—dubbed Hollywood’s most eligible bachelor by tabloids—was going to be working at her little preschool. He graced the covers of magazines all the time—some even she couldn’t resist checking out because he was so handsome—so she knew a little of his reputation. But a good match for her preschool? She wasn’t so sure.

Her mind fluttered away with anxiety as she clicked on a few more links from her Google search of him.
Popsugar
had run a list of his exes over the last few years. Fifteen, to be exact.
He certainly spreads the love around.
He’d tried to charm her as well. That was enough. She closed her laptop then took several deep breaths to steady her nerves. No such luck.

This was going to be a disaster. She felt it all the way down to her toes. There were already lawsuits being mentioned! What if some of the parents found out he was here before he went back to Hollywood? Would he sue their school because of the agreement they’d signed? She didn’t even know what was in that stupid agreement!

She and Missy had so much invested in their business, they couldn’t afford for this attempt at shameless promotion to be a mistake. She could only pray everything would go smoothly, and that Missy was right about the publicity. Maybe, if they were lucky, it would turn out to be a good thing. Yeah. That’s what she needed, positive thinking.

She knew she was being a stick-in-the-mud, but she just couldn’t share her sister’s excitement about the prospect of having a movie star around. She didn’t trust him. Why should she? One thing her ex-husband had taught her was that people in show business had an altered sense of reality—everything revolved around them. Steve’s calling was live theater and Broadway, but what was the real difference? Actors were actors. Well, she wasn’t about to allow Ben Capshaw to lose sight of the fact that her business, the children she was responsible for—
her
child, especially—were not to be toyed with.

So what exactly was she going to do with him?

This was why she hated surprises. She couldn’t think on her feet like this. She needed to meticulously plan things out. After all, she wasn’t only thinking about herself, she was thinking about Hannah as well. Planning gave her a feeling of stability and control in her life—something her ex-husband not only couldn’t provide but had thought boring. Steve might have thought bringing a child into the world was dull, but she didn’t. She didn’t take one second of it for granted, and she was going to make darn sure she did her best job—especially if she had to play her boss card and call all the shots to make sure her business succeeded. Unfortunately, she had a feeling that Ben Capshaw was used to calling the shots, too.

It was only going to be for a few days. She could give up a little control for such a short amount of time, couldn’t she? What was she, some control freak?

Yep.

And pathetic. Don’t forget to add pathetic. She’d just swooned over his body the other day. Oh, yeah, definitely add pathetic.

A knock at her door had her straightening then flipping the hair off her shoulders. She prayed it wasn’t her sister ready to gush all over her again about having a celebrity in their midst. “Come in,” she called.

Her employee and friend, Carol, marched in and swung the door closed behind her. Looking ready to rumble, her green eyes darted to Sandra. “Missy just told me what’s going on.” Her eyes searched all over the room as she tucked her shoulder-length brown hair behind both ears. “Where is he? And most importantly, why isn’t he observing
my
class?”

Sandra folded her hands, trying to apply her usual, controlled poise to the whole unsettling situation. “Where is who?” she heard herself ask.

Carol gaped at her. “Oh, come off it, Sandra. Ben Capshaw. Ring a bell?”

She winced. “I told him he had to shave and get a haircut. Don’t worry, he’ll be back tomorrow.”
Unfortunately.

“Shave and a haircut? Oh no, don’t tell me you got all motherly on him.”

“No, I did not get all motherly on him,” she echoed irritably. “He looks like a
Duck Dynasty
reject. I didn’t want him scaring the children.”

Carol rolled her eyes. “Let me tell you, if Ben Capshaw is a reject in your eyes, you need to see an optometrist. That man is beautiful, and I don’t use that word lightly when describing men, either. There’s no other way to describe him.”

“I’m sorry, but I didn’t notice.”
Liar, liar.

Control freak, pathetic, and now liar. She was on a roll this week. After all, she
had
noticed he had nice eyes—an unusual, swirled-up mixture of green and gray with just a tinge of gold around the pupils. Oh, and his body. His body was pretty beautiful that day in the park, too, now that she thought of it. Again.

Sandra sat down at her desk, suddenly feeling all flushed and tingly. “You and Missy can admire him all you want, but I don’t have time to fool around with that Hollywood nonsense.” She picked up her lesson plans and waved them in the air to prove her point—and to cool herself.

Carol made a face. “Hollywood nonsense? Does this poor attitude of yours have anything to do with Steve?”

Her jaw tightened at the mere mention of her ex-husband. “Don’t be silly. It has nothing to do with Steve. I wouldn’t be interested in Ben Capshaw if he was an orthopedic surgeon—and you know how much I adore doctors. From what I’ve read and seen, the man is clearly a self-centered, game-playing womanizer.”

“So…you’re saying this
does
have to do with Steve?”

She shot Carol a deadpan look. Then she remembered Ben Capshaw getting stuck in the slide that day at the park. “Apparently Mr. Capshaw’s also not too bright. So, no, I’m not interested in dumb womanizers, either.”

“Fine. I get it. He’s not your type. The less competition the better, anyway.”

She folded her hands and gave her a pointed look. “Don’t you have a class to teach?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going.” Carol smiled. “I love bring-your-favorite-stuffed-animal day.”

Sandra grinned back. “Yeah, Hannah brought her green dog, Greeny. I’m going to take a peek in on them later in the day and get some pictures.”

There was another knock, but this time the door opened before she could say, “Come in.” Missy floated in on what looked like an unnatural natural high, beaming smiles at the two of them as well as every inanimate object in her path. “I’m in love,” she sang.

Both Carol and Sandra frowned at that announcement.

Planting her hands on her hips, Carol got within an inch of Missy’s face. “What do you mean, you’re in love? It better not be with a certain man whose initials are B.C.”

Sandra rubbed her throbbing temples. She knew having Ben Capshaw around was going to be a disaster. Now she had her two preschool teachers in a tug-of-war. Was it too late to prevent him from coming? “Okay, break it up, you guys. You know movie stars and women. What makes you think he doesn’t have a girlfriend already?”

They both looked at her like she’d announced the elimination of chocolate from the world.

“Oh, no, you’re wrong,” Missy assured her. “
Movie Idol
magazine says he hasn’t been seeing anyone specific for more than a year now. He’s very eligible.”

“That’s right,” Carol snapped, narrowing her eyes at Missy. “He’s very eligible and up for grabs.”

This wasn’t good. She would have to have a talk with Mr. Capshaw tomorrow. Let him know the ground rules so that Carol and Missy’s infatuation wouldn’t get out of hand and disrupt their teaching. She was sure, what with being an attractive celebrity, he had to deal with things like overadoring fans all the time.

“You know, I—” Sandra stopped and gaped at the two women. “Who’s watching the children?”

Missy and Carol both flinched, looked at each other, and made a mad dash out of her office like a bad Three Stooges episode—which at any other time would have made her crack up laughing. Instead, she sagged farther in her chair. Ben Capshaw wasn’t even on the premises yet, and he was already disrupting their school. She could only imagine what tomorrow had in store for her. She supposed she could always get lucky. Maybe he’d change his mind and not show after all.

And maybe that was just wishful thinking.

…

It was definitely wishful thinking.

Because there he was, Ben Capshaw—movie star extraordinaire—standing right in front of her school as she pulled in to work the next morning. It figured he would be early, too, probably just to spite her. He knew darn well she didn’t want him there. She put the car in park and gave him a good, hard look.

Hmm. At least…she assumed it was him standing there. He looked so different. It was hard to tell without all that hair. He’d obviously taken her very seriously when she suggested he should shave. The beard and mustache were gone, and although his golden-brown hair was still a bit long and shaggy, he wore it well. His clothes were a lot neater, too. He wasn’t wearing jeans, which surprised her, since he knew he’d be working with children. Instead, he wore tan pants and a crisp white dress shirt with enough buttons undone to provide a glimpse of a few chest hairs while still looking conservative.

Wow, what a difference a day made. Now he appeared before her, not like some convicted criminal, but like every woman’s secret fantasy—a handsome movie star.

Oh no
, she thought, concerned about how her heart rate had just spiked. Carol was right.

Ben Capshaw
was
beautiful. That could easily be determined even though she couldn’t see his whole face behind his mirrored sunglasses. She’d seen plenty of pictures of him in magazines before and had even seen a few of his movies, but in person he was absolutely, breathtakingly beautiful. How on earth had she ever believed this man was an ex-con? Maybe she did need to have her eyes examined.

“Mommy, who’s that man?” Hannah asked.

“Huh? Oh, he’s…um… He’s going to be a helper teacher to Aunt Missy. Isn’t that nice?”

Nice?

She almost laughed out loud. After he’d threatened to sue her? Yeah, right. There was nothing nice about Ben Capshaw—aside from his eyes and, of course, his body.

She shut off the engine and stepped out. As soon as she was in his sights, a slow grin stretched across his face. She was mortified further when she felt her stomach muscles tighten in response.

Get a grip, Sandra. The man is here for one thing only—not to quench your three-year man drought.

“Good morning, Miss Sandra,” he called out with abundant cheerfulness.

Trying to ignore her body’s response to him and his ridiculously jovial mood, she walked around her car to let Hannah out without so much as a glance his way.

He wasn’t fazed and strolled up to her with arms spread out, seemingly determined to get her attention. “Well?” he prompted.

She turned to look at him and had to swallow the pool of saliva that collected on her tongue. Oh, mama. He looked even more gorgeous close up.

Sandra knew darn well he wanted her to comment on his clean-shaven appearance, but she wasn’t about to satisfy his already overly inflated ego. “You’re early,” she told him instead, but there was a hint of breathlessness in her voice.

“I know.” He smiled. She could have sworn she saw his teeth actually twinkle when the sunlight hit them. Besides body and eyes, she added teeth to that list of positive attributes. Thank goodness she wouldn’t be with him during the day and he’d be observing Missy’s classroom.

“Your sister said you’re here around this time every day, so I figured I’d try and make a good impression.” He looked down at her daughter. “Hi, there. Who are you?”

Her daughter clung to Sandra’s leg. “Hannah.”

“Oh, yeah? How old are you, Hannah?”

“I’m four. Not five or six yet. But I’ll be that soon. I’m still growing every day. My mommy said so.”

“Uh…that’s cool.” He cleared his throat then checked his watch.

Sandra rolled her eyes. A natural with children he was
not
. No wonder he needed the experience.

Hannah continued to stare at him then raised a finger toward him. “You are the hairy man who wouldn’t share the slide.” She looked at Sandra. “He should go to time-out.”

“Time-out?”

The disgruntled expression that crossed Ben’s face had Sandra swallowing a laugh. “Okay, let’s all go in. I’ve got a lot of work to do before we open. We can discuss time-outs later.”

Ben took the keys from her hand and walked over to open the front door for her. She wasn’t surprised when he made a gallant show of allowing her entry first. She stepped past him and flipped on the lights, then walked Hannah to her classroom.

When she returned, it irked her to find Ben grinning and leaning against her office door, lazy as you please. He was about to find out quickly that all that energy spent trying to charm her was a wasted effort. “Well, Mr. Capshaw, you can have a seat and wait here in the hall until Missy gets in. I’m sure she’ll be happy to explain the morning routine to you then. Oh, and I’d appreciate it if you turned off your cell phone while you’re in class, too.” She dismissed him by walking into her office.

But he didn’t take the hint. He followed her in and closed the door behind them. “I can’t help but notice you’re still mad at me.”

She sat down and cocked her head. “It’s so nice to know your sense of worth hasn’t blocked your sense of perception.”

He smiled, not at all affected by her snide commentary. “Well, as you can see, I’m more than just a pretty face.” He finally took off his sunglasses, allowing her to see a lazy glint in his eyes that wanted to tease. “Look, I said I’m sorry. Let’s start over and be friends.”

Sandra didn’t have success with male friends—or even husbands, for that matter. In her experience, when a man said he wanted to be friends, it meant he wanted to date her. Since Ben Capshaw was not your run-of-the-mill ordinary man, but a nationally known movie star, she expected it meant he wanted to cut to the chase and just sleep with her. After all, according to Hollywoodbuzz.com, he’d even swept a Las Vegas cocktail waitress off her feet for a period of time. A proposition like that was easy to resist. Sort of.