Parker bit her lip, fighting the urge to remind her grandmother of the many actresses who’d taken such a gamble and it paid off with an Oscar. She reached for her drink, but then thought better of it and set it aside.
The gamble had paid off for other actresses, but would it for her? What if she was gaining weight and putting her future prospects at risk for no pay off in the end. Her gut feeling that this movie was going to be a hit could be wrong after all. “Grandma, are you sure taking this role was a good idea?” she asked quietly, watching the glistening reflecting off of the pool.
The sound of her grandmother snoring was the only response she received.
Sighing, she stood, and, bending to kiss the sleeping woman’s cheek, she whispered a good-bye and let herself out. This was one internal battle she was going to have to fight alone.
* * *
Reluctantly, Parker stepped onto the scale a few days later. After a ten-minute battle, of course. He’d never seen anyone so freaked out by a scale before. Tyson frowned as he slid the slider to the left instead of the right. What the hell? “What happened?”
Parker didn’t look at him as she stepped down. “I don’t know. Maybe your meal plan isn’t as solid as you thought.”
No, that wasn’t it. “You’re not eating everything on the daily menu.”
“Yes, I am.”
“There’s no way you would lose weight if you were.” He placed his hands on his hips and studied her.
“What do you want me to say, Tyson? I’m eating.” She threw up her hands. “I don’t know what to tell you. Besides, it’s only four pounds. I think I’m good enough where I am anyway.”
Good enough where she was? Their goal had been twenty pounds; they’d agreed on it. Something was going on with her. He checked his watch. “Okay. Well, it’s after twelve. Let’s go eat.”
“Now? I didn’t bring much . . .”
“I have enough to feed an army.” He’d stepped up his own training as well in recent weeks to be ready for the fight, which was drawing nearer faster than he liked. “Let’s go.”
She let out a deep breath, glancing around to make sure they were alone in the cardio area before speaking. “It’s too much, Tyson . . . all the food, getting up at two a.m. to drink that awful shake. It’s bullshit and I can’t gain any more weight.”
“What you’re gaining is muscle, Parker, not fat. What are you stressing about?” Man, he’d never get women and their weight issues. Beautiful was beautiful, sexy was sexy, no matter what number the scale read. “Believe it or not, you look smaller now than you did when you walked in here four weeks ago—tighter, toned . . .” His dick perked up as his eyes danced over her, and he sighed.
Really not the time.
Taking her hand, he led her away from the scale. He sat on the bench and she sat next to him. He waited for her to talk, sensing there was plenty she wasn’t saying.
Finally she cleared her throat. “My grandmother is Abigail Hamilton . . .”
He nodded. He’d Googled Parker weeks ago, so he knew she’d been raised by her Hollywood actress grandmother after her parents died in a fire when she was seven. He’d also seen pictures of her walking the red carpet as a kid and then, as she got older, accompanied by movie producers and other male actors who he couldn’t name if his life depended on it. All he knew was that it had annoyed him.
“My grandmother is all Hollywood—she’s glamour and glitz, she’s elegant, and she’s an icon in the industry . . . It’s a lot to live up to.”
He waited for her to continue. They were more alike than she knew. Living in the shadow of Alan “The Steel Fist” Reed hadn’t exactly been easy either. His father had set standards no one could live up to.
“My parents were the complete opposite—so down to earth. My mom was a literary agent and my father was a lawyer. When I was born, my parents moved away from California to keep me as far away from the acting world as possible but as I got older and spent time with my grandmother during the summer and watched her old films . . . I just fell in love with it all. My parents hoped it was just a phase, but I knew from early on I wanted to be just like her.” She paused. “After my parents died and I moved in with her, she started sending me to casting calls, which I loved, but the feedback for an eight-year-old who’d never been exposed to this world before was devastating. They would say I was too fat, or too thin, or my nose was too big.” She shook her head.
“Idiots,” he mumbled.
She smiled softly. “Unfortunately, I didn’t think so—I thought they knew what they were talking about and by the time I was sixteen, I’d been on too many diets to count, I’d had plastic surgery”—she motioned her chest—“and I’d had a slight nose realignment.”
“At sixteen?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Her grandmother should have been charged with child abuse. Then an image of his father waking him up at three a.m. at the age of twelve to run eight miles before school flashed in his mind . . . followed by the intense weight training he’d insisted on before his body had had time to develop. Okay, maybe parents fucked up often in their attempts to give their children the futures they wanted . . . or the ones they wanted for them.
But he wouldn’t fault his father for anything, the same way he suspected Parker would never hold any of this against her grandmother. Ultimately, they’d both succeeded because of the intensity of the guidance they’d received—depending on the definition of success.
“Anyway, as you can tell, image is important to me and a lot of my self-worth is tied to that. My career, my passion for making movies relies on it.”
He understood. He also knew changing her body was the easy part; changing her mind-set about nutrition and body image was the challenge. Standing, he took her hands. “Come on . . . let’s go train. Do you still want to look the part?”
She nodded. “Yes, I do . . . I’m just freaking out a little.”
“Well, stop. I’ll make a deal with you,” he said, “Keep training and eating the way I’ve told you to for now and then after you’re done filming, I’ll help you get your old body back. If you want it back.”
A momentary look of surprise and something else in her expression made him a little uncomfortable, before she grinned. “Did you hear what you just said?”
“Yes.”
“So, you realize you just offered to train me again . . . beyond our original agreement.”
He nodded, his mouth too dry to speak.
“I mean, in a few weeks you could be done with me, never have to see me again, yet you’re offering . . .”
“Okay! Stop, don’t make me retract the offer,” he said with a grin.
She laughed as she walked away and headed downstairs. “I won’t let you, and you can count on me taking you up on it, Coach.”
Alone, he ran a hand over his head. She was right—he had just extended his time with her, which was counterproductive to his vow of never being with her again. In a few weeks, the temptation would have been gone, but he’d opened his big mouth and invited it to stay.
Now it was his turn to freak out a little.
Chapter 9
As Parker collected her training gear later that day, she noticed Tyson’s brother, Connor, wiping down the cardio equipment upstairs. She’d seen him around the gym a lot lately—mainly keeping to himself as he collected used towels or mopped the floor or Windexed the mirrors near the free weights. The guy didn’t stop. Tyson hadn’t said anything about him being there, and she was curious. Not that she thought for a second she was going to actually get an answer from him.