Kimberly Gardner

January 23, 2010

10:00 am

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So here’s an excerpt from my novella, His Leading Man.

Blurb

Once David thought he and Kieran would be together forever. But when their careers take different paths, the powerful lure of ambition pulls them apart. Thrown together again by fate and introduced as strangers, each tries to resist the spark of desire that still burns bright. But when sparks turn to flames, the resulting blaze threatens to consume them both.

Afraid of future heartbreak, yet bound by love, each must find a way to convince the other that, at long last, he’s found His Leading Man.

“Gavin, there you are. And David, it’s great to see you.” Christine Ferrar, Gavin’s sister and the party’s hostess, appeared seemingly from nowhere. Rising on her toes, she kissed David’s cheek then thumbed lipstick from the corner of his mouth. “I’m so glad you could make it, sweetie.” She turned to her brother. “How’s the seminar going? McKee is fabulous, isn’t he? I’m telling you, once you’ve taken his seminar, you will never watch movies the same way again.”

“We aren’t taking McKee’s seminar, Sissy. I told you that.” Gavin rattled the ice in his glass.

“Did you?” She blinked wide blue eyes. “Oh. Well, I would have sworn that’s what you said. Well, you should. You both should. He really is fabulous.”

“You’ve taken his seminar?” With one eye on Christine, David watched as his little brunet hottie leaned in and laughed up at a tall, gray-haired man in a cream-colored jacket.

Damn. That was so not good.

“Me? No, I don’t go in for that sort of thing.” She laughed, a lovely musical sound like the tinkle of fine crystal. “But that’s what everyone says, so there must be some truth in it, right?”

Gray-hair slid his arm around Hottie’s trim waist and tugged him in close.

Crap.

“Gavin, sweetie, you don’t mind if I steal David for a minute, do you?” Without waiting for an answer, Christine slid her arm through David’s. “I have someone I’m dying to introduce you to. I just know he would be perfect for yours and Gavin’s film.”

Actually, Chris,” Gavin said, “David was just about to—”

But if his sister heard him, no one would have guessed it. As Christine turned on her stiletto, Gavin shrugged as if to say, ‘sorry, man, I tried.’ David gave a small shake of his head that said, no big deal as she towed him across the terrace and in through the sliding glass door.

He found himself in a massive grown-up playroom replete with sixty-inch plasma TV, antique jukebox, pinball machine, pool table and fully-stocked wet-bar.

The playroom was even more crowded than the terrace and the roar of dozens of conversations competed with blaring music, something techno with a driving bass that David didn’t recognize, raising the indoor decibel level to near ear-splitting. He bid a silent good-bye to his chances with the brunet hottie and allowed himself to be led, or dragged, through the crowd by Gavin’s sister.

“This guy is gorgeous,” Christine yelled above the din. “I mean literally to die for. And he’s a real sweetie too. I just know you two are going to hit it off.”

Uh-oh. Inside David’s head alarm bells began to shriek. Beware of scary fix-up attempt at ten o’clock.

He tried to gently extract his arm from her clutches. “Chris, as much as I appreciate the intro, I really have to—”

But just as she’d done to her brother, Christine ignored him. Big surprise there. Gavin’s sister was nothing if not determined, which probably had a lot to do with how she’d gotten to be a major player in the entertainment press with a nationally syndicated column and a blog that logged a ton of hits every week.

With no choice short of physical force, he followed docilely along until she pulled him to a stop. Her hand remained firmly attached to his arm, as if she was sure he might bolt if she let go. “Kieran, sweetie, Here’s the guy I was telling you about.”

Kieran?

The alarms in David’s brain went instantly to full red alert, nuclear meltdown imminent. It couldn’t be.

But yes, yes it was.

“David, this is Kieran Reilly. Kieran, honey, this is David Sullivan. Kieran is the star of that new cable series, What A Drag. I’m sure you’ve seen it. It’s like Sex In The City except with drag queens.”

“Cross-dressers,” Kieran corrected. His eyes had gone very wide, those beautiful, intensely blue eyes.

God, how could he have forgotten how blue Kieran’s eyes were.

“Hmm?” Christine lifted one finely arched dark brow.

“Cross-dressers. The only drag queen on the show is Cleo. The rest of us are cross‑dressers.”

“Oh. Well. Drag queens, cross-dressers. In any case, it’s a fabulous show.” She touched Kieran’s shoulder. “And the shoes! Honey, I would die to get my hands on some of those shoes. They are simply divine!”

Kieran laughed, but it sounded a little forced. “Tell me about it. You should see my shoe closet these days.”

Christine laughed too. Her gaze was sharp as she glanced from Kieran to David and gave a little nod. “Well, I’m sure you two will have a lot to talk about, so I’ll just scurry along. Can’t neglect my other guests, you know.”

And with that she faded into the crowd, leaving them alone.

There was a moment of awkward silence where they just stood there looking at each other. Well, Kieran was looking. David, for his part, devoured Kieran with his eyes. He felt like a man who had been stranded in the desert, dying of thirst, who had now suddenly been presented with a cool, clear waterfall in the form of his ex-boyfriend, the only man in his life who had ever successfully won and then broken his heart, a heart Kieran still held, whether he knew it or not.

“So,” Kieran said, dragging out the single syllable. “Which one of us is going to tell her that she didn’t just make the match of the century?”

“I was sort of waiting for you to do it. I don’t really know her that well.”

“Don’t look at me.” Kieran sipped his drink. “Sorry, but I didn’t want to see our past mistakes splashed across the front of Tine’s blog tomorrow morning.”

The barb struck home, sudden and sharp. “Is that what it was, a past mistake?”

“You know what I mean.” Kieran lowered his voice. His gaze scanned the immediate vicinity as if he was afraid they would be overheard.

“No, I don’t think I do.” David looked around. Suddenly he wanted a drink very badly, if only to have something to do with his hands. His damn hands that kept wanting to reach out and touch Kieran, maybe just to see if he was real. Or maybe to pull him close and see if they still fit together as well as they once had.

Because he was afraid that they would indeed fit just as well, maybe better, he balled his hands into fists and stuck them in the pockets of his linen jacket.

Kieran looked so damn good, so damn touchable, with his dark hair falling in wild curls around his perfect, heart-shaped face, his gorgeous eyes dramatically shadowed and lined, and his lips, full and wet and begging to be tasted.

Fool.

Those pretty lips turned down at the corners and Kieran’s slim shoulders sagged. “Look, David, I didn’t mean … That is, can we start over?” he set his glass down on a nearby table and held out his hand. “Hi, my name’s Kieran. Nice party, isn’t it?” He smiled that heart-stopping smile that still haunted David’s dreams. “It’s a little warm in here, don’t you think? Would you maybe like to take a walk outside?”

For a moment David couldn’t breathe. He stared at Kieran’s extended hand. Oh, this was such a bad idea. He shrugged. “Sure. Let’s walk out by the pool.”