When former film star Claire Calhoun picks up her accountant, Mike Sherman, after a party one night she's thinking fling. He's thinking forever.
Claire has been Mike's fantasy since the first time he saw her. Now that she's in his bed, he'll do whatever is necessary to keep her there. But he's not a stalker, right? He's just a devoted fan.
Let Me Count the Ways
Prologue
Mike
I guess you could say I fell for Claire Calhoun the first time I saw her up there on the big silver screen. I don't know what it was about her that affected me so strongly. Maybe it was the Titan hair. The sultry shimmer in those hazel, hellcat eyes. The curve of her lips when she turned and smiled right at the camera--right at me. Whatever it was, it was simply...stunning. Literally. It hit me hard and low and just wouldn't quit.
She looked like an angel with all that California sunshine spilling down around her; like sweet, lust-inducing innocence dipped in honey. A vision straight from some Garden of Earthly Delights.
But if her face was made for heaven, everything south of that had been built with a far different destination in mind. Her body was sinful enough to tempt even a saint into straying. Happily. Right through the gates of Hell. And I'm far from being a saint.
Despite my on-going fascination with the woman, I'd just like to state for the record that I never deluded myself into believing we had a relationship. Claire could have been as fictional as any of the characters she played for all the good I figured it was ever going to do me. There had to be at least a million other guys in the world who wanted her as badly as I did and I knew any number of them were more likely than I to even meet her. Not that it stopped me from dreaming, of course. But dreaming, fantasizing, collecting memorabilia--along with copies of every one of her films I could get my hands on--that's as far as it went.
For a while, Claire's name was box office magic. Everything she touched turned golden. But then a string of unsuccessful movies and even less successful relationships caused her star to plummet. These days, her screen appearances are mostly limited to round-ups subtitled 'Where are They Now?'
To me, however, Claire would always be a major star, a full blown fantasy, a lush and lovely dream come true. Which is why I could scarcely believe my eyes the day she walked into my office hoping to secure my services as accountant to her new exercise studio, The Body Electric.
To say I was star-struck in her presence was understating the case by a very, very wide margin. I was hopelessly tongue tied, socially inept, and all but physically impaired by the kind of hard-on most men my age have given up expecting to achieve without pharmaceutical assistance. It still surprises me that we both made it through that first meeting; that I didn't embarrass myself any worse than I had; that she didn't bolt for the door after spending less than five minutes in my bumbling presence
Luckily for me, I had come highly recommended by Claire's attorney, Dave Gillen. Dave, who'd recently extricated Claire from marriage number six and brokered the deal that allowed her to walk away with enough money to start her business in the first place, was also one of my oldest clients.
Claire trusted Dave, Dave trusted me, and the rest, as they say, is history...
