Her Leading Man (37 page)

“
Right. Okay, struggle hard, because
I’m going to
grab you by the shoulder and push you
.
Don’t
fall
and
break your neck or anything.”

“
Wouldn’t dream of it, darling.”

Martin understood that there were many men of
Paul’s persuasion in
all of the art forms, and he had
no qualms about working with them. It did,
however,
make
him a little queasy to think that Paul might be
getting a kick out of this fake
fistfight
.
Christina
would tell him that was merely one of his
prejudices
rearing its ugly head, Martin thought unhappily.
Still, he tried to
do a good job. He shoved Paul,
making it look as though he were doing so with
all
his
might, although he didn’t push very hard
at all.

Paul reacted brilliantly, staggering backward, until
he
pretended
to come up against the bathtub.

Christina screamed, as she was supposed to.

Paul muttered, “For the love of God, sweetheart,
you don’t have to
screech so loudly. This is pretend,
remember
?”

“
Sorry,” Christina murmured from behind
her
towel.
Martin saw that her eyes were twinkling like
gemstones
with life and laughter. He wanted to rush over
to her, pick her up
in his arms, and make away with
her. Instead, he shook his fist at
Pharaoh’s bully of
a brother.

Paul, pretending to be irate now—as well he might
be, if he were a
nobleman being bested by a slave—drew a wicked-looking sword out of
the scabbard
strapped around his waist In reality, the blade was
fashioned
out
of rubber and cardboard, but it looked real.
“All right, you blasted upstart,
you’re going to get
yours now.”

Martin backed up as Paul stalked toward him, sword
drawn, and looking
as mean
as
the devil
.
Martin, who
knew
Paul liked nothing better than cultivating his
elaborate
flower gardens on his estate in the part of
the
city
now known as Hollywoodland,
would have
liked
to
grin. He didn’t, mainly because he really wanted to
get this
scene
in the
can in one take.

Paul was almost upon Martin, whom he’d backed
up against a wall,
when Christina did what she was
supposed to do. Picking up the elaborate
hand mirror
that had been resting on a table, she rushed up
behind
Paul
and clubbed him with it. The mirror, which
looked as though it would pack a real
wallop, was
made out of rubber. It did, however, make quite a
thunk.

Paul sank to
the floor like a sack of meal.

“
Oh, my gosh, Paul, did I hurt you?”
Christina
appeared properly horrified, only this time she wasn’t
acting.

But Paul, safe from observation since the camera
at this point was
supposed to focus on Christina,
winked at her
.
“You
were perfect, sweetheart
.
Now
the two of
you
run off
and play together. I’m going
to
b
e here for a while. Maybe take a
nap.”

He groaned and rolled over, as he was supposed
to, and Christina
looked up from his prone form and
into Martin’s eyes. They stared at each
other in
feigned consternation for approximately three
seconds,
then
Lovejoy called, “Wonderful.
Now grab
hands and take off! We
don’t want the viewing public
to get bored while
you stare at each other soulfully
.
”

“
Right,” Martin growled. He gave what he
hoped
looked like a convincing start and reached out to
Christina
.

She, pretending to be stunned
by the violence she’d
just witnessed—and
perpetrated—backed up and
dropped the mirror on the floor.
Actually, it
dropped
onto
Paul and
bounced off, and she muttered, “Bother.”

“
I don’t think it will matter,” Martin told her.
“If
the camera caught it, nobody will notice because
they’ll be watching
us. He still
held out his hand.
Now he made an impatient gesture with it, as if
urging
Christina to flee with him
.
“Come
on
.
I think
we’ve dawdled enough.”

As if to add punch to Martin’s claim, Paul moved
on the floor.
“Groan, groan,” he said. “Groan, groan,
groan. Okay, you guys can run away
now.”

Taking
this as his cue, Martin leaped
over Paul’s
body, grabbed Christina’s wrist with no further
ceremony,
and
dashed to the door of the bath room, dragging
her behind. The only reason she
dragged was
because she was supposed to be a
helpless female
appalled by the events that had
just transpired. As
the scene was written, she was supposed to glance
back several times
at the man she’d lately beaned
as if she were horrified by her own
action.

Martin thought ironically that if it had really been
Christina in that
tub, and if some man had burst in
upon her, she’d probably have drowned the
bastard.
The
Mayhew females he’d met thus far in his life
didn’t take kindly to being
imposed upon, nor did
they wait around for men to rescue
them.

And that, he decided on a sour note, was probably
why he and Christina
were doomed to suffer through
a failed love affair.

But that was nonsensical
thinking
, he told himself
as Paul staggered to his feet and shook a fist at
the
retreating pair. Just because she was independent
didn’t mean she
wasn’t a lovely and loving woman.
Nor did it mean that she couldn’t exist in
a happy
relationship with
a man. Him, for instance.

Blast it all, he couldn’t afford to worry about all
of that
now
.
He had to see what Phin thought about
the scene. If they
had to shoot the blasted thing again,
Martin might just have to pitch a
fit.

Another
fit.

The two of them stopped running a little way away
from the bath room
set
and
watched as Paul stumbled
toward the door
.
After swaying
artistically for several
seconds, he stooped to pick up his fallen
sword.

“
He’s really good at this,” Christina said.
There
was a laugh in her voice.

Martin noted with appreciation that she hadn’t
withdrawn her hand
from his. He glanced at their
clasped hands, and his heart gave another one of
its
painful
lurches. He loved her so much. And she was
so far removed from anything he’d
ever known or
understood of life. He really didn’t know what to do
with her. Except
love her.

Martin had lived long enough to understand that
it wasn’t love that
made the world go round, however.
Some form of natural or physical energy
did that,
and
love didn’t have a thing to do with it.
Damnation, he was depressed about
this. He said,
“
Yes. Paul’s great.”

“
As long as pictures never start talking, he’ll
be
able to act in them forever.”

Christina’s words were so similar to his own
thoughts of a few
minutes earlier, Martin smiled at
her. “You’re absolutely right.”

She sighed, lifting her toweled bosom. Martin
longed to rip the
towel away from her body and
lavish
his love upon it.
But the cameras still cranked
,
and people
still
watched
from behind the roped-off
barrier, and Lovejoy was still directing at the
top
of
his lungs from
behind Martin’s megaphone.

“
I think Mr. Lovejoy is enjoying this,”
Christina
murmured
.
She giggled. “Better be careful,
Martin,
or
you’ll lose your job and have to take up acting.
”

“
God forbid.” But for the first time since he’d
begun
working in the industry, Martin thought he
wouldn’t mind losing
his job. He did not, however,
want to take up acting. He wanted to retire
altogether.
Lovejoy shouted from afar, “Great! You’re doing
great, Paul! All
right, now, run after them!”

After taking
several
more seconds to
pretend to
get his rattled brains settled, Paul struck a
dramatic
pose, shook his dagger in the air, and rushed
out through the
archway Martin and
Christina
had
used moments
earlier.

“
And—
Cut
! Fantastic! That was perfect!”

“
Thank God,” Martin mumbled under his
breath.
More loudly, he called out to Lovejoy, “We don’t
have to reshoot it,
do we?”

At his side, Christina chuckled. Martin turned to
offer her a slight
frown. “Well, I don’t like you parading
around like that.”

“
I don’t like it, either,” Christina said
pointedly.
“It’s my job.”

“
Hmm “ Martin decided to drop the
subject.
They’d already fought about it And he’d fought about
it with Lovejoy,
too. Plus, Christina was right, and
he was wrong, and he didn’t like it. He
also dropped
her hand, although it cost him a qualm, and trotted
over to Lovejoy
“How’d it look?”

Phineas Lovejoy was in rapture. “It was perfect.
I swear to God,
Martin, you were great.”

Pablo Orozco glowered from his folding chair that
had been set under
an umbrella. Martin heard his
bitter chuff of breath and figured the actor was
in
a
stew
.
But it was his own damned fault for
fighting
with
the camel-riding teacher, and Martin had no patience
with him.

Come to think of it, maybe he was being too hard
on Pablo. While it
was true Pablo Orozco was the
scum of the earth, it was also true that if he
hadn’t
been
an ass and broken his arm, it would have been
Pablo toweling Christina off as
she
arose
from the
tub.
Martin turned to glare at Pablo, who glared back.

Yes, he decided at once. It was better this way.
Much
better.

“
Bah,” Pablo growled. “You weren’t
strong
enough.”

Martin blinked at him, trying to reconcile Pablo
Orozco and strength
in his own mind and failing. He
didn’t resent the actor’s bitter comment;
he chalked
it
up to professional jealousy
.

“
Don’t worry, Pablo. I’m not after your job.
I’d
as
soon it had been you.” Which was a flat lie, but
Martin’s diplomatic
nature was gathering power
within
him
, and
he’d spoken the words automatically.

“
I’m not.” Christina’s voice came, hard as
rocks,
from behind him. “You’re a toad, Pablo, and
I’
m glad
you didn’t get to kiss me.”

“
You’re only afraid of what my kiss would do
to
you.” Orozco smirked.

All of the diplomacy within Martin vaporized
instantly.
His hands balled into fists, his eyebrows
dipped, and he took
a menacing step in Orozco’s direction.
He might have continued to the chair,
hauled
Orozco
out of it, and punched him in the jaw, except
that Christina grabbed the hem
of his toga—or whatever
Egyptians wore—and clung to it
like
a
barnacle,
holding him back.