Her Leading Man (51 page)

“
That’s because you haven’t been eating dates
all
day,” Gran said almost pleasantly. She’d ordered a
chicken
salad.

Christina saw the maitre d’hotel, holding a yellow
telegram envelope in
his gloved hand, searching the
room. “Wonder who he’s looking for,” she
muttered.

“
Who?”
Gran asked. “Who’s looking for whom?”

Christina inclined her head to indicate the maitre
‘d
. “
Him. Oh, look. He’s walking, toward us. I
wonder
what’s
happened.”

Telegrams were never anticipated with any great
pleasure by most
people, since they usually brought
bad news. Martin glanced up,
too.

“
Hmm. He’s coming here.” He stood and
greeted
the maitre ‘d, but sat again without taking the
envelope.
“It’s for you, Christina.”

“
Me?” Startled, she stood and took the
envelope
being proffered. “Thank you.”
The maitre ‘d bowed elegantly, and walked
away again.
Christina
turned
the yellow
envelope
over. A
creeping, cold
sensation began to slither up her spi
n
e
.
She didn’t
want to open the envelope.

“
What’s in it, Christina?” her
grandmother demanded
to know.

Christina cleared her throat. “
Um
, I
don’t know
yet.”

“
Would you like someone else to open it for
you?”
Paul asked, trying, Christina knew, to be
helpful.

“
No,” she said, managing a small smile.
“Thanks,
but I’m fine. I’ll open it.” She still didn’t want
to.
She
appreciated it when Martin, who sat next to
her at the table, pressed her knee
and smiled at her.

“
Whatever it is, we’re all here for you, love.”

Paul made a noise of agreement. Even her grandmother
nodded. Christina
appreciated them all.

“
I don’t know why I’m being so absurd
about
this.” She ripped open the envelope, hoping with all
her heart that
nothing had happened to any of her
family. She took out the yellow piece of
paper contained
in the envelope, sucked in a breath as she unfolded
it, and read.
Her world tipped
upside down. She felt herself go
numb.

“
What is
it?” Martin sounded worried.

“
Christina, are you all right?” So did Paul.

“
Give me that thing.” Gran snatched the
telegram
out of Christina’s suddenly unfeeling fingers. The
old
lady’s
mouth fell open for a second before she spat
out, “Why, those
monsters!”

Goggling, Paul gasped, “Good
gad
,
what is it?”
As Martin lurched from his chair, went to
Christina’s
side, and put his arms about her, Paul grabbed the
telegram from Mrs.
Mayhew.
Paul
read the telegram and glanced up at Christina.

“
What’s this all about?” His face exhibited an
interesting
combination of anger and befuddlement.

Christina was too shaken to answer. It seemed to
her that the only
thing holding her in her chair was
Martin’s embrace. If he let her go, she
feared she’d
slide right out of her seat and collapse onto the
floor
.

“
Those fiends! I’ll write my congressman!
I’ll
write to the President of the United States. First
they
deny us
the vote, and now these—”

“
Gran,
please.”

Christina didn’t raise her voice, but thank God her
grandmother desisted
in her diatribe. Infinitely grateful
to Martin for his support—and he didn’t
even
know why
it was needed yet—Christina swallowed
the aching lump in her throat. That toad,
Pablo
Orozco,
might have defeated her, but he’d never make
her cry.

“
Um
, I
still don’t understand.” Paul, who was being
remarkably patient under the
circumstances, lifted
the telegram and flapped it. “What’s all this
about
medical
school? And what’s this about being arrested? I thought Peerless
had had that quashed.”

“
What?” Martin’s eyes popped open, and he
stood
abruptly. “Let me see that, thing.” This time it was
he who grabbed the
telegram, and from Paul.

Christina nodded. “They found out, Martin.”

“
Good God. How?” Martin stared with
what
looked like mounting horror at the message in his
hand.

“
Pablo.” Christina spoke the name dully. “He
said
I’d regret having hit him “

Martin left off staring at the telegram and
commenced
staring at Christina. “Good God.”

“
Do you really think he’d do such an
underhanded
thing?” Paul’s eyes were round and his
eyebro
ws
arched like rainbows above
them.

“
Of course, he did it,” Gran said
grimly.
“
W
ho
else would have done
it?”

Martin set the message on the dining table, took
Christina’s hand in
both of his, and exerted a co
m
forting
pressure. “I suppose he knew about your arrest.
Good God.”

Christina nodded. “Everyone on the set did.”

“
Good God.” Martin didn’t generally repeat
himself,
but this was, Christina presumed, an exceptional
circumstance.
She bowed her head,
trying to take in the significance
of this latest catastrophe. Someone—she
knew
it had
been Pablo Orozco, because no one else she
knew was mean enough to do such a
thing—had informed
the regents of Los Angeles University that
Christina
Mayhew
, whose admission to their medical
school had been
granted grudgingly and over strenuous
opposition, possessed a criminal record.
Peerless
had
used a lot of money to quash her arrest, but
anyone else with a lot of money
could have got
the information unquashed.

It had to have been Pablo Orozco. No one else
hated
her.

This
wasn’t fair. She wanted to stand up
and scream
it
aloud, but she feared her voice would crack, and
then Pablo would
have won an even greater victory
over her.

“
Do you really think it’s Orozco?”
Martin
asked
,
sounding stunned.

Still unsure of
her voice, Christina nodded.

“
Who
else could it have been?” Gran demanded.”He’s the only truly evil
person around.”

Paul was gazing with fascination at Christina.
“Were you really
going to go to medical school,
Christina?”

She nodded
again.

“
My goodness, what a phenomenal woman
you
are, my dear. I admire you
tremendously, you know.”

She appreciated the tone of respect in Paul’s voice,
but it didn’t do her
any good. She murmure
d,
“Thanks, Paul,” then shut her
mouth
before
a sob
could
escape.

So suddenly that it made her jump, Martin knelt
beside her again.
His grip on her tightened.
“Christina, I’m going to take care of this.
Somehow.
I’ll
find some way to get this fixed.” He snatched
the telegram from the table and
shook it.

He sounded vehement. Christina loved him enough
to create a smile
for him, but her heart was in the
process of cracking in two, and she
couldn’t suppress
a bitter question. “How? You’ve already poured
enough Peerless
money into the Los
Angeles Police
Department to drown a man
.
If
that wasn’t enough,
what else can you do?”

He hesitated for a moment. “I don’t know yet, but
I’ll think of
something.”

She didn’t believe him
.
Not that she didn’t
believe
him
,
exactly,
but she didn’t believe he could help
her at this
point. That miserable congregation of black crows
calling itself the
regents of Los Angeles University
had positively hated having to admit her
to
their
precious
medical school. They’d tried every way they
could think of to
keep her out, and hadn’t succeeded.
And now Pablo Orozco, who was peeved
because
she’d
rejected his slitherous advances, had killed any
chance she’d ever
have of achieving the only goal
she’d ever aimed for in her life. Until
she’d met Martin.

But however much she loved Martin, she knew
there’d be a hole in
her life forever if she failed to
get her medical degree. Not even Martin’s
love could
fill it.

Martin sat with a thump, lifted his water glass,
and drained it “I’ll
do something,” he said “I will,
Christina. Try not to lose
heart
.
”

She figured her smile had gone lopsided when she
said, “Too late for
that, I’m afraid.”

“
The man’s a toad,” Gran grumbled. “He
ought
to be shot.”

“
Or at least hit with a cane,” Christina said,
trying
for a light note. When she saw a
militant gleam come
into her
grandmother’s eyes, she put a restraining
hand over her
grandmother’s and hastened to say,
“I
didn’t
mean it, Gran. If you hit him again, he might
do something even worse than
this.”

“
What
could be worse than this?” Gran asked.

Christina didn’t know, so she didn’t answer.

“
Well, upon my word,” said Paul, who was
generally
eloquent and eschewed clichés. “I never liked
Orozco, but I didn’t
think he’d deliberately try to
sabotage someone’s career.”

“
I guess now we all know
.
”
Christina sucked in a
deep breath, reached for her napkin, flapped it
open,
and
spread it across her lap. “Here comes
our
lunch
.
I suppose we all still have to
eat.”

She wouldn’t allow Pablo Orozco’s treachery to
send her into a
melancholy. She wouldn’t give him
the satisfaction of knowing
he’d dumped her
straight
into
a mind-numbing,
stomach-churning, gut-wrenching
depression. She’d eat every single
spoonful of her
cucumber soup and bread and butter, even if she had
to go to her room
and regurgitate it all after lunch.

Damn Pablo
Orozco. Damn him to hell.

“
I know you’re upset, Christina, but try not
to
worry yet.”

Martin’s voice edged past the fury, pain, and panic
in her heart. She
glanced at him sharply. Try not to
worry? Who was he kidding? Her life had
just been
hit
by a freight train and demolished.

Yet she knew he loved her and meant his words
to soothe
her.
She tried to smile, but wasn’t sure how
successful her
attempt turned out. “Thanks, Martin.
I’ll try.”

She knew he didn’t believe her when he shook his
head. He looked
terribly worried, but at least he
wasn’t pulling on his hair.
Yet.

He reached for her hand and squeezed it again.
“Listen, darling,
we’ve still got that last scene to
film. We’ll do it tomorrow. Then, before I
start editing
Egyptian Idyll
, I’ll get to work on your problem.
I’ll take care of it
somehow. Believe me.”