Her Leading Man (53 page)

Martin politely opened the
door so that the two
Mayhew ladies could enter the
building before him
.
Christina had no sooner set foot
in the doorway of
the lobby than she stopped dead in her tracks.

There, smirking at her, looking superior and smug,
his arm still in a
cast and the bandage white on his
head, stood Pablo Orozco.

She didn’t know what to do. She wanted to ignore
him. She also wanted
to scream at him and then
shoot him
.
Instead, she stood
as if she’d been turned
to stone, frozen with surprise, and didn’t say a
word.

Grandmother Mayhew wasn’t so burdened. She
took one look at the
actor and spat out, “You miserable
villain!”

“
What? What’s the matter?” Martin, who
hadn’t
yet spotted Orozco, hurried inside the resort,
almost
bumping into Christina, who couldn’t make herself
move to save
herself. “Good God.”

“
Why, if it isn’t the great Christina and her
dearly
beloved,” Orozco
said, sneering up
a storm
.

Mrs. Mayhew lifted her cane and made as if to
charge him The
threat of violence
jolted Christina
out of her stupor, and she grabbed her
grandmother’s
shoulder.

“
Don’t
do it, Gran. He’s not worth it.”

“
Did you get a telegram today, perhaps,
Christina
dear?” Still sneering, Orozco walked up to her and
bowed. “I understand
your precious school isn’t eager
to have criminals dirty their hallowed
halls. They
were quite interested in the story of your
own brush
with the
law
.
”

Martin, who had been standing behind Christina
with his hands on
her shoulders—probably to keep
her from lunging at her enemy, although she
hadn’t
even considered doing such a thing—dropped
his
hands,
and stepped away from Christina. In a voice
the likes of which Christina had
never heard issue
from his beloved throat, he snarled, “If you weren’t
a cripple, Orozco,
I’d flatten you here and now.”

“
Nonsense,” the movie star said, although he
did
back up a couple of paces. “Then you’d be arrested,
too. Maybe you two
could share a cell.” He laughed.

The sound was ugly and seemed to smear the
warm desert air with
muck. Christina discovered her
mouth twisting in distaste. Although she didn’t
dare
release
her grandmother for fear of what Gran might
do to Orozco, she said, “Get out of
our way, Pablo.”

“
Gladly.” He swept another bow and stepped aside.

“
Let me go, Christina.” Mrs. Mayhew
spoke
through tightly clenched teeth. “Let me hit him just
once.”

“
He’s
not worth it, Gran.”

“
That’s so,” agreed Martin, his voice dripping
with
contempt. “He’s a worm.”

“
Not to mention a damned coward,” Gran
said,
adding icing to her cake of scorn and heaving it at
Orozco.

The actor didn’t like being spoken of with such
disrespect.
Christina was pleased to see his face
darken as he flushed in anger and
embarrassment.
Lifting her chin, she started walking away from
him
.

After she changed for dinner, she aimed to order
the most lavish meal
in the hotel’s restaurant. So what
if she still felt sick from lunch? She’d
show this snake
that he couldn’t ruin her.
Her intentions were thwarted when
Orozco
grabbed her arm and jerked her around. “Oh, so I’m
a worm, am I? You
bitch!”

Shock and fury flooded Christina so suddenly that
she reeled slightly
from the force of it Then,
unable
to keep from
defending herself in the only way her
body could think of on the spur of the
moment, she
balled up her right fist and socked Pablo Orozco in
the face.

The actor uttered a strangled cry, staggered
backward,
bumped into a table, knocked over a lamp, and
fell to the floor
with a crash, landing flat on his back
and whacking the back of his head
against a chair
leg. As soon as he hit the floor, he let out another
cry, having smacked
his broken arm on the way
down.

The knuckles on Christina’s right hand felt as if
they’d been crushed.
Pablo Orozco had a very hard
chin. She shook her hand and muttered,
“Ow.”

“
My
goodness
.” Martin stared at the human heap on
the floor.

“
I’ll sue you!” Orozco shouted at the top of
his
lungs. He was gripping his wounded arm with his
good hand, and his
face had changed from a dull
red to a bright crimson. “I’ll sue you for every
penny
you
have! I’ll ruin you! You’ll never work
in pictures
again!”

“
Shut
up, Pablo.”

Christina, whose head had suddenly flooded with
all sorts of sorry
scenarios, most of which included
her in manacles and leg irons standing in
front of a
black-clad judge who bore an amazing resemblance
to one of the
university’s regents,
whipped her head
around and stared at Martin. He’d
sounded
frightening
when he’d spoken to Orozco before. Now he
sounded positively
deadly

He stalked over to the fallen actor, reached down,
grabbed the front of
his shirt, and yanked him to his
feet. Orozco’s eyes bugged, and his chin
trembled.

“
Shut the hell up right now, Orozco.
Don’t say
another word unless you want me to punch you. And
I’m stronger than
Christina, damn you.”

“
You wouldn’t d dare!” sputtered Orozco,
who
had gone pale and shaky.

“
Don’t bet on it. If you don’t leave
Christina
alone—and I mean it—you’ll never work in another
moving picture. I’ll
see to it that neither Peerless nor
any other studio
in the United States will hire
you.
And if
you think I’m fooling, file that lawsuit you
just threatened. I’ll see you
begging on the streets if
you try it.”

Struggling wildly to get away, but out
-
powered
by
Martin,
Orozco blurted out, “You wouldn’t! You
couldn’t!”

Martin leaned so close, the two men were almost
nose to nose for a
second. “Try me.” He released
the actor suddenly, surprising Orozco and
sending
him
lurching backward into a chair, which he grabbed
with his free hand.
The tactic only brought the chair
toppling over with him when he found
himself on
the floor once more
.

Taking further advantage of an opportunity, Martin
stomped over to the
sprawled form and straddled it.
“And another thing, damn you. If you so
much as
speak
to Christina again, you’re through. Do you understand
me?”

The actor stared up at the producer-director, his
eyes huge with
fright. Christina stared at the two men
with her hands pressed to her flaming
cheeks, wondering
if she should interfere.

But, no. This was too precious a moment to spoil.
Nobody—
nobody
—had ever played the role of her
champion before this. She discovered
the feeling to
be quite satisfying and decided to savor the
scene.

“
Sock
the bastard!”

Christina turned to discover Gran, eyes bright,
cane
held aloft, cheering Martin on. She even
waved
h
er
cane in the air. Fearing she might decide to join in
the fray, Christina
put a hand on her arm.

“
Kick
him!” Mrs. Mayhew shouted next.

“
Gran, cut it out.” Even Christina could hear
the
lack
of conviction in her
voice
. If she were to speak
the truth aloud, she’d have joined
her grandmother
in encouraging Martin to do further violence to her
foe.

“
No!”
shrieked Orozco.

“
Don’t worry,” Martin said in the same
deadly
voice. “I won’t hurt you anymore. But I wouldn’t
advise you to forget
my warning, Orozco. I’m a powerful
force in the motion picture
industry—much
more powerful than you, you son of a bitch. If you
don’t believe me
now, you will if you do anything—anything at all—to Christina
again. If you so much
as wish her a good morning, you’ll be through
in
pictures.
Do you understand me?”

Orozco didn’t answer. Martin leaned over and said,
“
Answer
me, damn you! Do you understand
me?”

“
Y
-
yes,”
the actor whimpered.

“
Then get the hell out of here. Now. We
don’t
need you any longer. I’ll have the last scene shot
without you. I want
you gone from the set today,
before night falls. Do you understand
that?”

“
Y
-
yes.”

With a look so scathing it would have crushed
Christina had it
been aimed at her, Martin straightened.
“Good.” And he turned on his heel and
stalked
back
to Christina and Mrs. Mayhew, leaving Orozco
on the floor with the chair on
top of him.

“
Good job, young man! And none too
soon,
either,” Gran said
.

Christina could scarcely believe her eyes when her
grandmother actually
reached out and shook Martin’s
hand. She’d never seen Gran commit so overtly
approving a gesture.

After he allowed his hand to be shaken, Martin
pressed the same
hand over his eyes for only a second.
“I can’t believe I did that,” he muttered
as
he
hooked his arm through Christina’s.

“
You were wonderful,” Christina told him,
glowing
with pride. She might not get to go to medical
school,
but
at least Martin was willing to stand up for her.
Who knew? Maybe he
could do something to change
the regents’ minds
.
She guessed her life
wasn’t a complete loss. Not
if Martin remained in i
t.

“
Oh, my!” She stopped walking abruptly,
a
thought having walloped her much as she
had
just
walloped Pablo Orozco.

“
What’s
the matter?”

She was sorry to see that her exclamation had
worried
Martin, and she rushed to placate him
“
I’m
sorry, Martin. But
. . .
well
,
I just realized there’s no
need for us
not
to get
married now.” She shrugged.
“I mean, since I can’t go to medical school
anyway,
there’s nothing to stop us.”

“
Married?” Gran stared at the two of them as
if
she’d only just then realized
they
were both insane.
“You’re going to ge
t
married?”

The note of disapproval in the old lady’s voice
made Christina grin.
It didn’t have the same effect
on Martin, who still seemed to be struggling
with
some
residual anger. He snapped harshly
at Mrs.
Mayhew
,
“Wha
t
’s the
matter with that?”