Love Play by Rosemary Rogers (5 page)

Time seemed to rush by in undulating waves of light and colour and heat.
Sara wasn't conscious of herself as herself any longer, although she supposed
afterwards that she must have done everything she was supposed to do, even to
responding to a kiss that was hardly make-believe as it forced her lips apart,
bruising them against her teeth and stiflig her instinctive, protesting murmur.
When she blinked herself back to reality it was to face Garon's quizzical look
- those blue eyes of his seemed to see right through the thin silk of her shirt
to discover her rapidly pounding heart.

With shaking fingers, Sara began to do up her buttons, hoping he
wouldn't notice. God, he'd only left one button undone!

'Well!' he said half under his breath with his eyes still intent on her
damp, flushed face. 'Maybe we could replay that one later, with a few changes?
I'll call you, baby.'

'Sure!' she said too quickly, hoping she'd sounded light enough. Of
course he didn't mean it - and anyway he didn't have her number. But she'd been
well and truly kissed by Garon Hunt - no wonder women were crazy about him!

People were milling around now, and Garon had disappeared. Sara was
relieved when Lew came up to lead her off with him.
      

'You were just great, kid! This part could be the start of a whole new
career for you, if you wanted it that way.'

'Mr Hunt - Garon - made it easy for me ..."

Sara found herself responding mechanically, knowing she should sound
more excited. But all she wanted to do was to hide away somewhere alone so that
she could examine her feelings. Suppose Garon did manage to discover her number
and call - what would she do then? She hadn't been kissed too many times
before, and this kjss had certainly been different! She still felt weak in the
knees. And - oh, darn, he thought she was Delight, of course. Did he think . .
.

'Delight, I want you to meet Sally Lockwood. She's an old friend of
Mona's.'

Oh, God! Garon's wife! Sara hoped she hadn't blushed guiltily.

'You were very good, honey. I'm glad you didn't let Garon bully you!'

'Oh
 
thank you! I was hoping my
bad case of nerves wouldn't show.'

Sally Lockwood had a lovely smile; one that reached her eyes.

'We all have to cope with that, I guess! My hands always get ice cold
just before I have to face the cameras, and I've been known to forget my
lines.'

'Not too damn often! Hi, Sally - Lew
   
and . . .?'

'This is Delight Adams. Paul Drury, our executive producer. Paul
darling, what bringsyou out here this early?'

The thickset, burly man with black curly hair looked like an ex-football
player and probably was. He acknowledged Sara's presence with a nod and a
curious, somehow sharp look before he bent over the back of Sally's chair to
kiss her cheek.

'Money — what else? This picture is running over budget, and I thought
I'd remind Garon of that - and reintroduce him to an old friend who's willing
to invest a couple of million more in Mohavet so we can afford to go on
location for those chase scenes after all.'

'That's wonderful, Paul! And it's going to put Garon in a good mood too
- maybe I'll get my diamond ear-rings in the end!'

Feeling like an intruder, and with reaction already setting in, Sara
signalled to Lew with a small wave of her hand as she started to move away.

'Hey! Not so fast, Miss Adams!'

She hadn't imagined that Paul Drury had really noticed her at all, from
the casual nod of his head a few minutes earlier. But suddenly his eyes and the
eyes of all the others were on her; and Sara felt the tell-tale colour stain
her cheeks.

'The friend I was talking about - he wants to meet you. Quite a fan!'

'Oh?' Tongue-tied. Now she really understood what it meant. 'Well.. .'

Sara looked towards Lew, but he wasn't concerned with her; all his
attention seemed concentrated on Sally Lockwood.

How would Delight have reacted? Having to be someone else made it easier
somehow. Sara's head went back, and in a remembered gesture she ran impatient
fingers through her hair, pushing it away from her face as she fished an
impudent, challenging smile.

'Well - why not? Who is he, this friend of yours? I should be extra nice
to him, shouldn't I, especially if he's going to invest money in our movie?'

Paul Drury's eyes flickered over her assessingly while Sara held the
smile. A good thing he couldn't read her mind. And if his old friend was
anything like him . . .

'He's very rich, Miss Adams. And he'd like to take you to

dinner - that is, if you're not already tied up.'

 
She definitely didn't like Paul
Drury, Sara decided. And she probably wouldn't like his rich friend
either.
 
But Delight would accept such an
invitation and as long as she was playing Delight . . .

'As a matter of fact, all I'd planned on was washing my hair. But, . .'

'Garon was talking about expanding your part. You know - giving you more
dialogue, more action. And I guess we can afford extra footage now that we have
the financing. I'll talk to Lew about it, shall I? And about dinner -_ will
eight o'clock suit you? My wife and I could pick you up.'

It was all she could do not to raise her eyebrows. She was being invited
to a respectable dinner? Maybe she had Paul Drury figured all wrong. And if she
hadn't - it would srill be a pleasure to prove to them all that Delight Adams
wasn't everybody's one-night stand!

Sara smiled demurely. 'That would be very nice of you, Mr Drury. My ...
my car's in the shop right now.'

As she gave him her address she was thinking, almost panic-stricken,
that never, never would she be able to find her way about Los Angeles - let
alone drive with careless confidence in the heavy rush hour traffic. Delight
had left her little VW behind, but as far as Sara was concerned it could sit in
the garage forever!

There was a different limousine with a different driver to take her home
this time - an older man with greying hair who hardly said a word to her except
to ask for her address. Sara settled back against the padded velour seat with a
sigh, stretching her feet out ahead of her, feeling thankful for the footrest.
Thank God for air conditioning and soft music! She found a classical station on
FM and consciously willed herself to relax; wishing now that she hadn't agreed
to go to dinner tonight. This morning had been enough of an ordeal - why had
she willingly volunteered for more punishment?

But you can act, Sara! They all said you were good, didn't they? Even
Garon Hunt. . .

The thought made her sit a little straighter, remembering the way he had
kissed her as if he had really meant it - the way those bright-blue eyes of his
had looked at her as if... as if he'd wanted to kiss her again and not stop at
that!

Ever since she had been a lonely little girl in a big house, missing her
warm, frivolous, perfumed mother, Sara had been in the habit of carrying on a
kind of dialogue with herself in her mind. Now she warned herself sternly: He's
a married man, remember that, you imbecile! And you're not a teenager with a
crush on him any longer, either. Kisses, even ones like that, don't mean
anything any more, and especially not to someone like Garon Hunt, who could
have any woman in the world he really wanted. Better stop thinking along those
lines if you know what's good for you!

The inside of the small apartment was hot and muggy, and Sara hastened
to open the glass doors that led to her tiny
 
terrace — but the air out there wasn't much cooler. Los Angeles was
blanketed in a pinkish haze that made the distant mountains seem blurred and
unreal. Traffic noises seemed magnified as they floated upward, and someone
next door was playing one of the current disco numbers with the bass turned up
so that it seemed to pound rhythmically against her temples.

Retreating indoors
 
again, Sara
turned up the air conditioner and took off her clothes, luxuriating in the
feeling of freedom it gave her body as she stretched. How wonderful it would
feel right now to walk around naked, reeling the rush of cold air against her
skin! But she wasn't really Delight and not quite as uninhibited yet, so she
compromised on a pair of very brief denim shorts and a bare-midriff halter top
that actually belonged to her sister.

Paul Drury and his wife would be coming to pick her up at eight for a
late dinner, which gave her a few hours in which to unwind and read the
newspapers. Why didn't Delight have any books? There were only magazines, none
of
 
them current.

Pouring herself an ice-cold Perrier with a squeeze of lemon, Sara curled
up on the couch and took stock of her surroundings and her circumstances while
she tried to push away the rapidly growing feeling that she had bitten off much
more than she could chew. There was no getting away from the fact that she and
Delight were very different in their tastes and attitudes. How long would she
be able to keep up this ridiculous masquerade?

Chapter 5

Sara had developed a slight headache and no answer to her dilemma by the
time the electronic buzzer sounded. Damn that silly squawk box anyhow! She
still hadn't quite figured out which button to press!

The voice that answered Sara's tentative 'hello?' sounded harsh and
unrecognisable, and she had to repeat herself before she could make any sense
of what he was saying. It sounded like one of those ancient radios that kept
cutting on and off amid crackling atmospherics.

'Miss Adams? Paul Drury . . . me to pick you up.'

His chauffeur? Another studio limo?

'I'll be right down!' Sara shouted into the box, feeling herself
bristle. Paul Drury had better have his wife with him!

She paused to glance at herself in the mirror one more time before she
dimmed the lights. Lots of make-up of course, but not too garish. A
spaghetti-strap Calvin Klein dress in a flower-patterned silk that came to just
below the knee. Huge Elsa Peretti hearts in her ears, and a matching one on a
thin gold chain around her neck. Very high-heeled shoes - she'd be lucky if she
didn't break her neck!

Delight hadn't said anything about clothes, and as she slung the thin strap
of her small Louis Vuitton disco purse from her shoulder, Sara hoped she wasn't
overdoing it. But Delight did wear nice clothes and jewellery, particularly in
the evenings or when they went to places like Regine's in New York. Whatever Mr
Drury - or his wife - expected, she hoped they were going to be pleasantly
surprised.

The lobby of the apartment building was small and unprepossessing, with
its drooping potted plants and ugly chairs arranged stiltedly around a
Formica-topped table. The tall man who stood there had been leafing through the
pages of an old magazine, which he dropped carelessly as Sara emerged from the
elevator.

Not someone's chauffeur, for certain! The rich friend of Paul Drury?
Sara's thoughts became quite jumbled as she looked into a pair of coal-dark
eyes that seemed to burn into hers. He certainly wasn't American - at least he
wasn't like my American she had met so far. The suit he wore with casual
elegance had obviously been tailored for him to fit in all the right places
without being too tight. His hair was night-black and somewhat curly; neither
too short nor too long. But taking away from his obvious good looks there
was
 
an unrelenting harshness about the
planes of his darkly tanned face - the arrogant curve of his nostrils, and even
the accented voice that said pointedly: 'There is no doorman on
 
duty here, Miss Adams? That is not safe in a
city such as this, surely?'

Sara had been staring at him, unable to help herself, when his words
jerked her back to reality - and her role.

'It's perfectly safe - why shouldn't it be? You couldn't have got as far
as this if I hadn't unlocked the front door from upstairs. And you did mention
that Paul Drury had sent you . . .'

He was the kind of insufferably arrogant man who, of course, did not
believe in compromise. She saw it in the lifted black eyebrow, even while she
was noticing, helplessly, that he had a slight cleft in his chin.

'I suppose I am forgetting that you American women are all very
self-sufficient. Pardon me, Miss Adams! And yes, I told Paul that I would come
and drive you to the restaurant - his wife, Monique, is always late.'

It was anger at herself, especially for having gawked at him like a
love-struck teenager, that made Sara snap back: 'I do hope that doesn't mean
that Mr and Mrs Drury will not be there? After all Mr - '

She was sorry after the words had slipped out; seeing the lightening of
the muscles in that hard, implacable face. Something flamed out of his eyes at
her that made her want to flinch away before they became as stonily opaque as
chips of obsidian.

'So, Miss Adams, you are concerned that we have not been formally
introduced?' The deceptive softness of his voice reminded Sara of the velvet
paw-pat of a great cat before its claws sprang out for the kill. 'But you see,
since Paul told me you had agreed to meet me at dinner, I naturally took it for
granted that you had no objections to meeting a stranger who happens to be an
admirer ... of your talents. However — please allow me to introduce myself- I
am the Duca di Cavalieri.'

His formal bow as he kissed Sara's nerveless hand was altogether
correct, but his lips seemed to burn like fire against her cold skin, so that
it was all she could do not to snatch it away from him gracelessly.

He had left her speechless, and as if he fully realised and relished her
discomfiture he smiled - a mere pulling upwards of his lips that could also
have been a sneer. 'You are obviously Miss Delight Adams, yes? And since this
is America, where people are not as formal as they are in Europe, you may call
me Riccardo - if I may be permitted to call you Delight? Such an unusual name -
like a promise...'