One Night With You (11 page)

"Pretend," she could hear Eldin saying. "Pretend if he does." Easy for Eldin to say!

Jake was standing with his back to the rest of the room, close enough so that she only had to lift her hand to touch him. As close as he had stood that night at the hotel when she had been so uncertain and his hands had reached out to cup her breasts....
No, don't think of that! That's over! Finished!

She felt his hand close around her arm and her eyes flew up to his face. "What did she mean by that?" he demanded. "What have you been telling her?"

Desi still couldn't understand why he was so angry and, besides, she was beginning to get angry herself now. Any minute, she thought, she would explode into a rage, despite all the other people in the room.

The trouble was, she hadn't expected this level of emotional reaction from him. Men like him—men used to lots of women—didn't usually waste any emotion on their casual bedmates. And that's what she had been, she told herself, just a casual bedmate. A woman he had picked up. A groupie.

She had expected indifference from him, if he remembered her at all. Or, possibly, even contempt for what he would consider her promiscuity, unfair as that would be. Neither of those emotions would have really surprised her. But this hot, harsh anger, the... the pain that lay hidden in the back of his eyes. Why?

"I don't know what you mean, Jake," she said softly, not realizing how naturally his name came to her lips. "I haven't been telling her anything—"

Her words were cut off as he shook her, his powerful hand around her upper arm, so that her fingers nearly slipped from the champagne glass she was holding.

"Jake, stop it," she ordered. Her eyes darted around the room, but no one was paying any attention to them. From the back, she realized suddenly, it must look as if she and Jake were just having a friendly, private conversation.

"You can stop looking for your lover to help you. He's busy with Melanie, the script girl."

"My lover?" Desi echoed blankly, staring up into Jake's face. Her eyes were wide and puzzled, but her body tensed with an unwilling sort of excitement. Dorothea had been right. Jake in a rage was magnificent; his jaw tight, his eyes flashing warning sparks at her. Scary, but magnificent.

"Don't play innocent with me, Desiree." His voice made a mockery of her name. "You know who I mean. Eldin Prince, your lover."

"Eldin? My lover?" she whispered incredulously. "You're crazy." But he seemed not to have heard her.

"That's how you got this job, isn't it?" he said almost conversationally, except for that faint hint of suppressed...something in his voice. She couldn't quite put a name to the emotion that he seemed to be struggling so hard to hide from her.

Desi yanked her arm from his grasp, backing as far away from him as she could. The makeup table came up against the back of her hips, stopping her. "I got my job strictly on my talents," she told him indignantly.

"Oh, I know all about your talents." He moved forward, trapping her against the makeup table, one hand on either side of her body. "Very fine talents they are, too. And I should know, shouldn't I?"

His voice was as bland as if he was asking her opinion of a book she'd read or a movie she'd seen, but his eyes were hard and cold. She had never thought to see him look at her like that. She had not thought that his beautiful eyes could be so icy.

Desi's skin flushed a fiery red. Not with embarrassment or fear or even with pain at his harsh, unfair judgment of her—but with anger, sudden explosive anger that matched his. How dare he?

"You bastard," she swore at him through clenched teeth, lifting her hand as if to hit him.

He straightened, his hand coming up to block hers, and, suddenly, her wrist was swallowed in his firm grasp. "I have one thing to say to you, Desiree, and you'd better listen good. This film is important to me. Very important. Is that clear?"

She nodded slowly. Yes, she knew it was important to him. It would be important to anybody in his position. This film, if it was successful, would prove that Jake Lancing was more than a just pretty face. It would make him a power to be reckoned with in the movie industry. But she wondered what that had to do with her.

"Is that clear?" he repeated when she didn't answer.

"Yes." She pulled her wrist out of his grasp. "It's clear." Her blue eyes were mutinous and hurt and angry all at the same time as she glared up at him. "So what?"

She saw his eyes blaze at her words. "I'll tell you what," he said through clenched teeth. "Eldin may or may not be your lover—"

"He isn't," she denied again.

"It's immaterial to me one way or the other. Unimportant." He dismissed Eldin with a wave of his hand. "What
is
important is this film. I won't let anything stand in my way. Not personalities, not emotions. Nothing." He seemed almost, she thought, to be talking to himself instead of her. That notion, however, was dispelled with his next words. "Certainly not some scheming little groupie."

Scheming little groupie! How dare he call her that? She forgot, in that charged instant, that she had called herself that very name. How dare he pass judgment on her, she thought indignantly. He had been there in that hotel room, too.

"And if I find out that your so-called artistic talent is lacking in any way," he went on, seemingly unaware of her seething anger, "I'll fire you so fast your head will spin."

"I'm a fully qualified makeup artist," she flung at him, stung by his slur on her qualifications.

She had been fighting that kind of innuendo for most of her professional life.
So-called artistic talent!
If makeup wasn't a talent, then what was it? How did he think he would look in front of the cameras without her so-called talent?

"Fully qualified," she said again. "You can check my references if—"

She broke off abruptly, her eyes caught in the dark web of his gaze. They stared at each other for seemingly endless seconds, both pairs of eyes full of unasked questions. He made a half gesture with his hand, as if he was reaching to touch her face. Her lips, soft and trembling, started to silently form his name.

"Damn it." The words were softly spoken but forceful, full of suppressed emotion. He dropped his hand and walked away from her. Desi watched him glance around the room.

Like a...a hunter seeking prey, she thought.

He dropped his arm over the shoulders of a woman, one of the lighting technicians, and steered her toward the refreshment table. Dorothea looked up as they approached, and then her sharp black eyes flickered questioningly over to Desi.

Desi straightened, pulling away from the makeup table, and forced herself to smile at Dorothea, holding up one hand, thumb and forefinger circled, to indicate that everything was okay.

But she was far from okay. She was literally trembling with reaction, so much so that the empty glass shook in her hands. There was anger, first and foremost, anger that he would even dare to think, let alone say, what he had.

As if Eldin would hire her for the reason he had suggested. As if she and Eldin... He was disgusting, that's what he was, disgusting to suggest that she could even look at Eldin in that way. Eldin was one of her closest friends and, besides, he was old enough to be her father.

Still trembling, she placed her empty glass on the makeup table before she could give in to the urge to walk over and break it on Jake's head. In the mirror, she saw Dorothea look over at her again and then approach Eldin. He looked over at her, too, a worried frown on his face, and began to move toward her.

She had to get out of here, quickly. The one thing she couldn't take right now was any sympathy or concern from Eldin. The only thing holding her together was her anger and if Eldin started talking to her, dispersing that anger, she would fall apart, ending up in the crumbled heap on the floor at his feet. She picked up her satchel, heading for the door.

"Are you all right, luv?" he asked, intercepting her.

"Fine, Eldin, really." She smiled up at him a shade too brightly. "I just want to get back to the hotel and call my mother. See how Stephanie's doing. It's the first time I've been away from her overnight," she admitted. "I think it's harder on me than it is on her."

"You're sure you're okay?" Eldin insisted. "Jake didn't say anything to upset you, did he?"

"Him? No, of course not," she lied. "Just a few lewd suggestions. Harmless." She knew what Eldin would infer from that. He would think that Jake had made a pass at her, but it was better than his knowing what disgusting things he
had
said.

Eldin's forehead creased in a frown. "I've never known Jake to be lewd," he began and then stopped, realizing that she was in no condition to stand there and listen to him tell her what a fine man Jake really was. She looked, he thought, perilously close to breaking.

He patted her shoulder a trifle awkwardly, unable to offer any other sort of comfort. "See you at the hotel then." His lips touched her cheek briefly. "Drive carefully, luv, you know what these L.A. freeways are."

Desi nodded, unable to speak past the lump that was forming in her throat. She reached up to hug him fiercely for a second. "Thanks, Eldin. I will."

The last thing she saw as she hurried out was Jake's disapproving glare. For her, she wondered, or Eldin... or both of them?

Chapter 6

It had been an exciting, exhausting month for Desi, and for everyone else on the crew, too. The actors and the dozens of technicians and craftspeople needed for the movie had spent the first six weeks shooting as many scenes as possible in a big studio in Los Angeles. And now they were in San Francisco, doing location shots, and then it would be on to Sonoma where the bulk of the filming would take place. They would be using Dorothea's sprawling mansion and the surrounding vineyards, shooting in the very same house that Richard Heller had brought his bride to some sixty-odd years ago.

They were all driven relentlessly by Jake, who was the director as well as the producer and male lead of
Devil's Lady
. Somehow it did not at all surprise Desi to find that out. She had already half known it. He wanted everything perfect, everything exactly right and that meant, to him, doing it himself. Or as much of it himself as he could.

Jake had put up almost everything he owned to be able to make this picture—his reputation, his money, his talent—and there were people out there who were just waiting for the chance to pounce on his first mistake. To say "See, Jake Lancing's nothing but a pretty-boy actor. He should have stuck to acting."

But he would prove them wrong. Desi knew that already.
Devil's Lady
was going to be a blockbuster box-office smash. It had everything—sizzling romance, adventure, glamour, suspense—and Jake Lancing. His portrayal of Richard Heller was a masterpiece, and it would probably win him another Oscar nomination. But it was his direction that would make this picture great. He had a quick, sure sense of just how it should be shot, and he was able to convey this sense to the people under his direction with uncanny accuracy and breathtaking results.

The whole crew worked extra hard for him, willingly doing take after take to give him what he wanted. The actors, the technicians, the wardrobe and makeup people, the stuntmen; they gave him their all because that's what he gave back to them. They worked hard, long hours because they all seemed to know, instinctively, that it was going to be worth it. Jake made them believe that. He made them feel a part of something great, something magic.

Even Audrey Ferris worked hard for him. The role of Dorothea Heller was going to raise her from the level of a soap-opera queen to that of major-motion-picture star. Audrey knew it and was taking no chances.

Much as she hated to admit it, Desi knew that to be true, and she wholeheartedly admired and respected the way Audrey transformed herself into the young Dorothea Heller when Jake shouted "Action".

She still didn't like Audrey personally. She tried to tell herself it was because Audrey was unfriendly toward
her
—and perhaps that was partially true. But the real reason, whether she could admit it or not, was jealousy. Jealousy because Jake spent so much time of his time with the beautiful actress; coaching her in her part, explaining her character's motivations, rehearsing her. And the love scenes... each time Jake took Audrey in his arms Desi had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Desi stood now, half leaning against the back of Dorothea's high canvas chair, holding a big black umbrella over both of them as she watched Audrey play out a scene with Michael Ballard as Tony. Jake seemed to hover around them as they enacted the scene, the lines of his lean body tense under the faded denim work shirt that he wore. Without actually moving, he gave the impression of circling the pair, encouraging, commanding and, in some way, of protecting them from the distractions of the crowd.

For, despite the cold drizzle and the brisk wind whipping up off the Bay, Fisherman's Wharf was crowded with curious onlookers. Tourists and locals alike pressed up against the police barricades to watch what was going on. But neither Audrey nor Michael, nor especially Jake, seemed to notice.