Superstar (39 page)

"Who sent the
clippings?"

"You can guess
that, can't you? Birdie's revenge."

"What did you
do to him?"

He eyed her.
"What makes you think I did anything to him?"

"I know
you."

He smiled that
slight, crooked, famous smile. "I turned him in to the police. He's
going on trial for drug dealing."

She gathered
her reins and mounted the grey gelding. Mark came over and held the
horse's head. "Where are you going?"

"Home."

He looked up
at her, his eyes aglow in the sunlight. "Are you going to tell me
where you live?"

"If I don't,
you won't let go of the horse, will you?"

"Nope."

When she had
given him directions to her farm, he nodded.

"I'll bring
the letters."

"You do
that."

Carrin turned
Smoke's head and urged him from the copse, glancing back once. Mark
stood holding the black horse as he watched her ride away. She
kicked Smoke into a canter, eager to leave him behind. Her emotions
were a mess. She knew, deep down, that Mark was telling the truth,
and the more she trusted him, the more she regretted her past
suspicions.

After two
months of misery, she needed time to let this sudden turn of events
sink in. A terrible guilt plagued her; for hitting him, running
away, and almost crashing his car. She regretted the pain that she
had caused him. Why did he still want to have anything to do with
her? How could she bear to see the tenderness in his eyes, when she
did not deserve it?

At the same
time, immense elation suffused her. He had searched her out to
explain his past mistake. Carrin wanted to laugh and cry at the
same time, and on the ride home, she did. There was a new bounce in
her step as she walked to the house after unsaddling Smoke and
letting him out to graze with the other horses. Noticing the state
that her home was in, she panicked, not knowing where to start. The
dirty dishes in the sink or the clothes strewn all over the
bedroom? How much time did she have? Opting for the dirty dishes,
she washed them and put them in the cupboards still wet, then wiped
the counters. She flew through the rest of the house with a duster,
gathered up the clothes in the bedroom and had started sweeping the
floor when the low hum of a car told her Mark had arrived.

Running into
the bedroom, she dragged a brush through her hair, glad that it was
short. She glanced down at the riding slacks and T-shirt she still
wore, but it was too late to change now. The front door was open,
and she reached it as Mark climbed out of a sleek white Mercedes.
He had not changed his clothes either, and Carrin looked away as he
climbed the steps onto the veranda, inviting him in with a gesture.
He looked around at the lounge and settled in a chair.

"Would you
like something to drink?" she asked.

It was strange
to have Mark Lord, superstar, in her humble sitting room. He made
everything look cheap, even though he was not dressed all that
smartly. The air of quality about him, or simply the way he carried
himself, put everything else to shame.

Mark shook his
head. "No thanks."

Carrin
perched on the sofa, studying her callused hands. Mark took an
envelope from his pocket and handed it to her, and she pulled out
some crumpled letters, glancing through them. There was no need to
read them, the words, written in a childish scrawl, leapt out at
her. That Alisha had hated Mark was quite obvious. She had hated
the child too, and wanted only money and drugs. Most of the text
was threatening, the remainder insulting or reproachful. Carrin got
the impression of a selfish, desperate girl with no self-respect or
gratitude. She stuffed the letters back into the envelope and
tossed them on the coffee table.

She could not
bear to look at him, the guilt was too great.

"Convinced?"
he inquired.

Carrin nodded,
struggling to control the guilt and shame that threatened to
overwhelm her. She wanted to beg his forgiveness, but was unable to
speak past the lump in her throat. He had every right to reproach
her for not giving him the chance to explain, and for believing
that the magazine clippings told the whole story. She should have
known better than to believe anything she read in the press. He
waited, and she screwed up her courage, raising her head at last to
look at him.

"I'm
sorry."

Mark smiled
crookedly and rose to join her on the sofa, where he put an arm
around her and pulled her close. She turned and clung to him as the
pent-up misery of the past two months, mixed with the enormous
guilt, poured out in a flood of tears. His arms tightened.

"It's okay.
Please don't cry."

That only made
it worse, and he gave up with a sigh and held her while she wept it
all out. When at last her tears dried, there was a damp patch on
his shirt. She plucked at it.

"You're all
wet."

"I
noticed."

She shot him a
guilty glance. "Sorry."

"I have a dry
one in the car."

Carrin jumped
up and fled to the bathroom to wash her face and blow her nose.
When she returned, Mark had donned a clean black shirt. He sat on
the sofa, but she was shy again and headed for a chair.

He smiled.
"Come here."

She joined
him, and he dug in his pocket. "You left something behind."

Taking her
engagement ring from the box, he slipped it onto her finger again,
then turned her hand over and examined it. She tried to tug it
away, but he held on, his fingers tracing the calluses on her
palm.

"You know,
when you took the Lotus, I was sure you were going to kill
yourself. I've never been so scared in all my life. When I found
you safe at the airport... I could have killed John, but you
tricked him. He wasn't very happy with you."

"Did I scratch
it?"

He looked up
at her, clearly startled. "What, the car?"

She
nodded.

"I don't care
if you'd totalled the damned thing, so long as you were safe. In
fact, I think I should get rid of it.”

"No, don't. I
like it."

"All right.
But don't ever drive like that again." He frowned. "And don't ever
do this to your hands again. You have beautiful hands."

She stared at
her hand, hardly able to believe her ears. No recriminations at
all? "What about, 'Don't ever believe the rubbish that you read in
magazines again’?"

He shrugged.
"That too. I should have told you, so I share the blame. Simon told
me to tell you, but I was afraid you wouldn't believe me. I would
have told you after we were married, once I felt secure."

Carrin gazed
at him, making no attempt to hide her feelings. Olivia was right;
he was the kindest, gentlest man in the world. She longed to tell
him how she felt. It was on the tip of her tongue when he looked
away and said, "Well, what's for supper? I'm starved."

Distracted,
she realised that there was hardly any food in the house. Mark saw
her expression and jumped to his feet.

"Come on,
let's go get something."

A trip through
a supermarket with Mark was an interesting experience, Carrin
found. He pushed the trolley cheerfully, as if he'd done it all his
life, making comments about products that had her in fits of
giggles, and greeted fellow shoppers with a smile. Twice, people
told him how much he looked like a certain actor, and he blithely
agreed that people made that mistake all the time. He did it in a
broad Scottish accent, however, which always made the people shake
their heads and tell him that no, the actor they were thinking of
was an American. Once he switched to a plummy English accent, and
claimed that the American actor in question was a 'dastardly
fellow, a roguish seducer of young girls and elderly women'.
Carrin's stomach ached from laughing by the time they left the
shop. He seemed bent on entertaining her, and she had to beg him to
stop before she was sick.

At the till,
he handed over an international credit card, and the checkout girl
goggled at the name on it. Mark held his finger to his lips and
winked at her, which made her blush and almost swallow her chewing
gum.

Back at
the farm, they had what Mark called a barbecue and Carrin called a
braai. Afterwards, he returned to his hotel, even though she wanted
him to stay, but could not find the courage to ask him.

The next
day, Mark went with Carrin to the York farm, where he was welcomed
into the family. Her mother treated him like another son, and Paul
was his usual quiet self. Julia disappeared soon after Mark
arrived, and returned clad in her best clothes and plastered with
make-up. Carrin found her sister-in-law's flirting amusing and
embarrassing, though Mark took it in his stride. When Carrin told
him how much her brother wanted the children that Julia would not
give him, Mark soon found an opportunity to tell Julia how much he
liked children, and how motherhood was such a wonderful and
miraculous thing. Julia soaked it up, and Paul looked
hopeful.

Mark spent a
week at the hotel, and enjoyed the novelty of living amongst people
who did not recognise him. Many clearly thought that his face was
familiar, and he got a lot of suspicious looks, but no one could
believe that Mark Lord would be staying in a farming town in the
backwoods of South Africa. As the days passed, however, word got
around, and he was pestered more and more for autographs. When the
press finally got wind of it, Mark decided that it was time for him
to go home to the security of his mansion with its high walls and
iron gates. It was also time, he said, for them to get married. The
arrangements had been postponed, and the press had been told that
the ceremony was delayed due to a family commitment that Carrin
could not avoid.

Mark drove
them to the airport, were Carrin expected to find his little jet
waiting. Instead, after going through customs and passport control,
he led the way to a much larger private jet. The Lear, he
explained, did not have enough range for such a long trip, so he
had chartered a larger plane. On board, a pretty flight attendant
catered to their every whim. After two months of farm life, Carrin
found it alien and daunting, and hid her rough hands. Mark's black
steed had joined hers on her farm, where the farm workers would
look after them.

At the airport
in California, John shot Carrin a reproachful look. She apologised,
and he forgave her with a grin. They drove to Mark's Beverly Hills
mansion, where she would stay until the wedding. Mark's secretary
had been hard at work, and the wedding was set for the following
weekend. All that remained was for Carrin to choose a wedding
dress. For this, Mark sent her to one of the best fashion houses in
the state. From the magnificent collection, she chose a simple
dress of white satin and lace, forgoing ruffles and puffed sleeves
for sleek elegance. The long lace sleeves hooked onto her middle
finger, the heavy veil hid her face, and the train swept the ground
with gleaming cloth.

Mark presented
her with a string of pearls, and she marvelled at how he always
knew exactly what to get. Her nerves grew frayed as the day
approached, and the photographers that followed her around made it
worse. Olivia was a tremendous support, but Carrin was glad when
her family arrived two days before the ceremony.

Mark housed
them in two of his many guest rooms, and Julia tried to act like a
film star. Mark took Paul to a tailor, and Simon dragged them to a
stag party that Mark did not want. Carrin saw little of him until
the day before the wedding. He spent a lot of time at the studio
with Warren and Harold, editing the film. When he was around, he
treated her with gentle affection, but held to a strict hands-off
policy.

Deadly Games
premiered on the night before the wedding, and Mark explained that
only a select audience of celebrities and movie critics would watch
it. It was not due for release to the public for another three
months, and would be edited and re-cut according to the findings of
this sample audience. The write-ups it got on this night would go a
long way to deciding its fate. Carrin was nervous about it for the
first time, wondering what sort of reception it would get. Was her
screenplay good enough? Were her characters deep and her plot
solid? The more she thought about it, the more anxious she
became.

Mark wandered
into her room to find her sitting on the bed, staring at the wall
and wringing her hands. He sat beside her and trapped her wrestling
fingers, holding them.

"Hey, relax,
it's a great film."

She turned to
him. "What if it's a flop? What if they don't like it?"

"They will,
believe me. I know what they like, and I've seen most of it in the
cutting room. It's good."

She slumped.
"I hope you're right."

"I am. We even
managed to make Janice look good, and that was no mean feat, I can
tell you."

Carrin
giggled. "You mean she's still in it?"

"Just barely.
We made it look like it's her character. You know, a woman who
never shows any emotion. Harold was quite pleased with the effect.
After all, it suits a female assassin."

"Yes, I
suppose it would," she agreed, buoyed by his confidence.

"It's time we
were going, are you ready?"

Carrin
glanced down at her figure-hugging black dress, a simple creation
that flowed when she moved. With it, she wore the diamond collar
with the fire opals and strappy black high-heels. A glance in the
mirror assured her that her make-up looked okay, and she
nodded.

"I think
so."

He smiled and
kissed her on the forehead. "You look stunning."

Carrin studied
him, wishing that she had not destroyed all the drawings she had
done. Still, it would be great fun doing more, and from the real
live subject. She wondered how good he was at sitting still.