The Spiral Path

by Mary Jo Putney

  "The secret of my success." His smile was ironic.

  "You laugh, but I think it's true. For someone so famous, you've done a terrific job of being an enigma." After she'd married Kenzie, her movements had become vastly more interesting to media gossips. Knowing she could soon return to relative obscurity was a silver lining to the divorce. "Where are we heading--The Dorchester?"

  He nodded. "I'd just as soon not drive down to Devon again."

  "I'm sure Josh and Val packed us both very efficiently." Her gaze fell on her purse, which she'd dropped on the car floor by her feet. The rolled newspaper made her curious why Pamela Lake had stuffed it in her bag.

  The tabloid wasn't the one that employed Pamela, though the reporter's card was clipped to the front page. Definitely a response was hoped for.

  Rainey's gaze dropped to the photograph that dominated the front page, and she gasped with shock.

  "What's wrong?" Kenzie asked sharply.

  "Some bastard with a telephoto lens was spying on us in Devon." She stared at the picture, feeling ill. There was Kenzie leaning over her, one arm braced against a tree to shut out the world. She laughed up at him, too much of her soul in her eyes. "There's a big, romantic-looking picture of us together, and the headline is screaming, 'Kenzie and Raine Make Up!!!'"

  "Damnation! Are there any facts, or is it all hot air?"

  She flipped to the story inside, which included several more pictures. Though the photographer hadn't been able to invade the bedroom, he'd been wickedly good at capturing private moments that spelled out intimacy as emphatically as a kiss.

  Feeling ill, she read the text. "Some unnamed employee of the hotel claims to have seen us creeping into each other's rooms late at night, and a local girl I never heard of says she became my 'confidante' over afternoon tea and clotted cream. Allegedly I told her that you and I have reconciled, and that I'm pregnant with your baby." Her voice cracked. "I hate this, Kenzie, I just hate it."

  He swooped the Jaguar to the left and parked illegally in a bus stop zone. Taking the paper, he skimmed the pictures and headlines. "The self-proclaimed confidante is delusional, but the sleeping together part is accurate, so there's no grounds for libel."

  "Even if it was, a lawsuit wouldn't make this go away. I loathe having speculation about my private life smeared across the globe." She wrapped shaking arms around herself. "I feel like ... like I've been groped by perverts."

  His expression turned to granite. "And it's my fault it happened." He refolded the newspaper with military precision. "I'm sorry, Rainey. I should have kept my distance."

  "As I recall, everything that happened was by mutual consent." And to their mutual pleasure. They'd both been happy, she knew it in her bones.

  Worn down by the stress and fatigue of the last day, she blurted out, "Why are we getting divorced when we get along so well, Kenzie? Both in and out of bed."

  He drew a harsh breath. "Because you can't trust me, Rainey. Not then, not now, not ever."

  * * *

  CHAPTER 25

  Rainey stared, chilled, as she felt him pulling away from her emotionally. "I don't understand! It would be different if you were a sex addict who has to boff every woman in sight, but you're not. Isn't what we have good enough for you to keep your pants zipped when we're apart?"

  A red double-decker bus pulled up behind them, honking indignantly. Ignoring it, Kenzie said flatly, "You want and deserve more than I have to give, Rainey."

  "That's not an answer."

  He ignored her words as completely as he ignored the looming bus. "The time together in Devon was good, but it's over. Even in the country, we couldn't keep what we were doing a secret. In London, it will be impossible."

  "So that's it? Sex is starting to be a nuisance, so enough already?"

  The bus roared around them in a cloud of diesel fumes. "There was an element of therapy in what we were doing. With only a week of shooting left, we should be able to survive without that." He put the car in gear and pulled into traffic. "Every day we're together will increase the media feeding frenzy, which means more invasions of privacy. It's time to end things, before it gets worse."

  "So you're making the decision for both of us."

  "Yes." His mouth was hard. "I've damaged you enough. If I'm to live with myself, that has to stop."

  "Don't give the little woman a vote. How very arbitrary and Victorian." She stared blindly out the window, thinking that she'd been cheated. She'd been prepared for things to end in a week, but not yet. She wasn't ready.

  "John Randall is making me more Victorian every day." He pulled up in front of The Dorchester. "I'm going to be busy the rest of the day with arrangements for Charles's cremation and memorial service. I'll see you on the set tomorrow."

  With a uniformed hotel employee approaching, there was no privacy for a good-bye kiss. Though probably Kenzie wouldn't have wanted one. How had they gone so quickly from the emotional intimacy of the night before to this? She felt as if a limb had been severed.

  Pride came to her rescue. She'd be damned if she let him see how much she hurt. "You're right, the cost-benefit breaks down in London." She slid on her sunglasses. "The sex was great, and sneaking around was good kinky fun, but I don't need more reporters raping my life."

  The doorman opened the door and she swung gracefully from the low car, a dazzling movie star smile on her face as she thanked the man for helping her out. Then she sailed into the hotel as confidently as if she hadn't slept in her clothes the night before, and checked in.

  Yes, Miss Marlowe, your suite is ready, such a pleasure to have you back. Your luggage will arrive later? Very good, Miss Marlowe. Here are your messages.

  The manager personally escorted her to her suite, where fresh fruit and flowers waited. With her movie budget tight, she disliked spending so much money on her hotel, but Marcus had insisted. If she was the boss, she had to live like the boss, just as Kenzie had to be treated like a star even if he'd agreed to do the movie mostly as a favor to her.

  The manager left, bowing in old-world style, and finally, mercifully, she was alone. Not bothering to admire the splendid view over Hyde Park, she sank onto the hard, elegant sofa and curled up like a hedgehog. She and Kenzie had been separated and on the way to a divorce for months now. How could the pain be this fresh? This intense? She'd known from the beginning that their Devonshire intimacy was strictly temporary.

  Bleakly she recognized that in some deeply stupid corner of her brain, she'd been hoping for a reconciliation. She'd wanted Kenzie to beg her forgiveness and promise never to betray her again. When she was younger, she'd sworn that no man would ever hit her, or cheat on her, more than once. Yet she'd actually been on the verge of giving her faithless husband a second chance. Despite all her efforts to be different from Clementine, she was certainly her mother's daughter. Her forbearance wasn't going to be needed, though. You can't trust me, Rainey, Not then, not now, not ever. He could hardly speak plainer than that.

  She lay numbly on the sofa for an indefinite period of time. Maybe Kenzie was right to end things now. How would she have handled the rest of the week, knowing how quickly their time together was running out? How could she have endured spending the last night with him, knowing it was the last night?

  Her paralysis ended when Val let herself into the suite. "Rainey? Oh, sorry, I didn't know you were napping."

  "I wasn't." She pushed herself to a sitting position. "But it was a long, tiring night watching Kenzie's friend die."

  "I'm so sorry."

  "Charles Winfield died in peace. We should all be so lucky."

  A bellman appeared in the doorway hauling a cart piled high with personal and business luggage. Val supervised the disposition of bags and boxes, then dispatched him with a generous tip. When they were alone, she said hesitantly, "I assume you don't want me to use the second bedroom this week. I checked downstairs, and they can find me a single."

  Rainey rubbed her temples, not quite following. "Why would
I want you elsewhere? I've enjoyed having you in the next room."

  "Maybe before, but now ... well, I'd be a third wheel."

  So Val had known about Kenzie and their Devonshire affair. "You won't be in the way. That little fling is over." She found the tabloid and tossed it to her friend.

  Val frowned as she read the article. "This is certainly an inducement to celibacy. How do you stand this, Rainey?"

  "Very badly."

  "Shall I call this Pamela person and deny the story? I assume she's after a quote from you."

  Rainey's brain began to function again. "No, I'll call her myself. She'll give me more ink than she would you."

  Val's gaze went to the stack of waiting messages. "I'll start on these, then."

  "Don't. Weren't you planning on sightseeing today with Laurie, the line producer?" Rainey glanced out the window, where the sun shone as merrily as it had before everything went to hell. "Go. It's Sunday, and you've earned some time off."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Positive." She managed a smile. "Frankly, I'd rather be alone."

  "Okay. We're going to have dinner out, so I'll be back late." Val vanished into the other bedroom with her rolling suitcase.

  Rainey unpacked her personal belongings, mentally preparing herself to call Pamela Lake, who clearly wanted an exclusive interview that could be headlined: "Raine and Kenzie: The Real Story." But Pamela was a decent sort, and this would be a good place to start spiking the guns of gossip.

  Rainey closed her eyes and spent a couple of minutes thinking herself into the proper frame of mind: bright, casual, amused by the grossly inaccurate story. Once you can fake sincerity, you can fake anything. Then she called Pamela's cell phone number.

  When the reporter answered, Rainey said in a voice that oozed charm and woman-to-woman friendliness, "Pamela, this is Raine Marlowe. Thanks so much for giving me that paper. Isn't it amazing what some people will invent to fill pages on a slow news day?"

  Pamela Lake caught her breath when she recognized her caller. "So the story isn't true?"

  "Of course it's not true! Trust me, there is no reconciliation in the works. Kenzie and I enjoy working together, and we'll probably always be friends, but marriage?" She laughed at the absurdity of the idea. "For the record, I've never even heard of the woman who claimed to my confidante, much less had tea with her."

  A scratching sound indicated that Pamela was taking notes as fast as she could. "What about the hotel employee who saw you going into each other's bedrooms?"

  "The rooms were directly opposite each other, so of course we were both seen going in that direction. But sleeping together?" Rainy laughed again. "Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to both direct and act in a movie? By the end of the day, my fantasies were of a hot bath and a nice glass of wine." And one night, she and Kenzie had shared just that...

  "What about your visit with Charles Winfield? You did look awfully friendly when you left Ramillies Manor this morning."

  Rainey rubbed her temples, but maintained her smooth tone. "Kenzie had just lost a close friend, so it was an emotional time. I'm glad that I was able to be there for him."

  The conversation continued, with Rainey enthusing about what a great movie they were making, how smoothly shooting was going, how amiable the divorce was, and other official lies. By the time she signed off, she was assured that Pamela's newspaper would have headlines refuting the reconciliation story the next morning. Maybe that would calm things down a bit.

  Methodically she began returning her phone calls. During the production of a movie, Sunday was seldom a day of rest. She worked till dusk on autopilot, ordered dinner from room service, then went back to work.

  When she was tired enough to sleep, she took a bath, then popped and swallowed the last birth control pill from the flat plastic disk that held a month's supply. She was about to toss the holder in the trash when a thought struck her.

  Today was Sunday. Usually she ended a cycle of pills on a Saturday. Since she'd just taken the last one, she must have skipped a day in the last four weeks. Hell, why now of all times instead of during the months of celibacy?

  Obviously she'd been so busy working that she'd forgotten. But when? Taking the pills was so automatic that she had no idea when she might have skipped. There had been plenty of long, disrupted days when a mistake might have been made.

  Even though the chances of getting pregnant from one missed day were infinitesimal, she couldn't stop herself from imagining how nice it would be if she was pregnant. There had been times during her marriage when she'd been tempted to "forget" her pills, yet she'd never done so because it would have been unforgivable to trick Kenzie that way. But this missed pill was a genuine error.

  Though her dream had been to raise her children with two loving parents, not as a single mother, she made good money and could raise a child on her own. She'd never have to ask a thing of Kenzie. He wouldn't even have to know it was his since he didn't want to be a father.

  With a sigh, she relinquished the pleasant daydream and crawled into bed, hoping that sleep would come. She'd almost drifted off when the memory of what Charles Winfield had said jarred her back to wakefulness: Don't let him push you away.

  Was that what Kenzie was doing--pushing her away because he thought he should, rather than because it was what he wanted? Could be--thinking back, he'd always seemed unhappy with himself, not her.

  But if he was being noble and self-sacrificing, like John Randall, it was damned effective. It took two to make a relationship work, only one to end it.

  As he just had. Again.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 26

  "Mind if I sit down?"

  Val glanced up and saw that Greg Marino was hovering with his lunch tray. "Not at all. Glad to have you join me." She smothered a yawn as he sat down opposite. "Do all movie productions feed you as well as this one? These meals make me want to curl up and nap afterward."

  He dug into his beef Wellington. "Good food is essential, actually. When people are away from home and working like crazy for months on end, they need as many comforts as can be provided."

  "Makes sense." Having finished her curried chicken, she bit into a fresh baked raspberry tart. "If I weren't slaving away like a workhouse child in a Dickens novel, I'd be a blimp by now."

  "On you, it would look good."

  She grinned. "Coming from a man who's filmed some of the most beautiful women in the world, that's a lie, but a gallant one."

  "Beautiful women are just part of the job. A lot of 'em are all bones and hyper as race horses. The camera loves those angular faces, but it's like shooting porcelain dolls--not quite real." He took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. "I like a woman who looks like a woman. You do."

  Looking sexy and dim was the curse of Val's life. "Half the reason I went to law school was a desire to shock people who think I look more like a barmaid than a woman who scored eight hundreds on her SATs."

  "When I was nominated for an Oscar, I got a lot of juvenile satisfaction thinking about the reactions of all those people who thought I'd never amount to anything." Greg smiled blissfully at the thought. "Now that we're within a couple of days of wrapping up, what do you think of your first moviemaking experience?"

  "It's been fascinating and exciting and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. But I'll be glad to go home."

  Greg choked on his coffee. "You're kidding, right? You really want to go back to Buffalo or Boston or wherever it is you come from?"

  "Baltimore, and yes, I do." She smiled at him fondly. They'd often hung out together at the end of the long work days, and it would have been easy to tumble into bed with him. He'd made it clear he was willing. But she was trying to simplify her life, and men were never simple. "Fantasy is fun now and then, but reality suits me better."

  "But you're so good at getting things done. You could make a career in production, no problem. If Raine can't find you another job, I can. You'd be a hotshot producer making tons of
money in no time."

  "If money was that important to me, I'd have made a lot of different choices along the way. Making movies requires a touch of the gypsy, and I don't have that. Not to mention the fact that there's an awful lot of sitting around and waiting for something to happen, which would rapidly drive me crazy."

  "This movie is less crazy-making than most--we're clipping along at a pretty good pace." A craft service girl passed with fresh tarts, so Greg snagged a couple. "I hope Raine keeps directing. I'd work for her again in a New York minute."

  "I've watched all the dailies, but I'm a civilian," Val said. "Is The Centurion going to be as good as it looks?"

  He turned serious. "I hope so. We've all busted our balls on this job. But a movie can be lost at any stage. In the casting, the shooting, the editing, the mixing. So many things can go wrong that sometimes I'm amazed any good stuff is ever released."

  "No wonder directors and producers are control freaks." She hesitated, wondering if she should ask her next question. "Are all productions this tense at the end?"

  "This one is tenser than most, but I think it's because of the scenes that are being shot." He ate half a tart in one bite. "Real gut-wrenchers. Plus all the press craziness. A couple of times I've wondered if Kenzie was going to freak out, and Rainey is looking pretty frayed, too."

  Val frowned. The tabloids were having a field day at Kenzie and Rainey's expense, with Nigel Stone dropping heavy hints of shocking revelations to come about Kenzie's past. Cynically she wondered if some slander was being timed to hit just as production ended.

  There was also frenzied speculation on the state of Raine and Kenzie's marriage. The Pamela person had done a good article refuting the reconciliation story and quoting Rainey at length--headlined "Just Good Friends"--but there had been plenty of wild stories, including an American female wrestler claiming she was the cause of the divorce because she was pregnant with twins by Kenzie. Rainey didn't read any of that rubbish, but she knew it was out there, and surely it added to her tension.