by Nancy Bush
“Don’t be so insecure,” she berated herself. He was probably with someone from his production company, or the studio, or anybody. The man had a job. A demanding career, as a matter of fact. And preproduction of Blackbird was behind schedule, shifting the whole thing forward and costing oodles of money. She knew that much.
Her pulse slowly recovering, she tossed her bag on the tile floor and walked toward John’s office, determined to think positively and not be such a dope. Weariness invaded every pore. This double life was killing her. Something had to give, and soon.
Lifting her arms, she closed her eyes and stretched, willing herself to relax. Time to forget everything. Time to unwind. Time for a hot shower and bed.
And maybe John?
Embarrassed, she muttered obscenities directed solely at herself, opened her eyes, and gasped. John Callahan himself stood in the doorway of the office, holding Bobo in his arms.
“Hi!” Dinah gulped on a squeak. “I—I didn’t know you were here. Didn’t you hear me call? God, you scared me . . .” Her voice trailed into oblivion at the look on his face. Iron fury locked his jaw and turned his blue eyes to narrow angry beams. Bobo squirmed, squeaked, and wriggled from his arms.
Dinah watched the kitten scurry away, then glanced back fearfully at John. “What? What is it?”
“Get out of my house.”
The words were quiet, but each syllable was a hammer. Dinah flinched. “What?” she asked dazedly.
“You don’t remember the phone call?”
She slowly shook her head, a bad feeling stealing over her.
“Well, I’m not surprised. I’m not even going to ask how, why, or who. Just get the hell out of my life. I’m not your enabler anymore.”
She could only stand there, shaking her head. Everything seemed to stop.
Denise had called, she realized.
No . . . oh, no . . .
“I don’t want to see you anymore,” he uttered slowly, as if she might have trouble hearing. And she was having trouble. Lights danced inside her head. So many things could have been said to him. So many terrible things.
It’s not your problem. It’s not you!
But I love him.
Guilt gnawed at her stomach, burned her cheeks. She glanced away, mortified. You have to tell him the truth.
“You are the weakest, most sorry excuse for a human being I’ve ever met.” Anger burned in his voice, but there was something else, too. Regret. Maybe hurt. Dinah’s head throbbed. She ached—ached with a pain so huge, she wanted to die.
“Get your adulterous ass off my property and out of my life.”
She caught the faint smell of scotch. He’d been drinking. Dinah knew there was no way to talk to him. What in God’s name would she say anyway? But she couldn’t stop herself from trying. “It’s not what you think.”
He actually laughed, the painful sound reverberating throughout the room.
“I need to talk to you . . . when you’re sober.”
“I will never be sober for you again,” he said, shaking his head.
“John, listen, I’ve been trying to keep my life together even though it’s out of control. You don’t understand. You can’t understand.” The words sprang out, faster and faster. “I was working. I wasn’t with anyone. I—”
Another burst of explosive laughter. He began pushing her toward the front door. There wasn’t a lot she could do to stop him, but she tried every trick. At the hall aperture she dug her fingers into the molding and hung on for dear life.
John pushed inexorably forward. Dinah’s temper rose in response. “You can’t throw me out.”
“Watch me.”
“I let you toss me onto the beach. I’m not letting you now!”
“Let me?” His hand came over hers, clawing at her fingers. Dinah struggled in earnest. John yanked one arm free and pinned it behind her back. She wrapped a leg around his knee and jerked hard. He swayed but didn’t fall, then pulled on her arm again, wrenching it. Dinah gasped in pain.
“You son of a bitch!” she bit out.
“Now there’s the Denise we all know and love.”
She wanted to hit and kick and gouge. Surprised by her own passion, Dinah settled for an icy glare that didn’t do jack shit where His Highness, John Callahan, was concerned. “You’re just like all the rest,” she accused acidly.
Blue eyes raked her with disgust. Disgust. That was it. That was the emotion. Angry words started to fill her head.
You silly, high-falutin’ bitch. Think your shit doesn’t smell? C’mere. C’mere . . .
She’d stayed where she was, balanced on the balls of her feet like a fighter. If Thomas Daniels so much as feinted in her direction, she’d go straight for his balls. One swift kick.
He’d sneered: superior, cruel, his lip curling with disgust. Disgust that she was a woman and therefore weak. Weak in strength, weak in spirit. Like he was such an icon of respectability and moral fiber.
He’d never touched her. Never hurt her. But it wasn’t for lack of trying. Oh, no. It wasn’t for lack of trying.
“You can’t make me do something I don’t want to do,” she warned John Callahan.
For an answer he grabbed her arms and swung her over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, his favorite mode of transportation. This time she didn’t kick and pound. She waited, counting the footsteps, eyes bouncing with each step until she heard him open the front door. With one easy move, he dropped her on her feet.
And she hauled back and slapped his arrogant, smug, too handsome face.
“Come back and I’ll call the police,” he snarled, the mark on his face changing from white to a livid red.
“I’m going to make your life a living hell!”
“You already have. I hope the bastard was worth it.”
“You don’t know anything about me!”
“You’re a lying, conniving, sick piece of meat.”
Dinah was so enraged, she was shaking. Her lips quivered and tears flashed in the corners of her eyes.
He lifted his hands. “Oh, no. I’ve played that game before. You want to get laid, go find somebody else. I know how you like it. Hard, fast, mean. Total domination. Well, here’s a newsflash. It turns my stomach.”
Words failed her. He was a thousand times worse than Denise had said. A million.
“I don’t know how this ever happened,” he added flatly. “I’m sick of you and your problems.”
“Yeah?” Dinah finally discovered her voice. “You’re not exactly the model of morality and restraint.”
“I’ve been too damn good. A fact I’m going to rectify right now.”
He disappeared back in the house. Dinah marched after him, spoiling for a fight. He grabbed a lightweight jacket from the back of a kitchen chair and headed for the garage. “Where are you going?” she demanded.
“I’m going to get laid,” he announced grandly as he pushed the button for the garage door and staggered through the empty room and outdoors to the Land Rover.
“You’ll get pulled over for drunk driving,” she yelled, following after him.
“Too damn bad!”
“I’m calling the police. I’ll give them your license number. I’ll make sure they pick you up!”
“What the hell do you want?” he roared, dropping the keys in his fury. They fell to the cement drive and bounced into the surrounding lawn.
She glared at him, fists clenched. He glared right back, so undeniably handsome that something uncoiled inside Dinah. Something rich and dangerous and totally wanton. It must have shown on her face because he sensed it. His eyes narrowed, but he shook his head. Muttering obscenities beneath his breath, he bent down for the keys.
Then he was upright again, his gaze hot and electric. “Go away, Denise. Just . . . go away.”
He swayed. She moved forward instinctively. His gaze dropped to the swing of her hips and he groaned like a condemned man.
“I think I hate you,” she told him through her teeth.
His answer was to drag her close, smash his lips on hers, mold her body to his own hard contours, his own inflamed senses pushing hers sky high, until she clung to him for dear life.
Then his lips were all over her neck. His hands swarming her body; her own traveling over him just as eagerly. They fell to the grass as one, writhing and touching and gasping for air.
Dinah had no control over the person he brought out in her, but common sense wasn’t completely lost. They were outside, and anyone who chose to drive through the open gates would find them in a tangle of arms and legs, as horny and oblivious as mongrel dogs.
“Oh, God, John! This is crazy!” Dinah shivered, in half-ecstasy, half-humiliation.
His fingers dug at the band of her denim skirt, pulling it over slim hips, revealing a lacy thong and long, shapely tanned thighs. He groaned, burying his face low against her in a move that shocked Dinah to her ultimate core.
“Stop!” she cried, genuinely scared. With more strength than she would have credited herself, she suddenly flung John away from her, jumped to her feet, and ran for the house.
Inside, she glanced this way and that, feral and panicked. A bell chimed and she shrieked aloud until she slowly realized it was the grandfather clock in the living room.
What’s the matter with me?
She heard John behind her. He staggered into the entryway, leaned against the wall, and stared at her, raking a hand through his hair.
“You’re so screwed up, there’s no hope,” he told her, adding, “And so am I. Now get out,” he ordered as he continued on his journey to the kitchen where she heard him pouring himself another drink.
“John . . .”
“GET OUT!”
She ran for the door, nearly tripped over Bobo whom she scooped up, remembered her dead Corolla, stutter-stepped for a moment until she recalled her purse, with her cell, was in the car and she could call for assistance.
Bastard. Asshole. Damn male.
She wished she could really hate him.
Chapter Thirteen
Callahan’s production offices were bare bones in the opulence department. Industrial grade carpet, scrupulously clean, fake leather chairs with chrome arms, a smattering of desks and lamps in the reception area. If Hayley didn’t know Hollywood, she might have been concerned, but one of the few items she’d learned over her years here was that pricey exteriors didn’t necessarily mean a damn thing.
The receptionist lifted one haughty brow. “Yes?”
“I’m a friend of Tonja Terkell’s,” Hayley alerted her, her tone matching that discriminating eyebrow.
Without another word, the receptionist turned to the desk phone, pressed a button, and called Tonja over an intercom. She received no response and therefore simply pretended Hayley wasn’t standing in front of her.
Hayley remained on her feet. Backbone. She had plenty of it. More than most people possessed. She wanted this part and she was determined to get it—or damn near die trying.
What had come over her at Callahan’s house? Thinking back, she shook her head in wonderment. It was as if she’d fallen under some secret spell, which John Callahan had spun. A few words about Denise, a step inside her own past, and Hayley had been out of there. Zippo.
Now she couldn’t believe it. For years she’d been traveling with the speed and determination of a freight train toward her destination: stardom. And then she’d been derailed so easily—and the station had been within view. She didn’t understand how it could happen. It was like stepping into a nightmare and finding you couldn’t move your feet because they were planted in some thick, gooey substance that held you down.
She’d let Jason fire her, gone home in a daze, and run smack into Connor Jackley who was waiting with relentless questions she couldn’t answer.
And later, after he’d left, she’d been restless and disturbed, her sleep fitful and haunted by images she faintly recognized from her own past. Some real, some imagined, she felt burned by the heat of some evil core within her, a place Connor kept urging her to visit.
Well, she simply wasn’t going to. After waking from a miserable night, head aching and soul anxious, she determined she was not going to think about Connor Jackley or her sisters or her past in Wagon Wheel. She was going to focus on her ambition.
So here she was, raring to go. Except this damn blockade of disinterest had been thrown up in front of her.
“Is Tonja in?” she demanded of the receptionist.
“She’s not answering.”
“Would you mind trying again?”
This time both brows lifted and the woman went mum. Ice cold. The big freeze.
“She left this at my place,” Hayley explained, pulling out her audition DVD. “I called her and told her I’d bring it to her.”
“Leave it on the desk, I’ll make sure—”
“Sorry. I deliver this one myself.”
A poison look. Hayley glanced toward the hall and debated making a run for it. Sure, the woman would call security, but at least she’d have some time before she was booted out. She knew Callahan was here; she’d seen his Land Rover. If she could just get to him, she’d be home free.
And then opportunity knocked: Mr. Producer himself strode from the inner offices on his way out and brushed within inches of Hayley. The receptionist straightened as if someone had shoved a rod up her back and Hayley threw on her best smile and said, “Hello again.”
The look he gave her nearly singed off her skin. Phew! The man was furious. At her? No way. But a niggling memory invaded her mind, and remembering a similar look on her stepfather’s face, Hayley shrank back.
For a moment she thought Callahan would shoot right past without a word, but he stopped short and turned her way. She had the impression he was holding in some very nasty emotions with a very manly effort.
“You want to see me?” he clipped out.
“Well . . . um . . . yeah.”
“Then, come on. I’ve got half an hour before my next meeting.”
Hayley didn’t need to be asked twice. She jumped forward as the receptionist gasped in annoyance and frustration. Hah! Score one for the good guys. She had her chance now and she wasn’t going to blow it again.
At his Land Rover Callahan ordered, “Climb in, talk fast, and don’t lie. I’m not in the best of moods, so you’ve got twenty minutes to convince me you’re not some conniving look-alike.” He swiveled her way, pinning her with steely blue eyes. “And for the record, I detest my ex-wife, so don’t count on any favors.”
As a test, it was one of the most grueling of her life. Hayley was many things, but a revealer of truths wasn’t one of them. But that, it turned out, was all Callahan wanted. Truths. Hurtful, soul-delving truths.
“Did you ask Denise about me?” she questioned once they were under way.
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Didn’t get a chance.” His words were bitten off, as if they tasted bad. Whatever had happened between him and Denise was something she probably didn’t want to know. “So go on,” he commanded. “Tell me all about yourself and your sister.”
The worst possible subject, but the only one anyone cared to listen to. Why couldn’t someone talk about something else? “I’d rather hear about Blackbird,” she said as the freeway zipped past.
The sideways slant of his eyes in her direction eloquently spoke his feelings on that matter. He believed she was lying. Lying in order to weasel her way into his film.
Well, hell. She did want a part. But she could see the only way to get one was to tell the unvarnished truth.
Swallowing her misgivings, she launched into her tale. “Denise is older than I am, by two years. We kind of moved all over as kids. I never knew my father and when I was about eleven, my mother remarried.”
He didn’t respond, didn’t take his eyes off the road.
Hesitantly Hayley continued, “We moved to a little town in central Oregon called Wagon Wheel.”
“This doesn’t matc
h any of the fables Denise told me.”
“Well, it’s the truth.”
“Go on.”
“We lived together until my mother died and then we tried to stay with my stepfather but it didn’t work, so Denise left and I followed her. We bummed around L.A. awhile and kind of split up.”
Hayley swallowed, remembering. It had been too difficult staying together. Denise had split with her boyfriend and was going through some really weird stuff. Crying all night. Nightmares that scared the liver out of Hayley. Dinah had been there too, and she would shake Denise awake and demand that she “get a grip!” They all relied on Dinah—until Denise found another guy, a good-looking Hollywood hustler, who introduced her to a life that looked beautiful and good and like everything she’d ever wanted.
Dinah wouldn’t let Hayley follow, but after Denise flitted off, Dinah had found Glen Bosworth. When she moved in with Glen, Hayley left. More bad choices. Now, years later, Hayley had taken acting classes until she knew more than the combined knowledge of all her instructors, Denise was—well—unstable as ever, and Dinah had run off to “Somewhere in the Great Southwest” after leaving Glen.
Hayley gave Callahan an abbreviated account—sans Dinah—and then wondered if the time was right to get back to Blackbird.
“Denise never even intimated she had a sister,” Callahan said coolly.
Apparently, the time wasn’t right yet. With a sigh, Hayley asked, “What did she tell you?”
“Lots of things. The Indiana story was first. Then there was talk of a love gone wrong and a baby.”
Hayley stared. “She said she’d had a baby?”
“No . . . a pregnancy,” he corrected himself. “The tabloids were on some hot story about her and some guy she went to school with. The guy said they’d had a relationship and she was pregnant. I questioned Denise. First, she said it was a pack of lies, then she kind of waffled and finally admitted she’d had a pregnancy scare. Then she said she’d miscarried.” He snorted. “I stopped caring what the truth was after a while.” Inhaling through his teeth, he added dryly, “And now you want me to believe you’re her sister.”
“If you’d just ask her, she’d tell you.”