But Rima had a strange look on her face. There was a question forming in her emerald eyes as she stared beyond Shannon, no doubt looking for the cue card.
Dummy, Shannon thought, it’s in the other direction...
What was happening? There was a murmur off-set, coming from behind her and now there were whispers, too. The camera was moving in for a final one-shot of Rima, but Rima was paying no attention. Hang on, Rima, Shannon urged silently, hang on. It’s almost over. Just my line and then yours...
'I’ll get even with you for this,’ Shannon said. It was her last line and Rima was supposed to come in on it quickly, but she was silent, standing there with her mouth agape. ‘Did you hear me?’ Shannon improvised. ‘I’ll get even...’
Rima’s glance returned to her. ‘ You’re no good, Alana,’ she said in a strange voice ‘Neither one of you, you or that rotten Joh.. .that John—that John—‘The emerald eyes widened until they were glowing like twin green suns. ‘... that Johnny Wolff,’ she finally stammered, and Jerry’s voice boomed from the control booth.
‘Rima, damn it, what the hell’s your problem? And the rest of you… Doesn’t anybody know what “quiet” means?’
‘I’m sorry, Jerry. It’s my fault.’
The breath caught in Shannon’s throat. No, please, she thought, but even before she turned around, she knew.
Cade was here..
He stood, hands planted on his hips, staring at her, his indigo eyes fathomless, his lips set in a hard line.
Shannon felt as if she were replaying a scene from the past. Everything was as it had been that first day. He was dressed in leather and denim; his motorcycle boots were coated with a film of dust and for a crazy second she found herself wondering if he’d ridden his Harley here from California.
There was a knot of people clustered behind him, their eyes shiny with excitement, but it wasn’t Cade they were watching this time. They were watching her, trying to decide if she were to be the snake or the mongoose in what promised to be a far more interesting scene than any the writers of Tomorrows had ever created.
Say something, she told herself, say something nasty or say something clever, but say something.
Her throat worked, but nothing happened. Her mouth was dry, her brain numb. Even her feet felt rooted to the floor.
‘Hello, Shannon,’ Cade said, and the sound of that familiar voice seemed to set her free.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Working,’ he said. ‘That is, if you can use me today, Jerry.’
The question was directed to the control booth, but Cade’s eyes never left hers.
‘I—I don’t know, Cade. I didn’t expect... Just let me get out there.’ The door swung open and Crawford pushed his way through the cluster of onlookers. ‘I hadn’t planned on shooting you two until next week,’ he said, looking from Cade to Shannon. ‘But we could do a rehearsal today.’ His glance went from one of them to the other again, and the faintest of smiles flitted across his face. ‘Why not? Have you got the script I sent you, Cade?’
‘The love scene? Yeah, I’ve got it. It’s all I thought about on the plane from L.A..’
There was a titter from the crowd. Crawford glared angrily and the noise subsided as quickly as it had begun.
‘Good. Shannon? You said you’d memorized your lines, right?’
‘Well, yes, but I didn’t think... ’ Panic welled up like water from a spring. ‘Jerry, you said Monday.’
‘Monday, Friday, what’s the difference?’ Crawford said pleasantly. He draped his arm around her and smiled brightly. ‘No problem, right?’
She nodded woodenly. ‘No problem, Jerry.’
‘Good. And you, Cade? Any questions about the love scene?’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Cade said softly, his eyes still on Shannon. ‘I know every move I’m going to make.’
Someone giggled again and Cade’s head sprang up.
‘I want the set cleared,’ he said.
‘Well, I don’t know... ’
‘Clear it,’ Cade said, his voice cutting through the studio like a whip.
Crawford waved his hand and people scuttled from the sound stage. ‘OK,’ he said, turning to the technicians, ‘I want lights and sound on the bedroom set. Make-up, just dust some powder on their noses. Shannon, dear, what have you got on under that dress?’
Shannon glanced down at her costume. ‘I... this is a whole Alana Dunbar outfit from Wardrobe. A lace camisole and...’
‘Fine, fine. Rima, you can take the afternoon off.’.
‘Certainly,’ Rima said in a simpering whisper, but she only minced across the set and settled against a camera dolly.
Shannon felt the color rise to her cheeks. Rima wasn’t going to pass up a chance like this.
‘Jerry?’ Was that tiny voice hers, Shannon wondered. She ran her tongue across her lips and tried again. ‘Couldn’t we just do a reading?’
‘No readings,’ Cade said, rocking back on his heels. ‘Let’s get to it.’
He was right, Shannon told herself. Once they got past this, life could go back to normal. She could start looking for her next job and he could go back to Hollywood or Hell, whichever came first.
Head high, she walked across the narrow space separating one set from the other.
There was the bed, looming ahead of her, that horrible bed, that bed the size of a football field...
One and one are two. Two and two are four. You can do this, she thought. Of course she could. Four and four are eight. Four is the square root of sixteen and there are four sets of sheets in the linen closet, and why in God’s name hadn’t she listened that time Eli had suggested that transcendental meditation was the best relaxation?
‘Padgett? Are you ready?’
One last deep breath, and then she nodded and she was Alana Dunbar, walking into her gaudy bedroom, ignoring the bed which had certainly grown to a hundred miles wide and a hundred miles long.
She knew what Alana would do and she did it, going to the make- believe window, gazing out at the make-believe night, telling herself it was not Cade bursting through the door, it was Johnny Wolff, just as it was Johnny’s hand on her shoulder, Johnny’s fingers cutting into her flesh.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ he growled. ‘I’ve been trying to find you for days.’
She turned to face him. Smile, she told herself, smile as Alana would. The Dunbar heiress was a bitch, but she was a woman, and in this scene her pride was on the line.
‘I don’t know why,’ she said clearly, looking at Cade. ‘We have nothing more to say to each other.’
‘Haven’t we?’ he asked huskily, his gaze drifting over her. Not indigo eyes today, she thought suddenly, more like polished ebony...
‘I know all about you, Johnny,’ she said. ‘I know everything. You were just using me.’
The words were like sand in her mouth. They’re just lines, she told herself, that’s all they are. They had nothing to do with her or Cade—they were Alana’s words and Johnny’s.
‘Somebody lied to you,’ Cade said, his fingers tightening on her, biting into her skin through the thin silk dress. ‘I’ve never used you.’
Her mouth was dry, so dry...
She forced herself to swallow and then she ran her tongue across her lips.
‘Don’t lie to me,’ she whispered. ‘My stepmother told me all about you.’
Cade’s hand closed around the nape of her neck.
‘I don’t know anybody told you,’ he said softly, ‘but it’s all lies. I love you.’
Shannon’s throat constricted. His touch was so gentle So wonderful…
The script, she thought, remember the script.
‘Johnny, don’t,’ she said, trying to say it as Alana would, trying to remember that Alana didn’t really want her lover to let her go.
Alana still wanted Johnny.
But she didn’t want Cade…
‘I love you,’ he repeated gruffly. ‘You kno
w that’s the truth. Look at me, damn it! Look into my eyes.’
Slowly, her eyes met his. Was Johnny supposed to tell her to look into his eyes? She couldn’t remember that in the script, but then, she was having trouble remembering lots of things. What was her next camera angle? And her next line?
‘You used me,’ she said again as the line tripped into her head. ‘Why don’t you admit it? It doesn’t matter anymore—it’s all over. You wanted something from me and you got it.’
‘Maybe that was part of it, at the beginning. You had something I needed. But that changed. You know it did.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t love you, Johnny.’
‘You’re a liar, Alana,’ Cade whispered. ‘A beautiful liar.’
Shannon shook her head. ‘I don’t love you,’ she repeated as Cade drew her towards him, but the line hadn’t come out right.
Where was Alana’s proud determination?
Where was hers?
‘I’m half-tempted to believe you,’ Cade said, running his thumb along her cheek. ‘If you loved me, you wouldn’t have believed what you heard without talking to me first.’
‘Nothing you can say will change anything.’
‘You don’t believe that,’ he said softly.
His eyes were so deep. So dark. She wanted to fall into them…
‘Don’t,’ she whispered.
Her heart was hammering in her ears, her blood was pounding thickly in her veins. I am Alana Dunbar, she told herself, fighting against a rising panic. I am Alana Dunbar and he is Johnny Wolff, and this is just a scene from a soap opera, that’s all. It isn’t anything more than that...
‘Don’t be afraid,’ he whispered. ‘You know it feels right, love.’
Something skittered wildly deep inside her. He was pulling her towards him, his arms like steel bands, and she was drowning, drowning in his eyes.
‘Don’t,’ she said, trying to twist her face away from his, 'please...’
‘I love you,’ he said. ‘You know I love you.’
‘You don’t. It was all a lie…’
He was bending towards her—the script called for him to kiss her now, a long, lingering kiss, and then he was supposed to fumble at the buttons of her blouse and slowly, slowly, ease it from her shoulders, his lips at the hollow of her throat.
And she would be lost.
Damn him! Damn Cade, damn Jerry for making her do this. Was she supposed to make a fool of herself again? She wouldn’t do it, she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t...
The crack of her hand against Cade’s cheek echoed through the silent studio like a gunshot.
His head sprang back; his fingers went to his face, moving lightly over the skin that already wore the red imprint of her hand.
‘Stop it,’ she said brokenly. ‘Just stop it! You don’t know anything about love. And you never will.’
‘Shannon?’ Jerry’s voice crackled over the microphone. ‘Shannon, I don’t see any of that in my copy of the script.’
There was a cackle of nervous laughter that disappeared into the ominous silence of the studio.
‘That’s it,’ Cade growled. She flinched as he reached for her, and then he was lifting her into his arms. ‘Damn it, that’s the final straw.’
‘You put me down,’ Shannon demanded, beating her fits against his shoulders.
‘The hell I will.’
The technicians’ shocked faces rolled past as Cade carried her across the studio. Jerry's voice called after them, but Cade never paused until he’d kicked open her dressing-room door and dumped her unceremoniously on her feet.
‘Okay,’ he growled. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
‘It’s over, all right! If you think I’m going to stay here and play games with you...’
Shannon started to brush past him, but he reached out and shoved her against the wall.
‘Don’t push your luck,’ he warned. ‘I’m just waiting for an excuse.’
She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘How charming. Not that I’m surprised. It goes with your motorcycle macho.’
‘Where the hell have you been all week, Padgett?’
‘None of your business,’ she snapped, trying to move past him again.
Cade smiled unpleasantly as he slammed the door shut and slipped home the bolt.
‘I’m making it my business,’ he said. ‘Answer the question.’
‘I was right here in New York,’ she said, deliberately misinterpreting what he’d said. ‘Right where you left me.’
‘Every day,’ he said, ‘every damned day, I waited to hear from you.’
‘Why?’ she asked sweetly. ‘Did you expect a congratulatory card?’
His eyes got even darker. ‘You’re pushing your luck, lady.’
‘Fine. How about delayed good wishes? Congratulations, Mr. Morgan, sir. Enjoy your new career. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we have a scene to do.’
‘Forget it, Padgett. There’s no way we can do that scene until we get this settled.’
Her eyes blazed with defiance. ‘Why not? Can’t you play it if I don’t melt in your arms? Don’t tell me a big Hollywood star like you needs help from little old me.’
Cade threw his head back and groaned. ‘I knew it, I knew it—you’re ticked off because I got a chance to make a film. I mean, what the hell, who am I to get so lucky?
’ ‘I couldn’t have said it better myself!’ Shannon snapped.
‘I spent the past few days going crazy, thinking about what would happen when I got here.’
‘What did you think would happen when you walked out on Tomorrows?’
Cade’s face twisted. ‘I don’t give a damn about Tomorrows,' he said. ‘I’m talking about something a hell of a lot more important.’
‘Of course you are,’ she said nastily. ‘Your wonderful new career’s more important than anything else.’
‘ There I was, trying to find you, wondering if you’d gone crazy or been kidnapped by the gypsies, and now it turns out I could have spared myself the trouble. You were just off sulking in a corner because I got a chance you’d give your right arm for.’
‘You never gave a thought to the rest of us, or what would happen to Tomorrows’ ratings...’
‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ Cade snapped. ‘They’ve got a juicy new storyline for Rima and some other guest star lined up. Besides, I never intended to stay here forever. Jerry knew that.
‘... not that you care. You don’t give a damn about anybody but yourself.’
‘Right! That’s why I spent the past three days calling Claire’s office and tearing the hair out of my head. . That’s why I walked out on my costume fittings and rehearsals and...’
’‘Why, indeed?’ Shannon said coldly. ‘Did you realize you were in over your head?’
‘I realized I couldn’t go on without getting some answers from you,’ he roared, grabbing her by the elbows and lifting her to her toes. ‘Damn it, woman, you said you loved me but if you loved me, you’d have been happy for me.’
Shannon stared at him. She could feel the fury and the fight draining out of her.
‘You don’t know the meaning of love,’ she said. ‘All these weeks, knowing you were going to walk out on me, using me, making me feel things I knew I shouldn’t...’
‘Are you nuts?’
Tears streamed down her face.
‘How could you have done that? Flying off to L.A., pretending you were going out there to talk about something that might happen months from now..’
‘Will you listen, dammit?’
‘No,’ she whispered, ‘no, I won’t. I never should have listened to you in the first—‘
‘There I was, packing to fly home Sunday night, satisfied that Scorpio had agreed to consider me for a film in the spring, when my agent knocks on my hotel room door. ”Unpack,’ my agent says. “Forget that deal in the spring. Jeff Anderson’s out of the movie Scorpio’s about to film and you’re in. You start tomorrow.”’
&n
bsp; Shannon stared at him. ‘Jeff Anderson broke his leg and you’re replacing him?’
‘Jesus, Padgett, how many times must I tell you? Yeah, he was skiing at Aspen and he hit a marker and smashed his leg all to pieces. How else would I have got a chance like this?’
Her voice was a whisper. ‘You mean—they offered you the part last Sunday?’
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