by Susan Lewis
After she’d gone he remained standing where he was, bound by the shame of his sarcasm, the sound of the slamming door still ringing in his ears.
Ted Forgon looked up from the video he was watching as Glori, his latest secretary, put her head round the door. She wasn’t a bad-looking kid, not a patch on Kerry Jo though, the ex-beauty queen from Dallas he’d had just prior to his temporary retirement. He’d spent a fortune on that one, getting her all fixed up with bigger tits, tighter ass, fuller lips (top and bottom) and a wardrobe that’d made Barbie’s look scarce. If the truth be told he’d been planning on marrying Kerry Jo, maybe even having a kid, until he’d come home early one day and caught her screwing the Mexican gardener. Of course, no-one knew about that, they all thought he’d got sick of her and sent her back to Dallas.
‘Sandy Paull’s still on the line,’ Glori said.
Forgon glanced at his watch. That made fifteen minutes she’d been holding, all the way from London. ‘OK, put her on,’ he said, pausing the tape and getting to his feet. He knew only too well what this was about and was in the mood now for getting it over with.
‘Sandy,’ he said into the receiver.
There was a moment as she took her phone off the speaker. ‘We had a deal,’ she spat.
‘We did?’ he drawled.
‘You know damn well we did. I gave you what you needed to control Michael; in return you were taking Ellen Shelby off the movie.’
‘Oh, that deal,’ he said. ‘Well, I guess it seems I changed my mind.’
‘A deal is a deal,’ she exploded. ‘Now I want Ellen Shelby off that movie or you can start kissing goodbye to the European investors.’
Forgon chuckled. ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘You’re better at blow-jobs than you are at bluffing. Now do yourself a favour and get used to the idea of Ellen working with Chambers. I’m sure if Michael can handle it, you can too.’
There was silence at the other end, but he had no problem imagining the fury that was causing it. He thought of his majority shareholding and, realizing that was the one area she could hurt him in, he said, ‘We just need her for some script refinements, once that kid starts showing she’ll back off herself, you’ll see.’
He didn’t get the impression she was appeased, but there was no way he was kissing ass. ‘You start planning anything fancy,’ he growled, ‘then Michael’s going to find out who told me about the kid. Or maybe it’ll be Chambers who finds out how you tried to get Ellen off the show. He seems like the kind of guy who’d appreciate a good blow-job. Wonder if he knows that yours come with a price tag?’ He laughed. ‘You know what? It’s making me hard just thinking about what you might do to get me to keep my mouth shut, so be sure to drop by next time you’re in town, won’t you?’ and still laughing he hung up and went back to the video.
Chapter 17
WITH CASTING AND crewing now almost complete and provisional shoot dates being struck into calendars, both Ellen and Michael were becoming so tied up with their various commitments that even sharing an office suite wasn’t bringing them into contact as much as they would have liked. Not that either of them was prepared to admit that, but Ellen was fairly certain that Michael was just as guilty as she was of searching out excuses for them to meet. And when they were together, instead of the incendiary clashes that had taken place over the last couple of weeks, there was an amazing light-heartedness to their encounters now, much like before they’d broken up, and it was highly entertaining to see how baffled everyone was by it. In truth, it baffled Ellen too, for though it was an act, it didn’t always feel like one, and she didn’t imagine it did for him either.
However, he had given no indication of wanting her to move back to the house, nor, more importantly, of being able to deal with her unfaithfulness and what had resulted. For her part it was becoming harder and harder to hold on to her principles, for she missed their physical closeness terribly, and hated the way they were constantly pretending there was no issue between them at all. But deep in her heart she knew she had to wait for him to come to her; it was the only way this could be resolved satisfactorily, and these past few days she was daring to believe that it might not be so long before it happened.
‘Working late again?’ he said, entering her office and finding her alone at her desk. She was still there in the hope that he would come to find her, having checked his diary and discovered that he had no meetings or dinners scheduled for the evening.
Putting on a good show of engrossment she made a drawn-out turn from the computer, which was displaying the Academy Players Directory. ‘Mmm, just checking out these suggestions,’ she said. ‘Tom’s adamant we can’t use Mexicans to play Colombians, because they look nothing like each other. I’ve also got to go over the latest publicity hand-outs. Did you see them yet? The ones where we’re starting to make a real issue out of revealing the killers’ names at the end of the movie?’
‘One of the best kept secrets of the year,’ he commented. ‘I just wonder how much longer we’ll be able to keep them under wraps.’
‘Have faith,’ she told him. ‘As far as I’m aware it’s only me, you and Tom who know. Oh, and Sandy. Tom told her himself.’
Michael’s eyebrows went up, but whatever he thought about Tom and Sandy’s apparent friendship, he made no comment. ‘Want me to go over the hand-outs with you?’ he offered, going to sit on one of the sofas.
Ellen feigned surprise. ‘You’re not rushing off?’ she said.
‘No. Where are they?’
‘Right there in front of you. I think some of the copy’s a bit cheesy, but it’s getting there.’
He picked one up and gave it a quick read through. ‘What visuals are we using?’ he asked.
‘No decision yet,’ she said. ‘But it’ll probably be Rachel and Tom – or Matty and Richard, I should say.’
Michael nodded thoughtfully. ‘You know, it might not be such a bad idea to use some shots of the actual Rachel and Tom,’ he said. ‘It could work better for this kind of publicity to show the woman who was really killed. Everyone’ll remember her, and if we’re using the revelation of the killers’ names as a hook, there won’t be much we can come up with that’s more powerful than the image of the woman they killed.’
Ellen was smiling as she shook her head. ‘You’re a genius, do you know that?’ she told him.
‘Yeah,’ he answered.
Laughing, she threw a pencil at him and said, ‘Did you have any luck talking Tom into giving some pre-shoot interviews?’
‘Now there my genius failed,’ he conceded.
He watched her as she got up from the desk, his eyes instantly going to her waistline to see if there were any signs yet. It was hard to tell, for though she was wearing a short tight rust-coloured skirt, the thin cotton sweater she had over it was too long and too loose to reveal anything more than a hint of cleavage at the neckline. She came to sit next to him, her bare legs almost touching his as she leaned forward to pick up a hand-out.
‘Let’s go over this wording,’ she said. ‘I daresay the experts will come up with something better, but based on what we’ve got here, I’m not sure we’re communicating quite the right message.’
They sat together for two hours or more, probably much longer than was necessary, dealing with everything from the publicity wording, to the cost of various sets, to the need for security once they were under way. She was acutely aware of his nearness, could feel him looking at her legs and noticing the brief glimpses of her breasts she was deliberately showing him each time she sat forward. There was even a moment, when they were laughing over a particularly tacky line in the hand-out, that he actually looked into her face and allowed his smile to fade. Ellen’s heart raced at the emotion that came into his eyes, but as she gazed back, feeling his tension and confusion, he suddenly looked away and returned to the subject of security.
But it wouldn’t be long now, she was certain of it. He was finding a way through, and she prayed to God that it would be soon, for
the last thing she wanted was to deprive him of these precious months before their baby was born.
More than eight weeks had gone by since Sandy was last in LA. She’d been too tied up in London to get away sooner, though she’d been in regular contact with Tom, and Michael and Ellen, and knew just about everything that was going on with World Wide and Rachel’s Story.
In fact enormous progress had been made. Thanks to Vic Warren the script could now boast a pretty good ending, the major parts were cast and contracted, several of the sets were complete and nearly all of the finance was in place. Over at their offices at Paramount the production team was blazing ahead, and she’d heard yesterday that a start date for principal photography had been sealed for October 2nd. As the major location scenes were being shot in Mexico, Vic Warren had just returned there, along with the DOP, designer, associate producers and unit managers. Current estimates were that they’d need at least eight weeks in the Sierra Madre, though Michael had confided to her during their last conversation that they were budgeting for ten.
Sandy wondered how things were now between Michael and Ellen. She knew they were still living apart, but whether any steps had been taken towards divorce, or reconciliation, Tom had never said. She guessed he probably didn’t know anyway, but it wasn’t a subject she liked to press him on, as she was in no hurry to find out if he was planning to step into Michael’s shoes.
It wasn’t hard to work out that, despite his efforts to convince the world to the contrary, life must be pretty grim for Michael right now, as he was having to deal with not only the undecided state of his marriage and Ellen’s condition, but also the fact that he was failing to take control of World Wide. In truth, he was a hell of a lot further from it now than he’d been eight weeks ago, when he’d first tested the waters to find out which of the shareholders might be willing to sell. Mark Bergin, the Australian industrialist who owned ten per cent of the stock, had turned him down flat. She’d heard that Chris Ruskin in New York wasn’t keen to part with any of his eleven per cent either, though even if he were, it still wouldn’t be enough for Michael to take the chair. Curiously, he hadn’t approached her yet, though she guessed that was because even if she were prepared to sell some of her twenty-one per cent, he was going to find it hard to raise the capital to buy. More or less everything he had was already in World Wide, including the funds he had borrowed against his shares in McCann Paull, and the mortgages he had taken on his apartment in London, villa in the Caribbean and house in LA. He might have more stashed away, of course, but she doubted it would be enough to make a serious bid.
Of course, she could help him out by buying up his share in McCann Paull, which would give her outright ownership of the London agency. But as it was unlikely the other World Wide shareholders would be willing to sell, cash alone wasn’t really going to do him much good. Besides, she couldn’t see him letting go of the agency, no matter how tough he was finding it having Ted Forgon as a boss.
Stepping out of the shower she reached for a towel and wandered through to the bedroom. It felt good to be back at the Four Seasons, though it would feel a whole lot better to be sharing a room with Tom. She knew she was going to have to wait a while for that, however, and wished she could feel more confident that one day it really would happen. He’d already checked her in by the time she’d arrived, getting her a room next to his, and ensuring there were flowers and champagne waiting for her to make up for the fact that he hadn’t managed to get out to the airport to meet her. He’d left a message to say he’d be back around seven, so she had half an hour now to get herself ready.
Though she was doing her best to stay calm, she was more nervous and excited about seeing him than she could properly handle. Phone calls and e-mails were so much easier, even if they were madly unsatisfying. But somehow, on the phone, she always managed to hold it together, sounding confident, interested, even witty, whereas the prospect of coming face to face with him in the next thirty minutes was making her feel ludicrously inept and out of her depth. If only she’d been able to get over to LA as often as she’d hoped, she’d be much more in the swing of seeing him then, and who could say, they might actually be having a relationship by now. As it was, pressure of business in London had kept her there, and with the way Rachel’s Story had started to move ahead, she had needed to be on the ground to oversee the transfer of funds from the UK and European investors. The way things currently stood she was responsible for raising just under thirty per cent of the budget, an achievement that had not only sealed her producer’s credit, but had won her something she prized even more than that, Tom’s admiration and respect.
But that wasn’t all she’d gained from Tom, for over the past two months, since he’d left England, she’d spent all the free time she had devouring whatever she could find on metaphysics and spirituality. Zelda had been a great help, for she knew all about that stuff, and though Sandy had started out with trepidation and scepticism, she knew now that her resistance had been based on the fear that she might not understand it all. But it really wasn’t so difficult, and she was totally fascinated by the concepts, and the way this new knowledge was changing her. She was starting to feel much less defensive than she used to, less fraught and needful of control. By giving situations room to breathe and time to develop she was finding they were yielding up far greater rewards than before. She’d become more patient, and was trying to struggle less to prove herself in an arena where she already held centre stage. It wasn’t that she was becoming passive, or even saintly, it was simply that she was beginning to understand some of the things Tom had told her about the Universe and its laws.
She sometimes discussed what she was reading with him, but was still rather shy about it, and afraid she would appear naïve or trite. Besides, it wasn’t every day that she felt in tune with what the books called her higher self, and she was still a long way from finding a spiritual means of dealing with her envy of Ellen Shelby or loathing of Ted Forgon.
But it was neither Ellen nor Forgon who was concerning her now, it was Tom and what was happening in Colombia. She had no idea how he reconciled his anger and need for revenge with his metaphysical leanings, but since he was very far from being a saint she considered his outrage not only reasonable, but human. She was nervous of it though, for while they were in London he had told her about calls he’d been receiving from a British journalist who was based in Bogotá. It seemed that Hernán Galeano, the head of the Tolima Cartel, was making it known, from his prison cell, that he wasn’t happy about some Hollywood movie that was planning on naming his two nephews as killers. Tom insisted that he didn’t give a shit what made Galeano happy, the Zapata boys, along with Salvador Molina, had raped and murdered Rachel, and if this was the only way he could make them pay then he sure as hell wasn’t going to back off just because Uncle Hernán didn’t like it.
Sandy wondered if Tom had mentioned any of this to Michael yet. She suspected not, as Michael hadn’t brought it up at all when they’d spoken, and she was certain he would have. She was equally certain that, despite the bluster, Tom still harboured a desire to go back there to settle the score in person, rather than leave it to the authorities who would be forced to take action once the movie was released. But even if he didn’t go back, there were plenty of Colombians in the United States, all kinds of unscrupulous characters, who’d be only too willing to carry out an assassination for the great Hernán Galeano. In fact, it was how the script ended: its only scenes of fiction depicted the vendetta breaking out on the streets of LA where Tom was hunted down, trapped, and delivered up to Rachel’s killers. Though in true Hollywood fashion they’d written it so that Tom managed to escape, as the very last thing any of them would want was for life to start imitating art in such dangerous and unpredictable circumstances.
But it could happen, and well she knew it, so the question she was asking herself now was, should she warn Michael about the calls Tom was getting, or should she wait a while longer and see how things developed?<
br />
‘Hey!’ Tom cried, coming in the door. ‘How are you? You look great. How was the flight?’
‘Fine,’ Sandy answered, returning his embrace. He smelt so good, felt so big and strong as he held her that already she could feel herself slipping onto unsteady ground. ‘Thanks for the flowers,’ she smiled, ‘they’re lovely.’
‘Not tired?’ he asked. ‘Sure you are. But you can make dinner? We’ll stay right here in the hotel, that way if you keel over I won’t have too far to carry you.’
She continued to smile and wondered if he’d noticed the semi-transparency of her dress. If he had he showed no sign of it. ‘Did you see the sets?’ she asked, as he opened her mini-bar.
‘Mmm,’ he answered. ‘They’re pretty good. Rachel’s office. Our Washington apartment. A foundation for young prostitutes. Newspaper offices. You name it, they’re building it.’ He held up the bottle of champagne. ‘Shall I open?’
She nodded. ‘As long as we’re celebrating seeing each other again,’ she said. ‘I missed you.’
He laughed. ‘I don’t believe it, but I like hearing it. Did you speak to Michael, by the way? He’s finally tied up the video deal. And he’s got the bond company he wanted, so we’re definitely on target for October 2nd.’
Sandy took the glass he was handing her. ‘Sounds like another reason to celebrate,’ she said.
They touched glasses and sipped, but when he smiled down into her eyes she found herself looking away. ‘How is Michael?’ she said, wondering why she no longer found it easy to flirt. ‘Does he tell you anything about the way it’s working out with Forgon at the helm?’
‘He doesn’t say much, but I don’t think he likes it too well,’ Chambers answered, going to sit down. ‘So far though, the old man’s keeping a pretty low profile. At least where this movie’s concerned. He’s getting involved in your twenty-six-parter, I hear?’