Sandra's Classics - The Bad Boys of Romance - Boxed Set

by Sandra Marton

  I’ll be dead from the cold by tomorrow, she thought, hitting the button again. Quickly, she pulled on a pair of baggy grey sweatpants, a navy sweatshirt, and a Ragg sweater, listening while the ma­chine clicked and whirred. Her feet felt like lumps of ice and she put on white wool socks and then added her Mickey Mouse slippers.

  The glam­orous Shannon Padgett, relaxing at home, she thought, grinning at her reflection in the mirror.

  She glanced at the clock as she went into the kitchen. Cade would probably be calling soon. He’d said he’d get in touch first chance he had. Picking up her teacup, she sipped at the liquid, made a face and tossed the tepid stuff into the sink. What was the point of making tea and drinking it cold? She sighed as she refilled the kettle and set it on the range. That Claire! She was impossible. Why couldn’t she simply be glad that the soap opera was doing as well as it was?

  Be fair, Shannon told herself as she took a box of tea-bags from the shelf. Claire had been a pest lately, but she was only trying to do her job. Even without the kind of media attention she wanted, Shannon’s career was on the move. There were doors opening to her now that had been closed before, and all her agent was trying to tell her was what she already knew.

  Either you stepped through those doors quickly or they swung shut. Nothing in the theater was deader than yesterday’s hit.

  The kettle shrilled and she shut off the burner. No, you couldn’t blame Claire for wanting to make the most of what was happening. It was just that nothing—not even the New York offer or the Los Angeles offer—was as important as Cade.

  She stirred a spoonful of sugar into her tea, watching as the amber liquid swirled and eddied.

  Still, she had to deal with those offers and she had to do it soon. You could only put off people so long.

  How strange life was, she thought, sipping the hot tea. If the offers had come just a couple of weeks ago, she’d have been on the phone with Claire ten times a day, luxuriating in the pleasure of deciding which of them to accept.

  Not that it wasn’t still exciting. It was just that she didn’t want to tie herself to three months in Los Angeles next summer or two months here in New York or anywhere else, not now. She wanted to be with Cade, and he wanted to be with her, and that was all that mattered.

  ‘There’s a little bistro in Marseilles that you’d love,’ he’d said as they had dined in a restaurant overlooking the East River. ‘It’s a madhouse during the summer, but it’s peaceful and quiet in the spring.’ And the other af­ternoon, reading lines together, he’d suddenly looked up and smiled at her. ‘Jack and Phil are going to open a place in Seattle next fall, did I tell you?’ And she’d said no, he hadn’t, and he’d smiled again. ‘Seattle’s a terrific city,’ he’d said. ‘You’d like it.’ And then, just last night, as they returned to her apartment after dinner, a couple of stoned kids had brushed by, muttering something vaguely obscene, and Cade had tensed. ‘We’ve got to get you out of this neighborhood,’ he’d said. ‘It’s too damned dangerous.’

  The sudden cry of the telephone startled her. She was half-way out of her chair before she remembered that the answering machine was still on. Perhaps that was just as well; Claire might have decided to try another approach.

  It wasn’t until she was rinsing out her teacup that it suddenly occurred to her that it might be Cade calling. Stupid, she thought, wiping her hands on her sweatpants and hurrying out of the kitchen. Stupid...

  Damn! Of course, it was Cade. The machine whirred and clicked and then his husky voice reached out to her through the silent rooms.

  ‘Hello, love. I called the studio but they said you’d gone for the day. I'm going to be stuck here for a while. Do you want to meet me at Nico’s at eight or shall I come by your apartment for you? Call me at 555-4180 and let me know...’

  ‘Yes,’ she gasped, snatching up the telephone.

  Cade laughed softly. ‘A machine that responds, hmm? That’s wonderful. But it has to learn to make choices.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll meet you at Nico’s and yes, I’ll wait here for you,’ she said breathlessly, sinking down on a chair. ‘Whichever you prefer.’

  ‘You’re a nice, obliging sort, Padgett. Has anybody ever told you that before?’

  ‘Not lately,’ she said, thinking of Claire and the ar­gument they’d just had. ‘How was your day?’

  Cade sighed. ‘Long and dull. And yours?’

  ‘Short and dull,’ she laughed. ‘The weather put Jerry into a panic—I think he’s driving to Connecticut for the weekend—so he called things to a close a couple of hours ahead of time, which was just as well, because it took me forever to get home. I didn’t really do much after you left the studio this morning, anyway. Jerry spent a lot of time doing camera angles on Rima. She was purring like a cat with a dish of cream.’

  ‘Good old Rima. Well, at least you had an easy day.’

  Shannon settled back against the pillows and smiled. ‘Am I supposed to gather from your tone that posing for People was difficult?’

  ‘It was hell, Padgett. I’ll expect you to treat this old man very kindly tonight.’

  ‘Oh, I will, Mr. Morgan, sir. Milk toast, and tea.’

  ‘That’s not quite what I had in mind. I was thinking more of something soothing to the body and spirit. Dinner, then back to your apartment for some much needed rest.’

  ‘That’s what I’m doing right now,’ Shannon said primly. ‘Resting after a hard day’s work.’

  Cade’s voice dropped to a husky whisper. ‘What are you wearing, Padgett? That blue teddy with the lace straps?’

  Shannon looked down at her sweater-topped sweatsuit and her Mickey Mouse feet and grinned.

  ‘Nope. Try again.’

  ‘A black satin negligée?’

  ‘Uh-uh. Something even sexier.’

  ‘Don’t tell me—you’ve got your mouse feet on.’

  ‘Ah yes, Mr. Morgan. The feet that drive men wild.’

  I can’t take much more of this,’ he growled. ‘I’ll be right over.’

  ‘Better bring your thermals,’ she said. ‘This place is as cold as Alana Dunbar’s heart. The heating system’s dead.’

  Cade’s chuckle was soft and wicked. ‘I can be there in twenty minutes with a sure cure for frostbite.’

  ‘I thought you had to work late.’

  ‘There’s no sacrifice too great. Your health is my first concern.’

  ‘How noble,’ she laughed. ‘Well, how did it feel to be photographed by People? Even Rima was impressed.’

  ‘I don’t want to sound immodest, babe, but you forget, I was a People cover before. I won three Grammys two years ago.’

  Shannon sighed. ‘That’s disgusting! Two covers in two years? For shame, Cade Morgan. How can you live with yourself?’

  ‘It’s not easy,’ he chuckled. ‘Listen, I’m going to have to go in a couple of minutes. Tell you what—meet me at Nico’s at eight. We’ll have an early dinner and then take in that Japanese movie in the Village.’

  Shannon curled the telephone cord around her wrist. ‘I thought you wanted to do that tomorrow night.’

  There was a brief pause and then Cade cleared his throat. ‘Bad news, sweetheart. I was going to tell you during dinner... I won’t be here tomorrow night.’

  ‘Won’t be here?’ she asked, swinging her feet to the floor. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m flying to Los Angeles early in the morning. Shannon. I’ll be gone all weekend.’

  ‘All weekend?’ she repeated. ‘But you didn’t say anything...’

  ‘I didn’t know about it until this afternoon. My manager went out to California to make arrangements for a farewell concert for the Marauders at the Hol­lywood Bowl next year.’

  ‘And he needs you there,’ she said slowly, thinking of the long, lonely hours stretching ahead.

  ‘Yeah. Well, no, not for that. He called me. Seems he went to a party last night and met the guy who just took over Scorpio Studios. The bottom line is that Scorpio’s
going to do a film in L..A in May and they may have a part for me.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ she said happily. Los Angeles in May? She had an offer from Rob Michael for Los Angeles in May.

  ‘Hank—my manager—wants me to meet this guy before Scorpio makes any casting decisions. I think it’s a long shot, but...’

  ‘Oh, you should meet him, Cade,’ she said, thinking that she’d save the news about the L.A. offer until Cade had actually been offered the part in the film. Not that she had any doubts about it. He’d work for Scorpio and she’d work for Rob Michaels and they’d be together. ‘It sounds like a great opportunity.’

  ‘Well, that’s what Hank says. But you sound as if you’ll be glad to get rid of me for the weekend. Won’t you miss me at all?’

  She smiled into the telephone. ‘Maybe,’ she teased. ‘Then again, maybe not.’

  ‘You’d damn well better miss me, woman! And you’d better be prepared to show how much when I get back.’

  ‘I’ll try and think of something,’ she said. ‘When will you be back?’

  ‘Monday night, the latest.’

  ‘You mean, you won’t be at the studio Monday?’ Shannon chuckled. ‘Jerry’s going to love that. He moaned all afternoon about having to shoot around you today.’

  ‘Well, he’s just going to have to live through it. No­body’s indispensable.’

  ‘Cade Morgan is. After all, more people are buying Glimmer toothpaste and Speedo detergent. And our ratings are up.’

  ‘That still doesn’t make me indispensable. The show was there long before I joined it. It’ll be there long after I’m gone.’

  She sighed dramatically. ‘Ah, what an innocent you are! When you leave, it’ll slip into oblivion.’

  ‘Do me a favor, Shannon,’ Cade said sharply. ‘Don’t use that line, okay?.’

  ‘Hey,’ she said softly, ‘I was just teasing you.’

  Cade let out his breath. ‘I’m sorry, love. I guess I’m more tired than I realized. It’s just that Crawford’s always trying to make me feel... Look, nothing is forever. Things change, you know? You can’t freeze time.’

  He sounded tired, she thought. You could joke about magazine covers all you liked, but a photo shoot wasn’t easy. She could still remember the modeling she’d done when she first came to New York and how tiring it was.

  ‘The only thing freezing right now is me,’ she said lightly. ‘I’ll meet you at Nico’s, okay?’

  ‘Okay. And then we’ll skip that movie.’ His voice turned rough. ‘I’ll take you home, and you can give me something to remember you by. How does that sound?’

  Shannon smiled. ‘It sounds perfect.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘I hate Mondays,’ Jerry Crawford snarled. ‘And this is the worst one in the history of this damned soap.’

  His words rolled over the quiet studio from the control booth. Shannon looked into the darkness beyond the set and swallowed hard.

  ‘I... I’m sorry, Jerry,’ she called. ‘Did I get that take wrong again?’

  ‘She looks awful, Make-up,’ the director said, ig­noring her. ‘Get in here and do something about the color of her face, will you? What did you do? Spend the weekend in Bermuda?’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t,’ she said nervously. ‘In fact, the pipes broke in my apartment, and I spent the weekend...’

  ‘That was a rhetorical question, Miss Padgett. Frankly, I don’t care if you spent in it Timbuktu.’ The control room door slammed and Jerry stalked on to the set, Rima the Prima by his side. ‘Make-up, I want Padgett to look as if she has a glow of excitement, not a goddamned fever, understand?’

  ‘Sure, Jerry,’ the make-up man said. He rolled his eyes and gave Shannon a sympathetic smile. ‘No problem.’ He turned her face to the light and began dusting her cheeks with powder. ‘Don’t let him get to you,’ he whispered. ‘Some Mondays are worse than others.’

  ‘He’s never been this bad before,’ she murmured.

  The make-up man nodded. ‘I think he’s annoyed be­cause Morgan’s not here. I heard him muttering some­thing to Rima.’

  ‘But Cade didn’t have any scenes today.’ She closed her eyes as the powder puff moved lightly across her forehead. ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘All 1 know is what I heard, dear. The man was going on about Morgan being self-interested... tilt your chin up a bit, will you?’

  ‘Rima’s the one who’s selfish,’ she said, doing as he’d asked. ‘Crawford changed her lines three times this morning, just to suit her. And meanwhile he’s done nothing but bark at me. And Rima loves every minute of it. She keeps looking at me with that smug smile on her face.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed. Well, just tune out.’

  ‘1 wish I could, but...’ Shannon raised her hand to her cheek and touched it lightly. ‘Is my face really red?’

  ‘Your cheeks are kind of ruddy, yes, but don’t worry about it. I’ll bring the color down.’

  ‘I hope I’m wrong,’ she said slowly, ‘but I just realized ... Is this a bump, Arnie? Next to my nose?’ She closed her eyes and bit back a moan. ‘Tell me it isn’t.’

  ‘Listen, if you’re talking about an allergy attack, forget it,’ the make-up man hissed. ‘Crawford will skin us both.’

  ‘Oh Lord, I can feel it happening! My skin is be­ginning to tingle... It’s his fault, anyway. How much of this glop can a face take? First my cheekbones were too high, then they were too flat. My eye liner was too dark when we started and then it was too light...’

  ‘Be sure and tell him that,’ Amie muttered. ‘Are you kidding? It’s going to be your fault—and mine, of course. Can’t you do something?’

  ‘I have some antihistamine tablets in my dressing- room. Maybe he’ll call a break. If I take the tablets fast enough...’

  ‘Make-up, what the hell’s taking so long?’

  ‘I’m almost done, Jerry.’ Amie ran his finger along Shannon’s forehead. ‘I hate to tell you this,’ he whis­pered frantically, ‘but you’re getting pinker by the second and you’ve got some little spots up here. Another five minutes, you’re probably going to look like a lobster.’

  ‘Bad analogy. I’m allergic to shellfish, too. All right, all right, don’t look at me that way. I’ll find a way to get through this next scene in one take and then I’ll get some anti­histamine. Jerry will never know anything’s wrong.’

  ‘One take?’ The make-up man jerked his head towards the side of the set. ‘Rima’s in this scene, remember? It’ll take a dozen shots to get this one in the can. In fact, considering Crawford’s mood, you’ll be lucky to be done by nightfall.’

  Shannon’s glance skittered past Arnie’s shoulder and her eyes met Rima’s coolly amused gaze. ‘Well, then, I’ll ask for a break. I’ll say I’ve got to go to the john or something.’

  ‘Aren’t you done yet, Make-up?’ Jerry asked irritably.

  ‘Yes, yes, all finished. There we go.’

  Jerry scowled as the man scuttled off to the side and then he motioned Rima forward.

  ‘Rima, dear, this is a pivotal scene,’ he said pleasantly, slipping an arm around her shoulders. ‘I want the audience to empathize with you. As for you, Padgett,’ he said coldly, ‘you’ve just been told your father left you controlling interest in the company Rima thought was hers and you can’t wait to rub it under her nose. Your stepmother’s never been your favorite person and this is the chance you’ve been waiting for. Try and look alive, please. You were as exciting as my Great-Aunt Tillie during the run- through.’

  Just look at that, Shannon thought, staring at Jerry as he stood with his arm around Rima. When did she become his favorite person?

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ she said carefully, touching her index finger to her cheek. Her face felt as if it were on fire. She cleared her throat and forced her lips back from her teeth in what she hoped was a smile. ‘Uh, Jerry, I was just wondering—were you planning on calling a break soon?’

  There was a thick silence. ‘No, I was no
t, Miss Padgett,’ the director said with forced cordiality. ‘But I gather you were hoping I was.’

  Shannon nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said brightly, ‘I was. I— uh—I need a couple of minutes. I have to...’

  ‘Don’t tell me your troubles,’ he snapped. ‘I’ve got enough of my own.’

  ‘I’m sure you do, Jerry...’

  ‘I’m sure you do, Jerry”,’ he mimicked. ‘You’re in an amazingly good mood, all things considered.’

  Lord, she thought, now he’s angry because he thinks I’m not taking him seriously.

  ‘Look, I know you’re not pleased with the way things are going this morning. Believe me, I wouldn’t ask for a break if I didn’t really need one.’

  Crawford threw his hands up in disgust. ‘Skip the speech, OK? All right, everybody, take ten.’

  ‘Thank you. I won’t be a second longer.’

  ‘You’d better not be, or I’ll tell the writers to arrange Alana Dunbar’s fatal accident ahead of time.’

  An embarrassed silence fell over the technicians and crew as the director turned and stalked off the set.

  ‘Well,’ the make-up man said finally, ‘anybody for a quick coffee?’

  Within seconds, the set was deserted. Shannon blinked back a sudden welling of tears as she started slowly to­wards the shadowed perimeter.

  ‘It isn’t your fault,’ a breathy voice said from the darkness. ‘Don’t let him upset you.’

  ‘Who’s there? Rima, is that you?’ Shannon asked. She frowned and rubbed her hand across her eyes as Rima stepped into the light. ‘I didn’t know anyone was still here.’

  Rima held out a packet of Kleenex. ‘Here,’ she said pleasantly, ‘you look as if you need a tissue.’

  Shannon looked at the older woman suspiciously and then she nodded.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘That’s very kind.’

  Rima smiled and tilted her head to the side. ‘Rough day, hmm?’

  Yes, I guess you could say that. Jerry’s been furious with me all morning.’

  Rima nodded. ‘Such a pity,’ she said sweetly. Shannon looked up sharply, but Rima’s face was a study in in­nocence. ‘I thought we could run through our little scene,’ she said. ‘See if we can get something extra into it.’