by Lynn, Janice
He laughed again. “If you haven’t noticed how she looks at you, you should have yours checked.”
That got Colin’s attention. “What are you talking about now?”
“That she couldn’t keep her eyes off you. Every chance she got her gaze cut to you. She’s got it bad.” A smug expression settled on his face. “Of course, it would have to be love since she refused me in lieu of dancing with you.”
“That was months ago.”
“Yeah, and it was obvious even back then.”
“We only met that day.”
“Whoever said there were time requirements for love?”
* * *
J.P. cornered Jessie the moment they stepped out of the studio and into his private office. He’d grabbed her arm and practically marched her down the hallway. Marched as much as his aching bones would let him, at any rate. Something was going on, and he wanted to know what the hell it was.
First, Jessie had come into the studio mussed and upset. Then Colin had been almost rude to their star guest. Then he’d had a call from Maxwell to come to his office pronto. J.P. didn’t like being in the dark.
Colin wouldn’t tell him a damn thing, although J.P. had a pretty good inkling what the boy’s problem was. He’d fallen to the wayside of the jolly green monster.
But Jessie? She’d been upset long before Colin’s aggressiveness toward Eric.
“What’s happened? Did someone threaten you?” he asked, worried a repeat of last week’s catastrophes might have happened. Extra security mulled around the building, but that didn’t mean Jessie was impervious to harm.
“No.” She shook her head, closed her eyes, then sighed. “Not really.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t have asked.”
“I ground Max’s coffee beans.”
J.P.’s eyes widened. “Why would you do that?”
Jessie’s chin jutted out, defiance settling into her expression. “Because he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
Not for one second did he doubt Jessie’s words.
He’d been afraid something like this might happen. That Maxwell might make a move she wouldn’t be receptive to because she was so wrapped up in Colin she couldn’t see straight.
Not that he’d want Jessie involved with Maxwell even if she weren’t fascinated with Colin. He wouldn’t. Maxwell was a married man. Married to one of Hollywood’s most powerful men’s daughter. Screwing around on Marian was like putting one’s jewels on the chopping block. Not a smart move.
Maxwell must have it bad to risk Marian’s anger.
“What did he say?”
“I didn’t stick around to find out.”
J.P. raked his fingers through his hair, grateful he still had a thick head-full since so many men his age didn’t. Of course, at the rate he was going, he’d have it pulled out by the end of the day.
“He wants to see me.”
Jessie’s eyes lifted. “What for?”
“That’s what I intended to find out from you.”
Looking as if she really didn’t care, she shrugged. “Now you know.”
“Now I know.” J.P. sank into his chair and pulled a cigar out from his desk drawer. Unmindful of Wolf’s strict no smoking rules, he lit it. He needed a smoke too badly to worry about rules at a time like this. Besides his lighting a cigar wasn’t going to amount to a hill of beans next to Jessie knocking Maxwell’s nards into his throat.
“He deserved it and more,” she spat out, pacing across the room.
“I’m sure he did.”
“I tried to be diplomatic. I totally asked him nicely, but did he listen? No. He grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.” Her face screwed up in a contorted mess and her mouth set in a straight line. “I won’t allow that.”
J.P. dragged in a heavy puff of calming nicotine and discovered that not even his beloved cigars could ease his sense of pending doom.
“If he fires me, I’ll sue his hind-end for sexual harassment,” Jessie announced, her gaze meeting J.P.’s.
“Even if you won, he’d see to it you never worked in Hollywood again.”
“You know what? I’m not sure that I care.” She flopped down into a chair and stared at the ceiling, caring a great deal.
J.P. inhaled a long puff.
Might as well get it over, see how bad the damage was, what price Maxwell would exact for forgiveness. Or at least tolerance. His pride would be wounded. The price might be higher than Jessie would be willing to pay.
What was he saying? Of course the price was going to be higher than she was willing to pay. She’d demand Maxwell apologize to her. For the bastard to grovel on his knees.
Which meant it would be up to J.P. to figure out a way to save Jessie’s hind-end. His own hind-end. Colin’s too, for that matter. An egotistical man like Maxwell wouldn’t let something like this go unpunished, and he sure as hell wouldn’t grovel.
J.P. leaned back in his chair, went to prop his feet on his desk and realized the effort was too much for his arthritic hips. Hell. Nothing was going right today.
Earlier, he asked Beverly to lunch and she gawked at him. Gawked then ran away. You’d have thought he had three heads or something.
He’d have her know his last date had been with a twenty-two year-old Miss December on a very naughty calendar gracing men’s rooms and garages around the country. Beverly should have been thanking her lucky stars that he’d asked her to lunch.
“You think he’s going to fire me and that I should say I’m sorry,” Jessie accused.
“I can’t tell you what to do on this one, girl.” J.P. shrugged. “Causin A Commotion’s ratings go up with every show. Despite today’s lackluster performance by Colin, viewers love watching you two wrangle with each other. Hell, they’ll probably love the way he acted like a jealous lover today, for that matter.”
Despite her anger, Jessie’s cheeks blushed a rosy dead-give-away pink.
“Oh hell, girl. Tell me you didn’t.”
“I didn’t.”
“Damn.” J.P.’s day went from bad to worse. “You did.”
“I did.” She shrugged as if it were no big deal. If he bought that nonchalance he wouldn’t be worried. Unfortunately, he didn’t.
He inhaled sharply on his cigar, thinking that if he could draw every last drop from the Cuban perhaps it would sooth his tattered nerves.
“I warned you to stay away. Sleeping with the boy is the absolute worse thing you could have done. Career suicide. No wonder he acted like the king cock in the hen house today.”
“Just for the record, we didn’t sleep.”
J.P. scowled.
“Oh, alright. I know you warned me not to sleep with him, and I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”
“Make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s refused to see me since, well, you know.”
“Smart boy.”
“What?” Jessie frowned. “Whose side are you own?”
“The side that doesn’t want to see either your or Colin’s career go down the drain because you got a bit of down under itch.”
“You make it sound like an ugly disease.”
“Haven’t you heard? Love is.”
“I don’t love him.”
But even as she said it, J.P. saw the truth in her eyes.
Damn.
Chapter Sixteen
J.P. played it cool, sat across from a stern-faced Maxwell, and prepared himself for the worst.
“I’m canceling the show.”
No matter how cool J.P was, he hadn’t been prepared for that particular worst. “Canceling the show? Have you lost your mind? Ratings are through the roof. Better than we ever projected.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re canning the show.”
J.P. had been in Hollywood biz fo
r a long time. Had seen a lot of wrong-doings during his time, but this one took the cake.
Then again, Jessie kneed the man in his balls. Perhaps J.P. would fire a woman, too, if she’d done that. Just the thought made his old royals tighten, but to can the entire show?
“What’s this about?” Would Maxwell tell him the truth? Somehow J.P. doubted it.
“The show isn’t meeting with the board’s approval.”
“They don’t like steadily climbing ratings that are closing in on the competition? Since when?”
Maxwell’s lips thinned. “This isn’t about ratings. The show was never meant to last.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Apparently Maxwell slipped with the last one because for the first time J.P. could ever recall the arrogant snot looked nervous.
“No one on the board thought you could turn Crandall into a success.”
Light dawned and didn’t paint a pretty picture. “The show was meant to fail? From the beginning.”
“Why else do you think we gave you complete freedom?”
“Because I’m a damn fine producer.”
“So it would seem.” Maxwell scowled. “Tell me, why do you think we let you pick out Colin’s co-host? The board knew you’d go for some blond Barbie doll bimbo, and you did.”
“Jessie’s much more than a blond Barbie-doll bimbo, and you know it.”
“I know no such thing,” Maxwell denied.
Fed up with the whole scenario and knowing he was probably losing his job with Wolf anyway, J.P. said what was on his mind. “Yeah, well, I’d say you’d have a better insight to knowing than most since you kissed her this afternoon.”
A bit of color drained from Maxwell’s face. “What did that lying witch say?”
“That you copped a feel, and she put you in your place.”
“She lied. She was all over me and I had to push her away.”
J.P. snorted. “Is that how it happened?”
“Yes.”
“Does the board know you’re canning the show?”
“Have you not been listening? The board has wanted Colin’s show canned for eons. For some reason Marian refused. And if Marian refuses so does her father.”
“Quite foolish of you to be trying to steal kisses from Jessie when your wife holds so much power. I’d say you should have been trying to cop a feel from her in hopes she’d see things your way.”
“You weren’t listening. Jessie kissed me. I think she’s trying to sleep her way to the top.”
“If that were Jessie’s objective she’d have walked right over you a long time ago.”
“Where do you get off speaking to me this way?” Maxwell demanded. “You’re nothing but a has-been producer who got lucky when Rob Lancaster included you on what ended up being a surprising success.”
Despite his shock of white hair, his arthritic bones, and his stiff joints, J.P. didn’t take kindly to being called a has-been. Not by this arrogant SOB who’d already pushed his luck too far once today. J.P. found himself wishing Maxwell’s family jewels weren’t hidden beneath his monstrosity of a desk. He might knee the man, too.
“When?” he asked.
“When what?”
“When will the show be canceled?”
Maxwell shrugged. “I’m told we’re booked through the end of the month with guests and sponsors. We’ll make good on our contracts, then the show’s gone.”
J.P. would be out of a job again. He should have known Wolf would never live up to their end of the deal.
“Fine.” J.P. grabbed hold of the chair arms and used them to hoist himself from the chair. Amazing how something so simple could take so much effort. “I’ll tell the rest of the crew.”
“No.”
J.P. stared at Maxwell. The man made a menacing pose, sitting at his desk in his thousand dollar suit with his hands steepled.
“What do you mean no?”
“No one is to know about this. Not until I send out an official memo.”
“When will that be?”
“Whenever I damn well please.”
“You’re a prick.”
“I learned from the best. My father.”
“Your father would never have done something like this.”
“No?” Maxwell didn’t look like he cared one way or the other. “We’ll never know for sure, will we?”
* * *
“Mrs. Arnold, are you sure you want to see this?” the nervous assistant asked for the third time.
Marian knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that, yes, she did want to see. From the moment Maxwell mentioned hiring the young actress, she’d known this day was coming. The day when he’d make his move on the buxomy blonde.
Only she hadn’t predicted that the woman would turn Maxwell down as Beverly reported. Marian patted the assistant’s hand. “I need to see this. Start the tape.”
Although, it probably broke all kinds of privacy acts, Marian installed security cameras into Jessie Davidson’s private room. If anything inappropriate happened between the woman and her husband, she’d wanted proof to nail Maxwell’s nuts to the wall.
She’d had similar cameras installed in Maxwell’s office. Not that he knew or even had the slightest suspicion. The fool. He thought he could do as he pleased, and she’d never be the wiser, that she was no more than a means to an end.
For too many years she had been. Before she met Maxwell she’d planned to eventually run Wolf television. Look at her now. A thirty-five-year-old woman who spent her days working out and getting facials to keep her skin young in vain efforts to hold onto a man who didn’t deserve her. Only she wasn’t young. Not as young as she had been. Nor would she ever be again. And she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life in Maxwell’s shadow, constantly getting injected and peeled and lipo-suctioned in an effort to compete with the young starlets coming in and out of his life.
She refused to do it. Not anymore.
She’d earned every line on her face, every gray hair on her head. Most at her husband’s infliction.
Marian’s eyes narrowed as the tape played, as she watched her husband grab the young woman, attempt to bribe her, watched as the woman gave him what he deserved.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Arnold.,” Beverly apologized yet again. “I hate that you had to see this.”
Marian hated having to see it to, but not to the point that she wanted to remain in ignorance to her husband’s carrying-on. She imagined she’d see it several times over in court if she could convince Jessie Davidson to sign a release.
Hopefully, she’d do a better job with that than she had of convincing Colin to get her off Causing A Commotion and out of Wolf. It had been her last ditch effort at saving her marriage.
Her marriage had been doomed long before Jessie showed up.
Perhaps this moment had been coming from the time Colin entered Marian’s life.
“What about the other disk?” she asked, ready to know everything.
“Leo said you’d want to see it, too.” Leo was one of the security guards Marian had on her private payroll. He’d installed the cameras in Maxwell’s office. A total professional who’d come highly recommended and been worth every penny.
“Put it in.”
Beverly did so, gasping when she heard Maxwell’s proclamation to can Causing A Commotion. “Oh no!”
Marian finished watching the segment, trying to sort out how she wanted to handle this latest development. Beverly sat beside her, looking pale. Of course, the woman just found out she was going to lose her job. Marian would never allow her to go on unemployment though. Like Leo and the other security guard on her payroll, Beverly had proven how helpful, how intelligent she was. Her skills went far beyond a production assistant. Marian had known that before she’d arranged for Beverly to be hired on Colin’s show. A show she’d insured Colin would have.
Who knew an overheard conversation between her husband and an acquaintance of theirs at a dinner party would change
her life so much? A conversation that made her curious enough about what was going on at Wolf to hire Beverly to be her eyes and ears?
She’d never regretted that decision and knew Beverly needed the extra money for her mother’s care. Their relationship, strange and secretive as it was, benefited them both.
Maxwell planned to cancel a show that was doing well. Not only doing well, but growing in success. It made little sense except to assuage his wounded pride, and Marian didn’t buy that for a minute. Maxwell would have let word of her positive drug screen leak out and let others do his dirty work for him. The network would have found a replacement. Perhaps one who wouldn’t be so quick to say no and so thrusting of the knee.
He said the board wanted the show canned.
“Tell me about Jessie Davidson. Do you like working with her?”
Beverly looked uncomfortable. “I know you don’t, and I understand that, but I do like her.”
“Go on.”
“She’s kind to everyone, funny, gorgeous yet will be the first to poke fun of her self.” Beverly smiled softly, as if recalling a particular memory. “She thinks her nose is too big and is constantly telling Elaine to make her up to make it look smaller. As if. She’s a total knock-out.” Beverly’s gaze lifted, and she winced. “Sorry.”