by Lucy Gordon
‘I’m…I’m sorry-’
He put a friendly hand on her shoulder.
‘Don’t get upset. That guy’s not worth it.’
‘I-’ She tried to speak normally, but only a choke would come.
‘Don’t cry,’ he advised her.
‘I’m not crying,’ she said fiercely, although tears were streaming down her cheeks.
He didn’t waste time arguing, just took out a clean handkerchief and dabbed her face gently.
‘People kiss each other all the time,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t mean anything, not in this place. Kissing is just like saying hello.’
She knew that what she’d seen was far more than that, but he was trying to be kind, and she forced herself to be calm.
‘Yes-yes-thank you. I’ll stop bothering you now-’
‘You’re not bothering me. I just don’t like to see you upset. Do you know him?’
‘I thought I did-I mean, yes-no-’
He nodded, as though fully comprehending her confusion.
‘I can’t say I like him much myself,’ he admitted. ‘Are you one of his fans? You sound English. Did you follow him here?’
‘No!’ she said fiercely. ‘Of course I didn’t. What a thing to say!’
‘Sorry, sorry. No offence. So you haven’t lost your heart to him?’
‘No!’ she said violently. ‘That would be just silly-mooning over a pretty face just because he’s an actor.’
‘It has been known,’ he murmured wryly. ‘But if you haven’t, that’s good. This is no place for people with hearts. What’s your name?’
‘Charlene Wilkins. Who are you?’
She sensed, rather than saw, a tremor of surprise go through him. ‘What did you say?’
‘I just asked your name. Have I seen you before somewhere?’
‘Evidently not. My name’s Travis Falcon. I work here.’
‘Oh, yes-you’re in the show, aren’t you?’
His lips twitched with something that might have been amusement. ‘That’s one way of putting it. Now, let’s get out of here. We’ve got time for a coffee before I start work.’
‘No, I’m fine…fine-honestly-’
It was a lie. Appalled, she could feel herself on the verge of hysterics as the truth crashed in on her.
‘Come on,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m not leaving you on your own in a strange place. Not given the state you’re in.’
But to be alone was what she needed in case the screams rising within her broke out. When he reached for her she flailed madly to fend him off, and the next moment she heard a loud crack as her hand made contact with his face.
The sound was shocking and the way he rubbed his cheek told its own story. Charlene backed away, hands over her mouth, eyes wide with horror. But, incredibly, he wasn’t offended.
‘Hey, it’s not that bad,’ Travis said. ‘No big deal.’
‘It is. Oh, heavens, I hit you really hard. I didn’t mean to- I’m sorry-’
‘You will be if you don’t let me buy you a coffee. Come on, no more arguments or I’ll get tough.’
His tone was light but he held her arm in a no-nonsense grip. Nor could she have defied him now. All the strength seemed to have drained out of her. The next thing she knew, she was sitting at a table in the corner of the studio canteen.
‘I’m going to the counter,’ he said. ‘Don’t even think of escaping while I’m gone, or I’ll get mad.’ He gave her a kindly smile. ‘I can be very nasty when I’m mad.’
He left her and she sat there, without the strength to move. She felt herself sagging everywhere-body, mind and heart. How had she been such a fool as to let it come to this? Plain, sensible Charlene, famed for her common sense! And she’d gone down like a row of ninepins.
Travis Falcon. Now she recalled that he was the star of the show. He didn’t act like a star, proud and pompous. He hadn’t been offended when she’d failed to recognise him, or even when she’d accidentally struck him. More like a nice guy than a star.
She dived into her bag and pulled out the newspaper with the picture of the man in the nightclub. As she opened it another picture fell out. It had been taken on a stage and showed a young man and a girl in nineteenth-century costumes, fervently clinging to each other. She took it with her everywhere.
‘Here we are.’ Travis’s voice made her jump as he appeared with coffee and rolls. ‘It’s good to see you calmer. I was getting worried.’
‘I’m really sorry about your face,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to hit you.’
‘I know you didn’t.’
‘It’s not swelling, is it?’ she asked, searching his face. ‘If I’ve damaged you the studio will probably sue me.’
‘Hey, do you think I’m some sort of a wimp to be so easily hurt? You’re not the first girl to- Yeah, well, never mind that. Anyway, we’re only rehearsing today, not shooting, so if you’ve disfigured me it won’t matter until tomorrow.’
His comic self-deprecation was attractive, and her nerves eased enough to manage a shaky laugh, which made him regard her with approval.
‘That’s better. Now, let’s talk. How do you come to be here? I suppose you were looking for Lee?’ She nodded and he said, ‘Perhaps you should have warned him you were coming?’
‘But I did, only…he doesn’t seem to be getting his messages the last few days.’
Travis judged it best to maintain a tactful silence. He’d known Lee for only a few weeks and disliked him. Selfish, self-centred, indifferent to everyone else was how he would have described him. In the short time Lee had been in Los Angeles he’d raised the roof with his ‘girly antics’ as they had become known.
But he wouldn’t say this to the young woman sitting beside him. There was no need. Clearly she was discovering it for herself.
‘Do you know him well?’ he asked.
‘We’ve acted together.’
‘You’re an actress?’
‘Not professionally. I work in a bank, but I do a lot of amateur acting. That’s how I met Lee.’
‘Hey, now I remember. There was a story in the papers-he hadn’t had a job in a while, so he did some amateur stuff and an agent saw him.’
‘That’s right.’ Charlene showed him the photograph. ‘That’s us.’
‘What was the play?’
‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Lee played Shakespeare?’
‘He was very good,’ she said defensively. ‘He was Demetrius, I was Helena.’
And Helena spent most of the play pursuing Demetrius, begging to know why he no longer loved her. Travis studied the picture, noticing the passionate adoration in her face and the impatience in his. How much of it was acting? Not much, he guessed, drawing on his knowledge of Lee.
He glanced at her. She was tall, with dark, straight hair, flowing casually over her shoulders. Not a beauty. Not even pretty in the strictest sense. Her features were regular but there was a slight touch of severity about her face that might warn people off, just at first, although it faded when she smiled, brightening her large dark eyes.
Intriguing, he thought. She didn’t flaunt everything on the surface, but perhaps she might lure a man along a fascinating path of discovery. Or maybe not. Who could say? But she was exactly the kind of woman he doubted that Lee bothered with for long.
He knew a twinge of pity. He had an uneasy feeling that she was facing heartbreak.
A shadow appeared in the doorway and a woman strode in, looking around frantically.
‘Oh, goodness!’ Charlene said. ‘I got in as part of a studio tour, and that’s the leader, looking for me.’
The woman bore down on them, uttering words of concern and disapproval.
‘I’m afraid it’s my fault,’ Travis said at once. ‘Charlene is an old friend of mine and when I saw her here I persuaded her to spend the day with me.’ He smiled at Charlene. ‘You should have told me you were coming and I’d have rolled out the red carpet.’
&
nbsp; ‘I didn’t want to be a trouble,’ she said, falling into character.
‘You’re never a trouble to me.’ He turned back to the leader. ‘You can safely leave her in my care.’
He accompanied the words with his warmest look and the leader melted.
‘Oh, well…in that case I’ll leave you to it.’ She departed, but not before giving him a mystified look over her shoulder.
‘You see?’ Travis said to Charlene. ‘No problem.’
‘That was an incredible performance,’ she said. ‘You really fooled her. Thank you so much. And I won’t be a nuisance. I’ll go now.’
‘No way. You just heard me say you were spending the day with me, so that’s what you have to do.’ He dropped his voice to a theatrical undertone. ‘If you flee my company it looks bad. People will think I’m losing my touch.’
‘And we can’t have them thinking that,’ she agreed.
‘Right. Now it’s time we went to the rehearsal.’
‘We? Am I allowed?’
‘You were going to go with the group.’
‘Yes, but will they let me in on my own?’
‘You won’t be on your own. You’re my guest, and you can do anything I say.’
He drew her to her feet, then crooked his arm for her to take.
‘Time for our entrance,’ he said.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN they entered the rehearsal room the director raised his eyebrows, but a smile from Travis and his arm around Charlene’s shoulder evidently answered all questions.
He saw her comfortably seated and flicked open the script. ‘Which scene is it this morning?’
‘The one where you try to talk Myra out of being in love with Dr. Baker,’ the director said, ‘and Baker overhears you-if those two would only turn up-ah, Lee, Penny, there you are!’
Charlene stiffened as Lee appeared in the doorway, with the girl she’d seen him with earlier. She turned her head but not quickly enough.
Lee had seen her.
He’d recognised her.
She tried to interpret his stunned look as pleasure. Now he would hurry across the floor to greet her.
But he stayed where he was, confused, troubled. Not delighted.
‘Right, Lee,’ the director said, ‘we’ll have a camera on you, to get a reaction shot. Travis, start at, “You should forget Dr Baker.”’
They took their places and Travis began.
‘You should forget Dr Baker. I know he’s incredibly handsome, but looks don’t really matter. Try to believe me. A man’s face is the least of him.’
‘Oh, they do matter, Dr Harrison, truly they do.’ Penny sighed. ‘He’s so attractive that I can’t help loving him.’
‘But is he generous, affectionate, honest? Will he always put you first?’
‘You mean is he dull and reliable?’ she challenged.
Dr Harrison took her hands in his and spoke with feeling. ‘I promise you, when you come to marry, dull and reliable is the best.’
‘Fine,’ the director said. ‘Lee, you should try to look as though you’ve just had a terrible shock.’
Which he has, Charlene thought sadly.
The actress called Penny gave Travis a look of laughing camaraderie. ‘“Dull and reliable is the best,”’ she teased. ‘You sounded like you believed that nonsense.’
‘I’m an actor,’ Travis protested. ‘I’m supposed to talk nonsense convincingly.’ He grinned. ‘However little I believe it.’
‘Well nobody ever accused you of being dull and reliable. That picture-’
‘You didn’t see it,’ he said hastily. ‘There’s no picture.’
‘If you say so.’
They rehearsed the scene several more times. Never once did Lee look in Charlene’s direction, and perhaps Travis realised this too, because when there was a break he went over to him. Charlene couldn’t hear what they said but she saw him take Lee’s arm and draw him towards her. She noticed, too, the uneasy glance he gave Penny.
As Lee sat down next to her he managed a polite smile, but his words brought a chill to her heart.
‘Fancy seeing you again.’
‘Why do you sound surprised? I’ve been sending you texts-’
‘My cellphone needs repair. Never mind. It’s great to see you again. What are you doing here? Did you come to see Travis? I hear you’re an old friend of his. OK, I’m just coming!’
The last words were called to Penny, who was standing by the door, signalling him and mouthing a word that looked like Lunch.
‘Old friend and good friend,’ came a voice above Charlene’s head. It was Travis, who’d been shamelessly eavesdropping. ‘It made my day when you turned up here, Charlene. Now, make it even better and have lunch with me.’
His hand on her arm brooked no resistance. Not that she wanted to resist. She was too grateful to him. Lee gave her a meaningless smile and vanished out of the door with Penny.
There was no doubt that Travis had saved her dignity. All eyes were on them as he escorted her out of the studio, into the corridor, into the elevator, finally the canteen. Heads turned, people stared at him in the company of a girl nobody had seen before.
Charlene struggled to collect her thoughts. Lee’s blank manner had told her everything she needed to know. But would that change when he heard her news? She had a terrible fear that it wouldn’t.
‘Thank you,’ she said when they were sitting at the table. ‘You saved me from looking a complete fool.’
‘Don’t call yourself a fool. That’s just playing his game. Presentation is all important.’
‘It’ll take more than presentation to stop me looking pathetic,’ she said in a tone of self-contempt. ‘I came all this way for a man who isn’t interested.’
‘But nobody has to know. Smile at me. Let them see us enjoying each other’s company. Go on, smile. More. That’s better.’
She was aware of the crowded canteen, and even more aware of Lee and Penny sitting together.
Good, she thought defiantly. Now he knew she wasn’t desperate for him.
‘So you’re a financial genius,’ he said.
She made a face. ‘That’s what I used to think, but it seems not.’
‘Hey, if you’re good with figures then I’m impressed. I’m rubbish at them.’
‘But it’s possible to be good with figures and rubbish at everything else,’ she said quietly. ‘It doesn’t make you good with people. I thought being good at the job was all I needed to get promoted, but the promotion went to some little doll-face who’d learned the job from me in the first place. When I protested I was told that they relied on me to keep an eye on her.’
‘So you’d do the work and she’d get the credit?’ Travis said sympathetically.
‘And the company car. And the increase in salary. So I told them to forget it.’
‘Good for you!’
She gave a brief laugh. ‘I wasn’t very clever. They offered me a bonus if I’d stay there, look after her and promise to keep quiet about “everything”.’
‘Meaning your boss and the girl he was sleeping with?’
‘Right. I could have had it made, but I lost my temper. I was really violent. They say the building shook when I slammed out.’
‘You?’ he queried. ‘Violent?’
‘Well, you’ve already found that out, haven’t you?’
‘No, you didn’t hit me on purpose. Pure accident. You seem so sedate, I just can’t imagine you slamming out.’
He might have added that her clothes, hair and make-up told the same story: austere, severe, sober, stern, unyielding. There was nothing fiery about her. Not on the surface, anyway. But inside he guessed there was something else.
Perhaps Lee had tempted it out into the open, which made it all the more strange that he was avoiding her.
‘Well, I’m paying for it,’ she said. ‘If I’d been clever I’d have driven them to fire me, then claimed unfair dismissal and sued.’
‘Admirable, but coul
d you have driven them to fire you?’
‘Maybe. People can be tricked into doing what you want.’ She smiled. ‘I expect you know that.’
‘Sometimes,’ he conceded. ‘But I have a feeling I’m not as good at it as you.’
‘Well, I wasn’t good at it this time. First I lost my temper, then I realised I shouldn’t have, and by then it was too late. I did everything by the virtuous book, but sometimes you can have too much virtue.’
‘How true,’ he murmured. ‘So how did you find the cash to come here?’
‘My grandparents paid. They brought me up since my parents died. They’re lovely, adventurous people. Right now they’re on holiday in Africa, looking for elephants. They said I could go with them but I chose to come here instead.’
‘To find Lee?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where are you staying?’
‘The Howley. Why do you shudder? Do you know it?’
‘Not the hotel but that part of town. Depressing. I’d get out if I was you, find something better.’
He could have bitten his tongue out for his own tactlessness. Obviously she was making the money last, not knowing how long she would be here.
He took hold of her hand. ‘Charlene, listen to me. Don’t do anything crazy. It’s not-’
‘Well, this is nice!’
They both looked at the man who’d appeared just behind Travis. He was middle-aged, bulky, and his smile was a little too broad to be convincing.
‘Hello, Denzil,’ Travis said. ‘Charlene, this is Denzil Raines, my boss.’
‘None of that “boss” stuff,’ Denzil said jovially. ‘We’re all friends here. So you’re Charlene. I’ve been hearing about you. Nice to meet you. Hope you’re having a good time. Travis, make sure you treat this lady well. All right, all right, I’ll leave you two alone now.’
He took himself off, only turning at the last moment to give Travis a thumbs up sign and a beaming grin. Travis gave an inward groan.
‘He seems nice,’ Charlene observed. ‘Is something the matter?’
‘Everything’s the matter. I’m sorry about that. Denzil is thinking how he can make use of you.’