Star Attraction

by Sorcha MacMurrough

  She gaped. What he was offering her was larger than anything she could ever have imagined. And yet it was his own money, not the studio's….

  "So what do you say? I know the financial considerations are pretty persuasive, but if you have any doubts, say so now.”

  Zaira couldn’t believe the sum he was offering her. It was enough to pay off all the debts, and even have some left over, she calculated, her head swimming.

  “My only reservation is the screenplay. Who did you have in mind?”

  She nearly fell off her seat when he said, “There’s a young lecturer called Zaira Darcy, and I’d like to give her the chance.”

  “Why, may I ask?” Zaira forced herself to say.

  “Lots of reasons to do with enthusiasm and capability, but mainly because she is an expert on the period, and will have a great feel for it, and you’ll be too busy as the Dark Lady.”

  Brad paused, then shrugged his broad shoulders. “Besides, I think it will be good for her. She looks as though she has taken a few knocks, and could benefit from the chance.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I say that you don’t seem like the charitable type,” Zaira said scornfully, and decided to test him once again. “She wouldn’t happen to have a huge bosom, gorgeous looks, flowing blond locks, and a great admiration for you and your work, now would she?”

  Brad exploded into laughter, and said, “My goodness, what a picture. No, she couldn’t even be remotely described as any of those things, except possibly gorgeous if she did herself up a bit. Zaira doesn’t like me or my work, and her physical attributes are definitely not on the over-endowed side. She has auburn hair and grey eyes, and great brains, which is what I'm really after. In all my women, if the truth be told, not what you read in the tabloids.”

  Zaira tried to look skeptical, but the truth was she could all too readily believe that the only thing Brad was interested in was her mind. She deliberately dressed like a dowdy middle-aged woman for self-protection and to avoid complications.

  “Really, you’ll like her,” Brad insisted. “You remind me of her in some ways. You haven’t any sisters, I suppose?”

  “No, not at all,” Zaira replied, trying not to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Sooner or later he would figure it out, but in the meantime she would let him pay her as much as possible.

  She glanced at the clock, and said, “Right, then, I think if that is the last matter to be settled, then we have ourselves a deal. I’ll talk to Matt Wolf about the terms. You can have your people draw up the contract and send it to his. If he advises me that it is all fine with him and the publishing house, we will get onto it as soon as Hamlet is finished.”

  “Fine, I’ll have my lawyers draw this up in writing then, and it should be settled the day after tomorrow.”

  “Rehearsals are at ten, all right?” Zaira reminded him.

  “I’ll be here!” Brad grinned, shook her hand hard, again looking at her with a mild frown between his brows, and he disappeared, almost running out the door in his haste to get the ball rolling with his dream project.

  Zaira practically hugged herself with excitement and joy. She was completely swept away by Brad Clarke, and she knew it. Oddly enough, she didn’t care.

  As she trailed backstage and began to remove her costume, she kept replaying the events of the past hour over and over again in her mind. She couldn’t believe how her luck had turned. Zaira was not only going to act and direct with him in the production of Hamlet, but he wanted her in the film of her own book! On top of that, she would be getting a consulting fee, and a percentage, with him not even realizing that he would also be paying her for the screenplay!

  Zaira walked from the theater to the lecture hall for her next class, she practically jumped for joy. For the first time since her husband Jonathan had disappeared, leaving their ad agency in ruins and her destitute, she felt happy and free. At last she would be able to settle her debts and not have to worry about living hand to mouth.

  Zaira reflected gleefully that Matt would be thrilled to hear the news, and couldn’t wait to tell him everything.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When Zaira walked out of her classroom at five, she sensed rather than saw Brad in the throng of people in the corridor. She felt him fall into step beside her as she headed for the elevators, and heard his deep voice say, “Ms.Darcy, I hope you don’t mind, but I thought I might find you here.I wanted to speak to you. Have you got some free time now?”

  Zaira looked into his lustrous green eyes, and noticed with surprise that he actually looked awkward, almost shy. She immediately gave him a beaming smile.

  He smiled back and moved even closer, as if to catch her words amid the noise of the crowd.

  “All right, but I have to meet someone for dinner at seven, so you’ll forgive me if I have to rush off.”

  “A date?” Brad asked softlyhe barely caught the words, and she saw that while the smile remained on his face, his eyes had grown serious.

  “You know, the usual business dinner,” Zaira said in a breezy tone.

  She could see him visibly relax, unbunching his fists and leaning closer to her, clse enough so she could inhale his light, masculine cologne, which made her shudder with all sorts of longings she had tried hard to suppress ever since her break-up with Jonathan. She told herself not to be so silly, that he was just there on business, but all the same, his mere presence made her heart feel more joyous than it had in years.

  As the elevator descended to the foyer of the building, Brad said, “Let’s go for a drink, but you’ll have to lead me to the right watering hole around here.”

  Zaira nodded, and led him to her favorite bar, “Googie’s,” which was very like an old English pub and did wonderful food and every kind of exotic cocktail.

  “Do you want something special, like a strawberry Margarita?” she asked. “Or beer? They have lots of different kinds.”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m a gin and tonic man myself."

  “Perfect,” she said, and sat down at the bar to order them.

  Once the drinks had arrived, Brad stated bluntly what he had come to ask her. “Look, just talking to you, Zaira, I get such a sense of dedication, that I can see you’d been perfect for adapting the novel I’m interested in into a screenplay. Zoe Dominick has agreed to the arrangement, and so I'm asking you, as a huge favor to me, to consider doing the screenplay. We’ll get some office space, and secretarial help, and I’ll pay you for the writing and for the job of personal assistant, to help me with the contacts and so on.”

  “But, Mr. Clarke—"

  "Brad, please."

  "All right, Brad, your offer is very kind, but the truth is, you hardly know me, and I’m not a Hollywood high flier,” Zaira protested, wondering how she was going to carry out her little deception in addition to teaching and acting.

  “Look, I know you're very busy at the university, but this is a very worthwhile project. It's a once in a lifetime chance for me, and I want to see you a part of it. I’ll accept any time you can give me as personal assistant once the screenplay is well under way, which I hope it will be soon,” Brad said with a smile, as he handed Zaira a copy of her very own book. He also handed her a check for five thousand dollars, made out to cash. When she tried to hand it back, he simply said, “Consider this a down payment.”

  Zaira shook her head.

  Brad demanded softly, “What are you thinking?”

  She lifted her face to stare into his eyes, to see if he was as affected by her as she was by him. “I was just thinking how completely upside down my world has become ever since you and I met yesterday. It’s like a dream.”

  “If it is, then don’t wake up,” he said with a smile, covering her hand with his own on the bartop.

  “What if it turns into a nightmare?” she sighed, and withdrew her hand gently from his touch.

  “Do you have any reason to think it might?” Brad asked, watching her intently.

  “None, except possibly
past experience,” Zaira said, her tone bitter

  “Do you want to tell me about it?”

  She decided he deserved the truth. After all, Zaira was, however much she regretted it, still married to Jonathan, and therefore unavailable; she could not start divorce proceedings against him because she had no idea where her ex was. She didn’t even know if he was still alive!

  “My life fell apart about eighteen months ago, completely unexpectedly. I was married, we had an advertising agency, the best of everything. I woke up one morning to find it all gone,” she said in a low voice.

  He was silent for a moment, and then said, “Married? That man at the party?”

  Zaira shook her head and said, “No, you don’t know him. He left one morning, on the pretext of going to work, and never came back. Then the police came, the fraud squad, the debt collectors. He owed everyone, had taken everything, had cheated dozens of clients. I’ve been paying it all off ever since. He even took my scholarship money when he went, and cleaned me out completely.

  "The man you met at the party is my old tutor and boss. Raymond saved my life. He’s given me a job, a place to live, generous lecture fees, and support throughout the whole bankruptcy and fraud case,” Zaira revealed in a shaky voice.

  “No wonder you look as though you’ve been through a terrible shock,” Brad said sympathetically, after a long pause. “The man must have been an absolute beast!”

  “Not when I first met him, at one of those parties like the one we had last night. Then he was charming, very much the Southern gentleman, ambitious, admired my academic talents, and my English skills. I helped him set up the business, and then pursued my own academic career.

  “It was a lovely jet-setting lifestyle from here to London, Cambridge and back again, but that meant I didn’t know exactly what was going on with the business until it was too late. By the time I paid attention to my instincts and realized that something was wrong, he was gone. The police searched everywhere, but he had disappeared. I sold everything I owned, down to my last scrap of jewellery, my last designer dress, my last stick of furniture.” Zaira fidgeted with her glass in silence for a few moments, not daring to look at him.

  “How awful for you. Didn’t you have any family or friends to help?” Brad said, shaking his head.

  “My mother died of cancer when I was sixteen. I never knew my father. He died of tuberculosis just before I was born. It was a pretty tough childhood, but to be honest, it helped me get through the bad times after Jonathan left me destitute. I was never interested in those sorts of glamorous things anyway, so it didn’t bother me when they went. They had caused part of the problem in the first place, with Jonathan wanting more and more.

  “With the money I got for our things, I paid off as much of the debt as possible, and made sure the staff got something. At least they found me innocent of any of my husband’s dishonest practices, so I didn’t end up going to jail, though for a time it looked as though I might,” Zaira said with a sigh.

  “So you will let me help you, then, and accept my offer?” Brad urged.

  “It looks like I don’t have a choice either way, does it?” Zaira smiled up at his concerned frown.

  “That’s right,” he said, grinning. “I’m not a man who takes no for an answer. Now, go out and spend some of that money on yourself, get a new hairstyle or something.”

  Zaira bristled, and Brad immediately regretted what he had said. She remembered the remark he had made before about her being gorgeous if only she would do something about her appearance. But she did want him to be physically attracted to her?

  “Look, I may have agreed to be your personal assistant, but I refuse to be done up like a doll just for your ego and your pride in your own status. If you want me for my brains, fine, if not, find yourself some other simpering bimbo!” Zaira hissed, and made to rise from her chair.

  But Brad held onto her wrist firmly, and declared, “Simpering bimbos don’t suit me, but you do. All I meant was that you're an attractive woman, and I don’t see why you insist on hiding that fact.” He stared at her intently in silence, until Zaira finally calmed down and shrugged.

  “Because I'm still married, and because I don’t want to call any sort of attention to myself,” Zaira admitted.

  “But you haven’t done anything to be ashamed of! And besides, how do you really feel about your husband? So loyal, that if he walked in the door this minute, you would throw your arms around him and forgive him everything he’s put you through?” Brad asked, watching her face closely.

  Zaira scowled and shook her head. “No, no chance of that. He let me down badly in every respect, and I'll be getting a divorce on the grounds of desertion as soon as I'm able. I shall pay off all my debts with the money you’re going to pay me, then I'll be free of the past.”

  “I look forward to celebrating your freedom, then. I know you said you didn’t care about designer clothes, but perhaps you’ll come out of your self-made shell then, and show me the real you.”

  Zaira became lost in the depths of his eyes, which glimmered like the sea in the dim light of the pub. “Brad, I don’t know even know who the real me is anymore. I thought I had all the answers, until the day the police knocked on my door.”

  “Well, perhaps I’m one of the answers. This will be a great opportunity for you to try something new, and I’m not often wrong about people. You have a great deal of courage, Zaira, enough courage to keep going after all that, enough courage to try living again, and maybe even enough courage to let yourself fall in love again,” Brad asserted.

  Zaira trembled as he said the word “love,” and knew the conversation was getting far too intimate. “I’ll take the job for the present, so long as you understand that I put my lecturing first, and then we’ll see how I get on after that.” She stood up and insisted, “No, I can’t stay for another, thanks all the same. Thanks for the offer as well, and I’ll let you know when I’ve got something worth looking at.”

  “Great,” Brad said, beaming like a kid at Christmas, “but don’t keep me waiting too long!”

  Zaira’s grey eyes locked with his one last time, as she struggled to tear herself away. She waved goodbye, and propelled herself forcefully out of the door and across the park to the restaurant where Matt was meeting her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Two days later, Zaira was already regretting all the complications she had created for herself by not setting the record straight about she and Zoe Dominick being one and the same person, as she struggled into the long black wig and out of her suit into some more casual clothes. The days had sped by in a whirl of lecturing, writing, and consulting with Matt over the terms the lawyers had drawn up concerning all her arrangements with Brad Clarke.

  She was rather enjoying working on the screenplay, indeed, had become almost obsessed by it, thinking about it all the time, to the exclusion of virtually everything else. She delivered her lectures almost without thinking, like a robot, so anxious was she to get back to her laptop computer and carry on where she had left off.

  Matt had been shocked beyond belief at all her news, and while he was pleased for her, he was concerned that she might be overdoing it, and that Brad might be rather cross when he found out that Zaira Darcy and Zoe Dominick were one and the same woman.

  To avoid that, Zaira was now wearing the wig to their rehearsal, but she realized that she couldn't possibly wear it every time she saw him, and that sooner or later he would know she was not the dark but the auburn lady. She resolved to go down to the theatrical supply company at the weekend, and get something temporary she could use on her hair. Fortunately, she only wore her glasses during the day to suit the professor costume she disguised herself with, and so her contact lenses, a violet pair which she had bought on a whim two years ago, were firmly in place once again. Her face was beautifully made up this time, and she wondered if she could continue to fool Brad once they spent more time with each other for rehearsals and discussions about the screenplay.

>   Zaira’s heart turned over when Brad walked in the door, and her mouth went dry with the beauty of him. Again her nostrils were assailed with the clean masculine scent of him, and he was dressed in the sweatshirt she had first met him in only three days before.

  “How art thou, o fair Ophelia.” Brad said with a smile, and kissed her hand.

  Zaira could feel a spark pass between them like a thousand volts of electricity. She hastily pulled her hand away to avoid the searing contact.

  Brad frowned at her obvious avoidance of him, and she thought it best to play it as the busy and capable director, by bustling around calling for a rehearsal of Act One from the top.

  The rest of the cast swept Brad away into the wings, but she could sense that he was a not in the least deceived by her performance—she was nervous around him, nervous of the way she felt every time he came within ten feet of her.

  Her mind was only half on her tasks as director as she reflected that she had never been in lust before, so completely overwhelmed by a man that she couldn’t think straight whenever he came near. She wanted to be immune to his charms, but however hard she struggled, Brad seemed so compatible with her in every way.

  Zaira had thought she could never feel the same way about anyone again after Jonathan had left her, and for a long time had been completely unable to face the fact that he was not coming back. But as the weeks had grown into months, and the revelations concerning his frauds had become more and more horrifying, Zaira had vowed that no man would ever turn her into a helpless wreck again.

  Now Brad had come into her life, and within days he had begun to possess her every sleeping and waking thought completely. However hard she tried to rationalize the situation by reminding herself that she needed the money, one part of her told her to avoid him like the plague.

  But the other part of her, the Zoe side of her nature, recklessly enjoyed the sparks that flew between them. And that Zoe side was beginning to take over her life as Zaira, whenever Brad came near and tried to crack her crusty academic exterior.