Microsoft Word - Rogers, Rosemary - The Crowd Pleasers

by kps

  He sounds as if he's proposing to me! Anne's free hand shook as she lifted the tiny liqueur glass to her lips and drained it without thinking. It sounded improbable-impossible! A dream-sequence. And yet ...

  She said the first thing that came into her mind, her voice sounding breathless. "Why me, Harris? If it's so important to you, why an unknown quantity, why not someone like Carol? Just her name would practically guarantee a big box-office hit, wouldn't it?

  Why would you want to take a chance?"

  His lips smiled under his thin, carefully trimmed mustache. Without her realizing it, by some invisible means of communication, he had signaled one of the ever-present obsequious waiters, who silently refilled her glass, her coffee cup.

  "I don't feel I'd be taking a chance, you see," he said softly. "Shall we just say I have a hunch about these things? And Carol-no, she's almost too big. She's not the type for the part I want you to play. You have a pure quality about you, Anne, that Carol can't even pretend to duplicate. When you read the book I'll have sent around to you tomorrow, I think you'll understand what I mean." He dropped his bombshell then, without a pause or a change in the tone of his voice. "Don't worry about that end of it, Anne. If you're thinking about box-office draw, you'll have one of the hottest male stars of today playing the lead opposite you. Just before Bad Blood was finished, I signed Webb Carnahan up for the role of Jason Ryder."

  Chapter Eleven

  ANNE FELT HERSELF CAUGHT between opposite moods. Trapped. Harris hadn't been quite fair, he hadn't told her about Webb until the very last minute, when it would seem, if she backed off then, as if she was still carrying a torch, and was therefore afraid. And exultant-because Harris really seemed to mean everything he'd said, because by his very casualness he'd seemed to take it for granted that Webb hadn't meant anything to her; just a desultory fling. Webb. How would he react? He'd probably be expecting a name as big as his-Carol, maybe-and he'd be furious ... But what did she care what Webb thought?

  Harris had at least promised secrecy, for the time being. To give her time to get used to the idea, he said soothingly. And to give Webb time to blow his top and then cool off? She must stop thinking about Webb like a naive schoolgirl remembering her first, most painful crush, stop thinking about him until she was forced to face him again, and consider herself instead. She had time to think it over, calmly and clearly. And to read Greed for Glory, still on the best-seller lists. The title was a play on the name of the heroine, Gloriana. The part she was supposed to do, if she agreed ... if, if! And she couldn't even talk to Violet about it; she didn't dare.

  "I must say you're awfuIIy absent-minded these daysI What's the matter, mooning about your millionaire boyfriend?" Violet had been envious, at first, and avidly curious, then shruggingIy resigned when Anne continued dating Harris Phelps. But her volatile, childlike personality enabled her to adjust quickly, so that she was back to teasing Anne-not only about Harris, but slyly bringing up the fact that she, Violet, was dating Craig these days.

  "D'you think I've managed to catch your ex on the rebound, love? He's actually kind of neat!" Violet's use of current American phrases, delivered in her very English accent, usually made Anne laugh. This time, she could only manage a half-hearted smile.

  "What a horrible expression! Does Craig know you think he's 'neat'?"

  Actually, she was relieved that Craig appeared to have taken it all so well, and seemed to have found consolation in Violet. But she hadn't missed the flash of ...

  what had it been? Anger-frustration-something else as well, the first time she'd told him defiantly that she was sorry, she couldn't go out to dinner; she was seeing Harris Phelps.

  "I'm sorry, Anne. I'd really hoped .. ." He'd been very civilized about it all. Even to adding that there was no reason they couldn't remain friends. And then he'd taken Violet out, so that quite often when she returned from a date with Harris, she'd find Craig and Violet sitting before the fire, sipping coffee and talking. Violet at least didn't seem to think there was anything odd about the situation. She said frankly that she liked Craig. He was-neat!

  "I picked that word up from a marine lieutenant I went out with-he was in charge of the guard detail at your embassy." Unabashed, Violet giggled. "He'd been in Vietnam, and he used to make love to me as if each time was the last time! But he got boring when he became too serious; and he didn't have much to talk about, in any case-he was one of those silent doers, as I always call them!"

  Thank God Harris wasn't like that. Tense and very much on guard at the beginning, Anne had gradually found herself able to relax and enjoy going out with Harris when he didn't try to push her or make physical demands on her. He seemed to like being with her, and being seen with her; and she found Harris was an interesting and amusing companion.

  And as long as Harris stuck to his role and she continued to live hers, it was easy enough to sail through the days and nights without making any real decision. Time enough for that ...

  Or was there? The notoriety she gained by being seen so constantly with Harris Phelps got her picture in the newspapers much more often than usual; it also got her bigger and better modeling offers.

  "Take them, love! The more publicity you get during the next few weeks, the' better.

  And listen-tomorrow night you'll be meeting Yves Pleydel. We'll have a private dinner in my suite, if that's all right with you. I want him to meet you for the first time without a crowd of other people along ... No," Harris continued, shaking his head at the almost scared expression that sprang into her eyes, "I

  haven't told him anything yet. I'm sure, you see, that he'll discover for himself the same quality I've always seen in you, Anne. It's not just the fact that you photograph beautifully-you have something else, an innocent sensuality, the hint of depths that haven't been plumbed yet. Pleydel's made his three ex-wives famous; and yet you, Anne, have more star quality than any of them ever had."

  "You don't even know if I can act! Harris, modeling is one thing. It's really a matter of following directions and standing here, pretending to do that, or smiling or looking pensive. I've been lucky, getting all the right breaks and becoming, well, successful before I had time to realize how impossible it really was! But speaking lines, showing emotions that I might not feel inside-how do you know, how I know that I won't make an awful fool of myself?"

  "You won't. Don't worry about it, Anne. You can do anything you really want to do."

  She managed a small, rather ragged laugh. "You sound like my analyst. He almost had me convinced, too. But now I -I'm just not sure I can handle this! Talk about too much, too soon ... why me, Harris?"

  "Because you've got something, Anne. Because I think I recognize something in you that reminds me of myself. We've both been trying to break out of the molds that were set for us a long time ago; don't you understand that?"

  Sometimes Harris made her feel like a rather obtuse child who had to be coaxed and cajoled for her own good. If only she had someone else to talk to, but Dr. Haldane was an ocean away, and he'd told her sternly that she was quite capable of making her own decisions. Umbilical cord severed. She put in a transatlantic call to him, but an answering service answered. The doctor was on vacation. Was there any message? If it was really urgent ...

  "No-no, it isn't. I-never mind. No message."

  In any case, Yves Pleydel would probably discover her for a fake. She'd heard that he insisted on sleeping with all the women he directed, to find out what made them tick. Then he undressed them for the screen and directed some of the hottest, most intimate love scenes in film history . . . He wouldn't find her his type at all! She couldn't ...

  Anne poured herself a drink, defiantly-stretching, kicking her shoes off; reveling in being all alone in the flat for a change. Violet wouldn't be back "until the wee hours,"

  her note had said.

  She couldn't . . . why in hell couldn't she? I should have asked Harris in for a nightcap. Why not? And let the chips fall where they may. Harris was being
very sweet, being patient. What kind of corny little-girl-twenty-years-ago game was she playing, anyway? One marriage, mediocre. Two affairs, one of them bad for her ego (Anne grimaced into her scotch at the memory) and one of them good. And if anyone else knew that was the extent of her experience, she'd be looked on as some kind of a freak. She should have stayed at one of Venetia Tressider's orgies and learned a lot.

  But then of course, that was during the period when she'd had the paranoid feeling that she was being followed. Not too way out, after all. She ought to be used to being shadowed-it used to be a fact of life she tried to blank out of her mind-but here in England? He was a young, good-looking young man with a mustache, and he'd been at that one party of Venetia's when they were all smoking hash through a water pipe .

  .. he hadn't! She'd noticed that, and soon afterwards she'd invented a headache.

  Duncan Frazier had laughed uproariously when she'd told him. "Followed? But, honey, that's not too surprising, is it? I mean-a pretty girl like you-and there are some red-blooded Englishmen left, I understand. Maybe he was a Scot, though; they're more determined .. ."

  Well, Dune was upset at her right now-had been ever since she'd told him she couldn't keep the job at Majco and do modeling at the same time. It was becoming too much of a strain. He'd acted as if she was betraying him and it had taken Craig, of all people, to soothe him.

  "Is it really modeling, or is it marrying a millionaire you're after, Anne?" Duncan asked dourly just before she left his office. "Whatever you do, for Christ's sake be careful.

  You're too damned vulnerable, kid-I don't think you've developed a proper sense of self-preservation yet!" A sense of protectiveness gone sour, or something else? He thought, like everyone else did, that she was already Harris Phelps's mistress-Harris did have that reputation, but Harris had shown her another side of himself. Still, it was nothing she had to explain to anyone, not even to Dune, who'd been her friend.

  Frowning, Anne walked over to the fireplace, poking crossly at red-hot embers until the fire flared into life again.

  Now she was getting paranoid! Duncan had had his feathers ruffled, but there was no reason they couldn't remain friends, was there? She wondered suddenly, for the first time, if Dune had had something to do with the fact that she'd never seen her blond-mustached "follower" again. Yes, Dune was protective about "his girls"-even Violet went to him if she had a problem, which was almost always, and Dune always took care of it.

  Thinking about Violet made Anne smile as she sat down on the hearthrug. Violet would probably think she was crazy-and say so! "You need to sleep around a lot more than you do, love; and talk about it sometimes, it really helps." Violet really thought Anne did, sometimes. And Anne let her think so out of self-defense, just so Violet wouldn't start arranging dates or asking prying, pitying questions.

  She didn't need pity-just self-confidence! Anne switched on the tape-player, fiddling with knobs until the sounds of Misty came softly from all four speakers, enmeshing her in sound and feeling. And then, to escape feeling, she picked up the copy of Greed for Glory that Harris had given her. She flicked past the first two pages-it was dedicated by the authoress "To Webb, with love and admiration"-then stared at the picture on the back cover of Roberta "Robbie" Savage, remembering having seen her on a TV talk show recently-and turned back again to the first chapter. Prologue.

  My God, how long since she'd read a seven-hundred-page historical romance like this one? I'll never get through it, Anne thought despairingly, and began to read anyway.

  She'd meant just to skim, so that she could talk intelligently about the book when she met Harris and Yves Pleydel. But somewhere along the line she got hooked, following Gloriana -Glory-from her sheltered girlhood in a Spanish convent to the violent, untamed frontiers of the American Southwest and revolutionary Mexico.

  Glory fought her powerful diplomat father for recognition as a person, just as she fought her feelings for the violent rakehell who took her first with tenderness and afterwards as a hostage, using her with calculated brutality. But in spite of everything, Glory learned by living, by surviving, turning her weakness into strength. And before she ended up with her man, Jason Ryder had learned to admire her as well as love her ...

  Halfway through the book, without her quite realizing it, Anne had started to picture the action. She was Glory, and she alternately hated and loved Jason. Jason was Webb-she couldn't help it; she couldn't see him as anyone else. Oh damn! She felt all of her carefully erected defenses against his memory crumble when she read those beautifully explicit sex scenes that could have been-were-her and Webb. No wonder Robbie Savage had sold over two million copies of her first book, and it was still selling like crazy. It was the kind of book you lost yourself in, hating to come back to dull twentieth-century reality afterwards.

  Anne finished reading at five in the morning, and she had a modeling date at ten.

  She slept uneasily, dreaming long dreams in which she was being carried off on horseback, raped and made love to-until right at the end when Jason came back to her, telling her at last that he loved her and needed her ... turning into Webb, saying half-teasingly, half in earnest, "Don't pretend it's not there for you too, Annie-love!"

  And just as she reached her arms up to him, she turned into Carol -laughing, sexy, and she was watching them, trying to scream out loud that it was all wrong, this wasn't the way it was supposed to be ...

  Her alarm clock woke her at eight-thirty, when she could have slept for hours more.

  Violet's room was quiet, the door half-open; and she could see where Violet had dropped her clothes in an untidy heap by the bed. Violet had drawn the covers up over her head as she usually did when she was very tired and meant to sleep right through the day, which meant that Violet wasn't going to work that morning.

  There was a scrawled note in the kitchen. "Do be a dear and call Dune-tell him I'm sick or something" Typical!

  Glory never seemed to feel like this after a long night! Anne avoided her own reflection in the mirror while she took a shower, trying to keep her mind a tired blank.

  Imagination ... what made Harris think, what made her think she could actually play such an uninhibited role? She wasn't feisty enough, and she certainly wasn't resilient enough to roll with the punches as Glory did. But damn, she couldn't stop thinking about the book, the story. And she looked a wreck, in spite of careful application of brightener under her eyes to hide the half-moon smudges of tiredness.

  Philip Cavendish, her photographer, looked disgusted. "What were you doing instead of sleeping? Fucking the night away? Jesus-it's a good thing we're shooting summer.

  Hide the goddamn eyes behind the biggest glasses you can find, will you dear? And to make up for the lack of face, how about giving me some really good body shots?

  The breasts, dear. That see-through chiffon number. There's a breeze, thank God-we get some feeling of body, with the wind laying back the skirts, right? Don't you dare complain about the cold-the long skirts will hide the goosepimples."

  He cocked his eyebrows at her, waiting for her to protest, knowing she didn't normally go for the kind of shot he was suggesting. But this morning Anne was too tired and too wound up to care. Or was it because she was still being, feeling, Glory? She changed obediently in the small trailer they'd brought along, fortifying herself with a cup of steaming hot tea and felt curiously free with just a pair of sheer pantyhose under the dress.

  Emboldened by her unusual apathy, Philip had her model several other creations from the designer collection he'd been lucky enough to nab. It would save him the trouble of paying another model for the sexier outfits-and Anne Mallory was "hot" just now. His earlier irritation subsided as he got some really dramatic shots-stark black and white, these; interiors, against rough stone walls, with a fireplace keeping things warm enough for the skimpy harem-type clothes she had to pose in. When the shooting was almost done, he really began to notice her, for almost the first time.

  She'd always s
hielded herself with a cool, aloof, touch-me-not air; very definite about what she would or wouldn't model. And as a matter of fact it was only because the designer himself had insisted on Anne Mallory that he'd called her up. Now, maybe she wasn't as coolly detached as she'd always seemed to be. Nice breasts-definitely nice breasts! Small, but well defined. Not just nipples and two fried eggs-the kind that never hesitated to pose for topless shots. And nice everywhere else. Long, streamlined legs, which seemed to be the trademark of most American girls he had met. Must be something to do with the diet, and playing tennis-didn't they all?

  Philip Cavendish had made most of the models he photographed, but he'd given up on this one, until now. She had the look of a woman sated by love-Harris Phelps?

  He'd like to take some real pictures of her, to add to his private collection. What the hell-she'd been to a couple of Venetia Tressider's parties, hadn't she?

  Violet was just waking up when Anne came storming back into the flat. She grimaced, clutching at her head dramatically. "Darling-did you have to slam the door?

  Ooh, I've never had a headache like this; and I'll never mix my drinks again! It's the one thing Daddy was right about; I remember when he told me ... what on earth is the matter, Anne? You look like a thundercloud! Did you have a fight with Harris?"

  "Philip Cavendish! And I don't care if he never photographs me again! That-Stop giggling, Violet! Think of your head ... Anyway, it doesn't matter. I-I slapped his face.

  Really hard; I think he's going to carry the marks for ages, because I forgot I was wearing those heavy rings he made me put on."