She smiled. 'You're welcome to make your escape while you can.'
'Now would I do that to a friend?'
'Yes,' she laughed.
'You're right,' Liza nodded sorrowfully. 'But I don't have the time,' she managed to mutter before Christopher appeared at the side of their table. Liza, very wisely, buried her nose in her drink, keeping her gaze averted.
'How nice of you to finally join us, Merlyn,' Christopher greeted her with heavy sarcasm.
A face to face encounter with the reputed Drake temper wasn't something Merlyn relished after what had just happened with Rand. She had put on a brave face in front of Liza, was sure her friend hadn't guessed just how devastated she really felt about the time she had spent in Rand's arms; they were both adults, and they lived in a society where physical relationships out of marriage were accepted as the norm rather than the exception.
But inside, where it counted, she was a mass of confusing, conflicting emotions. And Rand seemed to know at least some of that conflict, wanting her in spite of himself, hating himself for the need but driven by an inner hunger. It was a hunger she more than matched.
'Merlyn!' Christopher snapped at her lack of attention to his justified anger.
'Sorry.' She managed to look suitably contrite, aware that they were attracting considerable attention from other members of the crew as they sensed Christopher was going to have one of his famous rages.
'Sorry doesn't excuse your tardiness,' he grated, shooting the cringing Liza a rapier glance. 'If you'll excuse us, Miss Benedict,' he declared harshly. 'I'd like to talk to Merlyn alone.'
Merlyn gave Liza a rueful glance as she responded to what could only be classified as an order—despite sounding like a request. 'See you later,' she told her lightly.
Christopher slid into the chair Liza had vacated, his hair slicked back as he had just got out of the pool, the towel he had used to soak up the excess water from his body and hair draped about his neck, the ends lying against his hair-roughened chest. He had a trim, muscular body; wide-shouldered, narrow-waisted. In fact, the only thing marring his good looks was his furious expression.
'Don't ever pull another stunt like that again,' he leant forward on the table to mutter through clenched teeth. 'You may have gotten the impression the last few weeks that our relationship—'
'Now just a minute,' she cut in protestingly.
'—gives you some sort of special privileges when it comes to discipline on my crew—'
'We haven't started filming yet, Christopher,' she pointed out coldly. 'And we don't have a—'
'—but let me tell you,' once again he continued straight on as if she hadn't interrupted, 'that I expect you to do the same as the rest of the cast—jump when I say jump, don't when I say you don't.'
'I am not a performing dog!' Angry colour blazed in her cheeks.
'You won't be a performing anything if I say you aren't,' he returned furiously.
And she had actually been looking forward to working with him, Merlyn thought curiously, as the two of them glared across the table at each other like contestants about to engage in mortal combat.
And then the humour of the situation struck her. On the one hand she had Rand demanding that she have an affair with him to settle both their lusts, and on the other hand she had Christopher warning her not to take advantage of their non-existent relationship. She could do without either of them.
'Do you mean that, Christopher?' she asked him softly.
'Yes! No! Hell, I don't know,' he sighed impatiently.
She gave him a rueful smile. 'Make your mind up,' she drawled.
'You knew damn well I wanted to see you—'
'I thought it was socially, not for work,' she told him truthfully.
'I don't have time to be social when I start filming,' he glared. 'I wanted you over here because I intended introducing you to your new co-star. I thought it best if the two of you got to know each other before we actually started filming—'
'But Merlyn and I are already acquainted, Christopher,' cut in a silky-smooth voice. 'It's good to see you again, Merlyn.'
She felt the colour drain from her face, moving slowly to look up at the man who had quietly joined them. He confidently returned her gaze, a man she despised even more than he hated her!
CHAPTER SIX
As she saw him watching her with those grey-blue eyes that could be as cold as ice, she knew he was waiting for her to stand up and make a scene at the idea of working with him. He never had understood her well enough to know how she would react to anything.
'Mark,' she greeted the man she had once contemplated marrying, her voice full of cool condescension. 'It's been so long since I've seen you I thought you must have retired from acting.'
His handsome face flushed at her bitchiness, his short hair so dark it was almost black, his face ruggedly handsome, his stance in the black bathing trunks he wore masculinely aggressive. At twenty-eight he hadn't yet managed to attain the stardom he so avidly sought.
'America beckoned,' he drawled, his anger firmly under control now.
'Really?' She expressed little interest. 'Then what are you doing back here?'
Icy blue eyes narrowed with dislike. 'Starring in a Christopher Drake film,' he bit out challengingly.
Her mouth tightened at the truth of that. And she had to accept that he had the looks to play the part of Rand, a youthful version of the other man. And she knew that he could act brilliantly when he chose to. But it hadn't been accidental that she had avoided seeing him the last six years.
'Strange,' she murmured softly. 'I thought I was the star of this film? But I do realise how important success has always been to you, Mark,' she added with saccharine-sweet understanding.
He looked pointedly across at Christopher before his gaze returned to her. 'To us all, surely?' he mocked suggestively.
Heated colour flooded her cheeks at his implication. 'Not that important—'
'You're more beautiful than ever, Merlyn,' he added throatily.
Nausea washed over her at the compliment. 'Luckily I've realised that a person's surface looks, no matter how dazzling, never completely disguise the decay inside!'
Mark returned her challenging look with insolent boredom. 'How interesting,' he taunted. 'I'd love to stay and chat with you a little longer but, unfortunately, I have more important things to do.' He put out a hand to lift a length of Merlyn's hair, maintaining a painful hold as she would have flinched away from his touch. 'Such a pity this flame has to go, it was always your best feature.' With one last painful tug on her hair he walked away.
Merlyn rubbed her pained scalp, blinking back the tears; she had forgotten how physically cruel Mark could be when he wanted to be. 'What did he mean by that?' she frowned at Christopher. 'I thought we had agreed I should wear a wig? I don't—'
'Is there some friction between you and Hillier that I should know about?' he probed impatiently, ignoring her indignation.
Friction didn't begin to describe the dislike that existed between herself and Mark. She had once thought him the most wonderful man alive, had loved him with the blind devotion only the very young are capable of. And he had shown her how deep his own feelings for her went in a way she could never forget. She had never even tried to forgive what he had done to her!
'We just don't like each other,' she snapped in answer to Christopher's question. 'I'm sure it's nothing we can't both live with.'
Christopher still frowned. 'I've never seen you so antagonistic before, let alone bitchy. You—Oh hell,' he groaned as a sudden thought struck him. 'He isn't the man you grouped together with "snakes and rats and other things that go bump in the night", is he?'
In her estimation Mark Hillier was lower than any of those things, had shown his love for her only weeks before their wedding by asking her to go to bed with the director of the film he wanted to be in after the man had shown his interest in her.
She had been twenty years old, in love for the first—and la
st!—time, and the man she loved had asked her to prostitute herself for the sake of his career.
Mark hadn't accepted her outraged refusal as final, had tried to beat her into submission when sweet-talk and pleadings failed. By the time he had finished with her no man would have found her attractive. He had walked out of her life with the callous advice that she 'grow up'; he had beaten the child out of her!
He had lost the film-part he had wanted so badly to a man who had become internationally sought-after almost overnight, it seemed. Through the years that had been Merlyn's only consolation for what Mark had put her through.
Her glazed eyes focused on Christopher as she realised he was still waiting for an answer. 'No,' she lied, her humiliation at Mark's hands something she was sure Mark wouldn't want to become public knowledge either, confident that the way he had lost his temper with her wasn't even something he would have wanted to boast to his nearest friends about. 'He isn't that man.'
Christopher continued to look at her searchingly for several minutes. 'If you say so.' He gave a slow shrug. 'Just don't let your dislike spill over into my film,' he warned.
To be perfectly truthful, she wasn't sure she could do that. Some of the scenes between Mark and herself were very intimate, a couple of them actually in bed together, and while those sorts of scenes would be awkward enough when performed between two strangers who respected each other, between two people who had once intended marrying and now hated each other, they could just be impossible.
'I'll try not to,' she told Christopher dryly. 'What happened to Gary Parker?'
Christopher shrugged. 'He refused to sign a contract until all the uncertainty had been ironed out, and by the time it had he had agreed to do a series in the States.'
'I wish you had told me,' she scowled, sure she could have handled the meeting with Mark with a little more confidence and less resentment if she had been warned.
Christopher raised his brows arrogantly. 'I make the decisions around here, Merlyn, so don't think—'
'I think we've already had this conversation once today,' she sighed wearily. 'And I wouldn't presume on our relationship because we don't have one! We're friends, Christopher. And now I want you to tell me if it's true that you want me to change the colour of my hair?'
He gave an impatient sigh. 'I don't like wigs, they never look realistic, and—'
'And so you want me to dye my hair?' She grimaced at the thought; after all, she had been a redhead for twenty-six years!
'Not exactly. I've spoken to Sheila about it, and she thinks a wash-in colour will work. Of course you'll have to keep washing it in for the duration of the film, but—'
'Obviously,' snapped Merlyn, annoyed that he seemed to have discussed this with everyone but her.
Christopher's expression darkened. 'For God's sake, I'm sure this isn't the first time you've been asked to tone down the colour of your hair!' he accused.
She shook her head. 'In the past I've always worn wigs.'
'And I don't—'
'Like them,' she finished heavily. 'You already said.' Merlyn grimaced and sighed. 'I don't suppose I have any choice, do I?'
'No.' He looked at her challengingly.
'Then I'd better go and see Sheila about it, hadn't I?' She stood up.
Christopher smiled. 'There's no rush, you can have your swim first.'
'I'd rather get it over with.'
'You won't be able to swim afterwards,' he warned.
'I'll live with it!'
Christopher obviously found her reluctance very amusing, considered it suitable retribution for her tardiness earlier, no doubt.
But having to sit patiently in front of a mirror while her hair was turned from red to brown was the least of Merlyn's worries, Mark's presence here just making worse an already much-entangled situation. She was going to have Christopher and Mark breathing down her neck during filming, and Rand demanding sexual compliance outside of it.
'All right, love?' Sheila frowned down at her worriedly as she scowled.
'Fine,' she assured the woman wearily, opening her eyes to view the hairdresser's work.
'Well, what do you think?' Sheila turned to the mirror encouragingly.
Merlyn's head span dizzily as she looked at the reflection of the brown-haired woman blinking back at her. Suzie Forrester…
Of course, it wasn't Suzie Forrester, it was her, Merlyn Summers. Wasn't it…?
'Amazing, isn't it?' Sheila admired her own handiwork. 'A snip here, and a snip there, and with your hair coloured and styled exactly like hers you even look like Suzie Forrester.'
While not exactly the other woman's double, Merlyn could easily have been her understudy. She looked—like a stranger to herself. She felt strange, as if she were two people; Suzie on the outside but Merlyn still on the inside.
Rand! Oh my God, what would Rand say when he saw this change in her?
'Merlyn?' Sheila once again frowned her concern at the younger woman's lack of response.
Of course she was Merlyn. And Rand had to have realised a certain amount would be done to make her as much like his wife as possible. He would have to accept the changes in her.
But could she? She studiously avoided looking at her reflection while verbally praising Sheila on the success of the colouring and styling, needing time to adjust to seeing a stranger in the mirror.
'Maybe I was wrong about your hair after all.'
She had thought she had made it to the sanctuary of her room without being seen by anyone she knew, the key to her door already in her hand as she stopped in the corridor to turn and face Mark. 'I take it that was meant as a compliment?' she scorned.
He sauntered over to join her, fully dressed now in denims and a loose-knit shirt, while Merlyn still wore her bikini beneath her robe. 'What else?' His gaze moved lazily over the resentment on her face. 'You're so provocative when you're angry,' he murmured with appreciation.
She pushed his hands away as he would have put them on her shoulders and drawn her close to him. 'And your line in seduction is as hackneyed as it was six years ago!'
His mouth quirked with lazy amusement. 'You didn't find it hackneyed then.'
'I'm sorry, I didn't think I'd ever gone to bed with you?' she scoffed, knowing that she had implied there had been so many men since then that if they had been to bed together his lovemaking hadn't been outstanding enough to have made a lasting impression on her.
His eyes narrowed at the slight. 'That could soon be remedied.'
'I don't think so!' She looked at him with dislike, warding off his hands again as he would have reached for her, wondering what she had ever seen in his overbearing manner all those years ago. But then he had been getting more than the walk-on parts that she had, had seemed experienced and successful, and she had been flattered by his persistence in wanting to take her out. Now she could see him for the callous opportunist that he was.
Mark shrugged ruefully. 'Feeling pretty confident of yourself because you're keeping the director's bed warm, aren't you?' he taunted softly.
Her eyes flashed. 'I didn't do that for you and I've never had to do it for myself!' she spat out. 'Fortunately, some of us can get by on our talent alone!'
'Everyone knows that you and Drake have been sleeping together for weeks—'
'I don't give a damn what everyone thinks they know,' she snapped. 'Christopher and I know it isn't true, and that's all that matters.' Except Rand, she didn't want Rand to hear those rumours and possibly believe them. Not when he already thought it was the truth anyway!
'No, it isn't,' Mark said slowly, threateningly. 'I've never forgotten what you did to me six years ago—'
'What I did to you?' she repeated disbelievingly. 'Don't you have that the wrong way round?'
'You lost me my big chance,' he grated.
'You lost you your big chance,' she scorned heatedly. 'Because you aren't good enough to get by on your acting alone, because—' Her words were cut off as his mouth savagely took hers.
'What the hell is going on here?' Christopher demanded incredulously.
Merlyn was released so abruptly she swayed unsteadily on her feet, her face completely devoid of colour as she breathed deeply to stop herself from fainting.
'Merlyn!' Christopher realised that it was her now that he could see her face.
'The two of us were just—renewing our acquaintance,' Mark drawled insolently.
'He's lying.' Merlyn looked at him with loathing, turning beseechingly to Christopher. 'He forced himself on me. He sickens me!' she added on a choke.
Christopher shot the other man a searching glance, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw before he turned back to Merlyn. 'Are you all right?' he questioned softly.
Her eyes widened. 'Didn't you hear what I just said, he forced himself on me!'
'Get lost, will you, Hillier,' he instructed the other man impatiently, going to Merlyn's side. 'And don't come near her again if you know what's good for you.'
'I didn't realise I would be stepping on anyone's toes,' Mark shrugged, looking at Merlyn challengingly.
'Well now you know,' Christopher replied, his hand in the small of Merlyn's back as he guided her to her room, taking the key from her shaking hand to open the door and follow her inside, watching her with angry eyes as she got herself a glass of water. 'Having an affair with your co-star is not something I like on my films.' His voice was cold.
Her eyes widened indignantly, and she choked on the water she had been swallowing as it got lodged in her throat. 'Christopher, I just told you he forced himself on me,' she gasped when she could get her breath back enough to speak.
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