Clumsily, he drank some orange juice, avoiding her eyes.
‘But you should have told me about her long before you asked me to marry you.’ She studied him from behind dark glasses. ‘It casts very grave doubts on our marriage. How can we hope to stay together for a lifetime when you’ve quite obviously omitted to tell me about the most important love relationship of your past?’
‘I can see,’ he said thickly, lifting grey, guilt-ridden eyes to hers, ‘that I’ve been selfish and stupid about it. I should have told you a long time ago, but—I couldn’t bring myself to. She humiliated me, you see, Christie. She destroyed me in front of all Hollywood, and it wasn’t until you won your Oscar that I was able to even con- template facing her again, let alone talking about her.’
She listened in amazement, suddenly realising why everyone including Jared seemed to know all about Nessa and Simon, too. ‘My God… so you split up just before you came to England and found me?’
‘Yes,’ he said bitterly. ‘That’s why I always thought someone else would tell you about us. It was such a big story, you see. Nessa made me the laughing-stock of this town, and I ran away to England to recover. That’s the truth of it, and I can’t blame Ness for continually pointing it out to me with such anger.’ He gingerly touched his black eye, and gave a husky laugh. ‘She always was a very tempestuous star!’
‘How long have you known Nessa Vale?’
‘Oh…’ Simon looked anxious. ‘All my life.’
She sucked in her breath. ‘What!’
‘Christie, we were brought up together. Nessa was the girl next door.’ He laughed unsteadily. ‘As close to next door as you can get on Long Island, and we were both from wealthy families, lived in big houses, went to the same birthday parties… that kind of thing.’
‘Simon, this is incredible!’ She was staring at him in amazement. ‘How could you have omitted to tell me this?’
He raked a hand through his ash-blond hair, looking miserable. ‘I couldn’t bear to be reminded of her. Not when I first met you. I’d built Nessa into a big star, then stupidly went around boasting about how I’d created her!’
She studied him with incredulous eyes. ‘And she didn’t like it?’
‘No. In fact, I was even worse than that. I actually told people that without me she’d be nothing. She heard about it, and threatened to fire me. Me!’ He laughed bitterly. ‘Her childhood sweetheart, the boy next door, the man who’d devoted his life to her!’
Trying to ignore the sense of alienation she felt at those words, Christie reminded herself that she had a similar undying passion for Jared, and asked calmly, ‘Did she fire you?’
‘No, but I was so incensed by the threat that I did something really stupid. I started to take her biggest rival at that time, Sally Harker, out on the town. Made it look like a red-hot affair. Got myself in the gossip columns with Sally, and ridiculed Nessa.’
‘Oh, my God… you fool…’
‘I’m afraid so,’ he said thickly. ‘Nessa fired me and switched to my biggest rival, another agent working closely with Camarra Pictures. I felt absolutely gutted, Christie. I didn’t believe she’d do it. I tried to see her, to explain that I hadn’t really had an affair with Sally Harker, but—well, you can imagine how that meeting ended. Flying ornaments, slamming doors and a lot of high-pitched screaming. I slunk away to lick my wounds, then tried to see her again. I found the new agent wandering around her apartment in his dressing-gown. He was obviously her new lover, and everybody knew it, too.’
Christie closed her eyes, sighing deeply. ‘What a horror story… why do people do these things to each other?’
‘"The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of”,’ he said softly, and the quote from Pascal reminded her of her days at drama school, of Masterclass on a Friday afternoon, and her dreams of being famous, of reaching the pinnacle of acting acclaim. Today, those dreams were to be destroyed as she refused the part of Lelie.
The funniest thing was that all she cared about was what Jared would think when he found out.
‘Yes,’ she said, laughing suddenly at her own madness, ‘the heart does have reasons which reason definitely knows nothing of! So don’t you worry about your crazy love for Nessa Vale, Simon. It may cast grave doubts on our prospects for marriage, but at least it means you’re human, and alive, and capable of Grand Passion.’
He looked wry. ‘You were beginning to wonder, were you?’
‘Sometimes.’ She gave a deep sigh. ‘And maybe this is all fate in some strange way. Maybe we’re not really meant to get married. We were discussing it on the way here—remember? Desperately trying to make excuses for why we were still only friends, and not lovers.’
‘Are you saying you want to call off our engagement, too?’ he asked thickly. ‘I—I’ll understand if you do, but please don’t make it public yet. Not with all this going on, Nessa here to witness it and—’
‘Oh, don’t worry.’ She touched his hand reassuringly. ‘I won’t tell anyone it’s officially over. Not until we leave Casa Camarra and can make a quiet little statement to the Press. We’ll say it’s a mutual agreement reached amicably, and that you’ll continue to represent me professionally.’
He nodded slowly, squeezing her hand. ‘Thanks, Christie. I don’t know what to say. It’s so good of you to be so understanding, and so forgiving of my very selfish behaviour over Nessa.’
‘Not at all,’ she said huskily, pulses leaping as she flicked her gaze across to the powerful figure of Jared Buchanan standing talking to Mike. ‘I have problems of my own…’
CHAPTER SEVEN
AT SOME point over the next fifteen minutes, Mike Camarra disappeared inside the house. Jared was im- mediately buttonholed by a nubile young starlet, who pouted and posed as she flirted with him in her pretty pink bikini, making Christie’s eyes narrow with a tinge of fiery jealousy. He had enough women fighting for his attention right now. He hardly needed the nubile starlet to add her name to the list. Besides, she thought irri- tably, the girl was too young for Jared, only seventeen and half-witted with it. Christie could tell he thought so too, by the wry way his dark eyes flickered over the star- let’s body, and the hard indulgent smile on his tough mouth.
Jared liked sexy women, but he liked them with brains, and he liked them to be his equal. Or did he? Christie frowned, watching him across the hot terrace. Was that one of the reasons their relationship had fallen apart? Because Christie had not truly been his professional equal when they had first met? OK, she had always had the dream and the potential to stand alongside him, but, back then, there was no real proof of that.
It seemed suddenly important to find out, now that they were poised to come face to face, for the first time, as true equals. Once Jared found out she had rejected the role of Tigresse, he would find the barriers falling from around Christie, like the thorns around Sleeping Beauty’s castle, just melting away like magic, bringing the sunlight back as fear, anger and mistrust disap- peared. What would he do then? she wondered.
Her heart skipped and jumped at the thought of finally meeting Jared on level ground, after all this time. She was no longer a struggling bit-part actress in a little- known soap. She was an internationally famous Academy Award-winning film actress now, and Jared’s illusions about the perfect wife and mother had been shattered along with his illusions that she would gladly give up her career for him.
Would it really change his mind forever towards her when he found out she’d rejected Lelie? She prayed it would, because rediscovering her love for him had sud- denly given her life the kind of fulfilment that had been missing for so long, and which had begun to gnaw at her, bringing emptiness and self-doubt as she gathered trophies but no hugs.
Tears stung her eyes. A hug… such a simple thing. Why was it so difficult? Especially for an ambitious woman. She realised suddenly that she had been chan- nelling her drive into her career, and that her feelings had been swept aside for years to help her reach her goal.
Not just years, but probably all her life. The sad, hurt, angry child she had been had needed the protection that only massive success could bring. But the truth was— she had needed love.
Everything seemed so clear to her suddenly. All her life she had been looking for success when what she needed was love. When she met Jared she found that love, briefly, but was too immature really to take it, too hungry for success still to let herself be just a woman.
Jared had tried to stand in the way of her ambition, but he had done that for his own reasons, and the sad irony was that they were almost identical reasons to her own: he had been hungry for his own childhood il- lusions. That longing for a perfect woman was as deeply embedded in Jared’s childhood as Christie’s longing for massive global fame.
Everything would be all right if they could just get it.
What nonsense, she thought with a wry smile. It was like believing that everything would be all right if you were a dress size smaller. Or if you owned a red Ferrari. Or if the moon turned to blue cheese.
The truth was, everything had to be all right now, and the only way that was possible was if you fulfilled yourself in every single area. Not just career, money and prestige, but in the realm of the heart and the senses too. What else did fulfilment mean, but quite literally to fulfil? And she wasn’t just a film star—she was a woman, too.
It seemed incredible to her now to look back on her life and see so clearly that she had been unfulfilled as a woman for most of it. In all the joy of career fulfilment, she had ignored her feminine instincts at their deepest roots. In many ways, like Sleeping Beauty, she had been lying in the topmost turret room of her self, gathering dust, for years, and, as she faced that astonishing truth, she realised that her growing sense of emptiness recently was nothing more or less than the Sleeping Beauty within screaming for attention, love, fulfilment.
Funny that she should reach this final conclusion now, at the height of her fame. But how else could it have been reached? There was no point saying she had done it all ‘wrong’, because she hadn’t. She had been driven to high achievement, just as Jared had. And she had needed to reach the top, see her dreams come true, and explode the myth—before she could recognise what she had been rigorously suppressing.
She looked across at Jared and prayed that he had exploded his myths too, in the only way possible: by living them.
Suddenly, looking at him here in the hot sunlight, she wanted his children so badly she could taste it, could feel herself getting ready for pregnancy, and the funniest thing was that she no longer saw pregnancy as some- thing to put off until later, or as something that might spoil her movie-star figure—she saw it as the most natural thing in the world. And for the first time in her life she felt at one with nature, with the birds singing in the hot California morning, the crickets chirping softly in the vivid green shrubs, the gentle wave of the palm trees against the blue, blue sky.
If Jared didn’t really love her, and if she gave up Tigresse for nothing, she would lose the beauty of this brief, shining moment for ever. But her ambition and her emotional needs had been causing deep conflict in her life for too long. She could not ignore the screams from that top turret room any longer. Certainly not when Jared had her backed into the toughest corner of her life.
‘It’s almost eleven,’ Simon said beside her.
She turned with a start. ‘Oh…’ Her stomach tensed with nerves at the thought of what she had to do.
‘Better hurry.’ Simon tapped his watch. ‘Mike Camarra doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’
Christie got to her feet, her blonde head held high as she walked with her sensual, animalistic sway in white jeans and lace top, across the hot stone terrace area to the house.
Jared watched her every move, still talking to the nubile starlet, but his eyes flicked to and fro, following Christie every step of the way, and she burned with the thrill of his attention, particularly as it was so obviously obliterating the charms of that pretty little starlet.
Plenty of men ahead for you, little starlet, she thought with a wry smile, but only one for me, so keep your hands off him!
Rosita directed her to Mike’s office inside the mansion. Seconds later, she was outside the oak door, summoning all her courage and professional skills as she knocked sharply on it.
‘Come!’ Mike shouted.
She went inside, and found him lounging behind an impressive desk in an oak-panelled room with a big red leather couch and swivel chairs, books on cinema lining the walls, telephones, a fax, a computer on the desk, and a big cigar clenched firmly between his teeth.
‘Sit down, Christie,’ Mike drawled with a slow smile. ‘And tell me what’s on your mind.’
She closed the door, removed her sunglasses, swayed over to the swivel chair opposite the desk, and sank down into it. As soon as she was settled, she just told him the truth straight out. He listened impassively, hands behind grey head, chewing on his cigar.
‘I see,’ he said when she had finished. ‘And you don’t want to tell me precisely why you’ve come to this decision?’
‘As I say—it’s a decision I’ve made for personal reasons.’
‘Because you were once romantically involved with Jared Buchanan,’ he stated flatly and switched the cigar to the other side of his mouth.
She felt herself colour hotly. ‘Yes.’
‘But if you were romantically involved,’ he drawled, ‘why is it impossible for you to work together? You can’t say you hate each other. You’ve spent almost all your time with Jared since you got here. And by the way—I saw you coming in last night with sand all over your dress.’
Her flush deepened.
Mike grinned at her, eyes glittering metallic blue. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone you were making it with Jared on the beach!’ His smile broadened as he saw her embarrassment. ‘But if you’re capable of getting in a lovesexy situation so quickly—surely you must get on just a little?’
‘No,’ she said thickly. ‘We argue a lot, Mike. It would be a very fiery working relationship, if it worked at all.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You mean you’re still in love.’
The blunt statement of fact made her face burn scarlet, but she could not reply, just lowered her lashes to hide the passionate flare in her eyes. He would undoubtedly tell Jared about this conversation, so anything that was said might just as well be said in his presence.
‘Well, that’s good,’ Mike drawled with a smile. ‘We can work on that. We can build on it.’
‘Mike…’ She looked up, angry determination in her eyes. ‘I mean what I say. I don’t wish to make this film with Jared Buchanan.’
‘Oh, don’t worry.’ He held up a fat, ringed hand. ‘I accept your decision as final, and I’m not going to hold it against you professionally. I know you’ve always done your best for Camarra, and I know the right picture will make you an even more bankable star.’
The relief almost made her faint.
‘But…’ He directed one finger towards her. ‘I still have you pencilled in for Tigresse, and I’m going to keep you pencilled in for the rest of the weekend. If, by the time we all go back to Beverly Hills tomorrow night, you still want to cancel your opportunity to play Tigresse…’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll just look for another ve- hicle for you and recast Tigresse.’
‘Thank you, Mike!’ she said in astonishment, staring at him, barely able to believe he had been not only so understandingly calm, but also so very generous.
‘Don’t mention it, honey,’ he replied with a lazy smile. ‘Just keep thinking about it until tomorrow night. Oh— and work on that relationship with Jared. Maybe take him down to the beach again tonight!’
Christie went scarlet again, her mouth tightening as she looked away and said, ‘I’ll certainly think about Tigresse, Mike, but I want you to remember, the chances of me reconsidering are almost a thousand to one!’
As she left the oak-panelled study, he was already on the phone to Hollywo
od. Christie felt weak with relief as she walked along the marble corridors back to the main hallway. It had been the hardest decision of her professional life, but thank God she had found an understanding boss in Mike Camarra. He had made a number of personal remarks, and she didn’t like them, but she knew he was that kind of a guy, and he had at least given her the opportunity to change her mind if she wanted. He wasn’t to know Jared had proposed a casting couch solution that she had found unacceptable. And from what Jared had said that morning out by the pool, he wouldn’t tell Mike either.
The cool marble hallway was filled with sunlight and the suggestion of a hot day outside. The chandeliers swung gently in the breeze from the fans. Jean Harlow was smiling in a way which suggested a wisecrack from her sassy red lips at any moment. Christie looked at her in admiration and believed she could still one day get there as an oil painting of a previous famous guest at Casa Camarra. A smile lit her eyes. They moved on up to Vivien Leigh, haughtily beautiful, cruelly beautiful, just plain beautiful…
‘Dreaming ambitious dreams?’ Jared’s dark voice drawled behind her.
She spun with a gasp to see him standing in the vast sunlit doorway like a stark silhouette of male power.
‘You’ll never get there,’ he said coolly, ‘if you really did just go in and refuse the lead role in Tigresse.’
‘Oh, yes, I will, Jared.’ She lifted her blonde head. ‘You just wait and see.’ Turning, she walked up the sweeping red staircase with an excited, half-fearful smile, aware of his dark eyes narrowed with angry admiration on her as she moved, and even more deeply aware that he was now on his way to see Mike Camarra and dis- cover the truth.
Inside her bedroom, she closed the door and suddenly couldn’t bear the wait. Her pulses were jumping like wildfire at the thought of her future. What a decision, what a momentous day…
Her future, yesterday so dry, sealed and certain, was now spinning in the air like a silver dollar, and she could only hold her breath as she waited for it to land—heads, she won. She won everything—everything. The man, the love, the children. The home, the fun, the family. The fame, the glory, the wonderful, glittering partnership with a man she loved and respected…
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