Superstar

by Southwell, T C

  By that time, it was Friday again, and she had hardly seen Mark, he was so busy. When she did, he gave her a gentle, sad smile filled with affection, which made her catch her breath and look away. His latest ploy was the most devastating of all, apparently designed to make her feel guilty for her cold-heartedness. Other members of the crew picked up the feelings from Mark, and she got many puzzled or even hostile looks. Harold and Warren watched them. By the afternoon, she just wanted to escape the location with its undercurrents, tired of feeling like she had done something wrong.

  That evening, she received an invitation to a party at Simon's house. She considered not going, but she needed to have some fun after the week of gloom, and there would be no press, so Mark could not accuse her of going out with Simon. He would probably be there anyway, a prospect that frightened and excited her. She selected a figure-hugging dress of cool, pale aquamarine with panels of white lace in the skirt and donned a pair of strappy white high-heeled evening shoes, then spent half an hour in front of the mirror. The result was not as dramatic as Anne's transformation, but it was good. A slim gold chain and stud earrings completed the outfit, and she was ready. Simon's maroon limousine arrived to collect her at seven. It already contained four other guests, none of whom she knew. Champagne was served in the car, and the people were as bubbly as the wine. By the time she arrived at the party, she was considerably more cheerful.

  Guests filled the house. Young couples giggled, and staid older actors stalked the rooms in search of admirers. Music pumped from a sound system that seemed to incorporate the entire mansion, and by the pool, lanterns lit the scene, strung overhead and floating in the water. She wandered through the house in search of someone she knew, and spotted Jenna clinging to the arm of an actor whom she recognised as Malcolm Monte. Simon danced with Janice in the lounge. A stranger tried to drag her onto the dance floor, but she shook them off and made her escape. She found Mark in a quieter room with a piano and a polished dining table. He was deep in a conversation with a greying actor, and four simpering starlets surrounded him, none of whom had the courage to cling to him, but stood around waiting for him to notice them.

  Carrin turned away, not wanting him to see her, and almost collided with Olivia Reed. The writer grabbed her.

  "Carrin, just the person I was looking for." She took Carrin's arm and propelled her down the hall and onto a veranda. There she released her and turned to face her.

  "What have you been doing to Mark?"

  Carrin sighed. "Nothing. Why don't you ask him what he's been doing to me?"

  "My god, Carrin, I've never seen him so unhappy."

  "He's acting, for Pete's sake."

  "No, he's not. You know that Helen tricked you, and he never harmed her, so what's the problem now?"

  Carrin drained her champagne and took another glassful from a passing waiter. The bubbles tickled her brain, making her reckless, and Mark's behaviour over the last week had depressed her. It was time to set Olivia straight on the whole matter.

  "The problem is that a superstar like Mark Lord would never contemplate anything other than a brief affair with a nobody like me, and I don't want to ruin our friendship for a few months of... intimacy, no matter whole wonderful that might be."

  "You're a fool." Olivia shook her head.

  "Oh, you think I should go for the brass ring, and make the most of it while it lasts? And when the bitterness sets in after it's over, perhaps I should join the rest of the bed-hopping socialites in Hollywood?" Carrin drained her glass again and grabbed another from a waiter. There seemed to be a vast population of liveried men wandering about with laden trays.

  "You don't know it will end. What if it doesn't?" Olivia demanded. "You're throwing away a chance to be with one of the most gorgeous and sought-after men in the world."

  "Yeah, well that's precisely the problem, isn't it? It wouldn't be long before some lovely starlet or supermodel stole him away. The fact that he's gorgeous and sought-after makes him a very bad prospect for anything other than a brief fling."

  "You could be wrong."

  Carrin took a gulp of champagne and waved her glass. "Little chance of that. If bets were made, it would be twenty to one against me being wrong. At this moment, he's got four absolutely ravishing girls vying for his attention, each one more willing than the next to do anything he'd like. How can any one woman, even if she was the most beautiful in the world, compete with that?"

  "Was he flirting with them?"

  "Not at that moment, no, he was busy talking to someone."

  "Mark's not a shallow playboy like Simon, he has values."

  Carrin laughed. "Even so, he's only human, you know."

  "What do you want, a written guarantee? Life's never that certain. You could marry some nice young man from your home town, but there's still a chance that he could be unfaithful."

  "I'd say the chances of that would be a lot less. I'm not a gambler. I'd rather bet on the favourite than a hundred to one outsider."

  "There are superstars who have remained faithful to their spouses, you know. Grant Jeffrey, for one. Melissa Jacobson, John Rafeal. What about them?"

  Carrin nodded. "You know what they all have in common? They all got married before they became famous. Mark knows what it's like to be an available superstar; he'd miss it. In fact, he wouldn't give it up."

  "Is that what it would take to convince you? A marriage proposal?"

  Carrin grabbed another passing champagne glass and giggled. "A Hollywood marriage? Spare me, please. They hardly last any longer than the affairs, and are messier to end."

  Olivia sighed and sipped her drink. "What about love? You talk as if there's only a physical attraction between you two. If you love each other, nothing could ever come between you. Mark wouldn't look at anyone else, no matter how beautiful they were. Real love is like that. It's stronger than anything, and has little or nothing to do with looks."

  "I know that," Carrin retorted. "But do you really think Mark Lord is capable of loving anyone? I was told he's not, and I'm inclined to believe that, especially based on his past record. And even if he was capable of it, why the hell would he fall in love with someone like me?"

  "Love doesn't need a reason. Sometimes it brings together people who have absolutely nothing in common, yet if it's strong enough it will last a lifetime."

  "Oh, posh." Carrin waved her glass rather too violently, slopping champagne. "Maybe that's true, but not in his case. He wouldn't know real love if it came up and bit him on the arse."

  "You don't know that."

  "It's a pretty good guess. Has he ever been in love? He told me himself he's never told a woman that he loves them, including me. His words, proof if ever there was any."

  Olivia shook her head as Carrin polished off another glass of champagne and looked around for a waiter.

  "You must have really hurt him for him to say that to you."

  Carrin snagged a fresh glass and swallowed half of it. "Maybe he was trying to tell me the truth."

  Olivia snorted, then grabbed Carrin's arm when she would have finished the rest of the champagne. "I'm going to tell you something, before you get too drunk to remember it. Mark didn't want you to know about it."

  "Ah, one of his little secrets? I'm all ears."

  Olivia glared at her, clearly annoyed at her flippant attitude. Only Carrin knew that it hid a mountain of pain.

  "When you went home after your first visit, Mark tried to sell your script. He went to every studio in town and a few that aren't. No one was interested. The plot was too original, they didn't like it. Eventually he found Warren, but Warren wasn't prepared to gamble that much money on it. It costs millions to make a movie, and yours isn't one of the cheaper ones. Do you know who put up the balance of the money?"

  She giggled. "Rockefeller?"

  "Mark did. He's sunk god knows how many millions into it. If it isn't a success, he stands to lose almost everything."

  The champagne turned sour in Carrin's stom
ach, and she swallowed stinging bile.

  Olivia went on, "Mark is co-producer of Deadly Games. He's put up the bulk of the money, and he's never shown any interest in producing before. He's always said it's a mug's game, like gambling. Whatever you were paid for the screenplay came out of his pocket."

  "Why would he do that?"

  "I'm not sure. I could guess, but I might be wrong. Why don't you ask him?"

  "How can I ask him when I'm not supposed to know?"

  "Tell him I told you, I don't mind." Olivia smiled. "He might bark, but he doesn't bite."

  Carrin tossed back the last of her drink and grabbed another. How could he do this to her? Didn't she owe him enough already? Why had he done it? Because it was a good investment? Maybe. No, that had to be it. He had hardly known her when she had gone back to Africa; she had only met him the week before. It couldn't be anything else. So, he had never been interested in producing before, so what? There was a first time for everything. He had liked the screenplay, so he had decided to produce it when no one else was interested, that was all.

  Carrin gulped her drink, discovering that it was whisky and gasping for a few minutes until her throat stopped burning. "Well, he must have decided it was a good screenplay."

  Olivia sent her a scathing look. "Oh, who are you trying to fool?"

  "No one. That's the most logical explanation, isn't it?"

  Olivia shook her head and started to walk away, but Carrin stopped her. "There's something I want to ask you about him, maybe you know."

  Olivia shrugged. "I might."

  "He told me that he was whipped and starved in the orphanage, made to scrub floors. That's not true, is it? He was lying, that sort of thing doesn't happen these days."

  Olivia leant on the veranda rail and stared out across the lawn with its lanterns and revellers. "You know, he never told me that. He never talks about the orphanage. I found out a few years ago, after he helped me. I wanted to do something for him, to pay him back, so I tried to find his parents. I tracked down the orphanage; it's in a small town in Ohio. A very small town. The police had closed it down several years before.

  "It seems that they had discovered that the children were being abused. Beaten, starved, made to eat mouldy bread and dog food. The people who ran it were pocketing most of the money that was given to them to run it. They had more children than beds, so they made them sleep on the floor with only a blanket. It wasn't until a little girl died of hypothermia that the police discovered what was going on. They got an anonymous tip, and found the body wrapped, ready for burial in the back yard."

  "My god," Carrin muttered. "How could anyone do that to children?"

  Olivia sighed. "They did."

  "Did you ever find his parents?"

  "Not exactly. His mother was a fourteen-year-old girl who had been raped. She died in childbirth, and her parents abandoned him on the orphanage steps. They're dead now. His mother was an only child, so at best he might have some cousins, that's all. He's never tried to find his parents, to my knowledge, and it's just as well, especially his father."

  Carrin nodded. Even without knowing about his parents, a childhood like that must have had a terrible effect on Mark. She sipped the whisky, pity replacing her anger and bitterness. The combination of whisky and champagne made her light-headed, and she emptied her glass onto the lawn. She didn't like whisky, anyway.

  Olivia said, "You should have some coffee."

  "I'd rather go back to my hotel. I really don't feel up to facing Mark now, and he's around here somewhere."

  "You'll have to face him sometime."

  "Yeah, well, not now. I'm going to find Simon."

  Leaving Olivia on the veranda, she made her way somewhat unsteadily inside. The last time she had seen Simon, he was dancing in the lounge. She went in search of him, but he was no longer there. Shaking off a hopeful young man who begged her to dance with him, she went to the study, but it was deserted. Most of the revellers were outside, it seemed. Finding a door, she walked out onto the lawn. The cool air made her dizzy, and she sank down on a garden bench. Looking back at the house, her heart froze.

  Mark stood talking to Olivia, smiling and looking more cheerful than she had seen him all week. As she watched, he leant forward and kissed Olivia on the cheek. Olivia reached out as he drew back and stroked the sleek hair on the side of his head, the sort of caress a mother would give to a son. She spoke, and Mark nodded. Carrin swallowed a cold lump. Olivia had told him. Why had she confided in his best friend? Idiot! Now she had to get out of here. Mark would know everything, and she did not want to listen to his lies about that.

  Desperate to escape, she rose and hunted for Simon again. After a fruitless circuit around the lawn, she was despairing. Where was he? She spotted Jenna and walked over to her.

  "Jenna, hi. Do you know where Simon is?"

  The supermodel eyed her. "He's already busy. He and Janice went upstairs." She smirked and pulled her companion away.

  Carrin shivered, glancing around. There was no way out. Without Simon to order the limousine, she was stuck. Nervous tension knotted her stomach and made her queasy. She headed into the garden, hoping to find a secluded spot where she could wait safely for Simon to re-join the party. Mark must not find her. She made her way along hedge-lined pathways until she smelt roses. A tall hedge surrounded a secluded rose garden with a bench beside it, and she sat down, her knees shaking. He would never find her here. Sadness engulfed her, and she bowed her head, fighting a strong urge to cry.

  The sweet smell of roses mocked her through the haze of champagne. What was she going to do now? Try to think. Okay, her secret was out, he would know all the right things to say, but it would all be lies. She sighed, wondering how she would cope, now that he was armed with the truth. Once she had sobered up, and had a chance to prepare, she would manage somehow. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and the moonlight seemed quite bright, silvering the roses.

  "So, here you are."

  Carrin turned at the sound of Mark's soft voice. Her heart did a flip-flop and landed like a lump of lead in the pit of her stomach. The moonlight threw deep shadows onto his face, accentuating his strong bone structure, narrow nose and sensual mouth. He smiled, his eyes dark. Carrin looked away.

  "Leave me alone."

  Mark walked towards her, and she rose and moved away, terrified that she would not be able to cope with his powerful charm while the champagne had robbed her of so much of her self-control.

  Mark stopped, cocking his head. "Why are you scared of me now?"

  "I know that Olivia told you, don't deny it."

  "Okay, she told me, so what? I'm not going to tell you that it's not true, if that's what you're expecting."

  She looked at him, startled. "Then it is true?"

  "No. But you'd only say that I was lying if I tried to persuade you with words."

  "Oh? You've found a better way to persuade me?"

  He nodded. "I think so. I hope so. If not, all is lost."

  "How?"

  Mark advanced, and she stepped back, keeping a distance between them the same. He stopped. "Oh, come on, don't be ridiculous. I don't want to have to shout at you from the other side of the flowerbed. What do you think I'm going to do? I've already told you I'm not going to try and seduce you, and you've said that I'm not looking for another notch on my bed post." He paused. "Besides, it's a bit thorny here."

  Carrin relaxed a little, wishing that she was able to think clearly, but the champagne bubbles still fogged her mind. He walked around the roses, and she turned to face him, raising her chin. He stopped before her, taking her hands, and she studied his beautiful, smiling face.

  "Carrin." His voice was a caress, sending shivers through her. His smile faded. "I know you don't believe me, but I want to spend the rest of my life with you." She opened her mouth, but he pressed his finger to her lips. "No, don't spoil this for me, please. Indulge me. I've wanted to say these things to you for such a long time; I have to say them
now. I'm not trying to persuade you, but what I'm saying is true, and I'm going to prove it to you."

  Mark removed his finger, and she stared at him, her heart dying. Her dream was coming true, and in an even more beautiful way than she had ever imagined. Enjoy the moment; logic urged her, buoyed by champagne. It did not matter what he said, so long as he did not try to seduce her, for she knew that she would not be able to resist him now. So long as she did not tell him what she felt, she was safe. He could only embarrass himself with his sweet lies.

  Mark glanced around, then led her to the bench and pushed her onto it. He sat beside her, looking almost shy as he held her hand.

  "I feel like a damned schoolboy," he muttered. "You remember in the forest, I told you that you made me nervous?"

  She nodded.

  "Well, right now I'm shaking in my shoes." He smiled. "This has never happened to me before, and I had begun to think it never would. Hell, I'm thirty-four years old, and I've never been in love."

  Carrin noticed that his hands were shaking slightly, and quelled her scepticism. If this was an act, it was his best performance yet. How sweet it would be to believe him, just for this wonderful moment, to let her dream become reality.

  He looked away. "I want to be with you always, Carrin. To share everything with you. I want us to have children, girls that look like you, and boys... well, it doesn't matter what they look like, as long as it's not me."

  "Why?" The question burst from her unbidden.

  He looked startled. "Why? Hell, I would have thought that was obvious. Who would want to look like me? Funny eyebrows and a really stupid smile. Why do you think I'm cast as a villain so much? I'm no Simon Grey."

  "I've never seen you smile."

  "Good thing too, you'd probably run a mile."

  Carrin raised her hand and touched his cheek, as she had always longed to do. "I think you're beautiful."