A PORTRAIT OF OLIVIA (7 page)

“Yeah, well like you, I’ll be glad when this is all over. By the way,” Peter glanced around. “Have you seen my camera? I was looking for it earlier and couldn’t find it.”

“Did you check outside?”

“Uh huh. It’s not out there. Last time I remember seeing it was when Luke took that group photo.”

“Well, if we don’t find it, you can call him and ask him if he remembers where he put it.”

“Right. Maybe Mom picked it up when she was clearing up out there last night. I’ll ask her later.”

“Well, that’s done,” Olivia muttered to herself, putting the phone down. She looked at the phone number she had scrawled on her desk pad. Brenda would be back in a few minutes with the itinerary for the day—she’d just have time to make a quick call. Quickly, she punched in the numbers and listened to the first three rings, tapping her fingers impatiently on her dressing table.

“Hello?” Luke’s muffled voice sounded as if he were underneath a pile of blankets.

“Sorry doll, did I wake you?”

“Who’s this?”

“Olivia Winters.”

“Right.” Luke sounded disgusted. “Who the hell is this?”

Olivia laughed gaily. “It’s me cowboy, from last night. Remember? You and I have some unfinished business to attend to.”

There was a moment’s silence on the other end…then he asked; “Is this a joke?”

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38

“No joke, big boy. Listen, I have a job for you. Let me fill you in, then we can arrange a meeting.”

“Okay.” Luke sounded much more awake now. “What kind of job?”

“I need a bodyguard.” Olivia gave a throaty laugh. “From what I remember, I think you’d fit the bill just nicely. You up for it?”

Luke gave what he hoped was a sexy chuckle. “Oh, I’m up for it all right.”

“That’s what I thought. Listen I’m at the studio…”

“On a Sunday?”

“Yes, on a Sunday. I have a tight schedule this week, so we had to take care of some pre-shoots today. I should be through around five. Here’s my address—got a pen handy?”

“Sure, wait a second…Okay, shoot.”

Olivia gave him her Beverly Hills address and directions. “Be there around six. We can…talk, get better acquainted and I can fill you in with the details then. OK?”

“I’m your man,” Luke said, almost unable to contain his excitement.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Olivia purred. “See you later.”

“Yes!” Luke bounded from his bed with a cry of triumph. This day had suddenly become much more meaningful. He was going to be Olivia Winters’

bodyguard!

Wow, he thought, as he made his way to the bathroom, this had to mean he’d be living in Beverly Hills, going to all the glittering functions she would attend. He’d be there with her, just a few feet away from all the celebrities and moneymakers in Hollywood. He’d get to meet beautiful women—lots and lots of them. He grinned at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, giving himself a critical inspection.

“You look good kid,” he said aloud, admiring what he saw. He flexed his arms, watching with satisfaction the muscles that rippled beneath his smooth, tanned skin. A couple of hours in the gym and some sun time before he went up to LA for his interview, would make him look pretty spectacular. He ran his fingers through his sun-bleached hair, spiking it up a little. “Yep, you’ll do just fine.”

He sauntered back into his bedroom and hunted around for his gym bag, pausing for a moment as his eyes fell on the camera he’d purloined the night before. Picking it up, he looked at it with a self-satisfied grin. This baby contained quite a few photographs he had taken, unseen by anyone, during Olivia’s drunken exhibition. Everyone had been so concerned with her actions
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39

that no one had noticed him picking up Peter’s camera and snapping a few

‘souvenirs’ for himself.

Well, maybe now he wouldn’t have to use them for the original purpose he had stolen the camera. If all worked out well, he’d forget the notion of selling them to the tabloid willing to pay the highest price for pictures of the famous Miss Winters, sprawled out dead drunk on the ground, and subsequently being carried upstairs to sleep it off. He’d keep them though, as a kind of insurance against bad times. Still, if he played his cards right here, he just might be in the juice for a long time.

Whistling happily, he slipped on a pair of shorts and a tank top, picked up his gym bag and headed for the door. Today was going to be
very
interesting.

c h a p t e r 4

s

Winfred Owen frowned as she looked down from her balcony and saw the man walking through the communal gardens below her. This was the second; no
third
time she’d seen him in the last week or so. Winifred knew he didn’t live in the building—he looked like a vagrant or something in that ugly coat—and on such a beautiful day. How had he gotten in? How had he managed to circum-vent the security gates that led to the peaceful arbor she loved to sit in? There was no way she was going down there while this interloper was around.

Grabbing her phone, she punched in the number for security. “Security?

That guy’s here again. You need to be more on the ball. Please get him out of here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” came the gruff reply. “We’re on it.”

“Hurry, please.” She put the phone down then walking back out onto her balcony, she peered down into the lush grounds below. “No sign of him,” she muttered. “Thank goodness…” Her gaze was distracted as she glimpsed a long black limousine pulling around to the front of the building.

There she is, she thought. Miss Olivia ‘I’m too good to talk to you ’cause I’m a star’ Winters. Shaking her head, she walked back into her living room, closing the sliding glass door behind her. She was still smarting from her first encounter with ‘the Dragon Lady upstairs’, as she now referred to Olivia.

On the day Olivia had moved in, Winfred had tried to give her a neighbor’s welcome and tell her how much she enjoyed the ‘Olivia Winters Hour’. She’d been snubbed, first by some blond bimbo named Brenda, then by the great star herself.

Didn’t they know who she was for gosh-sakes? Winifred Owen, star of many a feature film of the forties and fifties? Some not very good films, to be

- 40 -

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41

sure—but nevertheless, she’d been as big a star as Debra Paget and Julie Adams. She had written to Olivia, what she construed as a very civil letter, considering the circumstances, reminding her of this fact and saying she would be glad to appear on her show anytime Olivia might want to do a Hollywood ret-rospect.

The answer had been total silence. It confirmed Winfred’s opinion that Olivia had no class, an opinion that was reaffirmed each time Winifred would accidentally bump into Olivia either in the lobby or the elevator. Olivia had been heard to remark, on more than one occasion, how she just hated having to share the elevator with the other occupants of the building, and why hadn’t they thought of putting in a private elevator for the penthouse owner’s exclusive use? It had taken every vestige of her self-control for Winifred not to give vent to a caustic remark or two of her own—something she was very capable of at times.

Despite that, she had tuned into the show every now and then, and had been kind of intrigued by the two fellows from Laguna Beach—the artist and the private investigator. The dark-haired one, Jeff—so cute, she thought. So like Eduardo in many ways and the other one, the artist—just like her brother, Christopher. Winifred reckoned they had brought some much-needed class to the show. They were intelligent, amusing, good talkers—and so they were gay—so what? Christopher and Eduardo had been too. Oh, of course, she’d been mad when she discovered what was going on between them. She’d been so in love with Eduardo, but after they had confessed their love for each other—and for her, she’d forgiven them. They’d had a wonderful life until that awful skiing accident. Eduardo had been killed instantly and Christopher had languished in a hospital bed for weeks before he died, never knowing his lover had gone before him.

Winfred sighed as those memories filled her mind like a black cloud. She’d had so much pain in her life. Losing all the men she loved, becoming too old for the ingénue roles she’d become type-cast playing and now, coming to the bitter realization that some two-bit daytime celebrity would not even give her the time of day.

“Oh well,” she muttered, walking back out to her balcony. “Those are the breaks…”

She looked down from her second-floor vantage point and was relieved to see the security guard patrolling the grounds. She could relax again, knowing her call had been heeded and that order had been restored in her world.

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Olivia dashed through her living room yelling for Joyce at the top of her lungs.

“Yes, ma’am?” Joyce darted into the room, giving her white starched apron a nervous twist.

“Run my bath, pronto.” Olivia gave the pretty girl a cursory glance. “And lay out my lavender negligee…then get lost. I’m expecting company. Take the night off—go see a movie or somethin’. Get that loser boyfriend of yours to spend some money on you.”

“Yes ma’am. Will you need anything else before I go?”

“Uh uh, just hurry with the bath.”

Joyce walked into the master bathroom and turned on the bath faucets full blast. She selected what she knew to be Olivia’s favorite bubble bath oil and poured it in. Then she went over to the dressing table and opened some of the bottles from the array of face and body lotions. With the kind of care only harsh criticism can produce, she laid out the make-up she knew Olivia would need, placing the lip-gloss and some tissues to the right hand side of the table.

There, she thought. The old cow has everything she needs.

She walked back to the tub and looked down into the scented bubbling water. For a moment she imagined herself, as she had done so many times since she had come to this job, grabbing her employer by the hair and forcing her head under the water.

How dare she talk of Larry that way? Larry wasn’t a loser. He had a really good job as a sound technician on Olivia’s show. That’s how she’d gotten the job as Olivia’s maid, although personal assistant had been the job title when Joyce first started working for Olivia.

Joyce had envisaged a job where she would answer the phone; take care of correspondence—that kind of thing. She had never dreamed she would end up being more or less Olivia’s
servant
. But that’s what had happened over the months she had been in the woman’s employ. She had whined about it to Larry but he was not in a position to do anything about it. He’d suggested she quit, but Joyce knew she couldn’t make the kind of money Olivia was paying her anywhere else, so she’d decided to stay and bite the bullet. She could save a lot of money and then, when she and Larry married, she could tell the bitch to go to hell.

“Is that bath ready yet?”

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43

Joyce jumped a little as Olivia’s brittle voice jarred her nerves. “Yes ma’am.

Shall I go now?”

“Put out some warm towels, then beat it. Be back around ten or so.”

Joyce gave the practiced little bob Olivia had insisted she do each time, before she left Olivia’s presence.

“Just like you used to see those black maids do in the movies,” Olivia had told a couple of close friends. “Now, I’ve got a white maid curtsying to
me
.”

Olivia watched the young girl leave, and then stepped into the tub. She lay for a while luxuriating in the soft scented bubbles, letting the vestiges of her hangover and the stress of the long day at the studio gently ebb away. She closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind of all the petty annoyances that seemed to build up around her—all the decisions she had to make. What the hell did she employ all those people for if they couldn’t take the initiative sometimes?

No, no Olivia, she thought with a little smile. Don’t get grouchy…in about fifteen minutes you’ll have a very edible piece of manhood come a-knocking at your door. He don’t know it yet, but he will have the best lay of his life—enough to blow his little cotton socks off. She giggled at the thought, then rose from the water and gently patted herself dry. Uh-huh! That young buck was in for the time of his life.

After her toilet had been completed and she had slipped into the negligee of diaphanous lavender silk, she went to the bar and removed a bottle of chilled champagne from the fridge. Just then, the doorbell chimed, and with a little smile Olivia set the bottle on the bar top and glided to the door.

Luke could not suppress a small gasp as a sultry Olivia stood before him, framed in the doorway, looking like almost every young man’s dream come true.

“Wow,” was all he could say. “Wow.”

“Wow yourself,” Olivia chuckled. “Come on in, cowboy.”

Luke walked in, looking around him with awe. “W…” he stopped himself from uttering another wow, fearing he would appear too gauche. Olivia, however, seemed delighted.

“You have a beautiful place, Miss Winters,” Luke managed at last.

“And you have a beautiful ass,” Olivia said, leering at him. “Come on over here, bartender, and make yourself useful.” She pushed the bottle of champagne toward him. Luke, blushing, grabbed the bottle and twisted off the cork.

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He poured the champagne into the two glasses Olivia indicated. She raised her glass to her lips, looking at him over the rim.

“Here’s to you, cowboy,” she murmured, before taking a long slow sip, her eyes locked on his. Luke’s hand trembled with excitement as he raised his own glass. God, she is one beautiful woman, he thought, feeling his arousal build inside his tight Levi’s—and she really seems to like me…what a break! Feeling a little bolder, he smiled into her eyes as she took a step nearer him. He could smell the heady scent of jasmine on her skin as her fingers brushed his face with the lightest of touches.

“Miss Winters…” he gasped, wanting to take her in his arms, yet nervous of making the first move.

“Olivia,” she murmured, her lips close to his cheek.

Luke groaned, his resolve gone. He set his glass down on the bar and pulled Olivia into his arms, his mouth seeking hers. He felt her full sensuous lips part beneath his, the sensation of her tongue darting into his mouth setting his senses on fire. Luke held her fast in his arms, while Olivia reveled in the feel of his hard, muscular body against her own and the heat of his skin on hers.