Heartthrob (16 page)

The rest of the dailies were too painful to watch. His attitude toward this girl—whose performance before he’d arrived on set had been truly exceptional—was embarrassing. Jed sat with his eyes closed, rubbing his forehead with one hand, trying to relieve his sudden splitting headache.

It would have been one thing if he’d done this while he was drinking. But he’d been completely, unquestionably sober.

God, he needed a drink.…

He felt Kate lightly touch his leg. “I think we can probably go,” she leaned close to whisper.

Jed opened his eyes and found himself looking directly at Kate. His arm was still around the back of her chair, and for a moment, she was close enough to kiss.

And he really wanted to kiss her.

Even more than he wanted that drink.

For the briefest moment, he could have sworn he’d
seen an answering yearning in her eyes. But then she stood up, instantly businesslike. Jed followed her out, ducking underneath the light from the projector.

She was silent as they went up the stairs and out onto the sidewalk. She was silent as they headed back down Main Street. True to her word, she had proved him wrong, and she wasn’t rubbing his nose in it. She didn’t even utter one single “I told you so.”

God knew he deserved it.

Kate looked nearly as exhausted as he felt, and he had another twinge of guilt for keeping her running over the past few days, adding his petty and unnecessary demands to her lengthy list of duties as this movie’s producer. The mattress, the window shades, the soda in the fridge …

She glanced up as if she felt him watching her, and somehow shook off her fatigue. She straightened her shoulders and held her head high, and instantly looked as cool and collected as she always did. And she always
did
look perfectly composed, even in running shorts and a T-shirt, with her hair still damp from her shower, the way it had been that morning.

Jed tried to picture her caught in a rainstorm, soaking wet, bedraggled, but he couldn’t do it. Somehow the cloud would know not to rain on her. Or maybe she simply wouldn’t do something as inefficient or uncalculated as going out without an umbrella on a potentially rainy day.

He tried to picture her in bed, waking up in the morning, clean of makeup, hair mussed from sleep. That image didn’t come easily, either. He had no problem picturing her naked, though, draped across satin sheets—he had
Dead of Night
to thank for that. But sleepy-eyed and warm, ready to snuggle underneath the coziness of bedcovers … No, that picture simply didn’t come.

She struck him as the kind of woman who would shower after making love, dress, and then drive herself
home. Or expect him to do the same if they happened to be in her apartment.

But what would she expect him to do if they were sharing the same trailer for the night?

Jed had to laugh at himself. He was thinking way ahead of this game. Kate didn’t even like him. There was no way she was going to climb into bed with him tonight. Thinking along those lines was only going to get him into trouble.

Besides, he had something else he had to do before he could focus on his game of one-on-one with Kate O’Laughlin. Someone else he had to talk to.

They were approaching the Grill, and he could see many of the cast and crew inside, still hanging out. Jamaal Hawkes was there, sitting at a window booth with one of the makeup assistants. Kate’s assistant Annie was surrounded by other female members of the crew. A table of male crew members sat nearby, watching them.

Riva Turner and Russell McCoy were off to the side, at a table in a corner of the room. Russell’s posture was aggressive, and Riva looked as if her shoulders were about to cave in.

And several tables away, Susie McCoy was by herself, unenthusiastically toying with a piece of blueberry pie.

Jed stopped outside the front door and turned toward Kate. “We should go in and get you something to eat.”

Kate shook her head. “I can have one of the gofers bring something to your trailer. I know you have things you probably want to do. Lines to learn for tomorrow.”

“Actually,” he told her. “I’d prefer it if we’d stop. There’s someone I have to talk to.”

He held the door for her again, and Kate went inside first. Everyone looked up as Jericho followed her, and she realized that over the next few days the two of them were going to be virtually inseparable. To those of the cast and crew
who weren’t aware of the additional contract stipulations, it was going to look as if they had something going on.

As uncomfortable as that made her feel, she knew Jericho would be far more unhappy if word went out that she was his contract-enforced baby-sitter.

Kate went to the buffet table. Dinner had been cleaned up, but there was a small pile of freshly made, wrapped sandwiches. Kate found one that looked to be chicken salad, and grabbed a cola. She was going to need a little caffeine to get all her work done tonight.

There was pie out on the table, wrapped up and ready to go as well, and she turned to see if Jericho wanted a piece.

But Jericho had crossed the room.

He stood next to Susie McCoy’s table. “Mind if I sit for a sec?” he asked in a voice that carried back to Kate.

Susie shook her head, looking for all the world as if she were bracing herself, about to be hit.

Jericho pulled out a chair and sat, as across the room Jamaal Hawkes slid out of his booth. The young actor started to move closer.

“I owe you an apology,” Jericho told Susie, still loudly enough for everyone in the Grill to hear. Jamaal stopped moving. “I came into this project with some preconceived ideas about you, and I was way off base.” The room was dead silent. Even those who at first had been pretending not to pay attention were now listening. “I thought you couldn’t handle this role, but I was wrong. You’ve got Jane down cold. I’m truly sorry for my inexcusable rudeness. I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me.”

Susie looked about as dazed as Kate felt. She murmured something that Kate couldn’t hear. It seemed to satisfy Jericho, though, because he nodded and stood up. “I’m looking forward to working with you,” he told Susie.

And then he was moving back across the room, toward Kate, toward the door. She grabbed her sandwich and soda and followed him outside, hurrying to catch up.

“That was …” She was speechless. “Above and beyond the call of duty,” she finally managed. “You know, you could have pulled her aside and apologized quietly.”

“I insulted the kid in public,” Jericho said matter-of-factly. “It’s only fair I apologize in public.”

Bemused, Kate followed him toward the trailers. Dear God, this had been the longest day of her life. Starting when she walked in on Jericho Beaumont chained and naked in his trailer, she’d seen more facets to him than she’d ever dreamed existed.

He slowed his stride as he realized she was struggling to keep up, and in the evening shadows, he was suddenly Laramie.

His voice was as soft as the night around them. “Thanks for making me sit through the dailies.” He smiled then, Laramie’s smile, crooked and slightly self-mocking. “Believe it or not, the word thanks
is
in my working vocabulary.”

Kate forced herself to stop gaping at him and start walking again, determined not to give herself away. Lord knew, she could hold her own against Jericho Beaumont. But when he started acting human, when he started acting like Laramie, she was in big trouble.

W
hen Kate was thirteen, she often baby-sat at night for a young couple who lived down the street. They both sang in a community chorus, and every Tuesday evening she would bring her homework over to their house. She’d sit at their dining room table and work after she’d put their two-year-old daughter, Laura, to bed. It was one of the
good
memories she had of her early teenage years—a time she tried hard not to think too much about.

She now sat with her papers and files scattered across the table in the main room of Jericho’s trailer, wishing that Jericho would be as quietly obedient as Laura had been.

She’d sat, trying to work, while he reviewed pages of dialogue. He’d muttered and tried different inflections even while taking a shower. She’d kept her gaze carefully on all of the day’s reports and tried not to think about the water sluicing down over his perfect body. She hadn’t dared do more than glance up as the bathroom door—the one she’d ordered installed just a few hours ago—had opened, as he’d gone, still muttering, into the back room with only a towel tied loosely around his hips.

God forbid he should give her another one of those
melting looks he’d sent her way right before they left the dailies.

For one split second, she’d imagined that he was going to lean forward and kiss her.

And she’d sat there like an idiot, half hoping that he’d do it. God, what a mess
that
would be. She was nervous enough about spending the night in his trailer. She could not—
could not
—let sex play any part in their working relationship. It would blur the lines between supervisor and supervisee—which, of course, would be exactly what Jericho wanted.

The telephone rang, and Kate picked it up, grateful for a legitimate distraction. “Hello?”

There was silence on the other end. “I’m sorry,” a male voice finally said. “I must have the wrong number. I was looking for Jed?”

“Who?”

“Jericho. Sorry.
Jericho
Beaumont. I’m sorry if I have the wrong number. I wrote it on a piece of paper, but then spilled some coffee and …” The voice had a distinctly New York accent. “I’m having a little trouble reading it.”

“You got it right—he’s here. Whom shall I say is calling?”

“It’s David. Look, I know it’s late. I can call tomorrow. I mean, if this is an inconvenient time …” His voice trailed off tactfully.

He thought she and Jericho were …

Kate nearly jumped out of her seat. “No! No, this is fine. Let me call Jericho. He’s in the other room,” she made a point to tell him. “Jericho—David’s on the phone?”

Jericho came out of the back room wearing only a pair of running shorts. His hair was wet from his shower and slicked back from his face, his tanned skin still moist.

He glanced down at all her work spread out on the table as he took the phone. It was a wall phone, and there was nowhere he could go for privacy. Still, it was clear that he
thought the idea of her moving her stuff into the other room was ludicrous. So he stood directly beside her as he spoke. “Hey, how’s it going? You checking up on me?”

Jericho was standing so close, Kate could hear David’s voice, scratchy and thin through the cheap phone speaker. “You didn’t call. I always figure when you don’t call it’s either going really well or really badly. And right now I’m betting it’s really excellent. Who is she? Some impossibly hot actress?”

Jericho sat down across from her, on the other side of the booth, lifting the curled phone cord up and over her head. It stretched, quivering, across the table.

“Her name is Kate, and she’s my producer.”

Kate waited for Jericho to say more—to explain that although it was after ten o’clock at night, she was there on business.

Instead he added, “My impossibly hot producer.” He gave her a smile that would melt a mastodon. It was one hundred and fifty percent Jericho Beaumont, and completely resistible.

Kate focused her attention on her work. She really didn’t care if he wanted his friend to think they were involved.

David spoke, but now that Jericho had moved, she could only hear the timbre of his voice. She could no longer make out his words. Not that she cared.

Whatever David had said, Jericho smiled again. “Yes, she’s blond and beautiful.”

Kate glanced up to find him watching her. His eyes were warm, his gaze skimming her body. She felt herself tense, and had to hold tightly to her pencil to keep herself from crossing her arms. God help her if he found out how uncomfortable his wandering gaze made her feel. She could handle being looked at out on the street, out in a crowd. But one-on-one like this made her feel twelve years old again.

He smiled. “And, yes, I happen to find her incredibly
attractive.” His words were more for her than for David’s ears.

“It’s the price you have to pay for being a movie star,” he continued. “Beautiful women throwing themselves at you, day and night. And every now and then one comes along that you just can’t ignore.”

She put down her pencil and gave him her best Frau Steinbreaker look. But she knew it would do little good, considering the blush that was heating her cheeks.

His smile widened into a grin. “Hey, you’re a shrink,” he said into the phone. “What’s your take on a twenty-nine-year-old who blushes?” He laughed at whatever David said. “He offers his condolences. I don’t know where he gets the idea, but he seems to think that you’re—in his words—dead meat with me around. And, yeah, I have to admit I enjoy watching you react.” He pulled the receiver closer to his mouth. “Not you.
Kate.
I meant, it’s fun to make her blush.”

He picked up the pencil she had put down, saw that it had her name printed on it in shiny gold letters, and glanced up at her again, lifting an eyebrow.