Her Leading Man (46 page)

Orozco obliged
him

“
Okay.”
Ben gestured to where Christina still sat.

“
Ready
for you, Christina.”

She got up, patted her rags, and walked over to
stand beside Orozco.
He waggled an eyebrow as he
took her hand, and she looked disgusted.
Ma
rtin
hoped like heck the two actors wouldn’t blow up
at
each other
before the picture was in the can.

In order to make up for Christina’s displeasure
with her costar and
for Orozco’s blind conviction that
she wanted him to seduce her, Martin went
a little
overboard with the jolliness when he spoke next.
“All
right,
you two. You’ve been running away for days,
you’re not sure where you are or
where Moses’s
flocks are, or whether you’re being pursued. Of
course, you assume
Paul’s character is after you and
you’re scared to death, but you’re so in
love, you’re
willing to risk anything.”

“
Even being buried alive and being eaten by
bugs
after having your tongue cut out,” Christina
supplied
as
if she relished the thought of such a gruesome
fate befalling Pablo
Orozco.

“
Right.” Martin added quickly, before she
could
say anything else. “And you’re also worried about
your ladylove,
Pablo. She’s getting weak from lack
of food and water. You love her
desperately, and
you’re willing to sacrifice your life for her, but
you
don’t want her to
die for you.”

“
Of
course.”

Orozco inclined his head as if such things happened
all the time with
him. Martin would bet anything
the conceited
oaf
would throw
his
lady love
in front of a speeding train if it would
save his own
handsome hide. Christina, he noticed, gave
her costar
a look of distaste,
and he sighed, wishing this picture
was finished.

“
Ready,
Ben?”

“Ready.”

“
Ready,
you two?”

Both actors
answered that they were ready.

“
And . .
. action!”

Orozco and Christina gazed soulfully into each
other’s eyes as Ben
started cranking and sprockets
started chunking out and hitting the
ground.

Christina said, “Is this long enough, Ben?”

“
Not quite. Let me get a few more feet of
film
shot. We might be able to intersperse them in with
some of the other
scenes.”

“
Do I
look worried enough?” Orozco asked.

Martin was surprised he’d bothered. Pablo Orozco
didn’t often ask if
he was doing something correctly,
since he always assumed he was the world’s
best at
whatever he chose to do.

“
You’re fine, Pablo.”
He saw the actor’s free hand
release Christina,
reach for her bottom, and squeeze. He barked, “Stop
that,
Pablo!”

Christina hauled back a fist and would have
slammed it into
Orozco’s noble-looking face if Martin
hadn’t leaped between the two of them
and
stopped
her. He
heard
Ben sigh heavily and stop
cranking.

Martin turned on Orozco in fury. “Damn it, Pablo,
stop doing things
like that! Can’t you tell when a
woman doesn’t want you pestering
her?”

“
Fah. She wants me. She’s only playing hard
to
get.”

“
Why you pompous, arrogant—” Christina
balled
up her fist again and took a step toward her
costar.

Again
Martin stopped her from committing
batter
y.
“It’s
all
right
,
Christina. Don’t do anything you’ll
regret
.”

“I
wouldn’t ever regret punching that
ass,” she declared.

Orozco laughed. Martin decided to hell with it,
and started tugging
on his lock of
hair. In order to
diffuse the tension, he opted to drop the
subject,
although he, too,
would have liked to sock Pablo
Orozco, who evidently hadn’t
been
hit
enough in his
life to date.

“
Let’s get this oasis scene
over with
, shall we? And
keep your hands to yourself, Orozco.”
Glancing at
Christina’s furious face
,
he added, “And you,
too,
Christina.”

She chuffed out an angry breath and turned away
from him, and Martin
knew he’d irked her. He regretted
having done so, especially since he knew
she
had to
put up with a lot from Orozco, but he also
had to get this picture finished and
he couldn’t afford
to waste any more rime.

His next words were directed at Ben. “Where do
you want us in the
oasis, Ben?”

The cameraman pointed west. “You’re going to
have to stand over
there, away from the oasis but
close to the trees. The other camera can’t shoot
you
guys in
the shade, because this camera will be in
the scene.”

Great. Now
he
and Christina would have to
stand
in the
sun and sweat, which would fray their nerves
further. Nevertheless, they both
trudged out of the
scanty shade afforded by the three date palms.

Christina mumbled, “I hate this.”

“
I’m
sorry, darling.”

She shot him a quick, apologetic look. “I didn’t
mean to be cross,
Martin. None of this is your fault.
I only wish I didn’t have to act in
pictures in order
to go to school.”

“
It’s not fair,” he agreed. “You should have
been
granted a scholarship.” Which was the truth. She’d
regaled him with her
academic achievements, and he
was offended on her behalf by the university’s
decision
to
withhold a scholarship from her.

Even if she was a woman, and probably wouldn’t
really use her
medical degree. Especially not if she
agreed to marry him one of these days.
He’d never
say such a thing to her, since she refused to admit
the validity of what
Martin perceived as only the
truth:
w
omen
couldn’t hold professional jobs and rear
families at the same time. Why, it
was unheard of.

The running-away-through-the-oasis scene proceeded
smoothly. Christina
stumbled and fell as she
was supposed to, and Martin knelt at her side,
trying
all
the while to keep his face as little visible as possible
so that the viewing
audience wouldn’t realize
he wasn’t Pablo Orozco.

“
You’re doing a great job, Christina. You’re
an
amazing woman, and I love you.”

“
You’re so sweet to me, Martin.” Christina’s
ey
es
filled, and Martin was shocked. She
blinked back her
tears and asked matter-of-factly, “Should I stagger
to
my feet
yet?”

“
Give it another second or two. We want
everyone
to be worried about you.” He was worried about
her
;
that’s for sure.

“
Good
Lord.”

But he was right, and she understood. She
languished,
therefore, on the hot sand until he
said,
“
All right
. Let me help you to your feet now.
Try not
to
look strong and healthy. Sag a little, okay?”

“
I’ll
try. Don’t make me laugh.”

“
Sorry” He wasn’t really. If she was worried
about
laughing, she must be over her teary spell. Thank
God.

She did a fair job of looking bedraggled, considering her
makeup remained
perfect and she was gorgeous as ever. She leaned against
him, and he his arm
around her, and they limped out of camera
range. Martin gave
her a squeeze before releasing
her. “Great job, darling.”

“
You,
too, sweetheart.”

Because he loved her and couldn’t help himself,
Martin bent down and
kissed her
lips. So what everyone in the cast and crew knew they
were
in
love? It was certainly
nothing to be ashamed
of.

Martin was ashamed that they were carrying an illicit
affair, but that was another
aspect of the
situation entirely. Nobody else had to know
about
that.

He tried not to recall all the times he’d worked
on other pictures
and people around him had succumbed
to lust—and everyone on the set had
known
all
about it. Those memories only pained him. He
didn’t want to think that he and
Christina were the
objects of gossip, or, worse, that they were merely
indulging in a
thoughtless liaison. He loved her. He
would sooner hang himself than dishonor
her.

Damn it, he wished he could reconcile their affair
with his continued
belief in himself as a man of integrity.

That it was Christina who refused to legitimize
their relationship
didn’t help ease his conscience.
Martin considered it ironic that he, of
all men, should
be the
one who ended up loving a woman with ambitions
incompatible with
marriage. Hell’s
bells, he’d
never given a thought to love and marriage until the
last few months,
when he’d started craving something
more in his life than his
job
.

And he’d found it—with Christina, who wouldn’t
marry
him
.
He wondered if God
deliberately played
these tricks on people in order
to keep Himself from
being bored.
Martin resented
Got a
lot
,
if
that
were so.

“
If you
l
ay a
hand on me again, Pablo Orozco,
I’ll break your other arm for
you.”

It was the third time Orozco had pinched her on
the bottom, and
Christina was
fed
up. He’d also managed
to touch her breasts
once or twice during the
day’s filming,
and she felt dirty, defiled, and
more
than a
little disgusted.

“
Nonsense. You adore it.”

“
I hate it.” She also hated his complacent
smirk
and
wished she could wipe
it
from his face, preferably
by inflicting a good deal of pain in the
process.

Martin had tried, in his kindly way, to dissuade
the beast from
pawing her, but Orozco was as thickheaded
as he was conceited, and he hadn’t
been dis
suaded
.

It was now four in the afternoon. Christina was
tired and hot, had a
terrible headache, and her nerves
were as ragged as her costume. Because of
the intense
heat, Pablo Orozco’s obnoxious behavior, and
the fact that each
scene had to be filmed twice—once
from a distance with Martin and once
close-up with
Orozco—the day’s work had been excruciating. She
w
as torn between screaming in rage and bursting into
tears. Since this
was her job and she needed the
money it brought her,
she did neither, but continued
to work as best she
could. Fortunately, the close-up
scenes were brief, for the most
part.

Martin tried to help her out, but her temper
was
so frayed, even his wonderfulness failed to soothe
her.
Patting
her face with probably the fifteenth handkerchief
she’d used during
the filming, she asked Ben,
“Is this the last scene?” She prayed it
was.