One Night With You (7 page)

"All real," she said. "Given to me by my late husband for...." And here her sharp black eyes slanted a coy look at the audience, "Well, I'd tell you, but this young man here says I can't say certain things on TV." She waved one jeweled hand airily. "It's all in my book," she said in her regal, crackling voice. "You'll just have to read it to find out, won't you?"

Her speech and accent were those of an educated and cultured woman of a bygone era, but some of her language was as salty as a sailor's and she flirted outrageously with the show's host and with Jake, who happened to be one of the other guests that night. It should have been a ridiculous performance, but it wasn't. It was thoroughly charming, totally captivating and the audience was delighted.

"Who bought it?" Desi asked excitedly. "What studio?"

It was public knowledge, at least in the industry, that Dorothea Heller was adamant about retaining some control—a great deal of control actually—over her work. It was her life story, she insisted, hers and her late husband's, and only she knew how it should be done. So far, no major studio had seemed willing to grant her, in writing, the amount of control she wanted. Given the circumstances, Desi half-expected Eldin's next words.

"No studio," answered Eldin. "An independent producer walked away with the movie rights. First-timer who wanted it enough to promise her any amount of control she asked for."

"You're kidding! No, I know you never kid. Who?" she demanded.

"It's all still very hush-hush until negotiations for the female lead are made final. So I'm not free to tell you at this point," he said, his voice conspiratorial and smug. Eldin loved a secret. "Your name could be on the credits as Head of Makeup," he tossed off casually. "Interested?"

"Interested! Of course I'm interested. Head of Makeup. But what about you? Aren't you heading this up? I mean... You know what I mean."

"Oh, we're going to think up a new title for me. Don't worry, luv, I'm not giving anything away. Not even to you."

"Oh, Eldin." She could hardly believe it. "Head of Makeup. Me! When do we start? Where do we start? In New York?" Would she be able to take Stephanie to New York?

"No, not New York. Haven't you read the book? The location shooting will be in the wine country, don't know exactly where just yet... some in San Francisco, too."

"Oh, that's wonderful," she said, relieved. "I won't have to worry about Stephanie, then. I mean, I'd hate to be away from her for too long just yet—" Desi began to explain, afraid for a moment that Eldin might not understand her concern for her child. She didn't want him thinking that she thought her baby was more important than her career. Stephanie was, of course, but nobody had to know that but her. Unless you were a star, motherhood was not looked upon with indulgence in the movie industry.

"No need to explain," he said, cutting off her words, and then his voice became all business as he launched into what information he could give her at this time. "And needless to say, you won't whisper a thing to anyone yet. Not even that new redhead of yours, understand?"

"Yes, sir—" she smiled at his seriousness "—understood."

"See you in two weeks then," Eldin said, and hung up without waiting for her goodbye.

Devil's Lady
, imagine that! And
her
name was going to be listed on the credits as Head of Makeup. Her name! She felt goose bumps erupt on her arms just thinking about it. The book that every major moviemaker was after and some new and so far unknown producer had it. Unknown, anyway, to her, she amended. Desi wondered briefly whether Eldin himself might be the producer. He certainly had the connections it would take to raise the necessary money.

But, she thought, if you were raising money from lots of backers, or maybe even just a few, you probably couldn't guarantee the author the kind of control that Dorothea Heller had been promised. That tended to point to one producer with his own money.

Who?

Desi got up from the bed and moved across to her desk, skirting around the sewing machine and the extra chair and the filing cabinet that had been moved into her room when her "office" had been turned into a nursery. It made her pretty blue-and-white bedroom a little cramped—cozy was the word she had used when Teddie had commented on the new arrangement—but she somehow hadn't found the time to get rid of the furniture she no longer needed. She made another mental note to call the Salvation Army as she rummaged through the desk for her address book.

Finding it, she went back to the telephone by the bed and began to flip through the worn and lined-out pages, looking for Zek's new telephone number. She had to tell
someone
her good news. And Zek was the only member of her family who would really understand what this project was going to mean to her career. Maybe she could pump him a little, too. See if he knew or had heard anything about this independent producer who had bought
Devil's Lady
.

She put the phone down before it had rung once. Eldin had said don't whisper a word to anyone. Anyone would mean Zek, too, she was sure. Eldin would have her head on a plate if she let it out of the bag before he, and the producer, were ready for it.

She jumped up from the bed. She had to tell someone her wonderful news or she'd burst!

"Mommie's going to have her name up in lights, darling," she whispered next to Stephanie's tiny ear.

But Stephanie was sound asleep, lying on her back, dressed neck to toes in a soft pink fleece sleeper with feet. Her tiny hands were curled inward toward her body. Her wispy red hair formed a fiery nimbus around her head. Desi reached out, irresistibly drawn, to tenderly smooth her daughter's soft curls head for just a minute.

It was such a tiny head. So innocent, so sweet, so utterly defenseless. Everything that was maternal in Desi welled up at the sight and the feel of her tiny sleeping daughter. She blinked, feeling foolish tears clog her throat and blur her vision. She had never thought it possible to love another human being as much as she loved Stephanie—with a love that was pure and sweet, untouched by lust or jealousy, totally maternal and giving.

Stephanie had been a seven-and-a-half-month preemie. Scarcely five pounds at birth but so perfectly formed, so utterly beautiful that Desi could not stop the joyful tears that slid helplessly down her cheeks when the doctor had laid her newborn daughter on her stomach. It was then, more than at any other time during her pregnancy, that she had most desperately wanted Jake. He should have been there to see the wondrous being that they had created, to hear her first indignant cries, surprisingly hearty for such a tiny creature.

And maybe, just maybe, it was her fault that he wasn't there when she needed him. If she had contacted him, met him in Ghirardelli Square last May, things might have been different. Now she would never know.

She had argued and argued with herself for months beforehand. She had even gotten dressed that morning to meet him, taking the fading note from the corner of her mirror to read it over—just one more time—as if she hadn't already memorized every word. She repeated to herself now:

"You were wonderful, my mystery lady. We were wonderful together. I'll be back in San Francisco in May. Meet me at the fountain in Ghirardelli Square. May 30 at Noon."

That was all it said. No signature, no salutation. It could have been written by anyone, to anyone. Still, she had been tempted. The urge to see him again had almost overwhelmed her good sense. But she stood there in front of the mirror on that fateful day, the note still in her hands, and looked at the woman staring back at her. A pretty woman, perhaps, if you could see through the toxemia that had swelled her whole body—not just the six months' swell of her belly, but her ankles and hands and face as well—so that she looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy in drag.

What could she have said to him?

"Hello, Jake. Surprise!"

Oh, God, she could just see his face if she had done that.

She could see murder flaming out of those big brown eyes. See the anger narrowing that firm sensual mouth. And, could she, in all honesty, have blamed him? She asked herself that question now, as if she hadn't asked it a hundred times before... a thousand times before. As if she hadn't questioned herself and her motives daily, almost hourly, starting from the first minute that she had known for sure that she had conceived a child.

His child.

Their child.

"My child," she whispered, leaning over to kiss the sleeping baby. "My beautiful little Stephanie."

She left the room quietly, pulling the door closed behind her.

The trouble, she acknowledged wryly to herself, was that, in a way, she did blame him. He had been there, too. He should have considered the possible consequences of that weekend, even if she hadn't. He should have tried to find her when she didn't show up in May. Like one of the heroes he played so well, he should have scoured the town for her, knocking on every door until he found the right one.

Never mind that he knew virtually nothing about her. Or that she was the one who refused to tell him anything about herself. Not where she lived. Not where she worked. Not even her last name. At the time, to tell would have taken the experience out of the realm of dreams and risked crashing it against reality. And reality was too harsh. Looked at in the cold light of day, she was nothing but some overeager groupie he had picked up on an airplane and taken back to his hotel for fun and games.

He knew only that her name was Desiree. And that her hair was red.

"A redhead all over," she remembered him saying as they lay on the bed, naked together in the bright afternoon light. His big hands had run lightly over her slender body, touching her intimately, learning her responses. He smiled when his fingers finally made her gasp, her body stiffening against his caressing hand.

"Red curls mask the fires of hell, you know," he whispered in her ear. It was a line, slightly altered, from one of his movies. It made Desi laugh, as he had intended it to. And then, amid her delighted laughter and even more delighted gasps of pleasure, he made slow, languorous love to her all through the rest of that afternoon, until it was time to finally put some clothes on so that room service could bring up their dinner.

It was, curiously enough, memories like those that fed her resentment. If he had really cared at all, if he had really meant a word he had said, a caress he had given, he would have tracked her down. That he hadn't found her, hadn't even
tried
to find her, meant that he didn't care. And if he didn't care about the slim sexy Desiree he had left asleep in that hotel bed, just how would he have felt about the very pregnant Desi who might have waddled into the Square?

But why should he care about either Desi, she asked herself, fighting back sudden tears. She meant nothing more to him than a brief pleasant fling in a town he had just been passing through on his way to somewhere else. Someone he had thought it might be fun to have another fling with in six months' time when he would be passing through again.

It was the same way she had meant to remember him. She had known from the first minute that it wasn't real. That it was just a dream and couldn't last. She
would
remember him that way eventually, she insisted stubbornly. He would be a fleeting memory of shared passion, nothing more.

If only she weren't reminded of him so constantly in the meantime; every time she turned on the TV or picked up a magazine, or looked into the innocent eyes of her daughter.

Chapter 4

"No, Eldin. No, no, no," Desi was almost frantic. "I can't. Don't ask me why. I just can't. I won't."

Eldin sat back in the upholstered pink arm chair, one ankle crossed over the opposite knee, and let her rage. He was in no hurry to find out her reasons. Eldin was never in a hurry. Besides, Desi in a rage was a truly lovely sight.

Her coppery red hair swirled wildly around her shoulders and back with each angry step. Her blue eyes were dark and stormy. Her pale redhead's complexion was becomingly flushed. A true titian beauty, he thought, with all of the fine bones and delicate lines of a Degas ballerina.

If only she wouldn't dress herself in those absurdly boyish clothes. Baggy khaki walking shorts rolled at the cuffs and one of those knit shirts with the alligator on the chest. A hand-me-down from one of that horde of brothers she had, he speculated idly. It had been bright blue once and was too big for her, tucked in at the waist and secured with a webbed Army belt wrapped twice around her slender middle.

She looked remarkably like a child at summer camp, he thought, except, perhaps, for the firm unconfined breasts pushing at the front of her shirt and the long slender length of her legs left bare by the baggy shorts. Legs that ended in fine-boned ankles and narrow feet. No fool she, he thought, noticing the bright-pink polish on her bare toes, she knows how attractive her pretty feet are.

All in all, he decided with purely professional appreciation, pregnancy had left her looking even better than before. Her breasts were a bit fuller, her hips a bit rounder without otherwise visibly marking her slender figure. Remarkable really, when you considered that just a few months ago she had been as big as the proverbial house and about as graceful as a waddling duck.