You Don't Know Me (31 page)

“Don’t worry, I will,” she assured him. She knew how to act. The one thing she really knew was how to be someone else. “You worry too much. It’s kind of sweet. But that whole thing about my stepfather is over. I haven’t seen Connor in weeks.”

“That’s because he’s in Wagon Wheel.”

A breath across her shoulders. Cold worry. She shook it off. “I’ve walked through the fire, okay? Besides, that’s all old news. Nobody cares.”

“Denise,” he murmured softly, shaking his head.

“What? What do you want me to do?” she demanded.

“Try.”

“No.” Her answer came swiftly.

“It won’t go away. It will never go away.” He spoke slowly, meaningfully.

“I can cope without it.”

The doctor climbed to his feet. He looked down at her from his superior height, and Denise responded to the defeat in his face. She touched the sleeve of his white oxford shirt. He glanced down at her fingers. Acting on instinct alone, her other hand cupped his jaw, thrilling to the feel of bone and tissue and the beginnings of afternoon shadow.

“It’s time to leave,” he told her, moving from her tentative embrace.

“You haven’t ever made it with a patient.” She answered her own question. “Too many scruples.”

He almost smiled. She could feel the warmth beneath his ever-proper exterior. She had great radar for such things.

“Next time, we’ll meet at my office,” he told her, a warning.

“Maybe there won’t be a next time,” Denise challenged him.
How do you like that, Sigmund?

For an answer he gave her his patented professional stare. Rage shivered beneath her skin. Giving in to impulse she grabbed up one of John’s vases and threw it after him as he walked into the foyer.

Crash!
It shattered against the wall, shards of cerulean glass flying everywhere. Shocked, Denise cried out and ran after him, filled with remorse at the sight of him nursing a cut that was bleeding through the arm of his shirt—almost the exact place she’d first touched him.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” she stammered.

“At my office we’re going to talk about Thomas Daniels, Hayley, Dinah, and high school.” His voice was ice. “That’s all I want to talk about.”

She nodded, knowing this was not the time to argue. Then his gaze slipped to her mouth.
Aha!
she thought.
He does notice.
Her lips parted expectantly, hopefully, but he left without another word.

Denise sank against the wall and clutched her chest, fighting down her hammering heart. She closed her eyes. What could she do to make him realize she really cared?
What?

Maybe, if she were really, really lucky, she could get him to care. Care in a way she needed and craved. Care for her and her alone.

Her senses swam, the thought so heady, she felt scared.

Except she wanted to feel this. She wanted to feel this burgeoning sensation.
Love?
No. She loved John.

“The hell you do,” she said, her mouth twisting in irony. “You don’t know a thing about it.”

“Bullshit,” she answered herself, but deep inside she thought it might be true.

 

 

A hiatus. Two days of down time while the location crew returned and his production team filmed the final scenes in the studio. A good thing, too, because his new star looked wrung out, as if she were shriveling in on herself a bit more each day.

Twisting the Land Rover’s steering wheel as he negotiated a traffic light, John viciously punched the power button on his radio, thoroughly annoyed with Blake Shelton, though normally he was one of his favorite artists.

He felt as if he’d walked through hell without being cleansed.

It was incredible how quickly one’s life changed. In the space of an hour, a second, the blink of an eye.

The night he’d learned of Dinah.

His teeth clenched. He couldn’t think of her without primal anger.

And then the mess of Lambert Wallace. He’d been revolted in so many ways, but the funny thing was he’d been almost
proud
of Denise. Instead of hovering behind sharp words and orchestrated scenes, she’d actually broken free and bashed the bastard. Good for her. If anyone needed to set her inner self free it was Denise, and there was certainly no better target than Wallace.

John couldn’t work up regret over the man’s death. He’d done it to himself. Set it up. Hurt people. Used and abused needy souls, then taken the dirty way out when the going got tough.

His mouth tightened grimly. Unfortunately, Denise hadn’t survived the experience without a few more wounds to her psyche. She was better. He could see that, though he tried to spend as little time as possible with her. It bothered him to see her; he could admit that. It bothered him that she looked so much like Dinah, and that his feelings were raw and untethered and therefore unpredictable.

But he’d asked Denise to take Melissa Birker’s place in
Blackbird.
The part was nothing Denise had ever done. It was subtlety layered and softly written. Anyone playing Jennifer would have to walk on cat’s feet or it wouldn’t work. Melissa had charged through like the proverbial bull in a china shop, and Frankie, or no, John had walked up to her the last time she’d blown the scene and said, “Good-bye.” Of course it had pissed her off. And, sure, there were contracts that needed to be fulfilled. And Frankie had screamed and gesticulated and generally made a noisy, time-wasting scene, then walked himself.

So . . . back to the drawing board.

And then he’d thought of Denise. He’d refused to have her as his star. He’d been on that ride before and no amount of coercion by Walburn or that whiney agent of hers would make him change his mind. But for Jennifer . . . the idea jolted him. He felt that buzz of electricity, a sort of sixth sense when he knew he was on the right track.

In an excited frame of mind, he’d driven straight to the Malibu house and interrupted a session between Denise and her shrink. Fleetingly, he’d wondered if she was sleeping with Dr. Stone, but just as fleetingly, he’d dismissed the thought because it truly didn’t matter to him.

“Wanna be in my movie?” he’d drawled. All acrimony and fury and hate had left him, transfused with a sense of calm and acceptance he found slightly startling. This was Denise, after all. The woman he hated. Yet, it was simply over now, and because she had extraordinary radar where he was concerned, she sensed it immediately—and also accepted.

He told her about firing Melissa. She chortled at the story, and though Dr. Stone frowned, Denise jumped to her feet like a schoolgirl and hugged John spontaneously.

Incredible. And so welcome. But he still couldn’t be around her at length, so he stayed at his apartment and slowly came to the conclusion that she should have the Malibu house. It was only fair.

With a slam of brakes, he pulled into his spot at his office, glancing around for Hayley’s new Audi. For someone so determined and dedicated, she was a mystery. You woulda thought she’d bitten into this role like a tiger into raw meat, but no, she was tentative and distracted. If he hadn’t seen her audition video for himself, and met her personally and therefore witnessed her aggressiveness, he wouldn’t believe it possible. Something had happened. Some epiphany.

Whatever the case, she was not the same, and this meeting was because it was time to have it out with her and figure out what the hell had gone wrong.

He strode into his production offices and the receptionist leaped to her feet, white-faced. “Rodney Walburn was just rushed to UCLA Hospital with a heart attack.”

John digested this bit of startling news. “Is he going to be all right?”

She shook her head and turned up her palms. “Titan wants to talk to you,” she added.

He knew what that was about. He owned a percentage of the studio, courtesy of Sampson. Rodney’s underlings were probably already scrambling for position, hoping to be the next studio head appointee.

“Hayley Scott’s waiting in your office,” the receptionist called as an afterthought as he strode down the hall.

Which reminded him of all the problems with
Blackbird.

 

 

“You look like death warmed over,” Hayley said to herself and the empty room at large.

She’d caught her reflection in the base of the chrome lamp on the credenza behind Callahan’s desk. It was enough to give her the heebie-jeebies. Worse, she looked better than she felt.

For a year she told herself it was because of Lambert Wallace. God, that had been awful. It had haunted her all through these heady days of unrelenting success. Stuck to her conscience like a leech throughout location filming in Colorado, for the scenes of Isabella’s youth, and yes, Hollywood Boulevard, for the misery of Isabella’s present. Hayley told herself the reason she was so upset was because she expected to run into some of her old pals like Gloria Carver, but in truth, she knew she could brazen her way through anything. Hell, if worse came to worst, she’d just tell the damn truth. She was no hooker; she’d just been “soaking up the local color.”

It would make great copy after the film was released.

But that wasn’t what troubled her. Nor was it the memory of Lambert Wallace’s blood-soaked, unconscious form, or Denise’s palsied response to beating him senseless.

It was the truth that bothered her. The truth about the past. And the fact that Connor Jackley
knew
she’d remembered.

She remembered Denise screaming, spattered with blood, the chunk of granite beside her smeared brick red and stuck with bits of hair. And she remembered the “O” of Thomas Daniels’s mouth as his dead eyes stared up at Denise in disbelief—which hadn’t slowed the battering one iota, by the look of things.

She remembered the murder.

Now, flinging herself in one of the black leather and chrome chairs surrounding Callahan’s desk, Hayley covered her eyes with one hand and fought back fear. She was derailed, her soul destroyed. There was no going back. No way to concentrate on a career she’d felt was the one—the only—goal in her life.

And Connor . . .

He was to her what Dr. Stone was to Denise. Savior, confidante, friend. Except Hayley could tell him nothing without incriminating her sister. But the truth was eating away at her like acid, and Connor Jackley was watching. Watching and waiting and pretending he wasn’t following through with the investigation.

He was talking about moving to Wagon Wheel. He’d grown up in Bend and had family in Wagon Wheel. He wanted her to visit the area with him. Wanted to share with her his plans for the future.

But it was all a lie. A trap. A way to entice and lure her into his dreams. Never once had he said he cared about her. Never once had she intimated that he was rapidly becoming her whole life. Gone was the smart-ass, would-be superstar actress who used people to get what she wanted. Gone was the waitress whom Jason had dubbed, “The worst employee on earth.”

Gone was everything. And in its place was everything she’d ever wanted—careerwise.

Turmoil inside, like a whirlpool swirling and swishing and rushing and gurgling until she thought she’d lose her mind. Dragging in a half breath, she fought for control. The film was almost finished. She’d done well, but it had taken every bit of wisdom and patience on John Callahan’s part to achieve the result she should have been able to produce effortlessly.

And now they had to do the scenes over with Jennifer because Melissa had plowed through the part as if it were a caricature rather than a serious character.

And John had hired Denise.

More turmoil. War of the senses. A loss of reality and focus.

Why couldn’t she forget? Thomas Daniels had deserved his death as much as Lambert Wallace had. But it was the way Denise had done it. The bashing, bashing, bashing, and the hysterical screaming that was one part fear and two parts glee.

The door banged open and Callahan appeared in a rush, shooting her a hard look from head to toe that only made Hayley more cognizant of her drawn face and pale color.

“You must have lost ten pounds when you couldn’t afford an ounce,” he stated shortly. “Are you sick?”

“No.”

“Pregnant?”

“No.” She half laughed.

“Drugs?”

“Give me a break.”

“Has someone been harassing you? Someone involved with the film?”

“No.”

“Has some tragedy occurred that I know nothing about? Something that’s sent you into a depression?”

Hunching her shoulders, she shook her head.

“Don’t tell me it’s Lambert Wallace, because I won’t believe it.”

“No.” Hayley felt like screaming at the top of her lungs but couldn’t muster the effort. “Are you unhappy with my performance? Do you want me to do something over?”

“I want you to gain weight. You don’t even look like the same person I hired to play Isabella. I want you to resolve whatever’s bothering you, because, damn it, Hayley, I’ve got a lot riding on
Blackbird
and I don’t want you to screw it up!”

Harsh words. She flinched, yet she couldn’t blame him. He’d taken a chance on her, and she’d let him down in a way neither of them could have anticipated.

“We’re going to take a break,” he decided suddenly. “A week, maybe two. We’ll film the scenes with Denise that don’t require you, but there aren’t that many of them. I need you, Hayley. Back the way you were. Whatever it takes, fix this problem, and come back to production
whole.
”