Southern Star: Destiny Romance

by JC Grey

  Her eyes searched his and he said, ‘I do believe you! I always have. The day I rode over to Sweet Springs to warn you about Pete Woodall, I could see you’d been crying about the media reports. I knew then it wasn’t true.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I just wanted somebody to be on my side – you especially – and all you said that night we had dinner was something about it being my business!’

  ‘Well, it was. Christ!’ He let go of her hand to tug again at the loathsome necktie. ‘And I thought if I said I thought it was a pack of lies, it might sound . . . self-serving, as though I’d say anything that might influence your decision to go to bed with me. But I should have told you before now. I’m sorry.’

  She released a sigh. ‘I’m glad I know. It’ll make it easier to deal with whatever gets flung our way tonight. People will want to know who you are and what our relationship is.’

  ‘None of their bloody business!’ he growled, releasing the door, which swished open to reveal a crowd of people waiting for the lift.

  She smiled, looking more relaxed, and that was good enough for him.

  They got out of the lift and it felt as if a million inquisitive eyes immediately turned in their direction as they crossed the foyer.

  Mac put a protective hand on her back and leant close as she told him, ‘I think you’ll like the movie. It’s kind of a crime caper with a darkly humorous edge. I think it’ll do well.’

  ‘Do we get popcorn?’ Mac asked. ‘I haven’t eaten anything since the plane.’

  ‘You’ll do a little better than popcorn. They’ll be canapés before the screening. And there’s a late dinner for cast and crew after at a restaurant called Fig & Olive, if you want to go. I can make our excuses if not, and we can get room service back at the hotel.’

  She smiled at the driver who came to attention next to a sleek black limo. ‘Hi, Bill.’

  ‘Ms Blaze. Sir.’ He tipped his cap and held the door open.

  The drive was smooth and short, until the last stretch when they joined a stream of limos waiting their turn to pull up in front of the red carpet.

  Mac eyed the crowd of photographers and fans kept behind a cord, and wondered if this was the same place that someone had taken a pot shot at Blaze all those weeks ago. If it was, Blaze showed no sign of nerves.

  As Bill came to a halt outside, a woman in a smart dark suit opened their door.

  ‘Ms Gillespie, I’m Sandra. I just wanted to reassure you that we have security here in force, but if you’d like to keep it short and sweet on the carpet, it’s probably a good idea. Jaxon is already inside.’

  She held the door open as they thanked the chauffeur and slid out. Blaze put her hand in Mac’s and gave him her superstar smile.

  ‘Welcome to Hollywood.’

  It was, Blaze thought, like returning to a place of fond but faint memories from long ago, which was strange as she’d been away only a few weeks.

  Putting the thought of the bloody end to the last public event she’d attended out of her mind, she adopted her usual steady pace down the carpet, moving from one side to another to shake hands and pose for the odd photo. Mac, though, seemed in a hurry, urging her forward when he felt she was lingering overlong, and standing guard at her back whenever she paused.

  If there were any off questions thrown their way, she didn’t hear them, and apart from the haste, Mac was on his best behaviour. When they entered the marble foyer, the sea of glittering people turned almost as one to stare, including a couple of particularly hungry-eyed women, and Blaze had the rare experience of being put in the shade by her escort.

  She was about to dig her nails into his hand in annoyance when a familiar figure rushed them. Mac reacted swiftly, attempting to shove her behind him as Jaxon barrelled up to them with the energy of a small hurricane. Arms stretched wide, he beamed at them both.

  ‘Haven’t you two made an entrance?’ He twitched an eyebrow at Blaze. ‘Where did you find him? Do tell.’ He looped an arm through each of theirs and dragged them over to a waiter, who placed elegantly narrow glasses into their hands.

  Blaze tried not to smile as Mac disentangled himself from Jaxon’s grip. ‘Macauley Black, meet Jaxon, my agent. Mac’s a little protective of his personal space,’ she told Jax. ‘He had an encounter with Rolf and Rudy today.’

  ‘Oh, your poor darling man. They are a trial, those two. Geniuses, but they go too far. Still,’ his eyes roved up and down. ‘I can quite see why they were so taken. Those dark-as-sin eyes and that jaw. My lord! Hollywood has been waiting decades for a real man to take over from Clint.’ He shuddered a little, as though in ecstasy. ‘Blaze,’ he said, ‘how can I thank you for bringing me a specimen like this? I won’t have him signing with anyone else.’

  ‘Sorry, Jax, he’s not an actor.’ Blaze enjoyed watching Mac squirm. ‘Mac runs a cattle station in Queensland.’

  ‘Australian cows commute?’

  Mac’s brows beetled over his eyes. ‘A station is a ranch. Ten thousand head of prime beef cattle.’

  Jax looked him over again with regret. ‘Prime beef, indeed. But if it’s not to be, it’s not to be. Now, Blaze, the previews for Bad & Co. have gone exceptionally well, as you know, with the script and your comic timing being singled out for particular praise. For once, my love, you are getting attention for all the right reasons. I wouldn’t say the press has tired of that ridiculous story since the article in Inside Hollywood, but they are feeling a little more sympathy.’

  ‘That sounds most out of character.’ Blaze laughed.

  ‘And fortunately Lindsay has slipped up again, which has diverted attention.’

  ‘That’s more like it,’ she murmured.

  ‘You will be particularly pleased to know that – drum roll, please – the producers of Siren are here. I’ll introduce you to them after the screening, and then we have a meeting on Wednesday with Saul Laker, the director. He’s just dying to meet his leading lady.’

  ‘I got Lindsay Lohan but what’s Siren?’ Mac asked. He stopped a passing waiter and exchanged his untouched champagne for a beer.

  ‘Only the movie that’s going to turn Blaze Gillespie into the most sought-after actress in Hollywood,’ Jax boasted before Blaze could stop him. ‘Filming starts in April.’

  Mac gave her one of the raking stares. ‘You’re not coming home,’ he said, his voice flat.

  ‘Whoops.’ Jax looked from one to the other. ‘I’ll leave you two lovebirds to sort things out while I go take my foot out of my mouth.’ As he hurried off, he gave them one long look. ‘Brad and Angie, eat your hearts out.’

  ‘I have a job,’ Blaze said mildly as the human tide swept them towards the open doors to the auditorium for the start of the movie.

  ‘What about Sweet Springs?’

  ‘Sweet Springs is my home.’ Funny, she hadn’t quite accepted that until now, but there it was. She had a place to call home. Maybe being away clarified things you didn’t even realise needed clarifying. But Mac didn’t look in the least mollified. ‘And as it happens, I am going home after the meetings Jax has arranged, but next month I’ll have to leave again to shoot Siren. I’ll be away around two months.’

  He scowled, but their conversation was cut short by Sandra, who escorted them to their seats in the theatre. Mac’s hand was warm against her back and his possessiveness gave Blaze more of a thrill than seeing her name appear fourth in the credits. She’d had bigger roles than this, but in her opinion this was more important. It was that rare beast in the film industry: a well-written female character and one that was already bringing her attention.

  She was conscious of Mac beside her throughout the movie, wondering what he thought, what he was feeling. He stiffened at a brief sexual interlude between her character and one of the male leads. When Blaze took his hand in hers, he resisted momentarily before letting her have her way. Twenty minutes in, he began to relax and enjoy it. He even laughed at one of her best lines, and the laugh was taken up by the rest of the auditor
ium. It was going to be all right.

  Blaze had seen the daily rushes, of course, and a very rough cut in a small studio a few months ago, but this was the first time she’d viewed the finished film. And coming at it relatively fresh, she had a new appreciation for the smart dialogue, the dark humour and the cleverly plotted tale of three con artists on the run from the law.

  Contrary to many movie actors, Blaze didn’t mind watching herself on the big screen. In fact, she liked to use the experience for a professional critique. Once, when she gave a little intake of breath at a line she thought might have been improved with a slightly different emphasis, she was aware of Mac’s eyes turning to hers in the dark.

  ‘What?’ His whisper against her ear sent goose bumps racing up her neck.

  She shook her head. ‘Just a miss-step.’ She would file it away and take care not to make the same mistake again.

  After the screening finished to an enthusiastic ovation, Mac kept to his word and stayed by her side for the rest of the evening, even in the face of some speculative stares, blunt questions about his status and enquiries as to his outfitter.

  ‘Who bloody cares where I got my tux?’ he muttered edgily after half an hour of gladhanding. ‘Bloody stickybeaks.’

  ‘Take it as a compliment,’ Blaze murmured and paused for a brief conversation with Saul Laker when Jax brought him over. She tried to ensure a handshake, hug, air kiss or brief word for the majority of groups at the premiere, which was difficult with Mac’s glare and defensive body language warding off those who came too close, especially the men.

  ‘Down boy,’ she told him after a near-altercation with Steve Mansfield, the co-star with whom she’d scorched the screen.

  ‘I didn’t like the way he looked at you. Or touched you.’

  Blaze was about to tell him to get used to it – she had – when she spotted Rick Beatty across the room. He was staring at her and Mac, and when he saw she’d noticed he smiled insolently and licked his lips – an action that spoke louder than words. From the way Mac’s hand tightened on hers she could tell he’d seen it, too.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  Blaze opened her mouth to tell him. Somewhere deep inside she would enjoy seeing Mac defend her honour – and Rick Beatty get mashed to a pulp. But she’d moved on. It was time to let it go.

  ‘No one,’ she replied, turning her back on Beatty.

  Mac continued to scowl and she could tell he’d had enough of being sized up and down – and so had she, to tell the truth. It had been fun, but suddenly she wanted out. The afternoon’s crying jag and anticipating how her new movie would be received had evidently caught up with her.

  Catching Jaxon in a brief moment alone, she made her apologies for missing the dinner, and promised she’d be available for a meeting with the producers of Siren the day after next.

  ‘All right,’ she said, returning to Mac’s side. ‘Duty’s done. We can make our escape.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that,’ he growled and gave her another dose of goose bumps. Then he dragged her from the theatre in a way that would no doubt leave tongues wagging in their wake.

  As though he’d been doing it all his life, he hailed their limo. Blaze thought she would have liked to walk a block or two, enjoy the balmy March evening and blend in with the crowds. But it was unlikely they’d get more than a few metres before she was noticed and then pandemonium would break loose. In any case, her feet were killing her. For a moment, she longed for the old battered boots she kept by the kitchen door at Sweet Springs, and then grinned to herself. Things must be changing if she preferred scuffed brown leather to custom-made heels.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’ Mac murmured as he held the door for her.

  Head on one side, she considered him as he got in beside her. ‘Leather and lace. Something like that.’

  ‘Sounds kinky,’ he said, looping an arm over her shoulders to tug her close. ‘And uncomfortable. I hope it’s not me wearing it.’

  Blaze gave him a devilish look. ‘I could make it worth your while.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ he said in a low voice that set up a carnal throbbing in her most private parts, something that less than two weeks ago she couldn’t imagine ever feeling again.

  She felt a swish around her shoulders and realised he’d unpinned her hair. ‘Bugger Rudy and Rolf,’ he whispered against her ear. ‘I’ve been longing to do that all night.’ He slid a hand up her silk-covered thigh. ‘And smudge your lipstick, too.’

  Sighing, Blaze pressed the button that closed the panel between the cab and the back. ‘We can’t,’ she told him. ‘Not yet. Not . . . fully.’

  To his credit, he didn’t miss a beat. ‘I know. There are plenty of other things we can do.’ He lifted his head, turned her face up to his and smudged her lipstick good and proper. ‘Anyway, nothing beats delayed gratification as an aphrodisiac.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Yes,’ Mac murmured in the dream world between sleep and waking. He reached out a heavy arm to bring Blaze close for another session of loving, but touched only cold, empty pillow. And the smooth grain of fine paper. He lifted the note and read it with bleary eyes.

  Photo shoot. Back at five.

  B x

  A glance at the clock told him it was nearing noon. Well, they had had an energetic night, but Mac couldn’t help feeling a little cheated. It seemed as though one or other of them was always destined to have an early call.

  While he was staying in a six-star hotel, he might as well make use of it, he thought. Room service didn’t bat an eyelid – not that he could tell over the phone, anyway – when he rang down for breakfast and coffee even though it was lunchtime. By the time he was out of the shower and buttoning his jeans, a po-faced waiter was knocking at the door.

  Feeling energised with a decent meal in his belly, he went down to the lobby, picked the friendliest looking girl at the desk and asked her where he could go nearby for some fresh air and greenery. Within half an hour, a hire car had been delivered and he was on his way into the Hollywood Hills, an enclave sliced from the desert that was home to some of the city’s most lavish homes.

  Stopping for a cup of take-out coffee, he leaned against the hood of the hire car as well-dressed people strolled past the galleries and pricy jewellery stores that ran along the main street, window-shopping. He wondered idly if Blaze had a place in these hills that reeked of wealth and exclusivity, or if not here, then somewhere else.

  Mac was sophisticated enough to know that those who said money didn’t matter were talking shit, and primitive enough to want to provide for his woman. Relative to the people he lived and worked amongst, he was wealthy himself, at least in land, stock and prospects – if not always in hard, cold cash – but in the crisp, clear air of a spring afternoon, this was another realm of wealth altogether.

  Here, it all seemed so effortless and clean, whereas whatever found its way into his bank account he’d earned in raw hands, sweat and aching muscles.

  Clenching a fist around the small square box in his pocket, he wondered if he’d lost his mind. He must have – just a brief brain explosion after spotting, in the dusty window of an antique store, a square-cut topaz surrounded by white and yellow diamonds in an old-gold setting. It reminded him of Blaze’s eyes. On the spur of the moment, not sure what it meant, he’d bought it. Costing sixty-five thousand dollars, it had made a sizeable dent in his available funds, but it was a drop in the ocean to the jewellery she’d been wearing last night, and that fact had been nagging at him all afternoon.

  Draining his coffee, Mac lobbed the empty cup into the nearby bin. The money issue was one thing, but a far bigger one was the fact that he’d purchased a ring at all. A ring! He, who’d remained single for thirty-six years, had bought a fucking engagement ring!

  The reasons were many and confusing: because he wanted her, because for a brief period they had shared a child, because he needed something that shouted ‘Mine – hands off!’ And mostly just because he had se
en it and known it was right.

  That would have to be good enough for right now.

  As he crossed the street, he caught the eye of a familiar face watching him from the driver’s seat of a car parked two behind his rental. He frowned when he couldn’t immediately place the guy, and then he remembered; it was the man who’d given Blaze such an ugly look at the premiere.

  She’d covered up well at the time, but he’d wondered. Now the same guy was here and Mac didn’t believe in coincidences.

  He went up to the car, put a hand on the roof and leant down, saw the soft, pasty face and weak chin.

  ‘No, don’t say anything,’ he said as the guy went to speak. ‘Just listen. You go near my woman, try to talk to her, speak about her to anyone – ever again – and I’ll come for you. Got it?’

  The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed twice before he nodded. Mac stood back as he fumbled with the ignition, and then took off with a squeal of tyres.

  Watching as the car disappeared round a bend, Mac thought Blaze would have been impressed by his restraint – but possibly not by being referred to as his woman.

  Their little interlude was over, Blaze thought with a sigh as she wheeled her carry-on case from the bedroom into the suite’s living area. It had been a moment in time that they’d both needed, and somehow in the past few days, the underpinnings of their relationship had changed subtly.

  Strangely, instead of putting the brakes on their lovemaking, the temporary ban on full intercourse had allowed a new intimacy to flourish. The crackle and burn had become a slow simmer that allowed plenty of time for kissing and touching and murmurs of pleasure – and for occasional moments of raw grief that wouldn’t be denied. Maybe it was in these moments that lasting commitments were made, she thought, rather than in the fierce flame of unbridled lust – as much as the movies might have it otherwise.

  Mac was more than ready to head home, and had been since yesterday. After the photo shoot, she’d taken him out to dinner at one of the city’s ritziest restaurants, thinking he’d enjoy a touch of star-spotting. But, apart from a brief study of the menu and wine list, he hadn’t looked anywhere but at her all night. Even when an overly endowed bottle blonde had virtually thrust her bosom in his face as they were leaving, he’d simply given her an impersonal nod and turned his attention right back to Blaze. If he’d wanted to demonstrate that he was not for turning, he couldn’t have made a more public statement.