by Nora Roberts
The flowers came the next day, a dozen red roses that had the other women in the boardinghouse tittering. As Eve placed them in a borrowed vase, she didn’t think of them as flowers, but as her first triumph.
He took her to parties. Eve bartered food coupons, bought material, and sewed dresses. The clothes were another investment. She made certain the gowns were just the slightest bit too small for her. She didn’t mind using her body to get what she wanted. After all, it was hers to use.
The huge houses, the armies of servants, the glamorous women in furs and silks, didn’t awe her. She couldn’t afford to be awed. Evenings at glamour spots didn’t intimidate. She discovered that she could learn a lot in the powder room at Ciro’s—what part was being cast, who was sleeping with whom, which actress was on suspension and why. She watched, she listened, she remembered.
The first time she saw her picture in the paper, snapped after she and Charlie had dined at Romanoff’s, she spent an hour critiquing her hair, her facial expression, her posture.
She asked Charlie for nothing, and kept him at arm’s length, though it was becoming difficult to do both. She knew if she even hinted that she wanted him to get her a screen test, he would. Just as she knew he wanted to take her to bed. She wanted the test, and she wanted him as a lover—but she realized the value of timing.
On Christmas Eve, Charlie threw a party of his own. At his request she came early to his big brick mansion in Beverly Hills. The red satin material had cost Eve a week’s food allowance, but she thought the dress worth it. It skimmed down her body, cut low at the bust, snug at the hips. She had dared to alter the pattern by slicing a slit up the side—and dared even more by adding a rhinestone pin at the top of the slit, to draw the eye.
“You look delicious.” Charlie ran his hands over her bare arms as they stood in the foyer. “Don’t you have a wrap?”
Her finances hadn’t allowed for one that would have suited the dress. “I’m hot-blooded,” she said, and offered him a small package topped with a bright red bow. “Merry Christmas.”
Inside was a slim, well-read book of Byron’s poetry. For the first time since she’d met him, she felt foolish and unsure. “I wanted to give you something of mine,” she explained. “Something that meant something to me.” Awkward, she fumbled in her bag for a cigarette. “I know it’s not much, but—”
He put a hand on hers to still them. “It’s a great deal.” Unbearably moved, he released her hands to brush his fingers over her cheek. “It’s the first time you’ve given me a real part of yourself.” When he lowered his lips to hers, she felt the warmth and the need. This time she didn’t resist when he deepened the kiss, lingered over her mouth. She let herself go with the moment, wrapping her arms around him, experimenting with her tongue. Before, only boys had kissed her. This was a man, experienced and hungry, one who knew what to do with his desires. She felt his fingers slide over the satin, heating the skin beneath.
Oh, yes, she thought, she wanted him too. Timing or not, their desire wouldn’t wait much longer. Cautious, she pulled back. “Holidays make me sentimental,” she managed to say. Smiling, she rubbed her lipstick from his mouth. He grabbed her wrist, pressed a kiss to her palm.
“Come upstairs with me.”
Her heart fluttered, surprising her. He’d never asked before. “Not that sentimental.” She struggled to find her balance again. “Your guests will be arriving any minute.”
“Fuck the guests.”
She laughed, and tucked a hand through his arm. “Come on, Charlie, you know you want to fuck me. But right now you’re going to pour me a glass of champagne.”
“And later?”
“There’s only now, Charlie. The great big now.”
She strolled through a pair of double doors into a sprawling room that held a ten-foot tree glittering with lights and colored balls. It was a man’s room, and she liked it for that alone. The furniture straight-lined and simple, the chairs deep and comfortable. A fire was roaring in the huge hearth at one end of the room, and a long mahogany bar was well stocked on the other. Eve slid onto one of the leather barstools and took out a cigarette.
“Bartender,” she said, “the lady needs a drink.” As Charlie opened and poured champagne, she studied him. He was wearing a tuxedo, and the formal wear suited him. He would never compete with the current leading men. Charlie Gray was no Gable or Grant, but he had solidity and sweetness, and an appreciation for his craft. “You’re a nice man, Charlie.” Eve lifted her glass. “Here’s to you, my first real friend in the business.”
“Here’s to now,” he said, and touched his glass to hers. “And what we make of it.” He walked around the bar to take a present from under the tree. “It isn’t as intimate as Byron, but when I saw it I thought of you.”
Eve set her cigarette aside to open the box. The necklace of icy diamonds shot white fire against a bed of black velvet. In the center, like blood, dripped a huge, hot ruby. The diamonds were shaped like stars, the ruby like a tear.
“Oh. Oh, Charlie.”
“You’re not going to say I shouldn’t have.”
She shook her head. “I’d never come up with a shopworn line like that.” But her eyes were wet, and there was a lump in her throat. “I was going to say that you have excellent taste. Damn, I can’t come up with anything clever. It’s stunning.”
“So are you.” He took the necklace out, let it run through his hands. “When you reach for the stars, Eve, you lose blood and tears. That’s something you should remember.” He slipped it around her neck and fastened it. “Some women are born to wear diamonds.”
“I’m sure I was. Now I’m going to do something very typical.” Laughing, she dug in her purse for her compact. After snapping it open, she studied the necklace in the small square mirror. “God. Goddamn, it’s beautiful.” She spun around on the stool to kiss him. “I feel like a queen.”
“I want you to be happy.” He cupped her face in his hands. “I love you, Eve.” He saw the surprise come into her eyes, followed quickly by distress. Biting back an oath, he dropped his hands. “I have something else for you.”
“More?” She tried to keep her voice light. She’d known he desired her, that he was fond of her. But love? She didn’t want him to love when she couldn’t return it. More, she didn’t want to be tempted to try. Her hand wasn’t completely steady when she picked up her champagne. “You’re going to have a hard time topping this necklace.”
“If I know you as well as I think I do, this will top it by a mile.” From the breast pocket of his dinner jacket he took a piece of paper and set it on the bar beside her.
“January 12, ten A.M., Stage 15.” Puzzled, she lifted a brow. “What is this? Clues for a treasure hunt?”
“Your screen test.” He saw her cheeks pale and her eyes darken. Her lips trembled open, but she only shook her head. Understanding perfectly, he smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah, I thought that would mean more to you than diamonds.” And he knew, already, that once he set her on her way, she would sprint beyond him.
Very carefully she folded the paper and tucked it in her bag. “Thank you, Charlie. I’ll never forget it.”
“I went to bed with him that night,” Eve said quietly. Her voice had thickened, but there were no tears. She no longer shed tears, except on cue. “He was gentle, unbearably sweet, and quite shaken when he discovered he was my first. A woman never forgets the first time. And that memory is precious when the first time is kind. I kept the necklace on while we made love.” She laughed and picked up her cold coffee. “Then we had more champagne and made love again. I like to think I gave him more than sex that night, and the other nights of those few weeks we were lovers. He was thirty-two. The studio press had shaved four years off that, but he told me. There were no lies in Charlie Gray.”
With a sigh she set the coffee aside again and looked down at her hands. “He coached me for the screen test himself. He was a fine actor, continually underrated in his day
When the silence dragged on, Julia set aside her notebook. She didn’t need it. There was nothing about this morning she would forget. “Desperate Lives, with Michael Torrent and Gloria Mitchell. You played Cecily, the sultry villainess who seduced and betrayed Torrent’s idealistic young attorney. One of the most erotic moments onscreen then, or now, was when you walked into his office, sat on his desk, and pulled off his tie.”
“I had eighteen minutes onscreen, and made the best of them. They told me to sell sex, and I sold buckets of it.” She shrugged. “The movie didn’t set the world on fire. Now it plays on cable at three A.M. Still, I made enough of an impression in it that the studio shoved me right into another tramp part. I was Hollywood’s newest sex symbol—making them a mint because I was on a contract player’s salary. But I don’t resent it, even today. I got quite a bit out of that first movie.”
“Including a husband.”
“Ah, yes, my first mistake.” She gave a careless shrug and a thin smile. “Christ, Michael had a beautiful face. But the mind of a sheep. When we were in the sack, things were fine. Try to have a conversation? Shit.” Her fingers began to drum on the rosewood. “Charlie had it all over him as an actor, but Michael had the face, the presence. It still annoys me to think I was stupid enough to believe the jerk had any connection with the men he played onscreen.”
“And Charlie Gray?” Julia watched Eve’s face carefully. “He committed suicide.”
“His finances were a mess, and his career had stalled. Still, it was difficult for anyone to believe it was mere coincidence that he shot himself the day I married Michael Torrent.” Her voice remained flat, her eyes calm as they met Julia’s. “Am I sorry for it? Yes. Charlie was one in a million, and I loved him. Never the way he loved me, but I loved him. Do I blame myself? No. We made our choices, Charlie and I. Survivors live with their choices.” She inclined her head. “Don’t they, Julia?”
Yes, they did, Julia thought later. To survive, one lived with choices, but also paid for them. She wondered how Eve had paid.
From Julia’s seat at an umbrellaed, glass table on the terrace of the guest house, it looked as though Eve Benedict had reaped only rewards. Working on her notes, she was surrounded by shade trees, the fragrance of jasmine. The air hummed—the distant echo of a lawn mower beyond the stand of palms, the drone of bees drunk on nectar, the whirr of a hummingbird’s wings as it fed on a hibiscus nearby.
Here was luxury and privilege. But, Julia thought, the people who shared all this with Eve were paid to do so. Here was a woman who had reached pinnacle after pinnacle, only to be alone. A stiff payment for success.
Yet Julia didn’t see Eve as a woman who suffered from regrets, but as one who layered successes over them. Julia had listed people she wanted to interview—ex-husbands, one-time lovers, former employees. Eve had merely shrugged her approval. Thoughtfully, Julia circled Charlie Gray’s name twice. She wanted to talk to people who had known him, people who might talk about his relationship with Eve from another angle.
She sipped chilled juice, then began to write.
She is flawed, of course. Where there is generosity, there is also selfishness. Where there is kindness, there is also a careless disregard for feelings. She can be abrupt, cool, callus, rude—human. The flaws make the woman off the screen as fascinating and vital as any woman she has played on it. Her strength is awesome. It is in her eyes, her voice, in every gesture of her disciplined body. Life, it seems, is a challenge, a role she has agreed to play with great verve—and one in which she takes no direction. Any miscues or broken scenes are her responsibility. She blames no one. Beyond the talent, the beauty, that rich, smoky voice or sharp intelligence, she is to be admired for her unflagging sense of self.
“You’re not one to waste time.”
Julia started, then quickly shifted to look behind her. She hadn’t heard Paul approach, had no idea how long he’d been standing reading over her shoulder. Deliberately, she turned her tablet over. The wire binding clicked smartly against the glass.
“Tell me, Mr. Winthrop, what would you do to someone who read your work uninvited?”
He smiled and made himself at home in the chair across from her. “I’d cut off all their nosy little fingers. But then, I’m known to have a nasty temper.” He picked up her glass and sipped. “How about you?”
“People seem to think I’m mild-mannered. It’s often a mistake.” She didn’t like him being there. He’d interrupted her work and invaded her privacy. She was dressed in shorts and a faded T-shirt, her feet were bare and her hair was pulled back in an untidy pony tail. The carefully crafted image was shot to hell, and she resented being caught as herself. She looked pointedly at the glass he lifted to his lips again. “Shall I get you one of your own?”
“No, this is fine.” Her obvious discomfort amused him, and he liked the fact that she was so easily rattled. “You’ve had your first interview with Eve.”
“Yesterday.”
He pulled out a cigar, making it obvious that he intended to settle in. His hands, she noted, were wide at the palms, long of finger. More suited to lifting the silver spoon he’d been born with, she thought, then crafting complex, often grisly murders for the pages of books.
“I realize I’m not sitting in an office with my nose to a grindstone,” Julia told him. “But I am working.”
“Yes, I can see that.” He smiled pleasantly. She’d have to do better than hint to shake him off. “Care to share your impressions of your initial interview?”
“No.”
Undaunted, he lighted the cigar, then hooked an arm over the back of the wrought iron chair. “For someone who wants my cooperation, you’re very unfriendly.”
“For someone who disapproves of my work, you’re very pushy.”
“Not your work.” With his legs stretched out, his feet comfortably crossed at the ankles, he took a slow drag, expelled it. The scent of smoke stung the air, intrusively masculine. It crept around the perfume of flowers like a man’s arm around a reluctant woman. “I disapprove only of your current project. I have a vested interest.”
It was his eyes, she realized, that gave him his greatest appeal—and, therefore, her greatest problem. Not the color of them, though some women were bound to sigh over that deep, vital blue. It was the look in them, the incredible focus of them that made Julia feel she was not being looked at, but into.
A hunter’s look, she decided, and she wasn’t about to be any man’s prey.
“If you’re concerned that I’ll write something uncomplimentary about you, don’t worry. Your part in Eve’s biography probably won’t take up more than part of one chapter.”
Writer to writer, it would have been an excellent insult if his ego had been on the line. He laughed, liking her better for it. “Tell me something, Jules, is it just me, or all men?”
The use of her nickname threw her almost as much as the question. Like a kiss instead of a handshake. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sure you do.” His smile was friendlier, but his eyes still challenged her. “I haven’t managed to pull out all the sharp little darts from the first time I met you.”
She fiddled with her pen and wished he would just go away. He was entirely too relaxed now, and that made her all the more tense. Men with his degree of self-confidence always left her groping for her own. “As I recall, it was you who launched the first attack.”
“Maybe.” He rocked back in his chair, watching her. No, he didn’t have her measure yet, but he would.
She frowned as he rose to drop the cigar stub in a bucket of sand at the edge of the terrace. His was a dangerous body, she noted, all lean muscle and grace. A fencer’s body. Since he was the kind who wouldn’t be caged, a smart woman had to deal with him with her imagination behind locked doors. Julia considered herself a smart woman.
“We’ll have to negotiate a truce of some kind. For Eve’s sake.”
“I don’t see why. Since you’ll be busy, and so will I, I doubt we’ll run into each other often enough to need white flags.”
“You’re wrong.” He came back to the table but didn’t sit. Instead, he stood beside her, his thumbs hooked in his pockets. “I’ll have to keep an eye on you, on Eve’s behalf. And, I think, on my own behalf.”
Her pen clattered on the glass top. She left it there and laced her nervous fingers together. “If that’s some kind of oblique come-on—”
“I like you better this way,” he interrupted. “Barefoot and flustered. The woman I met the other night was intriguing, and intimidating.”
She was feeling little tugs and pulls she’d been certain she was immune to. It was possible, she reminded herself, to feel a sexual attraction for a man you didn’t like. It was just as possible to resist it. “I’m the same, with or without shoes.”
“Not at all.” He sat down again, bracing his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his folded hands as he studied her. “Don’t you think it would be deadly boring to wake up every morning of your life as exactly the same person?”
It was the kind of question she enjoyed, one she would have liked to respond to and explore. But with him she was certain any exploration would end on swampy ground. She turned her notepad over, flipping pages until she came to a blank one.
“Since you’re here and in the mood to chat, maybe you’d give me that interview.”
“No. We’ll have to wait for that, see how things go.” He knew he was being obstinate, and he enjoyed it.
“What things?”
He smiled. “All manner of things, Julia.”
There was the sound of a slamming door and a youthful shout. “My son.” Julia hurriedly gathered her notes and stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to—”
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