But she gave Flannagan her most beseeching smile, and he fell for it. “Twenty-four hours, Sandy, and then I’m pulling you off it.”
She kept her smile in place as he slid off the counter and lumbered away. Once he was gone, she closed her eyes and muttered a few pungent curses. Twenty-four hours wasn’t much, and what she had wasn’t much. But reporters didn’t earn their bylines by complaining about what they didn’t have. They went out and got what they needed.
Resolved, Sandra clicked off the scanner, gathered her notes, and went out to get what she needed.
***
RAFAEL HUNG UP THE TELEPHONE and allowed himself a brief, rare smile of satisfaction. Martin Robles’s agent had just called to let Rafael know that while Martin had greatly enjoyed his dinner at Spago last night, his loyalty remained with Aztec Sun and he was fully prepared to rework his new script to meet Rafael’s specifications.
That wasn’t the only good news of the day. The folder Sloan Palmer had given Rafael over breakfast that morning contained the financial data on El Padre, Aztec Sun’s most recent movie. It had gone straight to video in the United States but had been released into theaters south of the border, and it was doing excellent business in Mexico and South America. The movie had been a piece of excrementos; three different directors had tinkered with it before Rafael had finally sent the damned thing into distribution. But Sloan had once again proven he knew how to milk every last peso from the Spanish-language market.
So did Rafael. Sometimes he wondered whether this was his father’s legacy to him, the wetback blood in Rafael’s American veins clueing him in to what the folks back in Mexico would want to watch on the screen. When he rented a movie for himself, it was as often as not an old oater, John Wayne or Gary Cooper, or occasionally one of the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns. Rafael didn’t like watching the oceans-of-blood movies that came out of his studio. He’d seen enough real blood in his life to find fake blood far from entertaining.
But his landsmen liked the gory films Aztec Sun produced. And enough gringos liked it to keep his business profitable. El Padre had cost him under six million to make and it had already brought in close to twice that much in the foreign markets.
He lifted his phone and dialed Diego’s extension. Diego would be thrilled by the numbers on El Padre, and he’d be pleased that Robles wasn’t planning to defect to another studio. One of the benefits of having an old friend like Diego working down the hall was that Rafael always had someone to share his good news with.
The phone rang three times and then Diego’s secretary answered. “Mr. Salazar’s office.”
“Suzy, it’s Rafael. Where’s Diego?”
“He’s with Melanie Greer.”
Rafael smiled. This too qualified as good news: Diego was doing his job, keeping tabs on Melanie. “Where are they? Over on the set?”
“I don’t think so. Diego said he was going to her trailer.”
Rafael’s spirit deflated slightly. It was nearly ten a.m. Melanie was scheduled to shoot interior scenes all day. If she was in her trailer with Diego, it was probably because she was on another jag, being difficult, needing Diego to unkink her.
So, the day wasn’t going to be perfect, after all. “I’ll try him there,” he said.
“No,” Suzy said quickly, then let out a nervous laugh. “Diego said he didn’t want anyone to disturb them.”
Rafael groaned. “Jesus. Is he sleeping with her?”
Suzy had worked for Diego long enough to know his ways. “I don’t know. He’s certainly been trying.”
“That imbecil doesn’t know when to keep his pants closed. She’s supposed to be shooting interiors this morning.”
“She gets tense,” Suzy observed. “Maybe he figures he can get her to relax.”
“Yeah.” Thoughts raced through Rafael’s head, none of them suitable for Suzy’s ears. “Tell him to call me when he catches his breath,” he said, then hung up.
He rested his head in his hands and spewed out all the expletives he’d spared Suzy. That Diego was a scoundrel was no surprise—and in fact, Diego’s peccadilloes weren’t the source of Rafael’s irritation. He knew that no matter how many women Diego bedded, his top priority was always Aztec Sun. He wouldn’t do anything with Melanie unless he believed it would improve conditions on the set. If she needed to get laid in order to settle down and do her job, Diego would oblige. If she didn’t need it, he would put his urges out of his mind. His primary concern would be to get the movie made.
What rankled was something much more selfish, something basic, something that bore not at all on the making of White Angel or the functioning of Aztec Sun. It was the understanding that Diego was scoring and Rafael wasn’t.
Not that he was desperate, not that he couldn’t have some adorable young chica eagerly servicing him at the snap of his fingers. But he didn’t want a young chica, and he didn’t want to be serviced.
He wanted Sandra Garcia.
A final, ugly obscenity escaped him, and he pushed back from his desk. Diego’s sexual escapades notwithstanding, today was going well. Rafael wasn’t going to let thoughts of the troublesome reporter from the Post spoil his morning the way they’d spoiled his night. He wasn’t going to close his eyes and dream of her body, picture it, watch it against the black screen of his imagination, moving, undulating, beckoning. He wasn’t going to waste wide swaths of time reliving the texture of her lips on his, the anxious motions of her fingers on his back, her hips meeting his. He wasn’t going to think of the journalist with the freaking tape recorder and the devastating eyes.
As soon as Diego was done with Melanie, he could take care of Sandra. Rafael would prefer that Diego not take care of her the way he took care of Melanie. But however Diego did it, Rafael wanted him to keep Sandra away from him—not just for the sake of the company but for the preservation of his own sanity.
He glanced at the daily printed schedule Carlotta had left on his desk. At ten o’clock he was supposed to meet in the conference room down the hall with several representatives from the advertising agency that handled his movies. He wanted to stroll into the conference room composed, on top of things, undiminished by any memories of that goddamn Garcia woman.
He checked his watch, pocketed a pen, raked his hand through his hair and stood. Maybe luck was with him, he thought as he sauntered to the door that led out of his office. Maybe Sandra had learned that the family restaurant had burned down overnight and she’d taken the first flight north to the Bay Area that morning.
He tugged open the door and froze. Standing in front of Carlotta’s desk was his nemesis. His enemy. The star of his most relentless fantasies. If the family restaurant had burned down overnight, Sandra Garcia had clearly decided her presence wasn’t needed there until she’d had one more chance to drive Rafael crazy.
“I’m sorry,” Carlotta was saying in her starchiest duena voice, “but he really can’t see you now.”
Sandra smiled down at Rafael’s secretary. Her hair was pinned back from her face with two silver barrettes. The arrangement emphasized her exotic cheekbones, the tilt of her dark almond-shaped eyes, the sleek beauty of her chin. The scoop neck of her blouse exposed her collarbones and the hollow that linked them. Rafael had never seen a woman with such erotic shadows gracing her skin.
“I won’t be a minute,” she said, then gazed past Carlotta. Her eyes met Rafael’s and he felt something hot and fierce take hold of his abdomen and squeeze.
Damn it to hell. He wished there were a vaccine, a way of inoculating himself against her. When she stepped back from Carlotta’s desk, he noticed that she was wearing a skirt, a plain wheat-colored garment that ended an inch above her knees. By tilting his head the merest bit, he was able to glimpse her calves. They were sleek with muscle, curved in just the right proportions.
He swallowed his uneasiness. “Hello.”
Her smile widened. Her teeth were too straight, too white. He wanted to stroke them with his tongue, and then brea
ch the barrier they presented and conquer her mouth. He wanted to run his tongue over every inch of her. He wanted—
“I understand you’re on your way to a meeting,” she said, speaking past Carlotta. “But I won’t take much of your time. I’ve just got a few questions and then I’ll be out of your hair.”
Rafael wanted her in his hair. In his arms. In his bed. “I could spare a few minutes,” he said. His inability to resist her was shameful, but he didn’t care. If Diego could be humping Melanie Greer in her trailer, why couldn’t Rafael talk to Sandra? Even if he couldn’t do anything more than talk to her, he had a right to at least that.
Carlotta glowered at him over her shoulder. “You’re supposed to be in the conference room right now. The reps are waiting—”
“They can wait. Tell them I’ll join them in a few minutes. Ask if they want some coffee.” With that, he opened his door wider and gestured for Sandra to enter his office.
His willingness to grant her his precious time seemed to surprise her, but she took what he offered, gliding around Carlotta’s desk and into the office. Rafael closed the door slowly, doing his best to muffle the click of the latch. It made the tiniest noise, just loud enough to remind them both that they were alone.
Sandra turned and stared at the door for several seconds. Maybe she didn’t want to be alone with him. The last time they’d been alone he’d kissed her.
Maybe she was even more uneasy than he was. The possibility pleased him.
Regaining her smile, she lifted her gaze to Rafael. “I appreciate your letting me take up your time,” she said.
Allowing her into his office was more than a matter of time, and they both knew it. She was taking up his space, taking up his trust. She was free to search for chinks, openings, hints. He’d let her inside in more ways than one.
It was okay, he told himself. He was in control. His office actually offered no hints at all, and he was bigger and stronger than Sandra. She seemed as edgy as he felt. For whatever reason, she evidently found him as much a threat as he found her.
The spacious office filled with her fragrance—not perfume but something warmer, more natural. Honey. The sunlight spilling through the window appeared honey-gold instead of lemon white, softening the edges of the room, muting the aridness of it. Despite the grief Sandra could cause him, she seemed uncannily able to brighten his world.
He watched her move further into the room, her astute gaze taking in the leather sofa, the bank of windows overlooking the parking lot and the sound stages, the kitchenette visible through an open door. His desk. His high-back leather swivel chair. The plush brown carpeting. The shelves lined with pottery.
She crossed to the shelves and lifted a brightly painted ceramic bowl. “You’re a collector?” she asked.
“No.” He wished her smile wasn’t so lovely, her eyes so luminous. Maybe she was a collector. Collecting loza—Mexican earthenware—was the sort of thing middle class people from Berkeley did.
“You certainly have some pretty pieces.” She set down the bowl and picked up the dish beside it, admiring the vivid geometrical pattern glazed onto the surface. “My last assignment was an article about a collector of ancient Aztec artifacts.”
“None of those are ancient.”
She put down the plate and turned her attention to a ceramic rendering of the sun, a round amber heart ringed in black daggers of flame. It was held upright on a brass stand. “Sol Azteca,” she said, gazing almost reverently at the piece. “The Aztec sun.”
Rafael said nothing. Of all the crockery, that piece was his favorite. The others Carlotta had selected with the help of a decorator. “It will warm the room,” she’d explained.
What warmed the room was the sun, the Aztec sun. And the woman scrutinizing it at that moment.
“It looks just like the logo on your films,” she said, turning to him.
As if the sculpture actually shed light like the real sun, her face seemed bathed in a shimmer of gold. “I like it,” he said, choosing not to reveal how much the symbolism of the Aztec sun meant to him. Not just because it was the name of his studio but because he was an Aztec warrior, a brother of the sun. Because at one time he’d believed he would end in a blaze of light and anger. Because now he didn’t want to end at all, but he wanted to shine forever, to shed light. To stay alive.
“It’s beautiful,” Sandra murmured.
She turned back to the sculpture. If she heard his approach she bravely withstood it, refusing to retreat as he neared her. He gazed at the sun sculpture for a moment, feeling its strength, its heat. His hand alighted on her shoulder.
She flinched but held her ground, twisting only enough to stare into his eyes. “I thought we agreed...”
“Agreed about what?”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth. The sight of that plump cinnamon-brown lip trapped in those tiny white teeth caused desire to tug the muscles of his abdomen tight. “I don’t think...” Her voice emerged breathless. “I don’t think you should kiss me.”
He arched his hand around her shoulder. Her bone seemed narrow, delicate, unbearably feminine. “Who said I was going to kiss you?”
“I came here to ask you questions.”
You came here to trip me up, he almost retorted. You came here to make a name for yourself in your newspaper. “Ask.”
She opened her mouth as if to speak, then shut it. Her eyes darkened with mysterious shadows as she searched his face. What was she looking for? Could she see his desire? His resentment over her ability to erode his self-control?
“Does Melanie Greer have health problems?”
He felt his tension unreel, the bones and muscles of his body shifting back into alignment. He let his hand drop from Sandra’s shoulder and took a careful step backward. Merely mentioning Melanie Greer was enough to smother his yearning. “What kind of health problems?”
“Any kind at all.”
“I wouldn’t know. Ask her agent.”
“Is White Angel insured?”
“Of course it’s insured.”
“I mean insured against any health problems Melanie might have.”
If Sandra didn’t know about Melanie’s “health problem”—a euphemism if ever one existed—she was obviously harboring suspicions. “I always insure my movies,” he said quietly. He saw his face reflected in the darkest part of her eyes, two small, ghostly images of himself, unflinching. He would not look away from her, not now, not when she was on the trail, following the scent like a bloodhound. He would give her no excuse to think she’d trapped him.
“Are you any relation to a man named Ricardo Perez?”
“No.” The lie emerged smoothly, calmly. He concentrated every ounce of his energy on concealing the truth, concealing the havoc her questions were wreaking on him. How did she know about Ricardo? What did she know? How much of Rafael’s miserable youth was she going to serve up as entertainment for the newspaper-reading citizens of Los Angeles?
He could lie, but he respected her enough to know she’d keep digging. He could kiss her...but even that wouldn’t stop her. He wished she could be seduced away from a story, but he doubted she could. It was her damned hard-headedness more than her pretty face, her passion for her work more than her passion for him, that drew Rafael.
“What do these questions have to do with my movie studio?” he asked her, his voice giving nothing away.
“If I had the answers I’d know.”
“You’re looking for answers where they don’t exist.”
“Then I’ll have to look somewhere else,” she said, a pensive smile playing across her lips.
“Journalists are supposed to report the news, not invent it.”
“Thanks for clarifying that.” Her tone was too airy to be sarcastic. In her gaze he saw determination but also a bit of grudging humor.
It was a humor he couldn’t share. “You’ll have to go now. I have people waiting for me.”
She nodded, but didn’t back away from hi
m. She and Rafael remained where they were, barely inches apart, her breasts rising and falling with her every breath, making his fingers itch to cup them, to stroke them. He wondered what she would do if he kissed her—in anger, or in surrender, or in acknowledgement of her strength. Would she accuse him of harassment or some such thing? Would she write an inflammatory article about what a beast he was?
He would prefer that to the truth.
They stood a minute longer, and then she lowered her eyes and turned away. Thank God he hadn’t had to make the break. He had already lost too much in this exchange.
“Thank you for your time,” she said, fussing with the straps of her tote, looking past him at the Aztec sun sculpture on the shelf.
It was a perfunctory thank-you, and he didn’t consider it worthy of acknowledgment. He strode across the room to the door and jerked it open, annoyed with everything that had happened in the office and even more annoyed with everything that hadn’t happened, everything he’d wanted to happen, everything he could never let happen.
She walked to the door, sparing him a fleeting look as she passed him at the threshold. He had expected to see triumph in her eyes, but he saw instead a dark despair.
And then she was gone.
Her absence left a chill. His office was once again safe, but it was no longer golden, no longer resonant with her womanly presence. Sighing, he glanced behind him at the decorative objects lined up on the shelves, the plates, the bowls, the Aztec sun. Everything looked exactly as it had looked before Sandra had invaded his office: lifeless.
“The advertising reps are still waiting,” Carlotta scolded, forcing him to turn and meet her disapproving frown. “I served them coffee, I served them fruit. If I go in there again they’re going to tip me fifteen percent.”
A mirthless smile crossed his lips. “I’m on my way. Is Diego back?”
“Back from where?”
“Melanie’s trailer.”
Aztec Sun Page 12
