Her Red-Carpet Romance

by Marie Ferrarella

  And he definitely wasn’t ready to lose possibly the best assistant he had ever had because of a misstep he felt himself being so tempted to make.

  He needed to go.

  Now.

  “See you Monday,” he said, taking a couple of steps back, away from her.

  “Monday,” Yohanna echoed. Instead of opening her door, she remained exactly where she was, struggling with an urge that had materialized out of nowhere.

  She desperately wanted him to kiss her good-night. Just one kiss.

  Who are you kidding? You don’t want just one kiss, you want more. And “more” is just asking for trouble, you know that.

  She had a good thing going here: a job she was quickly growing to love. The worst thing in the world would be to allow a spurt of hormones to ruin that for her.

  With effort, she took out her key and unlocked her front door.

  A moment later she was closing the door behind her.

  She was safe.

  Safe from herself.

  And never sadder about it than right now.

  * * *

  Yohanna came to work Monday—as well as all the rest of that week—acting as if there hadn’t been a moment there, on her doorstep, when she had ceased to be someone who just worked for Lukkas Spader. She decided to make it a mission in her life to learn as much as she could about the man. There was an underlying sadness that reached out to her. She’d always had an inherent desire to help people heal.

  For now, though, she needed to concentrate on getting her job done, which in turn meant helping him get his job—the movie—done. And something like that, she was beginning to realize, had a great many moving parts that needed to be attended to.

  So for now, she pushed that part of herself, the part that was curious about the man, into the far background and did what she always did whenever she couldn’t deal with—or have the time for—her private life: she threw herself into her work.

  She organized Lukkas’s appointments, revamped his schedule, got in touch with people he had penciled in on his calendar and prioritized his would-be “crises” as they came up.

  As a small part of that, she made an effort to learn his favorite foods and took to ordering his lunches and, in some cases, his dinners, as well.

  Working diligently, she trained herself to anticipate what Lukkas needed even before he realized he needed it. The upshot of that was that within four short weeks, she had his life running like clockwork. That made her completely indispensable to him.

  Unknown to Yohanna, in addition to becoming indispensable to Lukkas, she also became the woman who preoccupied him in unguarded moments.

  She also began popping up in his dreams, a fact that both intrigued Lukkas and disturbed him.

  The latter reaction was because it made him feel that he was being unfaithful to the wife he’d so adored. When Natalie had died so suddenly, he’d been convinced that his heart would never seek anyone out again. That with the threat of loss moving like a specter in the shadows, he couldn’t bear to become involved with another woman since that woman could die and leave him, just as Natalie had.

  He could, with some effort, guard his thoughts during his waking hours. But when he was asleep, all bets were off—and all fences were breakable. His thoughts of Hanna would creep in and fanciful scenarios would be constructed that he would never allow when he was awake.

  This complicated his life, and Lukkas was trying to cope with that as well as with feelings of guilt while attempting to mount a new production and bring it up to its wobbly feet.

  At times it felt as though he was constantly shadow boxing, vanquishing one problem only to have another spring up in its place. On occasion he would consider throwing in the towel—those were the times when Hanna would come through the best.

  “Your director’s on line one,” she told him on a particularly exasperating Tuesday morning, bringing a cordless receiver over to him.

  Taking the phone from her, Lukkas frowned slightly. He knew before another word was said that he needed to go back to Arizona to find out what was—and wasn’t—going on.

  His hand covering the mouthpiece, he said, “Hanna, I’m going to need—”

  Nodding, she interjected, “I’ve already called your pilot. The plane will be gassed up and ready to go within the half hour.”

  That almost left him speechless. “How long have you been a mind reader?” he finally asked her.

  Yohanna didn’t let the question go to her head. She didn’t read minds; she read body language as well as the particular situation that her subject might be in.

  “It comes with the territory,” she answered. But she was smiling broadly as she said it.

  “Just as long as you do, Hanna, that’s all that counts.” He made a quick calculation. “I hate to ruin any plans you might have for your evening, but I’m going to need you to—”

  She’d anticipated this, as well. “I’ve got a go bag in the trunk of my car. I just have to get it before we leave for the airstrip.”

  He could only stare at her. There was no way she could have known that he would be receiving this call from Montelle, his director, nor could she have anticipated what the man would say to him.

  “What am I thinking now?” Lukkas challenged, his green eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he looked at her, waiting.

  “That’s easy.” She tried to keep a straight face, but failed within a few moments. Her grin was wide. “You’re thinking that you don’t know how you got so damn lucky to have found someone like me to anticipate your every need, your every move.”

  “Not exactly, but close enough,” he answered with an amused laugh. “We might have to be there a couple of days. Is that all right with you—or would that be interfering with any plans you have for your evenings?”

  “I have no plans for my evenings. You have my undivided attention,” she assured him. “I signed on for the long haul. This is just all part of that.”

  He really had gotten lucky here, Lukkas thought, looking at her. “Right, but that doesn’t mean that you have to be enslaved,” he pointed out.

  “I’ll let you know if I feel as if I’ve been enslaved. Until then, I believe we have work to do,” she reminded him. She pointed to the receiver he was still holding in his hand. “Dirk Montelle is still waiting.”

  He’d almost forgotten. “Oh, damn.”

  She went to get her go bag.

  * * *

  It was gratifying to find someone who had as much energy as he had, Lukkas thought a short while later. At the same time, it was also somewhat unsettling. He’d never had anyone match him step for step before. In so many ways, Hanna was the perfect assistant.

  He just wished that she wasn’t so damn attractive, so distractingly attractive, he silently amended, while she was at it. Because once each workday was finally done and they had accomplished—thanks to her—everything he had set out to do, thoughts of Hanna—a civilian Hanna—insisted on creeping into his brain and by her very presence, that caused things to get scrambled in his mind. Things such as priorities—even with Hanna prodding him.

  Blocking those kinds of thoughts about her was getting harder to do.

  * * *

  “How much are you paying to rent this ‘town’?” she asked Lukkas as they got out of his rental car. It was more or less a rhetorical question, asked in reaction to the oppressive blast of heat that hit her as she got out of the vehicle.

  The dusty, weathered town was standing in for Tombstone for another five weeks. “Tombstone,” the town that famously watched history being made and legends being born, did not come cheap.

  Lukkas quoted the price he and the company that was behind the tourist attraction had arrived at.

  “Enough to keep the locals contented,” he added. Anticipating a negative re
mark from her, he was quick to hedge it. “It might look like a lot on paper, but it’s actually a bargain. If we had to have these sets built back on the lot, it would have wound up costing a hell of a lot more than what we are currently paying to rent it,” he told her.

  That part she was well aware of. Yohanna nodded. “I know. I already ran the figures.”

  “Of course you did,” he quipped. “Do you ever do anything spontaneous?” he asked her.

  “Yes.” Suppressing a smile, she looked him right in the eye and said, “I applied for this job.”

  Lukkas inclined his head. “Touché.” He turned to the director. “So exactly what’s our crisis of the day?”

  Dirk Montelle took no pleasure in being the bearer of any sort of negative news. “We’re falling behind schedule, and if that keeps up, I’m going to lose our leading lady, who can only give us five more weeks. After that, she’s committed to a play they’re trying out in LA before taking it out on the road.”

  Always something, Lukkas thought with an inward sigh. “Any way we can speed things up?”

  The director laughed shortly. “I wish. But Maddox fancies himself a method actor. Every scene he’s in—and that’s practically all of them—he wants to shoot over and over again until he’s ‘satisfied.’ See the problem?” Montelle asked, exasperated.

  Lukkas dragged a hand through an already unruly mop of hair. His hair insisted on curling in the heat. “I see the problem. What I don’t see is a solution without getting someone’s feathers ruffled in the process.”

  Yohanna spoke up suddenly. “Bribery,” she volunteered.

  Both men turned toward her. “Come again?” Lukkas asked.

  “Bribery,” she repeated. The idea began to take shape in her mind as she spoke. “Offer Maddox a percentage of the picture if he helps you bring it in on time. Tell him if the movie isn’t wrapped by the date that your female lead needs to leave, he doesn’t get his piece of the movie. You’d be surprised how many mountains suddenly find they can move when the right amount of money is flashed before them.”

  Lukkas glanced toward his director.

  The latter nodded, pleased with the suggestion. “Might be worth a shot,” Montelle agreed.

  “Okay, let’s do it,” Lukkas instructed, then looked at Yohanna. “You want to sit in on this since it’s your idea?”

  “I think it’ll probably go over better with Maddox if he thinks this is something going down just between the guys,” she pointed out. “Maddox might be charming on the big screen, but the man is a card-carrying male chauvinist pi—” At the last minute she stopped herself and offered Lukkas a wide smile. “You fill in the blank,” she told him.

  It was a rather insightful description of the man, Lukkas thought. “Someday, you’re going to have to tell me where you picked up all this insight on David Maddox,” he said.

  The smile on her lips turned enigmatic. “I do a lot of reading,” she replied vaguely.

  “Yes, but Maddox’s true state of mind is kept pretty secret,” he told her.

  “In order for there to be a secret between two people,” she told Lukkas, “one of the two has to be dead. Otherwise, the secret—any secret—has a time limit on it. When that runs out, the secret ‘mysteriously’ becomes public knowledge.”

  Hanna was right, he thought. For such a young person, there were times when she displayed a very old mind. He caught himself wondering things about her that had nothing to do with the job she did.

  “Tell someone to send Maddox to me,” Lukkas instructed.

  Yohanna fairly beamed at him. “You got it.” With that, she took off.

  Instead of finding someone to carry out Lukkas’s order, she decided to go in search of the actor herself. It took a bit of doing, but she finally found the man sequestered in his spacious trailer.

  The actor wasn’t alone.

  One of the continuity girls was with him. A tray with two full plates sat on the table, but neither party seemed to notice the food. Maddox appeared to be on the verge of seducing a not-so-legal young woman.

  That was all the production needed. To be shut down while charges of seducing a minor were brought up against the actor. It had been known to happen, and that sort of Pandora’s box, once opened, couldn’t be shut again.

  “What are you doing in here?” Maddox demanded angrily when he saw her entering his trailer. He waved his hand at her as if he were brushing aside an annoying insect. “Never mind. I don’t care. Just get the hell out.”

  Yohanna stubbornly ignored the actor. Her attention was completely focused on the young girl instead. “How old are you, Rachel?”

  The girl seemed surprised, then immediately became defensive. “How do you know my name?”

  “I made it a point to learn everyone’s name in the crew,” Yohanna replied calmly. “Just like Lukkas Spader does. Now answer the question, please. How old are you?” She already knew the answer to that, but she wanted to see what the girl would say.

  “I’m nineteen,” Rachel informed her with a toss of her head.

  “It seems odd that someone who is in charge of making sure the props are exactly in the same place from one take to the next within a scene can’t recall what’s written down on her own birth certificate.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened to their maximum capacity. “You’ve seen my birth certificate?” she asked in confusion.

  “Everyone working on this movie set is vetted,” Yohanna informed her. “From the guy who delivers the bottled water every other day right on up to the director—as well as the actors and actresses,” she concluded, looking pointedly at Maddox.

  “I will be eighteen—in another month,” Rachel declared nervously, her bravado crumbling.

  The next moment, scrambling, she gathered up her shoes and the few items of clothing that had already come off. Clutching them to her, Rachel rushed out of the trailer, leaving the door wide-open because both her hands were wrapped around her clothes.

  “I hope you’re satisfied,” Maddox growled angrily. “You’ve ruined my morning.”

  “But I saved hers, so it all balances out in the end,” she told the actor glibly.

  Getting to his feet, Maddox towered over her by almost a foot. The scowl on his face was practically shooting thunderbolts. “I can have your job,” he threatened.

  She was not about to be intimidated by a man who tried to take advantage of a naive teenager. “If you can do it any better than I can, you’re welcome to it, Mr. Maddox.”

  His scowl intensified. “You think you have such a smart mouth—”

  “No, I don’t,” she interjected. “What I do have, however, is a smart brain. A brain that tells me if you don’t take Mr. Spader up on his offer to generously give you a piece of the film, you are going to be taken to court for a breach of contract—and that’s just the beginning.

  “People like and respect Mr. Spader. You, however, have a reputation as an impossible actor to work with. If you don’t get your act together and start promoting some goodwill, you’ll wake up one morning to find that your career is over before you ever hit your prime. And because of your rather lavish lifestyle, which I’m sure you’re not prepared to curtail, you’ll be in debt before you know it with no way to get back on your feet. This isn’t conjecture, this is a sure thing.”

  She could tell he was having trouble following what she was saying. She didn’t know how to spell it out for him any better than she’d already done. Lukkas was a lot better at dealing with narcissistic walking egos than she was.

  “Do yourself a favor,” she told Maddox. “Learn how to get along with people.”

  “That’s what I was doing with that continuity girl before you scared her away. Getting along,” he told her with a leer.

  Yohanna didn’t trust herself to reply to the actor’s ridiculous state
ment. Instead, she simply urged, “Go talk to Mr. Spader and see if you can’t fix things by making ‘nice’ with the man—”

  Muttering contemptuously under his breath, Maddox was out of his trailer before she had a chance to finish her sentence.

  Chapter Twelve

  With Maddox gone and presumably on his way back to the set, Yohanna was about to walk out of the trailer herself. She stopped just short of the doorway when she thought she heard the actor talking to someone who was right outside the trailer door.

  If she came out of the man’s trailer just now it might create an awkward scene, so she remained where she was, waiting for Maddox and whoever the actor was talking to, to leave.

  Standing there, it was impossible not to listen. After a second she realized that the other voice belonged to Lukkas. Her boss had probably gotten tired of waiting for someone to bring Maddox to him so he had gone to look for the actor himself.

  That still didn’t change her feeling that coming out of Maddox’s trailer at this point would be awkward, so she continued to wait where she was as patiently as she could until the two men stopped talking.

  It wasn’t long.

  Maddox’s last remark to Lukkas made her think the actor was heading back to the set and back to work. Score one for Lukkas.

  Yohanna decided that the best thing to do was to give herself to the count of five before descending the trailer steps and heading back to the set.

  Counting off the numbers in her head, she’d gotten up to four when she heard Lukkas raise his voice and say, “You can come out now. Unless, of course, you want to continue playing hide-and-seek.”

  Yohanna came out instantly. “How did you know I was here?” she asked as she made her way down the steps. Since he was right there at the bottom step, she was all but toe-to-toe with Lukkas.

  “Easy. Maddox looked as if he was a hurricane survivor. The only hurricane I know of in the area is you,” Lukkas replied. “And I heard what you said to him in the trailer—the door was left open,” he pointed out in case she’d forgotten. “Nice job. You went a little off book,” he told her, since she had strayed from his initial message. “But in general you’ve got good instincts.”