She recalled once more the feel of his hand covering hers in the cantina. She recalled it all too vividly—because his courtesy in taking her arm as they crossed the street provoked the same disturbing reaction inside her. With one touch, one piercing gaze, he could reduce her to a mass of quivering nerves and overheated yearnings. He could make her want to believe that when he’d said she was beautiful it hadn’t just been empty words, a ploy to distract her from her job.
She willed her body to relax. As soon as they reached the gate, he released her arm and shoved his hands into his pockets. She wondered if he was as edgy as she was.
He had no reason to be, of course. She was just Sandra Garcia, a general assignment reporter in Metro. He was Rafael Perez, rich, successful, able to alter his environment with his mere presence.
They walked past the guard, through the gate and around the office building to the visitors’ lot. A timid gust of wind caused the broad fronds of a nearby palm to rustle. Next to one of the sound stages the motor of a truck rumbled to life.
Rafael drew to a halt beside Sandra’s car. She fumbled trying to unlock the door, and her key ring dropped to the asphalt with a loud jingling. Before she could bend over, he scooped it off the ground.
She braced herself to feel his hand against hers as he passed her the keys, but he confounded her expectations by opening the door for her. Was that his strategy—to use chivalry to charm her out of investigating him and his studio?
Why was she so sure he had a strategy at all? What was it about him that convinced her he was hiding something from her?
The inscrutable darkness of his eyes. The taut line of his mouth. The enigmatic quality of his smile.
The fact that he’d called her beautiful when she knew she wasn’t.
“Thank you,” she murmured, setting her tote on the passenger seat and then folding herself behind the wheel. He leaned against the door frame, gazing down at her. The low sun slanted a rosy light across his face, emphasizing its strong angles, making him look even more mysterious—and much too sexy.
He dangled her keys above her, almost teasing, and then let them drop into her outstretched hand. “Why won’t you talk to me?” she asked, figuring she had nothing to lose.
The glimmer of amusement in his eyes vanished. His gaze remained on her, impenetrable, as he mulled over his reply. “If you’re here to write about the movie, you’ll get all the talk you need.”
“I’m here to write about you.”
He opened his mouth as if to speak, then shook his head. “I don’t want fame. I don’t want celebrity. I make movies. That’s all.”
“That’s not all.” She could persevere as well as he could.
He reached through the open window of her car and traced a line along the edge of her chin with his index finger. Then he pulled back. “Don’t use your big brown eyes on me, Sandra. It won’t work.” He sighed and straighted up. “You’re here to write about White Angel. Not about me. Anything you need to know, Diego will tell you.”
Diego would tell her only what he and Rafael wanted her to know. What she needed to know—not just about White Angel but about Rafael, about this man with his riveting gaze and his ability to shatter her composure with a single, erotic stroke of his fingertip—she would have to find out herself.
She turned forward and inserted the key in the ignition. Her hand felt clumsy twisting the switch. Her foot felt like lead against the clutch. For some reason, she didn’t want to leave, not while so much hung unresolved between them in the steamy evening air.
But she had to go. For her job, for her sanity, she had to regain her bearings. She had to get away from Rafael Perez.
As she backed out of the parking space, she saw him standing at the edge of the walk, watching her. Turning the wheel, she shifted into gear and started toward the gate.
She glanced into her rear view mirror. He was still standing there. Still watching her.
Chapter Three
*
“SO, WHAT DO YOU SAY?” Flannagan asked Sandra, resting his chin on her head while he read what she’d typed into her computer.
Just to be ornery, she switched off the monitor and spun in her chair, forcing him to stand straight and look at her face instead of her notes. As usual, he was dressed in clashing colors; as usual, he smelled like a stale cigar. Sandra had never met his ex-wife, but the woman had her sympathy.
“I say good morning,” she answered coolly. “What do you say?”
He gave her a hybrid look: half a smile and half a scowl at her impertinence. “I say, what do you say? Did you find a story for me at Aztec Sun?”
She regarded Flannagan thoughtfully. Yes, she’d found a story, or at least the possibility of one. But she wasn’t ready to discuss it yet. “Maybe,” she said.
“Meaning…?”
“Meaning, I said good morning to you. You’re supposed to say good morning to me. Where are your manners, Frank?”
“Admit it. You’re glad I sent you over there yesterday. Deep in your heart you don’t want to write about the police department and all that nasty crime. You want to write about a Chicano millionaire. Maybe if you file a nice enough story he’ll take you out for dinner.”
“I don’t go begging for dinner dates, Flannagan. And I don’t trade nice write-ups for food.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you didn’t check him out. How long have you been in this racket, Sandy? Haven’t you learned how to work it yet? You’re single and over the hill—”
“Over the hill!”
“—And here you are, doing a story on a very rich bachelor with a Spanish surname. What you’re supposed to do is, during the interview, you ask him how he likes to spend his free time. He says something like, ‘I go skiing in Aspen,’ or ‘I bake bread,’ and the next day, you show up with two round-trip tickets to Aspen or a bag of yeast and ask him if he’s free for the weekend.”
“Right,” Sandra muttered, unable to suppress a grin. “And then I get married, stay home and make babies, and you don’t have me in your hair anymore.”
“You’re catching on,” Flannagan said, playfully chucking her chin. He started toward his desk, calling over his shoulder, “Let me know when you’ve got something.”
Sandra swiveled back to her computer and turned the monitor back on. The notes she’d entered into her file on Aztec Sun were preliminary and not terribly significant, mostly data she’d culled from the public-relations material Diego Salazar had supplied yesterday. She would need the information as filler when she wrote her article. But for the moment, she wasn’t sure what her article was going to be.
The puff piece Diego wanted? An expose on Melanie Greer’s inexplicably giddy state of mind?
Or the true story behind Rafael Perez?
She was pretty sure he had a story. She just didn’t know what it might be. And one small part of her couldn’t deny that she was pursuing it not for the article but for the man.
She was thirty-three years old, hardly over the hill. And even if thirty-three was over the hill, getting married wasn’t Sandra’s primary goal in life. She had nothing against marriage—or making babies, for that matter. But she couldn’t link such concepts in her mind with Rafael Perez. She didn’t want to wrangle a dinner out of him, or go skiing with him, or bake bread with him.
What she wanted—besides a big story with her byline on it—was to figure out how to immunize herself against the very real power emanating from him, a power that caused people to grow respectfully still in his presence, that caused the molecules in the air to hover in silent suspension around him. She wanted to discover what gave him such a daunting, haunting allure—and she wanted to be able, when she was done with this assignment, to walk away and never give him another thought.
The notion of never again thinking about him seemed absurd. Just as he could take over a room merely by entering it, so he appeared able to take over Sandra’s mind, to occupy and preoccupy her to an annoying degree.
Through
out her drive home yesterday, she’d been plagued by visions of him: the smoky darkness of his gaze and the ironic twist of his smile, his height, his lean, lanky physique, his long, thick hair. She’d arrived home, jotted her first impressions of the studio and the man into her notebook, slapped together a sandwich for dinner and thought about him. Relaxed in a bath, watched a little television, climbed into bed…and thought about him.
She’d thought about that moment at the cantina when he’d clamped his hand over hers. She’d thought about the heat and strength in his grip, the heat and strength in his eyes as he’d stared at her across the table in the dimly lit room.
Why, hours later, had she continued to feel disturbing shivers of sensation when she remembered the hard surface of his palm against her skin? Why couldn’t she stop picturing the way he’d blocked her car door with his body, the way the rough tip of his finger had felt along her jaw, the presumptuousness of his having caressed her like that? Why, hours after she should have been fast asleep, had she found herself wondering what his mouth would feel like against hers?
Why was she still thinking about him today?
Blame it on Flannagan , she muttered. He’d been the one talking about how she should hook up with a Chicano millionaire.
She shut off the computer and lifted her tote. The hell with Chicano millionaires. There was only one thing Sandra was after, and that was a story.
The morning was clear and hot; as soon as she eased her car out of the Post’s building’s garage, she donned her sunglasses, cranked up the air conditioning and turned on the radio. The original version of Layla blared through her rear-mounted speakers. She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel in time with the guitar riffs while her mind ran through the observations she’d made yesterday, when Diego Salazar had left her in that windowed booth where she could watch Melanie Greer and her co-star, Antonio Torres, rehearse their scene under John Rhee’s direction. Melanie had seemed dazed, giggling and staggering and strangely detached from her surroundings. She’d behaved drunk, or…something.
A woozy starlet on the set. A brooding B-movie producer. A too-eager PR guy who smiled all the time and supplied Sandra with a folder of publicity information that said absolutely nothing.
There could be a story in all of it: TV star zoned out on the set of her first feature film. It might not be City Hall or the police department or crime among the homeless, but it was more substantial than ethnic-pride blather designed to increase the Post’s subscription rate in Hispanic neighborhoods.
The guard at the studio entry recognized her and waved her through the gate. On her way to the visitor’s lot, she cruised slowly past Rafael Perez’s T-bird and sighed wistfully. The hell with dinner or skiing or baking bread with him. She wanted a spin in his car.
Not that she’d seek Rafael out and ask for one. She hoped to avoid him until after she’d spent some time alone with Melanie Greer. She had the feeling Melanie might be able to provide some answers to her questions—or at least, to give her a clue as to what questions she ought to be asking.
She gave her name to the receptionist in the lobby of the office building. “Diego Salazar is expecting me,” she said, checking her watch. She’d told him she would be there at ten o’clock that morning; she was only a few minutes early.
The receptionist buzzed his office and announced Sandra’s arrival. Within a minute he waltzed into the lobby, dressed in a double-breasted suit and a Jerry Garcia tie and brimming with robust energy. His eyes, his teeth, even his hair shined. Sandra was glad she’d left her sunglasses on.
“Ah, senorita bella,” he greeted her, taking her hand and kissing the air near her cheek.
Cripes. When had they reached this level of intimacy? Did he think treating her like his long-lost love was going to change her opinion of his studio?
“Would you like to watch some filming today?” he asked. “Our star is in Building B again, doing interiors.”
“Sure, I’d love to watch,” Sandra said, exerting herself to match his enthusiasm.
“Let’s go.” He sent the receptionist a desultory wink, then held the door open for Sandra and followed her out into the steamy morning. Sandra allowed herself a furtive glance at Diego’s pricy suit and wondered if he was as rich as Rafael Perez.
Not likely. Perez was the founder of Aztec Sun, its C.E.O., its guiding spirit. He might let an underling out-dress him, but he’d never let one outearn him.
“Did they film much after I left yesterday?” she asked, just to make conversation.
Diego shook his head. “There are night exteriors which will be filmed on location. Action scenes, mostly. They take time to arrange—permissions have to be obtained, the stunt drivers and extras lined up. We’re saving them for later. But if you want to watch when we do those, Sandra, I’m sure I can get you a front-row seat. It’s all right if I call you Sandra?” he half asked.
Given that he’d already taken it upon himself to make kissie-kissie with her, she saw no reason to deny him the use of her first name. “Sandra is fine—as long as I can call you Diego.”
“I would be honored to have you call me Diego.”
Honored . Sandra stifled her gagging reflex. If he laid it on any thicker, she’d turn her article into a raging expose on him.
She resolved not to let him turn her off. He was a primary source; if she managed to get past his public relations persona, he could provide valuable information and access. “I’ve read the material you gave me,” she said. “It was all very interesting.”
“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how important it is to get the word out that a man like Rafael Perez can succeed in this business. He gets embarrassed when someone says our people look up to him, but it’s true. There aren’t many of us in the upper levels of the film industry, you know. Especially running our own independent shops. But Rafael and I, we’re here.”
“Did you help him to establish Aztec Sun?”
Diego shrugged modestly. “I wish I could say I did. Perhaps in some small way I inspired him. Ask him. He’ll tell you nice things about me.” Diego’s grin lost its humble quality, and his eyes glowed with a mixture of amusement and pride. “We’re amigos, Rafael and me. Compadres. I’d go to the ends of the earth for Rafael, and he knows it.”
“Would he go to the ends of the earth for you?”
“He already has. Look at me. I’ve got the second best job a Chicano has ever held in the film business.”
“Do you think Rafael has the best job?” she asked, smiling to take the edge off the question.
“Of course he does—but then, he made the job for himself. He saw a need for movies—entertaining movies about our people, for our people. He took the risk, plunged in and turned his dream into a successful studio. Who would deny him the best job? I just consider myself lucky he brought me along for the ride.”
“I’m sure you earn your keep,” she said, thinking of the glowing press packet he had prepared and way he cultivated her, hoping to reap favorable publicity for his boss.
They entered the sound stage they’d visited yesterday. The apartment scenery was as she remembered it. The area surrounding the set was still a jungle of scaffolding, cables and cameras on dollies, the vaulted ceiling a grid of lights. “Do you recycle your sets from one movie to the next?” she asked as Diego led her through the tangle of wires to the tech room overlooking the set.
“We recycle everything,” he said with a laugh. “It keeps costs down. You take that apartment—” he gestured toward the set “—and paint the walls and the change set dressing—the dishes, the curtains, all that decor—and it’s a whole new apartment. Everything gets reused. These big-spending producers, they use a set once and strike it. Not very economical.”
“I understand Rafael Perez even reuses scripts.” She was testing him, hoping for a reaction.
He eyed her warily. “What do you mean?”
“His first film was a retelling of Macbeth, wasn’t it?”
Diego relaxed, but only slightly. He must have realized this information hadn’t been in the publicity material he’d given her. She’d done research elsewhere, which meant he wasn’t in complete control of what she knew.
Still, there was nothing incriminating in her question. “It’s true,” he confirmed. “Someone explained to Rafael about the public domain. You can rewrite Shakespeare and you don’t have to pay anyone a fee. Of course, by the time Rafael was done with it, no one would have known it was Macbeth.”
“Is Rafael a Shakespearean scholar?”
Diego snorted. “Rafael isn’t a scholar. He’s a doer.” He closed the door, shutting out the sounds of electricians and prop people shouting to each other, footsteps tramping across the sound stage, a carpenter hammering a few nails into a door frame on the set.
Casually, hoping not to spook Diego, she pulled out her note pad and opened it to a blank page. “There was very little in the material you gave me yesterday about Rafael’s background,” she said. “I was wondering if you could fill in some details about his past.”
“Everything you need to know is in there. When he was in his early twenties he got a job building sets at one of the studios. They were filming a Chicano exploitation flick, and he complained to the director that the actors had it all wrong. The accents, the attitudes, the threads, the hair, everything. It was some Anglo idea of what we were like. The director said, if Rafael knew so much he could teach the actors, and he did. He taught them how to move Chicano, how to curse Chicano, how to think Chicano. The thing about Rafael, he knows how to make himself necessary. He said, you want my help, you’re gonna pay me the same as any acting coach. The man’s got cojones, you know what I’m saying? He’s got balls.” Diego laughed. “In your article you can write, ‘the man’s got guts.’ Sounds nicer, eh?”
Sandra had no doubt Rafael Perez had guts—and the rest of it. Contemplating the specifics of his anatomy provoked a flutter of sensation in her abdomen, a flush of fever to her cheeks.
Bad Boy Heroes Boxed Set Page 39
