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 breach 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 hardheadedness 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 him. 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.”
Carlotta rolled her eyes at the implication underlying Rafael’s words. “He’s back. Looking none the worse for it. He wasn’t the least bit rumpled. Are you sure that’s where he was?”
“Maybe they just talked.”
Carlotta snorted. “Well, he went down to the conference room to regale the reps. Melanie is supposed to be shooting interiors. I would guess she’s on the set.”
“Fine.” Rafael straightened his shoulders, attempting to shake off the persistent chill left by Sandra’s departure, by the bleak look in her eyes. He had to go and discuss the advertising strategy for White Angel with the reps. He had to be an executive, a successful independent movie producer.
He had almost reached the end of the hall when he heard the footsteps behind him, the gasping breath. “Rafael!” Carlotta shouted, her voice bouncing off the smooth white walls.
He spun around and saw her racing down the hall, the black curls of her hair trembling as she galloped toward him in her sensible low-heeled shoes. Her eyes were round with panic, her arms pumping wildly. “Rafael!” she wailed as she stumbled to a halt in front of him and gasped for breath.
“What?”
“I just—” she panted “—I just got a call. They need you in Building B.”
He cursed. “Why? What happened?”
“It’s Melanie.”
“Of course it’s Melanie. It’s always Melanie.” Please, God, don’t let Sandra be there to witness whatever disaster that bitch has done this time. “I’ll have Diego—”
“Diego can’t do anything for her. It’s too late for Diego. Oh, God, Rafael…” Carlotta, his starchy, dependable secretary, dissolved in tears.
If he’d felt chilly before, he felt downright frozen now. “What happened?” he asked in the low, taut voice that signaled how close he was to erupting.
“She collapsed. John Rhee is hysterical. He says she stopped breathing. Bob Jorgensen pounded on her chest, again and again, he blew into her mouth…” Carlotta wept openly.
The walls seemed to tilt, closing in on him. He grabbed Carlotta and forced her to look at him. Tears cascaded down her cheeks. “What are you saying?”
“She’s dead, Rafael. Melanie Greer is dead.”
Chapter Eight
*
SHE WANTED TO BELIEVE RAFAEL. With all her heart, she wanted to believe he wasn’t related to the Ricardo Perez currently in prison on a drug conviction. Flannagan had been right when he’d pointed out that there had to be countless men named Ricardo Perez in the Los Angeles area. Any one of them could be Rafael’s kin, or perhaps none of them at all. Why not assume Rafael had told her the truth?
He wasn’t given to opening up, yet he’d opened his office to her, and shared his pottery collection. He’d let her glimpse the strange, almost reverent glow in his eyes when he’d regarded the ceramic Sol Azteca. She’d been intrigued by Aztec sun piece, not only because it was beautiful—his entire collection was beautiful—but because she’d
known the instant she’d seen it that it was special to him, that it possessed a symbolism that resonated well beyond his life as a movie producer.
When she saw the way Rafael regarded the sculpture, she understood that he was more than just a successful businessman. He was a man connected to his heritage, a man in touch with where he’d come from. If only he felt comfortable talking about such things, she could write a magnificent profile of him. Even if it was fluff, it would be the best damned fluff the Post had ever published.
But she had to be sure. All his pride, all his anti-drug fervor couldn’t mask the fact that he had a stoned starlet running amok at his studio. Rafael wasn’t blind; surely he had to know what was going on with Melanie. And if he did…
Doubt nipped at Sandra. It didn’t matter that he swore there were no drugs at Aztec Sun, and no connection between him and a dealer named Ricardo Perez. She couldn’t accept his statements on his word alone. She was a journalist. She needed proof.
Back at her desk in the Post building, she searched the telephone directory for a listing for Rosa Perez. Unable to find one, Sandra decided to try her luck with the fifteen churches Rafael allegedly kept afloat. Catholic churches were easy to locate; at least some of the churches listed must have received money from Rafael.
She narrowed her search to churches located in East L.A. The second church she called informed her that, yes indeed, it had been the fortunate recipient of Rafael Perez’s largesse on more than one occasion. Although the church wasn’t sure why he’d been so generous, since he wasn’t a member of the congregation, everyone was most grateful. His contributions helped to sustain the church’s day-care program for working single parents.
More accolades for the hero of the Chicano community. The skeptic in Sandra muttered that he seemed too good to be true, but the optimist—the woman who wanted to believe him for personal, not professional, reasons—argued that it wasn’t impossible for a rich, handsome, successful man to be also a decent, honest man. Uncommon, perhaps, but not impossible.
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