“Yes, that’s true. Maybe you’re right. Thank you for the skirts. I don’t want to seem ungrateful, I just don’t want my life cluttered with lots of useless things I don’t really need.”
But Brad paid no attention to her protests, and in the next shop he bought her a rainbow of blouses to complement the skirts he had just bought.
They soon realized they would have to go back to the flat and drop off their purchases if they wanted to go shopping for any other things, so Brad hailed a taxi and soon they were back in the apartment.
They had a quick cup of coffee, and headed back out into the bright September sunshine. There were many people milling about the streets window-shopping. To prevent them from getting separated, Brad tucked Zaira’s hand into the crook of his arm as they walked along. The gesture seemed so right, so natural, as did chatting about all the things they saw.
Brad spotted a poster shop, and soon he had picked out several framed impressionist prints, which he asked to be delivered to the apartment the next day. Zaira was delighted; they were beautiful and she was amazed at his generosity. He had brought so little with him from California, that it was obvious he liked to travel light. It appeared he was intending to leave everything behind for her when he left.
Zaira suddenly grew sad at the prospect, for leave he would, eventually. She tried to push the grim thought from her mind, but Brad could sense a change in her mood, and put his arm around her.
“You’ve been overdoing thing, Zaira, so I’m going to cheer you up. How about an ice cream for starters?”
Zaira tried to point out that they had had a huge breakfast, but he pulled her gently by the hand into an Italian ice cream parlour, and ordered her a banana split with three different flavours of ice cream and tons of whipped cream on top. He had a chocolate sundae with cream, and teased her like a playful little boy. He dabbed whipped cream on the end of his nose and tried to lick it off, he pretended he was going to start a food fight with her, and took tastes of her ice cream. He dug into his own dish with the spoon, and insisted on feeding her himself. It was all very amusing and strangely intimate, and in spite of herself Zaira could not remain aloof from his charms.
“Come now, you're being silly,” she scolded, but broke into another fit of giggles as Brad made faces at her and said, “Do you want to see me wiggle my ears?”
She shook her head, and they stood up and walked out into the blazing sunshine again.
“There now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“The ice cream was lovely,” Zaira answered honestly.
Brad said, “No, I meant enjoying yourself, having fun, laughing.”
She looked up into his eyes, and saw his emerald green ones gazing down at her with an intensity that made her shiver in spite of the scorching sun on her skin.
“But Brad, you're not going to be here forever to cheer me up. I have to get by the best way I can, on my own. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’re trying to do, but the worst thing in the world would be for me to come to rely on your—your friendship,” she said, struggling for the right words. “Otherwise I might wake up one morning cold and alone just like before, and I don’t want that to ever happen again.”
Zaira walked on ahead of him, and it was some time before he caught her up, she had stormed away so rapidly. She hoped he couldn’t see the tears glistening behind her glasses. She loved him, wanted him so badly, yet she could not allow herself to trust him. He had someone else, and lived three thousand miles away in a world light years beyond her own.
Brad put his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off, and when he called her name, she refused to look at him. In truth Zaira couldn’t bear to, for she was afraid she might weep, or expose her longing.
“Zaira, will you please stop running away! Give me a chance at least! Don’t make me out to be a monster when I’m not. Maybe I’ve gone too fast for you, but I’m so used to getting my own way.” He held her by the shoulders and shook her gently. “You and I are friends, if nothing else, and I would want that to continue no matter where in the world either of us are.”
Brad cupped her chin and forced her to look up at him. He could see the fear in her eyes. He tried to find the words to tell her part of what he felt in an honest way.
“Look, I’ve never been one for serious relationships, so the words don’t come easy. I can’t really talk about how I feel. All I know is, I want you more than any woman I’ve ever met, and if you’re frightened, just try to stop and think for a moment about how I feel.”
Brad paused briefly to take a deep breath, and declared, “Absolutely terrified would be an understatement. I’m confused. Since coming to New York, I feel as though I'm on a rollercoaster of emotions, and I don’t always do or say the right thing for everyone concerned. But I understand how you feel, and I won’t push you. You know where to find me if you want me.”
Brad kissed her full on the mouth, and she felt the sensation flow through her with all the force of a waterfall. Zaira clung to him desperately, trying to get a grip on her shaking world. But soon they became aware of people passing by, with some even whistling and shouting, "Get a room!" and so he let her go with a laugh, and said huskily, “Supermarket?”
Zaira put her hand on his arm to steady herself, and they soon found themselves in the large cool air-conditioned store. Zaira tried to concentrate on the shopping, planning meals in her head for the next few days, but she seemed to be floating in a cloud. Brad propelled her and the cart silently. He looked at the labels occasionally, but for the most part he just held things up and she either nodded or shook her head.
“If you like it, get it,” she would insist, but he would tell her it was only a suggestion.
“I was going to cook tonight,” Brad said, “but it is so hot, I think maybe it would be nice to go out, just for a change. It’ll be a pretty busy week coming up, with lots of work for both of us.” Brad began to load the food onto the conveyor belt at the checkout with her help.
If only he knew, Zaira thought with a groan, realizing that her rehearsal schedule on top of the lectures and the screenplay was going to be punishing. So long as nothing interrupted the routine, they would get through, but it would be cutting it close for the performance on Saturday night.
She tried to protest as he insisted on paying for all the shopping and pushed her into a taxi, while he loaded all the food into the trunk of the car.
“Really, Brad, you’ve already paid the rent for months in advance, and now you’ve bought months worth of food! Where am I going to put it all?” Zaira complained halfheartedly.
“You’ve got plenty of cupboard space in the kitchen, and what you have in there at the moment wouldn’t feed a sparrow. And I can tell you hardly do any cooking, because the place certainly doesn’t look and smell as though you do. So the first thing I’m going to insist is that my screenwriter takes better care of herself, and that means proper food for both of us.”
They went up the elevator with all the bags, and soon they were both busily loading the cupboards and refrigerator. Then they turned their attention to unpacking the shopping they had done earlier for the apartment.
Zaira was impressed with the new additions, which made the whole place look much more like a comfortable home.
Zaira helped Brad remake his bed and put up the curtains, and as she put the new lamp on the bedside table she caught a glimpse of a photograph in a silver frame. Brad must have seen her staring, for he sped across the room and put it face down in the top drawer.
“The lamp looks lovely there,” he said.
Zaira was overwhelmed by curiosity and anger. So that gorgeous blond creature was the woman who had won his heart.
Zaira turned away from him and tried to sound normal as she said, “Well, that's it for now, so I think I'd better go do some work.”
She reached the door and was just about to leave the room when he said, “Don’t forget, dinner later.”
“No, Brad, I don’t thin
k so. Too much to do. See you.”
Zaira went into the study and stared at a blank screen for several minutes. She felt raging jealousy coursing through every vein and artery, and for once in her life she really didn't know what to do. She felt desolate. How could she possibly compete for him with a woman like that? He thought she was a dowdy frump, a mere friend, nothing more, for all his kisses.
Maybe Brad was right. Maybe if she fixed herself up, and stopped her pretence of being Zoe Dominick, she might have a chance of making him realize she was not only attractive, but intelligent. And vice versa. And of course, Zoe Dominick was an actress. She could fit into his world; if only he were interested in them both.
Zaira thought of a dozen different ways of trying to tell him the truth, but no matter how she looked at it, she could still imagine him with a cold look of hatred on his face.
In the end, she was forced to reject the idea of revealing everything. She didn’t want her whole fantasy world to come crashing down around her just yet. Soon enough he would find out the whole truth, and then she would probably lose Brad forever.
CHAPTER TEN
Hours later, Zaira heard a tap at the door. She clicked a few keys on her computer to save her work before telling Brad to come in. He looked at her searchingly as he entered, and she thought for a moment he was worried.
“I’m making great progress on this today, so if you don’t mind, I think I’ll just carry on,” she said in a neutral voice.
“I was wondering if you wanted something to eat,” he said casually.
She shook her head, and carried on typing.
“Can I see what you’ve done so far?” he requested, but again she refused.
“I don’t want to stop to print it just yet. Give me a few minutes.”
Brad walked out of the room silently.
Zaira breathed a sigh of relief. His presence filled the room, and as often as she told herself she was not going to be drawn to him again, there seemed to be a vibrancy he gave out which she found irresistible.
After about another hour Brad returned, this time with a plate of hot Indian food on a tray.
“I always keep my promises, Zaira,” he said softly.
She could sense a hidden meaning in his words as he smiled down at her. “Thank you, it looks lovely. Here, I’ll save and print this, and then eat it. She clicked a few keys deftly, and then asked him if he’d eaten yet.
“No, I was hoping you’d consider joining me,” Brad replied, turning away from her slightly as if he expected to be refused.
“Well, this old thing makes an awful lot of noise, so go put mine on the table, and I’ll start the printer and then join you.”
“Great,” he said, smiling boyishly. He whisked the plate off the desk and trotted out the door in a second.
When Zaira came out of the study, she saw that he had put a tablecloth and napkins on the table, and even found some candles for her candlesticks. There was a bottle of wine on the table, and he poured her a generous glass.
“It looks super, thank you,” she admired, as he pulled the chair out for her and sat her down.
Zaira suddenly realized she was hungry, and ate heartily, even asking for seconds of the scrumptious chicken. Brad chatted about a couple more ideas he had had about the costumes, and showed her a few sketches. Then he made a large pot of coffee and they sat down in the office together.
“My goodness, you’ve got to be the fastest worker I’ve ever seen,” he marveled.
Again Zaira felt guilty about deceiving him.
Brad made comments on the pages which had just been printed.
Zaira decided to go back over the other pages he had already marked and type in all his additions. She could use a good working copy, to clarify in her mind the things Brad was looking for. She needed to suit the words to the moods and settings, and even to herself as an actress.
As Zaira typed, she glimpsed Brad occasionally as he stooped his head down over the papers and scribbled, and she reflected again how easy it was being with him. Even in this tiny room, she felt completely at home with him, in spite of the sexual tension she felt every time she took in his breathtaking masculine beauty.
Zaira could not recall ever having worked so closely with anyone before, let alone a man. In all the years she’d had with Jonathan, they had never sat down together like this to work out their problems, even when she had been an equal partner in their ad agency.
“Great, this is brilliant stuff,” Brad praised enthusiastically when he had finished reading the sheaf of papers. “The Dark Lady is wonderful. Intelligent, headstrong, beautiful, in spite of Shakespeare’s protests, and she is so complex, it’s like she’s two women in one. You know, the one staid and sedate, the other vibrantly daring and alive. But when she falls in love, it's with the one man who can satisfy both aspects of her personality.”
Zaira stared at him wordlessly, and wondered if there was mockery in his green eyes. But no, he seemed to be perfectly sincere, and for a moment she was almost tempted to tell him the truth about her own split personality which had come about by error more than design.
But Brad was completely engrossed in the script, and she remembered once again that the show had to go on as far as the production of Hamlet was concerned. On Saturday night, she would be free to tell Brad the truth, and then she would get to see how sincere his praise really was.
Zaira carried on adding, deleting, correcting, until Brad looked up and said, “You must be exhausted. You’ve been at it all day. Don’t you teach tomorrow?”
“I’m all right, I get bursts of activity like this sometimes. My first lecture isn’t until eleven, so I can have a lie in if I want to.”
“Well, you didn’t have one this morning, because I heard you up and in the bath at seven, so it’s my turn to do the coffee tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry about me, if you have to teach.”
“I do, at nine, but I’ll be back at ten, and I’ll look over the new copy then. I don’t have rehearsals until the afternoon, which may go on all night until we're good enough.”
“What’s your leading lady like as a director?” Zaira asked mischievously.
“Zoe is wonderful at everything she does,” Brad said softly, and then shook his head and looked at her. “But she’s too glamorous for me.”
“But you’re a Hollywood director! All she did was write a bestseller!” Zaira protested.
“Yes, but that's no mean feat. She probably comes from a rich Southern plantation family and is spoilt rotten. And I know, you're going to tell me that I too come from a rich family, but I don’t know, she just seems too perfect somehow, and she certainly isn’t as intelligent as you.”
Zaira’s temper nearly erupted. So he thought her alter ego Zoe was a spoilt rich girl, a snob, and dumb in the bargain. And he had been comparing them! But her temper cooled when she realized that she had come out the winner, and not the lovely and glamorous Zoe. How very strange, Zaira thought, as she sought to even up the contest.
“Certainly any dealings she has had with me, she hasn’t been the least bit snobbish, and I know she doesn’t come from a rich family at all. She just wrote the book, and it became successful. She went to university the same as me, and she's very hard-working from all that I’ve seen.”
Brad nodded, and shifted uneasily in his chair. “Well, you obviously know her better than I do, and so as you say, I ought to give her the benefit of the doubt. I suppose she has lots of men around her though, or is married already?” he asked, trying to sound uninterested, but she could see he was rubbing his hands together uneasily.
Zaira paused for thought, and then said, “So far as I know from the couple of times I’ve met her, she's not in the least a man-eater. She certainly wouldn’t let a man near her unless she was completely serious about him. She had a bad marriage in her youth, you see,” she explained smoothly, when Brad looked up in surprise.
“So she tells me she’s been off men completely since then, altho
ugh she did mention having met someone very nice recently in the past. It wouldn’t be you, would it?” she asked slyly, and watched and waited for his response.
He looked rather flustered, and stood up. “I can’t imagine her thinking of me like that.”
“That’s true,” Zaira said with a wicked smile. “I can’t imagine herself allowing business and pleasure to get mixed up. She’s far too sensible.”
Brad gazed out the window for a moment, and then shrugged his shoulders.
“Come on, now, we have better things to do than discuss Zoe Dominick and her love life,” he said huskily, and gathered the papers together none to deftly into a neat pile.
“Lack of love life, you mean,” Zaira said, and pretended to be absorbed in her screen.
“Are you planning to stay up all night?” Brad said, coming up behind her and resting his hands on her shoulders.
“I’ll finish this part, then have a hot drink and go to bed.”
“I tell you what, I’ll make it,” he offered, and kissed the top of her head before he left the room.
In truth Zaira was exhausted. As soon as he had gone she saved her work and turned the computer off. She rubbed her aching eyes, and put her head down on the desk. She felt cold and bone tired, and couldn't summon up the energy to go next door. She could feel herself drifting and floating, and she heard her name called once or twice by a deep thrilling voice. She whispered a name in reply, and felt her lips and forehead brushed gently.
Zaira felt warm strong arms around her, and raised her arms around the muscular neck as she was carried she knew not where. An incredible softness and warmness enveloped her, and she stretched herself out and shivered with the cold and desire caused by the nearness, the maleness of the presence beside her. She felt her hair smoothed back and a hand run down the length of her curves before sleep captured her completely and she became oblivious to everything around her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Zaira struggled to open her eyes the next morning, as she heard the loud buzzing of her alarm clock signaling the start of another day. She moved her hand, and smoothed it over a massive chest, and then, searchingly, up the neck to the thick silky hair. She moved closer, and suddenly realized she was not alone, but in contact with a figure which could only be male. Brad!
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