“And we’re about to begin Hollywood Wedding.”
“Wonderful.”
“And…” He stopped and looked at her. Her eyes were very bright, and fixed on his with rapt attention that he hoped meant her sarcasm was a lie. “And I find myself in difficulty.”
“There’s that word again. But what has it to do with me?”
Zach felt a muscle twitch in his jaw. She had to know where this was heading. Was she going to make him crawl?
“It has everything to do with you,” he said tightly. “I have a script, a crew, a cast——”
“But?”
“But,” he said grimly, “I don’t have a male lead. Or a location.”
So, that was why he’d asked for this meeting. Eve felt a twinge of disappointment, but that was silly. What more had she expected? As for the information he needed—why keep it from him? She’d be happy enough to see the mighty Zach Landon fail, but that would mean Hollywood Wedding would fail, too. And, no matter what happened, in her heart the film would always be hers.
“Dex Burton,” she said. “He’s right for the part.”
Zach’s expression darkened. “Of course. And the location?”
“In the mountains. There’s this cabin I know—I can get you a map of it, if you like. I spent a weekend there, a long time ago, and——”
A weekend. With who? With a man who’d feasted on that perfect mouth, who’d learned every inch of that beautiful body?
“…finished?”
Zach blinked. “What?”
“I said, are we finished?” She rose from the bench and smiled brightly. “If we are, thank you for breakfast, but I’ve got to get going. I’ve got appointments and interviews lined up all day, and——”
“Eve.” Zach stood up and came around the table toward her. “I want you to come back to Triad.”
For a second, her heart soared, but then reality set in.
“We already tried that. And it was a complete flop.”
“Because we let our relationship get off track, but it won’t happen again. There’s nothing personal in this offer, Eve,” he said, hoping to God it was the truth. “My only interest is in saving Triad, and I need your help to do it.”
“No.”
Zach’s mouth twisted under a cool smile. “Are you saying you can’t work with me in a purely business relationship?”
“I’m saying I’d rather not have any kind of relationship with you.”
“Because you can’t handle it?”
Was he right? No. The very thought was…
“Ridiculous,” she said sharply.
Zach’s eyes darkened. “Is it ridiculous?”
“Stop it,” she said through her teeth. “If you think I’m going to rise to some silly taunt——”
“What are you running from, Eve? Are you afraid you’ll fail at Triad?” That little, infuriating smile played over his lips again. “Or that you’ll end up in my bed?”
Color swept into her cheeks. “Believe me,” she said coldly, “there’s nothing to be afraid of!”
Zach grinned. “Was that a yes?”
Eve looked at his handsome, insolent face and lifted her chin.
“That’s what it was,” she snapped, and almost as soon as the foolish words were out of her mouth, she knew she’d end up regretting them.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT BEGAN as an armed truce, with both sides civil but cautious.
Zach offered Eve a ride to work, but she declined.
“I’ll meet you at the office,” she said politely.
He nodded, they shook hands, and she turned away and walked to her apartment. Once inside, she leaned back against the door and told herself that the electric charge that had seemed to pass between their clasped hands had been an illusion.
What else could it have been? she thought, frowning.
She gave herself a brisk shake and headed for the bedroom to change her clothes.
* * *
Zach thought about the same thing as he drove to the office. Eve had put her hand in his, and something had flowed between them.
It had probably been static electricity, he thought, frowning as he pulled into the parking lot and got out of the Porsche. After all, static electricity could be generated just walking across a carpet.
But he and Eve had been standing in the middle of the sidewalk.
He gave himself a brisk shake as he unlocked the office door. It was just one of those scientific curiosities, then. Nothing worth thinking about. He had a lot to do this morning. It was still early—neither Emma nor Eve would be in for more than an hour.
Zach tossed his attache case on Emma’s desk, dumped his jacket on the back of her chair and rolled up his shirt sleeves. He walked quickly down the corridor to Eve’s office, opened the door and switched on the light. Frowning with concentration, he looked around the room.
It would work. Yes, it would work fine, he thought, as he began emptying the drawers from Eve’s desk. He paused. Maybe he should have checked with her first…
“Don’t be silly,” he muttered, and went on with what he was doing. “Who’s the boss here, anyway?”
* * *
His work had him so absorbed that he didn’t realize Eve had come into the room until he heard her startled gasp behind him. He straightened, glanced at his watch and turned around.
“You’re early,” he said. “I thought I’d have all this done before you got in.”
Eve was all business, both in demeanor and in looks. Her hair was pulled back, her suit was tailored, her perfume was light and about as sexy as a spring shower.
And yet, her presence seemed to warm the room.
“What is all this?” she said in a baffled voice.
Zach cleared his throat and glanced around him. He wasn’t finished yet, but he was getting close. He had shoved Eve’s desk to the window, her file cabinets to the far wall, next to the new pair he’d ordered. A new desk, complete with telephone and fax machine, faced Eve’s. All that was left was to make some sort of arrangement out of the love seat, coffee table and small bookcase in the near corner.
He smiled, started to dust his hands off on the seat of his pants, thought better of it and reached for a towel he’d liberated from the adjoining bathroom instead.
“Well? What do you think?”
Eve shook her head. “I don’t know what I think, Zach. What’s happened to my office?”
“Our office.” He tossed the towel onto the new desk and smiled at her. “A little cramped, but not bad, huh?”
“You mean…you mean, we’re going to share this room?”
“Well, I don’t see that we have much choice. The only alternative would have been to rent space elsewhere, and then we’d spend all our time either on the phone or the fax machine. Watch it, Eve, will you? There’s a deliveryman just behind you.”
She stepped aside quickly, just in time for a man wheeling a box-laden dolly to come through the door. “Computer,” she read silently, “monitor, printer…”
“You want I should set this up, mister?”
Eve swung around. Zach was scribbling his name on the delivery invoice.
“No, that’s fine.” He smiled as he handed the invoice over. “I can take care of it.”
“Terrific.” The deliveryman handed Zach one piece of paper, pocketed the other, tipped an imaginary hat to Eve and strolled from the room.
“I figured we can both use this computer,” Zach said as he began opening the first box. “I would have bought two, but considering that we’re cramped for space—to say nothing of money——”
“Zach.” Eve licked her lips. “We can’t both work in this one office.”
He straightened up, put his hands on his hips and fixed her with that inflexible stare she was coming to know so well.
“Why not?”
“Well, because—because…”
Because it would be impossible to get any work done, that was why not. How would she sit here all d
ay, every day, watching as the light gilded Zach’s hair with gold, the way it was doing now? What if he made a habit of working with his jacket off and his shirt sleeves rolled up, so that she’d only have to look up from her desk and see the way his shoulders moved beneath his shirt, or the hard musculature in his forearms?
Eve took a steadying breath. “Because it’s too cramped in here,” she said briskly. She turned away from him, walked to her desk and tossed her briefcase on the blotter. “Look, I’d already thought about this. I knew we’d need more office space.”
“And?”
“And it’s not a problem. There’s an old desk in the basement storeroom. I’ll have the porter bring it up.”
“I’ve already got a desk,” Zach said with a little smile. “And everything else I need. Turns out there’s an office equipment rental store just off Wilshire that’s open from six in the morning until——”
“Not for you, Zach. For me. There’s room in the reception area, if we just shift Emma a little toward the door. As soon as she gets here, I’ll——”
“Don’t be silly, Eve. I’ve no intention of displacing you. Besides, Triad’s producer shouldn’t be stuck out in the reception area.”
“But-but…”
“Listen, I’ve worked in tighter spots than this.” He shot her a disarming smile as he drew his chair out from his desk. “When I was in the Corps——”
“The Corps?” she said blankly.
“The Marine Corps.” He sat down in the chair and leaned back. “One time I ended up in an O.P.—an observation post,” he said, when her eyebrows rose. “It was a hole barely big enough for a flea and me.”
“You? In the Marines?”
Zach nodded. “Yeah. Me. Why do you sound so shocked?”
“Well, I—I just…” Eve sank down in her chair. “I’m having a hard time imagining you taking orders from—what do they call them? Drill instructors?”
Zach laughed and ran his fingers through his hair. “You’ve seen too many movies. DIs aren’t so bad.” His smile tilted. “Besides, taking orders turned out to be just what I needed. The old man had tried making me understand that his way, but…”
He fell silent. What was he doing, talking about himself and the old man? The boy he’d been and the long, hard path that had brought him to manhood were of no interest to anyone but him; hadn’t his ex-wife made that clear?
“Yes,” Eve said, “I can imagine”
Zach looked at her. She was very still. Only her eyes moved, in a steady sweep of his face.
“I suppose he could have been a difficult man to live with,” she said in a steady voice. “But I grew up without any father. Maybe that’s why I was more forgiving when Charles came along and tried to take charge of my life.”
“Eve. Listen, you don’t owe me any explanations.”
“I know that, Zach. But I think we’ll work a lot better together if we clear the air.” She hesitated, then gave him a faint smile. “Some of the—the difficulty between us might even be my fault, I suppose. I tend to, well, overreact when I think I’m being accused of having traded on my looks. Anyway, it’s not a long story, I promise.” She took a breath. “Your father and Howard Tolland, the man who used to own Triad, were friends.”
“I know that.”
“Howard was from the old school. He’d never quite figured out that times had changed, that movies audiences have changed——”
“Which is why he produced The Ghost Stallion.“
A faint smile flickered over her lips. “Exactly. I was his secretary, but because he gave memore and more responsibility”
“You began to know as much about Triad as he did.”
“More.” She shrugged. “I’m not boasting, Zach, I just did. Howard was stuck in a time when the big studios ran Hollywood. I’d been out here long enough to know that it was the deal makers who run things now. Howard refused to see my position—we used to argue about it all the time.”
“And one of those times, my father was present?”
“Yes. I had no idea Charles was thinking of buying Triad, I just thought Howard was going to ask him to invest in a project. Charles asked a lot of questions. Hard questions. Howard kept giving me signals to back off, but I wouldn’t.”
Zach smiled. “No. You wouldn’t.”
“The next thing I knew, Charles was Triad’s new owner. He asked me to have dinner with him so we could discuss business.” She shook her head. “I thought he was going to tell me I was fired—you know, the new broom sweeping clean, but——”
“But he offered you the chance to head Triad instead.”
“Yes.” Eve’s eyes met his. He could see the touch of defiance in their blue depths, and in the lift of her chin. “It’s not a woman’s fault if some men are fool enough to fall all over themselves at the sight of a pretty face, but your father wasn’t one of them.”
Zach smiled. “A beautiful face,” he said.
“What?”
“You’re not pretty, Eve. You’re beautiful. And you’re right. My old man never let anything but the bottom line affect his judgment. He’d have made Horace the Wonder Horse head of Triad, if he’d thought it was the right way to go.” His smile faded. “Look, this is my fault. I read the files, I did some checking up——”
“On me,” Eve said flatly.
He nodded. “Yes. And—and I came up with the wrong answers.”
For a minute, he almost told her that it was a lot more than that, that he’d been married to a woman who was an expert at trading for favors…
But Eve was smiling at him in a way she never had before, with a little crinkle to her nose and a sweet curve to her lips, and the sight was enough to send all the dark, angry memories of his ex-wife skittering into the shadows.
“Horace the Wonder Horse, hmm?”
Zach chuckled. “Yeah. We can always put him in to replace us both if Hollywood Wedding flops.”
“Well, then.” Eve’s smile faded. “Have we settled this, Zach? Because I promise, I’m never going to defend myself to you again.”
“You won’t have to.”
“Good.” She stood, stepped back and pushed her hair away from her face. “Now, I’m going to get to work. I’ve got to set up an appointment with Dex Burton’s agent. It won’t be easy, convincing Dex to take this part, but if I can just get his agent to agree to hear me out——”
“Why?” Zach frowned. “It’s a good part. Even I can tell that, just by reading the script.”
“Sure it is. But Dex is just turning the corner in his career. He’s probably looking to take a safe, high-profile role in a megabucks picture for somebody like Spielberg or Disney, and here we come, asking him to play a bad guy in a low-budget movie.”
“A bad guy turned good guy,” Zach said. “An antihero. And playing against type is good for an actor. It stretches his talent.”
Eve leaned back against her desk, folded her arms and chuckled.
“I’m impressed, Mr. Landon. You’ve been doing your homework.” She sighed. “But Dex’s agent won’t want to see it that way. I’ll try to get him to agree to take a meeting on Monday, and then I’ll FedEx the script to him.”
“And then?”
“And then?” she said, puzzled.
“Yes What’s on the agenda after that?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I need to check out some copyright information on a couple of songs we’re going to use in that bar scene, and then I want to go over some details about costumes, and——”
“What about checking out a place for the location shots?”
Eve chewed on her bottom lip. “You’re right. I should take care of that next. I told you I’ve got a place in mind, didn’t I?”
Zach nodded. “A cabin, you said.”
“Yes. A couple of hours into the hills.”
“I’d like to see it,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s not that I don’t trust your judgment, Eve, but as executive producer——”
“Oh, of cours
e. I wouldn’t expect to do something like that on my own. I don’t even know how much it will cost to rent the place. I spent the weekend there, but it was my friend who’d made all the arrangements.”
Zach felt an unexpected coldness form in his belly, but he smiled pleasantly.
“I see.”
“Plus, we’d have to truck in everything. The cast, the crew——”
“I suggest I take a look at this cabin before we make any further plans.”
“Fine.” Eve drew the telephone toward her. “I’ll call Burton’s agent, and then I’ll contact a couple of realtors. Somebody’s bound to have some information.”
Zach nodded. He walked to his desk, sat down and pulled his attache case toward him.
“Good,” he said briskly. “Do whatever it takes to get the keys for a day.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Tomorrow would be a good time,” Zach said, frowning as he took some papers from the attache case. “It’s a Saturday, so it won’t interfere with work.”
“Fine.”
He took a breath. “That is, if you haven’t already made plans for tomorrow?” he said, and looked at her.
Eve stared at him. “You want me to go with you?”
“Of course. What’s the point of me going alone?”
He was right, she thought. He would have final approval, but the concept and setting for Hollywood Wedding were hers.
And yet, the thought of spending the day with him, the entire day, on the top of a mountain that might as well be a million miles from reality was—it was…
“Eve?”
She looked up. Zach’s face was expressionless.
“Have you made other plans for tomorrow?”
She swallowed hard. “No, no, I haven’t.”
“Good.” He nodded briskly and picked up a pencil. “In that case, I’ll pick you up at seven. Okay?”
He waited for her answer, damned near holding his breath as he did. It was ridiculous to feel this way. They were going to spend the day together, but so what? He could handle that.
“Okay,” Eve said at last. What did she have to be afraid of? She could handle this.
Zach nodded and bent over the string of numbers before him.
“Tomorrow, then,” he said, and spent the rest of the morning pretending that he hadn’t conned her into agreeing to spend the day with him—and that he had at least some faint idea of what in hell the blur of numbers on the page in front of him was supposed to mean.
Hollywood Wedding Page 10
