Heartthrob (5 page)

Jamaal sat for a moment in silence.

Victor just waited for him to speak.

Kate took a sip of her coffee, also waiting. This was it. If Jamaal didn’t want in now, after Victor’s vivid telling of the part of the movie that dealt with Jane and Moses’ complex relationship, there was nothing they could do to convince him.

The young man finally cleared his throat. “Who’s, uh, who’s playing Jane?”

Victor didn’t hesitate. “Susie McCoy.” Kate nearly dropped her coffee mug.

“No shit? That cute little kid from
Slumberparty
and
The Thing in the Basement
,” Jamaal paused. “She old enough?”

“She’s fifteen now. She’s got her own sitcom.
Uptown Girl?
”

“Yeah, I’ve seen promos for that show. That’s Susie McCoy? The blonde?”

“That’s her.”

“Whoa. She’s still real cute.”

“Uh-huh.”

“How about Laramie?” Jamaal asked. “Who you got lined up to play him?”

Kate felt her fingers tighten around the handle of the
mug. Again, Victor spoke as if the contract were already on his desk. “Jericho Beaumont.”

“Oh, man, he’s great. But he’s been off the map for what? Five years? Is he gonna draw? Or will he give this picture a B-list feel?”

“He’ll draw. The curiosity factor alone will bring people in. He’s a brilliant actor, despite all his personal problems.”

“I know,” Jamaal said. “I’ve always wanted to work with him. I never thought I’d have a chance.”

“Sign on, and you will.”

Kate opened the door and stood there, gazing at Victor. How could he make promises to Jamaal like this? He glanced up at her, and he didn’t even have the grace to blush.

“So what do you think?” Victor asked Jamaal.

The young actor wasn’t quite convinced. “I’m not sure about being out of the City for the entire summer …”

“I know the amount we’ve offered seems low to you, but both Jericho and Susie have agreed to work for union scale. You’d be the highest-paid actor on the set.”

“Yeah?” It was obvious that that idea appealed to Jamaal.

“What d’ya say? You wanna win an Oscar next year? Are you in?”

Jamaal laughed and nodded. “Yeah, sure. Why not? Send whatever you need signed to my agent.”

Kate cleared her throat pointedly, and Victor glanced up at her again. “Hey, look, let me introduce you to our producer—Mary Kate O’Laughlin. I’m sorry, Katie, I would’ve called you to join us when Jamaal first came in, but I didn’t realize you were back there.”

“No kidding.” Kate shot him a look that was meant to burn a hole through him.

Jamaal stood, and Kate met him halfway across the room, reaching out to shake his hand. She forced herself to
smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Jamaal. But before you—”

“Jamaal’s in a hurry.” Victor herded the young man toward the door. “I’ll send the papers this afternoon.”

As the door closed behind Jamaal, Kate glared at Victor. “You lied to him. You sat there, and you
lied
to him.”

“Katie, Katie, Katie. It doesn’t have to be a lie.” Victor’s blue eyes danced behind the lenses of his glasses as he came toward her, smiling his most engaging smile.

Her ex-husband was mercurial and ageless, even with the gray in both his hair and his neatly trimmed beard. He was a charming, mischievous boy-man—as innocently, blamelessly egocentric as a two-year-old.

“All I need to do is make two phone calls, and everything I said to Jamaal will be the absolute truth,” he told her.

That stopped her. “You’re telling me Susie McCoy is ready to sign?”

“Provided Jericho is cast as Virgil Laramie.”

There was a sudden sharp pain directly behind her right eye. “We need to talk about this, Victor. I’m not sure you understand exactly—”

He pulled her close. “Great,” he murmured, kissing her neck. “Let’s talk about Beaumont.” He kissed her again, this time expertly catching her mouth with his. His lips were soft and warm, and he tasted faintly of cigarettes and the single glass of wine he must have had at lunch.

And for one one hundredth of a second, Kate let herself enjoy the sennation. God, how long had it been since she’d last had a lover? Three years? Or was it four?

Four. It had been nearly four years since she’d ended her relationship with John Bittler. And what she’d had with John had been so polite and reserved. It had been nothing like the madly passionate wildness she’d shared with Victor seven long years ago.

But Kate knew that her ex-husband, as exciting as he
was, couldn’t give her anything more than great sex. And if there was one thing she’d learned by being married to him, it was that she wanted more than that. She wanted a whole lot more.

And she wanted to keep Victor as a friend. She liked having him as a friend.

She shook herself free from his arms. “No,” she said. “No, no, no. I’m not going to sleep with you. Consider that a given. An unchangeable, indisputable fact. Two plus two equals four, E equals MC squared, you and I are not going to get it on. Don’t you dare try to confuse things.”

“Actually, I thought it would bring clarity to the situation.” He was grinning at her. “I figured if I could get you to start saying ‘oh, baby, yes, baby,’ some of that general agreement might carry over into our discussion about Jericho.”

Kate couldn’t keep from laughing. “Spoken like the absolute, low-down toad you truly are.”

“Hey, relax. I was only kidding.”

“And I wasn’t.”

He sat down on the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table. “So. Jericho Beaumont. I want him. You don’t. How are we going to deal with this?”

She sat down across from him. “Pistols at dawn?”

“Name your second, babe.”

Kate stared at him. He was going with her joke, but there was a certain unnerving seriousness in his eyes. Was it really possible that he wanted Jericho badly enough to walk away from this project?

Victor shifted in his seat. “Not to intentionally change the subject, but as long as I’m airing my grievances, I’m still waiting for you to set up a time for me to meet with the writer—what’s-his-name. Nick Chadler.”

Kate studied her nails. “He’s still out of the country.”

He propped his hands up behind his head. “It’s been
months, and I still haven’t met this guy. I need to discuss some revisions. The ending’s not right.”

She looked up at him in shock. “Ex
cuse
me? You’re planning to change the ending?”

The irony was incredible. The studio that had hired Victor to direct his last project,
Teardrop Twenty
, hadn’t liked the way that film had ended. They’d ordered Victor to change it, and when he’d refused, they’d hired someone else to do it for them. And the movie he’d worked on, bled for, slaved over for nearly two years had been completely changed, and he’d had no legal right even to protest.

Teardrop Twenty
was the reason Victor had been so eager to move into the realm of independent productions. It was the reason he’d jumped at the chance of directing
The Promise.
Because when an independent film was made, funding came from outside of the Hollywood studio system. The studios were only involved at the very end, after the movie was in the can. At that point, if a studio liked a particular film, they could offer to buy it and distribute it.

But they couldn’t change it. Not without permission.

“How could you want to change the ending?” she asked. “I love the ending.”

“The bad guy—you know, the plantation owner, Reginald Brooks—comes out ahead in the end. Laramie ends up trading him the land he promised his father he’d never sell. What kind of ending is that? Laramie loses. Where’s the justice?”

Kate was practically sputtering. “Laramie doesn’t lose—he wins! Jane was ready to give up her future and marry Brooks in return for Moses’ freedom. Instead Laramie trades Brooks his family land and saves both Jane and Moses. Laramie wins because his act of humanity helps restore his own life—it helps him come alive again, and you’re not listening to a single thing I’m saying, are you?”

“Jericho Beaumont, Susie McCoy, and Jamaal Hawkes.” Victor sat up, unable to contain his energy and excitement. “With those names, we could have our pick of distributors, Katie. We could negotiate some control over the promotion—demand a substantial advertising budget. This movie could be huge.”

“Provided the movie gets made.”

Victor made a face. “What does that mean? Of course the movie will get made.”

Kate leaned forward, too. “If you cast Jericho Beaumont, you might be dooming this picture. At the very least, you’d be dooming
me
to nearly three months of intense anxiety.”

Victor was unmoved. “You’re the producer. Get used to it. Anxiety comes with the territory.”

“Somewhere between doom and fear of doom is everything this man could do wrong.” She ticked each item off on her fingers. “Late arrivals, slurred speech, inability to remember lines and blocking, erratic behavior, no shows … And God help us if your precious Jericho should do something really irresponsible like die. He could start drinking again, Victor. Or using drugs. What substance abuser can ever guarantee that he won’t? He could start again, overdose, and die. If it happened any later than the first few weeks of the shoot, this movie will die with him.”

“Look, I’ve talked to some of the directors Jericho has worked with in the past. The key is to control what he uses. Apparently he never used street drugs, only prescription medications—you know, pick-me-ups during the day, sleeping pills at night. We could provide him with small amounts of—”

“Oh!” Kate wanted to close her eyes and plug her ears. “Oh, oh! I can’t believe even
you
would have the indecency to stoop that low. Not only is that despicably illegal, but God, Victor! What if Jericho
is
clean? Think about what that might do to him!”

Victor wasn’t fazed. He shrugged. “If Jericho’s clean, then we don’t have a problem.”

“But the stress of having to carry a movie might be too much for him to handle. A starring role like Laramie would put pressure on someone who’s completely healthy, let alone—” Kate took a deep breath. It was important to keep breathing. Without air, she would just keel over. “Victor, I know you see only the possibility of greatness. You see Jericho’s talent. He shines, I’m not arguing about that. It’s all over that audition tape. But I’m not convinced that he’s going to be able to carry this movie—both physically and mentally. I don’t want to gamble all the millions of dollars I’ve busted my ass finding for this project. I’m not willing to bet all that on someone like Jericho. I can’t take that risk—and I can guarantee that the other financial backers won’t want to take that risk, either. There’s got to be someone else who can play this part.”

Victor stood up. “Katie. I hear everything you’re saying. And I know what I should do is agree with you and find someone else.” He shook his head. “But I can’t do it. I can’t make this movie knowing that I could have had my number one, absolute, perfect cast. I can’t do it knowing that I’ve got to settle across the board. Because if I don’t get Jericho, I don’t have Susie. And without the two of them, I won’t have Jamaal.”

“Victor—”

He held up his hand. “I love you, you know that, and this is the best script I’ve seen in about ten years, but I
will
walk away from both you and this script if you don’t let me cast Jericho. I’m sorry, babe, but it’s ultimatum time. I want Jericho. Susie and Jamaal want Jericho. If you want me to stay connected, it’s up to you to figure out a way to make the backers want Jericho, too.”

H
e’d seen her naked.

Jed paused outside the door to Mary Kate O’Laughlin’s production office, and focused for just a moment on that empowering thought.

He
had
seen her naked. And he’d seen her naked just last night, as a matter of fact.

Although
The Promise
was O’Laughlin’s first foray into the world of movie producing, Jed had done a little research and found out that although she’d spent most of the past decade building her parent’s office supply business into a regional conglomerate, she was no stranger to the Hollywood scene.

And her connection wasn’t merely through her shortlived marriage to director Vic Strauss. Mary Kate O’Laughlin had left her suburban Boston home at the tender age of eighteen, another of the many wide-eyed innocents drawn to the glitter and shine of Los Angeles. She’d washed up on the shores of Southern California under the pretense of attending UCLA. And although getting a college degree was one of her goals, it was a secondary goal, for sure. She
was really just another moth lured by the Hollywood flame.

She’d met Vic on the set of some low-budget horror movie. He was a second unit director, she was the third victim of the
Hillsdale Horror
, showing up on the credits under the name “Katie Marie.” She had three lines of dialogue before she met her demise—all of it spoken breathlessly as she’d danced in firelight, clad only in the barely there lace of her underwear.

She had a body to die for, and Vic had clearly recognized her B-movie potential, because “Katie Marie” had shown up in his next picture as well—
Dead of Night
, another low-budget flick that he’d helmed. The movie had become a cult classic, propelling him to mainstream fame and fortune.