Just Another Pretty Face (HT 459) (20 page)

He glared right back, not the least bit intimidated by her glowering expression. "Neither of us is moving one inch from this spot until you calm down and tell me just exactly what you're up to."

"What I'm up to is my job," Nikki shot back. "The one Kingston Productions hired me to do and the one you've been doing your level best to keep me from doing properly."

"How have I kept you from doing your job?" Pierce demanded. "I've agreed to the monitor at the gate, haven't I? And the panic button by my bed? I've agreed to the dogs patrolling the grounds at night. And those damned reports. I agreed to those, didn't I?"

"Half measures," Nikki accused.

"What the hell else do you want?"

"I want motion detectors along the perimeter of the wall, and alarms on all the exits and entrances, including windows. I want this estate to be off-limits to anyone who might be a suspect, and I want the right to question those suspects as I see fit. I want you to stay in this house under a twenty-four-hour guard. And I want a limousine with bullet-proof glass and a chauffeur trained in evasive driving techniques for those times when you absolutely have to go out. But most of all," she said, her breath coming hard and fast in her agitation, "what I want is for you to start taking this whole thing seriously."

"I'll give you the motion detectors on the perimeter," Pierce said, entranced by the utter magnificence of her feminine fury, "and the limousine with the bullet proof glass, but that's all."

"Damn it, Pierce! This isn't some movie you're in. It's real life.
Your
life. And you're in real danger. Why can't you understand that?"

"I understand it," he said quietly. "I understand it much better than you think. But what
you
have to understand is that I meant what I said in the taxi. I'm not going to let it govern the way I live my life. I'll put up with the alarms and the guards since you seem to think they're so necessary. I'll even try to restrict my movements to make myself less of a target—for a while, anyway. But what I won't put up with, what I absolutely refuse to condone, is accusing anyone of anything without proof. I'm not about to allow you to grill my staff, or anyone else as if they were convicted felons. Neither will I ban anyone from this house because of something they
might
be guilty of."

"And if someone tries to murder you in your sleep again?"

"That someone will have to get past those alarms of yours first, won't she?"

"Pierce!"

"That's absolutely my final word on it." His stare was as uncompromising as a stonewall. "Take it or leave it."

Nikki thought about it for about ten seconds. She was sorely tempted to leave it. To just walk away, then and there, instead of continuing to try to protect him with one hand tied behind her back. But she couldn't. "All right," she snarled, and jerked her arm out of his hold. "But I'm getting those motion detectors installed tomorrow," she threatened, and stalked off down the hall to the kitchen.

Pierce let out a breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding. He didn't know what he would have done if she'd taken the other option. Probably promised to put himself in solitary confinement and let her have the key to his cell.
No,
he thought, his pirate's grin beginning to curve his lips as he followed her furiously twitching hips down the hall. He'd have promised to put himself in solitary confinement if she went with him. And then thrown away the key.

* * *

"
B
UT WHY IS THE PREMIERE
of
The Devil's Game
so all-fired important?" Nikki asked for what seemed like the tenth time. She intended to keep asking until she got a satisfactory answer. "The film's going to be shown tonight whether you go or not. People have already purchased their tickets," she argued. "So I don't see how your not going can affect—"

"Movie," Pierce said as he handed her a champagne flute filled with ginger ale.

"What?"

"Movie," Tara said, and reached out to accept the glass her brother-in-law held out to her. "Ingmar Bergman makes films."

"Pronounced with two syllables," Gage put in.

Tara smiled at him. "Fil-ums," she said obediently, the wide skirts of her taffeta gown rustling softly as she sat down on the chintz sofa with her ginger ale. "Kingston Productions makes movies."

"There's a difference?" Nikki asked.

Pierce looked at the ceiling. "The woman's a heathen," he said to no one in particular. "Fil-ums," he explained to Nikki, "are full of literary symbolism and deep meaning. They're meant to educate and enlighten the audience." He took a sip of champagne. "Movies, on the other hand, are meant to entertain them."

"That's very interesting," she said. "But it still doesn't tell me why it's so important that you attend this particular movie premiere."

"Well." He stuck his hands into his pants pockets and ducked his head modestly, lifting his wide shoulders in an aw-shucks shrug. "I
am
the star," he said, looking up at her from under his lashes. "Isn't that reason enough?"

"No," Nikki said bluntly.

Gage lifted an eyebrow at his brother. "Tenacious, isn't she?"

Pierce grinned. "One of her many charms."

Nikki gritted her teeth. "Pierce," she said warningly.

"Oh, go ahead and tell her," Gage said.

"Tell who, what?" Claire asked as she came into the garden room with a tall, tuxedoed young man trailing close behind her. She introduced him to Nikki as her administrative assistant, Robert.

"Pierce was just about to tell Nikki why it's so all-fired important that he be at the premiere of
The Devil's Game
tonight when she's already told him it's too much of a security risk," Gage said when the introductions were over.

Claire's lovely face clouded with concern. "Is it too much of a risk?"

"No," Pierce said.

"Yes," Nikki said at the same time.

"If you really think it—" Claire began.

"I'm going and that's final," Pierce said firmly. He looked at Nikki. "Why do I always find myself issuing ultimatums when I'm around you?" he asked, as if he were truly perplexed by a newly discovered phenomenon.

"Probably because you're an insensitive, pigheaded, macho jerk who doesn't know what's good for him."

"No, go ahead and tell him what you really think," Gage said. "Don't be shy around us."

Nikki blushed but the laughter was good-natured.

"I think you ought to tell her the truth," Claire said when it died down. "After all," she said dryly, nodding her thanks for the glass of champagne Gage handed to her, "you wouldn't want her to continue thinking of you as an insensitive jerk."

Nikki looked at Pierce expectantly.

"Well..." His broad shoulders shifted uneasily under the fine black material of his tuxedo jacket. "The truth is, I'm a little nervous about this one. Well, not this one but the next one."

Gage snickered into his champagne. "A little?"

Nikki ignored him. "Why?"

Pierce shrugged again, managing, somehow, to look endearingly sheepish. It was a side of him she'd never seen before. A very appealing side.

"Oh, for goodness' sake," Claire said. "You'd think you were confessing to doing a remake of
Heaven's Gate.
The reason he—" she motioned toward her brother with the champagne glass in her hand "—is so insistent on attending this premiere is the same reason he's been so insistent on doing all the extra publicity for
The Devil's Game,"
she said. "His next project is going to be a romantic comedy—completely out of character for him. Well," she admended, "out of character with the character he usually plays. Actually the character of Matt Gleason is going to be a lot more like the real Pierce than anything he's ever done before."

"Which is what's making him so nervous," said Gage.

Nikki looked back and forth between Pierce's siblings. "I don't understand."

"That's because neither one of them knows what the hell they're talking about," Pierce growled.

Claire ignored him. "He thinks he needs to build up as much career momentum on this movie as possible in case the next one's a bomb. Which it won't be," she said, and flashed a triumphant smile at her brother. "As of 1:12 p.m. this afternoon," she announced, "Penny Marshall has agreed to direct."

Pierce's lips turned up in a blinding smile of boyish delight. "You did it," he exulted, and saluted her with his glass. "You said you would."

"Excuse me," Marjorie Gilmore said from the door as glasses were being raised all around in acknowledgment of Claire Kingston's latest coup. "The car has arrived."

Pierce looked at the thin gold watch on his wrist. "Right on time," he said, and put down his unfinished glass of champagne. "We'd better get going."

"A few minutes more won't hurt—" Claire began, and then laughed. "Oh, all right. Let's go before he starts to pout."

As everybody put down their glasses and got to their feet to begin the general exodus toward the door, Nikki suddenly became aware of one very glaring fact. She was amazed she hadn't noticed it before.

"What?" said Pierce, immediately catching her expression of discomfort.

Nikki looked back and forth between the other two women. Tara was resplendent in an amethyst gown of crisp taffeta with a low sweeping neckline that bared the creamy skin of her shoulders and the tops of her lush breasts. Claire was as elegant as a princess in a strapless ivory silk sheath with intricate, understated bead-work covering the bodice. "You're both wearing long dresses," she said.

"So?" Pierce said. "Is that a problem?"

"Oh, Pierce," said Claire, immediately understanding what Nikki meant. "Don't be so male."

Nikki's dress was a pale shiny green satin, the shade falling somewhere between lime sherbet and chartreuse, and almost an exact match for her unusual eyes. The style was simple with a high mandarin collar that emphasized the length of her neck and a narrow hem that stopped well above her knees, showcasing her chorus-girl legs. She wore a loose collarless jacket over it, almost as long as the dress itself, completely covered with iridescent paillettes that sparkled and shimmered with every movement of her body. Her gun and shoulder holster were under it.

"You look lovely," Claire said truthfully. "The dress is exquisite and so are you. Pierce has excellent taste."

"You're not just trying to be nice?"

"No, she's not just trying to be nice," Pierce said. "I really do have excellent taste." He hustled them out the door of the garden room and down the hall to the front door. "Now let's get this show on the road."

* * *

"
OH, I DON'T LIKE THIS," Nikki said uneasily as the specially built stretch limousine pulled up to the front of the theater. The crowd was loud and rambunctious, forming a gauntlet on either side of the red velvet ropes that cordoned off a pathway across the sidewalk between the line of limousines and the front door. "I don't like this at all."

There was no way to protect a person in a crowd like this, not when you were a force of one just one person, Nikki fretted, watching the fans' frenzied reaction as each sleek automobile disgorged its famous passengers. She'd wanted to hire more bodyguards for the evening, enough to surround him and keep him reasonably safe in case anything happened, but Pierce wouldn't hear of it, so she'd secretly arranged for two of Bill Bender's best operatives to be part of the crowd. Every extra hand would help if an attempt was made on him tonight. And if Pierce didn't like what she'd done, so be it. He didn't have to like it.

The crowd sent up a loud cheer as Andie Mac-Dowell stepped out of the limousine just ahead of theirs. Pierce's leading lady waved and smiled, graciously acknowledging the enthusiastic accolades before disappearing into the theater. All eyes turned toward the last limousine. Nikki felt her stomach clench as the uniformed doorman leaned over to open the rear door. Cheers rose as she stepped out onto the sidewalk, then died down as the crowd realized she was nobody famous—although one or two avid tabloid readers called out her name. The noise surged again, politely, as first Gage, then Claire and, finally, her assistant—none of them readily recognizable faces—exited the limousine. It swelled much more enthusiastically when Tara appeared. She hadn't made a movie since
The Promise
two years ago, and she had vowed never to do another after she became pregnant with her first child, but the crowd remembered her. Mainly from her two-year stint as Jessica on the still-popular soap opera "As Time Goes By."

"We love you, Jessica," yelled somebody who obviously didn't know she was no longer on the show. Tara smiled sweetly and lifted her hand in a gracious wave.

There was an expectant eager hush; the crowd knew who to expect now. There was a sort of collective gasp, as if they were all holding their breaths, and then Pierce stepped out of the back seat of the limousine. Someone squealed. Someone else hollered his name. Applause broke out.

It was a movie premiere like movie premieres used to be in Hollywood's golden years, when movie stars were royalty and knew how to behave like it. Glamour and showmanship had been bred into Pierce Kingston from the cradle, fed to him through his mother's milk, honed through a lifetime of working on his craft. He smiled his twelve-million-dollar smile and raised his hand to acknowledge the accolades of the crowd.

They went wild, surging against the velvet ropes, screaming his name.

Nikki stayed close beside him as they began the slow trek across the pavement. Her gaze darted over the crowd, assessing it, looking for something unfamiliar, something out of the ordinary, something that would tell her what was going to happen a split second before it did. She fretted as Pierce ambled along at what seemed like a snail's pace to her, exchanging a word here and there, shaking a hand, signing autographs. She wanted to put her hand on his back and hurry him along, tell him to quit dawdling and get inside.

And then the velvet rope broke, or came loose from its mooring, and the crowd spilled forward, surrounding them, separating them. Nikki looked around wildly, trying to find her backup in the crowd, rudely elbowing her way back to Pierce's side. She had almost reached him when she saw something that triggered all her defensive reflexes. A slender figure, a bouncy brown shoulder-length bob, a hand reaching into a UCLA backpack and pulling out something long and... Nikki reached for her gun but the crowd was too thick to risk firing it. She shoved it back into her shoulder holster before it had cleared leather.