Lady Be Bad (2 page)

The telephone's shrill interruption made
Marlayna's precise slice go jaggedly awry. "Yes?"

"How was your flight back?"

She smiled the instant Paul Wingate's lazy
voice reached her ear. "Nicely cool, unlike my assignment." With
her hip balanced on the edge of the desk, she slowly extracted an
engraved card while she continued to talk. "Honestly, Paul, why is
it always the fur company who decides to have their winter coats
photographed in the Mojave Desert in the dead of summer?"

His laughter was rich. "You should know by
now that fashion is an ass-backward industry, kiddo." Paul turned
serious. "I hope the dry heat didn't ruin the 'Face of the
Century.'"

Now it was Marlayna's turn to laugh.
"Strange —" her fingers skidded across her makeup-free complexion ,
"I've had this same face for twenty-nine years and no one has ever
thought it worthy of this much concern."

"Don't let Arthur Kingman hear you slander
your pores," Paul admonished. "Since you've been 'The Face of
Kingman Cosmetics, sales have tripled, King Arthur's been a
pussycat to deal with, and my migraines have disappeared. You are
hot stuff these days, and Kingman's anxious to make sure your face
belongs only to him. You should have seen his expression when he
saw the newest layout; the man ran out of adjectives. Listen,
kiddo, I have big plans for you…"

But Marlayna wasn't listening. She wasn't
feeling. She wasn't even breathing. She just continued to stare at
the embossed invitation, completely hypnotized by what she was
reading:

Arthur Kingman cordially invites
you to
a dual
celebration
—the engagement of
his daughter
Gwen Lynn to Noah Drake and the opening of
Kingman Castle, Jorstadt Island, in the St.
Law
rence.

Arthur Kingman. Noah Drake. The two names
ballooned to skyscraper proportions. The first man was part of her
present, the second was part of her past and the masculine voice in
her ear was droning on and on with plans for her future.

"P…P...Paul…" Marlayna stuttered, then took
a deep breath before continuing, "Paul, what is the status of my
contract with Kingman Cosmetics?"

"I just got through telling you he approved
the final layout," came Paul's grousing reminder. "Kingman's
doubled his offer for you for another year, but I've been
approached by another cosmetic company. They want you for a
'switch' campaign and—"

"Sign with the competition, Paul," she
directed in a terse voice. "I don't think King Arthur will ever
want to see this face again once he finds me in bed with his
daughter's fiancé."

Marlayna hung up the receiver, effectively
terminating Paul Wingate's horrified shout.

***

"Hello, Paul. What took you so long?"
Marlayna quipped, giving a cursory inspection and a consoling pat
to the apartment door that had just taken a rather brutal
pounding.

"Sleeping Beauty." Paul jerked his thumb
back over his shoulder at the yawning woman who slowly followed in
his anxious wake.

"Hi, sweetie." Sylvia Davies greeted her
friend with her usual hug and kiss. The kiss, however, turned into
another yawn. "Am I all together?" Brown eyes blinked owlishly at
Marlayna and waited for approval.

"I've never seen you untogether in the six
years I've known you."

"Can you believe the nerve of this guy,
pounding on my door and waking me up at this ghastly hour?" Sylvia
paused to check herself in the brass-framed entry mirror.

Paul looked at her in disgust, then at his
trembling hands. "It's four o'clock on Sunday afternoon, Sylvia."
His hands were first shoved into the pockets of his thin denim
jacket and then into his jeans. "That's hardly a ghastly hour."

She continued to study her reflection,
refastening a stray wisp of platinum hair that had escaped her
elegant chignon and used her pinky to neaten the corners of a mauve
sculpted mouth. "Paulie, you know I use Sunday to recover from
Friday and Saturday and get invigorated for work on Monday."

Sylvia turned to face him, crossing her arms
over the front of her light green silk pajamas. "Besides, what is
all the fuss? It has done me a world of good to hear that this lady
is finally going bad. What we have in Marlayna is a woman who has
teased and charmed her way out of any and every potentially
intimate situation. The lady who always says no is finally saying
yes.

"Although, pet …" she shifted her gaze to
her smiling female companion, "…don't you think you should wait and
see little Gwen's fiancé? I mean, King Art's baby princess is only
twenty-three, and perhaps the burgeoning little prince is the same.
Or could it be that younger men are your downfall?" Her left
eyebrow arched, forming three unaccustomed wrinkles on her smooth
forehead. "Perhaps this is a ploy to make Arthur jealous? Everyone
in the industry knows he begins to harden and salivate just looking
at your photos."

Paul shook a clenched fist in warning.
"Marlayna, if you're trying to make Kingman jealous, use somebody
else. Gwen is his second greatest treasure after his cosmetic
empire."

Sylvia nodded. "I hate to admit this, but I
agree with Paulie." Her fingers combed back a lock of silver hair
that had fallen across his eyebrow. "In fact, I'd even suggest you
use Paulie, but then everyone knows that he'd only get excited if
your name was Marlon."

"Now, now, that's enough, you two." Marlayna
quickly stepped between her two ready-to-spar friends. "Come on
inside and we can talk. I've made coffee and Pearl left some
Danish."

"I doubt if coffee will neutralize Sylvia's
acid tongue," Paul returned sarcastically.

"Nothing will do that, pet," Sylvia purred,
"but I need at least three cups of hot caffeine before I hear one
more word of this story."

"At least calm my nerves about one thing,"
Paul persisted, dropping onto a cream sofa cushion. "Are you doing
this to make Kingman jealous?"

Marlayna settled sideways in a mauve swivel
rocker and gestured at the oak cocktail table for them to help
themselves to coffee and pastries. "You both know Arthur Kingman
has approached me on too many occasions. But the man's not looking
for a real woman. Arthur wants a centerpiece, an ornament; he wants
a perfect model for a wife." Her lips curved and her eyes flashed
with impish delight. "We all know I'm none of the above."

Waving away the steaming cup Sylvia was
offering, Paul reached for the crystal decanter next to the silver
coffeepot and filled another delicate china cup with brandy. She
was right, he mused in thoughtful silence, Marlayna O'Brian was
neither a centerpiece, an ornament or a model.

He and Sylvia had turned her into the
latter. Marlayna was a woman with two stage- mothers, although he
preferred to be labeled Pygmalion to her Galatea. Paul took a
healthy swallow of brandy and thought about all the Galatea's he
had sculpted in his twenty-five years as head of the international
corps of Wingate models.

There were too many to count. Paul was a
beauty peddler, dipping into a seemingly endless supply of comely
talent. Some models had gone on to become actors and actresses;
some had become reality stars; a few had even become authors. He
had polished and promoted all his protégés and earned millions in
the process. None of them, however, had moved into his personal
life, into his very soul the way Marlayna O'Brian had over the last
six years.

She was nothing if not solid, unpretentious
and — Paul gave an inward chuckle still disgustingly wholesome.
That was the reason she was in great demand. A face that looked
virginal on a curvy, womanly body. Marlayna hadn't wanted to be a
model, hadn't come to the Big Apple seeking the glossy page, but
she had handled the whole nutty, narcissistic industry with
panache.

Paul's blue gaze studied the smiling woman
who was playfully half-rocking, half-swiveling in the chair.
Marlayna looked happy. An expression Paul knew had been an elusive
one for the last six years. His hand shook slightly as he raised
the liquor-filled cup to his mouth. Six years! Another gulp of
brandy instantly seared him from the inside out in fiery, delicious
heat. Eyes closed, his silver head lolling back against the
cushion, Paul let that mellowed warmth transport him back — to the
first time he had ever seen Marlayna O'Brian.

On the way to check on final arrangements
for a fashion show with the buyer at Lord & Taylor's, he had
cut through the cosmetic department. There he encountered Sylvia
Davies beginning to work her magic on one of the most pale,
depressed, pinched faces he had ever seen.

He had mouthed "good luck" to Sylvia behind
the young woman's back and continued to the meeting. An hour later,
on the way out of the department store, he saw the finished face —
a face that had come alive under skilled hands and color-filled
makeup pots. And Paul Wingate knew that if that face could hold his
rapt attention, it could hold a client's.

"So the ugly duckling was really a swan
after all," came his firm pronouncement. He watched the woman's
artfully shadowed blue gray eyes shift toward Sylvia in wary
silence. "Tell her I'm famous but quite harmless."

"He's famous but very, very harmless," the
platinum blonde dutifully recited. "And she was always a swan,
Paul," Sylvia plumped out the younger woman's dark curls. "I'm just
helping her out of hibernation. Marlayna O'Brian meet Paul Wingate,
Wingate Modeling Agency. Marlayna's staying with me for a
while."

'"You? With a female roomie, Sylvia?" Paul's
eyebrows arched. "I'm surprised Manhattan hasn’t sunk."

"Add caustic to the list of Paulie's
attributes," Lord & Taylor's head cosmetic buyer directed to
her wide-eyed friend.

"Caustic but charming," he added, then aimed
a full blast of charm toward her companion. "Have you ever thought
of becoming a model?"

"I'm a lab technician at the Raydon Medical
Laboratory."

His ear found her languid accent soothing.
"You're not from New York."

"Atlanta. I've been here for just six
weeks."

"How about discussing your new career over
coffee." Paul invited.

"My . . . my . . . new career?" She
stammered. "I'm sorry, Mr. Wingate, but you've made a mistake.
Models are thin and beautiful and I'm not."

His hand slid under her elbow. "Coffee, no
sugar or cream." He guided her off the stool and continued to
over-rule her every stuttered objection. "You're the perfect
height, maybe a little too busty and hippy, but then again with
that curvy figure and the ebony hair you'll stand out over the
batch of California sun-toasted blondes that cavort on the fashion
pages these days."

Over black coffee for him and a glass of
water for her, Paul used all of his persuasive powers, threw in
monetary enticements and an overflow of other glamorous
seducements —all to no avail.

"I am really sorry, Mr. Wingate," she had
repeated for the millionth time. "I am not interested. Thank you
for your time and trouble and the water and the crackers.”

"I'm not giving up," Paul warned, sliding a
card into the pocket of her white lab coat when she stood to leave.
"Sylvia should have also added
pest
to my character sketch.
When I see something I want, I go after it until I get it."

Paul had kept his promise, and with Sylvia's
help, he became an almost weekly intruder into Marlayna O'Brian's
life. But the lady was adamant and insistent, and after a month, he
did give up. Five weeks later, she came knocking on the door of his
plush Upper East Side skyscraper office. Her face was paler and
more pinched than the first time he had seen her, her mental
condition more depressed, and her body, thinner and fragile
looking.

"Mr. Wingate, I... I lost my lab job and
I've got a lot of medical bills. If you still think you'd like to
take on the job of making me into a model ..."

He had stared for a long moment into bleak
gray-blue eyes. "I think I'm going to take on the job of making you
a happy, healthy woman first. What has Sylvia been doing to
you?"

"Just taking care of me. If it wasn't for
her…"

"What happened?"

"Divorce and a ... a miscarriage."

Paul's hands cradled her face. "That's all
in the past, Marlayna. With Sylvia and me for friends, you're going
to have a wonderful present and future."

It had taken nearly a year to get Marlayna
mentally and physically healthy. The more Paul became involved with
her, the more beautiful she became — a beauty that had nothing to
do with her face and figure. She was intelligent, compassionate,
witty and a natural confidante. Her low-key manner was engaging,
and when she spoke, he found he wanted to hear her every word,
straining so as not to miss a thing she said.

He had taken the business side of Marlayna
O'Brian slowly. Her initiation was the photo portfolio. As Paul had
anticipated, the camera loved her and seemingly from any angle. Her
complexion now at twenty-nine still held the youthful freshness it
had at twenty-three, her facial bone structure was soft but strong,
and thick, curly, dark hair enhanced Marlayna's features.

She was five foot eight, beautifully
proportioned and, even though she was ten pounds over what the
agency normally would allow, the weight looked perfect on her,
making her more realistic to the millions of women who read fashion
magazines and bought beauty products.

Over the ensuing years, Paul had brought
Marlayna gently through the ranks: fashion shows, catalogue work,
various magazine layouts; her face was just now debuting on the
leading magazine covers. Last year she had been featured in the
fabled
Sports
Illustrated
bathing suit issue and
calendar. Then had come Arthur Kingman's excited phone call and an
exclusive, seven figure-a-year contract to be "The Face of Kingman
Cosmetics."