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THE CROWD PLEASERS

The shocking, intimate worlds of fashion, politics, and international film making are brought into breathtaking focus in THE CROWD PLEASERS-the most daring, sensual, and romantic novel yet by Rosemary Rogers. The action moves from London to Big Sur to the lush island set of a glamour-charged motion picture, where an Arab prince and America's hottest male star clash over the most sought after model in the world.

THE CROWD PLEASERS

ROSEMARY ROGERS

AVON PUBLISHERS OF BARD, CAMELOT AND DISCUS BOOKS

THE CROWD PLEASERS is an original publication of Avon Books. This work has never before appeared in book form.

Photograph of the author on the back cover by Walter Swarthaut.

AVON BOOKS A division of The Hearst Corporation 959 Eighth Avenue New York, New York 10019

Copyright ©1978 by Rosemary Rogers Published by arrangement with the author.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 78-57656 ISBN: 0-380-38927-4

All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Lenninger Literary Agency, Inc., 437 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10016

First Avon Printing, August, 1978

AVON TRADEMARK REG. U.S. PAT. OFF. AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO EN

U.S.A.

Printed in the U.S.A.

PART THREE The Producer

PART SIX Curtain Call

Giovanni, conamore persempre

THE 'STAND-IN

ANNE WATCHED THE SNOW FALL, blown in white sheets across the dark garden to flatten itself against her windows. With the flickering light of a dying fire sending grotesque shadows dancing against papered walls, she had sat by the big windows and watched the blizzard outside-an impatient, slashing, fury of a storm that would no doubt bring down power lines and block highways everywhere.

It must be so cold outside, she thought with an involuntary shiver. Angry cold-nothing like the inert, unfeeling coldness in the very center of herself.

Cold-equated with unfeeling. Damn! Why not say "frigid" and be done with it? She had started using that word to herself long before Craig had ever said it aloud. In the very beginning, when he was still being patient with her, he'd been gently teasing, calling her "my little ice-maiden." He'd put her unresponsiveness down to the fact that he'd married a virgin, and he'd spent a lot of time at first in trying to help her "unwind and grow less stiff," as he'd put it.

Well, she had tried, at first. But when she drank more than she was used to, she only felt sick and dizzy. And when she'd gone with Craig to see a couple of those X-rated films all his friends were raving about, they only made her feel disgusted and even more stiff when he tried to make love to her afterwards. "Anne ! What's the matter with you? What do you need that I'm not giving you? Goddammit, I'm your husband, you know! Why do you freeze up every time I touch you?"

But she didn't know. She didn't even understand herself; how could she answer him?

It was an instinctive thing that none of the marriage manuals she dutifully read had prepared her for: something inviolate inside herself that didn't want to be reached-or perhaps the recurrence of her childhood nightmare, the one she always thought of as

"The Dream."

She had a fear of the ocean, because of the Dream. Even of flying over the ocean.

And after a while Craig, with his demands, was like the ocean, trying to swallow her up. But that was another thing she could never tell Craig. "Only a night-mare; I'm sorry I woke you up, Craig," she'd say, turning away from him.

Poor Craig! Away from him she could think that now. He'd tried too, she supposed.

And it really wasn't his fault; it was something inside of her-a feeling of having to hold close to herself, not letting go, or she'd never belong to herself again. Self. Warm place to hide in. Retreat.

Anne had learned to be good at that. At resisting when Craig tried to probe and question and take her out of what he called her frozen shell.

"How can I try to understand you when you won't tell me anything, Anne? For God's sake, things can't go on this way, and we both know it! You won't even try to make friends-Melissa Meredith invited you to join her and the rest of the girls at their weekly lunches, and you made some ridiculous excuse! And when we do go out together, you hardly say a word to anyone. Darnmit, Anne, they must have taught you something at that damned finishing school besides manners and deportment and a few foreign languages!"

That was when, prodded to defiance, she'd said the unforgivable. "Your friends bore me! And their wives even more so. Craig, I wouldn't know what to talk about with them, and you know it. I know nothing of politics, of the latest scandals on the Hill.

And what's more, I don't care! Even about clothes-you're always telling me what to wear and how to do my hair. They make me feel stupid and ignorant, when they're the ones who don't know and don't care about anything outside their own little world!

And I suppose I haven't learned to pretend yet-"

He'd pounced on that, of course-lines of bitter anger were etched in his narrow, handsome face. "So you haven't learned to pretend? I suppose that's some kind of a nasty dig at me, now you've finished tearing down my friends. Christ! You're damn right you don't know how to pretend! You won't even try, will you? Not even in .bed.

You just lie there like a piece of marble, not even attempting to give me any pleasure when I try to make love to you. Sometimes I wish I'd married a whore instead of an icy virgin!"

"Well, why don't you go out and get yourself a whore whenever you're in that kind of a mood? I understand the call girls on Capitol Hill do quite a business-your friend Melissa Meredith was whispering all the latest gossip to her coterie of friends that you want me to join-who's sleeping with whom, which congressmen prefer call girls, and whose wives have lovers.. :'

The storm blew itself out with the keening of the wind in the chimneytops, swirling around the house with a final swoop of frustration while Anne, shifting in her chair to tuck her bare feet under her, deliberately continued to let her mind run back-wards.

That discussion had ended in a full-scale row, with her fighting back. Telling Craig she wasn't cut out to be a politician's wife, she didn't know enough and she didn't want to know, she didn't want to be another Melissa Meredith, whom everyone said would make a wonderful First Lady some day.

"So what do you want, Anne? What the hell do you do with yourself all day while I'm working my ass off in the office?"

"I-I read a lot. And I visit the museums and galleries and watch old movies sometimes. There's so much that they didn't teach me at those schools my father sent me to so I'd be safely out of the way. And as for what I want-I think I want most of all to learn more about myself, Craig. I want to find out about real life and living free, not living inside a carefully wrapped cellophane package. I'm twenty-one, and I've been in schools all my life that haven't taught me anything about life."

"You're not in school any longer, Anne. You're married to me-e-" Craig's voice had been carefully controlled, but she was too far gone to care.

"And you've made it seem like going back to school! You're always trying to teach me, don't you see? To-to guide me, to try to mold me to whatever pattern you expect your wife, Mrs. Craig Hyatt, to be cut out of. Don't you understand? I don't want to be just Mrs. Craig Hyatt. I want to be Anne Mallory Reardon for a change. Myself-a person in my own right."

Had that really been Anne talking? Almost screaming the words into his startled face? No wonder Craig's look of shock had changed into one of disgust, merging into an almost insufferable patience as if she really had been the stubborn, intractable child he'd accused her of being before.

After that had come six months of analysis. Really Craig's idea, because he wanted to save their marriage. Funny, sending her to Dr. Robert Haldane to "cure" her and help her "come to her senses" had been instrumental in breaking up her marriage.

Thank God for Dr. Haldane, who helped her see things as they were, in their proper perspective! Reluctant at first-wary and resentful-Anne had finally come to realize that the good doctor's only intentions were to help her. She had started by seeing him only once a week-and then it had become three times. "You've always had decisions made for you, haven't you, Anne? Well, it's high time you started making them for yourself. Go out and try. I'm not saying that you might not get hurt in the process, but that's a part of living and learning, too, isn't it? Do, Anne. Don't just sit back and think about it." Maybe she'd reacted so quickly because Dr. Haldane was only reinforcing what she had already known inside herself. She was a kind of anachronism in this day and age. Less experience than the average sixteen-year-old. She'd never had a date, never gone to a football game or a prom, never ventured anywhere by herself until after she'd married Craig. The Now Voyager syndrome-she remembered seeing that old Bette Davis movie on one of her private excursions.

And that was really where the idea of going to Europe on her own came from. The last time she was there had been soon after she'd left the Swiss finishing school.

Craig's parents, friends of her father's, had arrived to pick her up and take her with them on a world cruise. Craig had been along-handsome, adult, sophisticated-and she'd fallen in love almost at once, flattered by his attentions, made to feel secure and cherished by the fact that he respected her enough not to do more than hold her hand or kiss her gently and discreetly. Craig was an up-and-coming young attorney who meant to go into politics one day-at the time it had all seemed very exciting and challenging, like the idea of having their own apartment in Washington, and all the interesting people she would meet. All of whom turned out to be shallow, boring people. Even Craig himself . ..

This was the guilty thought she'd been trying to flee from all along. When they were no longer on shipboard or going on guided tours of the different ports, where having an escort of one's own was exciting, Craig was really like a stranger to her. His making physical love to her was a clinical thing, faintly unpleasant, that didn't in the least turn her on, or make her feel anything beyond a slight repugnance and a stern desire to fulfill her obligations as a wife. No bells tolling, no magic explosions that would take her beyond herself and transform her, overnight, into a woman.

After she had learned to trust him, Anne was able to talk to Dr. Haldane quite frankly about that aspect of her marriage. "Oh, I've read everything I could get my hands on, of course! I know I shouldn't be looking constantly for the Big O. And Craig did all the right things. I mean, he was patient, he was gentle, he tried ..." "Perhaps he tried too hard. Or perhaps you were not really in love with him?" She'd looked up at the doctor with surprise.

"But love-I thought that was an old-fashioned thing to believe in! I thought I was in love with Craig, but I couldn't have been. There I go, contradicting myself again! I don't know-all the books I've read, everything I've heard-isn't 'love' a self-induced sense of euphoria? Brought on by romantic music or a romantic setting or a purely physical desire that can occur between two people sometimes? Although it seldom lasts, of course. But in this day and age, isn't companionship more important? Having things in common, sharing the same goals?"

"My dear Anne-you sound so solemn, like a good little girl who has done her homework." Dr. Haldane's eyes twinkled, and although he didn't smile, Anne had the impression that he wanted to. He waved a hand at her when she opened her mouth to speak. "Oh yes! I've heard it all and read it all many times over. This is the age of the liberated female who has the right to an orgasm every time she goes to bed with a man, and the right to do the chasing if she feels so inclined. And why not? Have you thought about taking a lover yet?"