Merlyn's Magic (12 page)

Liza broke off sipping her chilled drink through the
brightly coloured straw. 'With him it's the same thing! I've worked
with him before, remember?'

Merlyn vividly recalled the swearing and cursing that had
gone on during that three-month period Liza had worked with Christopher
just over a year ago; according to her friend, at the time he was a
mixture of Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan combined, with a little bit
of the Devil thrown in. 'You seem to have come back for more.'

'Because he's brilliant!' Liza scoffed the need to explain
her presence here. 'And he's just climbed out of the pool and is coming
our way,' she added softly, shooting Merlyn a nervous glance.

She smiled. 'You're welcome to make your escape while you
can.'

'Now would I do that to a friend?'

'Yes,' she laughed.

'You're right,' Liza nodded sorrowfully. 'But I don't have the time,' she managed to mutter before
Christopher appeared at the side of their table. Liza, very wisely,
buried her nose in her drink, keeping her gaze averted.

'How nice of you to finally join us, Merlyn,' Christopher
greeted her with heavy sarcasm.

A face to face encounter with the reputed Drake temper
wasn't something Merlyn relished after what had just happened with
Rand. She had put on a brave face in front of Liza, was sure her friend
hadn't guessed just how devastated she really felt about the time she
had spent in Rand's arms; they were both adults, and they lived in a
society where physical relationships out of marriage were accepted as
the norm rather than the exception.

But inside, where it counted, she was a mass of confusing,
conflicting emotions. And Rand seemed to know at least some of that
conflict, wanting her in spite of himself, hating himself for the need
but driven by an inner hunger. It was a hunger she more than matched.

'Merlyn!' Christopher snapped at her lack of attention to
his justified anger.

'Sorry.' She managed to look suitably contrite, aware that
they were attracting considerable attention from other members of the
crew as they sensed Christopher was going to have one of his famous
rages.

'Sorry doesn't excuse your tardiness,' he grated, shooting
the cringing Liza a rapier glance. 'If you'll excuse us, Miss
Benedict,' he declared harshly. 'I'd like to talk to Merlyn alone.'

Merlyn gave Liza a rueful glance as she responded to what
could only be classified as an order—despite sounding like a
request. 'See you later,' she told her lightly.

Christopher slid into the chair Liza had vacated, his hair
slicked back as he had just got out of the pool, the towel he had used
to soak up the excess water from his body and hair draped about his
neck, the ends lying against his hair-roughened chest. He had a trim,
muscular body; wide-shouldered, narrow-waisted. In fact, the only thing
marring his good looks was his furious expression.

'Don't ever pull another stunt like that again,' he leant
forward on the table to mutter through clenched teeth. 'You may have
gotten the impression the last few weeks that our
relationship—'

'Now just a minute,' she cut in protestingly.

'—gives you some sort of special privileges when
it comes to discipline on my crew—'

'We haven't started filming yet, Christopher,' she pointed
out coldly. 'And we don't have a—'

'—but let me tell you,' once again he continued
straight on as if she hadn't interrupted, 'that I expect you to do the
same as the rest of the cast—jump when I say jump, don't when
I say you don't.'

'I am not a performing dog!' Angry colour blazed in her
cheeks.

'You won't be a performing
anything
if I say you aren't,' he returned furiously.

And she had actually been looking forward to working with
him, Merlyn thought curiously, as the two of them glared across the
table at each other like contestants about to engage in mortal combat.

And then the humour of the situation struck her. On the
one hand she had Rand demanding that she have an affair with him to
settle both their lusts, and on the other hand she had Christopher
warning her not to take advantage of
their
non-existent relationship. She could do without either of them.

'Do you mean that, Christopher?' she asked him softly.

'Yes! No! Hell, I don't know,' he sighed impatiently.

She gave him a rueful smile. 'Make your mind up,' she
drawled.

'You knew damn well I wanted to see you—'

'I thought it was socially, not for work,' she told him
truthfully.

'I don't have time to be social when I start filming,' he
glared. 'I wanted you over here because I intended introducing you to
your new co-star. I thought it best if the two of you got to know each
other before we actually started filming—'

'But Merlyn and I are already acquainted, Christopher,'
cut in a silky-smooth voice. 'It's good to see you again, Merlyn.'

She felt the colour drain from her face, moving slowly to
look up at the man who had quietly joined them. He confidently returned
her gaze, a man she despised even more than he hated her!

As she saw him watching her with those grey-blue eyes that
could be as cold as ice, she knew he was waiting for her to stand up
and make a scene at the idea of working with him. He never had
understood her well enough to know how she would react to anything.

'Mark,' she greeted the man she had once contemplated
marrying, her voice full of cool condescension. 'It's been so long
since I've seen you I thought you must have retired from acting.'

His handsome face flushed at her bitchiness, his short
hair so dark it was almost black, his face ruggedly handsome, his
stance in the black bathing trunks he wore masculinely aggressive. At
twenty-eight he hadn't yet managed to attain the stardom he so avidly
sought.

'America beckoned,' he drawled, his anger firmly under
control now.

'Really?' She expressed little interest. 'Then what are
you doing back here?'

Icy blue eyes narrowed with dislike. 'Starring in a
Christopher Drake film,' he bit out challengingly.

Her mouth tightened at the truth of that. And she had to
accept that he had the looks to play the part of Rand, a youthful
version of the other man. And she knew that he could act brilliantly
when he chose to. But it hadn't been accidental that she had avoided
seeing him the last six years.

'Strange,' she murmured softly. 'I thought
I
was the star of this film? But I do realise how important success has
always been to you, Mark,' she added with saccharine-sweet
understanding.

He looked pointedly across at Christopher before his gaze
returned to her. 'To us all, surely?' he mocked suggestively.

Heated colour flooded her cheeks at his implication. 'Not
that important—'

'You're more beautiful than ever, Merlyn,' he added
throatily.

Nausea washed over her at the compliment. 'Luckily I've
realised that a person's surface looks, no matter how dazzling, never
completely disguise the decay inside!'

Mark returned her challenging look with insolent boredom.
'How interesting,' he taunted. 'I'd love to stay and chat with you a
little longer but, unfortunately, I have more important things to do.'
He put out a hand to lift a length of Merlyn's hair, maintaining a
painful hold as she would have flinched away from his touch. 'Such a
pity this flame has to go, it was always your best feature.' With one
last painful tug on her hair he walked away.

Merlyn rubbed her pained scalp, blinking back the tears;
she had forgotten how physically cruel Mark could be when he wanted to
be. 'What did he mean by that?' she frowned at Christopher. 'I thought
we had agreed I should wear a wig? I don't—'

'Is there some friction between you and Hillier that I
should know about?' he probed impatiently, ignoring her indignation.

Friction didn't begin to describe the dislike that existed
between herself and Mark. She had once thought him the most wonderful
man alive, had loved him with the blind devotion only the very young
are capable of. And he had shown her how deep his own feelings for her
went in a way she could never forget. She had never even tried to
forgive what he had done to her!

'We just don't like each other,' she snapped in answer to
Christopher's question. 'I'm sure it's nothing we can't both live with.'

Christopher still frowned. 'I've never seen you so
antagonistic before, let alone bitchy. You—Oh hell,' he
groaned as a sudden thought struck him. 'He isn't the man you grouped
together with "snakes and rats and other things that go bump in the
night", is he?'

In her estimation Mark Hillier was lower than any of those
things, had shown his love for her only weeks before their wedding by
asking her to go to bed with the director of the film he wanted to be
in after the man had shown his interest in her.

She had been twenty years old, in love for the
first—and last!—time, and the man she loved had
asked her to prostitute herself for the sake of his career.

Mark hadn't accepted her outraged refusal as final, had
tried to beat her into submission when sweet-talk and pleadings failed.
By the time he had finished with her
no
man would
have found her attractive. He had walked out of her life with the
callous advice that she 'grow up'; he had beaten the child out of her!

He had lost the film-part he had wanted so badly to a man
who had become internationally sought-after almost overnight, it
seemed. Through the years that had been Merlyn's only consolation for
what Mark had put her through.

Her glazed eyes focused on Christopher as she realised he
was still waiting for an answer. 'No,' she lied, her humiliation at
Mark's hands something she was sure Mark wouldn't want to become public
knowledge either, confident that the way he had lost his temper with
her wasn't even something he would have wanted to boast to his nearest
friends about. 'He isn't that man.'

Christopher continued to look at her searchingly for
several minutes. 'If you say so.' He gave a slow shrug. 'Just don't let
your dislike spill over into my film,' he warned.

To be perfectly truthful, she wasn't sure she could do
that. Some of the scenes between Mark and herself were very intimate, a
couple of them actually in bed together, and while those sorts of
scenes would be awkward enough when performed between two strangers who
respected each other, between two people who had once intended marrying
and now hated each other, they could just be impossible.

'I'll try not to,' she told Christopher dryly. 'What
happened to Gary Parker?'

Christopher shrugged. 'He refused to sign a contract until
all the uncertainty had been ironed out, and by the time it had he had
agreed to do a series in the States.'

'I wish you had told me,' she scowled, sure she could have
handled the meeting with Mark with a little more confidence and less
resentment if she had been warned.

Christopher raised his brows arrogantly. 'I make the
decisions around here, Merlyn, so don't think—'

'I
think
we've already had this
conversation once today,' she sighed wearily. 'And I wouldn't presume
on our relationship because we don't have one! We're friends,
Christopher. And now I want you to tell me if it's true that you want
me to change the colour of my hair?'

He gave an impatient sigh. 'I don't like wigs, they never
look realistic, and—'

'And so you want me to dye my hair?' She grimaced at the
thought; after all, she had been a redhead for twenty-six years!

'Not exactly. I've spoken to Sheila about it, and she
thinks a wash-in colour will work. Of course you'll have to keep
washing it in for the duration of the film, but—'

'Obviously,' snapped Merlyn, annoyed that he seemed to
have discussed this with everyone but
her
.

Christopher's expression darkened. 'For God's sake, I'm
sure this isn't the first time you've been asked to tone down the
colour of your hair!' he accused.

She shook her head. 'In the past I've always worn wigs.'

'And I don't—'

'Like them,' she finished heavily. 'You already said.'
Merlyn grimaced and sighed. 'I don't suppose I have any choice, do I?'

'No.' He looked at her challengingly.

'Then I'd better go and see Sheila about it, hadn't I?'
She stood up.

Christopher smiled. 'There's no rush, you can have your
swim first.'

'I'd rather get it over with.'

'You won't be able to swim afterwards,' he warned.

'I'll live with it!'

Christopher obviously found her reluctance very amusing,
considered it suitable retribution for her tardiness earlier, no doubt.

But having to sit patiently in front of a mirror while her
hair was turned from red to brown was the least of Merlyn's worries,
Mark's presence here just making worse an already much-entangled
situation. She was going to have Christopher and Mark breathing down
her neck during filming, and Rand demanding sexual compliance outside
of it.

'All right, love?' Sheila frowned down at her worriedly as
she scowled.

'Fine,' she assured the woman wearily, opening her eyes to
view the hairdresser's work.

'Well, what do you think?' Sheila turned to the mirror
encouragingly.

Merlyn's head span dizzily as she looked at the reflection
of the brown-haired woman blinking back at her. Suzie
Forrester…

Of course, it wasn't Suzie Forrester, it was her, Merlyn Summers. Wasn't
it…?

'Amazing, isn't it?' Sheila admired her own handiwork. 'A
snip here, and a snip there, and with your hair coloured and styled
exactly like hers you even
look
like Suzie
Forrester.'

While not exactly the other woman's double, Merlyn could
easily have been her understudy. She looked—like a stranger
to herself. She felt strange, as if she were two people; Suzie on the
outside but Merlyn still on the inside.