Obsession (45 page)

‘Oh,’ Corrie said, feeling so absurdly pleased that she
wanted
to hug Jeannie for telling her. She managed not to however, and a few minutes later they were walking out of the door to Jeannie’s car.

Corrie went through the morning as though in a trance. She had no idea, until the cameraman complained she was more dazzling than the sun, that she was grinning like the Cheshire Cat, but when she tried to stop she couldn’t. Little snatches of all the things he had said or done the night before kept coming back to her, and though they were creating havoc with her insides, it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. She quickly realized though, how irreverent it must seem to look so happy when they were dealing with a subject that had caused such tragedy in people’s lives, so she endeavoured to keep her thoughts from expressing themselves on her face by frowning. Unfortunately the frown didn’t last long because she remembered those few minutes in the night when she had sleepily opened her eyes to find him watching her. He had kissed her then, so tenderly and so lovingly, that she had felt her whole heart might overflow with love.

Early in the afternoon Luke joined the unit down at the Los Angeles Police Department Headquarters to find out how Corrie’s first day as a fully fledged producer was going. He was clearly amused by the undisguisable euphoria burning so brightly in Corrie’s eyes, and as soon as he had a chance went over to speak to her.

‘Do I take it you had a good time last night?’ he laughed.

‘Yes I did, thank you,’ Corrie answered, finding it impossible to be angry even with him today.

‘I’m glad,’ he said. ‘You deserve it.’

Corrie found that a rather curious remark coming from him, but said nothing as Peter Fredericks, the reporter, called out for her then, to ask her to go over again just what she wanted him to ask the policeman who was sitting with him.

Half an hour later the interview was done, and as they
waited
for the camera to turn round for the reverses Corrie saw Luke beckoning her over.

He gave her a few suggestions as to how she might improve what had turned out to be a rather dull monologue from the policeman, then said, ‘You’re doing really well, you know?’

‘Thank you,’ Corrie answered.

They stood watching the crew for a while, then Luke said, ‘Annalise called this morning.’

Corrie’s eyes closed. She had been so wrapped up in herself these past twenty-four hours she’d almost forgotten about Annalise. Turning to Luke, she eyed him warily. ‘What did she say?’ she asked.

‘She wanted to speak to you, but when I told her where you were and offered her Bennati’s number she said she didn’t want to disturb you.’

‘I see. Did she say anything else? Is she coming back?’

He shook his head. ‘No, at least she didn’t say she was.’

‘Luke,’ Corrie said carefully, ‘you didn’t say anything to upset her again, did you?’

‘No. In fact I tried to apologize, but she wouldn’t listen. She hung up on me.’

Trying – and failing – not to show how pleased she was to hear that, Corrie said, ‘So she didn’t tell you where she was?’

He shook his head.

‘Why did you do it, Luke?’ Corrie asked after a pause. ‘There must have been a reason, because you did know she was coming.’

‘I did it to get her out of the way so I could make you the producer,’ he answered simply.

‘You can’t possibly think I’d want the job based on that!’ Corrie whispered angrily, hoping no one could hear.

‘I’m afraid I did, but obviously I made a mistake. A very big mistake.’

‘Yes, you did,’ Corrie told him. ‘I don’t understand you, Luke. I thought you loved her.’

‘I do,’ he said in a broken voice. He turned away, but not before Corrie had seen the sadness that had suddenly filled his eyes. She noticed then how stooped his shoulders seemed, as though he could no longer support the unsupportable burden of misery and Corrie found her heart touched with compassion.

‘Luke, what is it?’ she said, putting a hand on his arm.

Briefly he shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he answered. ‘Nothing except that I might have lost her. I deserve to lose her, I know that, but …’

Corrie stepped round in front of him, and saw the tears shining in his eyes. ‘Luke!’ she gasped. She look quickly back over her shoulder to see how the crew were doing, then taking his arm, she said, ‘Let me take you outside. The air’s not too fresh,’ she added in a lame joke, ‘but … Come on, let’s get out of here.’

‘No, it’s OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll be all right. It just got to me for a minute, that’s all.’ He lifted his eyes then and looked so pleadingly into her face that Corrie tightened the hold on his arm. ‘I know I’ve fucked everything, Corrie,’ he said, ‘and I know that you hate me for it … But will you … Oh God, I’ve no right to ask this, I know, but will you talk to her for me?’

For a long time Corrie simply looked at him, then very slowly she started to shake her head. ‘I’m sorry, Luke,’ she said, ‘I can’t do that. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. You see, I don’t trust you not to do it again.’

‘But I won’t,’ he said, with such sincerity that had it been anyone else Corrie would have believed it.

‘No, Luke,’ she said. ‘No. Because there’s more to this than what happened with Felicity. A lot more. I don’t know what, I’m not sure I even want to know, but …’

‘You’re talking about me making you a producer, aren’t you?’ he interrupted.

‘Well, yes. That’s part of it. I mean, why was it so important to you to do that?’

‘I wanted to give you something you wanted,’ he answered. ‘OK, we’ve already agreed I went about it in the wrong way …’

‘Corrie! Ready to rock-n-roll,’ the cameraman called out.

‘We’ll continue this conversation later,’ Corrie told Luke. ‘Are you all right for now?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. Thanks.’

Twenty minutes later they were done with the reverses and on their way to Mulholland up in the Hollywood Hills. Luke went with them, and seemed, to Corrie’s profound relief as she watched him sparring with the sound man in the front of the car, to have pulled himself together. But when they reached Mulholland where she had intended they take some high wide panning shots of the city, the yellow green smog was so thick and so low that almost nothing was visible.

‘We’ll have to re-schedule,’ Corrie told the crew, ‘so we’ll call it a day today. We’ll pick up the other shots on Friday. I’ll knock out a list for you, they’re mainly to cover voice-overs.’

‘I wanted to talk to you about the voice-overs,’ Luke said as they rode back into Beverly Hills. ‘Have you written them yet?’

‘I’ve made some notes,’ Corrie answered, ‘I was going to let Perkin perfect them when we get back.’

‘Good. But we might as well get something valuable going while we’re here. You haven’t written anything yourself yet, have you? I mean, not a complete script?’

‘No.’

‘Then we’ll take a look at it when we get back,’ he smiled. ‘You never know, you might have a God-given talent for it.’

Half an hour later they were sitting next to the pool back at the mansion, involved in a healthy, witty and, Corrie
realized
, genuinely helpful debate on what the voice-overs should say. Felicity was in the solarium, reading through the scenes she was shooting that night, and kept yelling to them to keep the noise down.

‘It’s her big scene with the murderer tonight,’ Corrie whispered to Luke.

Luke’s lips curled in a smile, which, had Corrie seen it, would have sent a shiver down her spine. ‘Then we ought to leave her to it,’ he said, getting up. ‘I’m off to take a shower. Maybe you’d like to call Annalise. No, not to speak up on my behalf, but because she wants you to.’

Corrie nodded. ‘OK, I’ll call her now,’ she said.

But when she got through to Annalise’s schoolfriend it was to discover that Annalise had taken herself off shopping. Corrie left a message to say she’d called, then went to ask Felicity if she could help by reading in for her. She’d never done it before, and really didn’t know if she’d be any good, but she had to do something to stop herself fretting about whether or not Cristos would call.

By six o’clock she was so edgy that Felicity thanked her for her help, took the script back from her and told her to go pour herself a stiff drink. Corrie did, but it didn’t seem to help, if anything it made the churning in her stomach worse. As she started to pace Felicity dropped her script in exasperation.

‘What time’s he due to wrap?’ she said.

‘I don’t know,’ Corrie answered.

‘Then what the hell are you getting yourself into such a state about? He’ll have dailies after he’s wrapped as well, so if he is going to ring at all it won’t be until nine thirty at the very …’ She broke off as Corrie made a dash for the telephone.

‘Hello?’ Corrie gasped.

It was the third assistant on Felicity’s film, telling Felicity that her call time had been put back by an hour.

‘This is awful,’ Corrie wailed an hour later, now pacing
around
the pool. ‘He said that it wasn’t just for the night, but …’

‘Hey, come on,’ Felicity chuckled, ‘you’re a big girl now, you know better than to believe what a man tells you when you’re in the sack with him.’

Corrie’s face turned ashen white as she looked back at Felicity. ‘You mean you think he was lying?’ she said.

‘Not lying, exactly,’ Felicity answered uncomfortably. She hadn’t expected Corrie to look quite that distraught. ‘In fact he probably meant it when he said it.’

‘But he doesn’t now?’

Felicity sighed heavily. ‘Corrie, you’ve got to face it honey, he’s a big-time director. He’ll have been in that same situation he was in with you last night a hundred times before. These things trip off the tongue real easy with men like him. They know all the lines. Jeez, they should, they wrote most of them,’ and getting up from her chair she went to answer the phone which had started to ring again.

With a horrible paralysis in her heart, Corrie listened as Felicity repeated the number.

‘Oh hi,’ Felicity said. ‘How are you? Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, just getting ready for my big scene tonight.’

Feeling the disappointment draw at every bone in her body Corrie started to walk away. But at that moment Felicity turned to look at her. ‘It’s him,’ she mouthed.

Corrie’s entire body turned so weak she couldn’t move.

‘Yeah, it’s tonight,’ Felicity was saying. ‘Oh thanks, thanks very much. Yeah, she’s right here, I’ll put you on.’

As she handed the receiver to Corrie she put her hand over the mouthpiece, saying, ‘OK, I made a mistake and I’m sorry.’

Kissing her on the cheek Corrie took the receiver and put it to her ear. ‘Hello?’ she said.

‘Hi. How you doing?’

‘Oh, I’m fine,’ she said, feeling herself respond to the
dark
intimacy in his voice. ‘How are you? How was your day?’

‘Pretty good. We wrapped early, I’ve just watched yesterday’s dailies.’

‘And?’

‘They work.’

‘Of course,’ she laughed.

There was a pause, then he said, ‘I’d kinda like to see you.’

‘I’d like that too,’ she whispered.

‘Then how about I stop by?’

After she’d given him the address Corrie rushed straight out to the pool where Felicity had taken her script in search of what was proving unattainable peace.

‘What time’s he getting here?’ she said when she saw Corrie’s face.

‘I don’t know. I think he’s coming straight away. But he didn’t say where he was. Oh Fliss! Fliss! I just can’t believe this is happening.’

Laughing, Felicity once again put down her script, then taking Corrie in her arms she danced her around the pool. ‘Now,’ she said, breathlessly when they’d finished, ‘what do you say that we two take a swim to try and calm you down before he gets here?’

‘You’re on,’ Corrie laughed.

Five minutes later she was running back down the stairs in her swimsuit and robe when the doorbell rang. ‘I’ll get it,’ she called out to whoever was listening.

When she opened the door Cristos was leaning against the side of the porch, and when she saw the look that came into his eyes the smile froze on her lips.

‘Hello,’ she murmured as he took her in his arms.

‘Hello yourself,’ he said, and lowering his mouth to hers he started to suck gently on her lips. Then he was kissing her, pushing his tongue against hers and holding her so hard against him she knew that the desire she had seen in
his
eyes was very real. He stopped for a moment and looked down at her, then he was kissing her again.

‘I’ve thought about you all day,’ she laughed, between kisses. ‘Have you thought about me?’

‘From time to time,’ he answered, running his hands over her bottom. He wasn’t about to tell her the problems she’d given him, or that he wasn’t even too sure he was happy about being here now, so he said, ‘What are you wearing under this thing?’

‘My swimsuit. Felicity and I were about to take a swim. Can you stay tonight?’

‘Hey, you two,’ Luke called out, ‘are you going to stand out there all night, or are you going to come and join the party?’

‘Go take that swim,’ Cristos said. ‘I’ll watch.’

Corrie wasn’t too sure she felt happy about that. The idea of Cristos seeing her in a swimsuit next to Felicity, who was so tall and slender and so … well, Hollywood, was disheartening to say the least … But then she reminded herself that he had already seen her in the nude, so it was a bit late to be thinking of modesty now. So, as they walked out to the pool she dropped her wrap on a chair, and with her shoulders held well back she marched over to the swimming pool – and belly flopped in.

When she resurfaced she could hear Cristos still laughing, but deciding to ignore it she swam on down the pool.

‘She is one crazy lady,’ Cristos murmured to himself as he watched her. He was startled when Luke agreed, since he hadn’t known Luke was so close.

‘So you had a good time with her last night then?’ Luke said.

Immediately Cristos’s jaw tightened.

Pretending not to notice Luke said, ‘She’s got one helluva body, don’t you think? Yeah, she’s got it all there, all right. Some might say too much of it, but not me. Can’t get enough of her myself. Those tits of hers just drive me wild.’