Wild Honey (4 page)

“The things you did for that Ferrari,” he was saying. “Well, I almost went out and bought one.”

Now she
did
see. Several years earlier a foreign-car importer had hired her for a local spot. Looking sultry in black sequins, she’d draped herself across the wine-red Ferrari. “I don’t come with the car,” she’d almost purred into the camera, “but if you’ve got the wherewithal to buy it out from under me, I might be interested.”

“A very provocative thirty seconds,” Maxwell concluded.

“Thank you.” Sasha managed a smile. “Does Mr. Renaud know?”

Drink in hand, he walked to a lighted glass cabinet that held plaques and statuettes, including two Oscars. Gazing at the awards, he said without the slightest hesitation, “I’m going to have to trust you with some closely guarded production secrets, Sasha. Gemini is in deep water right now. We’re losing tens of thousands of dollars every day on
Tell Me No Lies,
Marc’s picture.”

Sasha fished for something meaningful to say and came up with an empty hook. “Really?”

He turned around, shrugged. “You must have read the gossip columns. They’re already speculating that the movie is in trouble.”

“And this time they’re right?”

“Our star is...indisposed.” He took a drink, holding the liquor in his mouth for a moment before swallowing. “The picture is three quarters completed, so it’s too late to bring in another name, and we can’t hold up production any longer.”

The intercom on his phone buzzed. Ignoring it, he stirred his drink with his finger and then looked up. “That’s where you come in. You not only look like her, you’re athletic enough to handle the scenes that still have to be shot. Most of them are action shots, not dangerous, but since Leslie isn’t ‘physical,’ we’d be bringing someone in anyway....”

Leslie.
Immediately Sasha understood. She was replacing Leslie Parrish. She almost laughed aloud. If it wasn’t one of life’s absurdities, then what was? How many movie and television parts had she lost because of her resemblance to Leslie Parrish? She’d given up acting once because of Leslie Parrish! Then her agent had sent her out to test for the Ferrari commercial. Ironically the resemblance had worked in her favor there.

“There’ll be other scenes, of course,” Maxwell told her. “Some are tricky, but they can be faked with camera angles, lighting, voice dubbing. If it’s handled right, no one should be able to tell.”

“Do you mean...?” Stunned, she murmured, “You want them to think I’m Leslie?”

“Sasha, they
have
to think you’re Leslie.”

“Why?”

He shook his head. “I’m not free to give you the details, but it has to do with the picture’s financing. There are millions already invested, most of it foreign money. There are legal things, contractual things...”

The astonishment must have shown in Sasha’s face.

Maxwell hesitated, returned to his desk. “Unfortunately we can’t give you acting credit, but the money should, well—it should help compensate.” He mentioned a figure even more staggering than the one Lou Ryan had dangled in front of her like a carrot. Obviously her worth had gone up overnight.

“And, naturally,” he added, “Gemini Pictures wouldn’t forget the actress who bailed them out of this mess.”

Sasha’s mouth was dry as dust. She wet her lips imperceptibly.

Maxwell nodded as though she’d agreed, and went on. “It shouldn’t take more than three weeks to wrap things up. During that time we’ll need your complete cooperation.”

“Complete cooperation?”

“Yes, there are some conditions attached to this deal.”

The intercom buzzed again, three short bursts that were impossible to ignore. Maxwell hit a button on the phone. “What is it?”

“Mr. Renaud’s here, sir. He’s—”

“Tell him I’m in conference. I’ll—”

Paul Maxwell swallowed the last word as his office door swung open. Marc Renaud stood on the threshold. Toweringly tall and broodingly graceful, he looked for all the world like the Prince of Darkness come to claim a sinner.

“How is it I wasn’t invited to this meeting, Paul?” he asked.

Sasha consulted her tangled hands. There was a dizzying undercurrent of power in Marc Renaud’s question.

Paul picked up his drink, gulped it down.

Lord, was Marc about to find out he’d been overruled, Sasha wondered. If he was, she didn’t want to be in the room, in the building, or even on the planet when it happened.

“I left a message, Marc,” Paul said, regaining a measure of his composure. “You weren’t in.” He stood up, his voice taking on the soothing tones he must have cultivated in years of dealing with difficult personalities. “Why don’t you come in, shut the door.”

Marc did so, ignoring the chair Paul offered and sitting on the window ledge instead, his arms folded. “I take it Ms. McCleod’s going to be in the picture after all? Am I right, Paul?”

At Paul’s nod, Marc’s features took on a stillness that left Sasha immobilized in her chair waiting for the lightning to strike. Even to breathe normally seemed dangerous in the charged atmosphere.

The silence expanded, and Sasha became aware of the perspiration beading on Paul Maxwell’s upper lip. It was beginning to look as though he had the most to lose in this confrontation, she thought, glancing from one man to the other. Especially if Renaud chose to walk out on him. An overbudget picture minus its celebrated star
and
director could become a very heavy albatross around a movie studio executive’s neck.

Marc ended the confrontation with a barely perceptible nod. Paul relaxed.

“How about a drink, Marc?” he offered amiably.

It was a moment before Sasha realized that the hostilities actually were over. She’d expected nothing less than a verbal fight, maybe even a physical one. There was more going on than met the eye, she decided, observing the warning signals that passed between the two men. If she was correct, there were hidden agendas at work in this room, things she knew nothing about.

Marc took a raincheck on the drink, and the tension in Sasha’s muscles began to ebb. She even unclasped her numbed fingers.

Directing his stare at her, Marc seemed quieter somehow, if not benign, then a shade less angry. “Has Paul told you the conditions yet, Ms. McCleod?” he asked.

“He was about to when you...arrived.” The word that had come to Sasha’s mind was
interrupted,
and all three of them knew it.

Marc’s mouth promised a smile that he never quite delivered. Oddly, his eyes seemed to take on light and clarity as he gazed at her, as though he were drawing energy from the blue sky that framed him in the window.

“In that case, let me do the honors, Paul,” he said, his gaze remaining on Sasha. “Ms. McCleod should know what she’s getting into.”

Sasha already had a pretty good idea what she was getting into. Marc Renaud intimidated her on every level, from his self-possession to his riveting good looks. Dealing with him would be like walking through a field of land mines blindfolded. He frightened her, and that was the problem, of course. But Sasha had been conditioned from childhood
never
to run from her fears.

“First of all,” Marc started, “you’re not going to be able to talk about what you’re doing
to anyone.
Not even family and friends.”

“Marc, don’t make it sound so sinister,” Paul interrupted. “Sasha,” he explained with a shrug and smile, “if it gets out that Leslie’s been replaced, it could have an unfortunate effect at the box office.”

“A disastrous effect,” Marc amended.

“I can’t tell anyone?” she questioned. “For how long?”

“Hard to say,” Marc cut in before Paul could answer. “The way it looks now, we’re going to have to keep the lid on indefinitely.”

“A month at most,” Paul reassured her. “We should be able to wrap up production in two to three weeks, and we’ve got a wide release planned. If we can grab a big share of the box offices and hang on to it for awhile, we’ll recoup our investment, maybe even pull in a profit.”

Sasha knew what was going on and so did Paul Maxwell. Marc was painting a worst-case scenario, hoping to scare her off. She felt inner resources mobilizing, a prickle of heat along her neck. Aware that she would have to rearrange her entire life for the next month, and without the faintest idea how she would do it, she said, “A month doesn’t sound like an unreasonable length of time, under the circumstances.”

Paul Maxwell beamed. “You’ll do it, then?”

She curbed the impulse to say exactly what she knew Marc didn’t want her to say. “I’d like some time to think about it.”

“Gemini’s all out of time,” Marc informed her flatly. “And you haven’t heard all the conditions yet.”

The undercurrents were there again, in his voice, low, powerful.

“For the period of time the film’s in production,” Marc informed her, “it will be necessary for you to stay in the Malibu beach house where Leslie was staying.”

“Live there?”

“Yes.”

“With Leslie?”

Paul jumped in. “No, Leslie’s...away. Of course, we need to keep that fact quiet too.” He smiled wanly. “We’ve already got a gag order on the crew—no press, no publicity. But if the paparazzi get itchy and start snapping telephoto shots, we want them to think they’re snapping Leslie. We’ve also arranged for a car to take you to the set and back. Other than that, of course, you’ll stay in seclusion at the beach house.”

Sasha looked from one man to the other. “But I can’t do that. I own and operate a health club.”

“You have a manager,” Maxwell observed.

His statement came as a shock until she realized they must have investigated her thoroughly before they’d even considered her for the job. “Yes, but he’s never run the place on his own.” She cringed to think of the condition of The Fitness Factor after three weeks in T.C.’s hands.

“We’ll send someone to help him,” Maxwell said.

“You will?” It was becoming apparent that there wasn’t much of anything Paul Maxwell wouldn’t do to get her to take this job.

Marc stood. “Paul seems to have forgotten the last condition, Sasha.”

He was doing it again, caressing her name with sibilant esses and half-whispered vowels. “Another condition? And what would that be?”

“Me. I live there too.”

“You?”

Marc merely smiled.

Paul Maxwell sprang up to explain. “Marc and Leslie had a widely publicized relationship, Sasha. And even though their relationship is over, and has been for quite a while, Marc has continued to live at the beach house—for the sake of the project. There would be talk if he moved out of the house now. Talk of the kind we can’t afford...”

As Paul rattled on desperately, Sasha sat back, her thoughts floundering in the quagmire of her emotions. Live in the same house with Marc Renaud? She couldn’t have explained exactly why she knew such close proximity with him spelled disaster, but her foreboding was as powerful as a telepathic flashcube pop.

At last she looked up. Marc’s confident expression, the glint of light hidden in his cool gaze, tipped her off to the truth. He had just played his ace. He thinks he’s won, she realized. He thinks he has exactly what he wants—me, out of his picture.

Don’t be so sure, her eyes told him.
Don’t ever assume you can be that sure of me, mister.
She turned to Paul Maxwell. “I really will need time to think this over.”

“Of course,” Paul agreed.

Marc glanced at his watch. “Ten hours, Sasha. I want your answer by midnight tonight.”

“Marc—” Paul protested.

Marc gave him a stony stare. “Another day, another five-figure loss, Paul. It’s your money.”

“Midnight’s fine,” Sasha said.

Turning back to her, Marc let his gaze drift over her features and brush her shoulders and breasts. “I’m sure you’ll make the right decision.”

She stared back at him, her heart pounding with a sudden flash of heat. She could feel the color in her cheeks, and she damn well hoped he knew it was indignation. Arrogant as he was, he probably thought she was aroused.

Marc backed to the door, nodded to her, a touch of irony in his smile. “Midnight,” he said, and left.

Fixated on the door, she looked up as Paul walked around to where she sat. “Marc does take a little getting used to,” he said, sitting on the edge of his desk. “But then, brilliance always brings some baggage with it, doesn’t it?”

Without waiting for Sasha to comment, he walked to the awards case and tapped the beveled glass door. “Gemini has two Best Picture Oscars, Sasha. In his heyday, barely into his thirties, Marc Renaud won them both for us.” Swinging around, he focused on her. “He’s been making independent films since then, small masterpieces really.
Tell Me No Lies
is his comeback picture, and we want him to blow the skeptics away.”

Sasha had read everything that Paul was telling her in the trades, but hearing him say it, hearing the odd note that crept into his voice...

“If there’s any chance you’re thinking of turning us down,” he said, “then let me dissuade you. Marc Renaud is no ordinary moviemaker. He’s a visionary, a man with a magnificent obsession, even the critics admit that. His films shatter the status quo.” Hesitating, he added, “We’re offering you an opportunity to work with one of the best. Can you afford to pass that up?”

“Ordinarily, no, but—”

“Then let me give you another reason to say yes. The man himself.” He hesitated again, this time as though he were deciding whether or not to take her into his confidence. “His forebears are in the French history books. You probably knew he was aristocracy. The gossip columns milked that story dry right after he won his first Oscar. After he was blacklisted, most of them didn’t bother to report that he’d thrown it all over—title, land, everything. His deceased father was the Marquis de Villefors....”

As Paul went on, Sasha touched the fine gold chain at her neck, running her thumb over the small diamond in the charm.

It was ironic that Paul Maxwell was trying to seduce her with the very man she’d targeted as trouble. He couldn’t know that it wasn’t Marc’s background that intrigued her nearly as much as the chance to work with one of the best. What was more irresistible to an actor than the opportunity to work with a virtuoso director? Could she pass that up? A pulse ticked in her throat.