Chapter Ten

 

ATLANTIC CITY is famous for its beach and the magic of its street names—Boardwalk, Ventnor Avenue, Baltic and Oriental Avenue—familiar to every child who has played the game of Monopoly, its creator having taken the names from this city's streets. The Miss America Beauty Pageant is held at Convention Hall on the Boardwalk, which now boasts gambling casinos.

The whirring reels and clanging bells of the slot machines dominated everything. At the tables, the voices of the gamblers and dealers seemed almost muted in comparison to the din of the machines. Pet followed Charlie as he elbowed his way through the crowd of guests eager to part with their money. Coins clattered into a metal tray and a woman shouted excitedly to her husband.

"It's really something, isn't it?" Charlie shook his head.

Pet laughed at his seeming disdain. "Five minutes after you put your things in your room, you'll be down here and you know it!"

He grinned suddenly and let his hand find her elbow where the crowd thinned, enabling them to walk together. "Don't tell Sandy. She'll have my hide," he said, referring to his wife.

"I won't," she promised.

"I'm hoping she'll be so glad to see me that she won't even know I'm a few dollars broker than when I left." He pushed the "up" arrow on the elevator. "I need some relaxation after these last three days. I thought Ruby was going to bring down the whole town with that screaming fit she threw when Dane told her we were going to reshoot that first segment. It was a great idea you had, Pet. It worked like a charm once Kingston talked her into it."

"I saw the tapes. It did look great," she agreed, but didn't comment on the star's outrage over being asked to do the number again. Nor did she want to know too much about Dane's role in changing Ruby's mind.

"What are you going to do after you get your things in your room?" Charlie stepped aside when the elevator doors opened, and let Pet walk in ahead of him.

"Shower, then probably grab a sandwich." She supposed Dane would be busy that evening. She had seen practically nothing of him the past two days.

"I'm hungry, too. We could eat together, if you want. It would keep my money in my pockets a little while longer," he grinned, and pushed the floor number for his room. "What floor for you?"

"The next one." One floor above him—Dane's travel arrangements again separated her from the male members of the crew.

"The place was probably too crowded for all of us to be together," Charlie offered his own explanation. "I'm surprised we're even booked into the same hotel as the casino."

"Dane probably didn't want to provide us with any excuses for being late," she shrugged.

"About the sandwich?"

"Sure, we can eat together." It was better than eating alone. "Where do you want to meet?"

The elevator stopped at his floor. "Why don't I just stop by your room in half an hour?" he suggested. "It will be easier than trying to find each other in that madhouse downstairs."

"Okay, but make it forty-five minutes. I want to wash my hair," Pet explained hurriedly, and he waved an acknowledgement before the elevator doors closed.

At the next floor Pet got off the elevator and found her room. She heard a phone ringing as she set her weekender bag down to unlock the door. Hurriedly Pet opened it, certain that the caller was Dane but the phone was silent when she stepped into the room. She wasn't even sure if it had been her phone that was ringing.

Opening her suitcase, she shook out the uncrushable dress she had brought with her, the only one, and laid it on the bed. The taupe and beige dress was simple almost to the point of plainness, with button-tab roll-up sleeves, deep side pockets and a tie belt. After more than a week of slacks and jeans, it would be a pleasant change to wear a dress, Pet decided.

She unpacked her makeup and shampoo from her cosmetic case and carried them into the bathroom. Forty-five minutes wasn't much time to shower, dry her hair and dress, so she left the rest of her things to unpack later, stripped and stepped into the shower.

Her hair was lathered with shampoo when she realized the phone was ringing, the sound muffled by the running water of the shower. Grabbing a towel, she made a quick dash for the phone in the bedroom, leaving a trail of water and shampoo bubbles on the carpet. It stopped ringing as she reached it. She waited a few dripping seconds before returning to the shower to rinse her hair.

It happened again when she was drying her hair with the blow dryer, the hum of the dryer blocking out the ring of the phone. Again the caller hung up before Pet reached the phone. If it was Dane, she was becoming thoroughly frustrated. She returned to the bathroom and finished drying her hair, shutting the motor off every few minutes to listen for the phone. Only it didn't ring.

Not until she was brushing her teeth. With a mouthful of toothpaste she ran into the bedroom and stubbed her toe on the end of the bed. An involuntary cry came from her throat at the shafts of pain that stabbed her injured toe. She hopped the last six steps to the phone. This time she heard the line click dead before she could get the receiver to her ear.

"Damn you, Dane Kingston," she cursed tearfully, then noticed the clock. It could have been Charlie, checking to see if she was ready early, she realized.

The thought lent impetus to her haste to dress. Five minutes before she was supposed to be ready, she buckled the strap of her beige sandals and reached for the tie belt to knot it around her waist. At the knock on her door, she glanced at the phone. She would positively scream if Dane called her after she had gone. But how would she know if she wasn't there?

The knock sounded more impatient. Sighing, she walked to the door while making the first loop in the knot of her belt. She was adjusting the trailing ends to hang smoothly down her side as she opened the door.

"Where the hell have you been?" Dane demanded, striding inside the room and slamming the door shut. "I've been trying to reach you for the last forty-five minutes!" Pet's surprise turned to indignant shock at his raging demands that didn't permit her a reply. "I've called three times without an answer. The desk verified that you checked in more than a half hour ago. I finally called Charlie to find out where the hell you were and he told me you were on your way up here when he left you. I've been half out of my mind! Why didn't you answer the phone?"

"Why didn't you let the damned thing ring long enough to give me a chance?" she hurled back at him with equal anger. "The first time I was just walking into the room. Then I was in the shower. And then I stubbed my toe trying to get in here because I knew it was you! How dare you yell at me, you arrogant, pigheaded—"

"No." The one low word cut across her angry retort, his hard features unrelenting in their severity. "We aren't going to have another shouting match, not this time! I've waited too long."

Seizing her shoulders, he jerked her against his lean, hard length. Pet straggled, resisting the appeasement of his bruising mouth, but she couldn't escape it. Twisting angrily within the steel circle of his arms, she beat at him with tight fists.

The sheer absurdity of her actions finally struck her, holding her motionless for an instant. This was what she wanted, where she wanted to be. Her arms went around his neck, her body becoming pliant to his hands.

The kiss that had been subjugating became deeply sensuous, and Pet returned it with equal passion, arching closer to him under the guidance of his shaping hands. His roaming caress excited her flesh, swamping her with the totality of her love, the sheer, sweet impossibility of it.

When breathing was permitted again, she whispered achingly, "I've missed you so, Dane." The licking of his moist, hard tongue along her throat drew a shudder of desire.

"I can't believe the way you can destroy me." He lifted his head to frame her face in his hands, fingers curled into the just-washed fullness of her hair. "When I walked through that door I could have strangled you for the hell I'd been through." Weary lines were etched in his tanned skin, the strain of long hours leaving their mark. A gentleness glinted in his dark eyes as a half smile touched the corners of his mouth. "Do you know this is the first time I've seen you in a dress?"

"Is it?" she murmured absently because it, didn't seem all that important to her.

"Of course, I've always been fully aware that you were all woman." He slid a hand down to cover her breast, letting its round contour fill his palm. "But it's an attractive sight to see you in a skirt just the same. Were you going somewhere?"

"Didn't Charlie tell you?" Pet couldn't seem to drag her eyes away from his mouth with its traces of her lipstick. Those strong male lips could create such an upheaval in her senses. "We were going to have a sandwich together."

"He's married," Dane stated.

"Yes. He's just a friend," she explained in case he wondered. "I didn't want to eat alone." Hope leaped with an eternal flame. "Are you free? I can tell Charlie—" But Dane was already shaking his head.

"No, I'm tied up this evening." He didn't volunteer any specific information as to whom he would be with or why he was wearing an evening suit and tie. "I wanted to be certain you'd arrived safely. I expected you an hour ago."

"Charlie doesn't drive as fast as you do," Pet smiled, and tried not to wonder about his plans for the evening.

His light kiss seemed to be a reward for not asking. "I want you to have dinner with me tomorrow evening, after the taping is finished. No one else. Just the two of us," he invited.

"I accept." She let her lips tease his, "On condition that you don't take me where I need to dress. This is all I brought."

"On the contrary." Dane returned the torment, rubbing his lips against hers while his fingers found her nipple beneath the bodice of her dress and teased it into erectness, "I'll take you somewhere that you have to undress."

"You would!" Pet accused.

"You bet." His mouth closed on hers, parting her lips to drink in her sweetness.

A knock at the door brought the kiss to a lingering end. "It's probably Charlie," she whispered against his mouth.

Reluctantly Dane let her go. "You'd better answer it. I have to leave anyway."

Pet moved unwillingly out of his arms to walk to the door. Remembering, she half turned to warn him, "You have lipstick on your mouth."

When she opened the door, Charlie had brought Lon Baxter with him. "I bumped into Lon in the elevator, so I invited him to join us if that's all right," he explained, and glanced past her to see Dane. "Hello."

Pet glanced over her shoulder to see Dane returning his handkerchief to the inside pocket of his suit jacket. She supposed the two men would reach the obvious conclusion as to why he had needed to wipe his mouth. She would have been less than honest if she didn't admit she was a little self-conscious.

"Hello, Charlie, Lon." Dane nodded to both men, but his gaze narrowed dangerously on the latter. Then he was moving alongside her, touching her shoulder lightly in farewell and smiling. "I'll see you tomorrow." An oblique reference to their dinner engagement.

"Tomorrow," she promised, saying more with her eyes.

The two men stepped to one side to let Dane pass, then Charlie raised a questioning eyebrow. "Ready?"

"Just let me get my bag," Pet nodded, and went to retrieve it from the dresser.

Nothing was said initially about Dane's being in her room, although Lon's gaze was often half-angry when it met hers. The conversation during their meal centered on the production, with Lon filling them in on what had gone on here while they were in Batsto. After the waitress had cleared their plates and served coffee, Pet took a cigarette from her pack and bent her head to the match flame Lon offered.

"Dane sounded worried when you didn't answer your phone." Charlie finally brought up the subject that had occupied both men's minds. "Where were you?"

"Taking a shower." She didn't go into the circumstances of the other times.

"You're making a fool of yourself, Pet," Lon said irritably. "All he wants is to take you to bed."

"That's the pot calling the kettle black, isn't it?" Pet challenged, releasing a thin stream of smoke and tapping the end of the cigarette in the ashtray.

"Maybe it is." Lon reddened, but he wasn't deterred. "But it doesn't change the facts."

"And those facts are?" Her voice was as cool as her glance.

"The only way there's a future in having an affair with him is if you're sleeping with him to get some promotion in the company. Even then, I wouldn't be too sure that you wouldn't be out of a job when the affair ends. Why would somebody like Dane Kingston want an old lover working for him?" He leaned forward to stress his arguments.

"I haven't slept with him, and I'm not becoming involved with him because I want a promotion, a raise or anything like that," Pet denied, and sipped at her hot coffee, trying to appear indifferent even though Lon's blunt appraisal of her motive had stung.

"Then the only thing you're going to get out of this affair is a lot of painful memories and regret, because it isn't going to last," he insisted.

"Why won't it?" she challenged.

"Leave it alone, Lon," Charlie urged. "It's none of our business."

But Lon ignored him. "He's Dane Kingston and you're Petra Wallis, that's why it won't last. You may be a beautiful woman, but his world is one long string of beautiful women. You can't compete with the glamour and excitement of the likes of Ruby Gale. Maybe he's through with her now, but there'll be someone else like her down the line. What are you—little Pet Wallis—going to do then?"

He shook his head as if despairing that he could get through to her. But he was. Everything he was saying was being driven into her like a nail in a coffin. "If you want an affair, have it with an average guy like me. If not with me, then with someone like me. At least you'd stand a chance to have something that might last."

"I appreciate the advice," she said stiffly.

He sighed. "I know you aren't going to believe this, coming from me, but I like you, Pet. I don't want to see you get hurt."

"I like you, too, Lon," was the only reply she could make.

 

IT WAS HECTIC getting ready for the last taping. Because another performer had given his show the night before they weren't able to set up the bulk of their equipment until the day of the taping. An hour before show time, Pet was helping Andy secure a cable that had worked loose from the adhesive strip taping it to the floor.

"Hey, Pet!" Rick called to her from the stage and motioned. "Dane wants to talk to you."

"Tell him I'll have a headset on in a few minutes."

"No. He's backstage," Rick explained.

Andy glanced at her. "Go see what he wants. I'll finish up here."

Wiping her moist palms on the hips of her brown slacks, Pet left him—but none too eagerly. Yesterday she would have raced for the chance to speak to Dane. But Lon's warning had forced her to take a long, hard look at where she was going. She didn't question anything Dane had told her or his desire for her. It was the things there hadn't been time to say—things she wasn't even sure he would have said if there had been the time. She was getting nervous about having dinner with him after the show because she knew where it would lead, and she wasn't sure anymore if that was where she wanted to go.

Backstage it was becoming a confusion of singers, dancers and stagehands arriving and mixing with the production crew. Pet hesitated, glancing around for the familiar sight of Dane's tall muscular frame. But she didn't see him. Instinct guided her in the direction of Ruby Gale's private dressing room.

He was standing outside the door, half-turned away from her. Pet stopped when she glimpsed the red-haired woman with him. She didn't want to approach him while he was with Ruby and possibly arouse the star's temper by her presence. Since neither of them had noticed her in the midst of all the people, Pet stayed where she was until he was finished.

In a punishing kind of fascination, she noticed the way Dane's hands rested on Ruby's hips with such familiar ease. Her fingers were playing with his shirt-front and running through the curling collection of exposed chest hairs. Something plummeted to the pit of Pet's stomach when she realized her hearing had become attuned to their voices.

"Darling, I feel so badly about tonight," Ruby was saying. "We've planned for so long to celebrate with champagne and caviar, and now I can't make it."

She couldn't make it? Pet had thought the date was off because Dane had canceled to have dinner with her. No, she wasn't going to think of herself as a substitute. Dane had said he and Ruby were finished, so what did it matter?

"Naturally I'm disappointed," Dane replied, and didn't mention anything about having another engagement. It wasn't necessary that he should. "I shouldn't be celebrating now anyway. My work is just beginning, editing it all together into a smooth, fast-paced show. It's just as well that we have to postpone it."

"You're always so understanding, Dane." Ruby beamed and stretched on her toes to kiss him.

"I understand that the star has a show to get ready for and she's letting me detain her." The kiss he gave back was little more than a peck. He turned her around and gave her a gentle push toward her door. "Go and make yourself beautiful."

With a husky laugh, Ruby Gale slipped into her dressing room. As Dane turned to leave, his gaze immediately fell on Pet. She started forward quickly, so he wouldn't guess she had been standing there watching and waiting, a bright smile fixed on her expression. His features gentled at her approach.

"Rick said you wanted to talk to me," she explained.

"All the time…about the silken texture of your hair, the softness of your lips, the heady warmth of your body against mine," he murmured, caressing her with his voice and his velvet dark eyes. Then he seemed to catch himself and took a deep, regretful breath. It was strange, because Pet couldn't breathe at all. "But on this occasion it was business. I want you to get some behind-the-scenes action before the show starts—dressing rooms, makeup, wardrobe, musicians, stagehands. You know the kind of color I want. And concentrate on what goes on in the wings during a performance. You should be able to pick up some audience shots in the background."

"Sure." Pet continued to stand there, looking at him, loving him, and struggling to display the professionalism of her craft.

"Then you'd better get a move on," Dane urged with a dancing look, "before I take you behind that curtain and make love to you."

Her pulse went to pieces, losing any semblance of normality. Behind that glint of amusement in his dark eyes a desirous light burned.

"Yes, sir." Breathless, she mocked a formal salute and turned to hurry away.

By the time she had got the hand-held camera, strapped on all its paraphernalia and commandeered a helper named Tom to carry the recorder and keep the attached wires and cords out of the way, it was half an hour before show time and preparations for the performance were in full swing backstage. She noticed Dane standing on center stage in consultation with her three co-workers who would be manning the cameras out front. They were going over his detailed notes on each number.

Her gaze lingered on his lithely brawny build for an aching second, but her task had already been assigned, so she set to work to begin fulfilling it with Tom tagging along after her like a faithful dog carrying its master's newspaper; only in this case he carried the recorder.

As she was setting up to get a shot of the general hubbub around the dressing rooms, a florist arrived with a huge standing bouquet of bloodred roses. Pet quickly seized on this piece of glamorous backstage color and followed him to the star's dressing room, the tape rolling.

Pet was standing some ten feet away when the door opened at the florist's knock. Luck gave her the perfect angle over the shoulder of the florist into the dressing room.

Clancy, the secretary and girl Friday to Ruby Gale, answered the door. Beyond her, Ruby Gale was sitting in front of a mirror with her back to the camera and the door, dressed in a lavender robe. The mirror's reflection gave Pet a view of the star's face. If it had all been rehearsed, it couldn't have been more perfect.

Evidently the florist had added some flattering comment of his own to the delivery of the roses, because the red-haired entertainer half turned to give him one of her sexy smiles. Her blue gaze flickered past him to the camera and Pet. She was instantly livid, coming to her feet and storming out of her room in a volcanic fury as flaming as her hair.

"You snooping little bitch!" she screamed at Pet. "What are you doing sneaking about out here?"

"I'm sorry." Pet tried to apologize and explain about the flowers, but her voice was drowned by the vicious abuse and accusations Ruby Gale hurled at her. She attempted to retreat, backing away, but she was relentlessly pursued. Too stunned by the vitriolic attack, Pet understood only half of the insults.

"What were you hoping—that I'd be half-naked so you could sell the tapes to some gutter magazine? I know how you got your job! How many men did you have to sleep with to get it? I know your kind! You're nothing but a tramp!" Ruby raged.

Pet's face was scarlet, aware that everyone backstage was witnessing this vile scene. "You aren't on this production because of your skill with the camera!" Ruby went on. "It's your skill in bed, keeping the rest of the crew happy while they're away from home! You're a—"

"What's going on here?" Dane's angry voice was the most wonderful sound Pet had ever heard. She turned as he came striding forward, relief cooling her hot cheeks.

"This blond slut was snooping outside my door!" His arrival did not abate the redhead's abusive tongue. "She—"

Pet interrupted quickly, "The florist delivered some roses and I was—"

"You were sneaking about trying to—"

"No more." Dane intervened to lay soothing hands on Ruby's shoulders, which trembled with the fury of her wrath. "I don't want you getting upset. I'll take care of it. You can leave it to me now."

Pet stared at him incredulously, shock giving way to indignation. She was aware of the calming effect he was having on the star, but she wasn't the least bit interested in whether Ruby was pacified.

"I won't have her sneaking around out here," the redhead insisted. Some of the venom had been removed from her tone although it remained imperious.

"I promise you she won't bother you anymore." He curved an arm around the lavender-covered shoulders and turned Ruby toward her dressing room. "Don't worry about it."

Tears scalded Pet's green eyes. She furiously blinked them away, turning to see Tom staring at her, wordless in profound sympathy. Stiff with righteous anger and raw pain, she couldn't respond to his look. She didn't need to communicate her desire to move away from the star's dressing room as Tom picked up the recorder to walk with her. Pride kept her shoulders squared and her head high, but she was trembling inside from Dane's abandonment of her. She was determined not to let it show how deeply she was hurt.

That resolve flew out of the window when Dane came in search of her a short few minutes later. A wall of stormy tears kept her from seeing him too clearly, but she had a blurred image of his tight-lipped countenance, which was all her temper needed.

"How could you let her talk to me like that?" Her angry voice scraped her throat to make the accusation hoarse. "How could you let her get away with it?"

"It's only twenty minutes before the show starts!" Dane flared. "What did you expect me to do? Try to defend you and have her do one of her exit scenes? Then where the hell would I be with all this equipment and crew and a half-finished special?"

"I don't care who she is or how important she is, nobody has a right to talk to anybody like that—not to me! Not to Tom! Not to anybody!" Pet retorted in a husky protest.

"And what about the show?" he challenged.

"Oh, God, yes. The show!" Her voice was breaking, cracking under the strain. "You said you'd sold your soul for it—and you were right. You'll get your show, Mr. Kingston. And I hope it keeps you happy, because I won't!"

"Of all the damned time and places to pick—" he began in exasperation.

"You'd better leave. You've got work to do before the show starts." She turned away from him, pretending to adjust something with the equipment while she choked on a sob. It was an eternity of seconds before she heard him walk away. She closed her eyes at the shattering pain in her chest.

"Are you all right?" Tom murmured anxiously.

"I'm fine," she sniffed, and wiped at her nose before lifting her chin. "We'll do his damned show."

The decision created a strange detachment that permitted her to get through the taping of the performance, functioning mechanically, completely emotionless. From the wings she got a shot of Ruby Gale accepting the final ovation from the crowd, a heartily applauding audience in the background, and exiting to the opposite side of the stage to receive the congratulations of her personal entourage.

The minute it was over Pet set the camera down and began unstrapping all the gear. "Take care of this stuff for me, Tom," she said tightly, and started to walk away. "I'm leaving."

"But if Mr. Kingston—"

"Tell him he has his show…and he can't fire me, because I quit."