Chapter Twenty-Two

Dianne was allowed to go home with Tony at three in the morning. She spent an hour weeping and asking him to forgive her and then an hour packing.

Tony did forgive her and he was gentle as he held her close. “I can’t think why you believed I had someone else. It’s just work. I’m flat out all the time. This is the first time you’ve actually worked on a movie with me. Call me as soon as you are home in the apartment. We’ll work something out. I love you; please believe that. There’s no one else for me. You’re the only one for me.”

He kissed her lovingly.

Dianne watched him fall asleep and then slid back out of the bed. She wanted to apologize to Seth. It felt like the most important thing in the world right then. After all, he did let her off. She could have been in a police cell that night. She dressed in her jeans and sweater, pushed her cell phone and keys to the trailer into her pockets, and quietly left the place.

The bottoms of her jeans got wet with the early morning dew. She hunched her shoulders slightly, feeling a little cold. She wished she had grabbed a jacket.

She walked down the little pebbled path that wound past the row and reached the back of Seth’s trailer. Dianne knew where the bedrooms were. All the trailers had the same layout. She looked in, telling herself it was to make sure he was still in his trailer. He was in bed and wrapped around his naked form was that detective, Bethany Snow. Dianne stared.

Seth is completely gorgeous, she thought vaguely and then she felt a stab of annoyance. Is that okay? Surely it’s a conflict of interest to screw the detective.

Her stare must have penetrated Seth’s dreams because he stirred and cuddled Bethany closer. Dianne took off down the path.

She didn’t follow it around to the front door. Instead, she ran along the grass and down to meet the path again as it led to the canteen marquee. She shivered. There was a lovely smell of coffee coming from the marquee and she walked quickly in. She just had time to say goodbye to the other makeup people she had befriended. She knew they would have coffee before they dashed off to the first job. She got coffee quickly at the counter and went to sit with them.

They heard about what she had done and were visibly uncomfortable as she sat with them. Dianne realized the welcome was a little cool.

“I just wanted to say good-bye. I never meant any harm. Anyway, Seth Carbery is no angel. I just saw him in bed with the woman who arrested me.” She knew she used the word ‘arrested’ loosely but didn’t know how else to describe what happened to her.

A stir of interest went around the group. Dianne, in her misery at knowing she had half an hour before being escorted off the site, added, “So, that letter about him being a womanizer really wasn’t far from the truth.”

Fear rippled through her when one of her colleague’s eyes widened.

She stood up. “I have to go now. It was good working with you.” She took her coffee with her.

Outside the marquee, she stood and took a drink of it. It was hot and gave her a little strength back. She went back to the trailer she shared with Tony, knowing the security people would be around very soon to take her formally off the site with her warning.

When Dianne left, the other makeup artists whispered to each other, half-afraid that they knew some secret about Seth Carbery and half-afraid it was another of Dianne’s concoctions like her hate mail.

At the next table Niall Fogarty, one of the stunt people on the movie, heard everything. A seed of jealousy embedded in his heart. He watched and worshipped Seth for months.

He followed Seth from one movie location to another, begging for this job. He took a lower payment in order to gain the contract—just to watch Seth. He honestly thought Seth might be gay too, until that debacle with Sara Smythe. Even then, he harbored a small hope that Seth would one day notice him and suddenly realize it was Niall he loved.

This new information cut him and he got up, leaving his breakfast. He just had time to snoop past the actor’s trailer before he went off to the half-castle set, where he knew he was needed that morning. Niall decided he would make sure Seth and this detective were together and then, damn it, he’d warn her off if necessary. She should be gone soon anyway, now that poor Dianne confessed to her pathetic activities.

He bolted up the grass bank and along the path knowing that if Dianne had really seen Seth that morning then it had to be through his bedroom window. Maybe they were still there.