Never a Bride Read online

  He nodded. “I figured that was the case, since, as Blythe has already pointed out, that outfit isn’t exactly regulation.”

  His gaze drifted down to those amazing legs. “Lord, I’ll bet business was booming.” Back to her face, which, surrounded by that wild, fiery mane of hair reminded him of a ravished Irish milkmaid. “You undoubtedly had cars backed up all the way to the Hollywood Freeway.”

  The unfortunate reality of real-life prostitutes was that they never looked like they did in the movies. Cait looked even better, which should have been a tip-off right there. But then again, Sloan considered, he doubted many of the johns cruising the strip would have been able to resist such delectable bait. Putting this luscious lady on the street seemed almost unfair.

  “It does seem, though, as if you could be accused of entrapment.”

  Since joining the Vice Special Detail, Cait had heard much the same thing from defense lawyers too many times to count. Irritating as it was to be accused of entrapment in court, it was even more annoying coming from a man known for his numerous and short-lived romantic liaisons.

  “I should have shot you when I had the chance.”

  “Too late.” He reached out and touched the earring that dangled like a gleaming chandelier from her lobe. “I’ve got a witness, Officer Cait.”

  It was then Cait belatedly remembered Blythe. She glanced around and found her best friend leaning against her car door, arms folded, eying them both with interest. And amusement.

  “Well, you have a meeting. And I’ve got to get home.” As Sloan continued to grin at her with that arrogant male smugness, Cait decided it was past time to leave.

  She was halfway to the Mustang when she remembered her mother’s message and turned back to Blythe. “You are coming Sunday, aren’t you?”

  “Sunday?” Blythe repeated blankly.

  “The Pet Parade Brunch?”

  Given her choice, the glitzy celebrity affair would not have been Blythe’s first choice of a way to spend a rare day off. But knowing how difficult it was for Cait to appear in public with her glamorous, larger-than-life mother, she decided she had no choice but to accompany her to the charity brunch.

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she lied.

  Cait laughed. And thought about how she was going to miss her best friend.

  Of course Blythe was continually promising that her upcoming marriage to the Beverly Hills plastic surgeon would have no effect on their friendship.

  Cait only wished she could believe that.

  There were also days when she wished she could believe in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus.

  But if there was one thing her twenty-five years on this planet and her own parents’ serial weddings had taught her, it was that marriage always changed things. And not for the better.

  3

  BLYTHE HAD NEVER WORKED with Sloan Wyndham, but she had met him socially. She’d also followed his work, beginning eight years ago with his first film, The Arlington Seven, about a violent Vietnam era protest group. After winning best documentary at the Sundance and Telluride film festivals, it had gone on to win honors and industry attention at Cannes.

  Although his successive projects achieved commercial success, it was obvious that he’d not surrendered his vision to profits. His latest film was a riveting, dramatized day in the life of war-torn Sarajevo, interspersed with rough cuts from the 1984 Olympics in that same city. Keepers of the Flame was visual and dramatic and each of the three times she’d seen it, Blythe had left the theater emotionally drained.

  You didn’t have to be a graduate of UCLA’s film school to see that Sloan Wyndham had an agenda. His stories were all modern day morality plays, but delivered with such taut control and irony, they never seemed to preach.

  Blythe could tell for herself that he was talented. She’d heard stories of his impatience and fierce independence, which routinely landed him in hot water with studio executives. There were also rumors of a hedonistic bachelor lifestyle.

  She had no problem with independent individuals. And having certainly been known to be impatient with slackers herself, she couldn’t fault Sloan Wyndham for that character trait.

  As to his reputed hit-and-run romantic life, since he was certainly handsome enough—with his lean hard body, intense whiskey brown eyes and shaggy, thick chestnut hair—to have earned his living on the performing side of the camera, Blythe suspected at least some of the rumors concerning his romantic entanglements might be true.

  However, having grown up in a town where outrageous behavior was often the norm, she was a bit like that proverbial British aristocrat who didn’t really care what people did, so long as they didn’t do it in the middle of the road and frighten the horses.

  She had expected to spend a few minutes exchanging pleasantries, the small talk that was so much a part of deal making in Hollywood. She’d chosen the sunroom for their meeting, hoping that the comfortable, leafy environs over-looking the rose garden and swimming pool would be a conducive atmosphere for their meeting.

  Displaying his legendary impatience and his maverick streak, she’d no sooner served their drinks—an imported dark beer for him, a California chardonnay for her—when Sloan, eschewing polite social conversation, immediately got down to brass tacks.

  “I don’t understand what it is you want from me,” he said.

  “I thought I’d made that perfectly clear when we’d first set up this meeting.” Blythe took a sip of her wine and reminded herself that she was the producer. She should be the one interviewing him, not the other way around. “I’d like you to write a screenplay.”

  “About Alexandra Romanov.” He did not sound as if he were chomping at the bit for the opportunity.

  “That’s right.”

  “The thing is—” he braced his elbows on the arms of the white wicker chair “—you should probably understand right off the bat, the way I work.

  “Coming up with stories isn’t a problem for me. The trick is to find the idea behind the story. It can be political or social or just some new way to get to the truth.

  “I’ve always believed that for a film to be successful, it has to affect thinking, it has to have an impact on the audience’s concept of life.”

  “That’s pretty much what I believe, as well.” Blythe desperately hoped he wouldn’t point out that her films for Xanadu had been less than epic quality. The problem was, Walter Stern III had the money she needed; if she wanted to play on his court with his ball, she had to play the game by Stern’s rules.

  Normally, Sloan wouldn’t have wasted his time even discussing this project. But he’d always thrived on challenge. And for him, the greatest challenge of all was transforming real stories into a movie. He believed that films were forever, and that by taking an actual event and giving it realistic vitality on the screen, he made that truth endure.

  One problem he’d been having since Blythe’s out-of-the-blue telephone call was exactly how much truth the lady was looking for. If she expected him to turn Alexandra Romanov’s tragic death into another one of those exploi-tation films she was famous for starring in, the kind that would be forgotten before the credits rolled across the screen, she was definitely talking to the wrong screenwriter.

  “I have a couple of questions.”

  His gaze locked onto hers. Uneasy, but loath to show it, she nodded and willed herself to calm. “All right.”

  “First of all, why me?”

  That was easy. Blythe allowed herself to relax slightly. “Because I’ve seen all your films. You have a way of getting to the truth, no matter how unpleasant, and illuminating it. Each time I’ve left the theater feeling as if I’ve just been given a close-up look at something very personal.”

  It was, Sloan admitted, a perfect answer. He wondered if she had any idea exactly how personal one of those films had been, then decided she didn’t. He’d hid his tracks too well.

  “Which brings us to my second question,” he said. “Although it’s nothing
I can put my finger on, from our phone conversations over these past two weeks, I have the feeling this project is very personal to you.”

  “It is,” Blythe admitted.

  “Why?”

  Good question, Blythe admitted. “I don’t know.”

  He gave her another one of those long silent looks that made her want to squirm in her chair. Sloan noted her nervousness. And her fatigue that spoke of long days at the studio and longer nights working on this project. He also recognized a streak of stubbornness that was more than a little familiar.

  “Okay,” he said finally, deciding not to press, “I can buy that....

  “Last question—are you hiring me to write a screenplay? Solve a murder? Or right a sixty-year-old wrong?”

  It was a question she’d been asking herself for weeks. And although so many acquaintances had already warned her that she was tilting at windmills, some deep-seated instinct she’d learned to trust told her that Patrick Reardon had not killed his glamorous movie star wife.

  “I think,” Blythe said slowly, honestly, “all three.”

  She watched him mull over her answer, refusing to flinch as those direct brown eyes searched her face as if looking for clues.

  When she didn’t view the skepticism she’d expected to see in his steady gaze, she decided to lay her final cards on the table. “I’ve been thinking about this project for a long time.”

  Obsessed was, perhaps, a more accurate word, but she didn’t want him to worry that he was being asked to work with a crazy woman. “And I’m convinced that you’re the only man who can find the truth beneath the scandal.”

  Despite the obvious obstacles—beginning with the little fact that Hollywood lore had tried, convicted and literally executed Patrick Reardon more than sixty years ago—or perhaps, because of all the inherent problems, Sloan found himself tempted to sign on to the project.

  He knew Blythe would get this film made, one way or the other. The only question remaining was whether he’d be part of the process.

  “I’ve always liked mysteries,” he mused aloud.

  He was looking out the window, but from his faraway gaze, Blythe suspected it was not the sun setting over the Pacific he was seeing, but some distant event visible only to him.

  She was right. “So—” he turned back toward Blythe “—you said you had some clippings?”

  She nodded and reached into the leather attaché case she’d brought home from the studio with her and pulled out a slim manila envelope. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t find very much.”

  The lack of information about the actress in the Xanadu studio archives had proven both puzzling and annoying. After all, Alexandra Romanov’s films had been the primary source of income for the studio during the Great Depression.

  For a business reputed to be built on creativity, Blythe knew, all too well, that it was money that kept the Dream Machine oiled and running. Considering the box office gate during Alexandra’s heyday, she would have expected a shrine to have been erected to the actress.

  “I did manage to come up with these clippings in the newspaper annex of the library,” she said, handing them over to him. “I’ll admit there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of information about Alexandra’s life before her death, but—”

  “Don’t worry about that.” Realizing he’d responded too curtly, Sloan softened his tone and his expression. “If these pique my interest, I can always dig around in the studio morgue myself.”

  “I’m afraid that studio files aren’t available for public viewing.” Although she certainly didn’t want to discourage the man before he’d agreed to write her screenplay, Blythe felt she was obliged to be honest about how little he’d have to work with.

  “Don’t worry about that.” He waved off her warning with a lazy flick of his wrist. “It just so happens that I’ve got friends in high places.” He didn’t elaborate, leaving Blythe to wonder who, exactly, might be willing to break Walter Stern’s sacrosanct rules.

  Surely not Alice, studio archivist. The woman who’d recently celebrated her thirty-fifth anniversary working at Xanadu protected her precious files like a dragon in a video game guarded the royal treasure.

  “There’s one more thing.”

  Somehow, Blythe had a feeling there would be. “What’s that?”

  “If I do decide to take this project on—and I’m not saying I will—I’ll want to direct.”

  Blythe told herself that knowing his reputation for wanting to maintain ultimate control of a project, she should have foreseen this development. Which could turn out to be a problem, if his artistic vision proved at odds with her own view of the film.

  A producer tinkering around with a writer’s screenplay was not unheard of in her business. Telling a director how to direct was an entirely different matter.

  “I don’t know if—”

  “Let me try to explain it to you,” he said, cutting her off again. “For me, a screenplay is like a huge block of marble. It’s wonderful and promising, but easily ruined. I’ve always viewed the director’s role to be that of a sculptor, chiseling away at the stone, ultimately setting the vision—and the truth—free.”

  His jaw and his eyes hardened in a way that made her realize this was not a negotiating point.

  “I categorically refuse to expend creative energy on a story only to let some guy with a chain saw loose on it.”

  Although she understood his concern, Blythe took offense at his disparaging tone. “I can see your point,” she allowed coolly. “However, I certainly wasn’t planning to hire some hack.”

  Sloan liked the way her back stiffened when she was irritated. He also liked the way she stood up to him. Since his string of successes had put him in the upper echelon of hot properties in Hollywood, making him one of a few “bankable” writer-directors, most women—hell, most people—tended to fawn in his presence.

  Sloan was well aware of the fact that one flop would cause those same people to instantly forget his name.

  “I’m sure whomever you’re considering is competent,” he said. “Hell, maybe even brilliant. But it doesn’t matter to me. Because the truth is, Blythe, you could hire the best damn director in the business.

  “But when the picture’s finished, whatever was born from that beginning block of marble would be his or her vision. Not mine.”

  “That makes sense,” Blythe agreed slowly. From what she’d witnessed thus far, she wondered if Sloan was as difficult to work with as she’d heard and decided that it didn’t matter. She wanted to get her picture made right. And she still believed he was the man to do it.

  “Look, all this is still a bit premature,” he said. “Why don’t we have this discussion after I read these clippings? Then I can let you know whether or not I’m interested in signing on.”

  It was not the answer she’d wanted. But she knew it was the only answer she was going to get for now. Reminding herself that patience was suppose to be a virtue, and forcing herself not to give him an arbitrary deadline, Blythe reluctantly agreed. As she walked him to the door, then stood in the redbrick driveway, watching the Porsche drive away, Blythe was frustrated by the fact that she had not a single clue as to Sloan’s feelings. For a town where egos and emotions were openly displayed, she found his way of keeping his thoughts to himself both irritating and refreshing.

  * * *

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE you’re going to be working with that oversexed wunderkind,” Cait said as she and Blythe drove to the Pet Parade Brunch on Sunday. They’d decided, for friendship’s sake, as much as convenience, to drive to the garden party together.

  “Actually, I think Sloan’s reputation may be exaggerated,” Blythe argued mildly. “He was quite the gentleman during our meeting. Really,” she insisted when Cait shot her a disbelieving look. “I think we’re going to be able to work quite well together.”

  “That’s probably what Little Red Riding Hood said about the Big Bad Wolf,” Cait muttered.

  Having grown up in the b
usiness, Cat knew firsthand about handsome, charming rogues. After all, her father, whom she truly adored, could have set the standard for such Hollywood rakes.

  Deciding that it wasn’t her responsibility to defend the screenwriter’s admittedly less than sterling reputation, Blythe didn’t respond to Cait’s sarcasm.

  “Speaking of oversexed,” she said, “that really was quite an outfit you were wearing the other day.” Although the reference brought up her humiliating encounter with Sloan Wyndham, something Cait had unfortunately been thinking about far too much these past days—and nights—she couldn’t help but grin.

  “Didn’t you think it was me?”

  “Actually, I thought you looked a bit like Madonna, in the old days.”

  “Bingo. Give the lady a Kewpie doll. That was my Like a Virgin outfit.”

  The wicked grin reached all the way to her eyes and caused gold facets to radiate from the bright green depths. “Since you still haven’t gotten around to picking out a wedding dress, I’ll let you borrow it for your upcoming nup-tials.”

  “Alan would love that.” Blythe’s dry tone said otherwise.

  Cait shook her head in frustration. “Have you noticed that ever since you started dating the good doctor, you’ve gotten awfully stodgy?”

  “Stodgy?”

  “A six-letter word meaning boring. Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that you’re the same adventurous, fun-loving girl who glued three red silk roses onto a bikini and went to the Sigma Chi halloween party as a Rose Bowl float.”

  Blythe didn’t know it was possible to grin and groan at the same time. If Alan ever found out about that stunt...

  “That doesn’t count. We were in college.” She firmly believed that the president should declare an official national amnesty for all the stupid stunts people pulled during the four intense, often insane years they spent away at uni-versity.

  “Are you telling me that if you’d been engaged to Alan at the time, you still would have done it?”

  The question was a good one, Blythe admitted reluctantly. “Probably not.”