Her Leading Man (48 page)

“
My back’s okay. I’m really pretty strong,
you
know.”

Oh dear, she hoped she hadn’t hurt his feelings
by questioning his
masculine prowess. Christina knew
how silly men could be about such
things.

“
Spines are tricky little devils,” she said in an
effort
to assuage any damage she’d done to his pride.
“My father’s seen
lots of people whose backs have
gone out when they’ve only leaned over to
pick up
pieces of paper and so forth. I’m a
lot heavier than
paper.”

He
chuckled. “True, but I think I’m all right.”

She sure hoped
he was.

Ben came up to them. “Good job, you two. I think
this picture is
going to be great.”

Christina saw Martin’s eyebrows lift in surprise.
Ben didn’t generally
make pronouncements of such
a nature. She said, “Really?”

The cameraman nodded. “Really. The public’s going
to love it. You two
looked perfect. It’s going to
pack a real emotional punch.”

Pablo Orozco strolled up. Since he hadn’t been
required
to
do anything but pose for close-up shots all
day, he looked fresh as a daisy.
Christina hated him
for it. Not that she hadn’t hated him before.

“
You shouldn’t have played the part so weak,
Martin,”
Pablo said in a voice that was too condescending
for Christina’s
temper to endure.

She spat
out
, “Who are you to make disparaging
comments, you idiot?”

Martin took hold of her arm. “Don’t pay any attention to
him, Christina.” He turned to Pablo and
said in his ever-patient director’s
voice, “We’ve been
walking on the waterless desert for a week or so,
Pablo. Being weak is
a part of the
message of the
picture.”

“
Fah. I
am strong.”

“
You’re
a pig,” Christina muttered.

She regretted displaying her temper when Martin
hastily spoke up
again. “Yes, well, let’s get the close
-
ups
shot, and we can all go inside and get out of
this pernicious
sun.” Without giving either actor the
opportunity to speak again, he went on,
“Pablo, you
go on over to the oasis where Ben’s set up his
camera.
Christina, you need to take your hair down for
this next
scene.”

“
Right.” She didn’t relish the prospect since
her
hair was heavy, and she’d he even hotter with it
streaming down her
back than she was now And she
was already about to boil. Nevertheless, she took
out
her
hairpins and handed them to Martin. “Will you
hold on to these for me,
please?”

“
Glad to.” He gave her an encouraging smile,
and
she once more realized how much she loved him.

“
Thanks, Martin.” She lifted herself on tiptoes
and
gave him a quick kiss before she started off after
Orozco.

She was dreading this scene. In it, Ben was going
to capture a
close-up kiss between herself and the
man she loathed, and the thought made
Christina feel
positively ill. Unless that was the heat.

Ben took his position behind the tripod and camera,
and Christina
sat
underneath a date palm. She
didn’t have any difficulty looking
exhausted. Her
head even lolled without any help from her. Ben and
the camera were only
a couple of feet away from
her palm tree in order to film the actors’
faces.

“
All ready?” Martin asked from his position
beside
Ben.

“
I guess so,” Christina muttered. She
positively
dreaded this scene.

“
I am
ready,” Orozco pronounced.

Christina rolled her eyes.
Martin didn’t react, but only said, “All
right, then.
Action!”

Ben began cranking. Christina lolled some more.
Orozco came into
view after Ben had cranked for
several seconds. In this scene, he was supposed
to
give
Christina
water
, and then they were supposed
to kiss.

“
Here,
my
juicy little date,”
Orozco purred. “Allow
me to refresh you with water.”

“
Your juicy little date, my foot,” Christina
muttered.
But she did her part.
Straightening slightly, she
gave the ham a wan
smile
.

Orozco sat beside her, put his good arm around
her, and drew her
forward an inch or so. A property
girl, out of the camera’s sight, thrust a
goblet into
Christina’s hand Where the slave girl she was
supposed
to
be could have found a goblet on a
barren
desert, Christina had no idea, but she
didn’t fuss.

With a flutter of her eyelashes and a look of
deathless
love at Pablo Orozco, she lifted the goblet
to
her lips and drank.
The water felt good going down.
She imagined her headache had come
on
because
she
was dehydrated after this miserable day’s
work.

“
Look into my eyes,” Orozco commanded.
“Show
me how much you want me.”

“
If I did that, I’d probably throw up, and
we’d
never get this thing in the can.”

“
Ha. You can’t fool me, Christina. I know
you
want me.”

“
Oh, fudge. You’re impossible.” Her expression
of
abject adoration didn’t diminish,
although every nerve
in her body
rebelled.

As he slowly leaned closer to her, she wanted to
draw away but
couldn’t or she’d ruin the scene.
When Pablo’s lips finally touched hers,
she couldn’t
suppress a shudder of revulsion. How could a kiss
feel heavenly when
shared with one man—Ma
rtin
—
and
feel so filthy and disgusting when shared
with
another—Pablo?

He kept kissing her and kept kissing her, until
Christina figured
surely enough time had passed for
a dozen kisses to have transpired. Still,
he didn’t remove
himself from her. Nobody yelled “cut
.
”

The kiss went
on.

And on.

And on.

Finally, she couldn’t tolerate it another
millisecond
longer. With his lips still crushing hers, she
gaspe
d,
“Let me go, damn you!”

As soon as her mouth opened, he thrust his tongue
inside That was it
for her. With a tremendous push,
she shoved Orozco away from her. Since
he’d been
exerting a good deal of pressure on her as he
assaulted
her, she’d had to brace herself with her hands.
One of them had
brushed against a rock, and her
hand sought out that rock in an impulse
prompted,
she
later assumed, by a snatch at self-preservation.

Christina shrieked, “Let me go!” as she grabbed
the rock and bashed
Orozco on the side of the head
with it. Too frenzied even to consider what
she’d
done,
Christina leaped to her feet, panting hard. “You
cad! You foul
beast!” She scrubbed her mouth and
tongue with the back of the hand not
holding the
rock.

“
Good
God, what happened?”

Martin grabbed her from behind, and she darned
near conked him on
the head with the rock before
she realized who he was. Overwhelmed with
headache
,
exhaustion, and revulsion at what Orozco
had
just done
to her, she turned and threw her arms
around Martin, who obliged her by hugging
her close.

“
What the heck happened?” Ben had
stopped
cranking the camera as soon as Christina’s first
shout
reached
his ear. He, too, had run up to see what was
going on.

“
She struck me!” Pablo Orozco shouted,
pressing
his good hand to his bleeding head. “I’m
injured!’

Christina wrenched herself out of Martin’s
arms
.
Tears streamed down her made-up face, but
she
wasn’t
aware of them until later. She bellowed, “I’ll
kill you, you filthy pig!”
Before she could carry out
her intentions, Martin again grabbed hold of
her.

Frowning, Martin glanced down at Orozco. “What
happened here,
Pablo? Did you do something to
Christina?”

“
Fah!” Orozco cried. “She struck me with a
rock.
”

“
I
wished I’d caved your conceited head in!”

Martin, still holding her tight, dared to remove one
hand from her. He
patted her shoulder with it in an
attempt to calm her. “It’s all right,
Christina. The
scene’s over now. I think Ben got it in one take,
and
we won’t have to
reshoot it.” The glance he
shot at
Ben pleaded eloquently that Ben agree with
Martin
’s
assessment.

Either because it was true or because Ben
sympathized
with Martin, he nodded. “Yeah. It looked
great. It’ll be
perfect.”

“
Thank
God.”

Christina’s bosom still heaved with fury, and she
clung to her rock
and to Martin. At the moment she
wasn’t sure which one she’d be better off
letting
g
o of
. She still wanted to crush Orozco’s
skull.
Doing
so would only benefit mankind. Rather, it
would
benefit
womankind. At the moment, Christina’s co
m
passion
didn’t extend to the males of the species.

“
He
stuck his tongue down my throat.” Her voice
shook with rage. “He
actually dared to stick his filthy
tongue down my throat!”

“
Fah,”
said Orozco. “You loved it.”

“
I
what
?” She drew her hand back, intending to
heave the rock in Orozco’s
face—she might at least
be able to break his nose, if she couldn’t kill
him—but again Martin
prevented her from achieving her
goal.

“
Don’t, Christina!” His voice was sharp this
time.
It was the first time she’d ever heard him speak
so crisply to her.
Whirling around, she stared at him

“
But, but—He stuck his tongue down my
throat!”

“
Yes, I heard you the first few times, but you
can’t
batter him anymore, darling.”

“
Why
not?”

Christina resented Martin’s deep and soulful sigh.
What did he have to
be upset about? Orozco hadn’t
stuck his tongue in his mouth!

“
Try to,
calm down, Christina,” Martin advised.

S
he resented that, too. “He shouldn’t
have done it.”

“
Fah,”
muttered Orozco.

“
Fah, my
foot,” bellowed Christina.

“
Say, Pablo, that wasn’t a nice thing to do.”
Ben
didn’t raise his voice, but it reeked with
disapproval.
“
You know darned well that Christina and
Martin are
engaged
to be
married
. You
have no business kissing Christina like
that. Why, it’s
disgusting!”

The cameraman’s words so shocked Christina that
she stood in
Martin’s grip, her mouth hanging open,
for several seconds. Everyone knew
they were
engaged?
To be married? How could everyone
know
that, if
even Christina didn’t? The
assumptions
people
made astounded her sometimes.