squirmed helplessly as his hand began caressing her thigh under the table.
‘I can do whatever I like. I’m a god in this town, sweetheart. I don’t have to run around with a begging bowl every time I want to get a movie made, like your husband. You know what I heard?’ His hand was creeping higher.
‘What?’ Chrissie breathed heavily, so aroused now she felt as if she’d been hypnotized.
‘I heard all this bad press swirling around Sabrina Leon is killing interest in his movie. Withering Heights, they’re calling it.’ He laughed, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘The film’s dying on the vine.’
‘That’s not true,’ said Chrissie, trying to block out the sensations in her groin and focus on what Harry was saying. ‘If you must know he’s had a lot of early interest from the big studios.’
‘Like who?’ Harry tried to keep his voice casual.
‘Like Paramount,’ said Chrissie smugly, ‘among others.’
‘And what “others” might those be?’ asked Harry.
Chrissie opened her mouth to tell him, when something made her hesitate. It was as if the hypnotist had suddenly clicked his fingers and awoken her from the trance. I’m being played, she thought, furiously. He’s not interested in me. He’s just pumping me for info on the damn movie. Removing Greene’s hand from her thigh, she cleared her throat. ‘Nice try,’ she said tersely. ‘But if you want information about my husband’s business, you’re going to have to fish for it elsewhere.’
Turning her back on him, she engaged the man on her other side in conversation, and proceeded to ignore Harry Greene for the rest of the night. Irritatingly unfazed, Harry focused his attentions on the pretty blonde to his right, ‘helping’ her to bid for a number of items at the charity auction, including a delicate Fred Leighton emerald necklace that Chrissie coveted wildly and a six-night stay at the Post Ranch Inn, which just happened to be Chrissie’s favourite hotel in the entire world.
They didn’t speak again until they were leaving. Reunited with an out-of-her-mind-drunk Linda Greaves, Chrissie was waiting at the coat check for her borrowed vintage mink when she felt someone come up behind her and slip a hand around her waist.
‘You’re right,’ Harry whispered in her ear. ‘I did want information. But I wanted you more.’
Before Chrissie had a chance to say anything, he planted a kiss on the back of her neck that made every hair on her body stand on end.
‘Next time,’ he murmured, and disappeared into the night with the blonde trailing in his wake.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Two days after Chrissie Rasmirez’s arrival on the Wuthering Heights set, Chuck MacNamee opened a book on who would be the first to snap and murder her with their bare hands. Rhys Williams had put his money on Lizzie Bayer, whom Chrissie had audibly refered to as ‘middle-aged’ on day one. But most of the cast had bet on Sabrina.
On a good day, Chrissie was merely distracting, interrupting Dorian mid-take to offer suggestions on how this or that actor might play the scene better, or how a certain camera angle ‘wasn’t working’. On a bad day, she would deliberately rile an already overwrought Sabrina, ordering her around as if she were the director, criticizing everything from Sabrina’s stance to her delivery to the way she wore her period dresses. (‘Amazing how that girl can manage to look like a slut in anything.’) She was only fractionally less overbearing with the rest of the cast, the one blatant exception being Viorel, for whom Chrissie quite plainly had the hots.
Off set, if possible, her behaviour was even worse. Used to being waited on hand and foot at the Schloss, Chrissie treated Tish like a maid, complaining about everything from the softness of her and Dorian’s towels to the creaking of the water pipes at night.
‘Can’t you get that fixed? How’s my husband supposed to be creative when our bedroom sounds like a sinking ship?’
When Tish pointed out that Dorian had made no complaints about the room until Chrissie arrived, Chrissie cut her off mid-sentence with a curt, ‘Well, he’s complaining now,’ before demanding a taxi be ordered to take her into town to collect her prescription allergy medicines. ‘This place is so dusty, I’m surprised you haven’t all asphyxiated.’
Her most abominable rudeness, however, was reserved for Mrs Drummond, whom she seemed to view as some sort of indentured slave. After one particularly grizzly incident, when Chrissie had tried to insist that Mrs D hand-wash her period-stained underwear (‘It’s La Perla. I’m not trusting it to that clapped-out old washing machine’) Dorian had taken her to one side and attempted to smooth the waters.
‘This is not our home, honey,’ he remonstrated gently.
‘Thank God!’ said Chrissie.
‘And it’s not a hotel either.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Dorian. You’ve paid for the location, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, of course. I’m just asking you to be sensitive, that’s all. You’ll be gone in a week, but the rest of us have to live and work together here for another month.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Chrissie petulantly. ‘Counting the days till you can get rid of me already, are you?’
Dorian sighed. It was hopeless.
Sunday was a day off filming, the first in seventeen straight days, and a much-needed break for everyone. Half the crew decamped en masse to the pub in Loxley. The other half retreated to their trailers to watch downloaded American football or indulge in the backgammon craze that had swept the set over the last two weeks. (Viorel was in the lead, although Deborah Raynham was giving him a good run for his money.) Sabrina announced her intention of spending the entire day in bed. By noon, she appeared to have kept her word. No one had seen her. Rhys Evans and Lizzie Bayer, who’d recently started sleeping together (‘Any port in a storm,’ as Vio had wryly observed to Sabrina), left early to spend the day at Alton Towers. Jamie Duggan, officially the most boring man on set, had pleased everyone by taking himself off on a cultural tour of the local Saxon churches.
All of which meant that Mrs Drummond’s mouthwatering buffet lunch was attended by only a skeleton crew of five: Tish and Abel, Dorian and Chrissie, and Viorel.
‘This chicken pie’s yummy!’ Abel mumbled appreciatively, spraying pastry crumbs all over the table, his cheeks stuffed full like a chipmunk’s. ‘Canniavanothslice?’
‘No,’ said Tish. ‘You haven’t even finished what’s in your mouth yet, greedy grub.’
‘Let the kid eat,’ said Viorel contemptuously, sending his own plate of pie flying across the table like an ice-hockey puck in Abel’s direction. ‘He’s a growing boy.’
‘Cool!’ said Abel, catching the speeding plate and giving Vio a big thumbs-up sign before cramming the third slice into his mouth.
Dorian observed this little exchange with a growing feeling of unease. Something was up between Tish and Vio. Up until about a week ago, they’d been the best of friends. But now there was a tension you could have eaten with a spoon.
‘Use your knife and fork,’
