for him and the constant exposure to the sensuality imposed on them by their roles, she had abandoned all her dearly held beliefs—and herself—to him.
The screech of the car brakes jerked her back to the present. Dale had always been an aggressive driver and in that regard he didn’t seem to have changed.
‘I’ve just been telling Sarah about our new director,’ he commented to Paul. ‘Unlike me,’ he added for Sarah’s benefit, ‘Paul likes our new director. Of course he isn’t the only one. Gina, my sweetly innocent Berengaria, had made her preferences in that quarter very well known. Of course Ben’s playing it cool—he can hardly do otherwise since Gina’s lover is one of our most influential backers. He’s having quite a hard time of it trying to keep Gina at bay without offending her, but then he always was adept at double-dealing. Still, you’re going to come as quite a shock to him.’
From the back seat Paul interrupted gently, ‘A very pleasant one, I’m sure, Sarah. It’s just that there’s been a change on the continuity side as well, and the girl who replaced Ellen, our first continuity girl, must have forgotten to take Rachel Ware’s name out and insert yours in the casting list.’
Sarah’s heart sank even further. She hadn’t realised that someone else had actually been cast for the part ahead of her. ‘Come on, Dale,’ Paul protested. ‘You’re frightening the life out of Sarah! Ben won’t eat you,’ he told her. ‘Oh, he’s demanding all right—knows exactly what he wants from the cast and makes sure he gets it, but…’
‘Sarah knows all about Ben, Paul,’ Dale interrupted, his eyes leaving the road for a second as he turned his head to frown at the man in the back seat. ‘We both worked with him on Shakespeare. You’ll have to forgive Paul’s ignorance,’ he added to Sarah. ‘He’s come rather late to the acting scene. He was training to be a chartered accountant when he suddenly got the bug.’
‘I qualified, too,’ Paul put in with a disarming grin. ‘I had a girl-friend who was a model, and she got me some ad work, which is how I got started.’
‘Yes, he’s the original chocolate-box hero,’ Dale retorted.
So Paul didn’t know about her marriage to Ben; of course it was over three years ago and had happened in England, and Sarah couldn’t help hoping that the rest of the cast were similarly ignorant. It wasn’t going to be easy working with him, especially not with the eyes of the rest of the cast monitoring their responses to one another.
‘Is it much further?’ Sarah queried, trying to ease the crick in her neck. They seemed to have been speeding through the dark, apparently empty countryside, for half a lifetime, and on top of her flight, the journey was beginning to take its toll on her.
‘Only another ten miles or so,’ Paul comforted her from the back.
‘If Guy wasn’t such a fanatic for realism we could have shot most of these scenes in the Californian desert and used the studios for everything else,’ Dale chimed in rather bitterly.
Telling herself that it was only natural that Dale should sound a little disgruntled, after all Hollywood was home to him now and he must have grown accustomed to all the luxuries it offered, Sarah wondered what he would say if she confided to him how thrilled she was that they were filming on location.
‘Well, here we are,’ Dale announced fifteen minutes later as he pulled off the main road and they bumped down a dusty, narrow track.
Ahead of them a collection of lights shone from the windows of large trailers, and the guard on duty at the makeshift ‘gate’ grinned a welcome to Dale, eyeing Sarah with a flat curiosity that made her raise her eyebrows a little. ‘He obviously thinks I’m someone you’ve picked up for the evening,’ she commented to Dale as he parked his car outside a darkened trailer and Paul got out, having wished them both goodnight,
‘And he’s probably envying me,’ Dale retorted with a grin, coming round to open her door. ‘By the way,’ he added casually, ‘one of the problems we have here is that we’re a little short on accommodation at the moment. Will you slap my face, sweetling, if I suggest you share with me for tonight? There’s a separate bedroom, and rather than rouse half the outfit…’
Hiding her surprise, Sarah nodded her agreement. A glance at her watch showed her that it was after one in the morning, and her body ached for sleep. She knew Dale well enough to know that she could trust him, and although she had half expected to have to share a trailer—accommodation always being notoriously problematical on location—she had reckoned on sharing with one of the other girls.
‘You were to have shared with Gina,’ Dale explained to her as he extracted a key from his pocket and unlocked the metal door, flicking on the light as he did so, and allowing Sarah to step past him into the illuminated interior, ‘but our dear Garia kicked up a fuss. It seems that sharing with someone would not be convenient—unless of course that someone happens to be our director. However, Ben isn’t playing—at least not publicly. With all the other problems he’s got on his hands, I don’t suppose he’s any too keen to upset one of our backers. He’s going to have a hard time of it, trying to appease both Gina and her lover. He could, of course, always bow out and let someone else take over, but his last film wasn’t exactly a box-office winner and…’
‘Oh, but surely,’ Sarah broke in impulsively, without thinking, ‘it got the Best Film Award, and…’
‘It might have got the Award, sweetling,’ Dale told her dryly, ‘but if you want my opinion, Ben over-stepped himself, spending so much on making it, and that money won’t be easily recouped. Would you like a drink before I show you to your room, madam?’ he parodied, laughing at her, as he changed the subject and indicated one of the three doors leading off the narrow corridor which ran from the living area in which they were standing, and down past a small but very highly sophisticated kitchen.
‘If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go straight to bed,’ Sarah told him, suddenly conscious of the hectic day behind her, fulfilling the last of her ad commitments, and the long journey to their destination. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind putting me up for tonight, Dale, I could…’
Was there a touch of impatience in the frown lining his forehead? Dale was probably tired, too, and she was fussing unnecessarily, Sarah told herself when he assured her that he didn’t.
‘Come on, you can have this room. I’ll say this for Guy,’ he added as he pushed open the door, ‘these trailers are well equipped, even down to air-conditioning. He even had a temporary pool installed on the site. Not that we get much chance to use it with dear old Ben in charge. He’s a real slavedriver!’ He slanted Sarah a sideways glance, and her scalp prickled with sensitive awareness. There had always been keen competition between the two men, but now she sensed that this had changed, deepened in some way, and this suspicion was confirmed when Dale said slowly, ‘He’s changed since we filmed Shakespeare together, Sarah, and much as I hate to say it, he’s a sore loser. Don’t worry about it, though,’ he told her, his expression lightening, ‘Uncle Dale’s here to protect you.’
Was the air-conditioning the sole reason she was shivering? Sarah wondered half an hour later as she prepared for bed in the small but luxurious ‘room’ Dale had given her. It was senseless unpacking until she discovered where she was to stay, so, having showered in Dale’s minute but compact bathroom, she pulled on the nightdress she had extracted from one of her cases and climbed into bed.
It was silly to feel so apprehensive simply because she was working with Ben again. He would want to forget the past as much as she did. Hadn’t he said when he stormed out
