‘Goodbye, Claire,’ Shannon repeated. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’
‘At least decide what you want me to tell Michaels. I have to tell him something.’
The slam of the door cut off Claire’s complaints. Shannon let out her breath and leaned against the wall, waiting until she heard the sharp sound of her agent’s heels tapping down the hall.
Lord, the woman was persistent! And she meant well—but not all the good intentions in the world would make her trade on what she and Cade felt for each other. It was intense, it was wonderful—and it was private.
Perhaps it had something to do with the way they’d met or with the millions who watched their on-screen love scenes, but from the beginning, they had kept their love affair quiet.
And becoming lovers had changed the way they approached their scenes together. Alana Dunbar and Johnny Wolff met before the cameras now, not Shannon and Cade. The love scenes still ‘sizzled’— they were both good actors. Besides, the sparks they struck would always be there, no matter how professional they were.
But the real Shannon and Cade embraced only when they were alone—and they were alone as often as possible.
Shannon kicked off her shoes and padded across the room. Her apartment felt like a refrigerator. She touched the living-room radiator and sighed. Still cold. The one in the bedroom was the same, although it gave a strangled gurgle when she banged it with her hand. The thing to do was get out of her damp clothing and into something warm, and then go back and finish her tea.
She hit the playback button on her answering machine, then pulled her dress over her head. The machine whirred into life and Claire’s voice filled the bedroom.
‘Hi, there, sweetie. Do me a favor and call me when you get in, yes?’
Shannon tossed the dress aside and pressed the button again.
‘Uh, this is Jose. The superintendent? Uh, I need to get into your apartment tomorrow. To work on the heat and I can’t ‘cause you got your own lock on the door. So maybe you could drop off your keys...’
I’ll be dead from the cold by tomorrow, she thought, hitting the button again. Quickly, she pulled on a pair of baggy grey sweatpants, a navy sweatshirt, and a Ragg sweater, listening while the machine clicked, whirred and returned to record. Her feet felt like lumps of ice and she put on white wool socks and then added her Mickey Mouse slippers.
The glamorous Shannon Padgett, relaxing at home, she thought, grinning at her reflection in the mirror.
She glanced at the clock as she went into the kitchen. Cade would probably be calling soon. He’d said he’d get in touch first chance he had. Picking up her teacup, she sipped at the liquid, made a face and tossed the tepid stuff into the sink. What was the point of making tea and drinking it cold? She sighed as she refilled the kettle and set it on the range. That Claire! She was impossible. Why couldn’t she simply be glad that All Our Tomorrows was doing as well as it was?
Be fair, Shannon told herself as she took a box of tea-bags from the shelf. Claire had been a pest lately, but she was only trying to do her job. Even without the kind of media attention she wanted, Shannon’s career was on the move. There were doors opening to her now that had been closed before, and all her agent was trying to tell her was what she already knew.
Either you stepped through those doors quickly or they swung shut. Nothing in the theater was deader than yesterday’s hit.
The kettle shrilled and she shut off the burner. No, you couldn’t blame Claire for wanting to make the most of what was happening. It was just that nothing—not even the New York offer or the Los Angeles offer—was as important as Cade.
She stirred a spoonful of sugar into her tea, watching as the amber liquid swirled and eddied.
Still, she had to deal with those offers and she had to do it soon. You could only put off people so long.
How strange life was, she thought, sipping the hot tea. If the offers had come just a couple of weeks ago, she’d have been on the phone with Claire ten times a day, luxuriating in the pleasure of deciding which of them to accept.
Not that it wasn’t still exciting. It was just that she didn’t want to tie herself to three months in Los Angeles next summer or two months here in New York or anywhere else, not now. She wanted to be with Cade, and he wanted to be with her, and that was all that matt
ered.
‘There’s a little bistro in Marseilles that you’d love,’ he’d said as they had dined in a restaurant overlooking the East River. ‘It’s a madhouse during the summer, but it’s peaceful and quiet in the spring.’ And the other afternoon, reading lines together, he’d suddenly looked up and smiled at her. ‘Jack and Phil are going to open a place in Seattle next fall, did I tell you?’ And she’d said no, he hadn’t, and he’d smiled again. ‘Seattle’s a terrific city,’ he’d said. ‘You’d like it.’ And then, just last night, as they returned to her apartment after dinner, a couple of stoned kids had brushed by, muttering something vaguely obscene, and Cade had tensed. ‘We’ve got to get you out of this neighbourhood,’ he’d said. ‘It’s too damned dangerous.’
The sudden cry of the telephone startled her. She was half-way out of her chair before she remembered that the answering machine was still on. Perhaps that was just as well; Claire might have decided to try another approach.
It wasn’t until she was rinsing out her teacup that it suddenly occurred to her that it might be Cade calling. Stupid, she thought, wiping her hands on her sweatpants and hurrying out of the kitchen. Stupid...
Damn! Of course, it was Cade. The machine whirred and clicked and then his husky voice reached out to her through the silent rooms.
‘Hello, love. I called the studio but they said you’d gone for the day. I'm going to be stuck here for a while. Do you want to meet me at Nico’s at eight or shall I come by your apartment for you? Call me at 555-4180 and let me know...’
‘Yes,’ she gasped, snatching up the telephone.
Cade laughed softly. ‘A machine that responds, hmm? That’s wonderful. But it has to learn to make choices.’