Head high, she walked across the narrow space separating one set from the other.
There was the bed, looming ahead of her, that horrible bed, that bed the size of a football field...
One and one are two. Two and two are four. You can do this, she thought. Of course she could. Four and four are eight. Four is the square root of sixteen and there are four sets of sheets in the linen closet, and why in God’s name hadn’t she listened that time Eli had suggested that transcendental meditation was the best relaxation?
‘Padgett? Are you ready?’
One last deep breath, and then she nodded and she was Alana Dunbar, walking into her gaudy bedroom, ignoring the bed which had certainly grown to a hundred miles wide and a hundred miles long.
She knew what Alana would do and she did it, going to the make- believe window, gazing out at the make-believe night, telling herself it was not Cade bursting through the door, it was Johnny Wolff, just as it was Johnny’s hand on her shoulder, Johnny’s fingers cutting into her flesh.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ he growled. ‘I’ve been trying to find you for days.’
She turned to face him. Smile, she told herself, smile as Alana would. The Dunbar heiress was a bitch, but she was a woman, and in this scene her pride was on the line.
‘I don’t know why,’ she said clearly, looking at Cade. ‘We have nothing more to say to each other.’
‘Haven’t we?’ he asked huskily, his gaze drifting over her. Not indigo eyes today, she thought suddenly, more like polished ebony...
‘I know all about you, Johnny,’ she said. ‘I know everything. You were just using me.’
The words were like sand in her mouth. They’re just lines, she told herself, that’s all they are. They had nothing to do with her or Cade—they were Alana’s words and Johnny’s.
‘Somebody lied to you,’ Cade said, his fingers tightening on her, biting into her skin through the thin silk dress. ‘I’ve never used you.’
Her mouth was dry, so dry...
She forced herself to swallow and then she ran her tongue across her lips.
‘Don’t lie to me,’ she whispered. ‘My stepmother told me all about you.’
Cade’s hand closed around the nape of her neck.
‘I don’t know anybody told you,’ he said softly, ‘but it’s all lies. I love you.’
Shannon’s throat constricted. His touch was so gentle So wonderful…
The script, she thought, remember the script.
‘Johnny, don’t,’ she said, trying to say it as Alana would, trying to remember that Alana didn’t really want her lover to let her go.
Alana still wanted Johnny.
But she didn’t want Cade…
‘I love you,’ he repeated gruffly. ‘You kno
w that’s the truth. Look at me, damn it! Look into my eyes.’
Slowly, her eyes met his. Was Johnny supposed to tell her to look into his eyes? She couldn’t remember that in the script, but then, she was having trouble remembering lots of things. What was her next camera angle? And her next line?
‘You used me,’ she said again as the line tripped into her head. ‘Why don’t you admit it? It doesn’t matter anymore—it’s all over. You wanted something from me and you got it.’
‘Maybe that was part of it, at the beginning. You had something I needed. But that changed. You know it did.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t love you, Johnny.’
‘You’re a liar, Alana,’ Cade whispered. ‘A beautiful liar.’