Hollywood Wedding (Landon's Legacy 3)

“But-but…”

“Listen, I’ve worked in tighter spots than this.” He shot her a disarming smile as he drew his chair out from his desk. “When I was in the Corps——”

“The Corps?” she said blankly.

“The Marine Corps.” He sat down in the chair and leaned back. “One time I ended up in an O.P.—an observation post,” he said, when her eyebrows rose. “It was a hole barely big enough for a flea and me.”

“You? In the Marines?”

Zach nodded. “Yeah. Me. Why do you sound so shocked?”

“Well, I—I just…” Eve sank down in her chair. “I’m having a hard time imagining you taking orders from—what do they call them? Drill instructors?”

Zach laughed and ran his fingers through his hair. “You’ve seen too many movies. DIs aren’t so bad.” His smile tilted. “Besides, taking orders turned out to be just what I needed. The old man had tried making me understand that his way, but…”

He fell silent. What was he doing, talking about himself and the old man? The boy he’d been and the long, hard path that had brought him to manhood were of no interest to anyone but him; hadn’t his ex-wife made that clear?

“Yes,” Eve said, “I can imagine”

Zach looked at her. She was very still. Only her eyes moved, in a steady sweep of his face.

“I suppose he could have been a difficult man to live with,” she said in a steady voice. “But I grew up without any father. Maybe that’s why I was more forgiving when Charles came along and tried to take charge of my life.”

“Eve. Listen, you don’t owe me any explanations.”

“I know that, Zach. But I think we’ll work a lot better together if we clear the air.” She hesitated, then gave him a faint smile. “Some of the—the difficulty between us might even be my fault, I suppose. I tend to, well, overreact when I think I’m being accused of having traded on my looks. Anyway, it’s not a long story, I promise.” She took a breath. “Your father and Howard Tolland, the man who used to own Triad, were friends.”

“I know that.”

“Howard was from the old school. He’d never quite figured out that times had changed, that movies audiences have changed——”

“Which is why he produced The Ghost Stallion.“

A faint smile flickered over her lips. “Exactly. I was his secretary, but because he gave memore and more responsibility”

“You began to know as much about Triad as he did.”

“More.” She shrugged. “I’m not boasting, Zach, I just did. Howard was stuck in a time when the big studios ran Hollywood. I’d been out here long enough to know that it was the deal makers who run things now. Howard refused to see my position—we used to argue about it all the time.”

“And one of those times, my father was present?”

“Yes. I had no idea Charles was thinking of buying Triad, I just thought Howard was going to ask him to invest in a project. Charles asked a lot of questions. Hard questions. Howard kept giving me signals to back off, but I wouldn’t.”

Zach smiled. “No. You wouldn’t.”

“The next thing I knew, Charles was Triad’s new owner. He asked me to have dinner with him so we could discuss business.” She shook her head. “I thought he was going to tell me I was fired—you know, the new broom sweeping clean, but——”

“But he offered you the chance to head Triad instead.”

“Yes.” Eve’s eyes met his. He could see the touch of defiance in their blue depths, and in the lift of her chin. “It’s not a woman’s fault if some men are fool enough to fall all over themselves at the sight of a pretty face, but your father wasn’t one of them.”

Zach smiled. “A beautiful face,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re not pretty, Eve. You’re beautiful. And you’re right. My old man never let anything but the bottom line affect his judgment. He’d have made Horace the Wonder Horse head of Triad, if he’d thought it was the right way to go.” His smile faded. “Look, this is my fault. I read the files, I did some checking up——”

“On me,” Eve said flatly.

He nodded. “Yes. And—and I came up with the wrong answers.”

For a minute, he almost told her that it was a lot more than that, that he’d been married to a woman who was an expert at trading for favors…

But Eve was smiling at him in a way she never had before, with a little crinkle to her nose and a sweet curve to her lips, and the sight was enough to send all the dark, angry memories of his ex-wife skittering into the shadows.

“Horace the Wonder Horse, hmm?”

Zach chuckled. “Yeah. We can always put him in to replace us both if Hollywood Wedding flops.”

“Well, then.” Eve’s smile faded. “Have we settled this, Zach? Because I promise, I’m never going to defend myself to you again.”

“You won’t have to.”

“Good.” She stood, stepped back and pushed her hair away from her face. “Now, I’m going to get to work. I’ve got to set up an appointment with Dex Burton’s agent. It won’t be easy, convincing Dex to take this part, but if I can just get his agent to agree to hear me out——”

“Why?” Zach frowned. “It’s a good part. Even I can tell that, just by reading the script.”

“Sure it is. But Dex is just turning the corner in his career. He’s probably looking to take a safe, high-profile role in a megabucks picture for somebody like Spielberg or Disney, and here we come, asking him to play a bad guy in a low-budget movie.”

“A bad guy turned good guy,” Zach said. “An antihero. And playing against type is good for an actor. It stretches his talent.”

Eve leaned back against her desk, folded her arms and chuckled.

“I’m impressed, Mr. Landon. You’ve been doing your homework.” She sighed. “But Dex’s agent won’t want to see it that way. I’ll try to get him to agree to take a meeting on Monday, and then I’ll FedEx the script to him.”

“And then?”

“And then?” she said, puzzled.

“Yes What’s on the agenda after that?”

“Well, I’m not sure. I need to check out some copyright information on a couple of songs we’re going to use in that bar scene, and then I want to go over some details about costumes, and——”

“What about checking out a place for the location shots?”

Eve chewed on her bottom lip. “You’re right. I should take care of that next. I told you I’ve got a place in mind, didn’t I?”

Zach nodded. “A cabin, you said.”

“Yes. A couple of hours into the hills.”

“I’d like to see it,” he said thoughtfully. “It’s not that I don’t trust your judgment, Eve, but as executive producer——”

“Oh, of cours

e. I wouldn’t expect to do something like that on my own. I don’t even know how much it will cost to rent the place. I spent the weekend there, but it was my friend who’d made all the arrangements.”

Zach felt an unexpected coldness form in his belly, but he smiled pleasantly.

“I see.”

“Plus, we’d have to truck in everything. The cast, the crew——”

“I suggest I take a look at this cabin before we make any further plans.”

“Fine.” Eve drew the telephone toward her. “I’ll call Burton’s agent, and then I’ll contact a couple of realtors. Somebody’s bound to have some information.”

Zach nodded. He walked to his desk, sat down and pulled his attache case toward him.

“Good,” he said briskly. “Do whatever it takes to get the keys for a day.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Tomorrow would be a good time,” Zach said, frowning as he took some papers from the attache case. “It’s a Saturday, so it won’t interfere with work.”

“Fine.”

He took a breath. “That is, if you haven’t already made plans for tomorrow?” he said, and looked at her.

Eve stared at him. “You want me to go with you?”

“Of course. What’s the point of me going alone?”

He was right, she thought. He would have final approval, but the concept and setting for Hollywood Wedding were hers.

And yet, the thought of spending the day with him, the entire day, on the top of a mountain that might as well be a million miles from reality was—it was…

“Eve?”

She looked up. Zach’s face was expressionless.

“Have you made other plans for tomorrow?”

She swallowed hard. “No, no, I haven’t.”

“Good.” He nodded briskly and picked up a pencil. “In that case, I’ll pick you up at seven. Okay?”

He waited for her answer, damned near holding his breath as he did. It was ridiculous to feel this way. They were going to spend the day together, but so what? He could handle that.

“Okay,” Eve said at last. What did she have to be afraid of? She could handle this.

Zach nodded and bent over the string of numbers before him.

“Tomorrow, then,” he said, and spent the rest of the morning pretending that he hadn’t conned her into agreeing to spend the day with him—and that he had at least some faint idea of what in hell the blur of numbers on the page in front of him was supposed to mean.