Duchess, page 2
Once upon a time, yes. But he’d changed.
Except, he hadn’t told the press that, had he? Why he wanted to keep their marriage a secret, she couldn’t understand, despite his claims that it wouldn’t look good for her career for her to be married to her producer.
She shrugged as if she didn’t care. “I’m just trying to figure out who that woman was I saw on the screen tonight. I sat there in the theater, a cold sweat down my back, trying to comprehend that the person on the screen was really me.”
“Is it?”
She frowned at him, something quick.
He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were brilliant.” He raised his glass to her. “To the woman on the screen.”
She clinked her glass, forced a smile. “To her.”
“Your fans seem to love the woman they see. I think you shut down all of Fiftieth Street. They were still lined up after the premiere.”
She glanced at the bouquet of orchids a male admirer had thrust at her. No, it just didn’t feel real.
“Are you a school chum of Dash’s?”
He laughed and glanced at her. “No.”
“What’s your name?”
“Rafe. Rafe Horne.”
He had blue eyes, so blue they contained a magic. Enough to steal the words from her mouth.
She took a sip of the champagne. Regretted it, although it helped her forage up her voice. “Your accent tells me you’re not from around here.”
“Europe. But I have family on this side of the pond. I’m visiting. And doing some business.”
“And what business is that?”
He carried what looked like a glass of orange juice in his hand. “The movie business,” he said, but he winked at her.
Oh, so that’s how he knew Dash. Maybe he’d been around the studio.
She set down the champagne, before she succumbed to the urge to gulp it down, and ran her hands up her bare arms. Up here, the rank stew of the city’s street couldn’t reach them, and a light breeze tempered the heat. She’d had enough of the studio talk of Dash and Fletcher and of watching Irene follow the pair around the room taking notes.
Her only friend, Grayson, had disappeared with Fletcher’s redhead halfway through the party.
“The city seems like a blanket filled with stars from here,” Rafe said, staring out over the darkness.
“It’s nothing like that during the day, I promise.”
He glanced at her. “You know New York?”
She lifted a shoulder. “Over to the southeast is the Chronicle Building. My Uncle Oliver is the publisher. And to the north, just off Central Park is the Dakota. My mother and stepfather have a seventh-floor apartment there with my little brother, Finn.”
“You’re from New York City? I thought you lived in Kansas.”
She smiled and twisted the diamond band on her right hand. Dash never let her wear it on her left, even though the magistrate legally married them. A business arrangement. Not even the press knew.
She doubted even the studio knew, other than maybe Fletcher.
But her marriage to Dash meant that she had more control over her contract, and he got her at a bargain rate—one that included shares in their fledgling studio. Someday when Palace Studios began to make hits, her paltry weekly salary would pay off in spades.
“Sort of. I married a baseball player from Kansas. Fletcher adopted his story when he created mine.”
Rafe frowned. “You’re married?”
She refused to look at Dash. Drew in a breath. “Guthrie died about two years ago, at the hands of a mobster here in New York.”
Rafe stilled, and she looked away. Yes, it sounded terribly, dramatically tragic when she just said it out loud like that. Which she hadn’t, not for two years.
And she didn’t follow with the rest. Like the fact that, at the time, she’d carried his child.
“I’m sorry,” Rafe said softly.
“It’s in the past. So long ago, it’s hard to remember.” Except, sometimes Guthrie visited her in her dreams. Sometimes he took her in his arms.
Sometimes she woke sobbing.
“You never forget your first love,” Rafe said quietly. She glanced at him, found compassion in his face and a shifting of pain through his eyes.
She couldn’t bear to ask.
“Yeah, well, I’m with Dash now, and that life is over.” She shook her head. “I’m not the Kansas girl. Never was.”
“Now you’re a star,” Rafe said, but she couldn’t read his expression. Was he mocking her? Or…
He raised his glass to her. “I hope you get everything you dream for, Roxy Price.” Then he took her hand and kissed it through her glove.
She watched him return to the party and had no words to chase him.
Dash looked up, caught her eye. Smiled. She pressed her hand to her stomach. No more champagne for her.
She didn’t look for Rafe as she returned to the party. Irene stood behind Dash, furiously scribbling notes. Yes, Rosie might call her pretty in a small-town way, with those hazel eyes, delicate heart-shaped lips. And if the studio added a little bleach in her hair…
Rosie sat on the edge of the sofa, pressing her hand into Dash’s shoulder. He looked up at her.
“I’m tired. Can we go?”
He covered her hand with his. “Of course you are. I’ll have one of the footmen see you home.”
“It’s only five flights down, Dash. I can manage.” But I don’t want to. She tried to put it into her eyes. Come back to the suite with me.
But he only glanced at Fletcher and then behind her to Irene, as if he needed the permission of either. His voice lowered. “Red, I have studio business.”
“At one o’clock in the morning?”
Oh, she didn’t mean for her voice to rise. But it hung over the conversations in the room, and eyes turned toward her.
Including Rafe Horne’s. His lips tightened into a thin line.
She produced a smile, something for her audience, and patted Dash, laughing. “Of course you do. Get me a fabulous role, Dashielle. I’ll run and get my beauty sleep.”
Dash caught her hand as she turned away. “You’re beautiful enough, darling.”
That earned him laughter, and she winked at him, for their public. The fussy star placated by the studio mogul.
She picked up her fox stole, slung it over her shoulder, found her shoes. A footman stood at the door, but she put her hand on his tuxedoed chest. “I can make my own way, thank you.”
She glanced at Rafe out of the corner of her eye. His gaze burned her neck as she left. “I hope you get everything you dream for, Roxy Price.”
To my Red Star. Fondly, Dash.
Oh Dash. Rosie let the note drop on the bed and picked up the pearls. The bulk of the necklace hid behind a velvet cardboard pad. As she picked up the necklace and let it drip between her fingers, she discovered a choker with a diamond brooch in the center and two long pearl tails that hung off the clasp.
She slipped her dress off her shoulders, pinned the choker around her neck, and wandered into the bathroom, flipping on the light.
The brooch settled in the well of her neck, glittering like starlight. And when she turned, the long tails dripped down between her shoulder blades.
She shouldn’t have doubted him.
Unbuttoning her dress at the side, she let it fall to the floor then scooped it up and draped it over the chair before her dressing table. She went to the closet and pulled out a filmy dressing gown, white ermine at the neck and wrists. She knotted it at her waist then returned to the bathroom and dabbed on a refresher of Moment Supreme at her wrists, behind her ears.
Turning off her bathroom light, she curled up in the center of her bed, upon the silky coverlet, her fingers trailing over the pearls.
Tonight, she’d leave her doors unlocked.
Rosie couldn’t account for why the summer sun woke her early, slipping through the drapes and across the room to where she lay curled on the bed, her hand still at her pearls. Or why she bathed, washed her face, dressed in a pair of high-waist, wide-leg trousers and a black shift, slipped on an oversized straw hat and headed outside. Why she walked the seven blocks to Central Park and took the loop past the skating rink to the boathouse and then finally sat by the lake, watching ducks paddle and a little boy float a boat, his mother holding him by the scruff of his sailor suit.
Once upon a time, long ago, she’d taken Finley to float his toy boat in a pond in France while waiting for Dash to find her. To propose.
He’d broken her heart that day too.
Her gaze trailed to the bridge, and she closed her eyes against the images it scoured up. Pressed her hands to her ears.
She shouldn’t be here.
Not yet.
She got up and found herself headed toward the Dakota. Probably they wouldn’t yet be up and she’d only be disturbing them.
Most likely, they didn’t want to see her, after what she’d done.
Still, the ache pressed her to the doorstep and she identified herself for the doorman with a name he’d know.
He called it up and announced her.
Miraculously, the housekeeper buzzed her in. Despite the years that had passed, she recognized the voice of Amelia, the woman who had served her mother for over three decades.
The lift stopped on the seventh floor, and Rosie had hardly stepped out when the door opened. Amelia stood in the frame, smoothing her white apron, smiling. “Miss Rose.”
“Amelia.” She wanted to hug her, but one didn’t do that with the help—on either side of the country. “Is Mother in?”
“Indeed. Breakfasting with Mr. Bennett. And Master Finley—”
“Rosie!”
The voice stopped her in the foyer. Finn strode toward her, looking tall and wide-shouldered, his blue eyes bright, so full of welcome she wanted to crazily burst into tears.
He looked so much like her missing big brother, Jack, it put a fist through her chest. Dark hair, a smile that could turn her to mush.
And her mother, Jinx, had to live with this reminder every day. Rosie had no words as her brother wrapped his arms around her waist. “I can’t believe it!”
“Nor I,” said Jinx. Her mother stood behind him, a smile at her lips, her hands clasped before her, so much society in her frame she couldn’t break free to embrace her prodigal daughter. She’d aged, wisps of white streaked into her hair, a little more padding around her middle. As Finn untangled himself, Jinx came forward and took Rosie’s hands, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “I’ve been worried,” she whispered. Then she leaned away. “Was that you who caused such a consternation last night by Times Square? I was just reading about it in the Chronicle.”
So she knew. Rosie drew in a breath. Nodded. Jinx pressed her hand to her cheek. Met her eyes. They glistened. “I am pleased you visited us.”
“Your picture is in the paper!” Finn said. “Are you really in the movies?”
“Just this one, but yes.” Rosie tousled his hair just as Bennett emerged from his office. Sometimes, like now, her stepfather could take her breath away with his likeness to her father, same tall build, same green eyes. His blond hair had darkened also, just like her late father’s. But Foster never bore kindness in his eyes like Bennett did when he smiled at her.
“You get lovelier every time I see you,” he said. Someday he might be anything but awkward with her. Maybe it would help if he knew she’d forgiven him.
“Thank you, Bennett.”
“We’re having breakfast. I’ll instruct Amelia to set you a plate.”
“Not much for me, Mother. I—”
“Even movie stars need to eat.” Jinx caught her hand, the other reaching for Bennett’s. Rosie couldn’t ignore the look that passed between them.
A quick smile, something that resembled relief.
She should have written.
But surely Lilly had told them the story, betrayed her sins?
The breakfast room, with its creamy white French furniture, overlooked Central Park—the lake, the boathouse, the lush forests. And beyond that, the homes of Fifth Avenue. She searched for Oliver’s but, of course, it had burned that night.
Amelia set a poached egg and a piece of toast in front of her, a small bowl of raspberry jam. “Coffee, ma’am?”
“Please.”
“Have you met Rin-Tin-Tin?” Finn pulled up his chair.
“Warner Brother’s trained dog?” Rosie laughed. “No.”
“Is Dashielle treating you well?” Bennett said. “I see his father occasionally at the men’s club. He tells me that Dashielle runs the studio you work for.”
She salted her eggs, her stomach growling. “He…yes. We have an agreement.” She glanced up, found Bennett’s eyes on her. “We’re partners.”
Bennett raised an eyebrow and she glanced at Finn, who was watching her with a grin.
“I—I have some stock in the studio. And when the studio grows, so will my salary.” She didn’t know why she suddenly felt as if Bennett might track down Dash, maybe pin him to the wall to extract promises.
It all felt very…fatherly.
“Dashielle is my biggest fan,” she said, and tried to mean it.
His room remained untouched this morning. She’d checked. Which meant that he’d stayed with Fletcher, discussing business all night.
Or he’d found another place to catch some shut-eye.
Or…
“I hate to break your heart, but he’s got a reputation with the ladies.”
She kept her smile. “These eggs are delicious, Mother.”
“I have a new chef. From France.” Her mother’s hand curled around Rosie’s wrist, however, stopping her mid-bite. She glanced at her then at the boys. “A moment, gentlemen, with my daughter?”
“C’mon, Finn,” Bennett said. “It’s time for classes anyway.”
Finn got up. “Rosie, can I come out and visit you sometime in Hollywood?”
“Absolutely, Finley. Anytime.”
Jinx watched them go, a softness in her eyes, then turned to Rosie. “Are you all right?”
Rosie’s throat tightened. “Of course. I mean, you read the paper. They loved me.”
Jinx glanced at the Chronicle folded beside Bennett’s plate. “That is not what I’m referring to.”
Oh. Rosie stared at her plate. Bit her lip. Drew in a breath. “I dream about him sometimes. And—and Charlie.”
“They call her Coco. I have a picture they sent.” She got up, but Rosie grasped her hand.
“I—I can’t look at it, Mother. Please.”
Jinx sank back into the chair.
“You have to understand…it simply hurts too much to be reminded of everything I lost. It’s like Finn.”
“I do understand. The older he gets, the more he becomes Jack. The more the ache burns. And yet, Finn is one of my greatest joys.” She pressed her hand to Rosie’s face, turned it. “As are you, daughter.”
Rosie looked away, toward the picture window overlooking Central Park. “I have a different life now. I can’t look back. I can’t—I have to forget Coco.”
Jinx said nothing.
Rosie drew in a breath. “I married Dash.” She looked at her mother.
Jinx had drawn in a breath, her face tight.
“It’s a business arrangement.”
“But you love him?”
“I don’t have to. It’s just business.”
Jinx closed her eyes.
“Dash is good to me. And I love him enough.”
Jinx looked at her, shook her head. “Dash is good to Dash. You’ve always known that. And it’s not enough to tolerate each other.”
“I’m not going to look for love, Mother. It costs too much. Besides, I had it once. That is enough.”
“Is it?”
Rosie nodded, stared at her eggs. “I am going to be a star. I won’t need love. In fact, I don’t even want it. I’ll never replace what I had with Guthrie.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother watching her, her lips a tight line.
The doorman buzzed, and Rosie heard Amelia’s steps across the foyer.
She took Jinx’s hand, squeezed. “I promise. This is not your marriage to Foster, Mother. I know what I’m doing.”
“So did I, when I married Foster. And he nearly destroyed our lives.”
“You were young and naive. I control my own destiny. I will never let a man steal my future from me, trap me into a life I despise.” I won’t become you, Mother.
Amelia appeared at the door. “Ma’am. At your pleasure, Dashielle Parks is requesting to see you and is inquiring after Miss Rosie.”
Jinx glanced at Rosie. She nodded.
“Allow him entrance,” she said.
Rosie took a sip of coffee. “He must have realized I’d left our suite.”
“Didn’t he offer to accompany you?”
She couldn’t meet her mother’s eyes. “He didn’t come home last night. In fact—” She closed her eyes. “We haven’t yet—well, we are husband and wife in name only.”
Jinx’s mouth opened. “Rosie—”
“There’s my starlet!”
Dash didn’t appear exhausted, his tuxedo mussed, a five o’clock shadow. No, he looked rested, shaven, and bright, even as he came over and pressed a kiss to Rosie’s check.
The man even smelled good. Clean. Exotic.
She tried not to let that curl a fist inside her.
Her mother had risen. “Dash. I suppose congratulations are in order.”
“Thank you. I always knew Rosie would be a star.”
“I was referring to your marriage into our family.”
Rosie glanced up at Dash just in time to see his face redden. His smile fell, and he frowned at Rosie. “Red?”
“She’s my mother. She should know.”
Jinx knew how to hold a man captive with a look, and Dash couldn’t escape as he stood there, hat in hand. “I—we—it’s not what you think.”
“It sounds like exactly what I think, Dashielle. I hope you’re not just using my daughter to further your position.”
Rosie stood. “Mother—”
“Shh. I know this isn’t any of my business, so I’ll say only this. You hurt my daughter, Dashielle Parks, and you’ll live to regret it.”
