A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

JAMES DEAN

The realization that his wife and her lover had been screwing each other behind his back while calmly plotting to live on the money Zayn Malik had worked so hard to acquire snapped his control. He grabbed her arms and shoved her hard toward the living room door. "I'll kill you before I let you take half of anything! Now get out."

She stumbled to her knees, then stood up, her hand on the doorknob, her face a mask of jubilant loathing as she fired her parting shot: "If you're thinking of keeping either Tony or me off the set tomorrow, don't bother trying. You're just the director. The studio has a fortune wrapped up in this film. They'll force you to finish it, and they'll sue your ass off if you do anything to delay it or sabotage it. Just think," she finished with a malicious smile as she yanked open the door, "either way, you lose. If you don't finish the picture, you'll be ruined. If you do, I'm going to get half of what you make!" The door crashed into its frame behind her.

She was right about finishing Destiny. Even in his infuriated state, Zayn knew it. There were only two more scenes left to shoot, and Rachel and Tony were in one of them. Zayn had no choice except to tolerate his adulterous wife and her lover while he directed their scene. He walked over to the bar and poured himself a stiff Scotch, tossed it down, and poured another. Carrying his glass, he walked over to the windows and stared out at the glittering Dallas skyline while the rage and pain he'd felt began to subside. He'd phone his attorneys in the morning and instruct them to proceed with divorce negotiations on his terms, not hers, he decided. Although he'd amassed a sizable fortune as an actor, he'd multiplied it many times over through astute investments, and those investments were carefully guarded by a series of complicated trusts and legalities that should protect most of his assets from Rachel. Zayn Malik's hand relaxed its death grip on the glass he was holding. He was under control now—he would survive this and go on. He knew he could—and would. He knew it, because long ago, at the age of eighteen, he had faced a far more agonizing betrayal than Rachel's, and he had discovered that he possessed the capacity to walk away from anyone who betrayed him and never, ever look back.

Turning from the windows, he went into the bedroom, pulled Rachel's suitcases out of the closet, and stuffed all her clothes into them, then he picked up the telephone beside the bed. "Send a bellman up to the Royal Suite," he told the switchboard operator. When the bellman arrived a few minutes later, Zayn thrust the cases with her clothing dangling out the sides at him. "Take these to Mr. Austin's suite."

At that moment, if Rachel had returned and begged him to take her back, if she'd been able to prove to him that she'd been drugged out of her mind and hadn't known what she was doing or saying, it would have been too late, even if he believed her.

Because she was already dead to him.

As dead to him as the grandmother he'd once loved and the sister and the brother. It had taken a concentrated effort to eradicate them from his heart and mind, but he'd done it.

Pulling his mind from recollections of last night, Zaynsat down beneath a tree where he could see what was going on without beingobserved himself. Drawing his knee up, he rested his wrist against it andwatched Rachel walking into Tony Austin's trailer. This morning's newscastswere filled with lurid details of the scene in the suite and the fight thatfollowed it, details that were undoubtedly provided by the hotel guests who'dwitnessed it. Now the press had descended on the area where they were shooting,and Zayn's security people had their hands full trying to keep them at the gatenear the main road with promises of a statement later. Rachel and Tony hadalready given statements, but Zayn had no intention of saying a single word tothem. He was as icily indifferent to having the press at his"doorstep" as he was to the news he'd gotten this morning thatRachel's attorneys had filed for divorce in Los Angeles.