A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

OUT OF CHALLENGES

Rachel and he celebrated that night with a late dinnerserved by his houseboy. The mood of shared condor that had begun earlier whenthey'd admitted their private doubts about their individual abilities led to arelaxed intimacy that, on Zayn's part, was as unprecedented as it wastherapeutic. Seated in his living room in Pacific Palisades in front of thetwo-story glass wall that looked out over the ocean, they talked for hours, butnot about "the business," which came as a welcome change to Zayn,who'd despaired of meeting an actress who could concentrate on anything else.They ended up in his bed where they further indulged themselves with a night ofhighly pleasurable and inventive lovemaking. Rachel's passion seemed genuinerather than a repayment for making her look good on film, and that pleased him,too. In fact, he was thoroughly contented with everything as they lay in hisbed—the rushes, Rachel's sensuality, her intelligence, and her wit.

Beside him, she levered herself up on her elbows. "Zayn, what do you really want from life? I mean, really want?"

For a moment, he stayed silent, and then perhaps because he was weak from hours of intercourse or perhaps because he was sick of pretending that the life he'd carved for himself was exactly what he wanted, he answered with only a touch of derision, "Little House on the Prairie."

"What? You mean, you want to star in a movie sequel to 'Little House on the Prairie'?"

"No, I mean I want to live it. The house doesn't have to be on the prairie, though. I've been thinking about a ranch in the mountains somewhere."

She burst out laughing. "A ranch! You hate horses and you despise cattle, everyone knows it. Tommy Newton told me so," she said, referring to Nightmare's fledgling assistant director. "He worked as a grip on the first Western you made when you were a kid—the one where Michelle Pfeiffer played your girlfriend." Smiling, she rubbed her finger across his lips. "What have you got against horses and cattle anyway?"

He gave her finger a playful nip and said, "They don't take direction worth a damn, and they stampede in the wrong direction. That's what happened in that first picture—the steers turned and headed right for us."

"Michelle says you saved her life that day. You picked her up and carried her to safety."

Zayn tipped his chin down and grinned. "I had to," he joked. "I was running like hell for the rocks, and the steers were right behind me. Michelle was in my path. I picked her up to get her out of my way."

"Don't be so modest. She said she was running for her life and screaming for someone to help her."

"So was I," he teased. Sobering, he added, "We were both kids back then. It seems like a hundred years ago."

She shifted onto her side and stretched out beside him, her finger tracing an enticing path from his shoulder to his navel, then stopping. "Where are you really from? And please do not give me all that studio bullshit about growing up on your own and riding in the rodeo circuit and hanging around with motorcycle gangs."

Zayn's candid mood did not extend to discussing his past. He had never done so before, nor would he ever. When he was eighteen and the studio publicity department wanted to know about that, he'd coolly told them to invent one for him, which they had. His real past was dead, and the discussion of it was off limits. His evasive tone made that emphatically clear. "I'm not from anyplace special."

"But you're no vagabond kid who grew up without knowing which fork to use, that much I do know," she persisted. "Tommy Newton told me that even when you were eighteen, you already had a lot of class, a lot of 'social polish,' he called it. That's all he knows about you, and he's worked with you on several films. None of the women who've worked with you know anything either. Glenn Close and Goldie Hawn, Lauren Hutton and Meryl Streep—they all say you're wonderful to work with, but you keep your private life to yourself. I know, because I've asked them."