A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

LETS GET IT OVER WITH

She watched him walk away, his strides long and sure, dark blue polo shirt emphasizing wide shoulders, khaki trousers clinging to narrow hips ... a lithe, powerful body of hard sinew and rippling muscle, but with a lion's grace ... a lion's eyes ... a lion's aloof pride. The only thing that spoiled the analogy was his beautiful, thick hair, Diana thought wistfully. It was so dark it was nearly black. Hushed with embarrassment and defeat, she slumped against the tree behind her and looked at Tommy who'd been standing beside Zayn during most of her speech. "I really blew it, didn't I, Tommy?"

"I'd say that was the worst performance I've ever seen you give."

"He thinks what I really wanted was a role in one of his movies."

"Well, wasn't it?"

Diana shot him a withering look, but Tommy was watching Tony Austin and Rachel. After a moment, she said, "How can that bitch possibly prefer Tony Austin to Zayn Malik? How can she?"

"Maybe she likes to feel needed," Tommy replied. "Zayn doesn't need anyone, not really. Tony needs everybody."

"He uses everybody," Diana corrected contemptuously. "That blond Adonis is actually a vampire—he devours people, drains them dry, then he throws them away when they aren't useful to him anymore."

"You should know," he said, but he slipped a comforting arm around her shoulders then and gave her a light squeeze.

"He used to send me to meet his dope dealer. I got busted for possession one of those times, and when I called him from jail to come and bail me out, he was furious because I got caught and he hung up on me. I was so scared, I called the studio and they bailed me out and covered it up. Then they charged me back for all the legal costs."

"He obviously had redeeming qualities or you wouldn't have fallen for him."

"I was twenty years old and completely starstruck when I fell for him," she countered. "What's your excuse?"

"Middle-age crisis?" he said with a lame attempt at humor.

"It's too damned bad the hospital revived him after his last overdose."

The interior lights were going on in the stable, and he nodded in that direction. "Come along—it's show time." Diana slid her arm around his waist and they trooped down to the stable. "You know what they say," she announced, "What goes around comes around."

"Yeah, but the trip usually takes too log."

In his own trailer, Zayn hastily splashed cold water on his face and chest, pulled on a fresh shirt and left. He stopped when he saw Emily's father pacing back and forth in front of hers. "Is Emily down at the stable?"

"No, not yet, Zayn. The heat has been making her sick for days," George McDaniel's complained. "She shouldn't have had to spend so much time in the sun either. Couldn't she stay in our trailer where it's air-conditioned, until you're sure you need her down there? I mean, you're bound to want several takes with Rachel and Austin before Emily's cue."

In other circumstances, the suggestion that a director should wait for a cast member because she wished to languish in comfort would have gotten McDaniels a scathing reply. Zayn, however, had a soft spot for Emily, as did most of the world, and so he tempered his voice and said, "That's out of the question, and you know it, George. Emily's a trooper. She'll handle the heat while she waits for her cue."

"But— I'll get Emily," he amended when Zayn's expression turned ominous.

Normally, Zayn had nothing but contempt for the pushy parents of child actors, but Emily's father was different. His wife had run out on both of them when Emily was still a baby. A fluke coincidence brought Emily to the attention of a producer who saw the dimpled child playing in the park with her father. When that same producer offered Emily a part in a movie, her father had given up his day job to chaperon her on the movie set and started working nights instead. McDaniel's had felt that she would be less likely to be "corrupted" if left alone with a sitter at night than with a paid chaperon on the set during the day. That alone wouldn't have endeared the man to Zayn, but it was also a known fact that he put every cent that Emily made into a trust fund for her. Her interests were all that mattered to him, and his vigilance had paid off: Emily was a good kid, astonishingly so for a Hollywood child star. She didn't fool with booze or drugs, she didn't sleep around, she was polite and decent, and all of that was due, Zayn knew, to her father's unstinting devotion to keeping her that way.