Temptation

“What to do about my mother.”

“I thought that was what we were talking about. If you become a rich, successful star, you’ll be able to set your mother up with twenty-four-hour companions, if that’s what she needs. You’ll be able to hire some big burly guy to run the farm.”

Terry seemed unduly fascinated by the latter. Callie shook her head. “You are such a fraud. I can’t imagine how Neil puts up with you.”

“That’s personal, darling. Now, come on, say you’ll at least give serious consideration to Jason Kane’s offer. If I have to do one more love scene with Penelope Frogface—”

“Her name is Frontier,” Callie chided.

“Whatever. She wears too damned much Giorgio. One of these days I’m going to start sneezing and never stop. They’ll have to close down the set and have it fumigated before I’ll go back to work. It’s up to you to save us all from that.”

“It is not up to me to do any such thing.”

“Besides that, a good friend would want to help out,” he added slyly.

Callie eyed him warily. “With what?” she asked, certain that the subject had slipped away from excessive perfume.

“I seem to be getting these odd little notes,” he confided with an air of mystery.

“Fan mail?”

His expression turned rueful. “Not exactly. My fans love me.”

Something in his voice alerted her that this was more serious than he was pretending with all of these enigmatic hints. “Terry, exactly what’s in these notes?”

He hesitated so long, Callie doubted it was just for dramatic effect. He seemed almost frightened to describe the notes aloud. “Terry?”

“I suppose someone totally paranoid might call them threats,” he conceded eventually.

Callie stared at him. “Threats? What kind of threats? Dear heaven, have you told the police?”

“Darling, first of all, I am not that paranoid yet. Second, I couldn’t possibly tell the police and risk the publicity.”

Since Callie had never heard of an actor being averse to publicity, she guessed that these threats must have something to do with Terry’s relationship with Neil. “Is someone threatening to reveal that you’re gay?”

“It’s nothing as overt as that,” he admitted. “But it sure is pointing in that direction. I mean, what else could it be?”

“And you think someone on the show is behind them?”

“It has to be. The notes keep turning up in my dressing room with no postage, even though they’re usually stuck in with the fan mail.” He looked vaguely shaken by the implications.

Callie thought of the file cabinet that had inexplicably fallen during her one scene on the show. “Terry, is it possible when that file cabinet fell it was no accident?”

The question shook him visibly. The color drained from his face. “Of course not,” he denied a little too heatedly. “I’m sure someone just tripped and knocked it over.”

“Who?” Callie asked reasonably. “No one admitted to it.”

“With the director carrying on the way he was, would you admit you’d caused an entire scene to be reshot?”

“No, I suppose not, but what if—”

“Forget it. The letters are probably nothing.”

“Then why did you bring them up?”

“Why else? To get you to take the job,” he said airily. His expression sobered. “Of course, just in case I’m wrong, you really would be doing me a huge favor if you came to work on the show and helped me figure out who’s behind this.”

It seemed everyone had new career plans for her. “I’m a stockbroker, not a private eye,” she reminded him.

“But you’d be playing a cop,” he said, as if that automatically would give her the requisite investigative skills. Terry had long since blurred the distinction between reality and fiction.

Callie groaned. She could tell he was dead serious about this. She wanted to help him, she really did.

“Terry, I’m having enough trouble with my own life without worrying about the little blips shaking up your serenity. If you think this is serious, you have to tell a real cop, not some pseudo-cop being played by a pseudo-actress.”

“Sweetie, I know your problems are real, but at least you have a solution right in front of you.” He plucked a business card out of his pocket and held it out. “The answer to your prayers is only a phone call away.”

Callie eyed the card warily. “Unless that card belongs to a good psychiatrist, I don’t want any part of it.”

“Next best thing,” he assured her. “A network president with the power to whisk away all your problems, answer all your prayers. Sort of a combination shrink and priest.”

“How much did he pay you to do the commercial for him?” she inquired irritably just as the doorbell rang.

Terry jumped up before she could budge. “Not nearly as much as he paid me to see that he got in here to talk to you tonight,” he admitted, flinging open the door to reveal a casually attired, devastatingly handsome Jason Kane on the doorstep. “Bye-bye, sweetie.” He turned and winked at her. “You, too, Callie.”

“Quite an exit,” Jason said, standing just inside the open doorway as if he actually meant to give her a choice about whether he stayed or went.

“Quite an entrance,” she retorted. “I’m not sure which of you has better timing.”

Hands shoved in his pockets, Jason rocked back on his heels and surveyed the room. “I see you got the flowers.”

“Yes, thank you,” she said politely. “I’ve been meaning to call.”

“But you were afraid to risk another round with my powers of persuasion,” he suggested.

“I was busy,” she corrected defensively, knowing that he was exactly right. She hadn’t wanted another encounter with the kind of temptation Jason Kane represented. It would be too easy to get swept up in the glamorous world he was offering her. Her inbred puritanical ethic required that success come through hard work, not some ridiculous fluke. She wasn’t too crazy about testing his impact on her senses, either. She hadn’t needed Terry’s warning to know that Jason Kane was a dangerous man.

“New job keeping you busy?” he inquired.

“No.” She had to fight to keep a defensive note from her voice.

“Volunteer work, perhaps?”

“No.”

“A new relationship?”

There was a dark glint in his eyes with that last one. Callie shuddered and reminded herself never to cross Jason Kane.