“Well, Dashiell, it has everything to do with you considering you’re already married to Joan.”
Dash let the news roll over him. Married to Joan? This was insanity. Pure and simple. But Harry had used his full name. The studio never used his full name, not unless they meant business. It had to be a practical joke, right? Joan was pulling a fast one on him as retaliation for the skunk. And Harry was, what? In on it? Unable to see through Joan’s deception?
“Screwball, thy name is woman! Joan, this isn’t funny,” he called through the line. “Who put you up to this, Harry? Haven’t you better things to do? You’ve got a whole damn studio to run.” All Dash wanted was to go back to bed. The last thing he needed was a prank call from the head of his studio orchestrated by a woman who couldn’t get off her high horse. He moved to hang up, but he could hear Harry shouting over the line.
“Dash, are you still there? Dash, don’t hang up. This is serious. This could ruin both your and Joan’s careers if we don’t get ahead of it. I need you down here as quick as you can.”
“Harry, I don’t know what kind of pills you’ve been taking for your stress lately, but you need to have your head examined. Joan and I aren’t married. Are you forgetting she hates me?” Dash didn’t mention that Joan hating him was all Harry and the studio’s fault, for orchestrating that ill-fated date.
“How would this even be possible?” He was asking both Harry and the universe.
“Actually, we’re all hoping you could enlighten us on that. Which is why I need you in my office within the hour.”
In the background, Dash could hear Joan screeching, “Tell him to get down here at once. He’s ruined my life!”
“Enlighten you? I don’t even know what you’re bloody talking about—”
But the line went dead, and as much as Dash Howard wanted to go back to bed, he knew there would be no peace until he did what Harry Evets—and Joan Davis—wanted. Harry Evets had given him everything: spotted him in a local production in Houston, Texas, while visiting his mother and given Dash a one-way ticket to Hollywood. So when Harry told him to jump, he asked, “How high?”
“Martin!” he yelled, but the butler was back inside his room before he’d even finished calling for him. He really was worth every cent Dash paid him.
“Yes, sir?”
“Call the car. Looks like I’m going to the studio. And then take the rest of the day off.” It was the least he could do after yelling at the man for doing his job. If only his head didn’t hurt so damn much. He ran his hand down his face, and a flash of memory came to him. Suddenly, his mouth went very dry. But he chalked it up to the aftereffects of his night on the town.
This particular memory was blurry—another drunken evening about a year and a half ago. But that had been a joke. A funny little prank to torture Joan. She had ignored it. He had assumed she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. It was easy enough for her to pretend it had never happened when he wasn’t there to witness her blow her top. But how the hell would that have been legal?
CHAPTER 3
Joan Davis was fuming. She looked the picture of propriety in a jade-green day dress with a wide triangular collar, but the way she was wearing a hole in the carpet of Harry Evets’s office pacing back and forth was a firm indication of how panicked she was. Here she was in the epicenter of the studio, the beating heart of the most beloved Hollywood pictures—and she was itching to pick up one of the Oscars on Harry’s desk and bludgeon someone with it.
Where on earth was Dash Howard? And what was taking him so long? As she turned to tread the same path in the rug for perhaps the fiftieth time, the man she loathed most in the world sauntered into the room.
She looked up and was peeved to see him sporting his usual disheveled, devil-may-care look. His tie was in a messy knot, and he’d missed a button on his shirt, but the cut of his suit was still perfect—the mark of a man who knew he looked good every time he stepped outside the house.
She’d always hated that about Dash, that he could look so irresistible without even trying when she had to grasp and claw for every shred of the audience’s affection. Not just the audience. She kept to herself on set; it helped her focus. But he struck up easy friendships with everyone from extras to the boom operator. Hell, the wardrobe department had probably given him that suit. They loved him too. It was infuriating.
His hair was sideswept, wisps of his shoe-polish-black curls springing out this way and that in a devilishly handsome fashion, not pomaded down within an inch of its life as he so often wore it on-screen. He strolled into the room as if he hadn’t a care in the world, as if he hadn’t possibly ruined her entire life.
But when their eyes met, she took delight in seeing the exhaustion there. They were bloodshot, and his skin had a ruddy pallor. It was evident the man was hungover. No wonder it had taken all morning to reach him. He must’ve been facedown in his bed half the morning. Typical.
“So nice of you to join us, Mr. Howard. I do hope we didn’t interrupt your beauty sleep,” she drawled, her voice dripping with false charm. She hoped he caught the sarcastic edge to her words.
He grinned at her. “Beauty sleep’s not necessary for a man such as myself, Miss Davis.” She bristled. He thought so highly of himself. Dash Howard believed every woman should fall prostrate at his feet, including her. Every time she thought of that charade at the Cocoanut Grove, she saw red. The false platitudes he’d tried to offer her the next morning. She’d shut those down quick. She didn’t even want to hear him say “Good morning.” He’d proven he was nothing but a bum—and she’d preferred the only way he communicate with her was via lines someone else had written for him. But no, he had to wheedle at her, try to get her attention with immature pranks at her expense. This time he’d gone too far.
She was determined to forge her own path in Hollywood. Not as half of a team. Much less with a man who thought he could seduce her for his own publicity.
“Not to worry, Dash, as you might find yourself taking a more permanent rest if you don’t help us get to the bottom of this.”
He pressed his hands to his heart in mock concern. “Why, my dear Miss Davis, I do hope I haven’t upset you in some way. Your current state of mind feels a bit poisonous.”
“If I was poisonous, I would have bitten you by now,” she hissed. God, what this man did to her. She wasn’t a violent person. But he brought out the worst in her.
“Luckily, I am well aware that your bark is far worse than your bite.” Throughout this exchange, they had edged ever closer to each other, and as Joan was raising her hand to slug him, Harry cleared his throat, bringing her to her senses.
“Now, Joan, play nice. We can’t have our leading man sporting a black eye.”
“I wasn’t—I wouldn’t have—” Joan lowered her hands and clasped them behind her back.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Dash grumbled.
Joan whirled on him. “You deserved it then. And frankly, you deserve it now.”
Harry coughed, calling the room to order. “Dash, I’m sure you’re wondering why we’ve rushed you down here today.”