Czytaj książkę: «Love Tango»

Chapter 1

Roxanne Deveraux sat at her dining room table, genealogy charts spread out around her. The front door to her house slammed. No one slammed a door like her sister, Portia.

Portia stormed into the dining room, thumped her purse down on the table and glared at her sister. She dropped a pile of scripts down on the table. “Here’s your weekly pile of scripts from Mom and Dad.”

“What’s wrong?” Roxanne asked in a mild voice designed to calm her sister. For almost the first half of her life, she had been the peacemaker, the problem solver in a family that thrived on chaos.

“I’ll tell you in a minute. Did you know you’re trending?” Portia asked, as she pulled out her iPad, woke it up and scrolled through the screens. “In fact, you have been for the last three days.”

“I really haven’t done anything.”

“You play a corpse for five minutes on Bayside PD and people take notice. After all, it’s the number one cop show.”

“I was alive for thirty seconds before I was a corpse.” Acting was now her creative hobby and she used her gigs to get celebrity clients for her genealogy business and keep her SAG membership active. “Even a corpse on a number one show gets paid and I get to look at hot actors.”

“Mom and Dad weren’t impressed.” Portia took several deep breaths, as though willing herself to calm down. The anger in her dark brown eyes slowly faded and her breathing evened out.

“I do it just to irritate them.” Roxanne stood and neatly gathered up the charts and placed them in a folder next to her laptop.

“Mom says it’s a waste of your talent.” She gestured at the pile of scripts. “Plus even a bit part is going to give you money that isn’t going into their pockets, which is also a point of contention.”

“No, it’s not. I get exactly what I need out of it.” Even though she hadn’t talked to her parents in years, they still felt the need to meddle in her life.

Portia’s phone chimed and she rummaged in her purse for her phone and turned it completely off.

For two women from the same parents they were as dissimilar as two sisters could be. They resembled each other in their facial structure, high cheekbones, large brown eyes and elegant lips.

Roxanne stood five foot ten in her stocking feet, slim and trim from all the jogging and yoga she did. Portia, at twenty-two, was six years younger, five inches shorter, curvier in the bosom and hips and in some ways more volatile. She was into kickboxing and tae kwon do. While Roxanne’s hair was cut into a fashionable shape and left in its natural curly state, Portia had gone for a straightened hairdo, cut into a stylish bob in a Naomi Campbell way. Portia’s tawny skin tone and amber eyes were slightly darker than Roxanne’s.

Roxanne liked to dress in casual clothing, though today she wore a black pencil skirt with a scarlet leather jacket belted around the waist, black kitten heel shoes and a gold locket nestled against her throat. Portia, who was more fashion conscious and usually wore clothes more cutting-edge in the latest trend, had chosen an ivory pants suit with a short black jacket and a colorful Hermès scarf. A platinum necklace in the shape of a panther with emerald eyes winked against the darkness of her jacket.

“Going back to why you’re angry at Mom and Dad.”

Portia sighed. “Among many things, they want me to convince you to let them be your agents again. Even the residuals from your old sitcom still bring in a lot of money and they want to capitalize on it.”

While the residuals were okay, each year brought a little less since the show wasn’t always on the schedule as it became dated and secondary networks had more choices. She was still dependent on her parents sending her the money since it went to them first. She couldn’t always depend on them paying out in a timely manner.

Portia gestured at the pile of scripts and picked up the one on top. “I’m supposed to talk you into this movie.”

“I was in a movie last year.”

“You played a salesgirl. You were on screen for exactly four and half minutes.”

“I enjoyed that role, small as it was.”

Portia issued another sigh. She picked up the script and held it out to Roxanne. “If you accept this role, their commission will pay the balance of Dad’s past-due taxes. You’ve always been the big moneymaker in the family. Me, I’m just a minor actress who does commercials and voice-overs. Plus the positive media they’d get from having you involved with one of their projects—especially since things have gone downhill since your emancipation—would go a long way into reviving their business reputation.”

“I’m not interested in helping him pay off his back taxes. Dad’s IRS problem isn’t our fault,” Roxanne said. “He did it on his own. If he’d filed properly and claimed all the income he was supposed to claim, he wouldn’t be in this fix.” Instead of trying to hide the fact that he’d borrowed heavily from her trust fund for reasons he’d never totally explained.

“His scheduled payments are going to last at least another two years. Failure to make any of his payments on time could land him in jail. I’m counting the days until I can stop working and maybe get in to UC Davis.” Portia had always been into animal rescue and her dream was to be a veterinarian. In her spare time she volunteered at the Los Angeles Zoo.

“But...” Roxanne coaxed. She’d offered to pay for her schooling, but Portia turned her down time after time because their parents already exploited Roxanne for money and Portia felt accepting money from her sister would make her just like them.

“They’re pressuring me to sign another two-year contract with them. I feel guilty because I don’t want to stay in this business and yet—” she paused, the conflict she was feeling showing on her face “—even I can’t argue with the money. I have almost enough put away for school.”

“You always were the nice daughter.” Roxanne gave her sister a kiss on the cheek.

Portia rubbed her forehead and Roxanne hoped one of her migraines wasn’t about to start.

Portia frowned. “I’d rather be like you—the smart, stealthy daughter who got away.”

Roxanne’s parents had never forgiven her for emancipating herself when she was sixteen and all but walking away from the business. After eleven years on a popular family sitcom, she hadn’t wanted to be a full-time actress anymore. The industry had become more and more obsessed with an actress’s physical appearance and less appreciative of a woman’s talent, and Roxanne was tired of fitting into someone else’s mold. With her grandmother’s encouragement, she’d won an early admittance to Berkeley and eventually earned a degree in history at the age of twenty and her parents hadn’t spoken to her since.

Roxanne, who’d always been interested in genealogy, had taken her hobby and turned it into a small business that she’d been trying to expand into something more the past couple years. She used her own colorful ancestry, which had turned out to be filled with swindlers and con artists, as part of her sales pitch to her clients to show them what could be found.

“You look really nice.” Portia motioned for Roxanne to turn around, studying her clothes. “You should have worn those stilettos instead of the shoes you’re wearing. I know they add inches to your height you don’t want, but they make your legs look really long and sexy and every man in the restaurant will be watching you.”

She didn’t want every man in the restaurant watching her—especially when she might fall on her face walking in stilettos. She wouldn’t consider herself the most coordinated.

Portia reached behind her neck and unfastened her panther necklace. “Take off that locket and wear this instead.”

“Where did you get that?” Roxanne hadn’t seen the necklace before.

“Mom bought it and then decided she didn’t like it and gave it to me. It’s really more your style than mine anyway, but I like it.”

“Like Nancy is going to care what I’m wearing.”

Roxanne had met Nancy several years ago when Roxanne had a small part on a sitcom Nancy’s husband, Mike, produced. Nancy had been on the set and curious about an ancestry chart Roxanne had done for another member of the cast. Curious about her own ancestry, Nancy hired Roxanne to investigate and they’d become friends. Portia, who occasionally helped with the searches, had formed her own friendship with the older woman. Roxanne fastened the heavy platinum necklace around her neck and glanced at herself in the mirror over the sideboard. She’d worn her hair up in a French twist. The necklace added just that last bit of style she knew she needed to emphasize her long, slender neck. Leave it to Portia to recognize exactly what would complete an outfit.

“Nancy is all about appearances and she expects you to show up looking classy,” Portia said, opening the front door and gesturing toward the car. “Let’s go, you know how Nancy hates waiting.”

* * *

“Nancy,” Roxanne said, surprised. “I hope we’re not late.” Ever since Nancy’s phone call asking to meet for lunch at her favorite restaurant, Believe, Roxanne had been curious.

Nancy Bertram was a tiny woman, barely five feet tall with an even tinier waist. Roxanne found it hard to believe her petite body had birthed two lusty boys and one girl. But more than that, Roxanne had always envied Nancy’s unerring sense of fashion, from the peach Louboutins on her feet to the matching Chanel suit and tiny gold starburst pin on the collar.

The hostess seated them in a comfortable booth in the back of the restaurant and handed them menus.

“What’s going on?” Roxanne asked. “You seemed urgent to see me.”

Nancy grinned. “My husband sent me to ask if you’d like to be on Celebrity Dance.” Her husband produced a number of shows, all of them dramas except for Celebrity Dance.

Roxanne’s stomach dropped to the floor. Dancing? On television? This wasn’t acting, this was a coordination test—one she was sure to fail.

“What? I mean why?” Celebrity Dance had only been on television for a year, but was already popular, challenging Dancing with the Stars for top ratings. Roxanne had a hard time seeing herself on the show. She wasn’t very graceful and didn’t know how to dance.

Nancy whipped out her iPad and swiped across the screen. She held it out to Roxanne. “Have you read any of the comments about your small role in Bayside PD from the last episode?”

“I never read those comments. The only thing I read is to make sure my name is spelled correctly on my paycheck.”

Nancy took her iPad back. “In the few minutes your character was on scene, you created your own following. People bonded with your character and spent the rest of the show wondering who killed you and why.”

“A lot of advertising featured me in it. Maybe the audience was just curious.”

“Bayside PD has been solidly placed this year and ratings have been steadily growing. Something about this episode just piqued a lot of interest in your character.” Nancy shook her head, her elegant blond bob swishing back and forth and settling back into style without one hair out of place.

“I told her she was trending,” Portia put in.

Nancy smiled at Roxanne. “Don’t you miss being the center of attention?”

Did she miss the attention? Not really. “What I miss is getting to pretend to be someone else for a while. It’s like being a superhero with your mother’s towel wrapped around your neck to make a cape, but the next morning you’re back to being you.”

Nancy laughed and Portia shook her head. “Not that we ever did that?”

“You didn’t!” Roxanne said in mock dismay at her sister.

Nancy waved her hands as though settling a cape around her shoulders. “My mother had a gold silk capelet that was the perfect length when I was five. Though I don’t think she ever forgave me when I jumped in the pool wearing it because I was pretending to save the dog.”

Roxanne and Portia joined her in laughter.

“But that’s all it is, playtime.” Roxanne and Portia’s mother had not been thrilled to discover her expensive towels being used as superhero capes.

“Which brings us back to why I wanted to have lunch with you.” Nancy put her iPad back in its jacket. “You know Mike and his friend Nicholas Torres developed Celebrity Dance. Nick had this idea to let the audience choose the next contestants for the summer season. And your name came up in the top three. Apparently, you have the most loyal following despite the fact you haven’t done more than a few roles here and there since Family Tree was canceled. And I’ve been tasked to get you to agree to be on the show.”

“I don’t know...” she countered.

“You mean you don’t want to do it?” Nancy said, her voice clipped.

The last thing she wanted was to alienate Nancy. The woman had been one of her first clients and was well connected. She was also very protective of her husband’s business interests. Nancy might like Roxanne a lot, but clearly she wouldn’t take kindly to anyone letting her husband down. Roxanne couldn’t blame her. Hollywood was full of backstabbers. Loyalty was something rare and valuable—even among spouses.

Roxanne owed Nancy for helping her with her fledgling genealogy business.

“I like to dance,” Roxanne said, hesitantly. “I’m not good at it, but I do enjoy a rousing polka.”

“Perfect.” Nancy pulled out her phone. “After lunch we’ll head over to Mike’s office. He would like to meet you.”

“I should take my sister home first.”

“Nonsense. Bring her along. Mike won’t mind. I’ll keep her occupied.”

Portia clapped her hands. “This sounds like fun!”

Fun. Right. Roxanne had some reservations. Who would they pair her with? And what in the hell had she gotten herself into?

* * *

Mike Bertram’s office was large enough to hold a dozen people. A large picture window overlooked the street. Bookshelves lined one whole wall and were stuffed with scripts and books. A huge black glass desk sat across a corner and Mike stood in front of it with a tall, slim man. Mike was shorter than Roxanne, slightly paunchy, but with a friendly face and kind eyes. He wore an expensive black suit, snow-white shirt and red tie.

“Roxanne, thank you for coming,” Mike said holding out his hand. His head barely came to her shoulder and his handshake was soft. “Let me introduce you to my business partner, Nicholas Torres.”

She shook Mike’s hand and turned to Nicholas Torres. She caught her breath. Nicholas Torres was more handsome in person than on TV. He not only produced the show, but was the lead dancer for Celebrity Dance. Nicholas was tall and lithe, but with a muscular catlike grace as he walked to her and shook her hand. His hand was warm and strong. His skin was a pleasing light cinnamon tone and his eyes were gray-brown flecked with green. He was dressed more casually in dark blue pants, a steel-gray shirt at the neck, no jacket or tie. His hair was cut tight to his head and he wore a diamond stud in one ear. She especially liked the fact that he towered over her by several inches—something most men didn’t do.

His handshake was pleasantly firm without being crushing. “I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Deveraux.”

Something about him made her insides go all hot and gooey. Roxanne grinned at him. “Please, call me Roxanne,” she said, her voice sounding a little breathy. Hmm... It had been a long time since she had been so immediately taken by a man. She was surprised.

He smiled, revealing straight white teeth. “I’m Nick. Shall we sit down?” He gestured at a grouping of chairs in a corner surrounding a coffee table with a glass top. A tray with coffee cups and a pot rested on one end. “I understand you started a business doing genealogy.”

Roxanne began, after taking a long, slow breath to calm herself, “It’s still in its infancy stage. Most of my clients have come from the shows I’ve worked on. Genealogy is one of the fastest growing hobbies in America.” She laughed. “Did I just sound like an infomercial?”

Nick grinned at her. “You sounded like you’re passionate about genealogy.”

“I am.” Roxanne glanced at Nancy who took a seat at the bar with Portia next to her.

“Mike,” Roxanne said, “didn’t you find it exciting to know Nancy is descended from the Sun King, Louis XIV, through one of his mistresses?”

“I didn’t need to know that to recognize she was royalty.” Mike blushed a little after a quick glance at his wife. “My own ancestry was a bit of a surprise. Who knew I came from a long line of entertainers? I don’t have a talented bone in my body. And when you showed me that one of my ancestors was sponsored by King Charles II of England, I was surprised. And even more surprised to find out he liked playing female roles.” Mike gave a short, self-deprecating laugh.

“That was a lucky find. Women weren’t allowed on the stage at that time,” Roxanne said. “They weren’t allowed to do much besides produce more little humans. So nice to know we’ve come such a long way.”

Nick Torres had a deep, pleasant laugh. “I’ll admit, I’m a little curious myself about my ancestors.”

“It’s like a trail. Finding all the landmarks is fun and exciting and people learn about history in a very personal way because it grounds us to our past and makes everything real. I remember in high school how bored I was by historical facts that had little context for me. But finding out about my ancestors made history come to life.”

Mike beamed, obviously proud of his ancestry. “What happens when you don’t find anything?”

“The internet is pretty extensive when it comes to ancestry searches,” Roxanne explained, “but sometimes records are lost or haven’t been digitized yet, and that’s when the real work starts. But there’s always a trail of some sort no matter how tiny. It could be something as simple as a marriage certificate or a birth certificate. My great-grandfather’s WWII service records were lost in a fire, but I found his draft card. That wasn’t much, but it did give me a context to work from and I discovered my great-grandfather was stationed at Pearl Harbor the day Japan bombed it and I was able to find the son of one of the men he served with, who actually remembered my great-grandfather.” That had been a happy accident that had added another piece to the jigsaw puzzle of her family history.

“Sounds like fun,” Nick said, “but what we really wanted to talk to you about is being on Celebrity Dance.”

Roxanne smiled at him. “I love to dance, but I’m a little on the klutzy side.” She didn’t add she was five foot ten. They could see that for themselves.

She also didn’t add that she really didn’t want to do the show but felt obligated to do it. She only hoped she still had her dignity intact when it was over.

“You’ve been turning up in a lot of bit parts lately.”

“Just keeping my hand in the business.”

“Are you thinking about making a full-blown return?”

“I don’t want to do a weekly show anymore or movies. I’m really happy just doing little bit parts here and there. And being a corpse works just fine.” She’d thought she’d hated acting, but after a few years and a lot of thought she realized she enjoyed acting on a limited basis. Her parents’ manipulation of her had been what she’d really despised.

“But being a corpse isn’t much of a challenge,” Nick said.

“Are you making fun of me?” She felt a stab of disappointment that he would judge her without knowing anything about her.

He looked startled. “No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...”

She said defensively, “You try holding your breath and looking dead at the same time for a minute or two and not turn blue.” She wondered if she could specialize in corpse acting. Was there such a thing? She liked the short jobs. In their own way, they were fun. Those jobs weren’t a challenge. She wasn’t in Death of a Salesman. Nick and Mike laughed. She glanced at Nancy and Portia who had zoned out and were bonding over their shoes.

“Your name has been showing up in a lot of places lately,” Mike said.

“Which I don’t understand.” Roxanne gave a little shrug.

“So, you’re not a fan of social media.”

“I’m more connected to the past.”

“Does your business pay well?” Nick asked.

“It does when I have celebrity clients. You’d be surprised how many actors and actresses are disappointed when they find out Shakespeare isn’t in their family tree.”

Nick grinned at her and the beauty of his smile made her blood race. She imagined herself in his arms and heat rose in her. “I can guarantee he’s not in my family tree?”

“Don’t be so certain,” Roxanne cautioned, but she wasn’t sure if she was speaking to him or herself.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s been some controversy that Shakespeare had a longtime black mistress. And the fact that he wrote Othello does give us some clues into his social group.”

He looked so surprised, she laughed.

“If I agree to go on Celebrity Dance, who are you going to partner me with. LeBron James?”

“How about me?” Nick asked. He stood and pulled her to her feet. With her hands in his she stared into his eyes and tried not to focus on his very kissable mouth so close to hers.

“Well, I am enjoying looking up at you.” The top of her head was just even with his nose. His eyes held a sparkle that let her know he was attracted to her, too.

He took her in his arms and started to draw her into a simple waltz. She smiled at him and immediately stepped on his foot and a second later tripped on an uneven spot on the rug.

“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry.” Portia and Nancy clapped. Roxanne gave her sister her best stare-down which made Portia burst into laughter.

“That’s okay,” he said with a grin. “I like to know I have my work cut out for me.”

Mike stood and held out his hand to Roxanne. “My legal department will be getting in touch with your agent.”

“Trudy Mendoza handles my legal affairs.” Everyone knew Trudy. She was one of the best entertainment lawyers in the industry. She’d handled Roxanne’s emancipation and had become a friend along the way.

* * *

“That is one tall woman,” Mike said.

“I like tall women,” Nick said. And boy, did she have legs. A little fantasy played out in his mind with her legs wrapped around him. Heat spiraled through him and he stood up and walked to the window. He saw the women exit to the street and make their way to the parking structure.

“You two are going to look good together,” Mike continued. “But her parents are a piece of work.”

Nick had only been back in Los Angeles for a couple years and wasn’t up on all the current gossip. He’d had his own controversies in New York. He’d been involved with a Broadway star. Things had ended badly. She’d stalked him all the way to Los Angeles and the situation didn’t end until she’d been checked into a very nice mental facility. The movers and shakers on Broadway had been furious with him, because he’d put a guaranteed moneymaking legend out of business during the run of a very productive play. Nick had been lucky to escape to Los Angeles even though his reputation in New York was in tatters. Nobody liked whistle-blowers even when they were in the right.

Mike nodded. “Her parents wanted her to do this movie to get around child labor laws. They encouraged her to apply for emancipation. She did, was emancipated and refused to do the movie saying it made her uncomfortable. Before the emancipation came through, they tried to force her, but she had the brains to hire Trudy Mendoza...”

“I remember Trudy Mendoza. She’s the shark all the great whites sharks are afraid of.”

“She discovered some financial misconduct and before her parents knew anything, she was out from under their thumb. The news was she was able to get her high school diploma early. She ended up at Berkeley.”

Nick vaguely remembered the gossip, but hadn’t paid that much attention. The parents didn’t stay down long, because they specialized in managing child actors. Plus they had two more of their own biological children to exploit, not as talented as Roxanne who had been the big moneymaker, but still bankable.

Nick said, “You think when her parents hear about her being on the show that they are going to be trouble?”

“Nancy tells me,” Mike said, “they have been trying to get back into her good graces for years. She’s still a moneymaker if she wants to be. The public loves her.”

Nick could see why. She was just the kind of person he liked. Besides being beautiful, she was smart and funny.

“We have a nice lineup for the second season of Celebrity Dance,” Nick said. He liked diversity. Roxanne Deveraux would add just the right kind of spunk and sass that he liked. She could laugh at herself. That LeBron James line was funny. And that look of panic in her eyes when he told her he wanted her as his partner had been priceless.

“She’ll work out,” Nick continued, suddenly anxious to get her to her first practice. Already he was planning their first dance. They always started with a waltz because it was simple. She would be elegant in burgundy silk with her hair up, showing off her long neck. He’d wear a white tuxedo and matching top hat. He found himself swaying as he imagined their waltz.