They were memories. Ephemeral. Powerless.
As he drove home, the scent of Lainie—perfume, sugar and temptation—seemed to linger in the air.
Chapter Six
London Celebrity @LondonCelebrity. 3h
The curtain goes up; the actress goes down. Elaine Graham’s dramatic collapse at the Metronome caught on camera...ow.ly/QT4Qh
Lainie entirely blamed the rain-splattered Fun Run. She never exercised, and she never got sick. Then she ran a 5k and had to take to her bed like an ailing spinster. Coincidence? She thought not.
It began innocently enough with a mild headache before the evening show. Fortunately, Meghan’s handbag contained enough pills and potions to stock a small pharmacy, and Lainie was able to pinch a couple of ibuprofen tablets. The stash also included a jumbo-sized box of condoms. Meghan’s usual workday must be a lot more exciting than her own.
Instead of improving after the medication, the nagging ache in her temples became a full marching band of drummers by the second act.
Will had picked a bad night to behave like a complete tosser.
Things seemed slightly off from the first line of the opening scene. Lainie was jumpy and fidgety, and for the first time ever, the adrenaline rush didn’t wear off after the curtain had risen. She continued to be hyper-aware of her senses: the dust motes dancing in the beams of stage lighting, the swishing silk of her skirts, the smell of paint and turpentine from the backdrop touch-ups that afternoon.
Will was even worse. He was speaking too loudly, moving a little too deliberately, and he’d turned handsy. Every time they had a scene together, he was right up in her face and touching her as much as possible.
The unacknowledged catalyst for all of the upheaval was Richard. Richard, and herself, and the odd new vibe between them. To give him his due, he wasn’t really doing anything to be provocative. His performance was a lot more consistent than hers or Will’s. But the episode on the couch that morning seemed to have crashed through an invisible barrier. The tension between them was humming. It was as if there was an electric wire that connected her gaze to his, and when their eyes met—sparks.
Bob, in a hurried word at intermission, congratulated her on putting up a good show of chemistry. “But maybe tone it down a notch during performances. You’re supposed to be passionately in love with Geoffrey at the moment, not eyeing up Bandero’s codpiece.”
Margaret was even more blunt: “You are aware that the entire audience is waiting for the plot twist where you boot Will off the stage and fall on Richard like a rampaging tiger?”
If the theory of Lainie and Richard as a couple had bothered Will, the visual evidence of their attraction was proving too much for him. He had never played his antagonism toward Richard’s character with such convincing fervour. Richard, in his turn, was slowly being driven to react. There was a subtle edge to his voice as he spoke his lines, and that small show of disquiet was so unusual for him that Lainie was taken aback.
The crowning misfortune was that Richard’s character was present onstage when she threw herself at Will for their love scene. Her own character, Julietta, was defiant and uncaring of an audience to her passion. Lainie did not share her nonchalance. She had always felt awkward kissing Will within five feet of Richard, even when the latter had been a more distant thorn in her side. The audience was at least separated from the action by a certain amount of physical distance and the metaphorical fourth wall. It gave an illusion of privacy under the hot lights.
Richard was standing close enough to measure their breathing patterns.
And Will didn’t help matters by deciding to chuck professional standards out the window and involve his tongue in what should be a solely smoke-and-mirrors-and-platonic-lips manoeuvre.
He was lucky she wasn’t a violent person and that she valued her career prospects, or he would have come away from the encounter with a bloody chin. It took considerable effort not to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. She glared daggers at him even as she smiled and swayed into his hold, apparently besotted and aroused.