“You do all right,” Lainie said. “Occasionally.”
She sensed him cast another quick glance at her, but she had reverted her attention back to the window.
Another few minutes passed in silence, punctuated by jerky stops and starts in the flow of traffic. It was going to be dawn before they reached their respective homes at this rate. She was suddenly really hungry too. She tried to predict Richard’s reaction if she asked him to take the Ferrari through a McDonald’s drive-through. Her head turned farther to the side to hide her instinctive smile.
“Almost forgot.” Richard took one hand off the wheel to reach into the pocket of his waistcoat. He had thrown the suit jacket into the backseat of the car, with shocking disregard for the artistry of its designer, and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to reveal his taut forearms, lightly furred with black hair. She had been trying not to stare at him ever since. His hand came in front of her face with a piece of paper held between his first two fingers.
She took it automatically. “What’s this?” she asked, opening it.
“The new call time for your audition for Somerset County,” he said matter-of-factly, and she stared, first blankly at the piece of paper and then at him in growing astonishment. He intercepted the look and shrugged. “I pulled a few strings. They’ll see you this week.”
“But...” Lainie was aware that she was gaping and mouthing like a stranded fish. She pressed her lips together, and then tried again for a rational tone. “You can’t just...” Rationality fled and her voice rose in pitch. “Richard! You can’t do things like that.”
“As you’re holding a call time, evidently I can and I have.”
“You can’t just call people up and force them to give me a role!”
“I didn’t,” he said, with odious reasonableness. “I called and got them to reinstate the audition you had already earned on your own merit. I couldn’t get you the role even if I wanted to. Mark Forster is a professional. He’s not going to give a job to every woman who passes through my bedroom door just because I ask him to. Which I haven’t.”
“And which I haven’t.”
“No, you haven’t. To my lasting disappointment.”
She set her jaw. “I don’t need favours and nepotism. I can succeed on my own.”
Richard made an impatient noise. “Don’t be na?ve. Nobody succeeds on their own. And in this business, they grab hold of every connection they have and squeeze it dry.”
There was an undertone to his exasperation that halted Lainie’s next protest in her throat. His face was very set, and he was concentrating on his driving with far more intensity than earlier.
Had she actually hurt his feelings?
“Well,” she said a bit feebly, after a pause. She added grudgingly, “Thank you.”
His look was ironic. “You’re welcome.” He nodded at the paper. “Forster’s private office line is on there, as well. He wants to talk to you about the charity.”
“The charity?”
“Shining Lights. Regardless of the outcome of your audition, he’s going to arrange for a portion of the profits from the production to be donated to the kids.” Richard seemed to think that side note closed the subject. He returned his gaze out the windscreen, either ignoring or not noticing Lainie’s stupefaction.
“You got him to agree to donate part of the profits to Shining Lights?” she said slowly, reconciling that fact with the picture she already had of Richard in her head. Trying to make the new pieces fit the existing puzzle.
“Yes.” His shoulders shifted, just a little, and the uncharacteristic fidget brought home to her how uncomfortable and out of his depth he was.
A rush of intense, tender feeling almost drowned her. She actually made a slight sound, so taken aback was she by the sensation. She looked down at the paper in her hand again and made up her mind all at once.
Leaning forward, she pressed a sudden, warm kiss to the side of his neck, in the sensitive hollow below his ear.
He jerked, and the car swerved slightly. Swearing, he cast her a look that was an odd combination of warning and heat.
“The traffic is terrible,” she said lightly.
“Cracking observation there, Sherlock,” he said, taking refuge in irony.
“It would probably save time if you skipped the turnoff for Bayswater and just went straight on to your house.”
He froze. She saw his hands tighten around the wheel.
After a single, comprehensive look into her eyes, he indicated to turn right toward Belgravia.