“She’s thirty-nine.”
“Might as well be fifty-nine in this industry. We’re trying to clean up Richard’s image, not add toy boy to his list of sins.”
“I don’t know how you sleep at night.”
“Usually on top of a nubile blonde,” Bob fired back, but the words were more wistful than lascivious.
“Endeavour not to become a complete stereotype of a stage manager. I’m not doing it. I have a huge family and at least a handful of friends, most of whom read the gossip sites. What on earth would they think if they saw me ‘holding hands’ with Richard Troy at a launch party?”
“If you’re an actress worth the moderately high salary we pay you, they’ll think you’re having a mild flirtation with an eligible bachelor.”
“Eligible bachelor. Insert derisive laugh here. My brothers would probably stage an intervention.”
Giving her up as a hopeless hysteric, Bob turned to vent his frustration on Lynette. “Where the hell is Troy? The run-through must have finished at least five minutes ago.”
Lynette’s expensively made-up face assumed a pseudo-apologetic “boys will be boys” expression. She probably pasted it on out of sheer habit by now. Before she had time to offer an unconvincing excuse, Richard himself opened the door and came in without knocking.
“My God,” Lainie murmured. “Perfectly on cue and he’s not even being paid for it.”
Richard spared her one unamused glance before he directed his attention to Bob. The piercing intensity of his blue eyes was entirely due to their depth of colour. The look within was lethargic and bored; Richard appeared as astonished as anyone else that he was actually awake and functional. “Yes?”
“Troy, do come in.” The thinning hairs across Bob’s scalp almost bristled with indignant static. Lainie wouldn’t be surprised if his comb-over rose in the air like an enraged rooster. “Take a seat. Make yourself at home.”
“Yes?” Richard repeated, unimpressed. He took in the presence of Lynette and Pat, and a brief grimace twisted his mouth. Lainie, he continued to ignore.
“Sit down, Richard.” Pat used a tone that Lainie suspected was usually reserved for her cocker spaniels. After a tense few seconds, Richard hitched his trousers—seriously, who wore Tom Ford to a morning rehearsal, anyway?—and did sit. Naturally, in the most comfortable chair. It was a beautiful fluid motion that ended in the casual propping of one ankle over the opposite knee. She could whip out her iPhone camera and sell the resulting image to Vogue.
“You rang, sire.” Richard’s voice was sardonic. It wasn’t entirely clear whom he was addressing, which underlined the insult. In the glare of natural light, his short black curls were struck through with tinges of blue. A few locks lay in careful disarray on his bony forehead. Lainie wondered if he followed in Byron’s footsteps and slept in curlers.
“You’re about three decades too old for that tone of voice,” Pat told him in deflating accents. “Zip it.”
Lainie hid a smile and encountered a dangerous flash of blue.
“Apologies,” Richard drawled. “Do tell why I’ve been summoned into the great presence.” He quirked a brow at Bob, and the stage manager glowered, his cheeks flushing an angry crimson. Richard looked directly at Lainie for the first time. “And why, if one might ask, is the scorned lover here also?”
It was clear he was not referring to her role in the play.
Pillock.
Lynette glanced from one to the other of them. “I’m not sure their acting skills are up to it,” she said frankly to Pat.
The other woman’s lips tightened in a thin line. “If you don’t keep a civil tongue in your head, Richard, you’re going to find yourself booked for joint interviews with Will every week for the next two months. Keep your mouth shut for five minutes and listen.”
The threat must be appalling. Richard obeyed.
Pat outlined their scheme far more succinctly than Bob had managed with Lainie, but by the time she had finished speaking, the look on Richard’s face registered somewhere between scorn and black amusement. He twisted in his chair to stare at Lainie.
She glared back. “I hope you don’t think this is my idea. I’ve seen what happens when you leave the house. I might as well paste on a few feathers, slap a target on my forehead and take a stroll during duck season.”
“And I hope you don’t think I want to be publicly associated with a woman who—presumably in a state of complete sobriety—took her clothes off for Will Farmer.”
Lainie’s fingers closed into fists in her lap.
“A hit, a very palpable hit,” Pat quoted under her breath. Then, louder: “And...back to your corners, ladies and gents. That’s quite enough of that, thank you.” She actually waved a finger at them. Lainie was beginning to think she had missed her calling as a primary school teacher. Or a prison guard. She imagined that much of the same skill set was required in either occupation.