Cool lips pressed behind her ear. Warm fingertips caressed a path down her sternum, coming to rest in the hollow between her breasts. Lainie threaded strands of smooth blond hair through her knuckles, thought about what she wanted for dinner, and waited for the kiss. It didn’t come. The masculine six-pack hovering over her recumbent form had gone rigid.
“Cut!” snapped Gillian Keene, their director. She leaned back in her chair. “For God’s sake.”
Lainie arched her back and turned her head, trying to locate the problem. Her expression of carefully tutored desire melted into a wide smile. Richard, leaning against the wall, was scaring the nonexistent pants off her costar with nothing more than a steady stare. His gaze transferred to her, and the icy blue eyes warmed with affection.
Mark Forster spoke without looking up from the screen where he was monitoring the incoming footage. “That’s it. Troy, you’re banned from the set when we’re doing intimate shots. Women are supposed to be falling in vicarious love during this scene, not wondering if the intimidated hero is going to lose control of his bladder. Take ten!”
Lainie sat up in the four-poster bed and looked with amused apology at Harry Brent, heartthrob of the small screen and of no personal interest to her whatsoever. “His reputation is really quite exaggerated,” she lied.
Harry cast another unsettled glance at Richard, who was talking to Mark but still had one eye on the bed. “I don’t think I believe you. And I’d prefer to be wearing more than a flesh-coloured sock when I find out.”
Lainie grinned as he scuttled away. She threw back the bedcovers and got up, pulling on her cardigan over the old-fashioned shift she was wearing. She padded across to Richard, taking his outstretched hands and letting him pull her in against his body. “All hail the King of Scotland,” she said. “In all his ill-fated, sociopathic glory. Or is it the presidential gavel rather than the royal sceptre today?”
Richard held her hands behind his back, keeping her close to him. “Rehearsal this morning, committee meeting this afternoon. Both equally trying to my temper, although I believe there may have been more blatant idiocy and disrespect for authority in the boardroom than in the castle.”
“Sounds like you’re well in need of a long weekend away, then.”
Richard bent and dropped a kiss on the corner of her mouth before she could protest. “Not in the workplace. I know. Call it a special occasion.”
“Hmm.” She couldn’t help smiling. She couldn’t stop smiling. “No last-minute delays? No late protests from Harlan Powell that His Majesty’s presence can’t be spared for a few days?”
“It can’t, of course, but they’ll just have to stumble on without me.” Richard stole a kiss full on her mouth, and followed it up with a nip of her earlobe. “I have more important matters to attend to. And shall do so with the greatest pleasure.” He nuzzled her lightly with his nose. “Besides, he was suitably impressed that we chose Scotland. Puts it down to research for the role.”
Lainie halted in her sneaky exploration of the small of his back. “I hope not. I don’t really see us as the Macbeths.”
“No. They got on fairly well until the regicide.”
“Beatrice and Benedick, maybe. With more bickering. And fewer rhyming couplets.”
He released her wrists to cup her face. “God, I love you.”
Lainie lifted her hands and laid them over his, linking their fingers. “Do you?”
“More today than yesterday.” He tilted her chin up with his thumbs. “More now than an hour ago. By the time I die at ninety of a sex-induced heart attack, I expect I’ll love you in a way I can’t even comprehend.”
Oh...
He really did it very, very well. She tightened her grip on him. “I think that’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.” She paused. “What play was that from?”
“Richard III,” said her own Richard, without missing a beat. “To his own reflection in the mirror. Didn’t make the final cut.”
Lainie started to laugh. The sound was purely happy, and it made him smile. “You know what, Richard? You’re all right.”
“As I said, Tig, I don’t half mind you either.”
She looked steadily up at him. “So, you’re ready for this?”
His smile grew confident and wicked. “Lay on, Macduff.”
* * *
London Celebrity @LondonCelebrity. now
Surprise elopement! A rep for Richard Troy and Elaine Graham confirms that the “very happy”
couple tied the knot at Gretna Green this morning.
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