Joan looked helplessly at Dash for support. “We’re supposed to be making a picture here! Arlene’s script—I couldn’t disappoint her now. It’s perfect, Harry. We have to do it. You know it could be my shot at an Oscar.”
Harry raised his hand to silence her. “We’re not going to make a different picture. We’re going to make that one. Arlene can get started on revising it right away.” Arlene perked up then, clearly eager to atone for her part in the affair.
“It was already about a rancher and a woman nursing a broken heart. We’ll make her a divorcée and get some location shooting out of it. Simple enough,” Harry added. Arlene nodded and pulled a small notepad from her pocket, scribbling notes. “Most of the sets and costumes are already ready. We’ll ship them north on the train. They’ll probably even get there before you do.”
Joan blinked owlishly back at Harry, seemingly at a loss for words for once. Dash wanted to laugh at her, he really did. But she looked like a tiger in a cage, and he had to admit, she’d never looked more beautiful.
“That’s, well, that’s okay, then. But what about the rest of it? The divorce proceedings, staying in Reno. It’ll embarrass Monty. We can’t make it into a public spectacle. He’ll hate that.”
“Joan, be honest with yourself. It’s already a spectacle. Isn’t it better if it’s one we’re controlling?” Dash retorted. She gaped at him, seemingly astonished he was capable of thinking rationally about this. He really didn’t want to spend six weeks in Reno making a picture with a woman who could barely stand the sight of him. But as far as he could tell, there was no way around this.
“You’re okay with this?” she sniffed.
“Do I have much choice?” The barest hint of a smile started to form at the corner of her mouth, and Dash felt like the sun was shining again.
“If we do this, Harry, we are not making it into some dog-and-pony show, you hear?” Joan declared, looking at Dash to back her up.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You do and you know it. Okay, we move to Reno. We make Arlene’s fantastic picture. But I don’t want people up there photographing our every move. Every bit of this is going to be carefully monitored and controlled by the studio.”
“You know we only have so much control over the press.”
“Fine, but you exercise that control to the full extent of your abilities. I will not become some tabloid divorcée. Dash, are you in or out?”
“Seeing as I got us all into this disaster, I guess it wouldn’t be very chivalrous of me not to agree to get us out. I’m in.”
Harry grinned in delight and rubbed his hands together with glee, while Joan stood back and appraised him. Dash couldn’t tell if she liked what she saw or not.
“So, Harry, when do we start production?”
“I’ve booked your train tickets for tomorrow. Then, we need a day to get production established. Arlene, if you start revisions tonight, can you have something ready in forty-eight hours?” Arlene nodded in assent. “So we’ll start in two days, then. Right on time with the original schedule.” He slapped his knee. “You know, this might just work out. Dash and Davis together again, this time on location.” Harry’s eyes sparkled and Dash could practically see dollar signs on his irises.
“In a true women’s picture,” Joan replied, a breathless wonder Dash had never heard in her voice before.
Harry waved his hand. “Sure, sure, but most importantly, it’s you two crazy kids in love again. The audience will eat it up.” He held out his arm as if he was seeing the marquee in his mind’s eye. “Dash and Davis in Reno Rendezvous.”
Joan spluttered. “I thought it was called At Long Last Love.”
“It was. I gave it a new title. We have to capitalize on the moment.”
Dash and Joan looked at each other and rolled their eyes simultaneously. He had to stifle a laugh because the look on her face so clearly conveyed what she thought of that ridiculous title. It was going to be a long six weeks.
CHAPTER 4
Dash took a slug of whiskey and closed his eyes, listening to the waves crash on the rocks beneath his friend’s Malibu cottage.
“Hair of the dog?” inquired Flynn Banks, a wide shit-eating grin on his face.
“The first one was hair of the dog. This, this is to wipe the nightmare I experienced in Harry’s office from my memory,” Dash muttered.
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse.”
Flynn laughed. Everything was hilarious to the man. He treated life as if it was a giant gag. It’s why Dash liked him; he balanced out Dash’s more morose tendencies and indulged his love of a good prank.
Flynn Banks was a massive star, known for his swashbuckling antics and his rapscallion persona. Which, to be fair, was less a persona and more just who he was. He was one of the only actors in Hollywood who was authentic, Dash included. One night they’d been kicked out of the backroom bar at Musso and Frank Grill after starting a pissing contest over who could drink more, and they’d been fast friends ever since.
In general, Dash preferred the company of the crew—the best boys, grips, and tradesmen who walked the streets of the lot. He loved to banter with them on set, have them over for a weekly poker game at his obscenely big house. But Flynn Banks was the only actor whose company he actively enjoyed. So, after the revelations in Harry’s office, he’d instructed his driver to take him to Malibu as quickly as humanly possible. Only Flynn would understand the self-flagellation of his mind’s current state.
Flynn opened the doors to his deck and a cool ocean breeze blew in off the sea, the tang of salt and adventure in the air. Dash followed him outside and leaned against the deck, pondering the mysteries of the water. There were few things that steadied him as much as nature. This house was a sanctuary, the crash of the waves as sacred as prayer, the mist off the water as healing as holy water. He came here whenever he needed to catch his breath.
Flynn cleared his throat. “Joan give you the old ice-queen act?”
“Does she ever give me anything but? That’s been her MO with me since the first morning on set after the Cocoanut Grove.”
Flynn sighed. “I hate to say this, but—have you ever considered apologizing?”
Dash reached out and grabbed for Flynn’s face, trying to pull up his eyelids. Flynn wrestled him off. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”
“Checking to see if you’re still in there. Flynn Banks suggesting someone apologize to a woman? Never.”
Flynn chuckled. “I’ll admit I don’t see any use in soothing a damaged ego when one dame is as good as the next, but you have to work with this woman and you’ve allowed her to believe you’re the biggest cad in Hollywood for four years. Which I simply will not allow. I’m the biggest cad in Hollywood. Everyone knows it.”
Dash laughed for the first time in hours. This right here. This was why he loved Flynn. “I tried to apologize that next day. But she wouldn’t listen. She walked away every time I opened my mouth if we weren’t in a scene together. I kept hoping it would blow over, that things would go back to the way they were before that night—the easy rapport, the shared jokes, the—”