Read Online Once in a Blue Moon by Kristin James - Free Book Online Page A

every man you play a scene with like you’re going to melt and flow all over his skin?”
    “Stop it! Don’t say that!”
    “Why? Because it’s the truth? Damn it, Isabelle, why are you pretending?”
    “I’m not pretending!” Isabelle blazed back, frightened by the weakness she felt at his touch. In another moment, he would be kissing her again to prove his point, and she didn’t think that she could stand that. “It was a scene, nothing more. I was acting. Anything I felt was only what my character would have felt.”
    Michael released her shoulder, but he remained where he was, watching her. Isabelle kept her eyes turned away from him, unable to meet his gaze.
    Finally he said, “You’re lying. I just don’t know whether you’re lying to me...or to yourself.”
    “Please. Go away and leave me alone.”
    Michael let out a sigh, then turned and left the dressing room. Isabelle collapsed into her chair and buried her face in her hands.
    * * *
    “I don’t know if I can continue to do it,” Isabelle said, picking up the glass carafe of coffee and carrying it into the small breakfast room where her friend sat. “I mean, it’s so hard to face him day after day.”
    “You haven’t had to kiss him again, have you?” Nancy asked, raising her cup to her lips.
    Nancy was sitting in her customary loose, casual fashion, her long legs draped over one arm of the chair and her thin torso sideways in the seat. Her long mop of thick golden-red curls tumbled haphazardly around her face, the result of her having just run her hands through her hair. Nancy Baker had been Isabelle’s best friend for years. They had met when Isabelle had first come to Hollywood, and Nancy had been the fledgling photographer who had taken Isabelle’s photographs for her portfolio. They had shared both a professional relationship and a close friendship ever since.
    Nancy was the one person to whom Isabelle felt she could tell anything without fear of it ever being repeated or judged. Nor was Nancy intimidated by or jealous of Isabelle’s good looks. She had been a successful model before she became a photographer, and she understood the problems of being known to the world as a beautiful face. But perhaps the thing that had most cemented their friendship was the fact that Nancy accepted Jenny with complete equanimity; her younger brother had been born with Down’s syndrome and had always been a beloved part of their family.
    Nancy and Isabelle had gone shopping together this morning while Irma stayed with Jenny. Now they were enjoying a friendly cup of coffee and a long talk while they kept an eye on Jenny and the dog wheeling around in the concrete driveway and parking area.
    “No,” Isabelle admitted, adding, “thank heavens. But every week I’ve had more scenes with him. It’s been three weeks since that seduction scene, and next week I have at least one scene with him every day.”
    Nancy shrugged. “You knew you would have to work with the guy.”
    “You don’t understand. When he came to the show, Curtis and Jessica had virtually no relationship. But the writers keep building it up.”
    “Why?”
    Isabelle shrugged. “The other day Judy Weinburg told me that she loved getting to write a scene for Jessica with a man who wasn’t one of her former husbands or a past or present lover or someone who was trying to get into bed with her.”
    Nancy hooted. “That makes sense. Jessica is the Slut of the World.”
    Isabelle made a face. “Anyway, I don’t think that’s it, or at least, not all of it. It’s worse. I have the awful feeling they’re going to try to cook something up between Curtis and Jessica.”
    Nancy raised her eyebrows. “Aha. The plot thickens. Why do you think that?”
    “Because Danny Archer absolutely loved the seduction scene. He says it’s one everyone will be wishing they’d videotaped. Secondly, the actor that played Mark took a month’s leave of absence. He left a week ago. So, for the next three