The Movie (28 page)

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Zach, she had tried her best. Minor retorts, sniping, that was about the extent of her comebacks to his constant goading. Since they’d started the rewrite process with that disastrous first meeting, Zach Mason had goaded her, teased her, called her writing unrealistic and naive. It was true that he’d got better as time went on, but still.., and anyway, as Zach had started being a little kinder to her, loxana had suddenly got ten times worse. And ifZach and she ever disagreed, loxana would wade in behind her fellow star and pour acid all over Megan’s point of view. Like last time. But that was to be expected; loxana and Zach were obviously doing the wild thing, the way she posed for him in meetings and backed him up all the time. And all the press and gossip columnists said they were an item.

It would be interesting to see if the bitch showed tonight. Megan doubted she gave a damn about rock ‘n’ roll, but this was a high-profile event, so she’d probably turn up. Megan couldn’t wait. But she hadn’t worn the Dark Angel shirt because of Zach and l%oxana; the Beautiful People could do what they liked with each other. No, she’d wanted to say with her clothes the things she

didn’t have the guts to say with her mouth. Like, fuck you, Zach Mason. You sold us o.ut.

You’re just another rock-star ego, a spoilt brat, a false prophet. You got rich offour dreams. You lied to us. You lied to me.

But then Zach had sent round a limo and this incredible laminate, told her she could do wliatever she liked, go wherever she wanted. Megan felt obliged and confused.

Why was he doing this? What was his motive?

He hated her! It didn’t make sense.

‘Yes, I was,’ she muttered. ‘Everybody was.’

Zach heard the criticism in her voice, but ignored it. ‘Did you ever see us play?’

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Megan looked him in the face. ‘I saw you play sixteen times. I saw you at the Omni in Oakland when you were just starting. I saw you at the Stone. And the last gig you guys played here’ - she gestured around her - ‘twoyears ago, me and some friends from college saved up for a month so we could go.’

Zach Mason nodded slowly.

Megan looked at him again. He was wearing jeans and

boots too, all black, and a black see-through chiffon shirt, the latest cool thing in alternative metal fashion. It revealed his torso; without fabric covering him, Megan could see that he was actually far more muscular than she’d imagined. He was built like Keanu tkeeves in Speed. And his face looked even better: sculptured, masculine jaw; long , dark hair that gave him a feral, menacing quality; and those

incredible predator eyes, eyes that had pierced the soul of her whole generation, eyes that she’d watched from the crowd as a teenager and which had burned a fiery rebellion into her soul.

She felt a hot shock of arousal, and hated herself for it.

“Did you like us?’ he asked.

Megan ‘reddened. She didn’t want to tell Mason anything. Establishing herself as a fan, and Zach as her idol, put her in.a supplicant position. Now he knew she had admired him. More than that. And Megan didn’t like it.

‘I saw you sixteen times, Sherlock. What do you think?’ ‘I think you look very pretty,’ Zach said. He reached out and touched her soft brown curls..‘Too pretty to be so mad all the time.’

Megan was completely thrown. He sounded like he meant it. The guy was dating the world’s biggest supermodel, and he’d just called her pretty?

‘Thanks,’ she muttered, and then remembering her manners added, ‘and thanks for the pass.’

He waved it away, still holding her gaze. ‘De nada. Which track of ours did you like best?’

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‘Why do you care?’ snapped Megan. He was playing with her. He must be.

‘I want to know. Indulge me,’ Zach said, smiling wolfrshly at her. As the crowd started to chant the name of the band, Megan felt her-groin contract in a violent spasm of desire. Oh God. She knew she should be stronger than this, but

.. he was so beautiful. Predatory and beautiful.

‘ “Auburn”,’ she snapped. ‘OK?’

‘You don’t sound much like a fan,’ he said.

‘And you don’t act much like a hero!’ Megan bit back, furiously.

He was silent.

Out front, the noise of the audience was deafening. Megan felt a wave of fear rush up inside her. Oh God, what had she done? Zach was the star of this picture. If he chose to, he could make one call to David Tauber and she’d be off[the project for good.

‘You don’t know anything about my life,’ Zach said

softly. ‘Do you want to talk about why I split my band?’ She shook her head, mutely.

I know why you split the band, jerk. Money. T-shirt royalties. A manager who didn’t kiss your toned ass hard enough. David told me.

‘I had my reasons.’

Yeah, about twenty million of them, Megan thought, but she said, ‘It’s your life, Zach, Dark Angel was your band. Not mine. You can do what you like.’

For a second he just stood there, staring at her, then looked away.

‘Show’s about to start,’ he said. ‘Come with me. I’ll take you somewhere you can get a good view.’

Roxana Felix was boiling with rage She was sitting with Megan Silver and a few other women, wives and gir.1 friends of the band, in a tiny concealed VIP enclosure at

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the side of the stage. Lasers webbed the darkness; coloured spotlights danced across the stage and Rluminated hundreds of faces in the ocean of fans that stretched out in front of them. To her right, Electric City were blasting out their latest Top Ten smash. 1Loxana registered none of it.

She ordy knew that ten minutes ago she’d been sitting in here when Zach Mason personally escorted Megan Silver, that dull little puppy, into the VIP booth, and Megan-a nobody, a tvr/ter, for God’s Sake! - had been wearing a laminate which she obviously hadn’t had to pull strings for.

Zach had sent the little tramp a laminate!

Zach had preferred Megan to her!

And What made it worse was the look of surprise he’d shot her when he saw her pass - first surprise, and then a homble knowing look, a sort of contemptuous stare. The mouse bimbo hadn’t noticed it, of course. She was too busy gazing at the band and the crowd in some kind of pathetic wonder. Megan Silver actually cared about this stu

P,.oxana stared at the back of Megan’s head. So, this was what Mason wanted, did he? A donkey instead of a unicorn. ?; sparrow instead of a peacock. And one who was so naive she probably didn’t even realize it.

Well, the little mouse better not get in her way. Because

if she did, she would pay for it!

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Darkness had fallen over the massed ranks of the crowd. Just for a few minutes more, they would be kept waiting.

Megan twisted in her seat, her stomach knotted in excitement. It had been a great show. Watching from the side of the stage was awesome. And in between songs, when she wasn’t getting carried away by the moment, she’d had time to watch what the roadies and guitar techs were doing. She had soaked up the atmosphere backstage like a sponge. It would be great research for the script; with just a few slight changes, she knew now that she could make her movie ten times more vivid and realistic. She’d get home and write new set instructions and stage directions that would change the entire way it looked on screen.

But that wasn’t the point right now.

She was about to see Zach Mason perform.

Their exchange earlier had been weird.., she’d been sure that when she came right out and condemned him, Zach would fly into a superstar tantrum, have her thrown out of the venue, have her fired: But he hadn’t reacted like that, not at all. He’d been cool. Challenged her, but let her have her own opinion.

She didn’t recognize the star she’d been sparring with.

She didn’t recognize the primadonna David Tauber kept telling her about.

And here, in this stadium, she’d heard the Electric City fans scream his name all night long. When she ducked out

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of the viewing booth to use the bathroom, she’d heard near-hysterical reporters wondering aloud if it was true that Zach Mason was gonna sing. And walking through Hospitality on her way back up to the stage, the vibe was just the same - Zach, Zach, Zach. It was Electric City’s show, but all the anticipation, all the rumours, were centred on the guy she’d just been fighting with.

Two months ago, Megan knew, she would have been in precisely the same state of crazed excitement. To her generation, hearing that Zach Mason was going to play a surprise jam with another band was the same as somebody telling her mother that John Lennon’s death was faked and the Beatles would play at Madison Square Gardens this Christmas. Dark Angel were almost a religion, and Zach ‘Mason was everybody’s personal god.

In the heady, pumped-up atmosphere of the stadium tonight it was hard not to see it that way again. To see Zach through the adoring eyes of everyone else.

Working with him, Megan had come to think of him as a person more than a rock star. After all, he’d betrayed them.., hadn’t he?

She tried to get a grip, but she couldn’t stop the butterflies squirming in her stomach. Zach would be onstage soon. Right next to her. And maybe, for a few minutes, she would see him again as the face she’d had tacked on her bedroom walls for the last five years.

Suddenly, there was a huge roar from the crowd, a howling wall of sound rising up into the warm night air. The hot rainbow of lights switched back on, bathing the crammed stadium in a pool of colours.

Electric City were back onstage for their encore. And striding out with them, one hand raised in salute, acknowledging the rabid adoration of the crowd, was Zach Mason, bathed in a single white spotlight, his hair fanning out around him like a black flame. She was close enough to see the tiny droplets of sweat beading on his

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chiselled face, close enough to see the intensity of his stare as he trained those wolf eyes on the crowd howling before him.

Megan’s heart leapt to her throat. All her criticisms of him were blasted into nothingness. The fact that they were colleagues now was blasted into nothingness. In the heat of the moment, she had reverted to the hardcore Dark Angel fan she’d always been. Zach was her hero. And he was three feet away from her.

A raging desire gripped her, waves of lust starting in her belly and spreading out across her body, shooting little silver threads across her breasts and crotch. She felt her nipples harden under the T-shirt with his band’s name blazoned across it. She felt her crotch grow warm and languid with blood, felt her pussy wetting up. Dear God, it was the most violent arousal she’d ever known in her life, and she wasn’t even touching herselŁ.

Dizzy, Megan gripped tightly onto the brass rail in front of her, leaning as closely in towards Zach as she could manage.

Electric City’s guitarist, Kick de Souza, lowered his fingers to the fretboard and bled out the opening chords to ‘Auburn’, the title track from Dark Angel’s second album. The record Megan had told Zach was her favourite.

As the crowd shrieked in ecstatic recognition, Electric City smiling and waving, the spotlight panned for a few seconds .away from Zach and onto their own singer And as he stood there, so close to Megan she could have touched him, Zach turned round in the darkness and smiled at her.

David Tauber sat on a wicker chair in Hospitality sipping a little champagne. He checked his watch. Fifteen minutes till the encores were over, and he saw no reason why he should have to stand out front, any closer to that unbelievable level of noise. From all the screaming, you’d imagine that somebody had turned a flamethrower on the

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audience. Which wouldn’t be such a bad idea, judging from all the long hair and marijuana smoke. Thank God he had rescued Mason from this Neanderthal crap.

Colleen McCallum concerts were never like this.

He might’ have shown his face in the hospitality booth onstage, but had been told by a grinning security chief that his pass wasn’t good enough.

‘But this is the same pass Zach sent loxana Felix,’ Tauber insisted.

The guy shook his head. ‘You don’t get on that stage without a laminate, loxana Felix has a laminate. Who gave it to her, I don’t know.’

‘And M’egan Silver?’ Tauber demanded, glancing up to

see the back of Megan’s head on the stage above him. That

‘ loxana Felix would have pulled somebody’s strings didn’t surprise him in the least, but Megan… she hardly had the clout.

‘She has a laminate too. And Zach Mason saw to that personally.’

‘How do you know?’ Tauber snapped, irritated. *Because I set it up for him,’ the ape replied. ‘Now, you wanna keep inside your area, oryou want me to throw you out?’

David had kept inside his area.

So, Zach Mason was setting up access for Megan Silver. Interesting. And loxana was having to fight to keep up appearances ….

As Tauber picked idly at a bunch of grapes laid out on

the hospitality buffet, he started to think, fast. P, Aght now, he controlled three out of the four principals in the See the Lights deal - the male lead, the female lead and the scriptwriter. Sam Kendrick represented Fred Florescu personally, and that was a pity, but even David could hardly try to poach a client from his own boss. There were

At the moment.

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deal. If the movie was a smash, his name would be made. His salary would quintuple. He would switch from ‘up and-coming’ to ‘arrived’. He would be a player.

There’d be a good shot at ousting Mike Campbell right away. Then he, David Ariel Tauber, would be head of Domestic Films at a major agency, one of the youngest guys ever to do it. And before too long he’d be able to walk away completely, set up shop on his own. David smiled pleasantly at the thought of it. So what if he was only twenty-six? He was kicking ass. And if Sam Kendrick wasn’t exactly a clapped-out old lush like Kevin Scott, he was still getting old.