Not One Clue_ A Mystery - Lois Greiman [59]
I knew I should feel badly about ignoring them, but seriously, I didn’t have a choice. It was like contemplating sauerkraut when you have cheesecake on your plate.
“Fani.” Sergio purred the name. “How is it that we’ve not met before?”
“I have been …” Foolish. What had I possibly been wasting my time on that I hadn’t met him? I mean, he was alive, in this universe. “Busy.”
He was staring at me, possibly waiting for me to continue. Possibly just giving me time to stare in return.
“With work,” I added, remembering belatedly that I was an actress … and—dear God in heaven—foreign.
“Ahh, on location?”
My mind was rattling around in my head like a walnut in a hamster ball. “Ahhh … oui.”
“And where is it you’ve been?”
Jesus, oh Jesus, oh Jesus, I thought, and searched wildly for some remote locale we would not have to discuss in a million millennia. “Minsk?”
“Yes?” He looked thrilled. “I, too, have worked in Minsk. Ahh, I lost my heart to the Svisloch. And the Belarusian theaters. Have you yet visited the Bolshoi?”
Jesus God. I’d never been to Minsk. I’d be lucky as hell to find it on a map. “Non. I have been quite busy while in …” Holy crap, what country was Minsk in? Or was it a country? “Minsk. Though I do not have a large part in the film.”
He smiled and skimmed his gentian gaze down my now steaming body. “Well, I am certain with a figure such as yours that will not be true for long. Sim?”
I wondered vaguely if swooning had gone out of style. But maybe it was a moot point. The gown had been pretty tight to begin with—adding the dusted grape may have been more than my lungs could accommodate. “And what of you?” I asked. As if I didn’t know. As if he wasn’t featured in every dream where Rivera didn’t make an appearance.
He shrugged. “I have been on location also.”
“Yes? For a film?”
“A series. It is called Amazon Queen.”
I leaned away and widened my eyes. “You joke!”
“I do not. I am Morab,” he said, and grinned as he hooked a thumb into his jeans. “Would you care to see my brand?”
“Yes.”
His dark brows rose. “Truly?”
I gave myself a mental shake and followed it with a hard slap. What the hell was wrong with me? I was a known actress. Fani. Or something like that. “I mean to say … oui, I recognize you now. You are one of the man-slaves, are you not?”
“I am so flattered that you have seen my work,” he said, and removed his thumb from his jeans.
I didn’t even cry.
He shrugged, still grinning. “The scripts … they are not so wonderful. But there are many fans and I am hoping …” He gave me a lopsided grin. He looked as tasty as a Fudgesicle. “I am hoping what we all hope. Sim?” he said, and laughed at himself.
“To be discovered,” I guessed.
“I know … it is not likely.”
With his looks? Was he kidding? I’d pay full box office price just to watch him blink. Who needs a damned script? Put him in his loincloth … or not. An image of him naked zipped like a naughty Tinkerbell through my mind, but I shook my head and focused on the subject at hand. Opportunity was knocking.
“And what of Ruocco?” I asked, remembering Elaine had said he seemed too accepting of her success. “It is said she is not the easy one to work with.”
“Elaine?” he said.
I nibbled on a celery stick. “That is her true name?”
“Some call her Brainy Laney.”
I scowled. “Brainy?”
“It means … ahh … inteligente. Smart.”
“Ahh, this is American humor, yes? Because she is not smart?”
“I, too, thought there must be something wrong with her when we first met, but …” He shrugged.
“Well,” I said, not giving up, “I have seen her act.”
He eyed me skeptically, reminding me that on more than one occasion men had seemed willing to sacrifice their lives for Laney’s honor. Sacrificing mine would maybe be no sacrifice at all. I waited, breath held, for him to stab me with my own skewer, but he only sighed.
“For a while I, too, was envious. I thought … why not me? You know? But she is a good person. Everyone … they adore her.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “Everyone?”
“Well …” He leaned closer. He smelled like