“Shit, Dierk.
What
?” Siena had had a long night, fighting with Max till two about some stupid little thing or other, then having makeup sex till four. It had been as much as she could do to haul her aching bones out of bed this morning and get to the set on time. She didn’t need the cryptic questions. “I’m doing the scene, is what I’m doing. What’s wrong? I thought that went great.”
“That, my dear,” he sneered, “is why
I
am the director and you are not. It was terrible. I’ve seen more enjoyable road accidents.”
Siena bit her lower lip hard and stopped herself from saying what she really wanted to—that Muller was a sad, sadistic old Nazi who got his kicks from terrorizing and demoralizing whatever hapless actress he happened to be directing. Some days she longed for the sycophantic photographers of her modeling days. To think that a few short months ago she’d thought that Michael Murphy, the director of her Maginelle campaign shoots, was a stickler. Dierk could have eaten Michael for breakfast.
“Okay,” she said patiently, pulling up a plastic chair and sitting down next to him. For all that she complained and cursed him, Muller was a wonderful director, and Siena wanted to learn from him. “What do you want me to do?”
The director carefully put down his clipboard of notes on the floor and looked at her. She was dressed for the scene in an immaculately cut chocolate-brown suit, the fitted jacket and tight pencil skirt clinging sexily to her curves, her hair flowing long and loose down her back. He cast a critical eye over her appearance, noting that even after an hour in makeup, the dark shadows under her eyes and the dull pallor of her sleep-deprived skin had not been entirely concealed. Stupid child! She wasn’t taking care of herself.
The next thing Siena felt was a sharp, violent slap across her face that sent her reeling back in her chair. Horrified, she put her hand up to her cheek, which was burning red and tingling from the blow. “What the fuck did you do that for, asshole!” she screamed at Dierk, her blue eyes glinting with anger.
He watched her, shaking with rage, her picture-perfect angel’s face transformed into a tight, venomous ball of fury, and a slow smile spread across his pale, Teutonic features.
“For that,” he said pointing at her. “For that reaction.”
“What?”
said Siena, still rubbing her throbbing face. She’d had about as much as she could take of Muller’s stupid party tricks.
“Look at yourself!” he babbled on excitedly, leaning forward in his chair and clasping her hands in his. “Do you see that anger, that emotion? See your arms? They’re everywhere, all over the place. Your eyes, your mouth, your expression, your movements, they’re all
real.
”
“Well, of course they’re fucking real,” snapped Siena. “You just whacked me for no reason, you fucking psycho.”
The rest of the cast and crew were glued to the drama unfolding between the director and his leading lady. Most of them had been the victims of Muller’s unorthodox motivational techniques at one time or another, and they sympathized with Siena.
“That’s what I want to see in your work, Siena,” said Muller. “That realism, that emotion. Loosen up your body, let go a little bit. You have it in you, sweetheart. You just need to let it out.”
Turning abruptly away from her, he clapped his hands together magisterially for attention. “Okay, guys,” he bellowed to the room at large. “Next take.”
Siena returned to the set, still clasping her hand to her cheek. Carole, the makeup artist, quickly advanced upon her with some green cream and foundation to tone down the red mark Muller had left. “Don’t worry, honey,” she whispered furtively as she dabbed and blended like a magician. “He’s a real bastard. We all think you’re doing a great job.”
“Thanks,” said Siena. She felt the back of her eyes stinging with tears of gratitude at this small word of encouragement. What with Hunter being so wrapped up in Tiffany, and Max feeling so threatened all the time, she’d been getting precious little encouragement at home recently.
Rubbing her eyes and tossing her hair back, she determined to pull herself together. What would Grandpa have thought if he could see her now, practically reduced to tears by some stupid director?
She was Duke McMahon’s granddaughter, for Christ’s sake. She could handle this.
“Okay.” She smiled at the rest of the cast, focused and professional once again. “I’m ready. Let’s do it.”
For the next three months, until the end of July, life at the beach house went on more calmly and happily than any of them might have expected.
Siena and Max seemed to grow closer by the day. As the weeks rolled by, and she grew more trusting in his love, she visibly started to relax, and every aspect of her life began to blossom.
Dierk Muller became less and less critical of her work. By the time the film wrapped in late June, Siena knew that she had grown immeasurably as an actress, and Muller was not the only one who was thrilled by her performance. Early screenings of the unedited picture had been greeted with rapturous enthusiasm by one focus group after another, and by mid-July the buzz surrounding
The Prodigal Daughter
was already huge.
Once filming was officially over, Siena spent her days giving interviews or going to photo shoots, plugging the movie until she was too tired to speak. It didn’t hurt that the pre-release PR coincided with the last and most extravagant of her Maginelle commercials, so that by July her face seemed to be everywhere.
Much to Marsha’s delight, the scripts for new projects were already rolling in, and Siena’s modeling fees had skyrocketed. The gamble of moving to Hollywood appeared to be paying off in spades.
In the little time she got to spend at home with Max and Hunter, Siena’s behavior was also much improved, though almost through force of habit, she still tried to pull the occasional fast one on Tiffany. Once she purposefully sent her to the wrong restaurant for a date with Hunter, making sure it was far enough up Laurel Canyon that she wouldn’t be able to get cell-phone reception and would think she’d been stood up. But Max had bawled her out so badly afterward, forcing her to admit what she’d done to both of them and to apologize to Tiffany in Hunter’s presence, that she hadn’t tried anything like it since.
Everyone who knew Siena could see that Max was a good influence on her. She screamed and yelled and tried to fight her corner with him. But deep down she respected his opinion, and nothing made her feel worse than the knowledge she had let him down in any way.
Max was the only person in the world who knew how much Siena had hoped against hope that her parents might get in touch when they saw all the press surrounding her movie. Every time the phone rang or flowers arrived at the door, he would watch her spirits soar, then fall, when she realized they were not from Claire. It was painful to watch.
Pete, who had two huge blockbusters pending release at the same time as
The Prodigal Daughter,
had been asked repeatedly by the media about his thoughts on his daughter’s first film.
“I’m not going to be making any comments about Siena McMahon,” he’d been quoted as telling
Variety,
referring to his daughter as though she were a total stranger. “As for the movie, what can I say? It’s not the sort of picture that MPW would look at, but for an art-house film, I’d say it’s perfectly competent.”
In public, Siena maintained a dignified silence. But at night she tossed and turned miserably in Max’s arms until he rocked her into a fitful sleep.
In a bizarre twist, the one person from her old life who
had
called to congratulate her was Caroline. In one of her six monthly calls to Hunter from England, she had actually asked to speak to Siena and been quite genuinely complimentary about her career.
“Hunter tells me you’re going out with darling Max,” she’d trilled on merrily, as if she and Siena had always been on the best of terms. “I always did adore that boy. Quite a catch! Seriously, if I were twenty years younger, I’m not at all sure I wouldn’t make a play for him myself.”
The thought of Caroline and Max together sent a shiver of revulsion down Siena’s spine. In fact, the thought of anyone else with Max made her stomach churn and her chest tighten painfully. As far as she knew, apart from one girlfriend at Cambridge, there had never been anyone really serious in his life before her. Unlike Hunter, who had always been the ultimate Steady Eddie when it came to girls, Max had always been, in the nicest possible way, a bit of a cad. Siena remembered how much trouble he’d gotten into in high school when two of the cheerleading squad discovered that neither of them had his exclusive attentions as a boyfriend. Even as a teenager, he had loved women. Like her, he was a natural-born flirt, constantly flitting from one relationship to the next.
Unlike Siena though, Max had managed to stay friends with most of his lovers. Women seemed to forgive him his roving eye because he was so funny and generous, and because he always treated them with respect. He just wasn’t the settling-down type—everybody knew that.
At least, he hadn’t been until he fell in love with Siena.
She just prayed that his newfound devotion and commitment to her would turn out to be permanent. She couldn’t imagine where she’d be if he ever left her.
One morning in late July, he was in his room at the beach house, on the phone to Henry in England, when a flustered Siena rushed in wrapped in a towel, her wet hair leaving puddles of water all over the wooden floor.
“Hair dryer!” She waved her arms at him frantically, rummaging noisily through the chest of drawers and hurling clothes on the floor in her desperate search.
Since they became lovers, Siena’s room, which had the nicer view, had become “their” bedroom, and Max used his old room as a study and a place to keep his clothes. Every spare inch of the storage space in their room was, naturally, crammed to the gills with Siena’s stuff.
“I’m on the phone, darling,” he complained good-naturedly while Siena continued to empty the meager contents of his wardrobe onto the floor. “Do you think you could do this later?”
“Fuck, where
is
it?” she wailed, ignoring him. “My effing hairstylist just called to say her kid’s got a temperature of a hundred and five and she can’t make it, the photographer was due half an hour ago, and now I can’t even dry my own fucking hair because someone’s swiped the goddamn dryer.
Huuunterrrr
!”
She let out a scream so piercing that Max winced. “Sorry,” he said to a perplexed Henry on the other end of the line. “Siena and Hunter have a joint photo shoot here this morning for
US Weekly
. The McMahons at home, new generation, all that bollocks. She’s a bit stressed out about it.”
“So I hear,” said Henry, who was overloaded with stress of his own and found it hard to muster much sympathy for the pressures of a missing hair dryer. “What about you? Can I look forward to pictures of my little brother in his gracious drawing room, spouting off about world peace?”
Max laughed. “They don’t have drawing rooms over here, mate. Anyway, since when did you read
US Weekly
?”
“Christ, never!” said Henry with feeling. “Muffy’s the gossip fiend in this house, can’t get enough of all that drivel.”
Max tried to imagine his beleaguered sister-in-law struggling to find five child-free, farm-free minutes in her day to sit down and read a magazine with a cup of tea. He knew things were tough at Manor Farm, and that Henry’s money troubles were escalating, but to be honest, he’d been so focused on his own dire financial straits recently, and on Siena, that he hadn’t given poor Henry’s problems much of a thought.
Finishing up the call, he settled down at his desk to make a start on a couple of the scripts he’d been sent last week. Anything to avoid the media circus that was about to get started in the living room. Max hated photographers and journalists with equal passion. It was hard enough keeping Siena’s raging ego and ambition in check without a bunch of sycophantic assholes turning up and telling her how marvelous and talented and beautiful she was the whole time.
He picked up the first script, a dog-eared, tea-stained sheaf of paper bound with a cheap black plastic clip. It was the latest play from a very young, critically acclaimed new writer in Oxford who knew of Max’s theater work and wanted him to come and direct in Stratford next year. Max had skipped through it last night, but he began reading more carefully now, marking the margins with pencil asterisks and illegible notes as he went along.
No doubt about it, it was good. Fucking good.
The only problem was that this kid, Angus, had had about as much commercial success as Max, i.e., none. Angus’s plays were considered too dark and depressing to have much mass audience appeal, and the style was too heavy and old-fashioned for most London theater producers to consider.
Max would have loved to do it, but the reality was he’d be lucky if he even got his expenses covered, let alone managed to make money on the thing. Plus, it would mean going back to England for a four-month run, leaving Siena alone in L.A. to be pursued by every playboy producer and director in town. So that was a definite no-go.
Reluctantly, he pushed the manuscript to one side and picked up one of his potential American projects, another bland romantic comedy, gleaming professionally in its bright red CAA dust jacket.
“Max!” It was Hunter calling from the next room, where the shoot was obviously already under way. “Can you come in here for a second, buddy?”
With a sigh, Max got up from his desk and opened the living room door. “Sure,” he said without enthusiasm. “What’s up?”
The house had been turned into a mini-studio, complete with blazing lights and vast silver reflective parasols to the sides of the couch and chairs. The living room was full of people, the most visible and self-important of whom were the photographer, an emaciated Karl Lagerfeld wannabe dressed in head-to-toe black and ludicrously wearing his eighties-style dark glasses indoors, and a fat, garrulous middle-aged woman with a tape recorder who Max assumed must be the interviewer.
Siena, who had evidently found a hair dryer somewhere, was curled up on the couch looking sleek and leaning back against Hunter, who had his arms around her shoulders. They were both smiling and laughing, enjoying the attention and each other’s company, like an impossibly glamorous pair of twins.
Max felt his heart start to ache.
“This is Johanna,” said Hunter, indicating the middle-aged woman, who obligingly smiled up at him and nodded, her blubbery jowls shaking. “She was hoping to be able to ask you a few questions, while we’re getting the pictures done.”
“Hello, Max,” said Johanna, her fat wet lips issuing a fine mist of saliva as she spoke. “I wondered if we could have a little chat now, you know, get it out of the way? Siena tells me you’ve got a lot of work on at the moment, so I promise I won’t keep you long.”
Max gave Siena a stern look. They had discussed this ad infinitum. No interviews, no pictures. The article was about her and Hunter. He had no desire to go into print as Siena’s sad hanger-on of a boyfriend or as Hunter’s charity case.
“I appreciate that, Johanna, thank you,” he said politely, forcing himself to give her a friendly smile. He hated journalists, especially fat women journalists. “But as Siena is very well aware, I’m afraid I don’t feel it’s either necessary or appropriate for me to be involved in your piece. And I
do
have a lot of work to do. So if you’ll excuse me—”
“I thought you said it was only pictures he didn’t want to do?” said Hunter to Siena, who looked the picture of wide-eyed innocence sitting beside him.
“Well,” she said shiftily, “the pictures were the
main
thing.”
Hunter rolled his eyes. “Siena?” he pressed her.
“Oh, all right, fine,” she admitted grumpily. “He did say he didn’t want to be interviewed.” She turned to Max, gazing up at him with the pleading look that seemed to work so well with every other man in the universe. “But I thought you might have changed your mind, darling. I really want you to do it. For me. Please?”
“Well I haven’t changed my mind,” said Max firmly. He wasn’t giving in to her this time. “And I’m not likely to, when you try to ambush me like that.”
“But why
not
?” she demanded, screwing her hands into tight little fists and banging them down in frustration on Hunter’s thigh. “You’re part of my life, and part of Hunter’s, a big part. And you live here. If Tiffany were here, she’d do the interview, wouldn’t she, Hunter?”
“Ow,” said Hunter, rubbing his leg.
“She bloody well would not,” said Max, picking his way over boxes of makeup and discarded tripods into the kitchen to grab himself an Oreo from the cookie jar. Tiffany was away filming in Vancouver—as Hunter had predicted,
Sea Rescue
had been picked up for the full twelve episodes—and Max happened to know for a fact that she’d been relieved to fly back up there last week and miss today’s shenanigans. “Besides, that’s not the point and you know it. We’ve already discussed this, sweetheart. We agreed.”
The photographer leered appreciatively at Max as he stumbled clumsily back toward his study, all blond hair, broad shoulders, and powerful tree-trunk thighs. Now there was a real man.
“You agreed, you mean,” sulked Siena, who always became unreasonable and moody when she knew she was in the wrong.
“I’m not rowing about it,” said Max, returning to his desk and shutting the door behind him.
“Ooo!” Siena squealed in frustration.
Why did he always have to be so infuriatingly self-controlled?
For the next two hours, Siena fumed quietly while the photographer shot roll after roll of film.
For the first time in her life, she was truly, madly in love with someone. And not just someone but Max, Max who was so gorgeous and sexy and talented and amazing that she woke up every morning wondering how on earth she’d ever won his heart.
She never thought it would happen to her—never thought she was capable of that kind of love. But now she’d found it, she wanted the whole world to know that she and Max were together, that it was real and that it was serious between them.
Was that such a crime?
I mean, what did he have to do today that was so earth-shatteringly important that he couldn’t spend five minutes talking to that stupid whale of a woman about how happy he was to be with her?
She didn’t know why, but somehow Siena felt she would have liked to see Max’s love for her spelled out in black-and-white, in print, for the whole world to see. It was as if seeing the words written down might magically transform his feelings into something more tangible, more permanent and safe. It would have meant a lot to her, and he knew it.