Loveplay. Diana Palmer

      One

      The silence was eerie. Overhead, a single light burned in compliance with union rules. On the bare, quiet stage Bett Cambridge stood with a script in her slender hands and peered out into the darkened theater. The auditors were out there, she knew, but she couldn’t see them. She’d been picked, one of three girls out of an open call. She’d read for those unknown auditors once before, material from the same play she was reading for again on the callback. The fear was worse this time. They had to be interested, or why would they have asked her to come back?

      She knew the play well, she knew the role she was trying for. It was as familiar as her own name, because it had been so much a part of its author. She shouldn’t have come here. What if he showed up? But she needed the part so badly, and, after all, it was a revival of the old play. Wasn’t he in Hollywood, working on a screenplay? The slender hands holding the script trembled just a little. It would be all right.

      Anyway, it wasn’t as if there was still anything between them. Edward McCullough was well and truly out of her league these days, what with his celebrated reputation as a playwright. Cul wouldn’t care. He’d put Bett Cambridge right out of his mind years ago, and he was keeping her out of it his indifference told her so. Fleeting glimpses and infrequent conversations at parties were all the contact they had now. The past was dead and buried for both of them. So why should he mind her trying out for the revival of his hit play?

      Her fingers clutched the script tightly as she let herself drift into the motivations of the part she was auditioning for. She would be playing a young girl, poor and alone and just under three months’ pregnant. She’d dressed for the part the same as she had last time. She’d deliberately worn a shapeless corduroy jumper and let her long red-gold hair tangle around her shoulders. Now she slumped a little to simulate weariness. She thought of the sadness the poor and deserted girl would feel, and the sense of hopelessness. And then she began to read from Edward McCullough’s Girl in a Dark Room.

      “You’d have thought he was a gentleman, my Tom,” she said in a clear tone that carried through the theater. She tossed back her hair and laughed. “You’d have thought he’d never have left me in the lurch. Good, kind Tom, who used to walk me home from the sewing plant every afternoon so’s I wouldn’t get mugged. My Tom.” She chewed on her lower lip and closed her eyes, feeling the agony. “Oh, God, what’s to become of this baby inside me now? How can I have it? How can I raise it? I got nobody, Lord! Not a mama to help me fetch and carry, not a papa to scold me. I got nobody on the face of this earth who gives a damn if I live or die!” She put her face in her hands and moved restlessly under the glare of the overhead light. She lifted her head again and sighed, holding out her hands in a gesture of futility. “I can’t let somebody cut it out. I can’t kill it. But I can’t have it, neither, Lord. Oh, show me what to do!” she pleaded half hoarsely, staring up into the darkness. She closed her eyes and felt tears, real tears, start out of her eyes. “Oh, God, please, if you love me, show me what to do!”

      She took a deep, slow breath, coming out of the trance she’d put herself in. The dark auditorium came back into focus. There was a long silence, then a muttered conversation. Bett stared out into the darkness, waiting for the customary “Thank you” that would tell her it was all over, and she hadn’t got the part. Please, she prayed silently, let me get the part.

      A man rose from his dim seat and moved out into the aisle. A tall man, powerfully built, with blond hair that shone like new gold in sunlight. A man from out of Bett’s past, out of a nightmare. She hadn’t expected this. For God’s sake, what was he doing here?

      Edward McCullough came up onto the stage, looking as cynical as he always did when she rubbed him the wrong way. He hadn’t changed very much from the days when he’d been a struggling actor and writing had only been some vague dream in his life. Now he was one of the country’s foremost playwrights, and looked it, in his white cashmere sweater and expensive tailored brown slacks. Older, and perhaps more worn. But he had something to show for it.

      His chin lifted as he stopped just in front of Bett, and she lifted her own chin defiantly. Let him do his worst. She’d find another part—New York was a big city. She’d—

      “Here we go again,” he murmured, staring down into her rebellious dark eyes in her faintly freckled face. “Elisabet Cambridge, how you’ve changed since Atlanta.”

      She coolly lifted an eyebrow. She didn’t smile—the girl who’d once loved him would have. Uninhibitedly, she’d have thrown herself wildly into his arms and invited him to take whatever he wanted. But Bett was older. And the only thing he possessed that she might have wanted now was a part in his play. Nothing more. Her eyes told him that, and more.

      He laughed mockingly. “You haven’t forgiven me, have you?” he asked. “What makes you think I’ll give you this part, Bett?”

      “Why should I tell you?” she asked. “I’ll talk to the director about it.”

      “I am the director,” Cul replied, his eyes gleaming at her obvious surprise. “Now, again,” he continued softly, dangerously, “suppose you tell me what makes you think I’ll give you this part?”

      “Because I’m right for it,” she said with quiet dignity. “Because I’ve played it so many times that I could do it blindfolded.”

      He looked down her slender body, letting his eyes rest contemplatively at her waist. “That may be so. But why should I give you the part, Bett?”

      Bett swallowed. He wasn’t going to make her back down. He knew, as she did, that she was perfect for the role. She didn’t even have to put on a Southern accent; she already had one, left over from her childhood in Atlanta.

      “Come on,” he said curtly, “give me a reason.”

      “Because