LITMIR.BIZ

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it was, had called in a favor to get her the tiny, nonspeaking role. Given the lack of a Social Security number on record, she apparently hadn’t been paid a dime.

      He played the video again, second-guessing himself, wondering if perhaps his initial reaction—okay, his first dozen reactions—had been aberrations. He homed in on her in the crowded scene, just as he had every other time. His body tightened with masculine appreciation, just as it had before. His pulse kicked in...again. His gut instinct, said to be the best in the entire television industry, went on red alert as he studied the close-up image enlarged to three times life-size on the giant screen before him. Her cute little tush and long, long legs might have aroused his most basic carnal instincts, but it was that image on the screen that had held his cooler, more professional fascination.

      Her blond hair feathered softly around a delicate face so exquisite it would have had Marlene Dietrich in her prime weeping with envy. Her mouth was a lushly sculpted work of art. Her eyes, an impossible shade of vivid, summer-sky blue, were capable of such intense scrutiny he knew without a doubt that she could render a man weak with no more than a glance. In that bit part as a cop, every movement of her body, every expression that crossed her face, had hinted subtly of intriguing interrogation techniques.

      So, he thought with yet another sigh of pure, heartfelt satisfaction, it hadn’t been a fluke. She had a rare quality that eluded most women, no doubt about it. Even more important for television, the camera was able to capture it.

      At thirty-five Jason Kane was a connoisseur of women, just as he was of fine wine and gourmet cuisine. He’d had to cultivate the latter, but his appreciation of women was pure instinct. He admired their beauty, reveled in their intelligence and enjoyed their sensuality, though not always in that order.

      In his capacity as president of TGN—Trans-Global Network—he had been surrounded by some of the most gorgeous stars in the world. He’d worked with some of the brightest and most ambitious females ever to grace an executive suite.

      And he had slept with... Well, the indiscreet truth of it was, he had slept with more than his share of the most incredible, most inventive, most incendiary ladies ever to don—or slide out of—a negligee.

      But not a one held a candle to the charisma of that anonymous blonde whose perfect face was frozen on the giant screen in his office. Mysterious and a little sad, she fascinated him even more deeply than she affected his libido. His determination to have her doubled. He would pursue her as relentlessly as he had every other important acquisition he’d made in his life. There was no question in his mind that he would succeed.

      “That,” he snapped to the three junior executives who had been frantically scribbling notes all during the last-ditch strategy meeting to save the failing soap, “is what that show needs to drag it out of the ratings gutter.”

      When no one else had been able to devise a plan to rescue the show, Jason had taken it on himself. It was exactly the sort of challenge he loved. Hiring an unknown and making her a star would be the kind of bold, unexpected move he’d built his reputation on.

      “Work with the producers,” he instructed. “Get her under contract, long-term. Tell the writers I want her on-screen in a story line so hot it’ll give the censors heartburn. Tell ’em to get her out of that uniform.”

      “But, boss, she plays a cop,” Freddie Cramer had the temerity to point out.

      Freddie Cramer was a recent graduate of UCLA. He couldn’t seem to decide between Hollywood’s casual chic of jeans, open-necked dress shirt and jacket and New York’s more formal pinstriped suit. It was almost the only decision Freddie had trouble with. Today, probably in deference to the somber nature of the meeting, he’d gone with the pinstripes. Freddie was a big believer in ambience.

      Freddie was also the only one in the whole bunch of junior executives who didn’t cower when Jason spoke. To everyone else’s astonishment and Jason’s private amusement, Freddie’s career at TGN was flourishing. He’d be a vice president before he turned thirty, maybe even before he hit twenty-five. If any of the others had had the guts to ask why, Jason would have explained that he didn’t need to be surrounded by people who shared his opinion. Heads bobbing dutifully in agreement meant nothing to him.

      He wanted people to argue with him, to keep him on his toes. He might be the person who was single-handedly bringing this second-class network into ratings contention for the first time in its history, but he wasn’t infallible. Not that he wanted too many people to figure that out just yet.

      Freddie Cramer didn’t question Jason’s intelligence. He honed it. He didn’t threaten Jason’s power. He ensured it. Jason prayed daily for more men and women of Freddie’s ilk to cross his path.

      “No cop’s on duty twenty-four hours a day,” he shot right back. “If the writers can’t figure out a way to make it happen, fire ’em and get me new writers. This show needs a dramatic overhaul, and this woman is going to be the linchpin for it. I want her in a front-burner story line within a month. Any questions?”

      Naturally it was Freddie who dared one, even as the others dashed for the door, scrambling eagerly to do his bidding. “Who is she?” he asked, bringing his colleagues to a halt, their expressions suddenly uncertain.

      Jason, his gaze once more glued to the screen and that incredible frozen image, said quietly, “That, gentlemen, seems to be the million-dollar question.”

      Whoever she was, Jason predicted with absolute certainty that not only her life but his own was about to be turned upside down.

      The last time he’d felt the same surge of confidence and anticipation, he’d taken over an entire network. Surely one petite woman with an air of mystery about her would be a snap by comparison.

       2

      Callie Smith felt as if she’d been run over by a truck. Looked pretty much like it, too, she decided with brutal honesty as she gazed into the mirror above the sink in her minuscule bathroom.

      Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy from what felt like a solid two months of crying. Her skin was blotchy. Her hair had defied every weakhearted attempt she’d made to coax some curl into it.

      Terence Walker peered over her shoulder and shook his head at her reflection. “Girl, you look sorrier than any cat Grandma ever dragged in.”

      “Thank you for that pick-me-up,” she commented snidely to her neighbor and best friend. “Go away.”

      Unfortunately, Terry was not the sort of man easily dissuaded once he’d set his mind to something. Callie had learned that the hard way in the months since she’d been dumped by her Wall Street brokerage firm and her husband in a depressing burst of downsizing on all fronts of her life. Terry was harder to shake than a nagging midwinter cough and, especially on days like today, twice as irritating.

      “This can’t go on,” he declared. “You’ve been a mess since that jerk you were married to walked out that door and flew to the Caribbean for a quickie divorce so he could marry the bimbo in spandex.”

      “That was six months ago. I’m over that,” she said blithely. It wasn’t entirely true, but she was convinced if she repeated it often enough, it would become true. Time, that reported healer, was crawling by at a snail’s pace, it seemed.

      “And losing your job two months ago? Are you over that, too?” Terry pressed.

      Callie frowned. It probably said a lot about her priorities that that blow had been even harder to take. She’d never depended on a man, even her husband, for her sense of self-worth, but her self-esteem and her ambition were inextricably tied together. Still, she said determinedly, “I will be.”

      “Right,” Terry said with a familiar disbelieving note in his voice. “The bottom line here is, you have to pull yourself together.”

      “For what?” she demanded, sniffling and patting ineffectually at her eyes with a damp cloth in an attempt

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