“What are you going to do today?” he asked as they entered the cool, dim foyer of the house after the short drive home.

“Work, work, work.” She shook her index finger just beneath his nose. “And don’t you dare try to distract me today.”

“Some friend you are. I thought we might-”

“ Trent,” she said threateningly.

“Okay, okay, scram.” He hitched his chin toward the head of the stairs.

“Hello, dears,” Ruby said, coming through the dining room upon hearing them. She was wearing a daisy-patterned apron over her jeans. “Miss Ramsey, the telephone is for you. I told the gentleman to hold when I heard you coming in. Trent, I’ve got your juice ready in the kitchen.”

Rana raced up the stairs and answered the extension in her apartment. “Hello,” she said breathlessly.

“Rana, hi, it’s Morey.”

“Hi,” she said, glad to hear from him. “How are you? How’s your blood pressure?”

“You can lower it. You can come back to work.”

Four

“I can’t, Morey. Not now.”

“Then, when?”

“I don’t know. Maybe never.”

“Rana, Rana.” He spoke her name with a heavy sigh. “Haven’t you proved your point yet?”

“You make my leaving sound like a child’s pouting spell. I assure you my reasons for giving it all up went much deeper than that.”

“I didn’t mean to make light of it. Living with your mother would be like sharing a den with a barracuda.” Rana was fully aware that there had never been any love lost between her mother and Morey. Susan had always held the agent in contempt, but had viewed him as a necessary evil she must tolerate for the furtherance of Rana’s career. “What did she do that finally sent you over the edge? It must have been a dilly of a stunt.”

Morey couldn’t know what a painful, shameful memory he had evoked.

“All I’m asking is that you be nice to him, Rana. You’re such a strange girl,” Susan Ramsey had said in exasperation. “Any other girl would be beside herself if Mr. Alexander paid some attention to her.”

“Then let ‘any other girl’ marry him.”

“Who said anything about marriage?”

“I know you, Mother. You wouldn’t be foisting Mr. Alexander off on me if matrimony hadn’t entered your mind. And it doesn’t have anything to do with morality. You’re just too good a bargain hunter to settle for less.”

“Would marriage to the owner of one of the largest cosmetics empires in the world be so terrible?” she asked sarcastically. “Think of what such an alliance would mean to your future.”

“And to yours, Mother.”

“I’ll take none of your sass! Now, Mr. Alexander called, and his car is picking you up at eight. He sent this lovely diamond bracelet for you to wear tonight. Please go get dressed.”

The bracelet had been the last straw, the final insult. “I’m not a prostitute,” Rana had informed her mother calmly, but coldly. “Mr. Alexander can keep his diamond bracelet and I’ll keep my self-respect.”

Instead of getting dressed to go out with a man old enough to be her grandfather, she had packed a few meager belongings and left the Manhattan penthouse without another word.

During the lengthy bus trip south, she had tried to recall her mother’s thousand and one machinations, but that was a futile exercise. For as long as Rana could remember, Susan Ramsey had had a hand in the small of her daughter’s back, pushing Rana into things she didn’t want any part of. How she had hated those beauty pageants for children, the modeling classes, the photography sessions, the endless rounds of interviews that always left her feeling embarrassed for both of them.

Susan had been tireless in her efforts to turn Rana into the perfect little girl, then into the perfect ingenue, then into the perfect woman… the woman Susan had always wanted to be herself. Psychologists would have had a field day with their relationship. If ever there was a case of a parent living vicariously through a child, this was it.

Rana was a hapless victim of Susan’s ambition. Her father had been killed in an accident when she was an infant. There was no system of checks and balances within the family. Rana was forced to go along with Susan’s plans. Rebellious outbursts had been few and far between. Patrick, the courageous sweetheart she had coerced into marrying her, had been one. That act of defiance had ended in heartbreak of such proportions that Rana hadn’t risked another.

Susan had proved to her daughter just how ruthless she could be, and resignedly Rana had followed wherever Susan led. Until Mr. Alexander. Would her mother actually consider selling her into a marriage of convenience? The idea had jarred Rana into taking stock of her life. She had reached the conclusion that Susan wasn’t ever going to change. If Rana wanted to alter her life, the change had to come from within herself. Leaving her mother and her career in New York had been the healthiest decision she’d ever made.

“It wasn’t only Mother. It was me,” she explained to her agent now. “I’m sorry that you had to be involved, too, Morey. Please understand. I had to get away from all that. And I’m having a wonderful time. I went jogging on the beach this morning. You should have seen me. Baseball cap, sweat suit. I look wretched, but I feel wonderful about myself. I’m peaceful. I’m free. For the first time in my life, I’m doing what I want to do.”

“But does it have to be so drastic, sweetheart? Couldn’t you just tell Susan to butt out once and for all?”

“Do you honestly think she would?”

He evaded that question and asked another. “Have you seen the undies ad?”

“By accident. I nearly died of shock.”

“So have the hotshots of the company who peddle the stuff. They can’t believe their ad people shelved the campaign for all these months. They’re head over heels, Rana. Their sales have skyrocketed just in the week the ad has been out. You’re decorating billboards all over the country. They want to do a series of television commercials.”

“Using me?”

“Sure, using you. So the commercials will tie in with the print ads. They think, and I agree, that you can do for simple cotton underwear what Brooke Shields did for blue jeans.”

“I’m glad the ad is a success, Morey, but I don’t want to go back to work.”

“Not even to the tune of four hundred thou for a two-year contract?”

“You’re kidding.” Her legs folded beneath her, and she collapsed onto the rug.

“I see I’ve finally got your attention. I didn’t say we’d accept four hundred. I’ll counter with six hundred and I think we’ll get an even half a million. How does that sound?”

“Ridiculous.”

He chuckled. “Not so ridiculous. I could use the bread.”

Her lips puckered with worry. “Have you been gambling again? Did you overextend?”

“Never mind my vices. You sound like my ex-wife. When are you getting your tush on a plane back to New York?”

She caught a glimpse of herself in the cheval glass in the corner. The woman sitting Indian fashion on the floor of the tidy, but modest, apartment didn’t even resemble the model in the magazine ad. She was chubby by comparison. Her dark red hair hadn’t been conditioned or trimmed in months. Her hands were a nightmare, with their square, short nails and paint-stained fingers. Her four crooked front teeth made for a less than perfect smile.

“I’m not coming back, Morey,” she said softly, hoping he could sustain the blow. “I’m in no shape to. They wouldn’t want me. I’m twenty pounds heavier than when you last saw me. I couldn’t model underwear if I wanted to.”

“So we’ll send you to a fat farm for a couple of weeks. What’il it be, the Greenhouse or the Golden Door? You’re closer to the Greenhouse. Want me to make you a reservation?”

“Morey, you’re not listening. I’m not coming back. I don’t want to.”

The following silence was long and rife with tension. “Will you at least think about it?” Morey said finally. “It’s a heck of a contract to turn down. We’ll start slow, if you like. We’ll accept no other work but this. Half a million is a helluva lot of money, Rana.”