Starstruck Read Free Page B

before this speech tonight. You come on up to my room with me and we’ll talk while I shower and shave.”
    Liv’s mouth flew open. No wonder he went to bed with half the women in th e world. He certainly didn’t waste any time on preliminaries! “I think not, Mr. Harrington,” she said, ice dripping from her voice. “I conduct interviews in lobbies, not hotel bedrooms. Or bathrooms. And this interview isn’t likely to be conducted at all!” The nerve of the man!
    “Hold on… ”
    “No, you hold on, Mr. Harrington. I didn’t want to do this interview with you in the first place! I had enough complications in my life today without adding God’s gift to women—”
    “Miss James—”
    “Don’t Miss James me, Mr. Harrington,” she exploded. “I have a ca sserole in the oven about to burn , a child at the baby-sitter’s whom I should have picked up twenty minutes ago and a rabbit about to die of heat prostration in the back of my bus! I can damned well do without you! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m sure your speech tonight will tell me everything I want to know.” And if Marv didn’t like it, she thought, he could have her job—and the shower-and-shave interview that went with it, too! She spun on her heel and strode toward the main entrance of the lobby. She had almost reached it when a hand shot out and grabbed her arm.
    “What kind of casserole?”
    Liv stared at him. “Chicken and rice,” she said finally.
    “Room for one more?”
    “What?”
    He looked slightly sheepish. “You’ve got the wrong id ea,” he said. “I didn’t mean… Oh well, maybe I did, I don’t know. But a chicken-and-rice casserole sounds better right now. Is there enough?”
    “Yes, but… ”
    The grin nearly split his face. “I’ll pick up my key later,” he said to the stunned desk clerk who had watched the whole exchange. “Let’s go. I want no burned casseroles, mad baby-sitters or dead rabbits on my conscience.”
    “You aren’t serious,” Liv protested. But evidently he was, for he was propelling her out the door so quickly that she nearly lost her footing.
    “Of course I am. Do you know the last time I had a real, home-cooked meal?”
    “No,” she faltered. This couldn’t be happening.
    “Neither do I. But I’ll trade you. An interview for some chicken-and-rice casserole. Sound fair?” He flashed her a disarming grin. “And safer?” he added, and she saw a teasing light in his eyes.
    She wasn’t so sure about that. “I guess, but—”
    “Which car?”
    “The green VW bus.” She pointed to it and then had to scurry to keep up with his long strides. “But what about your shower and shave?” she remembered.
    “You have running water at your house, I presume?” he drawled, and she thought that safe wasn’t a word she’d have used at all.
    Lord save me, Liv thought and unlocked the door. “Throw your suitcase in the back, then,” she told him, momentarily resigned to the fate that had sent her life spinning out of control. “And be careful not to hit the rabbit.”

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Two
     
     
    “ S o, tell me about yourself,” Joe said, settling easily into the passenger seat of the VW bus and turning sideways to watch Liv start the engine.
    “That’s my line, I believe,” she snapped irritably. “You’re the one wh o’s supposed to answer the ques tions.”
    “All in good time,” he promised. “Over dinner, I think. But now it’s your turn.” He was smiling at her, the sort of smile that they always did close-ups of in his movies, the ones in which he was trying to find out what made the heroine tick so he could use the right line to get her into bed with him. Liv clenched her teeth and concentrated on backing out of the hotel lot without sideswiping the Buick next to her. “Well,” he prompted when nothing but silence was forthcoming.
    “You’re not interested in me,” Liv said firmly, wishing he’d stop l ooking at her that way. “I’m not a very