Kristin James - Once In A Blue Moon

“Nah. He’s too noble. He couldn’t bear to hurt his brother that way. He’ll turn her down and despise her all the more for it, but he’ll keep his mouth shut. And Jessica is desperate enough to risk it because Curtis is convincing Mark to go work at that medical mission in Central America. She’s afraid she’ll lose him.”

“I know—what is all that stuff about this medical mission? Where did that come from?”

“Jim Ehrlich’s taking a leave from the show in a few weeks, so we have to find some reason for Mark to disappear for a month. We figured he should do something noble like go work in a medical mission in Cen-tral America. Then we can tie it in with the drug-smuggling story, and the timing’ll be perfect for May sweeps.”

“Oh. I see. I didn’t know Jim was leaving. But why do this scene with Curtis? I mean, he and Jessica don’t have any real story together. They just sort of touch peripherally because of Mark.”

“ Right now they don’t,” Karen said significantly, and her words sent a chill through Isabelle. “But we’ve got to do something with Jessica while Mark’s gone. I figure sparring with Curtis would be a good way to fill some of her time. We’ve been getting good viewer response on you and Michael.”

“What?” Isabelle looked at her blankly. “But we’ve only been in a few scenes together.”

“Yeah, but the chemistry’s good. Viewers like a good feud almost as much as a good love story—maybe better. Whenever you and Michael are on screen together, the sparks fly. We’ve had a lot of fan mail saying they’d like to see more of Jessica and Curtis. Lena and Michael’s relationship isn’t progressing the way we’d planned. We may have to take them along slowly, give the fans more time to build an interest in them, and in the meantime we’ll play up the hostility between Curtis and Jessica.”

“So—” Isabelle had to stop and clear her throat before she could continue. She felt as if her vocal cords had tightened into rigidity. “You mean that Michael and I will be having more scenes together?”

“Yeah. We’re going to change the story line some. People love Michael—they think he’s a hunk. So we have to be careful to keep them watching him. We can’t let them get bored with his romantic story.” She paused, then hastened to assure Isabelle. “It’ll be great for you, too. Otherwise, you’re hanging in limbo while Mark’s out, with nothing to work on but that old resentment of Christine, and that’s getting kind of tired.”

That was true, Isabelle knew. People would get a kick out of this fight between them next week, but their conflict was from the past, and people would soon grow bored with it. The worst thing about all this was that Karen was right. A running feud with Curtis over his brother would spark up her story as much as Michael’s. She knew how damaging it could be to one’s popularity when one’s love interest left a show. There had been one actor who was quite popular on “Tomorrows” whose storyline had died because his wife had been killed off. He had drifted around being sad and having people commiserate with him for a few weeks, but his scenes had grown fewer and fewer, and fan mail for him had tailed off. Finally he had been written out, too.

Isabelle sighed. “I know. You’re right.”

Karen gave her a puzzled look. “Then why so downcast? What’s the problem?”

How could she tell Karen that the thought of doing any kind of love scene, even a rejected seduction, with Michael Traynor scared her right down to her toes? Isabelle thought of kissing Michael, and her stomach turned to ice. She could remember vividly the way his lips had felt on hers, the feverish shivers that had run through her every time he kissed her. What if she still reacted that way? It would be so humiliating!

Worse than that, it might stir up old feelings, feelings whose size and intensity frightened Isabelle. She had promised herself long ago that she would never again be so vulnerable to a man as she had been to Michael Traynor. It frightened her to think that if she kissed him, even in pretense for the show, she might once again feel as she had when she had been a girl of eighteen. That she might open up even the tiniest crack in her emotional armor.

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