“A competitor?” Her scoff made short shrift of that possibility. “As I said, I want to work with my partner in my company, not somewhere else. Besides,” she added with a smile, “I intend to see that we only hire those directors who appreciate my brilliant dramatic skills.”
His opinion about that must have shown on his face, for her smile faded, and she sighed. “That was a joke, Denys.”
He didn’t feel like laughing. “IfOthelloproves a flop,” he went on doggedly, “you may wish to pursue a place with some other company—”
“It isn’t going to flop.” Her eyes opened wide. “With Arabella Danvers, London’s most famous and popular Shakespearean actress, in a leading role, how could it ever be a flop?”
Despite everything, that almost made him smile. Impudent minx, he thought, to toss his rationale for hiring Arabella back in his face. “Mrs.Danvers’s involvement, as valuable as it is, is no guarantee of success. You know as well as I do there’s no predicting how these things will go.”
“We can safely make one prediction, at least,” she said, flashing him a grin. “On opening night, they’ll be packed to the rafters just to see if Lola Valentine proves as spectacular a failure this time as she was last time.”
He caught the pain behind those words. “Which is why it’s best if you find an agent now,” he pointed out even as he wondered why he should care.
“To hedge my bets, you mean?” She sobered, looking at him. “I’ll do my best not to let you down a second time.”
“That’s not what I meant. I only meant that a failed play could color your entire season, making it harder for you to find work next year if you do go elsewhere. An agent would make the process easier.”
“I doubt it.” She wrinkled up her nose with a rueful smile. “You’ve obviously forgotten I had an agent duringA Doll’s House. When the play closed, he was no help whatsoever. He suggested I consider abandoning acting altogether. He said it didn’t really matter, anyway, since I already had another, much more lucrative career.”
“Dancing?”
“No.” Her smile faltered as her gaze locked with his. “You.”
Denys sucked in his breath, feeling that reminder of their former relationship like a knife between his ribs. He yanked open the left-hand drawer of his desk, shuffled through the cards docketed there, and pulled out three. “Here,” he said, holding them out to her.
“What are these?” she asked as she took them, but after one glance at the card on top, she shook her head. “Denys, I told you—”
“I don’t care what you told me. These men are well-regarded agents, tenacious at negotiation, and scrupulously ethical. Jamison might suit you best since he represents the widest variety of clients, but none of these men will try to shove you into musical revue or dance if those aren’t what you want. They’ll fight for you, they won’t cheat you or abandon you, and they certainly won’t make unsavory insinuations about your private life. Go interview them and pick one. Or find one on your own. Either way,” he added, hoping he would at last be able to bring this meeting to an end, “I won’t sign contracts with you until you have an agent.”
She bristled at that. “You’re being very autocratic about my career.”
“If you don’t like it, you are free to find work elsewhere.” It was his turn to smile. “The Gaiety would probably hire you.”
Her displeasure seemed to vanish as quickly as it had come, and even before she smiled again, he knew she was changing tactics. When she spoke, her words came as no great surprise.
“Let’s compromise. That’s what partners do together, isn’t it?”
He thought again of afternoons in bed with her, but this time, he managed to keep his gaze on her face. “What sort of compromise did you have in mind?”
She held up the cards. “I’ll find an agent if you’ll agree to a partners’ meeting.”
He gave a laugh. She was so outrageous, he couldn’t help it, even now, with erotic images in his mind and desire seething in his body. “So to get something you want, you’re offering to do something that benefits you?”
She bit her lip, looking at him over the cards in mock apology. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”
“And if I agree to this, what’s in it for me?”
“What do you want?”
That provocative question was like a gust of wind on burning coals. His amusement vanished, and his arousal flared into outright lust, providing irrefutable proof—as if he needed any—that being partners with Lola was an impossible undertaking.
“Nothing,” he answered, hating that even now, even after everything that had happened, he could still be aroused by her against his will. “There is nothing I want from you except for you to stay out of my way.”
“And I can’t accept that. So the only alternative is tear the Imperial apart. Is that what you want?”
He hated that it came to that sort of Hobson’s choice. Hated that he was trapped in something from which the only escape route was annihilation. “If it would rid me of you,” he answered, “then yes.”
“If that were true, you’d never have agreed to let me audition for a part in the first place. You’d have shown me the door and told me to sue you in the courts.”
