Free Beautiful People by Wendy Holden Page B

to the wrong auditions too many times recently—the latest to be a singing grape in a wine commercial when she had expected to be testing for Miranda in The Tempest . The infuriating thing was that the woman who had been intended for the grape had landed the Miranda part and was now playing to great acclaim in Stratford.
        "What good news?" Darcy said suspiciously, her voice low so as not to wake Niall.
        At the L.A. end of the phone, Mitch Masterson, the receiver under his chin, rubbed his hands gleefully and prepared to tell her.

Chapter Ten

    Mitch had expected almost any type of reaction from this unknown British actress. Screams of disbelieving joy. Sobs of passionate delight. Even a thud and a crash as she collapsed in an ecstatic dead faint to the floor. But never, not even in a million years, had he expected an outright refusal.
        "What do you mean you're not sure you're interested?" he exploded, after listening to her speak in her rather high, prim, very English voice. "It's one of the leading parts, for Chrissakes."
        The woman was obviously insane—like most Brits, Mitch thought grimly—and clearly had no idea what she was saying. He was determined not to let her mess this chance up. Hers wasn't the only career on the line, after all. What sort of an agent would it make him look? What would Arlington Shorthouse think? Nor did he want to miss out on what that smug slimeball Greg Cucarachi would think when he realized he'd given Mitch a diamond amid all the dust. A side issue, admittedly, but potentially an extremely satisfying one.
        "Do you realize what Galaxia is?" Mitch asked Darcy, in the tones he might have used if he was talking down a dangerous lunatic bent on leaping off a high roof to her death. Which, in a manner of speaking, he was. If Darcy turned this down, she would be through in Hollywood. And so would he. He was, Mitch recognised, fighting for his professional life here.
        "It's gonna be the new Star Wars ," Mitch said tremendously. Surely if anything was going to make this dame focus, that would.
    As he waited for what she would say next, every hair inside
    Mitch's large, hot ears strained erect. "I've never seen any of those, I'm afraid," Darcy added, evidently unmoved.
        Mitch's eyes were bulging and seemed to be fizzing in his head. Never seen Star Wars ? Was that possible? This chick was unreal.
        He decided to cut to the chase. Subtlety had got him nowhere, after all. "Don't you want to be famous?" As he heard the question disappear down the line to London, part of him wondered if it had ever been asked in Hollywood before.
        Darcy had a stubborn streak, and being rung at one o'clock in the morning—by someone she had never met, telling her to fly halfway across the world and test for some kids' space film in which she had absolutely no interest—brought it out.
        "I'm a proper actress," she stated primly. "I do proper things. Theatre. Shakespeare."
        Mitch took a deep breath and thought as best he could, given that his mind was a hot churn of frustration and disbelief. It was like moving a paddle through very thick, hot mud. But finally, in his darkest and most desperate moment, inspiration struck.
        "Hey, don't write it off, baby," he urged Darcy. "Some of the greatest actors make these films. Star Wars , for example. Sir Alec Guinness, you know, he was in it, and he was one of he most famous Shakespeare actors ever, right? English too," Mitch added, striking home what he felt was his advantage.
        He was right to feel this. Mention of the name of the great Shakespearean made Darcy pause. Part of what had driven her initial refusal was the knowledge that Niall, even more of a purist than she was, would be in equal parts amused and appalled by the Galaxia prospect. She had not even wanted to speculate about what her parents would think; for them, she knew, Hollywood symbolized all that was worst and