‘Here we are.’ Travis’s voice made her jump as he appeared with coffee and rolls. ‘It’s good to see you calmer. I was getting worried.’

‘I’m really sorry about your face,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to hit you.’

‘I know you didn’t.’

‘It’s not swelling, is it?’ she asked, searching his face. ‘If I’ve damaged you the studio will probably sue me.’

‘Hey, do you think I’m some sort of a wimp to be so easily hurt? You’re not the first girl to- Yeah, well, never mind that. Anyway, we’re only rehearsing today, not shooting, so if you’ve disfigured me it won’t matter until tomorrow.’

His comic self-deprecation was attractive, and her nerves eased enough to manage a shaky laugh, which made him regard her with approval.

‘That’s better. Now, let’s talk. How do you come to be here? I suppose you were looking for Lee?’ She nodded and he said, ‘Perhaps you should have warned him you were coming?’

‘But I did, only…he doesn’t seem to be getting his messages the last few days.’

Travis judged it best to maintain a tactful silence. He’d known Lee for only a few weeks and disliked him. Selfish, self-centred, indifferent to everyone else was how he would have described him. In the short time Lee had been in Los Angeles he’d raised the roof with his ‘girly antics’ as they had become known.

But he wouldn’t say this to the young woman sitting beside him. There was no need. Clearly she was discovering it for herself.

‘Do you know him well?’ he asked.

‘We’ve acted together.’

‘You’re an actress?’

‘Not professionally. I work in a bank, but I do a lot of amateur acting. That’s how I met Lee.’

‘Hey, now I remember. There was a story in the papers-he hadn’t had a job in a while, so he did some amateur stuff and an agent saw him.’

‘That’s right.’ Charlene showed him the photograph. ‘That’s us.’

‘What was the play?’

‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’