"Darling, you're a big girl now, as they say." Karl Fletcher brought her back to the reality of the moment. "Who am I to try and kid you. There's a little old saying that hits the nail right on the head in this small and limited world of art… and it goes like this… it's not what you know… but who you sleep with."
So, there it was! "Whom," she corrected automatically.
"What's that?"
Karen laughed. The martinis had produced a pleasant glow that seemed to round off all the sharp edges. She felt the atmosphere keenly, as if she belonged. Music, the soft, singing lilt of violins in some romantic strain she could not place rained down over her like a snowfall of stardust. Even Karl Fletcher assumed imaginative proportions before her.
Suddenly, he said: "The question is, darling… how badly do you want success?"
Karen smiled beautifully, sensuously… almost seductively. "Badly," she replied in her soft, throaty voice. "Very badly, Karl… darling."
Chapter 3
It was his birthday and Jeff Lewis had taken the day off. He had phoned in sick after Toni suggested it, the idea being that they would celebrate the occasion by driving down to one of the beaches after he kept his appointment with the Nathan Brendells. He hadn't cared much either was and would just as soon have gone in, but had agreed to please her. She was a sweet girl, a regular little live-wire who would gladly spend her life on the beach even though she never went near the water, and she was always trying to do thoughtful things to please him… such as the Brendell appointment.
How she had managed to get them to look at his plans was still quite vague in his mind, but he felt certain she had somehow managed it with that voluptuous little body of hers. Ever since he'd known her and they'd been sharing this apartment together she had been trying to sleep with the right people, furthering her career bed by bed, and successfully so he had to admit. She was a clever pixie, cute and lovable with sparkling dark eyes and short-cropped jet-black hair, plus a natural inborn acting ability that was being seen more and more on the screen as the beds grew plushier.