He had shoulder-length maroon-red hair. As they looked at him, he made some semaphore-like gestures to somebody with his arms, then turned toward them as if he'd sensed their gazes. He was very fair-skinned, with lean, distinctive features that would have made him seem more likely to be in front of the cameras than behind them. He wasn't handsome in a traditional sense, but he was striking-looking and sexy in a bizarre, hazardous way. He looked like the sort of man who, in another age, might have come over from Ireland and led labor revolts.

— and cheated on his wife, Jane thought as he approached them with a dazzling, wolfish grin.

4

In spite of her better judgment, Jane was flattered at the interested look on Jake's face — until she realized it wasn't meant for her.

“Baby, you're killing me with those sexy outfits!" he said with a laugh.

Jane turned around to find a young woman approaching from behind. She was in her twenties and extremely pretty, but dressed and made up as a turn of the century escapee from a fire. Her long chestnut hair was deliberately disordered and there were sooty smudges on her face and arms. She wore a baggy gray dress with what Jane assumed were artificial sweat stains and ragged tears in the skirt and sleeves. "You old flatterer!" this young woman said, blowing a kiss at Jake as she went by.

He watched her, then reluctantly turned back to Maisie, ignoring Jane and Shelley as if they were no more than inanimate objects. "You don't happen to have seen Bobby's fancy watch, have you?" he asked.

“By 'Bobby' I assume you mean Roberto? The director?" Maisie said coolly. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Maisie wasn't crazy about Jake. "If he hears you call him that, your ass is grass."

“Oh, Bobby wouldn't mind. He and I are old chums. Seriously, he's lost his Rolex. He thinks he took it off when you bandaged up his finger this morning."