Private Scandals

not all.” Angela snatched the glass away from him. She didn’t want to need a drink, but she did and she was in no mood to fight the longing. “You saw the ratings. She’s had a twenty-percent share for the last three weeks.”
    “And you ended up the year as number one,” he reminded her.
    “It’s a new year,” she snapped back. “Yesterday doesn’t count.” She drank deeply, then planted the dainty heel of her feathered mule in Deanna’s left eye. “Not so pretty now, are you?” Fueled on envy, she kicked the magazine aside. “No matter what I do she keeps moving up. Now she’s getting my press.” After draining the glass, she thrust it back at Dan.
    “ Angela’s isn’t your only interest.” Dutifully he refilled the glass for her. “You have the specials, the projects A. P. Productions is involved with. Your interests and your impact are more diverse than hers.” He watched her eyes consider as she drank. “She’s got one note, Angela. She plays it well, but it’s just one note.”
    The description steadied her quaking heart. “She was always limited, with her little timetables and note cards.” But as her fury drained, despair crept into the void. “I don’t want her cutting me out, Dan.” Her eyes filled, swimming with hot tears as she gulped down champagne. “I don’t think I could stand it. Not from her of all people.”
    “You’re making it too personal.” Sympathetically, he filled her glass again, knowing that after the third drink she’d be aspliant as a baby with a full tummy.
    “It is personal.” The tears spilled over, but she let Dan lead her to the couch. She cuddled there on his lap with tangled threads of contentment and unease working through her. It had been the same cuddling on her father’s lap on the rare occasions when he had been home and sober. “She wants to hurt me, Dan. She and that bastard Loren Bach. They’d do anything to hurt me.”
    “No one’s going to hurt you.” He tipped the glass to her lips the way a mother might urge medicine on a whiny child.
    “They know I’m the best.”
    “Of course they do.” Her neediness aroused him. As long as her neuroses bloomed, he was in charge. Setting her glass aside, he parted her robe to nuzzle her breasts. “Just leave everything to me,” he murmured. “I’ll take care of it.”
     
    “Do arguments with your mate end up as war zones, with flying accusations and flying dishes? ‘How to Fight Fair,’ tomorrow on Deanna’s Hour. ”
    “Okay, Dee, we need some bumpers for the affiliates.”
    She rolled her eyes at the assistant director, but dutifully scanned the cue cards. “View the best on Tulsa’s best. KJAB-TV, channel nine. Okay, let’s run through them.”
    For the next hour she taped promos for affiliates across the country, a tedious chore at best, but one she always agreed to.
    When it was done, Fran walked on set with a chilled sixteen-ounce bottle of Pepsi. She waddled a little, heavily pregnant with her second child. “The price of fame,” she said.
    “I can pay it.” Grateful, Deanna took a long, cool drink. “Didn’t I tell you to go home early?”
    “Didn’t I tell you I’m fine? I’ve got three weeks yet.”
    “Three more weeks and you won’t fit through the doorway.”
    “What was that?”
    “Nothing.” Deanna drank again before heading off set. She paused by the large mirror, hooking an arm through Fran’s so that they stood side by side. “Don’t you think you’re a bit bigger than you were when you were carrying Aubrey?”
    Fran snuck an M& M into her mouth. “Water weight.”
    Deanna caught the whiff of candy and lifted a brow. “Sure it couldn’t have anything to do with all those chocolate doughnuts you’ve been scarfing down?”
    “The kid has a yen for them. What am I supposed to do? The cravings have to be filtered through me first.” Tilting her head, Fran studied her reflection. The new chin-length hair bob might have been flattering, she thought. If her face hadn’t looked like an inflated balloon. “Jeez, why did I buy this brown suit? I look like a woolly mammoth.”
    “You said it, I didn’t.” Deanna turned toward the elevators, eyeing Fran owlishly as she pressed the button.
    “No cracks about weight restrictions, pal.” With what dignity she could muster, Fran waddled in and stabbed sixteen. “I can’t wait until it’s your turn. If you’d just give in and marry Finn, you could start a family. You, too, could