Judith McNaught by Perfect Read Free Book Online Page A

cold.
    "What did you think of the movie? Isn't Zack Benedict cool?" Ted asked her as they left the theater with
    a crowd of teenagers who were generally saying the same thing Ted had just said.
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    Julie's dedication to total honesty won by a very narrow margin over her desire to agree with her wonderful brothers about everything. "He's … well
    … he seems sort of old," she said, looking for support to the three teenage girls who'd gone to the movies with them.
    Ted looked thunderstruck. "Old! He's only twenty-one, but he's really lived! I mean, I read in a movie magazine that he's been on his own since he was six years old, living out West, working on ranches to earn his keep. You know—breaking horses. Later he rode in rodeos. For a while, he belonged to a motorcycle gang … riding around the country. Zack Benedict," Ted finished on a wistful note, "is a man's man."

    "Yes, but he looks … cold," Julie argued. "Cold and sort of mean, too."
    The girls laughed out loud at what had seemed a reasonable criticism to Julie. "Julie," Laurie Paulson said, giggling. "Zachary Benedict is absolutely gorgeous and totally sexy. Everyone thinks so."
    Julie, who knew that Carl had a secret crush on Laurie, instantly and loyally said, "Well, I don't think so.
    I don't like his eyes. They're brown and mean-looking."
    "His eyes aren't brown, they're golden. He has incredible sexy eyes, ask anybody!"
    "Julie isn't a good judge of stuff like that," Carl intervened, turning away from his secret love and walking
    beside Ted as they headed home. "She's too young."
    "I'm not too young to know," Julie argued smugly as she tucked her small hands in the crooks of both their elbows, "that Zack Benedict isn't nearly as handsome as you two!"
    At that piece of flattery, Carl flashed a superior grin over his shoulder at Laurie and amended, "Julie is very mature for her age, though."
    Ted was still absorbed in the wondrous life of his movie hero. "Imagine being on your own as a kid, working on a ranch, riding horses, roping steers…"

Chapter 4
1988
    " M ove those damned steers out of here, the stench is enough to gag a corpse!" Seated on a black canvas chair with the word DIRECTOR stenciled in white above his name, Zachary Benedict snapped the order and glowered at the cattle moving around in a temporary pen near a sprawling, modernistic ranch house, then he continued making notes on his script. Located forty miles from Dallas, the luxurious
    residence with its tree-lined drive, lavish riding stable, and fields dotted with oil wells had been leased
    from a Texas billionaire for use in a movie called Destiny, a movie that, according to Variety, was likely

    to win Zack another Academy Award for Best Actor as well as one for Best Director—assuming he ever managed to complete the picture that everyone was calling jinxed.
    Until last night, Zack had thought things couldn't possibly get worse: Originally budgeted at $45
    million
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    with four months allotted for filming it, Destiny was now one month behind schedule and $7 million over budget, owing to an extraordinary number of bizarre production problems and accidents that had plagued it almost from the day shooting began.
    Now, after months of delays and disasters, there were only two scenes remaining to be filmed, but the elated satisfaction Zack should have felt was completely obliterated by a raging fury that he could hardly
    contain as he tried ineffectually to concentrate on the changes he wanted to make in the next scene.
    Off to his right, near the main road, a camera was being moved into position to capture what promised to be a fiery sunset with the Dallas skyline outlined on the distant horizon. Through the open doors of the
    stable, Zack could see grips positioning bales of hay and best boys scrambling up in the beams and adjusting lights, while the cameraman called directions to them. Beyond the stable, well out of the camera's range, two stuntmen were moving
    automobiles bearing Texas