Page 21 of A Star is Scorned

“Bugger. Shit. Damn it all to hell,” Flynn muttered through his teeth. He’d barely stepped one foot into the Blossom Room at the Roosevelt Hotel when Rhonda Powers swanned in his direction, making a show designed to grab everyone in the room’s attention.

Only a week had passed since he’d won the Catalina Regatta with Livvy.

Harry had nearly busted his buttons at the photograph of Flynn holding Livvy while she kissed him on the cheek.

The studio boss had left a stack of the pictures in Flynn’s dressing room with a note that said, “Nice work.” But Harry was insistent that their dates weren’t public enough.

If this PR stunt was going to work, the pair needed to see and be seen.

In less than twenty-four hours, Harry’s office had begun planning excursions for the two of them.

So far this week, Flynn and Livvy had gone for a paddle in the swan boats at Echo Park, been photographed at the deli counter at Canter’s, and staged several photo shoots on the lot in their costumes and rehearsal clothes.

All wholesome grist for the gossip mill.

Tonight was Harry’s biggest effort yet. He’d arranged for Flynn and Livvy to sit at the head table for some big Hollywood fundraiser.

It was the first opportunity for them to be photographed as a couple in formal wear, and the first time they’d be seen dancing together.

In short, it was the last place he needed to bump into Rhonda Powers.

But she was only a few feet away now, and he couldn’t exactly turn tail and run.

“Flynn,” Rhonda drawled. “Darling.”

He darted his eyes from side to side, searching desperately for an escape, but Rhonda draped her arms around him, drawing him in for embrace.

“Laying it on a little thick, aren’t we?” he hissed in her ear.

“You catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar. Smile for the cameras.” Rhonda pressed her cheek to his, and he blinked fiercely as a flashbulb went off right in front of his face.

Shit. A cozy photograph with the woman the papers thought he’d jilted was a headache he did not want to deal with.

But if he wasn’t careful, Rhonda would make a scene and that would be worse.

Flynn reached for Rhonda’s arms, attempting to extricate himself from her embrace. “You’ve had nothing but piss and vinegar for me for the last month.” He was still looking for an exit route, or at least the nearest bar, when he caught Harry’s eye in the corner.

Help, he mouthed.

But Harry simply shook his head and mouthed back, Be nice.

“What exactly did you mean by planting that cockamamie news story, anyway?” Flynn pressed Rhonda. “I jilted you at the altar? Poppycock! The closest I’d get to an altar is if I was in need of an exorcism.”

She only squeezed him tighter and nipped at his ear. “You wouldn’t answer my calls. You ran away from me at the Trocadero. How else could I get your attention?”

Rhonda finally dropped her arms as Henry Powell and Carmen Del Rio walked by and nodded at Flynn.

“Good evening,” Flynn answered them. He hoped it wasn’t obvious he was grimacing, as he used the interruption as an opportunity to sidestep Rhonda and put some breathing room between them, but the woman was like a boa constrictor.

She reached out and wrapped her long, manicured fingers tightly around his wrist. Her nails dug into his skin, and he yelped, making every head within five feet snap in their direction.

“Stickpin accidentally left in my tuxedo,” he muttered, pretending to pluck a pin from the inside of his jacket. He was seized with the desire to poke Rhonda with the sharp end of one of his cuff links, but he restrained himself.

Instead he leaned over and muttered in her ear. “Did it ever occur to you that I was trying to tell you I wasn’t interested?”

She turned and gave him a beatific smile. “No.” It was the most terrifying thing he’d witnessed. “And I don’t like to be ignored. You kissed me in Joan and Dash’s garden and then dropped me like a hot potato. You can see why a girl might be confused.”

He gritted his teeth. Dear God, why did he always pick the clingy women? And where was Livvy? Shouldn’t she be here by now? “I’m sorry to disappoint, Miss Powers, but a kiss from Flynn Banks means about as much as a handshake from someone else.”

“Oh, don’t sell yourself short. You just haven’t met the right gal yet.” From any other woman, this might be a maternal reassurance, but the way Rhonda said it sounded more like a spider coaxing a fly into its web.

He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t personal. That for Flynn Banks, there would never be a right gal. That was how he liked it. But at that moment, Livvy came in the other door of the Blossom Room, looking absolutely resplendent in a deep-lavender gown, and he lost the thread of his response.

Rhonda followed his eyeline to his costar, and he almost laughed at the strange sound she emitted in response, a cross between a squeak and a harrumph.

But then Rhonda used her iron grip to tug his forearm behind her back and wrap it around her waist. If she didn’t make it in Hollywood, Rhonda Powers had a real future as the first human iron lung.

Livvy raised her eyebrows at him, and Flynn tried to shake his head subtly to make it clear he was not a willing participant in Rhonda’s antics.

That, in fact, he was rather in need of Livvy’s assistance.

He grinned at her like a madman and nudged his head in Rhonda’s direction, trying to tell Livvy he needed rescuing.

But Livvy merely winked at him and walked to the bar.

Damn it. She was supposed to be his date tonight so they could show the whole world he was a reformed man.

But how could they pretend he’d turned over a new leaf if Rhonda clung to him like a barnacle the entire evening?

His attention was soon diverted when Rhonda called out, “Uncle Stan! Uncle Stan, over here!”

Flynn looked to see who she was calling and caught sight of a squat man with such a substantial pair of mutton chops that he looked like an aging walrus.

The expression on the man’s face suggested he was perpetually irritated.

But Flynn almost swallowed his tongue when he noticed who dear old Uncle Stan was standing next to—Will Hays, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America and the namesake of the Production Code, a.k.a.

the Hays Code. Simply put, he was the man who decided what was acceptable or not in Hollywood films and the lives of their stars.

Maybe the two men would give him and Rhonda a friendly nod like everyone else and keep moving. But Flynn knew it was too much to ask for when they began to approach.

“Flynn, this is my uncle, Stan,” Rhonda said. “Uncle Stan, this is Flynn Banks.”

Uncle Stan gave Flynn a disdainful look, his eyes darting to Flynn’s hand that Rhonda had plastered to her waist.

Flynn curled his fingers inward, trying his best to remove the offending extremity despite Rhonda’s steel grip. “Pleasure.” He gulped, making it egregiously obvious it was anything but.

Uncle Stan simply glared at him, leaving the foursome standing in awkward silence until Will Hays interrupted. “You’ll have to excuse Stanley. He spends too much of his time looking for things that offend him.”

Stanley huffed, sounding rather like a bull seal about to give birth. Hays ignored the man and extended his hand. Flynn used the opportunity to free himself from Rhonda.

“Jolly good to meet you, Hays,” Flynn barked, shaking Hays’s hand perhaps a little too vigorously.

Lord, he sounded like an ass. Or worse, his pompous prick of a father.

Jolly good. He didn’t think he had ever said those words before in his life.

But shove him in the path of Hollywood’s most moralizing crank and suddenly he was turning on the noblesse oblige.

Hays at least seemed more personable than this mysterious Uncle Stan.

“Nice to meet you, Banks. As Miss Powers has already hinted, this is Stanley Devlin, one of my top men in the PCA office.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Devlin.” Flynn extended his hand, but Stanley Devlin looked down at it as if it were something foul.

The Production Code Administration’s sudden and unrelenting zero-tolerance policy for Flynn’s profligate lifestyle was becoming clearer by the second.

Rhonda wasn’t only the daughter of a Hollywood legend.

She also had a direct line to the studios’ moral arbiters.

From a certain angle, it was flattering, really.

Rhonda was so offended by his kiss-off that she’d called in Uncle Stan to do her dirty work.

And Devlin had brought in the artillery with Hays in tow.

Though Hays at least seemed to have a personality—a fact which surprised Flynn.

Under normal circumstances, annoying a pair of stuffed shirts like these two would have delighted Flynn to no end.

In fact, he would’ve taken particular glee in finding more ways to peeve Devlin and Hays throughout the night.

But even Flynn knew that was a bloody stupid idea given the circumstances.

Flynn added “not being able to relish the look of disgust he engendered on Stanley Devlin’s face” to the column of reasons he disliked Rhonda Powers.

Devlin finally spoke. “I hope you’re treating our little Rhonda here well.” There was no paternal concern in his voice. It was a rote delivery, as if he had been given a script to read that he found lacking.

But Rhonda was clearly prepared. “Oh, Uncle Stan.” She swatted her hand at the man playfully and giggled like a schoolgirl.

“Er…” Flynn was struggling to come up with a response to Devlin’s query.

In part because, well, what could he say to a man who thought he was a scourge on society just because he liked to drink whiskey and chase skirts?

Flynn’s eyes darted frantically around the room, searching for a way out, when Rhonda interjected.