A Whisper of Disgrace(44)
His black eyes continued to bore into her. ‘So what are you running away from this time, Rosa?’
She could feel the hammering of her heart as she clutched at the sheet. ‘I’m not running from anything,’ she said. ‘I’m just trying to find out what talents I have. I want to grab every opportunity which comes my way, because I’m aware that the clock on this marriage is ticking away. And that when we part, I want to know who the real Rosa Corretti is and what she’s capable of.’ She stared at him in appeal, wanting him to understand. Praying that he would understand.
He picked up a file of papers. ‘Then I must wish you well,’ he said.
His words were dismissive and Rosa could feel her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands as he headed out of the room without even bothering to kiss her goodbye. Damn him and his prissy attitude, she raged silently as she heard the front door slam behind him.
Defiantly, she showered and dressed—and although she always felt at her thinnest in black, she remembered reading somewhere that you should never wear black in front of the camera. So she put on a green silk dress which brought out the emerald flecks in her eyes, and after a couple of cups of strong coffee she rang Arnaud Bertrand.
‘Madame de la Désert,’ he said slowly. ‘This is a surprise.’
Rosa sucked in a deep breath, wondering if his offer had just been something meaningless which he’d tossed out during a lull in the dinner party conversation. ‘Did you mean it when you suggested the screen test?’
There was a pause. ‘But of course I meant it,’ he said smoothly. ‘I never say anything I don’t mean. Can you come in for a test this afternoon?’
She thought afterwards that if he’d scheduled the test for the following week, then she might never have taken it. Maybe that was why he did it so quickly. All Rosa knew was that later that day she had the car drop her off at the TV studio, which was situated on the Avenue de la Grande Armée. The building overlooked the Arc de Triomphe and Arnaud told her that the iconic backdrop was often hired out to visiting foreign broadcasters.
‘You don’t seem too nervous,’ he observed as he ran his eyes over her silky green dress.
Rosa gave an automatic smile. My husband doesn’t want me to be here, she found herself wanting to say. I keep thinking about him, instead of the reason I’m here—and that’s the reason why I’m not nervous. But she forced herself to push the memory of Kulal’s face from her mind and to flash a bright smile at the TV executive instead. ‘Surely nerves in front of the camera are a bad thing?’
‘They certainly are.’ Arnaud smiled back as he led her into the studio, where the lights were belting out a heat as fierce as a tropical sun. ‘How good are you at ad-libbing?’
Rosa shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’
They stood her in front of a giant green screen and explained that the weather report was one of the few things on television which didn’t require an autocue. They told her that Paris was going to have sunny spells throughout the day, but that there would be scattered showers overnight. And then they asked her to talk about it on camera for thirty seconds, without a script.
She was a natural. Or at least, that’s what they said afterwards, when she’d finished her slot. Just as the last few seconds were ticking away, she had turned to the camera and said, ‘Sometimes I wish I was back in Sicily, where the sun always shines.’ She’d heard shouts of laughter in her earpiece, and when Arnaud came to collect her from the studio floor, he’d been grinning—as if he’d just done something very clever.
He took her for coffee afterwards and told her that he’d been entirely correct and she did have that certain je ne sais quoi which made the camera love her. That it was a rare commodity but television gold. They couldn’t offer her much at the moment, but they thought she’d be perfect for a daily ‘novelty slot,’ just after the lunchtime news.
She received the news with the enthusiasm she knew was expected of her, but when she left the café to slide into the back of the waiting limousine, all she could think of was how she was going to break it to Kulal. And wasn’t that crazy? Because this was the chance of a lifetime—and wasn’t this marriage supposed to be about freedom?
She had to start taking control. She was legally contracted to be Kulal’s wife for another ten months and she certainly couldn’t spend it moping around the place, wishing he felt stuff for her which he clearly didn’t. If she didn’t like something, then she needed to change it. And if she couldn’t change him, then she needed to change herself. Couldn’t she show her sheikh husband that it was possible to live in harmony, if they both made the effort? That they could compromise if they wanted to, just like any other modern couple.