Duchess Read Online Free PDF

home alone.
    Rosie ground her jaw tight, her eyes closing against the pain as Jim tweaked out the wayward brow stubble since her last appointment. Her eyes watered.
    â€œYou thought the publicity machine was rolling before the show. Just wait until they have you attending everything from beauty pageants to the Horned Toad Derby at the Ambassador Hotel,” Clara said. “All so that the public won’t forget you before you start shooting another movie. And then the studio will leak stills of the new movie until the next publicity run. Forget about your life being yours, sweetie. The best you can do is keep smiling, looking beautiful, and keep a tight hold on your heart. They can’t take that from you.”
    Rosie winced as Jim finished plucking and grabbed a pencil. A thin man with graying hair and round spectacles, he seemed like a professor rather than an artist as he squinted, applying her paint. She always had the sense that he might suddenly lecture her on the invasion of Bonaparte or ask her to recite her sums.
    â€œYou know, Roxy, it could be that Dashielle wants you there because of Rooney Sherwood.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThe billionaire from Texas. Came to Hollywood to be a big producer. I hear he’s going to be there tonight. He’s still making that movie about the war heroes, Angel’s Fury ,” Clara said. “They say he’s spent a couple million dollars already. He built a huge sound stage inside the lot at Paramount and hired a new screenwriter to add in dialogue. He shot the whole thing as a silent movie, and now he wants to make it a talkie. Can you believe it?”
    â€œWhy would Dash want me to meet him?”
    She glanced at Rosie and caught her eye. “They say he’s looking for a new leading lady.”
    â€œFor his film—or his life?”
    Clara shrugged. “Maybe both. He’s cute, really. Brown eyes, a little danger in them. I never see him without a dame.”
    Rosie ached to spit it out, right then. I’m married to Dashielle Parks. Really married . But it seemed he’d forgotten that over the past two weeks since the premiere. He’d slept at the studio office more often than not.
    She hated that she spent so many evenings waiting for a knock at her door. She shouldn’t care. Wouldn’t. After all, he’d never really made her promises.
    In fact, on the day she married him, she told him not to expect her to love him. He promised the same thing back.
    Clearly, he’d meant that vow.
    Still. “I’m not looking for a date.”
    Jim raised her chair and, indeed, her brows looked cleaner, more pronounced.
    â€œOf course not, silly. Dash may be looking to loan you out. They make a bundle and don’t give you a dime,” Clara said as Daisy starched her hair. Not a curl out of place. She puckered into the mirror, angled her head to look at the ’do. Nodded. “And if Rooney is looking to make a talkie, he might be trolling for cheap actresses with star potential.”
    â€œThey can’t loan me out—”
    â€œOf course they can, Roxy. This is show business and the studio owns you. They can do anything they want.”
    â€œBut Dash said he wouldn’t loan me out without my say….” She didn’t want to work for Rooney, or worse, someone like Jack Junior of Warner Brothers. Besides, she wasn’t just another cheap blond bimbo from Central Casting. She was the star of Palace Studios.
    So what that she only made a hundred and fifty dollars a week? She was part owner of a studio. On paper, at least.
    â€œHe might have said it, but he certainly didn’t mean it.” Clara slipped off the chair. “Listen, sweetheart. It’s a game. And you gotta play by their rules. But it doesn’t mean you can’t make your own destiny.” She winked. “You’re an actress, aren’t you? If you want the world to love you, you gotta give them what