Duchess Read Online Free PDF Page B

they want. Doesn’t mean you gotta love them back.” She tied a scarf over her hair. “If Dash wants to loan you out, then make something of it. Find yourself a good leading man, at the very least. It’ll help you forget about Dashielle Parks.”
    Rosie shot a look at her, and Clara smiled. “It’s plain as the gorgeous nose on your face that you’re smitten with him. You’re just a commodity to Dashielle Parks. Don’t forget that. If you give him your heart, he’ll own you.”
    She slid on her sunglasses. “See you at the Grove.”

    â€œMr. Parks said he’d meet you at the Ambassador Hotel.”
    Rosie stared in the mirror, at the perfection Jim had created. Arched brows, sculpted ruby-painted lips, hair the color of the moon. All of it set against the siren red satin dress that Dash had left hanging in her room. Her costume for their show tonight.
    Like a beacon in the middle of the nightclub for someone like Rooney Sherwood to see.
    Her housekeeper and lady’s maid, Louise, a woman in her late forties who reminded Rosie of her mother, stood behind her, fastening the pearls around her neck. She touched them, turned, and watched them dangle down her back.
    â€œYou’re beautiful, ma’am.”
    She turned, smiled at Louise. “Thank you.”
    â€œYour car is waiting.” Louise handed her a white cape, draping it over her shoulders. Rosie fastened it at the neck and let it drag behind her out of her dressing room.
    She loved this house, the long hallway between her and Dash’s room, the two-story living room that overlooked the back patio, the lush green lawn that framed the pool then rolled down to a small pond that the studio had stocked with swans for a photo shoot and left behind. The house was unassuming from the street, a two-story Tudor with cypress trees in the front yard.
    The studio Rolls waited for her outside, and she gathered her dress, dragging her cloak on the stone steps.
    She had a good mind not to go at all.
    But if Dash thought he could simply auction her off—or sell her to Rooney Sherwood…
    She conjured up too many conversations in her head for her own good as she rode to the Ambassador Hotel.
    Her driver parked at the entrance, helped her out. She heard the band even as she walked under the long awning toward the nightclub and then inside, down the corridor, past the shops, now closed for the evening.
    Two palm trees loomed over the door, a footman in white gloves holding it open for her.
    The place buzzed with conversation, a tropical paradise with arching palm trees, gold-painted ornate columns, and a dance floor surrounded by two hundred round, white-clothed tables, all out in the open for the magazines to photograph the stars with their studio bosses or in the arms of a potential costar. The smell of cigarette smoke hung in the air.
    She stood at the entrance, watching the white-gloved waiters, the cigarette girls, the dancers on the floor. And she spotted familiar faces, the ones she’d read about in Photoplay : Louise Brooks, Lina Basquette, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Lionel Barrymore, Mary Pickford. She scanned the room and recognized some newcomers sitting with their studios—Betty Grable, Paul Muni.
    Clara spotted her and waved from her table, where she sat with Dorothy Arzner, a director from Paramount. Trust Clara to come without a man on her arm.
    Rosie lifted her hand in a quiet wave.
    â€œThere she is. Roxy Price.” Dash was coming up the stairs, a smile on his face, as if he hadn’t seen her in years and had waited breathlessly for this moment.
    â€œWhy didn’t you wait for me?” she asked under her breath, smiling as she let him kiss her on the cheek.
    â€œI had business. Shh, you’re here now.” He reached for her cape, helped her remove it, and handed it to the hostess. “Please bring me the tag.” Then he took her arm, wove it into his,