The Perfect Hero Read Online Free PDF Page A

performance.
    ‘Destined to play nothing more than the blonde bimbo,’ the television critic from Vive! had said.
    ‘Legs like runner beans,’ Star Turn had said, ‘and they were her best feature.’
    Gemma had been mortified and had gone into hiding for months, dyeing her hair black and building her leg muscles up at the gym.
    Things weren’t helped by the fact that her mother was the much-loved actress, Kim Reilly, who’d starred in the seventies cult TV show, Bandits . As soon as Gemma had dared to follow in her footsteps, comparisons had been made. It was inevitable, she supposed. Her mother had been beautiful, talented and lucky. Bandits had been one of the biggest shows of the time with sky-high viewing figures. It had run for five series before the lead actor had been tragically killed in a motorbike accident. If that hadn’t happened, it would probably still be running today, Gemma often thought, her mother dressed in her trademark skin-tight trousers and skimpy tops, her hair blow-dried and bouffant.
    Her mother had never topped her performance in Bandits although she had tried to top herself a couple of times. In the public’s mind, she personified success; women wanted to be her and men wanted to bed her. But she was incredibly fragile and, although she adored attention, she also found life in the public eye difficult to cope with. Gemma, it seemed, took after her. She was a bag of nerves just thinking about taking part in a film and yet there was something in her that compelled her to do it. At stage school, she used to be physically sick before going on stage but then she always gave the most dazzling performance – well, that’s what the other students and her tutors had told her. So what had happened with the fated TV drama?
    ‘Just critics trying to get a cheap laugh,’ one of her old stage school friends had told her when they’d met down the pub to discuss it. ‘Don’t pay them any attention. You were marvellous!’
    ‘What could you possibly do with a script like that?’ another – more honest – friend had told her. ‘I think you did very well, considering.’
    Thank goodness Teresa Hudson had believed in her and had given her a much-needed second chance. There’d obviously been something in her performance that she’d liked. If only she had that belief in herself, she thought.
    Looking around the room again, she saw a young man with dark tousled hair. A pair of bright grey eyes sparkled from behind his glasses as he listened to Teresa talking about something or other. Gemma had seen him at rehearsals. He was the screenwriter and one of the producers but he never said a lot. He had a kind face and a nice smile and seemed almost as shy as she was. There was another man just behind him and Gemma suddenly caught his eye. He smiled and his eyes almost disappeared into two happy creases. He had thick brown hair and looked as if he was about to cross the room to talk to her but Gemma turned her back to him. She wasn’t interested in being chatted up. She’d heard plenty of stories about on-set relationships and they never ever worked out.
    She watched as a couple of actors came in from the terrace and approached the bar. They nodded at Gemma but didn’t start a conversation. She was glad for there was only one actor here that interested her and that was Oli Wade Owen.
    Gemma swallowed hard. Of all the actors in the world to play Captain Frederick Wentworth, why did it have to be Oli Wade Owen? She’d had a crush on him for as long as she could remember. All of her walls at stage school had been covered in posters of the young actor and she’d gazed longingly at them, fantasising about playing Juliet to his Romeo or Cleopatra to his Antony.
    He was tall and classically handsome with soft blue eyes and thick blond hair that you just wanted to reach out and touch. But it was his smile that was his best feature. ‘The smile that stole a thousand hearts’ the press had called it; Oli Wade