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delectable Whitney was the most nailable girl he’d seen all week. She was eighteen and innocent, or so she said when he tried to initiate her into the joys of going to bed with a movie star.
    Whitney was not happy living in a small town. She wanted out, and Mannon Cable seemed the perfect exit visa. Holding back, instinct told her, was the only way to get him. And she was right. He called her everything from a dumb broad to a prick-tease, but six weeks later he married her, and when the movie finished shooting he brought her to Beverly Hills as his bride.
    For five years Whitney played the model wife. Cooking, shopping, taking care of their Malibu ranch house, posing for photo layouts with her famous husband, and generally behaving like the woman every man wished was his.
    And then, one hot Malibu Sunday, with the jacuzzi going full force, and the waft of barbecue in the air, Mannon’s friend and agent, Howard Soloman, whispered in her ear that there was a role in a television pilot for which she would be perfect if only she were an actress.
    Excitement lit up her face. ‘Put me up for it, Howard,’ she begged. ‘Oh, please! You must!’
    ‘Mannon’ll kill me,’ he groaned.
    ‘And so will I if you don’t,’ she hissed.
    Secretly she tested for the role.
    Secretly she got the job.
    When all was revealed to Mannon he was furious. ‘You stupid asshole,’ he yelled at Howard. ‘The last thing I need is a starlet for a wife.’
    ‘It’s what she wants,’ Howard argued lamely.
    ‘Well, you’re no longer my agent, I can tell you that,’ Mannon screamed, then turned his wrath on Whitney.
    ‘I want to work,’ she told him calmly. ‘I’m bored.’
    ‘Bored!’ He was outraged. ‘You’re married to me , for crissake. How can you possibly be bored?’
    ‘You’re always working,’ she complained. ‘I have nothing to do all day. I’m lonely.’
    ‘So how about starting a family? We’ve talked about it enough times. You know it’s what I want.’
    ‘And I want to do something with my life before I settle down and have babies. Please, Mannon, you’ve got to understand that this is what I need.’
    Reluctantly he agreed that she could take a shot at it. Whitney was the only woman he wanted to spend his life with, and if she required a few months messing around in show biz, let her do it. She’d soon find out what a crap-shoot it all was.
    The first thing she did was dye her light brown hair blonde. And then she decided to call herself Whitney Valentine – adding the Cable to please Mannon (it also pleased the press department of her television show, but that’s another story).
    And so began her climb to stardom. It wasn’t difficult. The sit-com was a hit, she had all the right requirements in abundance, plus a very famous husband, and the publicity mill took it from there.
    Five years and five hundred magazine covers later she was a star – just as she’d wanted. And she and Mannon were history. She hadn’t planned to divorce him, but he was jealous of her success, and there was nothing she could do about that . They had been divorced for eighteen months. The moment the decree was final Mannon had married some Texas beauty queen. Whitney could not help feeling hurt, for it was she who had instigated the divorce, not Mannon, who had declared undying love right up until the moment he married again. For a while she was tempted to do the same with the guy she was living with – Chuck Nielson, an ex-friend of Mannon’s. But Chuck was great when he was straight, and insane when drugged out. Besides, she was enjoying her new-found freedom.
    * * *
    As she sipped a glass of iced tea beside her kidney-shaped swimming pool in the garden of her house on Loma Vista, Whitney thought about Howard Soloman. Who would ever have imagined that one day he would be running Orpheus Studios? When he was Mannon’s agent she couldn’t stand him. And when he launched her career she tolerated him, until he left agenting