Once More With Feeling by Nora Roberts

not a fulfilled hedonist.”
    Raven gave a low, gurgling laugh and popped a bite of cheese into her mouth. “Overweight or not, you’re assembling a remarkable team. I don’t know how you managed to wrangle Larry Keaston into choreographing. He’s been retired for five years.”
    â€œBribes and perseverance,” Jarett said easily, glancing over to where the trim, white-haired former dancer lounged in a pearl-colored armchair. “I’m talking him into doing a cameo.” He grinned at Raven again. “He’s pretending dignified reluctance, but he’s dying to get in front of the cameras again.”
    â€œIf you can even get him to do a time step on film, you’ll have the biggest coup of the decade,” Raven observed and shook her head. And he’d do it, she thought. He has the touch.
    â€œHe’s a big fan of yours,” Jarett remarked and watched Raven’s eyes widen.
    â€œOf mine? You’re joking.”
    â€œI am not.” He gave Raven a curious look. “He wants to meet you.”
    Raven stared at Jarett, then again at Larry Keaston. Such things never ceased to amaze her. How many times, as a child, had she watched his movies on fuzzy black and white TV sets in cramped rooms while she had waited for her mother to come home? “You don’t have to ask me twice,” she told Jarett. She linked her arm in his.
    Time passed quickly as Raven began enjoying herself. She talked at length with Larry Keaston and discovered her girlhood idol to be personable and witty. He spoke in a string of expletives delivered in his posh Boston accent. Though she spoke briefly with Jack Ladd, she had yet to meet Lauren Chase when she spotted Wayne drinking quietly in a corner.
    â€œAll alone?” she asked as she joined him.
    â€œObserving the masses, my dear,” he told her, sipping lightly from his whiskey and soda. “It’s amazing how intelligent people will insist on clothing themselves in inappropriate costumes. Observe Lela Marring,” he suggested, tilting his head toward a towering brunette in a narrow, pink minidress. “I have no idea why a woman would care to wear a place mat in public.”
    Raven suppressed a giggle. “She has very nice legs.”
    â€œYes, all five feet of them.” He swerved his line of vision. “Then, of course, there’s Marshall Peters, who’s trying to start a new trend. Chest hair and red satin.”
    Raven followed the direction of his gaze and this time did giggle. “Not everyone has your savoir faire, Wayne.”
    â€œOf course not,” he agreed readily and took out one of his imported cigarettes. “But surely, taste.”
    â€œI like the way you’ve dressed your latest protégée,” Raven commented, nodding toward the thin model speaking to a current hot property in the television series game. The model was draped in cobwebby black and gold filigree lace. “I swear, Wayne, she can’t be more than eighteen. What do you find to talk about?”
    He gave Raven one of his long, sarcastic looks. “Are you being droll, darling?”
    She laughed in spite of herself. “Not intentionally.”
    He gave her a pat on the cheek and lifted his glass again. “I notice Julie has her latest conquest with her, a Latin type with cheekbones.”
    â€œShoes,” Raven said vaguely, letting her eyes drift around the room. They rested in disbelief on a girl dressed in skintight leather pants and a spangled sweatshirt who wore heart-shaped glasses over heavily kohl-darkened eyes. Knowing Wayne would be horrified, she started to call his attention to her when she spotted Brand across the room.
    His eyes were already on hers. Raven realized with a jolt that he had been watching her for some time. It had been at just such a party that they had first met, with noise and laughter and music all around them. Their eyes had found each other’s