Come a Little Bit Closer: The Sullivans (6 page)

“Someone was asking for my number?” she asked him in the crispest voice she could manage under the circumstances.

She’d been cursed—although some women would probably have felt blessed—with a voice that made men think of sex, even if her conservative outward appearance rarely had. It had taken years of practice for her to school that huskiness out of it, much the way British actors often erased their accents to play American roles. But when she was nervous—or worked up—that huskiness would creep back in.

“Nicola called. She and Marcus just received the arrangement of purple tulips you sent them at his winery as an engagement gift. She’d like to thank you directly rather than just through me. Could I give her your number?”

“Of course you can.”

She couldn’t read his expression as he continued to look at her. “Forever love—” His eyes darkened with the heat that was so much a part of him she was surprised the whole trailer hadn’t already gone up in flames. “—is the meaning of that flower.”

Valentina tried to ignore her rapidly beating heart. “It seemed appropriate for them.”

“It is.” Smith leaned one shoulder against the wall and crossed his feet at the ankles as if he had all the time in the world to chat with her. “I was surprised to hear that you’d sent them an engagement gift.”

“I’ve always thought that real love that comes without any strings should be celebrated.”

Where had that come from?
She didn’t need to be discussing love with Smith Sullivan. Especially when something told her that if she gave him even the slightest bit of insight into who she was, he’d find a way to take advantage of it.

“I agree with you,” he told her, “especially given how many strings people try to knot together in this business. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to make this movie, even knowing people will try to write it off as a simple love story.”

She was surprised by just how well they agreed with each other on that point. Surprised, and frankly frightened at the prospect of how many other things they might agree on given the chance...

And yet, she thought as if watching herself from a distance, it seemed that once she’d gotten going on a roll with all of her opinions about what love should and shouldn’t be, she couldn’t find a way to stop herself from spouting, “I’ve always wondered why love has to be so full of conflict and strife. Why can’t love be simple? Why can’t it just be as pure as two people who realize that they can’t live as well, or as happily, apart as they can together?”

Smith’s eyes grew even more intense with every word she spoke. When she finally managed to close her mouth, he said, “I spent months struggling with the screenplay for Gravity before I could find the heart of what you just said so eloquently. That love doesn’t have to be hard. And passion can exist without the contrast of a fight. I see it with each of my siblings who have found love, the way safety and desire can be one and the same.”

His words were so gentle and warm that she felt as if she were stepping into his strong arms even though they were still several feet apart.

“Marcus and Nicola are part of the reason I have to make this movie. Because, as you just said, love without strings should be celebrated.” When his mouth curved up, his beautiful smile worked almost like gravity to pull her toward him. “
Nicola also called me to make sure that I knew how great she and Marcus thought you were, just in case I was stupid enough to miss it.” His smile turned unabashedly sensual. “I assured her that, for all my faults, stupidity isn’t one of them. Come out on a date with me, Valentina.”

Panic swamped her in an instant, the key scenes of any “relationship” they might possibly have playing out as clearly as any of the dailies she’d watched just that morning. If she let herself be wooed into a date, and then his bed (because how could anyone possibly date Smith without begging him to make love to her?), she had no doubt that despite hating everything about the spotlights and media and fame that came with his life, she’d foolishly fall head over heels for him...mere moments before he moved on to the next movie, the next set, the next woman who presented a challenge.

All of which was why she made sure her answer was as direct as his question had been. “No.”

Any other man would have taken her refusal for what it was: a negative response that she had no intention of altering. Ever.

Smith, of course, wasn’t like any other man she’d ever met. So instead of giving her a hurt look and walking out of her trailer with his tail between his legs, he moved closer yet again, all but pinning her against the window.

“From the first moment you and I met, there’s been something between us.”

She wasn’t foolish enough to argue with him. Not when his statement was almost stupidly on point...a
s stupid as acting on those obvious sparks and letting them turn into flames that would burn her heart to ashes.

“You’re a very attractive man,” she admitted, “but since ten million other women are also attracted to you, I figure there’s no point in making a big deal out of it.”

“Only ten million?” he teased her.

Valentina honestly didn’t know whether to laugh or slap the arrogance out of him. Nor would she take the third—and most obvious—option of melting at his feet like pretty much any woman alive would be doing right now.

Why couldn’t he just get mad like a normal guy would when his attentions were being denied? All his teasing did was make her want to tease back. “Okay, probably more like a hundred million. But the end result is the same.” She paused to make sure he understood her very clearly this time. “I’m still not interested in going out on a date with you.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t date actors.”

He nodded as if it was a very wise decision. “Me either.”

She did a terrible job of hiding her surprise from him. More like shock, actually, given what was printed about him on a regular basis in the entertainment magazines.

Then again, hadn’t she been in the business long enough to know what a crock most of what the entertainment press dished out to the public really was?

“How about this?” he said in a voice that was far too reasonable for her comfort. “When I’m with you, I’ll be a director. Or a producer. Even a lowly screenwriter, if it makes you happy.”

She shouldn’t have laughed at the laundry list of titles, but how could she not? And it was true, Smith Sullivan was much more than just an actor.

Still, that didn’t change anything.

“How about I clarify my position?” She mirrored his reasonable tone perfectly. “I don’t date anyone in the business.”

There
,
that should do it.
How could he possibly argue with that?

But when he didn’t look the least bit daunted, her stomach clenched. She told herself it wasn’t due to need, or desire, or the sparks that kept leaping and growing between them.

“I’m also a brother.” He moved closer. “A son.” Closer still, so close that she could almost feel his breath on her upturned face. “A friend.” She was mesmerized by the color of his eyes, so dark now that the blue was almost black. “And I hope to be a father one day, too.”

She couldn’t keep the breath from whooshing out of her lungs as he hit her right in the center of her softest spot. She could have defended herself against cocky or sexy or confident.

But how could she protect herself against family?

“Why me?” She wasn’t asking to fish for compliments. She truly was confused. “You could have any woman on set. Any woman on the street. Any woman anywhere.”

“You’re smart. Beautiful. Great at your job. Devoted to your sister. You have a knack for solving puzzles and I like you, Valentina.” He paused before adding, “I want you, too. Very, very much.”

His honesty floored her. But so did the knowledge that at least a dozen actors had likely said similar things to her mother in the years since her father had died. And every time her mother had given in, what had it left her with except an increasingly broken spirit...and heart?

Valentina told herself she was being just as honest as she said, “You can’t have me.”

Because she knew that if she was stupid enough to actually go out with Smith, that if she was even stupider about letting herself fall for him, she would only be setting herself up for complete and utter emotional destruction.

Case in point: Smith and Tatiana would be filming a love scene together in a few weeks. It was going to be hard enough to watch her sister bare herself to the cameras like that. But if Valentina were foolish enough to let Smith into her bed and her heart during filming, she couldn’t even begin to imagine how difficult—how
impossible
—it would be to sit quietly in the background and watch Smith kiss, touch, caress another woman. Especially when she still hadn’t been able to forget how it had felt to be in his arms for those few minutes when they’d talked about their families in front of the fire in his living room.

A shiver ran through her as she took a step away from the window, and from Smith. When she felt there was enough distance between them for her head to remain clear, she said,
“We’re going to be working together for the next few months. I don’t want to make things hard on anyone on set, especially my sister, if she thinks you or I have a problem with each other.” She wasn’t teasing him, wasn’t trying to be a challenge he couldn’t resist as she asked, “Can’t we just be friends?”

At last, she could feel his frustration rumble through the trailer, no longer, it seemed, the perfectly-in-control man he usually was.

Oh, why did witnessing that brief loss of control have to make him even more appealing? And why did she want to see it again, only next time while they were talking less...and kissing more?

“Of course we’ll be friends,” he said in a soft voice that caressed her just as well as any touch of his hand would have. “We already are.”

Her pleasure at that statement came swift and warm through her veins. So, unfortunately, did the instant disappointment that he’d given up so easily. Of course it was what she wanted. And yet, evidently a part of her had been hoping for more.

Only, it turned out that both her pleasure and disappointment were to be short-lived as he held her prisoner with his dark gaze. “But just because I’m your friend doesn’t mean I’ve stopped wanting you, too.”

Even worse, she thought as he made an exit as good as anything he’d won an Oscar for, it didn’t make
her
stop wanting
him.

And as Valentina sank down into her office chair, she realized—too late—the extent of her mistake.

She should have grabbed seduction, desire, with both hands.

Seduction would just have been her body. Desire would simply have been two people making each other feel good in bed. She could easily have written off a roll in the hay.

But friendship involved her heart.

As she buried her head in her hands, all she could think was,
Why couldn’t I have been smart and just slept with him?

Chapter Six

As filming kicked into high gear, the hours on the set grew longer for everyone. There weren’t action scenes to choreograph and memorize. There weren’t digital effects to render. Nor were there hours in makeup or costume.

But there was emotion.

So much emotion from Smith and Tatiana as they played two characters who loved and lost, then learned how to love again, that just watching them act out their parts over the past week had been leaving Valentina drained and empty at the end of the day.

How,
she wondered for the hundredth time,
did they do it?

And yet, a part of her envied them that freedom to yell and laugh and cry and love all in the course of a workday. Because for all her hard work on set, Tatiana always shook off the harsh emotions within minutes of the director saying “Cut,” as if her day had been akin to a cleansing therapy session.

These past weeks, Valentina had been turning more and more to her own secret project as a way to deal with the emotions churning around and around inside her. Tatiana was the only person who knew that Valentina was working on a screenplay about a female writer who woke up one day and found herself actually living out the story she was writing…including falling in love with the fictional hero she had created.

Tatiana had been trying for months now to convince her to send it out to some of their contacts. But even though Valentina knew this was a logical next step in the Hollywood career of someone who loved the stories but not the limelight, she’d also known her script wasn’t quite ready. Amazingly, it was after going through Smith’s screenplay backward and forward with Tatiana at least a dozen times that Valentina finally realized where the holes were in her own work. And she knew that the changes she’d been making were good ones. Really good ones. Because she’d been lucky enough to learn from Smith what it took to make a truly emotional, impactful film.

And as she sat with the crew and watched Smith play his part of the harshly powerful yet disturbed and guilty businessman, her heart squeezed tight in her chest. When the movie was released in theaters, the audience would see every single one of his emotions in his eyes, in the set of his mouth, and the lines on his forehead. And they would know without a doubt that the girl on the street he’d pushed down and stepped on, had haunted him more and more with every day that passed.

Again and again, he’d gone back to Union Square, to the corner to watch for her, to wait for her. More than once as he’d been standing in the middle of the rushing crowds, a call had come in on his cell phone from a brother. A sister. His mother. But he’d never picked up those calls.

Just as the young woman had never come back that way again.

As the months had passed, the man’s shoulders had stayed just as broad, his face just as handsome, his company more profitable than ever. But he’d grown more and more hollow, with more one-night stands, and wilder parties with acquaintances and colleagues that meant nothing. In the hours that were left between women who didn’t matter and work that seemed to matter just as little, he drove himself even further into the ground with five a.m. runs and midnight swims.