"No one cheated. We just realized we wanted different things."
She nodded, and didn"t pry any further. He decided it was time to turn the tables. Apart from the fact that she drove him wild, he knew d.a.m.n all about her.
"What about you? Ever been married?"
"Nope. Not even close," she said, pulling over the pizza box to inspect the remaining cold slices.
"Not interested?"
"Marriage is for men," she said, biting into a small slice of pizza.
"Really? That must be why we get to wear the big dresses and play princess for a day," he said dryly.
She waggled a finger under his nose.
"The wedding is for women, I won"t disagree there. But marriage only benefits men. Single women live longer than married women, you know."
"And married men live longer than single men. I know the stats," he said.
"There you go then."
He frowned, even though she was essentially confirming his a.s.sumptions about her-that she was a career woman through and through.
"So what happens when Mr. Right comes along and sweeps you off your feet?" he asked. "Or don"t you believe in love, either?"
She regarded him over her slice of pizza, a serious light in her eye.
"Sure I do. I just don"t think it"s worth sacrificing my whole life for," she said.
His frown deepened. In his book, love did not equal sacrifice. He opened his mouth to probe further, but was interrupted by the ring of a cell phone.
"That"s me," she said, sliding to the edge of the bed to rummage in her coat pocket on the floor.
Checking the display, she threw him an apologetic look. "I need to take this-it"s my brother," she said. "We"ve been missing each other"s calls for the past two days."
He shrugged his lack of concern, dragging a pillow under his shoulders to support them while he studied her, trying to define for himself what it was that he found so compelling about her.
She had a great little body, that was a given. He particularly liked her pouty, dusky nipples, and the pertness of her b.u.t.t. Which was, coincidentally, looking particularly excellent as she rolled onto her belly to take her phone call.
But he"d been out with women with great bodies before, and none of them had exercised the same fascination for him. Of course, she had plenty of personality to go with her hot bod. She was savvy, funny. Bold, too. Definitely brave. He shook his head in admiration as he recalled how she"d sa.s.sed Rat Man, despite the fact that the guy had had them both over a barrel. She was good at what she did, too, which had always been a turn-on for him.
Still, none of it quite explained the surge of attraction he felt when she glanced up from her phone call and caught him watching her. Her big, dark eyes sparkled with repressed humor and speculation as she met his gaze, and she c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at him challengingly.
There was no explaining or defining it. He just found her...irresistible.
She broke eye contact with him and he belatedly tuned into what she was saying. He frowned, confused for a moment as he registered the tone of the conversation.
"Wow. That sounds amazing. And did you blow out all your candles at once?" she asked in the bright, cheerful tone usually reserved for children or the mentally challenged.
Hadn"t she said it was her brother calling?
She laughed at the response her comment garnered. "Well, maybe next year you"ll get them all. Five is a lot of candles, my little monkey man," she said warmly.
His brow cleared. She had a nephew-a five-year-old nephew, if his powers of deduction weren"t failing him in his old age.
She laughed again. "No, you"re right. Six will be even more candles. Maybe you can practice on my birthday cake-I"ve got a lot more than six, I promise you," she said.
She listened some more, a small smile on her face. "No, I understand, off you go, sweetie. I"m glad you liked your pirate ship," she said. "Nighty-night, don"t let the bed bugs bite."
She still had a slightly goofy smile on her face when she ended the call.
"Nephew?" he asked, fascinated by the soft expression in her eyes.
"Nicco. He just had his birthday, in case you couldn"t tell. He"s so funny. He just lost two of his front teeth, and he has this adorable lisp."
A tension he hadn"t even been aware of eased from his shoulders. He told himself it was ridiculous to read anything into her obvious love for her nephew. But somehow, it made him feel not quite so reckless to be plunging headfirst into a hot and heavy affair with a woman who, to all intents and purposes, was totally wrong for him.
"Come here," he said, beckoning her with his hand.
"Nope," she said, sliding off his bed. "I"m going to have a bath in that big old tub you"ve got in there."
She sauntered toward the bathroom, stopping on the threshold to throw a saucy look over her shoulder.
"You need a written invitation or something?" she asked.
He laughed as he levered himself up off the bed. Where she was concerned, he definitely did not.
A WEEK LATER, CLAUDIA swept up the pile of scripts she was taking home for the weekend and scooped up her coat. She was turning toward her office door before she realized Sadie and Grace were blocking it.
"Leaving early again?" Grace said significantly.
"It"s six forty-five on a Friday night. It"s not early," Claudia said a little defensively.
"It"s early for you," Sadie said. "So, where are you and Leandro going?"
"How do you know I"m going somewhere with Leandro?" Claudia countered.
"It was tough, but the fact that you"ve seen him every night this week, added to the fact that he"s been leaning against his car out the front of the building for the past ten minutes was something of a giveaway," Grace said.
"Busted," Claudia said dryly.
"Oh yeah, big time. So spill," Sadie said. "Where are you guys going?"
"Didn"t you say he"s been waiting for ten minutes already?" Claudia said evasively.
It wasn"t that she didn"t want to talk with her friends. Normally, she liked nothing more than a good session with her two best buddies. But right now, right this minute, she was a little preoccupied with a certain six-foot, four-inch hunk of man. Plus-and probably more importantly, if she was being scrupulously honest with herself-she had the feeling Grace and Sadie were about to ask her questions that she didn"t know the answers to.
"He can wait. Think of it as his personal atonement for all the centuries women didn"t have the vote," Grace said.
"I"ll be sure to mention that to him," Claudia said. "I know he"ll feel warm and fuzzy about doing his bit to address the power imbalance."
"You really like him, huh?" Sadie asked, a smile hovering around her mouth.
Claudia frowned, aware that Sadie had been viewing the world through rose-colored gla.s.ses since she and Dylan found one another. She and Leandro were not rose-colored material, however, and the sooner she made that clear and nipped any romantic fantasies in the bud, the better.
"I really like his p.e.n.i.s," Claudia said. "The rest of him I tolerate."
Grace snickered. "Nice."
Sadie just crossed her arms and c.o.c.ked her head to one side, clearly waiting for a serious answer to her question.
"What? What do you want me to say? We have s.e.x with each other. The man is really, really, really good in bed. That"s pretty much it."
"Right. And does he know this?" Sadie asked.
"I think he"s got some idea. He"s a pretty confident guy. I suppose I could throw a few compliments his way..."
"That"s not what I meant and you know it. The man has been waiting patiently out the front for ten-no, fifteen minutes now. No phone calls, no horn honking. And Gabby said he"s got a bottle of champagne and a picnic hamper in the back of his car."
Claudia gasped with outrage. "How in the h.e.l.l does she know that?"
"The woman has eyes on stalks, and a team of invisible ninja informants." Grace shrugged.
Sadie just made a low growling noise in the back of her throat, clearly growing irritated with Claudia"s avoidance of a direct answer.
"Okay, all right-we"re staying overnight on a yacht. Leandro"s friend offered it to him for the night. It"s no big deal."
"Again, I ask you, does Leandro know that it"s not a big deal?" Sadie asked.
Claudia felt a pang of unease as she met Sadie"s serious gaze. For the past week, she"d spent every night in Leandro"s arms, mapping every inch of his beautiful body, discovering new levels of pleasure and fulfillment under his attentive hands.
She"d laughed at his jokes, shared his toothbrush, melted under the best nonprofessional ma.s.sage she"d ever had, and had more o.r.g.a.s.ms than she could count. It had been...amazing. But not once had either of them ever referred to the future. They hadn"t made plans beyond the weekend, and they"d never talked about their feelings.
"We"re having a fling. I told him I wasn"t interested in a relationship. He said, and I"m quoting here so you might want to take this down, "But you are interested in s.e.x, right?" I figure we"re both on the same page," she said carefully.
Sadie looked disappointed, and Claudia regarded her fondly.
"Sorry, sweetie, but I"m just not looking for the kind of commitment that you and Dylan have. You know that."
"I know. I just thought that since you and Leandro seem to get on so well, and things seem so intense...would it be absolutely hideous if you fell in love?"
Claudia frowned, even as a surge of panic slid down her spine. Falling in love with Leandro was the last thing she wanted. In fact, falling in love with Leandro was exactly what she"d been worried about when she"d resisted his invitation to explore the attraction between them in the first place. He was a very, very charismatic man. If she wasn"t very careful, she could find herself in deep waters indeed with him. Which was why she"d been doing her level best to keep things light and breezy between them.
"I"m not wife material, Sade," she said bluntly. "I don"t want marriage, I don"t want kids. There"s nowhere for a relationship with Leandro to go, even if I was stupid enough to fall in love with him."
"Never say never, Claud," Grace said. Claudia knew she was talking from personal experience.
"The man"s just signed his divorce papers. The last thing he wants is to get tied down again," Claudia said, tackling the issue from the other side.
Sadie and Grace looked distinctly disgruntled, and Claudia paused to hug them both on the way out the door.
"Don"t worry-I"m having a very nice time. There"s nothing for anyone to worry about," she said.
Her words echoed hollowly in her ears when she exited the building and saw Leandro leaning against his car, arms crossed over his chest.
Her stomach dropped like an elevator in free fall, and she found herself exhaling an abrupt puff of air.
Man, but he was gorgeous. She paused for a moment to simply appreciate him-the length of his muscular legs displayed to perfection in well-worn dark denim, the breadth of his shoulders showcased in a cla.s.sic white T-shirt. His arms were tanned bronze from all his running, and the last rays of sunlight glinted in his springy black hair. Then there were his eyes-those killer, dark brown eyes that seemed to reach out toward her and strip her bare, even from a distance of twenty feet.
She cleared her throat round a lump of l.u.s.t as she forced her legs into motion again.
"Sorry. I got held up," she said.
"No problem."
She flashed him an appreciative smile. Another thing she liked about him-he understood the demands and stresses of her job. She"d kept him waiting more than once this week-although he"d returned the favor a few times, too-but they both knew the deal. Being a producer was the equivalent of playing mom and dad to the entire cast, crew and writing team of a soap, and the job was never done, the hours never neat and tidy.
"I have it on good authority I have champagne to look forward to. And a picnic hamper," she said, quizzing him with her eyes.
He huffed out a surprised laugh.
"Someone"s got good intelligence."
"Nosy a.s.sistant. I think she"s part bat," Claudia said.
He laughed outright as she stood on tiptoes to kiss him. His arms wrapped around her, and she leaned into the warm, solid strength of him. Before the kiss got too out of control-a definite hazard where Leandro was concerned-she broke away.
"Hold that thought," she said.
He opened the pa.s.senger door for her and she dumped her work bag on the back seat before getting in.
"Shouldn"t take us too long to get there," he said as he started up his Honda.
She knew his friend"s yacht was moored in Marina Del Rey, and she settled back in her seat for the short ride. Inevitably, once her body had acclimatized to being in Leandro"s presence again, her thoughts turned to what Grace and Sadie had said.
She sneaked a peek at him out of the corner of her eye, but she found it impossible to read his expression beyond knowing that he was pleased to be with her. Generally speaking, she found him hard to read. Oh, she knew when he was h.o.r.n.y. And she knew when she frustrated him by not allowing him to have everything his way. Each and every one of their encounters so far had involved some contest of wills. She figured it came from them both being used to being in charge-and neither of them being willing to concede the helm to the other.
But beyond that, she often had no idea what he was thinking. She hoped that, like her, he took what was happening between them at face value. They enjoyed each other"s company, and the s.e.x was...well, the s.e.x deserved a whole G.o.dd.a.m.ned thesis devoted to it, it was so good. The way she saw it, there was no need to make it any more complicated than that.
She turned her face toward the side window, aware that there was more than a hint of desperation in her thinking.
"Here we go. We"re looking for parking bay five-one-six," Leandro said as he turned into the marina.
Claudia spotted the number on their second pa.s.s of the aisles, and they were soon walking along the wind-whipped dock looking for the Foam Dancer.