Текст книги "Just To Be With You"

Автор книги: Bella Andre

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

“Thanks for meeting me on a Saturday, Tatiana.” Ben Mitchell hugged her hello. “Now that they’ve decided to move up the first day of filming to Thursday, everyone is scrambling.” He squeezed her extra hard before adding, “And huge congratulations on your nomination! You’re going to win, I just know it.”

Ben was one of the best costume designers in the business and Tatiana had been lucky enough to work with him twice before. When he’d called to ask if they could do a last-minute fitting, she’d been happy to pop by the Seattle set, which was already partly transformed for them to begin filming.

Laughing, she reminded her very fashionable friend, “You do realize four of the biggest and best actresses in the business were also nominated, don’t you?”

But Ben didn’t reply because his eyes had narrowed in on her. “You look different. Your skin has a different glow to it. And,” he added with a little sound of disapproval, “you’re thinner. You’re not tanning and dieting because you’re feeling pressure from the nomination, are you?”

Tatiana could already feel herself blushing as she shook her head.

“Ah, I see what’s going on now,” Ben said, his lips curving up into a slightly wicked smile. “Is the lucky guy anyone I know?”

“No. He’s not in the business.” Or, rather, only very peripherally, since Ian had invested in a couple of Smith’s films.

Ben waited for her to say more, and she wished she could shout Ian’s name from the rooftops and claim him as hers, but she couldn’t. Not until he changed his mind about being with her.

The fact that he hadn’t been able to resist her last night had to be good, didn’t it? And the blue sky she’d awakened to this morning must also be an omen that things were going to change for the better, right?

All the overthinking she’d been doing since she’d left Ian at the fundraiser last night had a sigh escaping before she could hold it in. Thankfully, though Ben clearly noticed both her sigh and the fact that she was purposely not telling him who the guy was, he was kind enough to let it be.

He handed her a fitted blue suit and when she put it on, he frowned again. “Don’t you dare lose any more weight. Tell that secret loverboy of yours he should be feeding you chocolate-covered strawberries round the clock.”

She laughed, then, utterly unable to imagine Ian ever doing something like that. He’d told her last night that wooing and romantic gestures were what she deserved, but didn’t he realize that she wouldn’t want him to be like other men who went straight to ticking through the list of standard romance tropes?

A couple of hours later, she’d tried on nearly two dozen outfits so that Ben could perfect the fit and take pictures of her in each of them for the director. Instead of taking a cab home, she decided to walk back along the waterfront. Fortunately, everyone was too busy flying kites and playing tag with their kids and smooching on blankets laid out across the grass to pay any attention to the familiar-looking woman with the dark hat and glasses.

But even though it was really nice to be outside enjoying the sunshine for once, her stomach was clenched tight. Her role was still bothering her, especially now that production had been shifted up by a handful of days to Thursday of the coming week. But mostly, she was worried about Ian’s reaction to what she’d said to him last night. Particularly since she hadn’t been able to let the subject of his ex-wife go, and it wasn’t exactly his favorite subject.

Just then, her phone buzzed in the pocket of her jeans. Hoping it wasn’t Ben texting to ask her to come back to the set because he’d just found another rack of clothes she needed to try on, she nearly dropped it when she saw Ian’s name on the screen.

Had he thought about everything she’d said last night and realized he wanted to be with her, after all?

Her heart was leaping in her chest as she stopped in the middle of the busy sidewalk to punch in her security code so that she could see his full message. Strangers bumped into her from all sides, but as she read his text once, twice, then a third time, she simply couldn’t figure out how to make her legs move.

LAST MINUTE BUSINESS TRIP TO ALASKA MONDAY. WILL SEND YOU LIST OF OTHER CEOS TO SHADOW.

Her throat felt tight and her chest ached right beneath the breastbone. Less than forty-eight hours ago, he’d made her feel so wanted, so needed, so precious to him with every kiss and caress. And last night, she’d thought there was a chance that she might actually be getting through to him.

But now he’d made it perfectly clear that he didn’t want her around at all anymore.

She was tempted to give in to the urge to throw her phone down on the pavement, purely for the satisfaction of hearing it hit and watching it shatter. But before she could do something so impulsive, her phone jumped in her hand, ringing with her sister’s special ring tone.

Yesterday she’d felt too confused to talk, but though her thoughts about Ian were only more jumbled up now, Tatiana needed her sister more than ever. Finally moving off the sidewalk, she headed across the grass of the waterfront park to find a more private spot.

“Hey, Val.” Tatiana’s voice sounded really weird to her own ears, but she couldn’t quite figure out how to modulate it back to normal. Not when she was still spinning from Ian’s terse farewell text. “How’s Ireland?”

“Amazing. Although Smith has been overrun with media requests since the nominations came in for Gravity, just like you must be. And when we dropped by a local pub to see if they’d have any interest in letting us film a few key scenes there, I swear the whole town must have turned up to dance and sing and celebrate with us. That’s why I wasn’t able to get ahold of you yesterday to congratulate you on your amazing achievement.”

Sitting down on an empty bench and listening to her sister talk had, thankfully, helped Tatiana get a little bit of a grip by the time she had to speak again. “Honestly, it all feels kind of surreal.”

“Promise me you’ll let me know if you need anything, T. Anything at all.” After Tatiana made a sound of assent, Valentina said, “I’ve been dying to know, how did your week with Ian go? Has it helped you with your new role? I kept hoping to catch you earlier in the week to ask, but the time difference as we’ve jumped through Ireland and Scotland always meant it was two in the morning whenever I got a chance to call you.”

Oh, she wanted so badly to confide in her sister. But what would she say? “Ian and I slept together. It was amazing. Magical. Because I love him. But even though he obviously wants me and can’t keep his hands off me, he won’t let himself love me back. And now I don’t know what to do.”

Just hearing the words play out in her own head, Tatiana knew with perfect certainty that there were a good dozen ways Valentina would freak out from across the Atlantic if she actually said them aloud.

“Shadowing him has been great. And exhausting. I’ve never seen anyone work as hard as he does.”

“I remember thinking that about Smith when you were filming Gravity.”

“Val, can I ask you a question?”

“Of course, T. You can ask me anything, you know that.”

“When you and Smith were just starting to date, you felt unsure about things for a while, didn’t you?”

“Only constantly.” But she could already hear her sister’s brain going into overdrive from her simple question, so she wasn’t surprised when Valentina asked, “Are you dating someone? I know I’ve been really busy lately, but I’m always here for you, T. All you have to do is let me know you need me and I’ll be there. Anywhere you need me.”

The tears that had threatened when she read Ian’s terse and emotionless text nearly came spilling out at the love in her sister’s voice. Which made her doubly glad that saying, “No, I’m not dating anyone,” didn’t constitute lying to the one person who had always been there for her. “But, Val, if you were so unsure, then how did Smith convince you to be with him?”

Valentina was silent for a few moments, obviously thinking through her answer before she gave it. “There were lots of little, sweet things he did along the way. Remember when he gave me that framed picture of us?”

“It’s still one of my favorites,” Tatiana agreed. “So that’s what did it? Knowing he was thinking of you and what would make you happy?”

“Honestly, while those little things he did were all lovely and sweet and made me realize he cared for me, they weren’t enough to make me believe love could conquer all. I was still scared. Still worried about the past and the future and every moment in between.”

Tatiana could understand why her sister had been so afraid to fall for Smith. The spotlight constantly shone on him because he was one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and her sister had always been much happier hidden in the shadows on the side of the stage. Plus, after their father had died and Valentina had pretty much taken over raising Tatiana, the way their mother had dated one wrong man after another had been really hard on her sister...and had made Valentina question everything about love. At the same time, she’d always protected Tatiana so that she never had to doubt that love was real.

“I still don’t understand how he got you past those worries. What did he do to make them all go away?”

“He couldn’t do that for me. I had to work through my fears myself in my own time, and if he had tried to push me to speed things up, I was stubborn enough that I would have only retreated further and put more walls up to block him out.”

“So, you’re saying he didn’t push you to make a decision about the state of your relationship, but...” Tatiana paused to try to think of a subtle way to say the next part, but when she couldn’t, she finally just blurted, “Weren’t you guys having all kinds of wild and wicked sex the whole time you were working through things?”

“Given that you found us in the screening room that night on set,” Valentina said with a slightly embarrassed laugh, “I think we both know the answer to that question is a big, fat yes.”

“But why did you keep sleeping with Smith if you were unsure about sticking with him in the long run? Why didn’t you make yourself stay away, or tell him to keep his distance, until you’d made up your mind one way or the other?” When her sister didn’t answer right away, Tatiana belatedly realized she’d gone too far with her questions. Just like Ian always said she did. “I’m sorry. I know this is really personal stuff and I’m being way too nosy. You don’t have to answer any more of my questions about your sex life with Smith, obviously.”

“You can ask me anything, T. You know that. So don’t apologize. It’s just we’ve never really talked much about sex before, so I’m a little surprised.” Her sister paused for a beat before saying, “The answer is that I couldn’t stop myself from being with him. Smith is...well, you know how he is. Gorgeous. Sexy. Brilliant.”

“And totally, completely in love with you.”

“Yes, just as much as I finally admitted I loved him. And the truth is that part of that realization of how much I loved him came because I simply couldn’t find a way to resist going to bed with him, even when I was certain that I needed to. At first, I tried to call what we were doing just sex, just a fling, a way to let off steam, but I think I always knew I was lying to myself. I never realized how closely connected the body and heart are until I met him.”

Tatiana felt as though the light bulb went back on inside of her, then, burning more brightly now than it ever had before. That deep connection between her heart and her body was precisely why she’d never slept with anyone before Ian. Because she simply couldn’t have given her body to a man who didn’t also have her heart.

From the answers her sister had just given her, Tatiana now knew that while Smith had given Valentina space to accept her feelings for him, he’d also been smart enough to keep their physical connection burning hot and steady so that her sister couldn’t shut herself off from him.

Tatiana had said it herself in the limo on the night of the gala—Ian wasn’t a man who changed his mind easily. She hadn’t planned to use sex to change his mind. But while she was giving him the space to come around to realizing he could risk loving her without hurting either of them, was it so wrong to hope that their intense attraction and sensual connection would help him see the light a little sooner?

“Tatiana?” Her name was mostly static. “My connection’s just gotten bad. Are you still there?”

Before they were cut off, Tatiana quickly said, “Thank you, Val. For everything.”

All her life, her big sister had protected her and guided her toward making good decisions. Yet again, Valentina had helped her. More than she even knew.

Tatiana could now see that she’d been naïve to believe that she could heal Ian’s past and show him that it was safe to love her in one short week. But while she wasn’t naïve anymore...she wasn’t giving up, either.

And now, thanks to this conversation with her sister, she knew exactly what she needed to do.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

By Monday morning, the skies that had been so clear all weekend had turned a dark purple-gray. Just as dark as Ian’s mood.

All weekend long, he had firmed his resolve to keep his distance from Tatiana. Again and again, when she crept into his mind, he pushed thoughts of her away. Discipline. Determination. Focus. Work. That was all he’d ever needed to get himself back on track, he reminded himself as his driver pulled up on the tarmac behind his private plane. Surely, if he just kept his eye on the ball, he’d eventually be able to forget her. Especially now that he wouldn’t be seeing her every single day anymore. By the time they met again at a family dinner or party, he would have his head back on straight...and his life back on track with no emotional or romantic entanglements screwing with things.

And if he missed her, if the week already felt too empty, too dark, too wrong without her, well, that was just too damned bad, because—

What the hell?

He blinked hard to clear his vision, but when he looked again, Tatiana was still standing beside his plane chatting with his pilots, David and Linda. She had a medium-sized canvas bag slung over her shoulder and was wearing dark jeans, a blue and white striped sweater, and flat-heeled black boots that ended just below the knee.

Clearly, she was planning on making the trip to Alaska with him.

As soon as he stepped out of the town car, Tatiana turned to greet him. “Good morning, Ian.”

She looked truly happy to see him, her expression as bright and sunny as ever. Just as happy as the sudden leap of his heart in his chest proved he was to see her.

He’d told her to go shadow someone else, but she hadn’t listened. Talk about determination. He could learn something from her.

“Good morning, Tatiana.”

Knowing he couldn’t ask her what she was doing there in front of his pilots without embarrassing her, he turned to greet them, as well. They’d come with him to England years ago and then had followed him back to Seattle, but he hadn’t seen them since their return to the States.

“Are you both settling back in to life in Seattle all right?”

“Everything’s great,” David said.

“Thanks again for the maternity hospital recommendation you got from your mother.” Holding her husband’s hand, Linda was radiant. “We just did the tour yesterday and it looks amazing.”

“Oh, how lovely that you’re pregnant!” Tatiana exclaimed. “When are you due?”

“In five months. We’ve been trying for a while, so we’re very excited.”

“Do you know yet if you’re having a boy or a girl?”

David drew Linda closer as she said, “We want to be surprised.”

“I would, too,” Tatiana agreed. “I love surprises, and that would be one of the very best.”

Knowing Linda had had some trouble with morning sickness in her first trimester, Ian asked, “Are you feeling back to your normal self yet?”

“Pretty much. Thanks for asking, Ian.” With a look at her watch, she said, “David and I have a few final pre-flight preparations to take care of, and then we should be on our way to Alaska before the storm rolls in.”

As soon as his pilots disappeared into the cockpit, Tatiana told him, “I know you sent me a list of other CEOs to shadow this week, but I’m not here to shadow you anymore.” Before he could respond, she added, “And I’m not here to talk about Thursday or Friday night, either, I promise. You see, the character I’ll be playing next week was born and bred in Alaska, and I was hoping you’d consider letting me catch a ride with you so that I can do my final bit of research for it. Getting a feel for where my character grew up will really help me.”

In the week he’d spent with her, Tatiana had never shied away from confronting him. So then, why wasn’t she bringing up their conversation from Friday night? And why wasn’t she trying to pin him down, trying to get him to change his mind about being with her? She’d planned to give him some time to change his mind, but had hers been the feelings that ended up changing instead? Had she realized he was right when he’d told her that she was simply so overwhelmed by finally making love that she’d wrongly assumed that meant she was in love with him?

Or, was it simply that she knew him better than anyone else ever had...and understood that it was killing him to try to stay away when the very best moments of his life had been with her in his arms?

“I’m happy to give you a lift to Alaska if it will help you with your research.” Hell, he was miles beyond happy about the chance to spend more time with her when he’d missed her more with every hour that had passed since she walked away from him Friday night.

When she was buckled into the seat across from him, he let David and Linda know that they were ready for takeoff. Just as the plane began to taxi down the runway, Tatiana pulled out her script and scowled at it.

Though he had planned to get some work done on the flight, instead of taking out his laptop, he asked her, “How’s your work on your part going?”

Though her scowl deepened, it did nothing whatsoever to detract from her incredible beauty. “Not well. And I’m supposed to do a read-through of a couple of scenes with my male co-star on Thursday so that we can see where we are and feel each other out a bit.” She shook her head as the plane lifted into the air. “I can already tell you how he’s going to feel. He’s going to beg the producer for a new leading lady.”

She looked so upset that Ian didn’t think twice before offering, “Would it help if I read through it with you now?”

Her eyes widened with surprise. “That would be amazing.”

Ian had to move to the seat beside her so that they could share her script. Lord, he thought as he breathed in her scent, it was good to be close to her again. So damned good.

“I’m Rose, and you’ll be reading the part of Aiden, the man who’s...” She lifted her gaze to meet his. “He’s in love with her.”

Her eyes were so green and so beautiful that he nearly forgot that he couldn’t kiss her.

“This is the scene where he finally tells her exactly how he feels, and she reacts badly.” Tatiana’s voice was a little breathless now as she told him, “Aiden leads off the scene when he barges into Rose’s office.”

“Rose.”

“Aiden? What are you doing here? Didn’t you get my message?”

“Did you think I’d just let you leave like that, with a note that said you were sorry, but you couldn’t be with me anymore?”

“I’m already late to my next meeting. I can’t do this now.”

“What about after your meeting, Rose? Will you finally admit that what we have is rare and beautiful and that you love me? Or will I have to come back again tomorrow and the day after that for you to admit it?”

“I do love you! But that doesn’t change anything. I can’t be that girl I used to be, the one you fell in love with. Not now that I have to manage all this. Not when so many people are depending on me to make sure they don’t lose everything if I screw this up. And not when, for the first time in my life I finally feel like I’ve found the place I’m supposed to be.”

“Do you think I’d ever want any less for you? Do you think I can’t see how well the suit, the office, even the pressure of it all, suits you? And do you think I’d ever ask you to give it all up for me? That I won’t love you anymore because you’re not the girl I first fell for?”

“You say that now, that you’ll love me no matter what, but just because it’s easy to say the words doesn’t mean it will be anywhere near easy to actually pull it off. People make promises all the time, but they rarely keep them. And I can’t risk everything here on a promise, on a hope that love will actually last. I just can’t. So, please, I have a meeting now, and I need you to leave. And I won’t change my mind after it. Not today or tomorrow.”

After they read through a couple more pages, Tatiana laid the script down with a sigh on the table in front of them.

“It sounds good. Why are you so frustrated?”

“Good. Not great. I swear, I know the script backward and forward, but I can’t get to the heart of Rose at all. If I can’t root for her, then how is the audience going to be on her side?”

In the same way that Ian analyzed every angle of a potential investment for a business deal, he figured it couldn’t hurt to try the same thing with this character she was so stuck on. “What’s your biggest issue with Rose?”

“Who would choose money over love?”

“Someone who knows just how hard it is not to have money. Someone who knows just how unpredictable love is, that it isn’t all roses and sunsets. Someone who can see the rhyme and reason to making money, but knows there isn’t any whatsoever to love. Someone who’s willing to believe in what she can count and add up, but who has only ever known chaos when it came to her heart.”

“Okay, I can see that makes sense, but this hero, he’s laying it all on the line. He wants to love her. And he’s a good guy. A really good guy. I still don’t see how I can play her so that it makes sense that she’d keep holding back.”

“From the part we read, it sounds to me like she knows the damage love can do. And she also knows that the sacrifice and compromise needed to make it last are bigger than a quick flash of lust and the promises some guy is making to her.”

“He’s not promising her just a quick flash of lust, though. He’s promising her all of him, everything, forever and ever. She’s got to see that.”

“No, I think all she can see is what she’s learned from her own life, her own previous experience with people who made promises they never kept. And now it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than some guy saying he loves her to make her take that risk again. Whereas if she keeps her focus on money and business and how hard and risky it is to take on such a big company with so little experience, she figures she can at least minimize that part of the risk in her life.”

“She’s already a billionaire, though, now that she’s inherited the company. I get that she wants to prove herself, but I don’t understand where the risk is.”

“Even when you’re at a point where money will never be an issue again, it’s impossible to forget that helplessness. That’s why I’ve set up trusts for my family that they don’t know about, but that will kick in for each of them if they ever need it, just in case something goes wrong down the line. For any of them, for any reason, I need to know they’ll be taken care of.”

He didn’t realize just how much he’d shared with her until he saw her expression, but just then, the plane dipped and pitched from side to side. Ian had never been a nervous flier, but though he wasn’t too bothered by the turbulence, Tatiana had tightly crumpled the corner of the script in her hands.

Wanting to soothe her flight nerves, he told her, “I’m sure we’ve just hit a little rough patch and will be through it soon.”

He watched as she deliberately loosened her grip on the pages. “After all the flying I’ve done the past few years, you’d think I’d be better at it.” Turning away from the window as if by doing so she could forget that she was in a little tube shooting through the sky, she said, “Thank you for reading through this with me and talking it over. It helped a lot. More than anything else has so far, actually.”

Just then, the plane did another couple of hard bounces, and her face went white before she plastered on a smile. “I had a really nice chat with my sister this weekend. It sounds like she and Smith are having fun scouting locations in Ireland. Evidently, they closed down the local pub.”

Just hearing Valentina’s and Smith’s names had Ian’s gut twisting with so much guilt that even though Tatiana had told him she wasn’t going to bring anything that had happened on Thursday or Friday night up again—and he should have been glad for the reprieve—he had to know, “Have you told her about us?”

“I promised that what happens while I’m shadowing you stays between us.”

Ian wasn’t sure if it was the rough flight—or the difficult conversation they were having—that was the reason for the quick rise and fall of her chest as she answered his question. All he knew was that what she’d just said had pissed him off.

“Damn it, Tatiana, don’t try to act like having sex with me is the same as sitting in on a business meeting. I might be an asshole, but even I wouldn’t stoop so low that I’d ask you to sign an NDA before we slept together.”

“You’re not an asshole.”

“I swore to you that I wasn’t going to treat you badly. I promised myself I would stay away. I blew both of those promises, big time.”

As if the tension between them was directly connected to the weather patterns, just then the plane banked sharply to one side, and then a few seconds later, to the other even more sharply. Tatiana screamed and every thought flew from his head but protecting her as he put his arms around her and pulled her close. She was ice-cold and trembling as he held her.

“Ian, Tatiana,” David’s voice came to them over the on-board speakers, “it looks like we’re going to have to make an unexpected landing on Vancouver Island. Please make sure you’re buckled in. We’ll be safely on the ground soon.”

When he looked down at Tatiana, her eyes had dilated with full-on panic.

“Tatiana, we’re going to be fine.” When it was clear that his words hadn’t registered, he tucked his hand beneath her chin so that she had to focus on him. “David and Linda are the best in the business. I wouldn’t trust anyone else more to get us down safely.”

But when the plane hit more turbulence, Ian knew he needed to do something more to get her mind off the rough flight.

“When we were kids, our parents gave all of us really heavy-duty umbrellas. But we didn’t really use them much, because it wasn’t cool to be seen walking to school carrying one. Looking back, I don’t know how we sat through class every day soaking wet, but I guess when you’re a kid, stuff like that doesn’t bother you much.”

He could see that she was a little surprised by the way he’d just up and started talking about his childhood, and was glad that he’d managed to capture her attention, given the way the plane was wildly rocking back and forth.

“One day, I suppose my mother got sick of dealing with our soggy clothes and made us bring the umbrellas to school. The other kids snickered at us behind our backs, but Adam, Rafe, and I decided we’d make all of them wish they had brought their umbrellas to school, too.”

“How’d you do that?”

He smiled at her, running the back of his hand down her cheek. “We holstered our umbrellas through our belts and climbed up the rain spouts to the roof of the school. Our mom was a big Mary Poppins fan, so we’d all seen the character fly through the air holding her umbrella plenty of times.”

“You guys didn’t actually jump off the roof, did you? Someone stopped you before you could, right?”

“Nope.” He grinned at Tatiana’s wide-eyed expression. “We were quicker than any of the adults. Besides, they already called us the Wild Sullivans, so I’m pretty sure they knew no threats or punishments were going to reform us. Odds are they were less surprised that we were planning to jump off the roof with our umbrella parachutes than they were that we hadn’t thought of it sooner.”

“So what happened?”

She had, it seemed, forgotten entirely about the lurching plane, and he’d never been so thankful for his childhood idiocy as he was now. If he’d played it straight when he was kid, he wouldn’t have had this story to tell her now.

“Half the school was out on the blacktop waiting for us to make our move.” He shook his head, laughing at the memory. “On the count of three, we opened our umbrellas, walked to the edge of the roof, and jumped.”

She gasped. “Were you all okay?”

“Sure.” He said the word easily, throwing in a shrug as he added, “Rafe knocked his arm up pretty good and Adam lost a tooth, but the real damage didn’t come until the principal expelled us and Mom had to come pick us up.”

“How mad was she?”

He grinned again. “Mad. But later, when I caught her holding the open umbrella on the driveway, looking up at the sky, I knew why we’d only been grounded for a month as opposed to forever.” He could tell that they were getting close to making their landing, so he pressed a kiss to Tatiana’s hands to make sure she didn’t lose focus on him. “Part of the reason she loved watching Mary Poppins so much was because she always wished she could fly like that, too.”

A moment later, they made as smooth a landing as he could have hoped for. Ian wrapped his arms around Tatiana and held her tightly against him, giving silent thanks that everything was okay. If anything had happened to her, he would have been destroyed. Completely destroyed.

And as the plane finally came to a shuddering—and safe—stop, she whispered, “Thank you for making me forget how scary this was.”