Книга - Take On Me

Take On Me
Sarah Mayberry


Making up for lost time! Getting over her teen crush on Dylan took Sadie a while, but now she’s grown up and moved on. Until Dylan takes a new job – at her work place! Suddenly, it is as though she has never spent a minute away from the devastatingly handsome bad boy.But Sadie’s determined not to let her sexy fantasies get in the way. Too bad the tension between them is so high, that sharing a powerful, passionate encounter is inevitable. And once they do, Dylan is better than Sadie had ever imagined.She promised herself to leave him begging for more…but does she really want to?




Was this foreplay or warfare?



And, at this moment, did Dylan really care? As he pulled Sadie’s bottom lip into his mouth, he knew their differences didn’t matter. She moaned low in her throat and dug her fingernails into the muscles of his back. He swept a path across her cheek to the sensitive skin beneath her ear, leaving her neck, then biting her. Her hips bucked against his and she slid a hand down his back to grab his butt and drag him even more tightly against her.



He needed more. He needed skin, had to taste her, know her, have her. He stared down into her glittering eyes, taking in the rapid rise and fall of her breasts as she gasped for breath, the flush on her cheekbones, the tumbled, sexy mess of her hair.



She was everything he hated in a woman. But he was going to have her or die trying.


SARAH MAYBERRY



lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her partner, Chris. As well as penning romance novels, she also writes scripts for television. She has plotted TV births, deaths, betrayals, marriages, first kisses, divorces and innumerable cliff-hangers in both Australia and New Zealand, but for now is content to stick with true love. May it ever run smooth…



Dear Reader,



It was inevitable that I’d wind up writing a series of books set behind the scenes of a soap opera – I’ve spent more than three years working in-house for various TV dramas in New Zealand and Australia. It’s a crazy, pressured and often hilarious way to earn a living, and I figured it would be the perfect place for people to fall in lust – and love – with one another.



Coming up with the heroines for my three stories was equally easy – Sadie, Grace and Claudia just seemed to jump right out of my keyboard, along with their heroic counterparts.



I hope you enjoy getting a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the way serial drama is produced via Sadie and Dylan’s story. These two stubborn people have some serious ground to cover before they can let go of past misconceptions – but I hope you’ll agree it’s worth the risk.



I love to hear from readers. You can contact me via my website, www. sarahmayberryauthor. com. And, of course, keep an eye out for the next instalment of the SECRET LIVES OF DAYTIME DIVAS mini-series, All Over You, due out in May 2009.



Until then, happy reading!



Sarah Mayberry




TAKE ON ME


BY

SARAH MAYBERRY












www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Thanks to all the Shortland Street and Neighbours people who have inspired this book – bits of all of you are in there somewhere. As always, thanks to my faithful readers – La-La, the fabulous Miss Moneypenny and Hanky Panky – and to Wanda, the maple syrup queen, who always knows best.




Prologue


Grovedale Senior High Prom, 1994, Los Angeles, California



SADIE POST STARED at her reflection in the girls’ bathroom mirror. More specifically, she stared at her chest. Her flat, featureless, pancake of a chest. Her mother kept telling her she was a late developer, but Sadie had given up on hoping for late development two years ago. At seventeen, with a chest like an ironing board, she was officially a freak of nature. One day soon, a documentary crew would turn up on her doorstep and she’d be starring as The Girl Who Skipped Puberty. They’d have a doctor and diagrams, and they’d explain how all the stuff that was supposed to go toward breasts and hips in her body had instead been used by Mother Nature to stretch her out to a skinny six feet tall, with no extra to spare for luxury items like curves.

No wonder Dylan Anderson didn’t know she existed. She’d sat next to him in American Literature for a whole year, and he’d barely glanced her way. The one time he had, she’d been doodling his name all over a page in her notebook, and she’d barely managed to slam it shut before he saw it.

She bit her lip, thinking about what had happened in class today. He probably knew she was alive now. And not in a good way.

Why had she suddenly decided it would be good to stand up for herself?

She knew why. She might not have breasts, but she had desire to spare. In the privacy of her bedroom, she’d mapped the silky smoothness of her own body, discovering what felt good, what felt great, and what made her lose control when she did enough of it. And it was always Dylan’s name she whispered into her pillow when she climaxed.

The door suddenly swung open and music filtered through into the bathroom as two girls entered, their high heels click-clacking on the tiled floor. They were giggling, their blond heads leaning toward one another as they whispered conspiratorially.

Sadie stepped back from the mirror, allowing them to take her place. She knew where she fitted into the school food chain. Cindi Young and Carol Martin were cheerleaders—she was an amoeba compared to them. Less, probably.

She kept her eyes averted as they smoothed on lip gloss and fluffed their hair, finally teetering back to the gym to gyrate some more and send the boys wild with their sexy, curvy bodies and gravity-defying breasts.

Cindi and Carol and girls like them were why Sadie had done what she’d done today. She knew she didn’t have what it took to get Dylan’s attention the old-fashioned way. And she’d wanted him to notice her so badly. When the opportunity had seemingly fallen into her lap…she’d jumped in, feet first.

Which was probably why it had all gone so horribly wrong. She hadn’t thought through her strategy enough. Usually, she liked to script important events in her mind first before she tackled them in real life. Of course, in real life, people often diverged wildly from her mental script—but for some reason it helped her feel braver if she’d already imagined a version of the scene in her head.

She took a deep breath and tried to fluff her blond hair into a semblance of Cindi or Carol’s provocative hairstyles. It resolutely refused to do anything but hang limply by her face, and she finally dropped her hands to her sides. She was stalling. She had to go out there and face him.

She tried her best smile in the mirror. She had good teeth, small and straight and white. And she liked her lips—they were full and pouty, even more so with some of her mom’s lipstick on. The smile looked okay. She tried a greeting.

“Hi, Dylan.”

She grimaced. She sounded way too familiar. It wasn’t as if they were friends or anything. Especially after today. But what were her options? She could hardly call him Mr. Anderson. He’d die laughing.

“Hey, do you have a moment?” she said instead, trying to sound sure of herself, a woman of the world. Her voice came out all weird and croaky, like Miss Piggy.

Her eyes dropped to the bodice of her satin gown once more. Who was she kidding? She looked like a kid playing dress-up—a really tall, skinny kid. Why would Dylan glance twice at her when she didn’t even look like a real woman?

On impulse, she spun on her heel and stepped into the first cubicle. Working feverishly, she plucked again and again at the single-sheet toilet paper dispenser, her hands a blur of motion as she harvested a mountain of paper.

One nervous eye on the door, she stuffed the tissue down her bodice. It prickled against her skin as she adjusted it again and again until two respectable-looking mounds tented the front of her spaghetti-strapped, knee-length, black satin dress. She turned sideways to the mirror, then spun around the other way. A small smile curved her lips. She looked good. She had breasts! Surfing a wave of confidence, she pushed her way out into the corridor.

Music throbbed loudly as she made her way toward the gym. Madonna’s “Vogue” was playing, and as she entered the cavernous gym she saw Cindi and Carol and their clique striking a series of sexy poses on the dance floor.

Immediately she began to scan for Dylan. Her eyes ran over the Jocks, lounging on the bleachers and eyeing the dancing cheerleaders with lascivious intent. Next were the gaggle of Art Geeks, their dramatic black hair and smudged kohl eyeliner making them look like extras in a Michael Jackson video in the gym’s nightclub lighting. The Burn-outs and Freaks were next, then the Math Nerds. A frown pleated her forehead as she turned slowly, trying to find Dylan’s tall, rangy frame in the crowd. He wouldn’t be dancing—he was too cool to dance. And he wouldn’t necessarily be hanging out with any of the established groups. He was a lone wolf, operating outside the cliques that made up the school’s social hierarchy. Luckily for him, he was good-looking enough and funny enough and cool enough to get away with it. James Dean for a new generation, except his hair was raven-black instead of dirty-blond and his eyes a dark, disturbing gray.

The crowd parted briefly as the tide shifted on the dance floor between songs. Sheryl Crow’s “All I Wanna Do” came on, and suddenly she saw him standing on the other side of the gym. As usual, her heart skipped a beat. He was so dark and dangerous and beautiful.

She moved toward him, edging past dancing teens, dodging uncoordinated elbows and knees until finally he was within reach, his back to her as he talked to another guy from their year.

Nerves tap-danced in her belly now that she was near him. She almost turned away, but instead she forced herself to reach out and touch his arm, rationalizing that he probably wouldn’t hear her over the music if she tried to attract his attention verbally. Plus she got to touch him, even if it was only through his clothing.

He swung around to face her and she swallowed a lump of pure adoration as she looked into his face. His unusual dark gray eyes, fringed with sooty, wasted-on-a-boy lashes, his straight, strong nose, the carved perfection of his lips and chin—she could practically sculpt him from stone she knew his features so well.

His expression was unreadable as he stared at her, but there was no missing the way his eyes dropped down below her face for a brief moment. She felt a zing of triumph rocket along her veins. He’d noticed her cleavage! It had made a difference!

“I just wanted to say I’m really sorry about today. And to let you know I can help you with American Lit, if you like,” she yelled over the music.

His face screwed up impatiently and he shook his head to indicate he couldn’t hear what she was saying.

Greatly daring, Sadie stood on her toes to make up for the few inches of difference in their heights and leaned toward him. She was so close, she could feel the heat coming off his body.

“American Lit. If you need any help…?” she yelled.

He definitely heard her that time, but his expression was unreadable. Crucially, though, he didn’t say no outright. She congratulated herself on at last getting through to him. He simply hadn’t understood her earlier offer, the one she’d made in class, before she’d…Well, obviously she could make up for all that now.

He leaned close.

“Sure, Sadie,” he said in her ear. “You can help me out with American Lit—but first you have to tell me something.”

She was awash with relief and excitement. She could feel his breath on her ear. And he was going to forgive her. She had a second chance to prove herself.

“Sure. What?”

He pointed to her chest.

“What the hell is that?”

Sadie glanced down—and froze. A glowing nimbus of white light was radiating out of the neckline of her dress. For a moment her mind went blank with horror, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. Then she realized that the bleached tissue she’d stuffed down her dress was responding to the black-light disco lighting. Not just responding—she had a supernova in her bodice, enough light to rival the neon glow of Vegas. Astronauts were probably pointing and staring from the moon, her chest was glowing so brightly.

She gasped, clapping her hands to her breasts to try to cover the incriminating radiance. Stricken, she glanced up and saw that Dylan was grinning, a hard glint in his eye now. He hadn’t forgiven her for today. Not by a mile.

“You got a cold or something?” he asked. Then he reached forward and pulled her clutching hands effortlessly from her chest. Crooking a finger into her bodice, he tugged it out so he could look down her top more clearly. “Man, you’ve got a whole rainforest down there, haven’t you?”

She was numb with shock as he reached into the neckline of her dress, unable to comprehend what was happening. She’d imagined his hands against her skin a million times, but as she felt the warm brush of his fingers against her body there was no desire, only a rising tide of nausea and shame. Slowly, casually, he plucked the scrunched-up tissue from her dress, handing each piece to her so that soon she was holding a small pile of glowing white balls. A crowd gathered to witness the spectacle. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the Jocks doubled over with laughter as they saw what was happening, while Cindi and her pack giggled behind their hands. Others murmured sympathetically, shaking their heads as they witnessed her humiliation.

At last she was holding all the tissue, and Dylan reached forward and covered her clutching hands with his own. Leaning in close, he squeezed her hands meaningfully with his own and looked her in the eye.

“I think we’re about done, Sadie Post,” he said. For the first time she smelled the alcohol on his breath and registered the glassy cast to his eyes.

He turned his back on her. She stood frozen for a few more pathetic seconds as he walked away, then she turned tail and ran, glowing balls of tissue scattering in her wake.

She wanted to die. She could never come to school again. She could never do anything again. Within minutes, the whole school would know what had happened, and she would be the absolute laughingstock, a figure of pity and fun for everyone to take a shot at.

Tears streaked her face as she bolted down the corridor, her sobs echoing off the brick walls. She hated Dylan Anderson. She hated him as much as she used to love him. More, even.

And she was never, ever, going to forget this.


1

“SADIE, STOP FIDGETING. You’re a bride. You’re supposed to be serene and dignified,” Claudia said.

Sadie grimaced apologetically. “Sorry. I just wanted to see,” she said hopefully.

“Well, you can’t. Not until I’ve finished,” Claudia Dostis said firmly, returning to the task of lacing the corsetlike back of Sadie’s ivory-silk wedding gown.

Sadie sighed and nodded, and her other bridesmaid, Grace Wellington, smacked her lightly on the shoulder.

“That includes your head, too,” she said. Grace was trying to anchor a frothy veil into the upswept mass of Sadie’s honey-blond hair.

“Does this mean I have to go back to bride-training school?” Sadie asked meekly.

“If you’re very still for the next twenty seconds, we’ll put in a good word for you,” Claudia said.

They were her closest friends, as well as her work colleagues and she trusted them implicitly, so she made a big effort to calm her nerves and stand docilely for the next few minutes as they continued to fuss. Finally, she felt a last tug around her middle, then Claudia let out a sigh.

“Done!”

“Me, too,” Grace said.

They both stepped back and surveyed her with satisfaction.

“Nice work with the veil,” Claudia said to Grace.

“Not so shabby on the dress work, either,” Grace said, returning the compliment.

Sadie raised an amused eyebrow. “Does this mean I finally get to look?”

Grace and Claudia grabbed a shoulder each and gently turned her around to face the freestanding mirror in the middle of her bedroom.

The woman facing her was a stranger, an elegant fairy princess in floating ivory silk, her blond hair swept into a sleek, sophisticated updo, her neck long and slender, her pale skin flawless, her large brown eyes dramatic and sexy.

“Wow. Is that really me?” Sadie squeaked.

“Yep. Gorgeous, as always,” Claudia confirmed.

Sadie blushed at her friend’s compliment, but a frown creased her forehead as her gaze inevitably drifted to her chest. It was pathetic, but she would probably never be one-hundred-percent happy with the size of her breasts, she admitted to herself. Too much baggage. Too long waiting around for the damned things to arrive in the first place. Who didn’t develop breasts until they were nineteen, for Pete’s sake? It was a form of cruelty, as far as Sadie was concerned.

“What’s wrong? You hate the way I did the veil, don’t you?” Grace asked, her clear green eyes clouded with concern.

Sadie pushed the old, old worry way. She was a B cup. Perfectly respectable. It was because she was nervous—that was why such an old, dusty preoccupation had reared its ugly head.

“It’s perfect, thank you. I was just wondering if I should have gone with a white dress instead of ivory,” she fibbed.

Claudia made a rude noise. “Even ivory is pushing it, lady,” she said knowingly.

“Hey!” Sadie said, pretending to be offended. “Are you implying I’m not a virgin?”

“I hope you’re not,” Grace said. “I’ll have to take down all that stuff I wrote about you on the toilet wall.”

They all giggled like idiots, then Sadie caught sight of the time and a jolt of adrenaline rocketed through her. The car would be here in twenty minutes.

“You guys had better get dressed,” she advised.

“Remind me again how you talked me into this dress,” Grace muttered as she unzipped the long, figure-hugging, strapless red sheath that had been tailor-made for her bombshell figure.

“Let me see… Because I am Bridezilla, and I must have my way?” Sadie suggested lightly.

“And because you were outvoted two to one,” Claudia said as she slid into her pint-size version of the same dress. Although she was petite, Claudia’s figure was still feminine, and the red fabric clung to her curves. With her olive skin and almost-black Greek eyes, she looked stunning.

“Oh, God.”

Sadie turned from contemplating Claudia’s dark beauty to see that Grace had pulled on her dress and stepped into her stiletto heels. Red silk outlined her classic hourglass figure, zooming in dramatically at her tiny waist, and then out again for her fantastic, sexy hips. She looked like Veronica Lake and Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe, all rolled into one sexy, hot mama.

“Hubba, hubba.” Sadie hooted approvingly.

Grace blushed a fiery red to match the dress. “I look like an overcooked hot dog,” she said gruffly. “If one of these seams gives, duck for cover.”

Sadie laughed and shook her head. They looked beautiful. Red had been the ideal choice for both of them, and the classy dress set off their different figures to perfection.

“I think we need more champagne,” she said, moving across to where the last bottle rested on ice. She and Grace had already guzzled a whole bottle while their hair and makeup was being done—Claudia being a staunch teetotaler—but Sadie figured the alcohol would help settle her growing nerves.

She was getting married! Her mind turned briefly to Greg Sinclair, the handsome blond man she would soon call husband. She wondered what he was doing, how he was feeling. Was he as nervous-excited as she was? Would it be cheating to call him before the wedding?

Resisting the temptation to jinx things by making a quick phone call, Sadie concentrated on working the cork loose from the champagne bottle as Claudia and Grace put the finishing touches on their hair and makeup.

She had to stifle a smile as she heard Claudia bossily telling Grace to not even think about putting on the heavy black-framed retro glasses she habitually wore.

“Banned from the wedding,” Claudia announced firmly.

She was going to make a great producer on Ocean Boulevard, Sadie knew. She sighed happily to herself as she poured out the champagne. Her life was so good right now. It had been cool enough working with Grace for the past two years as script producer to her script editor on Ocean Boulevard, the daytime soap that currently consumed her working hours, but now Claudia would be joining them as producer of the show. It didn’t get much better—doing something she loved for a living with her two closest friends by her side. And, in under an hour’s time, she would be married to an amazing, funny, clever, gorgeous man.

“Pinch me, quick,” she said to Grace as her friend came over to collect a glass of champagne.

“Sure,” Grace said, obliging with a gentle nip on Sadie’s arm. “Better?”

Sadie grinned and slid an arm around her friend’s waist. “Where would I be without you guys?”

Claudia joined them, and she slid an arm around her waist, too. Across the room, the mirror reflected their images back at them and Sadie couldn’t help smiling. What a mismatched set—Claudia the pocket-rocket, string-bean old her and Grace the va-voom vamp.

“I love you guys. Thanks so much for doing this with me,” she said.

Claudia and Grace squeezed their arms tighter around her waist, and she had to stare at the ceiling for a few seconds and blink like crazy to avoid crying.

“Suck ’em back in, Sadie—no brides with panda eyes on our shift,” Claudia said encouragingly.

Sadie laughed, the humor helping to restore her equilibrium. Bang on time, the doorbell rang.

“God, the car’s here already,” she said, her nerves ratcheting up a notch.

The next five minutes were spent in a bustle of activity as they gathered all the items Grace and Claudia considered necessary to maintaining her appearance through the ceremony and reception—including the rest of the bottle of champagne. Her bridesmaids spent another five minutes out in the street discussing the best way for Sadie to sit on her skirt, until finally Sadie stepped past them and squished herself into the seat.

“Easy,” she said when they stared at her, scandalized.

The church was a ten-minute drive away, and she sat back and tried to let the sunny blue sky soothe her. It was useless, however—her brain was like a hamster on a wheel. What if she forgot her vows? She’d always been hopeless at remembering lines. And what if she tripped when she walked up the aisle and her skirt flipped up and—God! Had she even remembered to put underwear on? She clapped a hand to her hip, but was unable to feel anything through all the layers of fabric.

She turned to Claudia on her right. “Did I put underwear on? Can you remember?” she asked urgently.

Claudia patted her arm reassuringly. “You need to stop thinking, sweetie,” she said firmly.

Sadie opened her mouth to protest, then her sense of humor caught up with her and she collapsed into laughter.

Which was why she almost missed seeing her uncle Gus standing out front of the church, frantically waving the driver on as they approached. At the last minute, however, as the car swept past the church, she registered the formally dressed man gyrating like a maniac on the sidewalk.

Swiveling in her seat, she craned her neck to look out the rear window and confirm it really was Gus, and that they really had driven straight past the church.

“Um…hello?” she said, leaning forward to tap on the glass dividing the back of the limo from the driver. “Wasn’t that the church back there?”

“Yeah, but we got waved on. I’m going to do a lap,” the driver explained.

Sadie sat back with a thump and stared first at Claudia and then Grace.

“What the hell?” she finally asked.

Both her friends were looking equally confused.

“Maybe they’re waiting on something,” Grace suggested.

Sadie bit her lip. A horrible, dark thought slithered into her mind and she tried not to look in its direction. It was useless, however—she worked on a daytime soap. She’d written or helped plot this scene too many times over the years. Happy bride, perfect day, laughter—then disaster. Dead groom. Groom gravely ill due to car accident. Revolt in groom’s far-off European principality—she’d done them all over the years.

“Can we go back, please?” she asked the driver anxiously. “I don’t want to do a lap of the church.”

“But—” the driver objected.

“You heard the bride. Turn the car around,” Claudia ordered, her producer’s voice firmly in place.

Sighing audibly, the driver spun the wheel and the car turned back toward the church.

As they approached from the opposite direction, Sadie could see her uncle had been joined by her pale-faced aunt, Martha. His shoulders were slumped and he shook his head as they discussed something intently.

“Oh shit,” she whispered under her breath. Another series of worst-case scenarios flitted across her mind: groom runs off with best friend. Bomb threat on church. Groom turns out to be bride’s secret brother.

“I know what you’re thinking, and I know it’s hard to rein in that imagination of yours because of what we do for a living, but this is not Ocean Boulevard,” Grace said firmly. “It’s probably something lame like the priest has had too much altar wine, or Greg’s allergic to his boutonniere.”

Sadie took a deep breath and forced herself to let go of the awful, over-the-top scenarios racing across her mind. Grace was right. She was overreacting. She wouldn’t go borrowing trouble—she’d simply face whatever was wrong and deal with it.

Her uncle must have heard the car, because he turned and frowned as the limo came to a halt.

Despite her vow to herself, Sadie leaned across Claudia to push the door open, unable to wait for the chauffeur to do it. Claudia slid out instantly, turning to help Sadie drag herself and her silk train from the car. The click of heels on the pavement told her that Grace was circling the car from the other side, but all Sadie’s attention was on Gus.

“What’s going on?” she asked. She was clutching her bouquet in a death grip, her knuckles white.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Gus said, and Sadie knew then, without a doubt, that she was about to have a Soap Wedding.

Behind her, she heard Grace’s swift, shocked intake of breath, and Claudia muttered a four-letter word.

“He’s not here?” Sadie guessed, taking a stab at which soap cliché she was about to get sucked into. Of course, she could rule out a few right from the start. To her knowledge, Greg was not the prince of some far-flung European country. And she was pretty sure he wasn’t her brother, given that he was the spitting image of his father. Also, her two best friends in all the world were standing behind her, so neither of them had run off with him.

“He had a note delivered,” Martha said, handing over a plain letter-size envelope.

Sadie stared down at it for a long moment before passing her bouquet to Grace. Her hands were trembling as she slid a finger beneath the seal and tore the envelope open. There was a single piece of paper inside. Greg had gone to the trouble of printing it, she saw, rather than writing it by hand. She had a flash of him mulling over the composition of the letter on his notebook computer, adding and deleting words as he pondered how best to break it to her. He obviously hadn’t mulled for too long, however. The note was devastatingly short.

Dear Sadie,

I know I’m the one who wanted to hurry, but you were right. It’s too soon to get married. Don’t worry, I’ll pay for everything. I just need some time to get my head together. Forward the bills as they come.

Yours, Greg

Her hand dropped to her side and she blinked back the storm of tears that was pressing against the backs of her eyes. That was it? He was dumping her at the altar, and she only got a handful of words?

“What did he say?” Claudia asked.

Sadie held out the letter. There was a short silence as Claudia and Grace read the note then passed it to her aunt and uncle.

“He never said anything, hinted at anything…?” Martha asked, bewildered.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Claudia’s head come up.

“You mean like, ‘Sadie, I don’t think I’m going to turn up tomorrow’? That kind of thing?” Claudia asked in a dangerously calm voice.

Sadie laid a hand on her arm. “Claud,” she said. This was not her aunt’s fault. She was a good woman who’d done her best to fill in the gaps in Sadie’s life when her parents were killed in a car accident seven years ago. Martha was blown away—as they all were.

“I can’t believe this,” Grace said, her eyes scanning over and over the few words on the note. “This is…unbelievable.”

Sadie lifted her eyes to contemplate the stately church in front of her.

Inside, more than two hundred of her and Greg’s friends and relatives were waiting to celebrate their wedding. The men would be in suits, the women in gorgeous-but-deadly designer high heels that they knew they’d regret by the time the reception was over. In their cars, presents would be sitting, wrapped and ready to put on the gift table once they arrived at the reception. Toasters, kettles, towels, glassware. The wherewithal to set up a new home. Her and Greg’s new home.

She hoped they’d all kept their receipts.

She clenched her hands together as a wave of humiliation and hurt threatened to descend. She wanted nothing more than to turn on her heel and get the hell out of here. To pretend that she had never been so foolish as to believe the words of handsome Greg Sinclair when he’d looked into her eyes and told her he adored her. That he wanted to marry her, as soon as possible. That he’d never felt more sure of anything in his life.

“Let’s go,” Claudia said decisively. She gestured toward the waiting car where the chauffeur was doing his best not to look too interested in what was going on. This would be a bit of a treat for him, Sadie reflected distractedly. A twist on the usual.

“Yes, your friend is right, sweetheart,” Gus said. “You go, and we’ll let everyone know that there’s been an incident, and the wedding’s been postponed.”

Sadie winced at her uncle’s choice of words. She knew he thought they’d save her face, but everyone in the church would know the truth. It was pretty damned obvious what had happened—the groom hadn’t shown up.

She could imagine them all whispering behind their order-of-service booklets while she stood outside trying to work out what to do. Why is it all taking so long? Where’s the groom? Shouldn’t he be waiting at the altar?

Suddenly it all felt suffocatingly familiar. The refrain from Sheryl Crow’s “All I Wanna Do” tinkled its way through her mind, and for a horrible moment she was standing in the middle of the gym again as her classmates mocked and pitied her.

“No!” she said suddenly, determined to shake the past off.

Everyone stared at her.

“No, what?” Grace asked.

“No, I’m not going,” Sadie said. She turned toward the church and started walking before her courage failed her.

The others scrambled to keep up.

“You don’t have to do this, Sadie,” Claudia said, trying to hustle in her ankle-length sheath and high heels.

“Yeah, I do. They’re my friends and family. I invited them all here,” Sadie said with determination.

“We can do it,” Grace said, dodging in front of her. “Let us do it. Please.”

“I want to do it,” Sadie said through gritted teeth. “I need to do it.”

It was true. She knew they’d all feel sorry for her, and she didn’t want or need their pity. Would do anything to avoid it, in fact.

Grace slowly stepped aside, and Sadie continued her headlong march toward the church door. The coolness of the vestibule enveloped her as she pushed open the ornate double doors. She almost tripped on her voluminous skirts, and she looked down to see her train had gotten caught in the door. She felt tears looming again as she tugged her dress loose, as though the act of pausing had allowed the shame and hurt to catch up with her.

God, she couldn’t do this. But she had to. For herself. She took a step forward.

“Wait,” Grace said.

Sadie steeled herself to be firm again, but Grace pointed at her mouth.

“You’ve got lipstick on your teeth,” she said quietly.

Sadie rubbed her thumb across her incisors and smiled for her friends.

“How’s that?”

“Good,” Grace said tightly.

Nodding her thanks, Sadie grabbed a big fistful of silk and lifted it to her waist so she could walk more freely. Claudia and Grace stepped ahead of her, their expressions tortured as they shoved the inner doors open for her.

An abrupt silence fell as two hundred and twelve people swiveled in their seats to stare at her as she stood at the top of the aisle. At the front of the church, the organist gasped with surprise and automatically dropped her hands down onto the keyboard. The first few notes of “Here Comes The Bride” sounded before the woman snatched her hands away, blushing furiously.

Humiliated heat rushed to Sadie’s cheeks as the echoes died. Eyes straight ahead, she strode briskly up the aisle toward the altar where the priest, Father Baker, was eyeing her sympathetically.

Claudia and Grace flanked her, their faces set. Sadie had no idea what her own face was doing. She was just concentrating on not crying, not throwing up and walking. That was about all she could handle at the moment.

The priest came down off his three-step elevation to meet her.

“Sadie, my dear,” he said, reaching out a hand.

“I’m sorry for wasting your time, Father,” she said stiffly. “If you’ll give me a moment, we’ll get out of your hair.”

He looked surprised when she swept past him and stepped up to the microphone on the pulpit. Flicking the switch on the microphone’s side, she took a deep breath and lifted her gaze at last to confront her waiting audience.

Every last person was holding their breath. Some of them were even leaning forward in anticipation. It was almost funny. Almost.

“Sorry to keep you all waiting,” she said. Her voice broke on the last word, and she cleared her throat and blinked back the tears that had rushed to her eyes. She was not going to cry. Not yet.

She felt Grace’s hand on her back as her friend moved behind her. The warm knowledge that Grace and Claudia were here helped her focus.

“As you might have noticed, we seem to be short a groom. Don’t you hate that?” she said wryly.

Her audience stirred, and a few people tittered. They hadn’t expected wise-cracking, but it was all she had to offer at the moment.

“I don’t suppose anyone wants to volunteer on short notice?” she asked, raising an eyebrow and looking around, pretending she was waiting for someone to step up to the plate. More embarrassed laughter and uncertainty from her audience. “Can’t be tempted? Bummer. I guess it’s party time, then. And I expect to see each and every one of you at the reception—Greg has assured me he’s paying, so let’s make sure we blow out the bar tab.”

Pinning a bright, confident smile on her face, Sadie stepped back from the mike.

Claudia’s face was pale as she helped gather up Sadie’s skirts so she could march back up the aisle.

“Are you sure…?” Claudia asked in an undertone. “I mean, the reception…?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

Sadie had no idea how she was going to get through finger food plus three courses, but somehow she had to.

There was a muted murmur as she strode up the aisle, head high.

Then she was outside, heading toward the limo. The chauffeur hastily butted out his cigarette and leaped to open the door for her. She practically dove into the rear of the car, one hand reaching for the half-full champagne bottle before her dress train had even made it through the door. All pretense at grace or composure gone, she lifted the bottle to her mouth and guzzled greedily. A small rivulet of golden champagne trickled over her chin and down between her breasts. She didn’t give a hoot.

Claudia and Grace wedged themselves in beside her, and Claudia reached over to secure the seat belt over the scrunched-up folds of Sadie’s dress.

Sadie took another hearty slug of champagne before speaking.

“I hope you’ve broken those shoes in, ladies, because tonight we are dancing,” she announced bravely.



DYLAN ANDERSON SMILED to himself as he pulled down the last photo from the corkboard in his office. It had been taken using a Polaroid camera during a long, crazy afternoon in the story room when everyone had been banging their heads against the wall, trying to come up with something to fill sixty minutes of commercial television for Box-Office Cable’s hit drama, The Boardroom. The smile turned into a grin as he studied the shot—six grown, adult people crowded together, their features hopelessly distorted by the adhesive tape they’d used to fix their faces into weird, strange configurations. It was puerile, adolescent—and that was being generous. Particularly given the net total of their salaries. But sometimes the pressure cooker of the writers’ room had to blow. And, in his experience, something strange, funny and wonderful always came out of it.

Okay, maybe the day of the taped faces wasn’t the best example of the phenomena—but it was a great memory, which was why he was taking all his Polaroid shots with him. Each one represented a moment he wanted to remember. The Boardroom had been his best TV writing experience to date, a rare convergence of inspired creator, simpatico writing team and talented directors, cast and crew. An absolute gift, from beginning to end. But Dylan had still opted not to renew his contract with the show for another year.

He’d been tempted. It was always tempting to stay where you knew you were appreciated, and your work was consistently affirmed by the television industry in the form of award nominations, stellar reviews and high ratings. But Dylan had never been the kind of guy to rest on his laurels. Despite what certain people in his past might think. He had goals, and nothing short of the extinction of the entire human race was going to stop him from achieving them.

His hand dropped to the thick envelope sitting on his desk, already addressed and ready for the courier to pick up. His feature screenplay, finished at last. The first of many, he hoped. Ready to send off to his agent so she could begin shopping it around. He patted the envelope, thinking of all the long hours he’d spent plotting the damned thing, writing, rewriting, then rewriting again to get it where he wanted it.

He allowed himself to feel a small moment of pride as he contemplated the achievement on the very simplest of scales—he, personally, had written over ninety pages of screenplay. Spelled the words correctly. Even got the grammar and punctuation right, give or take a few colloquial exceptions. The man—boy, really—he’d been fourteen years ago would have been astonished. But that boy hadn’t known that he had dyslexia. That boy had whipped himself daily for being an ignorant half-wit who couldn’t understand even the basics of stuff that other kids seemed to take in as easily as air. He’d been on a road to self-destruction, spiraling out of control, furious at himself for being kicked out of school, looking for some way to ease the pain…

Realizing that he was standing in his almost-empty office dwelling on his misspent youth, Dylan gave his head a brief, impatient shake. All that stuff was history, water under the bridge. Long gone, done and dusted. Unimportant in the world of here and now.

Stacking the screenplay on top of the carton of personal effects to take out to his car, Dylan spent the next few minutes checking his desk drawers for anything he’d forgotten. Apart from stray paper clips and Post-it notes, he was home free.

His heart felt lighter as he grabbed the box. The Boardroom team were holding a goodbye dinner for him tonight at his favorite Mexican restaurant in Hollywood, and he’d say his final goodbyes then. For now, he was content—happy, even—to be moving on from this stage in his life.

He’d made it to the office door and was balancing the carton on his knee to flick the light off when his phone rang. Frowning, he contemplated not answering it, but his conscience wouldn’t let him walk away without picking up. Sighing, he dumped the box on his visitor’s chair and scooped up the phone.

“Anderson, here,” he said.

“Dylan, it’s Ruby. You got a sec?” his agent asked rhetorically. Rhetorically because, no matter what his response, she always kept talking. She could talk under wet cement, his agent. One of the reasons he paid her a small fortune every year.

“I know you’re keen to put your feet up for a while and give that enormous brain of yours a break, but I’ve just had a very interesting call,” Ruby said. Dylan smiled to himself, recognizing the enormous brain reference as Ruby’s way of softening him up.

“Forget it,” he said firmly. “No. Negative. Non. Not interested. I officially do not exist for the next two months. Then you can start fielding job offers for me again.”

“Dylan, baby, you haven’t even heard what the offer is!” Ruby wailed.

Dylan rested his hip against his desk. Ruby was only getting warmed up, he could tell.

“You’re going to have the screenplay on your desk tomorrow morning. That should keep you busy enough.”

“So you don’t even want to know who’s desperate for a story editor on short notice? Not even a tiny inkling of curiosity?” Ruby asked.

“Nope. Not interested,” Dylan said smugly. He had the next two months of his life planned down to the second—three concepts to develop further for network pitches, and several more screenplays in various stages of plotting. Only when he’d laid the groundwork for the next step in his career would he start looking at in-house jobs again.

“Fine. I’ll ask around the traps, see if anyone else good is available.”

Off the hook, Dylan felt free to be helpful. “Try Olly Jones. I know he was keen to stop freelancing and go back in-house.”

“Yeah, I know. They signed him to Crime Scene last week.”

“Hey, that’s great,” Dylan said, pleased for his friend and making a mental note to give Olly a call. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a full weekend to himself or caught up with his friends.

“You got your big goodbye bash tonight?” Ruby asked.

“Yep. Gotta go home and stock up on the tissue,” Dylan said.

“Yeah, right, because you’re so sentimental,” Ruby scoffed.

“I’m an emotional guy,” Dylan defended.

Ruby made a rude noise. “Anyway, I’ll call you once I’ve read the script,” she said.

“Sure. See you.”

Before he could put the phone down, Ruby spoke up again, her tone exasperated. “You’re really going to let me hang up without even asking which show it was? You could really do that?”

“Yep.”

“And you call yourself a writer! Where’s your natural-born curiosity and nosiness?”

“It’s not going to work, Ruby,” he said good-naturedly. “I’ve got too much to work on to even consider it.”

“Fine. It’s just I know you like the show, I thought you’d be tickled to work on it,” Ruby said. He could almost see her shrugging her big shoulder pads.

“Ruby…”

“Fine. Don’t work on America’s number-one daytime soap. See if I care.”

He was about to end the call, but he hesitated for a beat, his interest well and truly caught.

“You mean, Ocean Boulevard?”

“The one and same,” Ruby said smugly. “Apparently, their story ed’s written himself off for six months or so in a car accident.”

“Yeah?” Dylan said, his mind ticking over at about a million miles a minute. Sadie Post worked on Ocean Boulevard, had done for the past four years. He’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know that in the small industry they worked in.

He couldn’t even think her name without feeling a burning resentment. A series of images flashed across his mind’s eye—Sadie staring at him with burning intensity as she humiliated him in class by peppering him with questions she knew he couldn’t answer; the impatient disgust on his guidance counselor’s face as he kicked him out of school; his father’s contemptuous acceptance that flipping burgers was all his ignorant son was good for.

“Dylan. You still there? Hello?” Ruby said.

“Keep talking,” he said after a long moment.

Maybe he wasn’t as busy as he’d thought.



TEN DAYS LATER Sadie drove into her assigned parking spot at the Ocean Boulevard production offices in Santa Monica and pressed the button to bring the roof down on her Audi TT convertible. She checked her appearance. Her hair looked windblown, but it matched the tan she’d gained on her honeymoon-for-one in the Caribbean and she figured it was the least of her problems. It was amazing how things like convertible-hair suddenly gained perspective when you had a real crisis to deal with. Nothing like being stood up at the altar to give a girl a reality check.

Grabbing her satchel, she swung her legs out of her low-slung car and pushed herself to her feet. She couldn’t wait to get into work. She imagined her desk, overloaded with scripts and story lines for her to read, and felt pathetically grateful. Ocean Boulevard was her sanctuary, her solace. She knew it would take all her energy and focus, and then some. Its comforting embrace would get her through the next few months. She was banking on it.

Not that she was a basket case. Far from it. She was good, solid.

Okay, she wasn’t about to kick up her heels and dance a jig, but she wasn’t a sniveling wreck, either. After ten days of self-pity in the Caribbean, she’d picked herself up and dusted herself off. Life went on, and so would she. It was that simple.

Recovering was a little easier given that she still hadn’t heard from Greg. She told herself she liked it that way. If she never spoke to him again, she could pretend the whole six months she’d thought she was in love with him had been a hallucination.

Striding toward the building, she switched her focus firmly to work. She hadn’t had a chance to download any of the story lines that had been written while she was away, but she could spend the day catching up before the team pitched her their ideas for the week’s episodes on Tuesday morning.

She mentally reviewed the show’s story strands from a week and a half ago as she breezed past the receptionist and into the open-plan office. Set in Santa Monica, Ocean Boulevard centered around a group of people living in a Spanish mission-style apartment block on the street of the same name. The show ran an hour a day, five days a week, so there was always plenty of work to keep her busy.

A couple of heads came up as they spotted her, but she waved and flashed a bright, confident smile. Nothing to see here, her expression said. No tragedy to pick over. Please, move on.

Her office looked exactly the same as when she’d left it, except for a vase full of fresh tiger lilies on her desk return. Claudia being thoughtful, she guessed.

Slinging her satchel on top of her filing cabinet, she hit the power button on her computer and waited for it to boot up. She was typing in her password when Claudia appeared in her office doorway.

“I knew you’d be in early, you workaholic,” Claudia said. Her tiny frame was encased from head to toe in black, her signature color.

“Holiday’s over,” Sadie said, clicking through to her e-mail program.

“Hmm. I don’t suppose the gutless wonder has made contact yet?” Claudia asked, referring to Greg.

“Nope, thank God,” Sadie said. “I have nothing to say to him.”

Claudia raised a disbelieving eyebrow, but let the subject go.

“We need to have a quick work powwow,” she said, switching to producer mode. Propping a hip against Sadie’s bookcase, she tucked her hands into her trouser pockets. “Don’t freak, but Joss had a car accident while you were away. Broke his pelvis in three places.”

Sadie gasped. “Oh, my God. Is he okay? Was anyone else hurt?”

“No. The idiot was test driving a Porsche on Toyopa Drive in the Palisades. A dog ran across the road and he smacked into a tree.” Claudia shook her head as though she still couldn’t quite believe it. Joss was notoriously accident prone. He could find a way to hurt himself in a rubber room.

“Wow. But he’s going to be okay?” Sadie asked.

“Six months before he’ll be out of rehab, but he’s fully covered by insurance, so apart from the joys of physiotherapy et cetera, all is good. Except, of course, we kind of need him.”

Sadie’s eyes widened. For a moment she’d been so worried about Joss’s health that she’d forgotten about the show.

“God, yes. We have to find a new story editor,” she said, her brain hitting a brick wall at the very thought. Story editors—good ones—were like hen’s teeth, difficult to find. Usually it took months to woo someone away from another show, or to headhunt a promising up-and-comer. The story editor was the focal point of the story team, the person who said yes or no to plot lines and drove a show forward. As script producer, the story editor and his or her team were Sadie’s direct reports. It would be her responsibility to find someone to stoke Ocean Boulevard’s furnace with new and innovative ideas now that Joss had taken himself out of the game. Automatically, she reached for her address book, but Claudia waved a hand.

“Relax. I sorted it out while you were gone. We got lucky,” she said.

“Yeah?” Sadie asked doubtfully.

“You’re going to love him. Five years experience in London working on various shows, including their top-rated police procedural, and he’s coming off three years with Box-Office Cable on The Boardroom. I still can’t believe we got him, but he was between contracts and he loves the show.”

Sadie frowned. European experience, credits on The Boardroom—BOC’s gritty depiction of high-stakes corporate life. It was all starting to ring a bell in the back of her mind. A very large, very noisy, alarm bell.

“I’m not sure if…” she said, but Claudia spoke over her.

“Look, here he is now. You guys can chat a little before everyone gets here.”

Sadie felt the blood drain from her face and her stomach drop to the floor as she saw the tall, dark-haired man approaching over Claudia’s shoulder.

He still had to-die-for good looks. His eyelashes were still too long and dark. And his gray eyes were still cocky and overly confident.

She stared at him, all her nightmares rolled into six-foot-two-inches of strong, supple male.

DylanAnderson. Her teen nemesis. And her new direct report.


2

AS SOON AS Dylan saw Sadie Post, all his expectations about working on Ocean Boulevard went out the window.

After initial talks with Claudia, he’d been genuinely intrigued about the idea of working on a soap. The demands of the show—five one-hour episodes per week—meant that an enormous amount of material had to be produced by the writing team. It would be a challenge, and an opportunity to push the envelope. Just talking to Claudia had given him ideas. But he’d be fooling himself if he pretended that was why he’d walked away from his own plans so easily—learning from Claudia that Sadie would not be a part of the hiring process had been the clincher. The thought of her returning from vacation in the Caribbean to find him ensconced as her new story editor had been irresistible.

Despite all his achievements and how far he’d come, the memory of his humiliation in American Lit at her hands remained a sore spot in his psyche. It wasn’t the most mature or rational or noble motivation for taking a contract with Ocean Boulevard, but he figured a guy was allowed a moment of weakness every now and then.

Then he walked in her office door and all his expectations hit an unexpected slippery patch and went skidding out of control.

When he’d pictured this moment in his mind, Sadie had been as forgettable as she’d been throughout their school years—same blah blond hair pulled back into a tidy ponytail, same raillike body in baggy clothes.

But the woman rising from her office chair to face him was an Amazonian goddess. Nearly six foot—had she always been so tall?—with long, flowing Pamela-Anderson-just-rolled-out-of-bed-hair. And her body was no longer skinny. In fact, it looked as though the curve fairy had paid her a very substantial visit since he’d last seen her. Perky breasts thrust up from a slim torso, their curves outlined by a tight black T-shirt. Dark denim jeans clung to legs that were long and lean and seemed to go on forever. Just the way he liked them.

For a second he was so thrown he could only stare and blink. Then he got his game face back on. So, she’d turned into an okay-looking adult. Big deal. It didn’t change anything.

He’d already decided how to play this—supercool, not a single allusion to school beyond the mandatory acknowledgment, nothing that would give her the satisfaction of knowing that he attached any significance or power to her memory whatsoever. This was about burying the past, not resurrecting it. Just because she looked like a bikini model from Swimsuit Illustrated didn’t call for a change of plans.

“Sadie. Great to see you again,” he lied through his teeth.

He even managed a smile—nothing too effusive or sucky, just bright enough to be professional. Extending his hand, he waited for her to shake it.

There was a long, long pause before she extended her own hand. Her skin felt cool and silky as her palm slid against his, and his gaze was caught by her velvety-brown eyes. Warm chocolate spiced with caramel, he decided before he registered what he was thinking and gave himself a mental slap.

Where the hell had that come from? She could have shriveled currants for eyes, or big Bambi numbers—it didn’t matter one iota to him.

“You guys have met before?” Claudia asked, her gaze alert as she glanced back and forth between them, probably wondering why he hadn’t mentioned it in their interview.

“Sadie and I went to school together,” he supplied innocuously.

He was holding Sadie’s eyes as he said it and was thrown when something soft and vulnerable flashed behind them. Another expectation blown away. He’d imagined defensiveness when she saw him. Even indifference—after all, she probably had dozens of scalps on her belt from all the people she’d stomped on over the years. No doubt it was a real bitch for her to remember what she’d done to whom.

But the hurt, tortured look that had raced briefly across her face threw him. Again.

“That’s right. Dylan and I went to the same senior high,” Sadie clarified.

“Really. Dylan didn’t mention it when we talked,” Claudia said, her near-black eyes fixed on him questioningly.

Dylan shrugged self-deprecatingly. “Didn’t see the point. It was a long time ago,” he said. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure Sadie would even remember me.”

A muscle tensed in Sadie’s jaw, the first and only sign that she felt any discomfort at all. Dylan noted the moment with satisfaction.

“Just goes to show, it’s a small world,” Claudia said, obviously accepting his explanation. “Kind of takes the wind out of my sails, though. I was pretty proud of finding you all on my own.”

Sadie’s face was once again under control as she eyed him.

“I thought you were contracted to The Boardroom,” she said.

Betraying color instantly stole into her cheeks. She’d been keeping an eye on his career. Probably waiting for him to be run out of town or told to sit in the corner with a pointy dunce cap on his head.

“I was packing up my office when Claudia’s offer came through,” he said. Settling his shoulder against the wall, he turned the conversational spotlight on her.

“I hear you were on holiday in the Caribbean. Where’d you go?”

“Um, St. Barts,” she said. Her eyes darted to Claudia, and he got the sense that a secret communication was passing between them. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Claudia shake her head minutely.

What was going on?

“I was there a few years back. Did you try the scuba?” he asked, probing a little more. What was the big secret about St. Barts?

“No. I mainly hung out on the beach and read and caught up on sleep. You know,” she said dismissively.

He narrowed his eyes assessingly. He’d assumed she’d gone on holidays with a friend or boyfriend, but it sounded as though she’d gone alone. Was that what the look between her and Claudia was about? He couldn’t quite believe that a woman as attractive as Sadie had to go on holiday alone. Even with his built-in prejudice against her, he could see that many men—okay, most men—would find her attractive.

Of course, there was that personality of hers to consider, he reminded himself. There was only so much bitchiness a man could tolerate for the sake of a sexy body.

“Sounds great,” he said.

“Yeah, it was,” she replied. She shifted her head a little, her hair rippling over her shoulder as she tilted her chin at him. As though she was daring him to challenge her on her answer.

Definitely something going on there, but he was in no rush to find out. Television production offices were always rife with gossip. All he had to do was tee up the right conversation with the right gossip-monger, and he’d know everything from her shoe size to the last time she flossed.

“Why don’t I leave you guys to it, then? Sadie probably needs to be brought up-to-date with what’s happened while she’s been away,” Claudia said, moving toward the door.

Dylan decided to take her departure as the cue to crank things up a little. Time to let Ms. Post know that she wouldn’t have things all her way this time around. Without asking permission, he sank into the chair opposite her desk and propped the ankle of one leg confidently on the knee of the other.

He’d been thrown off guard for a couple of moments there by the discovery that Sadie the Stick Post had turned into a whole handful of woman. But he was over that now.

Time to start setting the record straight.

Sadie felt a stress twitch break out under her eye as Dylan Anderson leaned back in her visitor’s chair and locked his hands behind his head. As though he owned the place, king of all he surveyed.



SHE FELT AS THOUGH she was in a human-size snowglobe, and someone had just shaken the crap out of it. In fact, if all her furniture started floating around her, she wouldn’t be a bit surprised—she felt utterly, completely at sea. Flummoxed. Thrown. Terrified. Furious. In fact, there was a whole mental ward of violent emotions wrestling for supremacy in her brain. For the moment, she was a helpless bystander, waiting to see which emotion would be the final victor.

Dylan Anderson. The Dylan Anderson. Star of her nightmares for at least five years after that horrible, crushing senior prom. The man voted Most Likely to Be Hit by a Car in a Dark Alleyway in her own private, personal yearbook.

And now he was here. Sitting opposite her—slouching, really, already supremely at ease.

She wanted to scream. She wasn’t up to this. She was already on her knees after Greg’s betrayal. This was too much.

Over the years, she’d imagined running into Dylan again. For a while, it had been her favorite indulgent daydream. In her version, she was wearing a designer gown, looking blindingly beautiful as she sauntered up the aisle after accepting her Best Original Screenplay Oscar. He’d fallen on hard times and was working as a seat warmer, filling in for celebrities when they needed to go to the bathroom. Their eyes met briefly—and she sailed right by, cutting him dead, ignoring him completely. Or, in her alternate fantasy, she stopped and took pity on him, insisting he give her a call—she was sure they could find something for him to do around the production office. Emptying bins, cleaning toilets, licking her shoes. That kind of thing.

Instead she got this—him sitting cockily across from her, making the room feel smaller and putting her whole body on red alert.

Whenever she’d cast him in one of her revenge fantasies, he’d always been balding and paunchy, with a pronounced stoop. Sometimes she even gave him missing teeth. Why the hell not, after all? It was her fantasy, and she was in charge of hair, wardrobe and makeup.

But, unfortunately for her, the years had been kind to Dylan. Not just kind, generous. Really, really generous. Although he’d retained his lean, rangy physique, his shoulders had broadened with age, his chest deepened. His thighs were stronger, his biceps more pronounced. She could even see the smooth curve of pecs beneath his dark green T-shirt. He’d moved on from the rebellious long hair of his youth and wore it cropped short and tousled now, one lock flopping over his forehead. Even the lines around his eyes and mouth only made him more attractive, if that were possible. The bastard.

God, she despised him. For a moment, reconstituted hate threatened to overwhelm her as she stared at him. The things she could say to him. Had wanted to say to him, all those years ago once she’d moved beyond mortification and into rage. In the very early days, she’d written him letters. Long, scathing, insulting letters that told him exactly what she thought of him. She may have even been tempted to deliver one of them to him if he hadn’t disappeared after prom. She’d never seen him again after that night.

She’d thought him blessedly gone forever from her world until she’d had the horrible shock of seeing his name on the end credits of The Boardroom three years ago. It couldn’t be the same man, she’d told herself. But a subtle check through industry sources had quickly proved it was. It had been the career equivalent of finishing her breakfast cereal to find a cockroach in the bottom of her bowl. No, worse—half a cockroach.

Since then, she’d checked up on him every now and then, so she knew where he was, what he was doing. Like keeping an eye on a spider that had found its way into her home.

And now he was here, sitting opposite her, oozing masculine confidence like a miasma, waiting for her to say something.

Thank God Claudia hadn’t told him about her disastrous wedding. She’d almost sobbed with relief when Claudia had given a tiny shake of her head to indicate he didn’t know anything beyond the fact that she’d gone to the Caribbean. If there was any justice in the world, he’d stay in the dark, too. Just the thought of him knowing about her humiliating private life was enough to make her feel nauseous.

The silence stretched a long, long time as she tried to shuffle her disordered, chaotic thoughts into some kind of shape. He waited her out, his eyes steady, his expression unreadable. The bastard.

What got her the most was the benign, butter-wouldn’t-melt way he’d mentioned that they’d gone to school together, and that he didn’t know if Sadie would remember him or not. As though his cruelty hadn’t been one of the pivotal moments of her life.

The thought that his treatment of her had barely registered a blip on his personal radar was the jolt she needed to find her backbone.

Last time she’d seen this asshole, he’d bested and humiliated her in grand style.

He wouldn’t be getting a second shot.

Squaring her shoulders, she cleared her throat.

“I gather that you came on board last week, is that right?” she asked.

To encourage the illusion of professionalism, she grabbed a notepad and pen, and hoped like hell that her hands weren’t shaking with reaction.

“Yep. Pretty much just picked up where Joss had left things. The team was great, really on top of it all,” he said.

She bristled at the proprietorial way he handed out the compliment—as if he’d handpicked the team and trained them up personally, not her. As though he was telling her something she didn’t know.

“Yeah, they’re a great team. Very experienced. I’m surprised Claudia didn’t consider getting one of them to step up, actually.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, she knew she’d made a tactical error. For starters, none of the team was really at the stage where they could step up and take over the show at the drop of a hat. And he’d know that after a week with them. The bastard.

Second—and more importantly—she’d tipped her hand. He knew she didn’t want him here. She could see it in his eyes—along with the fact that he didn’t give a damn how she felt.

“Guess you’d have to talk to Claudia about that.” He shrugged, supremely cool.

She swallowed the swearword that sprang instinctively to her lips.

“Since you seem to have landed on your feet so well, we’d best get straight down to business,” she said tightly, determined not to give him another inch.

“Sure. You want me to recap last week’s episodes, or did you get a chance to read them before you came in?” he asked.

She resisted the urge to respond defensively by blaming her late flight for her lack of preparation. She was his boss, not the other way around.

“Just walk me through the salient points,” she said calmly.

“Sure.”

Tilting her chair back a little, Sadie steepled her fingers and tried to look confident and in control.

Anything to survive this first encounter with some dignity intact.



DYLAN TOOK A MOMENT to gather his thoughts before launching into a summary of last week’s stories. Not easy when his eyes kept drifting to the neckline of Sadie’s tight T-shirt.

“Basically, we picked up on the six strands you guys had going—Gabe and Hannah’s romance, Kirk and Loni’s divorce, Garth’s malpractice suit, Honey’s pregnancy, Luther’s machinations regarding the family business and Angel’s high-school dramas. Going over the previous few weeks’ worth of story lines, I thought we’d pretty much milked the divorce scenario as much as we could. So last week we got Kirk to the point of agreeing in principal to a settlement, and signing the papers,” Dylan said.

Sadie’s eyes narrowed as she processed what he’d said. Dylan waited and watched, his eyes drifting of their own accord over her face. She had great skin—sun-kissed, clear. Glowing was probably the way the cosmetic companies would describe it. Except it didn’t look as though she was wearing a lot of makeup to him.

“Future planning for Kirk and Loni is that they reconcile. We don’t want them getting a divorce,” she said.

“I saw your forward-planning stuff,” he said. “I thought we could get a few more twists and turns in there before we got them back together. So, Kirk’s signed the papers—but he hasn’t sent them anywhere yet.”

She stared at him, that muscle flexing in her jaw again. Good skin, and great eyes. Why hadn’t he remembered her eyes? She must have had those back in high school, even if the breasts that thrust up beneath her T-shirt had been conspicuously absent back then.

“And what’s going to stop him from handing the papers over to his lawyer?” she asked.

“This week, I figure Loni’s going to have a visit from an old flame. Someone to turn the heat up,” he said. He grinned cockily, daring her not to like it.

“And next week Kirk learns his brother has died?” Sadie asked, carefully not passing comment yet.

“Maybe. If we can’t find any more twists and turns before we get there,” Dylan said noncommittally.

Her eyes flashed once, briefly, then the calm, unreadable mask was back in place.

“That all sounds very interesting,” she said. “Rather than you going through it all verbally, though, I think I’d prefer to read the episodes, so I can really absorb the nuance.”

Her lips thinned for a moment, but nothing could disguise their plump poutiness for long. She had a very sexy mouth, he judged. Belatedly, he became aware of what he was doing: checking Sadie Post out.

Wrenching his brain back on track, he focused on the main event.

“Sure. You’re the boss, after all,” he said.

She’d been making a note on her pad, but her head shot up at that. They stared at one other for a long moment, then her gaze shifted to something over his shoulder.

“The rest of the team is here,” she said. “I don’t want to hold you up.”

He could have sworn she sounded relieved. The suspicion was reinforced when she stood, signaling the meeting was over. She was rattled. He relished the realization, even as he made himself a promise—he planned on shaking her cage a lot more than this over the next few months.

Instead of responding to her cues, he remained seated, wanting to see how far he could push her. Slowly, deliberately provocative, he slid his eyes over her body.

What was supposed to be a goad quickly turned into a pleasure tour. It wasn’t exactly a hardship looking at her, he admitted to himself as his gaze lingered on the firm, uptilted mounds of her breasts. She had the sort of lithe, elegant body that would look amazing naked. His eyes dropped to her hips. He hadn’t seen her butt yet, but he bet it was peachy. He wondered what kind of underwear she wore, whether she was a believer in the thong.

“You know, I would have walked past you in the street,” he said once he’d lifted his eyes back to her face. He was satisfied to see that she was blushing, her eyes sparkling with anger. “You sure have changed a lot.”

“Yes. You’re still pretty much the same, though,” she said.

She didn’t mean it as a compliment, he knew.

He stood, taking pleasure from looking down on her, even if he only had the advantage of an inch or two.

“You’d be surprised.”

He drilled her with his eyes before he delivered his parting words.

“I’m really looking forward to the next few months, Sadie.”



SADIE CLUTCHED at her desk as he exited her office, allowing herself to at last register how weak her knees were, and that her entire body was trembling with reaction.

Automatically her eyes followed his rangy body as he walked away, dropping to catalog his strong back and lean, trim hips. Well-worn denim sculpted the perfect male ass she remembered from all those years ago. It was still extremely grabbable, she decided dispassionately, the kind of perky male butt that made most women drool.

Every woman except her, of course. She was forever immune to any so-called charm Dylan Anderson had to offer.

She sank into her chair and stared at the notes she’d taken. Jumbled words and a messy, violent doodle filled the page. A pretty accurate depiction of her mindscape at present.

She felt blindsided, overwhelmed. He was the enemy. She didn’t want him at Ocean Boulevard. How could Claudia have done this to her?

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she wiped it out. This was not Claudia’s fault. If Dylan Anderson wasn’t who he was, he’d be the find of the year. A huge feather in their caps, in fact. He’d been nominated for a number of awards for his work on The Boardroom. As much as it galled her, she knew he was well respected. Admired, even.

“Gag me with a cheese grater,” she said out loud, reverting to one of her favorite high-school phrases. For some reason, it felt appropriate.

“Talking to yourself. Second sign of madness.”

It was Grace, already sliding into her visitor’s chair. Sadie felt pathetically pleased to see her, and had to bite back the overwhelming urge to blurt the whole sad saga out on the spot.

“I’m not even going to ask what the first sign is,” she said, hiding the revealing doodle in a desk drawer.

“You know, I can never remember. Is it hairy palms? Or is that masturbation?”

As always, Grace managed to tease a smile out of Sadie, despite her preoccupation. “Sorry, I didn’t have a Catholic education.” Sadie shrugged.

“More pity you. If only you knew the guilt you could be enduring on a daily basis,” Grace said as she crossed her legs. Sadie’s eyes were drawn to the dark purple stilettos on her feet.

“Hey. They’re new,” she said, desperate for distraction.

“Yep. Found them in a little flea pit off Sunset Strip,” Grace said smugly.

The fact that Grace wore a lime-green vintage fifties dress with white piping and belt should have made the shoes a big mistake, but, as usual, her friend managed to pull the look off. With her dark burgundy hair worn long with very short, straight bangs, Sadie reflected that Grace had been born about half a century too late.

“So, what do you think of Mr. Studly?” Grace asked, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.

“I hate him,” Sadie said, then immediately clapped a hand over her mouth. She honestly hadn’t meant to say anything. She’d planned to hold it all in and try to work out some strategy. But the words had leaped out of her mouth as though they had a life of their own.

Grace blinked.

“Really? God, what did he say? He was only in here for half an hour.”

“We went to school with each other.”

“No way.” Grace’s eyes narrowed. “Why am I sensing pent-up teen angst here?”

Ridiculous tears suddenly welled in Sadie’s eyes and she blinked furiously.

“Hey, are you okay?” Grace asked, really concerned now. She stood and started to move around the desk to comfort Sadie.

Sadie held up a hand to forestall her. “Don’t! Please! I don’t want him to know I’m upset,” she said, shooting a wary look out her doorway to where she could see Dylan talking casually to two of his team members.

“Okay.”

Grace sank back into her chair, her face creased with worry. “This guy really did a number on you, didn’t he?”

Sadie took a deep breath and sighed heavily.

“It’s ancient history. It shouldn’t have this much power over me,” she said ruefully.

“Yeah, right. In my opinion, the years between thirteen and nineteen keep therapists all over the world in ski holidays and suntans. Kids can be cruel, man,” Grace said.

“It’s stupid to even think about it. I mean, I’m an adult now. None of that stuff counts anymore,” Sadie said. She didn’t sound even remotely convincing.

Grace wasn’t buying, either.

“I think you should tell Claudia,” Grace said firmly.

“No.”

“Why not? There’s no way you would have hired this creep on your own. Claudia will understand.”

Sadie loved that her friend had already consigned Dylan to the creep category without even hearing her story. She was a true friend.

“I can’t. What am I going to say? ‘He was mean to me in school, make him go away’? There’s no way I can put Claudia in that position.”

“What’s the point of being friends with the boss if you can’t exploit it a little?” Grace joked.

Sadie managed a halfhearted smile.

“What are you going to do, then?” Grace prompted, green eyes worried.

“I don’t know. Suck it up, I guess. It’s only a six-month contract, right?”

From where Sadie was sitting, it seemed like a life sentence, but she knew she wasn’t entirely rational right now. She’d been taken off guard, and all the old memories had rushed up to swamp her. Once she’d had some time to reflect and strategize, she’d be fine.

“Tell Claudia,” Grace repeated firmly.

“The show needs a story editor, Grace. I won’t put her in the position of doing me a favor at the expense of the show. She’s only been producer five weeks. It’s not fair.”

She felt tired all of a sudden. She was tired—she’d been fighting with her back to the wall for too long. Ever since the wedding-that-never-was. All she wanted right now was to close her office door and hibernate for a while. Sensing this, Grace stood.

“You know where I am. And that there’s an obscene chocolate stash in my bottom drawer.”

“Thanks,” Sadie said, smiling for her friend’s benefit.

Once she was alone, the smile faded from her face. Could her life suck any harder right now? She didn’t think so.

She was still in emergency-response zombie mode by the time she got home that evening. She’d managed to avoid anything but the most brief and superficial of contacts with Dylan all day. But she knew that wasn’t going to last.

A hot shower and her floppy pj’s went a long way to restoring a sense of normalcy. An indulgent dinner of Chunky Monkey ice cream and Oreo cookies papered over any remaining cracks in her equilibrium. By the time she’d immersed herself in a couple of chapters from her favorite romance author and was ready to switch the light off, the world had resumed its rightful perspective.

Dylan Anderson being at Ocean Boulevard was a pain, sure it was. But she could handle it. The past was the past, after all. She was a grown, mature woman. She’d learned to drive, voted, had sex and become a homeowner since she and Dylan had last seen one another. None of that old stuff mattered. At the end of the day, he was the same as any of her other direct reports.

She curled into her pillow, anticipating the release of sleep. A few hours of blessed nothing, and she’d be ready to face the world again.

Then she had The Dream.

As soon as she realized she was standing in the school gym, she tried to wrangle her subconscious under control, but it was too late—she was being sucked into the old, old memory.

It was after school, and all the other kids had gone home. She was about to enter the girls’ change room when she heard someone singing, the sound echoing out from the boys’change room next door. It only took a moment for her to recognize the voice. Immediately her heart kicked into overdrive.

She hesitated at the junction of the two change rooms. Then her feet drifted toward the boys’ entrance. She could hardly believe she was doing what she was doing, but her fingers were already trailing along the cold tile wall as she eased her way toward the door.

Heat rushed into her face as she heard the sound of running water beneath the sound of Dylan Anderson’s singing.

He was in the shower. Heat rushed to an entirely different part of her body as she imagined him naked and wet beneath the rushing water.

Her feet moved forward again, and she was powerless to stop them. Her breath was coming in little soundless gasps as she slid along the final row of lockers separating her from the showers. The splash of water and Dylan’s voice seemed preternaturally loud to her sensitized ears. A part of her was astounded at what she was doing. She never did anything daring or wrong. She was a straight-A student, punctilious, safe. She’d never been in trouble for anything at school, but here she was, in the boys’ change room, about to sneak a peek at Dylan Anderson under the shower. Was she insane? Had some vital part of her intellect flipped out all of a sudden?

But despite the clamor of alarm bouncing around her brain, she slid forward. One step. Two. Three. She held her breath as she ducked her head around the corner.

And stared. His back was to her as he stood in the middle of the shower bay, the water pummeling him as he took his time washing. His body was tall and firm, his shoulders broad, and his back tapered down to a rounded backside that made Sadie’s mouth water for something she didn’t even have a name for.

His overlong dark hair was wet, trailing over his downturned face, and his back muscles flexed as he washed his belly. She forgot to breathe entirely as he lifted his head and turned in profile to her. Her rounded eyes took in the smooth, sculpted planes of his pectoral muscles, quickly dipping below to trail greedily down his rippled abs to the area she was most curious about. Between his thighs she saw her first real live penis, and the sight of him, long and substantial, made her press her knees together. Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

He turned fully toward her then, arching his neck back so that the flow of water washed his hair away from his handsome brow. She ate up every inch of the body on display. His thighs were long and lean, his calves curved and in perfect proportion to the rest of him. One hand washed idly at his belly as he closed his eyes and swept his other hand up across his forehead and into his hair.

He was magnificent. So much better than all her fantasies. The thought of him touching her, of being held against his hard chest, of touching the strength between his legs… She was dizzy with desire.

She was so mesmerized, she didn’t register that he was nearing the end of his shower. Suddenly, however, he flicked the taps off and reached for his towel. Her heart nearly exploded in her chest—she would die if he caught her. Just die. She managed to get her frozen limbs together enough to slide behind the shelter of the first locker aisle. Looking around desperately, she saw too late that she was standing right in front of his open locker, and that his clothes were thrown haphazardly on the bench that ran between the rows. She heard the slap of bare feet on wet tile. He was coming her way. Desperate, she fled to the end of the aisle, diving behind a bin full of dirty towels.

Hunched on the ground, arms wrapped around her knees, eyes squeezed tightly shut, she waited to be discovered. Surely he’d seen or heard her? Surely she was about to be punished for her moment of daring audacity?

After a few seconds, she slowly opened her eyes again. The pounding of her heart subsided enough so that she could make out the sound of Dylan dressing. He hadn’t seen her. Chin resting on her drawn-up knees, she tried to interpret the sounds she could hear, willing him to get dressed and leave.

The hiss of an aerosol can: Dylan putting on deodorant. God, she loved the way he smelled. The thump of something heavy hitting the ground: Dylan dropping his shoes, ready to put them on. The clink of metal on metal: Dylan doing up his belt.

She waited for the telltale clang of his locker closing, but it didn’t come. Time stretched, and still it didn’t come. She frowned. Had he gone or not? He’d sounded fully dressed to her. Why would he hang around?

The cold from the tile floor was seeping through her thin gym shorts, and she cursed herself for her impulsiveness. Now that the excitement of seeing Dylan naked was wearing off, she could see how stupid she’d been. How reckless. If he’d seen her, her life would, quite simply, not be worth living.

Finally, after a long, long time, she dared a peek over the top of the bin.

She immediately ducked down again. Dylan was still there—sitting slumped on the bench between the lockers. Curious, she dared another peek. He had something in his hand—a piece of paper. But it was the look on his face that transfixed her. He was upset about something—very upset, if she had her guess. His handsome face was twisted into a sort of desolate resignation. Suddenly, he swore and balled the paper up, then shot it toward the nearest trash can. Slamming his locker shut, he grabbed his beat-up leather jacket and strode toward the exit.

Sadie waited until his footsteps had well and truly faded before pulling the paper from the can and racing to the safety of the girls’ change room. Locked in a toilet cubicle for extra safety, she smoothed the crinkled page flat on her knees. It was the pop quiz they’d just had handed back in American Lit. Dylan had scored an F.

It was no newsflash to her that Dylan wasn’t exactly acing the class. She sat next to him—she knew how often he got reprimanded for not doing homework, or for having the wrong answers when called upon by the teacher. She’d tried to shield him as many times as she could—jumping in to answer for him, distracting Mr. McMasters with questions—but she’d always suspected that she worried about Dylan being embarrassed far more than he did. He was so cool—she’d figured he didn’t give a hoot about anything to do with American Lit. He never so much as twitched when Mr McMasters took a shot at him, and most of the time he had a smart-ass response ready to throw back.

But now she realized he did care. He cared a lot.

And for the first time in over a year of loving Dylan Anderson, hope flared in her heart. Because she knew she could help him. She had something to offer him now. She’d never had a chance of attracting him the traditional way, not with her concave chest and gangly legs. But she could help him pass Lit. It was one of her best subjects. He’d have to look at her then, wouldn’t he? He might even be grateful. They might even become friends.

And then, maybe, he might—

Sadie sat bolt upright in bed, the sheets twisted around her legs. She kicked at them until they loosened, then rolled to her feet. Her skin felt clammy, overheated. Flicking her bedside lamp on, she paced.

At least she’d managed to wake before the rest of the dream unfolded. She pushed her damp hair off her forehead, wishing she could push the old memories away as easily.

If she could take back one moment in her life, she’d erase those few, fateful seconds when she’d heard Dylan Anderson singing in the boys’ locker room. If she hadn’t snuck into spy on him. If she hadn’t seen the look on his face. If she hadn’t been so determined to help him…

Sadie wrapped her arms around her chest, then frowned as she felt the insistent press of her erect nipples against the soft skin of her inner arm. That was the most pathetic, infuriating part, she decided—not that this ancient dream she’d thought she’d banished had returned to haunt her, but the fact that the memory of Dylan Anderson naked in the shower still had the power to turn her on.

She hated him. At the very least, she had nothing but contempt for him. Unfortunately, her body still remembered how much it had yearned for him, how many times she’d cried his name into her pillow when she touched herself all those years ago.

Pathetic. For one thing, she was damned sure Dylan wasn’t pacing the floor somewhere in L.A., thinking about her naked body right now.

It was the wake-up call she needed. Her spine stiffened and the tingling feeling in her limbs subsided as her adrenaline levels dropped.

After a day of reeling in reaction, she suddenly had clarity. The past didn’t matter. What she used to feel didn’t mean squat. This was her turf. She was the boss. This time, things would be different.

She’d show Dylan Anderson that Sadie Post wasn’t a pushover anymore.

If it killed her.

Jaw set, she climbed back into bed. She couldn’t wait till the morning, she told herself. She was actually looking forward to it. He wasn’t going to know what hit him.


3

THE SUN WAS WARMING the edge of the world when Dylan steered his motorcycle into his parking space at Ocean Boulevard a week later. He told himself he was starting early because he liked to be prepared. It was true, to a certain extent—his dyslexia had made him a stickler for research and preparation; it was one of the ways he harnessed his unique way of thinking.

If he hadn’t spent half the night staring at the ceiling, he’d have been willing to buy his own excuse, too. The truth was, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Every time he’d closed his eyes, a dozen different images of Sadie flashed across the movie screen in his mind. Those legs. Those velvet eyes. That bedroom hair. The tight black jeans she’d worn last Thursday. The flash of cleavage he’d caught at yesterday’s lunch break. The long, sensuous curve of her neck…

It had taken a whole week for him to admit it to himself, but he finally had—Sadie Post, poster child for snarky academic bullies, was a bona fide hottie.

He’d never been the kind of man to have too many illusions about sex and his own desires. He was scrupulously honest with the women he dated, and had never told any of them that he loved them, despite knowing that was what some of them wanted to hear. He wasn’t even sure he believed in love— except in a fictional sense, for the characters he wrote about. And it certainly wasn’t something he was looking for in his own life, not for a long time yet, anyway. But he’d also never found himself in a situation where he was attracted to someone he didn’t even like.

And he definitely didn’t like Sadie. The past week had been one long extended wrestling match with his new boss. He said black, she said white. Simple decisions became drawn-out discussions, meetings went overtime—work was a war zone, pure and simple.

Despite all that, the image of Sadie’s long, lithe body refused to leave his mind. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since that first day when he’d walked into her office and she’d stood from behind her desk. He told himself that it was irrelevant that parts of his anatomy found Sadie Post appealing. The last thing he was going to do was to lay a finger on her. He might have had sex with women for a lot of reasons over the years but he wasn’t about to stick it to a grade-A bitch like her just because she had great legs and breasts he itched to get his hands on.

Being so certain on that one point didn’t make sleep come any easier, however, and early this morning he’d finally given up on staring at the ceiling and saddled up his Ducati motorbike for the commute into work. Now he pulled his helmet off and ran a hand through his hair. His eyes naturally gravitated to the lone car in the parking lot, a silver Audi TT convertible. It was a great little car, and he’d toyed with the idea of buying one for a while, but he hated traffic, and the Ducati made short work of L.A.’s world-famous congestion.

Since TV writers weren’t exactly known for being early risers, he guessed the car had been left overnight. Probably someone had tied one on after work and caught a cab home. Grabbing his satchel, he headed into the building, looking forward to several hours of quiet before the rest of the team descended.

Swiping his way through security, he moved toward his office. And froze in midstride as he registered that he wasn’t alone. She was standing in the kitchen area, arms crossed in front of her face as she pulled her sweater over her head. It was an innocuous act—except for the fact that the shirt she was wearing underneath clung stubbornly to the sweater fabric. As she lifted her arms, the shirt rode up her body, revealing an expanse of trim, tanned torso and a flash of lacy white bra.

He couldn’t help himself—he took a step forward, toward her. Then the sweater was over her head, and Sadie was tugging her shirt down and shaking her long blond hair back into place.

As quickly as that, he was hard for her, his erection straining against the fly of his jeans. He grunted his self-disgust. Clearly, his penis was under the illusion that hell had frozen over, that being the only time he’d consider having sex with his new boss and old enemy.

She must have heard him, because her head swung up and her eyes widened as she registered his presence. A hand strayed to the hem of her stretchy white shirt, and Dylan guessed exactly what she was thinking. How long had he been standing there?

His self-disgust at his own lack of control morphed into satisfaction as he saw her uncertainty. He liked her uncertain, wanted to see more of it. Wanted to rock her boat as much as he could, give her a little taste of what she’d no doubt been dishing out to others her whole life. A slow smile curled his lips as he sauntered toward her.

“Morning, Sadie,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed, then her shoulders straightened as she squared up to him.

“Good morning, Dylan. You’re here bright and early,” she said primly.

“Yep,” he said. Then he let his eyes dip below her face, sliding over those high breasts of hers, discovering the denim miniskirt hugging her hips, lingering on the length of tanned leg on display in between the hem of her skirt and the black cowboy boots she wore.

His intention was to keep her off balance, encourage her to

worry a little more about whether he’d seen her impromptu striptease or not. He hadn’t considered what effect his leisurely inspection might have on his nether regions—desire simply wasn’t on the agenda between him and Sadie Post. His body was going to have to suck it up.

Unfortunately, his body had other ideas. Without any permission from him, his erection grew harder still, throbbing with the need to get closer to the tall goddess standing in front of him.

Feeling like a hormonal teenager, Dylan moved his satchel ever so casually in front of his groin. The last thing he needed was for Sadie to realize he wanted her. Not that he actually did, of course—but she might get other ideas if she caught sight of the giant boner in his jeans right now.

His momentary preoccupation had given her time to regroup, and there was no doubt or embarrassment in her eyes now.

“I’ve got notes for you on last week’s block,” she said, crossing to the coffee machine to collect a mug. “Nothing major, just a few continuity issues we need to clear up.”

Dylan waited for her to say anything more, like maybe comment on the high tension in the stories they’d crafted last week, or the powerful emotion of Friday’s cliff-hanger moment—a tear-jerker if ever he’d plotted one. But she didn’t. In fact, she appeared to have said all she was going to as she poured milk into her coffee, apparently supremely unaware of him standing there staring at her, willing her to say more.

“No problems with the Friday cliff-hanger moment?” he asked, immediately kicking himself for fishing. He didn’t need her approval.

She eyed him blandly, not giving him an inch. “It was fine. I expect you’ll be picking it up for Monday’s episode?” she asked.

Fine? His cliff-hanger was going to have fans screaming at the TV set, and she thought it was fine? Dylan clenched his hand on his satchel but deliberately matched her innocuous tone.

“We can discuss it in the pitch meeting at ten,” he said.

She obviously didn’t like the fact that he hadn’t answered her directly. He saw anger flash behind her velvet eyes, but she quickly put her mask back in place.

“It will certainly be interesting to see what you’ve come up with,” she said.

He didn’t miss the challenge in her words. Interesting, his ass. She planned to make this as hard for him as possible. Last week’s pitch meeting had been a polite standoff, but they’d only been warming up. Now, with a full week of push-and-shove behind them, he knew the gloves would be off. He found himself grinning. There was nothing he liked more than rising to a challenge.

“I’m all for interesting,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes at him again, then picked her coffee up decisively.

“I don’t want to keep you from your work,” she said, moving off.

His eyes instinctively dropped to her butt as she walked away, mapping her sweet curves and the lean muscles of her thighs. The surge of renewed desire in his groin annoyed him so much that he called out after her. She was not going to get the better of him, even if her miniskirt was doing most of her dirty work at present.

“Actually, I wanted to have a word,” he said.

She hesitated for a second, then turned back to him.

“Sure. In my office,” she said smoothly.

He followed her with his eyes for a moment more before starting after her. Grudgingly he admitted to himself that she had one of the sexiest damn walks he’d ever seen.

She was sliding into her seat behind her desk when he entered. It was obvious she expected him to take the subordinate’s chair opposite. Instead, he tossed his satchel onto it and took up a position leaning on her filing cabinet, more than aware that she was at a disadvantage with him looming over her.

He could see the exact moment she understood her little ploy to undermine him with office geography had failed. He didn’t even try to repress the cocky grin that curved his lips. As long as he could keep his unruly gonads under control, he was going to enjoy poking a stick at Sadie as often as possible over the next six months.

“How can I help you?” she asked, tilting her head back to look up at him.

His grin widened at her phrasing. As if he was going to let her help him.

“I wanted to discuss the idea of doing a feature-length episode during our peak viewing time over winter to capitalize on the audience. It’s a concept a few of the European and Australian soaps have had a lot of success with,” he said.

She frowned. “You’ve been doing your homework.”

He shrugged. “Ocean Boulevard has a reputation for taking risks. I’m surprised you haven’t gone down this route already.”

She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it with a click. Clearly frustrated, she swiveled her chair to face him more squarely and crossed her legs.

“The idea has been floated a number of times, but the previous producer wasn’t keen. Claudia is more openminded, however.”

He could see it was killing her to give him even that much information. If he wasn’t mistaken, the only thing she wanted to tell him was how far to shove his head up his own butt.

“Great. Let’s pitch the idea to her,” he said.

“Not yet. This is only your third week, Dylan.”

“So?”

“You’ll have enough on your plate just getting up to speed. Taking on a feature-length episode on top of that would be foolhardy.”

He straightened with annoyance.

“I’ll cope. I think we should do this. Or don’t you want the ratings?” he challenged.

She uncrossed her legs and his eyes fell to skim their tanned length.

“Our ratings are the best they’ve been in ten years,” she said coolly.

“So you’re happy to rest on your laurels, is that it? Don’t want to push to the next level?” He made it sound like an idle question, but they both knew he was goading her.

“We start plotting the winter blocks in five weeks’ time. That’s not long enough for you to get a grip on the show, the characters and the team, let alone be ready to tackle a feature- length episode on top of the normal workload. You’ve never had to produce this volume of story week-in, week-out in your career before. I think you should be careful not to bite off more than you can chew.”

Dylan swallowed a four-letter word. She looked so prissy, sitting there with her back straight and her knees pressed together. Even the plumpness of her full bottom lip had disappeared as she fed him her uptight little diatribe. This was the girl he remembered from American Lit—the girl who always had to be right and always had to have the teacher’s attention.

“You sure your problem with this isn’t that it’s not your idea?” he asked.

“Very,” she said succinctly. “I’m also sure that I don’t need to justify my decisions to you, hard as that may be for your ego to comprehend.”

Dylan smirked. “I don’t have ego problems, sweetheart. I know exactly what I’m worth.”

“Do you? I didn’t know you were such a pragmatist.”

His smirk turned into a grin. He was enjoying himself.

“I’m going to pitch my idea to Claudia, see what she thinks,” he said.

That got her goat. She surged to her feet in one lithe move, body tense as she leaned toward him for emphasis.

“Don’t even think about it. You’ve had my answer. Learn to live with it. Once you’ve found your feet, we can talk again.”

“I don’t need to find my feet,” he said through clenched teeth.

She snatched a copy of last week’s block from her desk. Dozens of Post-it flags bristled from the side of the document, a testament to how many changes she wanted made.

“Are you really so arrogant that you think you can walk onto a show that’s been running for over fifteen years with multiple, complex story lines and back-stories and think you’ve got it whipped in a couple of weeks?”

She slapped the document down onto the desk to punctuate her challenge. He eyed the many flags assessingly.

“There were bound to be continuity issues. They’ll shake out in a couple more weeks.” He shrugged confidently.

“You really do have a colossal ego, don’t you?” she said, one hip jutting out as she gave him a dismissive head-to-toe.

“Takes one to know one, baby,” he said.

She jabbed a finger at him and her breasts jiggled in reaction. “First, don’t ever call me baby again. I am your script producer, and you’d better not forget it. Second, I worked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week when I did your job three years ago. I’m not ashamed to say it took a good six months before I knew what I was doing. I’m not afraid of admitting I have things to learn. How about you?”





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