Love in the Limelight Volume Two: Seduced on the Red CarpetLovers Premiere

by Ann Christopher

  Rachel shook her head. “Does your brain have an off switch?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” she laughed, but then suddenly experienced a wave of vertigo. “Oh, no.” She pressed a hand against the side of her head.

  “What’s the matter?” Rachel asked, glancing back over at her sister.

  “Nothing. I’m… I guess I just got a little dizzy there.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right? Do I need to pull over?”

  “Don’t you dare. I have to make this flight. I’m probably just dizzy because I skipped breakfast. I’ll grab something on the plane.” Her finger went back to zooming across the tablet on her lap.

  Rachel went back to shaking her head. “Did you get your prescription filled?”

  Sofia looked over at her.

  “Uncle Jacob told me,” she said, answering the unspoken question.

  “Figures. I love him dearly, but lately I swear the man is trying to run my life.”

  Rachel shook her head. “He’s just concerned about you. We all are. Your workload—”

  “Oh, Rachel, not you, too.” Sofia pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “Yes, me, too. You’re the only sister I have and I’d kind of like to keep you around a little longer…or at least until you fulfill your duty as maid of honor at my wedding later this month.”

  “Figures.” The two sisters laughed. After another twenty minutes of navigating through L.A. traffic, Rachel pulled into the private airstrip in Burbank where Limelight usually shared a chartered private jet with a list of other high-profile industry insiders. Given how her day was going so far, she had no idea why she was surprised to find that her wonderful temporary assistant didn’t book her on a flight to Las Vegas.

  “Please say that you’re joking,” Sofia moaned. She had already had her bags unloaded from her sister’s car and Rachel had already taken off.

  The pretty, plus-size woman behind the counter fluttered a sympathetic smile at her. “No. I’m sorry. And we’re all booked up. Everyone is trying to get to the awards ceremony for the weekend.”

  “I know. That’s where I need to get to.” She let out a sigh and then tried to rein in her mounting frustration. If she got her hands on Stewart, he was a dead man. “There has to be something we can do. The chances of me getting out of LAX today will be close to impossible.”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. Like I said, every flight is completely booked.”

  “Are you sure? There has to be some room. I can sit in the back with the stewardess. Hell, I can be a stewardess. Anyone want some time off? How hard can it be to serve drinks?”

  Still shaking her head, the lone booking agent held firm.

  “I don’t believe this,” Sofia said, jerking away from the counter only to come face-to-face with a smiling Ramell, dressed casually in a pair of black jeans and a white short-sleeved top. Instantly, Sofia’s gaze zeroed in on his arm’s bulging bronze muscles. What Ram looked like in a suit versus what he looked like dressed down were two totally different animals, this one much more dangerous to her peace of mind.

  When her eyes shifted across the wide span of his chest, her hand started twitching at her side. She had a sudden curiosity of what it would feel like to run her fingers across it or even lay her head against it.

  Ram cleared his throat and Sofia’s gaze jumped up to his mirrored aviator sunglasses. “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  “No,” Sofia lied.

  “Yes,” the woman behind the counter contradicted. “Ms. Wellesley is looking for a flight to Las Vegas. Unfortunately, we’re all booked up.”

  “Oh, is that right?” Ram’s smile stretched wider. “If you’re looking to hitch a ride, you’re more than welcome to ride shotgun with me.”

  She hesitated.

  “It’s not a private jet. It’s just my own personal plane.”

  “What? You’re a pilot?”

  He chuckled. “I got my pilot license before my driver’s license.”

  “I think I’ll pass,” she said and then tapped her ear to place a call. “Stewart, I need a car.”

  Ram shrugged his big shoulders. “All right. Suit yourself.” He turned and started for the hangar.

  “You know what, Stewart. Just give me the number. I’ll call them. You just call the airline and—scratch that—get me the number and I’ll call them, too.” She asked for a pen from the frowning woman behind the desk and jotted the numbers down. “Thank you.” She tapped her ear and pulled out her phone to start dialing.

  “Excuse me,” the counter girl said, interrupting her.

  “Yes.”

  “Let me get this straight. You’d rather call and wait for a car to come get you so you can fight traffic over to LAX where you’ll wait for a flight that may or may not be available to Las Vegas rather than just get on the plane that’s right there in the hangar and can have you in Las Vegas in less than an hour?”

  Sofia opened her mouth to confirm that was exactly what she preferred to do when the ridiculousness of such a response hit her. She was a busy woman with a million things to do before Sunday night’s award show and she was about to throw away a whole day just because she didn’t want to be on a plane with Ramell.

  “I think I see your point,” Sofia acquiesced. She handed the woman back her pen and then rushed out of the hub. “Ramell! Ramell!” Sofia raced as fast as she could in heels. “Did anyone see where Ramell Jordan ran off to?”

  A few of the guys in the hangar just looked up and smiled as she darted by. When she finally spotted Ram strolling casually toward a white and red single-engine plane, she sped up, screaming his name. “Ramell, wait!”

  “Seems like I’ve been doing that half my damn life,” he mumbled under his breath before he forced on a smile and turned around. “Yes? What can I not help you with now?”

  Sofia pulled up, out of breath, which once again drew Ram’s attention to her heaving breasts. Good thing his eyes were hidden behind his shades or he would’ve really embarrassed himself.

  “About that, um, flight…?”

  “Yes? What about it?” He was not going to make this easy for her.

  “Well, I was thinking…” She smiled. “Since you’re here and I’m here…?”

  Ram folded his arms. “Yeah?”

  “Well…I guess it would be pretty silly of me to try to book a commercial flight and fight traffic and whatnot.”

  “That sort of crossed my mind, too. Well, I actually thought it was more like ridiculous…childish…juvenile.”

  “All right, all right. I get the picture.” She frowned. “So can I hop a ride or not?”

  It was definitely her attitude that rubbed Ramell the wrong way so he said, “No,” before he turned away and continued toward the plane.

  “No?” she echoed and then had to chase back after him again. “What do you mean ‘no’? You just offered me a ride back there in the hub.”

  “That was then. This is now.” He reached the door of his beloved plane and pulled it open.

  Sofia huffed out a frustrated breath. “What’s the difference between now and then?”

  Ram tossed in his lone overnight bag and turned to face her. “Back then I sort of felt sorry for you. Now—not so much.”

  “Wh-what?” she sputtered.

  Taking a deep breath, Ram crossed his arms. “Has anyone ever told you that you really have a nasty attitude?”

  She blinked.

  “Well, it can’t be towards everyone, I suppose. Seems that most people I talk to actually like you. Your clients and studio executives—they all rave about your work and your professionalism. So that must mean this frosty routine is designed just for me. Though I can’t imagine why. I’ve never been anything but nice to you.”

  Sofia’s eyes narrowed. “Is this about to become a sermon?”

  Ram pulled in a deep breath, shook his head and turned away from her. “Goodbye, Sofia. Undoubtedly, I’ll see you in Vegas.” When he started to climb up into the cab of the plan
e, Sofia panicked and grabbed him by the arm.

  “Wait!”

  Carefully removing his shades, Ram turned his head and looked down at the slim fingers that were clutching his biceps.

  Sofia tried to swallow what felt like a sharp-edged rock in the center of her throat while an intense wattage of electricity singed through her fingertips. She could practically see the fine hairs on her arm stand up.

  “Do you mind?” he asked.

  His warm baritone managed to break whatever weird trance she’d fallen into, but just barely. “All right.” She lowered her hand and forced on a smile, but Ram just frowned and stared at her suspiciously. “You’re right. I’ve been a little…”

  “Bitchy,” he supplied.

  “Short,” she corrected. “I was going to say short around you.”

  He rolled his eyes and waited for her to finish.

  “It’s just that…you know a lot of this…merging stuff… I don’t like it.”

  “Actually yes, you made that pretty clear. But it still doesn’t excuse… Let’s compromise and call it rude, shall we? It doesn’t excuse you for being rude.” He glanced at his watch. “Now if you’ll excuse me. I have a ton of things to do before the pre-award party our company is throwing for our nominated clients.” He turned to climb back into the cab.

  “Wait!” Sofia grabbed his arm again. “Are you really not going to give me a lift?”

  Ram continued to pretend that he didn’t feel the heat blazing up his arm when he shrugged off her touch. “Are you really not going to apologize for your rude behavior?”

  She dropped her hand again and pulled up straight, but the one thing she had trouble doing was getting her mouth to work.

  “See you later.”

  “Okay.” Her hand flew back to his arm. “I’m…I’m…” She started coughing.

  “You have to be kidding me.”

  “Oh, God, I need some water.” She clutched her throat as if it needed massaging to get the words out of it.

  “You need to stop wasting my time.” Irritation had finally crept into his voice. “I’m not going to stand for you talking and treating me like I’m something stuck on the bottom of your shoe. Whether you want to recognize it or not I’m a man that has worked and earned a certain level of respect. If you can’t deal with that then I suggest you march your butt out there on the runway and hitch out your thumb and see if you can catch a ride that way.”

  She blinked and then finally whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  Ram cupped a hand around his ear. “Come again?”

  Sofia sucked in a deep breath, closed her eyes and spoke louder. “I said I’m sorry.” After a long pause of silence, she peeled open her eyes. Ram looked as if he was still weighing whether to accept her apology or tell her just where she could stick her apology.

  “I mean it. I’m sorry,” she added.

  Ram nodded. “Fine. I’ll give you a lift on one condition.”

  She should have known. “What is it?”

  “That you keep your mouth shut. I don’t want you to so much as utter a sound,” he said with a narrowed gaze that made it clear that he was being serious. “Think that you can handle that?”

  “Ye—”

  “Ah. Ah. Ah.” He waved a finger in front of her face. “When it comes to you, as far as I’m concerned, silence is golden.”

  Sofia clamped her mouth shut and then angrily nodded her head.

  “Good. Then you got yourself a deal.”

  Chapter 5

  Forty minutes. Sofia just needed to keep her mouth shut for forty minutes. How hard could that be? Turns out, it was pretty hard. Given the fact that she had lost her parents in a plane crash, flying was never her favorite thing. But for the most part, she could deal with it because of all the travel that was needed for her job. But climbing into this plane, much smaller than anything she’d ever flown in, was another thing altogether.

  “How long did you say that you’ve been flying?” she asked, clutching her seatbelt.

  Ram cut her a look.

  “I mean…” She glanced around as they neared the runway. “You’re sure of what you’re doing, right?”

  “It’s not too late for you to get out,” he said.

  Sofia opened her mouth but Ram signaled for her to zip it. Now look who is being rude. She sulked down in her chair. But when the plane raced down the runway, she slammed her eyes closed and prayed. Five minutes later, she finally felt safe enough to pry her eyes open. By then they were coasting smoothly through the clouds. “Well…okay. This isn’t so bad.” She exhaled and tried to relax. “I can do this.”

  Ram just sighed.

  “What? Are you going to threaten to kick me out now?”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  Sofia pulled in a long breath while she stared at his strong profile. She tried to hold on to the years of anger that she’d felt for the Jordans. In her head, she could still hear her father yelling and accusing Emmett Jordan of being a backstabber. From that day on, she grouped father and son together. But was that really fair?

  She jerked at the rogue question and then squirmed in her seat because she didn’t really want her subconscious to answer it.

  Ram snuck another glance to his right and noticed how stiff Sofia looked in her seat. “Unbelievable,” he mumbled under his breath.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” he lied with a shrug.

  “That was not nothing,” Sofia challenged. “What is it? Spit it out.”

  After a couple of more shrugs, he decided to come clean. “I was just noting how…uptight you are.” He looked over at her again and shook his head. “You’ve changed so much.”

  She raised her chin indignantly. “I have not.”

  “Puh-lease. I’m willing to bet that this is the longest you’ve gone without talking on the phone.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “I’m not counting when you’re asleep, though I’m willing to bet that you don’t do that for very long, either.”

  “That’s not true.” Even as she challenged his assessment, Sofia reached for her cell phone to check her caller ID.

  Ram laughed. “Look at you.”

  “What?”

  “If you don’t know then I’m not going to tell you.”

  Suddenly self-aware, Sofia shoved her phone back into her purse. “Whatever.”

  “All I know is that the Sofia that I grew up with knew how to have fun,” he said with a note of sadness. “She used to let her hair down. Run. Laugh. Play in a field of wild daisies…and even sneak kisses beneath the big oak tree in her backyard.”

  Sofia’s heart skipped a beat. The picture of that long lost girl sprung vividly into her mind and there was a twinge of longing that came swiftly and overwhelmed her. She pulled her face away and stared out at what seemed like an endless sky of white clouds.

  “It’s like we’re floating in a dream,” she whispered.

  Ram smiled. “That’s why I like flying. When you’re up here, the world and all its problems just fade away.”

  Sofia sucked in a deep breath and listened to just the steady hum of the plane’s engine and single propeller. It did sort of have a calming effect and there was no denying the beauty surrounding her. “I see what you mean.”

  He chanced another look at her and was pleased to see the tension in her face had disappeared and her posture had relaxed. Sofia turned her head, met Ram’s gaze and fluttered a smile before she remembered that she was supposed to be keeping her distance. Jerking her head away, she then looked at the time.

  Twenty minutes.

  “I should have known that that wasn’t going to last long,” Ram commented.

  “What?”

  “You keeping your guard down.” He let a wave of silence drift over them. “Do you really hate me that much?”

  Sofia’s mouth sprang open, but then her words got caught up in her throat.

  “I see.” Ram trained his eyes back onto the sky in front of him
and pretended that he didn’t feel the slight pinch in his throat.

  “I don’t hate you,” Sofia whispered and cleared her throat. “It’s just…” She struggled for the right words and then just ended with, “I don’t hate you.”

  “That’s good to hear.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “Even though I don’t quite believe it.”

  Sofia squirmed in her chair.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter,” he said, but then thought about it. “But it would be nice if we could somehow figure out a way to have some kind of cordial relationship since we are going to be working together.”

  She sucked in a deep breath.

  “And yes, it’s still duly noted that you’re against the merger. But that’s already behind us. Moving forward, I think the best thing we can do for our employees is to show a united front. I know that’s what your uncle and I both want.”

  Silence.

  “Or not,” he amended, feeling his frustrations returning. “It’s up to you. We can pit the Limelight employees against the A.F.I. employees and see how far that gets us. But I’m willing to bet not far.”

  Sofia took another deep breath and then said, “I’m being stubborn, aren’t I?”

  “That’s…one word I would’ve used.” He smiled. “If I was going to keep it PG.”

  That won a second smile from her. Still she was conflicted about letting go of a grudge she’d held for so long against the Jordans. “How about we strike a deal?”

  Ram laughed. “It’s always about the deal with you, isn’t it?”

  “What can I say? Negotiating is in my blood.”

  He nodded. “All right. What kind of deal are we talking about?”

  “My client list,” she said, crossing her arms. “No dividing it up. My people are my people.”

  Ram threw his head back and laughed. “Now why didn’t I see that coming?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you had mistaken me for someone who gives up.”

  “Never that, baby girl. Never that.” He shook his head.

  “Well?”

  He tugged in a breath. “The point in me taking the list was to lighten your workload.”

  “Do you want to end the stalemate or don’t you?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I do, but—”