Going all the Way

by Carly Phillips

  His gaze fell to her black jeans as he gauged how difficult they’d be to remove.

  “David!”

  Serena’s sharp tone caused him to glance up guiltily. Perhaps her definition of platonic friends didn’t include undressing each other with their eyes? Pity.

  “There’s someone else I wanted to introduce you to,” she told him, waving her fingers at Aly as the birthday girl dutifully went to mingle with her guests.

  Right, he was very interested in meeting people…as opposed to tossing Serena over his shoulder and finding someplace where they could be alone.

  Afraid he was eyeing her like the big bad wolf with Red Riding Hood, he tried to focus on something neutral. “So, how surprised do you think she was?”

  Serena laughed. “On a scale of one to ten? Not very. Come on, you have to meet Craig.”

  Another male artist type. David ground his teeth together, hoping Serena didn’t decide to try dating this guy now that Happy was out of the picture.

  A lanky man with dark hair and an eyebrow ring appeared in their path, shaking hands with David and engulfing Serena in an enthusiastic hug. The chances of David ever becoming friends with the guy increased drastically when Craig pulled back and grinned at a nearby pretty woman with a shy smile.

  “Serena, this is my incredible girlfriend, Emma Baldwin. Em was a little nervous about meeting you, so no third degree.”

  Serena sniffed. “I wouldn’t dream of putting her on the spot. Besides, I thought it would be more fun just to tell her lots of embarrassing stories about you.”

  Emma laughed, but Craig narrowed his eyes in mocking retribution. “Oh, really? And does David here know all—”

  “It’s lovely to finally meet you, Emma,” Serena interrupted.

  “Same here,” the other woman said. “But I almost feel like I know you already. Craig speaks so highly of you, and of course I’ve seen his work, so—”

  A strange croaking emitted from Serena’s throat, making her sound a lot like the little frogs outside in the velvety spring night. She coughed. “Sorry. Throat’s scratchy. Who wants a drink?” she asked brightly. Or manically, one might say.

  “We’re good,” Craig said, nodding toward the glasses of wine they both held. “But the bar’s set up over in the corner. I should go wish Aly a happy birthday.”

  David followed Serena, wondering where conversation would have headed if she hadn’t discovered a sudden thirst. Someone had turned on a sound system along with the overhead lights, and a strange ethereal music reverberated through the open space, accompanied by a much earthier electric guitar and occasional drum.

  “That’s interesting,” David commented, tilting his head to listen.

  Serena pursed her lips. “It’s a demo tape from someone Aly knows. You don’t like it?”

  “No, it’s good. Different. Has an otherworldly grace, a sort of untouchable quality.” He ran his gaze over her. “But there’s just enough lusty, good old-fashioned rock and roll there, too.”

  “It’s surbahar,” she told him as they stood in the short line at the bar.

  “Su-ba-who?”

  “A bass sitar.”

  “That would mean more to me if I knew what a sitar was.”

  “You know sitar. Remember that Indian restaurant with live music I took you to the last time you were up for Christmas?”

  He’d always arrived for his visits with her in a state of amused anticipation, never knowing for sure where she’d drag him next but confident they’d have a great time. “Actually, Serena, I was here for Christmas a few months ago. But you were avoiding me then, remember?”

  She bristled. “I was not. I told you, I was busy with work.”

  “Yes. That is what you told me.”

  “I can’t believe you of all people would give me grief about this. You were working today, on a Saturday!”

  “This relocation is important.” In fact, if he hadn’t been seeing her tonight, he very well could have worked another few hours. He fully intended to be AGI’s youngest vice president ever and make his family proud, not that they weren’t already, but still…And Lou Innes himself had a trip to Atlanta scheduled soon to check on David’s progress.

  “Having a place to live is important, too,” she argued. “You didn’t think today might be a good time to continue apartment hunting? Then again, if you’re going to live at the office, anyway, I guess an apartment is irrelevant.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No, it’s not. Do you realize every time I called you in Boston, I reached you at the office? No matter what day or time it was, I knew odds were best I’d find you there.”

  He wasn’t sure what to say to that. Yeah, he worked long hours. But she made it sound as if he didn’t have a life, which was nuts. He’d gone to his share of sporting events and even the theatre…of course, he often went with business connections. He dated often, too, although more than one woman had complained about his demanding schedule.

  “What can I get you, buddy?” A dark-skinned man with a lilting foreign accent waited expectantly for their drink orders.

  David requested a beer, and Serena took a bottle of water. She scanned the crowd, and he suspected she’d find more people for him to meet. And he wanted to, really, but not as much as he wanted to savor a few moments with her alone.

  “So, can I get the tour, or is the rest of the gallery off-limits?” he asked.

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Didn’t think you were much of an art enthusiast.”

  “Just because I’m not one of those people likely to plunk down thousands of dollars for a blue triangle on a black background doesn’t mean I have no sense of culture. Besides, since when do you pass up a chance to broaden my horizons?”

  “Fair enough. Come on, then.” Winding her way among the other party-goers, she led David out of the high-ceiling room and into a side corridor lined with stands displaying gleaming pieces of three-dimensional art, some depicting images of the jungle or the ocean, others far more abstract.

  “Blown glass,” she told him. “These are all part of a traveling exhibit, done by a man in Oregon. Gorgeous, aren’t they?”

  They truly were. He tended to associate glass with being clear and colorless, but the artist had trapped a rainbow of color in the smooth pieces. The corridor circled around to a staircase, leading to a second and third floor that looked down on the expansive lobby area. She pointed upward to a suspended sculpture that was clearly the artist’s rendition of the sun, even though it was made up of violets and blues instead of yellow or orange. David hated to imagine the destruction if the spiky spherical piece ever fell.

  On the second floor, Serena led him through a room of canvases painted with acrylics, growing animated enough in her admiration for the artwork that she forgot to be tense because they were alone together. Unfortunately, he was so captivated by the sparkle in her eyes and flush of pleasure that he was uncomfortably aware of their intimate isolation. The buzz of conversation below seemed to be part of a different world.

  “You ever think about it?” He nodded toward a picture that was somewhat harsh in its use of bright colors, but arresting nonetheless. “Pursuing art of some type?” Instead of pursuing the artists she so often dated. David knew her mom had “dabbled” in several mediums, and that Serena herself had worked nights at a community arts center when she was first trying to get her company off the ground.

  She smiled ruefully. “My father would just love that. I spend all that money on a business education and then ‘blow it’ chasing a dream. Trying to make a living as a creative artist would actually make what I’m doing now look lucrative.”

  Her father? It was so jarring when she made comments like that, because she didn’t seem at first glance to be the type who’d care too much about what others thought. But Serena was more vulnerable than people who didn’t know her might guess.

  “You deserve to be happy. And you’re an adult. Who cares what your dad thinks?” The subject of Jame
s Donavan often set David’s teeth on edge, because he’d been on the consoling end of more than one conversation about her father, who might want what was best for his daughter, but who often approached it in a brusque, uncompromising manner.

  Her laugh held an edge to it. “You’re going to tell me to disregard family opinion? Then I suppose you’re not at all concerned with living up to older brother Ben’s distinguished career in politics. Or proving anything to the older generations of Grants?”

  He stiffened. Sometimes he forgot that knowing her so well was a mutual thing. “All right, I admit there’s a lot of pressure growing up a Savannah Grant. We succeed, period. And I want not only to succeed, but to show I can do it well on my own merits. But I’m not letting that run my life. I enjoy my job.”

  “Sorry, I got defensive.” She ran her hand over his arm in a conciliatory, innocent gesture that still made his pulse quicken. “As it happens, I enjoy my job, too. I party for a living, don’t I? I get to be my own boss instead of answering to a committee of suits or dealing twenty-four seven with corporate politics…. Besides, all my attempts at artwork turned out looking like something I would proudly display on my refrigerator if I had a two-year-old.”

  David blinked. Serena with kids? Shockingly domestic, but she was so loving and nurturing that any child would be lucky to have her as a mother.

  “What?” she asked. “You’re looking at me weird.”

  “I had a weird thought,” he confessed. “You ever think about having a family?”

  Her eyes grew wide, almost panicky. “Not really. Maybe sometimes I—no. None of my relationships ever got serious enough to start discussing that kind of future, and even though some women might make it work, after growing up with Tricia, I’m not eager to do the single-mom thing.”

  He tilted his head to the side, considering. “Now that you mention it, none of your relationships ever did get all that serious, did they?”

  That had certainly never bothered him, since he hadn’t liked half of her boyfriends anyway. But it was interesting to think about now, especially since he’d only just started noticing her antsy reaction to things like family and home and long-term commitment.

  “I imagine your parents’ divorce turning ugly left its share of emotional scars,” he added, wishing he could erase any past pain she’d suffered.

  “Please.” She snorted. “Yours are happily married, and I didn’t see you popping the question to any of your past lovers.”

  “None of them were the right girl. Guess I was waiting for someone else.”

  She swallowed. “Well…good luck finding her. You know what? Your party conversation sucks. Let’s get you downstairs where you can get more practice. If you’re going to move to my town and start hanging out on Saturday nights, you’ll have to stop being so serious.”

  Patience. Finesse. “You’re the events expert. Lead the way.” He wanted to get past whatever fears she had about giving them a chance, but he didn’t want to push her into the arms of the closest waiting poet, painter or Greenpeace volunteer. Not that David had anything against those men…so long as they stayed the hell away from Serena.

  He followed her down the curved staircase, trying to rein in the sudden feeling of possessiveness and struggling not to be too obvious about the fact he was ogling her ass in those jeans.

  When they reached the main room again, David saw that the party had mostly split into two factions. The larger group had taken over the lobby as a makeshift dance floor. A smaller cluster of people, including Alyson and her date, as well as Craig and Emma, sat to the side in some padded folding chairs and were passing around an oversized book.

  Serena headed in the direction of her friends, and David was perfectly happy not to have to dance.

  Alyson glanced up with a sly grin. “Hey, wondered where we’d lost the two of you.”

  “Not lost, appreciating the artwork upstairs,” Serena said.

  “Well, now you’re just in time to appreciate the artwork down here,” said a man David hadn’t been introduced to. “We’ve been looking at Craig’s portfolio. We’re trying to get Zach to book a showing.”

  “Zach manages this gallery,” Serena explained, even though David had sort of put that much together on his own. “He’s the one in the red silk shirt, dancing.”

  David had to admit he didn’t usually feel so stodgy in his wardrobe, but his chambray button-down rolled up at the sleeves and his khaki slacks made him the odd man out at this shindig. He nodded around the circle as Serena introduced the remaining strangers—Wes, the man who’d spoken, Summer and an attractive young woman named Billie.

  “I’ll go grab a couple of chairs,” Serena said.

  “I can do that,” David protested.

  “And I can’t?” She laughed. “Don’t worry about it. Stay, get to know everyone.”

  Someone handed him the oversized binder of Craig’s sample work, and David took it almost absently, watching Serena and still trying to perfect that not-ogling expression. He glanced down politely, thumbing through some sketches and realizing they were good. Really good. How did Craig create such a sense of motion in a drawing of a window, a clear sense of golden sunlight in a black-and-white medium? David flipped a page, recalling Serena’s comments in passing about her “starving artist” friend and trying to think if there were any commercial opportunities he could offer someone of Craig’s talent. Suddenly one image leapt off the page at him and David couldn’t breathe. Serena, naked.

  Now there was something he hadn’t expected to see tonight.

  CHAPTER 9

  WELL, IT WAS official. She was going to have to take Aly and Craig out back and shoot them.

  Serena had walked back to the circle, lugging a couple of chairs, in time to see David’s eyes go the size of potters’ wheels. And she’d realized very quickly why. Damn. In the sketches Craig had done of her, she’d had her head turned and almost none of her face was visible. Lots of people could stand next to her and look at one of the finished paintings, never realizing it was Serena in them. But to say David knew her body intimately verged on understatement.

  Why did they have to show him that?

  She should probably wait until it wasn’t Alyson’s birthday to throttle her for not interceding on Serena’s behalf. Not that Serena was embarrassed about posing, just that she’d been making a concerted effort to keep the “David” and “nudity” areas of her life separated. She tried to recall if Billie, Wes or Summer knew she’d been Craig’s model for the Contemplation series. She hoped that Alyson and Craig would be tactful enough not to remark; Emma obviously knew it was Serena, but she was the least likely to speak up in group conversation.

  Serena set down one of the chairs with a thunk.

  “Good timing.” David’s eyes met hers. “I need to sit.”

  A brief electric moment passed between them, but then he flipped to another drawing. “Craig, you’ve got some amazing talent. Don’t get me wrong, I draw a mean stick figure myself, but these are incredible.”

  “Thanks.” Craig beamed in Serena’s direction. “Feel free to bring him along whenever we get together.”

  More time with David? Just what her sanity needed.

  The techno-blues song that had been playing wound down on one last soulful note, and Zach gave up dancing in favor of sauntering toward them. “Alyson, love, I have to leave for South Carolina distressingly early tomorrow morning for the art festival, so how about we move on to cake and gifts now? I don’t want to miss your oohing and aahing over what I got you.”

  Oohing and aahing was probably an accurate prediction. Zach was known for selecting fabulously extravagant presents.

  “You don’t have to twist my arm.” Alyson laughed, waving her arm toward the gyrating party-goers. “Let them eat cake!”

  “I’ve got candle detail,” Serena said, scooping up Craig’s portfolio and carrying it far, far away from David’s curious eyes.

  The Red Velvet cake Serena had picked up this
afternoon was back in a small concessions room where gallery guests could buy coffee and pastries. Alyson joined her only moments after Serena had flipped up the light switch.

  “Hey, shouldn’t you be out there, guest of honor?” Serena asked.

  “I wanted to count the candles, put to rest the ugly rumor floating around that I’m twenty-eight. Let’s not age me a year before my time.”

  “You’re lucky I don’t tell everyone you’re twenty-nine.”

  “Thought you looked perturbed.” Aly grimaced. “Sorry. So many people here are familiar with Craig’s work, it didn’t even occur to me beforehand that you might not want David to see the pictures. After all, it’s not as if he’s a stranger to you without clothes.”

  True. Serena didn’t know why she was feeling so sensitive. Was it because of the heat that had flooded his gaze, encouraging a rebellious answering heat inside her? Or just because she was waiting for him to be judgmental about her stripping in the name of art? David could be more conservative about some things than she was, and she didn’t want an argument on the subject to strain their friendship. As if repeatedly making out with him then pushing him away hadn’t done that already.

  She stabbed a candle into the cream cheese frosting with enough force that the only thing left showing was the wick. Oops. She managed a smile for Alyson. “You should go open your presents.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll be out in a sec, just as soon as I get all the candles on. It was thirty-two, right?”

  “Funny. I can’t imagine why you don’t have your own stand-up act at the Punchline.”

  Alyson vacated the doorway, but the sudden solitude gave Serena time to ponder the conversation she’d had with David upstairs. What had that been about? She didn’t know all that many hot guys her age who cornered women alone at parties to ask them about motherhood, of all things.