Bared

by Jill Shalvis

  His eyes were on Emma, and she slowly became aware that everyone else’s were, too. She glanced around and tried to looked nonplussed, while her pulse beat unnaturally fast and heavy.

  Even when she didn’t look at him, she could feel Rafe’s eyes on her, pulling, capturing, holding, and she made the mistake of turning back to him.

  A mistake because now she couldn’t tear her gaze off him.

  Rafe took a breath and went on. “But the love of his life is also in that crazy, too-hectic, too-controlled lifestyle,” Rafe said. “She doesn’t realize how much of herself she gives, leaving nothing for anything else. Or anyone else. This breaks the man’s heart, because he wants her to see him, to be with him. To plant flowers in the yard and raise a grumpy old cat together.”

  “Maybe he should find someone else,” Emma said.

  “Maybe he doesn’t want to.”

  “Maybe she can’t be who he wants,” she said.

  “Maybe she’s wrong.”

  All eyes in the room volleyed back and forth between the two of them.

  “Maybe the only woman he wants is her,” Rafe said. “You,” he clarified softly.

  Their observers gasped in concert.

  Emma’s heart went to her throat.

  “In my concept, this man has said a few things in frustration, things he didn’t really mean,” he said. “Her life isn’t boring or staid, it’s just different from his—and he’s incredibly sorry.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I should never have said those things, Emma.”

  At the use of her name, everyone again turned toward her. She felt her face heat up.

  “This is a concept, not real life.”

  “Right.” But he looked disappointed at having to keep up the pretense. “In my concept, these two see each other, they go out, they spend lots of time together, despite all their differences, despite all the things they’ve said to each other, or not said. In my concept,” he added softly, “they work hard. But a relationship, a good one, is worth the hard work.”

  Emma closed her eyes. She felt so confused. Still hurt. And afraid, terribly afraid, that he’d change his mind. That he couldn’t possibly really want her. She couldn’t handle that, couldn’t handle jumping in, giving him everything, only to find out he didn’t mean it. She didn’t have good luck with people being there for her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, looking at him through a veil of tears she refused to let fall. “But we’re not interested.”

  She could feel the stare of every one of her peers, silent, sad, probably thinking she’d just made a huge mistake.

  But it was her mistake to make, damn it. “You can go.”

  “Emma—”

  “Please,” she whispered, covering her eyes.

  It wasn’t until she heard the conference door close behind him that she opened her eyes and took a breath.

  He had left. He really had left.

  Everyone stared at her.

  “Well.” She managed a smile. “Is there anyone else?”

  “You let him go.” The producer across from her, Liz, couldn’t seem to get over this. “You let that gorgeous hunk of a man walk right out that door.”

  “There are extenuating circumstances,” she said, hating every one of those extenuating circumstances.

  “Honey, he just laid his heart bare in front of a crowd of people, and all for you. I would say screw the circumstances and go after him.”

  Emma looked at her.

  She nodded. “Yep. Drag that man straight home and never let him get away.”

  Emma turned to stare at the closed conference door, knowing she’d never forget the look on Rafe’s face when she’d said she wasn’t interested. “I don’t think I can keep a man like that.”

  “Why not?”

  Yeah, why not?

  Didn’t she deserve to have some happiness and joy?

  She looked around at the expectant faces, some of whom nodded encouragingly. “I…” She closed her eyes. “I’m an idiot.” She leaped up. “I have to go after him.”

  “Good girl,” her producer said.

  She raced to the door, then looked back. “I should tell you, I want to cut back.”

  “Cut back…what?”

  Emma smiled, because suddenly this felt like the best idea she’d ever had. “I want to work forty hours a week, not a moment more. I want a life outside of the job. I’ll understand if this doesn’t work for you, but I love writing soap scripts, so be warned, I’ll go to another show if I have to.”

  “Are you kidding?” asked Liz. “Don’t you dare. You just go get that hot man.”

  Emma hauled open the door. The hallway was crowded with people hustling and bustling around doing their jobs. What she didn’t see was a Rafe Delacantro.

  She’d catch him in the parking lot. She started to run, grateful for the flat, beat-up sandals she wore. Racing down the hallways, dodging people left and right, tossing out an “I’m sorry” every time she jostled anyone, she skidded out the front glass doors and searched the parking lot.

  But he was gone.

  21

  “MEOW.”

  “I just fed you,” Rafe said to the cat winding its way around his ankles. He wasn’t really in the mood. He still couldn’t grasp the reality that it was over with Emma, he just couldn’t.

  Puddles bit his ankle.

  “All right, all right. Hold on.” He stood in his living room, a few nails in his mouth, his hammer in his hand, surveying the north wall critically. He’d hung a series of his photographs on the bare wall. “What do you think?”

  Puddles sat and began to wash her face.

  “Thanks.”

  Irena had asked about the bare walls, saying they definitely needed something. She’d suggested pictures of the celebrities he’d taken shots of over the years, or maybe some of the recognizable places he’d been to. Something to exhibit his work.

  He had figured he’d get to it eventually—eventually being later. But tonight, after the day from hell, he’d needed the chore to keep his mind off Emma’s rejection.

  So he’d taken Irena’s suggestion under consideration and decided she was right. He needed stuff on his walls. His stuff.

  Flipping through his photos had distracted him from thoughts of Emma for a while. He pulled out some of his favorites, remembering trips and people he hadn’t thought about in a long time. He’d stayed distracted, a good thing since he didn’t seem to enjoy his own company lately.

  Today especially.

  And man, what a today he’d had, going to Emma’s work with his heart in his hands. When he had learned she was unavailable because she was listening to story pitches, he’d gotten that rebrained idea of pitching her a story.

  Their story.

  She’d listened to him. He knew she had because she’d had trouble breathing. He knew if he’d gone closer, if he’d been able to touch her, she would have been shaking.

  He sure as hell had been.

  But she’d turned him away.

  He looked at the pictures on the wall. They weren’t of any famous celebs or anything currently in vogue such as abstract prints. Just his personal favorites, ones he figured he could look at for years to come and never get tired of seeing.

  The first two had been taken in Africa. There was one of a lion rolling in complete abandon in a patch of wild grass beneath a blazing summer sun, and another of three village women walking away from the camera, wearing their colorful clothes, with baskets piled high on their heads.

  The next few photographs had been taken in Scotland, in the Highlands, far from even a small town. One with the lush green landscape and the ruins of a castle vanishing into a glorious fog, another at midnight during a full moon, the glow highlighting three small huts.

  He figured a nice seascape would look good here, and he wondered where he’d take it. Maybe Santa Barbara, during a summer storm—

  A knock came at the front door. Puddles, looking unconce
rned, continued to wash her face.

  “A dog would have warned me someone was coming,” he said to her.

  She lifted her leg and started in on her private parts.

  With a sigh he moved to the door and opened it, figuring it would be Stone or Irena. Maybe one of his sisters. Anyone other than the woman standing there, wearing a sedate blue and white checkered sundress that looked as if it had come from the set of Leave It to Beaver.

  “It’s my housewife costume,” said Emma.

  “But…” He had to clear his throat because just looking at her made him ache so that he could barely talk. “There’s no shoot today. We’re…done.”

  “I know. Can I come in, Rafe?”

  Without waiting for an answer, she stepped inside, having to brush against him to do so. His entire body tightened at the feel of her soft skin, and he recognized the scent of her as if he’d already mated for life.

  Damn it. Damn her. “I’m pretty busy,” he said, not wanting to hear about why she’d turned him away earlier. “I’m working.”

  She made a low tsking sound in her throat as she moved into the living room, studying what he’d put up on the walls. “You know what they say about working too hard.” Clasping her hands together, she whirled to face him. “It’s not good for you. You don’t take time for yourself, to live, to dream. You…” She took a deep breath. “You push people away. People you don’t mean to push away.”

  He looked into her eyes. “Are we talking about me…or you?”

  She lifted her hands and brought them to the tiny, neat line of buttons running down the length of her dress. One by one she undid them, and because he was shocked, she got to her belly button before his mouth worked.

  “What are you doing?”

  With a little shimmy of her shoulders, she allowed the sleeves of the dress to fall to her elbows. Bending slightly, she continued unbuttoning herself. “I was always sorry I didn’t get to model this one for you.”

  Then she straightened. She spread apart the bodice of her dress, revealing that, beneath the modest, housewife outfit, she wore a red silky camisole and matching silky shorts.

  He recognized it as the match to the black one that Amber had worn during one of the shoots.

  “I’m sorry I rejected your script today,” she whispered, dropping the dress entirely, leaving her in only the barely-there red silk. “It was beautiful. It just took a moment to sink in that you could really mean it, that you could really want me for more than just what we shared physically. Then, when I went after you, you were already gone and—”

  He stopped her mouth with his, just hauled her close and laid one on her, so overcome with the fact that she was here, that she wanted him, that he could hold her. Only when they needed air did he pull back.

  “Rafe—”

  “I love you, Emma.”

  Her breath caught. Her eyes misted. “I wasn’t done with my whole spiel. I thought I’d have to sell myself. Promise you that I intend to be less uptight. That I told the studio I was cutting back—”

  “There’s only one promise I’m wanting.”

  “Anything,” she whispered, holding his hands to her face. “Just ask me.”

  “Love me back.”

  Now her eyes overfilled and two drops slipped down, wetting his fingers. “Oh, Rafe.” She shot him a tremulous smile. “I do. I love you back. I love you so very, very much.” Then she laughed.

  “What could possibly be funny?”

  “I got off easy.” She kissed him, then pulled back, her eyes dancing with love and laughter. “You could have asked me to wear Leave It to Beaver dresses every day—”

  “God, no.” He shuddered.

  “Or maybe naughty lingerie—”

  “Now that works,” he said fervently, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her up against him, loving the feel of her creamy skin barely covered in the red silk. He slid his hand beneath those shorts now, his fingers coaxing a gasp out of her. “But with or without the silk, all I want is you. Only you.”

  “Only you,” she vowed back, and tossed her arms around his neck as he scooped her up against him and strode toward his bedroom. “Only you…”

  Epilogue

  Six months later

  AMBER BURST INTO THE ROOM wearing the kind of wide Cheshire-cat grin that usually meant trouble.

  “I take it that smile means you have a good reason for being late.” Emma adjusted her strapless bra. She stood in front of a full-length mirror in the bra and matching white satin panties with thigh-high lacy stockings and heels. It was a good look for her.

  She hadn’t worked more than a normal, healthy forty-hour workweek in six months, leaving her time to have a real life, which meant she had a little tan to contrast nicely with the white satin.

  She’d been able to see Rafe on a nightly basis.

  And oh, baby, how they’d used their time wisely. She sighed in blissful pleasure just thinking about all that they’d done together in the past six months.

  But now she had to focus. “I need help getting into the dress…” Emma looked at her beautiful veil hanging off the side of the mirror and had to let out a smile. She couldn’t wait to walk down the aisle toward the rest of her life, toward the best thing that had ever happened to her—Rafe.

  “They came,” Amber said.

  “What came?”

  Amber hoisted the box she held until she had Emma’s full attention. Then, still grinning, she ripped into it and pulled something out.

  It looked like—

  “No,” Emma whispered, but Amber only laughed.

  “Yes,” she confirmed. “Our fantasy calendars have arrived.”

  Emma took the calendar from her sister’s fingers and opened it up, gaping like a fish out of water at the sight of the tall, leggy brunette wearing nothing more than white filmy material in a lush Hawaiian rain forest. Glowing skin, captivating smile and the eyes…full of so much it took Emma’s breath.

  She couldn’t stop staring. “My God. This is…me.”

  “Yep.”

  She flipped to the next page, having to smile at the red halter top and denim shorts that made her look…well, hot. “Wow.”

  “Look at the rest. It’s amazing.”

  Emma turned the pages and examined each one. By the time she was done, she was grinning. Laughing, she set the calendar aside long enough to step into her wedding dress—with Amber’s help. Grabbing up the calendar again, she said, “Let’s go. I want to show Rafe.”

  “Not before the wedding! It’s bad luck.”

  That had Emma laughing even harder. “Are you kidding? This calendar is our good luck charm. I bet he’s in his dressing room swearing at his tux as he tries to get into it after months and months of never wearing more than a pair of cargo shorts and a T-shirt. Are you coming?”

  Amber linked her arm into her sister’s. “And miss out on the chance to see the groom, and hopefully his best man—soon to be my groom—in their skivvies? Let’s go, sis.”

  And off Emma went, calendar in one hand, her sister in the other, to see her husband-to-be. Off to the rest of her life.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5100-1

  BARED

  Copyright © 2004 by Jill Shalvis.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A
.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  www.eHarlequin.com

  *South Village Singles

  *South Village Singles

  *South Village Singles