She wrinkled her nose. “Who’s Em-roll?”
“He’s a chef.”
“Oh. He cooks food like my mommy?”
He bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing out loud. “Sort of.”
“Uh-oh.”
His heart dropped. “What uh-oh?”
“I need my pink spoon,” she said with a grimace, holding up the plain metal one he’d given her.
“Pink spoon?”
She closed her eyes and nodded.
What difference does a spoon make? Knowing that was a debate he was more than likely to lose, he gritted his teeth and opened the drawer again. There were ten different pink spoons. Figures. He decided to play it safe, scooping them all out in his fist and plopping them on the table. He watched Hannah and sucked in his breath, waiting. She looked at them all thoughtfully, then with a big smile, she picked out the one she wanted and started to eat her pudding.
Ben sank into the chair behind him. Crisis successfully averted. That wasn’t so hard. See? He could act like a father. But before he could pat himself on the back further, his cell phone rang.
“Where the hell are you?” he heard as soon as he hit the send button.
He sat back and crossed his ankles. “I’m doing well, thanks for asking, Denise. Why yes, the weather is unseasonably nice. In fact—”
“I don’t have time for niceties,” his agent snapped. “Where are you?”
“New Jersey, last time I checked.”
He heard a sigh and then a gnashing sound he figured to be her teeth. “I know that only because you’re not here in New York—where you’re supposed to be doing your six o’clock interview. Remember?”
Uh-oh. The interview.
Ben straightened. How could he forget something so important? What was the matter with him? Unfortunately he knew the answer to that as he stared across at Sandra’s daughter.
“Oh, yeah…” He forced a cough, his mind racing. “I forgot to tell you I had to cancel it.”
“Why did you have to cancel?” she asked, sounding in a panic.
“Something suddenly came up.”
“What? Don’t give me that Brady Bunch excuse! For the last time, where are you?”
He looked over again at Hannah eating her pudding. She stopped mid-bite, smiled with chocolate-covered teeth, and stuck her thumb up in the air at him. An unexpected tenderness touched his heart. He smiled back and returned the thumbs-up.
“I’m…ah…babysitting,” he answered. He purposely mumbled the last word, but Denise apparently had the ears of a barn owl.
“Babysitting! You missed an interview because you’re babysitting? No. I can’t believe this. I cannot believe this. You know this isn’t just your career—mine is affected too. I swear, I’m not going to invite you to Thanksgiving dinner, you act like this.”
He smiled into the phone. “You know, that’s what I love about you, Denise. You don’t let work get in the way of friendship.”
“Oh, shut up,” she muttered. “You put me in a real bad way with your publicist. That idiot. He wants to blame me, if you can believe it, just so you look good.”
“Well, thanks. I appreciate you taking one for the team like this.”
“Taking one for the team?” She snorted. “You realize I have other clients besides you, right?”
“Yeah, but you don’t invite any other clients to your son’s birthday parties.”
She sighed heavily.
“Relax, Denise. Jeez, you’re uptight.”
“It’s my job,” she muttered. “And since when aren’t you as uptight about your career as I am? At least tell me you’re doing this as part of some character study for the movie.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Of course.” He forced a laugh. “Do you honestly think I would just offer to babysit for a beautiful preschool teacher I hardly know?” Oops. He was dead meat.
“Oh, no. Beautiful teacher? I don’t like the sound of that. What did I tell you about keeping your pants zipped? What are you thinking with? Not your brain! Ben, you know how this is going to look, right? It’s going to look sordid. I mean, an innocent preschool teacher for heaven’s sake!”
“I know what she is,” he snapped. “And it’s not sordid.”
Denise paused. When she began speaking again, her voice softened and sounded more restrained. “Look, people don’t want to read about celebrities dating preschool teachers anyway. Boring as all get out. Snooze-ville. Why can’t you be your old self and mingle with that Celia Simons? If you get the role, you might be working with her. She’s up for the part of the doctor who’ll be helping your sick child. Now that would be exciting. The public eats it up when two actors working on a movie have something going on off-screen. She’s very attractive, too.”
Ben kicked the chair leg with the toe of his shoe. “She’s okay,” he mumbled.
“Okay? What’s the matter with you? She’s better than okay. She’s an ex-model.”
“Sandra looks like a model.”
“Who’s Sandra?”
“The preschool teacher.”
“Are we back to her again? Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Is that what you want? You want me dead?”
“Of course I don’t want you dead. You know how hard it is to get a decent agent?”
There was an immediate silence.
“Hello?” he asked, tapping a fingernail into the phone.
Denise sighed again. “I’m here. This isn’t funny, Ben. I’m worried about you. You put your career on the line for this woman, missing that interview. What does she really want from you anyway?”
“I’d say free babysitting,” he quipped, trying to lighten the mood between them.
“Cut it out. I’m serious. This Sandra is either infatuated with your superstar persona and is trying to milk you for whatever she can get, or…”
“Or what?” he prompted.
“Or she’s just a nice woman—a mother—who’s looking for a commitment for herself and her child.” She took a deep breath. “Can you accept either scenario?”
He rubbed his free hand over his face, needing to digest what his agent was telling him. It ate up his insides to hear it spoken out loud, but it was the same thing he told himself just this past weekend. Sandra may have flirted with him, but she made it clear she wasn’t infatuated with his celebrity status. She’d been hurt enough by her ex-husband, so she wasn’t looking for a casual love affair. But that was all he was capable of. He could never be the kind of husband or father of her child she deserved.
He looked over again at Sandra’s daughter, that sweet chocolate-pudding-eating daughter of hers. After he went back to Hollywood, life would go on for her. There would be some other man in Sandra’s life who would bring her daughter chocolate pudding before long. The idea of not seeing her or Sandra again suddenly made him feel sick. He didn’t know what he wanted or what he was capable of anymore. He was a first-class screw up when it came to real life.
“Okay, Ben,” Denise said gently. “I’m going to hang up now. I guess I’ve left you enough to think about for tonight.”
For tonight? He was afraid he’d be thinking about this for the rest of his life.
Chapter Nine
The house appeared normal enough when Sandra walked in.
Even the kitchen was still in one piece—aside from the empty chocolate pudding cups on her kitchen table and the entire trunk of Hannah’s dress-up clothes spewed all over the floor. Everything seemed quiet and peaceful.
Taking another cautious step forward, Sandra scanned the kitchen counter. No notes that anyone was rushed to the hospital. That was a good, normal sign, too. But one glimpse in the family room reminded her that normalcy wasn’t within her grasp anymore.
Last year’s Sexiest Man Alive was asleep on her sofa.
Definitely not normal.
She tiptoed over to where Ben was sprawled out with abandon and just stared at him without moving. She could really look at him all night like this.
As far as she was concerned, he was still the sexiest man alive—drop dead gorgeous—even in sleep without those smiling, green eyes open and warming the very center of her soul.
She shook her head. Ben was making her just as melodramatic as he was.
With a stab of tenderness, she noticed he had a small clump of pink Play-Doh in his hair. It hit her then how much he’d come to mean to her. How much she’d come to depend on him. In only a short amount of time, he’d made more of an impact on her life—as well as Hannah’s—than her ex-husband had in over four years.
And their time together was almost up.
She could practically hear the minute hand ticking away. Ben would be leaving town soon to go back to his movie-making career, back to his Hollywood friends, without her ever having the chance to express how she felt about him.
Did she even know what she felt? Was it infatuation? Friendship? Or something deeper? She was almost afraid to recognize it.
She heaved a frustrated sigh. She didn’t want to be so drawn to him—afraid she was getting into dangerous territory—but kneeling down, she gave in to the urge to be close to him. It might be her last chance, really. She hesitated only a second, then as if in slow motion, her hand went out and just barely touched his smooth, long hair. That simple contact made her heart leap. When he didn’t show any signs of stirring, she grew bold and let the tips of her fingers travel along his rough cheeks and down his squared chin. She knew she tempted fate, but having him to herself like this was just too good to pass up. So, gazing at his mouth, she allowed the pad of her thumb to run ever so lightly under the line of his bottom lip, remembering how amazing it had felt when he’d kissed her.
And just like that, Ben’s eyes flew open.
Her hand snapped back as if he’d bite, but he quickly reached out and brought it back to his cheek. “Now, that’s the kind of wake up a man could get used to,” he said with a sleepy grin. “Among other things.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
Her eyes widened and she drew a wobbly breath. “Oh, I, um… I didn’t… I, um… You had Play-Doh in your hair,” she managed, her heart thumping so hard, she could hear it.
“Leave it. It’s my battle scar.”
She frowned, able to tug her hand away from his face but not out of his grasp. “Was Hannah that bad?”
“No, she was that fun. In fact, you’re going to have a hard act to follow after my dramatic reading of Green Eggs and Ham. Your kid was killing me with cuteness the whole night. She even told me I was making her tummy say thank you for all the chocolate pudding I gave her.”
She tried to smile, but her nerves couldn’t settle down while he still held her hand. “Oh, I’m glad to hear that. You…you didn’t have any problems, then?”
“Problems?” He shook his head. “Hannah’s such an angel even a reject like me could do the job.”
“You’re not a reject, Ben,” she said, surprised at his opinion of himself. “You’re… Look, I know I haven’t told you this before, but I’ve noticed you’re very good with children—with Hannah especially. I’m sorry if I’ve led you to believe otherwise.”
He didn’t look like he believed her or even heard her, just studied their joined hands without saying a word. Finally he looked up, but with a mischievous gleam in his eyes. “So, how was work, honey?” he asked.
She tried to laugh at his playful joke, but it got stuck in her throat. She loved the way his question sounded too much, as if they were a real married couple, so domestic and comforting. What she realized was missing with Steve from day one. There had never been anything remotely domestic or comforting in their marriage. Only mistrust and frustration.
“Work was fine,” she answered shakily. “There was a good turnout and a lot of the parents commented how they loved the new look of the rooms. I think it went well largely to you and your help with painting. Your help with everything.”
His face was close to hers—it was really no effort at all—so she leaned in and kissed him a soft thank you on the cheek. She felt him stiffen, but she only pulled back enough to break contact with his skin. His clean scent was making her dizzy—or maybe it was just him. She froze, heart in her throat, deciding whether to take a chance. Tossing aside inhibition, she brought her mouth back to his cheek and began lightly kissing a path to his mouth.
Ben never moved, and she wondered what must be going on in his mind. But when her lips finally made contact with his, he kissed her back, one of those soft, lingering kisses that left her limp. He put his arms around her, pulling her half on top of him, and his kiss grew stronger. A kiss filled with more passion than she realized she could ignite in a man. She knew where this was heading. There was no question they were on the same page.
But she needed time to think. She couldn’t make love to him, not to this man, this movie star. Not now. Could she? She was just lonely, and he was just…perfect. In every way. She realized she wanted him more than ever. On a sigh, she sank deeper to his mouth, then reached between them and began unbuttoning his shirt.
Four buttons down, Ben covered her hands with his. “I can’t,” he whispered against her mouth.
Still feeling drugged from his kisses, she slowly pulled back her head and blinked several times, hoping it would clear her mind and perhaps unclog her ears. “I…beg your pardon?”
He didn’t answer. He just shifted her back and sat up with a groan.
She licked her lips and her breath caught when she tasted him again. “I’m sorry, did you say, I can’t?” she asked, her world feeling tilted.
“Yeah.” There was doubt in his voice, but he looked away and started buttoning up his shirt. “I, uh, am obviously very attracted to you. If you were any other woman…”
She just looked at him. What did he mean? What was he trying to say?
He paused, his fingers lingering at the last button of his shirt, still not meeting her eyes. “I think that maybe it’s not such a hot idea for the two of us to ruin what we have here.”
Sandra scrambled to stand up, clumsy because of the pain she felt at his gentle rebuff. But she quickly swallowed her hurt, smoothing her hair behind her ears. “You’re absolutely right,” she rushed out.
Ben jumped up too and reached for her, pulling back when he saw her stiffen. “Sandals, it’s not that I—”
“No, I understand,” she said coolly. Ha! At least she sounded in control. “Really. You’re right. You’re going to be leaving next week and…well, friends last longer, right? You can never have enough friends.” She looked away and jabbed her blouse into her pants.
What was she doing? She shouldn’t act so scornful. Ben was just thinking sensibly. Like they really had a shot at something. He was protecting her. Even if he decided to stay in town longer, he would probably get bored from the lack of glitzy lifestyle, and leave anyway. Just like Steve had. And then she’d be left with another broken heart.
She quickly walked to the door, hinting he should save them any further embarrassing awkwardness and just leave. Her head suddenly ached and she didn’t want anymore of his sensible talk. She wasn’t feeling very sensible at the moment. In fact, she wanted to throw something. But sensible Ben stood his ground. So she grabbed his jacket and held it out for him. That had him moving.
He walked up to her and took the jacket with a look of regret. “Look, Sandals, there’s things you don’t—”
She shot out her hand in a business-like manner, relieved when it didn’t quiver. “Friends?”
Ben sighed, but eventually took her hand in his. “Of course.”
She nodded. “I’m glad, because I think you’re wonderful,” she said truthfully. “I couldn’t think of a better person I would want to remain friends with. I really am grateful. Your friendship has meant a lot to me.”
“Me, too,” he answered huskily.
Unable to say more, she forced a smile and opened the door.
As if it were happening to someone else, Ben stood helplessly as the front door closed in his face. A nauseated
sickness began to take root in his stomach. But he made himself turn away and head back to his car, afraid he’d do something completely out of character like barge back inside and sweep her into his arms—or worse, toss his cookies on her doorstep.
How could so something so damn wonderful turn so damn terrible so damn fast?
He shouldn’t have kissed her back. He knew that inside and out. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her feelings. But he couldn’t resist her—her eyes, her smile, the feel of her in his arms. That peachy scent of hers was like his kryptonite. Then, with one quick rational thought about his agent, he told her they should just be friends.
Talk about out of character.
It was almost gut-wrenching to see the icy wall Sandra slammed up between them, as if they were suddenly work-related acquaintances again instead of intimate would-be lovers. She somehow managed to give him friendship and gratefulness though, he thought bitterly. He had that. He may not have Sandra in his arms anymore, but he had a new best buddy and her undying gratitude. Gee whiz, what more could he want?
Well, he didn’t want friendship. And he certainly didn’t want gratitude. He wanted…
He wanted that movie role.
Yeah, that was it, he thought, surrounding himself in an armor of cynicism. He wanted that part more than anything, anyone. How could he compete with all that baggage her ex-husband gave her anyway? He had a career to worry about. He couldn’t be worrying about some cold woman and her child now. His life was just gaining momentum. He’d be on top of the world soon. His fans were just waiting for something incredible from him—and he wasn’t about to disappoint them. So he’d sacrifice disappointing one woman versus millions of fans. Sandra couldn’t be in his life now. And definitely not some kid of hers either. What the heck did he know about raising a child? A spoiled child, too. A child…
Who was the sweetest, loving, little person he’d ever had the pleasure to spend time with. And her mother, who when her defenses were down and she shared her most intimate thoughts with him, could be the warmest and most wonderful human being he’d ever met in his entire life.
The Role of a Lifetime Page 11
