“Careful there, Pinocchio, you’re gonna take my eye out with that nose of yours,” Grace said.
“You think I’m lying?”
“To yourself more than me,” Grace explained matter-of-factly. “I mean, I think you’re genuinely deluded.”
“Thanks,” Sadie said drily. “That makes it so much better.”
“There has to be something more to this than simple proximity,” Grace argued. “This guy was horrible to you, yeah? Yet out of all the men you could have gone crazy with, you let him take your clothes off. That’s got to mean something.”
Sadie shifted uncomfortably. Most of the time, she valued her friend’s sensitive perceptiveness. Tonight it was interfering with her need to stick her head in the sand.
“I had a crush on Dylan in high school,” she admitted. “My body seems to still have this stupid juvenile crush on him.”
“I thought he bullied you?” Grace asked, confused.
“No. He…he humiliated me in front of the whole school,” Sadie said.
Slowly, with lots of ice cream to lubricate her memory, she told her friend about her senior prom. Grace was rigid with fury by the time she’d finished.
“What a bastard! My God. How can you stand being in the same room as him?”
“Better yet, how could I have had sex with him?” Sadie asked, smiling weakly. Going over the old memories had brought it all back to her. Why had she performed the most intimate of acts with the man who’d destroyed her self-esteem for more years than she cared to remember?
Grace slid the lids back onto the ice cream tubs, her eyes filled with worry.
“I don’t know what to say to you,” she said after a long silence.
“Yeah. I’m really messed up, aren’t I?” Sadie said, managing a halfhearted laugh.
“I didn’t mean that. Someone who hasn’t had a social orgasm in over four years isn’t really in a position to dole out relationship advice to anyone.” Grace shrugged. “Unless Dylan runs on batteries, I’m all out of expertise.”
Sadie laughed and slid her arm around Grace’s shoulder.
“Admit it—I’m messed up. My fiancé dumped me at the altar, I’ve just slept with my teen nemesis and I have a bellyache from too much ice cream. Worse, this is not the first time I’ve had ice cream for dinner this week. And I call myself an adult.”
“I’ve never met an adult I liked, anyway,” Grace said.
Sadie was stowing the ice cream in the freezer when Grace’s cell phone chimed.
“Sorry.” Grace grimaced as she took the call. The impatient expression on her face faded as she recognized her caller. “Hey, hey—slow down, Hope. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
Sadie propped her hip on the kitchen counter as Grace attempted to soothe her youngest sister. Hope was the model, Sadie remembered. Superskinny, spoiled and immature, from what Sadie had seen of her over the years. Unfortunately, Grace had something of a blind spot where her sisters were concerned. Her two older sisters, Felicity and Serena, were also professional beauties—Felicity was a weather girl in the Midwest somewhere, while Serena was an actress here in L.A. For some reason, Grace seemed to think it was her duty to drop everything to tend to any of them should the need arise. Last year, she’d taken vacation time to fly out to nurse Felicity through a bad case of the flu. Felicity had repaid her by recovering early and heading off to Miami for some “much needed” sun, leaving Grace behind to house-sit her Siamese cats for a week on her own. Hope was always dropping into town unexpectedly, usually with some tale of woe that required Grace’s time and attention to unravel. And Sadie didn’t even want to think what Serena had done…
She frowned as she heard Grace telling Hope where the spare key to her condo was hidden and assuring her she’d be there as soon as she could.
“What’s up?” Sadie asked neutrally.
Grace looked harassed and concerned as she started gathering her coat and bag.
“I’m so sorry, Sade, but I have to go. Hope’s broken up with that model boyfriend of hers, the one she’s been seeing for the past year. He kicked her out into the street in New York, and all her other friends are off on assignment somewhere. She jumped the first plane to L.A. so she could be with family.”
“Lucky you,” Sadie said. Hope was always having highly emotional breakups with her boyfriends, so it was hard for her to get too wound up with empathy.
“He hit her, Sadie. Can you believe that? He gave her a black eye when she tried to leave.” Grace’s voice was shaking, and tears stood out in her eyes as she considered her sister’s plight.
“She’s safe now, don’t worry,” Sadie said, wrapping her friend in a hug. Guilt pricked her as she thought of how dismissive she’d been of Hope’s feelings. Was she so self-centered now that everyone else’s experiences were inconsequential? Just because she’d had a run of bad luck didn’t make her the center of the universe.
“I know she can be a little overdramatic at times, but I’ve never heard her so upset. I think getting to my condo and finding me out was the last straw,” Grace said.
“You be careful driving, okay? No speeding,” Sadie said as she urged Grace toward the door.
Grace hesitated in the hallway.
“I feel bad leaving you like this. After…well, you know.”
“After I had sex with my new story editor?” Sadie asked wryly. “Forget it. I’m trying to. How’s that for a solution?”
Grace smiled. “It’s a start. I’m all for self-denial as a coping mechanism. Look where it’s got me.”
They hugged goodbye and Sadie shut the door on her friend. For a moment she remained leaning against the cool timber.
Forget having sex with Dylan Anderson. It was a great solution. Perfect. Except for one thing.
He was utterly unforgettable.
5
THE NEXT MORNING Dylan was writing plot points on the whiteboard when he saw Sadie’s silver Audi flash past outside the window. He paused, marker hovering in the air, and watched as she slid her car into her assigned spot. He willed his gaze away, but it remained resolutely fixed on the scene unfolding outside the window. He lowered his arm, reluctantly admitting to himself that he wanted to watch her. They were never going to have sex again—but he needed to run his eyes over her sexy body, and was powerless to stop himself from doing so.
The seconds passed, but still she didn’t exit the car. She was simply sitting there, staring straight ahead. He frowned, sliding the cap back onto the marker and moving closer to the window.
“Hey, Dylan,” a voice said behind him. It was Kim, one of the story liners, ready to start the day’s plot meeting.
Without turning, he raised a hand to acknowledge her greeting, his eyes—and thoughts—glued on Sadie. What was she doing?
As he watched, she shook her head impatiently and reached for the door. It opened a crack—then she slammed it shut again and slumped back in her seat, banging her open palm against her forehead in a classic “stupid me” gesture.
Curious. His frown deepened. Of all the scenarios he’d imagined post-desk-sex with his uptight boss, this was not one of them. He’d kicked himself sideways all evening over giving her a rod to beat him with. Women had been using sex to control men for as long as there had been sex. He’d handed Sadie the perfect tool to torture him with—his own desire for her. He’d resigned himself to six months of having what his body wanted used against him. But now…Now his conviction that Sadie was going to cold-bloodedly use what had happened between them to her advantage was undergoing a major makeover. She didn’t look cold-blooded. She looked…confused. Embarrassed. Uncertain.
Outside in her car, Sadie’s lips moved. She was giving herself a pep talk. Like a crazy lady. His lips curved into a smile, amused despite himself. Right now, she was about a million miles from the unapproachable, tight-lipped woman who’d been blocking him every which way all week and secretly plotting to give his job to his friend. She looked human and approachable, vu
lnerable. Even…appealing.
He swore under his breath as he acknowledged his own thoughts. One screw, and suddenly she was Mother Teresa. What kind of a moron was he?
Had he forgotten what she was really like? Was he really ready to brush off years of anger because she’d felt like silk beneath his hands?
His mind flashed back to that classroom and that fateful day. The memory was burned into his psyche, as vivid as the day it had happened.
It had been his turn to give a class talk on a chapter from their textbook. As usual, he’d sweated buckets trying to make sense of the squirming lines of text or to piece together the few words he could recognize on the page. He made desperate notes as another student held the floor, trying to remember exact phrases so he could regurgitate them with his own spin, an old trick he’d learned to scrape his way through class. Never Go First was his motto, and it had served him well.
But this time, his precious preparation time was interrupted by prissy Sadie Post as she leaned across from her desk next to his.
“You’re looking at the wrong chapter,” she said, her eyes and mouth all screwed up with tension. “We’re on chapter eighteen, not thirteen.”
He glanced down at the page in front of him, staring at the squiggly chapter number. He’d sworn it was an eighteen, but now that he really looked, it was more of a thirteen.
“You should talk about the way Faulkner used imagery in The Sound and The Fury to convey emotion,” Sadie offered next. “Mr. McMasters likes that kind of thing.”
Suddenly all his rage and confusion boiled up inside him and he turned to glare at her. She was always first to class and last to leave. She always had the answers, and she loved shoving her hand in the air so she could show off in front of everyone. She ate up everything Mr. McMasters threw at her, and then some, and made Dylan feel about a million times dumber than he already was just by sitting next to him. Now she was offering him charity, trying to help the stupid kid.
It was more than he could stomach.
“What makes you think I’d want help from someone like you?” he said viciously.
She went white with shock. “W-what?”
“When I want to talk to someone about Lit, I’ll be doing it with Louise-Anne or Cindi Young. Someone worth wasting my time on. Understand?”
She shut her mouth with a click, and her brown eyes burned as she stared at him, her face tight.
Then Mr. McMasters called Dylan to the front of the class to begin his talk.
He stroked his way to the front of the class, doing his best to look unconcerned and confident. As usual, he started with a couple of jokes to get McMasters good and riled. In Dylan’s experience, once his teachers were pissed at him, it came as a pleasant surprise if he said anything remotely sensible.
Borrowing heavily from his predecessor’s comments, Dylan bullshitted his way through a five minute dissertation on The Sound and the Fury, ending, as usual, with another joke. Traditionally, that was more than enough for the teacher to send him back to his chair with a C or at worst a D under his belt.
“Thank you for that, Mr. Anderson,” McMasters said sarcastically. “I’m sure Mr. Faukner is rolling in his grave. Any questions from the class before we move on?”
Dylan was about to head back to his desk when a hand shot into the air. He froze, surprised. No one ever asked questions.
“Yes, Sadie? Do you have a question for Mr. Anderson?” McMasters asked.
“Yes. I wanted to know if Dylan thought Benjamin Compson was a reliable narrator?”
Her eyes bore into him as she cocked her head inquisitively to one side, challenging him to answer her. Dylan smiled casually. Miss Priss was trying to trip him up, but he’d had his ears open. He might be stupid, but he wasn’t a complete moron.
“I think Benjamin’s narration was pretty sentimental, so probably he fudged things a bit,” he said easily. He started back to his desk again.
“What’s your theory on the chronology of the novel?”
It was Sadie again, back ramrod-straight. A prickle of nervousness raced up his spine. He wiped his damp palms on the sides of his jeans.
“It…it worked okay. I thought the chronology was fine,” he improvised.
He didn’t even get a chance to move before she fired another question at him.
“What about Caddy’s section of the book. What did you think of her narration?”
Dylan shot a frown at McMasters. “This is bull. No one else got this many questions.”
But McMasters was enjoying watching him sweat.
“Answer the question, Mr. Anderson.”
Dylan made a show of looking unconcerned. “I thought Caddy’s section was fine. But not as good as Benjamin’s,” he said.
In the front row, one of the class nerds smirked behind his hand. Dylan frowned. He’d obviously got something wrong, but what?
Sadie fired again. “Would you say that her narration was lyrical?”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
The kid in the front row smirked openly now, and someone at the back of the class giggled. He scanned the room, looking for clues. What was going on? What had he said wrong? His neck felt stiff with tension, and he had his knees locked so tightly they ached.
“What did you think of the section where Lenny accidentally killed the puppy?” Sadie asked next.
More sniggering. Dylan shifted his weight from his back foot to his front, and shot another look at McMasters. But the Lit teacher only nodded, indicating Dylan should answer the question.
“I thought it was sad, but Lenny had to do what he was told,” Dylan guessed, taking a wild stab at what the situation might have been.
Open laughter now from his classmates. Sadie leaned forward in her chair. She hadn’t taken her eyes off him once.
“And what about the time Huck and Jim were camping on the island?”
Some of the class were in stitches by now. Embarrassed heat warmed his face. She’d made a fool of him somehow, and McMasters was loving it. Dylan’s hands curled into fists. He wanted to wipe the smug smile off McMaster’s face and storm from the room, but pride held him in place. Pride, and Sadie Post’s accusing brown eyes.
“I think you’ve about proved your point, Ms. Post,” McMasters said. The teacher turned his attention to Dylan. “Did you even bother to read the text, Anderson?”
“Yeah, of course I did.”
“Really. So you’re well aware that Caddy does not narrate any section of the novel, and you were just playing along when Ms. Post threw in characters from Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Twain’s Huckleberry Finn?”
As if McMaster’s unveiling of the joke had given them permission, the class erupted into full-fledged laughter.
Dylan’s chest ached with humiliation.
“I did my report,” he said fiercely.
McMasters shook his head and pointed to the door. “Out. You want to be lazy, be lazy on someone else’s time.”
He didn’t need telling twice. In two strides he was at the door.
“And I’ll see you in my office after class, Mr. Anderson,” McMasters said ominously.
The rustle of paper and the sound of muted chat dragged Dylan out of the old memory. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the whole team was gathered now, ready to start work. Out in the car park, Sadie was finally getting out of her car. He watched as she flicked a lock of hair over her shoulder and shouldered her work satchel.
Beautiful, but a bitch. She was practically a soap cliché. And he was just as garden-variety, letting his genitals dictate the running. The dumb guy sucked in by the black widow’s lures.
Except it wasn’t going to happen. Never again.
Jaw set, he turned to his team.
“Okay, let’s get started…”
SADIE DIDN’T SEE Dylan until midafternoon. It was a point of some pride to her, in fact, that she managed to avoid him for so long, although it really hadn’t been that hard. He was ensconced in an all-day plot meetin
g, so as long as she avoided hanging around the kitchen, all was good.
Her theory was holding up well until two o’clock when Lara popped her head into Sadie’s office.
“Hey. Dylan asked me to come get you. We need your opinion on something.”
Sadie stared at the other woman.
“Um…Can it wait? I’m really snowed under here.” Sadie stalled, gesturing toward the paperwork strewn across her desk.
“It’s a future planning question. We’re starting the teen romance stuff between Angel and the geeky friend.”
Sadie opened her mouth to trot out another excuse but closed it again without saying anything. She had completely forgotten about the eight-week teen romance they’d mapped out in forward planning a month ago. Of all the stories for Dylan to want help with, it had to be that one. She remembered her earlier theory that she was cursed. It was looking more and more likely every day.
There was no excuse for not responding to Dylan’s request, however. She prided herself on being professional.
Forcing a smile, she stood. “Sure, not a problem.”
Her legs felt shaky and insubstantial as she followed Lara back to the meeting room. Her belly did a series of flips and turns as she prepared herself for this first postsex encounter, and she could feel her heart banging against her ribs.
You’re thirty years old, not seventeen, she reminded herself.
When that ploy failed, she reminded herself that even if she couldn’t feel blasé, she had to act that way. Pride demanded it.
He glanced up from his notebook as she entered the room, and her breath caught in her throat as their eyes met and locked. She saw his pupils dilate, and noted the small giveaway twitch as he swallowed suddenly. Then her eyes dropped to his body and she was remembering how strong his arms had felt around her, how hard his chest had been against her breasts, the harsh sound of his breathing in her ear, the firm, muscular curve of his butt in her hands…
“Thanks for coming,” Dylan said as she pulled out a chair with shaky hands.
She stiffened, her eyes narrowing. Thanks for coming? She couldn’t believe that even Dylan Anderson would dare make a crack about what had happened between them in front of a roomful of their subordinates. Then she noted the dark blush staining his cheekbones.
Take on Me Page 9
