The Name of the Game

by Nora Roberts

  pleasure, for obligation or because the script called for it. That moment with Johanna had been nothing so simple as pleasure, and it had been nothing so casual as obligation. The reaction—his and hers—hadn’t been in any script.

  She’d been as stunned as he was, and as unnerved. Didn’t she want to know why?

  The hell with what she wanted, Sam decided as he shut the stall door. He had to know why. Whether she wanted to or not, Johanna was going along for the ride.

  ***

  She was beat. Johanna downed two aspirin and a carton of yogurt at her kitchen sink. Her afternoon had been taken up by back-to-back meetings, and though she should have been celebrating the nighttime syndication of Trivia, she’d opted for a quiet evening at home. She’d have to set up a party for the crew next week. They deserved it. And she’d see that Beth got a raise. For tonight, she didn’t want to think about production meetings or sponsors. Her flowers needed tending.

  The sun was warm on her face and arms as she walked outside to her garden. The roses that climbed the trellis along the side of the house needed pinching off. Snapdragons and hollyhocks needed weeding. Some of the taller and heavier-bloomed plants would require staking. Pleased with the scents and colors, she dug in.

  She’d spent many quiet afternoons with the gardener on her father’s estate, learning the names of the plants and the care they required. He’d let her have a plot of her own and had shown her how to turn soil and plant seeds, how to separate at the roots and prune. She’d learned how to blend plants for color, texture, height and flowering periods from him. On rainy days, or during cold snaps, he’d let her explore the greenhouse, where fragile seedlings had been nursed or exotic bulbs forced for early blooming.

  The scents there had never been forgotten, the sultriness, the heat, even the damp smell of watered soil. He’d been a kind man, a little stoop-shouldered and thick through the middle. During one brief fantasy she’d imagined he was her father and they’d gone into business together.

  She hadn’t known until she’d heard him talking with another servant that he’d felt sorry for her.

  All the servants had felt sorry for her—the little girl who was only brought out and paraded at her father’s whim. She’d had a three-story dollhouse, a tea set of English china and a white fur coat. There had been ballet lessons and piano lessons and French taught by a private tutor. Other little girls would have dreamed of having what Johanna had only had to lift a hand for.

  At six, her picture had been splashed across the press. She’d worn a red velvet dress that had skimmed her ankles and a tiny diamond tiara as flower girl at her father’s second wedding. A Hollywood princess.

  The bride had been an Italian actress who enjoyed having tantrums. Her father had spent a good deal of that two-year union on the Italian Riviera. Johanna had spent most of it in the gardens of his Beverly Hills estate.

  There had been a scandal and a mudslinging divorce. The actress had kept the Italian villa, and her father had had a blistering affair with the lead in his next production. Johanna, at age eight, had already developed a cool and all-too-adult view of relationships.

  She preferred her flowers. She didn’t like wearing gloves. She felt that she got a better sense of the soil and the fragile roots with her hands uncovered. When she managed to squeeze in time for a manicure, she was usually met with shock and dismay. As a matter of routine, Johanna kept her nails clipped short and didn’t bother with enamel.

  Unfeminine. That was what Lydia had called her. Lydia had been one of her father’s more vocal and longer-lasting distractions. Lydia had been palely beautiful and unceasingly selfish. Fortunately, she hadn’t wanted to marry Carl Patterson any more than he had wanted to marry her.

  Send the girl to the nuns in Switzerland, darling. Nothing like nuns for teaching a girl a little femininity and grace.

  Johanna, at twelve, had lived in terror that she would be sent away, but Lydia had been replaced before she’d managed to pressure Carl into paying the tuition.

  Unfeminine. The word still cropped up in Johanna’s head from time to time. She usually ignored it; she’d found her own style of womanhood. But now and again, like an old scar, the word caused an itch.

  On her hands and knees, she brushed through her patio dahlias, back to the freesia that would bloom in another few weeks. With care and precision, she pulled out any weeds that had had the audacity to sprout. It had been a dry spring, and after testing the soil she decided she’d give everything a good soak before calling it a day.

  She heard the car but didn’t bother to glance up, because she expected it to drive by. When it didn’t, Johanna had just enough time to look around before Sam swung out of the driver’s side.

  She said nothing and remained kneeling, speechless.

  He was furious. The long drive from his ranch had given him plenty of time to work on his temper. Here he was chasing after some cool-eyed go-to-hell blonde and all he could think of when he saw her was how she’d looked in the moonlight.

  It was dusk now, the light soft and tenuous. She was kneeling in front of a bank of flowers like some pagan virgin sacrifice. She didn’t rise, and her hands were stained with soil and grass. The air smelled like sin, dark and rich.

  “Why the hell do you have a secretary and an answering machine if you don’t intend to answer messages?”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “What you are is rude.”

  She hated that. Hated knowing it was true. “I’m sorry.” She put on her coolest and most professional smile. “The show’s going into syndication and I’ve been tied up with meetings and paperwork. Was there something important?”

  “You know damn well it’s important.”

  She spent the next ten seconds carefully wiping the worst of the dirt from her hands onto her jeans and staring at his boots. “If there’s a problem with your contract—”

  “Cut it, Johanna. We’ve done our business. That’s over.”

  She looked at him then. “Yes, that’s right.”

  He stuck his hands in his pockets. If he’d had them free much longer he might have throttled her. “I don’t like feeling like a fool.”

  “I’m sure you don’t.” She rose, careful to keep an arm’s length of distance between them. “I’m losing the light, Sam. If there’s nothing else . . .” The rest of the words slid down her throat when he grabbed her by her shirtfront.

  “You’re going to turn away from me once too often,” he said quietly. Much too quietly. “I’ve always considered myself fairly even-tempered. Seems I was wrong.”

  “Your temperament’s not my problem.”

  “The hell it isn’t.” To prove his point, he yanked her against him. Her hands came up automatically for balance and defense. But his mouth was already on hers.

  There was no testing kiss this time, no friendly overture. There was only the outpouring of urgency and demand that had clawed inside him for days. She didn’t struggle. He hated to think of what he might have done if she had. Instead, she went very still, and for a moment nearly fooled them both into thinking she was unaffected.

  Then she moaned. The sound went from her mouth into his, filled with surrender and despair. Before the sound had died her arms were around him, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

  Twilight deepened, cooling the air, but she felt only the heat from his body as she pressed against him. He smelled of horses and leather. Dazed, she thought that the scent must be part of some deeply buried fantasy. Knight on white charger. But she didn’t want to be rescued. Like a fool, she’d thought she could escape, from him, from herself. It only took a moment to show her how firmly she was already bound.

  He brushed his mouth across her face, drawing in the taste, the softness. Her lips skimmed his jaw as she, too, searched for more. He tightened his arms around her. He’d thought he’d understood what it was to ache for a woman. Nothing had ever come close to this. He hurt everywhere, with a pain more erotic than anything he’d
ever imagined. The more he touched, the more he hurt. The more he hurt, the more he was driven to touch.

  “I want you, Johanna.” His hands were in her hair now, as if he couldn’t trust them to wander over her again. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you for days. For nights. I want to be with you. Now.”

  She wanted it, too. A shudder ran through her as she clung to him. She wanted him. She wanted to let go of her control, of her caution, and just feel—the way he could make her feel. Somehow she already knew that he could bring her things she’d never believed in. Once he did, she’d never be the same.

  For a moment longer, she held on. Regret, more than she’d ever known, replaced desire as she drew away. With an effort she managed a smile as she glanced at the smudges on his shoulders. “My hands were dirty.”

  He took them both. “Let’s go inside.”

  “No.” Gently she drew her hands from his. “It wouldn’t work, Sam. We wouldn’t work.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wouldn’t want it to. I wouldn’t let it work.”

  He took her chin in his hand. “Bull.”

  “I wouldn’t.” She wrapped her fingers around his wrist. The pulse was fast there, as fast as her own. “I’m attracted to you, I won’t deny that. But it can’t lead anywhere.”

  “It already has.”

  “Then it can’t lead any farther. Believe me when I say I’m sorry, but we’re both better off facing up to it now.”

  “I’m sorry, too, but I can’t accept it.” He moved his hand to her cheek in a gesture that pierced her with its tenderness. “If you’re expecting me to walk away and leave you alone, you’re going to be disappointed.”

  She took a deep breath and met his eyes squarely. “I’m not going to sleep with you.”

  His brow lifted. “Now, or ever?”

  The last thing she’d expected to do was laugh, but the chuckle bubbled out. “Good night, Sam.”

  “Hold on. We’re not finished.” There was amusement in his voice as he gestured toward her front steps. “Why don’t we sit down? It’s a nice night.” When she hesitated, he lifted his hands, palms out. “No contact.”

  “All right.” She wasn’t completely at ease with it but felt perhaps she owed them both that much. “Would you like a drink?”

  “What have you got?”

  “This morning’s coffee.”

  “I’ll skip it, thanks.” He settled comfortably next to her, hip to hip. “I do like your place, Johanna,” he began, wondering if he would be able to understand her better through it. “It’s quiet, private, well looked-after. How long have you had it?”

  “About five years.”

  “Did you plant all this?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are those?”

  She looked over to the edge of one of her borders. “Soapwort.”

  “Ugly name for such a pretty thing.” The little pink flowers looked delicate, but he could see that they spread exactly as they chose. “You know, it occurs to me that we don’t know each other very well.” He leaned back against the next step, stretching his legs out. Johanna thought he looked very much at home.

  “No,” she said cautiously. “I suppose we don’t.”

  “You believe in dating?”

  She hooked her hands around her knees and smiled. “It’s a nice occupation for teenagers.”

  “You don’t figure adults can pull it off?”

  On guard again, she moved her shoulders. “Most people I know have lovers, not boyfriends.”

  “And you don’t have either.”

  “I like it that way.”

  The way she said it made him glance back at the little pink flowers again. “Why don’t we shoot for another term, like companion?” He turned to study her profile. “We could try being companions for a while. That’s an easy, uncomplicated term. No strings.”

  It sounded that way, but she knew better. “I meant what I said before.”

  “I’m sure you did.” He crossed his feet at the ankles. “That’s why I figured you wouldn’t be afraid to get to know me better.”

  “I’m not afraid,” she said immediately, showing him that he’d hit the right button.

  “Good. There’s a benefit Friday night at the Beverly Wilshire. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You support raising funds for the homeless, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do, but—”

  “And since you’re not afraid, it wouldn’t bother you to be my companion. It’s formal,” he continued smoothly. “I don’t care much for that kind of evening myself, but it’s for a good cause.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but I simply couldn’t manage to get home from work and change in time for a formal function at the Wilshire by seven.” And that, she thought, should be the end of that.

  “All right, I’ll pick you up at your office. That way we can make it seven-thirty.”

  She let out a huge breath, then shifted so that she could look at him directly. “Sam, why are you trying to maneuver me this way?”

  “Johanna . . .” He took her hand and kissed her fingers, too quickly for her to object. “I can maneuver much better than this.”

  “I’ll just bet.”

  Delighted, he grinned. “I love it when you use that tone. It’s so proper. Makes me want to muss you up.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Which question? Oh, that one,” he finished when she narrowed her eyes. “I’m not trying to maneuver you, I’m trying to make a date with you. No, not a date,” he corrected. “No dates for adults. We can’t call it a meeting, that’s too businesslike. How about encounter? You like encounter?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “One thing I’ve found out about you already, Johanna, is that you’re a hard woman to please.” He stretched out again with a sigh. “But that’s all right. I can sit right here until you come up with the right choice of words. Stars are coming out.”

  Involuntarily she glanced up. She often sat out by herself in the evening. She’d been content to look at the stars alone. Somehow the night seemed more appealing with him there, and that worried her. Depending on someone else for your contentment was a big mistake.

  “It’s getting chilly,” she murmured.

  “Are you asking me in?”

  She smiled, then rested her elbow on her knee. “It’s not that chilly.” They were silent for a moment. Then the silence was broken by a nighthawk. “Why aren’t you down in the city at some club being seen with some up-and-coming actress with lots of teeth?”

  As if he were thinking it through, Sam rested his elbows on the back of the step. “I don’t know. Why aren’t you down in the city at some club being seen with some hotshot director with a perfect tan?”

  Still pouting a bit, she kept her head still but shifted her gaze over to him. “I asked you first.”

  “I love acting,” he said after a moment. His voice was so calm and serious that she turned her head again. “I really love it when it all comes together—the script, the moves, the crew. And I don’t mind being paid well for it, either. I’ve got a couple of weeks before we start shooting. Once we do, there are going to be a lot of very long and very demanding days. I don’t want to waste the little time I have in a club.” He touched her hair. They both remembered he’d promised there would be no contact, but she didn’t object. “Are you going to come back and feed my ducks, Johanna?”

  It was a mistake, she told herself as she smiled at him. A stupid one. At least she was making it with her eyes open. “I think I can make it Friday night, if you don’t mind leaving the benefit a bit early. I’ll have put in a full day at the office.”

  “Seven-thirty, at your office?”

  “Fine. No strings?”

  “Deal.”

  The minute he leaned toward her, she held up a hand. “Don’t kiss me, Sam.”

  He backed off, not without effort. “Now, or
ever?”

  She rose and brushed off the seat of her jeans. “Now, anyway. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Johanna.” She paused at the top of the steps and looked back. “Nothing,” he told her. “I just wanted to look at you again. Night.”

  “Drive carefully. It’s a long trip.”

  He threw her a grin over his shoulder. “It’s getting shorter all the time.”