Anything for You

“Three. With time out for bad behavior,” he said.

“Bad behavior?”

“Yeah. Caught her kissing her dog on the lips,” Sam explained with a grimace. “Had to wait for the cooties to settle.”

“Ew. That’s just plain wrong, as well as giving the dog false hope,” Delaney said.

Sam threw back his head and let out a crack of laughter, and she felt a warm surge of pleasure that she’d amused him.

She realized she was staring at the strong column of his throat, her eyes caressing the firm, muscled planes of his chest and shoulders, nicely defined by the soft material of his T-shirt and his hanging-off-the-doorframe posture. She could feel her nipples tightening, and she crossed her arms over her chest. Occupational hazard number two: unruly body parts that always seemed to be on the verge of betraying her.

But not for much longer, she promised herself.

“Coco wanted us to feature her in the magazine,” Sam said.

Delaney blinked. “Does she skate or something?” she asked, her mind boggling at the effect those D-cups would have on the boys down at the skate ramp.

“Not exactly. She must have misheard me when I told her the name of the magazine. She thought it was Triple X,” Sam said, deadpan.

Delaney’s mouth dropped open. “As in…?”

“Yep.”

Delaney broke into giggles. “That’s why she was looking so pissed off outside,” she said.

“Was she?” Sam looked a little piqued. “It’s not as though we didn’t have some fun. What is it with women these days? Multiple orgasms not enough anymore?”

Delaney suddenly got very interested in tidying up her desk. Multiple orgasms with Sam Kirk. It was enough to set her underwear on fire.

“How was the holiday? Did those horrible brats of Claire’s drive you around the bend?” Sam asked, dropping onto the visitors’ couch.

“The holiday was great. And they weren’t brats. They were…perfect,” she said, her voice softening as she remembered all the special little moments from the last two weeks: Travis’s pencil drawing to say goodbye, Callum’s nightly insistence that she be the one to read his bedtime story, Alana’s repeated intrusion into her suitcase to play dress-up—a high compliment, her sister assured her.

“You catch any waves? Heard Gunnamatta was going off,” Sam said, naming a famous surf beach a few minutes drive from where they’d been staying.

“Not really. Just paddled around on the bay with the boys. Travis wants to learn how to surf,” she reported.

“Excellent. Another little grommet to clog up the waterways,” Sam said wryly.

“You were a grommet once. A particularly annoying one, as I recall, always dropping in on other surfer’s waves,” she reminded him.

“I was precocious. Oozing natural talent,” he said.

“Oozing something, that’s for sure.”

Sam just grinned at her. “Missed you, Laney,” he said, sliding a hand casually beneath his T-shirt to scratch his stomach.

She was treated to a flash of taut, muscled belly, the tanned skin sprinkled with crisp, caramel-colored curls that tapered down toward the waistband of his favorite jeans.

She snatched her eyes away and took a deep breath. Do it now, she told herself. Before you spend too much time with him and lose your nerve.

“Um, I need to speak to you sometime, too,” she forced herself to say, eyes fixed on the stack of papers she was shuffling together.

“Sure. What’s up?” Sam asked.

“I didn’t mean now,” Delaney said, panicking.

“No time like the present,” Sam said easily.

He was right, even if he didn’t know exactly how right. Suck it up, Michaels, she told herself.

Crossing to the door, she kicked it shut. Sam raised an eyebrow.

“A closed door conversation. My, my—I must have been really naughty this time,” he said lightly.

Delaney moved back to her desk and sank into her chair. Then she just stared at him for a moment, her eyes lovingly cataloguing his handsome, open face. This would be the last time she saw him without anger or confusion or resentment clouding their relationship. The last time that he would be her old, much-loved friend, no strings attached, no issues between them.

The lines around his eyes crinkled as he smiled nervously. “Okay, you’re freaking me out now. What’s going on?” he asked. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Talk to me, Laney,” he said.

Delaney closed her eyes for a moment. She took a deep breath, then opened them.

“I want to sell you my half of the business,” she said in a rush.

Sam shook his head in confusion. “Sorry? Do you need money or something, Laney? Because you should have said—”

It was her turn to shake her head.

“No. I want out. I want out from the magazine, Sam.”

2

SAM FELT AS THOUGH he’d been punched in the gut. Delaney wanted to sell her half of the magazine? It just didn’t make sense to him. He shook his head again, frowning.

“I don’t get it. What’s changed all of a sudden?” he asked.

She was staring at the carpet, but she lifted her eyes to meet his before she spoke.

“I’ve had enough. I realized while I was away that I wanted to do something different. Maybe travel. I don’t know,” she said.

She was lying. He knew her better than he knew himself, and there was something she wasn’t telling him.

“Bull. Tell me what’s really going on,” he demanded, starting to feel angry and a little threatened.

Delaney couldn’t just walk out on him. They were a team, a tight little duo. He’d barely survived her annual two-week vacation with his sanity intact, for Pete’s sake.

“Sam,” she said, then she sighed heavily and put her head in her hands.

After a shocked second he saw that she was crying. Delaney never cried. Ever.

“Hey,” he said, shooting to his feet and moving to stand by her chair. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, he held her tight. “Whatever it is, we’ll work it out,” he said.

He felt her body stiffen under his arm, and she sat up straighter. He got the message—she didn’t want his comfort. Feeling doubly rejected, he returned to the couch.

There was a long silence as they stared at each other across the small space that separated them. He studied her closely, trying to find some clue as to what was really going on. But she looked the same as ever—her long mid-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, the fringe sitting straight across her brow. Her hazel eyes were clear and bright, not a skerrick of makeup in sight, as usual. Her nose was a little red on the end, true, but that was from the crying, he guessed. And she was biting her lower lip, her teeth nibbling at the full curve. She had a small mouth, but her lips were full, the lower one particularly so. A Cupid’s bow, Delaney’s mother always called it, to which Delaney inevitably rolled her eyes.

She looked the same as she always had—like Laney. His best friend.

“Come on, spill,” he said softly.

She sniffed inelegantly and he leaned over to grab the box of tissues off her bookshelf.

She waited until she’d blown her nose before speaking.

“I want children, Sam. I want a husband. A family,” she said, shrugging one shoulder.

Sam frowned. Laney never talked about her love life. He was always a little bit surprised when he caught sight of a guy leaving her apartment. He could count on the fingers of one hand the times he’d been introduced to a man she was dating. She’d always been very private about it, and he’d respected that. Truth was, he didn’t really want to know, he suddenly acknowledged. Probably that made him a selfish bastard for not wanting her to be happy. Deep down inside he’d always feared that if she met Mr. Right, their friendship would change irrevocably. Sam would be number two in her life. And when children came, he’d be shuffled even further down the food chain. It didn’t say much for his nobility as a human being that the thought of Delaney with a family made him feel scared and lonely and threatened. But there it was.

Struggling to contain his messed-up emotions, Sam smoothed his hands down his thighs, then clasped his knees, bracing himself to be a grown-up.

“Of course you want kids,” he finally managed to say.

Delaney laughed, a watery, reluctant chuckle.

“You are the worst actor in the world, Kirk,” she said.

He shrugged sheepishly. “Okay,” he conceded. “You know I’ll be jealous as hell when you get married and have kids,” he admitted.

She looked startled. “Jealous?”

“You know—’cause things won’t be the same anymore,” he explained awkwardly.

Delaney’s eyes dropped to the carpet and she hunched a shoulder. “No, they won’t.”

“But I don’t see what any of that has to do with leaving the business,” Sam said. He might be about to lose most of Delaney, but he would cling to what little he had left. If she stayed in the business, she would always be a part of his life, no matter what.

“It’s too all-consuming, Sam,” she said. “We live for this place. How am I ever supposed to meet someone when all I do is eat, sleep, breathe Mirk Publications?”

“Then we’ll get a sales assistant. You can do half days. Whatever it takes,” he countered.

“No. It wouldn’t work. I’m a control freak, you know I am. And it’s thinking about the business when I’m not here that’s part of it, as well. I’d still be doing that if I owned half of it. I need a complete break,” she said.

There was a determination in her tone, a firmness that he recognized. Delaney had made her decision. Without talking it over with him. Without consulting him in any way. She’d simply gone away, and come back determined to do her own thing.

He started to get angry. “And where does that leave me?” he asked. He hated the fact that he sounded like a sulky kid, but that was how he felt, so he might as well own up to it.

“Sam, you can easily afford to buy me out. You know you can. Or you can get in another partner. Or go into partnership with another small publisher. God knows, we’ve had enough of them sniffing around over the years,” she said.

Sam stared at her. She was serious about this. Completely serious. He wanted to yell at her. To tell her in no uncertain terms how stupid and selfish and wrong all this was. But he didn’t. He bit his tongue and fought for control.

“When do you want out?” he managed to ask.

“As soon as possible,” she said baldly.

Unbelievably, in light of their conversation to date, her words still stung. He rocketed to his feet.

“I’ll talk to the bank,” he said, and then he pulled her office door open, slamming it behind him as he exited. Their entire staff turned his way, but he ignored them all, crossing next door to his own office and slamming that door, too.

Then he threw himself into his office chair and dropped his head into his hands.

What in the world was he going to do without her?

DELANEY TOOK A LONG, shuddery breath and then let it out. She’d just had the hardest conversation of her life, hands down. Swiveling in her chair, she leaned forward and rested her forehead on her desk.

The look in Sam’s eyes. The hurt. The lack of comprehension. She hated causing him pain, but she had no choice.

Unless she was prepared to tell him the real reason she had to go.

Which was never going to happen.

Which left her back at square one. Although, technically, she was at square two now. She’d delivered the big blow. Now she just had to live through the next little while before she could walk away from the business. And Sam.

Her heart wrenched painfully in her chest at the thought. But she had to face up to it. One day soon, in a month or two’s time, she would walk out the double doors of this building and out of Sam’s life forever.

She lifted her head off the desk, then dropped it down again, banging her forehead. It felt like an appropriate punishment for the mess she’d created, and she did it several more times—bang, bang, bang, bang—until it suddenly occurred to her that she might bruise her forehead. Good luck explaining that one to sane, ordinary people—I’d just screwed up my entire life, so I thought I’d add brain damage to the mix.

Lifting her head, she stared blindly at the wall planner in front of her. Absolute honesty time—there had been a part of her that had hoped that when Sam heard her big news he’d break down and say something to give her hope. She figured that the exact same part of her twisted female psyche was responsible for believing in unicorns when she was five and Santa Claus until she was eight, but it didn’t make the realization any easier to bear. How sad could she get? Even at the eleventh hour, she was hoping for a reprieve, that he’d tell her he was mad about her, he couldn’t stand the thought of life without her. As if Sam wouldn’t have found some time over the past, say, sixteen years to recognize that his brotherly affection was actually repressed lust for her slim, boyish body, if that were actually the case.

A knock sounded on the door behind her.

“Yes?” she called out.

The door opened a crack and their desktop artist, Rudy, poked his head in. “You okay?” he asked cautiously. With his flamboyant red-and-blue-dyed hair and multiple piercings, coupled with his tendency to dress in brightly colored rave club wear, Rudy looked like a demented elf.

Delaney summoned a smile for him. “I’m fine,” she lied.

“Right. I’ve been with you guys for five years, Delaney. You and Sam have never slammed doors before,” Rudy said.

“Sam slammed the door,” Delaney pointed out.

Rudy rolled his eyes as if to say it was the same difference. “Is everything all right?” he asked.

Delaney opened her mouth to offer up another soothing platitude, but she realized that she might as well just tell him the truth. The sooner it became an accepted fact, the sooner she could move on.

“I’ve asked Sam to buy out my share of the magazine,” she said. “I’m leaving the business.”

Rudy’s eyes almost bugged out of his head. “No way!” he said.

Delaney just held his eye until the incredulous expression faded from his face.

“But you and Sam are like bread and butter. Or strawberries and cream. Or…or…peanuts and bananas. You never have one without the other,” Rudy said.

“Peanuts and bananas, Rudy?” she queried.

“Try it sometime,” he said. Then he stared at Delaney as if he were a lost puppy.

She tried her best to be reassuring.

“It’s not going to change anything for you guys. Sam will still be here. The magazine will be exactly the same,” she said.

“No, it won’t. It’s not the same without you around. If you’d been here for the past two weeks you’d know that. Sam can’t do all the things you do. Just like you can’t do all the things he does. That’s why you make a great team. Like peanuts—”

“And bananas. I got it,” Delaney said. “I’m sorry, Rudy, but it’s just the way it is. It’ll all work out okay, you’ll see.”

If only she could believe her own advice. Shooting her one last bewildered look, Rudy slipped back out into the main office. Within seconds, their remaining four employees would be up to speed, Delaney guessed. Which would save her having to conduct the same difficult, uncomfortable conversation four more times.

Working on autopilot, she turned her computer on and began to organize her desk. Sam’s practical joke had left her normally neat and tidy work surface a mess of disordered paper. She spent the next twenty minutes mindlessly filing and straightening things, then she worked her way through her phone messages. By the time she’d dealt with the more urgent ones, it was lunchtime.

She usually ate lunch with Sam. They’d walk to a local café, or jump in the car and go somewhere farther afield, just to clear their heads. Once or twice a year, when the weather was too damned irresistible and the surf report was too enticing, they’d bail on work completely for the whole afternoon and take off for the nearest surf beach.

She could just imagine his expression if she sauntered next door and suggested they grab a bite. She hadn’t heard a peep from him since he’d barreled out of her office and into his own—no low murmur of phone conversation, no chatting with the other employees. Like her, Sam was probably staying put in his office, reeling from her announcement.

For a second she was gripped with a wild impulse to tell him it had all been a big, stupid joke. That she’d just been yanking his chain, the ultimate practical gag.

The urge was so strong she forced herself to scoop up her car keys and purse before she could give in to it. Striding to the front door, she told Debbie that she’d be back in an hour.

The mall was probably not the best place to go when she was feeling down, but somehow she wound up there. Fluorescent lighting, neon signs, crowds of dull-eyed shoppers—she fit right in as she walked around aimlessly, staring blankly at clothes racks, sorting pointlessly through sales bins. It wasn’t until she caught herself burrowing furiously through a bargain bin, trying to find a complete set of Christmas-themed napkin rings, that she snapped out of it.

Not only did she not own napkins, she hated knick-knacky home decor items with a passion. Dropping the offending objects like hot potatoes, she exited the store and sat on the nearest bench. Pulling a notebook from her handbag, she forced herself to focus.

Yes, she was a little off balance after making such a life-changing decision and then following through on it by telling Sam her intentions, but it was no excuse to wig out completely. She had to keep moving toward her end goal—find a husband, build a family.

She wrote both things down in her notebook, then groaned and tore the page out, throwing it into the nearby bin. Who was she kidding? She didn’t need a to-do list—she knew what had to be done.

First, she had to stop comparing every man she met to Sam Kirk. Second, she had to actually start taking more men up on their offers to take her to dinner/the movies/bed. With Sam out of her life, hopefully the rest would simply fall into place.

Wig-out over, she stood and smoothed the creases from her tailored slim-line trousers. Her hands stilled on her thighs as she stared down at her sensible, businesslike outfit. She always wore pants to work. And she almost always wore a shirt, or some other kind of sensible, tailored top. She wasn’t a fussy, frills-and-flowers kind of woman, never had been. But still…

Scanning the mall, her eye was drawn to the glint of a mirror, and she crossed to stand in front of it. The woman staring back at her was plain-looking, with long straight mid-brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was wearing navy linen pants and a cream cotton shirt, and while both were of good quality and well-cut, there was no escaping the fact that she looked a little like a military nurse. Or a postal worker.

Her mind flashed to the eye-popping blonde she’d encountered outside the office that morning. No one would ever mistake Coco for a postal worker, that was for sure. And while Delaney knew she could never even begin to play in the same league as the epically endowed Coco, there was no reason why she shouldn’t make the best of her assets.

That’s what it was all about, after all, wasn’t it? Using what you had to attract the opposite sex. Then it was down to personality and compatibility and chemistry.

Once again she scanned the mall, this time looking for a hair salon. There were three to choose from, all situated close to one another. She spent a few minutes analyzing the cuts of the hairstylists in each establishment, as well as those of their clients, then she simply picked the one that looked the most expensive. She hadn’t had a haircut in months. Normally she tidied up her own bangs with the kitchen scissors, and just had the spilt ends cut off the back every now and then.

Approaching the counter, she smiled nervously at the receptionist.

“Hi. I’d like to get a haircut,” she said.

“Of course. We actually have an opening now, if you’re interested,” the girl said smoothly. “Someone canceled at the last minute.” She flicked a strand of perfect hair over her shoulder, and Delaney found herself following the silky fall of the woman’s multihued locks. Eyes narrowing, she assessed the receptionist’s haircut: shorter at the front, it gradually became longer toward the back, just skimming her shoulders. The choppy texture of the cut was emphasized by a mixture of brown streaks, ranging from darkest chocolate to cinnamon to a golden bronze. It was sexy hair, alluring hair. Nothing postal or military about it at all.

“Do you think they could cut my hair like that?” Delaney asked impulsively.

The receptionist tilted her head to one side and considered her. “Absolutely. Let me get Volker. He’s the expert,” she said.

Delaney found herself being ushered into a seat by a lanky hairstylist with a pronounced German accent.

“Oh, yes, we can do something with this,” he said approvingly as he freed her hair from its tie.

“It needs to be like hers,” Delaney said, pointing toward the receptionist who had once again resumed her station at the front of the store.

“It will be better,” Volker announced, no hint of ego or boasting in his voice—he was simply stating a fact.

Two hours later, Delaney decided he was right on the money. The woman staring back from the salon mirror was a stranger. Gone was her straight, no-nonsense fringe. Now her hair swept gracefully to one side of her face to fall in graduated layers onto her shoulders. Each layer was made up of a myriad of colors—russet, chocolate, ginger—so that when she ran her hand through it or shook it, her hair shimmered with light and movement.

“Wow,” the receptionist said when Delaney stepped up to the counter to pay her bill. The girl’s gaze flicked doubtfully to her own reflection in a nearby mirror and Delaney felt a dart of feminine pride. She had hair that other women envied! How good was that!

Her euphoria lasted for all of the five seconds it took for her mind to default to wondering what Sam would think of her new cut.

Stupid stupid stupid, she told herself, but it didn’t make any difference. He had been the sun her world orbited around for so long, it was going to take time to wean herself away from using him as her touchstone.

The realization drove her into the nearest David Jones department store, her step determined.

Another hour and a half later, she stuffed a dozen rustling shopping bags into the back seat of the MINI. She’d gone berserk. There was no other word for it. Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman had nothing on Delaney. She’d practically handed her credit card over to the sympathetic sales assistant and told her to go crazy. New makeup, perfume and underwear, six pairs of shoes, a pair of boots, three pairs of figure-hugging jeans in black, red and dark denim, and a host of skirts, dresses, tank tops, T-shirts…She honestly had no idea exactly what she’d bought. But it was all fitted. Tight, even. The skirts were either short and flirty, or short and figure-hugging. The dresses were triumphs of design, with minuscule straps and cinching belts and draping skirts that made her look willowy and elegant and mysterious. And the bras…Who would have thought that a bra could make such a difference? She refused to wear a padded bra, but the underwire balconette bra the saleswoman had shown her actually gave her cleavage. And the colors! She had a rainbow of silk and lace in her shopping bags. She’d oohed and ahhed so much she was sure the saleswoman must have thought she’d just escaped from behind the Iron Curtain. But the truth was, Delaney hadn’t spent this much time thinking about her appearance since she was a teenager and she’d made a single pathetic, misguided attempt to make Sam look at her as a woman. He’d laughed at her too-bright lipstick and her sister’s clothes and asked if she was going to a fancy dress, and she’d gone home and scrubbed at her face until it was red raw.

Since she’d long ago given up on Sam loving her, she’d relegated the art of allure and seduction to the dustbin. If a man was interested in plain old Delaney, she’d give him a whirl. But she had never gone out of her way to be sexy before. And this new wardrobe of hers was undeniably provocative.