Hot for Him

So there was no need for him to feel as though he’d achieved something, just because she hadn’t slapped his face or gagged with disgust. It had been a kiss, nothing more. No big deal.

Slamming her car door shut, Claudia grimaced at her reflection in the tinted glass of her side window. Her eyes were deeply shadowed from lack of sleep—and not because she’d been partying endlessly all night with the gang from work. As usual, she hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol and she’d rolled into bed and closed her eyes at the very respectable time of midnight.

And promptly not slept a wink for the entire night.

And not because of excitement, either. At least, not excitement over their win.

No. Unfortunately, it had been the other kind of excitement that had kept her up. The Leandro-Mandalor-induced kind.

One kiss, and she’d been ready to drag him up to her suite and ride him like a pony at the fair. She closed her eyes as she imagined how monumental her regret would be this morning if she’d actually followed through on that instinct instead of limiting her transgression to a single kiss.

Although, technically, it hadn’t been her who had limited it. Leandro had been the one who had walked away.

Which brought her back to her favorite two words for the day: smug bastard. Why hadn’t she been the one to push him away, to smile up into his face and deliver a sassy line? Why, why, why?

Thank God she wasn’t still at the convention. A small saving grace. With a bit of luck, she wouldn’t have to look him in the eye again for a full twelve months.

Collecting the award from her back seat, she clicked her car shut and made her way into the building. The news of their win had spread through the office and she was mobbed the moment she walked in the door.

It took her a full half hour to make it to her desk, but by then her mood had improved dramatically. It was great to see how proud her staff was of the award. As she’d said last night, television was a collaborative medium. No one person could take credit for the success of the show, and it was great to be able to pass the joy around. There was an official display cabinet for awards in the conference room, but she decided that this latest gong might find a home on the reception desk for the first few months. That way everyone could remember their win when they walked into work each morning.

Crossing to her office, she saw Sadie was at her desk already, looking bright-eyed and not in the least hungover. Claudia narrowed her gaze on her friend, taking in Sadie’s glowing complexion and suddenly remembering the untouched wineglass at her friend’s place setting last night.

Suspicion hardened into certainty as she walked into Sadie’s office and Sadie fumbled to hastily open a new screen on her Web browser.

Claudia smiled, propping her butt on the edge of Sadie’s desk and swinging her foot casually.

“Have a good time last night?” she asked idly.

“Of course. Not every day we get a People’s Vote Award,” Sadie said.

“So you’re not tired at all?” Claudia probed.

Sadie shrugged. “Not really. We didn’t tie one on, since both Dylan and I had to work today. I don’t understand why they hold the awards night on a Monday.”

Claudia nodded, then stood. “It’s so we don’t enjoy ourselves too much. God forbid that anyone ever feels comfortable in this industry.”

Moving toward the door, Claudia waited until she was on the threshold before she spoke over her shoulder. “And by the way, I think Amazon is having a special on baby books this month.”

“Yeah? Thanks,” Sadie said brightly, then she bit her lip and blushed hotly.

“Huh! Gotcha!” Claudia said, pouncing. “You’re pregnant.”

Sadie just smiled ruefully. “I told Dylan there was no point trying to keep it from you and Grace. He doesn’t understand about female intuition.”

Claudia ignored the small flicker of hurt that her friend would want to keep such great news from her in the first place. Plenty of couples liked to wait until they’d passed the crucial first trimester before spreading their good news far and wide. There was nothing unusual in Sadie and Dylan wanting to hold tight to their secret for a little bit longer. Except…for a while now, it had been just the three of them—her, Sadie and Grace. Perhaps it was an index of how wrong Sadie’s first engagement to Greg had been that Claudia had never felt this way about their relationship. But Sadie and Dylan were utterly committed to each other. They’d been married for just six months, and now they had a baby on the way. The friendship between her, Sadie and Grace would never be the same again.

Of course things were going to change, she scolded herself impatiently. She knew that; it was a part of life. Grace and Sadie had fallen in love and settled down. Claudia had simply been too busy working and looking in the other direction to really notice what was happening around her.

“How many weeks?” she asked, pushing her own feelings aside to celebrate her friend’s great news.

“We think eight. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment tomorrow,” Sadie said.

Claudia rounded her friend’s desk to hug her.

“I’m so happy for you. For both of you. A little Sadie or Dylan. I can’t wait to meet him or her,” Claudia said.

“I still can’t quite believe it. A little person is going to grow inside me. How weird and amazing is that? I keep thinking about those scenes in Alien. Is that wrong, do you think?” Sadie asked worriedly. “Shouldn’t I be knitting booties or something instead of worrying about a monster bursting out of my abdomen?”

Claudia laughed. “Leave it to you to turn pregnancy into a science fiction gore fest. You’ll be fine, Sade. Worse comes to worst, you can sleep through the whole birth these days and watch it on video later.”

“Now you’re talking,” Sadie said with enthusiasm. “I know I’m supposed to want the whole yoga-aromatherapy-natural-birth thing, but pain is not my friend. I want whatever they’ve got in big, industrial doses.”

“A woman after my own heart. If I ever had a kid, I’d want them to just induce a coma in the last week of pregnancy and then wake me when the kid’s toilet trained,” Claudia said.

Sadie blinked with surprise.

“You know, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you talk about having children,” she said.

“Hey, you’re the one who’s pregnant, not me. I was speaking hypothetically. You know I don’t want kids,” Claudia said, picking a piece of lint off her trousers.

A groan sounded behind them.

“All I want to know is, does one of you have a handgun?”

They both turned to find Grace standing in the doorway, her already pale complexion alabaster and her eyes hidden behind her cat’s eye sunglasses.

“It would be a mercy killing. You could take me out to the car park and do it quietly,” she moaned, flopping into Sadie’s visitor’s chair. Swooning theatrically, she pressed a hand to her forehead.

“I feel like Tallulah Bankhead,” she said.

Sadie and Claudia exchanged amused looks.

“Too much champagne, Gracie?” Claudia said in her loudest, no-nonsense voice.

Grace winced and held up a hand. “Don’t be cruel. It’s not nice to taunt the animals,” she said.

Sadie shook her head and reached into her desk drawer. “Here, have some aspirin,” she said, tossing the pack over. Then she caught Claudia’s eye and lifted an eyebrow. Claudia shrugged a shoulder in response to her friend’s unspoken question. The cat was out of the bag already, after all.

“But before you go off to nurse your hangover,” Sadie added, “I’ve got some news. Well, really, it’s mine and Dylan’s news.”

Grace sat up as though someone had goosed her. Her glasses slid down to the end of her nose as she looked over them at Sadie.

“Get out of town,” she said. “You’re not pregnant!”

“Incorrect. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars,” Claudia said.

Leaping to her feet, Grace raced around the desk and threw herself into Sadie’s arms.

“You and Dylan are going to make the best parents,” she said, hugging Sadie fiercely. “The absolute best. Imagine the bedtime stories that kid’s going to hear.”

They spent another twenty minutes combing over the few bare details of Sadie’s pregnancy so far—two missed periods, no nausea, no tiredness, definite increase in bust size—and discussing Sadie’s Alien fears before peeling off to go to their respective offices.

Claudia found a pile of phone message slips on her desk, all of them congratulation messages bar two. Her voice mail was likewise clogged, and she put a call through to her assistant to ask her to sort through the backlog and let her know if there were any genuine callbacks required.

Then she sat back and stared at her office wall. Sadie was going to have a baby. She and Dylan were going to have a little family. If Grace’s rapt expression and intent questioning were anything to go by, she and Mac wouldn’t be far behind, either. Grace had a couple of years on Sadie, after all.

And Claudia was older than both of them.

It wasn’t something she’d ever really registered before. They’d all met at university when they joined the Undergraduate Film Festival Committee, and soon formed a firm friendship. Even though Sadie had skipped a year at school, and Claudia had tried her hand out in the workforce for a few years before opting for higher education, age had always been irrelevant in their bonding.

Frowning, Claudia checked her e-mail. She didn’t care about her ovaries aging. They could self-combust for all she’d notice—she’d fought too long and too hard to get where she was to walk away from it all to serve up puréed apple and change diapers twenty-four hours a day. Babies were fine for other women, but not for her.

Ruthlessly she squashed the memory of holding her eldest brother’s first son in the hospital. She’d been surprised by the fierce tug of love she’d felt, the instinctive desire to protect and nurture the tiny red person bundled in the blanket. Almost as though to eliminate any maternal longing, a grim memory pulled at Claudia: an image of a woman huddled on a bed, sobbing her heart out.

Impatient with her self-indulgence this morning, Claudia brushed it away. While she was contemplating her navel, Ocean Boulevard awaited.

It was mid-morning when her assistant, Gabby, buzzed a call through to her.

“I have Leandro Mandalor on line one,” Gabby said. She sounded faintly scandalized that the competition would dare to call.

Claudia pursed her lips.

“Tell him I’m unavailable,” she said. “Tell him to call back in an hour.”

Smiling to herself, she bent to her work again. Did he really think he could just call her after what had happened and she’d jump at the chance to talk to him like a good little girl?

Probably he did, she knew. That ego. That selfassurance—of course he did.

Well, he had another think coming.

Exactly an hour later, Gabby buzzed her again.

“I’ve got Mr. Mandalor again,” she said.

“Tell him my meeting has run overtime. He should try again in another hour,” Claudia said.

An hour later, Gabby came through to Claudia’s office.

“It’s him again,” she said. She looked faintly harassed. “I think he knows I’m lying.”

“I’m a busy person, Gabby. He has no way of knowing if I’m in a meeting or not. Tell him I went straight out to my lunch meeting without checking my messages. You don’t know when I’ll be back.”

Looking distinctly uncomfortable, Gabby picked up the line from Claudia’s office.

“Mr. Mandalor? I’m terribly sorry, but Ms. Dostis has gone straight out to her luncheon appointment. Perhaps if you tried later this afternoon…?”

Claudia could hear the low bass of Leandro’s voice without being able to discern actual words. She frowned as Gabby flinched, then went pale.

“Um, just hold on a moment,” Gabby said, reaching for the hold key as though it were a lifeline.

“What?” Claudia asked. “Did he bully you? What an asshole.”

“He said that you’ve had your fun, but that he wasn’t calling about the kiss. He said that something very important has come up and unless you want to see it across the front page of The National Enquirer, you should take his call.”

To her everlasting shame, Claudia felt herself blush with self-consciousness. How dare he mention that stupid kiss to her assistant?

“Give me that,” she said, wresting the phone from Gabby’s unresisting fingers.

Her finger punched down onto the hold button.

“What do you want?” she asked bluntly as soon as the line went live.

“My, my. What a terribly quick lunch that must have been,” Leandro said.

It was the first time she’d heard his voice over the phone. To her astonishment, the deep vibrato of his baritone made something utterly primitive and feminine within her snap to quivering attention.

“Do you or do you not have a business matter to discuss with me?” she said.

Gabby was standing in her doorway, hovering curiously. Claudia gave her a thumbs-up to indicate all was well and sent her on her way.

“That kiss was hot, but not hot enough for me to jump through all those flaming hoops like a dumb circus pony, Claudia. Yes, I have a business issue to discuss.”

Not hot enough? Where did this guy get off? Claudia puffed her cheeks out and put her free hand on her hip, really ticked off now. Then she noticed Gabby still hovering.

This time she waved her hand at her sticky-beak assistant, indicating she should go, and Gabby had no choice but to slink away unsatisfied.

“Fire away, then, Mr. Mandalor. I’m a busy woman.”

“Not too busy for this. Are you aware that a member of your cast is, shall we say, getting it on with a member of mine?” he asked.

Claudia blinked and sat back in her chair. She usually had a pretty good grip on who was doing what with whom. It was part of the job—she needed to know who might be at risk, and who was putting the show at risk.

“No. Who are we talking about here?”

“Alicia Morrison on your side, Wes Brooks on mine,” he said.

Claudia winced. Alicia was just seventeen, Wes in his thirties. Not a particularly good look, especially when Alicia played a character called Angel.

“But wait, there’s more,” Claudia said, anticipating Leandro’s next line.

“Clever lady. The reason I know about this little… fling…is that Alicia and Wes were dumb enough to videotape themselves in action.”

Shit.

“Please tell me that tape has not disappeared,” she said.

“House break-in. Just your usual grab and run. But guess which tape was still in the video machine?”

Claudia mouthed a four-letter word.

“So Wes came to you and confessed all?” Claudia asked. “And now we’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop?”

“It’s worse than that. I got a call this morning from some scuzzball. He wants to meet tonight to find out what this tape is worth to both of us.”

Claudia frowned. “Blackmail?” Her stomach tensed. This was a first for her.

“In a word.”

Claudia stared at her desk, her mind racing as she calculated what was at stake. Alicia was a popular, up-and-coming young actress. She’d played a virginal innocent since joining the show at age fourteen. Lord only knew when and how she’d met Wes, but Claudia couldn’t help feeling some responsibility for the situation she was in. Who was to say what Alicia’s life would be like if Boulevard hadn’t plucked her out of a shopping center talent competition and put her on national television? Not that Alicia was crying herself to sleep at night over her great career or anything—but perhaps she shouldn’t have to suffer publicly for her bad decisions just yet.

Then there was the damage this would cause to the show. They had a strong core audience in the Midwest. She could just imagine the kind of mail she’d get if triple X-rated footage began to do the rounds. She’d be forced to lose Alicia, which would mean months of rewriting and stress for her team…

“Where does our budding entrepreneur want to meet?” she asked, grabbing a pen and pulling her notepad toward her.

“He gave me an address for a bar on the Strip. Here’s what I was thinking—I go along representing both of us tonight, see what he’s got, whether it’s anything to worry about. Then we reconvene to discuss our options.”

“Sure. What address and what time?” Claudia said impatiently, brushing aside his offer to be the front man for both of them.

“I don’t think—”

“I can see that. Don’t worry, I’m smart enough for both of us. Can I have the address, please?”

She heard him swear under his breath, then the shuffle of paper on the other end of the phone.

“It’s called Monkey Shine,” he said, reading out an address on Sunset Strip. “He wants to meet at nine tonight.”

“Fine. I’ll meet you there at eight-thirty,” Claudia said, underlining the address and time on her notepad.

“You really want to do this? Even though I’m giving you an out?” Leandro asked.

Claudia lifted the phone away from her ear and stared at the receiver. What planet was this guy from? Some place where women still met their men at the door with pipe and slippers in hand?

“News flash—having a penis doesn’t make you more capable of doing anything except urinating while standing up,” she said. “I’ll see you at eight-thirty. Don’t be late.”

THE LITTLE GRUB flexing his extortion muscles had picked a suitably sleazy locale to begin his apprenticeship, Leandro decided. Monkey Shine had grimy painted-over windows out front and a neon sign with several letters burned out. Inside wasn’t much better—sticky carpet, the stink of stale beer and cigarettes, and lighting so dim he could barely see his hand in front of his face.

Booths lined the left-hand wall, a bar the right. He made his way to the latter on the basis that the illuminated Jack Daniel’s sign above the glass rack offered marginally more light. He was early—Claudia wasn’t due for another ten minutes—but he’d wanted to check the place out first. If it was beyond the pale, he’d meet her at the door and lay down the law. He was sure she could hold her own in the boardroom or on the studio floor, but this was different. This was shady underbelly stuff, and she was so small he could pick her up and carry her around in his shirt pocket. He didn’t want to be responsible for her getting hurt.

Ordering a Miller, he narrowed his eyes and scanned the room. There was a doorway at the back with a sign hanging over it announcing that pool tables and toilets could be found on the other side. It was a seedy place, but it didn’t seem to have more than its fair share of bums, drunks, louts and hookers. He figured he’d have trouble convincing Claudia she should go home without bullet holes or a forensic body outline to support his case.

He’d just taken his first mouthful of beer when something sharp and hard hit him on the back of the neck. Frowning, he shot a look to the ceiling to see if the sky was, indeed, falling, then flicked a look over his shoulder. The second peanut caught him just below the eye, and he jerked his head back instinctively.

She was seated in the shadows of the third booth from the door, and Leandro shook his head as he slid in opposite her.

“Had to check it out on your own, didn’t you?” he said.

“Great minds think alike,” she said.

She was wearing a sleeveless black turtleneck sweater, and he couldn’t stop himself from admiring the way the thin knit clung to her breasts. She might be small, but her breasts looked more than enough to satisfy any man.

“Fancy that, my breasts are in the same place they were last night. A miracle,” she said dryly.

As always with her, he found himself smiling.

“You’re a sexy lady. I’m only human.” He shrugged.

“Subhuman, you mean,” she sniffed.

“There’s nothing sub about me, babe,” he said with a cocky grin.

She eyed him steadily. “I’ll take your word for it.”

He took a mouthful of beer, noticing that she was nursing a cola and something.

“Did you talk to Alicia?” he asked.

“Tried. She started crying the moment I said the words Wes and videotape in the same sentence. I think she’s been holding out on us,” she said dryly.

“How so?”

“It was an Academy Award winning performance—innocent-damsel-in-distress stuff. I felt like Dr. Mengele by the time I’d confirmed the facts. Wish I got that kind of performance from her on set.”

“You think they were crocodile tears?” he asked skeptically. “She’s seventeen, on her way up. Pretty legitimate to be freaked out that one moment of weakness might ruin it all.”

She wrinkled her nose, tilted her head to one side. “In my experience, women who do the whole sex tape thing are not wilting flowers. But I reserve my judgment until I see the footage. Maybe Wes had to lay a trail of bread-crumbs to coax my innocent little Bambi to the bed. But I think not.”

Leandro eyed her over his beer.

“You’re a real hard-ass, is that it?” he asked.

“I’m a realist. And, unlike Alicia, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sex how you like it. The stinger for her is that she’s got a profile, but maybe this will teach her to be a little smarter in the future. Shoot, watch, erase. I’ll get a T-shirt made for her.”

“You sound like you know what you’re talking about,” he said.

Her near-black eyes glinted in the dim light. She looked mysterious and sexy and forbidden.

“I’ve seen Sex, Lies and Videotape,” she said, shrugging one shoulder negligently.

“Hmm,” he said, grinning at her. “And the rest.”

Suddenly she slid along the booth seat and stood, crossing to his side.

“Shove over,” she said.

He stared at her. “What…?”

She rolled her eyes. “So the con man has somewhere to sit. I don’t want to rub elbows with him. He might have cooties,” she said.

“Right.”

He felt like a real dumb-ass as he slid along the bench seat to make room for her. What had he thought was going to happen? That she was about to give him a little demonstration of sex how she liked it?

The booths were designed for intimacy, and he found himself brushing against her as she sat beside him. Her scent enveloped him, and he inhaled surreptitiously.

“Bulgari,” she said matter-of-factly. “Drives men nuts.”

He let out a crack of laughter. She never missed a trick.

“You sure it’s the perfume?” he asked.

She turned her face toward him, and he admired the sweep of her cheekbones and the heart-shaped fullness of her mouth. Her nose was straight and proud, a delicate, feminized version of his own Greek prow, and her teeth flashed white against the plum of her lipstick.

He was as hard as a rock, thanks to her perfume, her tight little top, the sass of her conversation and the chemistry between them. He reminded himself again that she was forbidden fruit—his greatest competitor—but tonight little head was prevailing over big head. And little head was only thinking of one thing: getting Claudia naked as soon as possible.

She opened her mouth to respond just as a skinny guy wearing a cap pulled down low over his face slid into the booth opposite them. Leandro felt Claudia stiffen beside him and he instinctively put a reassuring hand on her knee. Her elbow jabbed him sharply in the ribs and he slid his hand free. For a moment there he’d forgotten who he was sitting next to. God forbid that Claudia Dostis need reassurance.

“I know who you are,” the guy said, gaze flickering over Leandro. He was more interested in Claudia, however. “You’re the producer of Ocean Boulevard, huh? Figured you’d be older. And uglier.”

His tone was lascivious.

“And I figured you’d be smarter. Life’s full of disappointments. Where’s this tape you say you have?” she said.