She was still trying to catch her breath while asking herself exactly how everything had spiraled off so fast from his sister’s innocent question—to Smith beckoning her into his lair, then to being thoroughly, and wonderfully, ravished in his office—when he pressed one more kiss to her lips and stepped away to put his clothes back on.

How, she wondered, unable to do anything but stare at his beautiful face and body with helpless longing, was he able to make passionate love to her one second and get back in character again just seconds after? It was one of the reasons she’d never wanted to be with an actor. She couldn’t stand the idea of just being another scene he was playing to the best of his ability.

Only, when he looked into her eyes, she realized with stunning clarity that although he was again wearing his character’s clothes, Smith wasn’t the least bit in character. Because instead of the billionaire from the film staring at her, instead of Smith Sullivan the movie star, or even Lori’s brother, the man who stood before her was one hundred percent her lover.

Hers.

The realization of just how completely he’d given himself over to her left her staggered even as he said, “Since I know my sister’s going to want her answer before she’s through with you, you can let her know that your guy is definitely still putting in his best effort for your heart.”

With yet one more possessive kiss, he left her half-naked on the edge of his completely askew desk, still shaking not only with lust, but also with sweet emotion she couldn’t keep at bay no matter how hard she tried.

Because, in the end, what amazed her most of all—so much more than the hot, head-spinning sex they’d just had—was that she’d given Smith every reason to give up on her.

But he hadn’t.

Valentina’s heart was still racing, her legs still trembling as she put her clothes back on and did what she could to fix her makeup. Without a brush and blow dryer at hand, her hair wasn’t nearly as neat as it had been before, which meant that as she returned to the set just as filming was about to commence, she could have sworn that Lori looked at her with a very assessing expression on her face.

Valentina worked to focus every ounce of her concentration on the scene starting to play out in front of her. Fortunately, it wasn’t long before she was completely lost in the story.

Jo sat feeding her baby daughter Leah in a luxurious nursery. The walls were bright yellow, the pictures on the walls sweet without being cloying. Six months ago she would have been furious with a man for taking control of her life like this...but pride, she’d quickly learned, had very little place in a mother’s life.

Graham had given her and Leah a gift she couldn’t possibly have given herself. He’d moved them out of her crappy apartment in a bad part of the city and into a beautiful one across from a park where happy children played every morning and afternoon. If Jo had to work the rest of her life to pay him back for it, she would do so. Happily. And without resentment.

Well, she thought as she heard the doorbell ring and adjusted her top, without too much resentment at the way Graham seemed to always be there for her, anticipating her needs almost before she herself could.

Every night, he brought her the most delicious, nutritious dinner any new mother had ever eaten, and she was too tired—and too grateful that she didn’t have to use up what was left of her energy—to turn him or the yummy food away. She was also too polite to turn him away after he was kind enough to give so much of his busy schedule to her and the baby.

And in truth, it wasn’t the apartment or the food that she resented.

No. It was something far more insidious, far more potentially dangerous that had her lying in bed at night tossing and turning when she should have been trying to squeeze in sleep while her daughter finally dozed.

It would have been easier, and so much safer, to hate him. Even to fear him. But everything had changed with the birth of her daughter. And she could no longer deny that in the strange in-between of trying to push him out of her life when he would come to the coffee shop every day, up through these nightly meals together in her cozy apartment, the two of them had become friends.

And she wouldn’t ever forget the hours when she’d been giving birth to Leah. He’d been there beside her every single second, never letting go of her hand, and it had been instinctive for her to let him hold the newborn.

Graham’s gentleness had been so evident. So sweet. So pure. And everything she’d believed to be true about him, everything she’d tried to tell herself was real, was turned on its ear, until she wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

Nothing except for how safe she felt with him...and that he was the only other person on earth that she could trust with her daughter’s life.

These past weeks, she didn’t even try to deny that she looked forward to his visits, especially since he didn’t poke at her past and she didn’t poke at his. All of it might have continued to be okay—the food, the friendship, the fact that he adored her baby—were it not for one other issue. One even scarier than actually becoming friends.

She was attracted to him. More and more with every passing day. And she wasn’t young enough, or blind enough, not to see that he was attracted to her, too.

Neither of them were each other’s types. And yet, it didn’t seem to matter that she’d always had an unfortunate predilection for rocker types, or that she was the polar opposite of the Amazonian blondes that she’d seen pictured with him the couple of times she hadn’t been able to stop herself from going to the computer to look him up.

She opened the front door and Graham’s face immediately lit up when he saw that the baby was awake. He wasn’t the only one happy, as Leah reached for him with a little gurgle of joy. But he would never take the baby without Jo’s permission, and after he’d put the food down on her kitchen island, something bittersweet tugged at her as she made everyone happy by placing her soft bundle into his arms.

Her heart softened more and more with every one of the nonsense noises the powerful man in the expensive suit made to the happy baby as Jo laid out dinner on the small dining table. By the time she’d opened a bottle of beer for him and poured a glass of milk for herself, Leah had fallen asleep in his arms.

Jo reached for the baby, but Graham said, “Eat while it’s hot. I’ll just go tuck her in.”

She knew she should be drawing thicker lines between him and her daughter. But she couldn’t justify it, not when he clearly felt nothing but adoration for her. She’d never had a man in her life like that, one who loved her unconditionally. Jo couldn’t take that away from Leah.

She asked him about his day during dinner and he made her laugh with stories about the people in his office, the investors he dealt with. He asked about her day, and she told him about her trip to the park so Leah could sit and wobble in the sand and watch the bigger kids play with big wonder-filled eyes. He asked her next about the online horticulture classes she was taking, but even as he got her to share more of herself with him, by what felt like tacit agreement, neither of them ever spoke about family, about mothers or fathers or brothers or sisters.

By the end of dinner, Jo’s eyelids were falling, and even though she insisted on helping Graham clean up the table, when he gave her a brand new Encyclopedia of Flowers, she was thrilled to sink back into the couch to devour the pictures and flower descriptions, and dream of the garden store she would open one day. Finally, her exhaustion got the better of her.

Love was unmasked on Graham’s face as he looked at Jo, fast asleep on the couch, her legs tucked up under her small, curvy body, her beautiful face resting on her hands. And when the baby started crying, he immediately went to the fridge to pull out a bottle of breast milk and got water heating on the stove for it before heading back into the nursery for the little girl he was absolutely crazy about.

Making shushing sounds against the baby’s soft skin and stroking the cap of dark hair that so beautifully matched her mother’s—apart from the pink streaks—he came with her into the kitchen just as the bottle was warm enough.

As the little girl greedily drank her fill, she stared up at him with big blue eyes. He told Leah what he was so afraid to tell her mother.

“I love you.” The baby’s little hand lifted to wrap around one of his fingers and he cuddled her closer, whispering, “I will never let anyone hurt you. Ever.”

When the baby had finished eating, he rocked her gently in his arms, the lullaby he softly sang quickly soothing her back to sleep.

Jo had woken as Graham brought her daughter back into the living room, but it had been so nice, just for once, to stay in that quiet and serene half-sleep while he fed Leah. She’d been watching the two of them from under her lashes, and even though she knew how much he loved her little girl, hearing the sweet words of love fall from his lips, and then the lullaby, was a shock.

Even more so was the shock of just how badly she wanted to hear those three words for herself.

In her secret heart of hearts she knew she’d been falling for him for much longer than she had hated him. But tonight, as she watched him give his heart to the one person who meant absolutely everything to her, she not only fell the rest of the way in love...she realized she’d never had a chance of keeping her heart safe from him.

For the first time, instead of trying yet again to hide from her feelings, she decided it was long past time to act on them. Graham had helped her in a dozen special ways with both her pregnancy and the baby. Now she would do whatever she could to help him.

She had enough scars of her own to recognize how deep his ran. Not only had she never been able to forget his expression when he’d spoken of his sister that one time, but when she’d searched his name on the Internet, she’d learned of his painful loss.

Two years ago his sister had died. The stories she’d read on the Internet had called it an accidental death. But there was more than lingering grief in Graham’s eyes.

Jo sat up and slowly, but surely, moved closer to him. He made a move to hand her the sleeping baby, but she shook her head and stilled him with a hand over his.

His eyes darkened as she moved closer, then closer still, until her mouth was barely a breath from his. The silent night wrapped around them, protecting three souls, as her lips finally touched his in a soft and sweet kiss that was just as much a declaration of love as any words could have been.

Chapter Twenty

It always took Valentina a few minutes to come back to the real world after a scene wrapped, but as the emotions dug deeper with every scene Smith and Tatiana shot, resurfacing grew more and more difficult, especially now that she’d sent her screenplay off to George and hadn’t yet started a new one to pour her emotions into. Although, over the past few days, she hadn’t been able to get the Alcatraz forbidden-love story that she and Smith had discussed out of her head, and knew she’d be putting words to paper soon.

Thankfully, she wasn’t the only one who needed to take a deep breath and shake off the fictional world, because Smith’s chatty sister seemed just as dazed by what she’d seen play out on the set in front of them.

“Oh my God,” Lori exclaimed, “I think my heart just broke into a million pieces and then glued itself back together all at the same time.”

“It’s been like this since the first day of filming,” Valentina told her.

Lori turned to her. “Is Tatiana ready to become a massive star? Because she will be after this comes out.”

“I hope so. All I want is for her to be happy.”

Lori nodded. “I feel the same way about Smith. So many of the things ordinary men take for granted, like picking up a cup of coffee or going out on a first date, are so hard for Smith to do without people freaking out when they realize it’s him. But I’ve never heard him complain about it, even though it’s got to totally suck sometimes. Everyone thinks being a star is so glamorous, but that’s just a small part of it. Sometimes when I look at Smith’s life it just seems like long hours, super hard work, and a horrible loss of privacy.”