Author: Bella Andre

“Sure,” the boy said. “No problem.”

“Thanks. And if you want to come by the set sometime, why don’t you give me your number and I’ll call you to set it up.”

“Seriously?” The kid scrawled his number on a napkin, then said, “I’ll make sure no one bothers you tonight.”

After he grabbed their food and they sat down, despite how hungry Valentina was, she knew she wouldn’t be able to eat a thing. Not yet.

“There’s not one single thing you could do to blow our first date.”

Smith didn’t reach for his food either. “You sure about that?”

The look in his eyes suddenly reminded her of the way he’d gazed at her when they’d been making love—as though he couldn’t imagine living without her.

Maybe before tonight she would have lied to him, would have told him that she was fine. But after what they’d shared with each other, after how close she’d felt to him, she had to tell him the truth.

“No, I’m not completely sure, but—” She paused and stared into his eyes. “—I want to be. So, so badly.”

She knew it wasn’t what he wanted, that it wasn’t nearly enough. It wasn’t enough for her, either. But he simply picked up the mustard and ketchup and made two straight yellow and red lines along either side of her hot dog, just the way she liked it on the rare occasions craft services had brought in hot dogs to the set.

As she took it from him, she had to wonder how he could possibly have had a chance to notice the way she ate hot dogs? But then, was that really such a stretch from his noticing her at all in the first place?

Gravity, she’d only just started to realize, didn’t care if one of them was a movie star made to be in front of bright lights, when the other only knew how to be comfortable in the shadows.

Smith grabbed one of her fries and popped it into his mouth. “So, what should we make the stakes?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You want to turn a friendly game of miniature golf into a bet?”

“I’m a guy. It’s what we do,” he said, his dark eyes sizzling with wicked intent.

She rolled her eyes. “At least you recognize how ridiculous you are, acting so competitive about a fun game.”

“Do you really mean to tell me you and Tatiana aren’t the least bit competitive with each other? Or that you haven’t tried to rig the windmill hole to close at least once before her ball could get in?”

She laughed at his far-too-insightful question. “Well, maybe there was that one time she ‘accidentally’ slipped on a ball in front of my shot that was sure to be a winning hole in one.”

He shook his head. “Little sisters are a pain in the butt, aren’t they? But then again, I’m sure you got her back for that, didn’t you?”

She gave him her most innocent look, before saying, “Who knew putting Vaseline on a golf ball would make it nearly impossible to hit it straight?”

“Now that I know how much the win means to you,” he said through his laughter, “I may have to do a full body search for any hidden jars of Vaseline before we start playing.”

Valentina was struck yet again that it didn’t matter where they were, on the set, in a conference room, in his living room doing a puzzle, or sitting in the middle of a golf ’n’ games arcade that hadn’t been updated—or cleaned—since the early seventies: she wanted him.

And she liked him very, very much.

“If I win,” he said in a low voice that sent shivers running over her already too-sensitive skin, “you have to hold my hand for the rest of the night.”

Tatiana’s advice from earlier came fast and furious at Valentina: What if you gave Smith a chance to love you the way you deserve to be loved? Don’t you think there’s a chance that he could be up to the challenge? And that you could be, too?

So even though Valentina’s hand was starting to shake on her lap beneath the sticky Formica tabletop, she made herself raise it. With her heart hammering so hard she wouldn’t have been surprised to see it actually pop through her ribs and skin, she reached across the table for his hand.

Valentina thought she heard Smith’s breath catch as she slowly slid her palm against his, before interlacing their fingers.

The heat of his touch immediately melted the ice that was trying to close her heart back in.

“You don’t need to win a bet to have that.”

* * *

After their game of miniature golf had ended in a perfect tie, and Valentina and Smith walked into her rental house hand in hand, they found Tatiana lying on the couch reading a book.

She smiled at them over the top of her paperback. “Are Marcus and Nicola spending the night at your house again, Smith?”

He grinned back at her. “Nope.”

Valentina had never had a man stay over before. She’d told herself it was because she hadn’t wanted to make her sister feel uncomfortable. But the truth was, she’d never wanted to give away enough of herself to a man for the intimacy of waking up together.

Now, for the first time, she wanted to give that to Smith.

“You don’t mind if my boyfriend stays over, do you, T?”

At the word boyfriend Tatiana grinned widely and said, “Nope, I’ll just make sure I’ve got my earplugs handy.”

Smiling at her sister’s sassy response, Valentina was plugging her phone into its charger when she realized she had a message waiting from George, one that must have been there all afternoon. Even though she wanted nothing more than to get into bed with Smith, she couldn’t ignore a decade of the work ethic that had her dialing her voice mail and listening to what he had to say.

When she put down the phone, her hands were shaking. She looked at the two people who meant the most to her, and was glad they were both there to hear her news.

“George says there’s a bidding war going for my screenplay.” She wondered how her voice could sound so calm, when her insides were doing cartwheels. “A big one. And he said he thinks I’m going to be really happy with the studio that’s in the clear lead.”

“Oh my God!” Tatiana jumped up off the couch and hugged her.

Smith put his hand on her chin and pulled her face up to his so that he could say, “Congratulations, Valentina,” then kiss her, before grinning even wider and teasing, “If only I’d had a chance to see your screenplay...”

She laughed as she danced around the room with her sister, pulling him in so they were a wiggling, happy threesome. “I promise you’ll be the first person to see the next one.”

Tatiana found a bottle of champagne and after they’d all toasted and finished a glass, it was the nicest, most natural thing in the world to brush her teeth with Smith standing by her side at the sink, to strip the clothes from each other, then slip between the sheets together.

Valentina had no doubt her sister would need the earplugs on other nights, but for tonight, Smith simply wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.

And she held him right back.

Chapter Twenty-five

By the time Smith and Valentina made it into the kitchen for breakfast the next morning, Tatiana was already up and drinking a cup of coffee, a half-eaten bowl of oatmeal on the table in front of her. She smiled at them both when Smith said, “Good morning,” but when Valentina reached into the cupboard to grab two mugs, Tatiana mouthed to him, “We need to talk.”

“Hey, Val,” she said, “remember the earrings I loaned you last week? The ones with the rubies in them? I’ve looked everywhere and can’t find them. Would you mind checking to see if they’re in your bedroom?”

As soon as Valentina left the kitchen, Tatiana reached under the table and plopped a printout from the Internet into Smith’s hand. “Look at this.”

The page showed one of the “romantic” staged pictures of him and Tatiana that had been shot the week before to promote the movie while they were in character as Graham and Jo...and then another, slightly fuzzy picture of Smith and Valentina holding hands last night at the arcade. The headline between the photos shouted: Smith Sullivan introduces his gorgeous co-star to pleasure while having a secret affair with her older sister! All the details you need about the movie star’s torrid love triangle inside.

The paper crumpled in Smith’s hands as Tatiana said, “I don’t want Valentina to see this. She’ll freak out.” Both of them knew what a major understatement that was. “But if it’s already in this magazine, that means every major entertainment show and blog is bound to pick up the story by this afternoon. I just don’t know how we can keep her from seeing it.”

Twenty-four hours, thought Smith. Had that really been too much to ask?

Yes, since last night, it felt like they’d come a long way from the point at which he and Tatiana had finished filming the sex scene. But was it far enough for Valentina to trust that they could get past this kind of crap, especially with the echo of her saying, “I can’t imagine anything worse than being in the spotlight,” ringing in his ears?

Or would this headline, along with a picture of the two of them from the very first time they’d held hands in public, only confirm every single one of her fears about how hard her life would be with him?

“I know how much Val cares about you,” Tatiana said as she put her hand on his arm in what he knew was supposed to be a reassuring manner. “I mean, she hates stuff like this, but you guys are so great together.”

Valentina was coming back into the kitchen with the earrings in her hand, saying, “Sorry, I thought I gave them back to y—” when she looked between the two of them and frowned. “What’s wrong?”

There was no point in pretending it hadn’t happened, or trying to hold off the truth any longer. Smith held out the paper to her. “This.”

He slid his hand into Valentina’s as she read the article, all the way through the part about how “confidential sources” said not only couldn’t he keep his hands off Tatiana, but he was also having double the fun with the older sister who managed the business side of her career.

Tatiana’s voice shook as she said, “I know we can’t control this kind of stuff, but it’s not fair if it hurts you, Val, not when you haven’t signed up for this life like we have.”

Fair. Smith knew there wasn’t much that was fair about Hollywood, or the world that revolved around it.

“But,” Tatiana added, “once everyone realizes the two of you are actually together and that Smith and I are just working on this movie, I’m sure this will all blow over and everything will be okay.”

Maybe Tatiana was right about that, Smith thought, but even if she was, it meant the spotlight would turn entirely on Valentina.

Valentina hadn’t yet said a word, and that was what worried him most of all. Because if this had just been a picture of him and Tatiana, while he knew she wouldn’t have been at all thrilled about the false story, he had a feeling she would have been trying to comfort her sister the way she normally did.

Smith had spent so long trying to convince himself that he had control over this crazy circus life, that even as he could feel it all crumbling down around him, he told Valentina, “We make up stories to tell to the world in movies and TV shows and plays and books. These people are doing the same thing.”

The big difference, of course, was that the characters in his movies were pretend, whereas the photographers and blogs were playing with real lives. His life and Tatiana’s had been fair game for a while now.

Now, Valentina’s was, too. Because of him.

He’d known that once she’d agreed to be with him, at some point the press would want to know more about her. But he hadn’t thought it would come this soon.

Or be anywhere near this ugly.