One-Click Buy: February 2010 Harlequin Blaze

by Betina Krahn

  She needed to call him and somehow get him back on board.

  “Get me Stack’s agent on the phone,” she ordered Renee on the way to her office. Moments later, she was extracting apologies, concessions and Nick’s personal cell number from Stanley Ripkin.

  Closing her office door against prying ears, she punched in the California area code and number. She finally reached him on the sixth call.

  “Before you hang up, at least listen to what I have to say,” she said the instant he answered, hoping to get her point in before the explosion.

  “If this is supposed to be an obscene call, you’ve missed the—”

  “It’s Samantha Drexel at CrownCraft.” There was a pause on the other end. No immediate explosion. She pressed her hand over her heart to muffle its wild beating. “I know you’re probably furious, but you can’t pull out of those appearances. It would be a disaster for you and us.”

  “Samantha, Samantha…oh, Samantha.” The way he said her name reminded her of the way he’d said it when they were…“The one the tabloids and paparazzi have been hammering me about.”

  She stopped dead in the middle of pacing from desk to door.

  “Okay, I can explain—”

  “This should be good,” he said, voice compressed, reined. He was barely holding his temper.

  “I told Halcyon that I didn’t want to be in any of the shots. And he left me out of them, mostly. He caught a few of us in the same frame. And when he presented them to the company brass, the photo of us together was the one he insisted had to be used for the main part of the campaign.” Silence on the other end. “He got all it’s-one-of-the-best-shots-of-my-career and you have to admit, it has an impact.”

  “Impact,” he said in clipped tones. “That’s what you call it?”

  “That’s what the company brass called it. And they insisted on using it for the campaign. We’ve used others of you alone in print ads and press releases. But the poster is…I know it’s awkward, but you can’t use it as an excuse to back out of appearances. You have a contract, for pity’s—”

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re not what?” She felt the tension squeezing her chest ease.

  “Backing out because of the posters. Whatever else I am, I’m a pro at the publicity game, Samantha. I just happen to be a little busy.”

  Did he think she was a complete idiot?

  “Doing what? What could possibly be more important than kissing babies and signing autographs at the biggest mall in Dallas this weekend?”

  “Laying down tracks for an album.”

  That stopped her for a moment. She knew how important that was to him. A dozen questions clogged her throat, making it hard to speak. But she swallowed and managed to get past them.

  “You have to be there. If you don’t show, the company is going to sue your pants off.”

  Unexpectedly, he laughed. Her skin responded on its own with goosebumps. When his voice came again it was deep and husky and full of taunting sensuality.

  “There are easier ways to get my pants off, babe.”

  Panicking, she hung up. She knew he’d said it just to provoke her. And his mention of tabloids and paparazzi…For the first time she considered the implications of the photo in his world. They were hounding him about his new flame? She tried to control an unholy tingle of excitement.

  None of this was getting him to Dallas. When she had her temper and hormones under control, she called back.

  “You have to go to Dallas, Nick.”

  “Yeah? Or what? You’re going to come out here and get me?” There was male challenge in his voice. “Say, why don’t you do that, babe? Just come on out to L.A. and make me go to Dallas.”

  And this time he hung up.

  NICK CLOSED HIS PHONE and sat looking at it for a minute. He was taking one hell of a risk. He opened his cell again and called up a snapshot of the photo that had changed everything. Her face and his. The minute he’d seen it that night in Chicago, he’d known that every instinct he’d had about her was spot-on. She was something special, and together—Hell, together they were magic.

  It was all right there in the photo for the world to see—wonder, longing, tenderness, desire, hope. And he wanted it. It shocked him just how much. With Sam Drexel there were no half measures. He wanted it all…the slow burn and the fast talk, the soulful surprise at the bottom of the box. He wanted to sink into her warm-honey eyes and feel that bone-deep sense of connection again. And again and again.

  And if he played his cards right, she wouldn’t know he was chasing her until she was his.

  IT TOOK TWO INTERMINABLE days for her to get there. She walked into the control room of Studio A at Studio City Sound in L.A. wearing tall boots, one of those narrow skirts of hers and a sweater that hugged her curves like a second skin. He shot to his feet and ditched his headphones.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded, his throat tightening. The impact she had on him was all he’d remembered and more.

  “Did you honestly think I’d let you sink both our careers?” She folded her arms and glared. “Look, I’m sorry about the poster and your tabloid troubles. But the flight to Dallas leaves in five hours and we’re going to be on it.”

  A tall lanky guy in jeans and a Bob Marley T-shirt stuck his head in the door to say, “She pushed right past me, man. This the one?”

  “Yeah. It’s okay, Pete, don’t worry about it,” he said.

  But the guy lingered in the doorway, raking Sam with an appreciative eye. “I see your problem. I’d tap that, for sure.”

  Sam looked as if she didn’t know whether to be insulted or not.

  “He saw the poster,” Nick said, narrowing his eyes. “Somebody brought it in.” Then he bolted past her to call after Pete, “Hey, is J.C. in? I want him to come and have a listen. I think I’ve got it down, but I need his ear.”

  Sam backed up, folding her arms, looking around uneasily.

  “So you’re coming with me?” she said, though it sounded more like a question than a statement. “I’d hate to have to knock you over the head and dump you in a trunk.”

  He took a little longer than was necessary to answer.

  “Okay. But if the plane doesn’t leave for five hours,” he said, “I’ve got time to finish mixing this track.” He pointed to a chair along the wall. “Park it.”

  And he donned the headphones again and went back to work at the boards. Not that he could concentrate with her sitting only a few feet away, six weeks’ worth of tension and longing crackling between them.

  SAM FELT TOTALLY OUT of her element as she took in the equipment, the records and framed photos on the walls, and the musicians hanging around the halls and control rooms. This was his world, his life, and it was a little unnerving to see him in it, working hard from the looks of things. His performances always seemed so cool and effortless, but here he wore a haven’t-been-to-bed-for-two-days look. She felt herself warming dangerously. What was it he’d said he wanted to be—a good musician and a good man?

  She watched him greet a short, stocky Hispanic guy wearing silk pants and a tropical print shirt, whom he introduced as J.C.

  “She the one?” J.C. asked, extending one hand to her while shaking the other as if it had been burned. “Ayieeee, muy caliente.”

  High school Spanish. Muy = very. Caliente = hot. Apparently he’d seen the poster, too.

  For the next hour and a half Sam watched as Nick worked with J.C. on something, while musicians and technicians gravitated to the control room and sat around talking, seemingly waiting for something. They were a gregarious bunch who horsed around until Nick and J.C. removed their headphones and punched a button to release the sound through the speakers. Then every one of them grew serious and listened intently.

  On came a low driving beat that set up a fabulous tension and made Sam ache to move. Bass and background were layered in and suddenly there was Nick’s guitar, throbbing, crooning, seducing—it was so visceral she had to uncross
and recross her legs and tuck her arms around herself to keep from bolting out of the chair. When the song ended, there were whoops, high fives and even some applause. Nick was obviously pleased. His eyes shone with what looked like pride.

  “Now you see what was so important.” His smile faded and his tone flattened, so even that it betrayed nothing but determination. Both went to her very core. “Now I’m ready to do Dallas.”

  Minutes later, they were in a cab and an hour and a half after that they were at the airport, having stopped by his modest apartment to pack a bag. They’d sat side by side in the taxi, stewing in tension all the way to the terminal. There they were consumed by the mechanics of security and catching the flight. And once on the plane, they were seated in totally separate areas—he in first class, she in coach.

  At the Dallas end was another taxi ride and the hotel check-in. He had a full suite with a piano; she had a double with a toilet that ran constantly. She had to pace for a while in her room before getting up the courage to confront him and establish ground rules for a working relationship that would get them through these appearances. Because, even hours later, she was feeling overwhelmed by her reaction to him, his music and the memories of their night together.

  He answered the imposing door shirtless, wearing only a pair of jeans. He’d showered and shaved and she realized that his damp hair seemed slightly shorter, neater than in Chicago.

  “I think we should talk,” she said, and he waved her inside. As she stepped in, she was conscious of her body in relation to his. Stiff with tension, she crossed the parlor of the suite to check out the view, which was, of course, spectacular.

  “In the interest of getting through these three appearances, I want to apologize for any discomfort you’ve suffered as a result of the company’s use of that photo. And I want to assure you, we’re taking steps to see that the publicity is focused strictly on your work. I suggest that if asked about the woman in the photo with you, you just say it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, a studio assistant asked to stand in…and let it go at that.”

  “A studio assistant.” His face darkened. “So you’re disavowing all connection to it?”

  “Well, I was there in a professional capacity, after all. What difference does it make who I am?” She folded her arms, feeling strangely bereft as the words left her mouth. It didn’t matter? She could have been any one of thousands of interchangeable females who had lusted after him? Everything in her rebelled at that idea.

  “You know what really gets me about that whole picture thing?” he said, edging closer, looming over her. “The fact that you didn’t bother to call me to warn me about it.”

  The heat radiating from him made her mouth go dry.

  “I—I didn’t know what to say. I mean…after—”

  “After you slept with me?”

  There it was. The plain truth. She took a step back.

  “I thought you would probably misunderstand and be angry.”

  “Just what would I have ‘misunderstood’? Why you slept with me? The fact that you walked out without a word the next morning? The way you avoided my phone calls the next day? That all seemed crystal clear.”

  “C-calls?” Her brain focused on the one word in that list with the potential to crack her defenses. He’d called? Yeah, right. But what if he had? “I didn’t know. I didn’t have my phone with me. And I wasn’t in my office all day. I thought…”

  Desperate to keep him from detecting the hope in her gaze and voice, she retreated. She backed into an overstuffed chair, which jarred her enough to engage her stalled brain.

  “Look, it’s common knowledge that you should never mix business and pleasure. When you do, sooner or later the business gets messy and the pleasure gets tainted.” She was relieved to be able to produce such well-defined and irrefutable wisdom.

  “Bullshit.”

  She looked up in surprise and felt her knees turn to rubber…which was the very reason she had avoided looking directly at him until now.

  “I mix business and pleasure all the time, babe,” he said. “I have to. In the music business, your life and the way you live it are all just part of the package. Hell, if I waited until I had privacy to do something, I’d still be waiting when I was packed off to a nursing home.”

  In two strides he crossed the space she had put between them and seized her shoulders.

  “But since you’ve made it clear you don’t mix business and pleasure, which was I?” he demanded. “Business or pleasure?”

  The firmness of his touch and the electricity coming from him sprang the lock on a Pandora’s box full of memories. Desire, embarrassment, defiance, longing, arousal; she was swamped by feelings.

  “You—” her voice caught as she admitted “—were special.”

  He gave a short, disdainful laugh.

  “You can shovel it with the best of them, can’t you? No wonder you’re such an ace at marketing.” He looked her up and down, making her wish that she’d worn a jacket over her snug sweater, that she could shove him back a few feet, and that her toes weren’t curling in her boots. “What the hell are you doing here, Samantha?”

  “Making sure this appearance goes off without a hitch.”

  “You sure about that?” He reeled her toward him…his movements deliberate, irresistible, a force of nature.

  “Come on. What are you really doing, coming out to L.A. and hauling me all the way to Dallas? Are you chasing me?”

  “Wh-what?” Her eyes widened as his narrowed. He slid his hands lower and pulled her tighter against him, watching her pupils widen.

  “You came out to see me, didn’t you?” His mouth quirked up on one side. “Yeah. Perfectly understandable. I’m probably the best you ever had. I rocked your world. I made you freakin’ see stars and rainbows. Man up, Drexel, and admit it.”

  She gasped and pushed against his chest, but he wouldn’t let her go.

  “Come on, Samantha, tell the truth. No more bullshit.”

  “You can be such an asshole.” She ground out the words, averting her eyes so he wouldn’t see the humiliating moisture in them.

  “I believe we already established that. But I can also be a pretty damned decent guy,” he said, “if you give me half a chance.”

  Something in his tone brought her resistance to a standstill. As she softened, the force of his arms around her eased.

  “That’s what made me angry, Sam. After the time we spent and the love we made, you didn’t give me credit for having honest emotions, for knowing the difference between a cheap thrill and the start of something that could be important. When you didn’t…I thought you just saw me as some has-been rocker you could score bragging rights on.”

  The words resonated in her head, loaded with genuine feeling, a hint of hurt and a knee-melting glimpse of the real man inside. He, too, felt the anxiety of wondering if he would be good enough, if he would be accepted. It astonished her. And a moment later she was surprised by that astonishment. She really had thought of him as larger than life and immune to things like self-doubt.

  “I did not see you like that,” she said, bracing her hands against his chest. “You were never a has-been or a score to me.”

  “Business or pleasure, Sam?” The taunt was gone. This time, the question came from the heart. If there was ever a time for honesty, it was now.

  “Pleasure, all right? It was just pure mind-boggling, world-rocking pleasure.” Her gaze fell to his lips. “And it was confusing as hell.”

  A slow, sexy change came over his face, a private smile unlike any she’d seen on him before. Unashamedly tender, it was both the promise and fulfillment of understanding. It was a knowing that was both here-and-now and yet-to-come. It was a moment for sharing a decision that had been made weeks before. She closed her eyes and lifted her mouth.

  Her knees buckled as the liquid lightning from his kiss streaked through her. He filled her arms, her senses, her desires in ways she had never imagined anyone could. Just when she thou
ght she couldn’t hold all the joy erupting in her, he broke that luscious contact and backed away.

  “Wha-at…what are you doing?” she managed to get out.

  “Giving you some time to think, babe,” he said, his chest rising and falling fast. Clearly this withdrawal was costing him, too. It had to be important. “The next time I ask you ‘business or pleasure’ and you answer, I don’t want you to be confused. I want you to know exactly what you want.”

  He put an arm around her, led her to the door and brushed a kiss across her lips.

  “Besides, if I start making love to you right now, we’ll be up all night and I’ll look and sound like hell at the autographing tomorrow.”

  She didn’t know whether to applaud his clearheadedness or give him a swift kick for it. She turned on her heel and headed for the elevator, muttering.

  “Now who’s putting business ahead of pleasure?”

  8

  IT WAS A LONG, RESTLESS night for Sam. She heard every door slam from every room up and down the hall and the damned elevator seemed to run all night long. She had plenty of time to process what had happened between her and Nick that evening, and came to the conclusion that he was probably right. She was conflicted about what she wanted from him. He seemed to want her but something was holding him back, something big enough to make him to check his infamous libido at the door.

  It was as if he was waiting for her to make the next move. Only she wasn’t sure what move he expected.

  She thought of the afternoon ahead and prayed that today’s appearance went as she hoped. Because if it tanked, he might never speak to her again.

  CROWNCRAFT HAD GONE all out to make Nick’s three contracted appearances memorable, starting with a barrage of co-op radio and print advertising designed to reach romantically inclined thirtysomethings with disposable income. They had arranged for piped-in music—Nick’s, of course—a stage and backdrop calculated to draw attention, and giveaways of dozens and dozens of roses and romantic Valentine’s Day dinner packages. The Galleria had done promotion as well, billing this as “Valentine Preparedness Week,” soliciting gifts and prizes from merchants.