It didn't matter, he told himself, refusing to let the doubts surface. It didn't change anything.
He wanted so much to believe he was right.
* * *
18
« ^ »
"Tell me again what I'm doing in Vegas when I really just want to be at home rolling around in bed with you?" Stef asked, standing at the closet door of the hotel room. He looked back to where Sabrina stood by the bed in garters and a demibra, rolling a stocking up her leg. God, it was maddening to know they'd have to spend the night in public. He wanted to ask her the question that was burning him up, he wanted to strip her back down to nakedness and make love, just as they'd finished doing a half hour before. Instead, he was watching her dress. "Why are we doing this?"
She fastened the front garter. "Because the National Cable Show is going on and Home Cinema is having their reception. They want to court the local cable providers and that means trotting out programming execs and stars to make them feel important. We're part of the team now, so we give them what they want."
"And we count as stars?"
"You're always a star to me, darlin'." She looked down, focusing on fastening the back garter.
He walked over and pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck, making her jump, and then captured her mouth with his for a moment when she looked up in surprise. "And can I tell you that it's only because I'm enthralled with you that I'm doing this?"
"Thank you for your sacrifice." She rolled the other stocking up her leg.
"I don't suppose I could talk you into just staying here? I'm sure we can find a way to keep ourselves entertained." He reached around and filled his hands with her breasts.
She softened against him for a moment, turning back to kiss him. "I'd like nothing better."
"Room service, champagne, take that hot tub for a test run…" And they could talk about the future. Even if it was only for a short time before her project got rolling, he wanted her to come to Greece with him. He was impatient to make the step, to invite her into his life.
"Mmmm, sounds wonderful." She turned back to finish her garters. "Tomorrow. Tonight, we work."
She slipped out of his arms and strode over to the closet.
Stef stifled his impatience. She was wary, he knew it. And he knew his younger self was to blame. Now that it was so apparent that they were right for each other, it was hard for him to wait for her to see it, too. Seven years before, he'd complained that she was too frivolous. How was it that now he was frustrated that she was putting work ahead of play? He didn't need to set the scene, what he was going to ask was going to be simple enough. He should just do it.
He walked restlessly over to the wall of windows overlooking the grounds. "You know they have a pool here with a wave machine? In the middle of a desert?"
"Have pity on the Philistines, Stef," she said dryly. "Just think, this time next month you'll be in Greece, without over-the-top kitsch or a schmooze fest in sight." Sabrina lifted a deep copper silk dress over her head and shrugged her shoulders so that it slipped down around her body to brush at her thighs.
"No little black dress."
"Copper is the new black, or so Cilla says." Sabrina slipped on a pair of strappy copper sandals and glanced at herself in the full-length mirror on the closet door.
"So what's the plan? Do they have a program or screenings or what?"
"Or what, mostly. The execs have been in meetings all day. Now, they want to party. There'll probably be some sort of entertainment and clips of shows, but mostly it's a giant love fest," she said with a light laugh, coming over to peck Stef lightly on the lips before turning into the bathroom area.
"What about your doc, are you on the schedule?"
Sabrina searched in her makeup bag for an eye pencil. "Just a teaser, but every little bit helps."
"You're good with the details like that." She heard the clink of his belt buckle.
"I've had five years to practice."
"I wish I had someone like you on my team."
"Mmm-hmmm," she said, leaning close to the mirror to apply mascara.
He cleared his throat. "In fact, I've been thinking a lot about that. We work really well together. I was wondering if I could get you to come to Greece with us and work on the doc for however long you have before production starts on your series. Even a couple of weeks would help. It'd be fun," he said persuasively.
Sabrina froze, the mascara brush hanging in the air. Back up, she ordered herself through the surge of adrenaline. He hadn't said what she'd just heard. He hadn't asked her to join him in his work, she thought in a simultaneous rush of panic and glee. For Stef, that was tantamount to a proposal. Once before he'd done that, she remembered, just before he'd broken her heart.
And it came over her in a rush of fear, how much deeper she was in than she'd been before. In college, she'd thrown herself into their relationship headfirst, but it had still only been first love. This time, she'd held back, kept up her guard, done everything she could to protect herself. For nothing. In risking herself before, she'd been hurt; in risking herself this time, she could be utterly destroyed. Anxiety choked her.
"Sabrina? Did you hear me?" Stef appeared at the door.
Sabrina jerked. "No, sorry, I was looking for something in my bag. What did you say?" She pushed the mascara wand into the tube, not wanting her shaking hands to show.
"I asked what you'd think about going to Greece with me for the shoot, just for a little while. I'd love to have you on our team." He paused. "I'd love a chance to be there with you."
Fear, trepidation, excitement mixed together until her stomach was roiling. Time, she thought, she just needed time to think. She could work it out.
* * *
Stef watched Sabrina in the mirror as she met his eyes, then looked away, digging in her makeup bag. "Well, I don't know how it would work out with the True Sex schedule," she hedged. "I couldn't make it for more than a few days to help you with the research."
It was that note in her voice that got to him. It was the tone she got sometimes when she was handling tricky details with a prickly person over the phone, that careful note that said she was talking slow and thinking a mile a minute while trying to be as cautious as possible. He'd seen and heard her do it a hundred times.
He'd never imagined she'd do it to him. And that it could hurt.
"Look, I just wanted to throw it out there. You don't have to answer now. Just think about it." He tapped the doorframe restlessly and paced a few steps out into the bedroom.
There was a small crash behind him. He was in the bathroom in an instant. "Are you okay?"
She'd dropped a pot of some sort of cosmetic that had spread crimson on the tile. "It slipped," she said, wiping up the mess, her hands shaking. "Clumsy of me. Look, it sounds like a great trip. It's just that you leave, when, in two weeks?"
"Two and a half. Friday after next," he said shortly.
She set the reddened hand towel aside. Slowly, she pulled out a lipstick and bent to the mirror. "There's … a lot going on right now. But I can look into schedules, see if I can work something out."
"Okay, Sabrina, I'm not a dog, you don't have to throw me a bone." Now frustration bloomed up to swamp the hurt. "If you don't want to come, just say so."
"Stef, I'm sorry."
Behind the smile, he saw a flash of strain, so quick that he could almost believe he'd imagined it. So quick he could almost believe it was what he wanted to see.
"I didn't mean to make it sound that way. I'm just surprised, that's all."
And afraid, he wondered, could that be it?
She came to him and pressed a soft kiss on his lips. "Honestly, I just need some time to think." Turning, she poked through her jewelry clutch on the counter and withdrew an amber and gold bracelet. "I think it would be fun, really. Here, help me with this," she asked, holding it out to him.
Now was not the moment to push, he told himself, looping the heavy square links around her wrist. Let her try
the idea on for size, mull it over, and then she'd be ready to make a call. "Just think about it." He raised her fingers to his lips. "Take your time."
* * *
"Welcome to paradise," said a beautiful woman in a batik sarong, draping flower leis around their necks. They might have been standing in the convention center hallway, but the spirit of the islands filled the room in front of them. Everywhere they looked was a mass of color and fragrance, with squawking parrots perched in palm trees and steel drum music wrapping around all of it. Waiters in brightly flowered shirts circulated with drinks in hollowed-out pineapples and coconut shells.
Head To Paradise With Home Cinema read the banners overhead. A grandstand faced a movie-theater-sized screen along one wall. On a stage in front of it, a group of dancing girls in grass skirts did a hula.
Stef hooked a couple of coconut shells full of piña coladas off the tray of a passing waitress. "Looks kind of like my uncle Stavros," he said squinting at the fuzzy shell before handing one to her. A sudden surge of affection welled up in Sabrina at the sight of him, draped foolishly with flowers, sipping out of the shell with the little parasol pushed to one side.
She had to get somewhere quiet and think, just for a moment. Abruptly, she handed the shell back to Stef and gave him a quick kiss. "I'll be right back."
She stood at the little primping counter in the ladies' room and stared at her reflection in the mirror. When she and Stef had started sleeping together again, she'd consciously tried to avoid pinning down what it had meant. Sure, they'd laid the past to rest, but they'd steered carefully clear of anything to do with the future.
Now, it was as though he'd dropped a ticking box in her lap. It could be a fabulous gift like a diamond-encrusted watch.
Or it could be a bomb.
Come to Greece. It was more than just an invitation on a vacation junket, she knew. She knew what it meant.
What she didn't know was whether she could trust it. The irony was that as hard as she'd had to work to convince Stef that she'd changed, her biggest problem was suddenly being able to trust that he had. It seemed so, but knowing it and believing it were two different things when her heart was so deeply involved. Could she trust him, not just to mean what he said but to stand behind it?
And the real question, the deepest one, was what exactly did she feel for him? Her mind shied away from that into memories of the aftermath of their college affair. It was resolved, she reminded herself, and returned to the question. What did she feel for him, she asked herself, picking her way through the laughter and joys of the weeks just past, trying to find out what lay at the root of it all.
And anxiety rose up to choke her.
When she'd been a child, Sabrina had always been quick to climb the highest tree or to run laughing off the end of the high dive. And yet, when she thought of possibilities that Stef held out to her, fear she'd never felt before filled her.
But she'd dealt with fears before and forged ahead, not in spite of the fear but because of it. Because of the exhilaration of facing it and going onward. Because of the rewards she knew awaited.
So why, now, was she unable to make herself answer a simple question that her heart knew the answer to? When she thought of life without Stef in a month, how did she feel? And when she thought of herself five years in the future, whom did she see at her side?
And she knew. It was Stef, as simple as that. Nervous delight jittered in her stomach and she took a steadying breath. So she knew what she felt, which meant she maybe knew what she wanted. Now the question was how quickly could they finish with the reception so she could get him to herself and tell him?
* * *
Sabrina made her way through the crowd to where Stef stood, watching a group of performers do the limbo.
"Having fun?" she asked.
"More than I can remember. How about you? Are you okay? You look a little flushed."
"I'm fine." She hooked her hand through his arm. "I ran into Royce Schuyler on my way back into the room. He wants us to be sitting where we can come up with the Candy girls when the clip airs. Come on, they're going to be staffing the show soon."
They walked toward the grandstand area.
"Hey Sabrina, babe, give us a smile."
A flash blinded her and she stumbled momentarily. When the dazzle cleared from her eyes, she saw a familiar face behind the camera. Franzen, reporter for the Weekly News.
"The Creature from the Black Lagoon," she murmured.
"Come on, babe, stop and give me one."
"Who let a bottom-feeder like you in here, Franzen?"
He pointed to his press pass with a smug smile. "I guess they figure our readers want to know what you Hollywood types get up to. Want me to tell 'em, Sabrina?"
Stef tensed, but Sabrina caught his arm. "Don't give him any ammunition," she murmured as the camera flashed.
"Hey, I've got all the ammunition I need," Franzen leered obnoxiously. "So how've you and lover boy been?" he asked, following them toward the theatre.
"Bite me, Franzen," she said back.
As they reached their seats, the lights dimmed, the music came up with a flourish, and a dark-haired man with a suspiciously familiar face bounded onto the stage in a grass skirt.
"Is that—"
"David Beckley," Sabrina whispered back. "Sure is. He's got the top comedy show on Home Cinema, so I guess they figured they'd trot him out as MC. Just wait until the music starts and they have Britney do a tune."
"And to think, I was ready to give up all this just to stay back in the room and have wild sex in the hot tub."
"Can you believe how foolish you were?"
He squeezed her hand. "Yeah, I can."
* * *
"Smile, you're supposed to be enjoying yourself."
Sabrina nudged Stef as they stood amid the mass of people in the ballroom. The presentations and the show were over. Now it was just a big, and progressively more drunken, party.
"Time of my life," Stef murmured, brushing a hand over her hair. "Isn't it time to go upstairs and wear ourselves out?"
"Soon," Sabrina laughed. "Work first, then play."
"This isn't still work, is it? You did your performance, you've done the meet and greet. Can't we go? I've got this insatiable urge to get you in a private place," he growled.
She grinned and then scooted out of his arms. "Come on, it's not like this is new to you. I mean, don't you do ShoWest?"
It was Stef's turn to laugh. "Theater execs go to ShoWest so they can take photos with Tom Cruise and Angelina Jolie, not so that they can meet some documentary film geek."
"An award-winning doc geek."
"Doesn't matter how many awards you've got, you don't spread the love like the stars."
"Well, look at it this way—this is the last one of these you'll have to go to."
"Hey." He caught her close for a moment. "If it's good for the doc and it's good for you, I don't mind doing it."
"We'll leave soon," she promised. "I just need to find Royce. He wanted to introduce me to a couple of the midwestern cable honchos. It's important, Stef." The look in her eyes pleaded with him to understand.
Stef sighed and followed her. She was like a fish, swimming happily in familiar waters. Running around a reception like this, doing the air kisses, being charming—she was in her element. For him, on the other hand, it was one long exercise in tedium. They needed to talk about what was going to happen, about their future, and instead she was flitting around with the president of North Centerville Cable.
No wonder it didn't excite her to think about going to Greece. Rural landscapes and ancient history weren't what she thrived on. What she thrived on was this: excitement, glamour, moving ahead and perhaps away from him if he didn't keep up. And keeping up wouldn't just be work, he thought, steeling himself for the next barrage of false cheer; it would be hard labor.
"Sabrina, just the person I was looking for." Schuyler slipped his arm around her shoulders. "Why don't you get some
of your dancing friends over here and I can introduce you to John Chesterfield, head of cable operations in Omaha?"
Stef stood for a moment, ignored, watching Sabrina wave down the Candy contingent, and decided to head for the bar instead. He'd get a drink and find someplace to sit until she was done.
"Here you are, sir." The bartender handed him a Knob Creek and he swirled it around for a moment before taking the first swallow, letting the good Kentucky bourbon slide down his throat and into his veins. He stood out at the edge of the circle of activity, watching Mr. Omaha drape an arm around Sabrina's shoulders and squeeze, jostling her a bit with his drunken enthusiasm. Still, she gave him her best insincere company smile and said something that made him laugh. Stef knew it was her job, but annoyance pricked at him as he watched it. And the irrational, primitive part of him that already considered her his woman tightened at the scene.
"That Sabrina, she sure does get around."
Stef turned at the sound of the voice in his ear to see Franzen smirking at him.
Stef shook his head and turned back, ignoring him.
"Hey, it's a free country, I've got a press pass. I'm allowed to be here."
Across the room, Sabrina threw back her head and laughed at something one of the execs said. The exec who had his hand around her waist, now.
Franzen stepped closer to Stef, watching the scene with a little snigger. "Guess she didn't tell you when she took you on that you'd have to share, huh? Better drink up, buddy, it looks like it's going to be a long night before you get her to yourself."
Stef studied him for a moment the same way he'd look at a scuttling cockroach. "Do yourself a favor, Franzen—shut up."
"You getting any from her?" Stef turned his head swiftly, and Franzen backed up a step. "Hey, I'm a reporter, just asking questions here."
"You're not reporting, Franzen—you're digging for sleaze." Stef shook his head and started away.
"You gotta know if you're banging Miss Party Girl over there, we're gonna be interested. The public's got a right to know. So, is she a good lay?"
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