He was about to press speed dial when he realized what he was doing—protecting her. Going out of his way to shield her despite the fact that five minutes ago he’d just decided she could fend for herself.
There was only one word for it: pathetic.
Despite his misgivings, his finger descended on the button. He couldn’t help himself. For good or for ill, he wanted to help her. Probably that made him a sap, and hearing her voice would probably set him back four weeks in recovery time, but he was powerless to resist the urge.
Sir-bloody-Galahad, he thought sourly. Gallant to the death.
* * *
“CLAUDIA.”
Her hand convulsed around the phone receiver as she recognized the low bass of Leandro’s voice.
“Leandro,” she said, her voice shaky. She almost dropped the phone as she tried to loosen her death grip. After the epiphany she’d had this morning, hearing his voice was almost too much.
“We have a problem, but I’m calling to let you know I think we’ve got it covered,” he said. “Wes and Alicia are on the Internet.”
“No,” Claudia breathed. This was the last thing she needed right now. Hadn’t life thrown enough crap at her lately?
“Relax. Like I said, I think we’ve got it covered. My PR guru Michael is the one who brought it in. He has no idea it’s Alicia,” Leandro said.
Claudia was so busy savoring every low syllable that came from his mouth that she almost missed the meaning of his words.
“What, you mean…you mean he didn’t recognize her?” she asked.
“That’s right. I hinted around a bit to see if he would twig, and he didn’t. And this guy is a PR mastermind. He knows everyone, keeps on top of all the gossip. If he doesn’t recognize Alicia, I think we’ve got a solid case for denying her involvement, should her name ever come up. If we stick to the line, no one will ever know for sure if it’s her or not.”
Claudia frowned. “That’s very generous of you,” she said.
He was doing her a favor. A big one. It was the last thing she’d expected of him given the way they’d broken up.
“Alicia’s just a babe in the woods. And Wes is keen to protect her,” he said offhandedly.
The small flare of hope in Claudia’s heart wavered at his cool tone. She reminded herself that she’d seen him out with a beautiful woman last night. She’d had her chance and blown it.
“I take it you’ll be working with Wes to release a statement?” Claudia said.
“We’ll wait till it makes the tabloids first. There’s no point handing the story over on a silver platter. We might get lucky still and the tabloids miss it altogether.”
They both knew that was highly unlikely, however. The tabloids fed off scandal; it was their bread and butter. They had people trawling the Web constantly, looking for gossip, innuendo, images.
“I really appreciate this, Leandro. And I know Alicia will thank you on bended knee,” she said.
“It’s best for all of us this way.”
There was an awkward silence. Because she wanted to stretch the moment, she stumbled into speech.
“How, um, are your parents? Is your mom still happy with her new haircut?” she asked, wincing as she heard how awkward she sounded.
“They’re well, and she loves it.”
“And Dom and Betty?” she asked, closing her eyes so she could concentrate on his voice and allow the memories to wash over her.
His deep, rolling laugh. The wicked glint in his eye. The gentleness and compassion in his touch. The hungry need of his body.
“Betty’s good and the babies are doing fine,” he said.
She frowned.
“I thought they weren’t due for another month or so?” she asked.
“They came early. Seven weeks early, in fact. It was a bit scary there for a while, but they’re thriving now.”
“Well, that’s good,” she said lamely. Dom must have been beside himself. All of them must have been—they were a close-knit family, and she knew without actually being there that they would have pulled together.
She’d run out of questions, bar the most important one.
“And how are you?” she asked, her voice almost breaking on the last word.
There was a profound silence on the other end of the line, then she heard a deep sigh.
“I’d better go deal with this situation,” he said.
“Sure. Okay. Thanks again for what you’re doing. I owe you one,” she said.
“Goodbye, Claudia.”
She sat holding the phone for a long time after the call ended. She needed to call Alicia and alert her to the state of play. No doubt the young girl would be hysterical at the news that she was about to become an Internet porn star, incognito or not.
But all Claudia could think about was Leandro, and that silence when she’d asked him how he was.
Last night and this morning, she’d been so sure that she’d burned her bridges with him beyond all repair. Who would want to take on someone so messed up, after all, great sex or no great sex, love or no love?
But he hadn’t answered her question. Which meant…what, exactly? The rational, cynical part of her brain told her it meant nothing. He might be distracted at work—she knew he was distracted, he had a looming crisis on his hands. And there was always the chance that he felt awkward about mentioning he was seeing someone else.
Or he might not be over her.
Which meant that maybe she hadn’t ruined her life, after all.
Grabbing the phone, she buzzed Grace’s office.
“Grab Sadie and get in here. I need help,” she said briefly before slamming the phone down.
All of a sudden, the dull, heavy feeling that had been dogging her for the past four weeks was gone. She felt energized, invigorated. She’d stuffed things up royally with Leandro. She’d been dishonest with herself and him, and she’d been so crippled by the hurts from her past that she’d been too scared to have a full life of her own.
But she’d always risen to the challenges in her life. She’d insisted on joining the girls’basketball team in junior high, even though she was so short the coach had laughed in her face. She’d practiced her jump shot for hours until she became the highest scorer on the team. When the production company she’d been working for straight out of high school had folded, she’d reimagined her career trajectory and applied for a placement at UCLA, lobbying the dean of students until he gave her what she wanted.
She had always been a fighter. But lately, it felt like she’d forgotten how.
That was about to change, because she’d never wanted something this much in all her life.
* * *
THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY, Leandro stretched out his calves and hamstrings, the sun beating down fiercely on his back.
Beside him, Dom was doing jumping jacks—his version of a warm-up prior to them tackling the fire trails of Griffith Park.
“It’s going to get pretty hot,” Leandro said. “Maybe we should take one of the lower trails, take it easy?”
Dom gave a meow and pretended to claw at the air.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Leandro asked, although he had a fair idea what his brother was inferring.
“It means you’re a pussy. You’re afraid that I’m going to beat you again now that I’m getting some form,” Dom said.
Leandro smirked. He ran four days a week. To his knowledge, the only time Dom got his heart rate above ninety was when he raced into the kitchen to grab the cookie jar.
“You been training in private?” Leandro asked.
“No.”
“So coming here with me is the only exercise you get?”
“That’s right.”
Leandro grinned. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Junior.”
“Don’t call me that. You know I hate it,” Dom said as they broke into a jog.
“Exactly,” Leandro said.
Dom shot him an annoyed look and Leandro laughed. It felt like the first genuine laugh h
e’d had in weeks. Ever since Claudia, there hadn’t been many reasons to feel that good.
“How’d your date go with Stella?” Dom asked, his face already red from exertion.
“She’s nice.”
“Gonna ask her out again?”
“Maybe. Probably.”
“She’s wrong for you, you know,” Dom puffed.
Leandro did a double take. “Excuse me? Are you not the guy who was practically pimping this woman to me? Handpicked by people who love you. I believe those were your words.”
“Yeah, but we decided that you did a much better job handpicking your own woman,” Dom said.
Leandro remained silent, knowing Dom was talking about Claudia. Dom had been probing for weeks to find out what had caused the breakup.
“If you could get her back, would you?” Dom asked.
“It’s not a matter of anyone getting anyone. We want completely different things. Sometimes loving someone isn’t enough.”
“So you do still love her?” Dom gasped, really struggling now as they neared the highest peak in the fire trail.
“I swear, you’re breast-feeding those kids alongside Betty, aren’t you?” Leandro said. “Since when did you turn into such a gossip?”
“Answer…the…question,” Dom wheezed.
“Yes. I still love her. Happy? Now you know what a miserable sap I am,” Leandro said as they arrived at the crest.
He stopped in his tracks when he saw who was standing there. Wordless, he turned to Dom.
“Did you…?” he asked, but Dom just grinned and waved.
“See you later, Senior,” he said, taking off down the fire trail.
Leandro turned to face Claudia.
“Hi,” she said. She gave him a tight little smile.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
God, she looked good, like all his fantasies rolled into one delicious body. Black leggings covered her small, slim legs, and she wore a bright red tank top with some sort of high-tech sports bra peeking out beneath it. She didn’t look as though she’d been running, however. She looked cool as a cucumber. And sexy. Very, very sexy.
“Dom told me you’d be here today,” she said.
He’d already guessed that part. The question was, why was she here?
Wiping sweat from his eyes, he tried to stop himself from visually feasting on her. It had been so long, too long. She’d lost weight, he registered as he scanned her again. She looked smaller, more delicate. But her eyes were blazing with the same energy that had always captivated him, and her mouth was as full and sensuous as always and her breasts looked as touchable and desirable as they’d ever been.
“I wanted to talk to you. This seemed like a good place to get a few things out in the open. Do you want some water?” she asked.
She was nervous. He’d never seen her nervous before. He found it…very endearing.
Quickly he reminded himself of the facts of their situation. As much as it had burned him up that she’d drawn a line under their relationship, in his gut he knew she’d done the right thing. There could be no lasting future between two people with such disparate dreams in life.
Still, he took the cold bottle she passed him and swallowed half of it in one long glug. Then he dropped the bottle to his side and eyed her neutrally.
“What did you want to get out in the open?” he asked.
She took a deep breath, glanced over his shoulder at the sprawl of Hollywood below, then met his eye dead-on.
“My mother is an alcoholic, has been ever since I was a child,” she said boldly. “She was a bazouki player back in Greece, one of the few successful women players. Then she met my father, and they married and came to America. I don’t know if she hated it here, if she felt isolated or if she simply hated being at home all the time with us kids. But she started to drink. And, I guess, she couldn’t stop.”
She was wringing her hands together, even though she still held his eye. He could see the tension in her small frame, knew how hard this was for her.
“She doesn’t talk about it, but her mother used to drink, too, I know. Maybe she didn’t know any better. Or maybe she had no control over it. Either way, it was a bad way to grow up. Either she was crying and threatening suicide, or she was raging and throwing things and yelling at us. Then there would be times when she didn’t drink, and we all would think that it was over. But she had no control over it, and she always started again. Always.
“I spent my childhood cleaning up after her, covering for her from my dad until I realized that he knew, and he loved her anyway. He did his best to shield us, but he was too proud to ever ask anyone else for help.”
She took another deep breath, smoothing her hands down the front of her thighs.
“I’m not telling you this because I want you to feel sorry for me, but because I don’t want there to be any more secrets between us. My mother is an alcoholic, and all my life I have been terrified that I would end up just like her, the way she has ended up like her mother. Everything I do has been predicated on me walking outside of her footsteps. But only the other day did I realize that I was denying myself one of the most fulfilling, amazing experiences a person can have because of my fear of what I might become.”
He took a step toward her as he saw that she was crying. Big, fat tears that rolled down her cheeks unheeded.
“Leandro, I thought I was pregnant. I thought I was going to have your baby. And it was only then that I realized I wanted it more than anything in the world. That I wanted you and everything you had offered me. I thought I’d blown it, but then the thing with the tape came back to bite us on the ass and I wondered…”
She trailed to a halt then, wiping the tears away with her hands.
“I wondered if you still loved me enough to give me a second chance,” she asked in a small, uncertain voice.
He felt as though he’d been punched in the gut. All of it—her story, her pain, her revelation about the baby that might have been, her tremulous question. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe that the one thing he wanted more than anything in all the world was actually within his reach.
“Are you freakin’ kidding?” he asked incredulously, then he lunged forward and scooped her into his arms.
She felt so good pressed against him, so precious, that he just lay his cheek against the crown of her head and hung on for dear life.
“Are you freakin’kidding?” he repeated in a whisper. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve thought about you? How hard it’s been, knowing you were it, that I was never going to meet someone else like you, but I couldn’t have you?”
“I’m so sorry. I’m so dumb. I just didn’t get it,” she said, her hands clutching at his shoulders. “Leandro, I love you. I love you, and I will never stop loving you. I want to have a family with you. I want to be part of your family. I want everything we can have together, everything.”
“Yes,” he said simply, and then he kissed her.
Between them they tasted of salty sweat and tears, and he’d never tasted anything better in his life. Angling her head backward, he slid his tongue into her mouth and reminded himself of the heaven that lay within. Her tongue danced with his, mated, teased, challenged. Her hands slid up and down his back, then down onto his butt as she strained toward him.
Groaning low in his throat, hard as a rock after a month of being a dead man below the waist, he cupped her butt with his hands and lifted her against his erection.
“Sweetheart, it is so great to see you, but you chose one helluva spot for a reunion,” he said against her ear.
She laughed, her body vibrating with the sound. Then she slid away from him and pointed to a backpack and blanket lying near the edge of the trail.
“A little presumptuous, I know. But a girl has to hope…” she said.
“She certainly does,” he said, moving toward her with intent. “Let’s go find somewhere off the beaten track.”
They were too impatient to walk
far. As soon as they found a halfway clear patch between a circle of dense trees and scrub, Claudia spread the blanket out and tossed her backpack to one side.
He had her in his arms again in a second flat. Sliding his hands into her hair, he kissed her and kissed her, needing the reassurance of knowing that this was happening, that he really was this lucky. Soon kissing was not enough, however, and his hands began to roam, smoothing up her rib cage and onto her breasts, sliding over her butt and between her legs. She murmured and moaned and he felt the damp heat growing between her thighs, even through the fabric of her leggings.
Gaining access to all the areas he needed to touch and taste proved to be a time-consuming task. Her sports bra had about a million clasps and catches, and he had to slide it over her head before he could get his hands and mouth on her breasts. Then she had to toe off her shoes and roll down her leggings before they could get any more intimate.
“Ten points on the blanket, negative five for the sports gear,” he growled against her stomach as he nibbled his way down her body.
She just gasped and threaded her fingers through his hair and wrapped her legs around his back.
He wanted to go slow, to make this moment last forever, to ride the realization that he was going to wake up with this woman, hold this woman in his arms, love this woman for the rest of his life. But primitive instinct demanded more. He wanted to take her, claim her, bury himself inside her.
Shucking his running shorts with efficient haste, he centered himself in the cradle of her thighs, the head of his erection probing the moist plumpness of her inner lips.
“Condom,” he said instinctively.
She just smiled up at him and lifted her hips. He grinned back at her, then closed his eyes as he slid into the exquisite, wet, tight heat of her.
“I love you,” he said as he began to move. “I love you.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
He figured he had about sixty seconds left in him, between her writhing body, the slick pressure between her thighs, and the four weeks of pent-up need rising inside him. Pumping into her furiously, he sucked a nipple into his mouth and tongued it firmly, savoring her taste and the animal cry she made. He felt her body flex like a bow, and then she threw her head back and he felt her body tighten and release around his.
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