He sighed heavily and ran a hand through his hair.
“You should have told me,” he repeated again, looking world-weary.
“Why?”
“Because you just cried while we were having sex,” he said baldly.
She flinched from the accusation in his tone.
“So?”
“So it’s not just about sex any more, is it?” he said.
The look he shot her was challenging. She looked away, opening her mouth to deny his observation. But then she remembered the intensity of her feelings as he’d held her, the feeling of rightness and belonging. Was there any point in lying about her feelings when he’d looked into her eyes and seen her tears? She lifted her head. She wasn’t ashamed of loving him.
“You’re right, it’s not. I’ve fallen in love with you,” she said.
To her everlasting surprise, he swore and slammed his fist down onto the counter. Running his hands through his hair, he raised his eyes to the ceiling in a gesture of helplessness, then turned away from her, clearly not knowing where to put himself. Finally he shook his head, then brushed past her. She heard the slide of the screen door onto his deck, then nothing as he disappeared outside.
She stood frozen in his kitchen for a handful of heartbeats. She was shell-shocked, completely taken aback by his reaction. Then a slow anger began to burn in her belly.
He was leaning on the railing when she found him, glaring broodingly out into the night.
“I told you the deal up front,” he said when he saw her. All the heat had gone out of him and his voice sounded flat and sad. “I don’t want a relationship.”
“I get that. What I don’t get is that I just told you that I love you, and your one reaction was to swear and walk away. It’s not a crime, Dylan. Or an insult.”
“I don’t want you to love me,” he said. “I didn’t ask for it.”
Pain sliced through her, but she fought on.
“It’s an offering, not an obligation,” she said.
“It comes with about a million strings attached, and you know it,” he said. The eyes he turned on her were tortured. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Sadie. I told you how I felt up front. We were about fun, nothing more.”
“I can’t help how I feel,” she said. “You think I was looking for love? I almost got married a month ago. The last thing I expected was that I would develop these feelings for you. But I did.”
He sighed heavily. “I’m sorry. I thought I was doing you a favor, helping you…”
She frowned. “What are you talking about?”
He stared out into the darkness. “When Greg turned up this week. I thought you were thinking about taking him back. The guy’s a jerk—he doesn’t deserve you. I wanted to make sure you didn’t settle for second best.”
Her eyes widened as she got it. Dinner at his place. The Getty Museum. The hill restaurant. Tonight. What she’d read as mutual attraction, two people unable to get enough of each other, was actually Dylan doing her a favor.
She’d thought he was as fascinated and attracted by her and she was by him. She’d thought…
“You…you…I don’t even have a word for what you are. Arrogant jerk doesn’t begin to cover it.”
“You’re too good for him, Sadie,” he said gently. “I didn’t want you to throw yourself away like that.”
“How noble of you. How self-sacrificing. Every time you got a hard-on you must have been patting yourself on the back for pitching in for poor old Sadie,” she said.
The enormity of what had just happened rose up to swamp her. Dylan Anderson had broken her heart again. All the time that she’d thought he was reciprocating her feelings, growing closer to her, losing his head the way she was losing hers, he’d been doing a good deed.
Suddenly she couldn’t stand the sight of him. She felt cheated. The worst thing was, she knew the reality was that she’d cheated herself—she’d made him into something he wasn’t, painted him in hero’s colors and thrown herself at his feet. And now she was getting her just deserts.
Jaw set, she swept through the house, scooping up her coat and purse on the way. She could hear him following her, but she didn’t look back.
“Sadie,” he said as she wrenched his front door open.
She spun to face him, holding back her tears through sheer force of will.
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry,” she said, her voice fierce. “I don’t want your pity.”
Then she stumbled out to her car and screeched off into the night.
CLAUDIA ANSWERED on the third knock, her silk robe half-tied, her hair smooshed flat on one side of her head.
“I’m sorry it’s so late. I’m sorry I’m such a bad friend. But I need you,” Sadie sobbed as soon as she saw her friend’s sleep-creased face.
“Sadie!” Claudia said, stepping forward instantly to draw her into an embrace. “My God, what happened?”
“I’m such an idiot! How could I let this happen? Why couldn’t I see?” Sadie said, wiping the tears off her cheeks with both hands.
“Calm down,” Claudia said, pushing Sadie into a chair and shoving a box of tissues into her hands. “Is this about Greg? Does he want you back? Is that it?”
Sadie shook her head, a wave of shame overtaking her as she remembered how much she’d been keeping from her friend.
“It’s Dylan,” she said. “I’ve been sleeping with him. I thought I hated him, then—Oh, God, I can’t believe I fell in love with him again.”
Claudia’s expression shifted from concerned to surprised to bewildered.
“Okay, now I’m really confused.”
Further conversation was stymied by a knock at the door. Claudia shook her head and went to answer it.
“Is she okay?” Grace asked as she stepped over the threshold.
Sadie stared at her, baffled.
“Dylan called me,” Grace explained as she shrugged out of her coat. “He didn’t want you to be alone. When you didn’t turn up at home I figured you’d be here.”
A surge of rage burned through Sadie at this further evidence of Dylan’s magnanimous interference in her life. For a full ten minutes she paced Claudia’s carpet, railing and gesticulating and venting. Somehow, Claudia finally pieced it all together. Her dark eyes were sad as she regarded Sadie.
“I wish you’d told me. I can’t believe all this has been going on and I had no idea,” Claudia said.
“I’m sorry. It’s the most unprofessional thing I’ve ever done in my life. I should have said something that first day when you told me you’d hired him, but I knew we didn’t have anyone else for the story ed role. I didn’t want to let you down. And now I’ve let you down even more,” Sadie said. Suddenly she felt very small and stupid, and she sank onto the couch.
Claudia’s hand cut through the air in a frustrated chop.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sadie! You slept with a colleague, that’s all. I don’t give a hoot. But I do care that you’ve been so unhappy and you haven’t felt able to talk to me. You and Grace are my closest friends, and you’re about a million times more important to me than some stupid job.”
“I’m sorry,” Sadie said quietly. “I should have trusted you. I know better.”
Claudia shook her head. “Maybe if I hadn’t been running around all the time playing superproducer you might have been able to talk to me.”
“This is not your fault, Claud!” Sadie said.
“We all know whose fault it is,” Grace said harshly. “The question is, how do we dispose of his body?”
It was such a blood-thirsty thought, delivered with such venom, that they all three burst into laughter. Near hysteria reigned for a few minutes, and the tissue box did the rounds before Sadie could talk again.
“He warned me,” she said quietly. “I should have listened.”
“Yeah, you’re a real bitch for falling in love with him,” Grace said.
“Not a bitch. Just stupid,” Sadie corrected.
“It
sounds to me as though he’s given you plenty of encouragement to be stupid, Sade,” Claudia said. “In fact, it sounds to me as though Mr. Anderson has been having himself a whale of a time, sitting on high, ordering things to suit himself.”
“I knew it the moment I saw him—too good-looking to live,” Grace said.
For the second time that night Sadie noted the acerbic tone to her friend’s comments. Grace had always had a tongue in her head, that was for sure, but it wasn’t usually this astringent.
“You okay, Gracie?” she asked tentatively. Belatedly, she registered her friend’s appearance, her concern increasing as she took in the oversize polka-dot clip-on earrings, a hot-pink brooch shaped like a flamingo and the faux-fur coat Grace had teamed with a silk flower in her hair and an alarming number of mismatched bracelets on her arm. Her fingernails glittered with deep crimson nail polish, and a pair of false eyelashes clung like spiders to her eyelids. Bright red lipstick, heavy rouge and a stick-on beauty spot completed the damage.
Grace always dressed to suit her own unique style, but her look was unfailingly elegant. Tonight, however, she looked like a child who had been playing dress-up with her mother’s jewelry and makeup case.
“I’m fine. You’re the one who’s just been screwed over by Mr. Big Dick,” Grace said dismissively.
Claudia met Sadie’s speculative glance with a frown. Something was definitely up. The only other time they’d seen Grace this badly put together had been when her beloved grandfather had passed on.
“Come on, Gracie, no more secrets,” Claudia ordered.
“Seriously, I’m fine,” Grace said. “Just a little stressed over having Hope staying with me.” She almost got away with it, but her voice got caught on her sister’s name somehow, and suddenly there were tears in her eyes. Grace grabbed a tissue and mopped at her face hastily.
“I’m tired, that’s all,” she said again.
Claudia and Sadie slid their arms around their friend’s waist and waited. Finally Grace could contain the misery inside herself no longer.
“W-when I got home from the bonding weekend, Hope’s boyfriend was there. She phoned him the moment I left and he flew out from New York right away.”
“Has he been giving you trouble?” Sadie asked, outrage at the ready.
“Nothing like that. Turns out that the black eye was an accident. They were fighting about some girl Hope caught him flirting with, and she started throwing stuff at him. He threw things back, and something clocked her in the eye.”
Claudia made a disgusted noise. “Are you sure Hope isn’t the actress in the family?” she asked. “All that baloney about him hitting her.”
“Your sister lied to you so she could mooch off you. No wonder you’re upset,” Sadie said.
Grace twisted a tissue between her fingers and shook her head. “I knew she was lying weeks ago. She told me three different versions of how she got the black eye.”
Grace lapsed into silence, and Claudia squeezed her arm.
“Come on. Better out than in.”
Grace shifted uncomfortably, then made a negligent gesture with her hand.
“It’s nothing, honestly. I just overheard them talking about me when I got home on Sunday afternoon. It doesn’t mean anything.”
She was pretty convincing—except for the way her generous lips were pressed together as though she were working overtime to hold her emotions in check.
“What did they say?” Sadie asked gently. She didn’t want to hurt her friend, but Grace was obviously dwelling on something, and Claudia was right—better out in the light of day than in the dark where it could turn into something bigger and scarier.
“Zane—that’s Hope’s boyfriend—was talking about our family. About how much alike Serena and Hope and Felicity are, you know. How beautiful they are. He said—it was a joke, really—he said that he was surprised Mom and Dad didn’t throw me back when I was born. He said I let the team down and he wanted to know if I was adopted.”
She said it matter-of-factly, as though she was simply reporting what she’d heard. Sadie’s hands curled into fists.
“What did Hope say?” she asked, knowing only a loved one could strike a blow as deep as the one that had obviously wounded Grace.
“She laughed. She said—” Grace broke off, tears squeezing from her eyes as she remembered her sister’s cruelty. She struggled to continue for a long moment. “She said I was the family mascot,” she finally whispered.
Claudia swore pithily, and Sadie closed her eyes for a brief moment. She knew Grace’s history with men, her lifelong struggle with low-self esteem, her complex and sometimes not-very-healthy relationships with her sisters, particularly Serena. And so did Hope. But it hadn’t stopped her from betraying her sister to a fickle rat who was about as important in her life as a disposable plate.
Claudia was shaking with anger, Sadie saw. Sliding off the couch, Claudia knelt in front of Grace. Reaching out to take her hands, Claudia waited until her friend had stopped sobbing and could meet her eyes before speaking.
“Have I ever lied to you?” she asked very seriously.
Grace shook her head. “No.”
“That’s right. I told you that hat looked stupid the time we went to the races, and I told you never to wear dark brown lipstick again. And I’ll tell you right now that that beauty spot is ridiculous.”
Grace smiled faintly at Claudia’s characteristic bluntness, and Sadie rubbed her hand in comforting circles on Grace’s back.
“But I’ll also tell you this. You are beautiful, Grace Wellington. You have flawless skin, the sexiest mouth I have ever seen, tits to die for and an ass that makes men’s mouths water. You are stunning. What you are not is a stick-insect anemic blonde with a lollipop head and ribs you can play the xylophone on. No, they don’t put women like you on the cover of Vogue magazine. Not this decade, anyway, but fortunately you’re also one of the most talented script writers I have ever worked with, so you’re not exactly hanging out for that all-important phone call. You’re also generous, kind, funny, smart as a whip, and wicked-good behind the wheel of a car. Your sister, on the other hand, is a screw-up. She spends every cent she has ever earned, she has appalling taste in men and she told me last time she saw me that she considered reading ‘overrated.’ She’s also vain, selfish and cruel. So—who’s opinion counts more with you? Mine or hers?”
Grace was silent for a long time, then slowly the hurt look faded from her eyes.
Claudia nodded as though she was very satisfied. “Good. That was what I thought.”
Grace sniffed and took a swipe at her still-damp cheeks.
“I shouldn’t have let it get to me. But I just wasn’t expecting it. They were in my bedroom, the door was open. I guess they didn’t hear me come in…”
“More likely they didn’t care,” Sadie said. “Gracie, you need to give your sister her marching orders. She’s been sponging off you for weeks, spinning bullshit stories to keep you feeling sorry for her. Tell her no more—tell her her stay at Château Mooch is over.”
Grace opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came out. Her jaw shut with a click, then she nodded.
“You’re right.”
“Kick ’em out tonight,” Claudia said, the battle light well and truly in her eyes now. “They’ve got money. They can find a hotel.”
Sadie laughed at Claudia’s ruthlessness. “Man, you are one feisty little lady,” she said.
Claudia planted her hands on her hips. “Are we going over there to kick ’em out or what?” she asked. “I’m in the mood to really yell at someone.”
Grace took a deep breath. “Yes. Let’s do it.”
“Give me five minutes to get dressed,” Claudia said. She swept from the room, then quickly popped back in again. Her dark gaze speared Sadie.
“Then we’re finding an all-night diner and pancakes, okay, Sade? Pancakes with lots of ice cream.”
Sadie nodded her agreement, and they heard the swish of Cla
udia’s gown as she took off again.
The room was silent for a moment as she and Grace sat with their own emotions for a beat.
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Dylan,” Grace said after a while. “Despite what I said earlier, he actually seemed pretty human for a male.”
Sadie smiled sadly. “You know what the worse things is? I actually think he does care for me. There’s definitely more going on between us than just sex. But he’s so dead-set against getting into a relationship—it’s like he’s drawn a line in the sand and he can’t even think about crossing over it.”
“He’s pretty ambitious,” Grace observed. “I heard him talking to his agent on his cell phone once during a break. He’s got screenplays out there, concepts for new shows—he must never sleep.”
Sadie nodded, remembering all the times she’d seen him starting early and finishing late, and the vampire movie that he worked on at home. No doubt that was only the tip of the iceberg, too—he probably had dozens of projects in the works.
She shook her head, forcing herself to let it go. “It doesn’t really matter why. The important bit is that it’s over. I can’t make him want the same things that I want, or feel the same way that I feel.”
Grace squeezed her hand sympathetically, and Sadie dropped her head onto her friend’s shoulder.
It was good to have the comfort of her friends around her again, but nothing could stop the sadness rising inside her.
When was she going to learn where Dylan Anderson was concerned?
DYLAN ENTERED WORK the next morning with a heavy step. He’d hurt Sadie last night. He’d handled the whole situation badly, and she had every right to be pissed with him. It was probably for the best—in his experience, an angry woman got over a broken heart faster than a sad one. And he wanted Sadie to get over him, he really did. She deserved to be happy. She deserved love, with all the usual accoutrements—marriage, children, hearth and home. She’d simply made the mistake of looking for them in the wrong place.
For a moment he had a flash of how it could have been had he been a different kind of guy. He could be the one who got to grow old with Sadie, the one who got to father her children and hold her in his arms each night.
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