Just To Be With You

by Bella Andre

Page 9

  Author: Bella Andre

  “We aren’t—” A breeze from the open door of the restaurant blew the vanilla scent of Tatiana’s hair to him, temporarily making him lose his train of thought.

  In the end, she was the one who finally clarified things. “I’m really flattered that you think I could be Ian’s wife, George, but I’m just a friend. ”

  His old professor frowned, looking between them. “I know chemistry when I see it, and not just in the lab. If the two of you aren’t a couple, it’s a damned shame. ” He looked between them again before seeming to make up his mind. He muttered something Ian couldn’t quite make out, but that sounded a heck of a lot like Just a matter of time.

  Ian had never been a man pulled forward by fate, luck, or coincidence. He’d always made his own choices, forged his own deliberate path. But even as he silently denied that what his professor had just stated could ever be true, he suddenly couldn’t stop wondering if he really was as in control of his life—or his heart—as he wanted to think he was.

  George pulled out a chair for Tatiana and after they were all seated and had placed their orders, he said, “Tell me about yourself, my dear. ”

  “I don’t want to take up too much of your time with Ian. I know he’s really been looking forward to speaking with you. ”

  “My wife wasn’t one to draw attention to herself, either, but just like you, she was too beautiful to hide in the shadows. ” He gestured to the glass of wine the waiter had just poured. “Now drink up and start talking. ”

  Tatiana laughed, clearly delighted. “Okay, but I really am going to make it quick so that the two of you can get down to business. ” She took a sip of the excellent dry white wine and made a small sound of pleasure that reverberated all the way through Ian’s system. “I’m an actress and Ian is helping me do some research for a new role I’ve taken on. ”

  “I once had dreams of the stage,” George admitted. “And I would have been perfect for the role of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Captain Corcoran. . . if only I could dance or hold a tune. ”

  Laughing again, Tatiana said, “HMS Pinafore is one of my favorites, too. ” All it took was Tatiana softly humming a tune, and soon both of them were spontaneously singing a funny back-and-forth about monarchs of the sea and rulers of the Queen’s Navy and sisters and cousins and aunts.

  At the end of their impromptu performance, Tatiana gave George a hug. “Thank you for making my day with a Gilbert and Sullivan sing-along. And now, since I know the two of you have important business to take care of, I’m going to excuse myself for a minute so that you can get started without my further distracting you. ”

  Both Ian and George stood when she left the table, and Ian nearly went after her to make sure she didn’t get hassled by an overzealous fan. When he finally made himself sit down, his professor said, “You can’t take your eyes off her. ”

  Knowing better than to try to deny the truth, Ian explained, “Tatiana told you she’s an actress, but what she didn’t mention is that she’s also very, very famous. Strangers get really excited about meeting her and often forget to keep normal boundaries. I didn’t think about how difficult it might be for her to come here for lunch. ”

  “Well, whether or not she’s famous and you’re worried about her fans taking advantage of her has nothing whatsoever to do with you not being able to look away. ”

  His old professor’s tone didn’t brook any argument, so Ian didn’t try. And when George pulled out a folder with the information Ian had sent him, he was glad to finally settle down to business. Only, Ian simply couldn’t concentrate while Tatiana was gone.

  But when she finally returned and took out her notepad, though Ian should have finally been able to concentrate on what George was saying, the truth was that her nearness made it just as difficult for him as her absence had.

  * * *

  It was eight p. m. when Ian got home for the night. He’d dropped Tatiana off on the way and learned that she was renting a condo in a building just around the block from his. So close that he could practically look out his living-room window and see her.

  She’d been barely stifling her yawns by the time they made it to the last of his meetings, but had blamed it on the Mexican food they’d had delivered to the conference room. He’d seen his female cousins eat plenty of times, so he knew not every woman picked at her food the way his ex-wife had, but he was still stunned by how happily—and thoroughly—Tatiana munched down her burrito. Chelsea had only dabbled at modeling, and yet she’d been terrified of ever gaining a pound. Tatiana didn’t seem to give it a second thought.

  Not, of course, that she should, considering her figure was beyond gorgeous. And as he headed into his bedroom to take off his jacket, then loosen his tie and pull it off, he couldn’t help but wonder if she was also stripping out of her clothes.

  Damn it, now that he was finally alone, he needed to rein in every last ounce of focus and get the work done that he hadn’t been able to concentrate on all day. . . not stand in his kitchen like an idiot and daydream about what color lingerie Tatiana was wearing beneath her clothes.

  Most nights he went from his office building to his home office without a break. Work had always settled him down, even in the midst of his terrible divorce. Settling in behind the desk in his den, he took out the contracts he’d brought home and began reviewing them. . . but when he realized he’d been rereading the same clause on page three for the past fifteen minutes, he pushed back from his desk.

  A workout, that’s what he needed. A really, really, really rough one that would obliterate every last thought of Tatiana Landon.

  Though he was no slacker in the workout department, Ian pushed himself running sprints on his treadmill twice as hard as he normally did. Even better, by the end he was running so fast that he couldn’t think about anything but keeping his legs and lungs working in tandem. By the time he moved on to the rack of weights along the back wall of his home gym, he was finally starting to feel like his old self.

  At the very least, two weeks of being shadowed by Tatiana were going to be good for his cardio.

  Damn it, there she was again, creeping into his head. Turning on the TV, he figured multi-tasking by doing weights and catching up on the financial news he’d missed that morning would keep her out of his head. Only, instead of international stock market tickers coming up on the screen, he found himself looking straight at Tatiana’s beautiful face.

  She couldn’t have been more than sixteen when the program currently being referenced by the financial analyst had been filmed. They showed her speaking only a few lines of dialogue, but that was all it took for him to see that her humor, and the emotional tug she managed to portray even in the midst of what should have been a silly scene in a high school cafeteria, was the glue that had held the show together.

  He should have turned it off. But just as he’d been unable to stick to his No when she’d asked to shadow him in the office, he found that he couldn’t bring himself to look away from Tatiana on his TV, either.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The following afternoon, Tatiana dropped onto the couch in Ian’s office to make the most of the rare, and extremely precious, fifteen-minute window in his schedule. If she had been alone, she would have closed her eyes and taken a speed-nap. Then again, if she hadn’t been shadowing Ian, she would have been moving at a reasonable pace all day like everyone else on the planet.

  Ian, she had decided, was superhuman. He didn’t just deal with his crazy schedule. . . he thrived on it!

  It didn’t particularly help that she hadn’t gotten anywhere near enough sleep the night before. After he’d dropped her off at her condo, she’d been dying to strip off her clothes and sink into her bathtub. But she’d known that once she got into the hot water, she might never be able to drag her exhausted bones out again, so she’d forced herself to pull out her script and study it one more time.

  Surely, she’d
hoped, something she’d learned from shadowing Ian all day would be what she needed to get a handle on her upcoming role so that the director wouldn’t fire her on the first day of filming. But by the time she’d finally crawled beneath the covers, she was no further along with her script than she’d been before. And, of course, once she was in bed, her brain refused to shut off, taunting her as she tossed and turned with images of how good Ian had looked in his suit, how sweet he was with his old college professor, how kind he was with his employees.

  And how utterly, completely untouchable he remained.

  Ian stepped into the office just then and went to sit down behind his desk. “You seemed really interested in that last presentation, Tatiana. ”

  She peered at him from beneath lids that felt really, really heavy. Barely holding back yet another yawn, she nodded. “It was great. ” The truth was, however, that she hadn’t taken in a word of it after the opening slide. The presenters’ monotones had lulled her straight into dreamland.

  “I’m glad you thought so, because I was hoping you could help me make a decision on one of the three approaches they presented. ”

  Her lids lifted a little higher. “Decision?” She licked her suddenly dry lips. “You want my help?”

  When he nodded, her brain did a quick scan of the forty-five-minute presentation. Maybe if she tried really hard, she’d remember something the presenters had said. Anything they’d said. But after a few seconds of concentrating hard enough to give herself a migraine, she still drew a blank.

  A very sleepy blank.

  Clearing her throat, she said, “I should probably review the slides and corresponding documents again before offering my opinion. ”

  “Surely you can just review your notes. ”

  In only a day and a half, she’d nearly filled up her notebook with her thoughts and impressions of what it took to be a successful CEO of a big company. But while her notebook had been open on her lap this afternoon, all she’d managed was a jagged blue line as her pen skidded across—and off—the page.

  “I really just wanted to listen this afternoon. ”

  “Ah,” he said, nodding again, “that explains why you had your face resting on your hands and your eyes closed. So that you could listen better. ”

  “Okay,” she finally admitted, “I might have lost the thread of the meeting at some point—” Like the beginning one. “—but I’m sure no one but you noticed. ”

  “Lost the thread,” he echoed, a small smile playing on his lips. “That’s an interesting way of talking about falling asleep in a meeting. ”

  “Falling asleep?” She felt her face flush and wished, for the first time, that she was as good an actor in real life as she was in front of the cameras. But unfortunately, her brain was sleepy enough that it continued to let her mouth run amok. “That’s crazy. ”

  He shrugged as if he were going to let it go, but just as relief came over her, he sneakily hit her with, “You were snoring. ”

  “I don’t snore. ” Ian had to be joking, right?

  The small grin he gave her was so surprisingly intimate that it almost felt as if he’d reached out to caress her skin. “You sounded just like a sleepy little tiger. ”

  The goose bumps she got from the caress of his voice were no match for her chagrin as she dropped her face into her hands. “How embarrassing. ” She felt horrible that the presenter must have known how bored she’d been, because if Ian had noticed her snoring, surely everyone else in the room had, too. “I feel like I should apologize to—” Ugh, what were their names?

  “Bill and Francesca?”

  “Right, Bill and Francesca. ” God, she was so tired her brain felt like it was folding in on itself. “I’d hate for them to think I thought their presentation was boring. ”