So even though he’d heard Valentina’s reasons loud and clear, and even though he couldn’t deny that his life came chock full of spotlights, Smith refused to give up. Not when something told him that she might very well be the one...and that if he didn’t fight like hell for her, he’d never stop cursing himself for a fool.
“How about this? I won’t kiss you again until you ask me to.”
She barely hesitated before saying, “I’m not going to ask you to kiss me again.”
“Yes,” he said softly, “you will.”
She blinked at him. Once. Twice. Three times before saying, “I still don’t understand why you’re trying so hard when I’ve given you every reason to let me go.”
He wouldn’t kiss her until she asked, but he’d said nothing about putting limits on touching her. He moved closer again, close enough to reach for the tip of her ponytail and run his fingers through her long, soft hair.
“Ask me to kiss you again, and I’ll remind you of one of the reasons.”
The look she gave him said, Nice try, even as she said, “You must have shared plenty of hot kisses with other women.”
“Not that hot. Not even close.” He paused just long enough to let his fingers slide from her hair down to the exposed skin above the collar of her fitted wool jacket. She shivered beneath this barest of touches. “And neither have you.”
Chapter Nine
Valentina had never been so thankful for Smith’s busy schedule or her sister’s popularity. It meant that they’d been interrupted in his office before one kiss could turn into any others, and that she could go straight back to her own office and bury herself in her workload...with Smith only edging into her mind every other second, rather than every single one.
Because even as their kiss dove into increasingly deep and dangerous waters, she could feel his patience, and how tightly he’d been holding on to his control.
With a heady shiver of anticipation she knew she shouldn’t be feeling, Valentina could no longer deny the absolute certainty that Smith’s patience was going to run out soon.
And that hers would, too.
Even though she’d tried again and again to keep her distance, she hadn’t been able to keep from getting closer instead.
With every word he spoke, she could feel her defenses crumble just a little bit more. Had he chosen that final moment before the knock came at his office door to reach for her, she would have gone to him, with him, without a protest, without a care in the world for all her reasons for staying away from him.
Just as Valentina was trying to complete the impossible task of dragging her focus away from Smith’s kiss and back to her email, Tatiana popped her head in.
“Got a second?”
Valentina immediately got up from behind her computer. “Always.” She put her arms around her sister and gave her a hug hello. “What’s up?”
Her sister’s gaze sharpened on her. “I actually wanted to check on you.”
“Me?”
“Is everything okay?”
Dozens of responses flew to the tip of Valentina’s tongue: Smith kissed me. Or I kissed him. I honestly don’t know what happened. Only that it was good. So good that I can’t seem to find my center again.
But even though she badly wanted to talk to her best friend in the world about her twisted thoughts and feelings, she didn’t dare. Not when Tatiana was working so closely with Smith. Her job as lead actress on the major feature film was hard enough on her. The last thing she needed to be worrying about was whether or not her sister was getting along with her all-powerful co-star.
“George asked me the same thing,” Valentina said with a smile. “I think I’m officially too old to get away with missing a few hours of sleep.”
Tatiana rolled her eyes. “You’re not old, you just work too hard. And because that’s entirely my fault, I’m treating both of us to a spa day on Saturday.”
Valentina almost moaned aloud at the thought of getting a massage and then sinking into a spa. “You know I love working hard. But I’m certainly not going to say no to a spa day with my favorite person in the world.” Just then a text came in on her phone from George. “Your esteemed agent has just asked me when you’ll be up for a conference call to talk about your commercial in Japan.”
“Would tomorrow work? I was actually going to head back to the house soon to go over my lines a few more times.”
“Okay, I’ll tell him,” Valentina said, and then, “Do you want me to run them with you?”
Her sister shook her head. “No. I mean, I know them cold. That’s not really the problem.”
She always did, thought Valentina. Even when she was a little girl, her sister had never flubbed her lines. She’d left it up to the less prepared adults to do that.
“I guess I’m just a little nervous about shooting tomorrow’s scene. I mean, I know how to pretend to be in love, or how to act scared, or happy...but I’ve never been in labor before.”
“Thank God for that,” Valentina teased, glad when her sister smiled. “You don’t need to overthink it.”
“I know I shouldn’t,” Tatiana agreed, “but I just really want to do the scene justice for all the mothers out there who’ve gone through so much pain for their kids.” With clear hesitation, she said, “I talked to Mom about it.”
Valentina felt a sharp pang in the center of her chest as she forced out, “That was smart. What did she say?”
“She was actually pretty helpful.”
Valentina bit back a sarcastic “She was?”
“She told me all about her labor with each of us, about how it hurt so bad that Daddy refused to let go of her hand for even a second. Eighteen hours,” Tatiana said softly. “That’s how long he held her hand. Until he could finally hold us.”
Valentina exhaled a shaky breath as she reached for her sister’s fingers and gripped them tightly. “I miss him so much sometimes.”
“Me too,” Tatiana said, and even though their mother wasn’t there with them, she might as well have been. Because she had to miss him most of all.
Her sister was just getting up to leave when Tatiana spotted the black-and-white picture. “Oh, I love this picture! When did you get it?”
“This morning. Smith found it in the candids Larry has been taking on set and gave it to me.”
Her sister’s eyes flickered to hers. “That was nice of him.”