Sweeter Than Revenge (19 page)

The applause and music died down, and Molly stared into the camera and began her spiel about the book. David didn’t listen. Why listen when watching Maria was so much more interesting? Vibrating with barely concealed excitement, she gave Anastasia’s arm a supportive squeeze and clapped harder than anyone when Anastasia strode across the stage, waved and took a seat next to Molly. Then she paced away and, clasping her hands together under her chin as if she was praying, watched Anastasia on the monitor the way a soccer mom would watch her child in a match.

God, how he needed her.

The need grew daily, stretching and growing until he thought he’d die of it. If the frustration didn’t kill him first, of course. He’d gone on like this for weeks, and wasn’t sure how much more he could take. Barely seeing her, barely talking to her, never touching her. He thought he’d made some progress the other day at the signing, but that was two long days ago and now he felt like he was right back at square one. What would Maria have said if Anastasia hadn’t interrupted them? He felt sure she’d been on the verge of some sort of admission, something that could have led to a breakthrough, but now he’d never know, would he? Add that to the growing list of reasons why he couldn’t stand Anastasia.

His reasons for admiring Maria, on the other hand, defied quantification. The change that had come over her lately was nothing short of miraculous, and he couldn’t get over it. She’d been working nearly as hard as he had and, in Anastasia’s case at least, was more invested in a client than he was. Amazing. And he still laughed every time he remembered his and Ellis’s reaction when she’d driven up with her new car. She’d had the well-deserved last laugh that day, hadn’t she? He loved to see Maria so self-confident and strong. If he’d had anything—even the tiniest thing—to do with her transformation, then his coming back to Cincinnati had been worthwhile.

He walked over to stand beside her, eager to take advantage of the opportunity to speak with her, even if it was brief and semiprivate. Now that he’d made his desires clear and dispensed with the pretense, it was a pleasure to stare openly at her profile, to stand near her even if she was determined to ignore him. To touch her. Reaching up, he smoothed the baby-fine hair away from her temple and enjoyed the telltale hitch in her breath and corresponding heave in her breasts.

Chapter 16

“I’m proud of you, Ree-Ree,” he whispered. “Good work with her.”

“Shh,” she hissed, her gaze on Anastasia, who was gushing about her book. “This is a liveshow.”

Because she didn’t move away, he decided to take a few more liberties. He traced the curves and ridges of her ear, and then slid his eager fingers down the silky line of her neck. She shivered.

“What were you going to tell me the other day at the signing before Anastasia interrupted?”

She stiffened and stared fixedly at the monitor. “I don’t remember.”

“Liar.”

He paused to see what Anastasia was up to on stage. Her and Molly’s happy chattering, punctuated by frequent bursts of laughter and applause from the audience, reassured him. No one here could see or hear him with Maria, and he meant to take full advantage.

Stepping closer, he caressed his fingers around to the back of her neck, thrilled when her breath caught and didn’t resume.

“I want you. I know you want me, too.”

She gasped, and vivid color flooded her cheeks. Still not looking at him, she started to shake her head, but he sifted his fingers up under her thick, satiny, fragrant hair to her nape, stopping whatever denial she’d meant to make.

“Ah-hh, Maria, you feel so good.” Sighing, he tried to focus, to remember where they were and that he couldn’t just pull her all the way into his arms like he wanted to.

“We’re over,” she said in a weak, pleading voice. “We both know—”

“Nothing’s over.”

Throwing all caution to the wind, he grabbed her hand and, ignoring her squawk of protest, pulled her backward and into the delightful privacy provided by several rows of heavy black stage curtains in an unlit corner. She squirmed a little, in a token attempt to get away, but he was having none of it, not when he had her in his arms and she felt just like he’d remembered—like heaven. Like home.

Clamping his hands down on the lush curves where her hips flared away from her waist, he rested his forehead against hers and held her close. The smell of lemons on her skin saturated his senses and immediately made him high as a soaring kite. He felt certain he could flap his arms and fly to the moon, if only she’d keep letting him touch her.

“I’m tired of pretending, Maria—”

“No.”

“—aren’t you?”

Her only answer was a whimper, but maybe he wasn’t playing fair. He’d slid his lips to her ear and, once there, given in to the impulse to taste her. To his delight, she swayed on her feet and her hands settled around his neck and then ran through his hair.

Heaven.

“Have dinner with me, Ree-Ree.”

“No.”

“You’re right,” he whispered, rubbing his lips back and forth across that smooth, warm cheek. “We don’t have to wait that long. Come to my room after the show—”

“No.”

“—and let me make love to you.”

She froze except for the rise and fall of her breasts caused by her panting.

A half second of sanity slowed him down. He really needed to cool it, because he had no idea what was going on with the show. He’d heard the theme music again, so he figured they’d gone to commercial and would finish Anastasia’s segment in the next five minutes. Thank goodness they had a little time because at that moment he was physically incapable of letting Maria go.

“Don’t you want me inside you, Ree-Ree?” he whispered, nipping her ear.

“No.”

“No?”He slid his hands lower, until he palmed her lush, toned butt, and ground against her. At the contact with this soft, secret part of her at the cradle of her hips, he swelled even further. If she could resist the heavy ridge of his erection straining for her, then she truly had changed and he no longer knew a thing about her. “Are you sure?”

“Ah-hh, David,” she cooed helplessly, and in the second before her lids slid closed and she raised her face to his, he saw unhappy surrender in her eyes.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except this moment and this fire that still raged between them, hotter and brighter than ever.

With a low, feral growl, he kissed her, taking everything he could get, tasting mints, tea and Maria,all sweeter than they’d ever been before. She melted, fusing with him, filling the vast emptiness inside him that’d been four years in the making and that only she could fill.

And then, just when he’d slid his hands up to the plump sides of her breasts, and just when she’d begun to undulate against him, Anastasia ruined everything, just like he’d known she would.

“Molly, darling,” she said, her voice getting louder and slamming through the hushed studio with the force of a burning meteorite falling from the sky, “I’m branching out a little for now. Growing as a writer. You understand.”

“Say it ain’t so,” Molly shrieked in her chirpy little voice. “Are you telling me there’s not going to be a sequel to Hip-Hop Hottie?Are you kidding?”

The audience murmured, sounding unhappy with this prospect.

Maria wrenched out of David’s arms and they stared at each other, panting. Maria looked horrified, but David felt happy and triumphant.

“Maria,” he began.

“You have lipstick all over your mouth.”

As if he cared about that. Still, he wiped it off with the back of his hand and made sure the flaps of his suit jacket covered his arousal.

“Let’s go,” she snapped. “There’s no telling what she’ll say next.”

“We’ll finish this later,” he warned, taking her hand as they hurried through the curtains.

Snatching her hand away, she didn’t answer, but he didn’t need an answer from her lips. Her body had just told him everything he needed to know.

They rushed to mingle with the gathered crowd of technicians, producers, makeup people and untold others who’d gathered at the edge of the set like gawkers at a crime scene. David wondered wildly if he couldn’t pull the fire alarm and clear the building before Anastasia said something to America’s Sweetheart on live TV that would irrevocably damage her career.

“You can’t just leave all your fans hanging,” Molly said in a singsong whine. “What’s going to happen to Shemar? When will he get his own book?”

Anastasia’s smile tightened. “Really, darling, I want to talk about Blue Endearment.”

“Forget it!” Beaming and playful, Molly turned to face the audience and began to chant like the former cheerleader she was. “Se-quel. Se-quel.” Flapping her arms, she encouraged the audience to join her and soon hundreds of people had joined in the fun at Anastasia’s expense. “Se-quel. Se-quel.”

David had a very bad feeling, although Anastasia’s good-sport smile never slipped. He watched as the director gave Molly the wrap-it-up gesture, and prayed Anastasia would make it off the stage without blowing up.

“Well, thank you so much for coming.” Molly, as syrupy sweet as a pitcher of Miss Beverly’s tea, took Anastasia’s hand in both of hers. “I just love your books. You’re wonderful. Please come back.”

“Love to, darling.” All flashing teeth and sparkling eyes, Anastasia pulled Molly’s hands and the two leaned in to exchange air kisses. “Best to the children.”

As the theme music played and the audience clapped, Anastasia stood to walk off the stage and David began to breathe again. The unbelievable had just happened, hadn’t it? Anastasia had made her TV appearance, she’d been perfectly pleasant, and now it was all over. Their New York mission had been a complete success.

But then Anastasia’s smile disappeared as though someone had held up a vacuum hose and sucked it off her face. Sneering, she looked Molly up and down with open hostility. Molly, America’s sweet pixie, saw the sudden change of mood and flinched.

Anastasia’s lips pulled back in a feral grin, and when she spoke everyone in the studio heard because her mic was still on. “How’s the divorce coming, Molly?” she snarled, referring to the subject about which the tabloids had been gloating for weeks. “Has the hubby taken up with any more of your personal assistants?”

With that, Anastasia wheeled around and stalked off the set, leaving shocked silence in her wake. Molly, aghast, with cheeks flaming, stared after her. The last thing David and Maria heard as they raced off to follow Anastasia was the audience’s growing rumble of outrage.

Exhausted, David climbed into the limousine, collapsed next to Maria on the seat facing the back window, and watched Authorzilla rummage around in the mini-fridge for a drink. In ten seconds flat she’d poured Scotch on the rocks for herself and Uri without bothering to ask if David wanted one, which he did,even though it was only eleven in the morning. But she also didn’t ask if Maria wanted anything, which surprised him because Maria was as precious to Anastasia as The One Ring was to Gollum.

After she’d taken a huge swallow, Anastasia had the nerve to glare at him over the rim of her tinkling glass. “Happy now, are you?”

Itching for a fight—he’d never hit a woman before, but in Anastasia’s case he’d be happy to make an exception—and developing the headache of all headaches due to Anastasia’s cloying flower perfume and Uri’s musky cologne, each of which battled for dominance in the small space, he nonetheless tried to remember that this woman was important to Essex House, the firm, Ellis and, therefore, to David.

“Excuse me?”he asked pleasantly.

“I nev-ah wanted to do that bloody show, did I?” she cried.

Beside her, Uri nodded his silent confirmation. With today’s black ensemble and wide-eyed, solemn expression, he looked like someone had died. Actually somethinghad died today. Anastasia’s career. Struggling to keep that in mind, David kept his mouth shut and let the old bat vent.

“You call yourself a publicist,handing me over on a silver platter for that nobody to make fun of!” Waving her arm for emphasis, Anastasia sloshed most of her scotch out of the glass and down her hand. “And now they’ve taken my little joke to Molly all out of context, haven’t they? Made me look like a ruddy witch in front of the whole country, haven’t you? What’ve you to say for yourself? Name one good reason why I shouldn’t kick you right in your lovely arse and—”

“How dare you?”

The quiet fury in Maria’s voice caught them all by surprise, and they turned, as one, to gape at her. Sure enough, that familiar, white-hot anger flashed behind her brown eyes, and David winced, grateful that for once she wasn’t angry at him.

Thunderstruck, her bottom jaw hanging open as if a fluffy pet bunny had dropped fangs and sunk them deep into her wrist, Anastasia stared at Maria and didn’t speak.

Maria scooted to the edge of her seat and pointed at David. “You should be down on your knees thankingthis man,” she told Anastasia in a heartfelt, fierce tone that astonished and touched David. “He worked his fingers to the bone getting you on that show. He put up with youand your nonsense, he put up with Uri,and he put up with all the other purple-shirt-wearing stooges you’ve got kissing your butt twenty-four hours a day. He worked with your publisher,he worked with those producers—” her voice shook with fury “—he did everything he could to get you on the New York Times’s list except bribe people to buy the awful book.”

Anastasia paled under all her spackled makeup. Uri gasped at this blasphemy and clapped a hand over his heart. David put a hand on Maria’s arm to stop her before things got any worse, but she threw it off, her rigid body vibrating with anger.

“And how do you repay him?” Maria continued. “Do you thankhim? Do you treat him with respect?Do you manage to be a nice human being for a lousy ten-minute TV segment? Hell, no—”

Anastasia made an outraged sound.

“—you make an ass of yourself on national TV! You attack Molly, America’s tragic sweetheart whose jerk of a husband walked out on her, and now everyone in America with a TV hates you! We couldn’t giveyour book away now if we had an outbreak of diarrhea and all the toilet paper factories in the world went belly up!” Maria shouted. “And now you have the nerve—the gall—to blame David? Well, you know what? Over my dead body!You know what else? You’re fired!”

Another joint gasp from Anastasia and Uri.

“Maria,” David tried.

She ignored him. “That’s right! You’re fired! Ellis Johnson Public Relations wouldn’t represent you if you were the last heifer on earth!”

Panting now, Maria broke off and silence reigned for a long, pregnant moment. The limo rolled to a stop and David had a fleeting glimpse of the hotel outside his window.

Maria and Anastasia stared each other down, both tense-shouldered and wild-eyed. David had the feeling that with the slightest provocation they’d both leap for each other’s throats. Finally, Anastasia puffed out her chest.

“How dare you?” she thundered. “Don’t you know who I am?”

“Yeah,” Maria said without missing a beat. “Anna Buckley from Queens. So why don’t you lose the fake British accent, darling?”

Five seconds passed while David struggled not to laugh and resisted the urge to high-five Maria.

Then all hell broke loose.

They’d planned on having a three-martini celebratory luncheon with Anastasia, then flying back to Cincinnati in the early evening. All those plans flew out the window. After separating the snarling, furious women, David sent Maria to her room. With her out of the way, he took Anastasia and Uri to the hotel bar, plied them with liquor, un-fired Anastasia and, basically, begged for her continued business.