“You wouldn’t believe it.” She put one hand on her lower back and rubbed lightly, her slender body lithe and beautiful in the pale gray sheath dress she wore with chunky turquoise beads and strappy heels that drew his attention to her long, long legs. He had no idea how she walked all day on those ice picks, but God he liked the view.
The fantasies he had about Thea’s legs…
“The magazine thing I told you about?” she said, her fine-boned face lit with laughter and the straight, silky black of her hair in a sleek twist that had begun to unravel just a tiny bit, her skin a flawless, smooth gold. “Well, turns out the photographer wanted to get you guys in a bathtub for an avant-garde shoot.”
David blinked, momentarily diverted from his path. “All four of us?”
“Yes. Naked.”
“Jesus.”
“No?” A teasing question, her smile no longer so agonizingly professional.
“Hell, no.” He shuddered. “We don’t like each other that much. How the hell would he fit the entire band in a tub anyway?”
Thea snorted with laughter and suddenly, she was the Thea he knew again, the one who wasn’t so icy behind her professional facade and whose sense of humor had a wicked bite. “Only way to find out is to do it.” Smile deep, she arched an eyebrow. “Should I give the photographer a call?”
“Very funny.” Realizing he was in danger of getting totally off track, he bit the bullet and laid his heart on the line. “So, I was thinking we could grab a drink, unwind together.” He’d gotten back into L.A. an hour ago after an out-of-state gig at a music festival; it was as good an excuse as any to put her at ease, make this seem less “datelike.”
Smile fading from her eyes though her lips remained curved, she said, “I wish I could, but I have a dinner meeting with a television producer about a new entertainment show.”
Not about to give up, David slipped his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and said, “Tomorrow?”
“Another working dinner, I’m afraid.”
The knot in his gut was now a jagged rock that made it difficult to breathe. “Lunch?” he asked with a grin, making light of her rebuff and giving her the opening to suggest another time, another meal, a simple fifteen minutes to grab a drink or a coffee. Anything.
Thea’s laugh was rueful. “Booked into next year.”
“Working, huh?” he managed to get out, though he felt as if he’d had the stuffing kicked out of him.
“You know me, a workaholic.” She glanced at the thin silver band of her watch. “Speaking of which, I’d better get back to it. I need to call someone in Tokyo, and I know the man I need to reach will be in his office about now.” Smiling that perfect smile that cut like a knife, she walked him to the door. “It was nice to see you.”
Gutted at the absolute rejection, for all that it had been professionally delivered, he just went. He understood when a woman meant no, and he never ever wanted to make Thea feel cornered or threatened. But he had to make sure she had meant no, that he hadn’t misread a signal that said “try harder.” So he did something about which he wasn’t proud—but he’d long ago stopped being proud when it came to his feelings for Thea.
Parking his car half a block up from her office in a refurbished house in Beverly Hills, he waited. When she came out forty minutes later, he followed her to her destination. It wasn’t a restaurant or even an office block where she could’ve conceivably had that dinner meeting.
It was her apartment building.
And because she had a window seat where she settled in with her laptop a few minutes later, her hair down and her dress replaced by what looked like a tank top over what must be shorts, he knew she wasn’t expecting professional company.
Thea hadn’t had a working date. She hadn’t had any kind of date.
She just didn’t want him.
Thea finally stopped trying to get some work done and went to raid her stash of Peanut Butter Creme Oreos. Grabbing a tall glass of milk, she sat down at the round kitchen table that had come with the apartment and methodically demolished four of the cookies. She didn’t tear them apart, didn’t eat the creamy filling and the cookie separately. She bit directly into each one, chewing the bite dry before chasing it down with milk.
It should’ve been intensely satisfying, a treat she saved for days when she’d dealt with too many dickheads and idiots. Today… today she’d had a tough day, but it had ended even tougher. Not because David was either a dickhead or an idiot, but the opposite. He was smart, talented, bone-meltingly sexy.