Jill Shalvis - Bared

“So what are you going to do, kidnap her from work?”

“I’m going to try something new.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to tell her how I feel.”

“Oh.” Stone thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “It was a new technique for me, as well.”

“And it worked for you,” Rafe pointed out.

“It sure did.”

“Then, wish me luck.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re going to need it,” Stone added.

THEY’D HEARD SO MANY PITCHES, Emma’s head was going to explode. No one writer had stood out, and they were beginning to think the entire process was going to be a wash.

Emma still sat at the conference table. Her mug had been filled over and over and, as a result, she felt jittery. Maybe it had been the cookies and caffeine and no lunch, but her head hurt and she wanted a nap.

She rested her head on the table. “Let’s send whoever’s left out there home. It’s not worth it.”

“A few more,” someone else decided and yelled “Next!” to the assistant standing by the door.

Emma lifted her head just as a tall, dark and heart-stoppingly handsome man walked into the room.

Rafe.

“Hello,” he said in a hauntingly familiar voice. He lifted the clipboard he held. “I’m here to pitch a concept.”

“Go ahead,” said the suit on Emma’s left.

Emma sat there with her mouth open. What was he doing? Why was he here? And why, oh why, did he have to look so…kissable? She’d done her best to get over him. She’d done her best not to think about him every living, breathing second. She’d nearly succeeded, too. In fact, she hadn’t thought about him in at least four whole minutes.

And now here he was, in the flesh, looking at her with so much emotion in his eyes she could hardly stand it. What is he doing?

Rafe cleared his throat and, instead of reading from a paper as everyone else had done, put his clipboard behind his back and looked right at her. “My concept is simple. It’s a relationship concept.”

Oh God.

“What I’m envisioning,” he said, “is a man and a woman, in the perpetual struggle to find not only themselves, but love.”

Around her, a few suits nodded, interested.

Emma could hardly breathe. She didn’t know what the hell he thought he was doing, but she couldn’t take it. She just couldn’t-

“It opens with a man,” Rafe said. “He has his heart set on breaking free from his too-busy, too-hectic, too-controlled lifestyle. He wants to settle down away from all that. He wants to, for once, have the time to indulge in an affair of the heart.”

His eyes were on Emma, and she slowly became aware that everyone else’s were, too. She glanced around and tried to looked nonplussed, while her pulse beat unnaturally fast and heavy.

Even when she didn’t look at him, she could feel Rafe’s eyes on her, pulling, capturing, holding, and she made the mistake of turning back to him.

A mistake because now she couldn’t tear her gaze off him.

Rafe took a breath and went on. “But the love of his life is also in that crazy, too-hectic, too-controlled lifestyle,” Rafe said. “She doesn’t realize how much of herself she gives, leaving nothing for anything else. Or anyone else. This breaks the man’s heart, because he wants her to see him, to be with him. To plant flowers in the yard and raise a grumpy old cat together.”

“Maybe he should find someone else,” Emma said.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to.”

“Maybe she can’t be who he wants,” she said.

“Maybe she’s wrong.”

All eyes in the room volleyed back and forth between the two of them.

“Maybe the only woman he wants is her,” Rafe said. “You,” he clarified softly.

Their observers gasped in concert.

Emma’s heart went to her throat.

“In my concept, this man has said a few things in frustration, things he didn’t really mean,” he said. “Her life isn’t boring or staid, it’s just different from his-and he’s incredibly sorry.”

“You don’t have to-”

“I should never have said those things, Emma.”

At the use of her name, everyone again turned toward her. She felt her face heat up.

“This is a concept, not real life.”

“Right.” But he looked disappointed at having to keep up the pretense. “In my concept, these two see each other, they go out, they spend lots of time together, despite all their differences, despite all the things they’ve said to each other, or not said. In my concept,” he added softly, “they work hard. But a relationship, a good one, is worth the hard work.”

Emma closed her eyes. She felt so confused. Still hurt. And afraid, terribly afraid, that he’d change his mind. That he couldn’t possibly really want her. She couldn’t handle that, couldn’t handle jumping in, giving him everything, only to find out he didn’t mean it. She didn’t have good luck with people being there for her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking at him through a veil of tears she refused to let fall. “But we’re not interested.”

She could feel the stare of every one of her peers, silent, sad, probably thinking she’d just made a huge mistake.

But it was her mistake to make, damn it. “You can go.”

“Emma-”

“Please,” she whispered, covering her eyes.

It wasn’t until she heard the conference door close behind him that she opened her eyes and took a breath.

He had left. He really had left.

Everyone stared at her.

“Well.” She managed a smile. “Is there anyone else?”

“You let him go.” The producer across from her, Liz, couldn’t seem to get over this. “You let that gorgeous hunk of a man walk right out that door.”

“There are extenuating circumstances,” she said, hating every one of those extenuating circumstances.

“Honey, he just laid his heart bare in front of a crowd of people, and all for you. I would say screw the circumstances and go after him.”

Emma looked at her.

She nodded. “Yep. Drag that man straight home and never let him get away.”

Emma turned to stare at the closed conference door, knowing she’d never forget the look on Rafe’s face when she’d said she wasn’t interested. “I don’t think I can keep a man like that.”

“Why not?”

Yeah, why not?

Didn’t she deserve to have some happiness and joy?

She looked around at the expectant faces, some of whom nodded encouragingly. “I…” She closed her eyes. “I’m an idiot.” She leaped up. “I have to go after him.”

“Good girl,” her producer said.

She raced to the door, then looked back. “I should tell you, I want to cut back.”

“Cut back…what?”

Emma smiled, because suddenly this felt like the best idea she’d ever had. “I want to work forty hours a week, not a moment more. I want a life outside of the job. I’ll understand if this doesn’t work for you, but I love writing soap scripts, so be warned, I’ll go to another show if I have to.”

“Are you kidding?” asked Liz. “Don’t you dare. You just go get that hot man.”

Emma hauled open the door. The hallway was crowded with people hustling and bustling around doing their jobs. What she didn’t see was a Rafe Delacantro.

She’d catch him in the parking lot. She started to run, grateful for the flat, beat-up sandals she wore. Racing down the hallways, dodging people left and right, tossing out an “I’m sorry” every time she jostled anyone, she skidded out the front glass doors and searched the parking lot.

But he was gone.

“MEOW.”

“I just fed you,” Rafe said to the cat winding its way around his ankles. He wasn’t really in the mood. He still couldn’t grasp the reality that it was over with Emma, he just couldn’t.

Puddles bit his ankle.

“All right, all right. Hold on.” He stood in his living room, a few nails in his mouth, his hammer in his hand, surveying the north wall critically. He’d hung a series of his photographs on the bare wall. “What do you think?”

Puddles sat and began to wash her face.

“Thanks.”

Irena had asked about the bare walls, saying they definitely needed something. She’d suggested pictures of the celebrities he’d taken shots of over the years, or maybe some of the recognizable places he’d been to. Something to exhibit his work.

He had figured he’d get to it eventually-eventually being later. But tonight, after the day from hell, he’d needed the chore to keep his mind off Emma’s rejection.

So he’d taken Irena’s suggestion under consideration and decided she was right. He needed stuff on his walls. His stuff.

Flipping through his photos had distracted him from thoughts of Emma for a while. He pulled out some of his favorites, remembering trips and people he hadn’t thought about in a long time. He’d stayed distracted, a good thing since he didn’t seem to enjoy his own company lately.

Today especially.

And man, what a today he’d had, going to Emma’s work with his heart in his hands. When he had learned she was unavailable because she was listening to story pitches, he’d gotten that rebrained idea of pitching her a story.

Their story.

She’d listened to him. He knew she had because she’d had trouble breathing. He knew if he’d gone closer, if he’d been able to touch her, she would have been shaking.

He sure as hell had been.

But she’d turned him away.

He looked at the pictures on the wall. They weren’t of any famous celebs or anything currently in vogue such as abstract prints. Just his personal favorites, ones he figured he could look at for years to come and never get tired of seeing.

The first two had been taken in Africa. There was one of a lion rolling in complete abandon in a patch of wild grass beneath a blazing summer sun, and another of three village women walking away from the camera, wearing their colorful clothes, with baskets piled high on their heads.

The next few photographs had been taken in Scotland, in the Highlands, far from even a small town. One with the lush green landscape and the ruins of a castle vanishing into a glorious fog, another at midnight during a full moon, the glow highlighting three small huts.

He figured a nice seascape would look good here, and he wondered where he’d take it. Maybe Santa Barbara, during a summer storm-

A knock came at the front door. Puddles, looking unconcerned, continued to wash her face.

“A dog would have warned me someone was coming,” he said to her.

She lifted her leg and started in on her private parts.

With a sigh he moved to the door and opened it, figuring it would be Stone or Irena. Maybe one of his sisters. Anyone other than the woman standing there, wearing a sedate blue and white checkered sundress that looked as if it had come from the set of Leave It to Beaver.

“It’s my housewife costume,” said Emma.

“But…” He had to clear his throat because just looking at her made him ache so that he could barely talk. “There’s no shoot today. We’re…done.”

“I know. Can I come in, Rafe?”

Without waiting for an answer, she stepped inside, having to brush against him to do so. His entire body tightened at the feel of her soft skin, and he recognized the scent of her as if he’d already mated for life.

Damn it. Damn her. “I’m pretty busy,” he said, not wanting to hear about why she’d turned him away earlier. “I’m working.”

She made a low tsking sound in her throat as she moved into the living room, studying what he’d put up on the walls. “You know what they say about working too hard.” Clasping her hands together, she whirled to face him. “It’s not good for you. You don’t take time for yourself, to live, to dream. You…” She took a deep breath. “You push people away. People you don’t mean to push away.”

He looked into her eyes. “Are we talking about me…or you?”

She lifted her hands and brought them to the tiny, neat line of buttons running down the length of her dress. One by one she undid them, and because he was shocked, she got to her belly button before his mouth worked.

“What are you doing?”

With a little shimmy of her shoulders, she allowed the sleeves of the dress to fall to her elbows. Bending slightly, she continued unbuttoning herself. “I was always sorry I didn’t get to model this one for you.”

Then she straightened. She spread apart the bodice of her dress, revealing that, beneath the modest, housewife outfit, she wore a red silky camisole and matching silky shorts.

He recognized it as the match to the black one that Amber had worn during one of the shoots.

“I’m sorry I rejected your script today,” she whispered, dropping the dress entirely, leaving her in only the barely-there red silk. “It was beautiful. It just took a moment to sink in that you could really mean it, that you could really want me for more than just what we shared physically. Then, when I went after you, you were already gone and-”