"Dorothea? She's gone to Sonoma already. She left after the day's shoot."
"Left?" He hesitated for a moment, uncertainty flickering across his face. "Already?"
"Yes, already. She said she wanted to put some of Richard's best champagne on ice before we all descend on her," Desi added softly, her lips curving into a sweet smile in an unconscious effort to clear the frown from his face. "Was it important?"
"Was what important?" he asked absently, his eyes focused on her lips.
Desi took a step backward. "What you wanted to see Dorothea about. Was it important?"
"No," he said, still staring at her mouth. "I mean yes," he corrected himself, seeming to literally shake himself awake. He tore his eyes away from her lips with an effort.
"Yes," he said again, more firmly. "It's important. She said there was something in one of the upcoming scenes that she wanted to go over before we start shooting on Monday." He hesitated, an infinitesimal pause that would have gone unnoticed if she hadn't been watching him so carefully. "She asked me to come over tonight."
"Dorothea asked you to come over? Here? I don't believe it." Desi shook her head. "She knew she was leaving. She wouldn't—" She broke off, a terrible thought suddenly occurring to her. Dorothea most definitely
would
. It would be just like her to invite Jake over there for some trumped-up reason when she didn't plan to be there herself.
Oh Lord, surely she hadn't told. No, of course not. If she had told him, Jake wouldn't be standing there so casually. He would be raging at her and flinging awful accusations all over the room.
The room! Desi's eyes flew guiltily around the living room, looking for telltale signs of Stephanie. The pastel quilt she used when she put Stephanie on the floor for some play time lay folded over the back of a chair—but that was okay. It could be any quilt, not just one meant for a baby. More incriminating were the pictures of Stephanie displayed around the room. But there were lots of other family pictures, Desi reassured herself; her parents, her brothers, Eldin and even Teddie and Larry. Stephanie's were just a few among many. He wouldn't notice.
And if he did—if he did—she would just say that Stephanie was her niece. Besides, she would have him out of there in a few minutes. Simple.
"As you can see, Dorothea isn't here," she said. "She must have forgotten that she invited you over. I guess it will just have to wait until you see her in Sonoma." She made a subtle gesture, tacitly inviting him to leave.
He ignored the hint and moved farther into the living room, turning to face her where she still stood at the door, one hand resting on the ornate door handle. "Dorothea was really upset about that scene," he said softly, his dark eyes taking in her slender kimono-clad form from top to bottom. "Maybe she said something to you about it...?"
His voice trailed off as he stood there, staring at the vision she made in her thin pink kimono. Her stubbornly curly hair was tied loosely back from her face, tumbling in coppery waves almost to her waist. Her eyes were wide and inviting, her pale skin flushed, and those ridiculous strips of tissue through her polished toes were somehow charmingly endearing.
"No." Desi shook her head slowly. "She didn't mention it. I..." Her voice, too, seemed to desert her as she stared back at him, mesmerized by the smoldering gleam in his eyes.
Funny, she thought distractedly, how such dark eyes could shine so and still seem to get darker and darker. They drew her deeper into their hypnotic depths, leading her farther into something... someplace that she was more than willing to go.
Jake made a movement toward her, a barely perceptible lift of his hands, a tensing of his powerful shoulders under the leather jacket, as if he were reaching for her.
Desi hurriedly dropped her eyes, breaking his hold on her. "Maybe she left her script here," she suggested softly. "If you want to wait for a minute—" she glanced up, her eyes silently, unconsciously inviting him to stay "—I'll check for you."
"Thanks." Jake nodded his head once, that brief, characteristic gesture she knew so well. "I'll wait," he said.
"If it's here, it's probably in the bedroom." She pushed the front door shut, its soft click sounding strangely final somehow, and motioned him toward the satin sofa. "Sit down. It might take me a few minutes to find it."
As he turned away from her, moving toward the sofa, Desi bent down swiftly and yanked the strips of tissue from between her toes, bunching them into a ball in her fist. She straightened to find Jake eyeing her with knowing amusement. "I'll just be a minute," she said and escaped across the room to the hallway.
But she didn't find Dorothea's script in her bedroom because Dorothea had taken it with her to Sonoma. Desi knew that when she offered to look for it, but she had to get out of the living room for a few minutes—before she flung herself into his arms. Because, even now, she wanted to feel Jake's arms around her, feel her arms around him. She wanted to wipe the strains of overwork and worry from his beautiful brown eyes in any way that she could.
Automatically, in an effort to give herself more time, she began opening her desk drawers, looking for the nonexistent script.
Why was he here, she wondered again. Had Dorothea really asked him to come over tonight, knowing she wouldn't be there when he did? Desi knew Dorothea was capable of such a thing. There was no doubt of that. But she had promised not to tell him about Stephanie, and Dorothea was not the kind of person to break a promise, even indirectly. But, then, if she hadn't invited him over, why was he there? Had he really expected Dorothea to be there—or had he known she
wouldn't
be?
She remembered, suddenly, those looks she had intercepted on the set; the looks of confused desire, of longing and, lately, of a sort of grudging respect. She remembered, too, what had happened that day in his trailer. "Love sometimes comes from lust," Dorothea had said.
Was it possible? Could he have really come there tonight to see
her
? Was his story about Dorothea and the script just a ruse, an excuse?
Hope surged in Desi, a wild rush of joy that she tried, unsuccessfully, to stamp down.
Maybe he
had
come to see her!
And, then, so what if he had? It would make no difference. She still couldn't tell him about Stephanie.
She shut the last desk drawer, and then opened it again and picked up her own copy of the script. She had to have some reason for taking so long. She headed back into the living room, pausing briefly to check on Stephanie. Good baby that she was, she still slept soundly, her tiny hands curled into tiny fists on either side of her face.
"Your daddy's in the living room," Desi whispered to the sleeping baby. She reached out, resting her hand against the baby's soft cheek. It felt a little warm and the wispy curls at the temples were a bit damp. But she slept soundly, her breathing was quiet and even, so Desi simply smoothed her hair back and made a mental note to watch Stephanie more closely for the next few days. Although she'd been scrupulous about washing her hands and keeping Dorothea isolated, it was not impossible, she thought, that Stephanie could have caught Dorothea's cold.
"I couldn't find Dorothea's script," she said, coming into the living room, determined to be businesslike for the few minutes that he would be there. "But I brought my copy in case—" she began to explain, and then stopped. Jake appeared to be asleep.
He was sitting in the middle of the sofa, his long arms stretched along the back of it, his dark head resting tiredly against the rose-colored satin.
"She mentioned a scene," he said, opening his eyes as he reached out an arm for the script she held. "Maybe looking through it will give me a hint." He began flipping through it.
Desi stood apprehensively at the edge of the sofa, watching him as he looked for the proper scene. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. She had expected him to get up and leave when she couldn't produce Dorothea's script. Not sit there, idly thumbing through hers. Every minute he was here was dangerous. To Stephanie. To her. Mostly to her, she acknowledged silently. Just looking at Jake was dangerous for her.
Jake looked up suddenly. "Sit down, Weston," he ordered, "and quit fidgeting while I try to figure out what Dorothea meant."
"My name is Desi," she shot back, not bothering to stop and think about what she said, "or Miss Weston, if you insist, but I refuse to be called Weston like some upstairs maid in my own home."
"Desiree, then," he said softly, and his eyes blazed up at her hotly.
"Desi," she insisted weakly. Not Desiree, please. Plain Weston was better than that. Desiree brought back those nights in his arms, the touch of his lips.
"Desiree," he said again, his eyes never leaving her face. He set the script aside, and it slid off the sofa and onto the floor. Neither of them noticed it. "Come here." He patted the space next to him.
Desi hesitated uncertainly, traitorous desire and common sense at war in her slender body. It would be so easy to forget these past few months, to forget his harsh words and unfair accusations, to just sink down beside him and lose herself in the smoldering depths of his dark eyes.
So easy.
But remember what happened the last time you blindly followed your instincts
, she warned herself.
There's a four-month-old baby asleep in the other room if you need a reminder. A baby who was the direct result of the last time you allowed yourself to melt in this man's arms.
Much as she loved her daughter, much as she could not now imagine a life without her tiny presence, she was not ready for another such experience. True, she was on the pill now. Her obstetrician had prescribed it shortly after Stephanie was born, in an effort to regulate her erratic menstrual cycle. But that was no excuse for letting herself go and abandoning good sense.
And besides, she had more pride than that, she told herself fiercely. More pride and more self-respect. She would
not
be a slave to her desire for him. Nothing could come of it, nothing except more pain.
"Desiree," he said again, and there was warm entreaty buried in the deep seductive tones of his voice.
I know a man in love when I see one
, Dorothea had told her.
Jealous and angry, maybe, but in love.
Was he in love with her, Desi asked herself. Or was it just lust? And if it was only lust, well... Maybe Dorothea was right. Maybe lust did lead to love sometimes.
His dark eyes tempted her, and his hand reached out and lightly grasped one end of the sash that belted her kimono, pulling her slowly, inexorably, toward him.
She clutched at the sash, resisting him. "Jake, please," she stammered. "I... No."
"Desiree," he repeated her name again, as if he knew how it affected her. How it set her insides to burning just to hear it on his lips. He continued to pull on her sash as he spoke, and she stumbled forward, sinking down onto the sofa beside him.
"No, Jake, please. Don't kiss me." Her hands came up, pushing against his chest to hold him off. But it was only a halfhearted effort at best. She wanted him so much.
"Don't you want me to kiss you, Desiree?" he whispered seductively, his hands on her upper arms. "I want to kiss you," he said. "I'm dying to kiss you again. To make love to—"
"No." Desi stopped him from saying more. If he said any more, she would melt. "It wouldn't solve anything, Jake. It wouldn't change the way you feel about me."
Or the way I feel about you
, she added silently.
"I've already changed the way I feel about you," he murmured huskily. His hands continued to move lightly, hypnotically, up and down her arms.
"You have?" she said, going very still. Her mouth felt dry suddenly. "Why?" she whispered hoarsely. "When?"
"I've been watching you on the set." His gaze roamed hungrily over her face, touching briefly on her wide blue eyes, her flushed cheeks, her softly parted lips. He took a shaky breath. "You're good at your job. Very good. Very professional. And I've come to realize that, whatever else he may have been to you in the past, Eldin isn't your lover now."
"He never was my lover," Desi interjected softly, her eyes searching his.
"Never?" His hands slid up over her shoulders to her neck. His fingers curled around the pale slim column of her throat, tilting her head back, as his thumbs drew small drugging circles at her temples.
"Never," she repeated, a catch in her voice. "Eldin's like a father to me. He's—"
"I'm glad." He bent closer. "So glad."
"Jake... Jake, this is ridiculous," she said, trying just once more, to reason with him—and herself—as his arms came around her. "We shouldn't."
"I know." He buried his face in the curve of her neck. "Oh God, I know." His voice sounded ragged, she thought, muffled as it was against her neck, but his arms were gentle around her. "But I can't seem to stop myself."
He held her close without seeming to restrain her in any way. Maybe if he
had
tried to hold her down she would have struggled against him, fought to be set free.
But he didn't. Through guile or cunning, or perhaps all unknowingly, he held her tenderly, almost reverently, as if she was infinitely precious to him. And Desi, overcome by her love and her need, let him hold her.
He sighed into the sweetness of her hair; a soft whisper of warm breath against her sensitive skin. "I just want to hold you," she heard him say. "It feels so good just to hold you. You're so warm," he said, a note of wonderment in his voice. His lips moved against the vulnerable curve of her neck, and it was all Desi could do to keep from crying out.
"So sweet," he murmured into her hair. "How can anyone be so sweet?"
Desi barely heard the muffled words he spoke, so enthralled was she by the feel of his arms around her and the touch of his lips on her neck. Her head fell back invitingly, exposing the long delicate line of her throat to his seeking lips. Her hands rested passively against the broad expanse of his chest. She could feel the heat of him through the thin material of his shirt and feel the steady thud of his heart under her tingling palms.