Bared

20

AFTER THAT NIGHT, Emma worked like a demon. The studio didn’t protest, they loved it. Two weeks into her mad-woman writing schedule, they gave her a bonus and offered to renegotiate her contract, saying the pages she’d been giving them were her best ever. Emmy-award winning, they all vowed.

She read between the lines with the best of them. They wanted to guarantee that she kept up the pace yet didn’t get lured away by another show.

But after another week of the grueling schedule, with her eyes perpetually red and strained, her body falling apart, her nails chewed down to the nubs, she wondered what it was about her that she found it so impossible to change.

She’d wanted something different, something more. Even Amber had managed to get that something more. In addition to her new TV pilot, she had a man in her life, a real man.

Emma sighed. What made that all so hard for her?

She had one meeting left for the day. The studio was going to hire another junior writer and, as part of the interview process, wannabe scribes would come in one at a time and pitch their ideas.

After that, she could go home to bed.

Grabbing a large coffee for the meeting, which promised to be long and excruciating, she glanced at her reflection in the glass. Her hair was piled on top of her head and held there precariously with two pencils. She wore leggings and a large T-shirt. Amber wouldn’t have been caught dead looking like this.

She looked about as different from the model she’d pretended to be as she could get.

Entering the conference room, she slouched down in a chair, thinking no one outside this place would recognize her, not her sister, not Rafe-

Nope, she thought as her heart constricted without permission, I’m not going to go there. To make sure she didn’t, she dove into the tray of cookies in the middle of the conference table. Boring? Is that what he’d said her life was? Ha! This wasn’t boring. She grabbed another cookie.

Chocolate always had been able to solve everything. Today she was going to put it to the test.

“YOU’RE…WHAT?” Stone stared at Rafe in disbelief. He’d just shown up at Rafe’s house, wearing a damn shit-eating grin that assured Rafe his best friend had been getting lucky on a regular basis.

He intended to get lucky himself. He hadn’t slept well for weeks, until last night. “I’m going after her.”

“You’re going after her.” Stone blinked. “Emma? Hollywood writer, workaholic Emma?”

“Yep.” He stepped outside, pulled Stone out as well, and locked his front door.

Stone, mouth hanging open, watched Rafe walk past him toward his car. “You’re going to get Emma.”

“You’re sounding a bit like a parrot.”

“But…” Stone looked confused. “I thought she wasn’t the one.”

“I was wrong.”

“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.