“Why don’t you change into something of mine while we stick your clothes in the dryer? Then we can talk.”
Five minutes later, Drew had on a pair of Smith Sullivan’s jeans and a Hawks Baseball T-shirt. Valentina and Ashley hadn’t yet emerged, so they were sitting in Smith and Valentina’s home office talking about how the team was doing this year.
“I caught your brother’s last no-hitter on the TV on the bus,” Drew said, “but it’s not like being there when Ryan throws a—”
His sentence fell away as Ashley walked into the room...and his jaw dropped. She was wearing another dress, pink instead of white. And sexy in a way that nothing else she’d ever worn had been.
“We were so lucky,” Valentina said as she beamed at Ashley. “Tatiana left this dress in the closet after her visit with Ian. It fits you perfectly.”
So perfectly, in fact, that the edge Drew was on wore so thin it nearly broke, almost exploding into a million pieces right then and there in front of Smith and Valentina.
*
Ashley felt just about as self-conscious in Tatiana Landon’s dress as she had in her see-through white dress in the pool. Tatiana was a gorgeous movie star who probably wore outfits like this all the time, but Ashley wasn’t used to wearing anything quite so form-fitting. One big breath was all it would take for her breasts to come spilling up and out of the bodice. Plus, since her underwear was currently in the dryer, she wasn’t wearing any. And from the way Drew was looking at her with so much heat even the air conditioning couldn’t keep her cool, she wondered if he’d developed X-ray vision and could tell that she was completely bare beneath the gorgeous dress.
She’d been nervous about coming to this party, considering Smith Sullivan was one of the biggest movie stars in the world. But in her worst nightmares she couldn’t have come up with falling into the pool. Only, the truth was that she couldn’t entirely regret what had happened, if only because of the way Drew had pulled her close in the water and held her as though he never wanted to let her go.
Just the way he had in the elevator yesterday. And on the beach. And in the desert in the Valley of Fire.
Every time she’d ever been in his arms was imprinted on her memory like a brand. When this tour was over, she’d be replaying each and every one of those delicious moments over and over in her fantasies.
Fantasies that she knew better than to be having right this second, so she worked to pull herself together as she smiled at Valentina. “Thanks again for finding me the dress. And”—she turned to include Smith—“I’m so sorry I made such a spectacle at your party.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Smith said as he reached out for Valentina’s hand so that he could draw her closer. “We should have fired that grip a week ago.”
“He should know better than to get drunk here,” Valentina agreed, looking utterly content in Smith’s arms.
They were such a beautiful couple. It clearly didn’t matter to them that Smith was famous and Valentina wasn’t. They were not only equals, they were also so clearly in love that they were always either holding hands or Smith’s arms were wrapped around Valentina’s waist.
Seeing how good they were together, Ashley couldn’t imagine that Valentina had ever worried about fitting into Smith’s Hollywood world. But given the crazy business he was in, Ashley figured it was far more likely that they’d run into at least a few bumps on the way to true love. If only she knew their story, would that help her make sense of what she was going through with Drew?
“I’ll go take care of the situation with the grip in a minute,” Smith said to Valentina, “but first, Drew said he’d like to chat with us about something.” He shifted his gaze to Drew. “I’m assuming it has to do with the soundtrack?”
Ashley couldn’t miss the tension in Drew’s face. No one could when a muscle was jumping in his jaw and there were deep creases beside his eyes.
She realized it was the way he always looked when he was talking about the problems he’d been having with songwriting. Oh God, the soundtrack. She hadn’t even thought to ask him if that was giving him problems the way the songs for his next album were. And despite the strain between them since the beach in Los Angeles, her every instinct was to try to figure out a way to protect him.
But at the same time, while Drew had involved her in all of his other meetings so far, today she was here only because she’d fallen into the pool. She very much doubted any of them wanted her to witness this discussion.
“I should leave the three of you alone,” she said, already heading for the French doors in her borrowed pink dress.