Overnight Sensation
Excerpt
“I--I wanted to talk to you.” Ivy's voice was hesitant.
Interesting.
“Oh yeah? What about?”
By the indistinct glow, Garrett could see her sleeveless dress was pale green, cinched in at the waist with a narrow belt. It looked like something from the 1950's. It should have made her look like Beaver Cleaver’s mother, but Garrett found the style incredibly alluring simply because she was the one wearing it. The top several buttons were undone, revealing the smooth skin beneath and the fragile line of her collarbones. One dark tendril of hair had escaped the ponytail and lay in a shining corkscrew against her neck.
He wanted badly to touch her.
Instead, he waited.
Clearly uncomfortable, Ivy stood in the center of the room and looked around, her eyes moving over everything except him.
He crossed his arms over his chest. “So what brings you out here?”
He noted with interest the slow flush that stained her neck and crept upward until even the tips of her ears were red. She twisted her fingers together, then drew in a deep breath and—finally--looked straight at him.
“It’s about today’s shoot.” She gestured helplessly. “It was pretty bad.”
Bad didn’t even begin to describe it, Garrett thought grimly. Apart from the enchantment of watching Ivy undress, the love scene had had all the appeal of a badly acted, low-budget porn film. It was clear to anyone watching just how much Ivy had disliked being skin to skin with Eric Terrell. Her responses had been forced and mechanical. There’d been zero chemistry between them.
On a personal level, he’d been okay with that. Totally okay. But from a professional standpoint he knew that if things didn’t change, the director could very well overrule Garrett’s objections and send Ivy packing. He had too much riding on this film to let one actor ruin it.
But there was no way he was walking into this particular trap. If she thought he was going to agree with her about the disastrous shoot, she was dead wrong.
He shrugged, non-committal.
She made a small sound of exasperation and scooped a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. “Oh, please. You don’t have to pretend on my account. You were there. You saw the shoot. I mean, did it come even close to what you shared with Helena Vanderveer?”
Garrett stilled. He’d lied to her that first day about his relationship with the missionary who had rescued him from behind enemy lines. While he didn’t typically spend time analyzing his past actions, this particular untruth had been eating at him. He wasn’t even sure what devil had prompted him to tell her the script was true to life. It was only afterwards that he’d acknowledged he’d wanted to get under her skin.
The way she was under his.
He’d wanted to arouse her awareness of him, even though the little white lie implied he had been involved with another woman. The truth was, he’d been more than half in love with Ivy since the day he first saw her at Walter Reed Hospital, even if she had no memory of him being there.
He’d watched every one of her films, and had followed her blossoming career during the past two years. He’d even used his USASOC--US Army Special Operations Command--connections to run a check on her and determine if there was anyone significant in her life.
She was the sole reason he’d even agreed to let Finn make the damned movie, and just the thought of her with another guy caused his gut to tighten.
The earnestness of her question caused a pang of guilt to slice through him, and part of him wanted to fess up and come clean with her. He determinedly ignored it. “No,” he finally answered. “It didn’t even come close to what I shared with Helena.” That, at least, was the truth.
Her face fell and Garrett watched as her entire body seemed to sag. “I thought as much.” She bent her head and wearily rubbed her eyes.
Garrett pushed himself away from the table and moved to stand directly in front of her. He used one hand to tip her chin up, studying her. The defeat in her dark eyes almost undid him. “Hey,” he finally managed. “It wasn’t as bad as all that.”
She gave a small disbelieving huff and twisted her face aside. “Yes it was. It was...terrible.” She avoided his eyes, studying her hands, instead. “Do you remember what you said to me that first day, about giving me pointers?”
Garrett felt his heartbeat falter. “Sure,” he said cautiously. “I remember.”
Ivy drew in a deep breath, and her voice dropped. “I--I need to ask you...”
She let the sentence trail off, as if unable to finish. But Garrett wasn’t about to let that happen. He dipped his head to look into her eyes. He knew in his gut what was coming, but refused to make it easy for her. “Yes?”
She straightened, drawing her shoulders back and meeting his gaze without flinching. “Well, I was hoping you could give me some pointers.” She gestured helplessly. “With the love scenes.”
Garrett had spent a lot of years in covert ops, and he’d seen and done things that would make even the strongest of men fold, but nothing had ever made him go as weak in the knees as Ivy’s words did. For a moment, he couldn’t even formulate a response.
When he’d said he’d be available to give her pointers, he’d never--even his wildest dreams--imagined she’d actually need them. But if there was one thing Garrett had learned during his years in the military, it was to recognize a strategic opportunity and take full advantage of it. In this case, it wasn’t something he was overly proud of. He was willing to resort to subterfuge, he wanted her that much.
“I don’t know,” he finally said, injecting a note of doubt into his voice, “Maybe. It depends. What, exactly, do you want to know?”
Ivy stared at him for a full moment, and it was all Garrett could do to maintain an expression of polite interest and not begin to squirm beneath her scrutiny.
Her gaze traveled slowly over his features before finally lingering on his mouth. When she finally spoke, it was just one word, and he had to strain to hear it.
“Everything.”
From the book, Overnight Sensation, ISBN-13, 978-0-373-79426-3, by Karen Foley. Copyright© 2008. ® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. The edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A. For more information go to http://www.eHarlequin.com/