And that expression made it very clear thathe’dalways been Rebecca’s weakness.
He could think of nothing else that would have brought her all the way here.
Suddenly every muscle in his body felt pulled tight. He turned around again. As he grabbed a cup down from the shelf he rummaged around in his soul for a vestige of that old delicious pain Rebecca’s circumspection usually caused. He came up empty. Too much had happened in a year.
He was, quite simply, too old for that crap.
He just wanted to be with one particular woman.
Who had just stabbed his call to voice mail. And he could hardly blame her, given how he’d exited the place. He’d just been soshocked.
He sighed. “Yes or no, Rebecca. Does Underhill know you’re here?”
He sensed his tone surprised her.
“Not specifically. He knows I’m away on business, but he doesn’t know I’m here, and he doesn’t know I came to see you.”
His temper was going to get the better of him in a minute. Ironically, the kettle was boiling already. As if in sympathy.
“I’m not going to ask it again. How the hell did you know where I was and why are you here?”
She finally stopped playing, fished her phone out of her big butter-soft leather bag and turned it around to show him a text.
“Looks like J. T. is having a good time in Hellcat Canyon.”
With a link.
To TMZ.
And the photos of him and Britt.
Fucking Franco Francone.
“He sure knows how to play you,” he said grimly.
Rebecca shrugged.
“So that’s the ‘how,’” Rebecca said with mock blitheness instead, then reached into her thousand dollar leather bag and plopped what was quite obviously a script on the table.
“This is the ‘why.’”
He stared at it.
It was the script forLast Call in Purgatory.
He stood motionless amid a great backwash of role lust and yearning and anger and regret.
For a moment he couldn’t speak.
“How did you know about this?” he said quietly.
“I heard they turned you down. And all I know is you’re perfect for it.”
No matter what she’d said and done, she’d always been his champion.
“I am,” he agreed cautiously.
“Well, now they want me for it. They want me so much that they’ll give me nearly anything I want, including a say in the casting. And what I want... is you.”