“When this whole thing started it was my older brothers who caught the heat. Few news outlets cared about a teenage kid.”
Sammi shot him a skeptical look. “Did you forget that your drug addiction was newsworthy? But now you’re a world-famous photographer who is as enigmatic as he is brilliant.”
“Enigmatic?” He arched his eyebrow, pondering the word. “I would think most people would describe me as difficult or volatile.”
“That’s your professional side,” she countered. “No one knows anything about your personal life. And you work hard to keep it that way. That’s why if you are seen around town with the same woman a few times, everyone would assume you’re involved with her.”
With all the splashy headlines surrounding the upcoming trial for Vernon Lowell, Sammi had wondered how long before her connection with Oliver would surface. Was she ready for her low profile to change overnight?
He snorted. “Is this your way of asking me how many women are rotating through my bed?”
“Ah...no.” She cleared her throat. “I mean...” More throat clearing. “It’s none of my business who you see.”
“Do you think it should be?”
Sammi shook her head. “Of course not. I mean you and I don’t have that sort of relationship.” Abruptly the car changed lanes, and the momentum pushed her toward him. Her thigh brushed his and made her pulse jerk. Sammi should’ve shifted away, but snug against his hard body felt so right, so good. “I want us to be... I think we should be friendly. Friends.”
A partial truth. Despite her efforts to resist, he held her enthralled.
“And I want to sleep with you again.”
“What? You do? We shouldn’t.” Oh, but she wanted to. So very much. The only thing that had enabled her to hold out this long was knowing that the moment she let herself fall, she wouldn’t be able to stop until she was deeply in love with him. Glad for the darkness that hid her eager expression, she bumbled on, “I mean...that could...complicate—” she paused for breath and commanded her racing heart to calm down “—our situation. And neither one of us wants that.”
“You’re right.”
Good. At least they were both on the same page.
His next words shattered that assumption. “But I think it will only get complicated if we let it.”
Sammi ejected her breath in frustration. Easy for him to say. He wasn’t fighting a crush that went back eight years. “And how do we not let it?”
“We need to be honest with each other.” He turned his upper body in her direction, caught her shoulder and compelled her to face him.
She put her palm on his chest to steady herself against the movement of the taxi and to keep some distance between them. “Honest how?”
“Tell the truth about how we feel. You were right about what you said earlier. I’m very private when it comes to my personal life and don’t open up to anyone. But with you I have things that I want to talk about. Things that I haven’t told anyone before.”
His declaration caused her head to spin. How could she not be swept away by such a flattering admission? Sammi’s toes curled in her tall black boots.
“There’s more to it than just speaking the truth,” she said, unsure she was ready to hear everything he wanted to say. “We’d also have to agree to listen with an open mind. Do you think you could do that?”
“I’m not big on listening,” he admitted. “I’m more of a ‘boss everybody around until I’m happy’ sort of guy.”
The car’s momentum abruptly changed as the driver was forced to brake. Thrown off balance, Sammi gripped Oliver’s thigh, eliciting an inarticulate sound from him. When she peered at his expression from beneath her lashes, his hungry stare made her stomach drop.
“But for you,” he murmured. “I’ll try.”
Emboldened by the possessive light in his eyes, she leaned into his hard body. “Then I guess I should confess something to you.” She flattened her breasts against his chest, eliminating the last bit of space between them. “I had a huge crush on you when I was a teenager. So, when you say nice things to me, it feels like I’m seventeen again and completely out of my depth.”
Oliver studied her through heavy-lidded eyes. “Are you telling me that sweet talk is the way to your heart?”
Was he really interested in capturing her heart? Would he treat it well once he took possession?
“It’s one way,” she replied, mustering an inscrutable smile.
“Is there another way?” he asked, lowering his head until his lips hung over hers.
The invitation was hers for the taking. Feeling daring, she lifted her hand and brushed her thumb across his lower lip. He smiled, the expression a sexy, sweet hammer blow to her faltering resistance.
“Later tonight you could take me to Max Brenner,” she suggested, naming a well-known chocolate bar near Union Square. “I have a sudden craving for chocolate.”
Seven
“This is terrible.” Oliver barely restrained a shudder as he stared around the East Harlem two-bedroom apartment.
“It’s not terrible,” Sammi countered, waving at the west-facing windows. “There’s tons of light and the wood floors are beautiful.”
“The appliances are old. There’s no closet space.” He took a step toward the front door. The longer he stayed, the more the dull cream walls seemed like they were closing in on him. “And it’s barely eight hundred square feet.” Half the size of her current place.
“It’s less to furnish.” Her voice held a note of forced confidence as she opened the door to the second bedroom, revealing a room that was smaller than his walk-in closet. “I can fit a crib and a changing table in here, no problem.”
“It’s awful,” he declared definitively.
“It’s not awful.”
They were squabbling like old friends, the exchange heated but without any hostility. During moments like these, Oliver could scarcely believe Sammi had been in his life for only a few weeks. She felt like an old friend from back home that had been with him through the
