A flicker of something that might have been guilt registered in her mother’s eyes, but it didn’t last.
“No need for you to be doing something just for my sake,” she said stiffly. “Despite what Eunice thinks, I can manage.”
Callie finally realized once again that she couldn’t win. She grabbed her jacket before they both said things they would regret. “I’m going for a walk.”
She was almost out the door, when her mother called her name hesitantly. She turned back. She couldn’t read her mother’s expression. “Yes?”
“Maybe...I mean, would you mind...”
Callie’s patience was too frayed for this verbal tap dancing. “What?”
“I could come along,” her mother offered. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
The whole point of going out had been to escape her mother’s oppressive censure, but Callie thought she detected a certain wistfulness in her mother that she’d never seen before. She couldn’t bring herself to say no. Besides, it was an overture, the first she could ever recall her mother making.
“Of course,” she said, if not enthusiastically, at least without any hint of her mixed feelings.
“It won’t take me a second to be ready. I’ll just grab my coat.”
“It’s too warm for that heavy winter coat,” Callie said. “I’ll lend you one of my jackets.”
“No, no,” her mother protested automatically. “The coat will be fine.”
“Come on, Mother,” Callie coaxed, pulling a hot-pink Windbreaker from the closet in the foyer. “This color will look great on you.”
Despite her expressed objections, her mother reached for the jacket eagerly. Suddenly, seeing that light in her mother’s eyes, Callie recalled a time, years and years before, when she had seen her mother wearing bright colors. When had her mother begun settling for bland grays and beiges? When had her wardrobe turned dark and dreary and depressing, right along with her mood?
In that instant, Callie resolved to find some way to restore the once-happy, bright-eyed Regina Gunderson who lurked in the dim recesses of her memory.
* * *
Jason waited impatiently in front of Callie’s apartment at six-thirty on Monday morning. She was due at the studio for her first day of script consultations and rehearsals at seven.
He had deliberately avoided calling her during the week since the contract had been signed. He’d wanted to prove to himself that he could withstand temptation for at least that long. It had been the most difficult battle of his life. He was not a man used to depriving himself of anything he wanted as badly as he now admitted he wanted Callie, not just for the show, but in his bed.
He realized as he kept his gaze fixed on the front door of her building that the only thing the delay had accomplished was to increase the hunger just for the sight of her. It was pitiful, that’s what it was. Even Henry had smirked when he’d described the arrangement he’d made.
He watched as his driver went inside and rang the buzzer, waited and then emerged with Callie trailing along behind with the expression of a scared schoolgirl on her first day of classes. He thought she looked magnificent just the same.
When Henry opened the car door, she started to step inside, caught sight of Jason and hesitated.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“You wanted a car and driver. You got a car and driver. Come on in.”
Still, she hesitated. “Actually, Mr. Whittington wanted that. I thought it was absurd. I can walk to the studio.” She frowned slightly. “I wouldn’t want to take you out of your way.”
She sounded miffed. That was good. Very good. It was about time she got her spirit back. He grinned and avoided looking at Henry, whose amusement was growing by the minute.
“You wouldn’t want me to violate the terms of your contract on your very first day, would you? Whittington would be in my office by noon.”
“I don’t recall you being part of any bargain we made,” she said.
“I’m just a bonus. I come with the car and driver.”
She regarded him uneasily. “Every day?”
“Morning and night,” he replied cheerfully.
She stepped back into the street. “I really do think I’d rather walk.”
Jason didn’t waste his breath arguing. He slid out and joined her. “Then I’ll come along with you. Of course, you’ll probably be late,” he pointed out. “And it is your first day. You know how important first impressions are.”
“Which is precisely why I don’t think showing up in the network president’s limo is too smart,” she countered. “No one will take me seriously.”
“Oh, they’ll take you seriously,” he assured her. He had seen to that in a series of extremely volatile meetings that had almost cost a couple of highly paid producers and writers their jobs. He’d made sure they understood that if they held that little private discussion against Callie, he would find out about it and make good on his threat.
“Stop worrying,” he instructed. “No one will ever see me. You’ll slip out of the car and I’ll shrink back in the shadows like a wallflower.”
Apparently the image amused her because the tight expression around her mouth eased. He could think of another good way to relax her, but kissing her on a five-minute ride was a very good way to assure he’d never get another thing done the rest of the day. He’d spend every minute between her exit from his car and picking her up again that night thinking about the way she melted in his arms. Down that path lay the ruination of his career, which Freddie Cramer seemed to think was doomed, anyway. He needed to keep his wits about him, he decided, studying her mouth with some regret.
Callie finally got into the car and sank back against the leather seat. To his amusement, when he took his place beside her, she moved a few inches, carefully keeping what she apparently assumed was a safe distance between them. He could have told her that it was only the strength of his willpower, not that invisible line she’d drawn, that was
