He saw the grit of which she was made, the core of pride that made her try harder, the streak of determination that had her rolling spares by the last frames.
He also saw her graciousness in defeat and wondered at the reserves of strength that helped her to rise above the humiliation she had feared. All this just from watching her bowl. Who knew what he could discover if he allowed himself to go on seeing her, if he risked the kind of emotional entanglement she threatened to stir in him.
More than once, her gaze sought out his in the shadows and clung, a smile of such sweet pleasure on her lips that it made his heart ache. He had never guessed how desperately she needed the kind of acclamation she was receiving today. After meeting her mother, after sensing the stinginess with which praise had been doled out all of Callie’s life, he should have known.
For one brief instant, her reaction troubled him. He knew all too well how easily manipulated such adulation was with the right marketing and how quickly it could fade. Soap audiences were among the most loyal in the world, but even they could prove fickle. He reassured himself that Callie might thrill to this outpouring of love for now but that later she would put it neatly into its proper perspective. Gut-deep instinct told him she was too levelheaded not to. And that, too, was something to be admired in her.
The TGN team came in third, but all of the celebrities were treated as winners. For two solid hours after the bowling ended, they signed autographs and chatted with fans.
Not until they were back in the limo did Jason glimpse the exhaustion shadowing Callie’s eyes.
“They like me,” she told him, her astonishment evident. “They really like me.”
Like a child for whom excitement had finally taken its toll, she leaned her head trustingly on Jason’s shoulder and fell sound asleep. His arms settled gently around her as he watched the slow rise and fall of her chest and felt the warm whisper of her breath against his cheek. It was the sweetest torture he’d ever known.
“Will Miss Callie be going directly home?” Henry inquired as they crossed into Manhattan.
Jason stared down at the woman responsible for making both his heart and his body ache with longing and wondered if he had her strength. If he did, he would deliver her to her doorstep and leave all of these risky feelings unexplored. On some level he knew that making love to her would be no casual proposition. It would be the start of something. He didn’t allow himself to consider exactly where it might lead. If he had, he would have had to admit it was a path he’d sworn never to take, a path experience had taught him led only to complications and tragedy.
Callie sighed just then and shifted position, bringing her breasts in contact with his chest. He sucked in his breath and saw himself for the weak fool he was. His willpower, which had withstood all sorts of feminine temptations, was no match for this woman. For once it didn’t seem to matter so much.
“No, Henry. We’ll be dining at my apartment.”
“Very well, sir. And will you be needing me later?”
“No,” Jason said, overriding all of the doubts ripping through him. “We’ll be fine for the rest of the evening.”
He glanced up then, just in time to catch Henry’s satisfied smile in the rearview mirror.
“Henry?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can be replaced.”
The smile only broadened. “Doubtful, sir.”
With that, the darkened glass between the two compartments slid silently and deliberately closed. It was no doubt Henry’s subtle way of encouraging him to take advantage of the privacy in any way he liked.
For a man who’d always treasured the illusion of independence, Jason couldn’t help thinking that his life was suddenly becoming filled with indispensable people—Freddie at the network, Henry who’d been with him for years now, not just as a driver but as a stoic guardian angel, and Callie. He trusted the two men implicitly. It remained to be seen if he could trust Callie with the same degree of certainty.
His arms tightened around her instinctively. He hoped he wouldn’t live to regret his involvement with her as his father had regretted his life with Jason’s mother.
* * *
“Where are we?” Callie inquired sleepily as the limo slowed to a stop in front of an unfamiliar tower rising high into the New York skyline.
“My place,” Jason said.
He sounded oddly tentative. Callie looked into his eyes and saw a surprising hint of vulnerability there. Was he expecting rejection? Surely he knew by now that there was very little she could deny him.
“Taking me up to see your etchings?” she inquired.
“Oils,” he corrected. “Impressionists, mostly.”
He sounded vaguely defensive, as if awaiting some comment on the incongruity of a tough-as-nails network president owning such romanticized, softened views of the world. Callie resisted the temptation to do just that.
“I can’t wait,” she said, thinking unexpectedly of long-ago days when her mother had showed her a dog-eared book filled with pictures of great paintings and told her about the artists. She had fallen in love with the splashy sunflowers of van Gogh and the pastel world of Monet. It was something they had once shared and lost. It had been years since Callie had set eyes on that book. She wondered if it had been stored away in the attic or simply left forgotten in some drawer. She’d always sensed it was something of which her father didn’t approve, that in showing it to her, her mother had been sharing something vaguely wicked.
“Any van Goghs in the lot?” she asked Jason without any real hope that there would be. Van Goghs were priceless museum pieces, not wall decorations for mere mortals.
“One,” he said with a characteristic air
