Behind the Scenes Read online

  “I’ll tell you what I see,” he said, in an almost zen-like voice. “I see the complete package.”

  Tanya turned back to her image. “Package? You mean like a present? Someone forgot to stick a bow on my head.”

  He ignored that. “That woman is beautiful. Not blown up, larger-than-life beautiful. She’s comfortable, look-at-me-or-not-I-don’ t-care-either-way beautiful.”

  Tanya was guessing there was a compliment in there somewhere, but you’d have to do a little digging through his gray matter to uncover it. “Okay.”

  “You can’t take your eyes off a woman like that,” he said, and somewhere along the line she had the feeling he was now talking to the little voices in his head because he seemed to totally forget that the woman he couldn’t take his eyes off of was sitting less than a foot away to his left.

  “Look at how she’s dressed,” he said.

  “I didn’t realize I was being ta—”

  “She’s comfortable. She wants the experience to be beneficial to both the client and herself, so she dresses for comfort. That gives her the freedom to concentrate solely on her craft, and not think about what the shoes are doing to her feet.”

  “Well, I’m standing most of the d—”

  “She’s wearing jeans that are comfortably low-cut, but not too low.” He shot a quirky smile at her. “Cute belly button, by the way.” He swung back to the screen before she could comment. “The shirt’s an old button-down, probably a man’s, and she’s got it tied around her waist so she doesn’t have to worry constantly about it coming untucked as she twists and bends, but also isn’t loose so it isn’t in danger of accidentally brushing against the customer’s hair or blocking the stylist’s vision.”

  “That’s right!” Tanya said, amazed that he’d just accurately described exactly why that was her standard work attire.

  “She’s probably not even aware, or hasn’t thought about, the fact that she’s showing a band of bare skin below her waist.”

  “It didn’t seem to matter,” she said.

  He paused the tape again and turned to her. “Then why does it matter today?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “You look good, don’t get me wrong. Especially if you were doing a commercial for The Gap For Preppies. But why aren’t you wearing something like that?”

  “I wanted to look more professional?” she said.

  “Lose professional. Go back to comfortable. It’s sexy as hell.”

  Tanya stared at AJ before turning to stare at herself. Okay, she was officially confused. Not that she’d had a long way to travel to get there, but AJ was either delusional or putting her on.

  Comfy was sexy? She was sexy? Tanya wasn’t coy. She knew she’d been blessed with passable looks and a cooperative metabolism, but she was no Hollywood starlet.

  She might go so far as to say she was kind of pretty. Hadn’t Uncle Frank told her that her entire life? Of course, she’d always taken his praise with a grain of salt, because as far as Uncle Frank was concerned his younger brother Tommy—her father—could do no wrong, and if his brother had a child, that child was, of course, perfect.

  She’d had her share of boyfriends over the years, too, but they’d fallen into one of two categories. One, they’d ended up loving her grandmother’s cooking so much they’d forgotten Tanya was there. Or two, they’d wanted to break into showbiz through her uncle. She’d soon made it clear that she wasn’t their ticket to fame. And they’d disappeared faster than smoke in a windstorm.

  Either category, she was eminently and easily forgettable to those guys. She had never, ever been sexy.

  AJ glanced over at her, and his eyes traveled the length of her slowly, a kind of fanatical light burning in their depths in direct contrast with his impassive features. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Not in a million years. “Go back to jeans,” she ventured.

  He nodded and blinked and started the tape again. “And definitely stick with the midriff look. Just a hint of skin. It doesn’t have to be button-down shirts every day, though. Just anything that shows off your collar bones.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He glanced back over at her, then reached out and unhooked the top button on her shirt and pushed the collar aside. “You have great collar bones,” he said, and she could swear his voice had gone a little husky.

  Hers might be husky too, if she could possibly find it. But she was too shocked by the touch of his fingertips on her skin. He traced the bone from her shoulder to right under her throat.

  He hesitated there for just a second, then pulled back his hand, and looked away, swallowing a couple of times. “Nothing too low-cut,” he added after a silent couple of seconds. “We don’t want cleavage.”

  “Why do we want collar bones?” she asked, grateful he didn’t want cleavage, because no one was getting cleavage. Her dates didn’t get cleavage, even when she was desperately trying to distract them from her grandmother’s cooking or her uncle’s profession. AJ Landry better be damn glad he hadn’t asked for cleavage for a national audience’s perusal.

  “Too distracting,” he said.

  “Wow, maybe I should have tried it on my dates.”

  “What?”

  She waved as if she could whisk the words away. “Nothing. No cleavage. Good. I’m with you there.”

  Suddenly he covered her forearm with his big hand, startling her. “Now watch this!”

  With a pile of effort and not just a smidgeon of reluctance, Tanya dragged her attention back to the screen, when it was becoming more and more fascinating to watch him.

  She watched as she chatted for a while longer with Leslie, before twirling her around in the chair playfully and saying, “Ready for me to have at it?”

  At Leslie’s enthusiastic reply, Tanya waved to the sink. “Have a seat over there and let’s see how that sucker works.”

  Leslie jumped up and walked the deceptively longer trip to the wash chair.

  “It looks so much further away on screen, doesn’t it?” Tanya noted, rather fascinated.

  “Yes. Now watch this.”

  She was about to shampoo a head. She pretty much knew how that went, even though in her shop she didn’t wash much any longer. “What?”

  “Watch!”

  All she saw was her arranging a couple of instruments while Leslie got settled, then reaching up and dragging her own hair back into a ponytail.

  “There!”

  Tanya jumped at least a foot. On the tape she hadn’t dropped anything, hadn’t accidentally knocked anything over, hadn’t set off a bomb. “What? What?”

  “Your hair.”

  “I know. I’m pretty much resigned to getting used to leaving it down.”

  “You do and I’ll fire you.” He stopped the tape and swung toward her. “No, I take that back. I won’t fire you. Don’t even think about it.”

  Confused didn’t begin to cover it. “Look, I know I’m not dumb. I’m not naïve, whatever you may think. But I have no idea what you’re saying. Keep it down, put it up, what? And what difference does it make? It’s not my hair that’s the point here.”

  “The point is,” he said slowly, as if to a dimwit, which made her want to slug him, “that it’s natural for you to pull that mop out of your way.”

  “Okay, I’m going to have to take exception to the mop comment. Even if it’s true.”

  “Does it help that it’s a gorgeous mop?”

  A lot. “A little.”

  “I want you to start every show with it down. I don’t care how you style it, but begin with it down. Get the ‘what are we hoping for’ chit-chat out of the way, and then pull it up and back, just like you did there. That’s your signature, ‘let’s go to work’ move.”

  “I didn’t know I had any
moves, signature or otherwise. I’m not sure I’m comfortable having moves. It seems too . . .”

  “Planned? Artificial?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s the beauty of it, Tanya. That’s the beauty of you. It isn’t fake. It’s the way you work. It’s exactly what I want for this show.”

  “Since when did you want anything for this show?” Tanya asked, because she was beginning to feel herself growing a soft spot for the guy and she didn’t want to have any soft spots when it came to AJ Landry. She had the feeling there were soft spots for him crushed and lining the streets from Burbank to Bel Air.

  Without taking his eyes from the screen, which was frozen with her in mid-ponytailing, he said, “I never wanted the show to flop, Tanya. I don’t want any show I produce to flop.”

  “You just never wanted this show at all.”

  “Very true. But now that it’s mine, that’s moot. Now we work with what we’ve got and we do the best we can, and the rest is fate.”

  “And the best we can do is give me a signature ponytail move?”

  A reluctant grin tugged at his lips. “Don’t forget the collar bones. We’re giving the audience your collar bones.”

  AJ DESPERATELY wanted Tanya’s collar bones for himself. In fact, the more he watched her, the more he got to know her, the more he craved her collar and delicate neck. Not on a TV screen in front of him. In the flesh, where he could touch as well as look.

  As he kept a tight grip on the remote in an attempt to keep his hands and his lips away from her neck area, he had to rationally admit that the collar bones were probably just a symbol and a symptom of something bigger at work here.

  Which made no sense.

  She was teeth-grindingly aggravating, the way she constantly questioned him, and turned up her pretty little nose at everything that even smacked of Hollywood to her. Since he apparently had become the embodiment of all things wrong with show business in her mind, she turned her pretty little nose up at him a lot.

  She reminded him of Mrs. Peterson’s five year old granddaughter, asking why over everything. Why was lighting so important? Why did she have to do so many promo shoots? Why did they do sound checks until she thought she’d keel over from boredom?

  Questions, questions, questions that made him want to invest in earplugs or take a long vacation from the studio.

  And then he’d look at her, and the only thing about her mouth that aggravated him was that he wasn’t allowed to bend down and kiss it.

  Her lips were definitely off limits, and so were those collar bones. When had the scales tipped to make her more enticing than annoying? Which made the off limits part a real obstacle.

  “Am I boring you?” he heard through a fog of unwelcome lust.

  Not hardly. Driving me insane, maybe. “No, why?”

  “Your eyes look a little glazed over. I don’t think that’s the reaction we’re going for.”

  “No. I’m just . . . thinking.”

  “Looks painful.”

  Oh, it was painful all right. “I was just . . . thinking angles.”

  “Camera angles or sales angles?”

  Eyebrow angles. Cheekbone angles. Neck angles. “Sales.” Which wasn’t actually a lie considering he really needed to buy a reality check.

  He didn’t date the people he worked with. Not even with Heather. They’d already been deeply in love—so he’d thought—when she’d cajoled him into putting her up for a part in Fancy’s Dare.

  Even then, the moment she’d got the part he’d turned production over to Leon Travis. No matter how frequently studio romances occurred around him, he hadn’t ever been involved in one. It hadn’t felt right.

  And nothing had changed. He still didn’t think they were a good idea. Why was he thinking about it anyway? He didn’t even know if he liked the woman.

  Well, that wasn’t quite true. Pain in the ass or no, there was something about her that was really appealing. And it had nothing to do with the wild hair or the mouthwatering neckline. There was a freshness, a cleanness that he’d forgotten actually existed except in sappy chic-flick movies.

  She was still an alien in his world. As much as he’d like to believe that show business wouldn’t tarnish her, that she’d be the anomaly, he wasn’t that stupid. And it twisted his insides to know that he was going to have a front-row seat to the transformation.

  But before it happened, he wanted a taste of her as she was now. It was a ridiculous notion. First of all, she pretty much despised him. Second, it went against his personal rules. Third, he had no idea if she was already involved with someone else. She hadn’t mentioned anyone, but that wasn’t saying much since she was loath to talk about herself much at all.

  But say there wasn’t another man in the picture. Strangely, he’d be happier about that than getting a taste of her himself. He couldn’t remember worrying too much about other men in Heather’s life, although he must have at some point. But by the time he’d discovered there actually was another man—she’d traded up to one of the most prolific and successful writers in Hollywood—all he’d felt was relief. So this was weird, but there he had it.

  Okay, so Tanya would be free of encumbrances. And say he forgot about his personal rules about dating just this once. He wouldn’t be violating any terms of his contract with JBC. And if he and Tanya kept it discreet, he wouldn’t be subjecting her to any kind of curious stares or rude questions or anything else that might embarrass her.

  So she was free and he wasn’t feeling any ethical qualms. Two problems solved.

  Too bad there was that whole her despising him thing.

  That one was a little harder to solve. Especially since he didn’t have much experience. He was no saint and wasn’t always a picnic to work for, but he’d never cheated anyone or treated anyone unfairly, neither in private nor in professional relationships. As far as he knew, he didn’t have any visible enemies.

  Even Heather had been simperingly grateful at how painless he’d made their split. She’d kept telling him what a super guy he was. Little did she know he just hadn’t given a damn by then.

  The only lasting legacy Heather had left in her wake was his distaste for Hollywood relationships.

  AJ glanced over at Tanya, but she didn’t seem to notice that he’d been silently pondering things that had nothing to do with the show. Nothing to do with lighting or blocking or sound or ponytails. Everything to do with getting her alone and finding out for himself if her perfume was as intoxicating as it seemed.

  But he was fairly certain she wouldn’t even entertain the idea of getting anything going with him. He had to keep that in mind. She wasn’t ready.

  “I’m ready.”

  AJ shook his head. “What?”

  “I’m ready, I think.”

  “Ready?” he said, then coughed to clear the gravel from his throat.

  She stood up with a decisive snap. “Let’s do it.”

  Oh, yeah, he wanted to do it all right. But they had to get their first taping under their belts first.

  He stood, too, clicking off the player. Silence shrouded them as they stood staring at each other. “You’re going to do fine.”

  She didn’t step back. “I hope so.”

  He couldn’t help it. He reached out and stroked her cheek. “I have every faith.”

  “Thank you.”

  And still they stood there. AJ’s heart started drumming as he looked into her eyes. “Tanya?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know you’ve already been cast in this show?”

  She frowned. “Yes.”

  “Do you see a couch anywhere around here?”

  She glanced around. “No.”

  “Then you’d recognize that if I tried to kiss you, it’s only because I want to, and not becaus
e I think you owe me, right? This isn’t a casting-couch scenario at all.”

  Her eyes went wide and her gaze dropped to his mouth. “Why would you want to do that?” she asked, but didn’t step back or turn away.

  “For good luck?”

  “I thought you were supposed to break my knees or something.”

  His hand rose to her neck, his thumb tracing her jaw. “Your leg. But I like this option better.”

  “Well, if I have an option,” she said in a whisper.

  “You do. You can say no.”

  “Is that bad luck?”

  “For me.”

  She stared for a couple of heartbeats, then angled her face upward and her lips parted.

  If that was a no it was a damn inviting one. He bent down and touched her lips softly with his. Her sound of surrender nearly sent him to his knees.

  Threading his fingers through her hair, cupping the back of her head, he kissed her deeper, etching every sense she was igniting into his brain. She smelled like flowers, tasted like mint.

  Of their own volition, his itchy hands traveled from her neck down to the collar of her shirt. He pushed it aside and leaned down to taste the delicate bone that defined her shoulders.

  Her head dropped back, and he allowed his lips to travel over the softness of her skin back up to her ear. “Collar bones,” he whispered.

  “Yes.”

  That one word could mean so many things, but he was too fogged with sensation to try to think it through. All he knew was that he’d wanted this for longer than he’d ever realized, and that it was better than anything he could have dreamed about.

  He stopped for a moment, and time hung there as they stared at each other. Then he lowered his mouth to hers. Her lips moved with his, yielding but firm. He wanted to devour her right there. And because of that, he broke the kiss and stepped back, losing his breath when her eyes finally opened.

  She didn’t look upset or offended or for that matter ready to swoon at his feet. She looked . . . content. He didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. He, on the other hand, was burning up.

  “I’m not apologizing,” he said.