Come A Little Bit Closer (The Sullivans #7)(15)

But there was emotion.

So much emotion from Smith and Tatiana as they played two characters who loved and lost, then learned how to love again, that just watching them act out their parts over the past week had been leaving Valentina drained and empty at the end of the day.

How, she wondered for the hundredth time, did they do it?

And yet, a part of her envied them that freedom to yell and laugh and cry and love all in the course of a workday. Because for all her hard work on set, Tatiana always shook off the harsh emotions within minutes of the director saying “Cut,” as if her day had been akin to a cleansing therapy session.

These past weeks, Valentina had been turning more and more to her own secret project as a way to deal with the emotions churning around and around inside her. Tatiana was the only person who knew that Valentina was working on a screenplay about a female writer who woke up one day and found herself actually living out the story she was writing…including falling in love with the fictional hero she had created.

Tatiana had been trying for months now to convince her to send it out to some of their contacts. But even though Valentina knew this was a logical next step in the Hollywood career of someone who loved the stories but not the limelight, she’d also known her script wasn’t quite ready. Amazingly, it was after going through Smith’s screenplay backward and forward with Tatiana at least a dozen times that Valentina finally realized where the holes were in her own work. And she knew that the changes she’d been making were good ones. Really good ones. Because she’d been lucky enough to learn from Smith what it took to make a truly emotional, impactful film.

And as she sat with the crew and watched Smith play his part of the harshly powerful yet disturbed and guilty businessman, her heart squeezed tight in her chest. When the movie was released in theaters, the audience would see every single one of his emotions in his eyes, in the set of his mouth, and the lines on his forehead. And they would know without a doubt that the girl on the street he’d pushed down and stepped on, had haunted him more and more with every day that passed.

Again and again, he’d gone back to Union Square, to the corner to watch for her, to wait for her. More than once as he’d been standing in the middle of the rushing crowds, a call had come in on his cell phone from a brother. A sister. His mother. But he’d never picked up those calls.

Just as the young woman had never come back that way again.

As the months had passed, the man’s shoulders had stayed just as broad, his face just as handsome, his company more profitable than ever. But he’d grown more and more hollow, with more one-night stands, and wilder parties with acquaintances and colleagues that meant nothing. In the hours that were left between women who didn’t matter and work that seemed to matter just as little, he drove himself even further into the ground with five a.m. runs and midnight swims.

But still, he couldn’t forget the girl’s eyes.

Or what she’d screamed at him before she ran.

Until, finally, he found her working at a coffee shop. He saw the pink streaks in her hair first, darker now than they’d been so many months ago, and then the face that was even prettier than he’d remembered.

A play of emotions moved across the businessman’s face. Relief. Hope. Along with immovable, unstoppable intent.

She was helping a customer, and unlike the day he’d crashed into her on the street when she’d been so pale, her skin glowed and her hair shone. For a moment, the man’s mouth began to move into a smile. The first real one he’d worn in a very, very long time.

That was when the girl moved, shifting away from the register...and he saw her belly.

Her extremely pregnant belly.

Now he was the pale one as all color leached from his tanned skin. He had to grip the back of a chair to keep his balance, and more than one customer shot him a concerned look as he stopped cold in the middle of the coffee shop.

All it took was an instant to calculate that she’d already been pregnant when he’d knocked her down...and his foot had landed hard on her stomach.

Bile rose in his throat at what he might have done to her, to the life she carried, that day.

His own hands went to his middle as his eyes squeezed shut for a split second. She could have lost her baby because of him.

There were so many things he had to make up to so many people. But for now, she was his only focus.

He would make this up to her.

He would protect her and the baby.

And he would make sure she never hurt again.

He was just moving toward her when she laughed at something a co-worker said. Again, he was hit hard, this time higher than his stomach.

Straight in the heart.

Her eyes met his just then, and as their gazes locked, her glowing skin paled. The cup in her hand was forgotten as she backed away from him, cardboard slipping from her hands as steamed milk hit the floor and splattered all over her shoes and pants.

It was as if the warm splash of liquid brought her back to life. With a brisk smile that never even came close to reaching her eyes, she brushed off the concern of her co-workers, who were checking to make sure she hadn’t been burned, and picked up a nearby mop to clean up the mess she’d made.

The businessman walked toward her and stood silently behind the counter, watching as she calmly finished mopping up, then put away her cleaning supplies. Her hands were steady as she washed them in the sink.

At last, she turned to him, her chin up, her beautiful eyes shuttered. “What can I get you today, sir?”