Come A Little Bit Closer (The Sullivans #7)(63)

“He obviously hasn’t lost interest, Val. He won’t. How could he?” Tatiana looked at Valentina with all of the love the sisters had for each other. “You’re amazing. Beautiful. Smart. Funny. And the best sister in the world. I know he sees all of that. And all of you.”

She couldn’t make up for the weeks of hiding her feelings from her sister, but she could change things by sharing them now. She took a deep—and shaky—breath and tried to put in words the emotions that had been knocking around inside her for the past few weeks.

“The thing is, sometimes I don’t feel like myself around him.” It was already a night of admissions, so she added one more. “And that scares me. Badly.” Especially when she lost control, the way she had again and again from nothing more than a look, the brush of his fingertips over her skin, his mouth claiming hers.

“I don’t understand,” Tatiana said, and Valentina wasn’t surprised to hear it. Her younger sister had very rarely been afraid. And if she had, she hadn’t let fear get in her way. “Who do you think you are?”

Valentina opened her mouth to answer, starting with “I’m—” but nothing came out after that.

She was happy with her career, would likely have gone to business school regardless of whether she managed her sister’s business affairs or not, and had really enjoyed working on her screenplay these past couple of years.

But “Who do you think you are?” was less about what she wanted to do for her job...and more about what kind of life she wanted to have as a woman.

For so many years she’d denied the emotional woman inside of herself, along with the sensual one. Sure, she’d had some fairly good sex with some perfectly nice men, and she hadn’t completely tamped down on her emotions by any means, but at the same time, she’d kept everything in reserve just in case her sister needed her for any reason. Valentina’s entire being had been wrapped up in Tatiana for so long, and she’d been so convinced she needed to avoid the pain her mother went through with all of her boyfriends, that somewhere along the way she’d lost sight of who she was.

And yet, despite all the things she’d held back for too long, her sister was perceptive enough not to miss a beat of her thoughts.

“I love you too much, Val, not to want the fairytale to come true for you.” Tatiana smiled, her beautiful smile that had lit up screens all over the world. “What if you gave Smith a chance to love you the way you deserve to be loved? Don’t you think there’s a chance that he could be up to the challenge? And don’t you think you could be up to whatever challenges come, too?”

Love?

Oh.

Oh my.

Even as Valentina had accepted the pulsing, unavoidable attraction between her and Smith, she’d been careful not to let herself dream of anything more than pleasure. No matter how sweet, how heartfelt, how gentle or loving he was every time he kissed her.

The whispered words, “But what if he isn’t? And what if I’m not?” came out of her before she could pull them back.

She could feel Tatiana’s blue eyes on her, still concerned and so full of love, as she said, “You know Jayden?”

Valentina tried not to show how surprised she was by the abrupt conversation shift. “Sure. He’s really nice.”

A flush appeared on her sister’s cheeks. “I think so, too. In fact, I’ve kind of been waiting for him to ask me out for a couple of weeks.”

The first thing that hit Valentina was how perfect Jayden was for her sister. He was quiet and focused, cute and young and sweet. He wasn’t about the limelight, but because he worked on film sets, he’d have some idea of how to deal with Tatiana’s life because he worked with stars all the time.

How had she missed the budding romance between her sister and the on-set techie? Here she’d claimed she would do anything to be a good sister, and yet she was even blowing that.

“The thing is,” Tatiana told her, “I don’t think he’s ever going to ask me out.”

Now it was Valentina’s turn to say, “Why not?”

Her sister’s gaze was so direct Valentina had to sit back deeper into the couch cushions. “Because he thinks I’m a big movie star and he’s just him.” She used her fingers to put quote marks around the words.

Looking at the situation from her sister’s viewpoint, Valentina could see how frustrating it must be to be put on a pedestal. And yet, wasn’t that exactly what she’d done with Smith, despite how many times he’d proved to her that he was just as human as the rest of them? But she’d been so busy trying to protect herself from a future she couldn’t define or clearly see, that she’d used his fame as the perfect excuse to keep her distance.

Clearly, her suck-a-tology was at an all-time high.

Especially since flashes of her sister in Smith’s arms kept coming at her and nailing her flat, despite everything that they’d just said to each other.

This time she was the one squeezing her sister’s hands and saying, “Where are you going to go with Jayden when he says yes?”

“I’m going to take him to a restaurant with a romantic table for two.” Her sister licked her lips. “And then I’m going to seduce him.”

If Valentina had been trying to convince herself that Tatiana was still just a girl, she knew now that it was time to give up. Her sister was a woman, with a woman’s needs. And a woman’s heart, one that longed for love, yet was smart enough to know how to reach out and grab it when it was within reach.