Come A Little Bit Closer (The Sullivans #7)(80)

“I would never ask you to change what you do, or who you are,” she told him. “I love you too much to even think of stopping you from sharing your incredible gifts with the world. But I’ve been on plenty of sets over the past ten years. And I’ve seen what happens, how inevitable it all seems when men and women who’ve professed their love to other people end up falling for their co-stars, how marriages happen too fast and then end even quicker once they move on to other projects on other sides of the world.”

“You’re right, my work is important to me,” he told her. “So are you. So important that I don’t want to make big life and career decisions all alone anymore. From here on out, I want to make them with you.”

Even as his words had warmth filling her from head to toe, she had to tell him, “But it scares me that we met on a film set. And that it all happened so fast. It’s so hard to keep a normal relationship together. I don’t know how many Hollywood relationships have ever really worked apart from Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t believe he could want her. She could no longer deny his desire for her, or hers for him. No, she was simply trying to make sure that both of them went into this relationship with their eyes wide open.

“The first couple of years after my breakout movie were difficult to adjust to,” Smith told her. “Really difficult. I loved acting, and I knew if I was really good at it I’d become famous, but I had no idea what it would actually be like to lose my privacy. To have the press calling up my family and friends to ask them questions about me. I’m not going to lie to you and say that we won’t have more hurdles, that there won’t be a thousand other journalists and photographers trying to make a buck by sticking their noses into our relationship.” Determination held ground with love on Smith’s face as his voice remained as steady as hers had been shaky. “But I’ve waited my whole life for somebody like you, for a woman I wanted to be with forever, and I refuse to give you up. I was afraid you’d never come, that there’d never be a woman who didn’t want me because of who I am, what I have, who I know. Until you.”

He lifted her hands to his mouth and gently pressed his lips to each of them before saying, “Tell me what love means to you, Valentina.”

She didn’t have to think. “You.”

His mouth found hers then, at once gentle and firm, sweet and passionate. If anyone had asked her before Smith if those contrasts could possibly coexist, she would have known the answer, been utterly certain that when she finally let herself love it would make sense...and that she would be in control of her heart, from the first beat to the last.

But every moment they’d been together, Smith confounded her expectations...and exceeded what she’d believed to be the limits of her heart.

“I know we can love each other enough to make our relationship matter more than anything else ever has,” Smith said. “Yes, Hollywood is crazy, but even though I just broke rule number one today by bashing in a photographer’s face,” he said with a slightly rueful half-grin, “I’m convinced we can transcend the pitfalls from here on out.”

He got down on his knees before her. “I want you by my side not only for red carpet events, but for the nights when we’re both exhausted from a long day on set and fall into bed, too tired to do anything but hold hands and fall asleep. I want to kiss the sugar off your lips while you’re eating sweets for breakfast. And I want you there to drag into the shower with me to make up for not having the energy to make love to you the night before.”

Nothing Smith had said was flashy. There were no big diamonds blinding her, no expensive promises or glittering, sweeping vistas before them. He wasn’t like any other man she’d ever met, and he’d definitely broken the movie-star mold by being beautiful not only on the outside, but on the inside, too. He would never hurt her or her family, just as he would never hurt his own family.

Weeks ago she’d asked him why love couldn’t just be as pure as two people who realized that they couldn’t live as well, or as happily, apart as they could together.

Now she knew it could be.

Finally finding her voice, Valentina put her hands on either side of his face and told him, “You can have it, Smith. All of it. And I want you there, too, to grill Tatiana’s new boyfriend with me. I want you to sit and read the paper with me on a Sunday morning. I want to sit with you under a blanket on the couch in front of a fire and make puzzles of every dog and cat in the family.”

And as he picked her up and carried her over to the bed, food still forgotten, they fulfilled their most important hunger of all.

For love.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Three weeks later…

Valentina stepped out of her office on the Gravity set for the last time and took a few moments to take in the activity and buildings that had ended up feeling more like a home than a temporary film set. Tomorrow morning all of the lights, temporary walls, and furniture would be emptied out, leaving the space bare for its next occupant.

Everything would change again for the cast and crew who had worked on the film. Some, like Smith, would be moving on to post-production work. Others would take a much-needed vacation. Most of the actors would go back to Hollywood to audition for their next role, or to take their place on the next set. Tatiana had just committed to star in a major historical piece set in Boston...but for the very first time in a decade, Valentina wouldn’t be going with her.