Her fingers picked up the pen as her gaze found the horizon and she allowed her heart and mind to bleed all over the pages.
Placing her pen down carefully on the walnut fold-in table, Anita tucked her legs under her body and picked up her glass of champagne. She stared into the golden sparkling liquid hearing the melody and driving refrain inside her head. She closed her eyes, allowing the artistic process to take over, throwing herself down into the pit of the emotion, wallowing in it until tears wet her lashes and her hand reached out to pick up the pen again.
“Tell me when did you know?” she murmured, eyes closed, head back, the melody drifting in her mind and in the small private space she’d created for herself. “Tell me, tell me, just be honest, baby, tell me . . . I need to know, right now, just—”
A presence looming over her gave her a start and made her open her eyes, jolting her from the creative process. Her initial scowl mellowed and gave way to excitement and curiosity.
“Ms. Brown, I’m sorry— but Megan said you wanted to discuss logistics for when we touched down . . . and I wouldn’t have interrupted you if I’d been aware that you were working. I’ll come back later.”
“No, Zach, it’s cool,” she said, motioning to the seat beside her. “I was just picking away at something new. No big deal.” Her heart felt like it was pounding a hole through her chest. He’d come over. His eyes said he wanted to sit with her, but his formal tone told her how private a person he was and how hard he’d work to keep the more personal aspects of their relationship on a strictly undercover basis.
He nodded but his entire body felt tense. This wasn’t right. He’d wanted to come up with a ruse to sit by her without causing a stir, and he thought she had beaten him to the punch. But then he saw her glance at Megan with an arched eyebrow . . . so her personal assistant was playing Cupid. Just great. Clearly he’d interrupted the woman while she was working on something important. Her new hits were definitely a big deal, the stuff of platinum. Never in his life had he seen a songstress at work, seen a true musician craft a song from the depths of pain, never witnessed the birth of a song, and now, despite all his resolve not to be starstruck, he was.
“Listen,” he said, carefully sitting down next to her and glancing at the paper she’d shunted aside. “We have hours to go before we land and have to disembark. I really wouldn’t have interrupted you for the world. What I have to say is fairly perfunctory and can wait. There’s no need to impact your creative pro cess.”
She stared at him with a sad smile, wishing they could get back to where they’d been last night. Her hands ached to touch him, to reach out and cradle his face. Last night he’d surrounded her entire body with his like a human shield just so that she could sleep in that safe cocoon he’d created. Now, because of other people, they had to act almost like strangers. But his eyes said it all, told her not to go there as they searched her face. The slight flare of his nostrils was enough to let her know, oh, yeah, he felt it, too.
She bit her bottom lip and held his gaze. “Who knows,” she finally murmured. “Maybe you’re part of my creative process right now. I really enjoyed our conversation last night, which made me connect to some things I was trying not to deal with . . . just talking to somebody who missed home, knew what it was like to be alone in a crowd . . .”
He didn’t know what to say. She had no idea what her statement did to him. Anita Brown connected all the dots, connected his heart and soul to his libido for some strange reason that he could barely fathom. Someone he’d initially thought was a spoiled star was a deeply profound woman fighting against a tough industry all by herself, and like any kid from the projects, was apparently holding her own, even if it wasn’t always a flattering picture. Then he’d realized that she wasn’t only fighting for herself, she was fighting for him— fighting to keep SWAT International, and she’d gone to war with her management for the sake of someone else she cared about, for the sake of a principle.
That reality rendered him mute. He’d been there, seen it, and done that, too. But she opened up more than his head, she opened his ears when she leaned back and quietly sang the words of the new song she was working on.
“That’s good, uh, positive,” he said, feeling like a complete idiot.
The timbre of her voice ran all through him, the soulful, begging quality in it, just asking a man to be honest and honorable— to love her with his complete heart— stole the air from his lungs. Jonathan Evans was a fool. He didn’t care how many millions the man had or how much access he had to women he could exploit, what man in his right mind could walk away from the one sitting beside him now?
Anita smiled. Her expression telegraphed that she seemed to know that he was choking on incomplete sentences. Somehow she seemed to also know that he had no idea where to begin.
“You’re right,” she said after a moment, placing a finger to her lush mouth. “It is very positive, good vibes . . . and we do have hours to discuss the logistics . . . mind if we just eat a late lunch and talk about home, life, what ever?”
“All right,” he said, hedging, not sure.
She chuckled. “You are so . . . I don’t know . . . military.” Then she lowered her voice. “In public,” she said in a near whisper, before returning her voice to a normal conversational volume. “One word answers— I’m gonna call you the Spartan, if you don’t loosen up. Like those guys in 300. Now they were gangsta.”
This woman was definitely messing with his head by carrying on a conversation in code on two levels at the same time; one private, one public. The way she looked at him and dropped her voice to give him some mention of last night, and making references to their encounter was giving him wood. Plus she’d seen one of his favorite movies and liked it. He couldn’t help smiling, and a lopsided grin tugged at his cheek.
“I’m on duty, and shouldn’t be imposing on your personal space.”
“Are you hungry?”
He shook his head. “I ate a couple of hours ago, but don’t let me stop you.”
“Champagne?”
He shook his head and smiled wider. “No thank you, ma’am. I have a cranberry juice over where I was seated.”
“Oh, my God . . . okay— right, you’re on duty.” She let out a long breath and began picking at a bowl of grapes on her foldaway table. “So, does this mean when we get to some of these really plush Middle East hotels, you’re going to stand by the pool in a suit with a wire in your ear the whole time?”
“Affirmative. That’s the plan; those are my orders.”
She closed her eyes and slumped back like a forlorn child. “Dang . . .”
“That’s what you hired me to do— to be boots on the ground and to make sure that you, your staff, and your assets are completely covered.” He winked at her and chuckled.
She opened her eyes with a brilliant smile. “You don’t want me to comment on that, do you?”
“Your equipment, your luggage,” he said, chuckling.