Читать книгу Take On Me - Sarah Mayberry - Страница 8

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AS SOON AS Dylan saw Sadie Post, all his expectations about working on Ocean Boulevard went out the window.

After initial talks with Claudia, he’d been genuinely intrigued about the idea of working on a soap. The demands of the show—five one-hour episodes per week—meant that an enormous amount of material had to be produced by the writing team. It would be a challenge, and an opportunity to push the envelope. Just talking to Claudia had given him ideas. But he’d be fooling himself if he pretended that was why he’d walked away from his own plans so easily—learning from Claudia that Sadie would not be a part of the hiring process had been the clincher. The thought of her returning from vacation in the Caribbean to find him ensconced as her new story editor had been irresistible.

Despite all his achievements and how far he’d come, the memory of his humiliation in American Lit at her hands remained a sore spot in his psyche. It wasn’t the most mature or rational or noble motivation for taking a contract with Ocean Boulevard, but he figured a guy was allowed a moment of weakness every now and then.

Then he walked in her office door and all his expectations hit an unexpected slippery patch and went skidding out of control.

When he’d pictured this moment in his mind, Sadie had been as forgettable as she’d been throughout their school years—same blah blond hair pulled back into a tidy ponytail, same raillike body in baggy clothes.

But the woman rising from her office chair to face him was an Amazonian goddess. Nearly six foot—had she always been so tall?—with long, flowing Pamela-Anderson-just-rolled-out-of-bed-hair. And her body was no longer skinny. In fact, it looked as though the curve fairy had paid her a very substantial visit since he’d last seen her. Perky breasts thrust up from a slim torso, their curves outlined by a tight black T-shirt. Dark denim jeans clung to legs that were long and lean and seemed to go on forever. Just the way he liked them.

For a second he was so thrown he could only stare and blink. Then he got his game face back on. So, she’d turned into an okay-looking adult. Big deal. It didn’t change anything.

He’d already decided how to play this—supercool, not a single allusion to school beyond the mandatory acknowledgment, nothing that would give her the satisfaction of knowing that he attached any significance or power to her memory whatsoever. This was about burying the past, not resurrecting it. Just because she looked like a bikini model from Swimsuit Illustrated didn’t call for a change of plans.

“Sadie. Great to see you again,” he lied through his teeth.

He even managed a smile—nothing too effusive or sucky, just bright enough to be professional. Extending his hand, he waited for her to shake it.

There was a long, long pause before she extended her own hand. Her skin felt cool and silky as her palm slid against his, and his gaze was caught by her velvety-brown eyes. Warm chocolate spiced with caramel, he decided before he registered what he was thinking and gave himself a mental slap.

Where the hell had that come from? She could have shriveled currants for eyes, or big Bambi numbers—it didn’t matter one iota to him.

“You guys have met before?” Claudia asked, her gaze alert as she glanced back and forth between them, probably wondering why he hadn’t mentioned it in their interview.

“Sadie and I went to school together,” he supplied innocuously.

He was holding Sadie’s eyes as he said it and was thrown when something soft and vulnerable flashed behind them. Another expectation blown away. He’d imagined defensiveness when she saw him. Even indifference—after all, she probably had dozens of scalps on her belt from all the people she’d stomped on over the years. No doubt it was a real bitch for her to remember what she’d done to whom.

But the hurt, tortured look that had raced briefly across her face threw him. Again.

“That’s right. Dylan and I went to the same senior high,” Sadie clarified.

“Really. Dylan didn’t mention it when we talked,” Claudia said, her near-black eyes fixed on him questioningly.

Dylan shrugged self-deprecatingly. “Didn’t see the point. It was a long time ago,” he said. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure Sadie would even remember me.”

A muscle tensed in Sadie’s jaw, the first and only sign that she felt any discomfort at all. Dylan noted the moment with satisfaction.

“Just goes to show, it’s a small world,” Claudia said, obviously accepting his explanation. “Kind of takes the wind out of my sails, though. I was pretty proud of finding you all on my own.”

Sadie’s face was once again under control as she eyed him.

“I thought you were contracted to The Boardroom,” she said.

Betraying color instantly stole into her cheeks. She’d been keeping an eye on his career. Probably waiting for him to be run out of town or told to sit in the corner with a pointy dunce cap on his head.

“I was packing up my office when Claudia’s offer came through,” he said. Settling his shoulder against the wall, he turned the conversational spotlight on her.

“I hear you were on holiday in the Caribbean. Where’d you go?”

“Um, St. Barts,” she said. Her eyes darted to Claudia, and he got the sense that a secret communication was passing between them. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Claudia shake her head minutely.

What was going on?

“I was there a few years back. Did you try the scuba?” he asked, probing a little more. What was the big secret about St. Barts?

“No. I mainly hung out on the beach and read and caught up on sleep. You know,” she said dismissively.

He narrowed his eyes assessingly. He’d assumed she’d gone on holidays with a friend or boyfriend, but it sounded as though she’d gone alone. Was that what the look between her and Claudia was about? He couldn’t quite believe that a woman as attractive as Sadie had to go on holiday alone. Even with his built-in prejudice against her, he could see that many men—okay, most men—would find her attractive.

Of course, there was that personality of hers to consider, he reminded himself. There was only so much bitchiness a man could tolerate for the sake of a sexy body.

“Sounds great,” he said.

“Yeah, it was,” she replied. She shifted her head a little, her hair rippling over her shoulder as she tilted her chin at him. As though she was daring him to challenge her on her answer.

Definitely something going on there, but he was in no rush to find out. Television production offices were always rife with gossip. All he had to do was tee up the right conversation with the right gossip-monger, and he’d know everything from her shoe size to the last time she flossed.

“Why don’t I leave you guys to it, then? Sadie probably needs to be brought up-to-date with what’s happened while she’s been away,” Claudia said, moving toward the door.

Dylan decided to take her departure as the cue to crank things up a little. Time to let Ms. Post know that she wouldn’t have things all her way this time around. Without asking permission, he sank into the chair opposite her desk and propped the ankle of one leg confidently on the knee of the other.

He’d been thrown off guard for a couple of moments there by the discovery that Sadie the Stick Post had turned into a whole handful of woman. But he was over that now.

Time to start setting the record straight.

Sadie felt a stress twitch break out under her eye as Dylan Anderson leaned back in her visitor’s chair and locked his hands behind his head. As though he owned the place, king of all he surveyed.

SHE FELT AS THOUGH she was in a human-size snowglobe, and someone had just shaken the crap out of it. In fact, if all her furniture started floating around her, she wouldn’t be a bit surprised—she felt utterly, completely at sea. Flummoxed. Thrown. Terrified. Furious. In fact, there was a whole mental ward of violent emotions wrestling for supremacy in her brain. For the moment, she was a helpless bystander, waiting to see which emotion would be the final victor.

Dylan Anderson. The Dylan Anderson. Star of her nightmares for at least five years after that horrible, crushing senior prom. The man voted Most Likely to Be Hit by a Car in a Dark Alleyway in her own private, personal yearbook.

And now he was here. Sitting opposite her—slouching, really, already supremely at ease.

She wanted to scream. She wasn’t up to this. She was already on her knees after Greg’s betrayal. This was too much.

Over the years, she’d imagined running into Dylan again. For a while, it had been her favorite indulgent daydream. In her version, she was wearing a designer gown, looking blindingly beautiful as she sauntered up the aisle after accepting her Best Original Screenplay Oscar. He’d fallen on hard times and was working as a seat warmer, filling in for celebrities when they needed to go to the bathroom. Their eyes met briefly—and she sailed right by, cutting him dead, ignoring him completely. Or, in her alternate fantasy, she stopped and took pity on him, insisting he give her a call—she was sure they could find something for him to do around the production office. Emptying bins, cleaning toilets, licking her shoes. That kind of thing.

Instead she got this—him sitting cockily across from her, making the room feel smaller and putting her whole body on red alert.

Whenever she’d cast him in one of her revenge fantasies, he’d always been balding and paunchy, with a pronounced stoop. Sometimes she even gave him missing teeth. Why the hell not, after all? It was her fantasy, and she was in charge of hair, wardrobe and makeup.

But, unfortunately for her, the years had been kind to Dylan. Not just kind, generous. Really, really generous. Although he’d retained his lean, rangy physique, his shoulders had broadened with age, his chest deepened. His thighs were stronger, his biceps more pronounced. She could even see the smooth curve of pecs beneath his dark green T-shirt. He’d moved on from the rebellious long hair of his youth and wore it cropped short and tousled now, one lock flopping over his forehead. Even the lines around his eyes and mouth only made him more attractive, if that were possible. The bastard.

God, she despised him. For a moment, reconstituted hate threatened to overwhelm her as she stared at him. The things she could say to him. Had wanted to say to him, all those years ago once she’d moved beyond mortification and into rage. In the very early days, she’d written him letters. Long, scathing, insulting letters that told him exactly what she thought of him. She may have even been tempted to deliver one of them to him if he hadn’t disappeared after prom. She’d never seen him again after that night.

She’d thought him blessedly gone forever from her world until she’d had the horrible shock of seeing his name on the end credits of The Boardroom three years ago. It couldn’t be the same man, she’d told herself. But a subtle check through industry sources had quickly proved it was. It had been the career equivalent of finishing her breakfast cereal to find a cockroach in the bottom of her bowl. No, worse—half a cockroach.

Since then, she’d checked up on him every now and then, so she knew where he was, what he was doing. Like keeping an eye on a spider that had found its way into her home.

And now he was here, sitting opposite her, oozing masculine confidence like a miasma, waiting for her to say something.

Thank God Claudia hadn’t told him about her disastrous wedding. She’d almost sobbed with relief when Claudia had given a tiny shake of her head to indicate he didn’t know anything beyond the fact that she’d gone to the Caribbean. If there was any justice in the world, he’d stay in the dark, too. Just the thought of him knowing about her humiliating private life was enough to make her feel nauseous.

The silence stretched a long, long time as she tried to shuffle her disordered, chaotic thoughts into some kind of shape. He waited her out, his eyes steady, his expression unreadable. The bastard.

What got her the most was the benign, butter-wouldn’t-melt way he’d mentioned that they’d gone to school together, and that he didn’t know if Sadie would remember him or not. As though his cruelty hadn’t been one of the pivotal moments of her life.

The thought that his treatment of her had barely registered a blip on his personal radar was the jolt she needed to find her backbone.

Last time she’d seen this asshole, he’d bested and humiliated her in grand style.

He wouldn’t be getting a second shot.

Squaring her shoulders, she cleared her throat.

“I gather that you came on board last week, is that right?” she asked.

To encourage the illusion of professionalism, she grabbed a notepad and pen, and hoped like hell that her hands weren’t shaking with reaction.

“Yep. Pretty much just picked up where Joss had left things. The team was great, really on top of it all,” he said.

She bristled at the proprietorial way he handed out the compliment—as if he’d handpicked the team and trained them up personally, not her. As though he was telling her something she didn’t know.

“Yeah, they’re a great team. Very experienced. I’m surprised Claudia didn’t consider getting one of them to step up, actually.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, she knew she’d made a tactical error. For starters, none of the team was really at the stage where they could step up and take over the show at the drop of a hat. And he’d know that after a week with them. The bastard.

Second—and more importantly—she’d tipped her hand. He knew she didn’t want him here. She could see it in his eyes—along with the fact that he didn’t give a damn how she felt.

“Guess you’d have to talk to Claudia about that.” He shrugged, supremely cool.

She swallowed the swearword that sprang instinctively to her lips.

“Since you seem to have landed on your feet so well, we’d best get straight down to business,” she said tightly, determined not to give him another inch.

“Sure. You want me to recap last week’s episodes, or did you get a chance to read them before you came in?” he asked.

She resisted the urge to respond defensively by blaming her late flight for her lack of preparation. She was his boss, not the other way around.

“Just walk me through the salient points,” she said calmly.

“Sure.”

Tilting her chair back a little, Sadie steepled her fingers and tried to look confident and in control.

Anything to survive this first encounter with some dignity intact.

DYLAN TOOK A MOMENT to gather his thoughts before launching into a summary of last week’s stories. Not easy when his eyes kept drifting to the neckline of Sadie’s tight T-shirt.

“Basically, we picked up on the six strands you guys had going—Gabe and Hannah’s romance, Kirk and Loni’s divorce, Garth’s malpractice suit, Honey’s pregnancy, Luther’s machinations regarding the family business and Angel’s high-school dramas. Going over the previous few weeks’ worth of story lines, I thought we’d pretty much milked the divorce scenario as much as we could. So last week we got Kirk to the point of agreeing in principal to a settlement, and signing the papers,” Dylan said.

Sadie’s eyes narrowed as she processed what he’d said. Dylan waited and watched, his eyes drifting of their own accord over her face. She had great skin—sun-kissed, clear. Glowing was probably the way the cosmetic companies would describe it. Except it didn’t look as though she was wearing a lot of makeup to him.

“Future planning for Kirk and Loni is that they reconcile. We don’t want them getting a divorce,” she said.

“I saw your forward-planning stuff,” he said. “I thought we could get a few more twists and turns in there before we got them back together. So, Kirk’s signed the papers—but he hasn’t sent them anywhere yet.”

She stared at him, that muscle flexing in her jaw again. Good skin, and great eyes. Why hadn’t he remembered her eyes? She must have had those back in high school, even if the breasts that thrust up beneath her T-shirt had been conspicuously absent back then.

“And what’s going to stop him from handing the papers over to his lawyer?” she asked.

“This week, I figure Loni’s going to have a visit from an old flame. Someone to turn the heat up,” he said. He grinned cockily, daring her not to like it.

“And next week Kirk learns his brother has died?” Sadie asked, carefully not passing comment yet.

“Maybe. If we can’t find any more twists and turns before we get there,” Dylan said noncommittally.

Her eyes flashed once, briefly, then the calm, unreadable mask was back in place.

“That all sounds very interesting,” she said. “Rather than you going through it all verbally, though, I think I’d prefer to read the episodes, so I can really absorb the nuance.”

Her lips thinned for a moment, but nothing could disguise their plump poutiness for long. She had a very sexy mouth, he judged. Belatedly, he became aware of what he was doing: checking Sadie Post out.

Wrenching his brain back on track, he focused on the main event.

“Sure. You’re the boss, after all,” he said.

She’d been making a note on her pad, but her head shot up at that. They stared at one other for a long moment, then her gaze shifted to something over his shoulder.

“The rest of the team is here,” she said. “I don’t want to hold you up.”

He could have sworn she sounded relieved. The suspicion was reinforced when she stood, signaling the meeting was over. She was rattled. He relished the realization, even as he made himself a promise—he planned on shaking her cage a lot more than this over the next few months.

Instead of responding to her cues, he remained seated, wanting to see how far he could push her. Slowly, deliberately provocative, he slid his eyes over her body.

What was supposed to be a goad quickly turned into a pleasure tour. It wasn’t exactly a hardship looking at her, he admitted to himself as his gaze lingered on the firm, uptilted mounds of her breasts. She had the sort of lithe, elegant body that would look amazing naked. His eyes dropped to her hips. He hadn’t seen her butt yet, but he bet it was peachy. He wondered what kind of underwear she wore, whether she was a believer in the thong.

“You know, I would have walked past you in the street,” he said once he’d lifted his eyes back to her face. He was satisfied to see that she was blushing, her eyes sparkling with anger. “You sure have changed a lot.”

“Yes. You’re still pretty much the same, though,” she said.

She didn’t mean it as a compliment, he knew.

He stood, taking pleasure from looking down on her, even if he only had the advantage of an inch or two.

“You’d be surprised.”

He drilled her with his eyes before he delivered his parting words.

“I’m really looking forward to the next few months, Sadie.”

SADIE CLUTCHED at her desk as he exited her office, allowing herself to at last register how weak her knees were, and that her entire body was trembling with reaction.

Automatically her eyes followed his rangy body as he walked away, dropping to catalog his strong back and lean, trim hips. Well-worn denim sculpted the perfect male ass she remembered from all those years ago. It was still extremely grabbable, she decided dispassionately, the kind of perky male butt that made most women drool.

Every woman except her, of course. She was forever immune to any so-called charm Dylan Anderson had to offer.

She sank into her chair and stared at the notes she’d taken. Jumbled words and a messy, violent doodle filled the page. A pretty accurate depiction of her mindscape at present.

She felt blindsided, overwhelmed. He was the enemy. She didn’t want him at Ocean Boulevard. How could Claudia have done this to her?

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she wiped it out. This was not Claudia’s fault. If Dylan Anderson wasn’t who he was, he’d be the find of the year. A huge feather in their caps, in fact. He’d been nominated for a number of awards for his work on The Boardroom. As much as it galled her, she knew he was well respected. Admired, even.

“Gag me with a cheese grater,” she said out loud, reverting to one of her favorite high-school phrases. For some reason, it felt appropriate.

“Talking to yourself. Second sign of madness.”

It was Grace, already sliding into her visitor’s chair. Sadie felt pathetically pleased to see her, and had to bite back the overwhelming urge to blurt the whole sad saga out on the spot.

“I’m not even going to ask what the first sign is,” she said, hiding the revealing doodle in a desk drawer.

“You know, I can never remember. Is it hairy palms? Or is that masturbation?”

As always, Grace managed to tease a smile out of Sadie, despite her preoccupation. “Sorry, I didn’t have a Catholic education.” Sadie shrugged.

“More pity you. If only you knew the guilt you could be enduring on a daily basis,” Grace said as she crossed her legs. Sadie’s eyes were drawn to the dark purple stilettos on her feet.

“Hey. They’re new,” she said, desperate for distraction.

“Yep. Found them in a little flea pit off Sunset Strip,” Grace said smugly.

The fact that Grace wore a lime-green vintage fifties dress with white piping and belt should have made the shoes a big mistake, but, as usual, her friend managed to pull the look off. With her dark burgundy hair worn long with very short, straight bangs, Sadie reflected that Grace had been born about half a century too late.

“So, what do you think of Mr. Studly?” Grace asked, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.

“I hate him,” Sadie said, then immediately clapped a hand over her mouth. She honestly hadn’t meant to say anything. She’d planned to hold it all in and try to work out some strategy. But the words had leaped out of her mouth as though they had a life of their own.

Grace blinked.

“Really? God, what did he say? He was only in here for half an hour.”

“We went to school with each other.”

“No way.” Grace’s eyes narrowed. “Why am I sensing pent-up teen angst here?”

Ridiculous tears suddenly welled in Sadie’s eyes and she blinked furiously.

“Hey, are you okay?” Grace asked, really concerned now. She stood and started to move around the desk to comfort Sadie.

Sadie held up a hand to forestall her. “Don’t! Please! I don’t want him to know I’m upset,” she said, shooting a wary look out her doorway to where she could see Dylan talking casually to two of his team members.

“Okay.”

Grace sank back into her chair, her face creased with worry. “This guy really did a number on you, didn’t he?”

Sadie took a deep breath and sighed heavily.

“It’s ancient history. It shouldn’t have this much power over me,” she said ruefully.

“Yeah, right. In my opinion, the years between thirteen and nineteen keep therapists all over the world in ski holidays and suntans. Kids can be cruel, man,” Grace said.

“It’s stupid to even think about it. I mean, I’m an adult now. None of that stuff counts anymore,” Sadie said. She didn’t sound even remotely convincing.

Grace wasn’t buying, either.

“I think you should tell Claudia,” Grace said firmly.

“No.”

“Why not? There’s no way you would have hired this creep on your own. Claudia will understand.”

Sadie loved that her friend had already consigned Dylan to the creep category without even hearing her story. She was a true friend.

“I can’t. What am I going to say? ‘He was mean to me in school, make him go away’? There’s no way I can put Claudia in that position.”

“What’s the point of being friends with the boss if you can’t exploit it a little?” Grace joked.

Sadie managed a halfhearted smile.

“What are you going to do, then?” Grace prompted, green eyes worried.

“I don’t know. Suck it up, I guess. It’s only a six-month contract, right?”

From where Sadie was sitting, it seemed like a life sentence, but she knew she wasn’t entirely rational right now. She’d been taken off guard, and all the old memories had rushed up to swamp her. Once she’d had some time to reflect and strategize, she’d be fine.

“Tell Claudia,” Grace repeated firmly.

“The show needs a story editor, Grace. I won’t put her in the position of doing me a favor at the expense of the show. She’s only been producer five weeks. It’s not fair.”

She felt tired all of a sudden. She was tired—she’d been fighting with her back to the wall for too long. Ever since the wedding-that-never-was. All she wanted right now was to close her office door and hibernate for a while. Sensing this, Grace stood.

“You know where I am. And that there’s an obscene chocolate stash in my bottom drawer.”

“Thanks,” Sadie said, smiling for her friend’s benefit.

Once she was alone, the smile faded from her face. Could her life suck any harder right now? She didn’t think so.

She was still in emergency-response zombie mode by the time she got home that evening. She’d managed to avoid anything but the most brief and superficial of contacts with Dylan all day. But she knew that wasn’t going to last.

A hot shower and her floppy pj’s went a long way to restoring a sense of normalcy. An indulgent dinner of Chunky Monkey ice cream and Oreo cookies papered over any remaining cracks in her equilibrium. By the time she’d immersed herself in a couple of chapters from her favorite romance author and was ready to switch the light off, the world had resumed its rightful perspective.

Dylan Anderson being at Ocean Boulevard was a pain, sure it was. But she could handle it. The past was the past, after all. She was a grown, mature woman. She’d learned to drive, voted, had sex and become a homeowner since she and Dylan had last seen one another. None of that old stuff mattered. At the end of the day, he was the same as any of her other direct reports.

She curled into her pillow, anticipating the release of sleep. A few hours of blessed nothing, and she’d be ready to face the world again.

Then she had The Dream.

As soon as she realized she was standing in the school gym, she tried to wrangle her subconscious under control, but it was too late—she was being sucked into the old, old memory.

It was after school, and all the other kids had gone home. She was about to enter the girls’ change room when she heard someone singing, the sound echoing out from the boys’change room next door. It only took a moment for her to recognize the voice. Immediately her heart kicked into overdrive.

She hesitated at the junction of the two change rooms. Then her feet drifted toward the boys’ entrance. She could hardly believe she was doing what she was doing, but her fingers were already trailing along the cold tile wall as she eased her way toward the door.

Heat rushed into her face as she heard the sound of running water beneath the sound of Dylan Anderson’s singing.

He was in the shower. Heat rushed to an entirely different part of her body as she imagined him naked and wet beneath the rushing water.

Her feet moved forward again, and she was powerless to stop them. Her breath was coming in little soundless gasps as she slid along the final row of lockers separating her from the showers. The splash of water and Dylan’s voice seemed preternaturally loud to her sensitized ears. A part of her was astounded at what she was doing. She never did anything daring or wrong. She was a straight-A student, punctilious, safe. She’d never been in trouble for anything at school, but here she was, in the boys’ change room, about to sneak a peek at Dylan Anderson under the shower. Was she insane? Had some vital part of her intellect flipped out all of a sudden?

But despite the clamor of alarm bouncing around her brain, she slid forward. One step. Two. Three. She held her breath as she ducked her head around the corner.

And stared. His back was to her as he stood in the middle of the shower bay, the water pummeling him as he took his time washing. His body was tall and firm, his shoulders broad, and his back tapered down to a rounded backside that made Sadie’s mouth water for something she didn’t even have a name for.

His overlong dark hair was wet, trailing over his downturned face, and his back muscles flexed as he washed his belly. She forgot to breathe entirely as he lifted his head and turned in profile to her. Her rounded eyes took in the smooth, sculpted planes of his pectoral muscles, quickly dipping below to trail greedily down his rippled abs to the area she was most curious about. Between his thighs she saw her first real live penis, and the sight of him, long and substantial, made her press her knees together. Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

He turned fully toward her then, arching his neck back so that the flow of water washed his hair away from his handsome brow. She ate up every inch of the body on display. His thighs were long and lean, his calves curved and in perfect proportion to the rest of him. One hand washed idly at his belly as he closed his eyes and swept his other hand up across his forehead and into his hair.

He was magnificent. So much better than all her fantasies. The thought of him touching her, of being held against his hard chest, of touching the strength between his legs… She was dizzy with desire.

She was so mesmerized, she didn’t register that he was nearing the end of his shower. Suddenly, however, he flicked the taps off and reached for his towel. Her heart nearly exploded in her chest—she would die if he caught her. Just die. She managed to get her frozen limbs together enough to slide behind the shelter of the first locker aisle. Looking around desperately, she saw too late that she was standing right in front of his open locker, and that his clothes were thrown haphazardly on the bench that ran between the rows. She heard the slap of bare feet on wet tile. He was coming her way. Desperate, she fled to the end of the aisle, diving behind a bin full of dirty towels.

Hunched on the ground, arms wrapped around her knees, eyes squeezed tightly shut, she waited to be discovered. Surely he’d seen or heard her? Surely she was about to be punished for her moment of daring audacity?

After a few seconds, she slowly opened her eyes again. The pounding of her heart subsided enough so that she could make out the sound of Dylan dressing. He hadn’t seen her. Chin resting on her drawn-up knees, she tried to interpret the sounds she could hear, willing him to get dressed and leave.

The hiss of an aerosol can: Dylan putting on deodorant. God, she loved the way he smelled. The thump of something heavy hitting the ground: Dylan dropping his shoes, ready to put them on. The clink of metal on metal: Dylan doing up his belt.

She waited for the telltale clang of his locker closing, but it didn’t come. Time stretched, and still it didn’t come. She frowned. Had he gone or not? He’d sounded fully dressed to her. Why would he hang around?

The cold from the tile floor was seeping through her thin gym shorts, and she cursed herself for her impulsiveness. Now that the excitement of seeing Dylan naked was wearing off, she could see how stupid she’d been. How reckless. If he’d seen her, her life would, quite simply, not be worth living.

Finally, after a long, long time, she dared a peek over the top of the bin.

She immediately ducked down again. Dylan was still there—sitting slumped on the bench between the lockers. Curious, she dared another peek. He had something in his hand—a piece of paper. But it was the look on his face that transfixed her. He was upset about something—very upset, if she had her guess. His handsome face was twisted into a sort of desolate resignation. Suddenly, he swore and balled the paper up, then shot it toward the nearest trash can. Slamming his locker shut, he grabbed his beat-up leather jacket and strode toward the exit.

Sadie waited until his footsteps had well and truly faded before pulling the paper from the can and racing to the safety of the girls’ change room. Locked in a toilet cubicle for extra safety, she smoothed the crinkled page flat on her knees. It was the pop quiz they’d just had handed back in American Lit. Dylan had scored an F.

It was no newsflash to her that Dylan wasn’t exactly acing the class. She sat next to him—she knew how often he got reprimanded for not doing homework, or for having the wrong answers when called upon by the teacher. She’d tried to shield him as many times as she could—jumping in to answer for him, distracting Mr. McMasters with questions—but she’d always suspected that she worried about Dylan being embarrassed far more than he did. He was so cool—she’d figured he didn’t give a hoot about anything to do with American Lit. He never so much as twitched when Mr McMasters took a shot at him, and most of the time he had a smart-ass response ready to throw back.

But now she realized he did care. He cared a lot.

And for the first time in over a year of loving Dylan Anderson, hope flared in her heart. Because she knew she could help him. She had something to offer him now. She’d never had a chance of attracting him the traditional way, not with her concave chest and gangly legs. But she could help him pass Lit. It was one of her best subjects. He’d have to look at her then, wouldn’t he? He might even be grateful. They might even become friends.

And then, maybe, he might—

Sadie sat bolt upright in bed, the sheets twisted around her legs. She kicked at them until they loosened, then rolled to her feet. Her skin felt clammy, overheated. Flicking her bedside lamp on, she paced.

At least she’d managed to wake before the rest of the dream unfolded. She pushed her damp hair off her forehead, wishing she could push the old memories away as easily.

If she could take back one moment in her life, she’d erase those few, fateful seconds when she’d heard Dylan Anderson singing in the boys’ locker room. If she hadn’t snuck into spy on him. If she hadn’t seen the look on his face. If she hadn’t been so determined to help him…

Sadie wrapped her arms around her chest, then frowned as she felt the insistent press of her erect nipples against the soft skin of her inner arm. That was the most pathetic, infuriating part, she decided—not that this ancient dream she’d thought she’d banished had returned to haunt her, but the fact that the memory of Dylan Anderson naked in the shower still had the power to turn her on.

She hated him. At the very least, she had nothing but contempt for him. Unfortunately, her body still remembered how much it had yearned for him, how many times she’d cried his name into her pillow when she touched herself all those years ago.

Pathetic. For one thing, she was damned sure Dylan wasn’t pacing the floor somewhere in L.A., thinking about her naked body right now.

It was the wake-up call she needed. Her spine stiffened and the tingling feeling in her limbs subsided as her adrenaline levels dropped.

After a day of reeling in reaction, she suddenly had clarity. The past didn’t matter. What she used to feel didn’t mean squat. This was her turf. She was the boss. This time, things would be different.

She’d show Dylan Anderson that Sadie Post wasn’t a pushover anymore.

If it killed her.

Jaw set, she climbed back into bed. She couldn’t wait till the morning, she told herself. She was actually looking forward to it. He wasn’t going to know what hit him.