isn’t going to stop me from spending a little one-on-one time with the folks who are signed with Bradford.”
The gloves were off, which was fine with Sam. She liked this better. Work, rivalry— they were straightforward.
“Unlike your clientele, mine is loyal, which I think you’ve already found out.”
“I’ve only called a couple so far.”
“Then I’ll save you some time. I offer them what they want and I deliver the market. None of them is looking to switch.”
“Sure about that? I can deliver the market, too.” His lips curved. “And I can do an even better job of it than you.”
Sam snorted. “God, you’ve never been short on confidence.”
“Neither have you.” He’d been smiling, but now he sobered. “You know, even more than your butt, I always found that to be an incredible turn-on.”
Sam tucked some hair behind her ears and moistened her lips. Laugh in his face, she ordered herself. At the very least deliver an emasculating comeback. All she came up with was, “Me, too.”
As soon as the words were out, Sam wanted to throttle herself. Why did she have to go and admit something so potentially volatile? It was bad enough to think it. After all, she’d been trying to sift out all of the softer emotions she had when it came to Michael. Here was a doozy and it was threatening to whisk her back in time.
She blamed the wine, even though more than half a glass remained. Most of all, she blamed Michael. He’d been the one to bring it up. Glancing at him now, she found a modicum of comfort in the fact that he looked as out of sorts as she felt, as if he too were wishing he could snatch back his words.
“I think I should call it a night,” Sam said, reversing her earlier decision to have him leave first. “I have an early flight.”
“Yeah. Same here.”
With her luck they would be on the same plane, seated next to each other and then stuck on the runway during an extended delay.
After the waiter came with their check, Sam paid the bill. Michael insisted on leaving the tip, though she’d told him she had that covered, too. They argued back and forth, neither one backing down. Just like old times. In the end, the waiter wound up with one whopper of a gratuity.
They walked out of the lounge together yet not together. Sam groped for something to say as they stepped into the elevator, and the awkward silence stretched. Even when the bell dinged and the doors slid open on the tenth floor, nothing came to mind.
She chanced a glance in Michael’s direction as he got out. There’d been a time when she could read every one of his expressions. She didn’t recognize this one. His smile was tight as he reached for the doors to prevent them from closing.
“See you back in New York,” he said, which was unlikely. They’d managed to avoid each other for more than a year.
“Sure,” she nodded. “Maybe I’ll bump into you at the office of one of your clients.”
“Now, Sam.” He tipped his head to one side and made a tsking noise. “Be good.”
“Oh, I’m better than good and…” She blinked. The words were a joke, an old and very private one between the pair of them. Her rejoinder usually ended with the sensual promise: “I’ll prove it to you later.”
Michael’s smoky gaze told her he remembered the joke, too. He leaned forward and for one brief moment she thought he was considering kissing her. A bell chimed then and the doors jolted his elbow in their effort to shut. He released them and stepped back. But the last thing Sam saw before they closed completely was Michael reaching out as if to stop them.
CHAPTER TWO
SAMANTHA overslept.
The alarm went off at the appointed time, right after which she received a wakeup call from the hotel’s front desk. She ignored both and burrowed deeper under the covers, eager to go back to sleep. She could catch a later flight.
Now, as she sat in the first-class section of a 747, awaiting the departure of her noon flight, she flipped through a magazine and admitted that missing the red-eye had been no accident. She had not wanted to chance facing Michael again so soon.
She’d dreamed about him. Her face felt warm now as she recalled that in her dream, before the elevator doors closed, he’d kissed her, deeply, passionately. And he hadn’t stopped there. No, he’d stepped back inside, let the doors slide closed behind him and as the lift traveled to the hotel’s highest floor, he’d helped Sam off with her clothes. She’d returned the favor, every bit as eager as he. What would have happened next was obvious. But before their bodies touched, her alarm had gone off.
Sam had woken up panting and so aroused that she’d actually tried to go back to sleep and let Michael finish what he’d started. Of course, that hadn’t happened. But the mere fact that she’d wanted it to, even in a dream, had her reeling. She’d been keyed up ever since, a feeling she attributed to confusion and irritation rather than sexual frustration or a flaring of old feelings. No, no. It wasn’t either of those things. Closing her eyes she exhaled shakily.
“Nervous flyer?” a deep male voice inquired, jolting Sam’s eyes open.
She glanced up to find Michael standing in the narrow aisle, a laptop computer slung over one shoulder and a smile turning up the corners of the mouth that had once trailed its way down her neck.
Glancing away, Sam accused, “I thought you were taking the red-eye back to the city.”
“Looks like we both missed it.” He dumped the laptop onto the roomy leather chair directly across the aisle from hers and shrugged out of his sports coat.
“Looks like,” she managed as he arranged his belongings and took his seat.
“Actually, I turned off my alarm. When it went off, I was in the middle of a really good dream. I wanted to see how it ended.”
Because she knew exactly what he meant, Sam said nothing. But as Michael fastened his seat belt, she clearly recalled helping him undo the belt on his trousers in her dream. He was a tall man, surpassing the six-foot mark by at least a couple inches. In first class, however, he was able to stretch out his legs, which he did now, looking the picture of relaxation. In contrast, Sam tensed, as if waiting for a trap to spring.
It did a moment later when he asked, “So, what did you dream about last night?”
“I have no idea. I never remember anything after I wake up,” she claimed, even though that highly sensual encounter was burned into her memory.
He tipped his head sideways. “Really? Nothing? That must be a recent development. We used to lie in bed sharing our fantasies all the time.”
He was dead on, but she wasn’t going to go there. “Fantasies aren’t the same as dreams,” Sam told him matter-of-factly.
“I guess you’re right, even though you can act out both.” He smiled wolfishly.
She heaved an exaggerated sigh and reached for the magazine that was open on her lap. The flight to New
