working on various shows, including their top-rated police procedural, and he’s coming off three years with Box-Office Cable on The Boardroom. I still can’t believe we got him, but he was between contracts and he loves the show.”
Sadie frowned. European experience, credits on The Boardroom—BOC’s gritty depiction of high-stakes corporate life. It was all starting to ring a bell in the back of her mind. A very large, very noisy, alarm bell.
“I’m not sure if…” she said, but Claudia spoke over her.
“Look, here he is now. You guys can chat a little before everyone gets here.”
Sadie felt the blood drain from her face and her stomach drop to the floor as she saw the tall, dark-haired man approaching over Claudia’s shoulder.
He still had to-die-for good looks. His eyelashes were still too long and dark. And his gray eyes were still cocky and overly confident.
She stared at him, all her nightmares rolled into six-foot-two-inches of strong, supple male.
DylanAnderson. Her teen nemesis. And her new direct report.
2
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
