Caught on Camera (19 page)

Kate frowned. “That doesn't sound very exciting.”

“You're a sharp one, I'll give you that. Okay, there's a bit of a catch. I think they're sort of seeing it like our show, crossed with
The Newlyweds
or something. They kept saying, ‘that chemistry—that's what this network needs! Where have you been hiding this girl?'”

“Oh
God
.”

“What do you say, Kate?”

“I dunno,” she said. “This is all really sudden. And it's a weird idea. It's like…Mulder and Scully on
Gilligan's Island.
”

“That sounds pretty good, actually.”

“Ty.”

He ran his palms over her shoulders. “It's simple. It's what we've been doing all along, except with less danger,
and two jerks on camera instead of just the one. I mean, are there any PAs in this town who don't secretly wish they were the ones who were famous? And
you
actually deserve it. Think it over, Kate. You'd look great accepting an Emmy. You can wear some of your pointy death-shoes. Free designer crap, goody-bags… All that gaudy celebrity stuff you get so moist over.”

She shook her head. “Why'd you let me think you were a complete a-hole for a month while you were hatching this ridiculous plan?”

He smiled, a bit shy if she wasn't mistaken. “Well, for one thing, you'd have never given me permission to produce that episode.”

“No, definitely not.”

“Plus I needed time to pitch the idea, and for that I needed you out of the picture, otherwise you'd have rushed in and bollocks'd it all up by telling them you weren't interested. And for another thing…well, I love pissing you off. And I knew you'd forgive me.”

She cocked a brow at him. “Did you then?”

Ty nodded. “You do, right? Forgive me?”

Kate sighed. “Probably…but I don't have an answer yet, about this proposal.”

“Fine. You hungry? Let's eat, for goodness' sake.” They walked to the kitchen and Ty opened her fridge, pulling out a bottle. “You still keep my favorite beer stocked, eh? Been missing me much?”

“That six-pack's been in there since before we left for Canada.”

He scowled playfully, and they gathered their food. They adjourned to Kate's bedroom in time to catch the last fifteen minutes of the hour-long show.

“So what do you think?” Ty demanded.

“Honestly…? I never knew I had such great shoulders,” Kate replied, studying the woman on the screen.

“I told you you're hot.”

“This is so embarrassing,” she said, unable to hide a dopey smile. She watched an entire montage of herself giving Ty the finger for various—and unfailingly welldeserved—reasons, caught either by his camera or appearing as a blurry, disembodied digit floating up to obscure her own lens.

“If it's not to your liking there's something else we can watch,” Ty said, wiping his fingers on a napkin. He nodded mischievously to the memory cards he'd brought, the bag containing them visible through the kitchen doorway.

“Oh I
know
you didn't come here thinking you actually stood a chance of getting laid, did you?” Kate asked, faking incredulity. Then she froze. “None of the editors saw, did they? They don't know?”

“Christ Almighty, woman, how evil do you think I am? I studied filmmaking. I know how to splice dirty bits out of footage. Of course they don't know.” He paused. “I bet everyone assumes we're like that, though.”

“Probably,” she admitted. “Especially now.” She glanced at the screen. For all intents and purposes, these clips from the past three seasons looked like the private, candid home movies of an extremely well-suited couple.

“Don't think I didn't keep copies of the good stuff for myself,” Ty said.

Kate rolled her eyes at him.

“Damn, you're badass,” he said, pointing at Kate-on-TV with his beer bottle. “I can't wait to see the bonus features,” he added, wiggling his eyebrows and glancing from her to the bag and back again.

“Like you haven't watched that a hundred times in the past three weeks.”

“I haven't,” he said, wide-eyed and innocent.

“Yeah, right.”

“No, really, I haven't. Don't get me wrong—I bloody wanted to. But like I said before, this is about us.” He nudged her with his elbow. “Nothing's any good without you. You have no idea how damn hard it's been for me these last few weeks, not being able to see you. And needless to say, I've slept like crap…. Probably deserved it, too, putting you through this.”

Kate paused, taking in his familiar smell, letting her energy shift and mingle with his. “Well, I wouldn't have waited for you if I'd had the outtakes,” she said eventually.

“Oh no?”

She shook her head. “No chance in hell.”

“Well, I guess it's clear which of us is the gentleman. So what do you reckon? Feel like a private screening? It might give you ideas.”

“What sorts of ideas might you be referring to, Mr. Tyler?” she asked pointedly.

“Be my lover, Kate. Please. Be my partner again.”

She sipped her wine, avoiding his eyes. “You make it sound so easy.”

“We'll ask the oracle, then.” He rummaged in the greasy bag on the floor for the fortune cookies, stripping off the squeaky cellophane wrappers and holding them out for Kate to pick one. Ty cracked his open first. “‘Your longtime work colleague and erstwhile dynamite sex partner will find your charms irresistible. Lucky numbers six, twelve, nine and thirty-three.'”

“You cheat. What does it really say?”

After he finished chewing Ty read out, “‘Industriousness is the golden key to your prosperity. And Kate Somersby is dying for a good—'” Kate punched him on the arm. “Ow. So what's yours say?”

“It says,” Kate began, unfolding the slip. “‘Industriousness is the golden key to your prosperity.' Oh man, a repeat.”

“Boo, cheap. Those things don't mean anything anyway…unless it says something else. Anything that'll make you admit you secretly love me.”

Kate sat up straight, taken aback. “Is that what you want to hear?”

“If it was true…sure.” Ty's face did a decent impression of blasé flirtation, but his held breath and tight smile gave away just how much he had riding on her answer, emotionally.

“If it was true,” she repeated. “You don't think it is?”

He shrugged. “That's what you told me, more or less, before we got back to civilization. That it was just physical. I know there's more to us, at least a
little
more, but I took you at your word, Kate. I've always trusted you.”

She let her gaze fall to the carpet, wishing she could say the same. Wishing she'd listened to her heart before they'd parted so disastrously at LAX. Every fiber of her being had known inherently that this man was on her side, that he always had been. But she'd ignored all that and swallowed the lies her anger had fed her, all those incriminations that belonged to the people who'd hurt her so long ago.

Ty bumped her shoulder with his. “Don't look so glum. I brought one more bargaining chip with me.” He left the bed to root through the paper bag on the counter. Expecting a digital sex tape, Kate wasn't surprised when he extracted a CD. She watched as he strode back into the bedroom and headed for the stereo beside the television, opened the changer and put the disc in.

“That's not a DVD player, pervert,” she said.

“I know.” Ty turned the TV off.

She frowned. “What are you up to?”

“I'm doing my damnedest to make you admit you love me.” He hit Play on the CD player and adjusted the volume. The soft bass of an all-too-familiar song began to drift from the speakers, warming the room. Like magic, Kate was back at that cocktail party, two years ago.

“Dance with me?” Ty asked, as casually flirtatious as he'd been that night, murmuring those same words.

Shy, she shook her head, but she didn't resist when he pulled her to her feet and drew her into the steps, slow and lazy, meandering in circles, going nowhere. His hand was warm around hers, his other palm hot on her waist.

“I'm sorry I had to trick you,” he mumbled against her temple. “I wanted to make everything right, and I needed time to work out the details. And I wanted to give you time, you know, to be cautious…about us.”

He steered her back to the bed and manipulated their landing so she flopped onto his lap. “What do you say?”

“You said I could think it over.”

“Not the show. Us. What about us?” He held her jaw in his hands and stared her down with kind, smiling eyes.

“Maybe… But you scare me, Ty. You move from woman to woman so frequently…I'm afraid to just be another one in the line.”

He kissed her, slow and deliberate, softening her resistance. When he pulled away Kate felt as if she'd downed a very stiff drink.

“The women I dated… I kept moving on because none of them were you.”

He cupped her chin and angled her face so she'd meet his eyes. “Please, Katie. We're so good together.”

Kate held her breath and her tongue, held his gaze but did not reply.

He sighed and lowered his chin to her shoulder, his mouth
just below her ear. His words heated her skin. “You must know that I love you.”

She swallowed and her whisper came out thick and quavery. “Do you?”

“Yeah. And I don't want you behind me anymore. I want you next to me, trudging through the woods or sleeping under the stars, or waking up in some hovel of a motel room.”

“Or the back of a latex-stinking van,” she muttered.

“Especially in the van,” Ty confirmed.

“Is there a waiver I have to sign?”

Ty put his mouth to her neck again, kissed her skin. “Brat.”

Kate grinned to herself. Ty kissed her again, his lips drifting down her throat to her collarbone and making her shiver. “What d'you say, Katie?”

Kate pushed him back by the shoulders and met his eyes. “I'm in.”

His brow popped up. “Yeah?”

She nodded. “Yeah…I've missed you, the past few weeks. As pissed as I was—which was a lot—I missed you more.” She cleared her throat, making the leap. “And I do love you.”

His lips twitched. “You reckon?”

“Yeah. For I don't know how long.” For a couple of breaths she held his eyes, and when the moment became too intense she dropped her gaze to his mouth. His lips looked smooth, no longer roughened by the cold air and harsh conditions of their final shoot.

She leaned in to kiss him and Kate could have sworn they were back in the woods again—the cold breeze, the scent of a wood fire, their scorching, shared heat. After a few moments she tore herself away to stare again into those eyes she knew so well.

Ty's mouth twitched into a grin so familiar it could have belonged to a childhood friend. And in a way, it did…the friend Kate had waited her whole life to find, someone who offered all the adventure and silliness she'd missed out on.

“So we're partners again?” she asked.

“We always have been.”

She smiled. “It certainly feels that way.”

“Good. Now I vote for dessert and bonus features.”

Thinking of the film they had made together transported her in a breath, dragged her back three weeks and fifteen hundred miles to the shack, to the storm and the smell of wood smoke, Ty's strong, bare body in the firelight.

She pressed her nose to his throat and breathed him in, finding the elemental scent of his skin behind the civility of shaving cream. Whether he was filthy or clean, exhausted or rested, teasing or dead-serious, she loved this man.

“Maybe…but you know, since you fired me, I've sort of been missing the cameras…”

Ty affected a scandalized look. “Miss Somersby. Are you implying what I think you are?”

“I certainly hope so. Come on, Mr. Tyler. Let's go make a masterpiece.”