Seven Night Stand (15 page)

“Who the hell are you talking to?” Ryan demanded, walking out of the spare bedroom. “Oh.” He took in Vivvy’s mussed appearance. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Rat,” she offered weakly. Nate’s fingers tightened on her shoulders and she looked up at him. “Can we talk? Alone?” If she was going to lay it all on the line, she didn’t want an audience.

He jerked a chin toward his room and she avoided eye contact with Ryan as she walked over. She clutched the blanket around her, trying to hold off any obvious shivers.

“You need to get out of those wet clothes,” Nate said. He slammed the door behind him as he entered the room and went over to his closet and rummaged around in the messy piles of clothes.

He shoved some sweats at her. “They’ll be big, but they’ll do.”

Vivvy dropped the now-damp blanket. Nate turned so his back was to her, as if he’d never seen her naked before. Maybe he didn’t want to see her naked ever again. It would serve her right.

She shed her wet clothes as quickly as possible, shivering against the cool air on her wet skin. She pulled on Nate’s oversized sweatpants, pulled the ties as tightly as they’d go. Right before she pulled on the sweatshirt, she caught Nate peeking.

“Hey!”

“Geez, I’m only human,” he muttered. “Nothing I haven’t seen before.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, but his head didn’t turn away again. “What do you want to talk about?”

He stood next to his closet with arms crossed over his chest. The muscles of his jaw were clenched and every line on his face was a firm groove. He was all tense muscle. One big block of ice against everything she was feeling. And yet there was something about the way he looked at her that made her heart warm.

Vivvy had no idea why that made her want to spit it all out. Especially knowing it might bounce back into an even bigger disaster than she was already in, but she wanted it out. She’d been keeping it inside, now she wanted it gone. Maybe then it would stop affecting her judgment.

“I think I’m in love with you.” The words fell out like a whoosh, and left an empty, jittery feeling in their wake.

His expression didn’t change. His arms didn’t unfold. He stood, an immovable, unreadable statue. “You think you’re in love with me?”

“Yes.” Not exactly the strong statement she had hoped to make when the yes came out like a stuttered question.

“Why are you wincing?”

“I’m not wincing.”

“You look like you’re about to get punched.”

Vivvy sunk onto the edge of the bed. “Well, a ‘screw you, Vivvy’ would probably be equivalent to a punch.” This wasn’t how she’d expected things to go. Not this casual, unaffected observation of how she’d delivered her declaration.

“And in what fucked-up world do you live where I’d respond with a ‘screw you’?”

“This exchange isn’t much better.”

His arms finally unfolded and some of the clenched stoicism in his expression softened. “I don’t know what to do with you. You keep showing up talking about business and now it’s about being in love with me? Which is it?” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “It can’t be both. It’s one or the other.”

“But it’s both.”

“No, it’s not.”

“You want me to pick one. I get it. You or the show, but can’t you see I already did? I came here with a plan. A plan for us. Not just me and not just a business. If this was just business, why the hell would I come to Demo, Kansas?”

“Vivvy—”

“I spent a fortune on a lawyer to make sure I could pursue this show without getting sued by Tyson. And it’s not because you’re the only show possibility out there, Nate. It’s because I wanted a reason to be here. To be with you. To find a way we can both have what we want.”

She couldn’t read his expression. Not granite pissed-off anymore, but what? The tension was still there, but the anger simmering off him seemed to dissipate.

“And I never would have come up with the idea without your example, you know. Seeing you, the way this is yours, it made me want something of my own. I just needed a few extra pushes to get there.”

“What if I don’t want a show? Even if it’s the show I agreed to.”

Vivvy took a deep breath. It would set her back. It would suck, but she’d made this gamble knowing that his saying no was a possibility. Loving was a gamble; that’s why she’d avoided it for so long.

She had to believe she could handle it whether it paid off or not. “Then we’ll figure it out. I’ll find a different show to start my business on and…it doesn’t change anything between you and me. I’m still in love with you. I still want to be with you. I didn’t give up my job and my life in LA to not get you out of the deal.”

His jaw hung open for a second. “What do you mean your life in LA?”

“Well, now that I’m in business for myself, I’m not tied to LA. I’ll still have to go there, but with the Internet, I can do most things anywhere. I’d still need to travel and still want to, but I could spend a decent amount of time here. If I did that, we’d have time to really be together.”

She took a deep breath. This was it. Putting it all on the line. “All you need to say is that you love me, that you want me here. We can figure everything else out from there.”

…

Nate tried to wrap his head around everything she was saying. Standing there in his oversized sweats, looking sincere and beautiful and hopeful. So damn hopeful.

His chest constricted. She was giving him everything he wanted. And what did he have to give her? A crappy little town in the middle of Kansas? A crazy family who would always say the wrong thing at the wrong time?

He could give her the show, but somehow that felt so minuscule now. Compared to everything she was ready to give up for him.

Him.

She loved him.

“Why would you want to leave LA? What could living here possibly give you?”

She smiled a little, her hands clasped in front of her. “You.”

Christ. It just about broke him. He crossed over to her, framed her face with his hands, and looked directly into her dark brown eyes. “I love you, Vivvy.” It didn’t feel so scary anymore. “I want you here.” The hurt lifted, vanishing into the smile on her face.

“That’s enough right now, right?”

Enough, maybe, but he wanted to give her more than enough. “You are the calm anchor I’ve always needed. I wanted you here even when I knew I shouldn’t.”

Tears shone in her eyes. “I wanted to be here, too, and I haven’t let myself want to be anywhere in a very long time.”

He pulled back, studying her face. “We’re going to make this work. Your business. My business. Us. Everything.” It wasn’t a question.

“Absolutely,” she replied with a firm nod.

Between the two of them there was enough determination to make it fact.

Epilogue

Vivvy drove through downtown Demo, irritated when she managed to hit the one and only stoplight on red.

She glanced at her phone. She’d met with five potential investors the past three days in LA and had yet to hear anything back. She needed just one to give her some backing. Just one.

And a B-list star or one of those people famous for being famous to be interested. So far she had one former child star on tap, but she needed more than someone no longer relevant. Drumming her fingers on the wheel, she glared at the red light that made no sense since there were no other cars around her.

Her phone buzzed and she glanced at the text message.
Be home by now if you let me fly you.

Vivvy grinned and hit her foot to the accelerator when the light changed to green. Home. She had a home and someone waiting for her there.

Kind of amazing.

When she pulled up to the Harrington parking lot, she let go of the little flutter of panic. Allowing herself to make a home somewhere, to belong somewhere, hadn’t been easy, but she was getting there.

No one could take this away. She got out of the car, straightened her shoulders. Nope, this was hers now.

Hers.

No panic allowed.

She pushed into the main office, her heels clacking on the concrete and echoing in the building. Her heartbeat kicked up. Stupid. She’d been gone four days. It was silly to be excited to be back. Excited to see Nate.

She amped up her pace, and almost ran smack-dab into Ryan.

“Whoa. A little happy to be home, are we?”

Vivvy bit back a smile. She was pretty sure she’d never get tired of the word home. “It’s not half-bad.”

“Hey, I’m glad you’re back, I’ve got to talk to you about this celebrity thing.”

Vivvy nodded, looking past Ryan to the back windows for Nate. “Sure. Sure.”

“Jeez, go make out with my brother first,” he muttered, walking away. “It’ll keep.”

Vivvy was only too happy to do exactly that. She stepped out the back door to the hangars and runway. Nate stood next to a plane, chatting with Bob. He was wearing the jeans, T-shirt, and cowboy boots ensemble she’d first seen him in, with that windswept, sexy air about him.

Her body’s reaction was no different than the first time she’d seen him because, well, yum. But something new filtered in with all that lust.

Love. Connection. Belonging. She was where she belonged.

What an amazing thing to feel and know.

Nate glanced her direction and grinned. He said something to Bob, then walked toward her while the older gentleman climbed into the plane. “There you are.”

“Here I am.”

Without saying anything else, he grabbed her hand, leading her back into the office. And once they were in the building, Nate’s arms came around her waist and his mouth was on hers.

Vivvy melted into the greeting kiss, more than happy to be wrapped up in Nate after a few days away. Who cared if it was in public in broad daylight?

“I missed you,” he murmured against her lips.

Her heart shivered in response. “Missed you, too.” Still a little scary to admit, but she was getting better at it. “Wasn’t that Bob out there? You don’t want to ditch your best customer.” Not that she pushed him away. Instead, she held on.

“He was on his way out. And there are some things that are just a little more important than customers.”

“Really?”

“Mm-hmm.” He gave her a hard peck on the mouth, then released her. “Gotta show you something.”

Vivvy smoothed down her rumpled clothes. “Not the best of come-ons, dear.”

He rolled his eyes, pulled her to the conference room, then looked at her expectantly.

It took a few seconds to realize the sign on the door no longer said
Conference Room
. Instead a new sign read
Vivvy Marsh Productions
. She tried to make sense of it, but couldn’t quite do so.

“Go inside.”

“But—”

He gave her a nudge, so she stepped inside. Instead of the old table and chairs, filing cabinets, and random airport odds and ends, the room was now clean and resembled an office. Desks, computers, a phone. All shiny and new and perfect.

Vivvy had to swallow before she could speak. “You made me an office.”

“Well, gotta keep you here somehow, don’t I?” His arm wound around her waist and he squeezed. “Two desks for when you can afford to bring Ellen on. Like it?”

“Nate, it’s...perfect.” It was embarrassing to feel emotional over a few pieces of furniture shoved into a barely used room. But no one had ever given her anything like this.

“Good.” He kissed her temple, and Vivvy had to swallow again. It took a few minutes to tear her eyes off the area around her, but when she did she met Nate’s gaze.

“Thank you,” she said, letting the emotion she felt show through in her words, in her expression. Also not easy, but something she was working on.

“You’re welcome,” he replied simply, then his hand slid from her waist and entwined with her hand. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

She leaned into him for a second, taking one last look around the office. Her office. “Yes, let’s do exactly that.”

Acknowledgements

Supreme thanks to Elley. I most assuredly would not have attempted or finished this story without your encouragement. Thank you also to Ruth for picking Nate and Vivvy out of the slush and Libby for making their story shine.

As always, I’d be lost without the support my family, especially my always ready to baby-sit in-laws.

About the Author

Nicole Helm grew up with her nose in a book and a dream of becoming a writer. Luckily, after a few failed career choices, a husband, and two kids, she gets to pursue that dream. There is nothing Nicole enjoys more than writing about strong women and the handsome men who win their hearts.

Nicole lives in Missouri with her husband and two sons, and writes her novels one baby’s nap at a time. She’s slightly (okay, totally) addicted to Twitter (@nicolethelm), loves watching the St. Louis Cardinals, and, much to her husband’s dismay, just about any reality competition show.