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