Chapter Nineteen
After kissing Maisie goodnight, Anna almost ran down the stairs, the jitters, the doubts of the previous evening a distant memory.
She knew how she wanted this day to end. This incredible day, which had brought so much laughter, so much happiness for her daughter and for herself. Feeling the flutters of excitement, she walked into the sitting room.
And found Dan with his head resting against the back of the sofa, eyes closed. Her stomach dipped in disappointment.
But then his lids slowly raised and those bright blue orbs turned her way. ‘Hey. Is Maisie okay?’
‘She’s fine. Fast asleep already.’ She smiled at the glasses on the coffee table, the bottle of whisky and red wine. ‘This feels like déjà vu.’
‘Sorry. I wasn’t sure whether you fancied a drink, or if you just wanted to head straight to bed.’ When she arched her brow, he laughed. ‘Your own bed, though obviously mine is totally at your disposal.’
‘A glass of red would be nice.’ As she had yesterday, she curled up on the sofa next to him.
But tonight felt different. She wasn’t worried about what might or might not happen when they went upstairs.
The worst had already happened. Last night she’d tried to seduce him, made a total fool out of herself by following that up with crying, freezing on him and finally falling asleep on him.
Yet still he was looking at her as if he wanted nothing more than to try it all again.
Unbidden, a bubble of laughter shot out of her.
He halted part-way through pouring her wine. ‘Something funny?’
‘No.’ She bit into her lip, trying to stem the giggles. When he cocked his head and continued to look at her, she gave up. ‘Okay, I was thinking how brave you must be to offer me your bed after the shambles of last night.’
He handed her the glass of wine, angling his body so he could look directly at her. ‘We have different memories of last night.’ His eyes tracked downwards. ‘I remember a gorgeous woman, with an amazing figure, snuggling up to me.’
A deep flush of pleasure stole through her and Anna smiled over at him. ‘God, you’re good for my ego.’
He laughed. ‘You’re good for me, too.’
‘I hardly think you need me to tell you how gorgeous you are. There are plenty of women out there doing that already.’
He sighed, his face becoming pensive. ‘That’s the trouble with this industry.
So much emphasis on looks, as if nothing else matters.
’ His eyes caught hers. ‘What I meant was, you’re good for me, not my ego.
It was you who gave me the confidence to fight to see Max again.
And then today.’ He shook his head. ‘I was a nightmare. So tense, so worried about getting him to like me, I forgot the important part. That he’s my son.
’ He smiled. ‘It took you telling me I was being scary to calm me down and connect with him in the way I used to.’
‘I’m glad I was able to help, but you’d have got there without me.’ She took a sip of the wine. ‘How did it go, dropping him off?’
‘He was a bit quiet when it was just the two of us again, but it wasn’t strained like before.
’ He swirled the whisky around in his glass, seeming to gather his thoughts.
‘I know I can’t expect miracles, not after letting him down so much over the last year, but I hope one day he’ll hug me again, like he used to. ’
‘He will.’ She squeezed his arm. ‘I saw the way he looked at you, Dan. That boy loves you. He just needs to know you’re not going to disappear on him again.’
‘Never.’ His face looked fiercely determined. ‘I won’t let Natalie manipulate me like she did before.’
‘Have you agreed when you’ll get to see Max again?’
‘Yes, she needs me to pick him up from school on Monday, which is a bonus, and then I’ll take him out again next weekend.
’ He let out a low laugh. ‘You know she’s been so different recently than she was a year, hell, even six months ago?
Back then she didn’t want me seeing him.
She’d cancel my visits at the last minute, then not get in contact with me about the next visit.
Eventually she managed to convince me I wasn’t welcome, which became a truth the longer it went between Max and I seeing each other.
She even told the press I wasn’t a regular feature in her son’s life, even though she knew damn well she’d been the cause of it.
Tonight though, it almost felt like she wants me to take Max out. ’
Anna smiled. ‘That’s good.’ She was pretty sure she knew what had changed in Natalie’s life but figured it was best for him to find out for himself. It wasn’t the role of a potential . . . lover, fling? Whatever she might end up being, it wasn’t her place to interfere.
‘Yes, it is.’
He smiled back and she felt an answering tingle throughout her body. Enjoying the anticipation of what might happen when they finished their drinks, she took another slow sip of wine. ‘While you were picking up Max this morning, I read the Christmas play. Or I should say The Play About a Nativity.’
‘Sid sent it to you?’
‘He did. Along with a note stating—’ she mimed quotation marks — ‘he “approved” it.’
Dan let out a crack of laughter. ‘Wow, I’m honoured.’
‘You should be. Sid would have no reservations about telling me it was crap if he thought it was.’
‘True.’ He paused, and if she didn’t know him as this bold, confident actor, she’d have said he appeared hesitant. As if afraid to ask the next question. ‘What did you think?’
She wondered about teasing him, but he didn’t look like he’d appreciate it. ‘I thought it was so good the person who wrote it must have experience in writing plays.’
His smile lit up his face, crinkling the edges of his eyes, and taking her breath away with the beauty of it. ‘That’s outrageous flattery, but I’ll take it, thank you.’
‘Have you written things before?’
He laughed. ‘I’d have been a bit stupid to offer to write your play if I hadn’t.’
‘Stupid, or very cocky.’
He looked affronted. ‘You’re saying you thought I was cocky enough to think because I could act, I could write, too?’
She smiled into her wine glass. ‘This from the man who told me he’d write me the best Christmas play the school had ever put on.’
He winced. ‘Shit, did I really say that?’ But then he knocked back his whisky and grinned. ‘Not that I was wrong.’
She rolled her eyes at him. ‘So what else have you written?’
He carefully put down his glass. ‘Nothing much.’ His shrug was dismissive.
‘I’ve always enjoyed writing. Thought I’d do that instead of acting at one point, but my parents were actors so, unfairly I admit, I was given auditions, and then parts.
The writing got forgotten. I picked it up again on Love Surgery, writing a few episodes towards the end.
’ He gave her a sheepish smile. ‘I do have the best movie script ever written, lying on a USB stick somewhere.’
She goggled at him. ‘Seriously, you’ve written a whole movie and you haven’t done anything with it?’
‘I may have been exaggerating when I said best ever written.’
‘How do you know, if you’ve not shown it to anyone?’
‘I showed it to my manager, Pete.’
‘And?’
Dan couldn’t believe how interested Anna looked.
Either she was a better actor than he was, or she genuinely wanted to know about the screenplay he’d written in the empty evenings following his divorce.
But as flattered as he was, and as touched, he didn’t want to discuss it.
The script he’d written for a movie about an acting dynasty — yes, he’d got the idea from his own family, no, it wasn’t autobiographical — wasn’t something anyone, other than Pete, knew about.
And that was deliberate, because he felt embarrassed, uncomfortable, talking about it.
He was just another dumb actor who thought he could write.
Except that wasn’t quite the case, because he’d wanted to write before he’d gone into acting. And Pete, who was admittedly his friend, and also admittedly didn’t have a huge amount of experience with screenplays, had told him he thought it had real potential.
‘And?’ Anna repeated.
Damn, she was probably thinking he was gearing up to say something profound. ‘And, Pete thought the screenplay needed more work.’ His gaze dropped to the now empty glass in her hand. ‘Would you like a top up?’
She shook her head, and anticipation flooded through him.
Quickly followed by a ripple of doubt. Was she on the same page as him?
When he’d offered his bed, she hadn’t said no, but she hadn’t said yes, either.
And while he wasn’t usually backwards in coming forward, with Anna he didn’t feel on firm ground.
Should he simply take matters into his own hands and kiss her, so she was left in no doubt where he stood?
Or was that pushing himself onto a woman whose reactions last night suggested she wasn’t ready for a physical relationship with him yet?
He cleared his throat. ‘Would you like to come upstairs with me?’
Her smile reached deep into her eyes. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’
Desire coursed through him and he jumped to his feet, reaching for her hand. But then he realised he still wasn’t absolutely clear what she was saying yes to. ‘Can we just clarify what we’re doing when we get up the stairs?’
Anna halted, biting into her bottom lip. ‘Don’t tell me playboy actor Daniel Ramsey needs a set of instructions to follow. Perhaps for me to draw him a diagram?’
‘I told you before, the playboy tag is totally undeserved.’ His flow halted when he saw the laughter shining in her eyes.
‘Okay, very funny,’ he muttered, still slightly put out not only with the label, but with his piss-poor seduction technique.
‘I’m usually a lot better than this,’ he added as he tugged her up the stairs. ‘Smoother, classier.’
‘I’m sure you are.’ When they reached his room she turned, her hands coming to rest either side of his face, her eyes looking straight into his. ‘But it’s this version of you I want to go to bed with. The real, honest version.’
‘Yeah? Even though he’s so terrified he’ll cock this up, his pulse is racing like the clappers?’
Her right hand dropped down to rest over the heart he could feel pounding beneath his ribs. Arousal, excitement, desire, nerves. He was in adrenaline overload.
She smiled before bringing his hand onto her chest, where beneath the lush curve of her breast he could feel her heart beating far steadier than his.
‘You’re not nervous?’
Her hair, the waves loose over her shoulders, rippled as she shook her head. ‘Nope.’
And that was all he needed. She wanted this, she was ready. ‘Then be warned, I’m about to kiss the living daylights out of you.’
He dipped his head, his mouth finding hers, tasting, nibbling, enjoying. A hint of raspberry from the wine, and chocolate from the mints they’d eaten after their meal. But most of all, she tasted of joy, of laughter, of happiness.
In no time he had her in his bed, and this time she was fully naked. And this time, as his hands caressed the silk of her skin, he knew the only man she was thinking of was him.
‘Dan.’ His name on her lips as he drove them both mad for a while, kissing her breasts, the softness of her stomach.
‘Oh, Dan.’ She gasped his name as he slowly entered her, gazing into his eyes.
‘More, Dan, more.’ He gave her everything he could, revelling in the noises she made, the unbridled passion of her expression, the way her hands gripped his buttocks.
‘Dan.’ His name as a strangled moan as she came.