business beyond shadowing him the past couple of days, an actress of her caliber and popularity had to be overwhelmed with offers and publicity requests from her agent and publicist. He was amazed, actually, that she’d been able to put it all aside to focus on researching her role.
Or, perhaps her taxi was stuck in downtown gridlock.
Or, maybe it was simply that she’d gotten sick of sitting in his meetings and had decided to sleep in rather than beat him to his office for a third day in a row.
He thought about asking Bethany to get in touch with Tatiana, but if she’d decided to blow off shadowing him today, frankly, it should be a relief that she wasn’t here. After all, he’d been more distracted than he wanted to admit. So distracted by Tatiana’s beauty and sweetness and intelligence, in fact, that what had begun as teasing, then turned into laughter, had been teetering on the brink of becoming so much more.
Ian never thought he’d have something to thank Chelsea for, but if she hadn’t barged into his office yesterday, it would have been too damned easy to pull Tatiana against him to finally taste the gorgeous mouth that had been tempting him nearly every waking—and dreaming—moment since he’d met her.
Reminding himself that this was his chance to focus one hundred percent on work again, he stepped into the conference room and began the meeting.
* * *
It wasn’t uncommon for these weekly planning meetings to run from breakfast all the way into the lunch hour. Today, in particular, was bound to be a long one as they prepared to move forward the second Flynn Thomas agreed to the new offer.
Every ounce of Ian’s attention should have been on the information and plans that his executive staff were presenting. But all he’d been able to think about for the past hour and a half was Tatiana.
Damn it, where was she?
He pushed his chair back. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go take care of something. Please continue without me. Bethany, may I speak with you outside for a moment?” The moment they were in the hall, he asked her, “Has Tatiana been in touch yet?”
His assistant frowned. “No, I assumed her plans for the day must have changed, but that she let only you know about it. Would you like me to give her a call to see if I can find out where she is so that you can get back to the meeting?”
He shook his head, knowing he wouldn’t be able to focus on a damned thing until he knew that Tatiana was all right. “I’ll call her myself.”
He wanted to believe it was traffic or work or boredom that had her staying away today, but what if none of those reasons were right? Yesterday afternoon, Tatiana had said, point-blank, that she was falling for him...and in response, he’d not only completely shut her down, he’d also tossed harsh words back at her.
Words he’d regretted the second they were out of his mouth.
Ian cursed as he headed into his office then pulled out his cell phone and scrolled through his contacts list for her number. Even if she was upset with him, he still hoped she would pick up, if only to reassure him that she was fine…or to tell him exactly what she thought of him being such a jerk to her. Then again, he thought as he realized a strange buzzing was coming from the cushions of his couch, he simply couldn’t imagine Tatiana snapping at him, even if she was angry.
What he could still see clearly, however, was the fire—and the hurt—that had flashed through her eyes when he’d told her to forget about the two of them ever acting on their attraction.
Moving toward his couch, he hung up on her voice mail and hit the Call Again button. Moments later, when the buzzing started up again, he reached between the cushions and pulled out her phone.
She’d told him she was messy. Now he was starting to get a sense of just how far that messiness extended, if she’d managed to lose her phone in his office during the few minutes they’d actually been able to spend there the day before.
Ian put her phone in his pocket and stopped at his assistant’s desk. “I need to head out for a while.”
“Is everything okay? Where is Tatiana?”
Clearly, she was now as concerned as he was about the beautiful actress they’d both spent so many hours with in