Meet Cute (Love, Camera, Action #5) - Elise Faber Page 0,27

smiled gently when she nodded.

It was harder to force my hand to drop, to make my feet carry me back, carry me away from her and out the door of the bathroom, across to my closet to get some clothes on—no need to scar Maggie twice in one day.

And then I had to keep forcing them to move out into the hall, and then to the kitchen, where my lovely, beautiful, scowling publicist was standing next to the island, her arms crossed, her toe tapping on the ground, as I closed the distance between us.

One finger poked into my chest. Hard.

“What in the fuck do you think you’re doing, Talbot Green?”

Chapter Twelve

Tammy

For fuck’s sake.

I was waffling more than a . . . well, a waffle.

One second, I was critically embarrassed, ready to run (not screaming) from this house and get the fuck back to my own life, one that was far, far away from all things Talbot Green related.

And the next—

“What, Tammy?” I muttered, shampooing my hair with a product that looked like it would cost more than my car—and that was just the sample size. “Because the truth is that you got all squishy and happy, and your spine turned to Jell-O when the man got a little flustered.” I shoved my hair into the stream. “Because he wanted to take care of you.”

Look, I got it, okay?

That was my weak spot. I’d always been the one to do the caring, and when someone wanted to look out for me for a change (something that never happened—okay, something that had perhaps happened a half-dozen times, all courtesy of my asshole ex-husband), I went all gooey inside.

Stupid, huh?

More capital S.

Sighing, knowing it was only a matter of time before I headed over the cliff to absolute heartbreak, I decided that I was just going back to that fantasy.

Talbot was guy number twenty.

And it had been fabulous.

Now, I was ready to exit Stage Right.

“Exactly, Tam,” I said, smoothing some luxurious conditioner into my hair. It felt like the expensive stuff my hairdresser used on my bi-annual appointments, the stuff I never splurged for because I spent ninety percent of my life with my hair wrestled back into a ponytail or bun, and the other ten letting it air dry straight out of the shower. It was drugstore shampoo and conditioner, all the way, no matter how much she tried to convince me to treat my hair to something special.

I didn’t even treat myself with something special.

Why would I binge on my hair?

“Maybe I should steal the container,” I muttered. “Ferret it into my pocket and slip out the front door with it.”

I wouldn’t do that. Of course, I wouldn’t (maybe). But I wanted to (definitely). No, no. I wouldn’t. It would be wrong, and Talbot had been nice, and even though I wanted to jump on the man like a monkey, to beg for another round of orgasms, I knew that I wouldn’t survive a second interlude.

The man had already reduced me to goo almost effortlessly.

“I thought that stealing and illicit drugs are right up there together on the list of bad things bad guys do.”

I froze, having been almost mesmerized by the feel of my ends after I’d rinsed out the conditioner. They were softer than I’d ever felt before, and maybe my hairdresser wasn’t just trying to hawk me expensive product after all.

Talbot’s voice was . . . a warm blanket, the sunshine coating my skin on a warm summer day. It was—hell, it was amused and laced with a little bit of heat, and it was the absolute sexiest thing I’d ever heard. It was also something that I shouldn’t be hearing.

Because the man had promised he wouldn’t look.

“You said you wouldn’t,” I exclaimed.

“Tammy—”

“How typical,” I muttered, both to remind myself that this was my common experience with men—that they didn’t keep their commitments—“of a man to not follow through.” Also, maybe I wanted to push him away. Just a little bit. No, I wanted to push him so far that he realized now what he would realize eventually.

That he didn’t have any interest in sticking by one Tammy Conners.

It was as simple as that.

Which was to say, it wasn’t simple at all.

Such an idiot. Why had I decided to embrace the fantasy?

Stupid. Capital S.

“Tammy.”

“Promises are so easy to make,” I grumbled, shutting off the water and cracking the door to the steam shower I really didn’t want to get out of. I hadn’t had a chance to