Triple Threat

She stabbed a finger at Ethan’s chest to make some particularly passionate point. The movement thrust those delectable breasts out farther.

Oh, yeah. She’d grown up, all right. But what was she doing here? She seemed awfully familiar with the director. His assistant, maybe?

He eased himself into a chair and reached for the pitcher of ice water at the center of the table. As he did, the cover of his script, and the name of the author inscribed across it, caught his eye.

H. N. Ryan.

And then it hit him. Ted had introduced her as Holly Ryan. Holly was the playwright. Holly Nelson Ryan.

“Why don’t we all sit down and get things rolling.” Judith’s sharp Brooklyn accent jolted Nick back to the conference room. “Colleen,” she continued, turning to a pretty blonde lurking by the door, “why don’t you get Holly a copy of the script. She can—”

“Read the role of the wife,” Ted finished for Judith. She frowned and pulled out a chair at the end of the table, as far from her husband as possible. “Wonderful.”

“Of course.” The blonde disappeared momentarily, then returned with script in hand. “Here you are, Mrs. Ryan.”

Shit.

She was married. Sweet little Holly Nelson, the object of some of his hottest adolescent fantasies, was Mrs. Holly Ryan. Wife. Playwright. Maybe even mother.

Tony award and Spielberg film be damned, there was no way in hell he could work side by side with Holly for months on end, all the while silently lusting after her. Or maybe not so silently, he thought. He watched her smile as she took the script from Colleen, the tip of her tongue darting out to swipe her lips. He bit back a groan at the unconsciously erotic gesture.

This play already had two strikes against it as far as Nick was concerned. He hadn’t been onstage in years, and he had dyslexia. He’d need to be completely focused to pull it off. No distractions. And Holly had distraction written all over her—untouchable, unattainable distraction.

He eyed Garrett sitting next to him. There was no way around it. His agent would have to learn to live with the disappointment.

“Nick.” Ethan took a seat across the table. “I understand you and Holly go way back.” Ethan winced and frowned at Holly in the chair to his left. She returned his grimace with a smirk, and Nick was pretty sure she’d just kicked the director under the table. What exactly was their relationship, anyway?

“Yes. We grew up together in Stockton, Connecticut.” The big dumb jock and the cute little honors student. “Just outside New Haven.”

“Well,” Ted said. “That makes this even better.” He paused and looked around the table for dramatic effect. “Let’s start with act one, scene two, the argument at the dinner table.”

Holly’s face reddened and she ducked her head, frantically turning the pages of her script. “Of course.”

Fuck. Getting out of this was going to be harder than he thought.

“Actually, Ted, I—”

“Nick,” Garrett interrupted, glaring at him, “would be happy to—”

“What I’m trying to say,” Nick said, glaring right back, “is that I’m sorry I wasted your time, but I don’t think this project’s right for me.” He stood, leaving his script on the table, and risked one last glance at Holly. Damn, she looked fine. Good enough to eat, starting with those lush lips and working his way down, inch by glorious inch. “It was nice seeing you, Holly. Good luck with...everything.”

He strode to the door, barely registering Garrett’s song and dance of apologies in the wake of his startling announcement. The guy was a hustler, he’d give him that. But no amount of hustling was going to change Nick’s mind. He’d just have to find another way to redefine his career and impress Spielberg. One that didn’t involve the very diverting—and very married—Holly Nelson Ryan.

* * *

“NO, NO, A THOUSAND times no!” Holly paced the length of the conference room, now empty except for her and Ethan.

He leaned forward in his chair, elbows on the table, hands steepled under his chin. “You heard Ted and Judith. No Nick, no show. They’ve got a group of private investors lined up, but before they cough up any dough they want to see Nick signed on the dotted line.”

“Why Nick?” Holly whined, still pacing. “Can’t we just get another star?”

Ethan lifted a shoulder. “Guess my sales pitch was a little too convincing.”

“Then why me?” She couldn’t do what they were asking. It was too risky. “Why can’t you persuade him? You brought him here. Or Ted? Or Judith?”

Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Because Nick wasn’t looking at me or Ted or Judith like he wanted to throw us onto the conference table and go all caveman.”

That stopped Holly in her tracks. “You are majorly delusional. He barely glanced my way.”

She, on the other hand, hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him from the moment she’d walked in the door. His presence had seemed to take up the whole room. She’d seen one or two of his movies. Okay, she’d seen them all multiple times, and owned the DVDs. But that hadn’t even remotely prepared her for Nick Damone, live, in person and sexy as sin.

He had those mocha eyes, as dark and smoky as she remembered but even more intense, more penetrating. When she was able to break free from their strange, hypnotic spell, her addled brain registered a scraggly beard and moustache, probably grown for his last picture. Sprinkled with silver, they highlighted his strong jaw, making him appear, if possible, even more masculine. One lock of hair had flopped temptingly across his brow, and she’d longed to reach up—way up, given the difference in their heights—and brush it back.

And that was just his face. As for his body...

Yowza.

He’d always been tall, but the lean, athletic boy she remembered had filled out and become a hard, muscular, mouthwateringly beautiful man. His dress shirt clung to his biceps and broad chest, falling loosely over what she knew must be washboard abs. Well-worn jeans rode low on his hips and molded to his powerful thighs and taut, trim butt. She’d tried—but failed—not to notice how they cupped certain other areas as well.

Ethan pushed his chair back from the table and walked over to her. “You’re wrong, Holls. The sexual tension in the room was off the charts from the second you laid eyes on each other. And it definitely wasn’t a one-way street.”

“So what are you saying? You want me to seduce him into taking the part?”

“No. Of course not.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “We want you to talk to him. Just talk. It’s obvious you two have some sort of connection. He’ll listen to you.”

She shook his hand off. “I can’t believe you’re asking me to do this. After the way you sandbagged me! I should be mad at you, you know. Strike that. I am mad at you.”

“You know if I had told you it was Nick, you would have flipped out.”

“I would not have.”

“Then why are you flipping out now? So you had a crush on him as a kid. Big deal. It’s ancient history.” He paused, his eyes narrowing. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me...”

“No.” She resisted the urge to check her nose to see if it was growing after that whopper. “I just don’t know what I can say that will convince him to take this part.”

“Tell him what you told me when I came on as director. That you wrote The Lesser Vessel because you want to help other women in the same situation find the courage to get the hell out.”

Courage. Hah. What did she know about courage?

“Please, Holls,” Ethan begged, blessedly interrupting the dark turn of her thoughts. “It’s our best chance of getting this show off the ground.”

“You want me to admit he’d be playing my ex-husband? Blurt out my whole sordid life story?”

“Okay, skip that part. But let him know how important the message of this show is. Not just to you but to the whole production team. We believe in you and your play, Holly. He will, too, if you give him the chance.”

“Well, when you put it that way...” She took a deep breath, then blew it out loudly through pursed lips. “Fine. I’ll go.”

“And if the subject of your past relationship comes up...”