Take On Me

His momentary preoccupation had given her time to regroup, and there was no doubt or embarrassment in her eyes now.

“I’ve got notes for you on last week’s block,” she said, crossing to the coffee machine to collect a mug. “Nothing major, just a few continuity issues we need to clear up.”

Dylan waited for her to say anything more, like maybe comment on the high tension in the stories they’d crafted last week, or the powerful emotion of Friday’s cliff-hanger moment—a tear-jerker if ever he’d plotted one. But she didn’t. In fact, she appeared to have said all she was going to as she poured milk into her coffee, apparently supremely unaware of him standing there staring at her, willing her to say more.

“No problems with the Friday cliff-hanger moment?” he asked, immediately kicking himself for fishing. He didn’t need her approval.

She eyed him blandly, not giving him an inch. “It was fine. I expect you’ll be picking it up for Monday’s episode?” she asked.

Fine? His cliff-hanger was going to have fans screaming at the TV set, and she thought it was fine? Dylan clenched his hand on his satchel but deliberately matched her innocuous tone.

“We can discuss it in the pitch meeting at ten,” he said.

She obviously didn’t like the fact that he hadn’t answered her directly. He saw anger flash behind her velvet eyes, but she quickly put her mask back in place.

“It will certainly be interesting to see what you’ve come up with,” she said.

He didn’t miss the challenge in her words. Interesting, his ass. She planned to make this as hard for him as possible. Last week’s pitch meeting had been a polite standoff, but they’d only been warming up. Now, with a full week of push-and-shove behind them, he knew the gloves would be off. He found himself grinning. There was nothing he liked more than rising to a challenge.

“I’m all for interesting,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes at him again, then picked her coffee up decisively.

“I don’t want to keep you from your work,” she said, moving off.

His eyes instinctively dropped to her butt as she walked away, mapping her sweet curves and the lean muscles of her thighs. The surge of renewed desire in his groin annoyed him so much that he called out after her. She was not going to get the better of him, even if her miniskirt was doing most of her dirty work at present.

“Actually, I wanted to have a word,” he said.

She hesitated for a second, then turned back to him.

“Sure. In my office,” she said smoothly.

He followed her with his eyes for a moment more before starting after her. Grudgingly he admitted to himself that she had one of the sexiest damn walks he’d ever seen.

She was sliding into her seat behind her desk when he entered. It was obvious she expected him to take the subordinate’s chair opposite. Instead, he tossed his satchel onto it and took up a position leaning on her filing cabinet, more than aware that she was at a disadvantage with him looming over her.

He could see the exact moment she understood her little ploy to undermine him with office geography had failed. He didn’t even try to repress the cocky grin that curved his lips. As long as he could keep his unruly gonads under control, he was going to enjoy poking a stick at Sadie as often as possible over the next six months.

“How can I help you?” she asked, tilting her head back to look up at him.

His grin widened at her phrasing. As if he was going to let her help him.

“I wanted to discuss the idea of doing a feature-length episode during our peak viewing time over winter to capitalize on the audience. It’s a concept a few of the European and Australian soaps have had a lot of success with,” he said.

She frowned. “You’ve been doing your homework.”

He shrugged. “Ocean Boulevard has a reputation for taking risks. I’m surprised you haven’t gone down this route already.”

She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it with a click. Clearly frustrated, she swiveled her chair to face him more squarely and crossed her legs.

“The idea has been floated a number of times, but the previous producer wasn’t keen. Claudia is more openminded, however.”

He could see it was killing her to give him even that much information. If he wasn’t mistaken, the only thing she wanted to tell him was how far to shove his head up his own butt.

“Great. Let’s pitch the idea to her,” he said.

“Not yet. This is only your third week, Dylan.”

“So?”

“You’ll have enough on your plate just getting up to speed. Taking on a feature-length episode on top of that would be foolhardy.”

He straightened with annoyance.

“I’ll cope. I think we should do this. Or don’t you want the ratings?” he challenged.

She uncrossed her legs and his eyes fell to skim their tanned length.

“Our ratings are the best they’ve been in ten years,” she said coolly.

“So you’re happy to rest on your laurels, is that it? Don’t want to push to the next level?” He made it sound like an idle question, but they both knew he was goading her.

“We start plotting the winter blocks in five weeks’ time. That’s not long enough for you to get a grip on the show, the characters and the team, let alone be ready to tackle a feature- length episode on top of the normal workload. You’ve never had to produce this volume of story week-in, week-out in your career before. I think you should be careful not to bite off more than you can chew.”

Dylan swallowed a four-letter word. She looked so prissy, sitting there with her back straight and her knees pressed together. Even the plumpness of her full bottom lip had disappeared as she fed him her uptight little diatribe. This was the girl he remembered from American Lit—the girl who always had to be right and always had to have the teacher’s attention.

“You sure your problem with this isn’t that it’s not your idea?” he asked.

“Very,” she said succinctly. “I’m also sure that I don’t need to justify my decisions to you, hard as that may be for your ego to comprehend.”

Dylan smirked. “I don’t have ego problems, sweetheart. I know exactly what I’m worth.”

“Do you? I didn’t know you were such a pragmatist.”

His smirk turned into a grin. He was enjoying himself.

“I’m going to pitch my idea to Claudia, see what she thinks,” he said.

That got her goat. She surged to her feet in one lithe move, body tense as she leaned toward him for emphasis.

“Don’t even think about it. You’ve had my answer. Learn to live with it. Once you’ve found your feet, we can talk again.”

“I don’t need to find my feet,” he said through clenched teeth.

She snatched a copy of last week’s block from her desk. Dozens of Post-it flags bristled from the side of the document, a testament to how many changes she wanted made.

“Are you really so arrogant that you think you can walk onto a show that’s been running for over fifteen years with multiple, complex story lines and back-stories and think you’ve got it whipped in a couple of weeks?”