CHAPTER EIGHT
Flynn, with two of the dogs, trailed behind Sami through the lobby. The atrium bar was full; the night was young in Music City. A brunette in Armani gave him a smile. She looked vaguely familiar. Flynn flashed a grin in response and kept moving on. Who knew? Maybe he’d slept with her. Maybe not. But definitely not someone he needed to start a conversation with right now.
Sami’s rounded bottom, beautifully detailed in her short shorts, led him to the elevator. A man in a cowboy hat paused to compliment her on the Corgi and Flynn almost bumped into Sami just as he saw Cowboy pass her a business card.
Cowboy moved on.
Sami stepped into the elevator.
So close.
Flynn had been so close.
He and the dogs stepped in beside them.
So close to taking what he had no right to take.
Sami, hopeless romantic, wanted the ring on the finger, the baby car seat, and the happily-ever-after.
The brunette back in the bar, now she was fair game.
Sami Pepper was not.
Flynn leaned his head against the elevator interior and smacked it. Once. Twice. Three times.
“One concussion is not enough to satisfy you?” Sami had her head tipped to one side, studying him coolly.
“Not enough to teach me a lesson.”
“Oh?” She sounded politely interested. Somehow he’d offended her and he didn’t think it was the sexual contact before the Corgi intervention that bothered her. It was something he’d said. And said wrong. Not that it truly mattered. What mattered was getting the hell out of her life.
The car halted. Doors opened. Sami moved then pulled back. Of course the Corgi barked as a man Flynn recognized as a Billboard Top 50 performer stepped into the car. Oddly enough, he was traveling without his usual retinue. The rugged singer, famous for his country love songs, gave Sami a long, slow smile and a once-over that started at her lips, lingered on her breasts, and stripped her of her shorts.
Sami studied him, her head still tipped to one side. Flynn suppressed a grin as he imagined what type of analysis Sami was mentally conducting.
“That is one fine-looking Welsh Pembroke Corgi,” the singer said.
“Thank you,” Sami said.
The singer sidled closer. “I could use a dog like that in my next video.”
Ruby barked.
“Have your people call my people,” the singer said. “Do you sing, darling?”
“I am a professor,” Sami said.
“Now isn’t that a shame,” the singer said. “Never made it past ninth grade myself.” He reached out and touched the ends of her hair. “I could make you a star.”
Flynn couldn’t stand it another second. “She’s not interested.”
Sami glared at him. “That conclusion may be 100% accurate but it is not your conclusion to make.”
“This your filly?” The singer took a step back.
Flynn nodded.
Sami shook her head no. “And I, sir, am not a horse. I am a tenure-track professor of philosophy—“
The car stopped on their floor. Flynn nodded at the singer and hustled Sami and the dogs out of the elevator.
“Jesus,” he said. “Don’t you recognize when a man is flirting with you just to flirt? Just relax, give him an eyelash flutter or two, and if you’re not interested, be on your way. No, you have to start preaching and pronouncing those convoluted sentences of yours. How in the hell do you expect to get a husband that way? Even if a guy wanted to ask you out, he’d run the hell away.”
Sami fixed him with those gorgeous green eyes. They showed hurt. “You weren’t exactly running away from me earlier.”
“No, I wasn’t.” Flynn strode toward the doors to their suite, practically dragging the two dogs. He opened the door and waited for Sami and Ruby to enter, then followed and slammed the door. “Okay, you win. I seduced you. I lost the wager. Tell me what you wrote down for your prize. I’ll get it for you and get out of your life.”
“Aha. You were not simply attempting to comfort me.” She looked triumphant. The hurt had fled from her eyes.
“No. Yes.” Flynn removed the dogs’ leashes. “What the hell difference does it make?”
Sami flicked the business card from the stranger in the lobby against her thigh. “I have not had the proper amount of time to analyze my response to your question.”
“When you finish running your computer program through your brain, you can let me know.” Flynn kicked off his shoes and dropped onto the loveseat. Then he jumped up and settled onto one of the chairs.
Sami sat on the edge of the loveseat. She sensed Flynn was angry but she couldn’t understand why. Possibly not getting what he wanted—fleeting sexual satisfaction—from her. Possibly that he was stuck with her and the dogs when he could be out scoring with some other willing female.
“Who was the dude who gave you the business card?”
“I don’t know.” Sami held the card out to Flynn. “I didn’t bother reading it.”
Flynn took the card. Gave a low whistle.
Sami looked her question.
“He owns more radio stations than anyone else in this region,” Flynn said. “You could do worse, Sami Pepper.”
“What has he got to do with me?”
Flynn scowled at her. “I thought you wanted a husband.”
“Of course,” Sami said. “Do you think that man was interested in asking me on a date?”
“Why do you think he gave you his card?”
“But I don’t know anything about radio. I’d have to do a lot of research and right now I have other things to process. Such as finding a place to live for the summer.”
Flynn groaned. “You don’t need to do research to call a guy and meet up for a drink.”
“Oh, I do,” Sami said.
“Sweet stuff, go find that Ziploc and show me what you want for your prize. Then I’m going to bed.”
“Of course you are,” Sami said. “Rest is the most important means of recovery from a concussion.” She headed into the bedroom where the bellboy had left her luggage. She located the plastic bag. As she turned away from the bed, she caught her image in the mirror.
She really didn’t look like her usual self. Her lips were puffy and pouty and her hair was disheveled, but in a pretty way, as if a sexy man had been running his hands through it, pulling her close. Her shirt was unbuttoned halfway down her cleavage and she hadn’t bothered donning the bikini top before running down with the dogs.
Sami gave a shy smile at the woman in the mirror.
She felt wild and free and not at all professorial.
She stuck her tongue out and sashayed back to the parlor.
Flynn had moved to the loveseat. He sat stretched out, with his arms raised, cradling his head with his hands. He was whistling a plaintive tune. The dogs had settled down. Sami sat next to him, carefully not touching him. She opened the Ziploc and handed him her square of paper. She was curious as to what he’d written, but since he’d lost, she wasn’t sure whether she had a right to inquire.
“Good times,” Flynn said.
“Excuse me?”
“That’s what I wrote down as my prize. I could tell you were dying to know so there, I told you.”
“I do not understand how you reach these conclusions,” Sami said.
Flynn unfolded the square she’d handed him.
He gazed at it, over at her, and again at the paper. Slowly, he folded it in half. Then in half again. And again. And once more. He reached for her hand, turned it palm up, placed the tiny square in the middle and squeezed her fingers close around it. “Someone else will have to give you that prize, Sweet Stuff,” he said softly.
He stood up. “Good night, Sami,” he said and disappeared into the bedroom on the other side of the parlor.
Sami sat there with the scrap of paper, fingering it. Of course she knew what she’d written. In all capitals. Boldly. As if writing it down could make it happen.
TRUE LOVE.
What had possessed her to put her deepest feelings on that scrap of paper? It was only the night before, not quite twenty-four hours, but since the moment she’d walked into the Lawrence Enterprises office seeking Sean and found Flynn instead, nothing in her world felt the same. Sitting here in Flynn’s suite watching as he read what she’d written for her prize was the most vulnerable moment she could remember.
So much more naked than freezing in a piano recital. More needy. Pathetic.
Sami dashed a hand across her eyes. How utterly embarrassing to have laid herself open to a stranger.
Only Flynn didn’t feel like a stranger.
But Flynn was right. He wasn’t the man to deliver True Love.
She could hear him now, barking orders, it sounded like. He must be catching up on the backload of the day’s work. She could do that, too. Pull out her notes on her AI review of literature.
Shelby snored softly. Sami sighed and walked over to the rug, where all three dogs had curled up. She could hear Flynn’s voice, softer now, laughing, coaxing, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. Which was appropriate, of course. She had no right or need to eavesdrop. Somehow it comforted her to hear him in the other room. She kicked off her shoes, pulled a cushion from the loveseat and curled up with her dogs.
Flynn handled his West Coast calls first. Throwing his mind into catching up on the work day helped him feel more normal.
And normal was the opposite of what he was experiencing.
Sami, delicious, adorable, enticing Sami Pepper was on the other side of his door, across the parlor, and no doubt by now snuggled up in a way-too-empty king-size bed. He could have her. He knew it as well as he knew his name. Look how she’d melted on the loveseat. Before the damn Corgi had interrupted.
Not damn.
Lifesaving.
Flynn answered several texts.
Yeah, lifesaving Corgi, interrupting just when Flynn would have darn well taken what he knew he shouldn’t touch. Any woman who ached for true love the way Sami did should not fall prey to a love -‘em-and-leave -‘em guy.
Flynn played with other players.
It was the way of his world.
Sami was sweet and vulnerable and hurting from the shock of her parents essentially tossing her out onto the streets of Music City. Telling her they’d provided for her without making a place for her dogs was not only insensitive, but useless. ‘Course, he’d asked her only that morning if she was taking the dogs on the road with her.
But that had been this morning.
A day ago.
A lifetime ago.
Flynn answered a few more texts.
Maybe it was the concussion. He wasn’t thinking clearly. But he wanted to help Sami achieve her goal.
Or maybe he wanted to make damn sure she fell in love with a decent, honorable, marrying kind of guy so he’d be forced to get that hot body, those sweet lips, and that annoying preachy way of talking she had out of his mind.
He glanced at his wrist watch. Cameron would still be on the set at the New Orleans location. Jonni and the kids would be en route to L.A. As soon as he could reach either one of them, he’d let them know what he thought of their scheming ways.
Flynn was no fool. He knew Jonni and Cameron wanted him to quit playing the field. Find their kind of happiness.
Flynn thought of his in absentia father and scowled.
A call came through from his Nashville office. Thankfully, his assistant there confirmed the new time for his postponed CMT meeting. The assistant was about to ring off and head home after a very long day, when Flynn had his brainstorm about how to help Sami out of her housing predicament.
He assigned his assistant the task of finding the answer to his question, an answer he wanted as soon as possible.
Flynn tossed his phone onto the bed and eyed the door that led to the rest of the suite. “You will not go out there,” he said, half in his head and half aloud. He dragged his shirt over his head and draped it across a chair, thinking he might need it during the night if one of the dogs needed to go out. Did the same with his pants.
“Ridiculous,” he muttered and climbed into bed. It was way too early. He shifted on the mattress and sank his head into the pillow, surprised just how good it felt to lie down and do nothing. Maybe Sami was right about him needing extra rest after a concussion. Well, it wouldn’t hurt him, and since he was in this big bed all alone, he might as well make the most of it.
He tugged one of the pillows into the curve of his arm. The damn pillow was a lousy consolation prize. He punched it once, and once again. He had no business picturing Sami curled up next to him. Sami wasn’t a woman for a man like Flynn.
She deserved much, much better.