5

THEY LAY IN BED, SAM stroking her silky hair. He felt like a teenager again, his body sated yet energized. Mercedes curled up against him, where she belonged, her eyes drifting closed as she fought sleep.

Sam pressed a kiss against her forehead.

“If I die tonight, I think I should tell you where my important documents are.”

One eye opened and she looked at him. “Why are you telling me this? You aren’t going to die. That’s incredibly morbid.”

“I’m older than you, Mercedes. It could happen.” Especially if he kept making love to her like a fifteen-year-old.

“You’re not that much older than me, Sam.”

“Twenty years is a lot older.”

She raised up on her elbow and looked at him. “You are the hottest forty-six-year-old man I’ve ever met.”

He did the math, and then looked at her carefully. “You’re twenty-six?”

“Yes. How old did you think I was?”

“Twenty-one. Eighteen. It didn’t matter. You’re too young.”

“Oh, come on. You sound like it’s perverted or something. I’ve been living on my own for eight years now. I understand the concepts of laundry and paying bills, and how to hold down a steady job, albeit not for very often. I can drink alcohol, and even vote.”

He pushed a hand through his hair, considering these new facts before him. “Twenty-six?”

“Want to see my ID?”

“No. You’re really twenty-six?”

“This is freaking you out, isn’t it?”

“I don’t act like this, Mercedes.”

“Like what?”

“Like something out of your book.”

“I thought you didn’t read it.”

“Maybe some.”

She whapped him on the chest. “Sam Porter, you lied. You so read my stuff.” Her mouth shifted into a frown. “Is that why we’re here? Is it my writing or me?”

He swept a hand over her, contemplating the willowy curves of the twenty-six-year-old body. “You write hot stuff, yes, but you fired my engines way before I read your book.”

“Why didn’t you ask me out then?”

“You have a habit of putting personal liaisons into your blog for public consumption. That’s not me. I like my private life private.”

“You aren’t nervous now?”

“Are you going to put anything out there?” he asked, careful to keep any emotion out of his voice. He didn’t exactly trust her, but that barn door was open, and the cows were smoking post-coital cigarettes in somebody else’s pasture.

“No.”

“See? No problem there.”

“You really read my book?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you like it?”

“It certainly involved me physically.”

“But did you like it?” she pressed.

Sam knew the verbal minefield she was laying before him. He was a master of the technique. “You’ll only get mad if I answer this question.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Yes, you will.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Okay, it’s not my thing. It’s hot, very arousing, but I’m not into emotional reads.”

“Fine,” she said, sounding mad.

“You’re mad.”

“I’m not mad,” she snapped.

“You’re mad. I told you, you’d get mad.”

“If you have no concept of the emotional and sexual reaches of two people, then you have no taste, and I refuse to let someone who has no taste make me mad.”

“Oh come on, Mercedes. I’m a guy. That stuff isn’t for me.”

“You’re sexist.”

“No, biologically, men and woman are different. Our bodies, our minds. I didn’t invent that.”

“That’s an incredibly old-fashioned attitude.”

“I’m an incredibly old-fashioned man.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Not that old-fashioned, honey. That wasn’t the missionary position you were using back there.”

“Man, tell me about it. I could’ve thrown out my back.”

Mercedes smiled, and he forgot about his back.

“Tell me about you. I know all about how you feel about fiscal responsibility, prayer in public schools, and the governor of New Jersey, but I have no idea about your life.” She paused. “You’re not married, are you?”

“No. Divorced a long time ago.”

“Back in the stone ages?”

“Stop.”

“You asked for it. Tell me something else. What do you do when you’re not working?”

“I like to fish. I have a cabin upstate I go to sometimes to relax. Take Max up there, listen to silence.”

“Max?”

“Dog. Have you ever been fishing?”

“Nah. It’s too slow for me. Too quiet. I’m used to the noise of the city. If the world gets quiet, then something is wrong. When it’s loud, cars honking, music blaring, everything is safe.”

“So that’s why you became a writer. Because it’s such a noisy occupation.”

She looked at him, slightly bemused. “I don’t know. When did you decide you wanted to be on TV?”

“I didn’t. My agent did. I was a journalist in Pennsylvania, and I did some of the local news. The network saw my work and liked it.”

“I think it’s cool. Having that much attention, being in the spotlight.”

“For fifteen minutes, maybe. But after that, it’s like being the only goldfish in one of those tiny bowls. You really want fame, huh?”

“For at least fifteen minutes. Just to know. Andrew’s famous in the financial circles, he hates it. Sheldon’s famous in the tabloids, she hates it. I’d like to experience it, so I could decide, and possibly hate it, for myself.”

“Be careful what you wish for, Mercedes. What does it matter if you’re famous or not?”

“Everyone loves you when you’re famous. It proves to the world that you’re worthy. You’re somebody.”

“You’re somebody already.”

“Not to everybody.”

“Who’s everybody?”

“Are you trying to psychoanalyze me?”

“No, I’m trying to understand what you’re saying.”

“I thought I was very clear.”

“You were cryptic, not clear.”

“That wasn’t cryptic.”

“Then who’s everybody, Miss I’m Not Cryptic?”

“Nobody.”

“See? You proved my point. You’re cryptic.”

She pulled up the sheet, burrowed into the pillows, almost disappearing. “Did you know your father?” she asked in a tiny voice.

“Yeah. Nobody’s influenced me more.”

“I didn’t know mine. Mom says he’s a good-for-nothing son-of-a-bitch. I want to be something. Something that makes the papers. Something that makes him turn to the New York Times, or Newsweek, or even the Sam Porter show, and see me, his daughter. Watch me. Realize what he walked away from. If I’m not famous, he’ll never know me.”

Sam followed her into the blankets, wanting to hold her. His arms slid around her and he wished he could meet the man who had hurt her so badly, but all he could do was talk. “Your father was a jerk. You’re shaping your whole life around someone that shouldn’t matter.”

“He doesn’t matter to me,” she answered, all bravado, most likely fake. “I don’t think about him enough that it can bother me. He left us, that’s ancient history. I just want him to know. I want him to feel bad for what he’s done. And that’s why I want to be famous.”

She grew quiet then, and Sam didn’t press her anymore. She had so many things that she wanted to prove to the world, and Sam didn’t have the heart to tell her that life didn’t work that way. You played with the cards you were dealt. She fell asleep, dreaming of the world she wanted to conquer, while Sam lay awake, staring at the ceiling, sad that somewhere along the way, he’d lost the all-consuming fire of his youth.

MERCEDES WOKE TO THE sound of Sam’s voice. At first she thought someone else was in the hotel room, but his was the only voice she heard. He was on the phone.

She slipped out of bed, pulled on the thick, fluffy robe, and opened the curtains, letting the sun warm her face. Last night it had been so easy to get carried away on the fantasy, but in five hours she would be on a flight back to New York, hopefully seated next to someone other than McCreepy.

This was the afterwards she had dreaded, only Sam had gotten the timeline all screwed up. Oh, well. She knew the drill.

She dressed in a hurry, finding her clothes stacked neatly in a chair. How did she know he wasn’t a slob? After a check in the mirror, a fluff of her hair, and a dab at the mascara smudged on her cheek, she looked full of confidence, and ready to face the world. Or at least him.

She practiced her smile, and then listened outside the bedroom door, making sure no one else was around. Satisfied, she took one deep breath and entered the main room of the suite.

“Good morning,” she chirped, sounding like an actress in an orange juice commercial. He had pulled on a pair of jeans, and an old flannel shirt hung open. Two newspapers were spread out in front of him, CNN was on TV, and there was a cup of coffee by his side. He looked like an average American male. So why did her heart go bump?

No, just one night. She was going to leave, and put everything behind her. “I wanted to pick up my purse, and I’ll be off.”

He rose, stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Did Kristin arrange for a car to take you to the airport?”

“Oh, yeah. Got that covered. We’re not in the middle of nowhere.”

“Mercedes?”

“Yeah, Sam?”

She could see the confusion in his face, in those marvelous hazel eyes, and understood. Theirs was a relationship based on lust and nothing more. He was fun and chatty, and told good stories, but he wasn’t for her. No, Sam deserved someone less flighty, less self-centered, probably someone who did charity work or taught school, and certainly didn’t spend two days picking out the perfect pair of shoes.

Not every story had a happy ending. She gave him her most mature smile. “See you around, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Then she walked out on her fabulous Jimmy Choo sandals, leaving Sam Porter, and one night of life-altering sex behind.