Holding the award high, Claudia grinned broadly.
She'd imagined this moment for so long. The buzz of triumph. The satisfied knowledge that all their hard work had been recognized. The approval-even envy-of her peers.
And the vindication that originality and creativity would win over strategy and cunning any day of the week.
Moving toward the stairs offstage, her gaze tracked across the tables full of smiling, applauding people until they stopped on one man. His eyes held hers for a long beat before he nodded his head in acknowledgment and slowly clapped his hands in a private round of applause meant just for her.
Victory, it turned out, was sweet indeed.
The next few minutes dissolved into a blur of handshakes and kisses and jumping up and down from the Ocean Boulevard contingent as they passed around their trophy, took photos of each other and generally gloated and celebrated. Sadie and Grace stood on either side of Claudia, arms wrapped around her waist, big smiles on their faces. For a moment Claudia was choked with emotion. These women were so important to her, and together they'd made something great, and it had been recognized in front of the industry.
Despite her determination to keep things positive, her thoughts turned to her parents. If things were right between them, she would be out in the foyer right now, calling them to tell them she'd won. Her father would bellow loudly and break into excited Greek and want to hang up and phone the whole extended family to brag. Her mother would ask what she was wearing and insist that Claudia get plenty of photographs for later.
But things were not right with her parents. And they never would be.
Feeling an unaccustomed lump of emotion in her throat, Claudia excused herself from the celebrations and made her way to the ladies' room.
It was cool and quiet in there amongst the marble and gold-plated taps, and she took a few deep breaths to calm herself. Her color was high, she saw in the mirror, and she ran some cool water over her wrists before drying them and exiting to the foyer.
She'd almost made her way back to the ballroom when a warm hand wound itself around her elbow and tugged her into a darkened corner. She found herself facing Leandro-staring up at him, more accurately. Up close, he was devastatingly attractive in his formal wear and her heart instantly kicked up a gear.
"Claudia. I just wanted to tell you that dress is...spectacular," he said, his dark gaze dipping into her cleavage.
"Thank you. You scrub up okay yourself," she said.
He shrugged dismissively, then reached out a hand. She watched, for all intents and purposes paralyzed, as his fingers found the neckline of her dress just above the swell of her right breast. Catching the velvet between thumb and forefinger, he gave a murmur of appreciation as he ran his thumb back and forth over the pile of the velvet.
"Velvet is so tactile, don't you think?" he said. "Makes you want to reach out and touch."
She could feel the backs of his fingers against her skin, and she knew she should knock his hand away. But for some reason, she didn't.
"Aren't you going to congratulate me?" she asked, trying to find some solid ground, some reason to not take him up on the invitation in his eyes.
"Definitely," he said, and then he lowered his head and she knew he was going to kiss her.
She could have taken a step back, said no, pushed him away. She did none of those things. She stood on her tiptoes, swayed forward, met him halfway, her mouth already open. He gave a growl of approval as their lips met, heat on heat, silk on silk, and then she was leaning against the never-ending wall of his chest, and his arms were around her and his tongue was in her mouth.
She felt surrounded by him. Invaded by him. And she'd never been more turned-on in her life. His tongue brushed over hers, his hands splayed across her bottom and lifted her into the firmness of his erection, his teeth nibbled at her lower lip, his five o'clock shadow brushed her cheeks and neck.
Her breasts hardened into two demanding, greedy peaks, and even the thickness of the velvet was not proof against her need as her nipples jutted into his chest. Between her thighs, desire throbbed, thick and heavy as treacle. On fire for him, she thought feverishly of the suite upstairs, of the big bed, of getting this giant of a man naked and inside her where he belonged, where he could take away the ache he'd created inside her...
And then he broke the kiss, and stepped away from her.
It was like walking out of a sauna and straight into a plunge pool. She'd been so absorbed in him, in what they'd created between them.
"Congratulations, Claudia," he said, his voice husky with desire.
Then he walked away.
2.
CLAUDIA WAS STILL FUMING the next day when she arrived at work. She hadn't seen Leandro Mandalor's face when he'd walked away from her, but she'd bet her house, her car and her job that he'd been smiling. The smug bastard.
Her responding to his kiss didn't mean a thing. He was obviously a practiced seducer, a charmer from way back. She'd allowed him to work his wiles on her, and it had been amusing. Entertaining, for a brief, unimportant moment in time. Then she'd gone back into the ballroom and reveled in her win and hadn't looked at him once more all night.
So there was no need for him to feel as though he'd achieved something, just because she hadn't slapped his face or gagged with disgust. It had been a kiss, nothing more. No big deal.
Slamming her car door shut, Claudia grimaced at her reflection in the tinted glass of her side window. Her eyes were deeply shadowed from lack of sleep-and not because she'd been partying endlessly all night with the gang from work. As usual, she hadn't touched a drop of alcohol and she'd rolled into bed and closed her eyes at the very respectable time of midnight.
And promptly not slept a wink for the entire night.
And not because of excitement, either. At least, not excitement over their win.
No. Unfortunately, it had been the other kind of excitement that had kept her up. The Leandro-Mandalor-induced kind.
One kiss, and she'd been ready to drag him up to her suite and ride him like a pony at the fair. She closed her eyes as she imagined how monumental her regret would be this morning if she'd actually followed through on that instinct instead of limiting her transgression to a single kiss.
Although, technically, it hadn't been her who had limited it. Leandro had been the one who had walked away.
Which brought her back to her favorite two words for the day: smug bastard. Why hadn't she been the one to push him away, to smile up into his face and deliver a sassy line? Why, why, why?
Thank God she wasn't still at the convention. A small saving grace. With a bit of luck, she wouldn't have to look him in the eye again for a full twelve months.
Collecting the award from her back seat, she clicked her car shut and made her way into the building. The news of their win had spread through the office and she was mobbed the moment she walked in the door.
It took her a full half hour to make it to her desk, but by then her mood had improved dramatically. It was great to see how proud her staff was of the award. As she'd said last night, television was a collaborative medium. No one person could take credit for the success of the show, and it was great to be able to pass the joy around. There was an official display cabinet for awards in the conference room, but she decided that this latest gong might find a home on the reception desk for the first few months. That way everyone could remember their win when they walked into work each morning.
Crossing to her office, she saw Sadie was at her desk already, looking bright-eyed and not in the least hungover. Claudia narrowed her gaze on her friend, taking in Sadie's glowing complexion and suddenly remembering the untouched wineglass at her friend's place setting last night.
Suspicion hardened into certainty as she walked into Sadie's office and Sadie fumbled to hastily open a new screen on her Web browser.
Claudia smiled, propping her butt on the edge of Sadie's desk and swinging her foot casually.
"Have a good time last night?" she asked idly.
"Of course. Not every day we get a People's Vote Award," Sadie said.
"So you're not tired at all?" Claudia probed.
Sadie shrugged. "Not really. We didn't tie one on, since both Dylan and I had to work today. I don't understand why they hold the awards night on a Monday."
Claudia nodded, then stood. "It's so we don't enjoy ourselves too much. God forbid that anyone ever feels comfortable in this industry."
Moving toward the door, Claudia waited until she was on the threshold before she spoke over her shoulder. "And by the way, I think Amazon is having a special on baby books this month."
"Yeah? Thanks," Sadie said brightly, then she bit her lip and blushed hotly.
"Huh! Gotcha!" Claudia said, pouncing. "You're pregnant."
Sadie just smiled ruefully. "I told Dylan there was no point trying to keep it from you and Grace. He doesn't understand about female intuition."
Claudia ignored the small flicker of hurt that her friend would want to keep such great news from her in the first place. Plenty of couples liked to wait until they'd passed the crucial first trimester before spreading their good news far and wide. There was nothing unusual in Sadie and Dylan wanting to hold tight to their secret for a little bit longer. Except...for a while now, it had been just the three of them-her, Sadie and Grace. Perhaps it was an index of how wrong Sadie's first engagement to Greg had been that Claudia had never felt this way about their relationship. But Sadie and Dylan were utterly committed to each other. They'd been married for just six months, and now they had a baby on the way. The friendship between her, Sadie and Grace would never be the same again.
Of course things were going to change, she scolded herself impatiently. She knew that; it was a part of life. Grace and Sadie had fallen in love and settled down. Claudia had simply been too busy working and looking in the other direction to really notice what was happening around her.
"How many weeks?" she asked, pushing her own feelings aside to celebrate her friend's great news.
"We think eight. I've got a doctor's appointment tomorrow," Sadie said.
Claudia rounded her friend's desk to hug her.
"I'm so happy for you. For both of you. A little Sadie or Dylan. I can't wait to meet him or her," Claudia said.
"I still can't quite believe it. A little person is going to grow inside me. How weird and amazing is that? I keep thinking about those scenes in Alien. Is that wrong, do you think?" Sadie asked worriedly. "Shouldn't I be knitting booties or something instead of worrying about a monster bursting out of my abdomen?"
Claudia laughed. "Leave it to you to turn pregnancy into a science fiction gore fest. You'll be fine, Sade. Worse comes to worst, you can sleep through the whole birth these days and watch it on video later."
"Now you're talking," Sadie said with enthusiasm. "I know I'm supposed to want the whole yoga-aromatherapy-natural-birth thing, but pain is not my friend. I want whatever they've got in big, industrial doses."
"A woman after my own heart. If I ever had a kid, I'd want them to just induce a coma in the last week of pregnancy and then wake me when the kid's toilet trained," Claudia said.
Sadie blinked with surprise.
"You know, that's the first time I've ever heard you talk about having children," she said.
"Hey, you're the one who's pregnant, not me. I was speaking hypothetically. You know I don't want kids," Claudia said, picking a piece of lint off her trousers.
A groan sounded behind them.
"All I want to know is, does one of you have a handgun?"
They both turned to find Grace standing in the doorway, her already pale complexion alabaster and her eyes hidden behind her cat's eye sunglasses.
"It would be a mercy killing. You could take me out to the car park and do it quietly," she moaned, flopping into Sadie's visitor's chair. Swooning theatrically, she pressed a hand to her forehead.
"I feel like Tallulah Bankhead," she said.
Sadie and Claudia exchanged amused looks.
"Too much champagne, Gracie?" Claudia said in her loudest, no-nonsense voice.
Grace winced and held up a hand. "Don't be cruel. It's not nice to taunt the animals," she said.
Sadie shook her head and reached into her desk drawer. "Here, have some aspirin," she said, tossing the pack over. Then she caught Claudia's eye and lifted an eyebrow. Claudia shrugged a shoulder in response to her friend's unspoken question. The cat was out of the bag already, after all.
"But before you go off to nurse your hangover," Sadie added, "I've got some news. Well, really, it's mine and Dylan's news."
Grace sat up as though someone had goosed her. Her glasses slid down to the end of her nose as she looked over them at Sadie.
"Get out of town," she said. "You're not pregnant!"
"Incorrect. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars," Claudia said.
Leaping to her feet, Grace raced around the desk and threw herself into Sadie's arms.
"You and Dylan are going to make the best parents," she said, hugging Sadie fiercely. "The absolute best. Imagine the bedtime stories that kid's going to hear."
They spent another twenty minutes combing over the few bare details of Sadie's pregnancy so far-two missed periods, no nausea, no tiredness, definite increase in bust size-and discussing Sadie's Alien fears before peeling off to go to their respective offices.
Claudia found a pile of phone message slips on her desk, all of them congratulation messages bar two. Her voice mail was likewise clogged, and she put a call through to her assistant to ask her to sort through the backlog and let her know if there were any genuine callbacks required.
Then she sat back and stared at her office wall. Sadie was going to have a baby. She and Dylan were going to have a little family. If Grace's rapt expression and intent questioning were anything to go by, she and Mac wouldn't be far behind, either. Grace had a couple of years on Sadie, after all.
And Claudia was older than both of them.
It wasn't something she'd ever really registered before. They'd all met at university when they joined the Undergraduate Film Festival Committee, and soon formed a firm friendship. Even though Sadie had skipped a year at school, and Claudia had tried her hand out in the workforce for a few years before opting for higher education, age had always been irrelevant in their bonding.
Frowning, Claudia checked her e-mail. She didn't care about her ovaries aging. They could self-combust for all she'd notice-she'd fought too long and too hard to get where she was to walk away from it all to serve up pureed apple and change diapers twenty-four hours a day. Babies were fine for other women, but not for her.
Ruthlessly she squashed the memory of holding her eldest brother's first son in the hospital. She'd been surprised by the fierce tug of love she'd felt, the instinctive desire to protect and nurture the tiny red person bundled in the blanket. Almost as though to eliminate any maternal longing, a grim memory pulled at Claudia: an image of a woman huddled on a bed, sobbing her heart out.
Impatient with her self-indulgence this morning, Claudia brushed it away. While she was contemplating her navel, Ocean Boulevard awaited.
It was mid-morning when her assistant, Gabby, buzzed a call through to her.
"I have Leandro Mandalor on line one," Gabby said. She sounded faintly scandalized that the competition would dare to call.
Claudia pursed her lips.
"Tell him I'm unavailable," she said. "Tell him to call back in an hour."
Smiling to herself, she bent to her work again. Did he really think he could just call her after what had happened and she'd jump at the chance to talk to him like a good little girl?
Probably he did, she knew. That ego. That self-assurance-of course he did.
Well, he had another think coming.
Exactly an hour later, Gabby buzzed her again.
"I've got Mr. Mandalor again," she said.
"Tell him my meeting has run overtime. He should try again in another hour," Claudia said.