Just One Look. Joanne Rock
and do a little homework. Tabitha’s vacant eyes when he’d first entered her apartment had eaten at his conscience, telling him she’d probably been in shock when he dove into her apartment and pointed a gun at her.
“Detective Vitalis, NYPD.” He announced himself at the door once he found the right apartment and then flashed his badge a few more times to gain access to the room where Tabitha was shooting.
Several crewmembers tried to explain the concept of “closed set” to him on his way in, but he’d always been good with people and adept at using the authority of his position to get where he needed to be. He didn’t want to stop the shoot, but he had to admit a definite interest in seeing Tabitha Everhart at work.
And when was the last time he’d felt that kind of intense interest in any woman? Occasional nights with holster groupies had never engendered the kind of heat Tabitha had with nothing beyond her presence.
Slipping silently into the huge master suite where her scene was being shot, however, he began to realize maybe he didn’t need to see this. The room was darkened but crowded with camera people and crewmembers despite the “closed” label. At the center of the silent movement on the fringes of the room, Tabitha Everhart sat on top of a smug-looking bastard in a bed of rumpled white sheets and fat pillows. The two of them were highlighted by umbrella lights and spotlights with diffusers stretched over the lamps. The perfect lighting illuminated every square inch of Tabitha’s barely covered skin.
Warren had thought for one heart-stopping instant that she was buck naked on top of the guy, but soon he’d spotted the tiny cups that hugged her nipples and the hint of flesh-toned strap around her hip that gave away she must be wearing panties.
Her deep red hair was pinned up, possibly to make sure it was kept out of the shot. The director seemed fixated on filming the actor’s hands on Tabitha’s back, judging by the monitors stationed near his camera. The shoot seemed focused on body parts instead of facial expressions. That made sense given Tabitha’s job, but it was disconcerting as hell to watch lovemaking broken down into a step-by-step pantomime that seemed cold and calculated, stilted and awkward.
Once the fascination with the strange process wore off, Warren could focus on details besides the fact that Tabitha was mostly naked. He studied her expression and found her miles away from her job as if she consciously disconnected from the work. It bothered him to realize he liked that idea because her co-star looked totally into the moment, the guy’s superior “I’m the stud of the free world” expression really getting on Warren’s nerves.
But Tabitha was clearly distracted, her body moving automatically when the director called for her to slide her hand up her own thigh or—worse—slide her hand up the actor’s thigh.
How had she learned to disassociate herself from those touches, the practiced intimacy of the camera shots? Was it simply the mark of a professional body double to perform her duties with such clear distance? Or had Tabitha Everhart learned to remove herself from her work for personal reasons? Maybe she was unhappy with the job. Bored. Did she take it for granted that she was a beautiful woman whose curves were so perfect that other women clamored for her to stand in their place?
The thought bugged him almost as much as the fact that she’d lied to him through omission the night before. After growing up in a violent household based on keeping up appearances, Warren didn’t appreciate people who hid dangerous secrets. It wouldn’t matter how many thieves, dealers or murderers Warren kept off the streets through his job. He’d never bring his father back. He’d never fix the fact that he’d kept his family’s secrets until all their lives imploded.
“That’s a good take,” the director shouted, interrupting the dark directions of Warren’s thoughts. “Let’s get Maureen back in here,” the director continued, releasing Tabitha from her close clinch with the actor who held her a second too long after the shot was finished.
Was there something going on between her and the actor? Warren realized he didn’t like that idea at all. Not that he had any designs on the hot divorcée, especially if a deceptive personality went along with those killer curves.
But Warren recognized her cohort actor as a former big-league star who’d been a notorious womanizer and drug user.
The guy smiled wolfishly at Tabitha’s back view as she walked away from the set toward the door to the makeup room behind where Warren stood. She didn’t see him for a moment, her eyes blinking against the change in light, and Warren did all he could to keep his jaw off the ground at the sight of her. Heat rushed south along with his blood and his sense.
She had the kind of body men went stupid over. Lush, high breasts that swayed just enough when she walked to advertise the wares were 100 percent authentic gifts from God and not a surgeon. He’d only just begun to take the scenic journey to her hips when an assistant hurried over to give her a long white bathrobe to wrap herself in. A good thing since it was time for Warren to go to work.
He cleared his throat and breathed in a steadying gulp of air. Too bad her scent filtered through, seducing his senses with the knowledge of how she smelled.
Clean. Like soap rather than fragrance. The intimate realization made him want to know what her hair smelled like, too. Hell.
“Tabitha, may I speak to you a moment if you’re done with your day?”
He already knew she was finished since one of the assistants had told him the bed scene was her only responsibility to the production today. But after she’d given him half answers the night before, he was curious to see how far she would go to avoid speaking to him again.
“Detective.” Her hand flew to the collar of her robe, where she clutched the neckline just long enough to be sure it was closed. An odd response from a woman who’d just walked around a bedroom mostly naked in front of at least ten other people. Did he make her uncomfortable? Or was she as aware of the heat between them as him?
“Do you have a minute?” he pressed, struggling to keep his thoughts on the investigation. He was ready for some answers about her gun, the shot through her window and a marriage that had gone down in flames in a very public fashion.
“Of course.” She tugged at the clip in her hair and brought the whole red mass falling down around her shoulders in unruly disarray. “Just give me a minute to change and I’ll meet you by the front door.”
Nodding, Warren headed to the living area of the spacious apartment that someone had given over to the day’s shoot. He settled in on a sofa to wait for Tabitha and tried not to imagine her peeling off those tiny pasties in a room down the hall.
WHEN SHE CAUGHT HERSELF swiping a brush through her hair for at least the fiftieth time, Tabitha realized she couldn’t stall any longer on the inevitable talk with Detective Vitalis.
She’d changed into a long khaki skirt and a yellow tank with a sweater over it, but she couldn’t quite shake the feeling of nakedness around him since he’d first seen her in a skimpy nightgown and now he’d watched her work, for heaven knew how long, in little more than a thong. Surely if she made it through today’s interview with her head held high she could call her old insecurities dead and gone.
And there was a chance she could have done it if only she had a few more layers of clothes. A burka maybe. Or a poncho at the very least. Her attraction to the man made her feel far more naked and aware of herself than her body double gig.
Tucking her brush back in her work bag, she said goodbye to the stylist and the makeup person before venturing out into the ultramodern living room furnished with white plastic cubes for tables and white sectional pieces that could be moved all around the room for optimal seating. Manny had hired a decorator to do their house in all white once, a decorating palette as cold and unforgiving as their marriage had eventually become.
Tabitha’s apartment as a single woman looked like a living patchwork quilt with colors thrown everywhere as vivid reminders she’d survived the isolating hell of marriage Siberia.
The detective stood as she entered the room that suddenly reminded her of a padded cell for crazy