Huddle With Me Tonight (7 page)

She had to clear her throat before speaking. “I know you didn’t track me down to my home—which is the creepiest thing anyone has ever done, by the way—just to insult me yet again.”

“If my saying you have attitude is an insult, you need to get some thicker skin, sweetheart.”

Before she could call him on the
sweetheart
remark, he expelled another sigh and said, “This thing on your blog has gotten way out of hand.”

“Only because you took it there,” Paige responded. She reached over to her computer desk and caught the bowl of grapes with the tips of her fingers.

“I’m willing to own up to my part in this,” Torrian said. He straightened in the chair and rested his elbows on his knees. “I shouldn’t have responded, but I never intended for that first comment I posted to remain on the blog.”

“Then why did you post it in the first place?” she asked. She held the bowl of grapes out for him. He picked off two and tossed them in his mouth.

Was she seriously sitting in her living room eating grapes with Torrian Smallwood? There was a sufficient amount of surrealism in the moment, but even more surreal was how comfortable it all felt. He was a superstar, but lounging in her favorite chair with fatigue in his eyes and contriteness in his voice, he could very well be any one of her friends. Or something more.

“Like I told you, it was a knee-jerk reaction. I know it was out of line and I apologized. You’re the one who chose to ignore me and keep this thing public. Now we both look like fools.”

“Only one of us looks like a fool, in my opinion. I’ve remained as professional as I possibly can.”

He stared at her, his gaze assessing. “You’re not as professional as you seem to think you are,” he said.

Paige arched a brow. “Excuse me?”

“A true professional would have accepted my apology from the very beginning and erased my response last Sunday night.
You
decided to humiliate me on your blog instead.”

“What apology?”

“Fine, maybe it wasn’t an apology in the normal sense of the word.”

“In
no
sense of the word,” Paige returned.

“If you’d done what I’d asked in the first e-mail I sent Sunday night, there would be no reason for me to be in your apartment right now,” Torrian said.

“You e-mailed me?”

“Several times,” he nodded. “Starting with last Sunday. I explained that I was going to erase the comment I’d put on the blog but got distracted. I damn near begged you to go in and erase it, but you decided to ignore me.”

He’d e-mailed her. Probably through her blog’s e-mail, which she had not had a chance to check since Saturday night.

“I didn’t see your e-mail,” Paige admitted. She looked up at him, suffering the first twinge of regret she’d felt since this whole debacle first began. “I only check that e-mail account once a week.”

His head fell back again as he let out a low groan. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. This could have all been prevented if you’d just read your e-mail.”

“I’m not the one to blame here,” Paige protested. “If you hadn’t posted the response in the first place, this wouldn’t be an issue.”

He rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands between his spread legs. “You know what, none of it matters at this point. It’s done. We need to figure out where to go from here.”
“We?
Exactly why do
we
need to figure out anything?” Paige asked.

“Because I don’t want this thing to get any more out of hand than it already has,” he said. He reached over and picked off another grape.

“I am not recanting my review,” Paige declared.

He rolled his eyes heavenward. “Look, I get that you didn’t like the book. You’re entitled to your opinion. My main concern is that my fans will see me as someone who can’t take a little criticism.”

“Apparently, you
don’t
take criticism well. This way your fans see the real you?”

“Paige.” Her name came out of his mouth in a soft, beseeching plea that caused a delicious ripple to cascade down Paige’s spine. “That was not the real me,” he said. “It’s driving me crazy that people are getting this impression of me.”

There was actual pain in his voice. Paige was puzzled by how seriously he was taking all of this. Sure, he’d look bad to a few fans, but he had millions of worshipers out there. Why should he care that a few thousand New Yorkers thought he was a jerk?

Paige settled back on the sofa and crossed her arms over her chest. “There is an easy way to fix this,” she said.

His eyes flew to hers. “How?”

“You can write an apology on my blog,” she stated.

“No way.” Torrian shook his head. He shot up from the chair and walked over to the window that overlooked 3rd Avenue.

“Why not?” Paige asked, pushing up from the sofa so she could join him at the window.

Torrian turned to face her. He braced his legs apart and crossed his arms. “Because you would win,” he answered, his voice cool, his eyes matching.

Paige’s mouth gaped open. “You have
got
to be kidding me.”

He took a step forward and settled a look on her that made the tiny hairs at the back of her neck stand on end. “I’m not going to roll over and play dead,” he said. His eyes zeroed in. “I looked into you. You’ve built your career by cutting people down to size with your weekly column, and you’re even worse on the blog. I’ll be damned if I become one of your victims.”

“Victim!” Paige laughed in his face. A bit of insanity seemed to accompany all that sexiness. “You’ve spent the past week attacking me on my own blog, but
you’re
the victim?”

“I’m not apologizing,” he stated.

“I’m not erasing anything from the Web site,” she returned, jutting her chin forward. He stood a hairbreadth away from her. The subtle heat radiating from his body caused a contradictory chill to skitter along Paige’s skin. The man exuded sensuality by merely existing.

“I can go over your head,” he said without a hint of smugness, just utter and complete certainty. “I’m sure I can convince the powers that be at
Big Apple Weekly
to listen to what I have to say.”

Paige had no doubt Angie would back her up. The suits, however, were another story. The Pedlam brothers, Jory and Peter, who owned the paper, would probably side with Torrian for no reason other than he was a superstar they wanted to impress.

“Nearly two thousand people have already responded to the blog,” Paige said. “Besides, I’m sure your response has been copied onto hundreds of other Web sites by now. Deleting it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.”

“You wouldn’t have to delete anything,” Torrian said.

Paige took a step back, needing distance between them as much as she needed her next breath. “What are you suggesting I do, if not delete everything?” she asked.

His shoulders had become rigid; the look in his eyes telling her that he’d been just as affected by their proximity. He broke eye contact, shaking his head and glancing out the window before turning back to her.

“I’ve been thinking about it since I called you,” he started. “Instead of deleting any of our exchange, you can post another entry saying that we concocted this whole thing. Make it sound as if this was one big publicity stunt. The review, our arguing back and forth. All of it.”

“My readers are much too smart to believe this entire thing has been a hoax,” she explained.

“Maybe you give your readers more credit than they deserve.”

“If you want to get on my good side, you’ll cut back on the insults,” Paige warned.

He groaned, ran a hand over his close-cut hair. “I’m not trying to insult you or your readers. I just think that if we really put our heads together, we can turn this whole thing around.”

He reached out and grabbed her hand. Paige tried to jerk it away, but he held on tight. “You want an apology? Fine, I’m doing it right now. I’m sorry for ninety-nine percent of the stuff I said on your blog. I was pissed and I stepped over the line, but I
need
you to make this right, Paige.”

The anguish in his plea caused the breath to catch in her throat. She looked up from where he grasped her hand, and was bowled over by the genuine distress in his hazel eyes.

“Please,” he implored.

Shaking her head to spring herself from her dazed state, Paige managed to pull her hand from his.

“If—” She cleared her throat. “If I were to consider this, I still believe we’d have to come up with something more plausible than what you suggested.”

He hunched his shoulders. “I’m all ears. What do you suggest?”

“I don’t know,” Paige admitted. “To be honest, I think this is all going to die down in no time if we stop posting nasty responses to each other on the blog. I’m putting up my next review tomorrow. Once readers start discussing that one, yours will fade into the blackness.”

He wasn’t convinced. Paige could tell by the way he said, “How can you be so sure?”

She sent him a slight, wry grin. “Yours is not the first review to stir up a bit of controversy on my blog.”

His cell phone rang. He took it from his pocket, glanced at the phone, then said, “Excuse me.”

He turned away from her, back to the window. “What’s up, Dee?” A pause. “He didn’t tell you where he was going?” she heard Torrian say in a troubled tone. It was a bit intrusive to stand here and listen, but she was in her own apartment. He’d brought his conversation here.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he finished and ended the call.

He turned back to her, and Paige refused to look guilty for listening in. His furrowed brow and tightened lips compelled her to ask, “Is everything okay?”

“Can we finish this later, over dinner, maybe?” he asked as he started walking toward the door.

“I’m not going out with you,” she said.

“Come on, Paige. I think we could do a better job of settling this if we did it over a nice meal.”

“No,” she returned. The intimacy such a setting would create started a mix of anxiety and anticipation churning in the pit of Paige’s stomach. She
had
to keep things on a professional playing field where Torrian was concerned.

Still, Paige couldn’t help but feel concern over the unease she sensed flowing over him. She followed him to the door. Without thinking, Paige grabbed his forearm, halting his retreat. “Is there anything I can do?”

He looked down at her hand clasping his arm, then back up at her. Something flashed in his eyes. It didn’t take Paige but a second to recognize what it was. It was the same thing that was running through her own blood.

Hunger.

Instant, intense, burning hunger.

Electricity surged between them, holding her captive. The charged air made the skin on her arm pebble with goose bumps. She wanted to jerk her eyes away from his, but she couldn’t. His molten gaze held her spellbound.

Finally Paige found the strength to release his arm. She took a step back, and they both swallowed long and deep.

“I…I’m sorry,” she said, even though she didn’t know what she was apologizing for. Who was at fault for the intense desire that had begun to thrum through the air the moment she touched him?

He took a step closer, and her breath seized in her throat.

His cell phone rang again.

“Dammit,” he whispered. His eyes bored into hers, filled with a heat so extreme it warmed her from the inside out. “I have to go,” he said.

Without another word, he walked out of her apartment, closing the door behind him.

Chapter 7

P
aige poured tea from the ornate teapot and sat it back onto the trivet in the center of the table. She was tired of drinking this darn tea. If Angela didn’t get here in the next five minutes, she was going solo.

But not having the distraction of Angela and her fiancé to share in the dinner conversation left her mind open to explore other things. Like Torrian Smallwood’s visit to her apartment. Having him there had been…well…nice. Too nice. So nice that it’s all she had been able to think about.

His position as a wide receiver had lent to his perfect build. He had muscles for days, but they were lean, sinewy and just the right size. The power in his muscular legs had been displayed to perfection when he sat on her favorite green chair and the fabric of his expensive jeans had stretched taut over them. The man was a study in the perfect body.

She was safer having that perfect body on her television screen, not in the middle of her living room. He was just a bit too tempting, and a stark reminder of a basic missing element in her life.

It had been over two years since she’d had what could be even remotely called a serious boyfriend, and to be honest, there was nothing serious about her relationship with Michael Weston. He’d started out as a coworker at her first job with a small paper in New York, and they had soon become friends. A few months later it had turned into something more, but neither of them had any illusions that what they shared would lead to something permanent. Michael had told her in his last e-mail that he had just proposed to his old girlfriend. Paige was happy for him.

Her cell phone chimed the tune she had designated for Angela.

“You’d better have a good excuse for being so late,” Paige barked into the phone.

“I’m in the hospital,” Angela answered.

“What?” Paige shrieked, causing more than a few heads to turn. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. It’s Bryce. He was trying to trim roses he bought to surprise me. I’m really sorry, Paige. I know this is the second time I’ve stood you up.”

“Well, it couldn’t really be helped this time,” she answered. “Tell Bryce I hope he feels better.”

“Thanks, Paige. If the food is any good, maybe we can go again next week. My treat.”

“I’m not holding my breath,” Paige laughed.

“I totally deserve that,” Angela chuckled. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Paige disconnected and sighed. She was used to eating alone; she didn’t know why the prospect seemed so bleak now. She motioned for the table attendant. She didn’t need to occupy such a large table now.