"If we can get this hot with just words, imagine what it'll be like once we're both naked," he said.

She ought to feel outraged at his absolute self-a.s.surance, the way he was taking it for granted that they'd sleep with each other. She ought to ice him down and send him home with a flea in his ear.

But she didn't. She didn't do anything except lock eyes with him. She saw a million sensual promises in his dark gaze. Her breathing increased, almost became a pant. She leaned toward him, completely forgetting where they were.

"Ms. Dostis?"

She started in her chair and jerked away from Leandro as though she'd been busted with her hand in the cookie jar.

A middle-aged man in faded jeans and a nondescript T-shirt was standing in front of her. He held out his hand.

"Detective Arnold. This is my partner, Detective Wilkes," he said, indicating a tall woman in her mid-thirties standing beyond his shoulder.

Right. They were at the police station. Here to report the very serious extortion attempt by Rat Man.

She felt a dull flush warm her chest and face as she clued into how unprofessional she was being. She never mixed business and pleasure. She always put work first. But somehow, whenever she was with Leandro, other things seemed to get in the way.

"Pleased to meet you. This is Leandro Mandalor, producer of Heartlands," she said. At least her voice sounded relatively normal, even if her body was still burning with embarra.s.sment.

"Hey, I love that show," Detective Wilkes said, smiling broadly and stepping forward to shake Leandro's hand. Claudia frowned as the other woman tossed her long red hair over her shoulder and smiled in a distinctly friendly way.

"You want to come through this way? You can fill us in on your situation," Detective Arnold suggested.

Claudia stood, Leandro following suit. It wasn't until they were all walking that she noted that the redheaded Detective Wilkes could almost see eye to eye with him. For some reason that she couldn't name, it really p.i.s.sed Claudia off. That, and the frankly a.s.sessing look the female detective sent Leandro's way.

Geez, have a bit of dignity, woman, Claudia thought. She wondered how Leandro felt, being eyed-up like a hunk of prime meat so blatantly. Then she caught him checking out Detective Wilkes's a.s.s as they turned into the meeting room, and her mouth hardened.

He obviously welcomed any and all female attention. Not that this should surprise her, given the way he'd behaved around her to date. The biggest, most stupid mistake she could make was to take his flirting seriously. Or, worse, to follow through on it. She wasn't adverse to no-strings s.e.x by a long shot, but she didn't relish being just a notch on any man's bedpost.

The sc.r.a.pe of metal chair legs on concrete brought her focus back to the matter at hand as she and Leandro sat facing the two detectives.

Detective Arnold had his notepad out and a pen poised. "Why don't you take us through the first contact you had with this individual," he said.

To her surprise, Leandro looked to her before answering. "I'll handle this bit, since he contacted me first, yeah?" he suggested.

She shrugged coolly. What did she care? He could run the whole show if he liked.

Leandro frowned slightly at her ready capitulation before turning back to face the detectives.

"My a.s.sistant put the call through at about ten today," he said.

Claudia listened as Leandro outlined Rat Man's first contact and their subsequent discussions to arrange a meeting. When he got to the actual meeting itself, he glanced across at her again, obviously willing to relinquish the role of chief informer, but she just made a keep-going gesture with her hand.

The two detectives questioned them both closely over the man's description, asking for the address of the break-in, and what they both knew about Alicia and Wes's private lives.

"Look, we're their employers, not their mothers," Leandro said when Detective Wilkes asked him if Wes had any gambling or substance abuse problems. "The guy shows up on set, does a good job and attends all his publicity obligations. I try to keep tabs on my team, but there's no way I can know for sure about any of this stuff."

Claudia eyed the other woman shrewdly.

"You think our actors might have set this up themselves?" she asked.

The two detectives exchanged loaded looks, as though they were trying to work out how honest they could be.

"It's something we need to consider. People get desperate when they need money," said Detective Arnold.

Claudia shook her head firmly. "Alicia would never risk that footage getting out," she said unequivocally. "It would destroy her career."

"Or make it," Detective Wilkes said cynically.

Claudia shook her head again. "No. This girl can act, and she knows it. If she wanted to be a p.o.r.n star, she would already be one. Plus she's got a Disney movie lined up when we break for the holidays. There's no way she'd endanger that."

Leandro nodded beside her. "I agree. And Wes has been with the show for seven years now. He's one of our highest paid actors. He does a made-for-TV movie now and then. I never got the sense he was ambitious for anything else. He has a pretty nice life."

Detective Arnold nodded. "We'll keep all that in mind. Now, this next meeting. We're going to have to put a wire on you, Ms. Dostis, so we can keep tabs on the situation. The goal here is damage control. We want to trace your contact back to his base and jump on him before he gets a chance to flick that footage on to anyone else."

"For what it's worth, this guy sounds strictly amateur-hour. My bet is he's a break-and-enter monkey who got lucky and scored that tape. He's already made the major mistake of letting you two see him. Unless he suddenly gets an IQ injection between now and Friday night, I'm pretty confident we can nip this little escapade in the bud," Detective Wilkes said.

Claudia felt Leandro shift in his chair beside her.

Here we go, she thought.

"I think I should do the drop," he said predictably.

"But he specifically asked for me," Claudia reminded him.

"He wants the money. As long as he gets it, he's not going to care who the delivery man is," Leandro argued.

Claudia could feel her temper flaring. She knew what he was doing-trying to protect her. It was so d.a.m.ned Greek of him, it made her want to spit.

"I can take care of myself," she said.

"No offence, Claudia, but if things turn bad and this guy grabs you, you don't stand a chance in h.e.l.l," Leandro said. "I don't want you to get hurt."

"Well, guess what? Not your choice. Last time I looked, you didn't own me and I had a mind of my own." She turned back toward the detectives who were watching their interplay with unashamed interest.

"So, I wear a wire. What else?" Claudia said.

Leandro sat back and crossed his big arms over his chest, radiating disapproval. Claudia ignored him. When h.e.l.l froze over, he could call the shots for her.

Over the next hour, they outlined their plan of attack. Claudia agreed to arrive at the station at six on the evening of the drop in order to be wired and go over any last-minute instructions. The overall plan was simple-meet the contact, hand over the money, trail him back to his bolt-hole. Once the police were confident they had him bottled up, they would raid the place and seize both the money and the footage.

"What about when this goes to trial? Can we keep the footage under wraps?" Leandro asked.

"Your lawyers can take care of that end. You should be able to keep the content quiet. It's the extortion itself that we're interested in," Detective Arnold said.

It was midnight by the time they exited the police station. Claudia stood in the cool night air and circled her stiff shoulders. Meeting with a blackmailer and spending hours with the cops was not exactly her idea of a rockin' Tuesday night in Hollywood.

"Okay, I'll see you on Friday. Call me if you think of anything else we need to cover. I'll talk to Alicia, rea.s.sure her," she said, fishing her car keys from her pocket and turning away.

"Not so fast," Leandro said, grabbing her arm.

She glared at his big hand wrapped around her forearm, her message clear: back off. Typically, he didn't.

"I don't want you doing the drop," he said firmly.

"Well, when you're wearing the magical ruby slippers, you can close your eyes, click your heels and make that happen. Until then, I get to make my own decisions," she said sweetly.

He narrowed his gaze at her. "I bet you used to drive your parents crazy when you were a kid," he said.

"They survived," she said shortly, not liking the rush of unexpected hurt that washed over her at the mention of her parents. Twice now in two days they'd crept into her thoughts out of nowhere. She didn't like it. They'd all made their choices years ago. She'd lived with hers this long, and was satisfied that she could continue doing so.

He was staring down at her, concern written on his handsome face. Releasing her arm, he cuffed her gently on the shoulder, a gentle chastis.e.m.e.nt.

"You're an idiot. Is it so awful that someone cares if you get hurt?" he asked quietly.

She blinked, thrown. Flirting she could handle. Arrogance and egotism, too. But tenderness, sincerity-she'd never been good with either of those.

"You sure it's not just because you want to be in charge?" she said.

He frowned. "Yeah, I am."

"I can handle it," she said firmly.

He nodded slowly. "Okay. Fine. I won't say another word-on one condition."

"This'll be good," she said, hand on hip.

"You have dinner with me."

It wasn't what she'd been expecting, and she shifted uneasily.

"Leandro, be serious. Sure, we're both curious about each other, about what it would be like. But it's our job to beat each other at what we do for a living. It's actually written into my employment contract. Under the circ.u.mstances, sleeping together would be pretty stupid."

He just held her eye. "Dinner. Restaurant of my choice."

Shaking her head, she turned toward her car. "You're a hot kisser, but not that hot," she said, deliberately echoing the words he'd used earlier on the phone.

Only she would ever know how much her hands were shaking when she got into her car. For good or for ill, she was terribly, terribly attracted to this man. She remembered her recent jealousy over the tall police detective with a wince. The sooner this whole extortion matter was dealt with and gone, the sooner she could go back to competing with Leandro from a distance. A nice, safe, long distance.

THE THING WAS, Leandro concluded on Thursday evening, he was used to being in charge of his world. He called the shots at Heartlands, he was respected in the industry, even his father listened to him these days. It had been a long time since things hadn't gone his way. Now, in the s.p.a.ce of a few months, Claudia Dostis had challenged his status quo on several fronts. First, she'd beaten his wedding special in the ratings-even if only by a few points, technically she'd bested him. Then she'd won that d.a.m.ned award. And now he could not get her out of his mind.

Every night, as soon as he loosened his grip on his mind and drifted toward sleep, she crept into his bed. Her smell, the feel of her curvy body pressed up against his, the glint in her eyes as she defied him-his dreams became an elaborate series of c.o.c.k-teases. Just when he'd get her where he wanted her, she'd slip from his grasp and disappear, only for him to chase her and the same thing happen again and again. Every morning he woke with a hard-on that would not quit. He was starting to feel like a fifteen year old, the amount of times he'd had to resort to hand relief in the shower before he was fit to go into work.

Somehow he had to get her into bed. Deliberately he gave no thought to what would happen after he'd satisfied his curiosity. What was the point? It wasn't as though they were talking hearts and flowers here-they were simply hot for each other. And with a bit of luck they'd put each other out of their mutual misery in the very near future. End of story.

Now, if he could get the ridiculous urge to protect her from her own folly out of his system as easily. She'd stated unequivocally that she was delivering the money to Rat Man. As far as she was concerned, that was the end of the discussion. But Leandro simply could not reconcile himself to the thought of her taking all the risk to save both their heinies. Maybe he was just a male chauvinist at heart, but surely it was okay for men and women to admit they were better at certain things, even in these enlightened times? For example, he was willing to admit that she would probably have a leg up when it came to counseling an upset employee. Maybe she'd even have him whipped in casting to suit a female-based audience. So what was so wrong about both of them acknowledging that when it came to matters of brute force, he had about a hundred pounds and over a foot in height on her?

The worse thing was, he knew he was going to have to suck it up. Short of kidnapping her and keeping her tied up in the trunk of his car until the exchange was complete, there was no way he could stop her from putting herself in danger. Which left him feeling both h.o.r.n.y and worried as he paced the polished floorboards in his West Hollywood condo.

Shaking his head at his one-track mind, he padded barefoot into the kitchen and filled a tumbler with an inch of the single malt Scotch he kept for such occasions. His mail sat unopened on the kitchen counter, neatly stacked there by his housekeeper. Savoring the burn of good liquor finding its way to his belly, Leandro leafed through the envelopes. He recognized Peta's handwriting on the last letter-a large, flat legal envelope-and he tore it open with more vigor than finesse.

She'd signed the divorce papers. He stared at their two signatures sitting side by side-two large, flamboyant, sprawling monikers that spoke volumes about each of them individually and the two of them as a couple.

He was a free man. Again. It was only as he registered the fact that he understood it was the last thing he wanted. It wasn't about Peta, about missing her. He'd fallen out of love with her long ago. It was that he liked being in a relationship. He liked the routine, the companionship, the private jokes and small moments of silent communion that peppered any good relationship. He wanted to share his life with someone. Work was not enough anymore. s.e.x with women he didn't care for wasn't enough, either. He wanted more.

Tossing back the last of his Scotch, Leandro made his way to the living room and threw himself down on the sleek leather couch lining one wall. The television offered no solace and he switched it off after sixty seconds of fruitless channel surfing.

Finally, after a pointless ten minutes of internal struggle that had been destined to fail from the very beginning, he picked up his cell phone and punched in Claudia's number.

She answered on the third ring.

"Leandro," she said.

She sounded sleepy and surprised.

"Hi," he said, settling back onto the couch and closing his eyes. She had a great voice-a rich contralto with a husk in the lower register.

"Has something come up?" she asked. He heard the sound of water slapping against something on her end of the phone.

"No. You're in the bath, aren't you?" he guessed.

She hesitated a moment. "Yes."

He groaned. "Do you have any idea what you're doing to me?"

"Some. If it's anything like what you're doing to me," she said.

He smiled. What was it about the phone that allowed people to say things they'd never say in person? He could never imagine Claudia making herself so vulnerable, admitting so much if she were standing in front of him. Still, now that she had...

"I could come over there and do it in person," he said.

"I've got an early start," she said after a significant pause.

He sat up straight. He'd expected an outright no, but obviously the few days since they'd last spoken had been as tough for her as they had been for him.

"Okay," he said slowly, "maybe we should book that dinner, then."

"Okay."

One word, and he was as hard as t.i.tanium. Harder.

"Jesus," he swore under his breath.

She laughed, the sound low and knowing. "You okay there?"