The Role of a Lifetime Read online

  This time she didn’t bother holding back her smile. “Think of it as honing your ad-libbing skills as well. It’s really the least you could do. What do you think? Are you up for it?”

  He grinned back, enjoying the challenge of her words as much as the feeling that there was finally a camaraderie growing between them. He couldn’t resist touching her again, so he reached out and laid a hand on her arm. “I’m up for anything you have to offer,” he said huskily.

  Her face instantly sobered, and he could tell the camaraderie was gone and the ice shield was back in place. “A spider eulogy is all I’m offering,” she told him, shaking off his hand.

  Her tone left little argument, although Ben wanted to remind her of her reaction to him when he touched her arm just a few moments ago. Instead, he bowed his head in understanding as he held open the door and watched with fascination as she marched right past him without so much as a glance back.

  Well. There was no misinterpreting all that, he thought with amusement. The ice princess had laid down the law. He’d have to be both blind and deaf not to receive that message. Obviously, the woman just wasn’t interested in him.

  Yeah. Right.

  And he liked spiders.

  Chapter Four

  If she wasn’t seeing it with her own eyes, she would have never believed it. Ben Capshaw was actually enjoying himself.

  Sandra frowned, not because she was unhappy, but because she was surprised. She hadn’t taken him seriously when he’d said he was up for eulogizing a spider, but standing there in front of the class, he looked to be having fun. He was doing pretty well too, laying it on a bit thick for her taste in some parts, but keeping the speech light enough for the children.

  Who knew a man like that—any man, really—would have it in him to be so…sweet with children? He seemed serious about the character preparation. Maybe she didn’t have to be so hard on him after all. It didn’t mean she wanted him touching her or flirting with her anymore—but maybe he did have a non-selfish bone somewhere in that hard, muscular body of his.

  Oh dear. There she went again. Why did she have to think about his body so often?

  She supposed one more peek wouldn’t hurt, so she allowed her eyes to travel over those wide defensive-end shoulders again, across his chest and down to his—

  She definitely needed to get out more.

  After Ben talked about the good times they had all shared with the spider—that did nothing more than hang out in the corner of the room—Missy suggested having the class draw pictures of Herbie to hang up. Sandra watched with open amazement as Ben took the papers from Missy, handing them out to the children himself.

  Boy, he must have felt bad about squashing Herbie, she thought, because it seemed like he was trying to make up for it by taking a more active part in the class.

  It could have been worse. He could have squashed Toots the hamster instead. That would have been a real mess, not to mention a major health hazard.

  Sandra was about to go back to her office—thinking all was as well as could possibly be—until she saw Hannah slide out of her seat and follow Ben as he made his way around the tables.

  “Um, excuse me,” her daughter said, trying to get his attention. “I have something to tell you.”

  Ben paused and looked down. “Oh, no. I’m not falling for that again, kid. That’s what got me into trouble in the first place.” With a look of disgust, he tossed a pack of crayons on a desk and moved on to the next student.

  “Why didn’t you like the bug?” she asked him.

  Sandra quickly covered a laugh with her hand when she saw Ben pale at the question.

  “Huh?” he said. “Uh, no, no, I liked the bug. I told you, I just thought it looked like…something else.”

  Sandra rolled her eyes. Yeah, he thought it looked like a big bug.

  She knew Hannah had it in her to bombard him with more questions, so she took mercy on his poor, childless soul. “Hannah, honey, why don’t you sit and draw your picture now? You’re such a good artist. I can’t wait to see it.”

  Hannah’s face lit up. “Oh, okay, Mommy,” she said as she jumped back into her seat. “I sure am a good artist.”

  When Ben finished handing out the last of the papers, he walked over to her with eternally grateful eyes. “Thanks.” He let out a heavy breath.

  She couldn’t help but smile. “You’re welcome.”

  Missy sidled her way over to the back of the class and joined them. “I am so sorry,” she whispered, looking first to Ben then to Sandra. “Everything happened so fast. I was just so shocked when the…incident happened. I didn’t know what to do.”

  Ben scowled at Missy. “You don’t need to tell me that, sister. I figured it out on my own pretty darn fast. Thanks a lot for leaving me hanging.”

  “Don’t you blame her,” Sandra interrupted, pointing a finger in his chest. “It’s your fault that—” She looked to see if the children were listening and lowered her voice to make sure they couldn’t. “You got yourself into this situation with those quick reflexes of yours.”

  “If that was an intruder instead of a spider,” he whispered heatedly, “you’d be thanking me for those reflexes, and you know it.”

  Sandra threw her hands in the air. “Let’s not go through this again. It’s over, okay?”

  Ben murmured something but still looked to be in a funk—almost like a kicked little boy. In return, Sandra felt a sudden empathetic tug to her heart. She didn’t know why. However, she did always have a hard time resisting the sulkiness of a child. Apparently, that sympathy now extended to man-children as well.

  She licked her lips, hesitating to extend the olive branch. Since Ben corrected the situation, she supposed they could try to put their differences aside and become friendly. Just not too friendly.

  “Um…you did a nice job with the eulogy,” she told him.

  There. Her job was done. Olive branch extended.

  His brow rose slightly. “You think so?”

  She gave him a noncommittal shrug.

  “Oh, yes,” Missy blurted. “It was so sweet. Just wonderful. I almost started to miss Herbie myself.”

  Ben looked confused. “Almost?”

  Missy wrinkled her nose. “Well, that thing was pretty gross looking.” She slapped her hand over her mouth and looked to Sandra, full of apology.

  “It’s bug month,” Sandra said with a frown. “Do I have to remind you of that too? We have to show tolerance to all bugs. That’s how the children will learn to appreciate nature and all things in it.”

  “I know,” Missy said, looking contrite. Then her gaze slowly traveled to Ben, and the two broke out in a fit of hysterical laughter.

  Sandra cracked a small smile herself, but shook her head. Maybe she’d share more in their mirth when their business was a little more stable. Right now, she was too worried about a child telling their parents about the spider incident, and then having those parents complain to the school. She couldn’t afford something like that to happen.

  “Shhh,” she admonished when she noticed Hannah and her friend, Sarah, approach with their pictures. “Oh boy, they look great, girls. Miss Missy will be thrilled to hang them up for you.”

  Missy took her cue and valiantly composed herself. Then, with one last flirtatious smile for Ben, she whisked the pictures and children away to the front of the room. Carol chose to peek her head through the door at that moment and, upon zeroing in on Ben, grew two huge hearts in her eyes like a Looney Tunes character.

  “My class is outside on the playground, so I wanted to see what all the commotion was,” Carol explained, walking in with those hearts projected at Ben. “By the way, I don’t think we’ve met.”

  Sandra watched in bemusement as down-to-earth Carol held out her hand like a seventeenth-century debutante.

  “My name is Carol. I teach here—when I’m not living all alone with my cat, Toffee,” she added shamelessly.

  Ben cast a smug glance towards Sandra before
taking Carol’s hand in his own and kissing it. “Lucky cat,” he said with a dazzling smile.

  Sandra pointed a finger in her mouth and pretended to gag herself—not that Ben or Carol noticed. Was she the only normal woman in this entire place? Why couldn’t anyone else see through his whole fake, charming-celebrity persona? One thing was certain. Men like him had women all over the country and weren’t to be trusted. Ever.

  Tired of standing there being ignored, she snorted. Twice. She still hadn’t managed to get their attention. “Carol, I think you’ve left your class alone for long enough, don’t you?” She tried to keep her tone controlled and not snippy, like she was feeling.

  Carol continued to stare at Ben as though she’d been on the Atkins diet for the past year and he was a carbohydrate smorgasbord. “Huh?”

  “Earth to Carol,” she said louder, cupping her hands around her mouth. “You have a class waiting.”

  Carol blinked and glanced at Sandra, flushing right up to the roots of her dark hair. “Oh. Right. I guess I have to go,” she told Ben. “I look forward to talking with you again.”

  Sandra made a face. Talking? Who was doing any talking? They just stared fixedly at one another for what seemed like hours. It was disgusting.

  “Good-bye, Carol,” Ben said. “It was very nice meeting you.”

  “Yeah. Bye, Carol,” Sandra said between clenched teeth.

  With the kind of willpower that would make Tony Robbins proud, Carol tore herself away from Ben’s star-studded presence and finally went back to the playground area As soon as Carol was out of sight, Sandra grabbed Ben by the arm and marched him out into the hall.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded once they were alone.

  “What?” he asked innocently.

  “Don’t ‘what?’ me. You were doing specifically what I asked you not to do.”

  He scratched his head. “Explain to me what that was again.”

  “You were making googley eyes at Carol and Missy.”

  “Huh? Oh, that,” he said with a smirk. “No, I wasn’t. They were making googley eyes at me. Get your facts straight.” He turned around and headed back towards the classroom door.

  “Well, you certainly didn’t discourage it,” she shot at his retreating back.

  He stopped and whipped around, his eyes narrowed tight. “Look, Sandra, the fact is I am a movie star, and women—normal women, that is—gain a certain pleasure from having me around and talking with me. I’m not going to repudiate that. It’s my fan base and how I keep my career going. If you have such a problem with them being distracted at work, maybe you’re talking to the wrong person. Maybe you should be having this conversation with Missy and Carol instead.”

  “Fine,” she snapped. “Maybe I will.”

  “And while you’re at it, are you going to tell them the truth?”

  His question threw her so off-guard, her irritation vanished. “What truth?”

  He stepped closer, keen and unsmiling. “That you want me as much as I want you.”

  Her mouth dropped open, but to her dismay, no angry retort flew out. Damn her feeble mind! It was wiped blank as soon as she saw his eyes gleam, daring her to deny what he just said. Tossing aside any chance of verbally defending herself, she went with her next best weapon—ice.

  “I beg your pardon?” she asked, jerking her chin up.

  He took another step closer and touched her—something she realized with alarm he’d been doing far too much today—tucking some of her hair behind her ear. The touch was brief, his arm already down at his side, but she still felt the warmth from his finger spread all the way down her Benedict Arnold body.

  “Oh, Sandra,” he said with a lethal smile. “Don’t you know it drives me crazy every time you give me one of your haughty I beg your pardons? Admit it. We share a connection, and I drive you crazy too. It’s just a matter of what you want to do about it.”

  He was studying her as if she were under a microscope, with those eyes that were now a deep color of jade, and suddenly she couldn’t think. Her eyes dropped to his mouth, and that’s when she feared he was way too close for comfort.

  She stumbled backwards but managed to brace a hand on the wall to keep herself from falling. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re confusing me with other women.”

  “Other women? At the moment, you’re the only woman here.”

  His look of amusement was the catalyst for pulling herself together, but she hugged herself tight to make sure she stayed that way. Somehow, he had a mode of doing this to her—throwing her off balance. And she had a sneaky suspicion he darn well knew it. She presumed it was nothing more than acting on his part. She just couldn’t figure out his purpose yet.

  “You’re sadly mistaken,” she countered. “I do not want you.”

  Several seconds ticked by. “Okay,” he let out, his expression unreadable. He shrugged and turned away. “Have it your way. We can keep pretending nothing’s between us.”

  As he walked back to the classroom door, her chin dropped, and she was able to let out a long breath. He wasn’t going to push the issue any farther. She was grateful for that. Otherwise, she didn’t want to think that she might have kissed him.

  Ben suddenly stopped, his hand hovering just over the doorknob, then swung back around again. “You know, I could give you some acting lessons if you’d like.”

  She frowned. “Why would I want acting lessons?”

  His mouth formed a tight, satisfied smile. “So the next time you lie and tell me you don’t want me, your eye won’t do that little twitching thing.” The look on her face must have been priceless, because he immediately threw back his head and laughed. It didn’t help her pride any that the hallway had a booming echo. It made his laugh roll over her as subtly as a tsunami.

  Her lips pursed together as tears formed in her eyes from the searing heat radiating off her cheeks. Oh, how he annoyed her! Now she was sorry for trying to be nice to him and beyond sorry for seeing more to him than there actually was. The man thought everything was a big joke. She should have immediately called his agent after the spider mishap and, at the very least, asked for reparations for having to put up with someone as irritating as him. Pretending interest in her was more than inappropriate under the circumstances—not to mention just plain cruel. She wanted to tell him that and more. But when she finally came up with what she considered an awesome comeback, he had already slipped back into the classroom.

  That’s it, she thought, fuming with resentment. She was putting him in charge of potty breaks tomorrow.

  The man barely knew her, and he was already making personal observations about her central nervous system. What did he know anyway? Her eye did not twitch when she lied. Besides, she wasn’t lying.

  She didn’t want him at all. She just got caught up in the moment.

  Jumping in front of the hallway window, she rushed to assess her reflection. She let out a heavy, relieved breath when she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

  There was nothing. Not one twitch. Well, just a minor—very minor—tic in the corner of her left eye. Then it was gone. It really couldn’t even be called a tic. Probably just a vein constricting because her blood pressure was shooting through her ears. Yeah, that was it.

  See? She wasn’t lying. She wasn’t interested in some conceited actor. She’d already been there and done that with her ex-husband. There was no way her heart could survive another go around in that fake and fast world. Besides, she wasn’t interested in dating anyone. Her wounds were still way too sore since her divorce. Okay, maybe she was a little lonely right now, but that didn’t mean she wanted to play let’s-get-it-on with a man who was only going to be in town for a few days. She had priorities that were more serious, like wanting to raise her daughter in a stable home and ensuring her business succeeded. That’s all.

  She did not want Ben Capshaw.

  Now, if only she could just get her eye to stop double-crossing her brai
n, she might be able to hold on to her self-respect before it was time for him to go back to Hollywood.

  Ben had the nerve to pop his head in her office exactly two hours later. “Uh, do you mind if I wait in here while the parents pick up the kids?”

  Still angry with him—and herself—Sandra didn’t bother to look up from writing at her desk. “You mean hide in here while the parents pick up their kids?”

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I mean hide,” he said with a trace of defeat.

  She finally put her pen down and lifted her head. Ben was doing one heck of a personal repentant show for her, hovering in the doorway with wide eyes and his hands folded. She practically saw the halo hovering over his golden-brown head. “Okay,” she said. “Then no, I don’t mind.”

  “Great. Thanks, Sandals.”

  She looked at him sharply as he stepped in. Five seconds had barely gone by and he already had her back on the defensive. “That I do mind. My name is Sandra—not Sandals.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t figure you for a nickname type of woman,” he agreed, looking pleased with himself.

  “Good.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned back against her door. “Ah, but you need to loosen up. That’s why I’m going to call you Sandals.”

  “You know, typically a nickname is shorter than the given name.”

  “Is it?” he asked in mock seriousness. “Oh. Well, tell you what, you can call me…”

  She waited several beats, thinking of more than a few unkind examples. “I can call you what?” she finally asked.

  “That’s it.” He shot her his bone-melting smile. “You can just call me. Anytime.”

  She rolled her eyes, refusing to give in to the smile that threatened. “That sounds like a line from one of your movies.”

  He shot her a triumphant look. “Ah, ha! I knew you were a fan.”

  “Please. Don’t flatter yourself. I just meant that it sounds like a very generic line from a very generic movie,” she lied.

  “Ouch.” He played wounded and made a show of sticking in and taking out a pretend knife from his gut.