Not Quite Forever
Page 6

Sometimes life did imitate art.
“Coffee is a drink.”
There was his smirk.
Damn it was beyond sexy.
“You’re talking about coffee?” He didn’t look convinced.
She made a motion of looking at her watch. “I have a meeting with my editor . . . perhaps something with more punch . . . later?”
His full-watt smile brought fire.
“You do owe me.”
Dakota lifted her chin. “Seven?”
Dr. Eddy agreed with a mere tilt of his head and Dakota turned and walked away.
Chapter Three
He needed to know . . . couldn’t stop himself from taking a little walk through the second floor.
The hallways and corridors were overflowing with massive posters featuring authors and their work. Tables lined the walls with bookmarks, pens, and postcards. Walt dipped his hand into a basket and pulled out colorful condoms with an author’s website printed on the packaging. Sexy Swag to Live By. He found himself pocketing a couple of giveaways, telling himself it was for the guys he worked with back in California. Lip gloss, emery boards, squishy stress balls, colorful trinkets of all sizes and flavors . . . romance authors had healthy imaginations. He turned down another hall to find it filled with the same.
This was Dakota Laurens’s world. The overload of half-naked bodies had a strange way of turning up the heat in the room. From five yards away, Walt zeroed in on her name. The D scrolled on the page, the ass of a naked woman, her head tossed back with dark hair flowing down her back while a man leaned over her, lips to neck, filled the cover. “New York Times Bestselling Author” blasted above the banner.
Surrender to Me.
He read the title and had a strong desire to find the nearest bookstore to grab a copy.
Women, and a few men, slowly trickled from the conference rooms and began to funnel into the hall.
“Dr. Eddy?”
He heard his name, twisted toward the voice calling him.
“Did they mess up your room again?”
The blonde, Dakota’s friend, glanced behind him and began to grin.
He was so busted.
“No . . . ahh, I’m sorry, you have me at a disadvantage. I didn’t catch your name.”
“It’s Mary,” she said, not offering her last name. “It’s a great cover . . . don’t you think?”
Walt turned toward Dakota’s banner. “It certainly catches the eye.”
“It’s her best seller to date. And that’s saying something.”
Someone bumped into him and he moved aside for the women passing.
A heavy-set fortysomething stopped midtracks and turned a smile his way. “Oh, are you one of the models?”
“Excuse me?”
“Alice!” she said to the woman at her side. “Take my picture with him.” She juggled her bag and removed a cell phone from her back pocket.
“He’s not—”
Alice shoved in and suddenly Walt felt the woman’s arm slip around him. The impromptu paparazzi moment was met with a flash.
“Thanks,” the woman managed right as he felt a distinct pinch just south of his waist.
He blinked, repeatedly, and stared at the women as they disappeared around the corner.
Mary began laughing, the chuckle started low and built. Walt felt himself smiling right along with her. “What the hell was that?” he asked.
“Entertaining! That’s what that was. Dakota isn’t going to believe it.”
“No, really? What?”
Mary stepped closer. The hall was neck-to-neck women now, some pushing in between them to reach the free swag on the tables.
“There are about a dozen models running around, brought in by the magazine hosting the convention. Cover-model types that pose with the women for pictures.”
Someone beside Mary turned when she heard the word picture. A redhead with more aggression than the previous woman and too much makeup for Walt’s taste turned her attention his way. “Oh, what’s your name?”
“Walt,” he said on impulse as he tried to ignore her lean body as she pressed it against his.
She squeezed her eyes together as if his name made her look twice. “You have the businessman-suit thing going. Very sexy.” She leaned in, snapped a picture herself with her cell phone, blew a kiss, and walked away.
All the while Mary laughed.
“I think I need to get out of here.” He said the words aloud but his feet didn’t move.
“Hey, Mimi,” Mary called over her shoulder.
“Can you take our picture?” She handed Mimi her cell.
Walt lost his smile while Mary glanced behind him, pushed him to where she wanted him, and posed. “Smile, Doctor,” she told him. “Your friends back home are going to want to see this.”
They would.
He smiled.
   Dakota’s phone buzzed right as her editor, Loretta, ordered a salad. “Is it too early for wine?” the woman asked.
Dakota laughed and turned to the waiter. “We’ll have a bottle of champagne and two glasses.”
“We have several to choose—”
She waved her hand in the air, cutting him off. “Your most popular under a hundred fifty bucks.”
“One of the many reasons I love you,” Loretta said as she pushed her beyond-petite frame into the plush seat.
“How many times do I have to tell you . . . when the publisher is paying the bill, tell them I asked for the wine by name. What are they going to do . . . say no?” Dakota knew they wouldn’t rack up half the bill on a lunch date as they would a dinner. Loretta was a young mother, a kick-ass editor who simply “got” Dakota and didn’t cut loose often. In the beginning of their relationship, it was Dakota who worried about stepping on toes. Those roles reversed when her sales blew through the ceiling and every publisher and their brother called her agent and asked for her next three books. Mumford Publishing topped her last advance with a special seven-figure deal that kept her and Loretta in a working relationship. A publisher willing to part with that many zeros wasn’t going to complain about a bottle of bubbly.