Page 6 of The Sun & Her Burn

She nodded, slanting me a playful look. “Do you enjoy being such an enigma? You seem like such an open, charming, affable man, but you never truly say anything of substance about your life other than your work.”

“I would argue I speak about my family, too.” I was proud as hell to be a Lombardi, to count my sisters as both my best friends and family.

“Sure,” she agreed easily. “But what about the elusive heart of Sebastian Lombardi? Copies of the magazine would fly off the shelves if I could get that story.”

“I would buy my own copy,” I joked as I ushered her into the cool lobby and toward the bar.

“Are you implying you don’t know your own heart?” she asked shrewdly as the hostess recognized me instantly and silently ushered us into the dimly lit room.

It was busier in the Tower Bar, even in the early afternoon during the week. A few friends tipped their chins at me as we walked by, but I did not linger.

“Do you know why you love what you love and long for what you don’t have?” I argued as we stopped at a table in the corner with a view of the glossy, dark wood bar. “And if you do, would you want to talk about it for the world to dissect?”

“Is that why you haven’t written a screenplay in ten years?” she pushed while she took her seat.

My smile was crooked. “I do not believe in pursuing anything unless it arrests me. Unfortunately, I have not been struck by the unyielding urge to write in a long time.”

My ability to create was something fragile, like a new spring sprout or a castle made from sand, and it had been eviscerated along with my heart after the breakup with the Meyers. Sometimes something stirred in my chest, a phantom urge to put pen to paper, but I knew it could be years still, if ever, until I wanted to let a vein in order to story tell that way again.

A scent hit me then, aromatic and floral, like spice warmed in a hot pan.

That dark tendril of spicy smoke wafted over me, through me, and brought to mind the thick, fragrant air of a tropical garden, the intimate scent of a woman’s inner thigh, the intoxication of Moroccan spice markets, undercut by the salt blowing in on a breeze from the coast. It hooked me by the nostrils and reeled me in, tugging my gaze over my left shoulder to watch as a woman walked by our table toward the bar.

She was tall, her lush curves wrapped in a bright yellow dress, the same color as the sunshine warming the winter skies outside. She moved with a careless kind of sensuality, a physicality usually reserved for athletes or dancers. The long, slightly tangled waves of her blond hair cascaded down her back, brushing the browned base of her spine where it showed through a cutout in the fabric. I watched as her hips swayed, her tanned calves flashing beneath the hem of the dress as she cut across the dining room without a single glance around at the many people who were drawn to her light.

I certainly was. I’d always been a sucker for blonds, and this one with her mass of artlessly wavy hair was a stunner even from behind.

“Sebastian?”

I wrenched my gaze from the gorgeous woman and grinned at Isla, who was watching me with sparkling eyes.

“Would you like me to introduce you two?”

“You know her?” I frowned. If she were famous, how was it possible that I hadn’t crossed paths with her before? It could have been arrogant of me, but up until that moment, I was pretty damn sure I knew everyone worth knowing in Hollywood.

Isla shook her head and propped her pretty face in her hands. “No, but I sure as hell would like to meet the girl who made Sebastian Lombardi drool.”

“You and me both,” I said, looking back over at the girl in question as she finally stopped at the bar, near enough to our table that I could make out the generous swell of her cleavage as she twisted slightly to the side, and the exact pale-yellow shade of her hair. The woman she sat beside was older, with a pinched expression that didn’t yield as she turned to look at the blonde. However, the bartender immediately spotted her, and they greeted each other familiarly with a kiss on each cheek. I felt my chest tighten with unexpected jealousy and scowled.

It wasn’t that I was unused to the feeling. As an Italian, a brother to three beautiful sisters, and a red-blooded male, I was just about as possessive as they came without crossing into unhealthily obsessive. But even I could admit that I had no right to thump my chest over a woman I couldn’t even put a name to.

“She’s gorgeous,” Isla said. “You don’t even want to know the things I would do to look like her.”

You don’t even want to know the things I would do to beinsideher.

“I can imagine,” I murmured instead.

I watched her cross those endless legs, my eyes tracking the slinky fabric of her dress as it parted at the thigh and revealed a wedge of golden thigh. My throat was dry, and my skin was prickling.

I wanted her.

And not in the polite civilized way that men were encouraged to desire women now. No, the way I wanted that blond goddesssitting across the room from me was ferocious, a language of the blood that was untranslatable in any language. My muscles swelled with adrenaline, and I had to grind my teeth to keep from stalking over to her like some heathen and claiming her for my own, at least for the night.

“In all honesty, though, Seb, the world hasn’t seen you more than once with a woman other than your sisters or Savannah Richardson in years. I’m dying to know why,” Isla said, leaning forward far enough that a loose lock of her hair fell over the table and into her water glass. She didn’t notice. And even though I liked Isla and she was the only reporter I almost considered a friend, I wasn’t feeling generous, given her continued pursuit of information about Savvy.

“I don’t talk about my personal life,” I said, taking a large gulp of the smooth whiskey. “I’ve been polite about that, Isla, but you are trying my patience.”

“Sebastian, I need something of substance for this article,” she insisted, her own pleasant expression souring. “With the rumors swirling right now, this article will have to be pushed if you don’t give me something headline worthy.”