Cam shook her head emphatically. “It shouldn’t. Do It is an incredible company, everyone knows Shelly Green was born with a platinum spoon in her mouth, money was never an issue. They must employ hundreds.”
“Thousands, when you take into account all their offices. And their ancillary services. They own a whole raft of associated businesses—florists, private chefs, stuff like that. They can get anything for anyone, at a moment’s notice.”
“One of her clients was a guest at the Monroe wedding and raved about us, apparently.”
“The Monroe wedding.” Cam grimaced. “Jeez, that was a tough one.”
The bride had insisted everything at the wedding had to be white. She only ever ate white food, and wanted everyone else to do the same. But it didn’t end there. All the flowers had to be white. Every vehicle outside the church white too. They’d almost had a hiccup when one of the guests arrived wearing black shoes, but Max’s quick thinking had saved the situation just in time.
“I can’t believe you had a pair of white shoes in every possible size in the back of your car.”
Max shrugged. “I knew someone would get it wrong.” She grinned. “The story of me dragging him away from the church door and making him change his shoes sitting in the back of my car has made the rounds. Shelly had heard it.”
“What’s the plan?”
“She’s in London the week after next, and she’s taking me to lunch to discuss it further. All going well, I’ll bring her back to the office after to meet everyone, and we’ll take it from there.”
“I guess there’s no possibility of her buying in as an investor?”
Max shook her head. “It’s a headhunting deal. She wants to buy us up and close us down. And for the right package I might let her do just that.”
The plane landed. They retrieved their bags from the luggage carousel, and cleared customs. While walking to the taxi rank outside the airport, a rack of the day’s newspapers caught Max’s eye. A familiar face stared from the newsprint, and she stopped dead.
Cam’s gaze tracked hers. She reached out and picked up a paper, reading the headline above Sholto’s photograph aloud. “He’s single.” The headline proclaimed the news as though it were a matter of national importance. “Sholto Kincaid and his co-star stated on television today that they are not in a relationship.” She glanced at Max. “Are you okay? Do you want me to buy this?”
Max felt faint. Her mouth was dry, and she swiped her tongue over her lips. “If it’s plastered on the front of the paper, you can bet the television news will be all over it. I can check the internet when I get home.” She stared again at the photograph of Sholto, and nerves fluttered like trapped wings in her throat. “But yes, buy it please.”
Alone in bed later that night, Max couldn’t turn off the thoughts racing around her head. The man portrayed in the interview which has been printed in the newspaper bore little resemblance to the man she thought she knew.
So she’d powered up YouTube, and searched out the video version. He sat next to his beautiful co-star, and talked about simulating sex in front of the camera with no visible sign of nerves. He flirted with the interviewer. And when he was asked if he and Caro were involved, he didn’t answer, just looked over at his co-star.
He didn’t deny it.
And seemed surprised when she did. In the natural moment that followed he could have said he was involved with someone. Heck, he could have even been more vague, and said he was seeing someone. But he didn’t.
She scrunched her eyes up tight. He’d called every day, and every night since their time on the island. She’d started to think of herself as one half of an ‘us’. But there had been no phone call today or yesterday. And her texts went unanswered.
Did I get it wrong? Her stomach roiled. Every day without him, she’d fallen deeper. Felt more. The memory of the time on Melati was like a bright, beautiful bubble—the realization that maybe she’d been deluding herself that he felt the same like a large, pointed needle, threatening to burst her dreams with one, savage poke.
When Shelly called the previous day, Max immediately shifted into dream mode. She’d imagined a future where she and Sholto lived in the same country, in the same city, in the same house. Where they slept together in the same bed every night. Because there was no denying it, she’d fallen in love with him.
Or maybe just the idea of him.
*****
Sholto stood on the rain-streaked sidewalk and watched the taxi speed away into the darkness. Then he picked up his bag, turned, and stared up at the house he’d crossed the ocean to visit. There were no lights on, and for a moment, he hoped to hell there hadn’t been a change in plan, that Max had left Italy and travelled home when she’d said she would.
The moment he finished his last interview for After Ecstasy, he’d gone home. The silence of his house had always been a welcome balm to the stresses of the day, but now it felt as though something was missing. Someone was missing. There were still a couple of days before he was due to leave to join her in London; she’d already given him her address.
Her Italian assignment was finished. And she’d be there.
So why wait?
Dark glasses and a baseball cap tugged low hadn’t disguised him enough at the airport, he’d been approached by a few fans wanting photographs, but once he’d taken his seat in first class he’d been left alone.
And arriving at night meant he managed to get through Heathrow without incident. He thought he’d managed to enter the country completely unnoticed until the taxi driver delivered him to Max’s door, and asked for an autograph. “For my wife,” he explained, with a grin. “And can I get my photograph taken with you too? Because if she finds out I had you in my cab and I didn’t get a picture, I’ll be sleeping on the sofa for the next week.”
So Sholto had taken off his hat. And stood under the street lamp while the driver fixed his cell phone onto a selfie stick he had stowed in the trunk. “I got one of these for Father’s Day. They’re fucking brilliant. Do you have one?”
Sholto shook his head. He forced a smile as the taxi driver slung his arm around him, and snapped off a couple of photos.
Every day my life gets more and more bizarre.
Anticipation quickened his pulse as he strode up the white steps to her front door. He checked the row of brass buttons with names below on the right of the front door, and rang her bell. After a couple of minutes, a light went on upstairs, and then a light was switched from inside to illuminate the doorstep.
He stared at the tiny lens of the door peephole, imagining her peering at it to see who could be visiting in the early hours of the morning.
The door opened. Her hair was mussed. She wore a pale gold nightgown, which came to mid-thigh with tiny shoestring straps and a deep V neckline. Her mouth was slightly agape as she drank him in. “Sholto.” Her voice was rusty with sleep. “You…”
“I couldn’t wait.”
She stepped backwards and he walked in.
“Come upstairs.” She turned and walked to the front door of her apartment, which was ajar.
He followed her in.
“I need you.” He dropped his bag on the ground, cupped her face between his hands, and kissed her. The touch of her soft lips, the taste of her mouth as her lips parted to allow him access, flooded his system as though she was a powerful drug injected into his veins.
As though his body had been filled with liquid sunlight. Without her, he’d imagined that maybe his memories were clouded by the whole unique experience of being on the isolated island. That regular life couldn’t compare. That somehow being with her would be different.
It was different. It was better.
The weeks without her had sharpened his desire to a knife edge. He kicked the door closed, grabbed the hem of her nightgown, and pulled it off in one swift move.
Her eyes were wild and dilated. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, as she tugged at his clothing, as crazy as he was to have them both nake
d.
“Where’s your bed?”
She waved in the direction of a room behind her. “I can’t wait that long.” He peeled off his shirt.
Her fingers were at his waist, undoing his belt. Unzipping his pants and shoving them down.
Her gorgeous breasts were within reach, and with a growl of irritation he grabbed a condom from his pocket and shed the remainder of his clothes so he could touch her. “I can’t either.” His voice sounded gruff and desperate, just the way he felt.
He backed her up against the wall. He hadn’t planned this—he’d spent long hours on the plane imagining bringing her to climax with his mouth, making their reunion something she’d remember for the rest of her life. But the need for her was too great, too urgent. He cupped the round globes of her bottom and lifted her, then groaned as her legs went around him, and his cock came in contact with her wet core.
Condom.
In a moment he was sheathed.
Max’s lips were on his neck, kissing and nibbling. Her fingernails dug into his back, driving him wild.
He dipped his head to claim her mouth and drove inside her, deep and true. The sounds she made, the scent rising from her warm body, the brush of her hair against his face combined to pepper shot his senses, driving him to the very edge of his control. Deep in his chest twisted an unfamiliar emotion, a soul-deep connection and feeling of rightness of being right here, right now with her again.
She was held securely sandwiched between his body and the wall, so his hands were able to wander up to grip her sides, just below the curve of her breasts. The dip of her ribs was beneath his palms, rising and falling with every frantic exhale and inhale.
She sucked on his tongue. Her inner muscles gripped and relaxed again and again, then she pulled away enough to whisper his name.
He thrust harder. Faster.
Her sighs and his filled the air, incoherent responses to the tornado whisking them both up into a world where nothing mattered but this moment.
*****
She unwrapped her legs from around Sholto’s waist, and he lowered her gently until her feet were on the floor.
His body eased out of hers.
“Where’s the bathroom?”
She took his hand, led him to the bedroom, and pointed at through the door to the room beyond. It was impossible not to watch his naked body walk away. To appreciate the muscles rippling in his back, and his perfect ass. The bedside alarm clock showed it was 2.20 a.m. She climbed into bed and pulled the coverlet to cover her nakedness. It felt like a dream. As though she’d thought of him with such concentration she’d somehow conjured him out of the air.
How could he be here? Why was he here, days before he was due to arrive?
The door opened, flooding light across the room for a moment before he flicked a switch and strode across the thick carpet, and climbed in to her bed. He draped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.
“I wasn’t expecting you for a couple of days.”
His fingers traced circles on her upper arm. “I know. But my work was done, and there wasn’t anything keeping me in LA any longer. I didn’t want to waste any more time waiting for what I want. What I need.” His arm tightened. “I think of you all the time. I don’t want to be without you any longer.”
Her heart fluttered. “But you have to live in America for your job, don’t you?”
Before yesterday’s talk with Shelly, her business seemed an insurmountable obstacle keeping them apart. But if she took Shelly up on her offer, she could live anywhere. Could be with him.
“Ideally, yes. But there’s nothing to stop me buying a house here too. We could live between both.” He tilted up her chin, and stared into her eyes. “I missed you. I don’t want anyone else. Move in with me.”
She swallowed. “We haven’t been together long.”
His mouth curved into a sexy smile that made her feel like dragging him down in the bed and kissing him again. “In normal cases, yes. Seven days together is barely long enough to scratch the surface. But we’re different. We shared our true selves with each other on the island—we connected at a level it’s impossible for two people to reach in the regular world. Stealing time together isn’t enough.”
His finger tranced her cheek. “You’re the only person I’m myself with. I’ve always had to hide.” A muscle flexed in his jaw. “My early life was difficult. My mother was agoraphobic and a hoarder. I couldn’t let anyone know because they’d have taken me away from her.”
His pained expression made her heart clench, but she stayed silent.
“New Year’s a big deal in Scotland, and I spent every year in at home with my mother, watching television. When I was sixteen, my friend Duncan invited me to a Hogmanay party at his cousin’s house. The lure of food, drink, and girls was pretty irresistible, so I asked my mother if I could go. She agreed of course. She understood how much I wanted to escape for a few hours. I put together a plate of food for her to eat in front of the television, and went up to get dressed.”
He ran a hand through his hair.
“I’d arranged to meet Duncan there, but he and his parents surprised me by picking me up. When the doorbell rang, I didn’t get down the stairs fast enough.”
Max shifted to face him. She slipped her hand into his. “What happened?”
“She was always worse around Christmas,” Sholto whispered. Then he closed his eyes. Breathed deep. “She got to the door before me. By the time I stumbled down the stairs they were inside. Ma hadn’t washed for weeks, or brushed her hair. We had no Christmas decorations, no tree. There was no room in the house for them. My friend’s parents were standing there, in shock, staring at the conditions we lived in. Ma just muttered something, and shuffled back to her chair in the sitting room.”
He stared into her eyes. “It was like a rabbit warren. She wouldn’t let me throw stuff away, and the hall was stacked waist-high with newspapers and rubbish, with a track wide enough for one body the only access between rooms. I was used to it, but Duncan’s parents…”
He pulled in a shaky breath. “They called social services straight away. I broke our family. I should never have let anyone close enough that they felt it was okay to come to my house. My mother was committed and died soon after.”
He gripped her hand so tightly it hurt.
“The truth’s not pretty, is it?”
“You were a child. It wasn’t your fault.” Her heart twisted. She never dreamed such pain hid behind the confident persona he projected.
“You’re the only person who knows the real me. I can’t lose you. Time’s too short to pretend, I want you to live with me.”
He was right. She felt like a cliff diver standing on top of a large, jagged cliff staring into the azure depths below, preparing to launch herself into nothingness. Afraid, exhilarated, brave. On the island she’d thought when back in civilization, they’d take it slow. They’d date, and segue gently into a serious relationship.
But there was nothing gentle about the feelings he stirred in her heart. Nothing conventional. Being without him had been pure, unadulterated torture. Cliff diving was the only option.
“I’ll live with you.” The mental jump, then his arms were around her, and instead of cool water closing around her, it was his warm body surrounding her.
His hands speared through her hair, and for the first time, they made love in the soft comfort of a bed.
Chapter Sixteen
“Sholto.”
Max’s voice woke him from sleep. He opened his eyes to see her standing by the side of the bed, fully dressed in a navy suit and heels. “Come back to bed.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. I have to go in to the office. I have an early meeting.” She took a step away. “I’ll try to get everything done early and bring something home for lunch.” She placed a set of keys on the bedside table. “Here are some keys for you if you want to go out and get breakfast or something—I don’t have anything in except coffee.”
Irritation almost made him scowl. He’d imagined he would arrive at her door and they’d spend the next few days in bed, catching up. But he hadn’t given her any warning, and of course she’d have responsibilities to deal with. “You’re the boss, aren’t you? You could just say you weren’t coming in today…”
“I could.” Her mouth turned up in a smile. “But my employees are waiting for me. I can’t let them down. It’s Friday, so once I’ve sorted things out in the office we can spend the whole weekend together.”
“Well, hurry back.” He sat up in bed, reached for her hand, and tugged her close.
She bent and kissed him. His body responded instantly at the taste of her, and it took a monumental effort not to deepen the kiss and change her mind.
“Scoot.” He got out of bed, making no attempt to hide his erection. “I need a cold shower.”
She was staring at his body like a starving lioness eyeing a fresh kill.
“Unless you want to change your mind? Last chance.”
She shook her head and shifted dazed eyes to his face. “I’m out of here.” She spun around. “See you later.”
After cursing the coldness of the water, he cranked it up to warm, and sang along to a song playing on the radio in the bedroom. He rubbed shampoo on his hair, and turned the heat up further.
He planned every aspect of his career carefully, but the same sure couldn’t be said of his private life. When it came to Max, he was acting on impulse all the way. He’d jumped on a plane a couple of days early, desperate to be with her. Had screwed her senseless the minute he saw her, and to top it off, he spilled his guts about his mother and asked Max to live with him.
Because life without her made no sense.
He shoved his head under the stream of hot water, then shook the droplets from his hair like a dog in a rainstorm. A memory of the look on her face when she saw him at her door flashed into his head, making him grin.
I love her. Neither of them had said the L word yet, but it was there in his actions, written deep in her eyes when they made love last night.
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