Unmasked (Revealed #1)

by Alice Raine

  Nodding thoughtfully, Jessica leant forwards again, no doubt trying to tempt him into looking at her abundant cleavage which was practically spilling from her low-cut top. To my glee, Sean didn’t bite at all, his eyes resolutely set on her face. ‘So you haven’t got a fair lady hidden away up there who keeps you occupied?’ she joked lightly, still doggedly persevering with her trawl for gossip.

  Sean seemed to visibly tense, his face looking impassively blank for a few seconds before the fake smile was back on his mouth. ‘Afraid not, Jessica.’ He paused again, and I watched in fascination as he tilted his head and briefly pursed his lips. ‘I did have one recently, but unfortunately, she escaped.’

  Jessica paused, looking momentarily stunned, before throwing her head back and laughing. ‘Sean, you are so funny!’ giggled Jessica, obviously assuming that he was joking, but my breath had caught in my throat at his words. Oh my God. Had that been a comment about me?

  At that very moment Sean turned his eyes away from Jessica and looked into the camera. For a second it felt like he was looking directly through the lens and into my eyes, leaving my head reeling and my chest impossibly tight as I struggled to draw in a breath, managing only a pathetic wheeze. He had made no attempt to contact me in the two and a half weeks, so surely that comment had just been an off the cuff remark?

  After sitting in confused silence for a moment or two, I let out a frustrated scream, switched the television off, and threw the remote control at the wall, sending a cascade of batteries and shards of plastic flying everywhere and leaving an impressive crack in the plaster.

  Bloody bastard. Even when he was thousands of miles away he still managed to haunt me.

  In the time I had spent moping last week I’d tried to consider it all logically, and had realised that I barely knew Sean at all, so had come to the conclusion that it must just be the attention and sex I was missing, not the man himself. I mean, realistically, I didn’t know anything about Sean at all, not real, proper, personal stuff. I didn’t know his favourite food, colour, or music. I didn’t know his idea of a perfect day, or his favourite travel destinations. All I really knew was that he was amazing in bed, could be temperamental, domineering, and sometimes heart meltingly sweet.

  Hoping to rectify my brooding singleness, I had arranged a night out with Sarah to try and get back on the horse. Excitingly, even Cait was going to be joining us because her belated Christmas trip to the UK had come about after all. Really, she was travelling from the Far East over to Los Angeles and wanted to break up the flight with a week’s touchdown here, but I wasn’t going to complain. It had been over a year since the three of us had been out together and I was so excited.

  As well as a girly catch up, tonight was my first night out since leaving Sean’s house. I obviously wasn’t planning on sleeping with anyone – I wasn’t usually reckless enough to jump into bed with strangers, that was just the effect Sean had had on me – but I did intend to do some drinking, dancing, and even a little flirting to try and boost my flagging self-confidence.

  Determined to put him out of my mind once and for all, I dumped my cereal bowl on the coffee table and stalked upstairs to plan what I would wear for my night out.

  After selecting an outfit – my favourite little black dress – I then donned my trainers, grabbed my iPod and decided to burn a few miles by going for a mind cleansing run.

  SEVENTEEN

  Allie

  As I often did when I had things on my mind, I’d spent much of the afternoon running around the woods until my legs were sore and it had started to get dark. I’d even managed to get a blister on my right big toe – which was a clear indication of just how far I’d run. I was blaming Sean for both the sore legs and blister, because if he hadn’t popped up on my television first thing this morning I wouldn’t have felt the need to run myself into the sodding ground. Bloody stupid man.

  Not that I was going to let him ruin my girls’ night out. No, I had been looking forward to this all week, so thoughts of Sean were now officially banned for the rest of the evening.

  Sean? Sean who?

  Looking around Monk cocktail bar, I smiled and adjusted myself on the tall leather stool on which I was perched. This place was as close to a trendy London bar as you could get around here, and considering I essentially lived in the middle of nowhere, it was an absolute lifesaver and all round awesome find. The bar was one of several properties set within a beautiful old terrace and had exposed brick interiors, quirky furniture, brilliant music, fabulous cocktails, and best of all, a late licence until midnight.

  Neither Sarah nor Cait were here yet, running traditionally late as always. Sarah lived close to Cait’s parents, so they were coming together, meaning that if Sarah was late – as she was every single time we went out – then Cait would be too. About five minutes ago I’d had a text telling me that Sarah’s babysitter – her mum – had just arrived so they were on their way. She’d also asked me to order some drinks for us all before happy hour ended at eight, so after perusing the menu, I absently signalled a barman over.

  As he wandered across I gave him a closer look and felt myself flush when he gave me a most stupendous grin and a cheeky wink. Hmm, perhaps I should add ‘handsome servers’ to the list of this place’s qualities, because this guy was a real cutie. Sparkling green eyes, dimples in his cheeks, and a contagious grin. Nowhere near as handsome as Sean, but at least there were no scowls or irritated lip-pursing in sight.

  Blinking away the infiltrating memories of Sean, I forced a smile onto my face and continued my appraisal. His hair was blond, with that deliberately messy look that indicated he probably took hours to perfect it with wax in front of his mirror before leaving the house, and he was wearing jeans, a white shirt open at the neck, and a black waistcoat. All in all, rather nice. And he was young too, probably my age, or perhaps even a year or two younger, which after my recent experience with over-confident, unreliable older men, was just fine by me.

  ‘What can I get you this fine evening?’ he asked with a soft, Northern accent and another smile, and for a crazy second I vaguely contemplated replying with ‘you’, but decided that that was way too over the top for me, even if I was supposedly on a drinking, flirting, forgetting-about-Sean mission.

  ‘Three Thyme Sides, please,’ I said instead, naming our usual – gin cut with lemon, infused with thyme and some orangey taste that finished it all off perfectly. Let’s face it, who cares what’s in it if it taste great?

  ‘Three?’ he enquired with a tiny narrowing of his eyes that told me that he was either interested in me and disappointed that people were joining me, or merely trying to work out if I was attempting to get around the happy hour rule of one drink order per person. ‘Are you thirsty or is someone meeting you?’

  It was the latter then. Silly me. Clearly my fling with Sean had scrambled my brain so I now imagined that all men who smiled at me were actually interested in me. ‘My friends are on their way, they’ll only be two minutes.’ Nodding, he flashed me a wink, and went about making our drinks as I watched his bottle-twirling in admiration.

  There was an excited shuffling of high heels to my right and hands landed on both of my shoulders as Sarah greeted me with her usual flamboyant style, and Cait simply rolled her eyes in the background. ‘Girls’ night out!’ Sarah whooped gleefully, and I couldn’t help but grin as I slid from my stool and embraced her, then flung my arms around Cait.

  ‘Oh my God, it’s so good to see you both. Cait, it feels like it’s been ages,’ I murmured, feeling tears prick at the back of my eyes as I hugged my friend fiercely. Gosh, I had missed these two so much. With Cait away travelling and Sarah having a business to run and her son to look after, we hardly ever all got together anymore.

  ‘It has been ages,’ Cait confirmed lightly. ‘But you still look gorgeous as ever,’ she said with a smile, stepping back and hanging her coat over a bar stool.

  Glancing at my friends, I saw Sarah dressed up in a lovely red, sleeve
less dress that was tight around her body but flicked out to float just above knee level, a similar length to my own black dress, while Cait was the most formally dressed of the three of us in a pair of black trousers and a pale pink blouse. She looked beautiful, but basically all of her skin was covered – as it always was. An observer might think this was as a result of the cold January weather, but I knew better. Cait never exposed great quantities of skin in public, not ever, because of a particularly traumatic experience with her ex-boyfriend that left her extremely fragile around men.

  This careful dressing was one of many protective measures Cait had implemented since Greg the twat, and was one of her ways to try and limit unwanted attention from men. It never worked though, because no matter how many layers of clothes she wore, Cait’s beauty always shone through.

  ‘Where do we start? We have so much to catch up on!’ Sarah giggled happily as she haphazardly attempted to drag a stool in her huge high heels. She was the most brilliant mum, but bless her, when Sarah got a chance at a night out she was in her absolute element and went full out with outfits, effort, drink consumption, you name it.

  ‘Drinks, and then gossip!’ I declared, seeing the barman putting the finishing touches to our drinks. Not that I was planning on sharing my gossip … that was still a bit too fresh and painful, but hearing my friends chat would be great distraction.

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Cait agreed, picking up the drink being slid towards her by my cute barman, who I noticed she completed blanked by staring at the drink instead. I don’t know how she did it. I understood why Cait didn’t date, but she never even allowed herself to so much as check out a guy.

  Maybe if I had her discipline I wouldn’t be in this mess, I thought with a sardonic twist of my lips.

  Luckily, Cait distracted me from allowing my thoughts to sink further when she raised her glass and chinked it against mine. ‘Well, I don’t have any man gossip, obviously,’ she said with a subtle roll of her eyes, acknowledging her rigidly single status, ‘but I headed across to Laos for Christmas, which was quite an experience. They don’t really celebrate Christmas, but it was really hot so we spent a great day going out on a boat with a local fisherman. We swam, helped him pull in his nets, and barbequed the catch on the beach with his family later that day.’

  As Christmas experiences go, that must have surely been unforgettable. A niggling feeling settled in my stomach and I had to struggle to keep the smile on my face – spending Christmas Day in bed with a Hollywood star had been pretty unforgettable too.

  ‘Wow. We had a quiet one, just Mum, Dad, gran and gramps, and me and Scott,’ Sarah said. ‘I was still ill with flu, and by that point poor Scott had caught it too, so it was probably miserable for the rest of family! God, it really hung around, I was ill for a full fortnight.’

  ‘So glad you’re well enough to come out tonight,’ Cait said, giving Sarah’s arm a squeeze as I agreed with a nod.

  ‘What about you, Allie? How was Christmas with Master of the Mansion?’ At Cait’s words, I practically sprayed out the mouthful of cocktail I’d just sipped, and had to blink wildly to try and clear the bubbles from my nose.

  Master of the Mansion? Sean?

  Actually, given his large house and preference for intensity and control, it was quite an appropriate description. But, why, oh why, had Cait brought that up? I’d been praying that she had forgotten our phone call, but I suppose being snowed in with a stranger was pretty big news. Seeing as I’d spoken to Cait before I knew who Sean was, not to mention before anything had happened physically between us, it was actually quite a lot bigger news than she would be expecting.

  Looking at Sarah, I tried to give a nonchalant shrug, but I clearly failed because it turned out all jerky and was accompanied by my cheeks rapidly flushing – she didn’t know anything about my time with Sean because she’d been too sick to speak to me. We hadn’t seen each other since I’d returned home, and seeing as I was trying to forget about Sean, I hadn’t bothered to call her and ask for details about him either.

  ‘Master of the Mansion?’ Sarah asked in confusion. ‘Have you been seeing someone, Allie?’

  ‘Umm … no. Not really,’ I muttered, knowing that my cheeks were the colour of ripe tomatoes as my friends stared at me curiously.

  So much for my plan not to talk about Sean. Judging from their expectant faces, there really wasn’t going to be any getting away from it. Where to start?

  Swallowing hard, I tried to decide what to tell them, but Cait jumped in and started it for me by turning to Sarah and filling her in. ‘When I spoke to Allie a few days before Christmas, she was at the big house in the country where you’d asked her to cover that cleaning shift for you.’ Biting on my lower lip, I watched as Sarah nodded. ‘Well, it had snowed so hard that she’d got stuck there. Just Allie and the owner. Allie described him as ‘stunning’. Would that be about right?’ Cait asked Sarah, but all I could focus on was the stunned expression on her face.

  ‘You got stuck there? With Sean?’ she asked in a hushed whisper, to which I nodded a bit shakily. ‘How long for?’

  ‘Until Boxing Day,’ I whispered, causing her eyes to gape so wide that her expression now screamed ‘oh my god’, even though she appeared stunned into silence.

  ‘Sean? So you found his name out?’ Cait asked, sipping her drink with an appreciative hum.

  ‘Yeah …’ I replied, suddenly remembering my irritation with Sarah for not warning me who the owner was. ‘That reminds me, missy,’ I said, pointing an accusing finger at Sarah’s chest. ‘You could have bloody well told me who he was! I mean, he’s famous for God’s sake, a little forewarning would have been nice!’

  Sarah blushed, but was still grinning broadly, clearly in her element and loving every minute of my discomfort. Cow.

  ‘Famous?’ Cait chipped in, looking more and more curious by the second. ‘Who is he?’ Before I could respond to Cait, Sarah gave a shrug.

  ‘Technically, I wasn’t allowed to tell you who he was.’ Seeing my continued stare she held her hands up in surrender with a chuckle. ‘Calm down, Allie, you’re going to blow a gasket! When I got the job I had to sign a confidentiality agreement at the agency to say I wouldn’t blab about his address or sell any photographs of his house. But seeing as you met him I guess it doesn’t matter if I talk to you about him.’

  A confidentiality agreement? Given who he was I suppose it made sense. He hadn’t made me sign one when I’d left, though, and he’d not sworn me to secrecy either. Did that mean he trusted me? Or that he’d just forgotten?

  ‘You two are driving me nuts!’ Cait suddenly yelped. ‘I’m here too, you know! Now will one of you please tell me who the heck this Sean guy is?’

  ‘Umm …’ I began vaguely, but paused as I saw Sarah scrabbling in her bag and pulling out her phone. Knowing how much Sarah loved her Google searches, I had a pretty good idea what she was about to do. And then, as expected, I watched as she pressed a few buttons and thrust the phone in Cait’s face, presumably showing Cait images of my Master of the Mansion. I giggled briefly again, biting on my lower lip.

  ‘Not just any old Sean, this Sean.’ As Sarah squawked at a stunned looking Cait, I closed my eyes and hung my head a little. Just thinking about him had completely squelched any desire I might have had to flirt with anyone else tonight. He was it for me. At least, at the moment he was, although I seriously needed to put some effort into getting him out of my brain because it was pathetic how much of my time was spent thinking about him.

  I watched as Cait’s face blanched at her recognition of him. ‘But that’s … I mean, he’s … famous … I loved his films when I was a teenager! You spent Christmas with a guy called Sean, who turned out to be Sean frigging Phillips?’ Cait spluttered, sounding and looking about as shell-shocked as I must have done the day I discovered his identity. I could understand her shock. It was rather a lot to take in. I’d still barely absorbed it, and I was the one who had met him and bedded him. I shivered a
s I remembered just how thorough he had been with me during our last time together, and then sighed heavily.

  Oh, God. I had been right earlier – I was ruined for anyone else.

  ‘Yes. I hadn’t realised it was him when I spoke to you,’ I limply explained to Cait.

  ‘I can’t believe you didn’t know him straight away! I know he’s not starred in much recently, but he’s famous, Allie! I loved him when I was younger.’ Cait replied, looking more animated than I’d seen her in a long time. Sarah was nodding in agreement and making dreamy faces, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes – it was always good to know that your friends had crushed on the man you’d recently slept with. Not.

  I sipped my drink remembering how young and smiley he’d looked in the film I’d watched, quite a contrast to the frequently intense, short-haired man he was now. Even so, I still couldn’t believe I hadn’t recognised him quicker. ‘I know. I think it was seeing him out of context that threw me. I mean, you never expect to find yourself in the house a famous person, do you?’

  ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!’ Sarah shrieked, butting in and waggling an accusing finger at me, the sudden onslaught of attention making me feel defensive and edgy. Not to mention emotional.

  ‘I tried to call you,’ I responded snappily. ‘But you didn’t answer your phone.’ I gave a guilty shrug, ‘We’ve not spoken about it since because you were ill, and I’ve been trying to forget about him.’

  ‘Wow. You got to spend Christmas with Sean Phillips. I think that trumps my fishing trip and beach barbeque,’ Cait mused as I desperately tried to think of a way of changing the subject.

  ‘Wait a minute … back up …’ Sarah said slowly, her eyes narrowing as she held out a hand to stop Cait from saying anything more, and then turned her beady eyes on me. ‘You said you’ve been trying to forget him. Why would you need to forget him if you just spent a few days together?’ Her eyes were intent now as she watched me carefully, and I tried not to flinch outwardly at her scrutiny. ‘Oh my God … something happened between you two, didn’t it?’ she demanded, making my stomach plunge and taking my shoulders along with it as I dropped my chin onto my chest in defeat.