‘Says Mr My-job-is-my-life. If I do it I know the information has been given correctly. I’m invested in this. I can’t risk someone else making a mess of it.’
‘It’s a poster, for a kids’ show. What mess could they make? They stick it in a window, with tape.’ But okay, he got it. She took her job and her responsibilities very seriously. She was dedicated and ambitious. He respected her drive and attention to detail—even if it did get bloody annoying at times. That, and the fact she was an out-of-control control freak, meant she had to do the donkey work. On her own.
He followed her out into the afternoon sunshine, tried hard not to look at the way the light silhouetted her shapely legs through the flimsy trousers.
Suddenly the thought of her walking the littered grimy streets for those needy kids made his heart ache. ‘You want some company?’
What the...?
‘No, Nathan. Please don’t.’ She came to an abrupt halt and looked up at him, doubt and uncertainty swimming in her eyes. Shoulders hiked again around her ears.
‘Don’t what?’
A muscle in her jaw tensed and he suspected she was biting back what she really wanted to say. ‘Don’t be kind to me.’
That was a label no one had pinned on him before. ‘Whoa, Sasha, no. That wasn’t my intention. I was more concerned that the publicity machine cranks into action sooner rather than later. There’s only a week to go and I refuse to perform to a half-filled house. You dawdling here chewing the fat isn’t getting the job done. But it’s okay, do it on your own. Take as long as you like. Fine.’
‘Great.’ Her eyes rolled. ‘You give, and then you take away. Typical.’
‘Now I’m the bad guy?’
‘Nathan, you’re always the bad guy.’
Figures. And he was well and truly backed into a corner. ‘I won’t try to kiss you again, if that’s what you’re worried about. Although, I am going to think about it. A lot.’
The shoulders relaxed a little and a hint of a smile played over her lips. ‘Thinking I don’t particularly care about. Acting is definitely a no-no. There are way too many shop fronts out there. We’d never get any of these posters delivered. Just so you know, and in case you’re in any way confused about the issue—kissing is not going to happen again.’
‘And there was me thinking you’d forgotten all about it.’ So the kiss had been eating her. It had eaten away at him too, but now he just ached for more. And she clearly...didn’t. ‘Okay. No kissing. You have my word.’
‘Good. Definitely.’ She chewed the corner of her lip and he wanted to smother those lips all over again. Wanted to explore other parts of her body too. Heat zipped through his veins.
Leaning closer, he whispered in her ear, ‘Are you trying to convince me? Or yourself?’
‘You. I’m already well and truly convinced. So it’s good you understand. Good. Brilliant. Fabulous. No kissing.’ She glanced towards the street. ‘Er...no one’s lurking in the shadows. Are you on your own today? Tweedle Dum gone rogue?’
‘I gave Dario the afternoon off. Is that so strange?’ Yup. Dario had certainly thought so, seeing as they usually spent pretty much every waking moment together.
But since that doorway kiss Nate hadn’t been able to focus on anything, certainly not on scheduling another tour or a round of TV interviews to promote his new album. Couldn’t stand being cooped up in an office. Didn’t want to be outside. Couldn’t bear listening to Dario’s retorts about getting too serious about a bunch of kids going nowhere.
Driving around had done nothing to salve his unease. Suddenly he’d found himself back here. Fuelled by lust. No plan, as always. As she said. Rushing headlong into danger, and meeting disaster along the way. ‘This gig has my name on it—it’s got to work or I look lame. I just wanted to see how rehearsals were going. He didn’t. So I came solo.’
‘Okay...well, you’re here now and it’s getting late.’ She handed him a roll of tape. ‘Put your money where your big mouth is and get sticking. But don’t expect a heap of excitement. It’s only Chesterton, and you know what that’s like.’ Her voice was breathy, trying to be nonchalant. ‘It’ll be dull and dreary.’
* * *
It was far from that. Other than having to stop every five minutes for Sasha to speak to a friend, a neighbour, a parent of a pupil, a colleague, they managed a lot of laughs and convinced fifteen shopkeepers to display her poster.
‘No one’s recognised you yet. Great disguise today, by the way.’
‘I guess no one expects Nate Munro to be ambling down the high street.’ He pulled the hoodie more tightly over his head, and pushed the aviator shades back, blending in with the other guys milling around.
Nothing had changed. Sure, the hardware store was now a one-pound shop, the butchers had closed down, more estate agents, a couple of different burger bars, the feel was still very much rundown and shabby. Just as he remembered.
But the sun glinted off the windows; people smiled as they walked by; it was shabby with hope. And that hadn’t been there ten years ago. At least he’d never seen it. But he’d been so engulfed by his own private war that he hadn’t been able to see past his fists and his anger.
Maybe if he’d looked outside instead of dwelling on the inner pain he’d have made fewer devastating mistakes and even stayed a little longer. Who knew what his life would have been like then? Would he have married Sasha as she’d planned? Would he have ordinary friends he could trust instead of people trampling over him to get what they wanted?
Would he have saved Marshall?
Would Marshall have even needed saving? That, he didn’t want to think about.
She stopped outside a quaint-looking Italian restaurant. Painted bright red with chipped wooden shutters, windows dressed with café-style net curtains, it looked as if it had been uprooted from Nate’s favourite Italian village and plonked down in south London. ‘This place has the best pasta in town. Do you want to come in and wait while I talk to lovely Luigi? He’s bound to want to help the choir—he’s always such a good supporter of the school.’
‘Lovely Luigi?’
The spike of jealousy that erupted from nowhere must have shown on his face, because she smiled and shoved her hands on her waist. ‘The owner. He’s about a hundred.’
No man from the age of five upwards would be blind to Sasha’s sunny sensual appeal. He wasn’t going to take any chances. ‘Believe me, sweet thing, it doesn’t matter what age they are, if they’ve got it, they’ll use it.’
‘Oh, I can manage. I usually fight all those hordes of men off with a stick. But I guess today you’ll have to do. Be nice.’
‘Aren’t I always?’
‘No.’
Within seconds they were ensconced at a table with a background of soft lilting opera music. Rather, Nate was ensconced, alone, while Sasha’s attention was held at the bar by three elderly Italian men. One stared into her eyes and smiled inanely. One poured her a drink of prosecco, and Luigi, the elderly patriarch, brought her little tidbits of food to try from the kitchen.
Eventually she meandered over with two glasses of wine and handed him one, her eyes bright. ‘That’s eight tickets sold. They’re all aware of who you are and they’ve sworn not to tell a soul that you’re here. And they would be honoured to bring you some food, if you have the time.’
Not really but he’d make an exception. He kind of liked the comfortable feel of the place, with no one pressing for his attention or fawning over him. Shucking the hoodie over his head he relaxed into relative anonymity. ‘I’d be honoured to eat it. I love Italian food.’
‘Me too.’ She sat opposite him and ran her hands over the dark green plastic tablecloth. ‘I’ve been saving to go on a trip to Italy one day. Luigi has given me lists of all the best things to do and how to discover the places where the locals eat in Floren
ce and Siena. Apparently they’re a well-kept secret.’
‘You just need to know who to ask. Usually a bit of grappa works as a bribe.’
‘You seem to know a lot about it. Have you been to Italy?’ She laughed. ‘Stupid question, really, you’ve probably been everywhere and I must seem like a Hicksville country cousin.’
‘There’s nothing Hicksville about living in South London. It’s more like the wild west. I’m sure you’ll get to Italy one day, Sasha. Of all the people I know, you are the one who always achieved what she set out to do.’ Without any cut-throat, malicious back-stabbing too. She manoeuvred with ease, making sure everyone else was comfortable and safe too, rather than grasping for what she wanted, regardless. ‘You just haven’t had the breaks I’ve had. I’ve been very lucky to travel the world. Even if I did see most of it from a hotel window.’
‘Well, Italy’s on my bucket list. It would be a perfect start, especially if they have food like this.’ She tore off a piece of bread, offered it to him so naturally, as if caring and nurturing ran in her blood. His heart snagged at the tender gesture. Some guy would be lucky to have her as a wife. A family. She completed that picture.
But not for him. He hadn’t been joking when he’d said marriage would be the kiss of death to his career. To his privacy. To the steel he’d constructed around his heart.
He found her a smile of thanks, dipped the bread in a dish of thick dark green olive oil and ate it. It was perfect rustic ciabatta, the like of which he’d only ever had in his local village. The place he told no one about, the only sanctuary he had away from the madness.
And yet suddenly the words were spilling from his lips. ‘I have a place in Tuscany. Unfortunately I don’t get to visit very often. I haven’t been for a couple of years, what with the tour, filming...’ He neglected to tell her he’d had plans to go next week, but had cancelled them for her concert. There would be other times.
After swallowing her bread, she cleared her delicate throat, took a sip of the light sparkling wine. ‘Aren’t you more the party-animal type? Isn’t Ibiza more your thing?’
‘It was.’ He shrugged, suppressing a smile at the chaos of party central and his part in its rise in popularity amongst the celebrity set. ‘For a while. Until I got kicked out.’
‘Really? Why am I not surprised?’ Watching the innocent shock in her eyes was pure delight.
He laughed and felt the warm relaxation that only decent food and good company could bring. Something that had been missing from his life for too long. When he got back to Malibu he was definitely sacking the chef. Too much raw organic food made a man go quietly insane.
‘I had a few more-than-wild parties, caused some damage. They wanted to ban me but I make them far too much cash. Mind you, they have to spend a lot too. Driving cars into pools takes some paying for.’ He leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs under the table. ‘I’m getting just a little tired of that.’
Her brows knotted. ‘Nate Munro tired of partying? Is the world coming to an end? What will the papers be full of now? Proper news?’
‘Hey, I’m just a little bored of the same old scene, on the lookout for something new, the next big thing. I’m not ready for my pipe and slippers yet.’
‘Slippers. Ah, yes. Somehow I just can’t see you in woolly tartan.’ The smile she gave him was gentle and wistful, as if she was enjoying her own private joke. ‘So, tell me about the delightful Jasmine.’
He didn’t want to talk about himself, and definitely not about Jasmine. He wanted to find out about Sasha, what made her tick now, what she liked to do. Just listening to her sweet soft voice soothed his aching head.
And watching her mouth as she talked almost drove him mad with desire. Each moment he didn’t touch her was a study in self-control. But he was running out. Fast.
‘My ex? My wannabe wife. Nothing to say really. She subscribes to the take, take, take, mantra. She always wants more. And it’s never enough.’ Or he wasn’t enough. Jasmine had thrown back at him one too many times that he was missing the human connection gene. You have to give a little, Nate. Seemed she didn’t just mean his credit card. ‘We dated, moved in together for a while. Then she left me, fleeced me but I’m still her fall-back guy, should her master plan to hook an even more rich and famous sucker not work out.’
The little frown lining Sasha’s forehead dipped. ‘And yet you smile and talk to her like she’s so important to you.’
‘She’s Dario’s little sister. I have to show respect.’
‘Ah.’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘Is there anything about you that isn’t?’
‘Probably not. Things get incestuous out there. Everyone’s connected to somebody. Or wants to be. Or tries to be.’ He grinned at her rapid blink. ‘A long time ago Dario helped me when I needed someone. Upshot is, I owe him a lot.’ And now he’d said way too much about his private life and still knew nothing about hers. But that was her through and through: she gave a little, but never quite enough. Now, why did that have a familiar ring to it? ‘What about you?’
‘Me? Oh, I don’t owe Dario anything.’
He snorted into his wine. ‘Be gentle with me, Sasha. That sharp wit could pierce a man’s heart. You know what I mean—what about your life?’
‘Oh, okay.’ She winked. ‘Let me think...I have no minder, no significant ex who fleeced me. I have no houses in Italy and the States...’
‘No boyfriend? Husband? Secret baby?’
‘If I told you about the baby, it wouldn’t be secret then, would it?’ At his frown she shrugged. ‘Okay, there’s no baby.’
‘And husband?’
‘Ah...’ Waving her hand nonchalantly she flashed a serene smile. ‘Number one was lovely but secretly gay, but we had a lot of fun shopping. Number two...’ She sighed and put a hand to her chest. ‘Tragic. Number three—’
‘Wait! What? Number three?’
‘Come on, Nate. Please. I have no babies. No husbands, ex or otherwise. This is Chesterton not California. And this is me, Sasha, schoolteacher, not your average pack-a-whole-lifetime-in-before-you’re-twenty-one Hollywood starlet. After you left town I finished school, went to uni. I haven’t found Mr Right yet—he’s strangely elusive. Or maybe I’m just too picky.’
‘Well, that’s a relief.’
‘Why?’
Yeah. Why? It was none of his business who she’d slept with or what her marriage plans were. But for some reason he wanted to kick her Mr Right into touch. ‘You’re far too young to settle down.’
She shot him a look of amusement. ‘You need to talk to Cassie then. She thinks I’m over the hill and that I need to find a husband quick, before I get too old and no one would want me.’
How could anyone not want her? The V in her top drew his gaze. Tiny pearl buttons ran over the swell of her breasts and he wondered how easy it would be to pop them open. One. By. One. And once undone, what would he find underneath? Lace? Silk?
His brain filled with a sexual haze. His voice was rough as he spoke. ‘Well, make sure you don’t rush into anything. Take your time.’
‘What? Relationship advice, from you? That’s a hoot.’ She laughed. ‘But don’t fret, I’m never one to rush into things. I like to take things slow and steady. You probably think my life is deathly boring but I like it.’
Boring? Most definitely not, but he knew her well enough not to push the subject. Sasha had lived through more trauma than most other people he knew. Her father’s suicide had been a bolt out of the blue, which she always flatly refused to talk about. It was only when other friends had mentioned it at school that he’d found out. Even then, the details had been sketchy. That she hadn’t trusted him enough to confide had bitten hard. ‘Hey, it’s your life, live it how you like. I do.’
‘And we all know how well that works
out. Meanwhile, I stick to my life plan.’ Her mouth tipped into a smile that he wanted to taste.
Kissing her would be very bad. And so damned good. But he’d promised. ‘But it is such a waste.’
‘Of what?’
‘All that brain-power spent on graphs and spreadsheets. So...linear and neat and ordered. When you could be thinking up ways to spend your time more...messily...’ He leaned closer, watched the flush on her cheeks, imagined her breathless and spent in his bed, her legs wrapped round him. ‘Messy is good. Messy is better than good. I could show you some time.’
‘Er...no thanks. I’m busy...For ever.’ She coughed mid-fluster, tapping her hand against her cheek, the composed act failing. She was anything but. How easy would it be to strip her back to the hot woman he’d had in his arms on the edge of dirty sex? ‘Then, once I qualified I came back here, got my job at Chesterton High and bought my small but perfectly formed flat in the new development on Fairlie Street. I’ve come full circle.’
‘In more ways than one.’ He smiled at her confusion as his fingertips brushed against hers. A shot of electricity shot through him as skin met skin. ‘You. Me. Us.’
She withdrew her hand immediately, leaving a cold breath of air in its wake. ‘Oh, no. No, Nate. Please, don’t even think that. There can’t be any us.’
EIGHT
Brilliant. Nate’s stomach plummeted. Good shot, Mr Superstar.
He’d met presidents and royalty, given speeches and interviews, but had never been tongue-tied by a schoolteacher before.
‘Don’t get the wrong impression.’ Now she’d think he was a nut-job with his spectacular slip of the tongue. ‘I meant, it’s funny us sitting here in a café in Chesterton after all these years...’
‘I see.’ She didn’t look convinced. And neither was he. He was rattled. He didn’t do this. Assumptions, jealousy, possession. What was happening to him?
Before he could explain further Luigi interrupted with plates laden with antipasto, delicious bite-sized chunks of artichokes, glistening plump olives, spicy salami, salty prosciutto. And a jug of dark earthy chianti classico. More aromas of garlic and herbs spilled from the kitchen, elemental and sensual. Now he’d have to stick around and worm his way out of embarrassment.
Backstage with Her Ex Page 9
