Hold on to the Nights

by Karen Foley

  “Ah.”

  Lara began pacing the small room. “As soon as I realized you didn’t recognize me, I planned this whole scenario of seduction, thinking you’d never know it was me.”

  As if.

  Graeme leaned negligently against the bedpost and watched her, trying to keep the smug satisfaction he felt from showing on his face. Lara kept talking, her hands moving in concert with her lips. The words tumbled from her mouth heedlessly, helplessly, as if she was compelled to tell him the truth.

  “I had this crazy idea that if I could just have you again, that maybe I could finally get you out of my system. But instead, I just want more of you—isn’t that insane? I mean, I know it’s only because my body has been deprived for so long. And you’re Graeme Hamilton! The sexiest man alive. I mean, any woman would want you, right?”

  Graeme stilled and then eased himself away from the bedpost. His tone was tight, every muscle in his body taut. “What are you saying, love? That Christopher is too nice to take you to his bed?”

  Lara stopped and stared at him, color flooding her cheeks. “We don’t have that kind of relationship,” she mumbled.

  “Then why the hell are you with the bloke?” Graeme’s voice was low.

  Lara tipped her chin up, her expression mutinous. “Because he is a nice guy, and because he does treat me well. He’ll give me all the things I want and need.”

  “Things that I can’t, I suppose?” Graeme’s earlier lightness had tightened into a hard knot.

  “Not with your lifestyle,” she argued. “You’re always moving from location to location, depending on where your latest project is being shot. When you’re not filming, you’re attending premieres or other red-carpet events. You have a demanding schedule, Graeme. Just look at all the interviews that your publicist is trying to set up for you, not just here in the States, but around the world.” She looked helplessly at him. “How could that possibly be conducive to settling down and raising a family?”

  “Other celebrities seem to manage it just fine,” he said tightly. “Look at Tom Hanks or Denzel Washington. But if that’s really how you feel, then you’d best hope our little oversight just now doesn’t result in a pregnancy. Because if you are pregnant, there’ll be no divorce and I will be there to raise my child.”

  Lara stared at him in bewilderment for a moment, and then realization washed over her. One hand flew to her mouth even as the other one fluttered to her stomach. “We forgot to use protection.”

  “Aye.”

  They stared at each other for a long moment. Lara broke the contact first. Graeme watched with regret as she found her panties and slipped them on, pulling them into place.

  “So now what do we do?” she asked.

  Graeme stepped past Lara and moved to the bedside table. Lifting the bulky envelope that contained her costume, he tossed it onto the upholstered chair nearby. He picked up the silver locket, letting it dangle from the end of his finger.

  “If you’re so anxious to move on with your life, why have you kept this all these years?”

  Lara chewed her lip. “I never said I’d stopped thinking about you,” she finally answered. “Only that I want to. I realized after my father died that I’d been living in a fantasy world, believing you might eventually come for me.” She gave a huff of bitter laughter. “Obviously that didn’t happen. I decided I needed to put you in my past, to get over you once and for all.” She twisted her fingers together. “I thought if I slept with you again, then I’d realize that you weren’t nearly as good as I’d remembered and that I could finally move on.”

  Graeme caught the locket in his palm and closed his hand around it. He stepped closer to her. “And was I? As good as you remembered?”

  Lara closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them, Graeme could see the conflict there. “No,” she finally answered. “You were better.”

  11

  “I HAVE a proposition for you.”

  Lara looked up from the French toast with brandied bananas and pecans that she’d been toying with, and eyed Graeme warily.It was early morning, and they were sitting at a corner table of the lavish hotel restaurant, overlooking a lush veranda and the hotel pool. Graeme had suggested they come down to the restaurant for breakfast before his interview with the local television station. He wanted to break the news to Tony Angelini about their marriage.

  The one thing Lara had nearly forgotten about Graeme was how much he enjoyed good food. On their first real date in London, Graeme had taken her to a jazz club located in a Regency townhouse near Buckingham Palace. The club had a distinctly Scottish flavor, with dining rooms that had names like the Jacobite Room and McGregor’s Bar. Lara had understood that he was proud of his Scottish heritage and had wanted to share something of Scotland with her.

  The establishment had been decorated in the style of a classic gentleman’s club, with rich red walls hung with oil paintings and ornate mirrors, the dark, polished woodwork gleaming softly beneath gas lights, and linen-covered tables set with tiny candles. She and Graeme had shared a meal of wild salmon, minted carrots and mashed potatoes. He had explained to her that Scotland was famous for its salmon, and that his grandfather had sometimes taken him and his brother fishing when they were small. Lara had gotten the sense that Graeme hadn’t had much growing up, and so found appreciation in the simplest of things, like wild salmon, cooked to perfection.

  They’d finished their dinner with a snifter of single-malt Macallan whiskey that had both warmed Lara from the inside and loosened her limbs. Even then, Lara knew the evening must have cost Graeme more money than he could really afford, but he’d seemed to derive a great deal of pleasure from Lara’s enjoyment of the experience.

  Now she watched as Graeme finished his breakfast of eggs, corned beef and pastrami hash, crispy potatoes and smoked herring. Lara had been reluctant to leave the hotel room, and even more hesitant to be seen in public with Graeme, but the Mediterranean-style restaurant was almost empty at this early hour.

  “What kind of proposition?” she asked, watching him carefully. His jaw was shadowed with a day’s growth of beard, and his eyes reflected weariness from lack of sleep. Lara thought he’d never looked so sexy or appealing and for a moment she glimpsed a stark vulnerability in his eyes that caused her breath to catch in her throat.

  “I think we’d both agree that there’s something here. Some kind of chemistry between us.”

  Lara looked pointedly behind him, where a waitress laid place settings on tables. She smiled politely at Graeme when he glanced over at her, and continued with her task.

  “Maybe you were right. Maybe coming down here wasn’t such a good idea,” he muttered.

  “I don’t think she overheard us. Aside from her, there’s really nobody else here,” Lara said, looking around. It was early enough that except for an older couple on the other side of the dining room, the restaurant was empty. “Go on with your…proposition. I agree that there is definitely a chemistry, if you want to call it that.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever it is, I think it’s worth exploring a bit, don’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He blew out a hard breath. “I mean that before we make any decisions about the future, we should figure out what this…thing is between us.”

  “It’s lust, Graeme, plain and simple.”

  “Well, if you’re right about that, then we should be able to work it out of our systems, right?”

  Lara brushed a hand over her eyes. “I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation.”

  Graeme dipped his head to look directly into her eyes. “But that’s just what you were hoping to do when you came to my room last night, right? You thought by having sex with me that you’d finally get me out of your system. Then you’d divorce me, settle down with Mr. Nice and raise a houseful of babies with no regrets. Am I right?”

  Lara lowered her hand and looked at him. “Yes.”

  “Lara, I have to tell you that it’s been a
long time since I’ve wanted a woman as much as I want you.” He raised a hand to forestall her words. “I can’t afford to be getting into a long relationship. That’s not what I’m looking for. Truthfully, I’d already planned on asking you for a divorce before I left for New Zealand next month.”

  Lara stopped breathing. Her stomach did an alarming flip and she tried desperately to ignore the hammering of her heart against her ribs. He hadn’t wanted her after all! He’d been planning on ending their marriage. The knowledge came as a painful blow, despite the fact that she had been seeking the same thing of him.

  “I see. So then, I guess there’s no point in delaying the inevitable.” Her hand went to her pocketbook, where she had stashed the sheaf of legal documents. She hadn’t wanted to leave them in the room where a housekeeper might see them. “I brought the papers with me,” she said dully. “If you’d like, we can sign them now and be done with this whole thing.”

  “Wait.”

  Was that amusement she heard lacing his voice?

  Reluctantly, she raised her eyes to his. A small smile played around his mouth.

  “You haven’t heard my proposition, yet.”

  Lara raised her eyebrows, waiting. She couldn’t imagine what he might have in mind, and wasn’t sure she wanted any part of it, anyway. “Is it legal?”

  “Oh, aye, at least until we sign those papers.” Pushing his plate aside, he leaned across the table toward her. “Do you remember the inn where we spent our wedding night?”

  Lara drew in a deep breath, recalling the secluded Scottish hideaway, and the charmingly romantic room where they’d spent two nights together. If she closed her eyes, she could even see the four-poster bed with the plaid coverlet, the little grate where Graeme had lit a fire for them, and the tiny washroom where he’d folded his long frame into the tub and pulled her in to share a bath with him.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “I remember. It was called the Kirkhouse Inn.”

  Graeme drew in a deep breath. “Okay, here’s the proposition. We’re legally married, and you said yourself that you’re not sleeping with that bloke.”

  “His name is Christopher.” Lara gave him a pointed look. “I’m not sleeping with Christopher yet.”

  “Right.” Reaching over, he laced his fingers with hers. “So before we dissolve the marriage, and before we both move on with our bright and happy futures, I propose we spend two days—just two days—at the inn. Together.”

  Whatever she’d expected Graeme to say, he hadn’t even come close. Lara gaped at him and tried desperately not to let him see how tempting his proposition sounded.

  “And the point would be…?”

  Graeme grinned unabashedly. “To have as much sex as we possibly can.”

  The sound of crashing silverware startled them both, and they looked over to where the waitress had upset a bin of utensils that she carried. She gave them an apologetic smile as she hurriedly scooped the silverware back into the bin.

  Lara returned her attention to Graeme. “I’m still not getting it, Graeme.”

  He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Come with me and you will, love. I guarantee it.”

  The way he rolled his Rs made Lara shiver deliciously. She told herself that it was only his persuasive Scots tongue that had her thinking seriously about his proposition, and not because she had a hankering for more sex. With him.

  Still, she had to be certain she understood exactly what he was suggesting. She pulled her hands free. “You want to return to the inn in Scotland and spend two nights there, having sex?”

  “Two days and two nights,” he clarified. “And I’m actually kidding about the sex, although I’ll do whatever will make you happy and if that includes sacrificing my body to your appetites, then so be it.” He saw her dismayed expression and held up his hands. “I’m kidding. Really. My thought was actually to go somewhere quiet, away from this circus. The inn is off the beaten path and trust me when I say that nobody there will care who I am.” He laughed. “Funny thing about Scotland—it’s the one place I can go where nobody recognizes me.”

  Lara stared at him, bemused. “But why go back to the inn? We could go anywhere.”

  Graeme actually looked embarrassed as he shrugged. “I think we both have a lot of memories wrapped up in that inn. We were so young.” He linked his fingers together, letting his hands rest on the tablecloth. “Sometimes I wonder if we were more in love with the idea of love itself than we were with each other. Does that make sense?” He glanced up at Lara, his expression taut.

  Lara swallowed thickly. He was implying that they had never actually been in love. Not truly in love. She wanted to reject the very thought, because if that was true then she had spent the last five years of her life yearning for an illusion, a fantasy.

  “I don’t think that’s the case,” she said, mortified to hear the wobble in her voice.

  Reaching over, Graeme caught her hands in his. He stroked them between his own, as if she were chilled and he could restore warmth to her hands. “I’m not saying that’s the case, I’m just saying it’s a possibility. But I think we need to go back there and take another look at those days. We’ve both done a lot of growing up and I think we’ll see that our memories are idealized.”

  “You don’t think those two days and nights that we spent together were as good as we both remember them being?”

  Graeme blew out a hard breath. “I don’t know. There’s no question that we have great chemistry, but has it ever been anything more than that? I just don’t know, Lara.” He dipped his head to look into her face. “Come with me to Scotland. Just for a few days. We won’t make any decisions until then, okay? But I think we need to get out of this environment. As long as we’re here, you’re only going to think of me as Graeme the actor. As Kip Corrigan.”

  “That’s not true,” she protested.

  “It is. I can hardly blame you for thinking of me like that.” He gave a rueful grin. “Not when every person in this hotel thinks of me as Kip. That’s why we need to be alone, where nobody recognizes me or cares who I am. Where I can just be myself and not worry about the damned photographers or reporters stalking my every move.”

  “But you’re leaving for New Zealand. That’s not going to change.”

  “No, that won’t change. But I’m not leaving until next month. We have time to figure this thing out.”

  Lara’s heart began to beat fast. She felt confused and more than a little scared by the prospect. She didn’t know if she could be with Graeme for two days, not if there was a possibility that he would walk away from her in the end. It was one thing to be the person asking for a divorce; it was another thing altogether to be the one left behind.

  “I don’t know, Graeme…”

  “It’s a brilliant plan, Lara. I think we’ll both realize that our memories of those two nights and each other have been so exaggerated and so built up in our minds, that for the past five years no other person has been able to live up to our expectations.”

  Lara glanced sharply at Graeme, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring fixedly at their linked hands, as if they held some secret that he would ferret out.

  Had Graeme built her up in his mind over the past five years? Had other women paled in comparison to her? She fervently hoped so.

  “Do you think two days will be enough time?” she asked doubtfully.

  For herself, she couldn’t imagine that a couple of days would be sufficient time for her to figure out the complex jumble of emotions she felt for Graeme. She knew it wouldn’t be enough time for her to grow physically bored with him. Although, in retrospect, she’d been so done with the coconut-covered marshmallows after just a few hours of gorging herself on them. And at nine years old, she’d been convinced that she could live the rest of her life on nothing but those sweet confections.

  Graeme raised his head. “I don’t know. But let’s start with two days. If after that time you’re ready for me to sign the divorce papers, then I’ll si
gn them.”

  Lara hesitated. There was a catch in there somewhere, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what it was.

  “And what if you’ve had enough of me after two days?” she asked. “What if I want more time, but you don’t?” She drew in a deep breath. “What if I decide that I really am in love with you, but you don’t feel the same way? What if you decide that you just want to be single again?”

  From nearby came the clatter of dishware and both Lara and Graeme turned to see the waitress scrambling to straighten a small stack of cups and saucers at the nearby waitress station. This time she didn’t look over at them, but picked up a pot of coffee and walked toward the elderly couple on the other side of the restaurant.

  “Let’s cross that bridge when and if we come to it,” Graeme suggested.

  He gave Lara a smile that caused her heart to turn over, and alarm bells went off somewhere in her head. She recognized the danger signs; she was already halfway to falling in love with him all over again.

  “What am I going to tell Christopher?”

  Lara wasn’t aware that she’d spoken aloud until Graeme answered. His eyes gleamed with an unholy light. “Personally, I think you should tell him you’re going to Scotland to fuck me blind.”

  “YOU’RE GOING to do what?”

  Lara cringed at the sheer disbelief in Val’s voice.“It makes perfect sense, Val,” she argued, frowning at the cell phone. She’d put it on speaker-phone mode and placed it on the bed while she hastily repacked her suitcase, stuffing her clothing haphazardly inside. “I mean, do I really want to get into a serious relationship with Christopher if I have doubts?”

  “Forget about Christopher for a moment,” Val said, exasperated. “What do you think you’re going to prove by going to Scotland with Graeme? Don’t you see what he’s up to?”

  “What?”

  “He’s just using you, Lara! I mean, c’mon—the guy hasn’t so much as sent you a postcard in the last five years, and now suddenly the two of you need to spend the next couple of days locked together in a hotel room?” She made a scoffing sound. “You’re not really going to fall for that, are you?”