Hope ran wild in her heart, in her eyes, love written all over her face as she kept thinking, He said he had begun to believe me, to respect and admire and love, he must love me, he must, must love me…
‘Is it true?’ Jared asked thickly. ‘Has your en- gagement really been over for most of the weekend?’
‘I tried to tell you this afternoon, but I couldn’t say it out loud, not even to convince you.’ Her voice was shaking. She didn’t dare say too much, even now, in case he rejected her again, but she couldn’t believe he would, not with that look in his eyes as the hard, hating Jared began to fade and the passionate, loving Jared was resurrected in his dark eyes.
‘And the kiss?’ he asked roughly. ‘I saw you from the balcony—’
‘Because I saw you,’ she whispered. ‘And I couldn’t bear it, so I just turned to Simon for comfort. I was crying, Jared, not kissing.’
He breathed unsteadily. ‘You should have told me the engagement was over. Why didn’t you tell me that?’
‘I gave my word to Simon that I wouldn’t tell anyone!’
‘I made a similar promise to Nessa.’
Christie’s heart beat faster with hope. ‘You—you mean what you said this afternoon was true? That you’re friends and nothing more?’
‘Nessa and I only have one thing in common apart from the film industry. We both had our hearts broken by the people we loved.’
‘Loved?’ Her heart was banging violently. ‘You—you mean you don’t love those people any more?’
‘If Nessa can admit she still loves the man who broke her heart, I guess I can admit…’ He drew a harsh breath. ‘I guess…’ He closed his eyes.
She reached out a shaking hand. ‘Jared…’ Without thinking, she heard herself say, ‘I love you.’
His eyes flashed open. His hand grasped hers tight. He pulled her into his arms.
‘Jared!’ Tears stung her eyes as she was enfolded in his powerful embrace. ‘Oh, God, my darling…’
‘I love you!’ he muttered hoarsely into her neck. ‘I’ve never stopped loving you—even when I was hating you!’
She clung to him, unable to believe she could feel such joy. ‘I wanted to say “I love you” this afternoon. It was what I came to say, but I was so afraid; you were so curt, disbelieving, cynical—’
‘Please forgive me for doubting you. I knew you were telling the truth, knew your love was real, but I couldn’t bear to be a fool again, couldn’t bear to believe you only to find that you were manipulating and—’
‘Don’t apologise…love means never having to say you’re sorry!’
He groaned, and a second later their mouths were seeking each other, the kiss so necessary as the darkness was finally smashed aside by the sunlight of love, and they kissed deeply, drowningly, holding each other tight enough to merge together.
Millie laughed softly behind them, drawling, ‘Ah… another successful weekend at Casa Camarra!’
They broke apart to find everyone staring at them with indulgent smiles. Christie went scarlet with embar- rassment, burying her face in Jared’s strong neck.
We like to think,’ said Mike, ‘that mixing business with pleasure can often be a very profitable experience.’
Millie nudged his fat stomach. ‘Not profitable, darling. They’ll think you want them to make a film together!’
Jared laughed, so did Christie, and as they looked at Mike and Millie they saw that they had been the real manipulators all along.
‘Come on,’ Jared said to Christie under his breath, ‘let’s go somewhere more private and talk. Hollywood already has enough information on us after this to last a lifetime.’ He turned her in his arms, and together they walked briskly, almost running, out of the ballroom.
Everyone watched them go, an excited babble of con- versation starting up even before they had disappeared.
‘Music!’ Millie cried to the band.
‘What about Simon?’ Mike asked. ‘Or should we just ring the hospital in a few…’
The conversation drifted away into music as the band started up again, and Jared and Christie turned the corner into the vast, glittering marble hallway again.
‘My bedroom?’ Jared said softly, holding her hand, long fingers linking with hers.
She flushed, excited, breathless. ‘Yes…’
They went up the stairs. ‘We can ring the hospital in an hour or so, see how Simon’s doing. I should think they’ll just give him a lot of tests first.’
She nodded. ‘Do you think he’s going to pull through?’ Concern tinged her voice. ‘He looked so ill…’
‘I think he’ll be fine. It looked like a twinge to me, a murmur. The heart was still beating erratically, but it wasn’t dangerously fast, and it certainly hadn’t stopped. I expect they’ll give him some drugs, and some tests, but I’ll be very surprised if he isn’t out and about within a week.’
‘Speaking of tests,’ she said huskily as they passed Vivien Leigh, ‘is it safe to assume that your demands for the casting couch are off now?’
His eyes darted to hers. ‘Darling, I’m sorry if that hurt you. I can see now that it must have done quite dreadfully.’
‘I’ve been through hell,’ she confessed, eyes pained suddenly.
He stopped on the stairs, his hand holding hers. ‘So have I. I can’t quite believe the barriers are finally down, but we mustn’t stop and think about it, or they might slide up again.’
She nodded, aware that he was right. ‘Yes… we have to just take this as it comes, don’t we?’
‘And trust each other,’ he said deeply, ‘as you trusted me this afternoon by the pool.’
Christie flushed, and lowered her lashes.
‘I know I was a heel to you,’ he said thickly, ‘while you cried and made yourself vulnerable to me. I was completely convinced, but at the same time so afraid to let you see I believed you. When all was said and done, you were still officially engaged to Simon, and no amount of talk about “old friends” could change that.’
‘Yes, I can understand that.’ She smiled suddenly and squeezed his hand. ‘Come on. Let’s just carry on like this, complete trust and belief in each other. No more suspicion or hatred.’
He kissed her, smiled, and then they carried on up the stairs, along the corridor.
Christie walked beside him, not quite believing fully her good fortune in the way events had changed her whole view of life again. Thank God Simon hadn’t had a serious heart attack. If he was sensible, he might never have another one, and he now had Nessa by his side, in love with him, prepared to stay with him forever.
A smile touched her mouth. ‘It was nice to see Nessa and Simon getting back together again, wasn’t it?’
‘She was crazy about him,’ Jared agreed, his arm slung casually around her shoulders as they walked along the corridor to his bedroom door. ‘I don’t think she ever mentioned another man’s name to me, in all the three years we’ve been friends.’
Jealousy flared in her again, and she shot a savage look at him. ‘How did you meet her?’
Jared smiled and stopped walking, bending his head to kiss her mouth. ‘Don’t be jealous, darling. Nessa was always just someone for me to go to when my own savage jealousy got too much.’
‘Savage jealousy…?’
He laughed. ‘Really savage! Don’t forget, for the last three years I’ve had to sit back and watch you soar up the Hollywood superladder with Simon Mordant at your side.’
‘Oh, yes…!’ She stared into his wild, dark eyes. ‘If you still loved me all that time, then it must have been hell.’
‘It was a complete nightmare, darling!’ he confessed, arching black brows and holding her close as they stood in front of the bedroom door, bodies very close, faces almost touching. ‘And Nessa was my strongest support. We used to scream at the television together sometimes, when you and Simon came on chat shows, holding hands, every inch the beautiful Hollywood couple.’
She gasped in amazed wonder. ‘Did
you…!’
‘I fear so!’ he drawled, laughing. ‘Very childish, but there you are. When you’re in love, these things come blasting out from the darkness, and civilised men turn into savage infants.’
‘Darling…!’ She stroked his neck, love filling her eyes. ‘I can barely believe it. All these years.’ Pain struck at her as she leant against his powerful body. ‘And did you feel it all again when you first saw me here at Casa Camarra?’
‘Yes…’ He gave a harsh sigh, and kissed her head. ‘Yes, I felt it all. But I also felt anger, fear and hatred. A nasty mess and very difficult to deal with. Especially when you’re in love.’
Her eyes closed as she whispered, ‘I’ve been so lonely, Jared. So very lost without you…’
‘Well, you’re not lost any more,’ he said huskily, and bent his head to kiss her, his mouth burning over hers, parting her lips with infinite tenderness and making her heart quicken as she returned his kiss, eyes closing, blonde head tilting back.
He drew her closer in his arms. The kiss grew more passionate. Soon, they were giving hoarse, fierce excla- mations of growing desire, and then Jared dragged his mouth from hers with a groan.
‘We’d better go inside,’ he said thickly, releasing her and opening the door. ‘Before this gets out of hand.’
She stepped inside, into the dark, masculine bedroom with its polished-wood floor, long dark red couch, and discreet dim gold lighting in the form of art deco Jamps on dark wood furniture.
Her eyes flicked to the four-poster bed.
Jared closed the door, leaning on it, watching her through heavy eyelids. ‘The casting couch…’ he mur- mured softly.
She turned to look at him, her heart banging nineteen to the dozen. ‘Oh, Jared, it’s been so long!’
Dark colour invaded his face as he stepped towards her, and as the light glowed behind them, he took her in his arms, his hot mouth bearing down on hers, com- pelling a breathless moan and fierce response as her hands linked around his strong neck.
Desire flared between them like lightning on a summer day. Her body was pressing fiercely against his, revelling in the feel of the strong muscles, the rigid hardness of his manhood against her flat belly, and the way his hands slid swiftly down to cup her rear as they kissed with blind, delirious passion.
‘Oh, God, Chris…my darling!’ he said hoarsely against her bruised mouth. ‘We’ve wasted so much time! I can’t believe how I hated you the way I did! When all along it was just so simple! You weren’t Simon’s lover, you didn’t leave me for him, you loved me and—’
‘Was it really that simple?’ she asked huskily, stroking his dark handsome cheek. ‘Don’t forget that you wanted me to be the perfect wife and mother—while I wanted to be what I am now.’
‘An internationally successful film star. An Academy Award-winning actress. You can’t imagine how galling it was for me to stand back and watch you do it all, single-handed, without so much as an inch of help from me. I felt utterly emasculated sometimes, as though you were doing it deliberately, just to teach me what an ar- rogant chauvinistic fool I was.’
Christie’s lashes flicked in disbelief. ‘You mean—you admit it?’
His hard mouth crooked in a self-deprecating smile. ‘Chris, I can’t hope to make this work if I don’t. And we have to discuss that whole mess I made about the perfect woman, or you and I will come unstuck again at the first bridge we try to cross.’
She nodded slowly, scarcely able to believe her ears. After all this time, he was ready to put down the il- lusions of childhood, illusions he had every justification to cling to, given the sad circumstances of his up- bringing. But he was right—if he didn’t let go of them, they would never make it. If they were to get together again, it would have to be on a very different basis.
‘The last three years have taught me what a fool I was,’ Jared said deeply. ‘I had other women, as I told you—several at first, because I was so unhappy.’
Jealousy darkened her eyes. ‘You slept with all of them?’
‘No. Just one or two.’
She lowered her lashes, trying to conceal the way she felt, knowing it was unreasonable to be jealous, yet unable to help it.
‘I picked sweet, wholesome, ordinary women,’ Jared said deeply, his arms around her slender, beautiful body in the pale satin gown that shrieked glamorous film star. ‘I had long relationships with them, all of them. Got them to cook for me, wash my clothes, look after me the way I thought a real woman should.’ He sighed, shaking his dark head. ‘And I was fond of all of them, terribly fond. But I didn’t love them. And, worse than that, I couldn’t even hold a conversation with any of them.’
She risked a quick look up into his eyes, holding her breath, praying he was going to say what she thought he was going to say: that he understood now that he would never be happy with anyone who couldn’t share his excitement of life, his need for adventure and achievement, and his rage against the injustices of the past. That rage had long since died, she knew that. He would hardly be adult if he still harboured it deep inside him. But its energy had carried him to the top, and made him what he was today. How could any ordinary woman from an ordinary, happy family ever hope to understand the demons that had coloured his entire life from in- fancy to adulthood, creating Jared Buchanan, univer- sally respected film director, out of the hurt, angry little boy who had grown up in that orphanage?
‘I tried so hard to make my relationships with them work,’ Jared said deeply. ‘Both here and in England. I told myself every night that they were what I wanted, what I’d spent my life dreaming of, and that we would have wonderful, happy children who would have the mother I never had, and the home I always needed.’
Christie listened, her eyes filled with love and understanding.
‘But, of course,’ he said thickly, ‘in the darkest hours of the night, when I needed someone close to me who understood without being told, who knew what I had been through without having to be given a step-by-step guide book to the whole emotional journey…’ His eyes darkened with passionate love. ‘That was when I missed you the most, Chris.’
‘Darling…’ She kissed his handsome mouth.
‘You always knew, didn’t you?’ he said huskily. ‘Right from the minute our eyes met in that newsagent’s. Do you remember?’
‘Across the greetings cards stand!’ she laughed softly. ‘Of course I remember, darling! You were staring at me intently, as though I were a prize you wanted to fight for, and I remember feeling excited at the thought of such a powerfully driven man. It was there in your eyes. The way they narrowed with determination as you watched me. I could see you were a fighter, a winner—’
‘Like that song,’ he said softly. ‘My favourite song- remember? About the boxer who remembers every punch, every cut, every moment of anger—and fuels himself with them to get to the top.’
She stroked his hard cheek. ‘You’re such a very strong man, darling. Your one weakness was always the vision of perfection in a woman. And I used to feel so frightened when we lived together. I knew one day it would rise up and come between us, drive us apart, be- cause however much I loved you, I knew I could never be that woman. I could only be exactly who I am.’
‘And I’ve learned to love you for that,’ he said deeply. ‘It was a lesson I badly needed to be taught, too. I saw that, in the end. When I’d finally come to the end of my tether with the very lovely women I tried to fall in love with. I just sat back and gave up, and said to myself, you bloody idiot. That kind of woman will never under- stand what makes you tick, and you’ll never have a hope of understanding her, either. There’s only one woman who can hope to understand a crazy, complicated, am- bitious misfit like you, and you threw her away out of pride and stupidity!’
Christie smiled into his eyes. ‘But I’m back, darling? See? And I’m never going to leave you again.’
‘But you did leave me,’ he said thickly. ‘Didn’t you, Chris? It wasn’t just because you knew you couldn’t l
ive up to my idea of the perfect woman, now was it?’
She flushed, the smile fading from her face. ‘No…and you’ve been completely honest with me, darling. So the least I can do is be as honest with you.’
His dark lashes flickered. A smile grew on his handsome mouth as he held her in loving silence, waiting, although he must have known what was going to come, because he understood her even better than she could ever have suspected. He understood because he was like her, in so many ways, and he loved her for all of them.
‘I…’ Her voice was husky suddenly as she faced the prospect of her own love confession. ‘Well, I was so am- bitious, Jared. When you gave me that ultimatum, it was the last straw in a series of straws that broke my back.’
He nodded slowly. ‘You resented me for expecting perfection from you, all along.’
‘Yes.’ She looked down at the powerful width of his chest beneath the white shirt and black evening jacket. ‘It just built up. I don’t know how or when or why- just that I kept silent so many times. You used to wax lyrical about how women should be. The clothes they should wear in public, the way they should treat their men, always loving and deferential, as though their men were somehow superior to them.’
‘I was a fool,’ he said thickly, pain in his eyes. ‘And I’m sorry I ever thought like that.’
She sighed softly. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘Yes, it was, Chris. And you must never cosset me again by either thinking that or saying it to me. If I’ve learned anything in the last three years without you, it’s that I must be responsible for my own thoughts and feelings, and not continually lean on my deprivation as a child in order to explain them away to myself or the woman I love.’ He smiled and drawled, ‘The woman who puts up with me, I should say. You were quite justified in objecting to my behaviour, darling. So don’t tell me it wasn’t my fault.’
‘All right,’ she said, playing with his tie, her smile very wide as she felt less and less worried about the con- fession she had to make. ‘And you’re right—I resented you bitterly. Apart from anything else, I’d been brought up on a similar diet of female perfection. Whenever you criticised my behaviour as a woman in the home, I felt attacked, and I also felt guilty. I did believe, partly, that you were right. That’s why I tried to bite my tongue whenever I felt angry and wanted to throw something at you, scream that you were a selfish, arrogant male chauvinist pig who deserved—’
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