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‘Oh, don’t say it—please. How could we ever have got off to a good start? You’re the man who judged me on the basis of little more than hearsay and a grainy photograph eight years ago, who still assumes I’m walking around with track marks hidden on my body. I suppose you wouldn’t believe me if I told you I’ve never touched a drug in my life?’ She answered herself with a short harsh laugh. ‘Don’t bother answering. Of course not.’
She shrugged out from under his hand and moved away, closer to the door. He grabbed her wrist and, loath as she was to leave it there, because that same burning sensation was making her tingle all over, she didn’t want him to see how his touch affected her. He was only trying to smooth over turbulent waters. He was a manipulator. There to make sure she toed the line, did as she was told.
She looked at him unflinchingly and her eyes were huge. The glasses were giving her a potent air of subdued sexiness that she was oblivious to. ‘Just tell me where and when.’
He didn’t speak for a long moment. She fought to appear cool, in control. The past was something that represented her own private hell. She knew there were parts of it, parts of her, that she hadn’t looked at for a long time, had hoped she’d dealt with. Single-handed, this man was raking up a veritable field of emotional land mines.
‘You have a week off. You’ll be picked up from your apartment here in Dublin in a week’s time—ten a.m. I’ll send you over the schedule for the shoot.’
She nodded jerkily, finally retrieved her hand, and backed away through the door. For some bizarre reason she couldn’t break her gaze from his until the last moment. Then thankfully the door opened behind her, and she slipped through and was gone.
CHAPTER FIVE (#u96210df4-c053-5fd1-be0c-16231f16d7ef)
ROMAIN watched her go through the swinging doors, catching fleeting glimpses as they swung back and forth. A whole host of conflicting emotions and desires were battling under the surface of his cool grey gaze. He was watching her walk away for the second time.
He vowed at that moment that he would never watch her walk away again. An image crashed into his head of her lying underneath him, her sable hair spread out on a pillow, cheeks pink with arousal and passion. She was looking up, her blue eyes darkened, slumberous, and she was slowly bringing his head back down to hers, where their mouths…His whole body seemed to be igniting from the inside even as he tried to quash the picture. But its eroticism lingered. He wanted her badly. Past or no past; job or no job.
He shrugged mentally. So what if she was the first woman he’d take to bed who didn’t like him, or profess to love him? For him that was the kiss of death to any relationship. He was a man who didn’t deal in emotions like like or love. Their mutual antipathy could be transformed into passion. Of that he was sure. It would add an edge that was sorely lacking in his life.
He felt ruthless, almost cruel for making her do this. Then wondered broodingly if it was all an act. That effortless display of vulnerability. The hurt in her eyes when he had speculated on her motives for being involved with the outreach centre. The confusion that had assailed him when she had laughed off the suggestion that he could possibly believe she’d never been involved with drugs.
How could he be feeling in the wrong when he was offering her the kind of contract that any other model would sell their right kidney for? And why wasn’t she grateful?
With an abrupt harsh movement he walked back to the table, oblivious to the covetous glances of women as he passed by. Making his apologies to the maître d’, he followed the path that Sorcha had just taken and, despite his reasoning to himself, as he took the lift back up to his suite he felt curiously empty. For the first time ever—despite the huge workload ahead of him, and the fact he’d be crossing the world twice in the next few days—the week seemed to stretch ahead into infinity.
The helicopter was coming in low, closer and closer to the lush green land underneath. A mark for landing materialised as if from nowhere, and to Sorcha she’d never seen anything so welcome in her life. The last forty-five minutes had been pure torture. However terrifying she found taking off in a normal-sized plane, her fear had been magnified by one hundred in this tiny machine for the duration of the journey. Her only companion, the chatty make-up artist Lucy, had happily not been able to even try and make conversation. The noise was too loud.
At last they landed. Sorcha’s breathing finally returned to normal—only to shoot off the Richter scale again when she looked out of the window and saw a gleaming four-wheel drive with a tall, familiarly dark figure leaning nonchalantly against the bonnet in the near distance, arms crossed over a formidable chest. She gulped. This was it. No going back. Long days stretched ahead in which she was going to have to see him every day, every night and hour in between. Even though she hadn’t done a location job as long as this before, she’d been away on enough shoots to know what a hothouse atmosphere it was.
As she emerged, feeling decidedly shaky—and not just from the helicopter ride—she slipped on her sunglasses. Early spring on Inis Mór, the biggest of the Aran Islands just off the west coast of Ireland, was brisk and breezy, and rare brilliant sunshine glanced off every surface. The tall figure pushed himself away from the Jeep and strolled towards her. He was even more gorgeous than she remembered, and she stumbled slightly on the bottom step. Thankfully, glasses shielded his eyes too. He was wearing jeans and a casual jumper, making him disturbingly casual, altogether more…earthy, male.
He held out his hand for her bag. ‘Welcome.’
Sorcha held onto it like a lifeline and found that she couldn’t utter a word. It was simply too much to be facing him again, and the hurt from their last meeting was still fresh.
His brow quirked over his glasses at the way she held onto the bag. He gestured with a hand. ‘It’s a beautiful location, no?’
Sorcha knew exactly how lovely it was. Not too far away, at the end of the field, a steep cliff dropped to the Atlantic Ocean, where grey-green swells with white tops battered the cliffs. Thankfully she hadn’t noticed how close they’d been to the edge of the cliff, or that would have made the landing even worse. Then she saw his attention divert.
‘Ah, you must be Lucy. Welcome. The crew minibus is here to take you to your lodgings. You’re the last ones to arrive.’
Sorcha watched him greet Lucy, and saw the inevitable reaction as the younger girl took him in. Unbelievable. As he walked Lucy over to a minibus that Sorcha hadn’t even noticed, she followed, assuming that it was for her too.
Just as she was about to get in the passenger seat, she heard a curt, ‘No, Sorcha. You’re coming with me.’
She turned and found he was very close behind her. She couldn’t step back.
‘But if I’m staying with the crew then I might as well go with Lucy.’
He shook his head. ‘You’re not staying with the crew. You’re staying with me.’
Panic flared in her belly. ‘But—’
His mouth tightened. ‘And the cameramen.’
‘Oh.’
She looked back for a second and saw Lucy looking from one to the other with a speculative gleam. Knowing the insidious spread of gossip on any shoot, Sorcha didn’t want to be giving any fodder within minutes of landing on the island.
She slammed the door shut again behind her and smiled brightly. ‘Of course—I should have guessed.’ She looked back to Lucy. ‘See you in the morning, no doubt…’
‘You’ll see each other later. We’re having a dinner so that everyone can meet and get to know one another.’
And with that he bade goodbye to Lucy, took Sorcha’s bag out of her white-knuckle grasp and was soon striding back to his Jeep.
She trotted after him, stupidly incensed that he could walk faster than her, and felt indignation rise at his high-handed manner. When she caught up with him he’d already stowed her bag and was holding open the passenger door. She also hated the fact that she was slightly breathless.
‘I would normally stay with the crew. They’re going to think it’s odd if I’m with you and the photographers.’
‘Worried about gossip, Sorcha?’
His disbelieving tone mocked her. After a week of telling herself that she wouldn’t let him get to her, already she was failing abysmally. ‘Yes, actually. Having me stay with you will be an excuse for them to think—’
‘I intend to have my wicked way with you?’ That supercilious brow arched again.
Sorcha’s stomach clenched down low, and she reacted defensively—as if he had seen her inner turmoil, her helpless attraction. ‘Of course not.’ She forced herself to stop. He couldn’t read her mind. ‘That is…I mean, yes—they may think that.’ She gave a short, unamused laugh. ‘Oh, don’t worry—I know you’d never taint yourself, touching someone like me. I’ve no doubt it would turn your moral stomach.’
She could feel her breasts rise up and down with her agitated breath, and hated the fact that she couldn’t remain cool and unflappable in the face of his censure, as she had planned. And why wasn’t he saying something? He was standing very still, and suddenly Sorcha realised that he was much closer. As if he’d moved without her realising it. Her breath hitched, and stopped altogether when a lean brown hand reached out to cup her jaw.
She felt all at once dizzy, bemused, confused, and a torrent of heat was racing upwards from her belly.
His voice was husky, had a quality that caught her on the raw. ‘Actually, you’re quite wrong.’
Her mouth opened. She frowned slightly. She couldn’t see his eyes. And then he was gone—had stepped back and away as if the last few seconds hadn’t even happened. Sorcha had to grab the door for support. She felt adrift. What had he just said? That he would want to touch her? Or that he knew the others would think that he wanted to have his wicked way with her? She couldn’t think straight.
She heard a door slam, and a cool voice came from the interior of the Jeep. ‘Well? Are you going to stand there admiring the view all day?’
Romain strode away from the door he’d just shut, behind which lay the living, breathing embodiment of his sleepless nights for the past week. Sorcha Murphy.
He had to clench his hands into fists. Seeing her emerge from the tiny helicopter less than half an hour before, he’d felt the upsurge of a desire so hot, so immediate, that he had reeled with the force of it. Her obvious reluctance to share his lodgings, albeit with others, had rankled in a way that he really didn’t care for. And when he’d cupped her jaw with his hand…She had no idea how close he’d come to hauling her to him and ravaging that soft mouth. Crushing her to him.
He didn’t act on basic instincts like that. In fact, although he’d desired plenty of women, not one of them had come close to igniting such forcible desire. He’d had no intention of making his needs so obvious to her, and yet he had. He hadn’t ever lost control like that.
A dark, wispy memory struggled up through the threads of his consciousness. At least not since…then. And that was so long ago. Would he never be free of that? And why was he allowing Sorcha Murphy to even evoke that memory?
Sorcha threw off the knitted shawl she’d been wearing, feeling hot and bothered, and paced the beautifully furnished bedroom with pent-up energy. She’d barely noticed the understated luxury of the old converted farmhouse. The amazing view of green fields and the huge expanse of ocean in the distance went over her head. Even the way the wild garden tapered down to a beach at the back of the house.
She’d hardly exchanged two words with Romain in the Jeep. The tension had been heavy and pulsating between them. She was still going over his words obsessively, and yet nothing in his behaviour since he’d cupped her jaw had led her to think for a second that he did desire her. It was as if a switch had been flicked. Once he’d shown her to her bedroom he’d curtly informed her to come back downstairs in an hour, so she could meet the others. They were to give her a briefing on the schedule for the shoot, go through the storyboards.
She sank back onto the bed. Her heart was racing. Two weeks—two weeks of suffering under his condemning looks. Could she do it?
Lisa’s face flashed into her head. And also the outreach centre. In the last week, working intensively with the board at the centre, she’d realised that the money she’d earn from this job could go straight into that and would more than cover the first few months’ overheads. It would mean that the centre would have absolutely every possible chance to succeed and flourish…especially as she’d been planning on her involvement being pro bono.
She had no choice. She was here now. For better or worse. And she would just have to keep in mind all the people who would benefit from this when things got rough.
‘It’s a love story…the images will run together almost like a short film.’
Sorcha choked slightly, her attention suddenly and spectacularly brought back into the huge dining room where she sat with Simon, the film cameraman, Dominic, the photographer, and Romain, who sat across the table, his huge taut body lounging against a high-backed antique chair.
The moment she’d walked into the room some minutes before, all her recent rationalising had fled out of the window. Her entire focus had been taken by him—again. She’d noticed in a flash that he’d just had a shower. The clean crisp scent had hit her so strongly that she’d imagined everyone must be able to smell it. His hair was still damp, furrowed from where he’d obviously run fingers through it. And yet when she’d looked at him he’d been practically glacial, those grey eyes as cold as the nearby ocean.
She caught herself and modulated her tone. ‘I’m sorry, Simon, can you say that again?’
The cameraman was a nice guy. From London. Good looking, a little cocky, dressed in a very trendily casual way. But he didn’t come close to the class that Romain exuded so effortlessly. And she hated that she’d noticed that.
‘As Simon said, the stills will run as one campaign and the film will be shown in a series of thirty-second commercials, the sequence building up the story.’
Reluctantly she looked to Romain, who had spoken. So far the photographer hadn’t said anything. But Sorcha knew him well from years ago. He’d been on the periphery of the group she’d hung out with for that brief, yet catastrophic time, and although he hadn’t been directly involved she hadn’t mistaken the knowing, mocking glance in his eyes. She knew his type, and usually steered well clear. It seemed, however, as if she wouldn’t be able to get too far away this time.
She sighed. The weeks ahead were becoming more challenging than she could ever have imagined.
She deliberately focused her attention on Simon, the least threatening of the men in the room at that moment. ‘I’m sorry, would you mind explaining a little more?’
He smiled with an infectious grin, which she welcomed as an antidote to the tension she felt. She struggled to concentrate.
‘We follow you as you’re led on a romantic trail, of sorts, around the world. It’ll be a sumptuous, truly global love story. In each place the relationship goes to another level. We see you meet, fall in love, even get married, and it’s all going to be shot with a very moody, dreamlike feel. The last shot will show you and your lover with a family.’
Sorcha’s head spun. She couldn’t look at Romain. For some reason she felt ridiculously exposed—almost as though someone had gone into her deepest fantasies and converted them into a script. And since when had she ever seen herself with a happy family? After the devastation of lies and truths that had followed her father’s death, she’d had a cynical and somewhat jaded view of so-called happy families, distrusting anyone who professed to be part of one. As she and her brother could attest, their realities had been anything but happy.
After a few more minutes going over what they hoped to achieve at this location, Sorcha got up to leave, relieved when it didn’t look as though Romain was going to follow her. He did, however, remind her that dinner would be held in that dining room for all the crew at eight sharp that evening.
She was breathing a sigh of relief when she reached the door, but it didn’t last long when she realised that Dominic was right behind her. He came too close, crowding her as she went through the door, and she automatically stepped away. Everything about him was making some part of her crawl. He wasn’t a bad-looking man—in fact she knew that many would find his boyish looks a turn-on—but he left Sorcha feeling cold. He didn’t take her hint, and fell into step beside her. She cursed herself for heading outside and not upstairs, to the sanctuary of her room.
‘Nice to see you again, Sorch…it’s been years, hasn’t it? Although I’m sure you remember the good old days…Pity you couldn’t handle the pace…’
She deliberately kept her voice light, giving him the briefest of glances. ‘Yes, it has been years, Dominic…It’s nice to see you too. I’m going to go for a walk, so if you don’t mind…’
As she went to walk away, towards the front door, she felt her arm being taken in a none too gentle grip. She whirled around in shock. ‘What do you—?’
Dominic was smiling, but it wasn’t friendly. ‘I do remember the good old days. I remember Christian…don’t you? I saw him recently. When I told him we were working together he told me all about you.’ He looked her up and down. ‘I’m looking forward to getting to know you better—and if you’re looking for anything…anything at all…you know where to find me.’
Sorcha felt disgust and fear fill her belly. She knew exactly what he was talking about. Drugs. She refused to let him bring her back down the path of her dark memories. She pulled her arm free with effort.
‘I’d prefer it if you called me Sorcha. And I won’t be looking for anything at all. I’m here to work. Now, please—’
At that moment she caught a flash of movement in the hall behind Dominic, and saw Romain coming out of the room. She saw him take in the way she was standing so close to Dominic, and imagined that it must look intimate. Without knowing where the desire was coming from she suddenly wanted to make it very clear that it wasn’t. But what could she say or do?
That familiar glower was on his face, and he called curtly for Dominic to come back into the room. Sorcha took advantage and fled out into the sunshine, away from the dark heat of censure in his eyes.
That evening Sorcha looked at the clothes she’d laid out on the bed. Even though tonight wasn’t a formal occasion, she itched to put on something that would assert cool professionalism. Romain scrambled her brain, her senses, and she needed all the armour she could muster. She’d been lacking in control ever since she’d come face to face with him in New York, and it had to stop or she’d never get through the job.
She reached for jeans and flat ballet pumps, and a soft cashmere wraparound cardigan. It didn’t need anything underneath, but the sensual feel of the fabric—why did it suddenly have to feel sensual?—made her team it with a plain white vest top. The deep sapphire colour of the cardigan made her eyes a dark smoky blue. Pulling her hair back and up, she clipped it haphazardly. Stuck on her glasses. She looked at her image, somewhere between a sixteen-year-old cheerleader and a student.
Sticking her tongue out at herself, she ignored the two spots of bright colour on her cheeks and left the room, only to walk smack-bang into a hard, unyielding chest.
CHAPTER SIX (#u96210df4-c053-5fd1-be0c-16231f16d7ef)
THE wind was driven out of her more as a result of her reaction to coming into contact with his hard chest than because of the impact. Sorcha looked up with dazed eyes. Big hands encircled her upper arms and she could feel his body heat enveloping her. They were so close that all she’d have to do was stretch up slightly and her mouth would be close enough to—
With an almost violent movement she pulled free and jerked away, rubbing her arms. She glowered at Romain, who stuck his hands in the pockets of his dark trousers and leant against the doorjamb. A dark shirt made him look dangerous, foreign, in the gloom of the corridor. The grey of his eyes stood out.
Nervously she touched a hand to her glasses. ‘Do you always lurk outside people’s doors? Or were you just afraid I was turning my room into a den of iniquity?’
A smile quirked his mouth up at one side, making him look even more rakishly handsome. She wasn’t ready to face him—had been counting on the space, however brief, between her room and the dining room to gather herself.
‘I was merely coming to escort you downstairs. Everyone is here.’
‘I’m quite capable of walking myself down some stairs.’
He fell into step beside her. She wanted to turn away from his presence but the corridor was old and tiny.
‘Prickly, aren’t you? I hope this means you’re a morning person.’
She scowled at him briefly and preceded him down the stairs.
Romain followed with a thoughtful look on his face. His jaw tightened as his eyes were drawn to the sway of her bottom in the tight, faded jeans. The force of her cannoning into him had shocked him too. Or rather, the feel of her soft breasts crushed against his chest had shocked him—with how badly he’d wanted to walk her back into the room and shut the door behind them.
In the large drawing room everyone was gathered, drinking aperitifs. Local girls in black trousers and white shirts walked through with canapés. Sorcha was relieved to see some familiar faces—and one in particular.
‘Sorcha, you gorgeous girl, come here!’
She was grabbed around the waist and lifted high by a tall, handsome man—the hairstylist. When he finally put her down she was laughing and red-faced. ‘Val! You nearly stopped the blood supply to my middle region.’
‘How is the smartest model in the world?’ He pretended to think for a second. ‘Now, was it a first, or a second? I can’t remember…’
Sorcha punched him playfully. ‘It was Summa Cum Laude to be precise, but really it’s not that amazing, lots of people got the same mark.’
He looked mock-shocked. ‘Maybe so, but you came in the top five of your class, girlfriend. If that isn’t—’
‘What’s this?’
Sorcha’s back straightened. For a brief moment she’d forgotten Romain was right behind her. How much had he heard?
Before she could stop him, Val was fluttering his lashes in his campest mode and chattering with scant regard for discretion. ‘Our girl here has just graduated with flying colours from—’
‘Val, you never showed me your wedding ring.’
Acting on a panicked impulse, desperately counting on Val’s extreme yet lovable self-absorption, Sorcha breathed a sigh of relief when he promptly forgot about relaying her news and proceeded to show off the heavy platinum band, regaling them with stories about his recent marriage in London to his boyfriend. This was all punctuated with hot, heavy looks at Romain, who Sorcha could see was completely unfazed. She’d seen other men driven almost to violence by Val’s unwanted flirtatious attentions, but Romain was so sure of himself that he was totally at ease, bantering back and forth. It made a funny feeling lodge in her chest.
