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Dad. So, did he have an Asian wife? Or was the little boy adopted?
Aaron bent close to smell the small rose being offered to him.
‘It’s from her bunch of flowers,’ the little boy said, blinking adorably.
‘Beautiful.’ Aaron turned laughing eyes to Ella. ‘Ella, let me introduce my son, Kiri. Kiri, this is Tina’s sister, Ella.’
Kiri. He was Cambodian, then. And he’d had malaria—that was Aaron’s TMI moment. ‘Nice to meet you Kiri,’ Ella said, with a broad smile, then picked up her purse. ‘Speaking of Tina and flowers, it must be time to throw the bouquet. I’d better go.’
She got to her feet. ‘Goodbye Aaron. Good luck with the documentary. Goodbye Kiri.’
Well, that had been uncomfortable, Ella thought as she left the table, forcing herself to walk slowly. Calm, controlled, measured—the way she’d trained herself to walk in moments of stress.
Clearly, she had to start reading her sister’s emails more carefully. She recalled, too late, that Tina’s email had said Aaron was divorced; that he had an adopted son—although not that the boy was Cambodian, because that she would have remembered. She’d made a reference to the documentary. And there probably had been a mention of talking to him as a favour to Brand, although she really couldn’t swear to it.
She just hadn’t put all the pieces together and equated them with the wedding, or she would have been better prepared for the confrontation.
Confrontation. Since when did a few innocent questions constitute a confrontation?
Ella couldn’t stop a little squirm of shame. Aaron wasn’t to know that the exact thing he wanted to talk about was the exact thing she couldn’t bring herself to discuss with anyone. Nobody knew about Sann, the beautiful little Cambodian boy who’d died of malaria before she’d even been able to start the adoption process. Nobody knew about her relationship with Javier—her colleague and lover, kidnapped in Somalia and still missing. Nobody knew because she hadn’t wanted anyone to know, or to worry about her. Hadn’t wanted anyone to push her to talk about things, relive what she couldn’t bear to relive.
So, no, Aaron wasn’t to be blamed for asking what he thought were standard questions.
But he’d clearly sensed something was wrong with her. Because he’d gone from admiration—oh, yes, she could read admiration—to something akin to dislike, in almost record time. Something in those almost sleepy, silver-grey eyes had told her she just wasn’t his kind of person.
Ella’s head had started to throb. The damned pins.
Ah, well, one bouquet-toss and last group hug with her family and she could disappear. Back to her hotel. Throw down some aspirin. And raid the mini-bar, given she never had got that extra glass of champagne.
Yeah, like raiding the mini-bar has ever helped, her subconscious chimed in.
‘Oh, shut up,’ she muttered.
Well, that had been uncomfortable, Aaron thought as Ella Reynolds all but bolted from the table. Actually, she’d been walking slowly. Too slowly. Unnaturally slowly.
Or maybe he was just cross because of ego-dent. Because one woman in the room had no idea who he was. And didn’t care who he was when she’d found out. Well, she was American—why would she know him? He wasn’t a star over there.
Which wasn’t the point anyway.
Because since when did he expect people to recognise him and drool?
Never!
But celebrity aside, to be looked at with such blank disinterest … it wasn’t a look he was used to from women. Ella Reynolds hadn’t been overwhelmed. Or deliberately underwhelmed, as sometimes happened. She was just … hmm, was ‘whelmed’ a word? Whelmed. Depressing.
Ego, Aaron—so not like you.
Aaron swallowed a sigh as the guests started positioning themselves for the great bouquet toss. Ella was in the thick of it, smiling. Not looking in his direction—on purpose, or he’d eat the roses.
She was as beautiful as Tina had said. More so. Staggeringly so. With her honey-gold hair that even the uptight bun couldn’t take the gloss off. The luminous, gold-toned skin. Smooth, wide forehead. Finely arched dusky gold eyebrows and wide-spaced purple-blue eyes with ridiculously thick dark lashes. Lush, wide, pouty mouth. No visible freckles. No blemishes. The body beneath the figure-hugging bronze satin she’d been poured into for the wedding was a miracle of perfect curves. Fabulous breasts—and silicone-free, if he were any judge. Which he was, after so many years in the business.
And the icing on the cake—the scent of her. Dark and musky and delicious.
Yep. Stunner.
But Tina had said that as well as being gorgeous her sister was the best role model for women she could think of. Smart, dedicated to her work, committed to helping those less fortunate regardless of the personal danger she put herself in regularly.
Well, sorry, but on the basis of their conversation tonight he begged to differ. Ella Reynolds was no role model. There was something wrong with her. Something that seemed almost … dead. Her smile—that dazzling, white smile—didn’t reach her eyes. Her eyes had been beautifully empty. It had been almost painful to sit near her.
Aaron felt a shiver snake down his spine.
On the bright side, he didn’t feel that hot surge of desire—that bolt that had hit him square in the groin the moment she’d slid into the church—any more. Which was good. He didn’t want to lust after her. He didn’t have the time or energy or emotional availability to lust after anyone.
He turned to his beautiful son. ‘Come on, Kiri—this part is fun to watch. But leave the bouquet-catching to the girls, huh?’
We’re not going down that road again, bouquet or not, he added silently to himself.
CHAPTER TWO (#u8dd48bc3-2426-5668-92e2-8417d33f14b1)
ELLA HAD BEEN determined to spend a full year in Los Angeles.
But within a few weeks of touching down at LAX she’d been back at the airport and heading for Cambodia. There had been an outbreak of dengue fever, and someone had asked her to think about helping out, and she’d thought, Why not?
Because she just hadn’t been feeling it at home. Whatever ‘it’ was. She hadn’t felt right since Tina’s wedding. Sort of restless and on edge. So she figured she needed more distraction. More work. More … something.
And volunteering at a children’s hospital in mosquito heaven is just the sort of masochism that’s right up your alley, isn’t it, Ella?
So, here she was, on her least favourite day of the year—her birthday—in northwest Cambodia—and because it was her birthday she was in the bar of one of the best hotels in town instead of her usual cheap dive.
Her parents had called this morning to wish her happy birthday. Their present was an airfare to London and an order to use it the moment her time in Cambodia was up. It was framed in part as a favour to Tina: stay with her pregnant sister in her new home city and look after her health while Brand concentrated on the movie. But she knew Tina would have been given her own set of orders: get Ella to rest and for goodness’ sake fatten her up—because her mother always freaked when she saw how thin and bedraggled Ella was after a stint in the developing world.
Tina’s present to Ella was a goat. Or rather a goat in Ella’s name, to be given to an impoverished community in India. Not every just-turned-twenty-seven-year-old’s cup of tea, but so totally perfect for this one.
And in with the goat certificate had been a parcel with a note: ‘Humour me and wear this.’ ‘This’ was sinfully expensive French lingerie in gorgeous mint-green silk, which Ella could never have afforded. It felt like a crime wearing it under her flea-market gypsy skirt and bargain-basement singlet top. But it did kind of cheer her up. Maybe she’d have to develop an underwear fetish—although somehow she didn’t think she’d find this kind of stuff digging around in the discount bins the way she usually shopped.
A small group of doctors and nurses had dragged her out tonight. They’d knocked back a few drinks, told tales about their life experiences and then eventually—inevitably—drifted off, one by one, intent on getting some rest ahead of another busy day.
But Ella wasn’t due at the hospital until the afternoon, so she could sleep in. Which meant she could stay out. And she had met someone—as she always seemed to do in bars. So she’d waved the last of her friends off with a cheerful guarantee that she could look after herself.
Yes, she had met someone. Someone who might help make her feel alive for an hour or two. Keep the nightmares at bay, if she could bring herself to get past the come-on stage for once and end up in bed with him.
She felt a hand on her backside as she leaned across the pool table and took her shot. She missed the ball completely but looked back and smiled. Tom. British. Expat. An … engineer, maybe? Was he an engineer? Well, who cared? Really, who cared?
He pulled her against him, her back against his chest. Arms circled her waist. Squeezed.
She laughed as he nipped at her earlobe, even though she couldn’t quite stop a slight shudder of distaste. His breath was too hot, too … moist. He bit gently at her ear again.
Ella wasn’t sure what made her look over at the entrance to the bar at that particular moment. But pool cue in one hand, caught against Tom’s chest, with—she realised in one awful moment—one of the straps of her top hanging off her shoulder to reveal the beacon-green silk of her bra strap, she looked.
Aaron James.
He was standing still, looking immaculately clean in blue jeans and a tight white T-shirt, which suited him way more than the get-up he’d been wearing at the wedding. Very tough-guy gorgeous, with the impressive muscles and fallen-angel hair with those tousled, surfer-white streaks she remembered very well.
Actually, she was surprised she remembered so much!
He gave her one long, cool, head-to-toe inspection. One nod.
Ah, so he obviously remembered her too. She was pretty sure that was not a good thing.
Then he walked to the bar, ignoring her. Hmm. Definitely not a good thing.
Ella, who’d thought she’d given up blushing, blushed. Hastily she yanked the misbehaving strap back onto her shoulder.
With a wicked laugh, Tom the engineer nudged it back off.
‘Don’t,’ she said, automatically reaching for it again.
Tom shrugged good-humouredly. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean anything by it.’
For good measure, Ella pulled on the long-sleeved, light cotton cardigan she’d worn between her guesthouse accommodation and the hotel. She always dressed for modesty outside Western establishments, and that meant covering up.
And there were mosquitoes to ward off in any case.
And okay, yes, the sight of Aaron James had unnerved her. She admitted it! She was wearing a cardigan because Aaron James had looked at her in that way.
She tried to appear normal as the game progressed, but every now and then she would catch Aaron’s gaze on her and she found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on the game or on Tom. Whenever she laughed, or when Tom let out a whoop of triumph at a well-played shot, she would feel Aaron looking at her. Just for a moment. His eyes on her, then off. When Tom went to the bar to buy a round. When she tripped over a chair, reaching for her drink. When Tom enveloped her from behind to give her help she didn’t need with a shot.
It made her feel … dirty. Ashamed. Which was just not fair. She was single, adult, independent. So she wanted a few mindless hours of fun on her lonely birthday to take her mind off sickness and death—what was wrong with that?
But however she justified things to herself, she knew that tonight her plans had been derailed. All because of a pair of censorious silver eyes.
Censorious eyes that belonged to a friend of her sister. Very sobering, that—the last thing she needed was Aaron tattling to Tina about her.
It was probably just as well to abandon tonight’s escapade. Her head was starting to ache and she felt overly hot. Maybe she was coming down with something? She would be better off in bed. Her bed. Alone. As usual.
She put down her cue and smiled at Tom the engineer. Her head was pounding now. ‘It’s been fun, Tom, but I’m going to have to call it a night.’
‘But it’s still early. I thought we could—’
‘No, really. It’s time I went home. I’m tired, and I’m not feeling well.’
‘Just one more drink,’ Tom slurred, reaching for her arm.
She stepped back, out of his reach. ‘I don’t think so.’
Tom lunged for her and managed to get his arms around her.
He was very drunk, but Ella wasn’t concerned. She’d been in these situations before and had always managed to extricate herself. Gently but firmly she started to prise Tom’s arms from around her. He took this as an invitation to kiss her and landed his very wet lips on one side of her mouth.
Yeuch.
Tom murmured something about how beautiful she was. Ella, still working at unhooking his arms, was in the middle of thanking him for the compliment when he suddenly wasn’t there. One moment she’d been disengaging herself from his enthusiastic embrace, and the next—air.
And then an Australian accent. ‘You don’t want to do that, mate.’
She blinked, focused, and saw that Aaron James was holding Tom in an embrace of his own, standing behind him with one arm around Tom’s chest. How had he got from the bar to the pool table in a nanosecond?
‘I’m fine,’ Ella said. ‘You can let him go.’
Aaron ignored her.
‘I said I’m fine,’ Ella insisted. ‘I was handling it.’
‘Yes, I could see that,’ Aaron said darkly.
‘I was,’ Ella insisted, and stepped forward to pull futilely at Aaron’s steel-band arm clamped across Tom’s writhing torso.
Tom lunged at the same time, and Ella felt a crack across her lip. She tasted blood, staggered backwards, fell against the table and ended up on the floor.
And then everything swirled. Black spots. Nothing.
The first thing Ella noticed as her consciousness returned was the scent. Delicious. Clean and wild, like the beach in winter. She inhaled. Nuzzled her nose into it. Inhaled again. She wanted to taste it. Did it taste as good as it smelled? She opened her mouth, moved her lips, tongue. One small lick. Mmm. Good. Different from the smell but … good.
Then a sound. A sharp intake of breath.
She opened her eyes. Saw skin. Tanned skin. White next to it. She shook her head to clear it. Oh, that hurt. Pulled back a little, looked up. Aaron James. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘What happened?’
‘That moron knocked you out.’
It came back at once. Tom. ‘Not on purpose.’
‘No, not on purpose.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Gone. Don’t worry about him.’
‘I’m not worried. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.’ Ella moved again, and realised she was half lolling against Aaron’s thighs.
She started to ease away from him but he kept her there, one arm around her back, one crossing her waist to hold onto her from the front.
‘Take it easy,’ Aaron said.
A crowd of people had gathered around them. Ella felt herself blush for the second time that night. Intolerable, but apparently uncontrollable. ‘I don’t feel well,’ she said.
‘I’m not surprised,’ Aaron replied.
‘I have to get home,’ she said, but she stayed exactly where she was. She closed her eyes. The smell of him. It was him, that smell. That was … comforting. She didn’t know why that was so. Didn’t care why. It just was.
