In the Heat of the Spotlight (6 page)

‘You didn’t give it a chance.’

‘I could tell. Honestly, Bryant, you should be thanking me. I just saved your ass.’

‘You saved your own,’ he retorted. ‘What happened, you chickened out?’

‘I prefer to think of it as being realistic.’

Frustration bit at him. ‘I didn’t hire you to be Aurelie all over again.’

‘Oh?’ She raised her eyebrows, her mouth curving in that familiar, cynical smile, innuendo heavy in her tone. ‘What
did
you hire me for?’

He shook his head, the movement violent. ‘Don’t.’

‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t,’ Luke ground out, ‘make this about sex.’

‘Everything’s about sex.’

‘For you, maybe.’

‘Oh, and not for you? Not for the saintly Luke Bryant who said he had a business proposition for me and two hours later was in my bed?’

Luke felt his fists clench. ‘You wanted me there.’ At least at the start.

‘I’ve never denied it. You’re the one swimming down that river.’

His nails bit into his palms. This woman made him feel so
much
. ‘I’m not denying anything. I never have.’ He let out a long, low breath, forced himself to unclench his fists. To think—and react—calmly. ‘Look, we obviously need to talk. I have to go out there again, see people—’

‘Do your schtick?’ She gave him the ghost of a smile, and Luke smiled back.

‘Yeah. I guess everyone has one.’ For one bittersweet moment he felt they were in agreement, they understood each other. Then Aurelie looked away, her expression veiled once more, and Luke felt the familiar weary frustration rush through him. ‘But we are going to talk,’ he told her. ‘There are things I have to say.’ She just shrugged, and with a sigh Luke turned towards the door.

* * *

Aurelie let out a shuddering breath as she heard the door close behind him. She put her hands up to her face, felt her whole body tremble.
Why
had she done that? Acted like Aurelie, not just to a faceless audience, but to
him
?

She’d been reacting again, she knew, to the rejection. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Nobody would let her change, so she wouldn’t. It was, she knew, a pretty pathetic way of trying to stay in control.

And clearly it wasn’t working because she didn’t feel remotely in control. She felt as if she were teetering on the edge of an abyss, about to fall, and she didn’t know what waited darkly beneath her.

Maybe this whole thing had been a mistake. Trying to change. Wanting to be different. The audiences weren’t going to accept it.
Her.
And, no matter how he fussed and fumed, neither was Luke.

Drawing another deep breath, Aurelie reached for her bag. She’d fix her make-up, and then she’d go out and mingle. Smile and chat. She’d get through this day and then she’d tell Luke she was going home. She was done.

* * *

Four hours later the opening was over and Aurelie was back in her suite at the Mandarin, exhausted and heartsore. She’d managed to avoid Luke for the entire afternoon, although she’d been aware of him. Even as she chatted and smiled and laughed, nodded sympathetically when people told her they didn’t really like the guitar or the jeans, she’d been watching him.
Feeling
him.

He looked so serious when he talked to people. He frowned too much. He stood stiffly, almost to attention. Yet, despite all of it, Aurelie knew he was being himself. Being real.

Something she was too afraid to be.

She’d been resigned to giving up the rest of the tour and going back to Vermont. Staying safe. Being a coward. Yet four hours later Aurelie resisted the thought of slinking away like a scolded child. Never mind what Luke thought, what anyone in the audience thought or even wanted. She needed to do this for herself.

Yet the realisation filled her only with an endless ache of exhaustion. She didn’t think she had the strength to go on acting as if she didn’t care when she did, so very much.

Wearily she kicked off her heels and stripped the clothes from her body. She needed a stingingly hot shower to wipe away all the traces of today. She knew Luke had said he wanted to talk to her, but the last time she’d seen him he’d been in deep discussion with several official-looking types. He’d probably forgotten all about her and the things he supposedly needed to say.

Fifteen minutes later, just as she’d slipped into a T-shirt and worn yoga pants, a knock sounded on the door. Aurelie sucked in a deep breath and ran her fingers through her hair, still damp from her shower. A peep through the eyehole confirmed her suspicions. Luke hadn’t forgotten about her after all.

She opened the door and something inside her tugged hard at the sight of him, his hair a little mussed, his suit a little rumpled. He looked tired.

‘Long day?’ she asked and he nodded tersely.

‘You could say that. May I come in?’

He always asked, she thought. Always asked her permission. Strangely, stupidly, it touched her. ‘Okay.’

She stepped aside and Luke came into the sitting area of the suite. She saw his glance flick to the bedroom, visible through an open door, the wide bed piled high with silken pillows.

Then he turned back to face her with a grim, iron-hard resolution. ‘We need to talk.’

With a shrug she spread her hands wide and moved to sit on the sofa, as though she were actually relaxed. ‘Then talk.’

He let out a long, low breath. ‘I’m sorry about the way things happened back in Vermont. I didn’t want it to be like that between us.’

He looked so intent, so sincere, that mockery felt like her only defence. ‘
Us
, Bryant?’

‘Don’t call me Bryant. My name is Luke and, considering we almost slept together, I think you can manage my first name.’

She tensed. ‘Almost being the key word. That doesn’t give you some kind of right—’

‘I’m not talking about rights, just common civility.’ He sat across from her, his hands on his thighs, his face still grim. ‘I’m being honest here, Aurelie—’

‘Sorry,’ she drawled, ‘that doesn’t score any Brownie points. I already know you can’t be anything else.’

‘Just stop it,’ he bit out. ‘Stop it with the snappy one-liners and the bored tone and world-weary cynicism—’

‘My, that’s
quite
a list—’

‘Stop.’
He leaned forward, his face twisting with frustration or maybe even anger. ‘Stop being so damn fake.’

She stilled. Said nothing, because suddenly she had nothing to say. She’d defaulted to her Aurelie persona, to the bored indifference she used as a shield, but Luke saw through it all. He stared at her now, those dark eyes blazing, burning right through her. She swallowed and looked down at her lap. ‘What do you want from me?’ she asked in a low voice.

‘I want to know what
you
want from
me
.’

She looked up, surprise rendering her speechless once more. Her throat dry, she forced herself to shrug. ‘I don’t want anything from you.’

‘Why did you want to sleep with me?’

She tensed, tried desperately for that insouciant armour. ‘Why not?’

‘Well, obviously not because you were enjoying it.’

She lifted her chin. ‘How do you know I wasn’t enjoying it?’

‘I don’t know what your experience with men has been, but most of us can tell when a woman is or isn’t enjoying sex.’ Luke’s mouth quirked upwards even as his eyes blazed. ‘Generally when a woman enjoys sex, she responds. She kisses you and makes rather nice noises. She wraps her legs around you and begs you not to stop. She doesn’t lie there like a wax effigy.’

Aurelie could feel herself blushing. Her whole body felt hot. ‘Maybe I thought I would enjoy it,’ she threw back at him. ‘Maybe you were a disappointment.’

‘I have no doubt I was,’ Luke returned, his tone mild. ‘I confess I was a little impatient. I haven’t had sex in quite a while.’

That made two of them. Aurelie swallowed. ‘I don’t know why we’re having this conversation.’

‘Because if we’re going to work together for the next nine days, I need to—’ He stopped suddenly, shook his head. ‘No, that’s not the truth. This isn’t about forging some adequate working relationship.’

Aurelie eyed him uneasily. ‘What is it about, then?’

‘It’s about,’ Luke said quietly, ‘the fact that I can’t stop thinking about you, or wondering how it all went so terribly wrong in the course of a single evening.’

She had no sharp retort or bantering comeback to
that
. She had no words at all. She made herself smile even though she felt, bizarrely, near tears. ‘You are
so
honest.’

‘Then be honest back,’ Luke answered. ‘Did you sleep with me to prove a point? To show me I was like all the other men you’ve ever known?’

‘No.’ It came out as no more than a whisper. Lying no longer felt like an option, not in the face of his own hard honesty. ‘It was because I wanted to. Because I didn’t want you to go and I...I liked being with you.’ Her voice came out so low she felt the thrum of it in her chest. She stared down at her lap, wondered why anyone ever chose to be honest. It felt like peeling back your skin.

‘Then what happened?’ Luke asked, and his voice was low too, a gentle growl, a lion’s purr.

She shrugged, her gaze still on her lap. ‘Look, I’ve never enjoyed sex, okay? So don’t worry, it wasn’t an insult to your manhood or something.’ She’d tried for lightness even now, and failed miserably. Luke had fallen silent, and after a few taut moments she risked a glance upwards. He was gazing at her narrowly, a crease between his eyes, as if she was a problem he had to solve.

‘Never?’ he finally said, and he sounded so quiet and sad that Aurelie had to blink hard.

‘I wasn’t abused or raped or something, if you’re thinking along those lines.’

‘But something happened.’ It was a statement, and one she could not deny. Yes, something had happened. Her innocence had been stripped away in the course of a single evening. And she’d allowed it. But since that night she’d never again thought of sex as something to be enjoyed. It was just a tool, and sometimes a weapon, to get what you wanted, or even needed.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t even know why we’re talking about this. Business relationship only, remember?’

‘I remember.’

‘So.’ She straightened, gave him an expectant this-is-your-cue-to-leave look. He ignored it.

‘Aurelie.’ She wished he hadn’t said her name. He said it the way he always said it, deliberately, an affirmation, and it made her ache inside. Stupid, because it was just her name. A name she hated and yet—

When Luke said it, she didn’t feel like Aurelie the pop star. She felt like Aurelie the girl who’d grown up wanting only to be loved.

‘What?’ she demanded, too harshly, because he’d stripped away all her armour and anger was her last defence.

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry.’

She stared at him wordlessly, dread rolling through her, making her sick. He was letting her down. Of course. The concert hadn’t worked and he didn’t want her Aurelie act, so he was going to tell her to go home. It was over. So much for trying to change.

Four hours ago she’d told herself she wanted that but now she felt the sting of tears. Another failure.

‘Well,’ she forced herself to say, even to smile, ‘we tried, didn’t we? Never mind. I knew it was a long shot.’ And she shrugged as if it were no big deal, even managed a wobbly laugh.

Luke frowned, said nothing for a long, taut moment. ‘What do you think I’m talking about?’ he finally asked.

She eyed him uncertainly. ‘The concerts, right? I mean...the audience didn’t really go for it today—’

‘They would have if you’d done what you were supposed to, and sung your song.’ He spoke without rancour, but she still prickled.

‘They would have gone for it even less.’

‘Yet you weren’t willing to risk that. I’m sorry for that too. I should have spoken to you before you went onstage. I was trying to keep my distance because—’ He stopped, blew out a weary breath. ‘Because it seemed simpler. Easier. But I think I just made it harder for you. I’m sorry I let you down.’ She didn’t answer. This conversation had gone way outside her comfort zone. She had no comebacks, no words at all. ‘But I wasn’t apologising for the concerts,’ Luke continued quietly. ‘I’m not cancelling them. I still think you can turn this around.’

‘You do?’ She felt a stirring of hope, like a baby’s first breath, infinitesimally small and yet sustaining life.

‘Yes. But I don’t want to talk about that.’ He gazed straight at her then, and she saw the hard blaze of his eyes, golden glints amid the deep brown. ‘I want to talk about us.’

‘Us—’
The word ended on a breath. She had no others.

‘Yes, us. I’m still attracted to you.’ Aurelie felt her heart lurch with some nameless emotion, although whether it was fear or hope or something else entirely she couldn’t say.

‘So it is about sex.’

Luke said nothing for a moment. He gazed out of the window, the sky turning dark, twinkling with the myriad lights of the city. ‘Do you know how many women I’ve slept with?’ he finally asked.

‘I’m not sure how I would have come by that information—’

‘Three.’ He glanced back at her with a rueful smile, his eyes still dark. ‘Three, four if I include our rather mangled attempt.’

‘Right.’ She had no idea what to make of that.

‘I’ve had three relationships.
Relationships.
They all lasted months or even years. And the women involved were the only women I’ve ever had sex with.’

‘So you really are a Boy Scout.’ She felt incredibly jaded, with way too much bad experience behind her.

‘No, I just...I’ve just always taken sex seriously. It’s meant something to me. Emotionally.’

‘Except with me.’

Luke was silent for so long Aurelie wondered if he’d heard her. She sought for something to say, something light and wry to show him she didn’t care, it didn’t matter, but it was too late for that. He’d already seen and heard too much.

‘It did mean something,’ he finally said, his voice so low she almost didn’t hear him. ‘From the moment I saw you slumped on the floor from what I thought—assumed—was an overdose. You opened your eyes and I...I felt something.’