In the Heat of the Spotlight (7 page)

‘Felt something?’ she managed, still trying for wryness. ‘What, annoyance?’

‘No.’ He glanced up at her, and she saw the honesty blazing in his eyes. ‘I don’t know what it was. Is. But I can’t pretend I don’t feel something—for you. For the you hiding underneath the pop star persona, the you who wrote that song.’

She swallowed. ‘But you didn’t even hear that song until—’

‘I saw it in your eyes.’

She looked away. ‘I never took you for a romantic.’

‘I didn’t, either.’

Aurelie could feel her heart beating so hard it hurt. She felt dizzy and weirdly high, as if she were floating somewhere up near the ceiling. And she felt scared. Really scared, because she didn’t know what Luke was trying to tell her.

She licked her lips, found a voice. ‘So what...what are you saying exactly?’

‘I don’t even know.’ He raked a hand through his hair, let out a weary laugh. ‘Part of me thinks we should keep this strictly professional, get through the next nine days, and never see each other again.’

‘That would probably be the smartest move,’ she agreed, trying to keep her voice light even as her mouth dried and her heart hammered and she
hoped
. Yet for what?

‘I think it would be,’ Luke agreed. ‘But here’s the thing. I don’t want to.’

‘So what do you want?’ Aurelie whispered.

He stared at her for a long moment, and she saw the conflict in his eyes. Felt it. He didn’t want to want her, but he did. ‘I want to start over,’ he said at last. ‘I want to forget about what happened—or didn’t happen—between us. I want to get to know you properly.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ she joked, but her voice wavered and it fell flat.

‘I’m not sure about anything,’ he admitted with a wry shake of his head. ‘I’m not even sure why I’m saying this.’

‘Ouch. Too much honesty, maybe.’

‘Maybe.’ His gaze rested on her. ‘But I want a second chance. With you. I want you to have a second chance with me.’

A second chance.
Not professionally, but personally. So much more dangerous. And so much more desirable. A chance to be real. Aurelie closed her eyes. She didn’t know what to feel, and yet at the same time she felt so much. Too much.

‘The question is,’ Luke asked steadily, ‘is that what you want?’

She opened her eyes. Stared. His hair was still mussed, his suit still rumpled. He had shadows under his eyes and he badly needed to shave. He looked wonderful.

‘Why?’ she finally whispered.

‘Why what?’

‘Why do you want a second chance—with me?’

His mouth twisted. ‘Is it so hard to believe?’

‘You don’t even know me.’

‘I know enough to know I want to know more.’

She felt a tear, a terrible, treacherous tear, tremble on her lash. ‘I would have thought,’ she said in a low voice, ‘that what you know would make you not want to know more.’

‘Oh, Aurelie,’ Luke said quietly, ‘I think I know what’s an act and what’s real.’

‘How can you know that?’ She felt that tear slide coldly down her cheek. ‘I don’t even know that.’

‘Maybe that’s where I come in.’

She prickled instinctively, reached for her rusty armour. ‘You think you can help me?
Save
me?’

He stilled, went silent for so long Aurelie blinked hard and looked up at him. ‘No,’ he said with a quiet bleakness she didn’t understand. ‘I know I can’t save anyone.’ He smiled, but it still seemed sad. ‘But I can think you’re worth saving. Worth knowing.’

She swallowed, sniffed. ‘So what now?’

‘You answer my question.’ Words thickened in her throat. She didn’t speak. ‘Do you want to try again?’ Luke asked. His gaze remained steady on her, and she found she could not look away. ‘Do you want a second chance, with me?’

She couldn’t speak, not with all the words thick in her throat, tangling on her tongue. Words she was desperate not to say.
Yes, but the thought terrifies me. What if you find out more about me and you hate me? What if you hurt me? What if it doesn’t work and I feel emptier and more alone than ever? What if I can’t change?

‘Aurelie,’ Luke said, and it wasn’t a question. It sounded like an affirmation.
I know who you are.

Except he didn’t.

He was still gazing at her, still waiting. Aurelie swallowed again, tried to dislodge some of those words. She only came up with one.

‘Yes,’ she said.

CHAPTER SIX

L
UKE
stared at Aurelie’s pale face, her eyes so wide and blue, that one tear tracking a silvery path down her cheek.

Hell.

He’d come up here to talk to her, to tell her what he’d started out saying, which was that he was sorry for what had happened but they’d keep this whole thing professional and try to avoid each other because clearly that was the safest, sanest thing to do.

Except he’d said something else instead, something totally dangerous and insane.
I know enough to know I want to know more.
No, he didn’t. He didn’t want to know one more thing about this impossible woman. He wanted to walk away and forget he’d ever met her.

Except that honesty thing? It got him every time. Because he knew, even as he stared at that silver tear-track on her cheek, that he’d been speaking the truth.

He felt something for her. He
did
want to get to know her, even though there could be no doubting she was fragile, damaged,
dangerous
. The possibility of hurting her was all too real—and terrifying.

‘Luke?’ She said his name with a soft hesitancy that he’d never heard before. She felt vulnerable, he knew. Well, hell,
he
felt vulnerable. And he didn’t like it. He raked his hands through his hair, tried to find something to say.

Aurelie rose from the sofa and grabbed a tissue, her back to him as she wiped her eyes, as if even now she could hide her tears.

‘Look,’ she said, her back still to him, ‘maybe this is a mistake.’

Luke straightened, dropped his hands. ‘Why do you say that?’

She turned around. ‘Because of the look on your face.’

‘What—’

‘You’re looking like you seriously regret this whole thing.’

‘I wouldn’t say
seriously
.’ He’d meant to joke, but she just stared at him hard. He sighed. ‘Aurelie, look. This is new territory for me. I’m stumbling through the dark here.’

‘You and me both.’

‘Have you ever been in a serious relationship before?’

Her eyes widened, maybe with fear. ‘Is that what this is?’

‘No.’ He spoke quickly, instinctively, and she gave him a wobbly smile. They were both scared here, both inching into this...whatever
this
was. ‘One day at a time, right?’ He smiled back. ‘I just wondered.’

She turned away again, her hair falling in front of her face. ‘You’re asking because of the sex thing, right? Because I didn’t enjoy it.’

‘That among other things.’
The sex thing.
Yeah, that was something else they’d have to deal with. Something had happened to her, he just didn’t know what. And he didn’t know if he even wanted to know. His three relationships, he realised, had not prepared him for this. They’d been safe, measured, considered things, and even though he’d had a deep affection for each of the women he’d shared a part of his life with, he hadn’t felt
this
.

This tangle of uncertainty and exhilaration, this terror that he could hurt her, that he might fail. What had he got himself into?

‘I’ve been in one relationship,’ she said quietly, her face still turned away from him. ‘Just one. But it lasted over three years.’

‘It did?’ He shouldn’t be surprised. He might not have seen a mention of such a relationship in the press, but he’d known from her song that she’d had her heart broken. The thought filled him with something that felt almost like jealousy.

She kept her face averted. ‘I’d rather not talk about it.’

‘All right.’ He drew a breath, felt his way through the words. ‘But if we’re going to...to try this, then we need to be honest with each other.’

She let out a short laugh. ‘Well, that’s obviously not a problem for you.’

‘Actually it is. I might be honest but that doesn’t mean I wear my heart on my sleeve. No one in my family talks about emotional stuff.’ And he didn’t even like admitting
that
. There was a reason for his family’s distance, their silence and secrets. A reason locked deep inside him.

Aurelie hunched her shoulders, folded her arms. ‘Well, I’m never honest. I don’t even know if I can be. I’ve been on my guard for so long I don’t know how to let it down.’ She stared at him with wide eyes. ‘I honestly don’t know.’

‘Well, see,’ Luke said lightly, ‘you were being honest right there.’

She let out a shaky laugh, the sound trembling on the air. Luke felt an ache deep inside. He didn’t know everything she’d been through, but he knew it had to have been a lot. And he wanted, on a deep, gut and even heart level, to make it better. To have her trust him. He wanted to redeem her, yes, maybe even save her, and save himself in the process. This time he could make it right.

‘Give us a chance, Aurelie.’

‘How?’

How to begin? ‘We don’t have to be in Singapore until the day after tomorrow. Give me tomorrow.’

She eyed him warily. ‘One day?’

‘One day. One date. It’s a start.’ For both of them.

‘And then?’

‘We’ll see. We’ll take one day at a time and see how we go.’ He had a feeling one day at a time was all they could handle. He didn’t know what he was asking, what he wanted. This was new territory for both of them.

‘One day,’ she repeated, as if she liked the sound of it. ‘One date.’ Luke nodded, felt his heart lift. ‘Okay,’ she said, and smiled.

* * *

Aurelie stood in the lobby of the hotel and tried not to fidget. Luke had told her he’d meet here at nine for their day out. Their
date
.

When had she last had a date?

She couldn’t remember, although it wasn’t for lack of men. There had, she knew, been far too many men in her life. But she hadn’t dated them. The whole concept of a date made her feel like a giddy girl, young, innocent, full of hope.

Ha.

She was none of those things. She might only be twenty-six, but she’d lived enough for three lifetimes. And as for innocent,
hopeful
...Luke Bryant might stir something inside her she’d long thought destroyed, but he couldn’t change her and she didn’t think she could change herself.

And when Luke discovered that... Swallowing, she forced the fluttery panic down. There was no point thinking about the future. Luke was giving her one date. One day. And by the end of it he’d probably have had enough.

‘Ready?’

She whirled around, saw Luke smiling at her. He wore a dark green polo shirt and khaki shorts, and she realised it was the first time she’d seen him in casual clothes. The shirt hugged the lean, sculpted muscles of his chest and shoulders, and the shorts rested low on his trim hips. Her gaze travelled down his tanned, muscular legs to the pair of worn trainers and then back up again to his face, where a surprising grin quirked his mouth.

‘Finished?’

She had, Aurelie realised with some mortification, been checking him out. And not in a deliberate, outrageous, Aurelie-
like way. No, this had been instinctive, helpless, yearning admiration. Somehow she managed to smile, nod.

‘Yeah, I’m done.’

‘And do I pass?’

‘You’ll do.’

He chuckled and placed one hand on the small of her back. She felt the warm, sure press of his palm against her skin and the answering shivers of sensation that rippled out through her body from that little touch.

‘So where are we going?’ she asked as they left the hotel. A luxury sedan with tinted windows and a driver at the wheel waited for them at the kerb. Luke opened the door and ushered her into the sumptuous leather interior.

‘Camiguin.’

‘Cami-what?’

He smiled and slid in next to her, his thigh brushing hers. Aurelie didn’t know why she was suddenly hyper-aware of his movements, his body. She’d already been naked with this man; he surely shouldn’t have this effect on her.

And yet, somehow, he did.

‘Camiguin,’ Luke repeated. ‘A small island province in the Bohol Sea.’

‘So we’re not taking this car there, I assume?’

‘No, we’re taking this to the airport, and then a private plane to Mambajao, the capital city. And then we’ll hire a Jeep.’

‘Planes, trains and automobiles.’

‘It shouldn’t take more than two hours, overall.’

‘A private jet is pretty classy.’

Luke gave her the glimmer of a smile. ‘I can be a pretty classy guy.’

She felt a ripple of something like pleasure at the light remark, the curve of his mouth. She’d spent so much of her time trying to push Luke away and protect herself. It felt amazingly liberating not to do it. To banter without the barbs, to relax into a—

A what? A
relationship
? She didn’t do relationships. Luke might go for them, but they didn’t work for her. She turned to stare out of the window, told herself this was
one date
. It was nothing. By this time tomorrow they’d probably have decided they’d
both
had enough.

The private jet was waiting for them on the tarmac at
Manila’s International Airport. Aurelie had taken private jets before, back in her heyday, but she hadn’t been on one in over four years and it felt strange. She stood in the main cabin, glancing around at the leather sofas, the champagne chilling on ice, and felt something cold steal inside her.

Luke paused in the doorway, his gaze on her face. ‘What is it?’

She glanced up at him, bemused that he would sense her mood so quickly and easily. She wasn’t even sure what she was feeling. ‘Nothing. Everything’s very nice.’

‘That’s a scathing indictment if I ever heard one.’ His gaze moved slowly over her, assessing, understanding. His forehead creased and he nodded. ‘I guess you’ve taken a few of these in your time.’

She shrugged. ‘One or two.’

‘Does it bring back memories?’

Did it? ‘No, just a feeling.’

‘Not a very nice one.’

She opened her mouth to deny it, then said nothing. This honesty thing was
tough
. ‘Maybe,’ she finally allowed, and Luke smiled faintly, as if he knew how difficult she found this kind of talking. Sharing. All of it awkward, awful, painful.

‘How have you flown under the radar for so long?’

‘By holing up in Vermont.’

‘And no one there gives you away?’

‘They’re a close-mouthed bunch. And they’re loyal to my grandmother.’ Too late she realised she’d said more than she meant to. Funny how that happened. You started being a little honest and then other things began to slip out. Soon she wouldn’t be able to control it.

‘Your grandmother? Was Julia Schmidt your grandmother, then?’

‘No.’ She moved over to sit on the sofa, rubbing her arms in the chilled air of the plane’s interior. ‘Are we going to get going?’

Luke sat across from her. ‘As soon as we’re cleared for take-off.’ He didn’t speak for a moment, just studied her, and Aurelie looked away from his gaze. She heard the plane’s engines thrum to life with a feeling of relief. ‘Champagne?’ he asked, and she nodded, glad he wasn’t going to ask any more questions.

It wasn’t until he’d handed her a glass and raised his own in a toast that he finally spoke again. ‘You know, this second chance thing?’ She eyed him warily. ‘It doesn’t work if you’re going to guard everything you say.’

‘I wasn’t,’ she protested, and Luke just arched an eyebrow. She took a sip of champagne, glad for the distraction. ‘I told you I’m not good at this.’ He said nothing and, goaded, she said a bit sharply, ‘It’s not like you’ve been baring your soul.’

‘Haven’t I?’ he asked quietly. He looked away then, and Aurelie felt a strange twisting inside as she thought of his words last night. Words which made a shivery thrill run all the way through her.
I know enough to know I want to know more.

Did she want to be known?

She took a sip of champagne, the bubbles seeming to fizz all the way through her. Maybe she did. At least for one day. One date. That was safe enough, surely.

‘All right.’ She set her champagne glass on the coffee table between them. ‘What do you want to know?’

Luke turned back to her, bemused. ‘You look like you’re facing the firing squad.’

‘It feels that way, a little bit.’

‘I suppose you’ve always had to be careful about what you say.’

‘I haven’t always been careful enough.’ He acknowledged the point with a nod. There had been several tell-all exposés in various tabloids, all with too much truth in them. Aurelie felt herself start to prickle. ‘So what do you want to know?’

‘What do you want to tell me?’

She gave a soft laugh. ‘Not much.’

‘There must be something. Some small, innocuous bit of information that you don’t mind imparting.’

She smiled, felt the tension inside her ease, at least a little bit. ‘Well...I like bubblegum ice cream.’

‘Bubblegum?’
His jaw dropped theatrically. ‘You have got to be kidding me.’

‘It’s delicious.’

‘It’s way too sweet—’

She leaned forward. ‘And pink and sugary and with little bits of gum in the ice cream. Yum.’

‘Whoa.’ He held up a hand. ‘TMI.’

A bubble of laughter erupted from her, surprising them both. He smiled, a real smile, lightening his stern features in a way that made her feel suddenly breathless. His dark eyes glinted gold. She shook her head slowly. ‘I didn’t think you had a sense of humour, you know.’

‘It’s a shy creature. It only appears on rare occasions.’

‘So it does.’ She gazed at him thoughtfully. ‘What’s your favourite flavour of ice cream?’

‘Not bubblegum.’

‘We’ve established that.’

‘Probably vanilla.’

‘Vanilla?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Could you be more boring?’

His mouth twitched. ‘Probably not.’

‘What’s there to like about vanilla?’

‘It never lets you down. Other flavours can be so disappointing. Not enough mint in the mint chocolate chip, too many nuts in Rocky Road.’

‘I have been seriously disappointed, on occasion, with the lack of cookie dough in cookie dough ice cream.’

‘Exactly.’ He nodded his approval. ‘But vanilla? Never a disappointment. Completely trustworthy.’

Like you are?
She almost said the words. And meant them. No snide mockery, just truth. Too much truth. She wasn’t ready for that.