Love notes (7 page)

She then spent the next four
hours humouring Marty by listening to his complaints about the
weather, the service and the isolation of the hotel, all the while
resisting the urge to blurt out everything Aiden had told her.

Giving away her suspicions would
spell disaster, particularly when she still had no idea whether
Aiden was telling the truth. Her relationship with Marty was
strained enough without making false allegations – any more
acrimonious and life would become truly unbearable. She had to
tread carefully.

After a day spent climbing
hills, and the mental strain of having all her certainties
overturned, Erika didn’t need to feign exhaustion. By seven o’clock
she was yawning wildly and excused herself, leaving behind more
complaints from Marty about having to eat dinner alone.

“Don’t even think about leaving
the hotel tomorrow,” he warned as she left. “You’re here to rest,
not race around the country with thugs.”

Erika wondered how Aiden would
enjoy this description. “I’m spending the whole of tomorrow in the
spa,” she assured him. “I won’t be setting foot out of the
door.”

“And Aiden?”

“Is nothing to do with me. He’s
checking out on Friday anyway.”

An outright lie but it appeased
Marty who finally allowed her to slip away. Once alone, she
collapsed into bed, waking after eleven hours of the deepest, most
refreshing sleep she’d had in months. Although her head still felt
foggy with tiredness, the previous day’s confusion had fallen into
some kind of order.

Her first priority had to be
establishing whether Aiden’s claims had any foundation. She could
hardly ask Marty whether he were swindling her and, as Erika Fenn,
one of the world’s most high profile recording artists, she
couldn’t walk into a lawyer’s office and ask for advice. If she
did, every online news service and celebrity website would
broadcast it around the globe before the cab had even taken her
back to the hotel.

Finding the truth would take
much more careful planning, a great deal of thought and, most
probably, Aiden Thirstan’s help.

Unfortunately.

The previous day’s exercise and
a good night’s sleep had left Erika feeling energetic and she
wondered whether she dared brave the hotel’s gym. It was barely
past six so only the hardiest of guests would be around and she
decided to risk it, particularly as this might be her only
Marty-free time for the rest of the day. Tutting when she realised
she hadn’t packed her running shoes, Erika slipped into a swimsuit
instead, pulled on a towelling robe and headed for the spa
complex.

A huge orangery stood to one
side of the hotel, housing a luxurious pool and treatment rooms. As
a chambermaid, Erika had looked longingly at the facilities,
wishing she were allowed to swim in the palm-fringed pool, relax on
the white loungers or indulge herself with a dozen beauty
treatments. Now she could finally have a leisurely, peaceful swim
while she watched the sun rise through the acres of glass in the
conservatory roof. After breakfast she’d treat herself to
top-to-toe beauty treatments that would keep her out of Marty’s way
for most of the day, if nothing else.

As a former employee, Erika knew
every fire exit and access corridor and so walked unnoticed down
the staff stairway to the pool. The attendant undoubtedly
recognised her but merely wished her good morning and handed her a
towel as if she were any other guest, leaving Erika grateful for
the kind of respectful anonymity she’d never found in America, nor
in the places Marty chose to stay. Walking through to the pool
area, splashing water told her that she wasn’t the only early bird,
and she felt a pang of disappointment.

This disappointment intensified
however when she recognised Aiden Thirstan, slicing through the
water with strong, expert strokes that underlined the power in his
body and emphasised his gym-sculpted physique.

Countless times, she’d told
herself that her memories of Aiden’s powerful, hard body had been
exaggerated by her imagination and that no man could really be as
broad, and muscular, and toned as the fantasy she’d created in her
loneliest hours. But the evidence quite literally lay before her –
every strapping, virile, glistening inch of him, freestyling the
length of the pool and bringing every one of her erotic visions
startlingly to life.

She had two choices. Either, she
could run terrified back to her room and lose the precious chance
to swim (as well as some of her self respect). Or she could brave
it out, slip into the water and swim alongside him.

She chose the latter, but not
before Aiden had seen her and stopped swimming in order to watch
her strip off her robe and walk down the steps into the shallow end
of the pool. He swam to meet her, never taking his eyes off her
long legs and slim hips, or the way her swimsuit clung tightly
around her breasts like her most provocative stage costume.

“You are so beautiful,” he told
her, standing up beside her, his strong body a stark contract to
her fragility. “I’d forgotten how gorgeously sexy you are.”

“One or two photographs of me
have been published over the last five years,” she said ironically,
feeling uncomfortable under his intense scrutiny but strangely
unable to walk away from him.

“They could never do you
justice. Close up, you are simply breathtaking. You always
were.”

And close up, you’re quite
frankly overwhelming, Erika wanted to say, watching the water
droplets shimmer enticingly on his skin as he raised his arms to
scrape his dark hair back from his face. She forced herself not to
notice the faint glow of a tan lingering across his shoulders, nor
the way that tan line ended just above his swimming shorts. To have
noticed that, she’d have needed to look at the way the hair on his
chest blurred the strong outline of the muscles, and how those
muscles ridged in perfect symmetry down his stomach until they met
the tan line and disappeared.

Best not to allow such
treacherous thoughts to enter her head, she told herself, shaking
her head back to reality when she realised he was talking to
her.

“I’m relieved to see you,” he
was saying. “I’ve been worried.”

“There was no need. I can handle
Marty.” She dipped her shoulders under the water to hide from
Aiden’s curious, and very appreciative, gaze. “I spent a couple of
hours with him and then went to bed. All that fresh air yesterday
wore me out.” She chanced a smile, hoping she appeared friendly but
reluctant to appear too encouraging.

“Did you tell him what I’d
said?”

“Of course not! I wanted time to
think first.”

“And have you?”

“I was too tired last night,”
Erika said. “I’d hoped a swim might clear my head and then I was
going to call you.”

Without waiting for a response
she swam away from him at a gentle pace, enjoying the coolness of
the water on her skin, the peace and the sensation of freedom. When
she reached the deep end, she flipped onto her back and floated,
her limbs weightless as she looked up through the glass roof into
the lightening sky. She allowed her mind to reorder itself, wishing
all the time that the answer to her dilemna would dawn as surely as
the new day.

To complicate things, the water
rippled around her and Aiden drew level, treading water beside her.
“I thought about driving to the coast later,” he told her, the
invitation unspoken but very definite.

Erika refused. “My disappearance
caused enough trouble yesterday. I’ve promised Marty I wouldn’t
leave the hotel.”

“I’ll speak to him if you
want.”

She looked across and gave him
the first genuine smile of the day. “I particularly liked the part
of the conversation where you slammed him against the car and
threatened him. I’ve wanted to do that for years.”

“I’m sorry but I lost it when he
grabbed you.” Aiden frowned. “I couldn’t bear to see his hands on
you. Does he….?”

“Never,” Erika assured him
quickly, before turning to swim back to a depth where her feet
could touch the bottom. She stood up and waited for Aiden to catch
up with her, looking around to check no one could see or overhear
them. “He was furious. It took me a long while to convince him not
to call the police. I refused to back up his story if he did.”

“I bet that went down well.”

“And I said you might give away
my secrets if he upset you.”

“Which I never would.” It was
important to him that she understood this.

“You and I know that, but Marty
doesn’t. He can’t stand the thought of anyone else making money out
of me. In any case, he thinks you’re checking out tomorrow.”

“But I’m not.”

“It might help if you did.” She
looked at him pleadingly. “Move somewhere close by and, when we
need to talk, I’ll sneak out of the staff entrance.” When Aiden
hesitated, Erika pushed her point home. “It’ll throw Marty off the
scent and give me the freedom to meet you in secret. He’s watching
my every move today and we won’t have chance to see each other
again after this.”

She could have added that it
would also make her life a great deal less complicated if she
didn’t need to worry about bumping into Aiden at every turn. Five
years ago he’d had the power to occupy her every waking thought,
filling her head with wonderfully wicked daydreams so that,
whenever they were reunited, she’d felt ready to tear off his
clothes with her teeth and play out her fantasies across his
body.

Even wrapped in thick sweaters,
in the freezing cold yesterday, she’d been agonisingly conscious of
the strength and power of his body. Now, confronted with a
semi-naked Aiden, she laboured to think of anything other than
exposing the remembered heaven lying south of that tan line.

Forcing herself to concentrate
on something far less x-rated, she therefore told Aiden she needed
to see the papers again. “Yesterday I was too shocked to take
anything in. I’d like to go through them one more time.”

“They’re in my suite. We can go
there now if you like.”

Being alone with Aiden on a cold
hill top and fully dressed was one thing but locked in his suite,
with him sitting too close and nowhere to run, was a less tempting
prospect. Erika panicked. “Can’t you email them to me?”

“What happens if someone opens
the message, or if Marty sees what you’re up to?”

“But how will I take advice
without any paperwork?”

“I’ll arrange the lawyers and
send everything direct. That way, Marty will never know what’s hit
him.”

Aiden had dropped his voice and
moved in closer to cut down the risk of being overheard but his
nearness made Erika flustered again and she swam to the side to put
some distance between them. Predictably, Aiden did the same,
pulling himself out of the pool to sit beside her on the lounger,
his body even more temptingly touchable on the poolside than it had
been in the water.

On the pretext of speaking
quietly to her, he sat shoulder to shoulder with her, his leg
resting lightly against Erika’s, the hair on his calf deliciously
rough against her smooth skin. Unable to resist looking sideways at
her, Aiden’s gaze travelled over Erika’s body like inquisitive
fingers; gently trailing up her thighs, across her belly and
between her full breasts, around which her wet swimsuit now clung
almost indecently.

Responding to his clear desire
and all the memories it evoked, Erika’s nipples hardened and she
cursed her body’s betrayal, crossing her arms over her breasts in
humiliation and praying Aiden wouldn’t comment. Thankfully, he had
the grace to look away.

“Why don’t you finish your swim
while I take a shower?” he suggested, his voice strangely tight.
“We can go through the papers afterwards.”

In a surprise reversal, Erika
now found herself the voyeur as Aiden grabbed a towel and turned
his back on her when he wrapped it around his waist, blatantly
advertising that he was hiding his own arousal. He walked quickly
around the edge of the pool toward the showers and Erika never took
her eyes off him, reacquainting herself with every tantalising
outline of his upper body and the adorable shadow of a birthmark
across one shoulder she’d kissed so often she’d once believed she
might wear it away.

And, the more she looked, the
easier it became to recognise the tensed muscles and heightened
responses of a man who was so turned on, he’d have agreed to
anything for the chance to satisfy those desires by taking her to
bed.

With this sudden knowledge, came
power. Until that moment, Erika had been unsettled by the sensual
memories Aiden’s reappearance had awoken and the knowledge that he
was still attracted to her.

But now, she realised they could
provide the key to getting exactly what she wanted.

Aiden Thirstan, a man who had
once had an insatiable appetite for sex, and who took every
opportunity to indulge those desires, had never been able to resist
temptation when it took the form of a beautiful woman.

Five months in Aiden’s bed had
taught Erika exactly how to please him with touches, kisses and
raw, explicit language, keeping him enslaved by lust and constantly
aroused. Perhaps it was time to use that knowledge and that power
to her own advantage, by teasing him with the promise of sex and
making him believe that she’d be willing to go to bed with him
after he’d helped her escape from Marty.

After all, Marty had created an
erotic image to promote her music. Magazines the world over
exploited her photograph to sell copies. The entire celebrity
industry seemed intent upon manipulating her beauty to make their
fortunes. So why shouldn’t she use her own body to captivate Aiden
Thirstan and seduce him into doing exactly what she wanted?

He might genuinely hope to make
amends, or go some way toward fixing her broken heart, but she’d
learned to her cost that the only way to keep a man like Aiden
interested was to appeal to the part of him that lay below his tan
line.