Phoenix Falling (28 page)

Stone pursued him. "I couldn't find a record of the birth of a Kenzie Scott on the date you claim, or for years in either direction, so you must have changed your name."

"One could assume that. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm late for an engagement."

As he unlocked the door of the Jaguar, Stone said sharply, "I know who you are, Scott, and I swear to God I'll find the evidence I need to expose you."

For an instant Kenzie froze. Reminding himself that Stone couldn't possibly be sure, he slid into the low car, quoting
Macbeth
, "
'Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.'
I'm merely an actor, Stone, a creature of smoke and mirrors. There's no mysterious truth. Only what meaning or pleasure people find in my work."

He slammed the door, put the car into gear, and roared away, wheels spitting gravel back at the reporter and photographer. Kenzie's facade of composure lasted long enough to get him out of sight. As his underlying exhaustion took over, once more he wondered bleakly if he'd be able to finish the shooting schedule. He'd given the movie his best, and now, like John Randall, he was left with... nothing.

* * *

He drove west along the coast into Cornwall, then turned inland, following the old B roads, marked yellow on most maps, that wound their way through villages and towns far from the modern motorways. On the rocky coast route, he whipped the Jaguar around tight turns on steep winding roads.

Such driving required complete concentration, preventing his thoughts from circling obsessively. Inland he once had to slam the brakes on to avoid plowing into a herd of sheep, and later nearly smashed a bicyclist riding down the center of the road. After that, he slowed a little, but not much.

His only stop was for petrol. Probably he should eat, since he hadn't been doing much of that lately, but he dropped the idea when his stomach knotted.

Driving helped banish thoughts of Nigel Stone and John Randall and the carefully constructed being known as Kenzie Scott, but he couldn't escape Rainey so easily. He yearned for her as a dying man yearned for grace. Damnably, he knew that if he went to her for comfort, she'd give it with no questions asked. Yet he'd forfeited the right to ask for it.

So he drove through the night in a futile attempt to outrun the demons.

* * *

He returned late to the small hotel that was temporarily home. He'd barely slept for days, and wouldn't tonight despite his bone-deep exhaustion. He'd have to settle for lying down and relaxing, muscle by muscle. Experience had taught him that would allow some rest. At least enough to face the next day.

His hand was on the porcelain knob of his room when he looked across the narrow hall at the door to Rainey's suite. She was just inside there. Soft, warm, accepting, with the generous heart she did her best to conceal in her professional life. So close...

More than anything on earth, he wanted to hold her. Reason and conscience debated instinct, and lost.

There were a couple of paper clips in his pocket, so he dug them out and straightened them into lengths of wire. The hotel locks were primitive, and he'd lost none of his old skill.

It took less than a minute to pick the lock, and go in to his wife.

Chapter 21

There was someone in her room.

Rainey jerked awake as years of urban fear sent adrenaline surging through her veins. It took a moment to remember that she wasn't in crime-ridden California, but the quiet English countryside. Not that location mattered if assault was imminent.

She was on the verge of screaming when a deep, familiar voice whispered, "It's only me."

"Kenzie?" Her heart was hammering so hard that she couldn't even manage anger over his intrusion. "What are you doing here?"

Soundlessly he crossed the room to her canopied bed, his taut face and figure faintly limned by moonlight. The mattress sagged as he sat next to her. She was about to ask what on earth he was doing when his questing hand touched her face. His fingers were cold as death.

She had a sharp memory of his appearance after the last take of the day. Whatever he'd done in the hours since had not improved his state. She slid her arms around his chest and pulled him onto the bed beside her. His whole body was shaking and chilled.

Wondering if he was coming down with some illness, she cradled him as if he were a hurt child. He released his breath in a long exhalation and buried his head between her neck and shoulder. She realized he wasn't here for talk or romance, but the basic human comfort of touch.

She tugged the edge of the duvet out from under his weight, flipped the soft covering over him, then enfolded him in her arms again. Between the cocoon of the duvet and her own body heat radiating through the sheets, he gradually warmed up, his tense body relaxing. His breathing became slow and regular, and eventually he slept.

It was ironic that she was doing the soothing. In the past, Kenzie had been the relaxed one who would calm her when she was wound up. But this movie was clearly stirring up the most hidden depths of his personality.

Bleakly she wished that her passion to direct had fastened on a different project. One with no role for Kenzie.

Though she'd been prepared to meet the price of her ambition, she hadn't realized that he would end up paying it for her.

* * *

She was wakened by Kenzie's stealthy attempt to slide from the bed. She glanced at her bedside clock. Sunrise came early in an English summer, and it would be almost two hours before her day officially began. "Wait a minute, buddy." She caught his wrist, using a line from a thriller they'd made together. "Think I'm some kinda one-night stand?"

He smiled a little. "I was hoping if I left quietly, you'd forget I was ever here."

"Not likely when you scared me out of a year's growth." She settled back on her pillow, studying his face. He needed a shave, but he looked almost normal again. "How did you get in? I distinctly remember locking the door last night."

His gaze shifted. "It's not a very complicated lock."

"Don't tell me—you made that movie where you were a gentleman burglar and you learned breaking and entering."

"One should never turn down the chance to acquire new skills."

She felt a touch of envy. She'd never gotten beyond picking a cheap padlock with a hairpin. Children were natural criminals, she suspected. "Are you feeling okay now? You looked like death walking last night."

"If anyone ever offers me the kind of role that wins Oscars again, I'll slam the door in his face."

She winced. "I'm truly sorry. I had no idea how hard this would be."

"Shooting will be over in a fortnight. I should be able to last that long." He sat up, his gaze flicking to her bare shoulders and away again. Dropping into Victorian gentleman mode, he said, "I'd best be gone before I ruin your reputation, my dear lady."

She laid her hand over his. "I don't think it can ruin a wife's reputation if her husband is seen leaving her room."

He didn't move. "For us, the issue isn't reputation, but gossip columnists."

Not to mention their ability to wound each other emotionally. Yet she couldn't bear the thought of him leaving so soon. "It would be a waste to have the sexiest man in the world in my bed, and not do anything about it."

He tensed, his gaze traveling the length of her sheet-covered body. "Are you offering a medicinal fuck to keep me from falling apart?"

She flushed violently and rolled away from him, curling into a knot on her side. "What a rotten thing to say! If that's how you feel, get out."

He swore and lay down beside her, wrapping his arm around her waist to tuck her against the front of his body. "I'm really sorry, Rainey. Last night I... asked you for more than I should have. We've already had two incidents that didn't officially happen. Three would be pushing it." His voice became dry. "Especially if your motive is charity. I don't have a lot of pride, but I have enough not to want that."

"What makes you think my suggestion was about you?" She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Even tough little chicks can use some tenderness now and then. Unless... you really don't want to."

"Don't want to?" He exhaled against her nape, his breath warm and intimate. Then he kissed the juncture of her throat and shoulder in precisely the right point to send sensation blazing through her. "For a clever woman, you can be rather foolish."

He turned her onto her back and drew the sheet down to her waist. She was intensely, erotically aware that she was naked while he was fully dressed.

"You make an exquisite Eos, goddess of the dawn, all luminous skin and hair the color of sunrise." He began unbuttoning his shirt. "I'm glad to see that you haven't developed the unsightly habit of wearing a nightgown."

Suddenly giddy with anticipation, she attacked the zipper of his slacks. "That's because it's summer. If it were winter, I'd be wearing heavy flannel from ankles to chin."

"Then let us celebrate summer." He stood and stripped off his clothing.

She wished he'd undress more slowly, because she loved looking at his strong, beautifully proportioned body. Yet even more she wanted him with her. Eagerly she reached out when he joined her on the bed, as ready and hungry as she.

Unlike the intense, searingly passionate way they'd come together in New Mexico and at the labyrinth, their dawn lovemaking had a playfulness that she hadn't experienced in far too long. Once, they'd always made love with laughter....

Not that passion was lacking, for Kenzie was the most generous of lovers. He also had the most sensual, skilled mouth in creation, a fact he demonstrated until she forgot the movie, the divorce, the guilt, and soared with joy and fulfillment. There was equal joy in returning the gift he gave her, drowning him in sensation until, for a handful of moments, he soared as freely as she.

Afterward she lay contentedly in his arms, listening to the beat of his heart and trying to pretend the clock wasn't ticking with equal regularity. How could they be so close, physically and, she'd swear, emotionally, yet be in the middle of a divorce?

Because he didn't want to stay married. Not once had he opposed the divorce, asked for forgiveness, or suggested that there was any reason to stay together. He'd said he wasn't suited for marriage, and apparently that was his final word on the subject.

Hearing her sigh, Kenzie murmured, "I presume that this morning is another one of those things that hasn't happened?'

"Denial is getting pretty silly, isn't it?" She rolled onto her back and stared at the ruffled canopy of the outrageously romantic bed, assessing the lava flow of pain that pulsed beneath her contentment. "I prefer keeping what happens between us private, but... well, as you said, it's only two weeks until the end of production. Obviously sleeping together makes us both feel a whole lot more relaxed and happy, at least in the short-term."

"And in the long-term?" His voice was neutral.

The lava would erupt into a volcano and burn her to her bones again, but that would happen no matter what they did during the next two weeks. "We'll go our separate ways when shooting ends, which will be... difficult, but no worse if we sleep together than if we don't. That being the case, the cost-benefit analysis favors continuing to sneak around and see each other." She darted a glance at him. "What do you think?"

"Cost-benefit analysis? What a very cold way of saying that we're happier together, and we'll probably work better for it." He smiled a little wistfully. "Our terms may be different, but we seem to be in agreement. Sneaking around it is."

She snuggled closer, knowing that later she would pay big-time for these two weeks of intimacy. But she'd enjoy herself while it lasted, perhaps find a sense of closure. The agonizing rupture after she'd discovered him with another woman had been too abrupt, the wound too raw to heal.

Remembering him with Angie Greene made her shudder. Noticing, he said softly, "Second thoughts, Rainey?"

Not wanting to think of his unfaithfulness during these golden moments, she offered a different truth. "I thought of Sarah, which made me twitch. I still haven't got a handle on her. If I don't soon, it will be too late."