Sparked (city2city: Hollywood) (2 page)

Bloody hell, but Sadie hated failing. “What time is Declan arriving?”

Back in the bedroom, Fiona checked her phone. “The car will be here any minute.”
 

Sadie slid into ruby-red stiletto heels, which the stylist had packed into a box along with a tiny gold-sequined clutch, and checked her appearance one last time in the tall mirror. Declan had called the other night and offered to be her escort on the red carpet, but she’d assured him she was happy to walk alone. After all, she was a thirty-year-old multimillionaire, and often referred to as the “leading actress of her generation.” She didn’t need a man on her arm, no matter how much she may have wanted a very specific man by her side tonight.

Understanding that Declan’s offer came from a place of friendship, however, she’d suggested they drive together, leading to Fiona packing up her bags to put in the trunk for the duration of the premiere. “Thank you for coming,” Sadie said as they headed down the two flights of stairs toward the front door. “You didn’t have to do my makeup, you know.”

“Well, Declan doesn’t let me put pretty, pretty lipstick on him, so feel free to consider yourself practice material,” Fiona said with a cheeky grin. “Plus, I’m the right price.”
 

“Indeed.” All Fiona’s expertise had cost Sadie was a glass of wine, an hour of gossip, and a little painful baring of her soul. Tires sounded on gravel outside as they reached the foyer. “Our chariot awaits,” she said as she held the door open for Fiona, keying in the four-digit code to lock it behind her as they stepped into the California sunshine.
 

She turned to watch as the driver emptied Fiona’s laden arms, which allowed Fiona to flow directly into Declan’s, where he stood next to the sleek black car. He pressed his face into the side of her neck, appearing to breathe her in, and murmured something too low for Sadie to hear.
 

Whatever it was, it turned Fiona positively radiant.

Pulling back, the Irishman eyed Sadie and whistled. “You are impossibly gorgeous tonight, Bit,” Declan said, using the nickname of her character from their film. He’d never quite been able to kick the habit of calling her that, and she found she didn’t mind, there was so much affection for her in his voice.
 

She moved forward with a smile when he offered his hand to help her into the backseat of the car. “You’re not too shabby yourself.” The actor did look especially dapper this evening in a finely tailored three-piece suit of dark navy and soft silver tie. “Excited for your first world premiere?”

His dark eyes gleamed. “You know it.” He handed Fiona in after her, then settled next to his girlfriend, across from Sadie, and they were on their way.

As the plush town car whisked them toward the Regency Village Theatre in Westwood, Sadie gazed determinedly out the car window. It wasn’t that Declan and Fiona were being overt—they weren’t—but there was a connection that seemed to radiate from them, like sunlight. And Sadie had forgotten to wear shades.
 

The trio chatted amicably during the drive about nothing in particular, a fact for which Sadie was grateful. It would be too easy to focus on her decision to put Ryan in the past, where he belonged, when she ought to be thinking about the future.
Her
future.

She was, after all, a thirty-year-old multimillionaire. The leading actress of her generation. And not exactly hard on the eyes. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a man who made her feel the same way Ryan did—or rather, had done.

For one selfish minute, she allowed herself to remember. The train, the snow, the kiss…the “wow.” Her shabby flat on Christmas Eve, and her parents’ townhouse on Christmas Day. How she’d waited by the phone for hours and watched her mailbox for days, and then, when he hadn’t gotten in touch, had made a list of Next Steps she could take to find him—and promptly discarded when her best friend Marie had said, in the no-nonsense tone so at odds with her romantic French accent, “If he wanted to see you, he would have found you by now,
non
? You are not hiding.”

Yet part of her, she’d discovered when she came face to face with Ryan Young after so much time apart, had indeed been in hiding. For nearly ten years, she had held onto the hope of him, tucking it away in the corner of her heart relegated to naive dreams of love. The forever kind of love, which she saw exemplified in her parents every single day.

Forever-love wasn’t for everyone. She and her brother Kai had talked about it once, when he’d flown in from New York to see her house, shortly after she had made the move from London to L.A. permanent. “We can’t all be lucky, like Mum and Dad,” he had told her as they sat on her deck, sipping white wine and watching the sun set over the boats on the canal. “They got the best of both worlds: to-die-for love and insane financial success. You never hear one of them complain, do you?”

She had stared into the depths of her glass. “I’d trade the latter for the former,” she’d told him, and maybe, just maybe, she had been thinking of Ryan in that moment.

Now, possessing the latter in spades, Sadie attempted to lock away the corner of her heart convinced she and Ryan had unfinished business. By the time the town car stopped at the foot of the red carpet, her most beatific—and most professional—smile was firmly in place. Declan and Fiona allowed her to exit the vehicle first, and she began her slow trek down the line of press, paparazzi, and waiting fans.
 

It took more than half an hour to work through the sea of interviewers holding oversized microphones and minuscule cameras, to smile and turn for the fashion police with the loud clicking of single-lens shutters and the bright flash of bulbs. Sadie was more than familiar with the routine, having made her first big movie at age twenty-one, and had quickly discovered she enjoyed red-carpet events such as these. Some actors never adapted to the seemingly shallow demands of fame, but she saw it as a trade-off for being able to do what she loved and not having to worry about her next paycheck.
 

Upon reaching the end of the line, she glanced toward the historic movie theater’s entrance—

—and nearly tripped over the hem of her gown to see Ryan standing inside the first set of glass doors, staring at her. Even from here, she could see the glint of green eyes, watching her every step bring her closer to where he waited.
 

“
No
,” she whispered, chastising her traitorous heart for leaping at the sight of him. The man had made it painfully clear that he had no interest in seeing what, if anything, existed between them now that they were older and wiser, and Sadie wasn’t willing to let her heart be trampled any more than it already had been.
 

Lifting her chin as she walked through the door held open by a uniformed theater usher, she did her best to pass Ryan without meeting his gaze. She didn’t want to look into those irises of forest green and allow the deluge of memories to sway her from her course. No, she was stronger than that.

Age thirty. Crazy-rich. Badass actress with an Oscar nom and two BAFTA wins under her belt. She
had
this, man.
 

“Sadie.”

God damn him, his rich baritone voice, and its charming American accent.
 

She was proud of herself for ignoring him, but he forced her to a halt when strong fingers wrapped around her wrist above the gold cuff and murmured, “Sadie, wait. Please.”

She could have tugged her hand free. He would let her go, if she told him to release her. But he was touching her, and tendrils of sensual heat wound around her arm, licking a path to her bare shoulder before spreading into her chest. Her pulse thudded in her ears as she stood, her back to his front, and waited as he asked of her.

His grip gentled, but he didn’t release her wrist, instead stepping closer until she felt the warmth of his body against her naked back, revealed by the cut of her dress. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer your e-mails.” His mouth hovered over her ear, and she shivered at the accidental—because it must be accidental, mustn’t it?—brush of his lips over sensitive flesh. “Or your voice mails. Or your texts. I should’ve called you back.”

“It would have been ten years too late, anyway,” she hissed, surprised at the venom in her own voice. But venom masked the hurt, and she decided she was grateful for the anger that had sprung to life the moment he touched her.
 

She could almost feel his wince behind her. “Can we talk?”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing, Ryan?”

He shook his head as his body aligned with hers. “Somewhere private.”
 

She froze as intimate memories assailed her of waking up on Christmas morning just like this, his tall, rangy frame curved possessively over her much smaller one. Hating the effect his nearness had on her, the ache gathering in her chest and threatening to subsume her pounding heart, she turned abruptly and stared up at him.
 

He wasn’t exactly handsome, but his face was compelling, with angular features and strong jaw. His nose was a little too long, and his lips slightly thinner than expected, given his wide mouth, but she remembered loving how the tip of that nose touched her cheek as they kissed, and how those lips shaped hers so perfectly that first time, and all the times thereafter.
 

His messy light-brown hair that so easily picked up streaks of sunlight when regularly exposed to it had been neatly combed for tonight’s premiere, the scruff that usually shaded his jaw shaved away, as well. All six feet and two inches of him had been stuffed into a slick designer suit of stark black with a pristine white dress shirt, and he wore a rather formidable frown as he gazed down at her.

Looking at him stole the breath from her lungs, so her heart made the decision before her head could think better of it. “Where did you have in mind?”

Sliding his fingers past the bracelet, he linked their fingers in a move both familiar and not, and whispered, “Come with me.”

TWO

London, Ten Years Earlier

Christmas Eve

Ryan’s twin brother had turned into a jerk when he wasn’t looking.
 

The train from Cambridge to London rocked gently as it sped across the tracks, packed to the gills with travelers desperate to get home in time to celebrate the holidays with loved ones.
 

Loved ones who would probably have beds ready for them. They wouldn’t have to walk the snowy streets of a strange city trying to find a hostel to crash in, because none of them had stupid siblings who decided to throw a hissy fit—and a mean right hook—on Christmas freaking Eve.
 

“Ticket, please.”

Ryan fumbled in the pocket of his wool peacoat for his ticket, the purchase of which had seriously depleted his available cash. He hadn’t planned on traveling tonight, and now he had less than ten pounds left to get him to…wherever he was going, once he reached London.
 

“This is first class.”

He blinked up at the conductor, who stared accusingly at Ryan’s ticket. “But I didn’t buy first class.”

“I know, sir,” the man said with what Ryan would think later was an exceptional amount of patience. “Yet you’re sitting in first class.”

Didn’t that just figure.
“I’m sorry. Here, I’ll move.” He hit his head on the overhead storage rack when he stood, but swallowed the grunt of pain and shouldered his blue nylon duffle. It never paid to be tall on public transportation, he’d found.

The conductor pointed toward the door at the end of the car, then murmured, “Merry Christmas,” before moving on to the next passenger.

Every seat was taken. He staggered down the aisles in time to the swaying of cars Two through Seven, growing progressively worried as he failed to find a single empty seat. It was an hour’s ride to London, and, dang it, he’d had a bad day already, on top of being jet-lagged after his long flight from Chicago the day before. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to having to stand for the entire journey.
 

With a sigh, he slid open the door to the eighth—and final—car, heart sinking when he saw it was just as full as the rest. He lumbered forward, exhaustion and frustration dogging every step as he scanned the occupants.
 

There. One empty seat, in the far back corner that, to be honest, looked much too small for him, given the tendency his limbs had to sort of…flail outward. Long arms, long legs, long torso, and, at age just-turned-twenty-two, he’d only recently managed to figure out how to make all the various parts of his body work in concert.
 

But no matter how much contortion it required, Ryan was sitting in that seat.
 

He paused in the aisle, wondering where to stuff his duffle. The overhead racks were completely full, and the closeness of the rows of seats meant there would be little to no legroom, either. He’d have to hold the thing on his lap, he supposed, and bit back a sigh. At least he wouldn’t need to stand for the next hour. “Is that seat taken?” he asked, directing his question to the down-bent head belonging to his would-be seat partner.
 

The head lifted, and all thoughts of travel fatigue and dumb brothers fled—along with his ability to draw air into his lungs.
 

She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. And that included the time he and Jon had met Eliza Dushku following the
Buffy
panel at Comic-Con three years ago.
 

He was staring. He knew he was staring, and that it was beyond rude, but it was impossible not to stare. His face started to heat as he tried to remember how to breathe.
 

And then he saw her cheeks turn rosy under his regard, and oxygen simply wasn’t going to happen. Like, at
all
. Her oval face was delicate, feminine—cute nose, sleekly arched brows, and tip-tilted eyes of rich dark brown. Soft-looking black hair fell from beneath her knit ivory cap over the shoulders of her purple coat, but even under the bulk of her winter wear, Ryan could tell that she was small. Just a small, so-much-tinier-than-him female who was so pretty it hurt to look at her.