Star Attraction (16 page)

“I know how lonely it is at the
top.
 
Surrounding yourself with
idle people and pleasures just to pass the time and escape from yourself isn't
going to work, honey.
 
You can’t
escape from your inner demons. You can only bring them out into the light.
 
It takes courage, but your real friends
will be there to help.
 
All of this
partying is just fluff, but what's worse is
 
that you’ll drive away the people who really do care about
you if you keep up with these silly pretences,” Brad warned.

Zaira cringed, and her heart went
out to him for his confession about his own personal life, which for such a
proud man could not have been easy to make.
 
But she knew he had said it to try to help her, and he was
to be pitied for being so completely taken in by her act.

“Do you care about me, then?”
Zaira asked softly.

“Yes, damn it, I do," he
sighed, running his fingers through his lush dark hair, and leaving his hand on
his neck to massage it.
 
Then he
flung it wide. "Damn it, Zoe, I’ve tried to avoid you, to tell myself you
and I have nothing in common, that we hardly know each other, that I’m already
in love with a wonderful woman whose little finger is worth more than all of me
put together, and then I see you again, and my heart turns over.
 

“It’s like the moth being lured to
the flame that destroys it.
 
If I
made love to you, I’d be lost.
 
The
new life that I’ve created, that’s made me happy for the first time ever, would
be shattered. The worst of it is you're an important part of that new
life!
 
It’s like being torn in
two.”

Before she could say
 
a word, Brad caressed her arms and
pulled her to his hard chest.

“I’m sorry, Zoe,”’ Brad said
sadly, “I can’t get you out of my head, but I can’t risk letting you into my
heart.”

“Couldn’t you try?" Zaira
dared to whisper as she gazed up at him in the half-light, even though she knew
it was wrong to keep hoping that either she or Zaira would make a difference to
his feelings for the alluring blond in the photograph.

Brad pushed her away then, and she
was sure he was going to leave her alone in the shadowy changing rooms. Instead
she watched him slam the door and come back to her with a look of raw hunger on
his face.

“Zoe, I mustn’t try, but I can’t
live without you either,” he said, his voice quaking.

Brad’s mouth swooped down on hers
in a flaming kiss. Her whole body rose up to meet his as she began to unbutton
the front of his crisp denim shirt.
 

Her true feminine nature sprang to
life under his caresses.
 
Zaira was
weary of denying herself for so long what she had known from the moment she met
Brad was meant to be.
 
He peeled
off the blouse and trousers she was wearing, while she unbuckled his belt and
undid his slacks in a frenzy of desperation.
 
They tumbled onto the small couch, arms and legs entwined in
an embrace so tight Zaira thought she would stop breathing.
 

She caressed him boldly, and could
see the strain in his face as he sought to take control of the situation.
 
She planted frenzied kisses and nips
along the smooth column of his throat, down to his magnificent chest and
midriff.
 
Emboldened by his ardent
response, she dipped her head still further and ran her mouth up and down the
entire length of him, her tongue teasing and arousing him to a fever
pitch.
 

She reveled in the power she had
over him, the incredible sensation of knowing he desired her so much he
couldn’t help himself.
 
His fingers
found the moist centre of her, and she felt her desire pulse through her like a
seismic tremor.
 
He tangled his
other hand in her hair and forced her head up, gasping, “No, it’s too
good.”
 

Zaira ran her hands over him
wickedly, until he bucked and twisted in an effort to manoeuvre her onto him.
 
She moved up over him, and her long
hair caressed his chest and face. She brought her breasts level with his
mouth.
 
He teased each crested
globe with his tongue and teeth, until she sank onto him with a sigh.
 
He filled her powerfully, and she
thought he would go on forever into her with his massive stroke. Her body,
unused to such delights, poised on the brink for a moment, then took over with
an urgency which shocked them both.

“Brad!” Zaira gasped as she moved
on top of him and his hand held her hips until he pressed into her still
deeper.
 
He shouted out hoarsely as
he poured himself into her with a shudder which Zaira feared would split her in
two.
 
Wave after wave of pleasure
washed over her, and she could hear his heart hammer next to her ear as she
climaxed against him in great shuddering burst.

After what seemed like an
eternity, she could hear his heart slow, and she felt able to move.
 
Still imprisoned against him, she moved
her upper body slightly to look up at him.
 
He kissed her deeply, and smiled.

“I knew it would be an experience
making love to you, but something so superlative has left me bereft of
speech.”
 

He smiled and kissed her, and she
ran her fingers through his hair and fondled his cheek lovingly.
  
She too had known that he was
special, the one true love of her life, but never in her wildest dreams had she
known that love could be like that.

Brad moved inside her again, and
all thoughts fled as he began his rhythmical assault upon her senses.
 
Zaira clung to him with a feverish abandon
as he drove her to peak after peak of excitement, and for a moment she wondered
if they would be locked in their passionate embrace for eternity.
 

Zaira longed for him to lose
control, to be completely fulfilled as she herself had been.
 
She ran her hands along his entire
body, and fondled him with gentle firmness as she withdrew slightly, teasing
and enticing him, until he grew impatient and turned her over with him on the
couch, so that she was lying on her back now.
 
He entered her with a hoarse cry, and she watched his face
as he threw his head back, caught up in the tumult of his release inside
her.
 
She climaxed again with him,
the thrill of their mutual enjoyment was so great.

He lay on top of her panting, and
she soothed him with her hands, which stroked his back and magnificent head of
hair, and traced his face, until she felt him kiss her hand.
 
He propped himself up on an elbow and
smiled at her lazily.

“Well, my love, much as I would
adore a repeat performance, it’s late.
 
We’d better be going.
 
We
have to meet my father at the Tavern on the Green soon, and it wouldn’t do to
keep him waiting.
 
He and I have a
few things to settle once and for all.”

“But Brad, I’m not suitably
dressed to meet you father, and I dread to think what my make-up looks like.”

“The hell with it, I don’t care
what he thinks.”

“Yes, my dear, but I do.
 
You go up in a taxi to fend him off,
and I’ll come as soon as I’ve gone back to my place to change,” Zaira
suggested, trying to get rid of him so he wouldn’t catch her at the apartment.

“I’ll come with you,” he insisted,
nibbling an ear lobe playfully as he nuzzled her neck.

“No, Brad, I have an awkward
roommate at the moment, so I’ll just meet you there, all right?” Zaira said
hastily.

“Of course,” Brad agreed, and after
one final lingering kiss, he withdrew from her and began to clean up at the
sink and then dress.
 
She briefly
admired his nakedness in the half-light of the changing room, before pulling on
her own clothes hastily.
 

They kissed again and again before
he finally hailed a taxi and waved goodbye to her. Zaira immediately fled
around the corner to change at the apartment.
 

She had one good dress, a midnight
blue velvet cocktail dress with thin shoulder straps, which showed off her
lovely figure and gorgeous long legs to perfection.
 
She jumped into the shower, her whole body still tingling
with Brad's touch and the incredible lovemaking they had shared. She quickly
towel-dried herself, trying not to linger sensually on her all too aroused
flesh.
 
She wriggled into her
dress, then brushed her hair until it crackled, and applied her makeup quickly
and to good effect.
 

She certainly looked glamorous,
she thought, taking in her appearance in the full-length mirror on the back of
her closet door. She felt as though she were floating, she was still so
blissfully aroused. But then she reminded herself that this was not going to be
an intimate dinner for two with Brad, but a power one with his father. As her
blood thrummed in her veins, she felt more than a match for anyone.
 

She straightened her shoulders
with determination. She put her earrings in her lobes and found a small black
bag to go with her high-heeled shoes.
 
She checked her appearance once more, then flung open her door and
marched out of it and her apartment with steely determination.

Cormac Clarke was not going to be
an easy man to deal with, especially when he discovered that there was no way
in the world she would betray Brad to him. But she had everything to fight for
now, and she wasn't giving up her Dark Lady project, or the man she loved,
without a fight.
 

Zaira sailed into the restaurant
feeling as if she could dare anything.
  
She couldn’t wait to see Brad again, and was even
looking forward to doing battle with Cormac Clarke.
 
She immediately spotted Brad across the crowded room, and
she could see that he was looking harassed and irritated.
 
But when she came close to the table,
he jumped up and smiled, his gaze caressing her own intimately in an unspoken
question.
 
She gave a slight nod,
and he smiled, kissed her on the cheek, took her hand and sat her down at the
table next to Cormac.

“Father, this is Zoe
Dominick.
 
Zoe, this is my father
Cormac, who is here on a flying visit to see how my project is going.”
 
Brad laid stress on the word ‘my.’

But Zaira barely heard a word he
said as the sherry brown eyes across the table bored into her with unmistakable
amusement not unmixed with jealousy.
 

Brad had hold of her firmly by the
hand, and it was pretty apparent even to his father that this was the woman who
had turned his son’s head.
 
Zaira
had not even stopped to consider that Jonathan would be there.
 
What if he said something to the
Clarkes?

Cormac’s hostility was all too
apparent in his shimmering green eyes, so similar in colour to Brad’s, yet so
cold and harsh.
 
But then Cormac
began to relax and chat to her amiably.
 
If she and Brad were a couple, it would be pretty difficult to snatch
the project out from under his nose, and in truth, Cormac hadn’t really wanted
to do that anyway.
 
He had merely
welcomed the opportunity to see Brad, to pose him a challenge.

Secretly, Cormac admired his son,
who was so like him and yet so infuriatingly different.
 
Cormac watched Brad as they ate their
meal, as his son kept up a flow of easy conversation with Zoe, and even played
the kind host with Jonathan Wyman, whom Cormac knew Brad disliked.
 
Cormac wondered once again why he
resented his own son, why they never seemed to get on, and then realized that
he envied Brad.
 
Envied him his
innocence, his decency, which Cormac had sacrificed early on to further his own
career.

Cormac could see now that Brad
would never be like him in that respect.
 
Did he really want him to be?
 
As he saw his son laughing and smiling and kissing the girl’s hand, he
was reminded of Brad’s mother, and how they had looked in the first days after
having met and fallen in love.
 
No,
all the glamour and prestige was worth nothing without people to share it with,
and now with his wife and only daughter dead, Brad was all he had left.

“Well, Brad,” Cormac said, trying
to make his voice sound cold, “I must say the glamorous host is never a role
I’ve seen you play before.
 
I hope
Miss Dominick isn’t too dazzled by your charms, however, for it's time to get
down to business.”