He burned inside. There was no getting away from it. He wanted sex. Couldn’t stop thinking about it. These last few months were the longest he’d gone without all his adult life. It wasn’t that he was a player, but he had flings. One nighters here and there. Until the last few months when he’d been back-to-back working.
He’d fixated on Caitlin because of her proximity, right? So there was the scene, the bars and clubs. Plenty of places to find another woman with come-hither eyes and soft lips who’d let him lose himself for a few hours. Except there was no losing ‘James Wolfe’. His face had been plastered over the cover of the world’s leading current affairs magazine. That image was everywhere over the Internet.
And way more crucially, there was only the one image in his mind now—Caitlin’s blonde hair draping over the pillow, over him the way it had before. Caitlin’s lips, Caitlin’s eyes, Caitlin’s curvy body. The desire for her had taken root and he couldn’t get rid of it. He ached to pull her beneath him and pin her to the bed. He wanted to take advantage and tame that subversive spirit, that spark within her. He’d tussle and torment her until she was silenced and sated and looking at him with nothing but appreciative pleasure in her eyes.
He wanted her to look at him as if he were her sex-god hero. How tragic was that? Given he hated anyone else looking at him that way.
But the way she’d kissed him—hungry, passionate, raw—had heated him alarmingly quickly. Too quickly. He snorted as he flipped her eggs. He’d hardly been a sex god this morning.
George’s warning rang again in his ears. If she’d had a rough time then she didn’t need him complicating things for her. He shouldn’t ask. Shouldn’t delve. She just wanted her little sightseeing holiday.
So what he should do was pack his bag and leave before temptation grew too great. He served up the eggs together with the mushrooms and tomatoes he’d cooked onto one of his camp plates. Holding it, he turned to offer it to her.
One last look into those blue eyes?
He was doomed.
FIVE
Leaning against the wall, Caitlin took the plate James offered with a cautious smile. He looked uncomfortably intense. He didn’t resume eating his own meal, leaving his plate to the side of the small camp cooker—next to his iPad. But he didn’t look at that either. He only looked at her.
‘Tell me,’ he said.
She paused, her fork partway lifted, her mind still on the electronic gadget. Had he been searching? ‘Tell you what?’
‘Everything. Why are you here? What is it you’ve run from? Why did my brother say you could stay here? How do you even know him?’
She lowered her fork. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Why do you think?’
She rolled her eyes. Didn’t he get that she refused to dance that dance? If he wanted to know, he could explain why or find out for himself. ‘Look it up on the Internet.’ She pointedly looked back at the iPad.
‘I’d rather hear it from you,’ he countered.
Had he really not looked already? Or was this some kind of test?
She forked some egg into her mouth and took her time chewing. The guy could cook, she’d say that for him. She had another mouthful because it was so damn good. He stepped alongside her, leaning a shoulder against the wall so he was at right angles to her. Surveying her with that teasing smile on his lips. Clearly waiting.
He’d be waiting a while.
But her taste buds suddenly went on strike, her appetite kicking the bucket too. She struggled to swallow her latest mouthful. What was it he wanted to hear? Would he actually listen or would he leap to conclusions? And if she did tell him the truth, would he believe her? People tended not to. People tended to think the worst.
Maybe telling him would clear the sultriness of the air between them. He’d end this flirtation. He certainly wouldn’t want to kiss her again. Wouldn’t that make her life easier? Wouldn’t that stop her stupid yearnings?
‘Okay.’ She put her plate down on the floor and reached out for the iPad.
He grabbed her arm to stop her.
‘Tell me.’ He frowned.
‘Think school,’ she said crisply. ‘Show and tell.’
He released her and she took the device, switching it on and plugging in a search. In a second she’d pulled an old promo pic for her show. She turned the iPad so he could see the screen.
He took a second to find her in the centre of the group of youths and read the advertisement. His jaw fell open. ‘You were a teen soap star?’
‘Never a star,’ she corrected with a wry smile. ‘More notorious.’
‘You told me you don’t want to act.’
‘I don’t. I’m hopeless at it.’
‘But you were—’
‘In a British school drama for a couple of seasons, yes. Before then I’d mainly done ads, modelling work and stuff.’
‘As a child?’
She nodded.
‘Why?’ He looked as if he couldn’t think of anything worse. He wasn’t far wrong.
‘My dad was an actor. At holiday parks, cruise ships, panto, a few walk-ons in the West End. You name it, he did it. Then he got a few bit parts on TV shows. One episode appearances in “character” things. He wanted us to do the same.’
‘Your mother?’
‘Died when I was seven,’ she said. ‘We needed money and there was good money in TV. I did some child modelling, had that cute factor. Did a lot of clothing catalogues. Then I did some stage stuff and eventually I landed the part on the show.’
‘But you said your sister is famous.’
‘She is.’ Caitlin braced herself. ‘My sister is Hannah Moore.’
His brows lifted. ‘The movie actress?’
Caitlin nodded, waited for it.
He frowned. ‘She doesn’t look anything like you.’
Bingo.
Hannah was brunette to Caitlin’s blonde. Was taller, coltish, had darker eyes, bigger lips. Caitlin had been the stereotypically ‘pretty’ one with the blue eyes and the blonde hair. Hannah was more ‘different’ looking. Now she’d gone raven she was even more striking.
‘So how come you’re afraid of being recognised?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘What happened?’
‘What happened?’ She stared down at the pretty young blonde smiling out from the centre of the posed photo. ‘I was young and stupid and spoiled.’
Silently he waited.
With an impatient growl she confessed. ‘I come from this “luvvie” family. We grew up backstage. The modelling work paid bills but it was assumed we’d act eventually. I had basic technique but no real talent. But I got on the show and it turned to custard.’ She frowned. ‘I’d always worked, right from when I can remember. And yeah, I might have been spoiled but I’d worked hard. But I knew it wasn’t my strength. I didn’t really want to do it but I couldn’t say that. So I acted out. And I was stupid. So stupid. I partied, I talked back...’
‘You were the wild child.’
‘And my off-screen dramas elevated our name.’ She winced. ‘I couldn’t live up to it. The expectation, the pressure was huge. And there was no getting away from it. But my mistakes were my own. There’s no one to blame but me. I earned myself this diva-bitch label and it got fixed with perma-glue. And like all good stories mine were embroidered—some elements magnified. Some just plain made up. I wasn’t as bad as it began to appear.’
‘So what happened?’
‘I got fired, of course. I think, all along, that’s what I’d wanted. I haven’t been on stage or on a TV show since. Six years. That’s for ever in telly time.’ She’d escaped and gone to study. It was only recently that she’d been dragged back under. She wrinkled her nose. ‘Except for repeats. They like to repeat some episodes.’ She grimaced.
�
��Where was your father?’
Right in the centre. ‘He was my manager.’ Her father had let her down. He’d never stepped in to stop her. Never defended her. ‘That’s how it all started. With me. Hannah had always wanted to act—was dying to. But she’d not got any jobs. Instead I got them. It was the cute little blonde girl thing,’ she said cynically. ‘Eventually Hannah did a piece in an indie film. Wasn’t even paid for it. But she got spotted. They finally realised her talent. And she flew from there.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘Stuck on the show for another season. Hated it and got worse in terms of behaviour.’
‘Why didn’t you just quit?’
‘I couldn’t. We needed the money. Hannah hadn’t quite hit the jackpot then, she was a slow build before becoming an overnight sensation—that’s the way these things really work. I brought in regular money that we needed. So you can imagine how mad Dad was when they finally called time on me.’
She’d lost all worth. All her value. He’d turned to Hannah. Helped Hannah. She supposed he’d had to.
‘But by then Hannah was hitting her stride?’
Caitlin nodded. ‘She has that quirkiness that the camera loves. There’s no mistaking her for anyone else. She’s passionate about acting. It’s absolutely her thing and she is incredibly good at it. She disappears for weeks when she’s right into a part.’
‘You’re close?’
Caitlin hesitated. ‘She’s very busy and I’m working on a new phase in my life.’ She read the disapproval in his eyes. ‘We really didn’t spend that much time together as kids. But she’s a darling,’ she rushed to add. ‘She deserves all her success. And she doesn’t need to be dragged down by me. It was because Hannah knows George that I got the loan of this place. She is supportive of me. But I think it’s better to keep some kind of distance.’
‘You’ve shut her out?’
‘No,’ she said defensively. ‘I just don’t think she needs to have my affairs thrust in her face. She doesn’t need to have her publicist deflecting questions about me. She needs to concentrate on her career and not have me as the sideshow.’
‘But that leaves you alone.’ He looked at her. ‘Because I’m guessing you and your dad aren’t close.’
‘He’s very busy too. He’s still Hannah’s manager,’ Caitlin said softly. ‘She has a whole team these days, but he’s still very involved. And that’s fine. I’m a big girl. I don’t need a manager. I’m loving being in New York and being anonymous.’ She glared at him, hating how exposed she felt right this instant in the face of his inscrutability. She didn’t want to go any further—not into the nightmare of the last few months and the real reason she’d had to run. ‘Anyway, you can’t talk. You’ve shut out your family.’
‘I haven’t shut them out.’ His smile went fixed.
‘Really? When you won’t even go and see them in the few days you have back in the country?’
‘You think they’d want to see me when I’m tired and grumpy?’ The smile disappeared altogether.
‘Would it be so bad if they saw you tired and grumpy? Or is your image too important to maintain?’
‘I don’t care about my image.’
‘No? So you have no problem with having that picture of you being sent around the world?’
‘Okay,’ he conceded with a sigh. ‘I hate that picture.’
‘Why?’ Didn’t he feel some kind of pride that he’d been able to help that girl?
He shook his head. ‘I work as part of a team. No one person is a hero. We need each other. We’re there to do a job but we have each other’s backs. There’s no room for egos. We all do what we have to do. It’s never down to one person.’
Sometimes it was. He was the one who’d found that girl and pulled her free. Sure, maybe others in his team had found others as well, but for that one little girl James Wolfe was her lone hero.
‘Are your colleagues bothered by the attention you receive?’ Was that where his ‘reluctant hero’ mode sprang from?
He stepped back, his bottomless eyes fixed on her. ‘There was some ribbing. But no, I know they’d rather it were me than them. In many ways it was great—it raised the profile of the organisation and that helps with fundraising and stuff.’ He shrugged.
It was clearly a line from the publicists that he’d repeated a hundred or more times. ‘And it’s only having your picture taken. It’s not that awful.’
Sure, against the backdrop of things he must have seen, it wasn’t, but he couldn’t deny the impact on him personally. She wanted him to acknowledge it. ‘But it changes your life.’
‘Again,’ he noted, ‘it’s nothing compared to what some people go through.’
‘You’re being heroic again.’ She chuckled. ‘But you don’t like it.’
‘No.’
‘It’s so awful to be admired? To be adored?’ She’d far rather that than be thought of as the wicked witch.
‘People see what they want to see. But it’s not real. They don’t see through that image.’
His words pierced her defence. They were words she’d say and mean. But she couldn’t believe he really meant then. That he could possibly understand. So she teased. ‘Maybe you don’t let them.’
He chuckled. ‘Do you try to let them see through your image? Do you try to change what they think?’
She waved a hand as if brushing off the idea. ‘People have this thing about leopards and spots.’
‘So once bad, always bad?’ He leaned forward, coming too close again.
‘Angels can fall from grace, though, so you better be careful,’ she whispered.
He didn’t laugh, didn’t pull away as she expected him to. As she was warning him to.
‘I’m not afraid of what people think about me,’ he said.
‘Really?’ She turned, tapped the iPad back to life and entered his name in the search box.
‘You’re Googling me? Right now?’ he asked, sounding somewhat stunned.
‘Why not? I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me. What else is it you’re hiding from?’
Something flickered in his eyes before he looked down so she couldn’t see into them.
‘Search away.’
His careless drawl spurred her. To find something wicked about the so-perfect one? She wished.
In a second she had a spate of webpages listed. A number of links to one article in particular. The one that had come first in the search rankings.
She clicked on it.
Dated a few months ago, the article was illustrated with that iconic image from the flood-ravaged South American village. There was another, smaller picture of him walking along the pavement outside his local coffee shop. In the grey tee, of course, but with jeans this time.
There was a fact box about his family—the wealth, the travel bug they all had—briefly profiling his two brothers as well, labelling the three ‘the Wolves of Manhattan’. Then the main thrust of the article caught her attention. A tabloid piece from a gossip site, the main ‘source’ was a woman who couldn’t contain her enthusiasm for James.
My Night With The Scarred Hero.
...He’s as generous in bed as he is in his rescue missions. A strong, loving partner who gives a woman his all... He’s so fit I could hardly keep up. He had me seven times in the one night, I’ve never known a man to have such stamina. He didn’t seem to want to sleep at all...
Oh my. Caitlin looked up to gauge his reaction.
‘It’s embarrassing,’ he muttered. ‘Fiction.’
Determined to stifle her smile, she tapped her fingers on the edge of the iPad and surveyed him. ‘So she’s making up how great you are in bed?’
‘Well...’ He laughed uneasily. ‘It’s just not something you want to see in print, you k
now.’
‘Some guys would love that.’ Most guys she could think of, in fact.
‘I’m not some guy.’ He frowned and then sighed. ‘I was already...popular, if you like. I come from a wealthy family. I’ve got all my limbs...’
And he was so hot it was unreal. Plus he was clever, and a good conversationalist. He knew how to look at a woman. Then there was that edge. She’d seen it that first night, caught glimpses of it since. The dangerous glint, the possibility of strength, determination—he was capable of taking charge. Control.
Heat washed over her. Inappropriate, devastating heat.
‘Then with that picture. The rescue work...’ He tailed off.
‘You became a hero,’ she finished, licking her lips to ease their dryness. ‘Even more wanted.’
He nodded reluctantly, slowly. ‘And then that woman—’
‘Sold her story and the hot lover legend was born.’
He put his head in his hands and groaned.
Hard as she tried Caitlin couldn’t quite feel sorry for him. Hard as she tried she couldn’t stop her own arousal either. Seven times?
‘Are you afraid you can’t live up to it?’ she provoked, forcing herself to laugh and keep it light. ‘Don’t worry, everyone knows all the stuff in the papers is made up. We all know the “seven times in one night” was a massive exaggeration.’
He glanced up, his expression smouldering. ‘I just don’t want any more stories in the papers.’
‘So you don’t trust anyone.’ She got it now.
‘Not one-night stands.’
‘And you’re not in town long enough to start a relationship.’ She tried to slow her zinging pulse. He must be lonely. Must be hungry for it. ‘Isn’t there anyone in your team?’ she asked. ‘In the paramedic, disaster community?’
‘No.’ He shook his head, the heat in his eyes igniting. ‘I really don’t need you to be match-maker for me.’
‘I’m not. I’m just analysing.’ She flicked her tongue over her desert dry lips again. ‘No wonder you couldn’t resist kissing me. How long has it been?’ She glanced at the date of the article again. ‘Ten months?’
Whose Bed Is It Anyway? Page 7