by Ally Blake
He took that as his cue to get the hell out of there. Without another word he took his tux, and his bafflement, and went to his suite to change. And to roll his incompetent tongue back into his mouth.
CHAPTER FIVE
THAT night, on the romantic, candlelit balcony of the Ivy Hotel ballroom, Chris set out to meet the woman he was going to marry, while Cara moved behind the scenes inside the ballroom proper in surroundings not nearly so romantic. Champagne glass in one hand, she used the other to hike up the heavy skirt of her slinky black dress so that she could better negotiate the light stands, cameras, and trailing cables stuck to the floor with heavy black gaffer tape.
She found Adam set up on a director’s chair, which afforded a good view through the equipment to the scene outside. Despite the niggling tension she still felt licking between them, once the cameras began to roll she gravitated Adam’s way.
‘My stomach is curling as though I’m the one about to go out there,’ she said, pulling up a chair.
Adam didn’t even give her a glance, his focus was so fully on his friend. His whole body was clenched. He was like an explosion waiting to happen.
But it wasn’t fair to say it was all him. She had been just as wound up earlier in the limo. At the talk of Chris pulling out of the show, the brick of fear inside her chest, which had been absent all day, had come back with a vengeance, so heavy it had threatened to pin her to the seat of the car.
The two of them were making their way through each day with the weight of the world on their shoulders and if she had to be around this sort of volatile energy for a fortnight, the finesse it would take to navigate him would eat her up inside.
She tried to get through to him again. ‘Nerve-racking, isn’t it?’
Nothing.
So she reached out a hand and placed it on his knee. He flinched so violently, she flinched in tandem. She could feel the tension radiating from him in waves. But what she saw in his deep blue eyes gave her pause. He wasn’t being fractious. This wasn’t some sort of manly power play. He was suffering.
She collected herself and placed her hand once more upon his knee. ‘Are you OK?’
‘You don’t know him,’ Adam said, his voice low and far away. ‘He’s too kind-hearted. Those women will eat him alive.’
She looked from him to Chris. Adam the confirmed bachelor, the playboy, the man about town, watching over his friend, the slightly younger, the sweeter, the less well travelled. They had made jokes earlier about Adam acting as Chris’s bodyguard, but suddenly Cara knew it was no joke. For some reason, Adam felt he had to be there to protect his friend.
But why? As Cara saw it, the women, to a one, seemed to be even more nervous than Chris. She spied one other familiar face among them.
Well, what do you know? she thought. It was Maggie, the girl who had not been able to work her key card that morning. She was all dolled up in a pretty pink dress, her blonde tresses flowing straight and long past her shoulder blades. And Cara knew that if she was one to go by, the producers had picked good people. That girl would more likely build a campfire on the floor of her room than eat anyone alive.
‘Give them a chance,’ Cara said. ‘If I think he’s being taken advantage of, I will fight for him alongside you, OK?’
His gaze narrowed and she felt it focus on nothing but her. It was enough to sap her breath away.
‘Don’t play me, Cara.’
Her fluttery hand shot to her chest. ‘I’m not. Seriously. I wouldn’t even dare try. True, I barely know Chris, but I like him. And it’s simply not in me to see someone like that be crushed.’
He nodded, slowly. Once. Twice. A deep breath filled his chest then released on a ragged sigh. Something in what she had said had hit the right note. His mouth kicked up at the corner. ‘Allies.’
Her stomach clenched at that one small movement of his lips. He could be devastating when he chose to turn on the charm. But she had come into this conversation with one goal in mind, to make peace, and it seemed she had achieved her objective.
Cara held out a pinkie finger. ‘Allies.’
Adam stared vacantly at her finger. Cara had to reach over, take his hand, and link his pinkie with hers. His hand warmed hers for a moment before the link was broken. The truce had been made. And too late Cara wondered if she had just made a pact with the devil and what sort of payment she would have to lay down to keep the peace with such a man.
‘So are you taking notes?’ she asked, lightening the loaded mood. ‘So you can have your own show after this one?’
Adam laughed, the sound rumbling in his large chest. ‘You got me. I’m pining to be out there myself.’
‘Well, you’re dressed the part, at least. And you do look pretty damn good in your tux if I do say so myself.’
He looked more than good. He looked absolutely edible.
Adam ran a hand down his white tie, but his eyes didn’t leave hers. ‘It’s a perfect fit.’
Cara did her best not to blush, as beneath his words she heard him wonder how she had picked his measurements so well. ‘It’s my job, Adam,’ she said. ‘Don’t get any ideas.’
His smile told her he was reserving judgment on her answer and she knew he had every right to. There would be plenty of women who could draw him from memory. He had that sort of magnetism that one could not help but stare if one had the chance.
‘Or maybe you’re not really planning to have your own show, maybe you are just here to ogle all the pretty girls,’ Cara said, flicking a glance at the lovely ladies in evening dress fawning over his smiling friend.
He gave her a small grin, his eyes mercifully leaving her to rake over the other women before them.
But it wasn’t long before his gaze drifted back to where it truly preferred to be, on by far the most beguiling woman in the room.
One minute she was sophisticated, with her dazzling red shoes and her portfolio, just the sort of woman he would happily spend a Saturday night seducing. The next minute she was the girl next door in her soft denim cut-offs and unbrushed curls, just the sort of ingénue he spent his waking hours avoiding.
Now tonight, with a dash of something dark about her eyes and gloss on her lips making them look as though she had eaten too many strawberries, she looked like sex on two legs and just the sort of woman who would surely be wearing something other than white cotton briefs beneath her clingy black dress.
Whereas he knew he had a Masters in the poker face, every thought flickered across her green eyes. Every blink told a story. Every twitch of her cheek said she had something to say. And if she nibbled at that full lower lip of hers a moment longer he would have to find out for himself how it tasted.
He knew it would be sweet. The longer he watched her nibble, the sweeter the thought became. He dragged his eyes back to face the same way as the cameras, but it was all he could do to concentrate on Chris.
After a couple more hours, day one of The Billionaire Bachelor shoot was over. The girls were herded out a back door while Chris trudged through the maze of cables and cameras to flop into a seat next to Adam.
‘You looked great out there,’ Cara said.
‘Thank God that’s over, hey?’ Adam suggested.
Chris didn’t move, his head flung back, his eyes closed. Finally he shook his head, slowly, back and forth. ‘I could have stayed out there for the rest of my life.’
Cara felt Adam’s whole body tense in response. His cheek muscles clenched and his knuckles showed white on his large tanned hands. If she had brought him to an uneasy peace earlier, the caged tiger was back with a vengeance.
Chris opened his eyes and Cara’s breath caught in her throat. He was positively glowing.
‘They were all amazing. Lovely. Sweet. Beautiful. I don’t know what I ever did to deserve this. It’s going to work. I can feel it in my bones. Within that group of women is the woman I am going to marry.’
If Adam was tense before, by that stage he had practically turned to stone.
‘Was there any one in particular who caught your fancy?’ Cara asked, trying to keep the spirit lively.
‘Maybe. Possibly.’ Chris thought about it, then his neck began to turn pink. He sat up and shook his head. ‘But it’s too early to know.’
He seemed to just notice Adam, and Chris’s expression went from delighted to grim in an instant. ‘Adam, just relax.’
Cara blinked. She had not heard Chris so bothered before.
‘Remember, they have no idea who I am. None of them know the title of the show is The Billionaire Bachelor. I am just Chris. There is no way they are in this for anything other than finding someone to love, just like I am.’
Adam laughed, or as much as it could be a laugh considering he looked fit to burst.
‘You are going to have to get over this, mate,’ Chris insisted. ‘I’m here. I am doing this. And no matter your reservations and your history with relationships, you are going to have to suck it up and support me. Because I seriously can’t do this without your cooperation.’
Cara could see that Adam was dealing with some pretty heavy emotions. There was a war going on within him so distressing even he couldn’t keep it under wraps. He breathed deeply through his nostrils, stretched out his fingers and relaxed his shoulders. These were movements she knew all too well herself. The reeling back of one’s temper, of one’s true feelings in order to keep the peace. She wondered what it was about his ‘history with relationships’ that had him so heated.
Whatever else, she could see how much he cared for Chris. And for whatever reason he was torn between taking him by the ear and pulling him out of the hotel and all the way home, and letting him be. Adam was keenly afraid that Chris might fall for one of these women. Whereas Cara and every woman who would watch the show would hope for nothing less for sweet, fluffy Chris, it was the last thing in the world Adam wanted for him. And it was more than just wanting his friend to remain free and easy.
‘So come on, Adam,’ Chris continued. ‘I need to know, here and now, that, despite your reservations, you will stick by me whatever decision I might make.’
Ever the diplomat, Cara ached to get between them and make it all OK. To do a little dance. Sing a little song. Anything to draw attention away from the tension. But she sensed that this time she wasn’t needed. There was enough history, enough understanding between these two they could work it out and it wouldn’t end in cold shoulders.
Adam finally dug deep enough to find what he was looking for. ‘Fine. You know my feelings—’
‘Unfortunately I do.’
‘But no matter what you decide to do, I’m with you. Why else do you think I’m here?’
‘To rouse at me?’
‘To be your second. To be your shoulder.’
Cara wondered if the guys even remembered she was there. But she was used to sinking into the background while moments of high emotion rolled on by. She always felt it was better to live on an even plane—knock off the edges both high and low, and she would be much more content.
Chris gave him a lopsided grin. ‘So you are.’ He shook his head. ‘Sorry, mate. I guess my head is just too full to take it all in. I’m used to figures and measurements, and not those concerning the ladies. We’re all good?’
‘We’re all good.’
The two men stood and, where she would have expected shaking of hands, they hugged. Actually honest to goodness hugged. And she wondered again on the history that had brought them together. Such true friendship. A relationship built on rock.
Though she had spent her life rejecting the notion, for the first time in a long while she ached to be in the middle of the action. She yearned to reach out and take a little of that emotion before it rolled on by and out of her life for ever.
The next day, since the girls were piled into a couple of minibuses and taken to the local mall for their day of shopping and pampering, all under the watchful eye of a three-man location camera crew, everyone else had the day off.
But after the emotional invigoration of the night before, Cara could not stand being alone in her room. After an hour of channel flicking and floor pacing she was about to pick up the phone, and call Jeff and see if he wanted a game of cards, I-spy, whatever, when her room phone rang. She leapt across the bed to grab it.
‘Good morning, Cara,’ Adam’s low voice coursed down the phone line.
‘Good morning, Adam.’ She sat down, her knees simply unable to hold her up. It was the voice, nothing else. He just had that type of voice that would kick at something deep inside any woman. She had been able to think of little else since the emotional display the night before. Zinging as if she had downed a carafe of coffee all on her own, she had nibbled away the fingernails on her left hand the night before in penance for imagining herself wrapped in Adam’s arms in Chris’s place.
‘How does a day of fresh air and sunshine grab you?’ he asked.
With him? Unexpectedly that grabbed her in all the right places.
‘Don’t tease me like that,’ she said.
She couldn’t give him an outright no way as that would only mean spending a day alone, nibbling away the fingernails on her right hand.
‘This is no tease, I assure you,’ he said, his voice typically unhurried. It was almost hypnotic.
Cara lay back on the bed and cradled the phone under her ear. ‘So what did you have in mind?’
‘We have been given permission from the powers that be to have a day outdoors.’
‘But I thought the idea was to keep us out of the light so that we don’t remember what day it is, what time of day, what our names are, where we really live…’
Adam’s soft laughter reverberated down the line and Cara was glad she was lying down. The mellow sound turned her whole body to jelly.
‘We will be under strict supervision, of course,’ he assured her.
‘Sounds kinky.’
Cara slapped her hand across her forehead. Where had that come from? She waited for his reply and she had to endure several moments of humiliated silence before it came.
‘Wear comfortable clothes and sneakers and meet me downstairs in fifteen minutes.’
‘What for?’ Cara asked, but Adam had already rung off.
She stared at the phone for a moment before her adrenalin kicked in. Tearing her clothes off as she went, she ran into her closet to find her most comfortable clothes and her sneakers, her mind reeling with ideas of what Adam could have had in mind.
Outdoors. Supervised.
Whatever it was she was giddy with excitement, and was out the door in ten minutes flat, lathered in sunscreen, wide-brimmed hat on her head, more excited than she was prepared to admit.
As it turned out she was to spend the day with Adam, the majority of the television crew and half the staff from the hotel for a game of baseball in the private park next door to a suburban hotel owned by the same chain.
Cara couldn’t play baseball to save her life. It took her enough daily effort to navigate high heels without having to master the necessary coordination to play a team sport. The best she could hope for was that she wouldn’t trip over her laces and land face down in the dirt. But here she was, in her cut-off jeans, sleeveless top and sneakers, her wide-brimmed hat long since laid aside to accommodate the blue cap that showed her up as a being on the Blue TV Team as opposed to the Red Hotel Team. It was to be a battle to the death.
She stood out in right field, bent at the waist, hands on knees, legs shoulder-width apart, waiting for someone to hit the ball her way so she could make the split-second decision to duck and squeal, or have a go and fumble it in front of everyone. Hmm. Nail biting suddenly seemed like a rather pleasant way to spend a day.
‘How you going, Cara?’ Chris called out from second base.
She gave him a hearty salute and by his ringing laughter she figured he had guessed just how she was going.
Cara turned her attention back to the game at hand. She punched her glove a couple of times as she had seen the players
on television do, then hunched over, resting her hands on her knees, preparing herself for whatever came her way.
Adam, the pitcher for their team, looking resplendent in cut-off track pants and a loose-fitting T-shirt, lazily threw the ball into the air and caught it in his free hand as he talked behind his glove with his catcher, Mickey the boom mike operator.
Then he sidled back onto the mound, his long, loping strides catching at Cara. He was so effortlessly sexy that it created an ache deep in her stomach. Who knew that beneath those layered suits there was a body like the one working before her? The back of his shirt was stuck to his broad torso. He had a great pair of legs, strong, muscled and tanned, and in his loose shorts he gave her a prime view of the best masculine behind she had ever set eyes on. And she had seen some hunks. Most men she styled were models or actors, and kept themselves fit through many waking hours spent at the gym. But nevertheless this guy was a notch above. He was broad, and strong, and tall and had a simply pinchable behind. And she had no doubt it was all natural.
As he prepared to pitch, Cara saw that his beautiful hands came with a matching pair of beautiful arms. They were sinewy, bronzed and shaped like those of a swimmer. Those gorgeous arms stretched and twisted and threw the ball with such amazing power and grace it slammed over the home plate with ease and precision.
‘Cara, it’s yours, babe,’ Chris called out.
Cara stood up straight, shielding her eyes with her hand, to find the ball was bouncing raggedly across the ground her way. She sensed her team all turning, facing her as the batter rounded first base and kept on going to second.
She flicked a momentary glance at Adam and knew she shouldn’t have. If the view from the back was something, the view from the front with his shirt stuck to his muscular chest, his dark, damp hair curling about his face, his mouth open to rake in great dragging breaths, his eyes bright from exercise, his chest rising and falling…It was too beautiful to believe.