by Ally Blake
‘Shh.’
She shushed.
He brought her hand around behind him so that it was locked against his back and her hips were flush against his. She could feel the smooth hardness of his waist along her forearm. Her breathing slowed to match his, until it was leisurely and lingering.
Then just as Cara all but gave into the idea that this big, gorgeous man was actually going to kiss her, the big gorgeous man’s other hand reached up and grabbed the book from her slackened grasp.
Letting go, he sprung to the other side of the sun lounger, and out of her reach. He scooped up his towel and flung it over his shoulder.
‘Count yourself lucky, Cara,’ he said, his dark eyes flashing all the warning she needed. ‘I might not be so noble next time.’
Mouth tingling with thwarted expectations, Cara watched him go, having no idea if he meant that next time their lips might meet as she had so much wanted them to do, or that she would end up in the pool.
Either way she thought she’d got away pretty lightly.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MONDAY, during the Luna Park date, Cara was again able to work herself ragged, but only because Adam had thankfully made himself scarce. Chris mentioned something about phone calls and workloads and Cara thanked her lucky stars that she was afforded the time to concentrate on her job.
But the day was all she was given. That night, as Adam once more accompanied her and Chris in their limo, it took a concerted effort to act as though everything were hunkydory, even though her pulse beat more rapidly every time she glanced his way.
‘How are you holding up, buddy?’ she asked Chris.
‘Pretty well.’
‘Good.’ She patted his knee. ‘You are doing just fine. Do you know what they have in store for you tonight?’
‘Karaoke,’ he said, his face pale.
‘I take it you’re no virtuoso?’
‘I don’t even sing in the shower.’
‘Think of it as an adventure.’
At the word adventure she saw Chris turn an even more sickly shade of green.
‘The roller coaster at Luna Park was bad enough. Stick a microphone in front of me and I will be physically ill. I can’t even do any public speaking, can I, Adam? That’s why I roped Adam into Revolution Wireless in the first place—he can do anything in public without breaking a sweat.’
The word ‘anything’ conjured up all sorts of bad, bad images that Cara had to squash deep down inside her impertinent imagination.
Concentrating hard on Chris, she took hold of his hands. ‘Chris, most people live their lives within walls. Within confines. Within boundaries. But you have been given an opportunity to branch out, to try new things, test yourself. This is a privilege and if I were you I would go out there and sing like you’ve never sung before. Don’t look back on this time with any regrets. OK?’
The car remained silent and Cara wondered if she had pushed too far. Then Chris nodded as though he were letting the idea wash over him, letting it seep inside his suit until it became a part of his armour plating.
By the time the limo pulled up to the bar, Chris was out the door, eager as a schoolboy to get onto the playground.
‘Nice speech you made in there,’ Adam said as he helped Cara out of the car.
She drew her hand from his as soon as was polite. ‘Thanks.’
‘What would you do in his situation?’
She shot him a sideways glance. ‘Hide in the ladies’ room all night. Without a doubt.’
Adam laughed. It was deep and resonant and infectious. ‘Not such a bad plan. But it was still a nice speech. Chris will have a much better night because of it.’
Cara shrugged. ‘It’s my job. It’s up to me to have the character be the person the producers need him to be. And Chris will be a much better hero for our show if he goes out there and has fun.’
‘So that’s why you gave him the pep talk? All for the good of the show?’
‘Mmm hmm.’
‘Sure it was.’ Adam slipped an arm about her torso and gave her one quick squeeze. ‘You are all class, Ms Marlowe.’
When he let go and went into the club, Cara stood stock-still and stared at his departing back. It was ridiculous. Her whole body was shaking. One small, chummy hug and he had her nerve endings rioting for more. And the funny thing was, it didn’t feel like flirting any more.
He had called her classy. And she knew instinctively it was not in the same joking manner her friends used the word. It was a real compliment and he was not a guy who gave compliments easily. It felt like a mark of…friendship. She felt as if she were skimming across the water in a speedboat, shooting through the levels of a relationship, all too fast. While on the job. With a guy who did not know the meaning of the word relationship.
Cara knew that Adam, son and heir to a history of failed relationships, had no such intentions. If he saw her as anything it was as a quick bedding before breakfast. And she had the funny feeling that, though it would be a pretty darned nice experience on its own, she would not come out of it with the same nonchalance. He did things to her senses that gave her fair warning not to take it any further than it had already gone. As such, for the sake of her job, for the sake of her plans, for the sake of her inexperienced heart, it would be up to her to nip it in the bud before it went any further.
When Cara made it inside the club, the show was up and running already. Cara looked around and found Adam. She gravitated to him, as she always did. There was one other seat at his table and it had already been pulled out. For her.
Then and there she decided to do her bud-nipping later. After allowing herself to enjoy his complicated company under the cover of forgiving darkness for a little while longer.
She sat, and gave Adam a small smile. He smiled back. And in the darkness of the club, she felt her inexperienced heart flip over on itself.
A couple of hours later the party was in full swing. Chris and the girls had enjoyed a sumptuous Japanese dinner, including enough sake to lubricate their vocal cords. And then the karaoke machine lit up, a spotlight showcasing the microphone that stood alone and lonely mid-stage.
‘Here we go,’ Cara said under her breath and Adam saw her hands clenching and unclenching upon the table.
He reached out and placed a hand over hers, their fingers meshing together, hoping to settle her. But she only stiffened all the more. She was desperately nervous for Chris; he could feel it. Sincerely worried for him. Sincerely. That was not a word Adam had had cause to use before when referring to a woman in his life. He gently massaged her palm until he could tell she was relaxing.
He had reason enough to keep her happy, to keep her comfortable, to sit with her, to tell her when he thought she had done a good thing. He had to be nice to her for Chris’s sake. For Chris and for the sake of the company.
But even as he thought it he realised how ridiculous it sounded.
There was no way he was gravitating to the woman every time she was in the room for the good of the company. He was gravitating towards her because he was caught in her gravitational force. He was like a moon spinning around her planet. The day spent making phone calls and shouldering a workload he could just as easily have shuffled onto someone else proved that.
Where she was, there he wanted to be. Not because he wanted to keep her in check, or because she was the life of the party. Not just because he felt an uncontrollable need to touch her whenever he had the chance, but because he also felt a deep-seated need to protect her. And that was the worst reason he could possibly have.
Disentangling his fingers, he stood, his chair scraping against the polished wood floor, earning several severe glances from the television crew.
‘Where are you going?’ Cara whispered, her husky voice washing over him in the darkness, and he felt something tugging deep within him at her concern.
There was only so much sincerity he could take before it began to make a subversive impact, so he didn’t answer her, merely walked away, not caring about
the shaft of light he let into the set as he stormed from the room and outside.
He took off up the street, feeling the need for fresh air. He needed something other than the heady, disturbing scent of flowers that seemed to have filled his nostrils and addled his brain ever since she had joined them in the car.
It was intoxicating. He was intoxicated. There could be no other explanation for the sensations creeping through his body and mind. No explanation. No excuse. No reason to let them get any further. He was not the type to fall prey to such intoxication. He’d had his last drink of that delicious scent and he had to give it up before he became addicted.
‘You are being absurd,’ he said out loud. ‘Control yourself, man. You’ll be out of this Petri dish in a week and a half, and then back out into the big wide world where a dozen other perfumes, much more sophisticated than hers will grab you in just the same way. And you’ll want to grab them right back.’
Back in the karaoke bar, Cara stayed put. The suddenness of Adam’s departure played on her and kept her from paying full attention to the show, but, though she had wanted to leap from her chair and follow Adam, she knew Chris needed her.
After several songs had been sung, Chris turned to Maggie and begged her to give it a go. Maggie had been sitting back quietly, her face as pale as Chris’s had been in the car, while the other women had sung and danced and writhed about the stage for Chris’s benefit.
‘Come on, Maggie,’ Chris insisted. ‘I know most of these girls can sing like angels, but I’m no Pavarotti. Give it a go. You’ll feel like a million bucks afterwards.’
Cara watched as Chris smiled at Maggie, his face aglow with confidence and something else again, a need to shield the girl, to make her feel safe, to overcome his own embarrassment to protect her from hers.
He took her by the hand and led her to the mike. ‘You pick the song,’ he offered, ‘anything you like.’
She nodded, her long blonde hair falling over her shoulders, her bright blue eyes so wide, but trusting, since she had her hand in his.
And Cara knew that, no matter the great speech she had given, Chris had never been more in control than now. Now that he had to be brave for someone more fearful of public humiliation than he was. And though Cara knew Maggie was no country hick as she joked, she looked as if she had never held a microphone in her life.
Chris picked it up for her, put it into her hands and then moved to sit with the other girls.
The first strains of her song began, and Maggie looked wildly out into the crowd beyond the bright lights. Cara stood and moved beside the main camera in the middle of the set. Maggie’s gaze flicked straight to her and there was a glimmer of recognition. Cara grinned widely and gave the girl two thumbs up.
Maggie brightened immeasurably, then said into the mike, ‘Practice makes perfect, right?’
Cara looked over to Chris, who was grinning at Maggie proudly, and though all the other girls were doing their dandiest to grab his attention, he only had eyes for the one on stage.
‘So here goes,’ Maggie said, ‘the musical stylings of Maggie O’Laughlan. Seen for the first time outside of third-grade choir. Hold onto your seats.’
Then, with a big wink at Chris that had him leaning forward and watching her as though she were the greatest thing ever to hold a mike, she serenaded him with the most off-key yet passionate rendition of ‘Stand By Your Man’ that anyone had ever heard. And it brought the house down. The cast, the crew, even the waiters gave her a standing ovation. And in the end Maggie fell, exhausted, mortified and exhilarated, into Chris’s waiting arms.
Cara turned to look into the smiling faces of the crew and found Adam had returned. He was lurking in the dark doorway, leaning on the wall, his arms and ankles crossed and he was the only one in the place not smiling.
She wondered what on earth could have him looking so sullen. But since he was so decidedly staring her way, and not at the tableau before her, she knew without a doubt it had something to do with her.
Her stomach tightened in response. It wasn’t nerves. It wasn’t hunger. It was awareness. Pure, unadulterated, sexual awareness.
He was watching her as a tiger watched its prey and she was petrified that, if the time came, she wouldn’t run for her life. She would bare her neck, ready for the kind of torture she just knew his attentions would impart. Sweet, delicious, mind-numbing torture.
When the next song started, Cara broke free of Adam’s eye contact and turned to face the singers. And there she stayed for the remainder of the shoot, her feet planted, her legs shaking, her whole body stiff with the pressure of holding her ground and not turning to seek out the one person she knew she should not want to seek out.
Especially under the veil of forgiving darkness that she had found so secretly comforting not long before.
Tuesday morning, Cara stood atop the grassy lawn of the Flemington Racecourse, level with the starting line, a betting slip clutched in her hot palm, her spare hand shielding her eyes from the bright sunshine.
‘Come on, number eight!’ Cara cried out, her silver bangles clinking as she bounced up and down on her tiptoes to see over the dozens of heads in between her and the magnificent racehorses rounding the straight.
She had almost left her strappy white shoes behind on a number of occasions, the spiky heels all but disappearing into the moist turf with each step. And though the hat she had hastily created the night before—a simple conglomeration of mesh, white satin, a few feathers and netting, cocked jauntily to the side—matched her black and white lace dress perfectly, it created no shade whatsoever and she knew her nose would be spattered with freckles by the end of the day.
‘Go, you good thing. Bring Papa home the bacon!’ Jeff added, leaping up and down at her side.
Cara watched as both their hopes and dreams faded when number eight came home somewhere in the middle of the pack.
‘Oh, well,’ Jeff said, his frown turning upside down quick smart, ‘at least he didn’t come last. We are improving.’
‘That we are,’ Cara agreed. ‘The odds are obviously on our side. By the time the Melbourne Cup comes around we’re sure to come home with a win.’
Jeff nodded, satisfied. Then his finger moved to his right ear and Cara knew a message was being beamed down to him through his hidden earpiece. ‘The girls are here. Is Chris ready?’
‘Just about. I’ll go make sure.’ Cara headed to the back of their private marquee to find Chris, who was secreted away in his own little air-conditioned mini tent.
‘Howdy, Chris.’
Chris turned, his face relaxing instantly at the sight of her. She leaned in, gave him a big kiss on the cheek, then continued to run both hands down his jacketed arms.
‘How you feeling, buddy?’
‘Fine.’
‘Only fine? Because you are looking absolutely divine. Those ladies are going to go gaga when you walk out there looking so damn fine.’
She shuffled in behind him, her arms around his neck fixing his tie with adept hands, so they were both looking in the full-length mirror. She gave him a wink and a solid grin and felt her job was done when he smiled back.
It was only when her gaze moved from his reflection to her own that she saw they were not alone. She spun to face the man sitting quietly on a chair in the corner.
‘Adam,’ she said, her voice breathier than she would have liked. ‘I didn’t see you there.’
‘That’s the way he likes it, I’m afraid,’ Chris scoffed. ‘He would rather be the silent witness, looking down upon us all, than be in the game himself. Isn’t that right, Adam?’
‘Who am I to disagree?’ he said, his face its usual hidden self.
‘That surprises me,’ Cara said, talking to Chris but with her gaze firmly fixed on the man sitting so casually in the chair. Maybe this was the perfect opportunity to call him out. To set some ground rules using Chris as an unknowing chaperon. ‘From what I have heard and read, I would have thought Adam was a player.’
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br /> ‘Oh, he does well enough with the ladies. But they never seem to stick around too long.’
‘Hmm. And why would that be, do you think?’
Cara could feel the heat emanating from Adam, even at her safe distance. His energy levels were growing exponentially as they talked about him. She just knew that he was dying to tell them both to lay off, but that would mean breaking down his permanent air of indifference.
‘Well,’ Chris said, ‘that would be because our young friend has no intention of letting them stick around too long. The last of the confirmed bachelors, is our Adam.’
She remembered the passage she had read about in the ‘Unauthorised’ book. A guy from a broken home. A guy whose father had flaunted his lovers all his life. She had heard the reasons for his indifference to settling down too many times from enough sources not to believe it.
But the fire pulsing from those blue eyes became too much for Cara. She had the distinct feeling if she pushed much further she might get burnt. She turned away, bringing her attentions back to an easier target.
‘Unlike you, hey, Chris?’
‘Absolutely. I’m lookin’ for love in all the right places.’
‘That’s my boy.’
‘So, how about you, Cara?’ Chris asked. ‘Is there a man on the outside, avidly awaiting your return?’
Cara sensed a shift in Adam’s posture. She flicked a glance his way and found he had uncrossed his legs and was leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. He wanted to know the answer and he was showcasing the fact. And now was the time to let him know it was never going to be any of his business.
‘No, there’s not, Chris. But I guess you could call me the last of the confirmed bachelorettes.’
‘Really? That seems a dreadful pity. A girl like you could make some man very happy. Don’t you agree, Adam?’
‘Or not, as the case may be,’ Cara bit off before Adam had the chance to even think about framing an answer. ‘So long as I am not making someone out there unhappy, then that’s enough for me. Besides, I am a woman with very specific plans for my future, and the last thing I need is something or someone coming along and messing up those plans.’