Dressed to Thrill

by Bella Frances

  Everybody knew where they were with Party Tara—especially her.

  She braved the phone again and messaged her contacts. Someone had to know where Lars was. Time for favours to be called in.

  * * *

  By the time she emerged from the hotel room where Team Lars were holed up she had a sponsorship deal, a cash-flow solution and an invitation to dinner. Not a bad day’s work considering she was so not an It Girl.

  She made her way past the super-rich, who were accessorising the various corners of the hotel like throws and silk cushions. Sheikhs, thin women in couture, couples in identical cruise wear, and then the bag lady types—usually the richest of them all.

  She skipped along, feeling almost fantastic. A couple of hours’ downtime and then on to meet Lars in Soho. She wasn’t really sure what his MO was in all of this. He had a lot of cash. He was light on fashion in his portfolio. He had a big interest in her assets. It almost made her squirm. But, hey-ho, she could cope with that and then some.

  She took out her phone.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  A missed call from Michael. And another call from home. She screwed up her eyes. Not yet. Please not yet. She wasn’t ready. Just not ready.

  * * *

  An eight-course, wine-matched dining marathon was not quite what she’d had in mind. Her heart sank after the wasabi sorbet, and she was counting the hours until the white chocolate mousse with truffle-roasted hazelnut and blueberry coulis. She could hardly say it, never mind eat it. And by the time she rolled out of here she would have gone up another dress size.

  Lars was a sweet kid. That was all she could describe him as. Well, cute. He could be described as cute too. But he was way better suited to someone like Fernanda than to a woman like Tara, who’d lived through two editors of French Vogue. When she spent time with a man she wanted it to be someone who’d lived, who was intelligent, who could have a conversation that ran further than television stars and where to park your yacht. But that was way off in the future. Right now she wanted this night to end and her life to settle back down.

  She turned her phone over to check for a message. Or a call. Nothing. Good—that was good. She could not cope with anything else right now. Once Paris was in the bag, maybe then she could stop and think. She could maybe meet Michael for lunch?.

  Maybe not. The wrong dress, the wrong hair and under the arm of the wrong man. She couldn’t get that out of her mind. How could something that had felt so right be so wrong? No, better to put distance between them—miles and miles of distance. Focus on the show next week. Get the media focused on that side of Devine Design again. A few photos with Lars would be a good start.

  It was when he put his hand on the small of her back that she really began to get annoyed. Getting out of the car to go to yet another function. Walking in and seeing Michael. And wanting to turn and run right back out through the door.

  It was a retrospective photography exhibition being held in a cavernous nightclub, and she should have known he would be there. He was with Angelica. He was the most handsome man she had ever seen. He was staring right at her. Even among the giant canvasses of iconic images, huge portraits that seemed to have stunned everyone else, he was like a beacon and she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  Lars dragged his hand across her back and looped it over her shoulders. His fingers rested on the top of her breast. Michael’s eyes were like missiles. She was pinned to the spot. His jaw was tense and almost totally square. His fabulous, loving mouth was set in an angry line. She could feel the energy from across the room. Angelica placed a hand on his arm, but it was like a blade of grass on a tsunami.

  Who the hell did he think he was?

  OK, so maybe he’d been expecting her to return his call…but she’d been busy! And agreeing to go to dinner and an exhibition with Lars was actually not a big deal. It was the polite thing to do. It gave her that little bit of distance she needed. And she’d been more than up-front with Michael that she was not going to change who she was and how she did things just because he thought she should.

  But he’d turned his head and was talking to a group of his type of people—all money, class and effortless charm. Wow. She was so not part of that scene. Thank god. She was so different from him. Even though there had been times when she’d felt absorbed by him, part of him—as if no one else in the world understood her like him. But that had just been the heat of the moment. No big deal.

  She needed a drink. Even with his back to her she could still feel his presence. He was still making her feel that she needed her shield. And her sword. Or her running shoes.

  She checked that there was no press. There was no press. But there might be some opportunists. She shrugged her shoulders out of Lars’s octopus arm and made her way to…to anywhere other than this public arena.

  A few people stopped her, complimented her on her clothes—the red version of the cream satin dress she’d been wearing that first night she’d met Michael. Inlaid with darts of rubber and more than a nod to the fetish scene.

  ‘Wrap that round ya, Cruz,’ she muttered to herself.

  She moved through the crowd. Fielded a few questions about Lars. Laughed off a few bitchy comments about last night’s exit. Tried to bluff out her media thrashing.

  The eight matched wines had been small measures, drunk slowly, but there was no doubt that her senses were a bit dulled. She ordered a shot to give her an edge. Lifted the glass to her mouth.

  ‘Tara.’

  She let the glass hover, then downed it. Slapped it down on the bar. ‘What?’

  ‘You tell me what.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what, all right.’ She knew she was making a mistake taking him on. In public. And after the day that she’d had. But he wasn’t her keeper and she had every right to sink a few. ‘Thanks to you I’ve had a fantastic time explaining your caveman tactics from yesterday. Oh, how we laughed. Oh, how I loved Michael grabbing me up and stuffing me in his car—said no one—ever.’ She nodded to the barman. ‘Same again.’

  ‘You don’t need another, Tara. You need to go home—preferably with me. You’ve had a lot to drink and it’s been a tough day for you. I’ve seen the media. I know how you’ll be feeling.’

  His voice was low, totally uncompromising. Utter control and no room for manoeuvre. But he was dealing with her. Not his sisters. Not his idealised version of a woman who did as she was told.

  ‘Wrong, Michael. You don’t know how I’m feeling—you think you do, because you think you know everything. But you don’t know me. And don’t even think about laying a finger on me to drag me out of here.’

  He was right beside her now. Looking down with that intense dark stare. She turned right round to face him—body to body. And what a body it was. She knew it. She felt drawn in to the energy he radiated. It would be so easy—so gloriously easy to wrap her arms around him and let her mouth tug out those divine kisses. She was right inside his arc of strength. He was everything. No touch but he could twist her to his will.

  ‘I’m not taking you anywhere you don’t want to be. But you were in too deep last night and you’re heading that way again tonight. And the worst of it is you don’t even want to be here—it’s obvious. You put on your smile and you put up your hair and the Tara Show comes to town.’

  ‘The Tara Show? Is that what you think I am? A pantomime?’

  ‘I think right now that you’re spoiling for a fight. And I don’t know why
.’

  She turned back to the barman, who had lined up her next shot. Truly, the thought of it was making her feel slightly sick.

  ‘I don’t want to fight. I just want to be me. And that’s not a pantomime—or a show. Until I met you I didn’t have any self-doubt. None. I knew where I was going and I knew how to get there. But now? Now I’m questioning every move that I make—every dress that I wear. And I’m getting it all wrong!’

  She heard her voice getting more and more high-pitched. Picked up the shot glass. Held it between them. ‘I don’t even know if I want to sink this. That’s how you’ve got me! All over the place. I missed a call with a really high-end fashion editor. I forgot…forgot…to get my transport sorted until it was nearly too late! I’m losing control.’

  She threw the liquor down her throat and winced as it burned. Slammed the glass down.

  ‘Feel better after that?’

  She hiccoughed. ‘Much.’

  He trailed his finger down her cheek. Warm, soft, tender.

  ‘It doesn’t always have to be the hard path, Tara.’

  She felt the pull of him. Oh, he was so tempting—she could so easily reach out and touch his chest. Feel his heat and wrap herself up in it. But that wasn’t going to help. She needed space and distance—not more closeness.

  ‘I’ll be leaving shortly. Angelica is meeting Sebastian and I want you to come with me. Let me look after you, querida.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Stop trying to order me about, Michael. Don’t you know me by now? That just gets my back up.’

  She turned back to the barman. ‘Spring me another. Please.’

  ‘Wow, Tara—you’re determined to wreck this, aren’t you? You’re really set on another night like last night—and you know I’m not going to be here to pick up the pieces.’

  ‘I’ve never needed anyone to pick up after me. I sort things for myself, Michael. No interference necessary. Thanks all the same.’

  He held his hands up and stepped back. ‘You know where I am and you know what I want. But I’ll not bother you again—not while you’re working through whatever it is that’s eating you alive like this.’

  She grasped the shot glass that had been placed before her. Closed fingers round the glass that was already sticky with liquor. Threw it down her throat. Closed her eyes and felt it burn. Coughed. And when she looked round he was gone.

  For a moment she wanted to run, to chase after him. She actually felt him withdrawing, leaving, and the force of it hit her hard like another sucker punch. She braced two arms on the bar. Dipped her head. Felt a huge, harsh sob swell from her soul and bit down hard. She couldn’t lose it here. She couldn’t.

  She stifled it and swallowed and kept her head low, until she was sure she could walk without her legs buckling. But the tears had gathered—a thick film that swelled over her eyes. She couldn’t see where she was going. Two slim arms reached for her, steered her to a corner. Angelica. Hugging her and holding her and shushing her.

  ‘Tara. Go after him. He only wants to do the right thing for you. I know it. I can see it. He loves you. I’m sure he does.’

  But Tara shook her head as the tears began to fall. Even if it was true she couldn’t let herself open up any more. She had so much riding on these next few days. Her success. Her sanity. What good would it do to go after him? To say sorry? To tell him she loved him? How could she be sure she even knew what love was?

  ‘I can’t, Angelica. He’s not right for me. He’s too much. I can’t take that amount of control in my life. I’m the boss of me—not any man. And Michael is more than any man I’ve ever met—it’s who he is. It defines him. I need to be defined by me and me alone. He would swallow me up. I already feel I’ve lost my way and things are falling apart.’

  She squeezed her friend’s hand and then slipped out of her grasp. She needed to go now. At least she had figured one thing out—at least she knew now for sure that she was better off alone permanently. All those feelings of leaning on Michael, being absorbed by him and enjoying his strength—so tempting, but so wrong.

  She walked to the doors. Squared her shoulders. Wiped her eyes and fixed her smile.

  ELEVEN

  It was a day like any other. Michael told himself that over and over. If he viewed it as anything else he would risk getting caught up in the hysteria that seemed to have settled like an electric storm over this corner of Catalonia. Thankfully he’d left the house to the girls, so the frenzy was only an imprint rather than the real deal.

  He drained his third coffee of the day and looked over at Angelica’s fiancé, Sebastian. Pacing. He’d been up for hours and the strain was already beginning to tell. Crazy that people put themselves through this. Actually volunteered to tie themselves in knots—not only in the preparation, but then on the day.

  Even the most cool and collected of them all—Angelica—had been showing signs of stress in the past forty-eight hours. And he’d never, ever witnessed that before. Fern, of course, was playing the sulky teenager to perfection. Like a military strategist. Withdrawn, one-word answers, and then without warning she’d flare up and fire a couple of missiles that took everyone by surprise. Maybe he’d been like that at one point. Who knew?

  There was so much going on at work too. His phone was permanently in his grasp but he’d cleared everything for what he was determined was going to be a turning point in his life. That seemed to have taken his assistant by surprise, because in the past few months he had agreed to almost everything to do with business.

  Nothing better for getting a sense of perspective than to immerse yourself in a new project and bring it home. He wasn’t stupid. He knew that his ventures were his way of dissociation from the events that had happened six months earlier. With Tara.

  Leaving that photography exhibition without throwing her over his shoulder had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done—he who prided himself on his self-control and on the unflinching compliance of others. But she had to want to come. She had to control herself. And he had to let her. Though it had almost killed him.

  He could still see her so vividly—standing at that bar, in that red satin dress, looking like every man’s fantasy. But only truly totally his. And the way she’d been knocking back those shots, as if every one was underlining more and more the Tara she wanted the world to see.

  He had ached to take her in his arms, to show her with his body that she was so much more. To tell her that it was her courage that he loved, her wit, her passion. Her heart. But she might never have forgiven him if he’d acted the caveman again. He hadn’t been able to risk that. He’d had to give her the space she needed. So there had been no alternative—he’d had to walk away. And that had really, truly taught him a lesson.

  It had taken some solid hours of his life. Alone. Working through who he thought he was and who he thought she was. Coming to terms with the fact that she wasn’t going to roll up at his door and beg him to let her in. Battling with himself to stay away—because he really couldn’t trust himself not to use his body, their red-hot sexual chemistry, to get her to submit to what he wanted—which was her in his life for ever.

  He’d had to come to terms also with the fact that the issues that were in her mind might never be fixed. There was a lot buried inside that beautiful head of hers. Maybe too deeply buried. He’d had time to piece together the little she’d told him. Growing up as an unwanted baby, her mother’s guilty secret, in a house ruled by fear. If that was what she had suffered th
roughout her childhood it was going to take an awful lot of love to put right. All he could hope was that she had left the door open wide enough for that still to happen. And that it was him she was going to let in. The part he had to master was his almost pathological need to break it down and force her to see that.

  She could not and would not let anyone do anything to help. Unless she decided it for herself.

  So it was a question of timing. She would work this stuff out. One day. But life moved on. She might meet someone else—someone who would be there when she finally crossed the emotional rivers she swam in to reach the other side. But how long until she was ready for that? He had seen enough of life to know that you couldn’t force that kind of personal growth. Would she still be single when it all fell into place for her? Would she wait for him?

  But he had faith. And he believed in luck. Believed you made your own, and Tara seemed to be doing just that.

  He flicked through the apps on his phone. His guilty secret. After the small successes of her shows over the last few months things had really begun to take off. She had a blog now, for fashion TV, and he sometimes—OK often—read it. It was his way of keeping an eye on her while still keeping his distance. Giving her space. And she was good. She was developing her profile appropriately, in a way that suited her and that she clearly had control over. Her fan base had swelled and she seemed to be getting more credibility as a designer.

  And that was what she needed. She needed approval and validation from people she respected. Fair enough. That was a natural reaction. One day she would realise that it was approval and validation from herself that would show she really had moved on. He hoped for her sake that that day wasn’t too far ahead.

  He scanned the blog. It said it all.