by Edie Harris
She had stared into the depths of her glass. “I’d trade the latter for the former,” she’d told him, and maybe, just maybe, she had been thinking of Ryan in that moment.
Now, possessing the latter in spades, Sadie attempted to lock away the corner of her heart convinced she and Ryan had unfinished business. By the time the town car stopped at the foot of the red carpet, her most beatific—and most professional—smile was firmly in place. Declan and Fiona allowed her to exit the vehicle first, and she began her slow trek down the line of press, paparazzi, and waiting fans.
It took more than half an hour to work through the sea of interviewers holding oversized microphones and minuscule cameras, to smile and turn for the fashion police with the loud clicking of single-lens shutters and the bright flash of bulbs. Sadie was more than familiar with the routine, having made her first big movie at age twenty-one, and had quickly discovered she enjoyed red-carpet events such as these. Some actors never adapted to the seemingly shallow demands of fame, but she saw it as a trade-off for being able to do what she loved and not having to worry about her next paycheck.
Upon reaching the end of the line, she glanced toward the historic movie theater’s entrance—
—and nearly tripped over the hem of her gown to see Ryan standing inside the first set of glass doors, staring at her. Even from here, she could see the glint of green eyes, watching her every step bring her closer to where he waited.
“No,” she whispered, chastising her traitorous heart for leaping at the sight of him. The man had made it painfully clear that he had no interest in seeing what, if anything, existed between them now that they were older and wiser, and Sadie wasn’t willing to let her heart be trampled any more than it already had been.
Lifting her chin as she walked through the door held open by a uniformed theater usher, she did her best to pass Ryan without meeting his gaze. She didn’t want to look into those irises of forest green and allow the deluge of memories to sway her from her course. No, she was stronger than that.
Age thirty. Crazy-rich. Badass actress with an Oscar nom and two BAFTA wins under her belt. She had this, man.
“Sadie.”
God damn him, his rich baritone voice, and its charming American accent.
She was proud of herself for ignoring him, but he forced her to a halt when strong fingers wrapped around her wrist above the gold cuff and murmured, “Sadie, wait. Please.”
She could have tugged her hand free. He would let her go, if she told him to release her. But he was touching her, and tendrils of sensual heat wound around her arm, licking a path to her bare shoulder before spreading into her chest. Her pulse thudded in her ears as she stood, her back to his front, and waited as he asked of her.
His grip gentled, but he didn’t release her wrist, instead stepping closer until she felt the warmth of his body against her naked back, revealed by the cut of her dress. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer your e-mails.” His mouth hovered over her ear, and she shivered at the accidental—because it must be accidental, mustn’t it?—brush of his lips over sensitive flesh. “Or your voice mails. Or your texts. I should’ve called you back.”
“It would have been ten years too late, anyway,” she hissed, surprised at the venom in her own voice. But venom masked the hurt, and she decided she was grateful for the anger that had sprung to life the moment he touched her.
She could almost feel his wince behind her. “Can we talk?”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing, Ryan?”
He shook his head as his body aligned with hers. “Somewhere private.”
She froze as intimate memories assailed her of waking up on Christmas morning just like this, his tall, rangy frame curved possessively over her much smaller one. Hating the effect his nearness had on her, the ache gathering in her chest and threatening to subsume her pounding heart, she turned abruptly and stared up at him.
He wasn’t exactly handsome, but his face was compelling, with angular features and strong jaw. His nose was a little too long, and his lips slightly thinner than expected, given his wide mouth, but she remembered loving how the tip of that nose touched her cheek as they kissed, and how those lips shaped hers so perfectly that first time, and all the times thereafter.
His messy light-brown hair that so easily picked up streaks of sunlight when regularly exposed to it had been neatly combed for tonight’s premiere, the scruff that usually shaded his jaw shaved away, as well. All six feet and two inches of him had been stuffed into a slick designer suit of stark black with a pristine white dress shirt, and he wore a rather formidable frown as he gazed down at her.
Looking at him stole the breath from her lungs, so her heart made the decision before her head could think better of it. “Where did you have in mind?”
Sliding his fingers past the bracelet, he linked their fingers in a move both familiar and not, and whispered, “Come with me.”
TWO
London, Ten Years Earlier
Christmas Eve
Ryan’s twin brother had turned into a jerk when he wasn’t looking.
The train from Cambridge to London rocked gently as it sped across the tracks, packed to the gills with travelers desperate to get home in time to celebrate the holidays with loved ones.
Loved ones who would probably have beds ready for them. They wouldn’t have to walk the snowy streets of a strange city trying to find a hostel to crash in, because none of them had stupid siblings who decided to throw a hissy fit—and a mean right hook—on Christmas freaking Eve.
“Ticket, please.”
Ryan fumbled in the pocket of his wool peacoat for his ticket, the purchase of which had seriously depleted his available cash. He hadn’t planned on traveling tonight, and now he had less than ten pounds left to get him to…wherever he was going, once he reached London.
“This is first class.”
He blinked up at the conductor, who stared accusingly at Ryan’s ticket. “But I didn’t buy first class.”
“I know, sir,” the man said with what Ryan would think later was an exceptional amount of patience. “Yet you’re sitting in first class.”
Didn’t that just figure. “I’m sorry. Here, I’ll move.” He hit his head on the overhead storage rack when he stood, but swallowed the grunt of pain and shouldered his blue nylon duffle. It never paid to be tall on public transportation, he’d found.
The conductor pointed toward the door at the end of the car, then murmured, “Merry Christmas,” before moving on to the next passenger.
Every seat was taken. He staggered down the aisles in time to the swaying of cars Two through Seven, growing progressively worried as he failed to find a single empty seat. It was an hour’s ride to London, and, dang it, he’d had a bad day already, on top of being jet-lagged after his long flight from Chicago the day before. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to having to stand for the entire journey.
With a sigh, he slid open the door to the eighth—and final—car, heart sinking when he saw it was just as full as the rest. He lumbered forward, exhaustion and frustration dogging every step as he scanned the occupants.
There. One empty seat, in the far back corner that, to be honest, looked much too small for him, given the tendency his limbs had to sort of…flail outward. Long arms, long legs, long torso, and, at age just-turned-twenty-two, he’d only recently managed to figure out how to make all the various parts of his body work in concert.
But no matter how much contortion it required, Ryan was sitting in that seat.
He paused in the aisle, wondering where to stuff his duffle. The overhead racks were completely full, and the closeness of the rows of seats meant there would be little to no legroom, either. He’d have to hold the thing on his lap, he supposed, and bit back a sigh. At least he wouldn’t need to stand for the next hour. “Is that seat taken?” he asked, directing his question to the down-bent head belonging to his would-be seat partner.
The head lifted, and all thoughts of travel fatigue and dumb
brothers fled—along with his ability to draw air into his lungs.
She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. And that included the time he and Jon had met Eliza Dushku following the Buffy panel at Comic-Con three years ago.
He was staring. He knew he was staring, and that it was beyond rude, but it was impossible not to stare. His face started to heat as he tried to remember how to breathe.
And then he saw her cheeks turn rosy under his regard, and oxygen simply wasn’t going to happen. Like, at all. Her oval face was delicate, feminine—cute nose, sleekly arched brows, and tip-tilted eyes of rich dark brown. Soft-looking black hair fell from beneath her knit ivory cap over the shoulders of her purple coat, but even under the bulk of her winter wear, Ryan could tell that she was small. Just a small, so-much-tinier-than-him female who was so pretty it hurt to look at her.
Oh, God. He wasn’t going to be able to squeeze past her into the empty spot without shoving his butt in her face.
Some of his panic must have shown, because, with a faint smile pulling at her full, perfect lips, she scooted over to sit against the wall of the train.
He would never know where he found the courage, but, after practically falling into the seat she had vacated and settling his bag in the aisle next to him—this was the last seat of the last car of the train, after all, so he didn’t have to worry about blocking anyone walking about—he turned to her and said, “Hi.”
Her smile widened. “Hullo.”
The British accent was so much cuter on her than on the train conductor.
Praying his palms weren’t sweaty, he held out a hand. “I’m Ryan.”
The hand she slid into his was soft, slim, and cool to the touch. “Sadie.” Her nails were painted a deep purple, several shades darker than her coat. “You’re American?”
His nod was jerky as he reluctantly released her, fingers curling into a fist as if he could trap the feel of her inside it. “You’re…not?” Too late, he realized he’d apparently lost his ability to converse like a normal person and cringed. He should never have said hello to her in the first place.
Luckily, she laughed, and oh, dude, she had the best laugh. It made the back of his neck prickle, but in a good way, almost like she’d raked those purple nails of hers over that very spot.
Her dark eyes gleamed up at him. “English, born and bred. Though sometimes people get confused.” One hand fluttered in the direction of her face, and he figured she was referring to the fact that her features and coloring very clearly marked her as having East Asian heritage. “Are you a student?”
A good guess on her part, given where they’d boarded the train. “I am, but not here. My brother Jon is in his last year at Cambridge.”
“You’re visiting him for the holidays, then.”
“That was the plan,” he muttered before he could censor himself. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about Jon, not when he had somehow managed to capture the attention of the most beautiful creature in the world. “What about you? Are you at Cambridge?”
She shook her head. “I’m an…actress.” Her words were hesitant but proud. “I was visiting my brother, too,” she explained quickly. “He’s in the law program and couldn’t come home for Christmas, so my parents had me deliver gifts to him today.”
Ryan’s head was spinning. He couldn’t quite bring himself to believe she was actually talking with him. “Don’t law students get to go home for break?”
Her shoulders lifted in a nonchalant shrug. “Kai really likes to study. And our parents are always extra busy over the holidays, anyway.” She didn’t sound unhappy about it. “What do you study, then?”
“Aural engineering.”
She blinked those gorgeous eyes, uncomprehending.
“Aural. A-u-r-a-l. Not oral.” He pointed to his mouth, then his ear, and felt himself smile, the first smile since Jon’s fist had connected with his jaw earlier this evening. “Sometimes people get confused,” he said, echoing her earlier words, and pleasure spread through him to see her return his smile. “It’s the science of acoustics and audio.”
Her lower lip caught between her teeth as she studied him. He fought not to blush under her scrutiny. “What sort of work do aural engineers do?”
Okay. So. The way she said that word—“aural”—in her cultured accent was kind of sexy.
Kind of? Who was he kidding: Her voice was really, ridiculously sexy. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat as blood began to sizzle southward in his veins. “I had an internship with a technology company in Chicago this summer helping design speaker components for cellular phones. Fingers crossed they’ll hire me when I graduate in a few months.”
“You must be very smart.”
There was no helping his blush this time, heating from his throat to his hairline as he murmured something decidedly inarticulate. The rocking of the train over the tracks suddenly seemed overloud to Ryan’s ears, the layers of sound amplified again as passenger noise filtered into his consciousness. Laughter, snores, the various coughs and wheezes signifying the snot-infused illness most of humanity caught at the onset of winter.
He had always been able to hear things others hadn’t. Not because of any keen auditory sense, necessarily, but because he enjoyed listening. In that typical way of twins, one of them had been a talker, the other quiet in order to make room for the louder personality. Jon, though the younger by three minutes, was the talker. Which made Ryan the—
“So why are you going to London on Christmas Eve if you came over to visit your brother in Cambridge?”
His eyes locked with hers, and part of him wished he could tell her, this perfect and perfect stranger, to back off. The holiday had already been destined for trouble even before he’d fought with his brother and had the door to Jon’s flat slammed in his face. Which might be why he found himself saying, “Our parents passed away. This year. It’s our first Christmas without them, and I wanted…I worried—” He broke off with a sigh, but couldn’t tear his gaze from her. “Jon hasn’t taken it well.”
Her hand found his forearm, rested gently upon it. “And you? How have you taken it, Ryan?”
He could feel the heat of her touch through his wool coat and the sweatshirt beneath it. Shaking his head, he carefully—tentatively, because what if he was reading her wrong, and this little fantasy would fade to black the second he touched her?—let his hand cover hers. The bumps of her knuckles against his palm brought a sense of unfamiliar intimacy to the moment. “Better. It’s better for me.”
“But how?” Her fingers tightened on his arm. “I don’t know what I’d do if my parents died. I can’t even imagine.”
His thumb delved beneath the cuff of her coat sleeve, stroking over the back of her wrist. Her skin was soft and warm, and he wished he was brave enough to lift her hand, put his mouth on that skin.
He seemed to only be brave in small doses, though, and he’d already used it all up with that first hello, that first touch. “They died in a car accident last January, driving back from dropping Jon at the airport.”
Her hand moved under his, linking their fingers together, putting them palm to palm. “Oh.” It was more sound than word, and more breath than sound, and he didn’t want her to say anything else, because he heard everything he needed to hear in her voice.
I’m sorry, that breathless “oh” said. I’m so, so sorry.
See, he’d always been good at listening.
Giving in to instinct was easy. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he lifted their joined hands, pressing his lips to the back of hers, his bravery returned. “Thank you,” he whispered, no longer in the mood to question why she was talking to him. In the space of a few minutes, he’d bought into the possibility that, yeah, a girl that gorgeous could absolutely be looking at him as she was, as if she too felt the same prickle on her nape and spark in her veins he was feeling right this second.
He wasn’t going to let go of her hand, he decided as he squeezed her fingers. Le
tting go of her wasn’t an option. “You said you’re an actress?”
“I am. My first professional play actually just closed in the West End.” She didn’t make any move to disentangle her hand from his, he noted, with no small amount of pride.
“Were you the star?”
Blushing, she shook her head. “Supporting role.” She shifted to lean more heavily against his arm.
There went those sparks again. He leaned into her, as well, dipping his head toward her—not to kiss, though of course he wouldn’t mind kissing her, but to get closer. Warm, smiling Sadie, who was starting to make him rethink his stance on the quality of his Christmas Eve. “You’ll be a star someday. I can tell.”
She laughed at him, though he didn’t mind, because that laugh was like no other sound he’d heard in his life. Light and melodic and filled to the brim with a happiness that buzzed in his brain until his senses went all trippy and loose.
The grin stretching his face stayed in place for the next forty-seven minutes as they exchanged murmured revelations, tidbits of their lives and souls. By the time the final stop at King’s Cross station in London was announced, it felt as though more than just their fingers were intertwined. It was with great reluctance that he disentangled their hands, stepping out into the aisle to allow her to precede him off the train.
Standing in the enclosed space of the car, he stared down at the top of her head, covered in ivory knit, and was struck again at how small she was—a foot shorter than him, at least. He’d never felt more aware of the cumbersome size of his body. He was always bumping into furniture or tripping on the stairs or, as evidenced tonight in the first-class car, hitting his head on all manner of low-hanging things. He and Jon had sprouted into would-be high school basketball stars at age fourteen, but while his brother had embraced athleticism, Ryan had diverged into academic decathlon.