by Sarah Morgan
Luke straightened, taking his hand from her knee. ‘I should go. It’s late.’
‘You can’t drive all the way back to New York tonight.’
‘I’ll find a place to stay.’ He made to rise from his chair, and Aurelie felt panic flutter like a trapped, desperate bird inside her.
‘You could stay here.’
He stared at her, expressionless, and Aurelie put away her guitar, her face averted from his narrowed gaze. Her heart was pounding again. She didn’t know what she was telling him. What she wanted. All she knew was she didn’t want him to go.
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Luke said after a moment and Aurelie turned to face him.
‘Why not?’
He smiled wryly, but she saw how dark and shadowed his eyes looked. ‘Because we’re going to have a business relationship and I don’t want to complicate things.’
She lifted her eyebrows, tried for insouciance. ‘Why does it have to be complicated?’
‘What are you asking me, Aurelie?’
She liked the way he said her name. She’d always hated it, a ridiculous name given to her by an even more ridiculous mother, but when he said it she felt different. She felt more like herself—or at least the person she thought she could be, if given a chance. ‘What do you want me to be asking you?’
He laughed softly. ‘Never a straight answer.’
‘I’d hate to bore you.’
‘I don’t think you could ever bore me.’ He was staring straight at her, and she could see the heat in his eyes. Felt it in herself, a flaring deep within, which was sudden and surprising because desire for a man was something she hadn’t felt in a long time, if ever. Yet she felt it now, for this man. This wasn’t about power or control or the barter that sex had always been to her. She simply wanted him, wanted to be with him.
‘Well?’ she asked, her voice no more than a breath.
Luke didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Aurelie saw both the doubt and desire in his eyes, and she took a step towards him so she was standing between his splayed thighs. With her fingertips she smoothed the crease that had appeared in his forehead. ‘You think too much.’
His mouth curved wryly. ‘I think I’m thinking with the wrong organ at the moment.’
She laughed softly. ‘What’s wrong with thinking with that organ on occasion?’ She let her fingertips drift from his forehead to his cheek, felt the bristle of stubble on his jaw. She liked touching him. How strange. How nice.
Luke closed his eyes. ‘I really don’t think this is a good idea.’
‘That’s your brain talking now.’
‘Yes—’
She let her thumb rest on his lips. They were soft and full and yet incredibly masculine. With his eyes closed she had the freedom to study his face, admire the strong lines of his jaw and nose, the sooty sweep of his lashes. Long lashes and full lips on such a virile man. Amazing.
‘Shh,’ she said softly, and then slowly, deliberately, she slid her finger into his mouth. His lips parted, and she felt the wet warmth of his tongue before he bit softly on the pad of her finger. Lust jolted like an electric pulse low in her belly, shocking her. Thrilling her. Luke opened his eyes; they blazed with heat and need. He sucked gently on her finger and she let out a shuddery little gasp.
Then he drew back, his eyes narrowing once more. ‘Why are you doing this?’
She smiled. ‘Why not?’
‘I don’t want you throwing this in my face, telling me I’m just like every other man you’ve met.’
‘I won’t.’ She knew he wasn’t. He was different, just like he’d said he was. And she wanted him to stay. She needed him to stay. ‘You really do think too much,’ she murmured. She stepped closer, hooked one leg around his. She hooked her other leg around so she was straddling him. Then she lowered herself, legs locked around his, onto his lap. She could feel his arousal pressing against her and she shifted closer, settling herself against him.
‘That’s a rather graceful move,’ Luke said, the words coming out on a half-groan.
‘All that dancing onstage has made me very flexible.’
‘Aurelie...’
‘I like how you say my name.’
Luke slid his hands down her back, anchored onto her hips, holding her there. ‘This really isn’t a good idea,’ he muttered, and Aurelie pressed against him.
‘Define good,’ she said, and as he drew her even closer she knew she had him. She’d won, and she felt a surge of both triumph and desire. Yet amidst that welter of emotion she felt a little needle of disappointment, of hurt. Men really were all the same.
* * *
He was being seduced. Luke had realised this at least fifteen minutes ago, when Aurelie had first got that knowing glint in her eyes, and even though just about everything in him was telling him this was a bad idea, his body was saying something else entirely. His body was shouting, Hell, yes.
He felt as if he were two men, one who stood about five feet behind him, coldly rational, pointing out that he was doing exactly what Aurelie had accused him of doing. Coming here with a sexual agenda, with a plan to get her into bed—
Except she was the one trying to get him into bed.
And he wanted to go there.
Still, that cold voice pointed out, sleeping with Aurelie was a huge mistake, one that would cause countless complications for their proposed business trip to Asia, not to mention his personal life. His sanity.
The other man, the one curving his hands around her hips, was insisting that he wasn’t sleeping with Aurelie, he was sleeping with Aurelie Schmidt. The woman who had sung that beautiful, heartbreaking song, who hid her heart in her eyes, whom he’d recognised from the first moment she’d looked up at him.
Yet maybe that was even worse. That woman was confusing, vulnerable, and far more desirable than any persona she put on. And whether it was the pop star or the hidden woman underneath on his lap, he knew it was still a hell of a mistake.
And one he had decided to make. Luke slid his hands up her back to cradle her face, his fingers threading through the softness of her hair. And then he kissed her, his lips brushing once, twice over hers before he let himself go deep and the coldly rational part of himself telling him to stop went silent.
Somehow they got upstairs. It was hazy in his mind, fogged as it was with lust, but Luke remembered stumbling on a creaky stair, opening a door. There was a bed, wide and rumpled. And there was Aurelie, standing in front of it, a faint smile on her face. Luke slid her sweater over her head, unbuttoned her jeans. She wriggled out of them and lay on the bed in just her bra and underwear, waiting, ready.
Except her damn chin was quivering.
Luke hesitated, the roar of his heated blood and his own aching need almost, almost winning out. ‘Aurelie—’
He saw uncertainty flicker in her eyes, shadows on water, and then she reached up to grab him by the lapels of his suit; he was still completely dressed.
‘It’s too late for second thoughts,’ she said, and as she kissed him, a hungry, open-mouthed kiss, he had to agree that it just might be.
He kissed her back, desire for her surging over him in a tidal wave, drowning out anything but that all-consuming need, and he felt her fumble with the zip of his trousers.
‘Aurelie...’ He groaned her name, felt her fingers slide around him. He pushed aside the lacy scrap of her underwear, stroked the silkiness of her thigh. He slid his fingers higher, kissed her deeper, his body pulsing with need, aching with want. Yet even as his hands roamed over her, teasing and finding, a part of his brain started to buzz.
Distantly he realised she’d stopped responding. Her arms had fallen away from him and she was lying tensely beneath him, stiff and straight.
She let out a shudder that could have been a sob or a sigh, and Luk
e pulled back to look down at her.
Her eyes were scrunched shut, her breathing ragged, her whole body radiating tension. She looked, he thought with a savage twist of self-loathing, as if she were being tortured.
Swearing, Luke rolled off her. His body ached with unfulfilment and his mind seethed with regret. He’d known this was a mistake.
He raked a hand through his sweat-dampened hair, let out a shuddering breath. ‘What happened?’ he asked in a low voice, but Aurelie didn’t answer. Silently she slid off the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. Luke heard the door shut and he threw an arm over his eyes. He didn’t know what had just happened, but he was pretty sure it was his fault.
From behind the closed door he heard her moving around, a cupboard opening and closing. Seconds ticked by, then minutes. Unease crawled through him, mingling with the virulent regret and even shame he felt. He hated locked doors. Hated that damning silence, the helplessness he felt on the other side, the creeping sense that something wasn’t right. Something was very, very wrong.
He got up from the bed, pulled up his trousers and buckled his belt, then headed over to the door.
‘Aurelie?’ No answer. His unease intensified. ‘Aurelie,’ he said again and opened the door.
As soon as he saw her Luke swore.
She stood in front of the sink, one arm outstretched, a fully loaded syringe in the other. Acting only on instinct, Luke knocked the syringe hard out of her hand and it went clattering to the floor.
Aurelie stilled, her face expressionless. ‘Well, that was a waste,’ she finally said, her voice a drawl, and bent to pick up the syringe.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
She eyed him sardonically. ‘I think the more important question is, what do you think I’m doing?’
He stared at her, confusion, fury and shame all rushing through him in a scalding river. This woman drove him insane.
Would you believe me if I told you I didn’t? He’d said he would. ‘It looks,’ he said as evenly as he could, ‘like you’re shooting yourself up with some kind of drug.’
Her lips curved in that way he knew and hated. Mockery. Armour. ‘You get a gold star,’ she said as she swabbed off the syringe with a cotton pad and some rubbing alcohol. ‘That’s exactly what I’m doing.’
And he watched as she carefully injected the syringe into the fleshy part of her upper arm.
Luke felt his hands clench into fists at his sides. ‘Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on here?’
She put the syringe away in a little black cosmetic bag. Luke glimpsed a few clear phials inside before she zipped it up and put it away. She gave a small, tired sigh. ‘Don’t worry, Bryant. It’s only insulin.’
She walked past him back into the bedroom, and Luke turned around to stare at her. ‘Insulin? You have diabetes?’
‘Bingo.’ She reached for a fuzzy bathrobe hanging on the back of the door and put it on. Sitting on the edge of the bed, swallowed up by fleece, she looked young and vulnerable and so very alone.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘When should I have done that? When I was passed out on the dressing room floor, or after you dunked me in the sink?’
Slowly he walked into the bedroom, sank onto a chair across from her. He raked his hands through his hair, tried to untangle his tortured, twisted thoughts. ‘So when you were passed out in New York, it was because of low blood sugar?’ Just like she’d said.
‘I forgot to check my bloods before I went.’
‘That’s dangerous—’
She let out a short laugh. ‘Thanks for the warning. Trust me, I know. I’ve been living with diabetes for almost ten years. I was keyed up about the performance and I forgot.’ And then as if she realised she’d revealed too much, she folded her arms and looked away, jaw set, eyes hard.
‘Why didn’t you tell me earlier? In the kitchen, when I asked?’
‘You wouldn’t have believed me—’
‘I said I would—’
‘Oh, yes, you said.’ Her eyes flashed malice. ‘Well, maybe you’re not such a Boy Scout after all, because I don’t think you were telling the truth.’
‘It was,’ Luke said, an edge creeping into his voice, ‘a little hard to believe you were passed out just from lack of food. If I’d known you had a condition—’
‘And maybe I don’t feel like explaining myself every time something looks a little suspicious,’ she snapped. ‘If you were passed out, would someone assume you’d done drugs? Were a junkie?’
‘No, of course not. But I’m not—’
She leaned forward, eyes glittering. ‘You’re not what?’
Luke stared at her, his mind still spinning. ‘I’m not you,’ he said at last. ‘You’re Aurelie.’ The moment he said it, he knew it had been completely the wrong thing to say. To think.
She turned away from him, her jaw set. ‘I am, aren’t I,’ she said quietly.
Luke dropped his head in his hands. ‘I only meant you’ve been known to...to...’
‘I know what I’ve been known to do.’ Her eyes flashed, her chin trembled. He could always tell the truth of her from that chin. She was scared. And sad. Hell, so was he. How had they got here?
He shook his head, weary and heartsick, but also angry. ‘What happened back there on the bed, Aurelie? Why did you look like...’ He could barely say it. ‘Like you were being tortured? Or attacked? Were you trying to prove some point?’ Had she set him up, shown him to be exactly what she’d accused, just another man determined to get her into bed? ‘Well, I guess you made it,’ he said heavily when she didn’t answer. ‘Congratulations.’
Still she said nothing, just stared him down, and in that silence Luke wondered if things could have turned out any worse.
‘Do you still want me to go?’ she finally asked. ‘To Asia?’
He let out a short, disbelieving laugh. ‘Do you still want to go? After this?’
She raised her eyebrows, her expression so very cold. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’
He felt a rush of anger, cleaner than shame. She’d played him. Admittedly, he’d let himself be played. He’d been willing to be seduced, had turned it to his advantage. But the fact remained that she’d used him, coldly and deliberately, to prove some twisted, paranoid point. He hadn’t had a sexual agenda until she’d sat in his lap.
Liar.
‘Yes, you can go to Asia,’ he told her wearily. Something good would come out of this unholy affair. ‘I’ll have my PA email you the details. You need to be in Manila on the twenty-fourth.’ With that he stood up and he saw, with some gratification, that her eyes had widened.
‘You’re going?’
‘I don’t want to stay and, frankly, I don’t think you want me to, either. Like I said, you made your point.’
She stared at him, still swallowed up by her bathrobe, her eyes wide and stormy. Luke felt the shame slither inside him again. ‘I didn’t come here intending to sleep with you,’ he said. ‘I swear to God I didn’t.’
She said nothing and with a shake of his head he left the room.
CHAPTER FIVE
AURELIE gazed at her reflection for the fifth time in the hall mirror of the deluxe suite Luke had booked for her in the Mandarin Oriental in Manila’s business district. She’d arrived a few hours ago and was meeting Luke in the bar in ten minutes.
And she was sick and dizzy with nerves.
She let out a deep breath and checked her reflection again. She wore just basic make-up, mostly to disguise the violet circles under her eyes since she hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since Luke had walked out of her bedroom ten days ago.
She closed her eyes briefly, the memories making her even dizzier. She couldn’t think about Luke without reliving that awful encounter. The condemnati
on and disgust in his eyes. The confusion. And her own impossible behaviour.
She hadn’t brought him to her bed to set him up, the way Luke had so obviously thought. She’d been acting out of need and maybe even desire—at least at first. When she’d touched him she’d felt something unfurl inside her, something that had been desperately seeking light. But then it had all gone wrong, as it always did. The moment she was stretched out on that bed she’d gone numb. He’d become just a man who wanted something from her, and he’d get it, no matter what. She’d give it to him, because that was what she did.
Except he hadn’t taken it, which made him different from every other man she’d known. Why did that thought scare her so much?
He obviously didn’t think she was different. She could still see the look of disgust twisting Luke’s features, the condemnation in his eyes when he’d opened the door to the bathroom. He thought she’d been doing drugs. And then those damning words, words she felt were engraved on her heart, tattooed on her forehead. Impossible to escape.
You’re Aurelie.
For a little while she’d thought he believed she wasn’t but now she knew the truth. He might want her to be different on stage, but he didn’t think she could really change as a person.
Aurelie with a folk ballad and guitar was just another act to Luke Bryant, a successful one that would help with his stupid store openings.
And as long as she remembered that, she’d be fine. No more longing to reach or be reached. To know or be known. No more giving in to that fragile need, that fledgling desire.
This was business, strictly business, a chance for her to validate her career if not her very self. And that was fine. She’d make sure it was.
Aurelie straightened, briskly checked her reflection for the sixth time. She looked a little pale, a bit drawn, but overall okay. The lime-green shift dress struck, she hoped, the right note between fun and professional. With a deep breath, she left her suite and went downstairs to meet Luke.
The tropical heat of the Philippines had hit her the moment she’d stepped off the plane, and she felt it drape over her once more as she stepped outside like a hot, wet blanket. Luke had texted her to say he’d meet her in the patio bar and she walked through the velvety darkness looking for him, the palm trees rustling in a sultry breeze, the sounds of a vibrant and never-sleeping city carrying on the humid air.