by Exley Avis
“What’s wrong?” she asked, relieved to think about something other than herself. “Has something happened?”
Ben shook his head, a dozen phrases seeming to rise to his lips but each one discarded unsaid. “Nothing’s happened…yet. But I’m here because I need a huge favour from you.”
“Anything,” Erika didn’t hesitate. “It might be a little difficult while I’m under house arrest but I’ll help in any way I can.”
Tension lifted from Ben and he relaxed, even managing the glowing smile that photographers loved. A sudden thought made his blue eyes widen.
“In fact, helping me might be a way of helping you too. We could even end up pleasing Marty at the same time.”
“Impossible!” Erika laughed at the idea. “Marty’s never pleased about anything and I’m his least favourite person at the moment.”
“You haven’t heard what I’m going to ask yet.”
“Then don’t keep me guessing.”
She laughed again but Ben looked deadly serious and fiddled with his watch strap, working out how best to continue. Sensing his agitation, Erika squeezed his hand encouragingly.
“I’m going to tell you something and I need your word that nothing I say will leave this room,” he began anxiously
“I promise. I won’t tell another living soul.” She crossed her heart and Ben laughed softly at the childish gesture before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.
“I’m gay.”
He opened his eyes in time to see Erika reeling. Whatever she’d expected, it hadn’t been that.
“Gay? But…”
“I know.” Relieved that the secret was finally out he laughed wryly at the ridiculous contrast between his on-screen and off-screen lives. “I fight aliens, shoot bad guys and make love to women when, in real life, all I want to do is retire to the country, raise horses and start a family.”
“Are you in a relationship?” she asked tentatively, wondering how Ben could keep a lover secret living in the Hollywood goldfish bowl.
“Yes. With Richard.”
“Your brother!”
Unsurprisingly, Erika found this even more shocking but Ben fell back against the sofa cushions, laughing.
“Of course he’s not my brother! But we did grow up together. People always assume we’re related so we just let them believe it.”
Erika had met Richard countless times and had never once suspected he was anything other than Ben’s half brother. “He’s as convincing an actor as you are.”
“You learn to cover your tracks.” Ben gave her a telling glance. “Having him as my personal assistant also helps and ensures we can be together all the time. No one turns a hair about two brothers sharing a suite.”
“If only they knew!”
“Well with your help, no one need ever find out.” He explained their plans for the future. “If the studios know I’m gay my career could be over. I need a couple more years with a few high-grossing movies to give us enough money to retire on.”
It sounded idyllic.
“So where do I fit in?” Erika asked.
“Someone’s getting suspicious. There are rumours and we want to stamp on them fast. I need you to pretend we’re getting engaged.”
Erika didn’t even need to think about it. “Someone’s just plastered my private life across the front pages. I couldn’t stand back while you go through far worse.”
She’d worry about how she’d explain it to Aiden later.
Ben stretched out on the sofa, totally relaxed now he had Erika on side. “I saw the papers. That was quite a kiss. Who is he?”
“An old flame. We bumped into each other at the weekend and…”
“…things got pretty hot,” Ben finished for her, flicking up his eyebrows and suppressing a very sexy smile. “But why would Marty want to start rumours about you and me if you’re already involved with someone?”
“Because Aiden’s an unknown quantity and Marty has no control over him. Plus, you generate better publicity and you know how Marty loves to live in the public eye.”
“So he’s looking to break the two of you up.”
“Failing that, he’s threatening to have Aiden prosecuted for assault.”
“Have you warned Aiden?”
“I can’t. Marty’s smashed my phone and laptop.” She suddenly realised that Ben would have a phone and asked to borrow it. “I can call him now.”
Ben grimaced. “Sorry but the line’s not safe. We think our secret’s out because my phone’s been hacked. Using my cell would be like calling the paparazzi direct. Tell me where Aiden is and I’ll get a message to him.”
Erika wrote down the name of Aiden’s company and a vague location of his apartment. “I don’t know any more. Everything else was on the phone.”
Ben pocketed the note. “Let’s get Marty and the press off our backs first.” He quickly sketched a plan to have them seen around London together – lunching, shopping and, most importantly, looking very much in love.
Now Ben had trusted her with his secrets, Erika felt able to let him in on her own and explained why Aiden had tracked her down that weekend.
“Marty’s been robbing me blind since the day we met and he might even own the copyright to my music. Aiden’s lawyers are putting a case together – which is another reason why I need to escape and see him.”
“So the sooner we convince Marty we’re playing to his script the better.” Ben grinned. “Clean yourself up, put on something sexy and I’ll take you out somewhere conspicuous for dinner.”
Erika smiled conspiratorially, already counting the hours until she saw Aiden again. “Even if I’m with you, Marty will still insist we have a bodyguard. How are we going to shake him off?”
“Don’t worry. The more people see us together, the better. Marty’s not the only one who can pour petrol on a rumour. Now go and get ready before I change my mind.”
He watched Erika walk through to the bedroom to find something to wear but called her back. “Wear red,” he told her, grinning broadly. “All the magazines tell me I have a thing about women in red dresses. Let’s give them exactly what they want to see.”
Aiden had been calling Erika’s mobile phone since noon the previous day, only to have it revert to voicemail every time. Abandoning his meeting in Birmingham, he’d driven back down to London and gone straight to The Savoy, only to be blanked by the clerk on the desk.
“I’m sorry sir, but we’re unable to say whether Miss Fenn is registered with us,” the man had told him, his face impassive.
“Look, I’m not a fan, I’m a friend and I need to speak to her urgently.”
The clerk had spread his hands helplessly. “There’s nothing I can do.”
Frantic, Aiden had thought about searching the hotel himself but wouldn’t have known where to start. He’d hung around in the lobby for a while, hoping she’d walk past but, eventually, he’d given up and marched back out to his car with the first threads of unease taking root within him.
The rest of the evening had been spent emailing Erika, checking her Facebook page and calling her mobile every half hour, but it was as if she had dropped off the edge of the earth. Aiden had even waited outside her doctor’s consulting rooms in Harley Street late into the evening but she hadn’t appeared and, cursing, he’d conceded defeat.
After a sleepless night spent running through every possibility – from an accident on the motorway to Marty forcing Erika onto a plane back to Los Angeles – Aiden abandoned his bed. Over several cups of very strong coffee he began searching the Internet, hoping the paparazzi might have succeeded where he’d failed and found Erika for him.
A few seconds’ later, he discovered they had.
Countless celebrity websites carried identical pictures of Erika emerging from a bar in the early hours on the arm of a man Aiden immediately recognised as Ben Ridley. They were obviously sharing a private joke because Erika looked relaxed, happy and incredibly beautiful.
Aiden’
s heart lurched at the sight of her in the sexiest of red dresses, with her hair tumbling across her shoulders and a look of adoration on her face as she smiled up at Ben.
The Golden Couple one report called them – Ben-Fenn – fuelling rumours that Ben had flown in to patch up a long-standing quarrel that had seen Erika quit America and throw herself into the arms of Aiden Thirstan. Sources close to Ben were quoted as saying that a proposal was imminent and that the couple had already picked out a house in the Hollywood hills.
Aiden stared at the screen in an agony of indecision. There’d been enough lies written about him in the past – innocent situations misinterpreted and relationships concocted where none existed – and common sense told him not to trust a word of the reports.
But it wasn’t the words that troubled him. It was the photograph. Everything about Erika – from the look in her eyes to her body language – told Aiden that her relationship with Ben went far deeper than friendship. The way her body moulded to his; the intimate gesture of slipping her hand inside his jacket and resting it against his stomach; the unguarded smile that hinted at lovemaking and secrets.
Something in Aiden’s gut told him that he wasn’t looking at two friends out for a drink but rather two lovers, flaunting their relationship to the world.
Without wanting to, Aiden’s imagination began piecing everything together, making connections where none probably existed. What if Erika had turned up in Yorkshire to escape a broken relationship? She hadn’t known she’d bump into Aiden but, having found him, it might have been an opportunity too good to miss.
Forty-eight hours of passion and a photograph of them kissing was obviously all it had taken to bring Ben to heel.
In their most intimate moments, when lovemaking had consumed every sensation except the touch, feel and smell of Erika, Aiden had rendered himself utterly defenceless.
He’d opened up his heart and soul to her and made himself completely vulnerable, offering up his love and his future happiness. He’d told her he loved her and promised to protect her, no matter what happened with Marty. If he could have thrown his arms around her and held her there in that moment he would have done it, suspending them both in a world built out of his dreams and the certainty that they’d always be together.
He was now forced to question why Erika had only surrendered herself to him physically. His betrayal five years ago had hurt Erika far more than he’d imagined – her music had told him that. So all weekend Aiden had given her the benefit of the doubt, assuming this damage underpinned her reluctance to express her feelings and her refusal to become involved with him again.
She’d never once told him she loved him, or pretended that their reunion was the beginning of a new life together. Time and again, she’d refused to discuss the future, saying that she couldn’t think beyond the case against Marty, and telling Aiden to take one moment at a time.
Now he began wondering whether the real reason Erika wouldn’t commit emotionally was because she was actually in love with Ben Ridley.
The realisation made Aiden slam down the lid of his laptop, although the image of Erika’s face remained branded on his consciousness. He ached for her, never thinking a week ago that she’d be able to reduce his philandering heart to rubble in so short a time.
Coming face to face with her could confirm all of his fears, he knew, but it was a risk he had to take. He’d spent the better part of five years, first trying to track her down in America and then working out some way of getting close to her. He wasn’t prepared to let her slip away easily as long as she remained in England.
The one useful piece of information in all the reports was that Erika had moved into Claridges to be nearer Ben, and Aiden decided it was as good a starting place as any. Without wasting another moment, he grabbed his keys and drove to Mayfair, cursing the early morning traffic.
He pulled up fifty yards short of the entrance but, just as he was about to open the car door, a couple emerged from the hotel hand in hand and Aiden held his breath.
He watched Ben move one way and Erika pull the other, turning momentarily toward Aiden’s car as she did so. He saw her face so clearly and his heart halted with longing.
Without noticing Aiden, Erika laughed and gave Ben’s hand a playful tug. Ben resisted and, in a swift movement, yanked her into his arms, trapping her against his body. Erika immediately surrendered and allowed herself to be enfolded in an embrace that forced her to shape her body to his.
Aiden watched transfixed when Erika put her arms around Ben’s waist and looked up at him. If Aiden had stood in Ben’s shoes he couldn’t have resisted dropping a kiss down onto her lips and Ben didn’t deny himself either.
Slipping his hand behind her neck, Ben pulled her toward him and kissed Erika as if they were unobserved. It was a very private moment, intimate and deeply passionate, and Erika relaxed into the kiss, returning it with equal fervour. When Ben threatened to pull away Erika grabbed his coat collar and, laughing, refusing to let him to escape.
In a gesture of exquisite tenderness, Ben brushed her hair back from her cheek and his lips formed the words, I love you, each syllable slicing through Aiden’s heart.
From the look of love on Erika’s face, he was left in no doubt that she returned Ben’s feelings – no one could fake affection that ran so deep.
And after all, he should know.
Sick to his stomach, Aiden slammed his fist down on the steering wheel and toyed with the idea of forcing Erika into the car. He’d drive her away, talk to her and make her see sense, convincing her that he loved her far more than Ben did and that he’d give her everything she needed to make her happy.
But one look at her face told Aiden she already had everything she wanted and, no matter what he offered, it would never be enough to tear her away from Ben. He’d had his chance five years ago and he’d blown it. Now Erika had wreaked the perfect revenge by exploiting his new-found vulnerability and crushing his hopes as cruelly as he’d once shattered hers.
Unaware of him, Erika and Ben set off in the direction of Oxford Street, tailed by two bodyguards and a handful of very interested photographers who’d captured every intimate moment of the last five minutes on film. The pictures would no doubt appear online within the day and be snapped up by magazines by the end of the week, to lie in wait and taunt Aiden in unsuspecting moments.
He decided he’d seen enough and started the engine, smiling grimly at the irony as one of Erika’s songs came onto the radio. He couldn’t avoid driving past her but she was too wrapped up in Ben to even notice his car. The temptation to catch one final glance at her in his mirror was irresistible but Aiden fought it and accelerated away to join the traffic heading into the West End.
Now, he decided, was not the time for looking back.
Chapter Eight
After a morning’s shopping in Selfridges Erika and Ben ducked around the corner into James Street for lunch, glad to get out of the cold and away from the crowds. Sadly, the bitter weather had not deterred the photographers who’d tailed them all morning and who now settled to wait outside.
“Surely there must be more interesting people to follow,” Erika said, when she and Ben sat down at a window table.
“Usually, I’d agree but we both need all the publicity we can get at the moment.” Ben took off his coat and hung it over the back of the chair. He glanced over his shoulder, pleased to see their two bodyguards had taken a table some way off. “I don’t know who’s worse – the paparazzi or Marty’s paid henchmen.”
“At least the photographers can’t come inside. The bodyguards follow me everywhere like a bad smell.”
“Which makes me wonder how Aiden will get close to you.”
Erika smiled to herself. “Don’t worry. He’ll find a way.”
“You seem very certain.”
“I am.” Again the secret smile. She sat back and took a menu from the waitress, watching the way the young woman eyed Ben and flirted with him. Erika supposed she sho
uld pretend to be jealous and took Ben’s hand across the table, forcing him to look at her and giving him a fake stare of annoyance.
Ben raised her hand to his lips and kissed it looking suitably apologetic and suppressing a devilish smile. He held the pose long enough for the photographers outside to get a good shot of it.
“So tell me more about this Aiden Thirstan who’s going to ride in on his white charger and rescue you from the evil Lord Marty,” he said. “He sounds too good to be true.”
Goodness, had thankfully never been Aiden’s strong suit and Erika blushed, wondering where to start.
“We met a long time before I became famous,” she began. “I was still a student and working as a chambermaid. He caught me changing the towels.”
“How very Cinderella. I can see it as the plot of my next film.” Ben laughed but then asked what had gone wrong.
“I turned up unexpectedly at his apartment and found him in bed with someone else.”
“Ouch!”
“Exactly. I caught the first plane to America and, a few months later, met Marty.” The words skimmed over a mountain of heartache, diminishing it but she still winced.
Ben looked at her cynically. “If your lyrics are anything to go by, you didn’t get over Aiden that easily.”
“I didn’t. It was months before I could get through a day without breaking down.”
“So how did you feel when he turned up again?”
“Angry. Afraid. Confused.”
“And now?”
“Still confused.” Erika laughed softly. “But after a while I began remembering the good times we’d had together, not just the awful break-up. Aiden’s great company. Funny, intelligent, considerate, successful.”
“You forgot sexy,” Ben reminded her. “From the picture of you kissing, I’d guess he’s sexy too.”
The blush returned to Erika’s cheeks and she looked down at her hands quickly, afraid the images passing through her head would show in her eyes.