There was something particularly unpleasant about picking up your own clothes from the floor where they had been thrown uncaringly in the midst of passion a few minutes earlier!
‘You do realise this was a mistake?’ She still couldn’t quite look at him, her gaze focusing somewhere over his left shoulder.
He shrugged. ‘I’ve made a few in my time,’ he murmured huskily.
She smiled humourlessly. ‘This probably ranks up there with some of the bigger ones!’ She sighed heavily. ‘I suggest we try to forget—’
‘That it ever happened?’ Gideon cut in harshly, pulling on his shirt now as he sat up on the sofa. ‘I think that’s pushing credibility too far!’ He shook his head, his expression grim. ‘I know damn well I can’t forget it—do you think you can?’
Of course she couldn’t—but she could act as if she had! After all, she was an actress—wasn’t she…? It was the only part of her, until this evening, that she had thought Gideon was interested in.
She still thought it. Okay, so they were attracted to each other, had a physical effect on each other that was explosive. But on Gideon’s part that was all it was—physical. He had no intention of falling in love with her.
Whereas for her it was too late. She already loved him.
She had suspected as much in the car earlier, but she was utterly convinced of it now. And she couldn’t have chosen someone more emotionally unreachable than Gideon. Oh, if she were agreeable they could probably have an affair for several months—probably for the duration of their working together—but ultimately Gideon would end it. As he obviously had all his previous relationships. And she would end up more broken-hearted than she was now.
No, better to put an end to it now. Whatever ‘it’ was!
‘I think it best if I leave now, Gideon,’ she began softly, still not quite looking at him.
‘So you intend seeing Cauley this evening?’ he asked harshly, a cold edge to his voice now.
She had no intention of seeing Simon tonight, and under different circumstances she would have told Gideon exactly why not. But her friendship with the younger man obviously annoyed him, and an annoyed Gideon was easier for her to deal with than the physically arousing one of a few short minutes ago. Besides, she had to get out of here with some of her pride left intact!
She glanced at her wristwatch. ‘It’s only nine o’clock. And, as I’m sure you’re well aware, actors and actresses are usually night people.’ She didn’t actually answer his question; lying wasn’t something she did too easily, nor was it something she particularly enjoyed. But evasion, she felt, was perfectly acceptable!
Gideon turned away abruptly. ‘Then you’d better not let me keep you,’ he ground out. ‘I’ll see you at the airport at eight-thirty in the morning. The plane leaves at nine-thirty.’
Back to business, Madison acknowledged ruefully. But what else had she expected? Gideon was a film director first and foremost, and nothing—as she was learning to her emotional cost—was ever allowed to interfere with that.
She wished she could be as emotionally compartmental, put all of her emotions into neat little boxes, to be taken out when the right situation presented itself. But she simply wasn’t like that; she knew that her feelings for Gideon were going to cause her a lot of pain and heartache over the next few months.
She needed until eight-thirty in the morning to come to terms with that. If she ever did!
‘Eight-thirty.’ She nodded in confirmation. ‘I’ll see myself out, shall I?’ she murmured ruefully as he made no effort to get up off the sofa.
Gideon looked at her coldly. ‘Why not? You saw yourself in!’ he dismissed harshly.
That wasn’t strictly true, although admittedly she’d arrived at the hospital earlier uninvited. And that earlier concern she’d felt for his welfare now seemed a complete waste of time; Gideon needed no one, and he certainly didn’t want anyone needing him either. She didn’t need him; she simply loved him…!
Although, she decided somewhat desolately on the ride home in the taxi, there was nothing simple about loving Gideon. He was the most complex man she had ever met. It was just her misfortune that she had fallen in love with him!
Madison let herself quietly into the apartment when she got back, hoping not to alert Edgar to the fact that she was home. He was sure to ask how her visit to Gideon had gone, and at the moment she just didn’t feel up to answering his questions about the other man. In fact, she was more likely to burst out crying if Edgar so much as mentioned Gideon’s name!
She almost made it, too; the lounge was empty, and the kitchen when she went in there to get herself a glass of water. It was only as she walked softly down the hallway to the guest bedroom that Edgar’s bedroom door suddenly opened and he came out into the hallway, tying the belt to his dressing-gown as he did so.
Madison looked at him almost guiltily, feeling as if the passion she had just shared with Gideon was emblazoned across her face. But as she reluctantly met Edgar’s gaze she found he was the one who looked slightly uncomfortable.
It was only nine-thirty at night. And in all the time she had been staying here she had never known Edgar to go to bed before eleven o’clock, usually nearer midnight. And, from his bare legs and feet, he didn’t look as if he was wearing anything under his dressing-gown…
Oops!
‘I wasn’t expecting you back just yet,’ he told her awkwardly.
That very awkwardness confirmed for Madison that she was probably right in thinking Edgar wasn’t alone in his bedroom! Poor man; it was his apartment, after all, and she had been staying here for weeks. And the first real opportunity he’d found to be alone with his latest girlfriend, and she had come home early and interrupted them!
‘I’m going straight to bed,’ she assured him hastily. ‘I need an early night.’ How embarrassing! For all of them.
‘Of course, but—Your mother called,’ Edgar remembered with a frown.
‘Did she…?’ Madison wasn’t encouraged by that frown.
He nodded, his brows raised questioningly. ‘She would like you to call her back.’
Not now. She couldn’t talk to her mother now. Her mother would know, just from the tone of her voice, that something was wrong; her mother was the one person she’d never been able to fool by her acting! And if she thought there was something wrong she would be on the next plane over here. Only to find Madison was no longer in London…
‘I’ll call her from the island,’ Madison promised. ‘Now you get back to—bed,’ she finished, with a lame grimace for the awkwardness of the situation they both found themselves in, although neither of them had actually voiced the reason for it. ‘And don’t bother to get up and see me off in the morning. Claire is calling for me at seven-thirty, so there’s really no point.’ And it would mean Edgar didn’t have to disturb his morning—or anything else!
‘Fine.’ Edgar nodded tersely. ‘But you won’t forget to call your mother, will you? You know what she’s like,’ he added pointedly.
Oh, yes, she knew all too well what her mother was like. But it wasn’t going to be easy avoiding answering her direct questions.
Just as it wasn’t going to be easy facing Gideon tomorrow morning…!
Gideon sat back in his seat on the plane, his eyes closed, on the pretext that his vision was no longer blurred, but that he now had a headache. But he wasn’t asleep. Just as he hadn’t slept last night after Madison had left him so abruptly. To go and spend what was left of the evening with Simon Cauley. Possibly the night, too…!
She was looking at him now. He didn’t need to open his eyes, or turn his head to look across the aisle where she sat near the window next to Claire, to know that she was giving him another of those apprehensive glances. She had been looking at him in that way since she’d arrived at the airport earlier with Claire, as if she half expected to feel the lash of contempt from his tongue or gaze at any moment—and she intended being prepared for it if it should happen!
T
he truth of the matter was, he didn’t quite know how to deal with her at the moment. Last night he’d been so damned angry with her he could quite cheerfully have strangled her when she told him she was leaving him to go straight to Cauley.
She’d been like fire in his arms last night, and there was no way she could ever deny her response to him. But she had still left him and gone to another man!
And so this morning, when she’d arrived at the airport with Claire, he had merely nodded a terse greeting to her. Because he didn’t trust himself to speak to her!
What was there to say? What could he say? He’d broken his own rule again last night, and was having enough trouble dealing with that, without having to deal with Madison’s moods. They had to find some level on which they could work together—and at the moment he couldn’t see what the hell it was going to be!
He shouldn’t have kissed her. And he most certainly shouldn’t have touched her. Except that he had enjoyed doing both those things more than he had ever enjoyed anything else in his life…! Madison tasted of cream and honey, and her skin felt like silk—smooth, flowing, responsive silk. He still ached from the need he had felt for her last night!
Thoughts like this weren’t going to help him get through the next few months!
‘—landing, Gideon.’ One of Claire’s hands was placed on his arm to accompany her words.
He turned to look at her blankly, realising as he did so that the announcement to put seat belts on because they were landing must have been made—and he hadn’t heard a word of it. Damn it, this had to stop, he chided himself as he impatiently refastened his seat belt. He had a film to make, and Madison was its star.
Madison…!
‘Yes?’ She was looking across at him with wildly startled eyes.
He had spoken her name out loud! Hell, he was acting like some besotted schoolboy. And he was neither of those things. And although he was attracted to Madison—there was no denying that—he most certainly wasn’t in love with her. He had never been in love with any of the women he had ever been involved with.
‘Have you fastened your seat belt?’ he rapped out.
She looked dazed. ‘Of course.’
He nodded. ‘What do you think of the island so far?’ he prompted; the plane was now flying along its eastern coastline, bound for the airport at the south of the island.
She frowned, as if she hadn’t even been aware they were near the island. ‘It looks very pretty,’ she finally said with dismissive generality.
It was a pretty island. It also had stretches of the unspoilt, rugged coastline that were necessary for the opening scenes of the film, and the rolling countryside that was necessary for the scenes of Rosemary’s maturity. They had even found the ideal manor house that could be used for filming as Rosemary’s home. Yes, the Isle of Man was the perfect setting for his film.
But it must look very small and rural to a girl brought up in the States, in Nevada, of all places, with her family involved in the running of casinos…
He nodded impatiently, turning away. A discontented star could be a problem he hadn’t even begun to think about. Until now. Hell, Madison McGuire was becoming more trouble than even he could have imagined.
Although she looked happy enough as she sat in the back of the car next to Claire on the way from the airport, looking out at the late spring scenery of the island—the gorse in deep yellow bloom along the roadside, bright splashes of flowers: bluebells, white bells, a few late daffodils. The sun was shining down on the aprons of fields, some arable, others for grazing sheep and cattle.
‘Say hello to the fairies,’ the driver instructed lightly as they went over a small white bridge aptly named the Fairy Bridge, putting up his hand in familiar greeting.
‘It’s bad luck if you don’t,’ Claire told Madison as she raised her own hand and murmured a greeting.
‘Claire is Manx, and slightly superstitious with it,’ Gideon supplied dryly as he raised his hand. Madison looked slightly dazed by their behaviour.
‘How wonderful!’ She turned to look back at the bridge, her face alight with pleasure.
Gideon felt an ache in his chest at that smile on her face. She never looked at him like that!
‘Head hurting again, Gideon?’ Claire was frowning at him.
Because he had been frowning himself, he realised irritably. ‘A little,’ he dismissed noncommittally, turning back to the scenery in front of him.
He could hear the two women talking in the back of the car as Madison asked Claire questions about the island where she had been born but left several years ago to further her career. But Gideon didn’t join in their conversation, not wanting to look at Madison for the moment.
This was a living hell. Every time Madison so much as smiled at anyone or anything else, he felt angry that the smile wasn’t for him. What the hell did that mean?
‘Could the two of you keep the noise down?’ he rasped at the two women without turning. ‘You’re making my head ache with your inane chatter!’ And his head did ache, in fact it throbbed, but that was the consequence of his own troubled thoughts.
Nevertheless, the two women lowered their voices as they continued to talk, so much so that he could no longer hear what they were saying. And that annoyed him too.
Everything annoyed him at the moment. And Madison McGuire most of all.
Or was it just these unfathomable feelings he had towards her that were causing that…?
Whatever the reason, he’d never felt so disgruntled and out of sorts with everything, and everyone, in his life before! And he knew he wasn’t the easiest tempered man at the best of times.
Douglas, the capital of the island, with its thriving financial sector, was a prosperous as well as pretty town, and obviously came as something of a surprise to Madison as she quietly asked Claire questions about the place while the car drove along the promenade and out along the scenic coastal road.
It even irritated him that Madison and Claire seemed to get along so well together. It was part of what Claire was paid to do, and yet with Madison the friendship seemed to have passed well beyond Claire’s job description.
Was he the only one that Madison seemed to annoy without even trying? It would seem so. So perhaps he was the one with the problem?
He felt relieved when they reached the house they were renting for their approximate two months’ stay on the island, requesting the driver to wait while he saw the two women and their luggage inside the house, as he intended to go back out again to meet his camera crew who should still have been hard at work even in his absence. Besides, he needed to get away from Madison McGuire for a while.
‘Choose any of the bedrooms except the one to the right at the top of the stairs,’ he instructed abruptly, throwing the keys to the house down on the kitchen table. ‘Unless you want to share,’ he added dryly, his expression hard as he finally looked at Madison.
She looked glorious, her hair cascading down her back, her face appearing free of make-up, but more beautiful because of that, her green eyes darkly troubled now as she met his gaze. Damn it. It was just what he hadn’t wanted—a female star who was so wary of him she couldn’t even relax, let alone act!
‘With you?’ Claire tauntingly took up the conversation. ‘No, thanks, Gideon,’ she assured him.
His mouth twisted. ‘How about you, Madison? We could keep each other warm at night.’
Claire turned slowly to give him a narrow-eyed look. And she was perfectly justified in her disapproval; she knew as well as he did that he wasn’t serious about the invitation.
At least, he hoped he wasn’t…
‘Unless I’m mistaken, this house has central heating,’ Madison came back hardly.
‘But Nevada must be quite a warm place to live?’ he persisted.
‘But I haven’t lived there for some time,’ she reminded him defensively.
Gideon knew he had taken this joke quite far enough, if any of them considered it as such, and yet some devil inside hi
m kept pushing him on. ‘Exactly where did you live before you came to stay with Uncle Edgar?’ he prompted tauntingly.
Madison’s eyes narrowed. ‘Where—or who with?’
He shrugged, the tension icy between them now. ‘Whatever.’
‘New York,’ she told him flatly. ‘And it’s very cold there in the winter months; I’m sure I’ll manage just fine here. But thanks for the offer.’ She met his gaze unflinchingly.
‘Okay,’ he nodded sternly, tired of the subject himself now. ‘The two of you get settled in; I’ll be back later.’
‘Er, Gideon…?’ Claire halted him at the door. ‘What do we do about food?’ she asked as he turned back impatiently.
‘Try looking in the fridge,’ he replied, making good his escape this time.
Because escape it most certainly was.
And all because of Madison McGuire!
She might respond to him—in fact he knew to his own cost, and a sleepless night, just how she responded to him!—but it had become more and more apparent to him, as today had progressed, that Madison didn’t particularly like him…!
CHAPTER NINE
‘HE HATES me!’ Madison groaned as she dropped down on to one of the chairs around the kitchen table, her face buried in her hands.
‘I don’t think so,’ Claire disagreed lightly, moving about the kitchen checking on the supplies Gideon said had been left there for their arrival. ‘Gideon never stirs himself enough emotionally to feel so strongly for anyone!’ she stated bluntly.
Gideon had been stirred enough emotionally last night, but it hadn’t been with the gentle emotion of love but with passion, as Madison knew only too well. Facing him again at the airport this morning had been one of the hardest things she had ever had to do, and Gideon, with his long silences, hadn’t made it any easier for her. And his mockery just now about the two of them sharing a room here had only added to the pain of loving him.
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