Her lower lip trembled as it had a tendency to do when she was truly upset and she set her teeth into it. Hard. ‘He’s not my … my lover.’
He leaned forward and caged her into the chair with his hands on either armrest. ‘You play a good game, doll face. I think Ellery should have sat you at the table tonight. He might have fared better. But the jig is up so stop lying to me.’
Cara felt the press of the cushioned seat against her back. ‘I’m not lying to you. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I told you outside I wasn’t seeing him.’
‘I love the wide, innocent eyes,’ he said conversationally, his gaze raking her face insolently. ‘They’re a nice touch.’ She saw him glance at the hands she was wringing in her lap and she stilled them. ‘They’re a nice touch, too.’ His eyes drifted down her legs and then slowly back up. Shockingly his gaze warmed her and she felt the air between them become charged with something other than anger.
‘Look, I made a couple of mistakes today,’ she said appealingly. ‘I should never have gone to L.A. I see that now. Even though it was to thank my agent. Probably I was thinking that things seemed to be going too well for me. That something had to happen. And so I created it. I mean, something always goes wrong. Of course, I didn’t know that the flights would be delayed but—’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Me.’ Cara felt the last of her control unravel as a tear slipped over the edge of her eyelashes. ‘I’m a disaster.’ One tear followed the next and she buried her face in her hands. ‘Bad things just ha-ha-happen to me and—I know, I know—it’s my f-fault. I …’
Aidan watched appalled as the beautiful girl on the sofa dissolved into tears before his eyes.
He tried to make sense of what she had just said but he couldn’t. But it did give him pause. All that blubbering about not going to L.A. and things going wrong and being late … He was starting to think that maybe he’d been wrong. That maybe she’d been as much a victim of Ellery’s machinations tonight as his family had been fourteen years ago.
Was it possible?
Hell.
Aidan watched the tears slip down her face and her attempts to control them and the hard wall that had surrounded his heart since she had been offered up as a stake started to crumble.
He hadn’t meant to make her cry. If he was honest, he’d expected her to offer herself to him. He’d expected her to start stripping. Then, when she was halfway through, he’d been going to shake his head, look at her with the disgust she deserved and throw her out.
And yes, he’d meant to scare her, as well. Just a little so she’d think twice about doing something so foolish again. Think twice before putting herself in such a vulnerable situation.
‘Well, mission accomplished, boy.’
Martin Ellery’s voice filled his head and he made a low growl. He was not like that man and he never would be.
He saw Cara jump and he automatically reached for her. She flinched as he gripped her shoulders and tried to pull away but Aidan eased her up. Then he did something he hadn’t even realised he’d intended and sat down and pulled her into his lap.
‘Shh, Cara. It’s okay. You don’t have to be scared.’ He stroked his hand over her back. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. Just relax.’
Gradually he felt the stiffness ease out of her and as her sobs subsided she curled more tightly in his arms.
Then she eased back and looked at him.
‘You’re right,’ she said, sniffing and swiping at her eyes.
Aidan reached for the box of tissues on the low table beside them. He held one to her nose. ‘Blow.’ She took it and tried to tend to the damage on her face. Her eyes already slightly red and puffy. Clearly the woman was not a good crier. And why did that thought make her even more appealing?
‘I’m not sure I want to hear what I’m right about,’ he said gruffly.
‘I—I did gaze at you outside. I did want to—want to kiss you.’
Oh, hell. Did she have to go and remind him of that while she was so warm and pliant in his arms? While her bottom was nestled so sweetly against his groin?
Arousal followed swiftly on the heels of that awareness and she must have felt his body harden because she went still. Then those green doe eyes dropped to his mouth.
Aidan swore silently and tried to still the blood pounding through his veins.
He had not brought her up here for sex. He hadn’t … ‘Cara, you’re … you’re …’ Now he was going to start stuttering.
‘I’m … I’m what?’
Oh, to hell with it, he thought. To hell with the whole damned night. He wanted her. Why keep denying it? Especially when she looked at him as she did now. As if she wanted him, too … His hand came up to cradle her head and his mouth lowered to hers at the same time. Longing and a desperate urgency rushed through him as his lips met hers and his hand tightened in her silky hair. The driving need to take her shocked him with its urgency and it took every ounce of willpower he had to keep from forcing his way into her mouth to take the sweetness he’d tasted earlier.
Somehow he waited. Nibbling and sipping at her lips until he felt them soften. Until he felt them give beneath his own and then he couldn’t wait any longer. ‘Open your mouth, Cara,’ he urged. ‘Let me in.’ She made a small whimper as she obeyed and Aidan felt like he was experiencing his first ever kiss as he slipped his tongue into her warm, wet mouth.
He groaned and banded his free hand around her waist, pulling her torso flush against his own. She tasted of coffee and dark chocolate and sweetly of herself. Her hands found his shoulders and she clung to him, her body arching into his in a way that was sheer bliss.
The need to touch more of her raced through his blood and he bent her back over his arm and cupped a firm breast in his hand. She moaned his name, her hands clutching his shoulders, her body arching into his as he kissed and licked his way down her smooth neck.
She writhed in his arms and gripped his head as his mouth moved lower. He slid his other hand down over her shoulder and dragged the top of her dress with it.
She was wearing a lacy peach-coloured bra and the tips of her breasts were already distended and tight with anticipation. Cupping them both he plumped them up and dragged his thumbs across both nipples. She gasped and then cried out when he replaced his thumbs with his mouth, greedily lathing first one tip and then the other through the soft lace until she was frantic and twisting in his arms.
The taste of her blew his mind and he completely lost his head as he shifted her bra aside and sucked one stiff peak deep into his mouth, working her aroused flesh with his teeth and his tongue. She pushed hard against him and he guided her up on his lap until she was nearly straddling him.
Just when he was about to shove her fitted skirt to her waist so he could place her legs either side of his thighs, Ellery’s voice sounded inside his head again. ‘Way to go, boy. You got further than I did.’
Aidan briefly closed his eyes and pushed his head back against the sofa. Cara’s body followed and he placed his hands at her waist to hold her back.
‘Stop.’ He shook his head to try and clear it. ‘Cara, stop.’
‘What?’ She gazed at him, her lips bruised and swollen, her eyes unfocused.
Aidan swore and lifted her off him as he pushed to his feet. He left her perched on the edge of the sofa and stalked towards the wet bar.
A crystal decanter sat on a silver tray with six matching tumblers—he didn’t care if it was full of motor oil. He needed something to dull his senses and bring his mind back online so he yanked the lid off and poured a healthy measure.
‘Aidan?’
Now she said his name.
He lifted the glass and tipped the contents down his throat. He waited two seconds for the burn to hit his gut and then he poured another.
Shifting his gaze to the oval mirror behind the bar he saw that she had risen to her feet, the top of her dress thankfully pulled back into place. Her face and
upper chest were flushed with desire and her short hair was mussed from where he’d thrust his fingers through it.
Damn, she looked beautiful.
She pressed her swollen lips together tentatively and something like guilt twisted inside him. He hadn’t meant for things to go that far. Well, he had, he conceded; he’d meant for them to go much further. Before the bet.
Ellery’s ugly mug jumped into his mind and his gut churned with the need to forget every single thing about this night.
‘You need to go.’
He hadn’t turned to face her and her cheeks flamed with embarrassment. He watched her eyes climb up his back and her lower lip started to tremble when she saw that he was watching her.
‘But I thought …’
Aidan slammed the crystal tumbler down onto the wooden bar, cutting off whatever it was she had thought. He was hanging on to control by a thread and he wanted her gone.
‘Doll face, I don’t really know what you thought but you need to grow a brain. You do not hijack people’s cars because you’re in a hurry, you do not let yourself be bet on in a game of high-stakes poker and you do not come to strange men’s rooms and … Do not start crying,’ he bellowed as a fresh spill of tears trekked down her face.
Bloody hell, but those tears tore something up inside of him.
Without thinking he started towards her only to have her throw her hands up in front of herself. She looked touchingly vulnerable with her feet apart and a fierce expression on her face, her slender frame trembling as if she really did have a chance of stopping him. She wouldn’t, of course. She wouldn’t have a hope in hell of stopping him from doing whatever he wanted to do if he had a mind to.
‘Don’t come any closer.’
‘I don’t intend to,’ he said softly. ‘The door is behind you. I suggest you use it.’
‘With pleasure.’
The silence in the room after the dull thud of his door closing was loud and oppressive.
Aidan moved to the plate-glass windows and stared outside.
The Strip beckoned like a shiny toy hiding a tarnished interior. Flashes of red, green, blue and gold. Flashes of pink. All of it designed to lead a man to his downfall.
If he let it.
CHAPTER SIX
CARA HATED EARLY MORNINGS as a general rule and she particularly hated them after only two hours’ sleep, most of which had been spent crying.
Crying because she felt sorry for herself.
And she still didn’t know how one of the worst nights of her life could also have some of the best moments in it. Or how a man who so clearly hated her could have made her feel so … so … aroused.
So desired.
So wanted.
It was a true testament to her desperate state of mind that she could even think that Aidan Kelly had wanted her with any of the urgency that she had felt for him.
It was the way he had held her when she’d burst into tears that had lowered her defences towards him. His gentleness coming so quickly on the back of such coldness. It had made her let her guard down. It was exactly what she’d wanted her father to do on the rare occasions that she had seen him while she was growing up. A nugget of affection to help her through the lonely times.
She closed her eyes and groaned softly as the memory of Aidan Kelly’s hands and mouth on her body rushed through her. She’d never been kissed like that before. As if the man she was with couldn’t get enough of her. And, even more surprising, she’d never felt like that when a man had kissed her before. As if she was no longer in control of her own body. Her own mind.
The whole night had been like that noisy roller-coaster two doors down. The thrill followed by the spill.
His kiss had been unforgettable and yet she wondered if he truly believed that she wasn’t Martin Ellery’s mistress. It seemed important that he did, though she couldn’t think why. She would never see him again, after all.
Oh, she felt awful. Embarrassed by her physical reaction to him. Mortified by his total rejection of her. The way he had just been able to push her aside and stroll to the bar as if nothing had happened. The way his cold eyes had met hers in the mirror. God, he hadn’t even bothered to turn around to talk to her face-to-face.
Remembering that she had switched her phone off when she’d collapsed into bed a short time ago she switched it on. Nine messages pinged into her inbox. She counted three from Christos, another three from Cilla, one from her friend Lucy and two from her agent.
A horrible premonition made her skin suddenly feel damp and she clicked to open the first one from Christos with mounting unease.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: URGENT!
Call me.
Well, that told her absolutely nothing. She clicked on the next.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: URGENT!
Immediately.
A man of few words.
Then she flipped to a text from her sister.
Hope UR ok after last night. Call me. Xx
Cara suspected she wasn’t referring to Aidan Kelly’s kisses, which was just as well, because she might never be okay after those again.
Worried that the cryptic messages were alluding to the poker game, Cara clicked onto her internet connection and searched for her own name.
What she saw made her want to bury her head in the pillow and never come up for air.
Cara Chatsfield Game for Anything.
Cara Chatsfield Caught in a Three-way.
A three-way!
Chatsfield Wild Child Staked by Aidan Kelly.
Oh, great.
Cara was about to throw her phone on the bed when her agent’s name flashed up on the screen.
She didn’t answer it. She knew she’d be upset with her. Ever since she’d been in that rock video a year ago Harriet had warned her she had to clean up her act or she’d never be offered a decent job again. But she’d also taken her on after she’d sacked her previous agent and told Cara that she believed in her and that she’d work damned hard to turn her career around. Cara knew that Harriet had put her own professional reputation on the line for her, and now this.
She clicked on the message and it felt like a cement brick had landed in her stomach when she read it.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: What the hell???
Demarche furious. Just pulled your contract.
This is bad.
Call me. Hx
For a moment Cara’s mind went completely blank.
She tossed her phone on the bed as if it had just bitten her. She felt numb. Winning Demarche had been a huge coup and now it was gone. And she’d really wanted it. Initially she had fallen into modelling because of her face and her name. It had been fun having all those people fuss over her, telling her she was beautiful. Telling her that she was fantastic, daaarling. It had been so different from growing up between a remote manor house and a boarding school full of girls who would just as quickly cut you off at the knees as draw you into their fold.
What she had come to appreciate was the craft of modelling. Of learning how to show the clothes she was wearing in the best light. Fashion had become a sort of passion and she loved having a hand in what she was wearing.
Demarche had offered something more, though. They had been offering her a role as not only their house model, but as a spokeswoman for the company. A representative of their brand. They had been offering her credibility and the opportunity to be part of something bigger than herself. A place to belong.
Now they were offering her nothing and it was all her own fault.
Feeling the threat of tears again, Cara determinedly dashed them away.
This was not the time to crumple. This was the time to pull herself together and … do what?
Run home with her tail between her legs?
Run home to her flat and her friends who would jump up and down in outrage for her right before they passed her a margarita. And she didn’t even like margaritas!
But she didn’t want to talk about last night. Certainly not to her friends because they wouldn’t understand.
Lucilla might, but she knew Cilla had her own problems to deal with right now. As did her brothers, and she didn’t want to hear Antonio tell her again that she needed to take responsibility for her actions. She knew she did.
And no doubt the press would camp outside her doorstep again 24/7 and hound her mercilessly. It was what they did best in the UK. So far the paps in the US didn’t seem so bad.
No. Going home to England humiliated and fired wasn’t an option.
Nor was staying here.
She officially hated Vegas now.
Pulling herself out of bed she headed for a steaming shower and wondered what Aidan Kelly thought of all the publicity surrounding last night. Of the photo she had seen of him dragging her out of the Mahogany Room. Damn mobile phone technology anyway.
No doubt he’d hate it. No doubt he’d already be making a statement to distance himself from her as quickly as possible. It’s what her father usually did.
Wanting to burst into tears again she bit into her quivering lip and wished she’d emptied the minibar of champagne when she’d returned to her room last night instead of chocolate. That way maybe she wouldn’t remember everything so clearly. That way maybe she might still be asleep.
Maybe she could hide out in some hippy artist colony in New Mexico and learn how to make Aztec jewellery, one of her recent passions.
Only the papers would no doubt publish that she had been in rehab. And why did she care so much? Well, for one, because she was tired of people suggesting that she coasted through life because of her name. Tired of being labelled the bad girl of the family. Somehow the bad-boy reputations of her twin brothers—Orsino and Lucca—were revered. Hers was issued as a subtle put-down and last night Aidan Kelly had made her feel cheap.
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