Authors: Tara Pammi
He pulled his cell phone out and made a quick call to his head of security, issuing instructions for him to locate Kim. He looked into the darkness, past the French windows, frustration holding him immobile in its grip. With everything he had confided in her Kim should have known better than to leave him with her reckless twin—known there was no way he could travel to Paris without his wife.
He searched through the cabinets and heaped coffee into the state-of-art coffeemaker—the only appliance in the otherwise bare kitchen.
It was going to be a long night. Just not the pleasurable one he’d expected.
He inclined his head when Olivia wished him goodnight and sauntered out of the kitchen.
Until Kim was back he needed the blasted woman—whether he liked it or not.
* * *
Olivia tiptoed through the bedroom in the darkness, wary of switching on even the bedside lamp. She pulled on the black cargo-style capris she had left at the foot of the bed last night. The soft material whispered against her skin, the sound of it raising every nerve ending in her to attention in the pitch black of pre-dawn. A mint-green sleeveless top with built-in bra, a white sweatshirt finished her outfit and she pulled on sneakers.
Sliding her laptop and notepad into her handbag, she took one last look around the bedroom. She eyed the suitcase she was leaving behind. Dragging it with her through the silent mansion wasn’t an option. Nothing in there that she couldn’t replace. She never wanted to lay eyes on that damned designer gown again, anyway. Her stomach growled in hunger. After hearing Alexander’s plans for her last night, the delicious food had tasted like sawdust. But she had eaten it, anyway, refusing to let on how much his announcement had derailed her.
Her heart thudding, she opened the door and stepped into the dimly lighted corridor. A feeling of déjà vu descended on her. How many times had she snuck through her high-security private school when she had been a teenager? It hadn’t ended well even a single time.
Within minutes she’d entered the main foyer, with the gleaming marble floors that led to several bedrooms. Ceiling lights here and there illuminated her path, drawing attention to the elegant angles of the mansion, shedding light on the priceless art pieces everywhere she looked.
Any other time she would have enjoyed the beauty of this house surrounded by lush gardens and the private beach. Her studio apartment, the size of a walk-in closet, in a not-so-good neighborhood of Manhattan, was hardly conducive to creativity. But this mansion, with its sky-high ceilings taking advantage of natural light during the day, was the perfect location to relax, to let the ideas fighting for life inside her head breathe onto paper.
Except for the pervading presence of the man who owned the mansion, who had no problem rearranging her life to suit
his
plans.
No. She couldn’t tolerate another hour in his presence, much less travel with him to Paris, of all places. Just thinking of the city brought a chill to her skin, memories cloying their way to the surface.
Reaching the entrance, she plucked the keys to a Range Rover she had seen in the courtyard from the key-holder. All she needed was to get to the airport, which was fifty miles away, and then get on a flight out of the island. She didn’t much care where she went as long as she got out of here in the next couple of hours. The airline ticket was going to max out her credit card, but it was a price she was willing to pay.
She stepped into the wide courtyard, intent on locating the vehicle—and ran headlong into a solid, warm body. Her breath whooshed out of her at the impact, her insides rearranging themselves into jelly.
Alexander.
His hands on her arms anchored her. A dark navy sweater hugged the lean breadth of his chest, and black khakis completed his casual look. His blue, blue eyes shone with razor-edged amusement and he was very much awake. He looked dangerously yummy, and the assault of his clean, fresh scent was too much for her sleep-deprived body.
“Going somewhere, Olivia?”
His smooth words sent prickles of alarm running down her arms. Before she could answer he turned her around and marched her back through the foyer as though she were a petulant teenager.
While he barked orders into his cellphone—no doubt ordering his minions to bar the gates against her—she pulled her arm from his hold and dragged her heels. His gaze intent on her, he stood with his hands folded across his chest, his feet apart. She would have preferred it if he’d yelled at her.
His silence, however, eroded the edge of her anger, her resentment, and the need to explain was a pressing compulsion in her head.
He provoked the most unusual responses in her.
“I can’t go with you. Believe me, it’s better if you wait here for Kim rather than drag
me
to Paris.”
The frost of his anger didn’t thaw even a little. “Follow me,” he said, and walked away.
Staring at his retreating back, she stood rooted to the spot, feeling like a dog being summoned by its master. Yet did she have a choice?
She drew the line at running after him like a supplicant. She followed him with unhurried steps and found herself on the marble-tiled terrace. Beautiful solar lights placed at strategic points illuminated the vast grounds, and the rising sun was casting a golden glow over the grounds. Sprawling patches of green stretched as far as the eye could see, dotted with tall palm trees and occasional wildlife. Behind the mansion lay the ocean, and in front of them a picturesque lawn complete with a huge pool. For a minute the pristine beauty surrounding her captured her attention, and her elemental need to escape was buried under her awe.
It was stunning and peaceful. The mansion was a natural extension to the backdrop of the island. Except for the cluster of vans and tents parked outside the electronically controlled estate gates. She automatically counted them, finding fourteen vans in all. Something that very much looked like a long-range telescope was pointed at the terrace even now, and a babble of excitement surrounded it.
She instinctively ducked behind Alexander’s solid body, disbelief shredding the peace she had felt mere minutes ago. “Are those...?” She couldn’t even finish the sentence for the terror coating her throat.
“Reporters? Yes.”
Fear wrapped its tentacles round and round her throat, cutting off her breath, dragging her into a ghastly flashback. Images she didn’t want to see—of her tear-stricken face plastered across the newspapers. Sounds she didn’t want to hear—of the rabble with microphones and cameras stuck in her face as her father hauled her across the courtyard of his house. And the uproarious glee of the bloodthirsty vultures when he had literally thrown her onto the street, proudly disowning her. They flooded her, sweeping her along on a tide of nightmare. Sweat dribbled down her spine and she moved closer to Alexander. She didn’t care that she was clinging to him. She clutched the soft fabric of his sweater with her fingers, the warmth from his body penetrating the chill.
His hand snaked out around her, pulling her closer, until her chest flushed against his. The musky scent of his aftershave filled her nostrils. Even stricken with panic, her senses sighed.
“It will take them two minutes to figure out you’re alone, five to corner you, even if you take my Range Rover, and ten minutes to realize you’re the notorious Olivia Stanton. Even if you reach the airport unscathed without the help of my security force—
which is a big if—
this will cause a renewed interest in you, which means they’ll dig up every piece of dirt they can on you, which I’m told is a lot.”
Olivia risked another peek at the cluster and swallowed. No way was she going to step amid
them.
Not unless she had Alexander’s army of high-tech security men in front of her
and
behind her. She licked her dry lips and set her mouth into a semblance of plea. “And the chances of you lending me your security guys so that I can reach the airport unscathed...?”
“Zero.”
Bending his head, he kissed her temple, his warm mouth a searing brand against her sensitized skin. She struggled—purely a reflex. Only he pulled her closer. She opened her mouth to demand that he release her. But the words never formed. His hands crept into her hair and pulled her head back. His mouth hovered a few inches from hers. Her toes curled inside her sneakers. Every nerve ending inside her was crying for his touch even as another part of her screeched a warning.
This is wrong.
Held still by his unrelenting grip, she stared at him. And felt a strange satisfaction flow inside. No, she wasn’t going to kiss him. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t revel in the fact that he was just as susceptible to the treacherous desire between them. It was in the darkening of his crystal-blue eyes, in the thundering beat of his heart, in the sudden gentling of his fingers in her hair.
Yet Alexander did nothing without thought. Every move was a calculation in the big scheme of his perfect life. She was even more of an idiot if she thought he was as without control as she. She let her body go slack, willing movement into her trembling muscles. “You’re pretending
for them,
” she said, the truth a cold blanket over her heated skin.
His thumb traced a path over her cheek. “That should keep them happy for at least a day.”
The fact that she was right was no comfort. “How did you know I was going to leave?”
“You’re nothing if not predictable. And, just so we’re clear, you pull that stunt again and I’ll throw you to the wolves myself.”
She averted her gaze from the hungry press, the horror of what she had been about to walk into sending a shiver down her spine. “For how long?”
His feet on the steps, he turned around. “Do you argue just for the heck of it? All I’m asking you to do is to spend a few days in the lap of luxury. Is that so hard?”
“If it means spending another minute with you—
yes.
”
“You’re at least unique in that,” he threw at her arrogantly. “You have no choice until Kim’s back. Then you could disappear to the North Pole for all I care.”
His arrogant dismissal, the personal hit, let loose a fury in her. She hated the media, too, not hated, she
feared
them. Because they never let the world forget, never let
her
move on from her horrible mistake. Everything she had done since then, every choice of hers had already been forecast to doom, because her template was already preset to fail. And the moron that she was, she always delivered right into their hands. But it didn’t mean she was going to stop trying, didn’t mean she was going to rearrange her life to avoid them. “You’re letting them control your actions, control your life.”
His jaw clenched. “Don’t push it, Olivia.”
His dark warning only incensed her more. “This is about your pride, your image, isn’t it? You can’t be seen as the man who married the wrong woman, the less-than-perfect twin. God forbid that the world find out that you’re prone to mistakes just like the rest of us normal mortals.”
A smile, sharper than cut glass, curved his mouth as he pulled her toward him, two hundred pounds of intensity scorching her. “I’ve spent every waking moment of my life as a child haunted by the press. At seven, when my parents left me behind at a movie screening, at seventeen, when I was part of a criminal investigation. My childhood was like one of those bizarre reality shows based on Hollywood where nothing is sacred, nothing is left alone.
Only it was my life that everybody was watching.
I’ve been dragged through courts, have been studied like I was an exhibit at a zoo, have had stories written about me since I could barely talk. Enough fodder to last the press a lifetime. I don’t intend to give them any more.”
His face set into unyielding granite, he stood looking down on her. His words sounded as though they were coming from a dark place that warred with the cool exterior he presented to the world. His blue gaze glittered with pain. It robbed her of speech, questions she wanted to ask submerged beneath the overwhelming need to comfort him. “I walked away from that, made a different life for myself. But you know what? The shadow of it is never far behind. Do you know what that feels like? To have your every decision, every action studied,
dissected
under a microscope for even the smallest of mistakes, to know that the whole world, including your own damn parents, is waiting for you to fall.”
She laughed, her bitterness spilling over into that sound. “Obviously, you don’t know everything about me.”
“I do. But you bring it on yourself with your reckless, indiscriminate behavior.”
She flinched, each word a sharp twist in her side.
A hint of softness entered his eyes, and he moved closer to her. As though he regretted his remark. Yet whatever she had imagined, it was gone in a fleeting second.
A mirage.
What was she doing?
She was seeing things she wanted to see in him, letting her mind pull her down into an alternate reality. For some reason, she wanted to find a chink in him, something that would level the field between them. She was instantly at a disadvantage with anyone she met, her past a sword hanging over her head. And she didn’t care, or at least she had painstakingly trained herself to not care. But with Alexander, she realized with a sinking sensation, all bets were off.
“Why do we have to go anywhere?” she said, hating the note of anxiety in her voice. She grabbed his wrists, ready to beg. She didn’t know which haunted her more. The prospect of going back to Paris, or the looming pretense that she was his wife. Only a few hours in his company and she already felt as if she was coming apart at the seams, her armor already cracking. At least, here in his vast mansion, she needn’t see the man unless absolutely necessary. “Why can’t we just stay here until she’s back and then you two can jet off to wherever you want?”
It was the hint of pleading in Olivia’s words that hauled Alexander out of his own private hell. Until now, she had been all fire and lightning, like a Caribbean thunderstorm. Yet now, with her lush mouth pinched, she seemed anything but.