Public Affair, Secretly Expecting (11 page)

The nervous smile she sent him intoxicated him even more.

‘I’d also like to buy my own plane ticket home.’

Now that was plain stupid. He wasn’t agreeing to that one. ‘Why would you want to do that?’ he asked, exasperated. ‘It’ll cost a fortune.’

The papers said she lived in a one-room apartment, and he had no idea how much shop girls earned, but she’d be flying to and from LA in first class. He wasn’t going to let her travel in economy.

‘I’ve got some savings. And it’s important to me,’ she said, but he detected a note of uncertainty.

‘And why is it so important?’ he asked, deciding to take advantage of the little chink in her armour. It was about time he started asserting his own agenda. He was in charge here, not her, and it was probably best she knew it. ‘I’ve already bought the return ticket, so you’d be wasting your money. We both would.’

It wasn’t the truth. He’d only instructed his PA to buy Juno a ticket out to LA. Which was quite an oversight now he thought about it. When was the last time he’d dated a woman without already having an exit strategy firmly in place?

It occurred to him at that precise moment she would also be the first woman he’d invited to his home. The house in Laguna Beach was his sanctuary and he hadn’t even let Gina stay there overnight, always insisting they sleep at her pad in the Hollywood Hills. He gave a mental shrug. It wasn’t significant. Hadn’t they just established this was strictly a two-week deal?

‘Well, I suppose if you’ve already paid for the ticket.’ She chewed on her bottom lip, still considering. ‘I guess that would be okay. I just wanted to make sure I had a ticket home.’

‘It’s all sorted,’ he said shortly, not sure why her persistence was beginning to irritate him. ‘Now if you’ve finished with the demands could you go get packed?’ He steered her towards the study door. ‘We’ve a plane to catch.’

And the sooner he got her on it, the happier he’d be.

Excitement, exhilaration and extreme terror all fought for supremacy as Juno rushed down the hallway to tell Daisy her news.

Her mind whirred as she concentrated on the details. She had to arrange cover for her position at the shop, then Daisy would have to help her pack. Daisy could help her select what to wear, so she didn’t look like some preposterous tomboy waif when she arrived in LA.

She was taking a huge chance, but it felt right. Because she’d been careful and cautious. She’d staked out her territory and knew exactly how much she was risking. And how much she wasn’t. Mac Brody was irresistible, a wicked temptation no woman should ever have to say no to. But if she was practical, if she kept focused, and if she didn’t let him walk all over her she knew she could handle this.

The good news was, she was going into this with her eyes wide open. With no delusions and no foolish, impossible dreams waiting to be fulfilled. She had her ticket home and two weeks from now she’d return to her real life with a new sense of purpose and a new sense of herself as a woman. She was curious about Mac and she was excited by the prospect of getting to know him better, but that didn’t mean she was going to start fooling herself into thinking he was the man of her dreams. Intimacy didn’t have to be a threat, as long as you didn’t let it overwhelm your common sense.

She grinned as she thought about the way she’d caught him out over the note. She’d never felt confident enough to flirt with a man before, but she’d almost been flirting with him.

Who knew it could be so empowering and so exciting? He certainly didn’t think she was a pushover any more.

The grin faded as she recalled the weight of his palm on the small of her back as he’d propelled her out of the room. And the way her heart had lurched into her throat when he’d demanded to know if she was coming with him to LA or not.

The bad news was, she had the strangest sensation she’d just grabbed a tiger by the tail.

Chapter Ten

J
UNO
’
S
keep-things-real plan began to unravel on the first-class flight over the Atlantic.

Luckily she wasn’t a complete stranger to luxury travel, having flown down to the wedding in Connor’s private jet, so she nobly resisted the urge to squeal when she saw the wide leather seat that folded down into a bed. And her eyes didn’t get much bigger than dinner plates when she was handed a glass of champagne straight after take-off. Having Mac’s hand settle on her thigh as the plane soared to thirty thousand feet had been more of a challenge. But she thought she’d handled herself surprisingly well, only peppering him with a thousand or so questions about Hollywood and Los Angeles and his home in Laguna Beach before she dropped into an exhausted sleep.

Unfortunately, nothing could have prepared her for the shock of opening her eyes, her mind still groggy from sleep and travel twenty hours later, and finding herself in Mac Brody’s home.

She couldn’t even remember that much about how she’d ended up in the enormous bedroom suite. After getting through the necessary ordeal of customs and passport control, she’d fallen straight back to sleep on the helicopter flight from LAX down to Laguna Beach. She vaguely recalled opening tired eyes during the journey and being wowed by the sight of the sun peeking over the Southern Californian coastline, then inhaling Mac’s tantalising scent and feeling his muscles bunching beneath her cheek as he’d carried her into the house, but that was about it.

She propped herself up on the huge fluffy pillows and stared out of the wall of glass at the far end of the room.

‘Good God.’

The whispered exclamation rang out above the sibilant purr of the air-conditioning.

Even spending time in Connor and Daisy’s magnificent home in Portobello had not prepared her for living in the lap of this sort of luxury. A wide bleached-stone terrace gave way to the brilliant blue of an infinity pool, its lush lagoonlike feel accentuated by a thicket of yucca palms and exotic potted plants.

Throwing off the coverlet, she scrambled across the thick woollen carpet to get a better look at the eye-popping view.

The house sat perched on a low cliff, the rugged, sundrenched coastline stretching away round the promontory to afford complete privacy. She placed her palms on the glass and gawped at what she could see of the metal and glass frontage of the house. Stretching onto her tiptoes, she spied the empty cove below the house accessed by a set of stone steps carved into the rocks. Lazy surf pounded onto sand so white it made her squint.

Her breath backed up in her lungs. Kubla Khan eat your heart out. Mac Brody’s pleasure dome beat Xanadu hands down.

Then she caught sight of her reflection in the glass. Dressed in a vest-top and a pair of simple white panties, she looked like a scrawny schoolgirl cast adrift in a sea of splendour. The ever-present blush heated her cheeks.

What was she doing here? She couldn’t have looked more out of place if she tried!

She took a deep breath. Eased it out slowly.

Calm down.

Staying here for two whole weeks was going to be the biggest adventure of her life. And if she was going to enjoy every second, she simply did not have time for a nervous breakdown.

She glanced back at the bed. Only her side had been slept in. She wondered where Mac had spent the night. She dismissed her disappointment. He’d probably been as exhausted as her. The few times she’d woken up during the flight he’d been busy working on his laptop, so he was no doubt catching up on his sleep. Or maybe he’d gone to work. Even with two weeks before his next project started, he might still have meetings and photo shoots and interviews and stuff like that to do. She doubted movie stars ever had very much free time and she didn’t intend to be some annoying little limpet constantly begging for his attention. Come to think of it, she probably wouldn’t see all that much of him. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, considering how short of breath she got every time she got near him.

She spotted her suitcase by the door. Inside were the array of brightly coloured outfits Daisy and she had ummed and aahed over the day before. She lifted out a lipstick-red retro dress that she wouldn’t have dreamt of wearing a month ago—and felt the jangle of nerves retreat a little. Once she looked the part, she’d go and explore the house—if she kept occupied, she wouldn’t have too much time to think about how far out of her depth she was.

An hour later, Juno had showered in an en suite bathroom bigger than her whole bedsit. Discovered four other bedrooms, a staggering six other bathrooms, a curved living room with a plasma TV the size of a small cinema screen, a fully equipped gym, a study with what looked like top-of-the-range computer equipment and a library packed full of dog-eared paperbacks, dry literary tomes and enough DVDs to outsource her local Blockbuster.

Exploring Mac’s house hadn’t quite had the palliative effect she’d been hoping for.

The one thing she hadn’t found, though, was any sign of her host. Apart from the series of framed posters in the lobby depicting films of his she’d never seen and the remnants of a hastily eaten breakfast in the kitchen.

She pressed her palms to the waistline of the expertly tailored red dress and stared at the empty bowl. Feeling a lot like Dorothy after she’d landed in Oz.

The gleaming stainless-steel cabinets, inlaid countertops and wardrobe-sized fridge ensured this room was as starkly modern, spotlessly clean and impeccably designed as the rest of the house. She sighed. It was certainly a far cry from the cramped galley kitchen in the bedsit co-op, which she shared with Jacie and her son, Cal, Mr Robertson the seventy-year-old Rastafarian on the top floor and Mrs Valdermeyer and her army of cats. But oddly enough, for all its sleek lines and imposing perfection—and the refreshing absence of cat pong—Mac’s kitchen made Juno miss the constant noise and clutter of Mrs V’s.

Finding a selection of cereals in one of the cabinets, she poured herself a bowlful and sat down to eat. But as she swallowed the muesli she imagined Mac sitting at the table and eating his breakfast alone every morning and wondered how he dealt with the suffocating silence.

The wave of sympathy was quickly quashed as she tidied both their bowls away into the dishwasher.
Don’t be daft, the silence was probably what attracted him to this place.
Peace and quiet was no doubt a precious commodity to a man who made his living surrounded by people. And who said he ate alone here? He probably had a string of women he could invite to sleep over.

The minute the thought entered her head, a vision of all the women he’d shared breakfast with in his luxurious kitchen popped up to illustrate it. And every one of them looked a thousand times more at home here than she did.

She squeezed her eyes shut.
Don’t even go there.

It was way too late to start panicking about Mac Brody’s other women. She was here now, not them, and that had to count for something.

She opened her eyes. Maybe a bit of sea air would help keep the nerves at bay.

As she ventured through the sliding glass door onto the terrace the stone tiles warmed the soles of her bare feet. The outdoor temperature had to be a good twenty degrees hotter than London. Despite the salt-scented breeze, her dress stuck to her skin moments after she’d left the air-conditioned cool of the house. She shielded her eyes against the glare from the sun, and spied a movement on the beach below.

A tall, tanned and painfully familiar figure strolled out of the surf and bent to take a T-shirt from the sand. As he rubbed it across his torso Juno’s eyes dipped to the lighter strip of flesh across his bare buttocks and the temperature shot up another twenty degrees.

Sweat dampened her armpits and her breathing stopped.

He tugged on a pair of jogging shorts and she managed a shallow breath. Picking up his sneakers, he crossed the beach in long strides, his short hair moulded to his head, the dark locks glistening in the sunshine. She wrapped her arms around her waist in a vain attempt to control the throb of arousal.

Oh, my, the man was at least as impressive as his home.

He stepped onto the terrace and his head came up, almost as if he’d scented her presence. A pair of feral blue eyes locked on her face.

He looked magnificent, the water beading on his chest and running in rivulets down the lean slopes and valleys of his abdomen. Her gaze followed the trickles that dripped from his shorts onto powerful thighs. He looked like a rampant male animal.

And he was all hers, for a little while at least.

She gulped, giddy from lack of oxygen.

‘You woke up?’ The gruff question had her eyes lifting to his face.

Had she? She was beginning to think this was all some extremely vivid and rather scary erotic dream. She nodded. ‘I helped myself to some cereal. I hope you don’t mind?’

One dark eyebrow lifted sardonically and a slow, seductive smile spread across his face. ‘Juno, you’ve my permission to help yourself to anything that takes your fancy.’

Her nipples peaked painfully and she took a jerky breath.

She might be a novice at this sort of thing, but she definitely didn’t think he was referring to his low-fat, fake-sugar, Swiss-style muesli any more. ‘Are you sure about that?’ she heard herself say.

His teeth flashed white and his eyes gleamed. ‘Absolutely.’

Her heart jumped into her throat and sweat pooled between her breasts. It was a dare, plain and simple, now all she had to do was prove she was up to the challenge.

She took a tentative step towards him, not taking her eyes from his face. Placing her fingertip against her own lips, she took a deep breath and then reached towards him.

He quivered, like a tiger ready to pounce, as her fingertip touched his pectoral muscle, but he didn’t move, giving her the sharp burst of courage she so desperately needed.

Her short, neatly trimmed fingernail trailed across his chest and traced the line of hair down his six-pack. But then she spotted the powerful erection already stretching his jogging shorts and gasped.

He swore softly and hauled her against him. ‘Enough of that, you little tease.’