Chloe felt dizzy and wished she had the courage to plunge her fingers into his thick hair and test its weight, its springiness. This close she could smell him and when he inhaled deeply she realised he could scent her as well. The sexual attraction that had betrayed her when she was eighteen seemed to have doubled and her heart fluttered as she tried to block out the emotions urging her to once again throw caution to the wind. And she might have even succeeded if Liam hadn’t placed his large hands either side of her hips. ‘I know we should talk first, Specs, but I feel like I might die if I don’t touch you. If I don’t see you.’
Shockingly, Chloe felt the same way and her sense of self-preservation seemed to get further out of reach the closer she got to him. All she wanted to do was touch him and kiss him and have him do the same to her. Have him… suddenly his words – the name he had called her – permeated her fogged brain. ‘You called me Specs.’
‘Yeah.’ He smoothed his hands down her thighs as if he adored her shape. ‘Whatever happened to those cute glasses you used to wear? If I remember rightly you were legally blind without them.’
Not really hearing him above the roaring of blood in her ears Chloe stared at him completely dumbfounded. ‘You know who I am.’
His eyes narrowed as if he was trying to work out the answer to a complex puzzle. ‘Ah, yeah. Was I not supposed to?’
‘When? When did you figure it out?’ she demanded.
He cocked his head and his brow furrowed in that cute way that made him look like he wouldn’t hurt a fly. ‘The minute I saw you outside the hotel. What’s going on?’ His frown deepened. ‘Were you actually trying to pretend to be someone else?’
‘No,’ she snapped, smacking the palm of her hand against her forehead. How was it that she kept making such a colossal fool of herself in front of this man? ‘Your PA got it wrong not me.’
‘So why didn’t you correct her?’
‘I didn’t see the point. I wasn’t expecting to see you for more than five minutes.’
‘Ah,’ he looked at her with a combination of guilt and wariness. ‘And you weren’t going to tell me.’
‘Why bother?’
Liam’s mouth flattened into a straight line. ‘I have to say I’m struggling to get my head around this.’
His firm gaze swept over her, reminding her that she was still standing between the legs of a guy she was supposed to be rejecting. She was truly pathetic. ‘I have to go. Excuse me.’
Before she could move Liam snagged her wrist. ‘Chloe?’
She shook him off. ‘How could you know it was me? I look completely different now.’
‘No you don’t.’
Chloe stared at him. Was he suggesting she still looked as bad as she used to?
‘Fiery red hair, incredible blue eyes with tiny gold flecks, long legs. Breasts.’
Chloe tried not to feel warmed by his words and scoffed. ‘All girls have breasts.’
‘True, but since moving to Hollywood I’ve learned that not all girls have real breasts.’ Chloe felt her cheeks heat as his eyes dropped to her cleavage. ‘I always thought you had magnificent breasts.'
Appalled by how affected she was by his words, how aroused, she just wanted to run away and hide. Forever this time. She stepped back from him again. ‘Please Liam. I know what you want but I don’t want it.’
‘Not now that I know who you are, you mean.’ His eyes grew as stony as chipped emeralds. ‘Tell me, what were you going to do, Chloe? Have sex with me as Candy and then bolt.’
‘No.’
‘What then?’
Chloe squared her shoulders. ‘I wasn’t going to have sex with you at all.’
‘Ah.’ Somehow he’d moved so that he was standing in front of her again, his chest inches from her own. ‘Payback then.’
‘It’s no less than you deserve,’ she felt stung into retorting.
‘I know.’ The anger she had felt in him moments ago ebbed away. ‘I was an utter jerk to you back in high school, but I didn’t invite you up here to have sex with you. I invited you here so that I could apologise.’
Chloe scrunched her brow in confusion. ‘So what was all this?’ She waved her hands in the direction of the champagne. The chocolates. The condoms. ‘If you don’t want me then it really was for someone else.’ She knew she sounded accusing but she was so confused by her own rioting emotions that she was struggling to think clearly. ‘This was never for me, it was–’