Caitlin hesitated. ‘She’s very busy and I’m working on a new phase in my life.’ She read the disapproval in his eyes. ‘We really didn’t spend that much time together as kids. But she’s a darling,’ she rushed to add. ‘She deserves all her success. And she doesn’t need to be dragged down by me. It was because Hannah knows George that I got the loan of this place. She is supportive of me. But I think it’s better to keep some kind of distance.’
‘You’ve shut her out?’
‘No,’ she said defensively. ‘I just don’t think she needs to have my affairs thrust in her face. She doesn’t need to have her publicist deflecting questions about me. She needs to concentrate on her career and not have me as the sideshow.’
‘But that leaves you alone.’ He looked at her. ‘Because I’m guessing you and your dad aren’t close.’
‘He’s very busy too. He’s still Hannah’s manager,’ Caitlin said softly. ‘She has a whole team these days, but he’s still very involved. And that’s fine. I’m a big girl. I don’t need a manager. I’m loving being in New York and being anonymous.’ She glared at him, hating how exposed she felt right this instant in the face of his inscrutability. She didn’t want to go any further—not into the nightmare of the last few months and the real reason she’d had to run. ‘Anyway, you can’t talk. You’ve shut out your family.’
‘I haven’t shut them out.’ His smile went fixed.
‘Really? When you won’t even go and see them in the few days you have back in the country?’
‘You think they’d want to see me when I’m tired and grumpy?’ The smile disappeared altogether.
‘Would it be so bad if they saw you tired and grumpy? Or is your image too important to maintain?’
‘I don’t care about my image.’
‘No? So you have no problem with having that picture of you being sent around the world?’
‘Okay,’ he conceded with a sigh. ‘I hate that picture.’
‘Why?’ Didn’t he feel some kind of pride that he’d been able to help that girl?
He shook his head. ‘I work as part of a team. No one person is a hero. We need each other. We’re there to do a job but we have each other’s backs. There’s no room for egos. We all do what we have to do. It’s never down to one person.’
Sometimes it was. He was the one who’d found that girl and pulled her free. Sure, maybe others in his team had found others as well, but for that one little girl James Wolfe was her lone hero.
‘Are your colleagues bothered by the attention you receive?’ Was that where his ‘reluctant hero’ mode sprang from?
He stepped back, his bottomless eyes fixed on her. ‘There was some ribbing. But no, I know they’d rather it were me than them. In many ways it was great—it raised the profile of the organisation and that helps with fundraising and stuff.’ He shrugged.
It was clearly a line from the publicists that he’d repeated a hundred or more times. ‘And it’s only having your picture taken. It’s not that awful.’
Sure, against the backdrop of things he must have seen, it wasn’t, but he couldn’t deny the impact on him personally. She wanted him to acknowledge it. ‘But it changes your life.’
‘Again,’ he noted, ‘it’s nothing compared to what some people go through.’
‘You’re being heroic again.’ She chuckled. ‘But you don’t like it.’
‘No.’
‘It’s so awful to be admired? To be adored?’ She’d far rather that than be thought of as the wicked witch.
‘People see what they want to see. But it’s not real. They don’t see through that image.’
His words pierced her defence. They were words she’d say and mean. But she couldn’t believe he really meant then. That he could possibly understand. So she teased. ‘Maybe you don’t let them.’
He chuckled. ‘Do you try to let them see through your image? Do you try to change what they think?’
She waved a hand as if brushing off the idea. ‘People have this thing about leopards and spots.’
‘So once bad, always bad?’ He leaned forward, coming too close again.
‘Angels can fall from grace, though, so you better be careful,’ she whispered.
He didn’t laugh, didn’t pull away as she expected him to. As she was warning him to.
‘I’m not afraid of what people think about me,’ he said.
‘Really?’ She turned, tapped the iPad back to life and entered his name in the search box.
‘You’re Googling me? Right now?’ he asked, sounding somewhat stunned.
‘Why not? I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling me. What else is it you’re hiding from?’
Something flickered in his eyes before he looked down so she couldn’t see into them.
‘Search away.’
His careless drawl spurred her. To find something wicked about the so-perfect one? She wished.
In a second she had a spate of webpages listed. A number of links to one article in particular. The one that had come first in the search rankings.
She clicked on it.
Dated a few months ago, the article was illustrated with that iconic image from the flood-ravaged South American village. There was another, smaller picture of him walking along the pavement outside his local coffee shop. In the grey tee, of course, but with jeans this time.
There was a fact box about his family—the wealth, the travel bug they all had—briefly profiling his two brothers as well, labelling the three ‘the Wolves of Manhattan’. Then the main thrust of the article caught her attention. A tabloid piece from a gossip site, the main ‘source’ was a woman who couldn’t contain her enthusiasm for James.
My Night With The Scarred Hero.
...He’s as generous in bed as he is in his rescue missions. A strong, loving partner who gives a woman his all... He’s so fit I could hardly keep up. He had me seven times in the one night, I’ve never known a man to have such stamina. He didn’t seem to want to sleep at all...
Oh my. Caitlin looked up to gauge his reaction.
‘It’s embarrassing,’ he muttered. ‘Fiction.’
Determined to stifle her smile, she tapped her fingers on the edge of the iPad and surveyed him. ‘So she’s making up how great you are in bed?’
‘Well...’ He laughed uneasily. ‘It’s just not something you want to see in print, you k
now.’
‘Some guys would love that.’ Most guys she could think of, in fact.
‘I’m not some guy.’ He frowned and then sighed. ‘I was already...popular, if you like. I come from a wealthy family. I’ve got all my limbs...’
And he was so hot it was unreal. Plus he was clever, and a good conversationalist. He knew how to look at a woman. Then there was that edge. She’d seen it that first night, caught glimpses of it since. The dangerous glint, the possibility of strength, determination—he was capable of taking charge. Control.
Heat washed over her. Inappropriate, devastating heat.
‘Then with that picture. The rescue work...’ He tailed off.
‘You became a hero,’ she finished, licking her lips to ease their dryness. ‘Even more wanted.’
He nodded reluctantly, slowly. ‘And then that woman—’
‘Sold her story and the hot lover legend was born.’
He put his head in his hands and groaned.
Hard as she tried Caitlin couldn’t quite feel sorry for him. Hard as she tried she couldn’t stop her own arousal either. Seven times?
‘Are you afraid you can’t live up to it?’ she provoked, forcing herself to laugh and keep it light. ‘Don’t worry, everyone knows all the stuff in the papers is made up. We all know the “seven times in one night” was a massive exaggeration.’
He glanced up, his expression smouldering. ‘I just don’t want any more stories in the papers.’
‘So you don’t trust anyone.’ She got it now.
‘Not one-night stands.’
‘And you’re not in town long enough to start a relationship.’ She tried to slow her zinging pulse. He must be lonely. Must be hungry for it. ‘Isn’t there anyone in your team?’ she asked. ‘In the paramedic, disaster community?’
‘No.’ He shook his head, the heat in his eyes igniting. ‘I really don’t need you to be match-maker for me.’
‘I’m not. I’m just analysing.’ She flicked her tongue over her desert dry lips again. ‘No wonder you couldn’t resist kissing me. How long has it been?’ She glanced at the date of the article again. ‘Ten months?’