“I know.” He suddenly smiled. “London has a thriving theater scene. You can live at my house as you audition for acting roles.”
“Audition?” I said, trying to keep the fear from my voice.
“It’s perfect.” Running his hands down my back, he kissed my cheek, my neck. “By day, you pursue your dreams. At night...you’ll belong to me.”
Cupping my face, he kissed me, hot and demanding. I wrapped my arms around him, kissing him back recklessly, ignoring my troubled heart.
I couldn’t give him up. Not yet. Not when I could still live in his world of passion and color and desire for a little while longer. I wanted to be the bold woman who wore red lace panties for her lover, and paraded around nearly naked. I wasn’t ready to go back and be that invisible girl again. Not yet. I needed to be in his arms. I needed to be with him, one moment teasing each other, playing like children, and the next bursting into flame in the most adult way possible. It reminded me of the old definition of love—friendship on fire...
No. My eyes flew open. I cared about Edward, sure. I liked him a lot. But that wasn’t the same as being in love.
I couldn’t let it be.
I like him, that’s all, I told myself firmly. We have fun together. It’s not a crime.
I pulled away. “All right,” I said, keeping my voice casual. “I’ll come to London.”
“Good,” he said, with a low, sensual smile that said he’d never doubted he could convince me. Leaning me back against the poker table, he got me swiftly naked beneath the bright heat of the fire and made love to me.
And so the next morning, under the weak pink light of the dawn, I was packed up in his expensive car, along with the rest of his possessions, and driven east across the moor. Toward civilization.
CHAPTER FIVE
“WOW. YOU’RE NOT looking so great.”
The girl sitting beside me on one of the plastic chairs lining the hallway had a concerned look on her beautifully made-up face.
“I’m fine,” I replied, trying to breathe slowly, fervently trying to believe it. It had been two months since we’d arrived in London, and I’d felt strangely queasy, almost from the day we’d arrived here. I’d thought it was from fear, and also the guilt of lying to Edward about how I actually spent my days. But today, I’d finally faced my fear. For the first time, I was actually forcing myself to stay through an audition, rather than chickening out and fleeing for Trafalgar Square like a safely anonymous tourist.
For an hour, I’d sat here in the hallway, practicing my lines in my head and waiting for them to call my name. Shouldn’t the queasy feeling have gone away?
Instead, it had only increased as I waited backstage at a small, prestigious West End theater, surrounded by beautiful, professional-looking actors, who were loudly practicing their lines and doing elocution exercises, and taking no notice of me whatsoever. Except for the American girl sitting next to me.
“Are you feeling sick?” she asked now.
“Just nerves,” I said weakly.
“You look like you ate a bad curry. Or else it’s the flu.” Wrinkling her nose, she leaned away from me ever so slightly. “My sister looked like that the first three months she was pregnant....”
“I’m fine,” I repeated sharply, then swallowed, my head falling back as another wave of nausea went through me.
So much for my acting skills. Clearly not fooled, the girl looked nervously from side to side. “Oh. Good. Well. Um... Please excuse me. I have to practice my lines...over there.”
Getting up, she left in a hurry, as if she’d found herself sitting next to Typhoid Mary. I couldn’t blame her, because I felt perilously close to throwing up. Leaning my head against the wall, I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. I was so close to auditioning now. In a moment, they would call my name. I would speak my lines on the stage.