Socialite's Gamble

‘Violet actually, though you probably can’t tell because they’re bloodshot. I’m wearing coloured contact lenses and channelling Elizabeth Taylor to cheer myself up.’

Aidan hesitated as he took her in. ‘Do you actually need contact lenses?’

‘No. I just like them.’

‘What colour are your eyes naturally?’

‘A boring colour.’

Before he could respond and tell her that he doubted that there could be anything boring about her at all there was a discreet knock at the door. Aidan dropped her glasses into her lap.

While he moved to answer the door Cara jumped off the sofa and raced for the nearest room.

His bedroom. It still smelled faintly of his spicy scent and she told herself to ignore it. To ignore every sexy thing about him.

She glanced in the mirror to find that her eyes were slightly less puffy than before but that she had been right: they were still a little bloodshot. Combined with the flush on her cheeks she looked a real treat.

‘Cara. Where are you?’

‘In here.’ She reappeared in the doorway and tried to seem more together than when she’d first arrived. Aidan stood beside a linen-covered trolley laden with food and her stomach growled. ‘I didn’t want the room service person to see me.’

He gave her a sardonic smile. ‘I think it’s a bit late for that, don’t you?’

He held out a cup of coffee. ‘How do you have it?’

‘With arsenic.’

His smile broadened and her hand shook as she took the cup from him and added milk and sugar. Did the man have to look so together in his suit and pressed shirt? He made her feel like a wilted flower by comparison.

‘Surely it’s not that bad,’ he said.

‘For you,’ she reminded him glumly. ‘I still have to work out what to tell Christos.’

‘Don’t tell him anything.’

‘Easy for you to say.’

‘Then tell him we’re a couple and last night was some sort of wild sex game.’

‘Unfortunately he would believe the latter of that bizarre statement but not the former.’

‘Why not?’

‘You need to ask? The respectable Aidan Kelly and the Chatsfield disaster, a couple? I don’t think so. No.’ She shook her head automatically as he handed her headache tablets. ‘I’m a health nut. I prefer to heal naturally.’

‘Very admirable. Now take them.’

She rolled her eyes but did as he bade. ‘Are you always this bossy?’

He hesitated briefly and then shrugged. ‘Apparently, yes.’ Then he handed her a croissant.

‘I don’t eat anything with butter, either.’

‘That’s ridiculous. No wonder you cry so much.’

She smiled at that and eyed the pastry. She hadn’t had a buttery croissant in years. Her stomach rose in anticipation and he thrust the plate closer. The yeasty scent went up her nose and she took it rather than argue.

‘Listen,’ he began. ‘I can’t help feeling slightly responsible for the bind you’re in and I’m serious about you telling Christos that we’re a couple.’

‘Don’t you care about what people will say about you?’

‘I can hold my own in the world, Cara.’

His use of her name made swallowing the strip of croissant she’d peeled off difficult and it felt like paper in her dry mouth. She gulped down a coffee chaser and cleared her throat. ‘He’ll never buy it.’ And when Aidan showed up in the papers in a week’s time with a beautiful woman on his arm she’d feel even more like a fool. ‘So thanks, but I’m good.’

‘Good?’ He looked dubious. ‘What’s your alternative?’

‘I was thinking of spinning a globe, closing my eyes and pointing and then just disappearing for a while.’

‘On your own?’

She shuddered. ‘You’re right, bad idea. I’ll hide out at my agent’s house in LA instead.’ Not that she really wanted to because Harriet would want to plan her next move and as far as Cara was concerned her next move was to make like an ostrich.

‘That’s it.’ He gulped down the espresso he had poured himself and set the cup down on the table. ‘You’re coming with me.’

Cara stared at his frowning face. ‘Where?’

‘I have a conference for the next two days in Fiji. You can come, sit on the beach, go to the spa. Give yourself a couple of days to come up with a better plan than globe spinning.’

She gave a faint smile. ‘What will that solve? You hate me.’

‘I don’t hate you.’ He paced across the windows and stared outside. ‘And it will make our relationship look real enough for Christos to cut you some slack.’