But for tonight, she would cater to her inner seductress, secure in the knowledge that nobody would ever find out, not even Graeme. She acknowledged that she wanted—no, she needed—to know if sex with Graeme was as good as she remembered, or if girlish memories had blown it out of proportion over the years. She had no illusions of trying to recapture the love of her youth; rather, she’d finally be able to put it firmly in her past and move on with her future. She’d been so young back then, so easily impressed. Not that she’d had much hands-on experience in the years since they’d been apart, but she’d done a lot of reading …and writing …about sex. In her fan fiction stories, Kip Corrigan was the ultimate lover, and most of what she wrote was based on her own experiences with Graeme during the two nights they’d shared.
But nobody could be that good, right?
3
RECOGNITION punched Graeme in the gut like a sledgehammer.
He’d thought about this moment more times than he cared to admit over the past five years, and in his mind their reunion had played out in all kinds of different ways. But his fantasies always ended the same way—with Lara in his bed, promising that she’d never leave again.
But now that she was here, he didn’t have a fucking clue what to say. So he took a deep breath and turned to look at her, but was so completely blown away by the erotic vision she made that all he could manage was some ignorant remark about the weight capacity of the lift.
Because never, even in his most outrageous fantasies, could he have envisioned Lara looking like the woman who stared at him now from the opposite side of the elevator. For just a moment, his confidence faltered and he wondered if he might be mistaken. After all, he hadn’t seen her in several years. Even in his most lurid and explicit imaginings, she looked perpetually the way she had that summer in London.
Sweet.
Shy.
Conservative.
For a moment, his chest clenched hard and tight, and his hands fisted at his sides in recalled frustration. He’d been a struggling actor, just out of drama school, trying desperately to make a name for himself in the London theater scene where actors were ten a penny. His strong Scots accent and his strapping, blue-collar physique had worked against him, however, and the best he’d been able to manage had been amateur productions in second-rate theaters.
He’d been performing in a stage presentation of Blood Brothers, in front of a nearly empty theater, when she had walked in and sat in the back row. She’d come back every day until the last performance, when she’d chosen to sit in the front row.
After the show had ended, he’d sprinted out of the theater to intercept her, because meeting her had been a compulsion he couldn’t resist. He’d realized there was something special about her even though back then, she’d looked more like a modern-day Sandra Dee with her buttoned-up blouses, her little designer handbags and ridiculous shoes. But in less than a week of meeting her for afternoon tea, taking walks along the Thames and exploring the city together, he’d fallen completely and irrevocably in love. He’d never understood what it was that she’d seen in him, but he did know one thing; he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted another girl in his life.
His mistake had been to believe the lies that had fallen so easily from those cherub lips; that she was a twenty-one-year-old college student spending a summer abroad. That she only had one year of college left. That she was legally old enough to get married.
That she loved him.
Now he could hardly comprehend that his young wife and this exotic creature might be one and the same. He’d barely stepped onto the stage back in the ballroom, when a woman at a nearby table had suddenly lurched to her feet and done a bad rendition of the old tablecloth trick, dumping every place setting onto the floor in a cacophony of shattered dishware.
She’d been dressed in an eye-popping Princess Leia slave-girl costume that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Graeme had paused, prepared to make a joke about escapees from Jabba the Hutt’s harem, when he’d found himself looking past the gold mask and straight into a pair of eyes that he’d recognize anywhere.
Shock had slammed through him, but she was gone before he could react, pushing past the crowd and vanishing through a side door. Graeme hadn’t paused to think about his actions. He’d leaped from the stage, intent only upon catching the woman. But the mob of costumed fans had other ideas and for several frustrating seconds, he’d found himself sinking beneath a surging mass of greedy females who’d clamored for an autograph, a photo, a hug, a kiss. He might never have escaped their clutches if it hadn’t been for his publicist and hotel security, pushing their way through the crowd and extricating him from the surging mass of women.
With muttered apologies, he’d broken free and dashed through the side door, his eyes searching the area beyond. He was rewarded when he saw Princess Leia frantically trying to access a service elevator. With a low growl, he’d plunged down the corridor after her, only dimly aware of the shrieking women who’d pursued him.
As he’d sprinted down the hallway, he knew his gut had been right; the woman was Lara. A glossy braid swung between her shoulder blades, the color of a brand-new penny. In five years, he’d never come across another person with hair that unique shade of copper, and despite the fact her body had definitely changed—in a bite-your-fist, hold-me-back kind of way—there was absolutely no question in his mind that the woman trying so desperately to escape was her.
He’d had an instant of panic when she bolted into the elevator and the doors began to close, but a burst of adrenaline had propelled him forward enough that he got his hand inside. He’d thrust himself through the doors and into the compartment with her.
For a split second, he’d registered the utter dismay in her sapphire eyes, before he’d abruptly turned his back on her. Aside from preventing the hordes of fans from mobbing the elevator, he’d needed to get a grip on himself.
As impossible as it seemed, Lara was here. And clearly, not too pleased that he’d followed her.
Graeme didn’t know what kind of reaction he’d expected, but it sure as hell hadn’t been this. She was simply staring at him from behind the ornate mask as if she didn’t know him from Adam. As if she hadn’t just fled the ballroom with him in hot pursuit. As if she hadn’t noticed the pack of screaming women who’d been hot on his heels.
As if he hadn’t—once upon a time—explored every luscious inch of her body with his hands and mouth.
There was no greeting, no how-do-you-do, no nothing. Instead, she gave him a polite, distant little smile and let her gaze drift away from him, fixing her attention on the blinking numbers over the door as if she had no freaking idea who he was.
As if they were complete strangers.
Which was nuts, because even if she didn’t recognize him as the man she’d once married, he was still Graeme Hamilton. If his publicist was to be believed, every woman who’d registered for the convention had done so because she was a huge Graeme Hamilton fan.
Then it hit him.
Lara was hoping like hell that he wouldn’t recognize her. She didn’t want him to recognize her. Graeme knew the body language well enough, since he frequently employed the same tactic when he left his Los Angeles apartment.
But did she really think he wouldn’t know who she was? That a mask would be enough to throw him? He’d recognize her anywhere. Even now, her scent was driving him insane, the same way it had done five years ago. It was an intoxicating blend of something light and exotic that was hers alone. He could pick her out of a crowd even if he was blindfolded.
Shit. He needed a drink. But he’d learned the hard way that drinking