He stopped breathing himself and felt the blood throb powerfully through his body. For a split second he forgot what they were doing here. Time stood still. But before he could wrap his hand around her slender neck and bring her mouth to his she blinked and lowered her eyes.
Tristan exhaled, his anger all the stronger because of the unwanted sexual tension that lay between them like a living thing.
‘Do you really think I care?’ he snapped. ‘When I first heard you were coming to Jo’s wedding I didn’t even intend to say hello. Now I find that hello is the least of my problems, and I can assure you I will not spend the next eight days arguing every single point with you. So if—’
‘Fine.’ She cupped her hand over her forehead and winced.
He knew what she meant, but he was insulted by her attitude and wanted to hear her say it.
‘Fine what? Fine, you want to come with me? Or fine, you want me to take you back to Customs?’
She raised her head and he waited. The smudges under her eyes looked darker, and her skin had lost even more colour.
‘Oh, to hell with it.’ He straightened and held his hand out to her. She took it, without argument, and he realised that the shock of the morning was finally starting to set in—or maybe she’d been in shock the whole time.
Her fingers were icy in his, and he shrugged out of his jacket once again and pulled it around her. She squirmed as if to push it off, and her eyes jerked to his when he grabbed her upper arms and dragged her close.
‘Co-operate,’ he growled, pleased when she stilled.
‘You never say please.’ She sniffed.
Hell, she was still trying to call the shots. He kept his eyes locked on hers, because if they dropped to her mouth he knew he’d taste her. He was hard and he was angry, and the adrenaline pumping through his veins was pushing his self-control to its outer limits.
‘Please,’ he grated after a long, tense pause. ‘Now, can you walk?’
‘Of course.’ She gripped her bag and swayed when he released his hold on her.
He knew it would be a mistake on so many levels, but before he could think twice he scooped her into his arms and strode out of the bar.
She started against him, but he’d had enough. ‘Don’t say a goddamned word and don’t look around. The last thing I need is for someone else to recognise you.’
And just like that she relaxed and turned her head into his shoulder, her sweet scent filling his every breath.
The cool breeze was a welcome relief as he exited the terminal and headed down the rank of dark cars until he found Bert.
His chauffer nodded and held the rear door open, but just as Tristan was about to toss Lily inside she laid the flat of her hand against his chest and looked up through sleepy eyes.
‘My luggage…’ she murmured.
Tristan’s chest contracted against the hot brand of her touch.
‘Taken care of,’ he growled, wishing the unbearable physical attraction he still felt for this woman could be just as easily dealt with.
LILY collapsed back against the luxuriant leather car seat and closed her eyes, trying to equalise her pounding heart rate. Her head hurt and she felt shivery all over. She didn’t know if it was remembering her previous attraction to Tristan that had brought it screaming to the fore, or the man himself, but she was unable to deny the sweet feeling of desire that had pooled low in her pelvis when he’d held her in his arms and looked at her as if he wanted to kiss her.
Kiss her? Ha! Shake her, more like it. Especially given how much he still disliked her.
As she did him.
Actually, now that she thought about it, her physical response was probably due to emotional tiredness and stress making her super-sensitive to her surroundings and nothing to do with Tristan at all. How could it be when he immediately assumed that she was guilty? When he clearly thought she was lower than dirt?
His cold arrogance fired her blood and made her want to fall back on all her juvenile responses to criticism. Responses that had seen her play up to the negative attention her celebrity lineage provoked by flipping the press the bird, wearing either provocative or grungy clothing, depending on her mood, and pretending she was drunk when she wasn’t.
Nowadays she preferred to ignore any bad press or unfair comparisons with her parents’ hedonistic lifestyles, and just live her life according to her own expectations rather than other people’s. It worked better, to a certain extent, although she knew she’d never truly be able to outrun the shadow of who her parents had been.
Hanny Forsberg, her mother, had arrived in England poor and beautiful and on Page Three before she had found a place to live, and Johnny Wild, her father, had been a rough Norfolk lad with a raw musical talent and a hunger for success and women in equal measure.
Both had thrived on their fame and the attention it engendered, and after Lily was born they had just added her to their lifestyle—palming her off on whichever one wasn’t working and treating her like a fashion accessory long before it had become hip to do so.
The camera flashes and constant attention had scared her as a child, and even now Lily hated that she always felt as if she was living under the sullied banner of her parents’ combined notoriety. But none of that had been enough to put her off when her own creativity and natural talent had led her down the acting career path. Lily just tried as best she could to take roles that didn’t immediately provoke comparisons between herself and her parents—though as to that she could play a cross-dressing homosexual male and probably still be compared to her mother!
Sighing heavily, and wishing that one of her directors was going to call ‘cut’ on a day from hell, Lily turned to stare out at the passing landscape she hadn’t seen for so long.
Unfortunately the rows of shop fronts and Victorian terraces soon made her head throb, and she was forced to close her eyes and listen to the sound of Tristan texting on his smartphone instead. A thousand questions were winging through her mind—none of which, she knew, Tristan would feel inclined to answer.
For a moment she contemplated pulling the script she had promised to read from her bag, but that would no doubt make the headache worse so she left it there.
No great hardship, since she didn’t want to read it anyway. She had no interest in starring in a theatrical production about her parents, no matter how talented the writer-director was.
She’d nearly scoffed out loud at the notion.
As if she’d feed the gossipmongers and provoke more annoying comparisons to her mother by actually playing her in a drama. Lord, she’d never hear the end of it. The only reason she was pretending to consider the idea was a favour to a friend.
Her mouth twisted as she imagined the look on Tristan’s face if he knew about the role. No doubt he’d think her perfect to play a lost, drug-addled model craving love and attention from a man who had probably put the word playboy in the dictionary.
In fact it was ironic, really, that the only man Lily had ever thought herself to be in love with was almost as big a playboy as her father! Not that she’d fully comprehended Tristan’s reputation as a seventeen-year-old. Back then she’d known only that women fell for him like pebbles tossed into a pond, but she hadn’t given it much thought.
Now