Sensation exploded inside him. He felt as if Catherine wheels had gone off behind his eyes, throughout his whole body. One almost-nothing kiss and he was firing up like a Roman candle.
‘Don’t—’ he said brusquely, pulling away just a little. Not as much as he should have.
‘Don’t what?’ she teased, her breath soft against his mouth, and then instinct and desire took over and he pulled her towards him, his mouth slanting over hers as he deepened her brush of a kiss into something primal and urgent. His arms came around her, his hands sliding down the narrow knobs of her spine to her hips where they fastened firmly as if they belonged there and he brought her against him. He claimed that little kiss, made it his.
His, not hers. Not theirs. Because in some distant part of his brain he realised she’d gone completely still, lifeless even, and all the while he was kissing her like a drowning man clinging to the last lifebelt.
With a shaming amount of effort he pushed himself away from her, let out a shuddering breath. His heart still thudded. ‘What the hell was that about?’
She gazed back at him in stony-faced challenge, seeming completely unaffected by something that felt as if it had almost felled him. ‘You tell me.’
‘Why did you kiss me?’
‘Are you trying to act like you didn’t want it?’
‘I—’ Damn. ‘No, I’m not.’ Surprise rippled in her eyes like a shadow on water but she said nothing. ‘I admit, I’m attracted to you. I’d rather not be. And it has nothing to do with why I came here.’
She arched her eyebrows, elegantly incredulous. ‘Nothing?’
Luke expelled an exasperated breath. He didn’t lie. Couldn’t, ever since he’d told the truth in one of the most defining moments of his life and hadn’t been believed. He’d been blamed instead, and maybe—
He pushed the thought away. ‘It probably had something to do with it,’ he admitted tersely. ‘But I wish it didn’t.’
‘Really.’ She sounded utterly disbelieving, and he could hardly blame her. From the first moment he’d met her his body had been reacting. Wanting. He knew it, and obviously so did she.
‘Why did you kiss me?’ he countered. ‘Because I admit I might have taken over, but you started it and there’s got to be a reason for that.’
‘Does there?’
‘I think,’ Luke said slowly, ‘there’s a reason for everything you do, even if it seems completely crazy from the outside.’
She let out a little laugh, the first genuine sound of humour he’d heard from her. ‘Thank you for that compliment … I think.’
‘You’re welcome.’
They stared at each other like two wrestlers on either side of the mat. Some kind of truce had been called, but Luke didn’t know what it was. Or why he was here. His calm, no-nonsense plan to hire Aurelie for the Asia openings—to change the public’s opinion of both her and the store, the ultimate reinvention—seemed like the flimsiest of pretexts after that kiss.
He’d come here because he wanted her, full stop. It really was that simple.
Aurelie stared at Luke, wondered what tack he’d try next. The honesty had surprised her. Unsettled her, because she knew he was speaking the truth and she didn’t know what to do with it. She wasn’t used to honesty.
Trying for something close to insouciance, she turned away from him, picked up her discarded mug of coffee and kept the kitchen counter between them.
Luke folded his arms. ‘So you still haven’t told me why you kissed me.’
She shrugged. ‘Why not?’ That kiss had started out as a way to prove he just wanted one thing and it wasn’t her song. But then she’d felt the softness of his lips, his hair, and she’d forgotten she’d been trying to prove a point. She’d felt a flicker of … something. Desire? It seemed impossible. And then Luke had deepened the kiss and she’d felt herself retreat into numbness as she always did.
She took a sip of her now-cold coffee. She shouldn’t have kissed him at all. She didn’t want to be Aurelie here, in the only place she’d ever thought of as home. She wanted to be herself, but she didn’t know how to do that with someone like Luke. Or with anyone, really. She’d been pretending for so long she wasn’t sure she could stop. ‘Why don’t you tell me why you want to hire me for these reopenings.’
‘I told you already.’
‘The real reason.’
He stared at her, his dark eyes narrowed, lips thinned. He really was an attractive man, not that it mattered. Still a part of her could admire the chocolate-coloured hair, could remember how soft it had felt threaded through her fingers. How hard and toned his body had been against hers. How warm his eyes had seemed—
She needed to put a stop to that kind of thinking right now. ‘Well? Why?’
‘It’s more complicated than I’d prefer it to be,’ Luke said, the words seeming wrested from him. ‘It makes good business sense on one level, and on another … yes.’ He shrugged, spread his hands. ‘Like I said before, attraction comes into it. Probably. It doesn’t mean I’m going to act on it.’
‘Despite the fact that you just did.’
‘If you thrust your tongue into my mouth, I’ll respond. I’m a man.’
Exactly. And she knew men. Still, the extent of his honesty unnerved her. He could have easily denied it. Lied. ‘What are you,’ she said, ‘Pinocchio?’
He glanced away, his expression shuttering. ‘Something like that.’
The man could not tell a lie. How fascinating, considering she told dozens. Hundreds. Her whole life was a lie. ‘So if I asked you anything, you’d have to tell me the truth?’
‘I don’t like lying, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Don’t like it, or aren’t good at it?’
‘Both.’
She was tempted to ask him something really revealing, embarrassing even, yet she decided not to. Any more intimacy with this man was not advisable.
‘Okay, then. Tell me just what this whole Asia thing is about.’
‘I’m relaunching four stores across Asia. Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo. I want you to sing at each opening.’
‘Sing my new song.’
‘That’s about it.’
‘That’s kind of a risk, don’t you think?’
He raised his eyebrows in both challenge and query. ‘Is it?’
‘How long were you standing on my porch?’
‘Long enough.’
She had the absolutely insane impulse to ask him what he’d thought of that song. She’d been working on it for months, and it meant more to her than she ever wanted to admit—which was why she wouldn’t ask. ‘Why don’t you want my usual Aurelie schtick?’ she asked instead.
He nodded, and it felt like an affirmation. ‘That’s what it is, isn’t it? A schtick. An act. Not who you really are.’
She didn’t like the way his gaze seemed to sear right through her. She didn’t like it at all, and yet part of her was crying out yes. Yes, it’s pretend, it’s not me, and you’re the only person who has ever realised that. From somewhere she dredged up the energy to roll her eyes. Laugh it off. ‘Of course it’s a schtick. Any famous person is just an act, Bryant. A successful one.’
‘Call