‘So what do you think my actions say about me?’
He gazed at her, at the guarded look in her eyes, and the hope she couldn’t quite hide. ‘Your actions tell me that you’ve been really hurt. You’ve run away—come to hide and recover in private. But you’re also yearning to start again—so you have determination. You have pride in your work. You want to do well. You’re willing to put up with a difficult situation in order to be here—so you were very desperate to escape. Perhaps you’re also desperate to succeed.’
She blinked suddenly. Her gaze dropping from his as her lashes fluttered a few times.
‘Whether every word in this article is true?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t think it would be.’
She looked at him again, her pale blue eyes shining, beseeching. He suddenly felt how strongly she wanted to be believed. Yet she was filled with fear. And sadness. A fiery basic instinct roared within him—he wanted to protect, defend. Reassure.
‘I’ve never been pregnant,’ she whispered. ‘Ever.’
His chest constricted. Ached. So did his throat. He nodded. ‘Then why have they run with this? How did this even get printed?’
‘Publicity, I guess. It made for a good storm. He came out as the poor, wronged guy.’ She shook her head, casting away the wretched expression, her defensive quip returning. ‘The crowd loves a villain. Everybody loves to have somebody to hate.’
James stared hard at her, trying to see the true source of her very real distress. ‘Did he break your heart?’
‘Only by not speaking out to say this wasn’t true. He knows it’s not true. He betrayed me by staying silent.’
No one had stood up for her. Not her sister. Not her father. She’d not even stood up for herself. She’d run away. Could he really blame her for that?
He glanced back down at the iPad and flicked back to the search results. He clicked on a couple more. One catalogued her previous ‘crimes’.
‘Are they all untrue?’ He read some of the accusations. ‘Did you get so drunk at your sixteenth birthday party you vomited on the production assistant? Did you insist on having first pick of all the outfits you and your castmates were offered? Did you have an affair with the man who played your teacher in the show...?’
‘Actually,’ she interrupted with a guilty whisper, ‘they’re all true.’
He laughed a little. ‘Oh, Caitlin.’
‘Well, in fairness, the outfits thing was only because I was really getting into the costumes. I wanted to put the look together. But I didn’t go about it the right way. I was young. Stupid. I admit to the mistakes I made. But you’ll note it was me, the sixteen-year-old who seduced the older guy—according to those stories. Thank heavens he wasn’t married. I’d have been slaughtered.’
‘In reality he seduced you?’
‘Honestly?’ She thought about it. ‘I think I was easy pickings. I think he knew which buttons to push.’ She looked him in the eyes. ‘The emotional ones, I mean.’
‘Where was your father?’
A flash of sheer surprise flitted across her face. And then she laughed. ‘Exactly.’ She shrugged. ‘Enter father figure, stage left.’ She sobered, the sad expression returning. ‘The worst thing was the writers caught a whiff of the rumours and then put it in the show. I was the schoolgirl with the crush on the teacher.’
Yeah, it really wasn’t funny. ‘Your father didn’t refuse that storyline?’
Her mouth clamped for a moment. ‘My father thinks there’s no such thing as bad publicity. He was always more manager than parent. I don’t need a manager any more.’
So that left her without a parent? He didn’t know what he could say to make it any better for her. ‘That sucks.’
She inclined her head and looked him straight in the eyes. ‘You really believe me?’
Carefully he watched her expression—reading all that doubt there. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘Reputation is a dangerous thing.’ She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. ‘Mud sticks and all that.’
‘No,’ he murmured. ‘Why really? Didn’t you ever challenge them? Didn’t you deny this crap this Dominic-guy spread?’
‘There was no point. People will always think smoke means fire.’
‘No,’ he challenged her. ‘Sometimes it’s just smoke. Sometimes it’s just there for someone to hide in. Like a stage set.’
She shook her head and the haunted look returned. She glanced down, running over the long list of offences detailed on the Internet. ‘The underage clubbing thing is true, as is the underage drinking. But I never did drugs. Nor have I ever self-harmed.’
She hit the back arrow on the navigation bar, and scrolled back a few pages until that mortifying article about him featured.
‘Look at it, the grand total of two stories on you are fabulous,’ she said drily. ‘While the thousands on me are awful. Being labelled a sex stud isn’t anywhere near as bad as being labelled a narcissistic, deranged stalker.’
She paused as the picture of him carrying the child out from the landslide popped up. She was right, but he still hated that image—what it had brought for him. A moniker he didn’t deserve. A supposedly ‘heroic’ status. Because in reality he couldn’t be less of a hero. He’d destroyed a family, not saved one. Yeah, the real story of his life, the most relevant thing about him, had never been reported in any newspaper.
Caitlin looked at the way James was sullenly glaring at himself in that picture. He was cradling that poor kid so carefully, yet he’d had the look of a fighter on his face—sheer determination as he ran. His T-shirt had been spattered with his own blood, pouring from the nasty-looking gash on the side of his head.
‘Did it hurt?’ Ugh. She clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘I’m sorry. You must get asked that all the time.’
‘It looked worse than it was.’ He looked up at her, his moody reverie broken, amusement stealing back into his eyes. ‘Some women are fascinated with the scar,’ he said softly. ‘They always want to kiss it. Like they could make it better with their life-giving lips or something.’
‘And do those kisses make it better?’
He chuckled and shook his head. ‘Truth? I lost most of the nerve endings around the wound. I can’t even feel it if someone kisses it. It’s sure as hell not sexy.’
‘Roger that,’ she said crisply. ‘No scar kissing, then.’
Their eyes met. For a moment there was thick, expectant silence.
He lifted his finger and ran it down his scar. ‘Women think this symbolises something that isn’t real. I’m no hero.’
‘You are,’ she muttered. ‘You’re good.’
‘Why do you think that?’ That bleak, almost angry look returned. ‘From what you’ve read?’
‘From your actions,’ she corrected. ‘You’re the guy who pulled back from having anything you’d like from me this morning.’ She glared at him. ‘Is it so bad to want me?’
He flinched. ‘I was trying to do the right thing by you.’
‘Who’s to say I wanted the “right” thing?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t you get it? I’m the bad girl who always wants to do the wrong thing.’
He hesitated. ‘I wouldn’t have said it was wrong. But it seemed to me you’re a bit bruised and I didn’t want to make things more difficult for you. Now I know for certain you are.’
‘You