She was stunning. Not a bit of wonder they’d chosen her from all the candidates suggested. He’d bet she’d look great on screen. A hell of a lot better than he was looking anyway. But six months in front of a computer, within arm’s reach of billions of calories, hadn’t exactly helped any.
And he could tell she wasn’t impressed. When she’d opened the door she’d been smiling openly. But now, as her eyes moved over him, he could see that smile fading in her dark eyes.
Suddenly he wished he’d bothered to remove the abnormal amount of hair on his face. That he’d taken maybe ten minutes to visit a barber in the last week. But Aisling had been fairly adamant that he stayed the way he was. He was perfect the way he was, she’d said.
Shame that Caitlin Rourke didn’t think so. Because she really was stunning.
His eyes moved down from the urchin cut of her rich brown hair, over flawless creamy skin to the sensual bow of her mouth. Then they dared to move further, down over her long neck to the curve of her small breasts and the inward sweep of her slender waist. Oh, yeah. She was something. And way out of his usual league if the designer cut of her clothes and the swanky place she lived in were anything to go by.
His eyes moved back up as she smoothed her short hair behind one ear and smiled at him again before moving forward.
She then stunned him completely by throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her slender body tightly against his. Blinking in confusion, he wrapped his arms around her waist with jerky movements.
‘You’re here at last!’ She tilted her head back to look up at him. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’
Aiden’s eyes widened. ‘Well, I’ve missed you too.’
Her eyes jerked to her left and he followed the movement until his own found the camera pointing at him. Aha. Straight to business, then…
She leaned in to kiss his cheek above the line of his beard, leaving her cheek there and whispering, ‘My sister is here.’ Then she leaned back again to look at him.
Tightening his arms around her waist to signal he understood, he then did what any self-respecting fiancé would do and leaned down for a kiss. After all, her sister would expect it…
Caitlin’s eyes widened as the realisation of his intention hit her. She ducked her head further back and laughed slightly. ‘Oh, no, you don’t. Not with that beard.’
She thought he’d grown that beard overnight? If they’d only recently got engaged then she’d have been kissing him with that beard for some time now.
‘You didn’t complain about where this beard went last weekend, honey.’
A dark eyebrow quirked at his response and a spark entered her eyes. A challenge? he wondered.
Her voice came out like warm honey. ‘You have no idea the places I ended up with beard rash.’
A challenge indeed.
His eyes sparkled back at her. ‘Maybe you should show me later.’
‘We’ll have to see about that.’ And as quickly as that the spark was gone from her eyes and she pulled back from his embrace. She glanced towards the living room, then her eyes flickered back to meet his as her voice dropped. ‘That beard has to go.’
‘We’re not even married yet and already you’re trying to change me?’
She looked him over with a cursory glance, taking stock of the raw material the show had given her. Then with a small smile she nodded. ‘Hell, yes.’
The sister stared at him with a similar look of surprise as he entered the warm-coloured room. Aiden was sensing a pattern here. What was it? Had he two heads? All right, so right that second he might not look like a pin-up, but he wasn’t exactly serial killer material either. At least he didn’t think he was.
‘Hi.’
Caitlin watched her sister blink at him a couple of times before she stared back at her with wide eyes. The news of her ‘engagement’ not five minutes earlier hadn’t exactly gone too well. And the fact that she’d had to explain the presence of TV cameras in her life in an earlier phone call only added to the lack of reality. She was in the Twilight Zone. Something her sister had pointed out only seconds before Aiden’s arrival.
‘This is Aiden.’
‘The internet guy?’
She smiled as she followed the story they’d been given. ‘Yes, this is him.’
‘The guy you’re getting married to?’
‘Yes.’
She opened her mouth to make a comment. Then her eyes moved to the camera at the end of the room and she pinned a smile on her mouth as she rose from the large sofa. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Aiden. I’m Cara.’
Aiden hadn’t missed the hesitation before she stood to offer her hand to him. There’d been a comment coming there, he’d just bet. ‘It’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.’
The smile stayed in place as she shook his hand. ‘More than I’ve heard about you, I’m sure. You’re quite a surprise.’
He laughed as he released her hand. ‘I’d say so.’
Cara continued to stare at him. It was like being a bug under a microscope. He stepped closer to Caitlin and grinned. ‘Well, honey, I’ll just throw my bag upstairs.’
‘Good plan.’ She reversed a few steps towards the door.
‘No, it’s all right. I know where I’m going.’ The lie flowed smoothly from his mouth. ‘You stay here and chat to Cara. I’ll be right back.’
Both women stood stock still, smiles in place, as he moved past Caitlin to leave the room. With a smile back at her sister he then reached out a hand and pinched Caitlin’s rear on his way out.
‘Are you out of your mind?’
He heard Cara’s whispered words as he walked upstairs. It had been a long time since he’d made such a lasting impression on two women.
Catching sight of himself in a large mirror as he reached the top of the flight of stairs, he smiled wryly. He guessed he couldn’t blame them. He looked like hell.
He stared at his own eyes in the reflection. They were the only part of himself he still recognised.
Everything else had pretty much gone to pot. His dark hair stuck out in varying curls where it reached the collar of his favourite old checked shirt. His hair was longer than he’d worn it since his university days. And as for the hair on his face. Well, Caitlin was right. It had to go. He looked as if he’d just walked off a desert island.
His dark eyebrows quirked up under his long fringe as he realised that technically he might as well have.
He’d spent the last six months in solitude, with only a ghost for company. And work. His own work and the ghost’s work. It had been fairly surreal.
Moving away from the mirror and along the softly lit hall, he found himself looking at frame upon frame of photographs. Caitlin Rourke’s life laid out before him. Pictures of her laughing, smiling at the people around her with love in her eyes. Close-ups of her curled up on a sofa, caught off guard as she looked up into the camera lens. Shots of an autumn day when she’d had longer hair tossed by an unseen wind. Every one showed scenes of a happy, contented woman, in love with life and living.
Caitlin Rourke was everything he wasn’t. And a familiar ache, so old it burned like a physical pain in the pit of his stomach, made him unexpectedly angry with her for that.
‘Are you out of your mind?’
Still reeling from the fact that her new fiancé had just pinched