I stared at him. In spite of his almost rude care in speaking the words, it seemed he hadn’t said them carefully enough, because I still couldn’t understand them.
“You want me to come with you?” I said dumbly. “To London?”
“Yes-s-s,” he said, enunciating even more slowly. “To London.”
I tried to ignore the rush of relief that went through me, the pathetic joy in my heart that he wanted me, that the moment of separation could be avoided for a bit longer. “But what on earth would I do there?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I could hire you back as my physio.”
“Come on. You can jog now. You don’t need a physical therapist anymore.”
“Then,” he said huskily, “come as my full-time lover.”
“I’d live in London and just—spend time with you in bed?”
“Think of it as a vacation.”
“You won’t be on vacation. You’ll be working all the time.”
“Not at night.” He gave me a wicked grin. “I’ll be your toy boy then, what do you say?” He came closer. “You’ll have me all night. Isn’t that what you love about me?”
I love everything about you, I wanted to say. The way you touch me. The sound of your voice. The way you make me laugh. Everything.
But I knew it was the last thing that he wanted to hear. It was supposed to be a physical affair, nothing more. I looked at him in the flickering firelight of his study. He was still dressed only in silk boxers from our strip poker match, and my gaze lingered at his powerful torso, hard-muscled biceps and thickly hewn thighs. Sex was enough, I told myself. It had to be enough.
“Diana?” He was staring at me. I realized I’d taken too long to respond.
“Of course that’s what I love best,” I said, tossing my head. “What else is there about you to love?”
“Such a heartless woman,” he sighed, then drew closer. Nuzzling me, he cupped my breast through my thin cotton sweater. My nipples turned instantly hard, pressing up through the red lace of my bra, thrusting visibly against the sweater. He whispered, “Allow me to serve you, then, milady....”
Falling to his knees in front of me, Edward suckled me, pressing his mouth over my nipple. I gasped as I felt his hot mouth through the thin cotton and fillip of red lace beneath. His free hand wrapped around my other breast, then a moment later, he moved to that side.
My sweater disappeared, then the red lace bra. With a growl of satisfaction, he lowered his mouth to my bare skin. My head fell back, my eyes closed. His lips were hot and soft, satin and steel. When he drew back, I was shivering with need, just like the first time he’d touched me. As though we hadn’t been making love four times a day, every day, for the past ten days.
“So we’re agreed,” he murmured. Rising to his feet, he pulled me into his arms. “You’ll come with me to London.”
“I can’t just go there as...as your sex toy,” I said in a small voice, my stupid, traitorous heart yearning for him to argue with me, to tell me I meant more to him than that.
“I know.” He suddenly smiled. “London has a thriving theater scene. You can live at my house as you audition for acting roles.”
“Audition?” I said, trying to keep the fear from my voice.
“It’s perfect.” Running his hands down my back, he kissed my cheek, my neck. “By day, you pursue your dreams. At night...you’ll belong to me.”
Cupping my face, he kissed me, hot and demanding. I wrapped my arms around him, kissing him back recklessly, ignoring my troubled heart.
I couldn’t give him up. Not yet. Not when I could still live in his world of passion and color and desire for a little while longer. I wanted to be the bold woman who wore red lace panties for her lover, and paraded around nearly naked. I wasn’t ready to go back and be that invisible girl again. Not yet. I needed to be in his arms. I needed to be with him, one moment teasing each other, playing like children, and the next bursting into flame in the most adult way possible. It reminded me of the old definition of love—friendship on fire...
No. My eyes flew open. I cared about Edward, sure. I liked him a lot. But that wasn’t the same as being in love.
I couldn’t let it be.
I like him, that’s all, I told myself firmly. We have fun together. It’s not a crime.
I pulled away. “All right,” I said, keeping my voice casual. “I’ll come to London.”
“Good,” he said, with a low, sensual smile that said he’d never doubted he could convince me. Leaning me back against the poker table, he got me swiftly naked beneath the bright heat of the fire and made love to me.
And so the next morning, under the weak pink light of the dawn, I was packed up in his expensive car, along with the rest of his possessions, and driven east across the moor. Toward civilization.
“WOW. YOU’RE NOT looking so great.”
The girl sitting beside me on one of the plastic chairs lining the hallway had a concerned look on her beautifully made-up face.
“I’m fine,” I replied, trying to breathe slowly, fervently trying to believe it. It had been two months since we’d arrived in London, and I’d felt strangely queasy, almost from the day we’d arrived here. I’d thought it was from fear, and also the guilt of lying to Edward about how I actually spent my days. But today, I’d finally faced my fear. For the first time, I was actually forcing myself to stay through an audition, rather than chickening out and fleeing for Trafalgar Square like a safely anonymous tourist.
For an hour, I’d sat here in the hallway, practicing my lines in my head and waiting for them to call my name. Shouldn’t the queasy feeling have gone away?
Instead, it had only increased as I waited backstage at a small, prestigious West End theater, surrounded by beautiful, professional-looking actors, who were loudly practicing their lines and doing elocution exercises, and taking no notice of me whatsoever. Except for the American girl sitting next to me.
“Are you feeling sick?” she asked now.
“Just nerves,” I said weakly.
“You look like you ate a bad curry. Or else it’s the flu.” Wrinkling her nose, she leaned away from me ever so slightly. “My sister looked like that the first three months she was pregnant....”
“I’m fine,” I repeated sharply, then swallowed, my head falling back as another wave of nausea went through me.
So much for my acting skills. Clearly not fooled, the girl looked nervously from side to side. “Oh. Good. Well. Um... Please excuse me. I have to practice my lines...over there.”
Getting up, she left in a hurry, as if she’d found herself sitting next to Typhoid Mary. I couldn’t blame her, because I felt perilously close to throwing up. Leaning my head against the wall, I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. I was so close to auditioning now. In a moment, they would call my name. I would speak my lines on the stage.
Then the casting agents would tell me that I sucked. It would be hideous and soul-crushing but at least I could slink home afterward and no longer be lying when I told Edward that while he was working eighteen-hour days at his office in Canary Wharf, I’d spent the day pursuing my dreams.
Just a few minutes more, and it would be over. I tried to breathe. They would probably cut me off halfway through my lines, in fact, and tell me I was too fat/thin/old/young/wrong,