“You waited your whole life to try for it, then quit ten minutes after you started? Give me a break. You’re lying to yourself. It’s not your dream.”
“Maybe it is.”
“Then what are you doing here?” He lifted a dark eyebrow. “You want to give it another shot? London has a thriving theater scene. I’ll buy you the train ticket. Hell, I’ll even send you back to Hollywood in my own jet. Prove me wrong, Diana.” He tilted his head, staring at me in challenge. “Give it another go.”
I stared at him furiously, hating him for calling my bluff. I wanted to grandly take him up on his offer and march straight out his front door.
Then I thought of the soul-crushing auditions, the cold reptilian eyes of the casting directors as they looked me over and dismissed me—too old, too young, too thin, too pretty, too fat, too ugly. Too worthless. I was no Madison Lowe. And I knew it.
My shoulders slumped.
“I thought so,” Edward said. “So. You’re out of a job and need one. Perfect. It just happens that I’d like to hire you.”
“Why me?” I whispered over the lump in my throat. “I still don’t understand.”
“You don’t?” He looked surprised. “You’re the best at what you do, Diana. Trustworthy, competent. Beautiful...”
I looked up fiercely, suspecting mockery. “Beautiful.”
“Very beautiful.” His dark blue eyes held mine in the flickering light of the fire. “In spite of those god-awful clothes.”
“Hey,” I protested weakly.
“But you have qualities I need more than beauty. Skill. Loyalty. Patience. Intelligence. Discretion. Devotion.”
“You make me sound like...” I motioned toward the sheepdog on the rug. The dog looked back at me quizzically, lifting his head.
Edward St. Cyr’s lips lifted at the edges. “Like Caesar? Yes. That’s exactly what I want. I’m glad you understand.”
Hearing his name, the dog looked between us, giving a faint wag of his tail. Reaching out, I scratched behind his ears, then turned back to glare at his master.
His master. Not mine.
“Sorry.” I shook my head fiercely. “There’s no way I’m staying to work for a man who wants a physical therapist he can treat like his dog.”
“Caesar is a very good dog,” he said mildly. “But let’s be honest, shall we? We both know you’re not going back to California, not with all the sharks in the water. You wanted to get away. You have. No one will bother you here.”
“Except you.”
“Except me,” he agreed. “But I’m a very easy sort of person to get along with—”
I snorted in disbelief.
“—and in a few months, after I can run again, perhaps you’ll have figured out what you truly want to do with your life. You can leave Penryth Hall with enough money to do whatever you want. Go back to university. Build your physical therapy business. Even audition.” He shook his head. “Whatever. I don’t care.”
“You just want me to stay.”
“Yes.”
Helplessly, I shook my head. “I’m starting to think I might be better off just staying away from people.”
His eyes glittered in the firelight. “I understand. Better than you might think.”
I tried to smile. “Somehow I doubt a man like you spends much time alone.”
He looked away. “There are all kinds of alone.” He set his jaw. “Stay. We can be alone together,” he said gruffly. “Help each other.”
It was tempting. What was my alternative? And yet...
I licked my lips, coming closer to his chair near the fire. “Tell me more about your injury.”
His handsome face shuttered as he drew back.
“Didn’t the agency explain?” he said shortly. “Car crash.”
“They said you broke your left ankle, your right arm and two ribs.” I looked over his body slowly. “And also dislocated your shoulder, then managed to dislocate it again after you were home. Was it from physical therapy?”
He made a one-shouldered gesture that would have been a shrug. “I was bored and decided to go for a swim in the ocean.”
He could have died. “Are you crazy?”
“I said I was bored. And possibly a little drunk.”
“You are crazy,” I breathed. “No wonder you got in a car accident. Let me guess. You were street racing, like in the movies.”
The air in the dark study turned so chilly, the air nearly crackled with frost. His hand gripped the armrest, then abruptly released it.
“Got it in one,” he said coldly. “I raced my car straight into a Spanish fountain and flipped it four times down a mountain. Exactly like a movie. Complete with the villain carted off in an ambulance as all the good people celebrate and cheer.”
His friendliness had evaporated for reasons I didn’t understand. Wondering what had really happened, I took a deep breath. “Too soon to joke about your accident, huh? Okay, got it.” I bit my lip. “What really happened? What caused it?”
“I loved a woman,” he said flatly. Jaw tight, he looked away, staring out the window. It was leaded glass, small-paned and looked very old. The last bit of reddish sun was dying to the far west.
“I find the topic boring.” He looked at me. “How about we agree to forget about the past—both of us?”
It was the best plan I’d heard all day. “Deal.”
“Jason Black sounds like an idiot in any case,” he muttered.
The memory of Jason’s warm eyes, his lazy smile, his sweet, slow Texas drawl—Darlin’, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes—made pain slice through me like a blade. Folding my arms tightly over my heart, I glared at my new employer. “Don’t.”
“So loyal,” he sighed. “Even after he slept with your stepsister. Such devotion.” Deliberately, he rested his eyes on his sheepdog, then turned back to me suggestively. I scowled.
“How do I know you won’t toss me out tomorrow, for some trumped-up reason, like all the others?”
“I’ll make you a promise.” His dark blue eyes met mine. “If you’ll make one to me.”
As our eyes locked in the firelight, my whole body flashed hot, then cold. His deep, searing blue eyes made me feel strangely shivery. My gaze fell unwillingly to his mouth. His lips were sensual and wicked, even cruel.
And just the fact that I noticed his lips was a very bad sign. Mrs. Warreldy-Gribbley definitely would not approve.
Stay professional, she’d ordered in Chapter Six. Keep your heart distant when you’re physically close. Especially if your employer is handsome and young. Keep your touch impersonal and your voice cold. See him as a patient, as a collection of sinew and bone and spine, not as a man.
Looking up, I said in a voice icy enough to flay the skin of a normal man, “You’re not flirting with me, are you, Mr. St. Cyr?”
“Call me Edward.” His eyes gleamed. “And no. I wasn’t flirting with you, Diana.” His husky voice made my name sound like music. I tried not to watch the flick of his tongue on his sensual lips with each syllable. “What I want from you is far more important than sex.”
It had been an insane thing to worry about