She felt all at once dizzy, bemused, confused, and a torrent of heat was racing upwards from her belly.
His voice was husky, had a quality that caught her on the raw. ‘Actually, you’re quite wrong.’
Her mouth opened. She frowned slightly. She couldn’t see his eyes. And then he was gone—had stepped back and away as if the last few seconds hadn’t even happened. Sorcha had to grab the door for support. She felt adrift. What had he just said? That he would want to touch her? Or that he knew the others would think that he wanted to have his wicked way with her? She couldn’t think straight.
She heard a door slam, and a cool voice came from the interior of the Jeep. ‘Well? Are you going to stand there admiring the view all day?’
Romain strode away from the door he’d just shut, behind which lay the living, breathing embodiment of his sleepless nights for the past week. Sorcha Murphy.
He had to clench his hands into fists. Seeing her emerge from the tiny helicopter less than half an hour before, he’d felt the upsurge of a desire so hot, so immediate, that he had reeled with the force of it. Her obvious reluctance to share his lodgings, albeit with others, had rankled in a way that he really didn’t care for. And when he’d cupped her jaw with his hand…She had no idea how close he’d come to hauling her to him and ravaging that soft mouth. Crushing her to him.
He didn’t act on basic instincts like that. In fact, although he’d desired plenty of women, not one of them had come close to igniting such forcible desire. He’d had no intention of making his needs so obvious to her, and yet he had. He hadn’t ever lost control like that.
A dark, wispy memory struggled up through the threads of his consciousness. At least not since…then. And that was so long ago. Would he never be free of that? And why was he allowing Sorcha Murphy to even evoke that memory?
Sorcha threw off the knitted shawl she’d been wearing, feeling hot and bothered, and paced the beautifully furnished bedroom with pent-up energy. She’d barely noticed the understated luxury of the old converted farmhouse. The amazing view of green fields and the huge expanse of ocean in the distance went over her head. Even the way the wild garden tapered down to a beach at the back of the house.
She’d hardly exchanged two words with Romain in the Jeep. The tension had been heavy and pulsating between them. She was still going over his words obsessively, and yet nothing in his behaviour since he’d cupped her jaw had led her to think for a second that he did desire her. It was as if a switch had been flicked. Once he’d shown her to her bedroom he’d curtly informed her to come back downstairs in an hour, so she could meet the others. They were to give her a briefing on the schedule for the shoot, go through the storyboards.
She sank back onto the bed. Her heart was racing. Two weeks—two weeks of suffering under his condemning looks. Could she do it?
Lisa’s face flashed into her head. And also the outreach centre. In the last week, working intensively with the board at the centre, she’d realised that the money she’d earn from this job could go straight into that and would more than cover the first few months’ overheads. It would mean that the centre would have absolutely every possible chance to succeed and flourish…especially as she’d been planning on her involvement being pro bono.
She had no choice. She was here now. For better or worse. And she would just have to keep in mind all the people who would benefit from this when things got rough.
‘It’s a love story…the images will run together almost like a short film.’
Sorcha choked slightly, her attention suddenly and spectacularly brought back into the huge dining room where she sat with Simon, the film cameraman, Dominic, the photographer, and Romain, who sat across the table, his huge taut body lounging against a high-backed antique chair.
The moment she’d walked into the room some minutes before, all her recent rationalising had fled out of the window. Her entire focus had been taken by him—again. She’d noticed in a flash that he’d just had a shower. The clean crisp scent had hit her so strongly that she’d imagined everyone must be able to smell it. His hair was still damp, furrowed from where he’d obviously run fingers through it. And yet when she’d looked at him he’d been practically glacial, those grey eyes as cold as the nearby ocean.
She caught herself and modulated her tone. ‘I’m sorry, Simon, can you say that again?’
The cameraman was a nice guy. From London. Good looking, a little cocky, dressed in a very trendily casual way. But he didn’t come close to the class that Romain exuded so effortlessly. And she hated that she’d noticed that.
‘As Simon said, the stills will run as one campaign and the film will be shown in a series of thirty-second commercials, the sequence building up the story.’
Reluctantly she looked to Romain, who had spoken. So far the photographer hadn’t said anything. But Sorcha knew him well from years ago. He’d been on the periphery of the group she’d hung out with for that brief, yet catastrophic time, and although he hadn’t been directly involved she hadn’t mistaken the knowing, mocking glance in his eyes. She knew his type, and usually steered well clear. It seemed, however, as if she wouldn’t be able to get too far away this time.
She sighed. The weeks ahead were becoming more challenging than she could ever have imagined.
She deliberately focused her attention on Simon, the least threatening of the men in the room at that moment. ‘I’m sorry, would you mind explaining a little more?’
He smiled with an infectious grin, which she welcomed as an antidote to the tension she felt. She struggled to concentrate.
‘We follow you as you’re led on a romantic trail, of sorts, around the world. It’ll be a sumptuous, truly global love story. In each place the relationship goes to another level. We see you meet, fall in love, even get married, and it’s all going to be shot with a very moody, dreamlike feel. The last shot will show you and your lover with a family.’
Sorcha’s head spun. She couldn’t look at Romain. For some reason she felt ridiculously exposed—almost as though someone had gone into her deepest fantasies and converted them into a script. And since when had she ever seen herself with a happy family? After the devastation of lies and truths that had followed her father’s death, she’d had a cynical and somewhat jaded view of so-called happy families, distrusting anyone who professed to be part of one. As she and her brother could attest, their realities had been anything but happy.
After a few more minutes going over what they hoped to achieve at this location, Sorcha got up to leave, relieved when it didn’t look as though Romain was going to follow her. He did, however, remind her that dinner would be held in that dining room for all the crew at eight sharp that evening.
She was breathing a sigh of relief when she reached the door, but it didn’t last long when she realised that Dominic was right behind her. He came too close, crowding her as she went through the door, and she automatically stepped away. Everything about him was making some part of her crawl. He wasn’t a bad-looking man—in fact she knew that many would find his boyish looks a turn-on—but he left Sorcha feeling cold. He didn’t take her hint, and fell into step beside her. She cursed herself for heading outside and not upstairs, to the sanctuary of her room.
‘Nice to see you again, Sorch…it’s been years, hasn’t it? Although I’m sure you remember the good old days…Pity you couldn’t handle the pace…’
She deliberately kept her voice light, giving him the briefest of glances. ‘Yes, it has been years, Dominic…It’s nice to see you too. I’m going to go for a walk, so if you don’t mind…’
As she went to walk away, towards the front door, she felt her arm being taken in a none too gentle grip. She whirled around in shock. ‘What do you—?’
Dominic was smiling, but it wasn’t friendly. ‘I do remember the good old days.