Not that Liam had ever seen her that way. It might have been completely illogical but he’d got to know her while she tutored him and he’d liked her. Not enough to ever consider dating her. His image had meant too much to him back then, especially with his father breathing down his neck about his university placement letters. The last thing he’d needed was to have his father accuse him of choosing an unsuitable girl to date. And his friends would have laughed; which Liam knew he would not have had the maturity to handle back then.
Looking back, he’d been going through a bit of an identity crisis thanks to his old man’s rock-solid expectation that he would follow him and his grandfather into the law. His grandfather had started the firm way back when and neither man had stopped waxing lyrical about whether Hunter and Hunter would soon become Hunter, Hunter and Hunter or Hunter and Sons.
Liam had wanted to act but the one time he’d broached the idea with his father he’d laughed and told him that only gays and girls went into the arts. With the school year drawing to a close and his university acceptance letter laying heavily on his mind he’d been looking for a distraction and his juvenile behaviour had wound up hurting the only person who seemed to value him for who he really was and not who he would one day become. The only person he had ever shared his acting dreams with other than his father and who hadn’t laughed in his face.
And here she was. In the flesh. In the very cool and reserved flesh. Not that he could blame her. He owed her one hell of an apology.
But what was with the name change? Had she really changed it or was Candy Lane a type of pseudonym? He knew plenty of actors who had distorted their name to make it sound better.
Or worse, was she married and Candy was a cute moniker her husband called her? He cast a quick glance at her left hand but she was gripping her iPad in such a way that he couldn’t see her ring finger. But he could see her long legs and he’d always wondered if they had been as shapely as her delicate ankles had suggested.
Yes, the answer to that question was a resounding yes, and a sudden picture of how those slender legs would look wrapped tightly around his hips as he thrust deep inside her shot into his head.
Liam shifted in his seat as a raft of raw lust caught him unawares and brought him up short. Where the hell had that come from? Okay, he might have thought she was a nice girl once, and perhaps he still remembered the heat behind their first kiss, but that was a whole solar system away from this kind of thinking. He didn’t want to have sex with Chloe Tyler, he wanted to apologise and atone for his unintentional, but cruel, actions in the past. He wanted to show her that he had grown up since then and that seeing the pain on her lovely face had been the start of that process.
The start of him working out who he really was so that when the YouTube video his friends had secretly put together had gone viral and casting agents had called in the thousands he’d been able to take advantage of his new, unexpected, notoriety and start the career he’d always wanted. That he’d inadvertently stood on Chloe Tyler to get it made him feel like an A grade asshole. Had she forgotten all about the teenage prank? Of did she still hate him as much as she had that night?
A five-minute interview with his PA wandering about was hardly the time for him to ease his guilty conscience and find out. But at least her turning up like this meant that he no longer had to try and find her while he was in town and he knew he couldn’t let her leave without arranging a time to catch up.
‘Take a seat,’ he offered amiably, indicating the vacant chair opposite his.
***
Liam’s delicious voice rumbled out of him rich and dark and sent shivers all over her… and that was the very last thought Chloe was going to have about him that didn’t include the words ‘rat’ or ‘loser’.
Stiffening her spine, she marched towards the empty seat opposite his and positioned her iPad on her lap, tapping at it to bring her pre-prepared questions up on the screen.
The word on the street was that Liam and Bethany Lord had been more than just co-stars on set. Chloe didn’t care about that. She liked to think of herself as more a hard-hitting journalist than a sensation seeker and would never stoop to report on such tawdry topic material. And Liam could sleep with half the women in Hollywood and she didn’t care a fig.
So, he hadn’t recognised her. So what? Deep down she was glad he hadn’t. Now she could relax. Treat him like an anonymous interview subject. Treat him just like any other stranger she had come across in her work. Treat him as if he meant nothing more to her than a piece of lint she might pluck off her jacket, and God help her if she had a knife handy she’d stick it right through him.
‘So, Mr Hunter,’ she began with supercilious sweetness. ‘Congratulations on the movie. It was quite a story.’
Liam’s grin was slow and kicked up the edges of his lips and Chloe ignored it completely. ‘I’m not sure from that comment if you liked the film or not, Ms… Lane, was it?’
Not wanting to outright lie, Chloe moistened her lips and pushed on. ‘You’ve never done a period piece before. Is this ah, something we will see more of in the future?’
Liam shrugged. ‘If I’m offered them and the scripts are good.’
‘Right.’ She stared hard at her iPad and read the next lame question. ‘Did you enjoy making this film?’
‘I did.’
‘What made you choose it?’ And do you really not recognise me as the girl you kissed so sweetly at senior prom and then humiliated so spectacularly afterwards?
He shrugged easily. ‘The script. The director. The physicality of the movie.’
No, he did not and even though she told herself not to get angry her blood sang with it.
‘Right,’ she said again, not caring a wit about his answers. ‘And the physicality of the film is important, is it?’
He tilted his head a little at her asinine question and looked like he was about to say something before changing his mind. ‘Sometimes. I’m a physical guy, I guess. But I would say that’s less important than the storyline.’
‘Oh yes, the storyline.’ She sniffed. ‘Hardly ground-breaking stuff though was it? I mean, don’t you think it reinforces the old male/female paradigms?’
Chloe was hoping to score a point with that one but he gave her another trademark smile. ‘Depends which paradigm you’re talking about?’
Oh, he knew which one, damn him, and he looked like he was enjoying her grilling rather than being annoyed by it. ‘Well you rescue the heroine from the bad guys and save the day. Tell me, was it a stretch to play the hero?’ Considering it’s not part of your genetic makeup?
Chloe heard a muffled cough from Miss LA behind her and wondered for a horrible moment if she had said that last bit out loud. It was one thing to want to insult him and quite another to do it while she was on the clock.
‘I don’t think there’s any character that isn’t without his faults. Even a hero, at times.’ His eyes seemed to bore into hers and then he smiled. ‘And for a while in the film Bethany’s character thought I was the bad guy and she kicked my butt. Something you might have enjoyed.’
Not half as much as she would have if it had been real. ‘True, but then you once again ended up on top.’
His smile was lethally charismatic and Chloe couldn’t have looked away to save herself. ‘I don’t think she was too unhappy about that.’
What female would be?
‘In real life or in the movie?’ Chloe could have groaned as the crass question left her lips. So much for modelling herself on Veronica Guerin. But now that it was out there she had little choice but to lift her chin and wear it.
She noticed his thick, dark lashes come down over his mesmerising green eyes and thought that, if anything,