In the Heat of the Spotlight

He felt her shock even though her expression—that cold, cynical smile—didn’t change. ‘Why?’ she finally asked. ‘You certainly didn’t seem thrilled I was singing at your New York store.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ he agreed evenly. ‘Bryant Stores is important to me and I didn’t particularly like the idea of endorsing a washed-up pop star as its mascot.’

‘Thanks for spelling it out.’

‘I’ve changed my mind.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Well, that’s a relief.’

‘The opening was well received—’

‘Oh, yes, the papers loved the irony of a store trying to reinvent itself hiring a pop star who can’t. I got that.’ Bitterness spiked her words, and Luke felt a rush of something like satisfaction. She was trying to change.

‘People still wanted to see you.’

‘The most exciting part was when I almost tripped. People want to see me fail, Bryant. That’s why they come.’ She turned away and he gazed at her thoughtfully, saw the way the sunlight gilded the sharp angles of her profile in gold.

‘I don’t want to see you fail.’

‘What?’ She turned back to him, surprise wiping the cynicism from her face. She looked young, clear-eyed, even innocent. The truth of her revealed, and it gave him purpose. Certainty.

‘I don’t want to see you fail. Give yourself a second chance, Aurelie, and listen to what I have to say.’

Aurelie stared at him, wishing she hadn’t revealed so much. People want to see me fail. Why had she told him the truth? Even if he already knew it, he hadn’t known that she knew it. And, worse, that it hurt her. Yet she was pretty sure he knew now, and she hated the thought.

She hated that he was here. She couldn’t act like Aurelie the go-to-hell pop princess here, in her grandma’s house. Her home, the only place she’d ever been able to be herself. Be safe.

She felt a tightness in her chest, like something trying to claw its way out, finally break free. ‘I want you to leave,’ she said, and thankfully her voice came out flat. Strong. ‘I’m not interested in anything you have to say, or any job you might have for me, so please, please leave.’ Her voice wasn’t strong then. It trembled and choked and she had to blink hard, which made her all the more furious.

Why did this man affect her like this? So much? In sudden, fearful moments she felt as if he saw something in her no one else did, no one else even wanted to. What a joke. There was nothing there to see. And, even if there were, he wouldn’t be the one to see it. He still probably thought she did drugs.

‘I will leave,’ Luke said steadily. ‘But please let me say something first.’

He stood in the doorway of her kitchen, so still, so sure, like a rock. A mountain. She couldn’t get him out of here if she tried. Yet bizarrely—and terrifyingly—there was something steady about his presence. Something almost reassuring. Which was ridiculous because she didn’t trust any men, and especially not ones who strode in and blustered and proclaimed, insisting that they were going to rescue you as if they were some stupid knight. All Luke Bryant needed was a white horse and a big sword.

Well, he had a big sword. She was pretty sure about that. And she knew exactly how to knock him off his trusty steed. Men were all the same. They might say they wanted to help you or protect you, but really? They just wanted you. And Luke Bryant was no different.

‘All right.’ She folded her arms, gave him a cool smile. ‘So tell me.’

‘I’m overseeing the launch of our stores in Asia, and I’d like to hire you to perform at the reopening of each.’

‘So you want me to sing Take Me Down at each one? Slink and shimmy and be outrageous?’ The thought made her feel ill. She could not do that again. She wouldn’t.

‘No,’ Luke said in that calm, deep voice Aurelie found bizarrely comforting. ‘I don’t want you to do any of those things.’

‘That’s what your Head of PR paid me to do.’

‘And this time I’m paying you to do something else.’

She felt that creeping of suspicion, and a far more frightening flicker of hope. ‘And what would that be, Mr Bossy?’

‘To sing your new song. The one I heard while I was standing on your front porch.’

CHAPTER THREE

AURELIE ALMOST SWAYED, and Luke took an instinctive step towards her. Clearly he’d surprised her with that one. Well, he’d meant to. He had to do something to shock her out of that jaded superstar persona she wore like rusty armour. And the fact that he knew it was armour, no more than a mask, made him more certain.

She was different.

But how different? And how crazy was he, to come here and suggest they do business together? She might still possess a certain popularity, but he knew he was taking a huge risk. And he wasn’t entirely sure why he was doing it.

‘Well?’ he asked, pushing away those irritating doubts. She had turned away from him, her arms wrapped around herself, her head slightly bowed. Luke had to fight the ridiculous and completely inappropriate impulse to put his arms around her. That would really go down well.

Then she lifted her head and turned to face him with an iron-hard gaze. ‘You came all the way to Vermont without hearing that song, so that wasn’t your original intention.’

‘Actually, it was. But hearing it was a nice confirmation, I’ll admit.’

She shook her head. ‘How did you even know—’

‘Jenna, my Head of PR, told me that you’d asked to sing a new composition.’ Some soppy folk ballad had been her actual words, but Luke wasn’t about to say that. And one glance at Aurelie’s stony face told him he didn’t need to.

‘Somehow I don’t think you came here on Jenna’s recommendation,’ she said flatly. ‘She hated the song.’

‘I’m not Jenna.’

‘No,’ she said, and her gaze swept over him slowly, suggestively. ‘You’re not.’ She’d dropped her voice and it slid over him, all husky sweetness. Luke felt that prickling on the back of his neck. He hated how she affected him. Hated and needed it both at the same time, because there could be no denying the pulse of longing inside him when that husky murmur of a voice slid over him like a curtain of silk and she turned from innocent to siren. Innocent Siren, that had been the name of her first album.

Except there was nothing innocent about her, never had been, he was delusional to think that way—and then Luke saw she was walking towards him, her slender hips swaying, her storm cloud eyes narrowed even as a knowing smile curved those soft pink lips that looked so incredibly kissable.

‘So why are you really here, Luke?’ she asked softly. He felt his neurons short-circuit as, just as before, she placed one slender hand on his chest. He could feel the heat of her through the two layers of his suit, the thud of his own heart in response.

‘I told you—’ he began, but that was all he could get out. He could smell her perfume, that fresh, citrusy scent. And her hair tickled his lips. He definitely should have got a handle on his libido before he came here, because this woman made him crazy—

‘I think I know why you’re here,’ she whispered, and then she stood up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips across his.

Sensation exploded inside him. He felt as if Catherine wheels had gone off behind his eyes, throughout his whole body. One almost-nothing kiss and he was firing up like a Roman candle.

‘Don’t—’ he said brusquely, pulling away just a little. Not as much as he should have.

‘Don’t what?’ she teased, her breath soft against his mouth, and then instinct and desire took over and he pulled her towards him, his mouth slanting over hers as he deepened her brush of a kiss into something primal and urgent. His arms came around her, his hands sliding down the narrow knobs of her spine to her hips where they fastened firmly as if they belonged there and he brought her against him. He claimed that little kiss, made it his.

His, not hers. Not theirs. Because in some distant part of his brain he realised she’d gone completely still, lifeless even, and all the while he was kissing her like a drowning man clinging to the last lifebelt.

With a shaming amount of effort he pushed himself away from her, let out a shuddering breath. His heart still thudded. ‘What the hell was that about?’

She gazed back at him in stony-faced challenge, seeming completely unaffected by something that felt as if it had almost felled him. ‘You tell me.’

‘Why did you kiss me?’