Mr. Loverman

‘When we arrived, I felt certain that it wouldn’t be long before there was going to be a real mutiny,’ she continued. ‘But now that the writers have decided to lay off the booze, and everyone else has calmed down, the only problem you haven’t yet solved seems to be the question of extra finance to complete the film.’

‘I may be able to sort out some simple problems but I’m afraid I can’t perform miracles!’ he laughed, before ordering more drinks from a passing waiter.

Continuing to discuss various aspects of the troubled production, which, in her view at least, was destined to be a total flop at the box office, she was surprised when he suddenly announced that it was time they both had a break.

‘A break...?’ She frowned at him in puzzlement.

He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Frankly, there’s not much more we can do here—although Craig has asked me to let you stay on for another week, just in case any further problems should arise. Hey, relax!’ he added with a grin as she groaned and pulled a face. ‘I know looking after Craig isn’t easy—but it’s hardly a fate worse than death!’

‘Maybe not, but it comes pretty close,’ Laura grumbled, dreading having to cope with the neurotic, highly strung film star, who genuinely believed that he was totally irresistible to women. ‘Do I really have to stay on here?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid you do,’ Jack told her firmly, explaining that he was returning to London after the weekend for an important meeting. However, with a few days in hand, he’d decided, he went on to tell her, to accept an invitation from the producer of the film, who’d arranged a trip to an archipelago of tiny atolls in the Pacific Ocean, only ninety minutes away by air from Tahiti.

‘Quite frankly, Laura,’ he added, ‘for the past week we’ve been forced to listen to enough moaning and whining to last a lifetime! So it will do us both good to get away for a few days.’

‘You mean...the invitation includes me as well?’

‘Well, I was hardly planning to leave you behind,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘Unless, of course, you simply hate the idea of sitting beneath shady palm trees, gazing out over a blue lagoon—and savouring the total peace and quiet?’

‘It sounds like heaven,’ she agreed with a wistful sigh. ‘But—’

‘Good, that’s settled,’ he said firmly as he rose to his feet. ‘I’m going to be tied up with business calls for the rest of this evening, but I’ve arranged for us to be collected from the hotel first thing tomorrow morning. By the way, don’t forget to pack your bikini,’ he added, gently brushing her cheek with his finger before turning to stride away.

Left alone on the terrace, Laura’s mind was filled by a mass of confusing emotions as she gazed blindly out over the ocean, now barely visible in the gathering darkness. Back in London, frantically busy during working hours with the phone going non-stop, she normally had no trouble in stifling her feelings for Jack. But she wasn’t at all sure that this weekend break was a good idea. Especially when merely the soft, warm touch of Jack’s hand on her face could leave her feeling almost sick with hunger and desire.

It had, of course, been nothing more than a careless, friendly gesture. But there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about the almost overwhelming, deep longing to find herself clasped within his strong embrace.

Desperately trying to pull herself together, Laura realised that she was undoubtedly guilty of overdrama-tising the situation. After all, she and Jack weren’t likely to be alone on this trip. Sam, the producer, was a jovial and gregarious man who was almost bound to have asked several other actors and staff to join him. So allowing herself to get into a state about spending a weekend in Jack’s company wasn’t just silly—it was totally pathetic!

However, despite sternly lecturing herself on the folly of indulging in hopelessly romantic dreams, she slept badly that night. And when she descended to the hotel lobby the next morning it was to discover that her strong sense of apprehension and foreboding had been well founded, after all.

‘The balloon has just gone up,’ Jack announced as he led her towards a waiting taxi, explaining that the financial backers of the film had apparently run out of patience and were threatening to withdraw funding. With Sam and his assistants having to catch the first plane back to New York, in a desperate attempt to save the production, it now seemed that only Jack and Laura would be free to enjoy the weekend.

‘But...but surely we can’t just disappear like this?’ she muttered nervously. ‘Most of the cast will be out of their minds with worry, and—’

‘Nonsense! There’s absolutely nothing we can do about the situation,’ Jack said as their taxi sped through the crowded, noisy streets of Papeete towards the airport. ‘And I certainly don’t intend to spend the next few days wet-nursing a bunch of grouchy, bad-tempered people—however sorry I might feel for them,’ he added firmly, refusing to listen when she pointed out that their client, Craig Jordan, wouldn’t be at all happy with their departure from the unhappy scene.

‘Craig is perfectly capable of looking after himself for a few days,’ her employer retorted dismissively. ‘And, since fate has clearly taken a hand in this affair, what I now have in mind certainly doesn’t include a third party!’ He paused for a moment before adding quietly, ‘However, if you really don’t feel like coming on this trip, Laura, then you only have to say so.’

There was no mistaking the glint in his grey eyes, the warm smile accompanying his words causing her to feel unexpectedly breathless, her heart pounding with a crazy mixture of soaring, wild excitement and nervous apprehension. Did ‘what I have in mind’ mean what she thought it did? Because, if so, she was going to have to take a very quick decision. Once she got on that plane with Jack, there would be no going back. Whatever the outcome, their relationship was never going to be the same again.

On the other hand, he was at least playing fair and giving her the chance to call the whole thing off. So, the safe, sensible decision would be to firmly and politely decline to accompany him on the trip—right? Unfortunately, it was proving difficult, if not downright impossible, to think clearly at the moment. It suddenly seemed as if he was sitting far too close, her mind and concentration distracted by the long, mahogany-brown legs almost touching her own, her nostrils filled with the strangely intoxicating, heady tang of his cologne.

Deciding to be sensible, Laura took a deep breath, fully intending to say that she’d prefer to remain in Tahiti. She was, therefore, considerably astounded to find herself agreeing that, yes...maybe a short break would be a good idea after all.

Totally unable to explain to herself, let alone to anyone else, why she should have agreed to such an emotionally insane invitation, it seemed to Laura as if she spent the rest of the day in a completely mindless daze.

Their hotel, on a tiny atoll fringed by totally deserted white sandy beaches and overlooking the crystal-clear waters of a dark blue lagoon, was far more breathtakingly beautiful than she could have ever imagined. However, she was aware only of the tall, dark man who had dominated her dreams for so long. Drowning helplessly in the gleaming depths of his slate-grey eyes as they dined alone on the candlelit terrace of the hotel, of which they appeared to be the only guests, she allowed herself to be led, like a sleepwalker, to the door of his room overlooking the lagoon.

‘It’s not too late to change your mind, Laura, if you think this isn’t a good idea,’ he said softly.

She gave a bemused shake of her head. ‘No, I...er...I think I know what I’m doing...’ she murmured, totally caught up in the magic of the moment.

‘I’m glad someone has their feet on the ground, because I certainly haven’t,’ he muttered thickly under his breath, drawing her into his room and kicking the door closed behind them. ‘God knows, I’ve tried to be sensible—but I simply can’t seem to help myself.’

‘I don’t understand...’ she whispered helplessly as he drew her close to his tall, rangy figure.

‘Surely you must have guessed that I’ve been absolutely crazy about you for the past year?’ The thick, husky tone of his low voice seemed to echo in her ears. ‘I’ll never know how I’ve managed to keep my hands off you for so long...’ he breathed as his arms closed tightly about her slim frame, his mouth possessing her lips in a kiss of passionate intensity.

With her mind and body seized by a raging tide of sexual excitement and desire, she ardently welcomed the fierce, determined possession by his lips and body. Beside the clamouring demand of their mutual desire, all sense of caution or moral precepts seemed totally unimportant and unreal.

Throughout that long night, it seemed to Laura as if she’d become completely lost to all sense of time and place. She was only aware of a compulsive need to respond to the soft, long, sweeping caress of his fingers, purring and glowing with rapture as she unashamedly offered her nude body to his eyes and hands, her own senses delighting in the firm texture of his flesh and the hard muscles of the arms fiercely pulling her towards him.

Beneath the mastery of his touch, it seemed as though she had become a wanton creature, her nostrils savouring his musky, masculine scent, her lips tasting the salty fragrance of his skin, until overwhelming desire yet again claimed them both, a frenzied need not merely to be possessed, but to be totally consumed and fulfilled, the intensity of their lovemaking causing her to cry out loud with joy and overwhelming happiness.

Now, as she looked back on those two, brief days which they’d spent together, scarcely leaving the small cottage at their hotel—other than to wander hand in hand into the calm blue waters of the lagoon, or stroll along the fine, powdery white sand of deserted beaches—Laura found herself wondering if, in reality, it had all been a dream. With her being so madly in love with Jack, maybe her over-fertile imagination really had, somehow, conjured up that blissful, halcyon time of enchantment and rapture.

Because it was the only explanation which appeared to make any sense of what had happened less than twenty-four hours after her return to London. Even now, over three weeks later, she could still almost feel her skin crawling with the humiliation of Jack’s cool, ruthless rejection—a crushing blow from which she was finding it well-nigh impossible to recover.

Slipping on a bathrobe and winding a towel about her damp hair, she wandered disconsolately out of the bathroom, deciding to drown her sorrows in a cool drink. But, just as she was making her way to the kitchen, she heard a ring on the doorbell.

Grumbling under her breath at the repeated, loud buzz of the bell, Laura tightened the belt of her towelling gown and went to open the door.

‘What...what on earth are you doing here?’ she gasped, suddenly feeling quite sick as she gazed through the few inches of open door, which still had its chain firmly in place.

‘To see you, of course,’ Jack retorted, his lips tightening as the pale-faced girl continued to stare at him with shocked, glazed eyes. ‘Come on, Laura,’ he added with ill-concealed impatience. ‘Undo the chain and let me in.’

After a moment’s hesitation, she gave a helpless shrug and did as he asked, stepping back in silence and allowing him to walk past her into the apartment.

‘I still can’t think what you’re doing here,’ she muttered, finding her voice at last as she reluctantly followed him into the sitting room. ‘In fact, you’re just about the last person I expected to see.’

‘I’ve been in the United States for the past few weeks. In fact, I’ve come here straight from the airport,’ he said, brushing a tired hand through his thick, dark hair. ‘As I suspected when we were in Tahiti, it now looks as if the film’s financial problems have just about scuppered Mutiny on the Bounty.’

‘So, what else is new?’ she retorted caustically. ‘Anyone with half an eye could see that the film was going to be a Grade A flop.’

He shrugged. ‘Flop or not, I had to make sure that the financial backers honoured Craig’s contract. However, the time I spent in America wasn’t entirely wasted, because I’ve now decided to open an office in New York.’

‘Yes, well, I’m sure that’s all very interesting,’ she snapped, nervously tightening the belt of her robe and deeply resenting the way his tall figure, formally elegant in a dark suit, seemed to dominate even the large sitting room.

‘However, just in case you’ve forgotten,’ she continued grimly, ‘you sacked me some three weeks ago. So your current business plans have absolutely nothing to do with me. Right?’

‘Wrong,’ he retorted curtly, before giving an impatient sigh at the cold, stony expression on her face. ‘Relax—I haven’t come here to quarrel with you, Laura. So why don’t you come down off your high horse and give me a cup of coffee?’

‘A cup of coffee?’ she echoed blankly, completely astounded by the sheer nerve of the awful man. Did he really imagine that he could just casually swan back into her life, as if nothing had happened?

‘I’m feeling so jet-lagged that either coffee, tea or a stiff drink would be equally welcome,’ he explained with a weary shrug of his broad shoulders.

‘Quite frankly, Jack,’ she retorted grimly, ‘the only thing I feel like giving you is a very hard thump on the nose!’