Tempted By The Rock Star. Кейт Хьюит
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Название: Tempted By The Rock Star
Автор: Кейт Хьюит
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
Серия: Mills & Boon M&B
isbn: 9781474097215
isbn:
‘Why didn’t you tell me earlier? In the kitchen, when I asked?’
‘You wouldn’t have believed me—’
‘I said I would—’
‘Oh, yes, you said.’ Her eyes flashed malice. ‘Well, maybe you’re not such a Boy Scout after all, because I don’t think you were telling the truth.’
‘It was,’ Luke said, an edge creeping into his voice, ‘a little hard to believe you were passed out just from lack of food. If I’d known you had a condition—’
‘And maybe I don’t feel like explaining myself every time something looks a little suspicious,’ she snapped. ‘If you were passed out, would someone assume you’d done drugs? Were a junkie?’
‘No, of course not. But I’m not—’
She leaned forward, eyes glittering. ‘You’re not what?’
Luke stared at her, his mind still spinning. ‘I’m not you,’ he said at last. ‘You’re Aurelie.’ The moment he said it, he knew it had been completely the wrong thing to say. To think.
She turned away from him, her jaw set. ‘I am, aren’t I,’ she said quietly.
Luke dropped his head in his hands. ‘I only meant you’ve been known to … to …’
‘I know what I’ve been known to do.’ Her eyes flashed, her chin trembled. He could always tell the truth of her from that chin. She was scared. And sad. Hell, so was he. How had they got here?
He shook his head, weary and heartsick, but also angry. ‘What happened back there on the bed, Aurelie? Why did you look like …’ He could barely say it. ‘Like you were being tortured? Or attacked? Were you trying to prove some point?’ Had she set him up, shown him to be exactly what she’d accused, just another man determined to get her into bed? ‘Well, I guess you made it,’ he said heavily when she didn’t answer. ‘Congratulations.’
Still she said nothing, just stared him down, and in that silence Luke wondered if things could have turned out any worse.
‘Do you still want me to go?’ she finally asked. ‘To Asia?’
He let out a short, disbelieving laugh. ‘Do you still want to go? After this?’
She raised her eyebrows, her expression so very cold. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’
He felt a rush of anger, cleaner than shame. She’d played him. Admittedly, he’d let himself be played. He’d been willing to be seduced, had turned it to his advantage. But the fact remained that she’d used him, coldly and deliberately, to prove some twisted, paranoid point. He hadn’t had a sexual agenda until she’d sat in his lap.
Liar.
‘Yes, you can go to Asia,’ he told her wearily. Something good would come out of this unholy affair. ‘I’ll have my PA email you the details. You need to be in Manila on the twenty-fourth.’ With that he stood up and he saw, with some gratification, that her eyes had widened.
‘You’re going?’
‘I don’t want to stay and, frankly, I don’t think you want me to, either. Like I said, you made your point.’
She stared at him, still swallowed up by her bathrobe, her eyes wide and stormy. Luke felt the shame slither inside him again. ‘I didn’t come here intending to sleep with you,’ he said. ‘I swear to God I didn’t.’
She said nothing and with a shake of his head he left the room.
AURELIE GAZED AT her reflection for the fifth time in the hall mirror of the deluxe suite Luke had booked for her in the Mandarin Oriental in Manila’s business district. She’d arrived a few hours ago and was meeting Luke in the bar in ten minutes.
And she was sick and dizzy with nerves.
She let out a deep breath and checked her reflection again. She wore just basic make-up, mostly to disguise the violet circles under her eyes since she hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since Luke had walked out of her bedroom ten days ago.
She closed her eyes briefly, the memories making her even dizzier. She couldn’t think about Luke without reliving that awful encounter. The condemnation and disgust in his eyes. The confusion. And her own impossible behaviour.
She hadn’t brought him to her bed to set him up, the way Luke had so obviously thought. She’d been acting out of need and maybe even desire—at least at first. When she’d touched him she’d felt something unfurl inside her, something that had been desperately seeking light. But then it had all gone wrong, as it always did. The moment she was stretched out on that bed she’d gone numb. He’d become just a man who wanted something from her, and he’d get it, no matter what. She’d give it to him, because that was what she did.
Except he hadn’t taken it, which made him different from every other man she’d known. Why did that thought scare her so much?
He obviously didn’t think she was different. She could still see the look of disgust twisting Luke’s features, the condemnation in his eyes when he’d opened the door to the bathroom. He thought she’d been doing drugs. And then those damning words, words she felt were engraved on her heart, tattooed on her forehead. Impossible to escape.
You’re Aurelie.
For a little while she’d thought he believed she wasn’t but now she knew the truth. He might want her to be different on stage, but he didn’t think she could really change as a person.
Aurelie with a folk ballad and guitar was just another act to Luke Bryant, a successful one that would help with his stupid store openings.
And as long as she remembered that, she’d be fine. No more longing to reach or be reached. To know or be known. No more giving in to that fragile need, that fledgling desire.
This was business, strictly business, a chance for her to validate her career if not her very self. And that was fine. She’d make sure it was.
Aurelie straightened, briskly checked her reflection for the sixth time. She looked a little pale, a bit drawn, but overall okay. The lime-green shift dress struck, she hoped, the right note between fun and professional. With a deep breath, she left her suite and went downstairs to meet Luke.
The tropical heat of the Philippines had hit her the moment she’d stepped off the plane, and she felt it drape over her once more as she stepped outside like a hot, wet blanket. Luke had texted her to say he’d meet her in the patio bar and she walked through the velvety darkness looking for him, the palm trees rustling in a sultry breeze, the sounds of a vibrant and never-sleeping city carrying on the humid air.
She found him sitting on a stool by the bar, and everything inside her seemed to lurch СКАЧАТЬ