just that I—”
“Look, this idea that you…care about me. It’s absurd. You hired me to carry a gun and use it if Kenny Boggs got too close, and that’s what I did. It was a job, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” She squared her shoulders. “Are you sure about that?”
“Absolutely.”
For the first time, she felt a touch of anger rising. She knew he hadn’t much respected the well-oiled, waxed, tanned and highlighted Lara Lynmore. He had despised her sweet-and-sexy, mega-expensive designer clothes that lured fans into hungry obsession. He’d stood somberly by through the long hours of her late-night parties, refusing to be moved even when she twirled over, tipsy enough to tug his hand and beg for a dance. And though he hadn’t said a word as he mutely handed her an aspirin the next morning and turned her over to her personal trainer whose job it was to ensure that the parties didn’t wreck her all-important looks, she knew what he was thinking.
He was thinking that Lara Lynmore was a self-absorbed, superficial piece of eye candy.
No, he hadn’t respected her. Maybe he hadn’t even really liked her.
But he had wanted her. It was dishonest, and pointless, to try to deny that now. Within days of his arrival, every time they were in the same room, the air had sizzled. Within weeks, they had been in each other’s arms.
“What about the night of the art gallery opening? When we got home, when you kissed me… If Darryl hadn’t called—”
“That night was a mistake,” he said flatly. “But even so, it was just sex.”
“Just sex? I don’t feel like that very often, Bryce. Can you honestly say you do?”
He shrugged. “Often enough to recognize it for what it is.”
“And that is?”
“An intense but temporary hormonal flare-up. Quite pleasant, as long as you don’t read anything more serious into it.”
She felt her cheeks grow hot. Part of her simply couldn’t believe he’d said that. Were they talking about the same night? Her veins buzzed a little whenever she remembered it, even now.
But she had no intention of sitting here begging him to admit that their interlude had been something magical. Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe it had only seemed extraordinary to her because she had so little to compare it to.
“All right,” she said, struggling to keep her voice from sounding as hot as her face. “If you say it meant nothing, I believe you. Even so, I would have thought that you might, at the very least, respect my efforts to remake my life. But if you don’t, that’s not going to stop me, because this isn’t, in the end, really about you—or even us. It’s about me.”
“Lara—”
“Please. Hear me out. I didn’t come here to pester you, and I don’t intend to. Heyday is small, but surely we can avoid each other if that’s what you’d prefer.”
She stood up. “And now I think I’d better get home. Because, as ridiculous as it might seem to you, I have an early class in the morning.”
CHAPTER FIVE
BRYCE HAD A BAD NIGHT, thanks to the encounter with Lara, which had gotten under his skin more than he would have expected. He kept rehashing their conversation, wondering how on earth she expected him to believe a word of it. Movie star turned music therapist? Trading the red carpet for troubled children and chemo-therapy patients? Right. She’d tire of this little game in…he’d give her about another month.
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