work.
‘Carly…’
‘Yes?’
Wordlessly, Sophie hugged her friend. How could it be that one secret could erode almost everything between them? She missed being able to talk to Carly about everything, but even her closest friends were an unknown quantity these days. And Sophie knew that if she said anything, Carly would only tell her what she didn’t want to hear, and insist she go for a check-up with a doctor.
‘What’s this for?’ Carly was clinging to her tightly.
‘Nothing. Does it have to be for something?’ Sophie gave a final squeeze of her arms around Carly’s shoulders and then let go. ‘Come on. Let’s eat.’
After the noise and chatter of the bus back to the hotel, Drew savoured the quiet of his hotel room for ten minutes, then opened his laptop and typed Sophie’s name into the search engine. Maybe if he could watch a couple of episodes of MacAdam online, he’d get more of a feel for how Sophie had been before the accident. He wasn’t convinced about that—after all she was an actress, playing a part—but he’d be damned if he’d admit to himself that he just wanted to see more of her.
It seemed that the internet knew all about Sophie. Her own website had pictures, a biography and a list of her acting roles, and Drew studied them carefully. Drama school and then some theatre work. She’d done Shakespeare, had small parts in a couple of blindingly awful films, and received critical acclaim for her last three films and for MacAdam. If it was even half-true, Sophie Warner wasn’t all tantrums and bad behaviour.
The bad behaviour was there as well, though. When Drew clicked again, there were reports of reckless driving, an exposé by an ex-boyfriend, and a video clip of her slurring her words on a talk show. Drew watched it carefully, seeing the same look of glassy-eyed confusion on Sophie’s face that he’d noticed this morning.
Drew shook his head. It could be anything. The papers interpreted it as drink or drugs, and Carly thought it was a brain injury. Either of them could be correct, and deciding which was true on the evidence he had so far was impossible.
His finger hovered over a link that mentioned scandalous photographs, then he decided that gossip and rumour weren’t going to get him any further forward. He set about streaming the first episode of MacAdam, and within ten minutes of the opening credits he was well and truly hooked.
DREW HAD SPENT the whole of the previous evening with Sophie. He’d sat down to watch one episode of MacAdam and ended up watching four, back to back. He’d told himself it was an interesting show, with a great plot, but, in fact, it was Sophie he’d been unable to take his eyes off, and Sophie who’d inhabited his dreams, until it had been time to peel himself out of bed for another early start. This morning, it was in the large conference room at the hotel, which had been temporarily set aside as a rehearsal area.
Sophie looked different again. Different from the tough cop, with personal problems and a heart of gold that he’d watched last night. Different from the neatly dressed doctor he’d met yesterday.
Today she was the actress, dressed in an oversized sweatshirt, which fell by design from one shoulder, exposing the curve of her neck and the narrow strap of her top underneath. Her blonde hair was tied up in a messy bundle at the back of her head, a few wisps framing her face.
And she was alone. Sitting in one of the chairs that had been cleared against the wall to make some space in the centre of the room, yawning as she leafed through the pages of a small, leather-bound notebook.
The swing doors slapped closed behind Drew and she looked up. Even Sophie’s frown was like a ray of sunshine, waking him instantly from the drowsy hangover of too little sleep.
‘Hi.’ She didn’t say his name, and Drew wondered briefly whether she’d forgotten it again. After last night, when he’d thought he’d got to know her so well, it was a humbling experience.
‘Morning. Are you ready to start?’
She shrugged, as if being in attendance was about all he could reasonably expect of her. ‘I already know CPR.’ She slipped the notebook into a large designer handbag, which lay on the seat next to her. He’d give a lot to know what that notebook contained.
He called her bluff, walking towards the dummy, which someone had arranged in a seated position, legs crossed, on one of the nearby chairs. ‘The script says that you’re resuscitating someone who’s been knocked down in the street by a truck.’
Drew arranged the dummy on the floor, in a pose that vaguely resembled the kind of position a road-accident victim might end up in. Sophie looked at it with the bored air of a film star who had better things to do at seven o’clock in the morning.
‘You’re standing on the pavement, right?’
She nodded and he pointed to a spot a couple of feet away from the dummy. ‘So that would be about here.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ When she stood, she seemed even smaller than she had yesterday, more fragile. Drew thought he saw a flash of uncertain fear in her eyes.
He needed to show her that he presented no threat. ‘Okay. I’ll give the signal and you just do what comes naturally. We’ll work from there.’ He gave her his most reassuring smile.
‘All right.’ She nodded quietly, and Drew took a couple of steps back, giving her some room. Then he clapped his hands to indicate the sickening thud of metal meeting flesh.
She jumped, whirling round in the direction of the dummy, for all the world as if she’d just heard the screeching of brakes and the rending of tyres. Then she moved. Confident, assured, with the professional focus that he’d seen so many times on the faces of the people he’d worked with.
Kneeling by the dummy, she was examining it, counterfeiting perfectly the checks and precautions that a real doctor would take in this situation. Bending over the dummy’s head, she tapped its face with two fingers.
‘Unresponsive… Not breathing…’ She muttered the words to herself, almost as if he’d walked out of the room and she was alone.
‘Great. That’s good.’ As Drew knelt down beside her, her scent brushed against his senses. Sophie smelled like every desire he’d ever experienced.
She tipped her face up towards him and suddenly he was falling, unable to catch his breath. One of her eyes was the same gorgeous green he’d seen yesterday. The other was light brown, shot through with gold. The effect was stunning, the one irregularity in an otherwise perfect face. He was bewitched.
The doctor was staring at her, and this wasn’t his suspicious, searching stare. If she had to put a name on it, she would call it…
No. She was mistaken, it was far too early in the morning for him to make a pass at her. And, in any case, he clearly disapproved of her, and she didn’t like him all that much. Whatever had put that possibility into her head?
‘Have I got breakfast all over my face?’ She brushed one of her cheeks, wondering whether she’d had time for breakfast today.
‘No.
