meant only one thing.
She was in big trouble.
* * *
‘You kiss by the book.’
Eloise sounded suitably stunned, but the way she projected the line into the crowd left Noah uncertain. Was she still acting? Or had the kiss affected her the same way it had him?
Because he definitely hadn’t been acting.
Oh, the first kiss, sure. That had just been a joke, almost. He’d slipped the short Romeo and Juliet exchange in while Eloise had been getting changed, partly because it was one of his favourites and partly because it gave him an excuse to kiss her. He’d purposefully kept that first kiss light and relaxed, giving her the freedom to pull back any time she liked, even if it was only an act.
But from the moment his lips had met hers he’d known that wouldn’t be enough. The electricity between them, the way her touch sparked through his body, heating him to boiling point even in the freezing English air...that couldn’t all be pretend, could it? And then, of course, he’d had to know for sure.
So he’d kissed her. Properly.
And his whole world had tilted.
The audience were applauding again, and Noah realised he’d almost forgotten they were there. He hadn’t been playing to the crowd for once, or thinking about how his moves would look on the big screen. The only thing that had been on his mind was the woman in his arms.
Never mind Tessa and her admonitions to behave. Never mind his reputation. Even the role of Marcus hadn’t mattered for the long moments where he’d held Eloise.
He blinked and the spell was broken, and the real world surged back in.
Her final line spoken, Eloise tried to make a dash for the edge of the makeshift stage but he grabbed her hand to keep her with him, his mind churning. When she glared at him, he explained softly, ‘We have to take a bow.’
Her glare didn’t lessen, but she gave a sharp nod and took her place beside him. Hand in hand, they bowed to the assembled audience, who whooped and cheered even louder.
‘What were they serving at those drinks stands?’ Noah asked. Because he was good, he knew that, and Eloise had been fabulous, but this level of enthusiasm still seemed a little over the top. Unless they’d seen the truth behind the kiss—but he doubted that too. This crowd wouldn’t know truth if it kissed them.
‘Spiced apple cider.’ Eloise didn’t look at him as she answered, smiling out at the crowd as they took their second bow.
‘Alcoholic.’
‘Apparently very.’
‘Encore!’ someone in the crowd yelled but Eloise shook her head and, before Noah could stop her, she was across the stage and descending the steps, ready to disappear back into the mass of people filling the Frost Fair. Suddenly Noah was alone on the stage, wondering if her reaction to the kiss meant she was more or less likely to let him do it again.
Because one thing he was very sure of. He wanted to kiss Eloise Miller in a way he hadn’t wanted to kiss anyone for years.
In fact, he wanted to do a lot more than kiss her. Discreetly, of course. But that kiss had proved that Eloise was worth taking the risk.
And, after the way she’d responded to him, she was going to have to come up with a better excuse than I don’t date actors to convince him that she didn’t want exactly the same thing.
ELOISE REFUSED TO dwell on the memory of Noah’s kiss, instead throwing herself into traipsing around the Frost Fair to make sure that everything was going perfectly. Then, when the stallholders started looking irritated at her interference and Laurel assured her that she had everything in hand, Eloise stormed off back to the hotel to get out of her ridiculous costume and into something more appropriate for Melissa’s hen night.
By the time the bride, bridesmaids and other favoured female guests were gathered for games, pink drinks and the wearing of feather boas in the main bar that evening, Eloise could still feel the memory of Noah’s lips against hers.
How was she supposed to think about anything else after a kiss like that? She’d barely managed to focus on her job long enough to check everything was in place for the hen night. And choosing a dress... Well, what did one wear after wearing Juliet’s best frock all afternoon? Eloise’s wardrobe certainly had nothing so fancy. In the end, she’d settled on another navy dress—one of four in her wardrobe. This one, at least, was made of more slippery material than her thick, knitted work one, and it skimmed over her body in a way that suggested that she might actually have some curves under the fabric. Somewhere.
Just in case Noah felt the sudden need to reprise their roles of Romeo and Juliet, she told herself. After all, if it was Juliet kissing Noah rather than Eloise, that couldn’t be so bad, right?
No. That was crazy. And that was exactly the sort of thinking that had seen her mother fall into affair after affair with her leading men.
Eloise had sworn her whole life that she wouldn’t make the same mistakes. That she wouldn’t get caught up in the spectacle of a love affair and miss the reality underneath. She’d rather a boring, predictable romance to the high drama of the ones her mother had enjoyed anyway. And she wouldn’t let movie star good looks and charm sway her from that.
No matter how incredible his kisses were.
They’d said friends. That was what she had to stick to. That was what she needed to get her through this nightmare of a wedding—a friend.
‘Of course, Eloise had loads of practice at being on stage, didn’t you?’ Melissa waved her champagne flute across the table in Eloise’s direction as she spoke, and Eloise scrambled to try and catch up on the conversation she’d been ignoring in favour of reliving Noah’s kiss.
‘Sorry?’
Melissa rolled her eyes. ‘The girls were just talking about your performance at the Frost Fair this afternoon.’
‘You were fantastic!’ one of the guests Eloise had met only briefly, and didn’t recognise from the movies at all, said. She had a feeling the woman was the wife of a director or something similar. ‘You really brought the whole Frost Fair to life.’
Eloise looked down at her hands to try and hide her blush.
‘And I was saying how you’d had lots of practice on the stage,’ Melissa went on. ‘Totally different to the movies, of course. But all those years taking part in those local plays with your mum was obviously good for something, wasn’t it?’
Melissa’s gaze met hers as she spoke, and Eloise felt the threat in her words as she mentioned her mother. A chill ran through her at the calculating look in Melissa’s eyes. The unspoken message was clear: upstage the bride again, and everyone would get to hear about Eloise’s mother’s antics.
Everything Eloise had spent the last ten years living down would be public knowledge all over again.
‘Perhaps
