else a glimpse of burnished bronze skin and hard, toned muscles. His dark eyes half smiled down at her, and yet there was nothing sleepy about him. He had the silent, watchful air of a wolf before it attacked.
“I’m stealing you away,” he said.
Alexandra hadn’t expected to see Wolf for days. She’d thought maybe by the weekend he’d call her, contact her, set something up for the future, and yet here he was, at her desk, causing trouble.
And she wasn’t ready for trouble. Didn’t think she’d be ready for his kind of trouble for a long time. Last night had taken something out of her. Last night had been a tease, a torment. She’d had so much fun with him that she’d imagined he’d been enjoying her company just as much. Instead he’d been acting.
Acting.
Alexandra smiled her brightest, most confident smile to cover her trepidation. “I wish I could go. But I’ve so much work. I’ve a million things to do and Daniel—”
“Has already given you permission to take off early.” Wolf smiled down at her, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “So get your purse and let’s go.”
CHAPTER FOUR
IT WAS A GORGEOUS afternoon, hot, sunny, the sky a dazzling california blue. Wolf was driving a different car than he had last night, a gleaming red Ferrari that looked brand-new.
A studio head, just leaving his office and heading for his car, noticed the Ferrari, too, and wandered over to shake Wolf’s hand and compliment him on the car.
“That’s a Superamerica, isn’t it?” he said to Wolf as he shook his hand. “Hardtop convertible.”
Wolf opened the passenger-side door for Alexandra. “It is.”
“I was reading about the car’s revolving roof recently. Doesn’t it open up in ten seconds?”
Wolf was heading to the driver’s side now. “It does.”
“What are they? Half mil?” he asked as Wolf settled behind the wheel.
Wolf put the key in the ignition, started the engine. “A little less than that,” he said before putting the car into reverse.
The other man whistled. “Beautiful car.”
Wolf nodded agreement and drove away. But Alexandra sat next to him, dumbfounded.
“This car is worth half a million dollars?”
Wolf shot her an amused glance. “It’s not that much. It’s closer to a third of a million. But I can see you don’t approve.”
She studied the car’s interior. The steering wheel wasn’t exactly normal. It had paddle shifters on the wheel, but other than that it looked like an ordinary—albeit very clean—sports car. “I don’t understand why anyone would spend so much money on a car.”
“I have the money.”
“Yes, but—”
He was leaving Culver City behind and heading for Santa Monica. “But what?”
“But you could do a lot of good with that money. You could feed starving children and build houses for the homeless and things like that.” She stopped talking, bit her lip, stared at her hands, inspecting the spa manicure she’d gotten at the salon yesterday. “I know it’s none of my business. I just wish I had the means to help more people. I think we should all help more people.”
Wolf looked at her for a long, silent moment. “I agree,” he said quietly before returning his attention to the road.
They traveled in silence down Santa Monica Boulevard and then north on Highway 1 wrapping the coast toward Pacific Palisades and scenic, craggy Malibu.
Wolf drove well, fast but confidently, and with the cliffs to the right and the sea to the left, Alexandra felt as though she were part of a movie or some reality television show.
He had been unusually quiet since she made her comment about helping others, but she wasn’t sorry for thinking people should help others and she wasn’t sorry for thinking an expensive car like this was a waste of money. He could buy whatever he wanted and she could think whatever she wanted. They weren’t really a couple. They didn’t have to agree.
Finally Alexandra couldn’t take the silence any longer. She made a pitiful stab at conversation by asking him, “Are you excited about the new film?”
“Excited?” Wolf repeated, his upper lip curling. “I wouldn’t say I’m excited, but I will be glad to work again. Working distracts me. Keeps my mind off other things.”
It wasn’t the answer she’d expected. She’d imagined he enjoyed acting, thought he would have found a certain fizz factor from being one of the most highly acclaimed actors in the business. “What things?”
His eyebrow arched as he glanced at her. “We all have ghosts and demons.”
“And you won’t tell me yours.”
“No.”
Alexandra didn’t know if it was his expression or the caustic curve of his sensual mouth, but she felt the strangest flutter inside her middle as though she were nothing but naked nerve endings.
“Do you ever go home?” she asked suddenly, not sure where the question came from but curious about him, curious about his past as well as those ghosts and demons he’d just mentioned.
He shot her a long, assessing glance from beneath his lashes. He knew what she was doing, too. “Ireland or Spain?”
“Which is home?”
“Both, I suppose. I’m bilingual and was raised in both countries.”
“Your mother was Spanish.”
“From Cadiz,” he answered, slowing for the traffic light looming ahead. “I was born in Cadiz, but when I was twelve my parents divorced and I moved with my father to Dublin. Spain is home in ways Ireland could never be, but I’m comfortable in Ireland, I like the people.”
“And yet now you’re here, in America.”
“It’s what the career dictated.”
Alexandra stole a glance at him from beneath her lashes. “Do you ever regret becoming an actor?”
He hesitated before answering, shifting gears down and then, after the light changed, accelerating until he pulled into the parking lot for the Malibu Coffeehouse.
Turning off the engine, he turned to look at her. “Every day,” he said grimly.
After getting their coffee, Wolf drove to one of the scenic turnouts on Highway 1 and parked. Climbing from the car, they moved to the cliff’s edge to savor the view.
Wolf drew a deep breath, breathing in the stinging salty air off the Pacific Ocean. He loved the ocean, loved the cliffs of Malibu and Pacific Palisades. This area reminded him of
