place so that everything was covered.
“Hi.” He walked in and stripped his black tie off in one fluid motion, casting the strip of silk to the floor. It was like something from a cologne commercial—or one of her late-night movie indulgences. The gorgeous man returning home after a long hard day to sweep his woman off her feet and into bed …
“Hi,” she replied, hopping up from the couch, holding the lapels of her robe tighter now.
“Good day?”
“I did more data entry. And had coffee.”
“All good then?”
“I suppose.”
“We’ve rated the papers over here. Pictures of us getting off my private plane are everywhere.”
She took a step toward him. “Do you have them with you?”
“You like being in the news, don’t you?”
She shrugged, slightly embarrassed by her enthusiastic reaction. “I got used to it. To watching it. Seeing what people said, what they thought. Good and bad, it all sort of … validated me.”
He reached into his laptop bag and pulled out a folded paper. “Enjoy.”
She took the newspaper from his hand and opened it slowly, her heart pounding as she looked at the pictures, at the headlines.
Ethan Grey returns home with new squeeze, pianist Noelle Birch, in tow. Meeting the grandparents?
“That’s … cool,” she said.
“Cool?”
“To get in the pubic eye again like this … like we talked about. But it’s more than just showing my mother up. You don’t know what this might mean for me.”
He didn’t smile. His face didn’t seem to change at all. But something in his eyes looked different. Darker. “I have an idea.”
“You don’t approve of my enjoyment of fame?” His silence was its own kind of answer. “My life … the life I had before, it was … It’s hard to explain. Parts of it were brutally hard. And yet, there were things that I loved. I loved to play in front of a crowd. I loved it when I would hear the beginning notes of a new song in my head. And I loved when people recognized me. When they were excited to see me. Like they cared or something.”
He shook his head, his expression suddenly fierce. “That’s not real. None of it is.”
“It feels real,” she said softly, looking down at the picture.
“Trust me, it’s not. Ask my mum how real it is. She was an A-lister for a while. Invited to every party, cast in all the big movies. The public built her up and then forgot about her overnight while she poured everything she had into a husband who acted like she wasn’t alive half the time. There’s no happiness in seeking the approval of the people. Because maybe they’ll give it, but only for a while. And when they take it away, it’s a cruel reality.”
“Yeah, I’m sort of living that reality, Ethan. I’m aware of how much it sucks.”
“All right, Noelle, today your picture’s in the paper. What about tomorrow?”
She didn’t really want to think about tomorrow. She was safe now. Safe and warm, and feeling pretty happy to be back in the public eye in a positive way. But that attitude was what had gotten her into trouble in the first place. She might be enjoying these snatches of happiness right now—enjoying them too much to see something bad around the corner, something like her mother running off with all her money.
“I don’t know.”
“No one should have the power to decide how you feel about yourself, Noelle, good or bad. Give yourself that power.”
“I suppose it’s easy for you.”
He shrugged. “I’ve never cared what other people thought. As long as I’m getting where I want to go, I don’t care what other people think of my methods. When you’re successful there will always be people waiting to watch you fail. They don’t matter.”
Ethan’s heart was pounding heavily in his chest, a strange, protective sort of anger pumping through him, hot and fast. Reckless. There was no reason he should care, none at all, about the way Noelle saw herself. About the look on her face when she’d seen her picture in the paper.
But it reminded him too much, far too much, of how his mother had reacted to reviews, good and bad, about how she’d been disappointed when the paparazzi had stopped following her. About how thoroughly demolished she’d been when the press had gleefully dissected Damien Grey’s appearance with Celine Birch at a major Hollywood industry event, leaving his wife, the movie star, at home.
The constant bitter regret, the desperate wishing that she’d never moved away from California, never sacrificed her figure to give birth to a son who didn’t bring her happiness anyway.
Terrible memories of trying to revive her after she’d swallowed a whole bottle of pills.
Putting Noelle in that spot made his gut tighten so hard he couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
He didn’t know why he was doing this, why he was putting her in that place. Why he was feeling things for her.
All he knew was that he wanted to touch her, to comfort her in some way. But the minute he did that, the minute his hands touched her smooth, silken skin, it would be over for him. He would take her in his arms. Kiss her. Seduce her.
No. He wouldn’t. He would be in control. Just as he always was. She wasn’t different. She wasn’t special. He tightened his jaw, clenched his teeth, tried to stop his body’s intense reaction to the thought of what it would be like to seduce her.
So sweet. For a moment.
It would almost be worth it.
“What?” she asked, her voice breathless, her breasts rising and falling sharply. She knew. And she was just as affected as he was.
“We’ll have more public appearances to make over the coming weeks,” he said, his eyes fixed on her full, pale lips. “We have to be sure we’re comfortable touching each other.”
He took a step toward her, his body urging him on, his mind screaming at him to pull back. He would. He would pull away before it was too late. Just not yet.
Not quite yet.
He put his hand on her cheek, shocked to see how unsteady it was. She was soft, softer even than he’d imagined she would be. And the need to do more, touch more, was so strong it made his body shudder.
“Comfortable?” she asked, her words hushed, her blue eyes wide.
“Not even a little bit. You?”
She shook her head.
“Then we’ll have to change that,” he said.
He dipped his head and closed the gap between them, pleasure bursting
