15

I LOVE YOU, Lucas.

Sophie’s words seemed to hang in the air for an aeon. Aware that his body had tensed in reaction, Lucas forced himself to relax again and to press a kiss onto her temple when what he really wanted to do was withdraw from her and roll out of bed and get the hell out of here.

She loved him.

Shit.

This was the last thing that he’d wanted to happen. He didn’t want to hurt her—but he was going to, as inevitably as night followed day.

The silence between them stretched and stretched, and Lucas closed his eyes, filled with regret. Sophie was so warm and generous, so earthy and sensual. If ever he was going to let himself love someone, it would be her. But he wasn’t. Or he couldn’t—same thing at the end of the day, because both roads led to heartache and disappointment for Sophie.

Because he didn’t know how to respond verbally to her brave offering, he instinctively began to caress her again, stroking her, teasing her, building her desire. I didn’t set out to hurt you, he told her silently as he smoothed a hand across her belly. I think you’re wonderful, he told her with his hands as he cupped her breasts. If I believed in love, if I trusted it, I would love you, he told her as his body grew hard for her again. Then he was inside her, every stroke an unspoken homage to how beautiful she was, how funny and sweet and kind and sexy.

I’m sorry, Sophie, he told her as desire swept them away again. I’m so, so sorry that I can’t love you back.

Afterward, she dozed in his arms, and he eased himself free of her and left her alone in his bed. Feeling like a rat, he grabbed his cell phone and walked naked into the bathroom and shut the door. Sitting hunched on the cold tile of the bath surround, he dialed Derek’s message service.

“Derek, it’s me. I need you to do something for me…”

 

SOPHIE WOKE LATE the next morning, and it took a few seconds for memory to return.

She’d told Lucas she loved him last night. She closed her eyes and winced as she recalled the way his body had tensed and the taut silence that had hung between them for too, too long after her declaration.

She’d been on the verge of making an attempt to retract or qualify her words when he’d started kissing her and touching her and she’d felt the fierce intensity in his caresses. He hadn’t said he loved her, but she knew he felt something. He cared for her. The sense of connection she felt was not one-sided—and for now, perhaps that was enough. And it wasn’t as though she could stop herself from loving him, anyway. If that boat was ever going to float, she wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

She loved him. With all her heart and soul. It was a gift, and she’d bestowed it on him, foolish or not. And as embarrassing as last night’s nonreturned avowal was, she was glad she’d made it. Despite all his fame and money, she suspected that Lucas Grant had had precious little real love in his life. So, now he had hers.

She wasn’t really sure where that left her, of course. Falling in love with one of the world’s most notorious womanizing hell-raisers wasn’t exactly a guarantee of future happiness. Maybe it even made her as stupid as those other women, the ones she’d been so contemptuous of when Lucas had delivered his little postcoital coda to her after that first night.

But there was still hope in her heart as she rolled out of bed and went in search of Lucas. Grabbing a T-shirt he’d left abandoned at the foot of the bed, she tugged it over her head as she headed for the door. The clock on the bedside table told her it was past eleven—she couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept in so late. As she descended the stairs, she caught the distinct scent of wood smoke in the air. Having grown up in a country town, she had a fair idea what that meant—bushfires. Not necessarily nearby, depending on the wind conditions, but she would check the national radio service nonetheless to find out what was going on.

If she hadn’t been so preoccupied with wondering about the bushfires, she probably wouldn’t have been quite so surprised when she entered the living room and found herself facing a room full of people. Better yet, a room full of people who were all staring at her. Her hands instinctively reached for the hem of Lucas’s T-shirt and tugged it down as she recognized Derek and Adele. There was also a short, chubby man with thick, black-rimmed glasses, a stick-insect-thin brunette woman and a stunning blond-haired beauty wearing the tiniest bikinis Sophie had ever seen.

“Sophie,” Derek said neutrally. “Let me introduce you. You know Adele, of course. Richard here is her husband. And this is Keira, and that’s Camilla.”

Keira, the hungry-looking brunette, smirked. “Hi, Sophie,” she said, clearly amused by Sophie’s discomfort. “I didn’t recognize you from the front.”

Sophie frowned. “Excuse me?”

“That’s right. You probably haven’t seen it yet,” Derek said.

There was cold calculation in his eyes as he passed over the newspaper that was lying on the dining room table. The photo of her on Lucas’s back was spread right across the front page in full color. The fact that she was wearing a thong was more than evident, as was the fact that she and Lucas were laughing, apparently devil-may-care about the whole situation. The only saving grace was that she had a tan, and that her face was only partly visible.

Grant’s New Ride, the headline said.

Sophie was speechless, and horribly aware that everyone was studying her, assessing her.

“You’re up,” a familiar voice said.

Sophie swung around as Lucas entered from the terrace, dressed in nothing but a pair of low-riding board shorts. Stupidly, she’d forgotten that he no longer needed his crutches. Somehow, he didn’t look like her Lucas without them and his bulky leg braces. Instead he looked every inch the handsome, powerful movie star he was. She almost took a step backward, she was so intimidated for a split second.

As embarrassing moments went, she figured this was way up there. For starters, she wasn’t wearing a stitch under the T-shirt, and she had a feeling everyone knew it. Then there was the fact that she probably had a serious case of bed-head and pillow-face—and Keira and Camilla were the kind of stunning beauties that teenage boys risked blindness and hairy palms for. And lastly, of course, there was the fact that her ass was spread over the front page of the morning newspaper.

“These guys are going to stay for a few days, maybe the rest of the week. We’ve got enough supplies to feed them, yeah?” Lucas asked casually.

Sophie’s belly tightened. That quickly, the rest of her alone time with Lucas evaporated. She’d been looking forward to their last few days together—even more so now that she’d acknowledged her own feelings. She knew that she’d taken him by surprise last night with her declaration. She’d wanted to talk with him, explain her feelings. Make sure that he knew he was under no obligation to her, that her love came with no strings or expectations, only hope.

Realizing that everyone was waiting for her to answer, she pulled her scattered thoughts together.

“There’s plenty there. Unless anyone has special dietary requirements…?”

All she got was blank looks, so she decided to take that as a no.

“Great. Shall we say lunch at one, then?” Lucas asked.

There was something about his tone…. Sophie shot him a questioning look but his expression was blandly neutral. Maybe he was pissed about their surprise arrivals and the horrible headline. She was; it made sense that he would be.

“Sure. One o’clock is good,” she said. She hesitated, wanting to bring up the newspaper, but not sure what she wanted to say. Then the need to not be standing nearly naked in a roomful of strangers took over. “I’ll just go get dressed.”

As she made her way up the stairs, she tried to work out what it was about Lucas’s behavior that was bugging her—apart from the fact that he hadn’t woken her and warned her that they had unexpected guests.

He’d seemed…distant. That was what it was. And not once had he said or done anything to indicate to his friends that he and Sophie were more than employer and employee. Although perhaps the front page of the newspaper made that kind of redundant.

She shook her doubts off. She was simply overly sensitive because of what had happened last night.

And now she would be sharing Lucas with his friends for the rest of their time together. She felt ridiculously cheated. Just when she’d worked out her own feelings and laid them on the table, they’d run out of time.

But it soon became painfully clear that she wasn’t being overly sensitive at all. Expanding her planned menu for Lucas’s lunch, she added some salads and side dishes, baked some fresh rolls and mixed up a jug of iced tea. All the while she cooked, she could hear laughter and music filtering from the terrace. It had been a while since she’d been in the kitchen on her own—Lucas had usually kept her company over the past few weeks, sneaking tidbits when he thought she wasn’t looking—and she was surprised at how isolated she felt.

Loading up a tray with cutlery and crockery, she made her way out onto the terrace, assuming that Lucas’s guests would probably want to eat alfresco since they were already by the pool. The smell of wood smoke was more intense out of doors, and she reminded herself that she still hadn’t checked the radio service.

Her friendly heads-up died in her throat when she arrived at poolside and saw Lucas. Or, more accurately, Lucas and Camilla. He was sitting on one of the loungers, his thighs spread wide, Camilla, in her tiny bikini, nestling between them while he gave her a shoulder massage. The girl’s dead-straight blond hair hung over her down-turned face as she gave encouraging moans. Lucas’s expression was unreadable behind his dark sunglasses as he worked on her.

“Lucas, you have magic hands,” Camilla groaned, rolling her shoulders encouragingly.

Sophie almost turned around. Only pride made her stick it. Crossing to the nearby table, she transferred the stack of plates and cutlery.

“Lunch won’t be a moment,” she said, turning back toward the house before anyone could see the pain and hurt in her face.

Derek said something she couldn’t quite hear as she walked away, and Camilla laughed loudly and said something in reply.

“Oh, that’s a great idea, Cam,” she heard Keira say, and even though she knew it was pure self-torture, Sophie found herself looking over her shoulder just in time to see Camilla throwing her tiny bikini top to one side, baring her full, pouty breasts to the world.

“We’re all friends, after all,” Camilla said as Keira followed suit.

Sophie’s gaze shifted toward Lucas’s face, but he remained impassive behind his sunglasses.

It didn’t matter. She didn’t need to see his eyes to understand that he was doing this on purpose. She knew it, absolutely. She’d crossed the line last night—and Lucas was pushing her firmly back over it.

The friends arriving unexpectedly—she’d bet her life savings he’d asked them to come. As for what he was doing with Camilla…She wondered how far his fear would drive him. Would he actually sleep with the other woman to prove to Sophie that what he had with her meant nothing?

Standing alone in the kitchen, Sophie braced her hands against the counter and bowed her head for a minute.

How could something so new and fresh hurt this much?

It was crazy, but having Brandon call it quits hadn’t even come close to being this painful, and she’d spent fourteen years by his side.

She didn’t understand. But what she did get, loud and clear, was that Lucas didn’t want her love. And Camilla and Derek and the rest of them were his way of reminding her what his relationship with her had been all about. Four weeks. Fun. No strings.

She’d gotten the message. And it broke her heart and made her angry in equal measures.

 

LUCAS FELT LOWER than a snake’s belly. The look on Sophie’s face when she’d seen him with Camilla—funny how he could remember her name now—would live with him for a long time. But he’d still done the right thing.

She’d hate him for it, of course. The sooner she fell out of love with him the better.

“Lucas, come swim. It’s perfect,” Camilla called, bobbing up and down in the water so that her breasts jiggled invitingly.

He couldn’t be less interested. She was a beautiful woman—but she wasn’t Sophie. And while Sophie might not have legs till Tuesday and cheekbones to die for, she had fifty million times more appeal. Thinking of her big cinnamon eyes, her full lips, the sound of her laughter made him feel like a rat all over again. He’d hurt her today, deliberately. She’d never been anything but open and honest with him—and he’d repaid her with deceit and disrespect. What kind of a heel did that make him? Even if he was doing it for her own good?

“I’ve got some stuff to take care of,” he said. He couldn’t hang out here by the pool, pretending to have a good time when Sophie had just been kicked in the teeth. Especially when he’d been the one to do the kicking.

Levering himself to his feet, he made his way inside. Predictably, he found Sophie in the kitchen, the radio on beside her as she cut up greens for a salad. She didn’t look up straight away, even though she couldn’t fail to be aware of his presence, and the radio announcer’s smooth tones filled the silence between them.

“…fire authorities are working around the clock to clear fire breaks. With a prevailing northerly wind predicted, police have started doing the rounds in the Blue Mountain townships of Bullaburra, Lawson and Hazel-brook to start evacuation plans…”

When the announcer moved on to other news, Sophie reached across to switch the radio off. Only then did she make eye contact with him. He almost flinched from the raw hurt he saw in her gaze.

“You could have just said thanks, but no thanks, Sophie. You didn’t need to bring all these people up here,” she said. “You definitely didn’t have to put on a show with some bikini babe.”

There was something about having his actions laid bare on the table that made Lucas feel distinctly small.

“We both knew what this was,” he said. “I warned you I wasn’t a one-woman guy. I made it very clear that I don’t do commitment.” He sounded defensive—probably because that was how he felt.

“I get that. But the least you owed me was a conversation. A little bit of consideration. Is that too much to ask?”

It wasn’t, but it was. He stared at her, wanting to comfort her, to apologize, but knowing that he had nothing to offer and that her anger was going to be the best cure for her feelings for him.

“It scares you, doesn’t it? Me loving you?” she asked quietly. “The fact that I can be honest and up-front about it. I bet if I took your pulse right now it would be through the roof.”

Ignoring the fact that she was right and his heart was pounding against his rib cage and his palms were sweaty, Lucas bristled.

“Listen, I’m sorry things haven’t worked out the way you wanted. I like you, Sophie. I think you’re great. But that’s all,” he said.

“And what about your nightmares? They don’t mean anything, as well, I take it?”

Jesus, they were back to this again.

“Spare me the psychobabble,” he said. “This is not about me.”

“Isn’t it? Let me tell you just how much this is about you, Lucas. You’re a grown man who experiences the same nightmare from his childhood over and over yet refuses to deal with it. You’re a man who has deliberately avoided making a home for himself anywhere in the world or forming meaningful connections with people—you even hate your own manager, for Pete’s sake. You make a living by pretending to be other people. And when I have the temerity, the gall, to tell you that I love you, your first response is to create a situation where I will be so repulsed, so hurt that I will retract my offering and retreat. This is so much about you it’s not funny.”

Perhaps it was the mention of his nightmares, or maybe it was the crack about him being afraid of intimacy. Whatever—he saw red.

“I’m sorry, Sophie, but it’s not my fault that you wasted the last fourteen years of your life with Mr. Bland because you were freaking out over your sister,” he said. “Don’t try to pin any of this on me. I didn’t ask for you to fall in love me.”

She stared at him. “Why are you being so cruel?”

He couldn’t hold her eye.

“You’re the one who made this messy, Sophie.”

“Because I fell in love with you? What a crime,” she said, then she turned on her heel.

“You can cook your own lunch,” she said over her shoulder as she exited.

Lucas stood alone in the kitchen, staring at the blank wall for a long time.

It was done. Time to move on.