Heartthrob (26 page)

Mentally, she was a wreck.

What had she done?

Last night, she’d made love to a man she knew she should’ve stayed far away from.

She had no excuses. She hadn’t been drinking. She couldn’t even claim to have been swept away by her fantasies of Laramie. She hadn’t even thought of Laramie once, all night long.

No, she’d made love to Jericho Beaumont, and she’d done it with her eyes wide open.

“I don’t suppose I can talk you into coming back to bed …?” He looked incredible standing there, six feet three and all hard muscles, with the roguishly dark stubble of beard on his face.

Kate took a steadying sip of her coffee. “Not unless you want to risk missing our flight back to South Carolina. You’ve got just enough time to shower and grab some breakfast.”

“How long before we have to leave?”

“Thirty minutes.”

Jericho shook his head. “No, that’s not enough. Next time we make love, I want to take my time. I want to spend thirty minutes just looking at you.”

Kate felt a rush of heat. God help her … “Is there really going to be a next time?” Her voice shook very slightly as she looked up at him.

“I thought—” He broke off, laughing softly. “I’m sorry. I guess I just assumed—God, I hope so.” His voice shook, too.

But he was an actor. He could control those things.

“I guess maybe we should set aside some time to talk,” Kate said carefully. She was going to have to be upfront with him. She was going to have to tell him she was in danger of becoming emotionally involved. He’d hinted that might be okay with him, but she suspected he would have said damn near anything last night to convince her to make love to him.

“Can we talk on the plane?” he asked quietly. “You know, if it’s not too crowded? As long as we’re not sitting next to a nun?”

Kate couldn’t keep her lips from curving up into the beginnings
of a smile. “All right.” They could start there. If it wasn’t too crowded—and there were no nuns in sight.

“Good.” He turned away, but then turned back. “Last night was …” He couldn’t find the words.

Kate’s smile grew. “Yeah,” she said huskily. “It was.”

He grinned then—pure sunshine.

“You better hurry,” Kate told him.

“Let me guess—Jed hasn’t even taken a shower yet. That boy is the original procrastinator.” David breezed into the room, setting a paper bag down on the counter. He took a mug from the cabinet and poured himself some coffee.

“He just left. I think he must’ve heard you coming.”

David opened the refrigerator and added a healthy helping of half-and-half to his coffee. “I got bagels and cream cheese. They’re nothing like New York bagels, but that’s okay. I consider their mere existence in Alabama something of a miracle. Want one?”

“Thanks.” Kate stood up and crossed to the counter, taking a still warm bagel from the bag.

“So you and Jed met recently, huh?” David handed her a huge knife. “Working together on this movie, right?”

“Yeah.” Kate focused on cutting the bagel in half, preferring not to discuss her brand-new, almost nonexistent relationship with a man who was not only Jericho’s best friend, but also a licensed psychologist.

“At the risk of sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted,” David said, “there’s a couple things you should know about Jed.”

Kate looked up. “I’m not sure—”

“It’s nothing terrible,” David assured her, watching as she spread cream cheese on half of the bagel. “I’m not giving away any deep dark secrets here. That’s for Jed to do. But it sure can’t hurt if you go into this knowing that he’s one of the most private people I’ve ever met. And it’s not that he won’t talk about himself, because he will. He’s
also one of the best storytellers I’ve ever met, and he’ll give you the facts in a heartbeat. And he tells his stories in such a way that you get all wrapped up in ’em, and you don’t notice—at least not right away—that he keeps his own distance. He never talks about how he feels, or even how he felt—past tense. He talk about things his father did to him, but he never talks about his own anger. I’m not sure he’s ever really let himself feel it.

“I’ll tell you one thing, though, Jed’s childhood was very tough. If anyone has a right to be angry,
he
does.”

“I know,” Kate said. “He’s told me some things …”

“Even if only a quarter of the rumors I’ve heard about his father were true, Jed lived through a nightmare as a kid. I guess it makes sense he’d learn to hide inside of himself. It makes perfect sense he’d have his own intense struggle with alcohol, too.”

Kate washed a bite of bagel down with a sip of coffee. “What are the chances, really, that he’ll manage to live the rest of his life without taking another drink?”

David laughed. “I wish I had the answer to that one, but I don’t. I wish he’d get back into a twelve-step program, though. Until he does, I can’t help but feel that he’s at risk. He truly wants his career back, though, and that’s good.”

“But how can anyone ever really trust him? How can he trust himself?”

“I can’t answer that one, either,” David told her. “Jeez, what good am I, anyway? One thing I can tell you—and this is really important for you to remember: It’s okay for you not to trust him. Jed’s earned every little last drop of mistrust that he has to face. I know he’s probably given you a whole lot of crap about the around-the-clock supervision, but personally, I think the humbling experience is going to be really good for him perspective-wise and—”

“Wait,” Kate said. “Back up. You know about the twenty-four-hour supervision?” She set her coffee mug on
the counter, afraid that she was going to drop it. Her fingers were tingling. In fact, her entire body suddenly felt numb.

“Yeah,” David said. “Sure. Jed told me about it, spitting fire, after he signed the contract. What he didn’t tell me was that his supervisor was going to be you.”

Kate sat down at the kitchen table. It was all she could do not to drop her head between her knees. She was both faint and nauseous.

Jericho had lied to her. He had asked her to pretend to be his lover in order to fool David—to keep him from finding out that he needed a baby-sitter. But David had known, and she was the one who had been fooled. She’d played right into Jericho’s hands, putting herself exactly where he’d wanted her—in his room last night.

Dear God, last night had been a planned seduction, right from the start.

It had been nothing but a game to him.

Like the acting games he’d played as a child, he’d set the rules and goals for this one. Make her trust him. Make her want him. Score.

Kate looked at David. “I’m not actually his supervisor,” she told him. “I’m just filling in, temporarily. In fact, I’m looking for someone who can come onto the set for the next two weeks and take over the job until the permanent replacement arrives. I don’t suppose I could talk you into doing it?”

“No, thanks.”

She tried her damnedest not to sound as desperate as she felt. “Spending a little vacation with your friend on a movie set? A paid vacation? Jericho’s told me you’re something of an actor yourself. There’re still a couple of small roles—two or three lines—we were planning to fill from our local extras. I could see that you get one.”

David laughed. “You make it sound tempting, but, I’ve gotta say no. This is a busy time of year at the Center, and—I don’t know if Jed told you—I also work a few
nights a week up at the state prison. I just received a grant to implement a new program with the prisoners, and the next few months are going to be crazy.”

Kate resisted the urge to burst into tears. “Do you know
someone—anyone
—you could recommend for this position?”

David looked at her oddly. “Did I miss something here? You suddenly seem very upset.”

Kate forced a smile. “I’m fine,” she insisted. And she would be fine. She just needed a little time. It wasn’t as if Jericho had broken her heart or anything. It wasn’t. She stood up. “It’s time to go—I’ll get Jericho.”

Kate was on the phone.

Again.

As Jed came out of the shower, he glanced into the main room of the trailer, but Kate didn’t look up.

Something was definitely going on. She’d seemed a little tense this morning in David’s kitchen, and for several heart-stopping moments, Jed had been afraid that she was going to tell him that last night was a one-shot deal. But then she’d given him hope by admitting how damned good it had been for her, too, and by telling him that she wanted to talk.

Except ever since then, she seemed to be making every effort humanly possible
not
to talk.

The flight from Montgomery back to South Carolina had been nearly empty, but she’d told him that something had come up—she had to make some calls. It was vitally important.

Kate had moved to the other side of the plane, and he’d sat there, staring at his script without really seeing it, wondering why she was no longer looking him in the eye.

He knew something was wrong, but there on the plane wasn’t the right time or place to confront her.

And it wasn’t the right time after they’d hit Columbia,
either, with one of the gofers driving the van. Kate had spent the entire ride into Grady Falls on her cell phone. And Jed had focused on not wanting a drink.

And then, back on set, he’d had to go to work.

It had not been his best performance ever. He’d been distracted. It was a real clock-watcher of an afternoon and evening as he counted the minutes until he and Kate could go back to his trailer and talk.

Just talk. All he wanted to do was talk. And rid himself of the damned insecurities that were clogging his throat and making his heart beat too fast.

It was crazy and stupid. He’d planned to seduce her and then laugh and walk away.

Laugh and walk away. It was the essential part of his plan for revenge. Except sometime between its moment of conception and today, his needs had taken a sharp left turn.

And now the last thing he wanted to do was walk away.

So now they were here. Kate O’Laughlin. In the trailer. With the telephone.

Kate had jumped on the phone the second they’d walked in, and Jed opted against pulling out his hair in frustration. He’d taken a shower instead. He now finished drying himself off and pulled on a pair of running shorts. On second thought, he took a T-shirt from his drawer, suddenly self-conscious about walking around half naked the way he usually did. Taking a deep breath, he went out into the kitchen to make his usual late-night salad, even though what he really wanted was a shot of tequila.

The best he could hope for was a worm in the produce.

As he got the lettuce from the refrigerator, he heard Kate hang up the phone. He turned to face her and found her sitting at the table with her head in her hands.

Jed sat across from her, his heart suddenly beating much too fast as he reached out to touch her gently on the arm. “Hey, you all right?”

“Go to hell,” she said wearily, shaking him off. “You’re not any kind of a friend, so quit pretending that you are.”

Whoa. Jed gripped the edge of the table. “Kate, what’s going on?”

“Oh,
stop.
” She looked up at him, real contempt in her eyes. “Just … do yourself a favor and shut the hell up.”

“What did I do?”

She crossed her arms, the contempt turning to brightly burning anger. “Let’s see if I can refresh your memory. You. Fucking me. Last night?”

Jed sat back slightly at her vehemence and her uncharacteristically harsh language. “Okay. I remember that. I also remember that it was still pretty much okay with you this morning.” He was trying desperately to remain calm. She was on the verge of a pressure-cooker explosion, and whatever confusion was happening here wasn’t likely to get cleared up if they both hit the ceiling. “You said you wanted to talk—”

“That was before I got hit in the face with the truth.”

“
Which
truth?”

She laughed in disdain, shaking her head. “Most people only have one version of the truth, Jed—the true one. I could see, though, how
you
might get confused.”

“Kate, will you please just tell me what I did so I can apologize and we can get this over with?”

The anger in her eyes flared. “Why? You wanna fuck me again?”

“Well … yeah. But that’s not—”

“Oh, Jesus, help me!” She swung herself out of her seat and started to pace across the tiny room.

“I’m trying to be honest here! What do you want me to say?
No?
No, I don’t want to re-create the best sex of my entire life? Last night was mind-blowing.”

“Last night was nothing but a game to you!”

“And you’ve figured this out by … reading my mind?” He took a deep breath. Cool. He had to stay cool.

Kate spun to face him. “No, I figured it out after David accidentally spilled the beans.” She gripped her cell phone as if she were going to throw it at him. “You went out of your way to convince me to pretend to be your adoring lover, so your good friend David wouldn’t find out something that he already knew! He knew about the contract stipulation—you told him about needing round-the-clock supervision yourself.”

“Oh, shit.” Jed briefly closed his eyes.

“Yeah,” she said. “Oh, shit. You asked me to do you a favor and you sounded so embarrassed, so apologetic, and—stupid me—I believed you. But you’re an actor. What was I thinking? You probably planned the whole thing before we even left Grady Falls yesterday, and I just followed along, willingly. God, what an easy target. I practically begged you to sweep me off my feet.”

She started pacing again, raking her hands through her hair. “But it’s not entirely your fault. I should’ve been able to resist you. I should have said no, no, no—don’t put your tongue there. I should have said, okay, so what if you are the sexiest man in the friggin’ galaxy—I have my rules and my number-one rule is no casual sex—especially not with a
jerk
!”

She fought back tears of anger. “God
damn
you. I compromised one of my strongest beliefs, and you were just playing a game!”

“Kate, I—”

“Look me in the eye, you bastard, and swear that when we were on that plane heading for Montgomery, you didn’t have a clear vision of exactly how last night was going to end.”