Illusions of Love (26 page)

‘Was it real?’

She stopped for a second and looked at him.
 
‘Haven’t you watched it back?’

‘Oh, countless times, honey.
 
And you still look incredible, but then, you always did look beautiful when we made love.’

She said nothing, just started walking away again.

‘There are things you don’t know about Dominic MacDonald,
India
.
 
Things that, maybe, you
should
know.’

She stopped walking again and swung round to face him.
 
‘Like what?’

‘Can you trust him?’

‘What are you trying to say here, Michael?’

‘I’m asking if you can trust him.
 
So,
can
you?’

‘I don’t know him well enough to have those kinds of feelings for him.
 
What is this, Michael?’

He moved closer to her, reaching out to gently touch her check, stroking it with the back of his hand.
 
‘I just don’t want to see you hurt,
India
.’

She looked up into those blue, blue eyes of his.
 
‘Nobody’s going to hurt me.’

He gave a small laugh, pulling his hand away, still staring at her.
 
‘I’ll see you on set.’

There was no point in telling her anything just yet.
 
Hopefully he’d sown a seed of doubt, planted something there in her mind that would prevent her from getting any closer to Dominic MacDonald, and then when this man – this uninvited guest – finally tripped himself up and the truth came out,
India
would back away from him faster than he could ever anticipate.
 
And Michael would step in, play the shocked and stunned long-lost father confronted with this son he never knew he had – he’d play the innocent victim, and make sure that Dominic looked like the liar he was.
 
A man who’d kept this big secret from
India
, when he really should have told her everything.
 
But he hadn’t.
 
And that was his first mistake.

***

‘She suspects something, doesn’t she?’ Charley asked, pulling her knees up to her chest as she sat on the sofa in Kenny’s apartment within The Amber Palace.
 
She felt drained and exhausted with the effort it was taking to pretend everything was alright, when it was so far from that.

Spending her life looking over her shoulder, jumping at every random noise, every shadow, every time she heard footsteps behind her; it was wearing her down.
 
And not being able to share any of it with Vince, having to shut him out of her life almost until she knew exactly what was going on, it was so tiring.
 
Even Lily could tell something wasn’t right with her mum, and that was the worst thing of all.
 

‘
India
isn’t stupid,’ Kenny said, sitting down next to Charley, handing her a mug of coffee.
 
‘Well, not when it comes to things like this she isn’t, anyway.’

Charley looked at him.
 
‘Does this thing with her and Dominic bother you that much?’

He sighed, pushing a hand through his hair.
 
‘It doesn’t bother me at all, Charley.
 
Not really.
 
I just worry about her, that’s all.
 
I love her like crazy, y’know?
 
And I’m just scared that she’s getting herself into something with Dominic that she doesn’t really understand.
 
It’s like… it’s like she always has this need to be with someone when I wish she’d just take a step back and spend some time getting her head together.
 
The last thing she needs at the minute is some mixed-up relationship with her co-star.
 
Especially one with a reputation like his.’

‘She doesn’t really know him all that well, does she?’

‘No.
 
She doesn’t.
 
But you know
India
.
 
She has a habit of jumping into these things without thinking anything through first.
 
I just don’t trust him.’

Charley smiled at him.
 
‘You don’t trust anyone she gets involved with, Kenny.’

He couldn’t help smiling back.
 
‘No.
 
I don’t suppose I do.’

Charley stared into her coffee.
 
The only time she felt safe was when she escaped up here to Kenny’s apartment.
 
She didn’t even feel safe at home, with Vince, because she couldn’t talk to him about any of this, she couldn’t be herself, she couldn’t get things off her chest, and that was hard.
 
But Kenny made everything seem so much easier to cope with because she could open up to him, let it all out.
 
Tell him how she really felt.
 
‘I’m scared, Kenny.’

He gently took the coffee out of her hands, placing it on the table in front of them.
 
‘Come here, come on.’

He pulled her into his arms for a hug and she clung onto him, grateful for the warmth and security that something so simple could give her right now.
 

‘I know that me constantly telling you it’s going to be okay isn’t really helping but, I
will
try and make sure that it
is
okay, Charley.
 
I promise you that.’

She held onto him tight, her arms around his waist as he kissed the top of her head.
 
She just wanted to close her eyes and forget any of this was happening.
 
She just wanted to stay there, and forget.

‘But what if it isn’t, Kenny?
 
What if this all goes wrong… what if Jimmy’s after some kind of sick revenge?’

‘Hey, come on.’
 
He tilted up her chin so she was looking right at him, her tired and frightened eyes meeting his.
 
‘You can’t think like that, honey.
 
You can’t…’

And he hadn’t intended for what happened next to happen, neither of them had, but it was like something was pushing them together, some invisible force they had no control over.
 
And as his mouth gently touched hers she responded as though it was the most natural thing in the world, an action that had almost always been on the cards from the second she’d told him about Jimmy’s reappearance.

It was a slow, gentle kiss, a kiss that had now transcended that barrier between friendship and whatever else was there on the other side, because neither Kenny nor Charley were entirely sure what that was.
 
All they knew was that they needed each other – for different reasons, maybe, but they needed each other.
 
And whether those reasons were right or wrong, neither of them really cared.
 
Charley needed the safety that Kenny could give her, and Kenny needed the distraction that Charley could provide.
 
And together, that could only spell out one hell of a lot of trouble.

CHAPTER 20

India lay on top of Dominic, the heat of the Las Vegas evening hitting their naked bodies through the open window as they kissed like a couple of teenagers in the aftermath of first-time sex.

For the past couple of days they’d been more than aware of the ever-increasing gossip surrounding their “did they or didn’t they?” sex scene, as everyone was calling it, and that same question had now hit the headlines with newspapers, magazines and entertainment shows going all out to keep it a much-talked-about subject.
 
All
India
knew for sure was that the studio itself was in raptures over the publicity it was giving a movie that had yet to finish shooting.

They wanted to make sure this one ran and ran, and both she and Dominic had been told to keep the mystery, let nothing out of the bag, don’t let anyone know the exact truth – even the studio bosses didn’t want to know what had really gone on.
 
And it wasn’t what
India
had wanted to happen, but it had, and they should have known from the second they’d done what they had that this was the way things would turn out.
 
They’d lost control, and now they were headline news.

‘I don’t even think Michael had any real intention of actually putting that scene in the finished movie,’
India
said, resting her chin on her hands as she lay on Dominic’s chest.

‘How do you mean?’

‘He set it up.
 
The whole thing.
 
Me and you.
 
He’s done this kind of thing before; I know the way his mind works.’

‘But, why?’ Dominic asked, gently stroking
India
’s back, running his fingers lightly up and down her spine.

‘Who can tell?
 
He’s a very complex man is Michael Walsh.’

Dominic knew that only too well.
 
‘Does he get some kind of a kick, watching you with other men?’

‘No.
 
Completely the opposite I would have thought.’

Dominic wondered if Michael had any idea that he’d watched his own son being so intimate with his ex-wife.
 
Because he couldn’t wait to lay
that
one out in front of him.

‘He’s gonna have to put it in the movie now though, isn’t he?’
India
sighed.

‘Does that bother you?’

‘Jesus, Dominic, come on!
 
I’d be lying if I said it didn’t.
 
We know what we did out there, we know what happened, and I can’t say I’m excited by the prospect of Christ knows how many millions of people watching us.’

‘
I
am,’ he smiled, moving his hand down into the small of her back, his fingers still stroking her skin with small, circular motions.
 
‘That’s one hell of a freakin’ turn on in my eyes.’

‘Dominic!’ she laughed, gently punching his arm.

‘I think we should go ask to watch the rushes.
 
Just you and me, alone, in that screening room... watching you and me, up there on the big screen…’

‘You’re a bastard.’
 
But she smiled as she said it; she couldn’t help it.
 
Part of her was just as turned on as he was at that thought because that’s what this man did to her.
 
He turned her on.
 
Too much.
 
And now look at the consequences.

‘And while we’re watching you and me…’ he whispered, his mouth so close to hers, ‘… we could re-live it, all over again.’

‘I can’t keep up with you,’ she groaned, feeling him hard against her thigh, her whole body tingling with anticipation.
 
A never-ending anticipation.

‘Oh, I think you’re doing a brilliant job, beautiful.’

She closed her eyes as his lips touched hers in a long, slow kiss, and for a few brief seconds she wished the rest of the world would just go away and leave them alone, let them get to know each other without all the publicity and media that was now surrounding them, ten-fold to what it had been before they’d recklessly decided to do what they’d done a few days ago.

She pulled away from him slightly, looking into those incredible eyes of his.
 
‘What’s happening here, Dominic?
 
I mean, everyone’s talking about you and me and yet,
we
don’t even know where we really stand with each other.
 
Do we?
 
Everyone’s got us down as a couple …’

‘Easy mistake to make,
India
.’

She ran her fingers over his rough chin, watching them as they traced his jaw line, touched
 
 
his slightly open mouth.
 
‘Is that what we are?
 
A mistake?’

He shook his head, gently stroking her waist, his other hand taking hold of hers, wrapping his fingers tightly around it.
 
This was it.
 
The moment when he chose to either see this game out the way he’d originally intended and walk away from all of this before he got in too deep, or listen to his heart and enter into a situation he’d never experienced before.
 
Would it really complicate things?
 
When the truth finally came out?
 
Jesus, of course it would!

‘What’s the matter?’
India
asked, sensing he’d gone off into a world of his own.

Should he tell her?
 
Now?
 
Should he tell her the truth?
 
Before he confronted Michael?
 
No.
 
He had to do one thing right; he had to talk to Michael first before he even thought about telling anyone else.
 
If
he told anyone else.
 
Because they were playing this by
his
rules.
 
Whatever Michael felt was irrelevant.