In the Heat of the Spotlight (12 page)

He pressed another kiss to her throat, willed his heart to stop racing. ‘Okay?’ he muttered against her neck, and felt her nod. He slid her underwear off, kicked off his own boxer shorts. And then he was poised between her thighs, aching with need for her, their bodies pressed slickly together, all of him anticipating and straining towards this—

He looked down and saw she’d gone still, actually
rigid
, with her eyes scrunched tightly shut.

Damn.

It took all, absolutely all of Luke’s self-control to stop. He took a deep, shuddering breath and rolled off her onto his back. Stared at the ceiling and felt his heart wrench inside him when he heard Aurelie let out a tiny hiccup of a sob.
What had gone wrong?
And how had he let this happen—again?

‘I’m sorry,’ she finally whispered into the silence.

‘No. Don’t be.’ He was still staring at the ceiling, still feeling that scalding rush of shame and guilt. He was also feeling incredibly, painfully aroused. ‘Let me just take a shower,’ he muttered and, rolling off the bed, he headed towards the bathroom.

* * *

Aurelie lay on the bed and listened to Luke turn on the shower. She blinked hard and tried not to cry.
What had gone wrong?

She honestly didn’t know. One second she’d been lost in Luke’s little touches, aching for his deeper caress—and the next? She’d felt the heavy weight on top of her and his breath in her ear and suddenly, painfully been reminded of the first time with Pete.

Let me...

She blinked hard again, forced the memories back. She did not want to think of them now, to bring them into this moment, this bed.

Drawing a deep breath, she reached for her scattered clothes. She didn’t even remember Luke unclasping her bra, but he must have done. It was lying on the floor. She dressed quickly, furtively, afraid Luke would come out of the bathroom—and then what? Was he angry? Frustrated, no doubt, in more ways than one. And knowing Luke—which she did now, she realised—he’d want answers. Answers she didn’t want to give, because she knew they wouldn’t reflect well on herself.

Sighing, she sat back down on the bed and waited.

A few minutes later Luke emerged from the bathroom, a towel around his hips. Aurelie swallowed dryly at the sight of his chest, broad, browned and shimmering with droplets of water. Just a few minutes ago she’d had the power to touch it at her leisure, had felt that hard, muscular body pressed against hers. Just the memory caused a pulse of desire low in her belly.
How
had it all gone wrong? Could memories really have that much power?

Luke reached for a T-shirt and dropped his towel, oblivious to his own nakedness. Aurelie was not. She swallowed again, felt her heart start to thud. He slipped on a pair of boxers and then sat on the edge of the bed. She tensed, waited.

He smiled wryly, his eyes dark, his hair damp and spiky. She wanted to comb it with her fingers, to feel its damp softness. She folded her hands together in her lap.

‘I guess you realise we need to talk.’ She nodded, and Luke sighed. ‘I’m sorry for the way things happened.’

‘Don’t be.’ It hurt to squeeze those two words out, for her throat had got absurdly tight. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘It’s not yours, either.’ She didn’t answer, and Luke reached over and placed his hand over her tightly clasped ones, his thumb stroking her fingers. ‘Tell me what happened to you, Aurelie.’

‘Nothing happened.’ She shook her head, impatient with the way he was making her a victim. She’d never wanted pity. She’d made all her choices willingly. She
had
.

‘Why, then,’ Luke asked evenly, ‘did you freeze up at a rather crucial point? Everything was going well, wasn’t it?’

She let out a little choked sound, half-laugh, half-sob. ‘Very well.’

‘And then?’

‘I don’t know. I just—’ She moistened her lips, forced herself to continue. ‘I just froze up, like you said. To be honest, you’re the only one who’s ever noticed.’

‘Then you haven’t had very considerate lovers.’

‘No.’

Luke sighed and squeezed her hand. ‘I appreciate that I may not have earned enough of your trust to tell me what happened to you, because something did. Some experience has made you fear sex and, until I know what it is, I can’t help you. And,’ he added, a wry note entering his voice, ‘I can’t make love to you, which is a shame.’

Aurelie lifted her gaze to his. ‘We could try again—’

‘No.’ Luke spoke with such flat finality that she recoiled. ‘I don’t think you realise,’ he added more quietly, ‘how it makes me feel to see you beneath me, looking like you’re bracing yourself for some kind of torture.’

She blinked, felt the hot wetness of tears behind her lids. She hadn’t thought of that. She’d only thought of herself, and how disappointing she must be to him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

‘I don’t want your apologies. I just want your honesty. But I can wait.’

She sniffed. Loudly. ‘So what now?’

‘How about we go to sleep?’

Hope stirred inside her, a tiny, fragile bud emerging amidst the mire of desolation. ‘Here? Together?’

‘That’s the idea.’ And then, gently, perhaps even lovingly, he pulled her into his arms so her cheek rested against that wonderfully hard chest. She felt the reassuring thud of his heart and closed her eyes. ‘I’m a patient man, Aurelie.’

She smiled against his chest, even though the tears still felt all too close. ‘That’s good to know.’

Yet as she snuggled against him beneath the covers, his arms securely around her, she wondered if she was the impatient one. She’d changed and grown so much over the last few days, but she wanted more. She wanted to be different in
every
way, and especially in this one. Yet with this—this crucial intimacy—she didn’t know how to change, or even if she could.

CHAPTER TEN

M
ORNING
sunlight spilled across the bed, created pools of warmth amidst the nest of covers. Aurelie rose on one elbow and stared down at the sleeping form of the man she loved.

Yes, loved. She’d been skirting around that obvious truth for days now, because it was too scary and even impossible to grasp. How could she love a man she’d known for such a short time? And why would she, when she knew what happened when you gave your heart away? You lost not just the heart you’d freely given, but your soul as well. Your very self.

She knew Luke was different. She knew it bone-deep,
soul
-deep, and yet that knowledge didn’t stay the tattoo of fear beating through her blood. The memory of how absolutely wrecked she’d been when Pete had finally ended it, and how she’d realised she had nothing,
was
nothing but a shell, remained with her. Infected her with doubt.

She didn’t doubt that Luke was different; she feared that she wasn’t. Even now a sly, insidious voice mocked that she hadn’t changed at all, not in the way that mattered most. She’d give herself to him, body and heart and soul, and he would take it and use it and there would be nothing left. She’d be nothing.

And yet, despite that consuming fear, she still felt that baby’s breath of hope, and Luke’s steady presence, his arms cradling her all night long, had fanned it into something strong and good.

She wanted to take a chance again. With Luke, and with herself.

He opened his eyes.

‘Good morning.’ His voice was low and husky, and its warmth flooded through her. She smiled.

‘Good morning.’

He shifted so she was cradled once more by his arm, and she rested her head on his shoulder, breathed in the warm, woodsy scent of him. Idly he ran a few strands of hair through his fingers. ‘Sleep well?’

‘Better than I can ever remember.’

He pulled her just a little bit closer, that primal part of him clearly satisfied. ‘Good.’

Aurelie took a breath. And another, because this was hard.
So
hard, and as she took another breath she knew she was already starting to hyperventilate. She let it out slowly, a long, breathy sigh, and Luke’s hand stilled on her hair. He was waiting.

‘I want to tell you some things,’ she began, and deliberately he began stroking her hair again, his fingers sifting through the strands.

‘Okay.’

‘I think I’m ready to...to do that.’ He didn’t answer, just kept stroking, and Aurelie closed her eyes. ‘Not that it’s that big a story. I mean, if you’re expecting me to tell you something horrible to explain...well, to explain my behaviour, it wasn’t like that.’

‘You don’t need to make any judgements, Aurelie. I won’t.’

She felt her eyes scrunch shut, as if she could block out the truth she was about to tell. ‘You might.’

‘No.’

‘I told you I haven’t been a Girl Scout. Some of those tabloid stories—a lot of them—are true.’ She spoke almost defiantly now, daring him to be shocked. Disgusted.

‘I know that,’ Luke answered steadily. He was so steady, even when she was doing her best to push him away and pull him closer both at the same time.

‘I have to go back to the beginning.’

‘I told you I am a patient man.’

‘I know.’ And now all there was left to do was begin. At the beginning. ‘You remember I told you I was discovered at that karaoke night in Kansas?’

‘Yes.’

‘The man who discovered me was named Pete.’

‘Pete Myers,’ Luke clarified, and Aurelie realised that he’d heard of him, of
course
he’d heard of him. Pete was famous. He’d managed several major bands, had judged a couple of TV talent shows. He was practically a household name.

‘Right,’ she said, and continued. ‘Well, Pete was amazing back then. He came up to me, told me he could make me a star. He took my mom and me to dinner, told us his whole plan. How I’d become Aurelie.’

‘So he was the one behind your image.’ Luke spoke tonelessly, but Aurelie still felt the censure. She stiffened.

‘I went along with it. Innocent siren, those were his words.’

‘You were only fifteen.’

‘Almost sixteen. And I thought it all sounded incredibly cool.’ She sighed, hating that already she was having to explain, to justify. Luke’s arm tightened around her.

‘I’m sorry. Continue.’

‘Those first few months were a whirlwind. Pete took us all over, to LA, New York, Nashville. I met with agents and songwriters and publicity people and, before I knew what was happening, I was recording and releasing a single, and it was huge. I felt like I was at the centre of a storm.’

‘What about your mother?’

‘She disappeared a couple of months after Pete discovered me. I think she realised people didn’t really want her around, that she was just getting in the way. When she left, Pete offered to have me stay with him. I was still a minor, and he had to make some kind of legal guardian arrangement with my grandmother—’ She stopped then, because her throat had become so tight. That had been the last time she’d seen her grandmother alive. She’d given her the guitar, begged her to stay the same. And she hadn’t.

‘Anyway,’ she continued, trying desperately for briskness, ‘Pete was great about it all. He gave me my own floor in his house, treated me like—’ the word stuck in her throat ‘—a daughter. At least, he felt like a father to me. The dad I’d never had. He gave me a lot of good advice in the early days, how not to take any of the criticism to heart, how to stay sane amidst all the craziness. He even remembered my birthday—he got me a cake for my seventeenth.’

‘A paragon,’ Luke said flatly, and she squirmed in his arms to face him.

‘I told you not to make judgements.’

‘I’m not. I’m just wondering where this is going.’

‘I’ll tell you.’ She took another breath, let it out slowly. ‘I’d been living with Pete for a little over a year. He’d seen me through some tough times—my grandmother dying, being diagnosed with diabetes. He was the one who found me, you know. I’d passed out in the bathroom, and he took me to ER. Stayed with me the whole time, made sure I got the proper treatment and counselling once I was diagnosed.’ She felt Luke’s tension; his shoulder was iron-hard under her cheek. ‘I’m telling you all this just to...to explain the relationship. How close we were.’

‘I get it.’ His tone was even, expressionless, and yet Aurelie sensed the darkness underneath. And she hadn’t really told him anything yet.

‘So fast forward to my eighteenth birthday. He took me out to dinner at The Ivy, told me how happy he was that I’d made it, how much he cared about me.’ She paused, tried to choose her words carefully. She needed the right ones. ‘I look back on that as one of the happiest nights of my life.’ Before it had all changed.

She fell silent, the only sound in the bedroom the draw and sigh of their breathing. ‘And then?’ Luke asked eventually. ‘What happened?’

‘Pete took me home. I went to bed. I was just changing into my pyjamas when he...he came into the room.’ He hadn’t, she remembered now, asked to come in. Not like Luke. She still remembered that ripple of shocked confusion at seeing Pete standing in the doorway. Staring at her.

‘And?’ Luke asked very quietly. Aurelie realised she’d stopped speaking. She was just remembering, and she hated it.

‘He told me he loved me. He’d always loved me, and then he...he kissed me.’

‘Not,’ Luke said quietly, ‘like a dad.’

‘No. Not like a dad.’ She still remembered the shocking feel of his mouth on hers, wet and insistent. The way his hands had roved over her body, with a kind of tentative urgency. He’d been crying a little bit, and he kept begging her.
Let me,
he had whispered over and over again, and she had.

‘What did you do?’ Luke asked. He was still stroking her hair, still holding her. Aurelie blinked back the memories.

‘I let him.’

‘Let him?’

‘He kept saying that.
Let me.
And I did, because...well, because I didn’t want to lose him. He was the most important person in my life at that point, the only person in my life. And, looking back, I can see how I got it wrong. He never wanted to be my dad. I was the one who wanted that.’

Luke’s hands had stilled. ‘So he...he kissed you?’

‘We had sex,’ Aurelie said flatly. ‘That night. It was, if you can believe it, my first time. That whole innocent siren thing? It was pretty much true.’

Luke swallowed, said nothing. ‘I didn’t enjoy it,’ she continued. She felt weirdly emotionless now, as if none of it mattered. ‘I hated it. It felt...well, it felt gross, to be honest. But I knew it was what he wanted and so I made myself want it too.’

‘And what happened then? After?’

She shrugged. ‘We started dating.’

‘Dating?’

‘A relationship. Whatever. I was already living with him, so—’

‘Are you telling me,’ Luke asked, and his voice shook slightly, ‘that Pete Myers was your serious relationship? The one that lasted three years?’

‘Yes—’

‘God, Aurelie.’ He sank back onto the pillows and when she risked a look at his face she saw he looked shocked. Winded, as if she’d just punched him. Maybe she had.

‘I thought you kind of knew where this was going.’

‘Well, when you started talking about Myers, I figured he’d...he’d taken advantage of you somehow. But you’d said you weren’t abused or raped—’

‘I wasn’t.’ She stared at him in surprise. ‘I told you, he asked.’
Let me.
‘And I said yes.’

Luke stared at her. He still looked dazed. ‘You remember when we talked about semantics?’

‘Yes—’

‘Yeah. That.’

She shook her head. ‘I wasn’t a victim. If I’d told him to leave, he would have.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know it. Luke, you weren’t there. You didn’t see how...how pathetic he looked. I felt sorry for him.’ Almost.

‘Yeah, I’m sure he could look pathetic when he wanted to. He’s also one of the richest, most powerful men in the music world, Aurelie. You don’t think he might have been taking advantage of you?’

‘Maybe,’ she allowed, ‘but I allowed it to happen.’

‘For three years.’

‘It was a
relationship
.’ She didn’t like the tone Luke took, as if she’d been used. Abused. A victim.

‘A secret relationship. I’ve never seen this mentioned in the press.’

‘Pete didn’t want the tabloids to trash us. He was being protective—’

‘Very thoughtful of him.’

‘Don’t,’ she said furiously. ‘Don’t make this about me being used by him. I was
not
a victim.’

Luke just gazed at her. ‘Go on,’ he finally said quietly. ‘Tell me what happened.’

‘When?’

‘How did it end?’

‘He ended it. He said it wasn’t working, that I was too clingy.’

‘Too clingy.’

‘Yes. And I was, I can see that now. The fame had started to get to me, and I felt like Pete was the only person who knew who I really was. My mom was still out of the picture, my grandma was dead, and I’d never stayed in one place long enough to get to know anyone.’

‘So,’ Luke said slowly, ‘he was all you had.’

‘It felt that way. But he started losing interest and my music started slipping, the media noticed, and when he finally ended it—’ She took a breath, plunged. ‘I went off the deep end.’

‘You weren’t,’ Luke said, and she almost heard a sad smile in his voice, ‘a Girl Scout.’

‘No. I pretty much did what the press said I did. I drank, I did drugs, I partied hard and slept around, and my career tanked.’ She swallowed, sniffed. ‘So there you have it.’

Luke said nothing, and Aurelie felt condemnation in his silence. She’d done so many things she wasn’t proud of, the first one being that she’d given in to Pete that first night. That she’d been so clingy and needy and starved of love, she’d taken what she could get. And then when he’d decided he didn’t want her any more, she’d spun out of control because she’d felt so horribly empty.

And she was so afraid of that happening again.

‘Which part of all that,’ Luke finally asked, ‘did you not want to tell me?’

She let out a wobbly laugh, surprised by the question. ‘All of it.’

‘But which part in particular?’ He shifted so he was facing her, his gaze intent, his eyes blazing. ‘The part at the end? About how you went off the deep end? How you partied and slept around and lost yourself?’

She squirmed under that gaze, those pointed, knowing questions. ‘Yes, basically.’
Lost yourself.
That was exactly what had happened, yet even now she couldn’t admit as much to Luke. Admit that she was afraid of it happening again, and worse this time. She’d finally found herself again, thanks to Luke. But what if she lost herself once more because she couldn’t handle being in a relationship? Being hurt?

What if he grew tired of her like Pete had, like the whole
world
had?

‘And what about sex?’ he asked quietly. ‘Enjoying it? Why do you think you don’t?’

She swallowed, wished he didn’t have to be quite so blunt. ‘I suppose because of my experience with Pete. I was never attracted to him, and being with him like that for so long...it just killed that part of me.’

‘And when I’m with you? And you freeze? Why do you think that is?’

‘I don’t know.’ She felt herself getting angry again. She hated him asking so many terrible questions, stripping her so horribly bare. ‘I suppose I remember that first time. It was awful, okay?’ Tears sprang to her eyes and she turned her face away from him. ‘
Awful.
I couldn’t breathe. He was so heavy. And it...hurt.’ She gasped the last word out, tears pooling in her eyes. If she blinked they would fall, and she couldn’t have that. If she let those first tears out, too many more would follow, and she was afraid she would never stop crying.

‘What about with other men?’ Luke asked quietly.

Aurelie sniffed, her face still averted, her voice clogged with all those mortifying tears. ‘They were all pretty much the same. They only wanted one thing from me, and I knew that. I was a trophy. I got it, and I used it because—’ She stopped, and Luke finished for her, his voice so soft and sad.