The Talk of Hollywood (9 page)

And finding himself intrigued and challenged by all of them.

‘Time for lunch, I believe …’

Stazy had been so lost in reading one of her grandmother’s diaries that she had momentarily forgotten that Jaxon sat across the table from her, let alone noticed the passing of time. Surprisingly, it had been a strangely companionable morning, that earlier awkwardness having dissipated as they both became lost in their individual tasks.

She gave a shake of her head now. ‘I rarely bother to eat lunch.’

‘Meaning that I shouldn’t either?’ Jaxon teased.

‘Not at all,’ she told him briskly. ‘I’ll just carry on here, if you would like to go and—What are you doing …?’ She frowned across at Jaxon as he reached across the table to close the diary she was reading before rising to his feet and holding out his hand to her expectantly.

‘Ever heard the saying “all work and no play …” ‘

Her mouth firmed as she continued to ignore his outstretched hand. ‘I’ve never pretended to be anything other than dull.’

‘I don’t find you in the least dull, Stazy,’ Jaxon murmured softly.

She raised startled eyes. ‘You don’t?’

‘No,’ he assured her huskily; having spent the past three hours completely aware of Stazy sitting across the table from him, how could he claim otherwise? She was a woman of contradictions: practical by nature but delicately feminine in her appearance. Her hands alone seemed proof of that contradiction. Her wrists were fragile, her fingers slender and elegant, but they were tipped with practically short and unvarnished nails. He had spent quite a lot of the last three hours looking at Stazy’s hands as she turned the pages of the diary she was reading and imagining all the places those slender fingers tipped by those trimmed nails might linger as she caressed him.

‘Let’s go, Stazy,’ he encouraged her now. ‘I asked Little earlier if he would provide us with a lunch basket.’

She frowned. ‘You expect me to go on a picnic with you?’

‘Why not?’ Jaxon asked softly.

Probably because Stazy couldn’t remember the last time she had done anything as frivolous as eating her lunch
al fresco
—even in one of the many cafés in England that now provided tables for people to eat outside. When she was working she was too busy during the day to eat lunch at all, and when she came here her grandfather preferred formality. Occasionally Granny had organised a picnic down on the beach at the weekends, but that had been years ago, and—

‘You think too much, Stazy.’ Jaxon, obviously tired of waiting for her to make up her mind, pulled her effortlessly to her feet.

Stazy couldn’t think at all when she was standing close to Jaxon like this, totally aware of the heat of his body and the pleasant—
arousing
—smell of the cologne he favoured. ‘Aren’t we a little old to be going on a picnic, Jaxon?’

‘Not in the least,’ he dismissed easily. Not waiting to hear any more of her objections, his hand still firmly clasping hers, he pulled her along with him to walk out into the cavernous hallway. ‘Ah, Little, just in time.’ He smiled warmly at the butler as he appeared from the back of the house with a picnic basket in one hand and a blanket in the other. ‘If Mr Bromley calls we’ll be back in a couple of hours.’

Jaxon handed Stazy the blanket before taking the picnic basket himself, all the time retaining that firm grasp on Stazy’s hand as he kept her at his side. He strode out of the front doorway of the house and down the steps onto the driveway.

The warm and strong hand totally dwarfed Stazy’s, and at the same time she was tinglingly aware of that warmth and strength. The same strength that had enabled
him to ride an elephant, go bareback on a horse, to handle the controls of a Spitfire and captain a fishing boat, and do all of those other stunts in his films that Stazy had assumed were performed by someone else.

Making Jaxon far less that ‘pretty face’ image she had previously taken such pleasure in attributing to him.

If she were completely honest with herself Jaxon was so much more than she had wanted him to be before meeting him, and as such had earned—albeit grudgingly!—her respect. It would have been far easier to simply dismiss the pretty-faced Hollywood actor of her imaginings; but the real Jaxon Wilder was nothing at all as Stazy had thought—hoped—he would be. Instead, he had a depth and intelligence she found it impossible to ignore.

Add those things to the way he looked—to the way he had kissed her and made her feel the previous evening—and Stazy was seriously in danger of fighting a losing battle against this unwanted attraction.

That was why it really wasn’t a good idea to go on a picnic with him!

He turned to look down at her from beneath hooded lids. ‘Beach or woody glade?’

‘Neither.’ Stazy impatiently pulled her hand free of his. ‘I really don’t have time for this, Jaxon—’

‘Make time.’

She eyed him derisively. ‘Did you need to practise that masterful tone or does it just come naturally?’

Jaxon grinned unconcernedly. ‘Just getting into character for next week, when I become captain of a pirate ship and need to keep my female captive in line.’

‘Seriously?’

The look of total disbelief on Stazy’s face was
enough to make him chuckle out loud. ‘Seriously.’ He grinned. ‘That’s before I have my wicked way with her about halfway through the movie, of course.’

She winced. ‘After which she no doubt keeps
you
in line?’

‘I seem to recall I then become her willing slave in the captain’s cabin, yes,’ Jaxon allowed dryly, enjoying the delicate blush that immediately coloured Stazy’s cheeks; for a twenty-nine-year-old woman she was incredibly easy to shock. ‘So, Stazy—beach or woody glade?’ He returned to their original conversation.

Stazy’s thoughts had briefly wandered off to images of herself as Jaxon’s captive on his pirate ship, where he swept her up in his arms. Her hair was loose and windswept, and she was wearing a green velvet gown that revealed more than it covered as he lowered his head and his mouth plundered hers.

Just imagining it was enough to cause her body to heat and her nipples to tingle and harden inside her bra as the warm feeling between her thighs returned.

Good grief …!

She gave a self-disgusted shake of her head as she dismissed those images. ‘I think you’ll find that my grandfather’s security guards might have something to say about where we’re allowed to go for our picnic.’ She grimaced as she recalled how her ride this morning had been decided by one of those attentive guards.

‘Let’s walk down to the beach and see if anyone tries to stop us.’ Once again Jaxon took a firm hold of her hand, before walking towards the back of the house and the pathway down to the beach.

Dragging a reluctant Stazy along with him.

N
O ONE
tried to stop them, but Jaxon noted the presence of the two black-clothed men who moved to stand at either end of the coved beach that stretched beyond the walled gardens of Bromley House, positioning themselves so that they faced outwards rather than watching the two of them as he and Stazy spread the blanket on the warmth of the sand.

The sun was shining brightly and a breeze blew lightly off the sea.

‘Little seems to have thought of everything,’ Jaxon murmured appreciatively as he uncorked a bottle of chilled white wine before pouring it into the two crystal glasses he had unwrapped from tissue paper.

‘Years of practice, I expect.’ There was a wistful note in Stazy’s voice as she knelt on the blanket, arranging the chicken and salad onto plates.

His expression was thoughtful as he sipped his wine. ‘You used to come here with your grandparents.’ It was a statement rather than a question.

She nodded abruptly. ‘And my parents when they were still alive.’

‘I hadn’t realised that.’ He winced. ‘Would you rather have gone somewhere else?’

‘Not at all,’ she dismissed briskly. ‘I’m sure you
know me well enough by now, Jaxon, to have realised I have no time for sentimentality,’ she added dryly.

No, Jaxon couldn’t say he had ‘realised’ that about her at all. Oh, there was no doubting that Stazy liked to give the impression of brisk practicality rather than warmth and emotion; but even in the short time Jaxon had spent in her company he had come to realise that was exactly what it was—an impression. Even if she hadn’t responded to him so passionately—so wildly—the evening before he would still have known that about her. Her defence of her grandparents, everything she said and did in regard to them, revealed that she loved them deeply. And as she had no doubt loved her parents just as deeply.

‘Where were you when your parents died …?’ He held out the second glass of chilled wine to her.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she took the glass from him. ‘At boarding school.’ Her throat moved convulsively as she swallowed. ‘My father was flying the two of them to Paris to celebrate their twentieth wedding anniversary.’

‘Do you know what went wrong …?’

Her eyes were pained as she looked up at him. ‘Are you really interested, Jaxon, or are these questions just out of a need for accuracy in your screenplay—’

‘I’m really interested,’ he cut in firmly, more than a little irritated that she could ask him such a question. Admittedly they had only met at all because of the film he wanted to make about her grandmother, but after their closeness last night he didn’t appreciate having Stazy still view his every question with suspicion. ‘I’ve already decided that neither you nor your parents will feature in the film, Stazy.’

She raised red-gold brows. ‘Why not?’

Jaxon shook his head. ‘There’s only so much I can cover in a film that plays for a couple of hours without rushing it, so I’ve more or less decided to concentrate on the escape of Anastasia’s family from Russia, her growing up in England, and then the earlier years of the love story between Anastasia and Geoffrey.’

Her expression softened. ‘It really was a love story, wasn’t it?’

Again there was that wistful note in Stazy’s voice. Jaxon was pretty sure she was completely unaware of it. An unacknowledged yearning, perhaps, for that same enduring love herself …? Yet at the same time Stazy was so determined to give every outward appearance of not needing those softer emotions in her life.

She seemed to recognise and shake off that wistfulness as she answered him with her usual briskness. ‘There’s no mystery about my parents’ deaths, Jaxon. The enquiry found evidence that the plane crashed due to engine failure—possibly after a bird flew into it. One of those one in a million chances that occasionally happen.’ She shrugged dismissively.

It
was
a one in a million chance, Jaxon knew, and it had robbed Stazy of her parents and completely shattered her young life. A one in a million chance that had caused her to build barriers about her emotions so that her life—and her heart?—would never suffer such loss and heartache again.

He was pretty sure he was getting close to the reason for Stazy’s deliberate air of cold practicality. A coldness and practicality that he had briefly penetrated when the two of them had kissed so passionately the evening before.

He reached out to lightly caress one of her creamy cheeks. ‘Not everyone leaves or dies, Stazy—’

He knew he had made a mistake when she instantly flinched away from the tenderness of his fingers, her expression one of red-cheeked indignation as she rose quickly to her feet.

‘What on earth do you think you’re doing, Jaxon?’ She glared down at him, her hands clenched into fists at her sides, her breasts rapidly rising and falling in her agitation. ‘Did you really think all you had to do was offer a few platitudes and words of understanding in order for me to tumble willingly into your arms? Or is it that your ego is so big you believe every woman you meet is going to want to fall into bed with you?’

Jaxon drew his breath in sharply at the deliberate insult of her attack, his hand falling back to his side as he rose slowly to his feet to look down at her gloweringly. ‘It’s usually polite to wait until you’re asked!’

‘Then I advise you not to put yourself to the trouble where I’m concerned!’ she bit out dismissively, two bright spots of angry colour in her cheeks, green eyes glittering furiously as she glared up at him. ‘I may have made the mistake of allowing you to kiss me last night, but I can assure you I don’t intend to make a habit of it!’

Jaxon gave a frustrated shake of his head. ‘You kissed me right back, damn it!’

Stazy knew that! Knew it, and regretted it with every breath in her body. At the same time as she wanted to kiss Jaxon again. To have him kiss her. Again. And again …!

She ached for Jaxon to kiss her. To more than kiss her. Had been wanting, aching for him to kiss her again ever since the two of them had parted the night before. So much so that right now she wanted nothing more than for the two of them to lie down on this blanket
on the sand—regardless of the presence of those two guards!—and have him make love to her.

That was precisely the reason she wouldn’t allow it to happen!

Jaxon was only staying here at Bromley House for a week. Just one week. After which time he would leave to make his pirate movie, before returning to the States and his life there. It would be madness on Stazy’s part to allow herself to become involved with him even for that short length of time.

Why
would it? The only two relationships she’d previously had in her life had been with men she had known were uninterested in a permanent relationship. Surely making Jaxon the perfect candidate for a brief, week-long affair.

No, she couldn’t do it! She sensed—knew—from the wildness of her response to him yesterday evening that Jaxon represented a danger to all those barriers she had so carefully built about her emotions. So much so that she knew even a week of being Jaxon’s lover would be six days and twenty-three hours too long …!

‘Where are you going?’ Jaxon reached out to firmly grasp Stazy’s arm as she would have turned and walked away.

‘Back to the house—’

‘In other words, you’re running away?’ he scorned. ‘Again,’ he added, those grey eyes taunting.