‘I’m not even famous,’ she whispered. ‘Why does anyone give a damn? I’m not news.’
But she was the villain-du-jour. And James? James was the hero.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said shortly. ‘Forget about it.’
He spoke with such crisp authority. As if it really were that easy. Maybe for him it was.
‘Oh, sure.’ She painted on a smile. ‘I’ll do that.’
When she went down to breakfast she swore she saw caution in his parents’ eyes as they greeted her. They’d read the story too. It had rehashed the worst of the Dominic nightmare. The accusations of cattiness, craziness, vindictiveness. Her brief moment of being no one, of having no past and reputation to cloud their minds and poison their perceptions, that was gone. Now they knew she wasn’t the woman for their precious son. The one they so obviously wanted to care for and protect and to see happy.
James was quiet again. She felt the old isolation return. At three a.m. they’d still been awake, clinging to each other in wild abandon, but now?
It meant nothing. Now, more than ever, she understood it had to mean nothing.
She wasn’t the right woman for him. She didn’t need the trolls on the Internet to tell her that.
Mid-morning he walked over to her as she sat on one of the wicker chairs on the deck, staring out to the sea. ‘You’re still worried.’
‘Your family have read those stories.’ She couldn’t bring herself to even look at his mother.
‘And my family knows those kinds of stories are fiction.’
Mostly. But there was the ‘no smoke without fire’ thing. The partial truth. ‘You’re not going to ask me about it?’ she said softly.
He hunched down before her. ‘You already told me you’ve never been pregnant.’
‘And you truly believed me? Just like that?’
‘Why? You want to me to find a lie detector? Do some torture?’ He smiled and shook his head. ‘If that’s what you say, then I believe you.’
He’d not asked her about it directly since that day they’d Googled each other. She’d told him the truth. And he’d accepted it. She hadn’t needed to pull out all kinds of exhibits or evidence to be believed. He hadn’t needed it. Or wanted it. Still didn’t.
She almost smiled. ‘I should explain it to your parents.’
‘Leave it.’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t need to explain anything to anyone.’ He lifted a hand and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘No one can really understand what someone else might be going through. No one should make judgments. Your body, your life, the way you choose to live it. That’s your choice. What decisions you make, or may have made, you’ll have your reasons for them.’
‘Some of my choices have been wrong,’ she said. ‘They’ve been mistakes.’
‘Me too, you know that,’ he whispered. ‘So we just have to try to learn from them, right? Not repeat them.’ He looked at her, his eyes shadowed but sure. ‘And not keep beating ourselves up about them for the rest of our lives.’
Her heart melted. He might be as human as she, might have made big mistakes, but he was undeniably courageous. And so easy to want to love.
‘Come on,’ he said, standing up and drawing away. ‘I think it’s time we went back to Manhattan.’
Half an hour later his parents were still all polite smiles as they stood on the driveway to wave them off.
‘I’ll come back again soon.’ James wrapped his mother in a hug. ‘Before I go overseas for a while again. Okay?’
He felt his mother’s arms tighten. ‘We’d love that.’
‘Me too.’ He smiled and pressed a quick kiss on her hair. Actually meaning it. And actually feeling okay. The old aching lump in his heart was still there, but for some reason it had softened a smidge.
He glanced at Caitlin waiting in the passenger seat already. She looked pale, as if she hadn’t slept. Well, he knew for a fact she hadn’t.
He’d take her back to the condo. It had been a mistake to bring her here. A mistake to take her out last night. He kept seeing that photo from that website. The one where he was holding her close and all but dragging her out of the club. He hardly recognised himself—the expression on his face was one of total ownership.
Since when did he act so ‘Me Tarzan. You Jane’? Was it when she’d asked him to take her home? Like they belonged together?
His muscles twitched. They’d hardly started the cruise through the villages when his mobile rang. He glanced at the screen and immediately pulled over to take the call. ‘Lisbet?’
‘You know how you didn’t want the full two weeks off?’
His adrenalin spiked as he heard the catch of anxiety in Lisbet’s voice. ‘Yeah?’
‘It’s that conference.’
‘You need me to go?’ James asked before she could even explain her reasons.
‘Yes. It’s just that—’
‘It’s no problem,’ James assured her, his blood pumping. Perfect. Breathing space. Business. Normality. ‘I can do it. As soon as you need me, I’m there.’
‘Really?’
Yeah, he wasn’t surprised that she was taken aback given she knew how much he hated conferences and the whole public-speaking thing.
‘Of course.’ He tried to joke. ‘I’m assuming you’ve written the keynote?’
‘I’ll email it to you.’
‘And I’ll amend it.’ He cracked a smile.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured her. ‘I can do it.’
‘You’ll need to get the next flight to Sapporo.’ The anxiety returned to Lisbet’s voice.
‘Have you booked me a ticket already?’
‘I’m on it now. I’ll email it. You’ve only got a couple hours.’
‘Great,’ he said. ‘JFK?’ He’d have to drop Caitlin off and go straight there.
‘Yes.’ Her relief was audible. ‘I knew I could rely on you. Thank you.’
‘Not a problem. You do what you have to do. And so will I.’
‘I will.’
James rang off and pulled back out into the traffic lane before saying anything to Caitlin. He pressed hard on the accelerator. This was a good thing. It’d give him a few days to pause and get his head together. Caitlin would still be in New York when he got back and he’d see how things were then. He glanced at her. She was watching the scenery whizz by.
‘Did you get the gist of that?’ he asked.
‘You’re going somewhere.’ She turned her face to look at him, concern etched in her blue eyes. ‘Has something horrible happened somewhere?’
‘No, thank goodness.’ He hurriedly smiled, hating the spasm of guilt that she’d been worried for a moment. It reinforced his instinct—he was right to walk away. ‘I have to go to that conference in Northern Japan.’
Her eyes widened. ‘There really is a conference? I thought you just made that up as an excuse to fob off your family.’
‘There really is a conference.’ He chuckled, even as he felt another bite of that guilt. ‘At the time it was also an excuse because I didn’t have to go to it. Now I do.’
‘Oh.’
‘It’s a big conference. Important. I have to deliver the keynote.’
‘Wow.’
‘Hmm.’ He glanced at her again. She was back to looking at the scenery. ‘Not my favourite thing to do,’ he said. ‘But I really do have to—’
‘It’s okay, you don’t have to explain it, I understand.’ Caitlin totally understood.
James had a job to do. And that job always came first.
She breathed in, trying to get her head around the sudden change of plan. There’d been no hesitation in his replies during the call. He’d offered instantly. Absolute readiness and pleasure. No thought for what—or who—he’d
be leaving behind. He’d just locked into action-man mode. It was what he loved.
All he loved.
Oh, she was stupid. So lame to have been so looking forward to getting back to the condo and having him to herself again.
That she’d come to feel so much for him so quickly? The clichés were clichés for a reason—they were true. Prolonged physical intimacy led to emotional entanglement. For her anyway. Had she really thought that the almost desperate way he’d held her to him last night had meant something? What a fool she was.
She stared resolutely out of the window. Refusing to let herself feel any kind of hurt. Impossible of course. And she didn’t want him to go. She didn’t want him to leave her.
But he was. After all, what was a few more days with her compared to his work? A ‘keynote speech’ had to be delivered—oooh, so important.
She couldn’t help the bitchy turn of her thoughts. He hadn’t been called to a desperate life-saving search in the rubble somewhere hellish. This was a conference. A bunch of people standing round and talking.
But she wasn’t going to tell him how she felt about it. As if she’d make such a fool of herself? She couldn’t turn harpy on him for doing his job. She couldn’t cry and say she’d miss him—which she wanted to do and would. Hell, this was a holiday fling—he’d probably laugh at her. Then run a mile from the psycho clinging woman. He’d think she was all that Dominic had claimed—the woman who refused to let a man walk when he wanted to.
She was the loser for taking this too seriously. She was the loser for letting him inside—not to her body, but her heart. But she’d never let him know what a fool she’d been. Because even if he didn’t laugh, the last thing she wanted now was any kind of pity.