Feeling her heart start to thump, she glanced back at the painting. ‘I don’t know. It makes me feel like I’m drowning. But not in a bad way. More like I don’t have to fight any more.’
It made her feel oddly vulnerable, revealing something to Rollo so spontaneously.
‘Then maybe you shouldn’t,’ he said quietly. ‘Fight it, I mean.’
She gazed up at him mutely. The chatter and laughter around them faded away and suddenly she had the same sensation she’d had at the spa—that it was just the two of them, alone.
Rollo stared at her steadily, watching her eyes widen and soften. ‘Maybe you should just give in...’
‘So tell me, Rollo, just exactly how did you two meet?’
It was Bobbie. Head spinning, he turned as she looped her arm through his.
‘That’s a good question.’
He stared at her dazedly, trying to remember, his brain grasping for the right answer—the answer he and Daisy had agreed on. But it wasn’t there, and he felt a blinding white-out of panic, his mind blank of everything except the moment he’d caught Daisy in his office. The one memory he couldn’t actually use.
‘I—I’m not sure,’ he said slowly. ‘Was it at work?’
Beside him he could feel eyes on his face. Only they weren’t just Daisy’s eyes any more. Around him he could feel the room shifting and shrinking, and he knew that soon the questions would get harder and everything would be so much worse.
‘Yes, it was.’ Daisy’s voice was quiet but firm.
Glancing up, he saw she was smiling calmly at Bobbie, and some of the pressure eased inside his head.
‘Rollo is trying to be discreet because he knows I don’t like telling people I’m a waitress. But that’s what I was doing the night we met. I’d done something stupid and he found a way to make it okay. But the weird thing was we’d already met.’
He stared at her. She was improvising her way back to their story, her eyes prompting him so that he heard himself say easily, ‘Yes. We had. At a play. You see, Daisy’s actually an actress.’
Rolling her eyes, Daisy shook her head. ‘I trained to be an actress. And, yes, I was in a play. An awful play that was so off-Broadway it might as well have been in Pennsylvania. But Rollo was in the audience.’
‘It wasn’t that bad,’ he said quietly.
Looking up at him, Daisy felt her insides tighten. His eyes were fierce, almost protective, and her breath stuttered in her throat as she forced herself to remember that he hadn’t even been at that theatre. Had never seen her act.
‘It’s okay. You don’t have to—’
‘I’m not.’
He held her gaze and she stared at him in silence, hypnotised, her heart thudding, fear colliding with fascination.
‘You were good. Better than good. You made people believe.’
Later, watching him talk to one of the artists, Daisy sifted through his words, twisting and rearranging them. Maybe he had meant what he said. But how could he when he had never seen her act? She glanced across the room. If anyone was good at acting, it was Rollo. Everybody believed in him, and more than anything they wanted him to believe in them.
But, of course, they did, she thought helplessly. Even surrounded by A-listers, he was movie star handsome, his charisma and poise matters of fact. Not just something to be switched on for an audience.
Suddenly he looked up and met her gaze head-on. Her pulse leapfrogged over itself as she watched him make his excuses and saunter across the room.
‘Seen enough?’
For one horrible moment she thought he was referring to himself. Then her brain clicked up a gear and she realised he was talking about the paintings.
She shrugged. ‘I think so. But I’m happy to stay if you want.’
Gently he reached out and tipped up her chin. ‘What I want is to be alone with you,’ he said softly.
And then he smiled—a smile that warmed her skin like sunlight—and pulling her closer, he kissed her.