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For a vital, virile man like him that must feel like for ever.
He stepped nearer as his voice came softer. ‘That wasn’t why I kissed you.’
‘No?’ She couldn’t move. ‘Why did you?’
‘I wanted to. I want you.’
Heat burst in a fireball in her belly. ‘You stopped,’ she accused.
‘Because it was the right thing to do at the time.’
‘And you always do the right thing.’ She remembered from earlier. ‘Or you try to. Why do you try so hard?’
He didn’t answer. Instead, with his gaze firmly locked on hers, he tugged the iPad from her fingers. ‘What’s good for the gander...’ He trailed off.
‘Don’t,’ she whispered. All sensual heat evaporated, leaving her cold, empty. Afraid.
‘You might have gone off the rails when you were a teen soap star, but that was years ago,’ he pointed out bluntly. ‘That’s not why you’re here now. There’s something else, right? Something more.’
She always wants Moore.
‘Please don’t,’ she asked again.
‘It’s that bad?’
‘Worse.’
‘Like I can’t look now,’ he said wryly, tapping her name into the search engine.
Caitlin closed her eyes and silence commanded the room.
James looked at the massive number of hits. Most of them were UK based websites. There was a heap of images from years ago. And then some more recent. Much more recent. An online version of a UK tabloid had a number of recent articles. None of the headlines were good—Could she be any Moore crazy? ; She always wants Moore ; Stop stalking me, I can’t take any Moore!
He clicked on the last. Skimmed the article then scrolled down to the comments. Unadulterated vitriol. And there’d be far worse on those unmoderated sites.
‘They always like to find the ugliest pictures they can.’ She spoke in a very small voice.
True. The accompanying picture didn’t do her justice. How the hell they’d snapped her like that he didn’t know. She was beautiful in real life. Elfin, ethereal—seemingly incapable of looking or acting the outright bitch this article claimed she was.
She’d gotten involved with an actor. Dominic. They’d dated for the best part of a year—she’d been studying. He’d been growing in popularity. Publicity.
He’d ended it. She’d taken it badly. Turned stalker—especially when Dominic began a new relationship right away with another woman. An actress.
According to this, Caitlin had told him she was pregnant. Tried to emotionally blackmail him back to her. Then, when things didn’t go the way she wanted, when he didn’t return to her, she’d aborted the baby. And in the court of public opinion, she’d been crucified.
James looked at her, needing to read her expression. To ask for her truth. What he saw pulled his chest tight.
She’d had a shiny inner glow when she’d first woken this morning, a teasing light and a definite bite. Now she’d paled. The spark in her eyes, her speech, her spirit—snuffed. He wanted it back. It was what he liked most about her.
‘I hadn’t been in the papers for years,’ she said. ‘And now it’s not just the newspapers, is it? It’s the Internet and Twitter and all those blogs with anonymous people who love to spout hate. They pulled up everything from the past. It’s so much worse than it ever was. I thought I could handle it. I could back then. But now I can’t. Now I...’ Her voice trailed off.
‘Is it true?’ he asked quietly.
‘Is what true?’ she answered, some spirit returning. ‘All of it? Part of it?’ She lifted her shoulders. ‘What does it matter what I answer?’ She shook her head. ‘Will you be able to believe me? Really believe me?’
‘I have no reason not to.’
She tensed. ‘Yet the first night we met you were thinking all kinds of charming things about me.’
‘I was tired and...really tired. I wasn’t in the best headspace. It wasn’t you making me think that way, it was me.’
‘People naturally think the worst. People naturally doubt.’
He shook his head. ‘In my job I have to trust people instantly. I have to rely on strangers in the craziest of circumstances. And most of the time, they pull through for me. Actions. It’s always in their actions.’
‘So what do you think my actions say about me?’
He gazed at her, at the guarded look in her eyes, and the hope she couldn’t quite hide. ‘Your actions tell me that you’ve been really hurt. You’ve run away—come to hide and recover in private. But you’re also yearning to start again—so you have determination. You have pride in your work. You want to do well. You’re willing to put up with a difficult situation in order to be here—so you were very desperate to escape. Perhaps you’re also desperate to succeed.’
She blinked suddenly. Her gaze dropping from his as her lashes fluttered a few times.
‘Whether every word in this article is true?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t think it would be.’
She looked at him again, her pale blue eyes shining, beseeching. He suddenly felt how strongly she wanted to be believed. Yet she was filled with fear. And sadness. A fiery basic instinct roared within him—he wanted to protect, defend. Reassure.
‘I’ve never been pregnant,’ she whispered. ‘Ever.’
His chest constricted. Ached. So did his throat. He nodded. ‘Then why have they run with this? How did this even get printed?’
‘Publicity, I guess. It made for a good storm. He came out as the poor, wronged guy.’ She shook her head, casting away the wretched expression, her defensive quip returning. ‘The crowd loves a villain. Everybody loves to have somebody to hate.’
James stared hard at her, trying to see the true source of her very real distress. ‘Did he break your heart?’
‘Only by not speaking out to say this wasn’t true. He knows it’s not true. He betrayed me by staying silent.’
No one had stood up for her. Not her sister. Not her father. She’d not even stood up for herself. She’d run away. Could he really blame her for that?
He glanced back down at the iPad and flicked back to the search results. He clicked on a couple more. One catalogued her previous ‘crimes’.
‘Are they all untrue?’ He read some of the accusations. ‘Did you get so drunk at your sixteenth birthday party you vomited on the production assistant? Did you insist on having first pick of all the outfits you and your castmates were offered? Did you have an affair with the man who played your teacher in the show...?’
‘Actually,’ she interrupted with a guilty whisper, ‘they’re all true.’
He laughed a little. ‘Oh, Caitlin.’
‘Well, in fairness, the outfits thing was only because I was really getting into the costumes. I wanted to put the look together. But I didn’t go about it the right way. I was young. Stupid. I admit to the mistakes I made. But you’ll note it was me, the sixteen-year-old who seduced the older guy—according to those stories. Thank heavens he wasn’t married. I’d have been slaughtered.’
‘In reality he seduced you?’
‘Honestly?’ She thought about it. ‘I think I was easy pickings. I think he knew which buttons to push.’ She looked him in the eyes. ‘The emotional ones, I mean.’
‘Where was your father?’
A flash of sheer surprise flitted across her face. And then she laughed. ‘Exactly.’ She shrugged. ‘Enter father figure, stage left.’ She sobered, the sad expression returning. ‘The worst thing was the writers caught a whiff of the rumours and then put it in the show. I was the schoolgirl with the crush on the teacher.’
Yeah, it really wasn’t funny. ‘Your father didn’t refuse that storyline?’
Her mouth clamped for a moment. ‘My father thinks there’s no such thing as bad publicity. He was
always more manager than parent. I don’t need a manager any more.’
So that left her without a parent? He didn’t know what he could say to make it any better for her. ‘That sucks.’
She inclined her head and looked him straight in the eyes. ‘You really believe me?’
Carefully he watched her expression—reading all that doubt there. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘Reputation is a dangerous thing.’ She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. ‘Mud sticks and all that.’
‘No,’ he murmured. ‘Why really? Didn’t you ever challenge them? Didn’t you deny this crap this Dominic-guy spread?’
‘There was no point. People will always think smoke means fire.’
‘No,’ he challenged her. ‘Sometimes it’s just smoke. Sometimes it’s just there for someone to hide in. Like a stage set.’
She shook her head and the haunted look returned. She glanced down, running over the long list of offences detailed on the Internet. ‘The underage clubbing thing is true, as is the underage drinking. But I never did drugs. Nor have I ever self-harmed.’
