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She flicked to the next picture, almost fainting at the image: a shot of them in the cottage, their bodies engaged in intercourse. Her head was thrown backward as he kissed her neck; the expression on her face was clearly orgasmic.
She moaned in dread, dropping her head to the desk. She was doomed, she thought as she closed the lid on the laptop. She wasn’t going to be able to show her face in public again. She’d never get another moment’s peace or privacy; this one bad decision would follow her around for the rest of her life—however long that might be. If her father had seen these pictures, she was dead already.
Her cell phone buzzed shrilly. She pulled it out of her jeans pocket, gulping loudly. The screen read: Dad. She clicked a button, silencing the ringer.
Nicole heard raised voices as they approached the library doors. She didn’t want to be drawn into a verbal battle between Reece and his brother. She gathered her things from the desk and bolted for the spiral staircase that led up to the second floor. She planned to scoot out the gallery door and down to her room. She was barely across the landing when she heard her name mentioned.
“Who is this girl, Reece? Do you know anything about her?”
“Her name is Nicole DeLancey. She’s a writer visiting England to do research for her novel. I met her at JFK.”
“I’m familiar with the story. It was convenient she was there at that particular moment, don’t you think?”
Reece’s eyes narrowed. “What are you implying, Marcus?”
“I want to get to the bottom of this and find out what’s really going on.”
“She didn’t plot against me to gain publicity.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
Marcus threw his hands in the air. “That’s a brilliant answer. Make sure you tell that one to the press.”
Reece’s reply was full of scorn. “I’m not telling the press anything. They’ve invaded my privacy one time too many.”
“You’re a movie star. You have no privacy,” Marcus replied, stating the obvious.
He looked away. “How can we control the damage?”
“You can start by getting rid of your little tramp.”
Reece took an aggressive step toward his brother. “Don’t speak about her that way.”
“Why? Is she more to you than a convenient piece of ass?”
He knew his brother was probing for information to exploit. He refused to give it to him. “She’s someone I met on the plane. We felt an attraction to each other. I was just passing the time while I waited for my next movie project.” There was no way he was going to tell his brother the truth. Not when he was being a complete jackass.
“So, you were using her?” Marcus asked doubtfully.
He clenched his fists. “Yeah, I was using her. I fed her all the right lines. I gave her all the right looks. She was putty in my hands. And now, because of me, she’s fodder for the newspapers.”
Marcus shrugged in dismissal. “Who cares? Send her off with a nice fat check for her silence and be done with it. You’ve got bigger fish to fry. Melanie is livid.”
Reece rolled his eyes. “I don’t care about Melanie.”
“That’s a nice thing to say about your fiancée.”
Nicole backed up against the door, her mind in a fog. She’d been right all along. Reece was only playing a part. He didn’t care for her one bit.
She fumbled for the knob, letting herself out of the room and squeezing through the small slit of space she created. She didn’t want the brothers to know she’d overheard them. She moved down the hall toward her bedroom, determined to pack the rest of her belongings and get away from this place as quickly as possible.
She opened the door, finding Maggie in the process of putting her clothes in a bag. “What are you doing?”
Maggie glanced over her shoulder. “I’m getting you out of here. You don’t need to be a part of this debacle.”
“I’m already a part of it, Maggie.”
