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It occurred to him at that precise moment she would also be the first woman he’d invited to his home. The house in Laguna Beach was his sanctuary and he hadn’t even let Gina stay there overnight, always insisting they sleep at her pad in the Hollywood Hills. He gave a mental shrug. It wasn’t significant. Hadn’t they just established this was strictly a two-week deal?
‘Well, I suppose if you’ve already paid for the ticket.’ She chewed on her bottom lip, still considering. ‘I guess that would be okay. I just wanted to make sure I had a ticket home.’
‘It’s all sorted,’ he said shortly, not sure why her persistence was beginning to irritate him. ‘Now if you’ve finished with the demands could you go get packed?’ He steered her towards the study door. ‘We’ve a plane to catch.’
And the sooner he got her on it, the happier he’d be.
Excitement, exhilaration and extreme terror all fought for supremacy as Juno rushed down the hallway to tell Daisy her news.
Her mind whirred as she concentrated on the details. She had to arrange cover for her position at the shop, then Daisy would have to help her pack. Daisy could help her select what to wear, so she didn’t look like some preposterous tomboy waif when she arrived in LA.
She was taking a huge chance, but it felt right. Because she’d been careful and cautious. She’d staked out her territory and knew exactly how much she was risking. And how much she wasn’t. Mac Brody was irresistible, a wicked temptation no woman should ever have to say no to. But if she was practical, if she kept focused, and if she didn’t let him walk all over her she knew she could handle this.
The good news was, she was going into this with her eyes wide open. With no delusions and no foolish, impossible dreams waiting to be fulfilled. She had her ticket home and two weeks from now she’d return to her real life with a new sense of purpose and a new sense of herself as a woman. She was curious about Mac and she was excited by the prospect of getting to know him better, but that didn’t mean she was going to start fooling herself into thinking he was the man of her dreams. Intimacy didn’t have to be a threat, as long as you didn’t let it overwhelm your common sense.
She grinned as she thought about the way she’d caught him out over the note. She’d never felt confident enough to flirt with a man before, but she’d almost been flirting with him.
Who knew it could be so empowering and so exciting? He certainly didn’t think she was a pushover any more.
The grin faded as she recalled the weight of his palm on t
he small of her back as he’d propelled her out of the room. And the way her heart had lurched into her throat when he’d demanded to know if she was coming with him to LA or not.
The bad news was, she had the strangest sensation she’d just grabbed a tiger by the tail.
CHAPTER TEN
JUNO’S keep-things-real plan began to unravel on the first-class flight over the Atlantic.
Luckily she wasn’t a complete stranger to luxury travel, having flown down to the wedding in Connor’s private jet, so she nobly resisted the urge to squeal when she saw the wide leather seat that folded down into a bed. And her eyes didn’t get much bigger than dinner plates when she was handed a glass of champagne straight after take-off. Having Mac’s hand settle on her thigh as the plane soared to thirty thousand feet had been more of a challenge. But she thought she’d handled herself surprisingly well, only peppering him with a thousand or so questions about Hollywood and Los Angeles and his home in Laguna Beach before she dropped into an exhausted sleep.
Unfortunately, nothing could have prepared her for the shock of opening her eyes, her mind still groggy from sleep and travel twenty hours later, and finding herself in Mac Brody’s home.
She couldn’t even remember that much about how she’d ended up in the enormous bedroom suite. After getting through the necessary ordeal of customs and passport control, she’d fallen straight back to sleep on the helicopter flight from LAX down to Laguna Beach. She vaguely recalled opening tired eyes during the journey and being wowed by the sight of the sun peeking over the Southern Californian coastline, then inhaling Mac’s tantalising scent and feeling his muscles bunching beneath her cheek as he’d carried her into the house, but that was about it.
She propped herself up on the huge fluffy pillows and stared out of the wall of glass at the far end of the room.
‘Good God.’
The whispered exclamation rang out above the sibilant purr of the air-conditioning.
Even spending time in Connor and Daisy’s magnificent home in Portobello had not prepared her for living in the lap of this sort of luxury. A wide bleached-stone terrace gave way to the brilliant blue of an infinity pool, its lush lagoonlike feel accentuated by a thicket of yucca palms and exotic potted plants.
Throwing off the coverlet, she scrambled across the thick woollen carpet to get a better look at the eye-popping view.
The house sat perched on a low cliff, the rugged, sundrenched coastline stretching away round the promontory to afford complete privacy. She placed her palms on the glass and gawped at what she could see of the metal and glass frontage of the house. Stretching onto her tiptoes, she spied the empty cove below the house accessed by a set of stone steps carved into the rocks. Lazy surf pounded onto sand so white it made her squint.
Her breath backed up in her lungs. Kubla Khan eat your heart out. Mac Brody’s pleasure dome beat Xanadu hands down.
Then she caught sight of her reflection in the glass. Dressed in a vest-top and a pair of simple white panties, she looked like a scrawny schoolgirl cast adrift in a sea of splendour. The ever-present blush heated her cheeks.
What was she doing here? She couldn’t have looked more out of place if she tried!
She took a deep breath. Eased it out slowly.
Calm down.
Staying here for two whole weeks was going to be the biggest adventure of her life. And if she was going to enjoy every second, she simply did not have time for a nervous breakdown.
