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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 the 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.
She glanced back at the bed. Only her side had been slept in. She wondered where Mac had spent the night. She dismissed her disappointment. He’d probably been as exhausted as her. The few times she’d woken up during the flight he’d been busy working on his laptop, so he was no doubt catching up on his sleep. Or maybe he’d gone to work. Even with two weeks before his next project started, he might still have meetings and photo shoots and interviews and stuff like that to do. She doubted movie stars ever had very much free time and she didn’t intend to be some annoying little limpet constantly begging for his attention. Come to think of it, she probably wouldn’t see all that much of him. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, considering how short of breath she got every time she got near him.
She spotted her suitcase by the door. Inside were the array of brightly coloured outfits Daisy and she had ummed and aahed over the day before. She lifted out a lipstick-red retro dress that she wouldn’t have dreamt of wearing a month ago—and felt the jangle of nerves retreat a little. Once she looked the part, she’d go and explore the house—if she kept occupied, she wouldn’t have too much time to think about how far out of her depth she was.
An hour later, Juno had showered in an en suite bathroom bigger than her whole bedsit. Discovered four other bedrooms, a staggering six other bathrooms, a curved living room with a plasma TV the size of a small cinema screen, a fully equipped gym, a study with what looked like top-of-the-range computer equipment and a library packed full of dog-eared paperbacks, dry literary tomes and enough DVDs to outsource her local Blockbuster.
Exploring Mac’s house hadn’t quite had the palliative effect she’d been hoping for.
The one thing she hadn’t found, though, was any sign of her host. Apart from the series of framed posters in the lobby depicting films of his she’d never seen and the remnants of a hastily eaten breakfast in the kitchen.
She pressed her palms to the waistline of the expertly tailored red dress and stared at the empty bowl. Feeling a lot like Dorothy after she’d landed in Oz.
The gleaming stainless-steel cabinets, inlaid countertops and wardrobe-sized fridge ensured this room was as starkly modern, spotlessly clean and impeccably designed as the rest of the house. She sighed. It was certainly a far cry from the cramped galley kitchen in the bedsit co-op, which she shared with Jacie and her son, Cal, Mr Robertson the seventy-year-old Rastafarian on the top floor and Mrs Valdermeyer and her army of cats. But oddly enough, for all its sleek lines and imposing perfection—and the refreshing absence of cat pong—Mac’s kitchen made Juno miss the constant noise and clutter of Mrs V’s.
