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His expression was mocking when it met hers. “Am I what, Ava?”
“Don’t call me that,” she said on autopilot.
“Ah. But that is your stage name, isn’t it? Besides, I am employing you – I get to call you whatever I want.”
A dip in her gut made her body unbalanced. She gripped the railing tighter. “I’d prefer to think we’re doing one another a favour.”
“No, Ava. I am paying you for a service.” He lifted a finger to her shoulder then, and a thousand nerve-endings danced in fiery recognition. “Do not forget that I am rewarding you handsomely for your performance.”
The slender column of her throat shifted visibly as she swallowed; she was powerless to look away. “I won’t forget,” she said thickly. How could she?
“And, as such, I will say or do whatever I damned well please.”
Addie dipped her head forward, unable to meet the fierce resentment she saw in his face. His anger and judgment that were barreling towards her. Their past was a cliff-face as sheer as those they’d sped past minutes earlier, and she had no idea how to scale it.
“Guy,” it was a whisper. “You’re so angry with me. If you knew…”
“I have told you,” he issued the words conversationally, so banal and calm that Addie wondered if she’d imagined the tension she’d felt coming off him in waves moments earlier. “I do not wish to discuss the past.” His eyes narrowed. “I know who you are. What you are. And now I intend to use your remarkable ability to lie to my advantage.”
His derision hurt. “No, Guy, you really don’t know me if you think that. If you’d just give me a chance to explain…”
He stared at her with a look she imagined capable of silencing any business rival he’d ever come up against. When he spoke, it was slowly, his exotic accent thick. “I will have the Captain turn this boat around and take you back to the mainland if you say another word about explaining. There is no explanation. None. Got it? You lied to me. You created a fictitious character and brought her into my home and my bed. Every dinner, every touch – it was all make-believe.”
“No,” Addie shook her head but Guy turned his back and stalked down the boat. She stared after him for a moment and then followed, moving quickly, her hand running along the railing.
“The night I met you,” she called to his retreating back. “Was the tenth anniversary of an accident, of something that… forever changed who I am. I wanted to forget. And so I got dressed up, and I went to a party with my cousin, and we both agreed that we would pretend to be someone else for the night. To escape the problems in our own lives. It was supposed to be fun.”
Guy turned, his expression like a mask of calm. “A sob story designed to pull me in once more? You have had weeks to perfect your next lie; I should have thought you capable of better than this.”
“It’s not a lie.” Despite the warmth of the day, Addie’s teeth juttered together. “If you’ll just listen to me…”
“Stop.” He held a hand up, his manner imperious, his derision palpable. “You are here because I am paying you. When we are around my family, you will dote on me, but here, on the boat, we will not speak. Do you understand the rules?”
All the colour had dropped from her face, leaving her pale and blotchy beneath his disinterested inspection. “It is best if you stick to the same lies you have already manufactured and delivered so well – those which you told me. You are a stage actress,” he said, lifting his finger to enumerate the biographical details on which he wanted them to agree. “You are an only child. You live in south London. Anything I’m missing?”
She stomped her foot with frustration. “Yes! You’re missing that I love Italian food – do you remember how we used to get takeaway in your bed almost every night?” His eyes narrowed. “You have forgotten that I like to be woken up with a cup of peppermint tea, and that I go running when I need to clear my head. That you love to peel my running gear off my body and run your tongue over me, tasting my salty flesh. You have forgotten that we both love horror movies and that you hold me in your lap as we watch them together. You have forgotten…”
She had the satisfaction of seeing his face tighten as she recounted the truths of their short, spectacular relationship, but then his emotions were masked, yet again, his face expertly concealing anything he might actually be feeling from her.
“Ah, yes. Excellent. More little lies I can spread like breadcrumbs to my family, to make this fiction seem real.”
Tears sparkled on Addie’s lashes and she moved closer to him, reaching her hands up to cup his cheeks. He was tense, but at least he didn’t jerk away from her. “My name is Adeline Scott,” she said quietly. “Everyone calls me Addie.”
“Not everyone. To me, you will always be Ava.”
*
She was an exceptional actress. The play of emotions across her face was so profound he could almost believe it to be genuine. Except he knew her. He knew the ease with which she deceived, and he would never believe in her again. He would never be so foolish.
After Sofia, he’d thought he was immune to beautiful liars. Sofia, with her long legs and husky voice, her thirty-five years of experience to his sixteen years of youthful vigour. Sofia who had seduced him and made his heart learn to love. Sofia who had been married to one of her father’s friends, in the end. Who was using him for sport.
Yes, he’d learned his lesson after Sofia. Or so he’d thought.
It had taken precisely three minutes after seeing Addie – Ava, he corrected inwardly – to know that he would take her to bed. At first, he’d thought it was the same physical desire that overtook him whenever he came across an exceptionally beautiful woman to whom he was attracted.
But then she’d resisted him. Not, he’d thought at the time, because she wanted to be coy or play hard-to-get, but because she’d truly seemed as though she wasn’t sure she wanted to go home with him. She’d seemed nervous. Innocent. Inexperienced.
Her resistance had intrigued him. He’d fought for her, launching a major charm offensive. He’d won.
