Breaking the Rules (11 page)

Alternately eyeing the place where Mitch hid and Ray’s spot in the opposite bushes, she fussed with the knot at her left hip that held that sexy little bikini cover-up in place. Finally she sat at the tub’s edge, dangling her feet in the water. “That does feel nice.” Quickly she pulled the cover-up free and tossed it aside as she slid in next to James.

Determined to capture only above-the-shoulder images of Claire, Mitch zoomed in for a closeup. She looked like a wary, caged animal; Jimbo, on the other hand, appeared eager to put on a show. James drew Claire closer to him, positioning her so that they sat face-to-face. “See,” he said quietly, “now, wasn’t this a good idea?”

“It’s nice,” she answered, her laugh nerve-tinged.

“Just nice?” He nuzzled the side of her neck.

“Don’t,” Claire said, turning her head and pulling back. “Please.”

“What’s wrong?”

She looked toward the camera. Mitch flinched, unnerved by the illusion that she stared directly into his eyes.

“It’s…” Blinking, she returned her attention to James.

“Relax.” He slid his hand down her back, toyed with the tie between her shoulder blades. “It’s just you and me.”

Claire let James kiss her, but when the kiss became more heated, she backed off again.

Good girl.
Mitch smiled.
He isn’t worth the lipstick.

James’s brows drew together. “What’s the matter now?”

“It’s not just you and me. It’s you and me and”—she motioned toward the bushes—“and
them
.”

“Come on, Claire. I’ve missed you.” He pulled her to him again. “Things haven’t seemed right between us lately.”

Mitch squinted.
Whose fault would that be,
buddy?

“I’m not comfortable with this, James.” Claire started squirming, but he wrapped his arms around her waist. “You’re not the same man I said I’d marry. You’ve changed. Being in the spotlight brings out a side of you I don’t like.”

James laughed as Claire’s increasing struggles only rubbed her up against him. “Aren’t you being a little melodramatic? I’m the same as always. But the stranger fantasy could be fun, too. Is that what this game’s about?”

“It’s not a game. I don’t know you anymore.”

“Let me refresh your memory.” Ignoring her attempts to break away, he leaned down and kissed her shoulder.

“Did you hear me?” Claire asked more firmly, still wiggling. “I don’t want to be with you. We can go inside away from the cameras to talk things out, or I’m leaving.”

“So that’s it, huh?” James laughed. “You’re playing hard to get. I like the new you, Claire. The teasing”—he glanced down at her chest—“the way you dress. We can go inside if you want, but I don’t want to talk.”

When he removed one arm from around her and slid his hand up to cup her breast, Claire slapped him.

His head snapped back. When he looked at her again, his eyes glittered like gemstones. “You know what, Claire?” he said. “I’m sick of you being so uptight.” He jerked her bikini top string until it untied completely.

“That does it.” Mitch lowered the camera to the ground. “I’ve had enough.” He heard Claire cry out his name as he burst from the bushes and strode toward them.

The next seconds passed in slow motion.

Lover Boy dropped his hands from Claire and looked up.

Claire backed to the far side of the tub.

Jimbo’s mouth opened but no sound emerged.

Mitch dove. The water was hot. He hit Watson hard, landing on top of him and shoving his head under the water.

Time sped up again.

“Mitch!” Claire screamed. “What are you doing?” She scrambled from the tub.

“I’m”—he dodged a flailing fist—“teaching this son of a…” James grabbed Mitch’s ear and twisted. Mitch lost his hold, and James came up for air. “Some manners,” Mitch gasped, then threw a punch that hit James square in the nose, knocking him back against the hot tub’s steps.

James tried to stand up but fell forward instead, landing facedown on top of an air jet. A stream of pink bubbles swirled out from beneath his head.

Mitch quickly considered the pros and cons of letting him drown. Above him, he heard Ray’s voice. He looked up and found the crewman calling for help on his walkie-talkie. Ray continued to film, though, capturing the scene in the tub.

Cursing under his breath, Mitch reached over, grabbed a handful of James’s hair, and jerked his face out of the water.

James sputtered and coughed as Mitch dragged him over to sit on the steps.

Claire tossed James her cover-up. “Press that on your nose,” she snapped, keeping her eyes on Mitch. “You’re messing up the water.” When a commotion sounded inside, she looked past the sliding glass doors into the cabana.

Mitch followed her gaze. Michael Hawkins and two other Hawkeye Productions executives walked through the door.

“So this is what it takes to finally get to meet the elusive Hawkeye president face-to-face,” Mitch muttered.

Claire turned, her face pale as the moon rising behind her. “Oh, Mitch,” she whispered. “What have you done?”

Chapter Ten

Crazy. She must be insane. Sneaking out at three in the morning. Darting from shadow to shadow. Risking Mitch’s job, if he hadn’t lost it already.

Claire knew she should turn around, wait until tomorrow to look for him. But if the Hawkeye executives had fired him, he might leave first thing in the morning. She couldn’t let him go without telling him she was sorry, couldn’t risk not having a chance to say goodbye.

Earlier at James’s cabana, Michael Hawkins and his sidekicks had questioned them all separately—her, James, the other cameraman, and finally Mitch. Afterward they apologized to her and James for Mitch’s behavior, then took Mitch away, leaving her worried about his fate.

Claire left James soon after without saying a word to him. Just the sight of him disgusted her. What disgusted her more was the fact that she’d let him manipulate her for years. That she’d let him pull her strings like a spineless puppet, a hunk of wood with no brain, no courage, no life at all. Before meeting Mitch, she’d thought she couldn’t survive without James’s guidance. How could she have been so blind to his weaknesses or to her own strengths?

When she finally reached Mitch’s cabana, she stood beneath a palm tree and breathed in the tangy, sharp scent of the sea to calm her nerves. His lights were on. She closed her eyes, felt the wind on her face, in her hair. What would she say to him? Why was she really here?

Before she could answer those questions or talk herself out of knocking, she walked up the steps and did just that.
Is this about caring, or lust?
she asked herself.
Some of both. A
lot of both.
Not a bad combination, she guessed.

The door creaked open. Mitch’s brows drew together when he saw her. “You’re up late,” he said.

She ignored the fluttering in her stomach. “You too.”

Stepping aside, Mitch opened the door wider. “Come in.”

Her conscience tried to step on the brakes. If something happened between them tonight, it would only be temporary. Mitch had a bad case of wanderlust; she had a business in Prairie to run. But was temporary so bad? And if not, could she handle it? “You sure it’s okay for me to come in? I don’t want more trouble for you with Hawkins.”

“He can’t do a thing to me now. We’re no longer associated.” He motioned her inside. “Have a seat.”

The tiny spark of hope she’d nurtured snuffed out. He’d been fired. Because of her. She walked past him into the cabana, noting his packed bags on the floor beside the sofa. “I’m sorry, Mitch. I can’t help but feel like this is my fault. If I’d told you about James that first night—”

“Hey, I knew the rules. I chose to break them.”

Glancing down at his bags, she sank onto the sofa. A disc lay on top of a suitcase. Claire picked it up and saw Mitch’s name printed down the spine. “What’s this?”

“Nothing.” He started into the adjoining kitchen. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“It’s some of your work, isn’t it? You brought it hoping Michael Hawkins might take a look.”

He took two glasses out of the cupboard, then faced her and shrugged. “It was a stupid idea. Hawkins hires only the best for his serious projects.”

“And what makes you think you’re not?”

Mitch set the glasses on the counter, then opened the refrigerator, his back to her. “I only have a little lemonade left. You want it?”

Claire put down the disc. She stood. “What makes you think you’re not one of the best?”

He turned, surprise flashing across his face when he found she’d walked up behind him and now stood close. “Maybe I’ve been accused of chasing rainbows for so long that I’ve finally decided to believe that’s what I’m doing.”

“Accused? You mean by your father and your old girlfriends?”

He let the refrigerator door close. Their gazes met slowly and held. “Yeah.”

Claire touched his cheek. “I’ve always wished I had the nerve to chase a rainbow,” she whispered. “To be brave enough to go after something that seems off-limits or out of reach.” She wrapped her arms around him. “You’ll catch yours, Mitch. I know you will.”

She still wore her new skimpy outfit, so she felt his body acutely as he pressed close to her. And then she melted, bone and muscle dissolving against him.

In his eyes, worry clashed with desire like water on rocks. “Claire—”

“You don’t have to promise me anything,” she said softly, sliding her fingers across the laugh lines around his eyes, down to his lips to stop further protests. “I understand how you live. I’m a big girl, Mitch. I’m going after what I want.” Claire brushed her mouth against his. “You’re my rainbow tonight. Let me catch you.”

Lust and tenderness flared inside him, twin flames, equally hot. Mitch pulled Claire closer, his hands moving down her body, skimming over her shoulders, down her breasts to her stomach, sliding around to cup her bottom. With his mouth still on hers, he mentally measured the distance to the bedroom. Making his way blindly across the room, he took Claire with him, clinging and kissing, staggering and turning, again and again. At the bedroom door, he pulled back for air.

The prospect of making love with her had been simpler before he’d started to care too much. Now he was terrified of what he saw in her expression, of what it made him feel. They were about to become lovers. He’d always sensed they would…from that very first night, long before he’d had a clue what she looked like. But now that the moment had arrived, he didn’t want regrets later on when he left her, when they said goodbye and resumed their separate lives. He cared about her too much to hurt her. They should set things straight. Decide what this meant—and what it didn’t.

“Let’s slow down, Claire. Talk about it.”

She made quick work of undoing the buttons down the front of his shirt. “I’m not in the mood to talk.”

He laughed, then drew a breath. “I can see that. But I’m trying to be sensible here.” His thoughts weren’t sensible at all, though, when she kissed his bare chest, trailing her tongue along his collarbone to his throat. “How am I supposed to think straight when you’re doing that?”

“You’re not.”

“Claire…as much as I want you…”

Her mouth—those gorgeous full lips that had played a starring role in his recent dreams—touched his neck now, soft and warm and arousing. He closed his eyes. “God knows I want you a lot,” he said, swallowing hard. “I need you.”

She nibbled his earlobe. “How much?” she asked, her voice teasing, seductive. “More than food? More than water?”

“More than air. More than…” Forcing his eyes open, he looked down. He threaded his fingers through her hair, then tilted Claire’s head back. “I don’t want to rush into this and have you end up sorry about it. I want you to be sure.”

“Do you see any uncertainty here?”

Something clutched in his chest at the sight of the pink-tinted, freckled face staring up at him. Her clear, true eyes, the flaming hair. The last of Mitch’s resistance slipped away.

Claire clung to him as he turned down the sheets on the bed, then lowered her onto it. She nodded toward the doors that led to a back patio. “Open them,” she said. “I want to hear the ocean.”

The breathy hiss of the wind mingled with the sea’s distant whisper as Mitch threw the doors wide, then returned to the bed. With restless hands she tugged at his shirt. Just as impatiently he shrugged out of it and tossed it behind him. Reaching for the nightstand, he slid open the top drawer and found a condom packet. He placed it within close reach before pulling the bikini top string at the back of her neck, freeing the tie between her shoulder blades at the same time. Her top fell to the bed, baring her breasts. They were smooth and firm and high, pink and pearly white as the center of a shell. “You really are a goddess.” He touched her. “Aphrodite…goddess of love and beauty.”

Her smile made the blood drum in his head in a primitive, steady beat. He lifted his gaze to hers and saw a hint of something that stunned and frightened him before she quickly glanced away. Behind the provocative teasing, behind the laughter, lived something vulnerable. Something hopeful but afraid.