The Morning After (8 page)

“
We
drew any more attention.” Ethan slipped his hand into hers, feeling the familiar jolt as their palms connected. “Those girls were more interested in seeing you than they were seeing me.” He pushed the door open.

“Aw.” Cara pouted. “Feeling edged out of the spotlight?”

The urge to laugh fought with the urge to kiss her senseless. As they were in public, laughter won.

He pulled her along to the silver Aston-Martin waiting at the curb. “I’ll deal with you when we get home.” The mere thought of what dealing with her might entail sent his mind spiraling into unfamiliar territory. Or unfamiliar when it came to Cara. An imagined land of very little clothing, and plenty of heat.

Ethan rubbed a hand over his hair. “Buckle up.”

“I hope you’ve got some food ready for me,” Cara teased. “You know I’m always hungry.”

Hungry for me?
Ethan squashed the thought. He’d always been able to tease her without innuendo, why was the first thought that bloomed in his mind such a provocative one? “Yeah, you’re a complete greedy guts.” The powerful car shifted up a gear as they sped through the traffic.

“Well, I’m not a skinny actress, that’s for sure.” Was that a note of defiance in her voice.

“I don’t know where you put it.” He glanced over. “You must have hollow legs.”

Cara’s laughter filled the car, so infectious he couldn’t help laughing too.

“So, rashers, sausages and beans, I reckon,” she teased. “Or have your culinary skills improved since you last cooked for me?”

Sunday brunch had been their thing, and he’d always cooked it because Cara was incapable of doing much more than heating a can of soup. Ethan’s mind flashed back to the hours they’d spent across the pine table in his mother’s kitchen. He’d always made brunch, and she’d always brought the Sunday papers.

The realization hit him that the moments with Cara had been what he’d looked forward to all week, and she’d never let him down. Had been there, rain or shine.

“I’ve expanded my repertoire,” Ethan said.

“Oh, have you?” The teasing tone in her voice hinted at things unspoken. “Well, I guess after so many years…”

“I’ve grown up.” Ethan clutched the steering wheel.

In the years since he left Ireland, he’d had plenty of time to enjoy a different life. Many different women. And from the moment he’d pulled her out of that damned costume, and felt her warm curves, his feelings for Cara had deepened and intensified. There was no way he could deny it to himself any longer. He wanted her with a soul-deep longing that tangled his insides and turned his brain to mush. And try as he might, there was no stuffing that particular genie back in the bottle.

****

Flirting was fun.

And when you knew the person almost as well as you knew yourself, it was darned irresistible. Cara could tell by the glint in Ethan’s eye, the way his body shifted on the black leather seat as she laughed, that he was feeling the tug of attraction too.

She gazed out of the window, tilted her head up toward the blue sky, and felt her spirit soar like a bird high above. She could feel the smile on her face, and with another man, might have felt embarrassed to be so goofy, but with Ethan…

“Enjoying yourself?”

“Oh, you have no idea how much.” She stretched her arms out in front of her, and rotated her wrists. “Being here is wonderful.”

The dark skies and blacker mood that had pressed down on her in Donabridge, had been banished ever since she walked through the doors and saw him lounging against a pillar, waiting for her.

Once, it would have been as natural as breathing to tell him that being with
him
was wonderful. She would have kissed his cheek, or reached for his hand. But the attraction, slow-burning through her core, sending little tingles through her, stilled her voice in her throat. Saying such things meant more, somehow, now.

She hadn’t wanted things to change between them. But it had. The moment she’d seen him in Donabridge. And right now there was no way she wanted to turn back the clock. “I like your hair.”

Ethan’s dark eyebrows rose. “I can’t wait to cut it,” he growled in a voice so deep that it sent shivers through her. “One more week.”

“Will you leave it long—for me? Just until I go.” She hadn’t given much thought to how long she was staying; the ticket he’d sent was one way. “I’m just going to stay for a couple of weeks. Is that all right, you won’t be fed up with me by then?”

“I want you to stay for longer. At least a month,” Ethan said. “I need you to help get my house sorted. I’m working all next week, so you’ll be alone a lot of the time.” He glanced over, and his mouth tilted in a smile so familiar her heart stuttered.

“So, I’ll be slaving away while you’re out enjoying yourself?”

“That just about covers it. I’m a real slave driver.”

A house on the beach, sun, sand,
sex
popped into her mind and she shook her head quickly to dispel it.

“Seriously, Cara. I’m sorry everything has gone so badly. I want you to take some time out. To re-evaluate.”

Cara’s mood burst like a balloon full of fanciful dreams striking a pin. She’d been fantasizing about a crazy affair while Ethan obviously felt nothing but guilt and pity for his old friend. Sure, he’d flirted, but he was incapable of not flirting, once someone else started it. He’d bedded all his leading ladies, hadn’t he?

Her mouth dried. Thank goodness, she hadn’t embarrassed herself by throwing herself at him. He was so gallant he’d probably have kissed her too, rather than tell her the truth.

Cara picked her bag off the floor, and made a pretense of searching inside, just so he wouldn’t see her lip quivering.

“I can’t wait for the film to be over,” Ethan continued, staring straight ahead. “I want to move all my stuff out to the beach house. I hate living with half my things in each place. I always want something that’s in the other house.”

“There must be advantages to filming?” Cara asked. “I mean, you love the acting, right?”

“This is my last Crash Carrigan movie,” Ethan said, with a note of finality in his tone. “I don’t want to be typecast. As a character, he’s sort of one-dimensional. I need more of a challenge.”

“Is a different actress playing your love interest?”

She knew the answer, but couldn’t resist digging for information about his latest leading lady, a leggy glamazon who, by all accounts, in life had just as voracious an appetite as the characters she portrayed on screen.

“Dee Macey’s in this one. She’s a good actress.” His mouth compressed into a tight line.

“And she’s gorgeous,” Cara added.

“She knows it too,” Ethan said. “But believe me, it’s hard work lying on top of her all day.”

“Ethan!” Cara’s voice came out as a squeak. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“It’s just fact. I spent the last day on set lying in bed with her.”

“Kissing?” She tried to keep her mouth from drooping at the corners, rolled her lips in, as her stomach clenched at the thought of Ethan and the glamazon in a clinch.

Ethan puffed out air. “Kissing, pretending to make love, the whole thing.” He looked decidedly unhappy about it. “We have lousy chemistry, and it shows. Take after take. It was a nightmare.”

A smile warmed her heart, heated her throat, and finally tilted her lips. “Aw. Hard day at the office?”

“Decidedly not hard.” Ethan grinned. “Definitely limp.”

“You, Ethan Quinn, are a naughty boy.”

Ethan slid a warm hand over her knee. “Damn right.”

Chapter Nine

They drove for miles along the wide highway, beside the azure ocean. Cara cracked the window open, and a warm sea breeze lifted her hair. She could taste a trace of salt on her lips. Being here felt like a new beginning. A new chapter in her life, unopened, unexplored. Unexpected.

The silver Aston-Martin slowed, and the indicator’s tick punctuated the silence. As the powerful car turned, ornate silver gates swung open automatically between high stone walls topped with iron railings.

“Home,” Ethan murmured as a house came into view.

In this obviously wealthy neighborhood, she’d somehow expected a mansion, but her heart fluttered and soared at the simple wooden beach house surrounded by a romantically overgrown garden. She pulled in a lungful of air. “It’s beautiful.”

The car slowed, then stopped. In moments, Ethan was at her side, opening the door wide. “Come and look at the other side.” His mouth curved in that grin that melted women’s hearts, world over. He reached for her hand and tugged.

Bleached wooden steps led from the front of the house steeply down through a swathe of terraces filled with cascading greenery and large succulents. The wooden handrail was hot to Cara’s touch, and she concentrated carefully on the way down, as the soft swoosh of the ocean grew louder. Soon, she was standing on a silver beach. The sea lapped against the shoreline, lacy sea-foam caps on the waves breaking up as they sank into the sand.

“Wow.” Cara slipped off her shoes and picked them up. The hot sand felt like powdered sugar beneath her soles. Pure, clean,
fabulous
.

“Come on.” Ethan walked along the beach behind the beach house.

“It’s on stilts,” Cara said with wonder in her tone.

“We keep the Zodiak here.” Ethan pointed to a launch ramp built in under the house. “I use it sometimes for fishing. “It’s fully stocked with loungers and a barbeque.”

Cara glanced up. “All that glass would keep a window cleaner busy.”

Ethan nodded. “Well, there’s not much point to having a view if you can’t see it.”

“From every room in the house, apparently.” Cara itched to see inside, to investigate the rooms beyond the wide balcony that stretched across the entire back of the house. But Ethan sat on the sand, stretching his long legs. He slipped off his shoes, dug his toes into the sand, and sighed.

She dropped next to him.

“So…” Ethan slung an arm over her shoulders. “No one will bother you here. The place is impenetrable.” He stared into her eyes. “How are you doing?”

She opened her mouth to speak. His eyes darkened with a warning. “Really. Don’t tell me some line. I’ll know.”

Cara swallowed. “I’m okay.”

Ethan’s arm tightened. “I’m sorry that bastard broke your heart,” he murmured. “I know it had to hurt.” A shadow of pain flickered across his eyes, and he stared out to the ocean. His jaw tightened.

“It wasn’t the same as you and Aoife,” Cara said. “You loved her.”

Ethan stayed silent, but he didn’t need to confirm her words. They’d talked through Aoife’s desertion on the telephone two years ago. The fact that Aoife had treated him so callously had fired Cara’s blood red hot, back then. She’d seemed devoted when she packed in her job as a secretary and set off for a new life with the man everyone had thought she would marry. But she’d been wooed by the glamour of it all, and had her head turned when a bigger movie star turned his considerable charms her direction at a party. And had quickly switched allegiance.

No one except Cara knew just how devastating Aoife’s desertion had been.

Cara grasped Ethan’s hand, hanging from her shoulder. “Has there been anyone, since?”

“Plenty of anyone’s,” Ethan’s voice was hard. “But no one special.”

The murmur of the ocean was a backdrop to his words.

“Michael and I…it wasn’t like that.” Cara needed to let him know that she wasn’t hurting the way he had, back then. “We’d been dating, but…” Her tongue swept over her lips, tasting salt. “I hadn’t really committed to the relationship, even after he proposed. Something just didn’t seem right.” She glanced at his profile. “You know?”

Ethan’s gaze tangled with hers. “You went to bed with him. I know you don’t do that lightly.”

“I didn’t.” All embarrassment at discussing her love life faded. She’d always told Ethan everything, had only held back from this revelation because she’d been sure he wouldn’t understand. Under the circumstances, relief flooded through her at the knowledge that deep-down, some part of her had known Michael wasn’t to be trusted with her heart. Or the rest of her body, for that matter.

“You didn’t?” Ethan’s gaze dipped to focus on her mouth. “What—
never?
”

“Not even a little bit.” Cara felt her mouth tilt in a smile. “I guess I knew, somehow.”

Ethan leaned close. Touched his lips to hers in a feather-light caress so brief, she almost thought she’d imagined it. “I’m glad,” he said in a deep voice, before standing up and holding his hand out to her. “Want to have a look inside?”

****

Ethan pondered Cara’s words as he opened up the house. Sleeping with someone didn’t mean anything. Merely that both parties felt the tug of sexual attraction, and acted on it. But somehow the fact Cara hadn’t actually allowed such a level of intimacy with Michael sparked something deep inside.

She wasn’t like him. Up until now, she hadn’t done casual. Her innate belief in true love was one of the things that made her Cara. And even as his body responded to her with only one look from those sky-blue eyes, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—be the one to initiate her into the joys of sex for sex’s sake.

She gazed around the large living room. A smile tilted her lips up. “I love it—it’s just like being outside.”

The large white leather sofas, polished pale pine floorboards, and plain white painted walls echoed the white sand beyond the window. The entire house was designed to showcase the view, not to compete with it. And when the evenings drew in, long white curtains closed the view out, and the focus shifted to the fire he’d light in the huge fireplace. He’d moved in a couple of essentials, like the fifty-inch TV in the corner, and a fluffy sheepskin rug to soften the austerity and add warmth and luxury. And when he finally moved in the rest of his scant possessions, it would feel more like home.

He waved at the desk in the corner. “There’s a laptop there, in case you feel like browsing the net, or checking your email.”

“The bedrooms are over here.” He walked through to the master bedroom as she followed in his wake. “This is mine.” He pushed open the door.