Reach for the Stars Read online

  ‘Sure I’m sure. And when I second first saw you – the morning I woke up on the sofa?’

  ‘Uh-huh?’ The touch of his hands, his mouth, raised her levels of impatience and anticipation ridiculously high. His hands caressed her breasts and he circled his thumbs against her nipples.

  ‘I wanted you twice as badly then!’

  ‘Really?’ Sweet delicious pleasure pooled with insane intensity at her core.

  ‘Yes, really.’ He pulled back, looking at her with an incredible intensity that made her desperate to feel him inside her, and then kissed her hard, his mouth hot, his tongue tangling with hers, intensifying their insatiable heat for each other.

  ‘Do you want me now?’ Her voice a whisper as she said the words, she knew ‘want’ wasn’t what she was talking about. Was it actually love?

  She trembled, her entire body tingled explosively and she curved close against him. He bit softly at her earlobe and his mouth trailed down her neck again.

  ‘I think you know the answer to that.’

  ‘I do?’ Head thrown back, afraid of her feelings, more determined than ever not to define them, she ached for his ecstasy-inducing body.

  ‘Oh yes, you do.’ The arm encircling her waist pulled her down onto the sand on top of him. ‘I have never wanted anyone more than I want you.’

  ‘We agreed we’re not doing words.’ Arms around him she rolled over, taking him with her, the exciting weight of his body on top of her.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Ouch.’ Against her back the soft sand was strewn with tiny, lumpy pebbles and shells. ‘It’s stony.’

  Totally in control, he felt around with one hand for his jacket, spread it flat on the sand and shifted her onto the soft silk lining. His mouth connected with the jutting nipple of one breast, insistent, provoking her reeling senses, urgent. His hands smoothed over her thighs and tangled in the fabric of her dress pushing it upwards and pushing her need for him beyond patience. She fought with his belt buckle in a hurry to separate the smooth leather from the cool metal, and felt his erection strain against her hands as she undid his fly.

  Impatient, he freed himself and paused to sort out a condom. The delay sky-rocketed her desire off the charts. She wriggled out of the lacey thong that felt more like dental floss than underwear, exhilarated at the idea of sex on the beach in the moonlight. Ready, he molded his body between her thighs and pressed the tip of his erection to her hot centre, holding off for a long, long moment, driving her crazy for him until, wired with desire and uncontainable lust, he entered her.

  Falling for him deeply, enrapt, she burned, delirious with the good things his body did to her. She tugged at his shirt, her hands grazing feverishly up and down his back, nails lightly spiking his skin. Connected in delectable fusion, he was a dream. She pressed impossibly closer, drew him in, encompassing him with her legs, two bodies locked in one mind-blowing contortion. Her body responded to his deep rhythm, and he took her ecstatic senses higher and higher. He pushed back on muscular arms and without breaking the heavenly connection looked deep into her eyes like a mind reader, though the emotion on his own face was indecipherable.

  The pressure of his body, his thighs touching hers, the feel of him so hard inside her – with his strength and power and vitality, he coaxed her willing body to go with him, driven to a peak of shattering passion, then, intuitively led by her soft cry of satisfaction as orgasmic frissons shivered through her, he followed fast, bonded to her by a heat that seared through their bodies with the shudder of a molten climax.

  Reality hit him like a nasty headline. Groaning he fell away, releasing her from his arms, from his lunacy. Glaring stupidity lanced through him suddenly. The shock he felt couldn’t have been greater if someone had driven onto the beach and caught them in their headlights. He stood up, straightening his clothes, fumbling to do up his belt. Thrown by the out-of-control passion that had driven him to tell her that he wanted to make love to her on the beach, that he’d never wanted anyone more, he reached out a hand, and drew her to her feet.

  She stood, barefoot on the sand, dark eyes wider than ever in the moonlight, eyeliner smudged, trembling fingers quickly refastening the buttons on her dress. A ghostly trail of grey cloud drifted in front of the moon but there was enough light to see that the fabulously put-together woman he’d taken to the party looked a little wild – and very, very beautiful.

  Silent, she smoothed her rumpled dress and dug her toes into the sand. He’d been lost in a kiss so full of hope and promise that he’d allowed himself to believe it meant something; and in the same moment he’d been torn to pieces by a lust that ran deeper than physical craving, reaching into him, pushing aside his resolutions, knocking down his barriers, cutting into his heart.

  The moon slipped out from behind the spectral cloud bathing her in its mercurial glow. She looked changed, somehow different. He swallowed hard. He was seeing what he wanted to see, not what actually was.

  ‘Just for the record,’ she said, ‘Sex on the beach under a sky full of stars is amazing.’ She broke from his stare and bent to snatch up her shoes. ‘With you,’ she added, as if the statement needed qualifying.

  He couldn’t help himself. A possessive pang made him hope she hadn’t shared that experience before. ‘How did I rate compared to your previous sex on the beach moments?’

  ‘I’ve never done anything so brazen.’ She laughed. ‘There haven’t been any. You?’

  He shook his head. ‘Me neither.’ He brushed the sand from his jacket and placed it gently around her soft shoulders.

  ‘Another first!’

  ‘Two in one night! I can tick “spot a shooting star” and “bang on the beach” off my bucket list.’

  Uncertainty shadowed her face and she raised her eyebrows questioningly. ‘Do you have one?’

  ‘No.’ It was his turn to laugh. ‘But I may start one.’ Sex on the beach had been all kinds of awesome. He felt secretly stupidly pleased that it was a first for them both. His attraction had turned into something more. She was so special; he’d work hard in Paris not to ruin it like everything else he touched and protect her from his undiluted chaos.

  ‘I don’t want to let you go.’

  ‘It sounds like I’m fired,’ she said, joking.

  ‘Seriously, the days I’ve spent here with you have been the best time. Porthkara is perfection. I feel ready to face the world again.’ He couldn’t think of a moment in his life when he’d been happier, but it wasn’t real. He was hiding from the harsh truth that he had a daughter he’d failed, she’d rejected him, and he was stuck as to what positive action he could possibly take to fix that.

  She slipped her hand into his and pulled him towards the cliff path. ‘Next stop Paris?

  Chapter Eighteen

  The shocking news that Beth was his and that he knew nothing about her had been the mental equivalent of going over the edge of the cliffs at Porthkara. Layla’s unique brand of chemistry had seemed the easy answer. Suddenly it was too much. It was time to ‘fess up. She ought to know the truth about why he’d come to Cornwall in a tailspin.

  The idea of Beth and Fran suffering, and of Layla trapped in crossfire if some shark journalist found out and tried to exploit the information, filled him with dread. The idea of a random paparazzo patching together a few pictures and labeling any of them his next scandal set him on edge. He’d been in a media-free dream world because no one who cared to make some cash from photographing him knew he was there, but away from Porthkara that had the potential to change.

  At the bottom of the cliff path he weighed up the choices. Force Layla to trek all along the beach, past the ongoing party. Or brave the shortcut.

  He had so much to explain. He plodded on, putting one foot in front of the other, bracing himself as they climbed the steps cut into the rocks leading up the side of the cliff.

  ‘So, these photos you’re doing in Paris. What are they for exactly? The film?’ She threw questions over her shoulder at him. />
  His gut clenched. ‘Publicity. Promotion. It’s part of the job,’ he answered, anxious to find the right moment to mention Beth. ‘Acting is my whole world. It’s all I ever wanted to do. It’s what I live and breathe. Except for a long time, the edges between my real life and my professional life got blurred. I wasn’t bothered by that because nobody – me included – cared what was true and what wasn’t.’ He stared at the back of her head and followed her upwards. ‘Now I hate how it’s chaotic. I have media training. I have a publicist. And my image is a total mess. Take that stupid spinster list.’

  ‘The ultimate bad boy’s bad idea?’

  ‘Precisely. Rebooting my so-called image came up in conversation at a pre-shoot dinner in Paris with executive producers. A list of the world’s sexiest married men had been published in a gossip magazine.’ He gave a cynical snort. ‘Alex, of course, was on it, along with several megastars. The headshots had captions from the guys’ wives. Maggie said she wouldn’t put Alex at the top of any Hot list because he was hopeless at reuniting his unpaired socks and there was nothing sexy about a man who can’t keep his socks in line.’

  ‘Too true.’

  ‘Whilst Alex was on the Hot list, yours truly featured on the list of Nots.’

  Layla’s laughter sang out up ahead.

  ‘The non-existent “spinster list” had the execs rocking with hilarity on their Louis XIVth dining chairs. There’s a serious subtext. I need to clean up my act. If the public don’t like me in this movie, I’ll be replaced.’

  His notions about tying the knot with Toni had been part of his short-lived move to clean up his act. That, and seeing Alex so happy with Maggie, he’d started to believe that if they could get it right then so could he.

  As they reached the first bend in the path his stomach heaved. Carried on the summer wind, he caught the sound of the waves breaking on the sand far below.

  ‘So, if you did have a list who would be on it?’ Infuriatingly nonchalant, she tossed the question at him.

  ‘I don’t know. What’s with all the questions?’

  She laughed. Barefoot, she scurried on, hurrying off like a super-agile mountain goat.

  He pushed the fingers of both hands into his hair frenetically. Frantic about the cliff rising upwards into the darkness, he turned around and paced back and forth on the spot like a caged animal. Perplexed, because he had something important to tell her, he willed himself to man up and climb the path. He couldn’t back out, let her go on alone, the moon had disappeared behind a wall of cloud, anything might happen.

  ‘For what it’s worth you’d make an awesome Hollywood wife. We nailed it tonight. I’d pick the time we’ve spent together over hanging with any celebrity I’ve ever met.’ He called out into the black velvet night seeking out the shadowy movements of her body.

  Either she didn’t hear him or she chose to ignore what he’d said. ‘What you need is someone media savvy – who stands out, transforms you in the eyes of the press and catapults you onto the Hot lists, hopefully in at least equal place with Alex, or better still a notch or two higher,’ she said.

  ‘Not much to ask.’

  He pulled his phone out of his trouser pocket and lit the screen using it as a torch light to find his way. He caught her up at the next bend. She turned to him and he captured her face in his screen light.

  ‘While we’re in Paris I’m going to make it my mission to identify your perfect woman. I’ll let you know who I come up with.’

  ‘That’s not cool.’ He gritted his teeth against his feelings. It didn’t work. Thrown by her ridiculous suggestion he snapped back, ‘I’m fine thanks.’

  He searched her face for a reaction. He didn’t get one because she turned away from him and pressed on. ‘Calm down. It was banter. I didn’t mean anything by it. Are you coming?’

  If he was brutally honest, she was like nobody he’d met before. She didn’t stand to gain anything from being seen with him, and she wanted nothing apart from a good time, fun, living in the moment. He stopped, immovable. Looking into the distance he saw the village lights and an overriding feeling of sadness struck him; he wished he hadn’t come to Porthkara, hadn’t snuck into Maggie’s house like a burglar in the night, hadn’t stayed waiting for the bruise to heal on his face. Layla had triggered a need to lay himself bare. She made him feel things he’d rather ignore and want to say things that were easier left buried.

  He lagged behind, the distance opening up between them as they climbed.

  ‘It’s not far now. Just a couple more bends up ahead and we’re almost there.’ Her voice was growing fainter the further ahead she got, and her voice sounded breathless and infernally sexy. She’d no idea of the effect she had on him, how much feeling she’d stirred up.

  Angry at himself for how afraid he felt – of everything, not just the height of the cliff – every bone in his body seized up. Forcing one foot in front of the other he caught her up again. Waiting for him, unaware of his tense fragility, she took his hand. Neither of them breathed a word. He swayed like a clump of long sea grass moving in the wind and his heartbeat raced. She squeezed his fingers tight.

  ‘You okay?’ she whispered.

  He gathered his nerve. Nodding slowly, he stared down at his feet unable to raise his head and look her in the face.

  ‘Talk to me. Tell me something. Anything at all.’ The tension coming from Nick was toxic. She’d hoped that in the dark, without being able to visualize the cliff clearly, she’d blast him with small talk and distract him into taking the shortcut he’d been avoiding. Her tactic had worked up to a point but now he was rooted to the spot. She felt terrible. She’d been tired and lazy and couldn’t face the long way home with the added unwelcome likelihood of running into Joe again. But being stranded with Nick halfway up the cliff side in the pitch dark was ten times worse.

  ‘I have a child.’ His voice was hoarse and monotone. ‘A girl. A daughter.’

  She suppressed her reaction. Emotions, a fusion of surprise and confusion, wedged in her throat. In a split second she said flippantly, ‘I was thinking more along the lines of a knock-knock joke to jolly things along. Not a bombshell.’

  ‘It’s no joke. It’s the truth. I’m the father of child. She’s eleven years old. And I didn’t know anything about her until a couple of weeks ago. Her name’s Be … Be …’ He stumbled over the name like he was fluffing a line. ‘Beth.’

  ‘The girl on your phone?’

  ‘She’s my daughter.’ He repeated it as if he didn’t quite believe it.

  ‘You didn’t know?’ Layla was so stunned she felt like she was trying to translate a foreign language.

  ‘No. And she didn’t know about me. And actually, it was better that way, because now that we do know she doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.’

  ‘When did you find out? Have you met her?’

  ‘No, I haven’t met her because when I tried she refused to see me.’

  ‘Oh Nick, I’m so sorry. But how can anyone do that? Just turn around after eleven years and announce that you have a child together?’

  Her heart hammered. It made sense. The girl in the picture looked like him. She ached to hug him, but uncertainty jabbed at her. She couldn’t begin to imagine how he must be feeling. Half-truths, sudden subject changes, difficult silences – they’d been an all too familiar feature in her own childhood. Since Nick had been spending time out from his real life with her she’d started to believe that she could be free of all that. And now he’d told her this secret. What was she supposed to do with that?

  ‘I know, right? I’ve done so much thinking since I got her mother’s email.’

  ‘You found out in an email? Crikey.’

  ‘The truth is I was shattered. But I’m done analysing the ifs and buts and whys. The way she broke the news to me doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Eleven years of silence though. That’s tough to take.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound great. I know. But she didn’t storm back
into my life and dump it on me without hesitation. She did it with good reason, there wasn’t time for soul searching, and I’m dealing with it the best I can.’

  ‘By hiding from it?’ she said gently.

  ‘I’m waiting for more news. I’ve said too much. I wanted you to know the truth. The reason I rocked up in Porthkara. That’s all.’ His voice robotic, his face all grim hard lines in the darkness, he held up the palm of his hand in a gesture that told her more clearly than words that he wanted to shut the subject down. ‘I don’t want you to feel that I’m involving you in my problem.’

  She didn’t want to pry. Inhaling sharply through her nose, she locked her teeth together, afraid to say the wrong thing. She exhaled sharply. ‘Look. It’s probably none of my business. But you’ve been hanging out with me, we’ve had a laugh, the last few days have been a blast. And all along it turns out you haven’t just been hiding your face, you’ve been hiding a secret.’ She pinched her forefinger and thumb together leaving a gap of air to indicate a small amount. ‘It’s kind of hard not to feel a little bit involved.’

  Nick sank down onto a wide sandy step shored up with a wooden rung. ‘You’re absolutely right,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve been hiding from it.’ Layla sat too, careful to leave a space between them on the step.

  ‘The real question is what are you going to do about it?’

  He closed his eyes and circled the tips of his forefingers on his eyelids deep in thought. After a long pause, he looked up. ‘I don’t actually know. Doing something means consequences. I tried to see her once. I failed. For now, I’m leaving well alone.’

  ‘You know the farm at the top of the cliff? They used to keep a donkey. Billy.’

  ‘Where’s this going?’

  ‘Listen. In summer he grazed the meadow in front of the house. And once a year for the village fair Billy gave donkey rides on the beach. Anyway, my point is he was a funny donkey. Obstinate in the extreme. So for every ride he gave he got a sugar lump.’

  ‘I take it this is an analogy where I’m Billy?’