“No, dad,” I murmured. “Thank you, though. I love you but I can’t run home, not in the middle of everything.” Taking a deep breath and cuffing my eyes dry I found I was still as determined to beat Jenny and to put Rafe in his place. As for Damien, well I’d just play it cool and try to push any romantic feelings to one side. It was clear to me now that he didn’t love me.
When I eventually hung up the phone I pictured my dad sitting in his chair, his face drawn with worry for me again. He’d been so cut up with this thing with Jenny, and I knew I’d worried him all over again with my ill-advised confession about Damien.
I felt so sorry for my dad and what we’d put him through, the both of us, me and my sister.
All kinds of doubts and fears visited me that night as I lay alone in the strange bed. Not least of which was the anticipation of Damien’s mood on set the next day.
5
I arrived on set feeling washed out and exhausted after a restless night in my hideaway hotel. A whirlwind of conflicting emotions had kept me awake after the scene with Damien and the phone call to my dad, but I was determined to remain professional and finish shooting the movie. For Rafe’s sake, as much as I loathed him I didn’t want to see his career ruined because of Damien. I wanted to rub Rafe’s nose in it by becoming a name in Hollywood; I wanted him to see what he’d had in the palm of his hand, but what he’d thrown away for ten minutes between my bitch sister’s legs. I needed to speak to Damien and tell him I wanted nothing more to do with Rafe and that him taking revenge on Rafe was just childish.
As for my love life, well, I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do about that. Did I really love Damien or just infatuated with him? I’d never met anyone like him; he turned me on like nobody else ever had. He did things to me, mentally as well as physically, that had me weak at the knees just thinking about it. The guy was an addiction. I’d get my fix and then, not long after, I’d want him again. All it took was a glance, a smile as though we shared some dirty secret. Sometimes it was just the way he moved or spoke to me during filming, he’d catch me by surprise and have my body yearning for his fingers to caress me, for his lips on mine our tongues dancing.
But how could he have said those things to me in the limo? Why was he so damned mean? Was I just a sexual plaything for him? Was he jealous of Rafe? That would be something new – Damien Taylor jealous. And if he was jealous, then did that mean he felt the same about me as I did him? He talked about how I fascinated him, how much he liked me, but I was just so confused and upset by everything I didn’t know who the real Damien was.
It was all such a mess.
When I saw him standing near a camera, his back to me as he sipped coffee from a styrofoam cup, I felt that now familiar heartbeat pulse between my legs. I recalled what he’d done in the bathroom, the way he’d ordered me to hold my legs open for him. The danger of being caught like that, with my hands hooked behind my knees as I exhibited myself to Damien’s hungry stare – What had I been thinking!
Then, as if some sixth sense told him I was there, Damien turned to face me. For a moment he looked so serious, so dark and brooding that I felt a tremor of fear, a sensation that only heightened the yearning at my core.
Suddenly the dark look vanished and, like sunshine on a stormy day, Damien smiled.
“Kylie,” he said. “God, Kylie. I was worried sick. Where were you?”
Attempting to appear cool, I shrugged. “I stayed the night at a little hotel. I didn’t want to be near you last night, Damien.”
Damien shook his head and blew out his cheeks as though relieved to see me. “When Jenny called I thought something had happened.”
I blinked, not believing what I’d just heard. “Jenny? Jenny called? How? What? I don’t understand. What’s that bitch got to do with any of this?”
“Hey,” Damien said, holding up both hands. “Steady on. Alexandra came to my room to tell me Jenny was on the phone. I wouldn’t usually take a call from her, you know that, but she’d told Alexandra that you’d called your dad and were all upset. I only spoke to her to find out what the hell was happening.”
“My dad?” I replied. I thought about things for a few moments, turning the events of the previous night over in my mind. “I did call my dad last night,” I explained. “He must have spoken to Jenny after that.” I shook my head, a little angry at my father for blabbing to my sister. “Great, now she knows about us.”