‘We can give you a lift back to the hotel if you don’t mind squashing in the back,’ Jake offered Juliet.

  ‘Don’t you have to stay here?’ Stacy asked him curtly.

  His deep blue eyes flickered over her mockingly. ‘Not if it means I have to be deprived of the company of two beautiful women.’

  Her mouth pursed angrily as he smiled at Juliet. ‘In that case I’ll sit in the back. I’m sure you and Juliet must still have plenty to talk about.’

  ‘That’s fine by me,’ he agreed easily. ‘If you’re sure you’ll be comfortable …’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she snapped waspishly.

  ‘Right, I’ll just go and make my excuses to Payne.’

  ‘We’ll wait for you by the car.’ Her manner was offhand.

  ‘Ooh!’ breathed Juliet excitedly as they walked side by side to Jake’s car. ‘He’s even more fascinating than he looks—if that’s possible.’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Why so grouchy? I think he’s absolutely charming. And I love that deep sexy drawl of his.’

  Stacy clambered into the back of the car, uncaring of the upholstery. ‘It isn’t always deep and sexy,’ she muttered.

  Juliet looked at her closely. ‘Are you jealous, by any chance?’

  She blushed. ‘No, of course I’m not.’

  Juliet grinned. ‘Yes, you are. Hey, come on, he was only being polite. He didn’t mean anything by it.’

  ‘I don’t care if he did,’ Stacy said crossly. ‘He has a perfect right to flirt with whom he pleases.’

  ‘But you don’t like it.’ Her friend climbed into the passenger seat. ‘Could it be that you’ve really fallen for our renowned author?’

  Stacy coloured deeply. ‘No—’

  ‘Liar!’ Juliet contradicted softly.

  ‘Well … I could have done.’

  ‘I wouldn’t blame you if you have.’ Juliet settled more comfortably in the seat. ‘I could fall for him myself if I didn’t find Matthew quite so interesting at the moment. He actually got around to kissing me goodnight last night,’ she revealed triumphantly.

  ‘Well, that’s a move in the right direction.’ Stacy was glad to be on to a subject that didn’t involve quite so much soul-searching on her part. She had fallen for Jake Weston, for all the good it would do her, and she didn’t want everyone to know of her stupidity.

  Juliet smiled her satisfaction. ‘That’s what I thought. Oh boy,’ she sighed, ‘here comes Mr Weston again,’ and her eyes lit up with pleasure.

  Stacy turned to watch Jake walk towards them with long easy strides, his black silk shirt unbuttoned almost to his waist in the heat of the day to reveal a fine mat of dark silky hair, his muscles rippling as he moved. Stacy felt her pulse race just at the sight of him and looked hurriedly away before he should see her interest.

  He grinned at them as he got into the driving seat. ‘Sorry if I ruined your work for today,’ he spoke to Juliet, accelerating the car to high speed. ‘I don’t think Paul’s in any condition to work.’

  She laughed. ‘So Stacy has been telling me.’

  Jake glanced fleetingly at Stacy as she sat in the back, the wind blowing through her long hair. ‘I hope you weren’t too worried by Stacy’s absence last night?’

  Stacy sat behind them glowering angrily as they talked first on one subject and then another. She felt excluded and jealous, and longed for their arrival back at the hotel.

  Jake held the door open for them both to get out. ‘Would you like to join us for lunch?’ he asked Juliet.

  ‘I would love to, but I have to look for someone.’

  He nodded. ‘Then perhaps we’ll see you later.’

  Stacy was really annoyed by the time he deigned to notice her presence, snatching her arm out of his grasp as he led the way over to the hotel entrance. ‘I don’t remember saying I would have lunch with you,’ she said once Juliet had left them.

  ‘You didn’t,’ he acknowledged.

  ‘Then why—’

  ‘But you will,’ he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘And while we’re eating you can tell me what it was you were talking to Forbes about for so long.’

  She looked at him uncertainly. ‘You saw me talking to him?’ She hadn’t been aware of him looking at her.

  ‘I see everything you do,’ he said grimly. He looked down at her with cold eyes. ‘You didn’t look as if you exactly hated talking to him.’

  ‘Looks can be deceptive,’ she muttered, remembering her loathing and fear of the other man as he had issued his threat to her.

  ‘What did he want?’ Jake demanded.

  ‘He—’

  ‘And I want the truth, Stacy,’ he added harshly.

  Somehow the truth was too humiliating, having to reveal Paul Forbes’ threat to tell Jake she had enjoyed his rough treatment of her. ‘He was just being his nasty self,’ she evaded.

  ‘That doesn’t answer my question.’ His mouth was tight.

  She shrugged. ‘He was just throwing out vindictive threats.’

  Jake’s eyes narrowed. ‘What sort of threats?’

  ‘They were just stupid—’

  ‘Tell me, Stacy!’ he ordered angrily.

  ‘He said he would get you back for hitting him, that you wouldn’t get away with it.’

  ‘I see. And did he happen to mention what form this revenge would take?’

  ‘No,’ she lied. She just couldn’t bring herself to tell Jake of the things that awful man had said to her, of his threat to tell Jake that she had already slept with him.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Jake’s piercing blue eyes probed her pale face.

  She attempted a light laugh that didn’t quite come off. ‘He was just venting his anger at being thwarted. He’ll get over it,’ sure that he would do no such thing.

  ‘Men like Forbes don’t get over anything. Didn’t his effort to get you sacked prove that, even without his behaviour of last night?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she admitted. ‘But I don’t have much more to do in the film, a lot of my scenes have already been shot. Another week should do it and then I can get back to London.’

  ‘Do you have any other work lined up?’

  She shook her head. ‘Not for a few weeks anyway.’

  ‘Then there’s no reason why you can’t stay on here once your work is finished.’

  ‘There’s a very good one. At the moment my expenses are being paid for me—I certainly couldn’t afford to stay here if they weren’t. Back in London I share a flat with three other girls, and I’ve had to keep paying that rent even though I’m not there.’

  ‘I could pay your expenses.’

  She gave him a sharp look. ‘Just what are you suggesting?’

  ‘The filming will go on for a few weeks after you’ve left and I’ve already missed several weeks. I can’t leave after only being here a week.’

  ‘I realise that,’ she frowned.

  ‘I don’t want you to go back to London where I can’t see you.’

  ‘You—you want to see me?’

  Jake gave her a taunting look. ‘What do you think?’ he mocked.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Not even after this morning?’ he probed softly.

  Bright colour flamed in her cheeks. ‘This morning was—well, it was a result of an accumulation of circumstances.’

  ‘The main one being that I want you,’ he said dryly.

  ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged huskily.

  ‘It frightens you that I’m so honest, doesn’t it?’ he mused. ‘Would you rather I said something like, I fell in love with your screen test, that I was glad I was no longer a married man because I wanted to be free to marry you if you turned out to be as beautiful and enchanting as you looked on film? Would you prefer me to say something like that?’

  Stacy smiled. ‘No. And stop teasing me.’

  ‘I’m not teasing you,’ he said abruptly. ‘You have to admit it could be true, all the facts fit.’

  ‘You’re an expert when it comes to fitting fiction to fact.’

  ‘But you must admit it would make an interesting story, the hardened cynic falling for a girl half his age, falling so badly he couldn’t wait to find out if his feelings were returned. If I were a romantic I’d write the story myself.’

  ‘But you aren’t, and that’s why the story couldn’t be true about us. You see women not as people to love but as things to desire, to want. That’s the only word you’ve ever used to me, want.’

  ‘I just offered to tell you I’d fallen in love with your screen—’

  ‘Do you have to mock everything?’ she interrupted bitterly. ‘I happen to believe in love.’

  ‘And you don’t think I would be sincere about falling in love with you?’

  She took a deep breath, wishing it could be true and knowing it wasn’t. ‘I believe that like all men, you would tell a woman what she wanted to hear in order to get what you want.’

  Jake gave a short laugh. ‘You’re more cynical than you realise, Stacy.’

  ‘I’m practical,’ she corrected. ‘As the result of a situation very similar to this I don’t welcome the same fate for my child.’

  ‘Why didn’t your parents marry?’ he asked.

  ‘Because they didn’t love each other. What they had was a purely sexual attraction.’

  ‘How do you know that if you were abandoned so young?’

  ‘Because my mother told me,’ she said angrily. ‘My mother married a few years after I was born and apparently it was the appearance of the first child of that marriage that finally jogged her conscience into making her go in search of the week-old baby she’d abandoned. She found me still at the children’s home she left me at, let me know who she was, and then found out that her husband wouldn’t even have my name mentioned in the house.’

  ‘God, that’s crueller than knowing nothing at all!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. At least I had someone, most of the children there had no one.’

  ‘Yes, but to know you had a mother who couldn’t even take you home!’

  ‘And didn’t want to, not if it meant losing what she had,’ she told him dully. ‘Do you have any children?’

  ‘Me? No.’ He appeared shaken by her question.

  ‘Well, don’t look so surprised. You have been married.’

  ‘There are no children,’ Jake said harshly.

  ‘There’s no need to bite my head off. It could have been a possibility.’

  ‘I’ll tell you about my marriage some time,’ he said.

  She wished he would tell her about it now. She wanted to know all about this woman he had loved enough to marry, wanted to know what she had to make him want her for his wife. ‘I’d like that,’ she told him huskily.

  ‘And in the meantime you’ll stay on here?’

  ‘I wasn’t angling when I said I couldn’t afford to stay,’ she snapped.

  He sighed. ‘I know that. Will you stay?’

  ‘No. If I did that I would become what everyone already thinks I am.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘Your mistress,’ she supplied. ‘Your kept woman.’

  ‘But you’ll know you aren’t.’

  ‘I’ll know and you’ll know, but I don’t see why I should add to gossip by giving anyone the satisfaction of knowing I’m being kept by you. I couldn’t do it anyway. Much as I like this hotel, I would simply be here to amuse you, your plaything. I don’t like being under obligation to anyone.’

  ‘Too much independence,’ he said impatiently.

  ‘I’ve learnt over the years only to depend on myself, you stand less chance of being let down that way.’

  ‘I think I’d better get you in to lunch,’ said Jake, ‘you’re getting maudlin. After we’ve eaten I have to return to the location site. I’ve taken enough time off for one day. But we can meet for dinner later. Perhaps you’d like to go somewhere different to eat, away from all the curious eyes.’

  And Paul Forbes! She would welcome that. ‘That would be nice,’ she agreed eagerly.

  They parted after lunch, Stacy going up to her room and Jake back to work. She found a letter from Juliet, propped up on the dressing-table informing her that she was by the pool.

  Stacy was undecided about joining her. Matthew was bound to be with her and she wasn’t sure of his reaction to seeing her again. After the brief attraction they had had for each other Matthew had become the nearest thing to a brother she had ever had, and he would not be very pleased with her for making him sit up half the night on her account.

  But he had to be faced, and by the pool was perhaps the best place for that. He would be relaxed and not so likely to make a scene.

  Her two friends were on loungers beside the blue water when she came down, the remains of a buffet lunch on the table between them. She sat down on a third lounger, looking at Matthew uncertainly.

  ‘You were right about the four pairs of hands,’ she told him lightly, rubbing oil on to her bikini-clad body.

  ‘So I gathered,’ he said distantly.

  ‘Matthew?’ She looked at him pleadingly.

  ‘What do you want me to say?’ He sat up angrily. ‘You look a mess, your face, your arms—just a complete mess. And all because you wouldn’t listen to reason.’

  ‘You’re right, of course, Matthew.’

  ‘And don’t think you can get by me by acting all contrite! It’s time you realised just how dangerous your impetuous behaviour can be.’

  ‘I think she knows that already,’ Juliet put in dryly.

  ‘About damn time too,’ he snapped. ‘Perhaps it’s as well it happened, at least it’s brought you down to earth a bit.’

  ‘Matthew!’ Juliet said reproachfully. ‘Leave the poor girl alone!’

  ‘Poor girl!’ he scoffed. ‘That’s the last thing she is. Spending the night in Jake Weston’s suite!’

  Stacy gave him a sideways glance. ‘I believe you spent the best part of the night in our room alone with Juliet,’ she said tongue-in-cheek.

  Matthew flushed. ‘That was different! I—’

  ‘She has a point,’ Juliet put in mischievously.

  ‘You know damn well it was perfectly innocent,’ he snapped.

  ‘And how do you know Stacy’s night with Mr Weston wasn’t equally innocent?’

  ‘Well— Because it can’t have been,’ he said crossly. ‘He isn’t the sort of man to simply—well, he wouldn’t just leave Stacy to—’

  Juliet laughed. ‘For goodness’ sake say it, Matthew. You believe Stacy and Mr Weston to have shared the same bed—and not just to sleep in.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he muttered.

  ‘And how does she know we didn’t do exactly the same thing?’

  ‘Because you know we didn’t.’

  ‘I know you say you didn’t,’ Stacy joined in Juliet’s teasing. ‘But I only have your word for that—as you only have mine.’

  Matthew looked at the two of them as they struggled to hold back their amusement. ‘All right, all right,’ he sighed. ‘I admit I could be wrong.’

  ‘You are wrong,’ Juliet insisted.

  ‘All right,’ he conceded with a further sigh, ‘I’m wrong. But you have to agree with me about Stacy’s impetuosity.’

  ‘She’s a big girl, Matthew, and even if she had spent the night in bed with Jake Weston it’s none of your business.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Is it, Matthew?’ Juliet persisted.

  ‘No!’ He stood up. ‘I’m going for a swim.’

  Juliet quirked an eyebrow. ‘To cool off?’

  Stacy chuckled at the furious look Matthew directed at them both before diving into the cool water. ‘You shouldn’t tease him like that,’ she scolded her room-mate.

  ‘Then he shouldn’t be so bossy and disapproving,’ Juliet replied unconcernedly.

  ‘Thanks for helping me over that anyway, I appreciate it.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ her friend dismissed. ‘He really mauled you about, didn’t he?’ She indicated the livid bruises on Stacy’s arms.

  Stacy grimaced as she remembered the way Paul Forbes had touched her. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve almost finished my work here,’ Juliet said with a sigh. ‘I’ll be quite sorry to leave. It’s been quite interesting, especially the last few days.’

  ‘If you’re talking about me then don’t be upset, I’m going back to London myself in a couple of days. We’ve shot all my scenes but the rape one. Martin Payne seems to be avoiding shooting it, although I have to admit I’m not too eager to do it myself. But I would like to get away, things have become very complicated around here lately.’ Not least her feelings for Jake.

  ‘You surely don’t want to leave Mr Weston?’ Juliet sounded scandalised. ‘I’d hold on to him for as long as I could.’

  So would Stacy if she had the chance. But she had meant it when she had told him she didn’t go in for affairs, and no matter how tempted she was to stay on here as his guest she knew she wouldn’t do it, couldn’t do it.

  ‘I’m only a fleeting attraction to him,’ she told Juliet. ‘Once I’ve left he’ll probably take out one of the other girls.’

  ‘And just about all of them would be willing to do that.’

  Stacy turned away so that Juliet shouldn’t see how much that would hurt her. ‘I’m sure they would,’ she agreed softly. ‘Are you coming in for a swim? I think Matthew should have cooled off by now.’

  The water was pleasantly warm and after spending half an hour or so swimming they all got out to dry off in the sun. The conversation didn’t return to the subject of Jake Weston or Paul Forbes, something for which Stacy felt grateful. As far as Jake was concerned she was living from meeting to meeting, and if his only reasons for seeing her were to protect her from Paul Forbes and because he himself desired her then that was better than nothing. He would demand nothing of her she didn’t want to give; he had already said he liked his women willing.

  Juliet left them about four, wanting to lie down in the cool room and rid herself of a headache so that she could join Matthew later. But even so Matthew refrained from asking Stacy any more questions, although he did offer to drive her back to London when her work here was finished.