Burning Up

“I know we’ve been in a rut lately,” she’d said, and he’d laughed—a sharp, hard, angry laugh.

“A rut? Jesus, Sophie, we’re in the Grand freaking Canyon.”

“So we talk. We do something about it. What do you think this afternoon is all about?”

Brandon had sat on the end of the bed and put his head in his hands. “Sophie, a bunch of satin is not going to patch over our problems. It’s time to face the facts—we passed our use-by date years ago.”

That had made her legs go weak and she’d been forced to sit beside him.

“That’s so not true,” she’d said. “We still love each other. We’re best friends. We just need to take time to rediscover each other again.”

“We love each other, but we’re not in love, Sophie. We haven’t been for a long time.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Then he’d sucker-punched her. “I want to sleep with other women.”

She’d gasped. It was a slap in the face the way he’d said it so abruptly.

“I’m sorry, but it’s true. Don’t you ever wonder what it would be like with someone else?” he’d asked, searching her face with his eyes.

“No. No, I don’t.”

He’d nodded then. “I suppose that’s probably true. You like things to stay the same, I know that. You like your routines, and knowing what’s going to happen next. Well, I can’t do it anymore. I feel like I’m suffocating.”

He’d started packing a suitcase then, and she’d been frozen with shock as she tried to comprehend what was happening.

“You’ll thank me, you’ll see. You just need a push to make you get out there and spread your wings. We’ve been hiding with each other for too long, Soph.”

She’d been about to throw herself at his feet and beg him to talk more, to at least give them a chance to try to make things work. But the patronizing, all-knowing, parental tone of his words had made her bristle. And she’d done the first thing that had sprung to mind—picked up the phone and called Julie Jenkins.

And now she was pulling up outside a huge, two-story house—mansion, really—about to embark on four weeks of pandering to one of the world’s most indulged men.

Once again tears threatened, but Sophie refused to cry. She was angry, not sad, she told herself. The things Brandon had said to her, about her…She felt as though he’d been kidnapped by pod people and replaced with an alien. How could he have been thinking and feeling that way and she never had a clue?

For a moment she felt overwhelmed.

She was single. It was almost incomprehensible. She’d been with Brandon since she was sixteen years old, but now, suddenly, at thirty, she was single. Alone. Adrift. All her plans, all her dreams, gone in the time it had taken Brandon to pack his suitcase.

For a moment she gave in to the confusion and leaned forward, resting her forehead against the steering wheel. She had no idea what was going to happen tomorrow, or the day after that. She had no idea where she’d be in a month’s time, a year’s time.

A huge gulf of fear seemed to yawn at her feet.

You like your routines and knowing what’s going to happen next.

Brandon’s words tickled at the edges of her mind and she sat up straight and thumped the steering wheel with her fist.

Why did she feel so defensive about what he’d said? What was wrong with liking routines? With enjoying the known, the secure?

“Nothing,” she said out loud.

Brandon was the one who’d given up on them. He was the one with doubts, urges, unfulfilled desires. This was not about her.

Her jaw set, Sophie swung the door open. Tomorrow morning, Lucas Grant was arriving for a four-week recuperation spell after injuring himself on set, according to Julia Jenkins. Sophie had tonight to look over the strict diet she’d been sent and familiarize herself with the kitchen.

Both tasks that she could handle with one hand tied behind her back, despite what Brandon had said about her.

“Bastard,” she said under her breath. It felt better to be angry. If she wasn’t angry, she had the feeling she was going to be very, very sad. And she wasn’t ready to deal with that yet.

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Lucas threw down his bag and looked around. He’d known the Jenkinses for a long time—ever since John had taught him drama at NIDA, in fact—but he’d never realized quite how loaded they were until now. The Blue Mountains “house” that Julie had offered him for his recovery was, in fact, a sprawling estate, complete with heated in-ground pool, caretaker’s lodge and a spectacular seven-bedroom main house with high, arched ceilings, imported stone floors and every modern convenience. If he didn’t already own three houses of his own—L.A., New York, Sydney—he’d almost be envious.

He guessed if he had to be stuck on crutches, there were worse places to be, and not many better.

Frowning, he glanced down at the bulge his newly acquired knee brace made beneath his jeans. He’d torn his ankle ligaments, as well as the medial ligament in his knee. The whole of his foot was bruised and slightly swollen, although it was hard to tell since most of it was hidden by removable neoprene braces, designed to hold his ankle and knee in the correct position while his tendons healed. The doctor had told him it was a miracle that he hadn’t broken anything, considering what had happened.

It had been two days since the accident, and his leg still hurt like hell. Fortunately, they’d given him some serious Tyrannosaurus-Rex-strength painkillers—as well as strict instructions to take it easy for at least four weeks. Which was why Derek had insisted he take Julie up on the offer of her mountain hideaway. Lucas had a film scheduled to begin shooting next week, and the whole production had been delayed to allow him time to recover. The studio had insurance to cover this sort of situation, but Lucas wasn’t exactly the golden-haired boy right now.

He shrugged the thought off as he dropped his crutches beside the bed and flopped backward onto the king-size mattress. Four weeks wasn’t going to kill anyone—him or the studio. Yeah, he’d stuffed up a little. But it wasn’t as though he’d meant to slip and collide with the balcony railing. If it hadn’t been for that biography…

Crossing his arms behind his head, Lucas stared at the ceiling. It was bloody quiet up here in the mountains. No hum of traffic, no people moving around, no chatter of voices in distant rooms. The only sound he could hear was the faint chirrup of birds in the gum trees outside.

Peaceful. Huh.

After about five minutes of peaceful, he started to get a little twitchy. He wasn’t used to having time on his hands. Usually he spent at least two hours a day training—weights, running, yoga for flexibility. If he wasn’t actually shooting a film, he usually had costume fittings, makeup tests, meetings with studios, meetings with Derek or meetings with anyone else who wanted a piece of him, not to mention all the promotional commitments for new releases such as interviews and photo shoots. At night, there were premieres, openings and parties to attend…. His cup runneth over, as it were. Just the way he liked it.

Except for the next four weeks. Frowning, Lucas had a sudden vision of how the next month was going to pan out—lots of birds tweeting and him lying around like this wishing he was elsewhere. In his mind, time slowed to a turtle’s crawl, days stretched into weeks, weeks into months, months into—

Shit. Maybe coming up here alone was a bad idea. In the hospital, doped to the eyeballs and copping flack from the studio and Derek, a little peace and quiet had seemed extremely desirable.

But not this much peace and quiet.

Sliding his cell phone from his pocket, Lucas scrolled through his address book and punched speed dial. The phone rang once before a familiar voice picked up.

“David, mate, how are you?” he asked.

“Lucas. You’re still alive, are you? Heard you got drunk and fell off a balcony or something,” David Gracie said, laughing down the line.

Lucas and David had trained together at NIDA, and after a slow start David was now knocking back offers to appear in multimillion-dollar films, his star firmly on the rise.

“A slight exaggeration. Just got a dodgy knee for a few weeks,” Lucas explained lightly. The joys of being famous—everyone knew his business about two seconds after he did. “I’ve got a few weeks off, anyway, and I was wondering whether you wanted to grab a few warm bodies and come hang in the Blue Mountains?”

“Mate, I’d love to, but I’m about to head out to L.A. Maybe another time, yeah?”

“Sure, man. Absolutely.”

Ending the call, Lucas scanned his address book for another likely suspect.

“Hey, Mikey, how you doin’?” he asked as another acting buddy picked up.

But Mikey was in the middle of a theatrical season at the Opera House playing King Lear. In fact, it seemed all his old friends were tied up with something over the next few weeks. Some of them had day jobs now, having given up acting for something more reliable. Others had families, God forbid. No one was free to come play in the mountains. His thoughts flew to L.A., where there was always someone kicking around, ready to party. But there was no way any of his drinking buddies were about to jump on a plane and travel halfway around the world to stop him expiring from boredom.

“Damn.” Giving up for the moment, Lucas tossed his phone to one side and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The painkillers were starting to wear off, and his ankle and knee were throbbing like bastards.

The real issue, however, was his isolation. How the hell was he going to stay sane for four whole weeks of nothing?

Vaguely it occurred to him that there was something faintly pathetic about being so reliant on other people and stimuli to help him get by. What kind of man couldn’t stand a few hours of his own company, let alone a few weeks? Maybe he ought to tough it out up here to prove to himself that he could. Some early nights, a bit of clean living. Maybe it would even do him good.

Tension crawled up his back and into his shoulders at the very thought.

“Stuff it.”

Grabbing his phone again, he rang Derek, rolling his eyes when it went through to voice mail. Typical, the one time he actually wanted to talk to the guy.

“Listen. This stupid mountain idyll thing was a big mistake,” he told Derek’s voice mail. “Call me back and we’ll make other plans.”

Ending the call, he reached for the side pocket on his suitcase and found the painkillers he’d been prescribed. Tossing back a couple, he gritted his teeth until the world began to blur at the edges a little.

“That’s more like it,” he muttered to himself.

Levering himself up on his elbows, he glanced out the window and spotted his first pleasant surprise of the day—out on the balcony stood a big, kick-ass telescope.

“All right.”

Grabbing his crutches, he lumbered to the French doors that opened onto the balcony and stepped outside. He was greeted with a gust of hot, eucalyptus-tinged air, the warmth actually welcome after the air-conditioned house.

He’d always had a thing for telescopes, and he’d been meaning to buy one of his own for years. Somehow, though, he never seemed to spend enough time in any of his three homes to get around to investing in one.

The lens and eyepiece were protected by rubber caps, and he tugged them loose and lowered his head to the eyepiece. The telescope was trained down and to the right of the pool, and at first he saw nothing but blurry shapes and indistinct light and shadow.

It took him a moment to locate the right dials, but soon Lucas was twisting knobs experimentally—until the image in front of his eyes shifted abruptly into sharp focus.

“Holy hell!” he said, his head jerking back from the telescope in surprise.

He stared blankly at the sky for a short beat, then grinned widely and lowered his head to the telescope again to make sure that his eyes had not been deceiving him.

Framed perfectly between the not-completely-lowered edge of a Venetian blind and the windowsill of the caretaker’s lodge were the prettiest, plumpest, most delicious-looking breasts he’d seen in a long time. Full, creamy-white, with soft pink nipples that seemed to be sitting up and begging for his attention, they looked silky-smooth and very, very edible.

The owner of the breasts was moving around, shifting things. A book. A folded piece of clothing. She was wearing a fluffy towel cinched around her waist, and he eyed the torso beneath the breasts, trying to imagine what the rest of her body might be like. Long legs? Peachy ass? And did she wax? Or was there a thatch of curls between her thighs?

“Damn it,” Lucas said in frustration, then he sucked in a breath as the woman loosened the towel and let it fall to the ground.

“Oh, baby.”

His gaze roamed over her curvy, pert, juicy-looking butt, lingering on the two enticing dimples nestled in the small of her back.

Registering the tightness in his jeans, Lucas glanced down. He was as hard as a rock, his boner straining against his fly. At the sight he suddenly understood what he was doing—spying on some unknown, unaware woman like a pervert. Or, at best, a horny teenager. Neither category he was eager to qualify for. He might be a hard-drinking, womanizing party animal, but he wasn’t desperate.

Taking one last, lingering look at the breasts and an ass that would surely haunt him for days, Lucas forced himself to step back from the telescope.

Who was she? That was the burning question. The caretaker? Some kind of domestic staff? A vague memory floated to the top of his brain—Julie explaining that she’d arranged for a local chef to take care of his meals for the duration of his stay.

So, she was the chef. Interesting.

Lucas grinned to himself. Suddenly he had something to do. Meet the chef. Check out the rest of her hot little body. And maybe he could find a better way to kill time than staring at the ceiling and contemplating his own navel. Maybe he could contemplate her navel…among other things.

His grin got broader. He had a project.

Excellent.

3

SOPHIE PULLED ON underwear and dressed in a pair of black yoga pants and a stretchy, striped tank top. She’d had a crappy night’s sleep, tossing and turning, thinking belatedly of clever, pithy things she should have said to Brandon rather than stand mutely by while he told her how it was going to be.

Not that she would have wanted things to turn out any differently, not now that he’d made his true feelings so abundantly clear. A whole night’s reflection had brought her that much clarity, at least.

He wanted to have sex with other women.

He wanted to be free.

He thought she was staid and boring and bound by routine.

He really was a bastard. It was the perfect word to describe a man who could throw away fourteen years without even pausing to take a breath and discuss it properly. It wasn’t as though he’d even given her a chance to change, or fired off any warning shots to indicate their relationship was about to implode. He’d just made a decision and acted on it, without thinking of her at all.

Suddenly she recalled a night about six months ago when Brandon had shot to his feet and headed for the door when she’d suggested they watch There’s Something About Mary again. It was one of her favorite movies, and he’d always enjoyed it. But that night he’d launched himself out the door without a word, returning twenty minutes later with a selection of new-release DVDs from the video store.

Had that been her early warning signal?

Sophie frowned as she remembered that she’d never asked him why he’d done that.

Maybe because she hadn’t wanted to know the answer?

Sophie shook her head, rejecting the thought and the memory. She had work to do. Besides, did any of it matter when Brandon had pulled the pin on their relationship for good? Going over and over every little detail wasn’t going to change anything.

Padding barefoot across the polished floor of the small but luxuriously appointed cottage, Sophie made her way to the kitchen to prepare her first meal for her star client, determined to resolutely keep her thoughts on the here and now.

She’d heard a voice—presumably talking on a cell phone—by the pool earlier and guessed that Mr. Grant had arrived. She’d been given a schedule to follow for his meals, as well as his very strict diet plan. It wouldn’t take her long to whip up the steamed chicken, green vegetable and cottage cheese salad that was allocated for his first meal. Frankly, a grade-school kid could probably throw the meal together, it was so basic. Not that she was complaining, given that this job had provided her the perfect escape hatch from her suddenly disastrous life.

Still, her chef’s soul ached to add a dash of something to spice up the very bland salad—some toasted walnuts, a raspberry vinaigrette, maybe some wafer-thin slices of pear…none of which was included on the eating plan.

By the time that she’d prepared and presented the meal to her satisfaction—not that there was much she could do with such limited raw materials—it was ten minutes to the appointed lunchtime. Grabbing the plate, Sophie made her way past the pool, across the expansive terrace and through the wide sliding doors to the living room of the main house.

As she stepped over the threshold, a flutter of something that felt very much like nervousness danced around her belly. She stopped in her tracks, frowning.

Surely she wasn’t nervous about meeting Lucas Grant for the first time? The man was an overgrown fourteen-year-old who drank too much, partied too hard and went through women the way most people went through socks. Apart from the fact that he made a lot of money from performing what was essentially a very silly, pointless job, there was nothing special about him at all. In fact, compared to more worthy members of the human race—Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, to name a few—he was beneath contempt.

But still there was a little tickle of awareness about the fact that she would soon meet the man who had been voted World’s Sexiest by People magazine three years in a row. The man who made women all over the world cross their legs and squirm in their seats. The man who reputedly had his perfect, rounded, muscular butt insured for over a million dollars.

Ridiculous. Pathetic. Sad.

But no matter how much she berated herself for being so shallow, it didn’t make the feeling go away. As she crossed the vast living room and entered the kitchen, Sophie tried to shake her nerves off, assuring herself that no matter how Lucas Grant looked on the big screen, in reality he was probably short, obnoxious and hugely egotistical.

Rummaging in a drawer for cutlery, she dropped a fork as she told herself that he probably had big, fake, white teeth, a horrible orange tan from a bottle and a towering sense of self-entitlement. Crouching to pick the fork up, she smiled as she realized that she’d successfully killed the small buzz of anticipation humming through her body. He was just a man. Probably an idiot, to boot. And definitely nobody she’d care to meet under normal circumstances.

Too bad her sense of triumph was short-lived.

Bracing her legs to stand again, she registered the single, tanned, very masculine bare foot that had appeared in front of her, seemingly out of nowhere. Next to it was a second foot, this one encased in a bright blue neoprene and Velcro ankle brace. Bracketing the feet were the rubber tips and metal uprights of a pair of crutches.

Later she would think about how he’d snuck up on her so silently. The man was on crutches—what was he, a ninja or something?

For now, however she was too busy being swamped by a hot rush of pure, unadulterated, unexpected lust as her gaze traveled up the length of his jeans-clad legs, lingering first on the bulge around his left knee, then—for a much longer time—on the substantial and promising bulge in his crotch. Forcing herself to tear her fascinated gaze away, she completed the journey, her eyes trailing over his waistband and up, up, up over what seemed like a mile of tight-T-shirt-covered stomach and chest and shoulders to finally reach his tanned, chiseled, utterly gorgeous face. Finding herself staring into the most amazing pair of amber eyes she’d ever seen in her life, Sophie swallowed noisily and almost fell over backward. Those eyes were like hot caramel, she decided as she stared stupidly into them. Or really rich coffee cake. Or a rare, rare precious stone.

“Hi. I’m Lucas,” he said, and she realized she was still crouched at his feet, her eyes practically bugging out of her head as she ogled him.

“Sophie. Gallagher. Sophie Gallagher is my name,” she said, shooting upright abruptly.

He was…gorgeous. It was the only possible word that could be used to describe him. From the top of his artistically rumpled black hair to the tips of his big, bare, tanned toes, he was All Man. Hard, firm, golden-skinned man. Even being on crutches didn’t dim his appeal one iota. If anything, it only increased it. He looked wounded. A hero back from the wars. A man in need of soothing.

“Great to meet you, Sophie,” Lucas said, extending his hand.

She slid her hand into his automatically and her whole body shivered at the glide of his flesh on hers. She couldn’t help wondering what his entire body would feel like beneath her hands—smooth and firm and warm, probably. He was so much bigger than her, too. She would definitely know she was with a man with him in her bed. The weight of him. His height, his breadth, his length.

Abruptly, Sophie realized that she was staring at Lucas Grant’s crotch again. And that illicit heat was pooling between her thighs.

What the hell was wrong with her?

But she knew the answer: she was turned on. Her body had zoomed from zero to come-and-get-me in no seconds flat—merely because Lucas Grant had walked into the room, smiled at her and shaken her hand.

It was such a shocking bit of knowledge, Sophie didn’t know what to do with it. She was twenty-four hours out of the only relationship she’d ever known. Brandon had just snapped her heart in two. She had no business being attracted to another man, especially one she’d just spent the last ten minutes denigrating for being shallow, feckless and immature.

She took a step backward, away from temptation and confusion. Feeling utterly overwhelmed, she glanced over her shoulder, looking for an escape route. The only door she could see led into the walk-in pantry. Good enough. Especially in an emergency. And this was definitely an emergency.

“If you’re after your lunch, I’ll bring it to you in a few minutes,” she said, backing toward the pantry.

“There’s no rush,” he said easily.

She felt the heat of his gaze flicking up and down her body, and her breasts tingled with awareness.

Good God.

Her fingers found the cool wood of the pantry door with relief.

“I have to, um, take care of something,” she said, then she turned and stepped into the pantry.

Standing in the relative dark surrounded by shelves of dry goods, she pressed a hand to her belly, aware of the steady pulse of her elevated heartbeat thrumming beneath her palm. Her breath sounded loud and fast in the confined space and she blinked several times, trying to work out what the hell was going on with her.

This had to be some kind of delayed reaction to what had happened with Brandon. She seized the explanation as if it were a lifeline. Of course that was what it was—some kind of weird expression of grief and loss. Her whole life had been turned upside down. She was bound to feel unsettled and…horny?

Closing her eyes, she made a helpless whimpering sound. Never in her life had she felt so out of control. So separated from her normal self. And she didn’t like it—not one little bit.

SHE WAS NOTHING like he’d expected.

Lucas stared after the chef, a frown pleating his forehead. Those breasts, that ass—he’d automatically assumed they’d belong to a striking Amazonian beauty. A really flexible, nimble, nymphomaniac Amazonian beauty. The kind of woman who littered his world.