Hold on to the Nights

“Now, let me finish, people. Unfortunately, Mr. McDougall’s flight has been delayed and we’ve rescheduled his chat for tomorrow morning instead. However …” She smiled secretively at the crowd. “We didn’t want you to be too disappointed, so we’ve brought in another guest. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome …Mr. Graeme Hamilton!”

There was an instant of stunned silence before the ballroom erupted in thunderous applause and ear-splitting shrieks of approval. Then, from the wings of the stage, a lean figure emerged, wearing Kip Corrigan’s signature black pants and shirt. The band struck up a resounding rendition of the theme song from Galaxy’s End, and amidst the swell of music, the man did a quick two-step dance move for the crowd, unleashing another, louder round of applause and screaming, before he strode across the stage toward the microphone.

Graeme saluted the band, kissed the emcee on both cheeks and then turned to the crowd with a wave. The spotlight turned his cropped hair into a gleaming halo of brown and bronze highlights, and from where Lara sat, a mere twenty feet from the stage, she could see his easy grin and the way his blue-green eyes scanned the crowd.

She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

For an instant, her heart stopped beating, and then it exploded back into frenzied action. Lara had known that when she finally saw Graeme again she’d have a strong physical reaction, but never in her wildest imaginings had she thought she might actually expire on the spot.

Graeme was speaking into the microphone, but Lara couldn’t hear anything beyond the roaring of her own blood in her ears. From where she sat, she could see the changes that five years had wrought, sculpting his face, tracing it with experience, and turning it from attractive to unforgettable. Lara felt something in her chest tear free with a painful wrench. She was only dimly aware of women rising from the nearby tables and moving forward, jostling each other in their urgency to get closer to the stage.

Closer to him.

Her mask was suffocating her.

She couldn’t breathe, and fluttering wings of blackness appeared at the outer edges of her vision. She felt overheated and flushed. Suddenly, the small bottle of wine and two martinis she’d consumed threatened to make a reappearance.

She surged to her feet with a muttered apology, intent only on escaping the ballroom, unaware that the trailing edge of the tablecloth had become snagged on her metal bikini bottom. Lara turned to leave, dragging the tablecloth with her. As if in slow motion, plates of food and glassware crashed to the floor and the six costumed women who had been sitting with her scrambled to get out of the way, knocking over chairs and crying out in surprise.

For a moment, the band stopped playing and it seemed every face in the ballroom turned in her direction. Horrified, Lara looked toward the stage.

Graeme stared back at her.

For one, brief instant, their gazes collided. A renewed surge of heat swept through Lara, fierce and swift, and then receded, leaving her bathed in a cold, clammy sweat.

With a small sound of despair, she jerked the tablecloth free of her costume and fled toward the nearest exit, which opened into a service corridor. She was only dimly aware of the hotel staff passing on either side of her as she dashed toward an elevator at the end of the hallway. A startled waiter scooted out of her way as she flung herself at the doors, frantically pressing the button for them to open.

“Whoa, Princess Leia, that’s a private service elevator,” the waiter gasped, staring at her in dismay. “Jesus, what the hell is going on?”

Following his gaze, Lara glanced back in the direction she’d come from, and nearly fainted with panic. Graeme Hamilton himself was sprinting toward her, and hot on his heels was a horde of lust-crazed women, arms outstretched as they screamed his name.

Behind her, the elevator doors swished open and Lara flung herself inside. With her breath coming in painful hitches, she desperately punched at the buttons and watched with growing dread as Graeme and the pursuing crowd of women rapidly closed the distance between them.

“Please, please, please,” she whispered, but whether her chant was for Graeme to reach the elevator in time, or not, she couldn’t say.

Closer. Closer.

The doors started to swish shut, but even as Lara sagged against the wall in utter relief, a hand thrust itself between them, forcing them open. Lara watched in dismay as Graeme squeezed through, his breathing harsh. He pressed the button to close the doors and held his finger there, even as he took a protective stance in the opening. At the last instant, when it seemed the women would simply stampede him, the elevator doors closed.

“Christ,” he muttered, and his voice washed over her, stirring her senses and catapulting her back five years.

Lara drank in the sight of him. He was larger than she remembered. He completely dominated the small space, and she fisted her hands behind her back to keep from reaching out and touching him. She pressed herself into the corner of the compartment and hardly dared to breathe.

Maybe he wouldn’t notice her.

Maybe, if she was very lucky, the elevator’s dim lighting and the mask would be enough to keep him from recognizing her, although she knew the likelihood of that happening was about nil. How humiliating to be caught attending a fan festival for your ex-husband …current husband. Whatever.

With any luck, he wouldn’t realize who she was, and he’d think she was merely playing out her role of submissive slave by keeping her head down. Her heart still thudded hard against her ribs and her palms were slick with moisture.

She’d wanted to see Graeme, but not like this, and especially not in a state of near undress! Everything about this first encounter was wrong. She’d wanted to be on solid footing, suitably garbed in her best business suit so that he’d have no doubts that she’d both grown up and moved on. She’d wanted to be self-assured and emotionally distant, not a pile of quivering nerve endings and heightened awareness.

He eased himself away from the doors and leaned negligently against the opposite wall. “That was a close one. Especially since the weight capacity on this lift canna exceed two thousand pounds.”

His voice sank into her bones, heating her from the inside out. Slowly, Lara raised her gaze to his and felt the shock of it all the way to her toes. And just like the first time she’d seen him, everything else seemed to vanish.

She was no longer aware of being in a tiny elevator.

She didn’t care that she wore next to nothing.

She was only aware of Graeme, and the sight of him, so incredibly sexy and masculine, caused her brain to misfire so that instead of saying something smart and sophisticated, the only thing that came out of her mouth was a stuttered, “Huh?”

He didn’t smile, just continued to watch her intently. “I hate to be the one to break this to ye, princess,” he murmured, his Scottish burr turning her insides to mush, “but the Star Wars convention isn’t for another two months.”

Distressed, Lara felt her stomach do a sick flip. Was it her imagination, or had he placed a subtle emphasis on the word princess? He’d always called her his princess; it had been his pet name for her back when they’d first met. Did he recognize her, or was it just her overactive imagination playing tricks on her?

She’d been so certain that he had recognized her, that he’d come barreling after her because he knew who she was and wanted retribution. She’d expected a bitter confrontation, but Graeme was looking at her without a trace of shock or anger or recrimination in his eyes.

In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, his expression was one of pure, male appreciation, and the heat in his eyes sparked an answering flame. The panic in her chest eased up a bit, and Lara didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

As impossible as it seemed, Graeme Hamilton didn’t have a clue who she was.

Lara dragged her gaze away from his, her mind racing.

He didn’t know it was her.

A part of her knew she should feel hurt that he didn’t recognize her, but another part of her thrilled at the knowledge that he still found her attractive. She reminded herself she’d changed in five years, just as Valerie had said. She’d filled out in some places and slimmed down in others. Combined with the mask and costume, it was no wonder he didn’t know who she was. The thought actually gave her a little courage, and her earlier embarrassment at being caught wearing such a flagrantly sexy outfit vanished. Seeing Graeme’s eyes darken with desire was like an aphrodisiac. Warm, honeyed tendrils of pleasure snaked through her. She shifted her weight and a sharp burst of desire speared through her.

It seemed that some things never changed. Graeme still had the ability to arouse her with no more than a look. Two minutes ago, she’d been desperate to get away from him. Now, in close quarters with him, all she could think about was getting even closer.

She felt reckless.

Irresponsible.

Knowing that her identity was safe only amped up the naughty thoughts that were chasing themselves through her head. Less than an hour ago, she’d stood in front of her mirror and fantasized about how Graeme might react if he saw her in this getup. Now she wondered how he would react if she indicated she’d be willing to play the role of a true pleasure slave.

Tomorrow, she would don her safe, staid business suit, arm herself with her briefcase of legal documents and demand that he sign the divorce papers she had with her. She would wish him all the best in his career and his life, and then she would leave.

But for tonight, she would cater to her inner seductress, secure in the knowledge that nobody would ever find out, not even Graeme. She acknowledged that she wanted—no, she needed—to know if sex with Graeme was as good as she remembered, or if girlish memories had blown it out of proportion over the years. She had no illusions of trying to recapture the love of her youth; rather, she’d finally be able to put it firmly in her past and move on with her future. She’d been so young back then, so easily impressed. Not that she’d had much hands-on experience in the years since they’d been apart, but she’d done a lot of reading …and writing …about sex. In her fan fiction stories, Kip Corrigan was the ultimate lover, and most of what she wrote was based on her own experiences with Graeme during the two nights they’d shared.

But nobody could be that good, right?

3

RECOGNITION punched Graeme in the gut like a sledgehammer.

He’d thought about this moment more times than he cared to admit over the past five years, and in his mind their reunion had played out in all kinds of different ways. But his fantasies always ended the same way—with Lara in his bed, promising that she’d never leave again.

But now that she was here, he didn’t have a fucking clue what to say. So he took a deep breath and turned to look at her, but was so completely blown away by the erotic vision she made that all he could manage was some ignorant remark about the weight capacity of the lift.

Because never, even in his most outrageous fantasies, could he have envisioned Lara looking like the woman who stared at him now from the opposite side of the elevator. For just a moment, his confidence faltered and he wondered if he might be mistaken. After all, he hadn’t seen her in several years. Even in his most lurid and explicit imaginings, she looked perpetually the way she had that summer in London.

Sweet.

Shy.

Conservative.

For a moment, his chest clenched hard and tight, and his hands fisted at his sides in recalled frustration. He’d been a struggling actor, just out of drama school, trying desperately to make a name for himself in the London theater scene where actors were ten a penny. His strong Scots accent and his strapping, blue-collar physique had worked against him, however, and the best he’d been able to manage had been amateur productions in second-rate theaters.

He’d been performing in a stage presentation of Blood Brothers, in front of a nearly empty theater, when she had walked in and sat in the back row. She’d come back every day until the last performance, when she’d chosen to sit in the front row.

After the show had ended, he’d sprinted out of the theater to intercept her, because meeting her had been a compulsion he couldn’t resist. He’d realized there was something special about her even though back then, she’d looked more like a modern-day Sandra Dee with her buttoned-up blouses, her little designer handbags and ridiculous shoes. But in less than a week of meeting her for afternoon tea, taking walks along the Thames and exploring the city together, he’d fallen completely and irrevocably in love. He’d never understood what it was that she’d seen in him, but he did know one thing; he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted another girl in his life.

His mistake had been to believe the lies that had fallen so easily from those cherub lips; that she was a twenty-one-year-old college student spending a summer abroad. That she only had one year of college left. That she was legally old enough to get married.

That she loved him.

Now he could hardly comprehend that his young wife and this exotic creature might be one and the same. He’d barely stepped onto the stage back in the ballroom, when a woman at a nearby table had suddenly lurched to her feet and done a bad rendition of the old tablecloth trick, dumping every place setting onto the floor in a cacophony of shattered dishware.

She’d been dressed in an eye-popping Princess Leia slave-girl costume that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Graeme had paused, prepared to make a joke about escapees from Jabba the Hutt’s harem, when he’d found himself looking past the gold mask and straight into a pair of eyes that he’d recognize anywhere.

Shock had slammed through him, but she was gone before he could react, pushing past the crowd and vanishing through a side door. Graeme hadn’t paused to think about his actions. He’d leaped from the stage, intent only upon catching the woman. But the mob of costumed fans had other ideas and for several frustrating seconds, he’d found himself sinking beneath a surging mass of greedy females who’d clamored for an autograph, a photo, a hug, a kiss. He might never have escaped their clutches if it hadn’t been for his publicist and hotel security, pushing their way through the crowd and extricating him from the surging mass of women.

With muttered apologies, he’d broken free and dashed through the side door, his eyes searching the area beyond. He was rewarded when he saw Princess Leia frantically trying to access a service elevator. With a low growl, he’d plunged down the corridor after her, only dimly aware of the shrieking women who’d pursued him.

As he’d sprinted down the hallway, he knew his gut had been right; the woman was Lara. A glossy braid swung between her shoulder blades, the color of a brand-new penny. In five years, he’d never come across another person with hair that unique shade of copper, and despite the fact her body had definitely changed—in a bite-your-fist, hold-me-back kind of way—there was absolutely no question in his mind that the woman trying so desperately to escape was her.

He’d had an instant of panic when she bolted into the elevator and the doors began to close, but a burst of adrenaline had propelled him forward enough that he got his hand inside. He’d thrust himself through the doors and into the compartment with her.

For a split second, he’d registered the utter dismay in her sapphire eyes, before he’d abruptly turned his back on her. Aside from preventing the hordes of fans from mobbing the elevator, he’d needed to get a grip on himself.

As impossible as it seemed, Lara was here. And clearly, not too pleased that he’d followed her.

Graeme didn’t know what kind of reaction he’d expected, but it sure as hell hadn’t been this. She was simply staring at him from behind the ornate mask as if she didn’t know him from Adam. As if she hadn’t just fled the ballroom with him in hot pursuit. As if she hadn’t noticed the pack of screaming women who’d been hot on his heels.

As if he hadn’t—once upon a time—explored every luscious inch of her body with his hands and mouth.

There was no greeting, no how-do-you-do, no nothing. Instead, she gave him a polite, distant little smile and let her gaze drift away from him, fixing her attention on the blinking numbers over the door as if she had no freaking idea who he was.

As if they were complete strangers.

Which was nuts, because even if she didn’t recognize him as the man she’d once married, he was still Graeme Hamilton. If his publicist was to be believed, every woman who’d registered for the convention had done so because she was a huge Graeme Hamilton fan.

Then it hit him.

Lara was hoping like hell that he wouldn’t recognize her. She didn’t want him to recognize her. Graeme knew the body language well enough, since he frequently employed the same tactic when he left his Los Angeles apartment.

But did she really think he wouldn’t know who she was? That a mask would be enough to throw him? He’d recognize her anywhere. Even now, her scent was driving him insane, the same way it had done five years ago. It was an intoxicating blend of something light and exotic that was hers alone. He could pick her out of a crowd even if he was blindfolded.

Shit. He needed a drink. But he’d learned the hard way that drinking wouldn’t help him forget Lara, no matter how desperate he might be.

Memories shoved their way inside his mind and he could still see her spread out beneath him. Lara, her red-gold hair splayed out across the crisp linens. Her lush lips parted, sapphire eyes glazed with pleasure. Her back arched, and her pale breasts thrusting upward, their rosy nipples tempting him. Her limbs wrapped around him, her heat gripping him, drawing him in as she urged him to thrust faster, deeper—

Shit. Shit.

What the hell game was she playing at? There was only one reason he could think of for her being here; she wanted out of their marriage. Memories of the two nights they’d spent together still caused his toes to curl with recalled lust. But despite what he and Lara had shared—and they’d shared plenty—she’d walked out of his life forty-eight hours after their wedding.

But the nightmare hadn’t ended there. The day after Lara left, when Graeme had returned to his tiny apartment in London, Brent Whitfield had paid him a visit, accompanied by a lawyer and two government agents.

Graeme had been shocked by the news that her father was the U.S. Ambassador to England. Brent Whitfield came from a long and prominent line of political servants, and if his influential lineage wasn’t enough to make Graeme feel like a peasant, the Whitfield family money would have. But Graeme had never believed that money made one person better than another. While he could appreciate that Brent wanted to protect his daughter from avaricious money-grubbers, the way he’d treated Graeme had been unforgivable.

Graeme still saw red when he recalled the accusations that Lara’s father had hurled at him. He’d made Graeme feel like the worst kind of low-life scum, as though he was morally corrupt. He’d threatened to have Graeme arrested for statutory rape, but Graeme had known just enough about Scottish law to know that his marriage to Lara had been legitimate and would hold up in court.

Refusing to sign those annulment papers had given him a fierce sense of satisfaction. He’d made a promise to Lara’s father that day; if Lara wanted out of the marriage, she’d have to tell him so to his face. He’d have no problem letting her go; all she needed to do was ask him herself. But she hadn’t had the guts to.

There had been a couple of times over the past five years when he’d almost filed the papers himself so that he could move on with his life, but both times he’d chickened out.

She’d been in college—for real, this time—and he hadn’t wanted to disrupt her studies. And if he was honest with himself, part of the reason he hadn’t pushed the divorce was because so long as she was married to him, she couldn’t get too serious about anyone else.

Now here she was, looking like something out of his freaking dreams, but he knew the reason for her sudden reappearance in his life had nothing to do with making his fantasies come true. She wanted a divorce, probably to marry the guy she was rumored to be romantically involved with.

It had been ridiculously easy for Graeme to keep tabs on her activities over the years. With social networking Web sites like Facebook and MySpace, combined with her prominent family name, he’d had no trouble finding information about her. Or her theater program. Or the fact that she’d been dating one of her coworkers at the theater.

The thought of Lara with another man made his stomach tighten and his chest constrict. He’d known that eventually she’d seek him out and demand a divorce; a woman like Lara wasn’t meant to live alone. She’d want to remarry, to have children. He just wasn’t prepared for how that made him feel.

Graeme reminded himself yet again that he was over her. Hell, he’d already planned on ending their farce of a marriage soon. He’d decided he didn’t want to risk the paparazzi unearthing the news; they’d have a field day with it, and Lara would suffer the most.

He’d also been offered a movie that would take him to New Zealand for the next eighteen months for filming. The deal symbolized a major shift in his career, from television to the big screen. Graeme hoped the move would also mark a major shift in his personal life, as well.

He needed to get out of Hollywood, away from the photographers and half-assed reporters who recorded his every move. Every day, he’d pick up a paper and read some bullshit story about his alleged affairs or his supposed addiction to drugs or alcohol. He couldn’t so much as go for a morning jog without the paparazzi accosting him. Even stopping somewhere for a quick bite to eat had become more trouble than it was worth, with women following him down the street, giggling and shouting obscene suggestions, and doing anything they could to attract his attention.

Leeches, all of them.

Only Lara, standing on the other side of the elevator and acting as if he didn’t exist, seemed unimpressed by either him or his fame.

He looked at her, but she pointedly ignored him. Well, fine. Two could play at her game. If she wanted to be incognito, far be it from him to destroy the illusion. There was a reason he was one of Hollywood’s top actors; he could pretend with the best of them.

He gave her a languid smile and dropped his voice an octave. “I hate to be the one to break this to ye, princess, but the Star Wars convention isn’t for another two months.”

She turned slowly in his direction, as if she was uncertain whether he was speaking to her. Her eyes widened behind the gold mask. For just a second, Graeme was sure she was going to fold, that she’d acknowledge him, pull the mask away from her face and finally, after five goddamned long years, they’d talk about what had happened between them.

Instead, she studied him from behind the mask, nibbling on her plump lower lip. He knew the instant she decided to continue the charade. As he watched, her entire body posture changed and softened. She leaned one shoulder against the wall and tipped her head to the side as she considered him. Her sapphire eyes traveled over every inch of him, as if measuring his worth. Graeme had to force himself to remain relaxed and keep his expression one of amused interest, while his blood thudded hard through his veins and a combination of dread and anticipation coiled in his stomach.

“Maybe I’m not looking for the Star Wars convention,” she finally said. Her voice was breathless, but Graeme didn’t miss how she surreptitiously swiped her palms over the scarlet fabric that covered her rear. Another man might have interpreted the move as sexual, designed to thrust those amazing breasts forward, but he guessed she was nervous and that her hands were damp with perspiration. The thought gave him a little courage.