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“All this is very real sometimes.”
“Yes.” His thumb moved to the edge of her mouth. “Very real.”
“But getting involved with each other probably wouldn’t be a good idea, would it?”
“Probably not.”
She moved her body a little closer. “Because when this is over we’ll probably never see each other again.”
“That’s more than likely.”
She didn’t answer him. Just stayed still beside him as his fingers caressed her skin and his thumb teased the edge of her mouth.
So without another word he forgot the sensible way to go and moved in to kiss her again. Her hand moved up to touch his jaw, then around to the nape of his neck to hold him closer. And for a while there was no TV show, no lies and pretence. There were just two people who wanted to be close.
www.millsandboon.co.uk
Trish Wylie tried various careers before eventually fulfilling the dream of writing. Years spent working in the music industry and in promotions, and teaching little kids about ponies gave her plenty of opportunity to study life and the people around her, which, in Trish’s opinion, is a pretty good study course for writing! Living in Ireland, Trish balances her time between writing and horses. If you get to spend your days doing things you love, then she thinks that’s not doing too badly. You can contact Trish at www.trishwylie.com.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER ONE
‘HOW bad is it, Dad, really? I need to know.’
‘There’s no point in both of us worrying about it.’
‘What happened to “A problem shared”?’
‘It still lives in the same region as “What you don’t know won’t hurt you”.’
Caitlin Rourke blinked at her father’s familiar face. He had gone grey in both complexion and hair colour over the last year, and it was worrying her.
She watched with suspicion as he smiled a smile that didn’t quite make it all the way to his dark eyes. And she sighed in frustration.
‘I know there’s something seriously wrong.’ She pulled up a chair in front of his ancient oak desk and sat down, leaning her elbows on the desk’s edge and leaning forward to stare him in the eye. ‘Maybe I can help.’
Echoing her sigh, Brendan Rourke leaned back in his leather chair and shook his head. ‘Not this time.’
‘You don’t know that.’ Her voice softened.
‘Yes, baby, I do.’
‘Well, maybe I’d like to know what’s wrong before I decide for myself. You’re the one who always told us to know all the facts and look at things from every angle before we made a decision.’
Brendan smiled softly as his words were used against him. ‘It makes me feel old when my children use my own philosophies to win an argument.’
‘You raised us all to question, to learn from all the things we do.’ She grinned. ‘You did a good job. You’re one hell of a dad.’
His smile faded and he turned his eyes from hers, looking around his office walls. ‘At least I can say I’ve done one thing right, then.’
Silence invaded the room as Caitlin searched his face again. She’d been noticing changes in him in the last few months when she’d visited. The normally confident manner in which he held himself had started to change first. There had been a slump to his broad shoulders. Then gradually he’d become more silent, introverted and brooding. And that just wasn’t the man she knew and loved.
There was something wrong, and it was big. ‘Tell me, Dad, or I’ll live in this office ’til you do.’ Her heart skipped a little as she asked the question that had been torturing her for weeks. ‘Are you sick?’
His eyes shot to meet hers with a look of surprise. ‘No, I’m not sick. Why would you think that?’
The fact that he’d lost so much weight. Something a man of his size just didn’t carry well. The whole grey complexion thing…
‘Is it Mum?’
Brendan frowned as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the opposite side of the desk. ‘Sweetheart, nobody is sick.’
She let a breath out. It had been her biggest worry. As people got older they were only too aware of the fact that they wouldn’t have their parents for ever.
But if it wasn’t that then there was only one thing it could be. ‘It’s the business, isn’t it?’
He leaned back in his chair again. Studied her face for long seconds while she raised her eyebrows in question. Then eventually he nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Well, then, we’ll find a way to fix it together, all of us. It’s what we do, remember?’
His eyes filled with sadness. ‘This can’t be fixed that easily. I’ve allowed this to happen through my own stupidity and there’s nothing more I can do now.’
Caitlin’s face transformed into a look of dogged determination her father knew only too well.
‘If it’s a money thing we’ll find the money.’
‘I already found the money. Three times now.’ He sighed with resignation. ‘And now it’s not just the business we’ll lose.’
‘What else?’
‘The house.’
Caitlin’s breath caught. Not home. Not the one place in the world that could be relied upon for security and unquestioning love. It was a haven for all of them. A place filled with a million memories. They couldn’t lose that after all this time. They just couldn’t.
‘What’s gone wrong?’
‘Cashflow. That’s all. Downfall of many a business before this one, and I’m sure we won’t be the last. People don’t pay us, so I can’t pay the people we need to pay. I borrowed until I had to remortgage, and now I can’t borrow any more.’
His words circled around her head and took long moments to be absorbed into her brain. When eventually she’d grasped the severity of it all she blinked slowly as she asked the obvious. ‘How much would it take to get us out of the hole?’
Brendan smiled a small, sad smile. ‘More than you could get.’
‘How much, Dad?’
Leaning back in his chair made the leather creak beneath him. The sound filled the silent room as he considered not telling her. But the determination in her eyes was unwavering. ‘Seventy thousand.’
Caitlin’s eyes widened. It was way more than she had in her own savings. Probably more than her brothers and sister could manage from their own savings. Hell, probably more than they all had combined.
She studied her father’s face again. And she could see it. The defeat. The disappointment. The sense of failure. It broke her heart to see him that way. The strong bear of a man who had possessed enough love to solve a million smaller problems for his growing children. But not enough means to hold together the business he’d spent most of his life building.
Immediately her mind jumped to Aisling, the friend of a friend she’d spent most of yesterday evening on the phone with. Aisling had had a proposal to put to her. One that Caitlin had laughed about for hours.
Suddenly it didn’t seem so ridiculous.
Now it was an escape route.
Nodding at the decision she’d silently made, she pushed the chair back from the desk and walked around to wrap her arms around her father’s neck. ‘We’re going to get through this, Dad. You wait and see. You’re the one who taught us that we’re stronger together than apart.’
The breath he took was shaky. ‘There’s no way out of this one, sweetheart.’
‘Yes, there is. There’s always a way. Everything happens for a reason.’ She leaned back from him, her face barely inches from his, and smiled, ‘No more secrets, Dad. That’s what family is for. Someone wise told me that once.’
He nodded with a small smile at her words. ‘All right. No more secrets.’
She kissed his forehead, her eyes closing. No more secrets. Apart from the massive one she was going to have to carry to get them out of this.
‘God, I’m thrilled you’re doing this.’ Aisling hugged her tightly after she’d walked into the airy office. ‘You’re going to be just amazing.’
Pulling back from the embrace, Caitlin looked at her with narrow eyes. ‘I don’t know about the amazing part, but I’m glad one of us is thrilled.’
‘It’s an exciting project for all of us.’ Aisling moved back and sat down on the large sofa that took up half of one wall in her office. ‘It’s taken eighteen months to set it running, and I for one can’t wait to get started.’
‘Mmm.’ Caitlin moved across to join her. Taking a breath, she turned on the sofa, tucking one of her legs beneath the other. ‘Can we just go through it again?’
‘You’re not nervous?’
‘Me?’ She laughed. ‘Nah. Hell, I always lie to my family and friends for money from a TV show.’
‘You are nervous.’ Aisling smiled a smile that said Trust me. ‘That’s understandable. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. I’d be nervous too.’
‘You’re not the one who’ll be living a lie.’
‘Why do you think I was so keen on it being you?’
Caitlin raised an eyebrow at the question. ‘Because as someone you already know I’m less likely to sue you if it all goes pear-shaped?’
Aisling laughed at her reasoning. ‘Well, that’s one I hadn’t thought of, but I guess I can tick that box now too.’
‘I tick off boxes?’
‘Tons of the things.’ She started counting them out on her long fingers. ‘You’re single and unattached; you’ll be sensational on camera; you have this amazingly close family and you have good reason to want the pay-off at the end.’
Dark eyes widened ever so slightly at the last ‘tick’. ‘What good reason, exactly?’
Aisling looked surprised she’d even asked. ‘What a strange question.’ She frowned. ‘You do still want that restaurant of yours, don’t you?’
It was all she’d wanted ever since she’d trained as a chef. Her own place to be creative in. But her priorities had changed now. There were other things, much more important, that needed the money.
Another lie wouldn’t make much difference, though. ‘Sure I do.’
‘Well, then…’
‘What about the guy?’
‘Aiden?’ Her face lit up, ‘Oh, he’s a blinder. We all just adore him. Wait ’til you meet him…’
Caitlin cringed at the thought. She didn’t want to meet him. Ever. Given the choice.
If he was as unsuitable for her as Aisling thought he would be then she was going to hate every moment of being around him.
But that was the whole premise of Aisling’s new show. Two completely different people pretending to be in love. All they had to do was persuade their families and friends that it was true. Then, to collect, they had to say their fake ‘I do’s with all of their family and friends present. Easy as pie, right?
Three months. Three months of living a lie with a camera crew following their every movement. But it would be worth every torturous moment of invasion of Caitlin’s precious privacy if it saved her father’s business and the magical place called home.
Caitlin’s chin raised a notch. She could do this. She had to. Even while her stomach churned and her hands were clammy. It was only three months.
And, after all, how bad could this Aiden guy really be?
CHAPTER TWO
AIDEN FLYNN turned as the door opened and then stared at the woman who was now his ‘fiancée’ for the next few months.
She was stunning. Not a bit of wonder they’d chosen her from all the candidates suggested. He’d bet she’d look great on screen. A hell of a lot better than he was looking anyway. But six months in front of a computer, within arm’s reach of billions of calories, hadn’t exactly helped any.
And he could tell she wasn’t impressed. When she’d opened the door she’d been smiling openly. But now, as her eyes moved over him, he could see that smile fading in her dark eyes.
Suddenly he wished he’d bothered to remove the abnormal amount of hair on his face. That he’d taken maybe ten minutes to visit a barber in the last week. But Aisling had been fairly adamant that he stayed the way he was. He was perfect the way he was, she’d said.
Shame that Caitlin Rourke didn’t think so. Because she really was stunning.
His eyes moved down from the urchin cut of her rich brown hair, over flawless creamy skin to the sensual bow of her mouth. Then they dared to move further, down over her long neck to the curve of her small breasts and the inward sweep of her slender waist. Oh, yeah. She was something. And way out of his usual league if the designer cut of her clothes and the swanky place she lived in were anything to go by.
His eyes moved back up as she smoothed her short hair behind one ear and smiled at him again before moving forward.
She then stunned him completely by throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her slender body tightly against his. Blinking in confusion, he wrapped his arms around her waist with jerky movements.
‘You’re here at last!’ She tilted her head back to look up at him. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’
Aiden’s eyes widened. ‘Well, I’ve missed you too.’
Her eyes jerked to her left and he followed the movement until his own found the camera pointing at him. Aha. Straight to business, then…
She leaned in to kiss his cheek above the line of his beard, leaving her cheek there and whispering, ‘My sister is here.’ Then she leaned back again to look at him.
Tightening his arms around her waist to signal he understood, he then did what any self-respecting fiancé would do and leaned down for a kiss. After all, her sister would expect it…
Caitlin’s eyes widened as the realisation of his intention hit her. She ducked her head further back and laughed slightly. ‘Oh, no, you don’t. Not with that beard.’
She thought he’d grown that beard overnight? If they’d only recently got engaged then she’d have been kissing him with that beard for some time now.
‘You didn’t complain about where this beard went last weekend, honey.’
A dark eyebrow quirked at his response and a spark entered her eyes. A challenge? he wondered.
Her voice came out like warm honey. ‘You have no idea the places I ended up with beard rash.’
A challenge indeed.
His eyes sparkled back at her. ‘Maybe you should show me later.’
‘We’ll have to see about that.’ And as quickly as that the spark was gone from her eyes and she pulled back from his embrace. She glanced towards the living room, then her eyes flickered back to meet his as her voice dropped. ‘That beard has to go.’
‘We’re not even married yet and already you’re trying to change me?’
She looked him over with a cursory glance, taking stock of the raw material the show had given her. Then with a small smile she nodded. ‘Hell, yes.’
The sister stared at him with a similar look of surprise as he entered the warm-coloured room. Aiden was sensing a pattern here. What was it? Had he two heads? All right, so right that second he might not look like a pin-up, but he wasn’t exactly serial killer material either. At least he didn’t think he was.
‘Hi.’
Caitlin watched her sister blink at him a couple of times before she stared back at her with wide eyes. The news of her ‘engagement’ not five minutes earlier hadn’t exactly gone too well. And the fact that she’d had to explain the presence of TV cameras in her life in an earlier phone call only added to the lack of reality. She was in the Twilight Zone. Something her sister had pointed out only seconds before Aiden’s arrival.
‘This is Aiden.’
‘The internet guy?’
She smiled as she followed the story they’d been given. ‘Yes, this is him.’
‘The guy you’re getting married to?’
‘Yes.’
She opened her mouth to make a comment. Then her eyes moved to the camera at the end of the room and she pinned a smile on her mouth as she rose from the large sofa. ‘It’s nice to meet you, Aiden. I’m Cara.’
Aiden hadn’t missed the hesitation before she stood to offer her hand to him. There’d been a comment coming there, he’d just bet. ‘It’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.’
The smile stayed in place as she shook his hand. ‘More than I’ve heard about you, I’m sure. You’re quite a surprise.’
He laughed as he released her hand. ‘I’d say so.’
Cara continued to stare at him. It was like being a bug under a microscope. He stepped closer to Caitlin and grinned. ‘Well, honey, I’ll just throw my bag upstairs.’
‘Good plan.’ She reversed a few steps towards the door.
‘No, it’s all right. I know where I’m going.’ The lie flowed smoothly from his mouth. ‘You stay here and chat to Cara. I’ll be right back.’
Both women stood stock still, smiles in place, as he moved past Caitlin to leave the room. With a smile back at her sister he then reached out a hand and pinched Caitlin’s rear on his way out.
‘Are you out of your mind?’
He heard Cara’s whispered words as he walked upstairs. It had been a long time since he’d made such a lasting impression on two women.
Catching sight of himself in a large mirror as he reached the top of the flight of stairs, he smiled wryly. He guessed he couldn’t blame them. He looked like hell.
He stared at his own eyes in the reflection. They were the only part of himself he still recognised.
Everything else had pretty much gone to pot. His dark hair stuck out in varying curls where it reached the collar of his favourite old checked shirt. His hair was longer than he’d worn it since his university days. And as for the hair on his face. Well, Caitlin was right. It had to go. He looked as if he’d just walked off a desert island.
His dark eyebrows quirked up under his long fringe as he realised that technically he might as well have.
He’d spent the last six months in solitude, with only a ghost for company. And work. His own work and the ghost’s work. It had been fairly surreal.
Moving away from the mirror and along the softly lit hall, he found himself looking at frame upon frame of photographs. Caitlin Rourke’s life laid out before him. Pictures of her laughing, smiling at the people around her with love in her eyes. Close-ups of her curled up on a sofa, caught off guard as she looked up into the camera lens. Shots of an autumn day when she’d had longer hair tossed by an unseen wind. Every one showed scenes of a happy, contented woman, in love with life and living.
Caitlin Rourke was everything he wasn’t. And a familiar ache, so old it burned like a physical pain in the pit of his stomach, made him unexpectedly angry with her for that.
‘Are you out of your mind?’
Still reeling from the fact that her new fiancé had just pinched her behind, Caitlin blinked at her sister. ‘What?’
‘What are you doing?’ Cara glanced at the invasive camera beside them, turned her back on it and whispered, ‘You’re planning on marrying him?’
It didn’t take much searching to see the disapproval on her sister’s face. With a deep breath Caitlin prepared to take the steps to weave her lie. ‘You don’t know him like I do.’
A burst of sarcastic laughter hit the air. ‘Obviously not. Because whatever it is about him is hidden under about twenty feet of hair.’
Which would be gone by the morning if Caitlin had her way. She couldn’t abide men with facial hair. As a child they’d had an uncle with a beard who had made her cry every time she was asked to kiss him goodbye.
‘You just need time to get to know him, Cara.’
‘Like you have?’ Cara shook her head. ‘This is just too weird, Caitlin. How can you possibly know this man well enough to want to marry him?’
‘We’ve been talking for months.’
‘On the internet?’
‘Yes. On the internet.’
‘And you know him well enough from that to spend the rest of your life with him?’
‘Yes.’ The lies came almost too easily, ‘And you can’t know him well enough in two minutes to make a judgement on him.’
Cara stared at her for what felt like for ever but was probably only a minute. Then she shook her head. ‘This isn’t like you, Cait. He’s not like anyone you’ve ever dated, and all this camera stuff is mad.’
Caitlin sighed. ‘I told you—it’s just a programme about people who’ve found love over the internet.’
‘And you’re telling me that every time any of us talk with you it’s all going to be filmed?’
‘It’s just a few months and then they’ll be gone.’
‘Well…’ She glanced over her shoulder at the camera again. ‘With any luck it won’t be the only thing that’s gone.’
Caitlin reached a hand out and squeezed her sister’s arm. ‘Give him a chance, Cara. He can’t be that bad.’ She frowned at her mistake. Surely she would know herself that he wasn’t that bad if she was marrying him? ‘He’s a great guy. At least I think he is. Just give it some time.’
Eyes as dark as her own stared at her before Cara sighed. ‘I think I’m more hurt that you didn’t tell me before now. We always talk about everything. This is the first time we haven’t.’
Caitlin’s throat threatened to close at the words that were only too true.
‘It just feels like something has changed with you and me.’ Cara’s voice broke slightly, betraying her emotions. ‘And I hate that.’
Caitlin blinked back tears as Cara pulled her into a hug before turning to leave, with an ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow’ thrown over her shoulder.
‘This sucks already.’ She glanced into the camera, ‘You have no idea.’
She frowned down at the carpet, then glanced up at the ceiling. It was time to go and meet her fiancé. With a silent plea to the overhead light that a book really couldn’t be judged by its cover, she turned on her heel to go upstairs.
CHAPTER THREE
BY THE time Caitlin reached the hallway he was halfway down the stairs. She tilted her head back and looked up at him, her eyes meeting his. They were the one feature she could see that she liked. So blue they belonged on a movie screen, and they seemed to spark back at her. Surely someone with eyes as blue as a summer’s sky couldn’t be all that bad?
‘Hey.’
She blinked up at him. ‘Hey.’
‘So you’re my fiancée, then?’
She smiled at the statement. ‘So it would appear.’
He nodded and his eyes sparkled with amusement. ‘Big hit with your sister, wasn’t I?’
Caitlin quirked a dark brow beneath the annoying fringe that kept on falling in her eye. ‘Mmm, well, she’s a bit protective. You’re in for a lot of that, I’m afraid.’
Shoving large hands into the pockets of his faded jeans, Aiden studied her before asking, ‘Your family is close?’
Caitlin nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Then this can’t be an easy thing for you to do.’
She suddenly felt vulnerable as he studied her, her head beginning to pound at the temples. She’d never been with someone who could make the very air around them feel oppressive to her. It wasn’t a nice sensation. Particularly not in her own home.
‘And lying comes naturally to you, I suppose?’
Aiden merely shrugged at the question. ‘I’ve done it from time to time, growing up. When it was called for.’
Her fringe fell back out of her eye as she tilted her head and studied him. This stranger. How could anyone with eyes so warm be so cold? And how would she ever know a word he said to her was true if he was so open about lying?