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A sudden burst of male laughter caught her off guard.
‘That shocks you, does it?’
‘I don’t know if shock is the word I would have used. It surprises me that you’re so open about it, I guess.’ She smiled a small smile. ‘But maybe that’s what they had in mind when they chose you. An experienced liar might be able to teach me the ropes.’
He continued smiling. ‘Could be. But they certainly got the opposites thing right.’
Her eyes moved over him again as she nodded in agreement. ‘Yes, so it would appear.’
He removed his hands and started slowly down towards her. Each step seemed measured, controlled. And when he stood on the step above her he leaned his face closer to hers to ask in a low voice, ‘So, how do we make them all believe we’re in love, Caitlin Rourke?’
She swallowed hard as she looked into his eyes close up. They were really stunning. And another sense awoke to discover he actually smelled extremely good. She took a deep breath and found the scent almost calming. Reassuring in its maleness. He was just some guy, after all.
She tilted her chin slightly upwards. ‘I guess it might be an idea to try getting to know each other better.’
Aiden quirked a brow at her. ‘And how do you suggest we do that?’
‘Talking would be the traditional route. And we’re supposed to have been doing months of that on the internet.’ She thought for a moment, trying to get her brain around the problem. ‘Or we could make out a set of questions for each other and write it all out.’
‘Like a study guide?’
‘Exactly!’ She smiled at his understanding. ‘That makes perfect sense.’
Aiden watched as her face was transformed with enthusiasm. Her dark eyes sparkled and she smiled more openly at him. Hell, what was she? Alice in Wonderland, or something? She had the same enthusiasm levels as a ten-year-old. ‘Keep your panties on, honey, it’s only a handful of questions. It’s not an unbreakable guide to cashing the big cheque.’
The smile disappeared. ‘You really are very rude, aren’t you?’
‘Because I mentioned your underwear or because I just rained on your parade?’
Her hands planted themselves firmly on her hips as she glared up at him. ‘Just because I happen to get enthusiastic about the fact that we might actually manage to do something pro-active about this it means you should shoot me down, does it? Why are you even doing this show if you have no intention of us winning at the end?’
‘Oh, I have every intention of winning at the end. And I’m all for anything that achieves that.’
‘So the idea of doing some work towards that would be a bad idea because…?’
‘I didn’t say it was a bad idea.’
She was flabbergasted. ‘But you just said—’
Aiden smiled calmly below his beard. ‘I just said you shouldn’t get so thrilled at the prospect of having to swot up on each other. It’s not exactly riveting stuff, learning what toothpaste we each use.’
Caitlin rocked back on her heels. She had never met anyone like Aiden before. How on earth were they supposed to get on well enough to fool everyone if they couldn’t even hold a simple conversation?
He watched the varying emotions play across her face and continued smiling his secret smile. She didn’t get him at all. And he quite liked that. It made him feel he was in control. Something to knock her neat little world out of joint. That would be one way of punishing her for having such a damned perfect life.
‘You really are something out of a 1950s TV show, aren’t you?’
Caitlin blinked up in the dim light at the voice that sounded from across her hall. It made sense that they should spend some time in her house playing the ‘getting to know each other’ game. But when she’d agreed she hadn’t realised she was going to be stuck under the same roof with someone so damned annoying.
They’d made out a set of questions for each other, swapped them to fill in the answers, and had then retreated to different parts of the house to ‘study up’. After four hours of learning how many sugars he took in his coffee and what side of the bed he slept on her head had gone numb, so she’d opted for fleecy pyjamas and the security of her huge bed.
But with the door to her room slightly ajar she could still see the light shining from where Aiden lay in bed across the hall from her. She was only too aware of where he was in the house at any given time. Aware of the sounds of another human being sharing her space. But there wasn’t the same comfort associated with those noises as there would have been if it were a friend or a family member staying.
She sighed into the air. ‘What does that mean, exactly?’
‘Everything in your life is just so bloody neat and pretty.’
‘I happen to like a tidy house.’ And she wasn’t normally in it much, which helped. But she didn’t mention that.
‘I don’t mean just your house.’
She rolled over to face the door, moving the pillow to fit underneath her neck better. ‘So what do you mean?’
‘I mean your whole life. Neat little family, neat crowd of friends, neat career direction. Your life is all wrapped up with ribbons and bows.’
Caitlin wished.
‘You have no idea what my life is like.’
‘That’s what I’m in here studying.’
‘You don’t get a picture of someone’s life from a set of questions dealing with what size feet they have or their favourite colour.’
There was silence for a few moments, and then Caitlin heard his bed creak slightly as he moved. ‘So tell me something that’s not on the questionnaire.’
‘Like what?’
‘Something that only someone you love would know.’
She pursed her lips and frowned at his words. He was looking for personal information. Something that meant she would have to give something of herself to him. And she really didn’t want to do that. Didn’t want this person she didn’t like much knowing things he would still know when he walked away in three months.
Aiden strained to hear any movement when she didn’t reply, holding his breath to keep silent.
‘Caitlin?’
‘I’m still here.’
He smiled at her small voice. She didn’t want to tell him anything, did she?
‘What’s wrong? Skeletons in your closet?’
‘Only ones wrapped neatly in ribbons and bows.’
Her sarcastic answer brought a larger smile to his face. ‘Come on. One thing. I promise to forget it when the show ends.’
She turned her face into her pillow to call him a name, then came out to take a deep breath. ‘We’ll swap. You get one subject; I get to ask about one in return.’
He considered the proposal for a moment and then quirked a brow at the doorway. What harm could it do?
‘Okay.’
Caitlin waited. Then waited some more. ‘So?’
‘I’m thinking.’
‘Don’t strain yourself.’
‘Funny.’ He propped himself up on an elbow and continued to stare at the door, as if by staring harder he would be able to see through it to read her face. ‘So how come there’s no neat boyfriend around to complete the picture?’
Damn. He just would ask that, wouldn’t he?
‘Maybe I like being single.’
‘You’re twenty-eight years old. In the fifties you’d be a spinster already. Don’t you want neat little kids so you can scrub their little faces and read them fairy stories at night?’
‘That’s a second question.’
‘Oops.’
She raised herself up on an elbow and thought about her answer. To tell or not to tell. That was the question, really.
‘I used to have a boyfriend. A fiancé.’
He wasn’t surprised at the first part of her answer, but the second part caught him off guard. ‘What happened?’
She took a breath. ‘He died.’
Aiden flumped onto his back and frowned at the ceiling. ‘How?’
‘He had this stupid motorcycle that he loved nearly as much as he said he loved me.’
‘Was it long ago?’
Yesterday, she wanted to answer. There were still odd moments when it felt as if it was. But the moments were further apart now than they had been at the start. The pain she’d felt back then was a bearable numbness now.
‘Nearly five years. We met in high school.’
Aiden heard the matter-of-fact tone of her voice as she recited facts that must have hurt like hell at the time. Her perfect life had hit a glitch. A big one. And that made him think. ‘I’m sorry.’
Caitlin was surprised by the softness in his voice. It was a completely different tone for the sarcastic edge he’d had with her for most of the evening. She sank back down into the haven of her duvet and lifted the bottom of it with her legs to tuck her feet in. Those two words spoken with that softness making her reach out for a simpler form of comfort, she supposed.
She blinked upwards for several long seconds, then replied with an equally softly spoken, ‘Thanks.’
The house fell silent again, until Caitlin’s voice sounded out with, ‘So, no neat little girlfriend for you, then?’
He laughed. ‘No, nothing neat in my life.’
‘You’re this charming to everyone, then?’
‘Careful, Caitlin. I’ll get the impression you don’t like me much.’
‘Oh, and that would hurt your feelings, would it?’
‘Well, if you still think I have feelings then I’m not a lost cause just yet, am I?’
She smiled. ‘Every human being has to have a feeling on something or another. I’ll allow you that much.’
‘Cheers.’ He turned his head to smile back at the door.
‘You’re welcome.’
Aiden was surprised when it went silent again. She was quitting that easily? He was almost disappointed that she was. Not that he was up for a deep psychoanalysis of his own life. But she had told him something very personal, had allowed something painful to be talked about, even briefly. And he felt he owed her something back for that.
‘Six months.’
‘What?’
‘Six months. It’s how long I can manage to stay in a relationship with a woman, apparently.’
Caitlin thought about the unexpectedly volunteered information. ‘How come?’
‘I wear them out.’
She laughed at his joke. ‘I’ll bet.’
He smiled. ‘I guess I’m just not neat little marriage material.’
‘No kids to scrub and read fairy stories to, huh?’
The ache in his stomach came back. ‘I don’t have any experience on either of those things.’
She turned her head towards the door at his answer. ‘Your mother didn’t scrub your face and read you fairy tales when you were little?’
None of them had. They’d had so many kids in their care that it had been miraculous enough if they all made it through each day fed and watered. Fairy tales hadn’t exactly been on the menu at any stage.
‘That’s a second question.’
She opened her mouth to push him on it, but he got there first. ‘That’s probably enough to add to the lists—for one night anyway.’ The bed creaked again as he turned away from the door and switched off the bedside light. ‘Goodnight, Caitlin Rourke.’
Caitlin blinked into the darkness, her eyes adjusting to make out the dark forms of her bedroom furniture while her mind worked overtime. Aiden had more facets than he first appeared to have. And that intrigued her.
The fact that it intrigued her bothered her.
She’d never met anyone like him before. But the simple fact was in three months’ time she’d probably never meet him again.
‘Goodnight, Aiden.’
CHAPTER FOUR
THE fixed cameras in her house were replaced by a camera guy and a sound man during the day. And by lunchtime Caitlin knew more about them both than she knew about her ‘fiancé’.
They just had an openness that she was more accustomed to. In conversation they shared information that might have been simple in its general topic but gave hints to their personalities and lives. Whereas Aiden just had a way of avoiding anything remotely like sharing. He could be an international spy for all she knew.
Except for that brief time that they’d shared talking from separate rooms across the hallway.
She struggled her way through the lunchtime rush at Maguires, the employer of her choice in Dublin city centre. The dream of having a restaurant of her own was so far off that it made sense to work somewhere she at least liked to fill the time. But with Aiden Flynn, international man of mystery, sitting at home in her house it was hard to concentrate on dish presentation.
Faking a headache, she left the restaurant and piled into her car with Mick and Joe to make the drive home.
‘So you’re taking Aiden home to meet your parents tomorrow, then?’ Mick pointed the camera at her from the passenger seat.
‘Mmm.’ She grimaced slightly at the thought. ‘That’s the plan.’
‘You worried about it?’
‘Oh, no. We tell massive porkies to each other all the time. It’s a sort of family hobby of ours.’
Mick laughed. ‘Mine too.’
She risked a massive insurance claim by glancing into the lens for a second, ‘I was kidding, Mick.’
‘Oh, me too.’
She laughed. ‘Seriously. My family is close. Really close.’ Her expression changed. ‘After Liam died they were there to hold me together. On the days when I couldn’t get up they brought me food in bed. When I couldn’t stay still my father even took up jogging to keep me company.’
Glancing back at the camera, she smiled sadly. ‘Where one of us ends the other begins. It’s just the way we are.’
‘That’s a rare thing, all right.’
‘Yes, it is.’
She wove her way through the traffic, her mind focussing on the task of not hitting another vehicle. But as they got out of the city and headed towards the suburbs her mind went back to a darker time than the sunny autumn day they were currently in.
‘Do you still miss him, Caitlin?’
The softly voiced question caught her off guard. It had been a long time since anyone had asked. She thought about it a while, played snapshots of memories across her mind, and smiled wistfully as she answered. ‘I miss the sound of his voice sometimes.’
The sound of the camera filled the silence.
‘You tend to think that someone the same age as you will just always be around. Especially when it’s someone you love.’ She continued smiling, eyes on the road ahead but her mind reliving he past. ‘Liam was always the one who lived for the moment. He used to say life was too short to just stand still.’
She glanced at the camera again. ‘Maybe he knew.’
She made the turn into her street and parked in front of her house. Switching off the engine, she glanced up at the windows. Was he looking out at her, Aiden Flynn man of mystery?
‘Aiden’s different from Liam?’
The question raised a small laugh. ‘Like night and day.’
‘Aiden?’
‘In the kitchen—and aren’t you supposed to yell “Hi, honey, I’m home”?’
She smiled as she walked through the living room to the open kitchen/dining room. ‘I’ll remember next time.’ Her eyes roved over the mess on her normally immaculate kitchen surfaces. ‘What are you doing?’
He quirked an eyebrow at the question. ‘I was hungry.’
‘So you thought it would be an idea to massacre my kitchen?’
‘It would have been perfect when you got home.’ He pointed an accusatory finger at her. ‘You’re early.’
She watched as he nodded at her crew.
‘I told them I had a headache.’
Concern crossed his eyes. ‘You’re sick?’
Caitlin’s eyes focussed on the spoon suspended in mid-air as he stared at her. In slow motion drips of red something dripped onto her cooker. ‘No.’
‘Getting quite good at this lying thing, aren’t we?’
‘I don’t think that actually counts as a lie.’ She continued watching the dripping. A small pool formed on the surface. Whatever it was, it had better wash off.
‘I guess it’s all about degrees of lying.’ He watched her face as he thought out loud. ‘What constitutes a big lie and what’s a fib.’
‘A fib, in theory, doesn’t hurt people. It may even save their feelings, depending on the situation.’ Her eyes searched for the nearest cloth. ‘What is that stuff you’re dripping all over the place?’
Aiden waved the spoon as he looked at it. ‘I’m making cheese on beans on toast.’
Her eyes moved up to lock with his. ‘You’re making what?’
‘Cheese on beans on toast.’ He grinned, white teeth peeking out from the shroud of his beard. ‘C’mon—you haven’t heard of it? And you call yourself a chef?’
‘I cook food that tastes good.’
‘This tastes good—’ He waved the spoon again and small splatters of red appeared on his white T-shirt. ‘Believe me.’
Frowning at the modern art piece her cooker was rapidly becoming, she retorted with, ‘I’m quite sure the air in my mouth tastes better than that.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t know that, would I? What with you refusing to kiss me and all…’
Caitlin refused to rise to the bait. ‘That had better get washed off before it becomes glue.’
Aiden glanced at the camera between them and winked, then studied the telltale flush that touched Caitlin’s cheeks. ‘You know you’re going to have to do it at some stage.’
‘You made the mess; you clean it.’
‘I wasn’t referring to the mess.’
‘I was.’ Her chin rose as she stared him straight in the eye.
Aiden stared right back. ‘It has to happen for all this to be convincing.’
An eyebrow quirked. ‘Next you’ll be suggesting we sleep together for the sake of realism. I didn’t sign up for that kind of a show.’
The male hormones in his body transmitted a very vivid mental image from her words, and Aiden frowned. Six months alone had made him a raging sex maniac all of a sudden?
‘Honey, you’d better watch that head of yours doesn’t get too large for the doorways in this place.’
‘I am not kissing you while that beard is there, so you can forget it!’
‘You’re prejudiced against beards for some reason?’
‘As a matter of fact, I am.’
‘Because…?’
He waited patiently for an explanation, filling the time by stirring the bubbling beans in the saucepan in front of him.
When there was no explanation volunteered he glanced at her from the corner of his eye. ‘Well?’
Caitlin was annoyed by how easily he made her angry. She was usually cool, calm and collected. Occupational necessities when restaurants were full and head chefs were yelling in hot kitchens. But Aiden could raise a spark in her from a glance, a single statement—from several spots of tomatoey sauce on her cooker-top.
‘Well, what?’
He removed the pan from the hob and said nothing.
Caitlin sighed in frustration. ‘They scratch.’
He hid a smile as he removed toast from the grill and laid it on two plates.
‘And they do actually cause rashes on sensitive skin.’
Another mental picture formed. ‘You never did get round to showing me that.’
Her mouth quirked at the edges. ‘And neither will I.’
‘Spoilsport.’
The quirk became a smile as she moved closer to watch his attempt at arranging cheese on beans on toast to make it look appetising. When she was right by his shoulder she lowered her voice and asked, ‘Aiden Flynn, are you flirting with me?’
Aiden continued concentrating on his masterpiece. ‘Is it working?’
She leaned in close to his ear to whisper, ‘No.’
He smiled as he sprinkled the last of the grated cheese. ‘Well, then obviously I’m not.’ Lifting a plate, he turned to wave it beneath her nose while looking into her eyes. ‘Because if I was flirting with you it would be working.’
Caitlin’s dark eyes studied his too blue eyes just inches from hers. She searched for answers, for the reasons behind his Jekyll and Hyde personality. But all she could see looking back at her was a warm sparkle of challenge. As if it was some kind of game to him. Maybe it was. Maybe his way of coping with the next few months was to make it ‘fun’. He obviously hadn’t as much to lose as she did if it didn’t work.
‘I need this thing to work, Aiden.’
He blinked long dark lashes at her with a question in his eyes. ‘The show?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why is it so important?’
She avoided his questioning eyes with a downward glance at the plate. ‘It just is.’
Aiden had read her questionnaire for the show and memorised over and over the study guide from the night before. ‘You want your own restaurant that badly?’
‘As badly as you want to fund whatever it is you need a year off work for.’
He continued to hold a steady gaze as she looked back into his eyes. It was what he’d filled in on his own questionnaire. And it was half true, in a way. He needed what the show would bring him to take time to fulfil a promise. To complete a legacy. On the form all he’d said was ‘to fund a career break’. But the words didn’t even cover half of the story.
The look in her eyes said she wanted to know more.
Aiden wasn’t ready for even half an answer. ‘It’s important to me too.’
She seemed to think about pushing him for an explanation, but with a shrug of her shoulders she let it go. ‘Then we’re together on this?’
‘I guess we are.’
A small nod, and then she reached out to take the plate from him. ‘Then maybe you should stop making this into a game of some kind.’
‘That’s my doing, is it?’
‘Isn’t it? All this word-play you have us doing?’
‘A game is exactly what this thing is. Why shouldn’t it be fun along the way?’
Because there was too much to lose.
Avoiding his ridiculously blue eyes, she turned and took her plate to the table overlooking the small outdoor courtyard. ‘For us both to win we need to work together. To concentrate on what we’re doing. With no distractions. And we can’t do that if you keep playing with words and taunting me.’
‘Oh, I see.’ He picked up his own plate and moved across to join her. ‘We should run it like some kind of military campaign, should we? Every word and gesture rehearsed ahead of time?’
‘Yes.’ She frowned at him as he sat down and handed her a knife and fork. ‘We have to plan for every eventuality.’
He thought about her words for a few moments, then asked in a calm voice, ‘Is that how you run your life? Everything planned out in advance?’
‘It makes sense.’ She continued frowning at him. His lack of approval was evident. ‘You set yourself goals, targets to aim for, and you work ’til you get there. I suppose that’s very alien to you and your bohemian approach to a career?’
‘You can’t plan for everything. No matter how you try to. That’s life.’ He spooned a forkful of food into his mouth, chewed a couple of times, and continued talking with his mouth full. ‘You should know that from what happened to your fiancé.’
His words were like a blow to her chest and she felt her eyes stinging angrily. ‘How dare you?’
Pushing her chair back from the table, she glared down at him from above. ‘How dare you throw that at me like it was some little glitch in my great plan for life? Some little wobble that I should have planned for!’
He swallowed his food, looking up at her with a frown, ‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘That’s exactly what you meant. You’re trying to prove that your way of living life, from one opportunity to the next without any ties or emotional involvement, is a better way of living.’
He remained calm. ‘That’s not what I said.’
Caitlin flung an arm in the air at her side. ‘You who has never had a relationship that lasted more than sixty seconds!’
‘Six months.’
She ignored him and leaned down to press home her words. ‘At least I had love in my life, Aiden. Even if it was taken from me before either of us had planned.’ She tilted her head to one side and stared at him with sparkling eyes. ‘And I wouldn’t trade a single second of it. Is there anything in your life you can honestly say the same thing about?’
Without waiting for an answer she spun on her heel and left the room at speed, before running up to her room and slamming the door.