The Mistresses Collection. Оливия Гейтс

Of course. Even a former E-list celebrity like her gave them fodder to fill their poisonous online editions. Frustration spurted in a furious blast. It wasn’t as if she courted publicity. If only she’d not gotten involved with Dominic. It wasn’t fair.

      Through blurry eyes she read parts of the accompanying article—and the comments people had left at the bottom of it.

      Beauty and the Bitch.

      Someone needs to warn him...the most unlikely couple...

      Scarred hero will be screwed over by the psycho.

      All the venom was there. The vile things people said, carping about him being with her. Some celebrity psychologist had even done a boxed opinion piece on ‘why do the good guys always want to redeem wayward women?’. The opposite of the good-girls going for bad-boys. Somehow, it was always the woman’s fault. The good girls were labelled stupid for thinking they could change someone. Yet the good guy was heroic for trying to pull back the titanium-tits bitch.

      ‘I’m sorry.’ James switched the screen to black. ‘Don’t look at it. Don’t go there.’

      ‘I don’t understand how they knew we were there.’ Horrified, she stared at him.

      His brows drew together and he stared back at her. ‘Don’t think I told them.’

      ‘You didn’t?’

      He looked appalled. Then irate. ‘Like I’d let the media know anything. Did you?’

      ‘Of course not,’ she spat.

      ‘Why are we fighting?’ He grasped her wrist as she tried to leave the bed. ‘This is ridiculous. We both loathe the intrusion. Neither of us would sell our souls, right?’

      ‘Right.’ She drew in a shaky breath. ‘Sorry. Of course you didn’t tell them. It just threw me.’

      She knew some other story would soon take its place. It was like being stabbed—sudden and sharp—and everyone’s shocked eyes were locked on her as they watched the blood ooze. But they’d soon turn away, as soon as some other attention-worthy mess occurred. But she’d be left with the wound. It lingered with her far longer. It wasn’t fifteen minutes of fame in the Internet, more like five seconds. And yet it was then up there for all eternity. Any time someone did a search, it would be found again. She’d never truly be able to escape it.

      ‘It probably wasn’t even paparazzi,’ James said. ‘Everyone has a smartphone these days, right?’

      There was no such thing as privacy.

      ‘I’m not even famous,’ she whispered. ‘Why does anyone give a damn? I’m not news.’

      But she was the villain-du-jour. And James? James was the hero.

      ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said shortly. ‘Forget about it.’

      He spoke with such crisp authority. As if it really were that easy. Maybe for him it was.

      ‘Oh, sure.’ She painted on a smile. ‘I’ll do that.’

      When she went down to breakfast she swore she saw caution in his parents’ eyes as they greeted her. They’d read the story too. It had rehashed the worst of the Dominic nightmare. The accusations of cattiness, craziness, vindictiveness. Her brief moment of being no one, of having no past and reputation to cloud their minds and poison their perceptions, that was gone. Now they knew she wasn’t the woman for their precious son. The one they so obviously wanted to care for and protect and to see happy.

      James was quiet again. She felt the old isolation return. At three a.m. they’d still been awake, clinging to each other in wild abandon, but now?

      It meant nothing. Now, more than ever, she understood it had to mean nothing.

      She wasn’t the right woman for him. She didn’t need the trolls on the Internet to tell her that.

      Mid-morning he walked over to her as she sat on one of the wicker chairs on the deck, staring out to the sea. ‘You’re still worried.’

      ‘Your family have read those stories.’ She couldn’t bring herself to even look at his mother.

      ‘And my family knows those kinds of stories are fiction.’

      Mostly. But there was the ‘no smoke without fire’ thing. The partial truth. ‘You’re not going to ask me about it?’ she said softly.

      He hunched down before her. ‘You already told me you’ve never been pregnant.’

      ‘And you truly believed me? Just like that?’

      ‘Why? You want to me to find a lie detector? Do some torture?’ He smiled and shook his head. ‘If that’s what you say, then I believe you.’

      He’d not asked her about it directly since that day they’d Googled each other. She’d told him the truth. And he’d accepted it. She hadn’t needed to pull out all kinds of exhibits or evidence to be believed. He hadn’t needed it. Or wanted it. Still didn’t.

      She almost smiled. ‘I should explain it to your parents.’

      ‘Leave it.’ He shook his head. ‘You don’t need to explain anything to anyone.’ He lifted a hand and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘No one can really understand what someone else might be going through. No one should make judgments. Your body, your life, the way you choose to live it. That’s your choice. What decisions you make, or may have made, you’ll have your reasons for them.’

      ‘Some of my choices have been wrong,’ she said. ‘They’ve been mistakes.’

      ‘Me too, you know that,’ he whispered. ‘So we just have to try to learn from them, right? Not repeat them.’ He looked at her, his eyes shadowed but sure. ‘And not keep beating ourselves up about them for the rest of our lives.’

      Her heart melted. He might be as human as she, might have made big mistakes, but he was undeniably courageous. And so easy to want to love.

      ‘Come on,’ he said, standing up and drawing away. ‘I think it’s time we went back to Manhattan.’

      Half an hour later his parents were still all polite smiles as they stood on the driveway to wave them off.

      ‘I’ll come back again soon.’ James wrapped his mother in a hug. ‘Before I go overseas for a while again. Okay?’

      He felt his mother’s arms tighten. ‘We’d love that.’

      ‘Me too.’ He smiled and pressed a quick kiss on her hair. Actually meaning it. And actually feeling okay. The old aching lump in his heart was still there, but for some reason it had softened a smidge.

      He glanced at Caitlin waiting in the passenger seat already. She looked pale, as if she hadn’t slept. Well, he knew for a fact she hadn’t.

      He’d take her back to the condo. It had been a mistake to bring her here. A mistake to take her out last night. He kept seeing that photo from that website. The one where he was holding her close and all but dragging her out of the club. He hardly recognised himself—the expression on his face was one of total ownership.

      Since when did he act so ‘Me Tarzan. You Jane’? Was it when she’d asked him to take her home? Like they belonged together?

      His muscles twitched. They’d hardly started the cruise through the villages when his mobile rang. He glanced at the screen and immediately pulled over to take the call. ‘Lisbet?’

      ‘You know how you didn’t want the full two weeks off?’

      His adrenalin spiked as he heard the catch of anxiety in Lisbet’s voice. ‘Yeah?’

      ‘It’s that conference.’

      ‘You need me to go?’ James asked before she could even explain her reasons.

      ‘Yes. It’s just that—’