The Mills & Boon Sparkling Christmas Collection. Kate Hardy

to go the other way. If they were intent on stealing the limelight at her wedding, she was going to ruin them.

      Abject humiliation. Melissa wouldn’t settle for anything less than making sure Eloise’s whole world knew who she was and what she’d done—the same way she had when they were teenagers and the guy Melissa had a crush on asked Eloise out instead. Soon, the whole school knew every story about Eloise’s mother and believed that she was just the same and the guy never spoke to her again.

      The only difference was that this time Melissa had made sure the actual whole world would know, through the power of the media and the Internet.

      Never mind the humiliation Eloise’s mother’s antics had brought her over the years, this was a million times worse. And the most awful part was that she’d done it all herself. There was no one to blame except her own suddenly overactive libido...and the secret part of her heart that hoped to be something more than a fling to someone like Noah Cross.

      She’d had ideas of her own importance, her own entitlement to the spotlight—and now she’d been burned.

      ‘Melissa, come on,’ Noah said, laughing lightly as he tried to reach for the photographer’s camera. She stepped back out of his reach and Eloise knew that no one in their right mind would give those photos up. Noah Cross, caught in the act? That had to be worth a fortune.

      And nobody would care if her reputation was shredded in the process.

      She had to get out of there. She had to get a million miles away from this spotlight, right now.

      ‘I have to go.’

      Holding her dress in place, she pushed past Noah and the others and ran towards the lifts. She could hear him behind her, calling her name, making excuses, but she couldn’t turn back, couldn’t listen.

      This wasn’t her world, even if Noah and Melissa’s celebrity lives had infiltrated Morwen Hall. Soon they’d be gone and she could get back to quietly living down her mother’s reputation. To her responsible, boring, staid and lonely existence.

      It had to be better than the shame and humiliation burning through her right now.

      * * *

      Noah watched Eloise run away and had to force himself not to chase after her. She didn’t want this—she’d made that clear from the start.

      This was his fault. She’d wanted secret and in his desperation he’d ruined that.

      And now he had to fix it.

      ‘So, Noah. Any quote to go with our pictures?’ Sara asked, holding out her phone and showing it was recording. Another part of his life on the record.

      He’d wanted to tell the world about him and Eloise. But not like this.

      Stefan. The part. He’d promised he wouldn’t do this, promised he’d keep things low-key. And this was pretty much the opposite. The role he’d thought he had nailed—this could ruin everything. Send him back to playing brainless action figures for another seven years. Unless he could convince people that things with him and Eloise were serious, something more than a fling. Maybe then he’d get a second chance from Stefan...

      The idea was intoxicating. He could play at love with Eloise, enjoy what they had for a little longer, until it came to its natural conclusion when no one cared and the world wasn’t watching. He could still have everything he wanted if Eloise went along with it, if he lied... He could turn this round, still be the good guy maybe.

      But first he had to get a handle on himself, on all the emotions rushing through him at the speed of light. As if, after spending so many years not feeling them, now he’d let them in they were making up for lost time. Embarrassment, fear, anger, lust—they all surged through him, swirling around into a toxic mix that left him close to losing it.

      No. He wasn’t that man. He’d never been the celebrity yelling at reporters or causing a scene. He wouldn’t start now—not least because it would only make things worse for Eloise, and he couldn’t do that to her.

      Cold realisation flooded through him. The only thing he could really do now was protect Eloise. Even if it meant giving up on the part he wanted so much. Because he couldn’t promise her for ever, couldn’t ask her to act out a sham relationship. Couldn’t break her heart a few months down the line when she realised that what she saw really was all he had to give—there was nothing deeper.

      He couldn’t hurt her any more than he had to. And the only way through this with minimum casualties was to lessen the impact of what had happened.

      Which meant pretending it was nothing at all.

      He couldn’t do it—couldn’t pretend what he and Eloise had was nothing. It might not be everything but it was something. He couldn’t deny Eloise that way, not after everything she’d done for him.

      Except he was doing this for her. So he had to.

      Maybe he couldn’t. But Noah Cross, celebrity, notorious womaniser and charmer could.

      It took only a second to switch on the character—the one he’d been playing since the day Sally died. It was so familiar that, until this week, he might even have said it was the real him.

      But it wasn’t. He knew that now. He’d found the person he was underneath all that scar tissue. He just wasn’t sure if he’d ever let him out again, except for when he was in character.

      ‘What is there to say?’ he said with a shrug and a crooked smile. ‘You know how it is at weddings. All that romance in the air. A fling always makes it a little more entertaining, right?’ He cringed inside as he remembered saying the same thing to Eloise at the welcome drinks. Could that really have only been two days ago?

      ‘So, it’s nothing serious is what you’re saying,’ Sara pressed.

      Noah forced himself to laugh, to sound as light-hearted and as uncaring as he should be about the situation, trying not to think what Stefan would think. ‘Sara, I’d think you—and the rest of the world—know me a little better than that by now.’

      ‘So, just business as usual for Noah Cross then,’ Sara said. ‘Another wedding, another woman.’

      ‘Basically.’ This felt so wrong. Even though he was only telling the truth, saying what he and Eloise had agreed should be the case, he could tell by the creeping sense of shame filling him that something had changed.

      Eloise wasn’t just a fling. Wasn’t just another woman.

      Except she had to be. And he needed to rebuild his walls to keep her behind them before he left.

      Especially if he wanted to save her from a mauling in the media and Melissa’s wrath.

      ‘She’s nothing to me,’ he lied, ‘and I’m nothing to her. Just a spot of fun. Now, if you’ll excuse me...’ He started to move towards the elevators, hoping to catch up with Eloise, but Melissa grabbed his arm and dragged him around the other way.

      ‘Absolutely! We’ve got a rehearsal dinner to finish, remember, best man?’

      ‘Right.’ Noah smiled weakly and went back to work.

      Eloise would have to wait.

      * * *

      Another night with no sleep, Eloise thought as the sun peeked over the horizon the next morning, hazy behind the grey winter clouds. And this time for far less satisfaction than the night before.

      She hadn’t had the courage to go back to the rehearsal dinner, although she suspected Noah had. She’d heard him banging on her door around midnight, asking her to let him in, but she’d ignored him. Maybe he’d thought she was asleep, or angry, or out. She didn’t care. Eventually he’d grown tired and left her in peace.

      Not that it had been very peaceful.

      She’d stripped off that wretched dress and curled up in her warmest, softest pyjamas, make-up removed and hair brushed out. She’d cocooned herself