it—as long as he stayed close.
“This red carpet we’re about to trod down en route to the Palais du Cinéma is hellish for me too,” she admitted.
“You are serious?”
“Very. It’s different when it’s just me and the camera. I’m in control then. But they—” she nodded at the throng ahead of them “—they are calling the shots now.”
“Only if you let them, Leila.”
He was right, of course. Still it served to remind her how to get through this crush.
“Just smile. Pretend you see a dear friend just beyond the camera.”
“Is that what you do?” he asked.
“Sometimes.” But usually she looked for him in the crowd, even though she knew he’d not be there.
He took a breath, then nodded and touched his fingers to her back again. “Let’s go, then. The sooner we get through this ordeal, the sooner we can find our seats at the cinema.”
And then they’d face the endless swirl of afterpremiere parties, the first having already been decided by him. She didn’t mind, for one was just like the other. Privacy was a hard-won commodity here.
When they’d reached their plush seats at the cinema, Leila allowed herself to relax. Celebrities, movie moguls and industry professionals all moved to their seats before the lights dimmed.
Later, as the credits rolled, she was stunned at how much Rafael had invested in this film, and not just in the technical support he’d given. As the producer in the elevator had said, every complimentary bag held Rafael’s new mobile device. They were as much the talk of the evening as the movie itself with those in the audience activating their phones now.
“I didn’t realize they were all operational,” she said.
He gave a careless shrug. “I simply provided a month’s complimentary service.”
The cost of such a move stunned her, for though she knew he’d achieved great wealth in the past year, she’d never dreamed he could afford such extravagance! Did she really know this man next to her at all?
The yacht had been decorated to mimic the set of the movie, a futuristic panorama right down to the uniforms of the waitstaff. The food was lavish. The drinks plentiful.
Stars glittered in an indigo sky and on the decks of the yacht as well. Leila had adored the nightlife in the early days of their marriage, and would party until dawn with Rafael. But the past few years her enjoyment of the jet-set gaiety had waned.
Even now the best French champagne tasted bitter to her. And the man she’d married seemed a powerful stranger.
He commanded attention. People knew his name. Influential people in all walks of life.
Gone was the carefree young designer who’d created some technological wonder at a time that everyone clambered for something new and groundbreaking. He was a star in his world just as she was in hers.
Only she’d been a comeback queen. It had been grueling to step back in front of the camera after her recovery and she’d been determined to succeed.
Rafael had been her savior then. He’d taken her away from the madness and the pressures of the modeling world. He’d become the barrier that her controlling mother could never break down.
He’d let Leila make her own decisions regarding her career and she had become strong. She owed him everything—including the truth that burned in her soul.
“Rafael da Souza is without a doubt the most handsome man here,” a ravishing starlet said, a champagne flute dangling from her jeweled fingers and lust glittering in her blue eyes that were fixed on him.
“I agree,” Leila managed to say in a controlled tone, her Brazilian blood bitten with jealousy that this young woman would openly flaunt her desire for Rafael in front of her! “But then, I’ve always thought he was the most handsome man I’ve ever met.”
“You know him?” she asked, looking at Leila then.
Leila forced a smile, knowing the second when the actress recognized her. “I’m his wife.”
And after delivering that statement, Leila walked straight toward her husband. She lifted a flute of champagne off a tray as Rafael turned to talk to a beautiful woman who’d just approached him.
A woman whom he seemed glad to see!
Leila downed the fine wine so fast that her head took a dizzying spin. She refused to rationalize that women threw themselves at Rafael often, for his finely chiseled features and intense dark eyes were too magnetic for any woman to resist, including herself. But he was her husband!
Her sting of jealousy was warranted. Wasn’t it?
She wouldn’t sit on the sidelines tonight and watch others flirt with him! God forbid if he welcomed their attention, as he seemed to be doing now with this green-eyed beauty at his side.
“There you are,” Leila said in an affected purr as she slipped her arms around his muscled one, bringing his startled gaze snapping to hers. “I’ve missed you.”
His brows slammed together, then smoothed one trebling pulse later. “Have you now?”
“I thought perhaps you’d give me a tour of the yacht.”
“Later,” he said, and flicked an apologetic look at the other woman.
Before Leila could protest, the woman who’d garnered Rafael’s attention spoke directly to her. “I’ve admired your work for years. You make modeling look effortless when I know it is very hard work.”
Again she trotted forth her patent smile when she felt anything but pleasant. Her head was still in the clouds from drinking two glasses of champagne on a nearly empty stomach.
“Are you a model?” Leila asked the woman who was as tall as she, enviably lithe and naturally beautiful with a crown of soft brown curls and arresting jade-green eyes.
“Katie is a costume designer,” came a deep voice behind her, a voice laced with a distinct English accent. “An excellent one, I may add.”
Leila whipped around and stared up at the intruder. The bottom fell out of her queasy stomach as a pair of royal-blue eyes locked on hers.
“Nathaniel,” Leila said, noting that the film star was as tall and broad shouldered as Rafael. That their family resemblance was further established with features that were just as finely chiseled.
The look of love Nathaniel and Katie exchanged caught her by surprise. The celebrated star wasn’t acting now. This was genuine affection.
“Katie and I were sorry you couldn’t make the wedding,” Nathaniel said, moving to his wife now and slipping an arm around her shoulders.
“As was I,” she replied, her apologetic smile flicking from him to Rafael.
The accusatory glint in her husband’s intense eyes scorched through her. He didn’t add that she would have known who Katie was if she had accompanied him to his brother’s wedding. He didn’t have to, for his eyes said it all.
The yacht took a sudden dip and her stomach heaved along with it. Terrified she’d become ill in front of the world, she muttered an apology and fled toward the lower deck and the toilets.
She kept the contents of her queasy stomach, only to find that Rafael had stayed on her heels and was waiting for her to exit.
“Are you ill?” he asked.
She shook her head, for how did one explain one was sick at heart?
“Absolutely not,” she said. “I drank too much champagne on an empty stomach. The movement of the boat made me woozy. Being on the water always does that.”
His brow narrowed, as if considering