high school. He’d been intense and driven, but never sarcastic or jaded. The fact that his achieving his life’s dream hadn’t left him unscathed niggled at her.
“I’ll be a lot less stressed after we reach the hotel. So let’s get moving.” Malcolm picked up Celia’s floral bag and started to pass it to her.
Troy choked on a cough.
Malcolm looked at him sharply. “What now, Donavan?”
“I just never thought I’d see the day when you carried a woman’s purse for her.”
Celia snatched it from his hands. “It’s not a purse. It’s a tote bag for my computer and my wallet. My favorite bag, for that matter. I bought it from the Vera Bradley Collection—” She stopped short, wincing. “I’m not helping you, am I, Malcolm?”
“No worries,” he reassured her, planting his hand between her shoulder blades with unsettling ease. “I’m confident enough in my manhood I could carry that pink flowery bag like a man purse straight into that crowd.”
“Photo, please?” Troy asked. “I’d pay good money.”
Celia watched them joke and laugh together as they made their way to the door, and she realized she’d never seen Malcolm with friends before. Not even eighteen years ago. He’d never had time for recreation then. Between school, work and music lessons, he’d been driven to succeed, to make his mother’s hard work pay off even at the expense of any social life most teens expected as their due. What other changes were there in his life now?
They stopped in the open hatch, and the crowd roared to a fever pitch of squeals and screams. He’d earned this, fame and adulation, yet he was still a man at ease with carrying her bag. He waved to the crowd, stirring the cheers even louder.
His hand slid along her spine until his arm went around her waist, cutting her thoughts short with the shock of his solid hold.
“Malcolm?” Halting in the open hatchway, she glanced at him, confused. “What are you doing?”
“This,” he warned her a second before sealing his mouth to hers.
So much for worrying about holding strong against kissing him again. He planted a lip-lock on her to end all lip-locks. The familiarity of his mouth on hers tempted Celia, and before she could think, her hand gravitated to his chest. Her fingers curled into the crisp linen of his jacket.
The crowd roared. Or was that her pulse?
Malcolm dipped her ever so slightly back, stroking her face and along her hair before guiding her upright again. Thank goodness he kept his arm around her waist, because her knees were less than steady as he ended the kiss. Her blood pounded in her ears, her fist still clenched along the lapel of his jacket.
“What the hell was that all about?” she hissed softly, trying not to look at his friends grinning behind him.
Malcolm covered her hand with his, his blue eyes holding hers with an intensity she couldn’t mistake. “Making sure the world knows you’re mine and anyone who touches you will have hell to pay.”
He peeled her hand free then locked arms with her, starting down the metal steps onto the concrete. She held on tightly, her legs still wobbly from his kiss in front of a crowd of people and camera lenses. What about him warning her about the possibility of the press seeing them at a B and B? Had he just said that before because he wanted her to go with him?
Her skin chilled in spite of the warm summer breeze, carrying the scent of flowers tossed by fans. A sleek white limousine waited a few strides away.
Desperate to regain her balance, she angled toward Malcolm to whisper, “I thought we were giving off the impression of friends traveling. Casual companions. What about how you worried the press would see us at a hotel?”
“I didn’t want to claim you until you were safe.”
Safe? Her feelings for him were anything but safe. “Weren’t you the one who made fun of puppy love in the limo?”
His cerulean-blue eyes slid over her, soothing like cool water on overheated flesh. “Darlin’, this has nothing to do with puppy love and everything to with adult passion. With cameras in our face 24/7, it’ll be impossible to carry off a lie. Those photographers will pick up on the fact that I want you so badly my damn teeth hurt.”
Her breath hitched in her throat. “I don’t know what to say.”
He stopped at the limo, waving to the crowds once before he looked at her adoringly again. Totally an act. Right? He waved her into the stretch limousine before following her inside.
“Celia,” he said quickly while Troy and Hillary were still outside, “rather than lie about our attraction and make the press all the more desperate to prove what they already sense, it’s better just to be honest about this. So be forewarned. I’ll be kissing you and touching you and romancing you very publically and very often.”
A shiver of anticipation skittered up her spine. How would she ever withstand that kind of romantic assault? “But I already told you. We can’t do this. We can’t go back. I’m not climbing into bed with you again.”
She willed herself to believe it.
“It won’t matter.” He kissed the tip of her nose, then whispered against her skin, “Your eyes are crystal clear. The camera will pick up the truth.”
She couldn’t catch her breath, and her skin flushed where he touched her. Kissed her.
“Do tell, Malcolm. What truth might that be?”
“Darlin’, you want me every bit as much as I want you.” He stretched an arm along the back of the seat, going silent as Troy and Hillary settled in across from them.
Hillary grinned from ear to ear. “Welcome to Paris, the city of love.”
Malcolm stood alone on the hotel balcony overlooking the Eiffel Tower. Celia and the Donavans had already settled into their rooms for the night, turning in now to combat jet lag.
He, however, was too restless to sleep, too caught up in the need to take Celia into his room, his bed. He used to fantasize about bringing Celia to France, taking her to concerts and proposing to her in a place with a view just like this one. Yet another dream that hadn’t panned out the way he’d planned.
The whole flight, he’d found his eyes drawn to her again and again. Taking in the waves of her hair draping along her shoulder, even how she chewed her thumbnail while poring over grades, trying to decide whether or not to give a student an extra point for a better letter grade.
Everything about Celia entranced him. It always had. Even when they were kids on a playground, he’d known she was special, a dynamo with an electric personality that people wanted to be around. Other kids gravitated to her open smile, melodic laugh and her willingness to try anything. Even come to stick up for the new kid in the middle of an embarrassing-as-hell asthma attack.
Yet even then, as she’d helped him fish his inhaler out of his backpack, he’d been aware of their differences. For class parties, her mom brought a clown to set up an ice-cream bar, and his mom made cupcakes in their tiny kitchen. Such a strange thing to remember now, especially when money was no longer an issue.
He felt the weight of eyes on him and turned sharply, then relaxed.
Colonel John Salvatore stood in the open doorway, wearing his standard gray suit and red tie. The colonel worked at Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, so it shouldn’t be surprising he’d shown up here. Only surprising he’d arrived in the middle of the night.
“Good evening, sir.” Malcolm didn’t bother asking how Salvatore had gotten into his suite. “You could have called, you know. Anything new to report?”
“Nothing new.” The retired headmaster stepped up beside him at the rail. “Just in town for your concert. Thought I would say hello, Mozart.”
Mozart