He pressed his hands to his heart. “You wound me. Yes, I’ve read it. Upward of a dozen times I’d say. I learned to sail because of that book. Begged my father for lessons. Finally, one of our groundsmen, a retired sailor in His Majesty’s Navy, taught me how. Been obsessed with the sea ever since.”
“Sorry. I didn’t think—”
“That a movie star knows how to read.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she replied, a look of horror on her face. But he chuckled, and she realized he was teasing.
“It’s all right. It’s a fair assumption. To be quite honest, it’s been a while since I’ve read anything other than a script.” Something unexpectedly wistful gleamed in his eyes. “Hollywood is… How shall I put it? A distracting place.”
She nodded. “Oh, I’ve read about it in the papers. It’s a den of vice and inequity.”
He chortled. “That it is. And you’re looking at one of the city’s worst offenders.”
He seemed proud of that fact. As if he relished being a drunkard and a cad. But there was something that charmed her about it too. He was so unabashedly, unapologetically himself. Livvy liked people who were honest about who they were. Even ifshehad been hiding the truth of her identity all evening.
“Pull off here. That’s me on the left,” he said. She looked where he pointed, and she could make out the outline of a home on the shore. He’d called it a cottage, and she’d expected somethingsmall and charming, like the clapboard homes they’d passed on their drive here.
But this was no mere cottage. It was a looming piece of property, a mass of white stucco and colorful tile built in the Spanish style. It was, in short, the home of a movie star.
She pulled into the driveway, which was a collection of stone and grass, artfully designed to look natural. Flynn reached over and gently placed his hand beneath her chin, lightly pressing her mouth shut.
“Stop gaping,” he teased.
“I wasn’t,” she retorted, but he gave her a look.
“You were, but don’t worry, all the ladies are impressed by the size of my…house.”
He paused long enough to make her blush and then gave her a devilish wink. The man was incorrigible. Worse, she found it infernally attractive. She wondered if he might make a move, try to kiss her. Or even invite her inside.
But he didn’t. He simply leapt over the side of the door of her jalopy without even opening it. “Best to go out the way I came in,” he quipped. “Thank you for the lift, Miss…?”
She realized then she’d never told him her name. Liv de Lesseps was the name she’d been given by the studio. A shortening of her full first name paired with whatever the Evets publicity department had decided was suitably intriguing. She could tell him that name now. He’d know the truth of who she was in an instant. But some small piece of her wanted to cling to this unknowing. This interplay of two strangers who’d taken a drive together and whose paths were not meant to meet again. So she gave him her real name. “Blount,” she smiled. “Olivia Blount.”
“Thank you, Miss Blount.” He tipped his hat, and then surprised her by reaching for her hand and pressing a brief kiss toher knuckles. It was polite, the kiss of a knight to his lady fair. But the sensation of his lips against her skin seared her hand, and she pulled it back, massaging her knuckles as they tingled with the ghost of his kiss.
He walked to the front door, and she began to reverse out of the absurdly long driveway. But as she neared the end of it, he ran back out and called after her. “Miss Blount, I’d very much like to see you again.”
She called back, “You will, Mr. Banks.” And she drove off without another word.
Chapter 3
Flynn woke with a jolt. He turned his neck and a ripple of pain shot down his arm. He clapped his palm to his neck and rubbed at a knot that had formed—a result of his odd, cramped sleeping position. He blinked his eyes, trying to clear the morning bleariness and figure out where the hell he was.
He leaned his head into his armchair, and suddenly, a wave of familiar perfume crashed into him. The worn, burnt-orange velvet of the upholstery still held the ghost of his mother’s scent. He steadied himself, inhaling and relaxing with each breath as the memories of the previous night returned to him. He hadn’t been able to sleep, and after tossing and turning in bed for several hours, he’d gone downstairs, fixed himself a hot toddy, and wandered into the library.
It had been ages since he’d come in here. But the moment he’d entered the dark room last night, a sense of calm he hadn’t felt in years washed over him. His heart rate had slowed as he observed the quiet solemnity of the library, his custom cherrywood shelves standing staunchly in rows like sentinels.
His eyes had gone straight to his favorite chair, a cozy, high-backed piece with a deep seat. The fabric color reminded him of the view of the sunset from his back deck. It was the only piece of furniture he’d brought with him from England when he’d movedto Hollywood eight years ago. He’d half forgotten it was in here. What else had he forgotten these last few years?
A book slipped from his lap to the floor, and the muffled thud shook him from his reflections. He reached down and picked it up.Treasure Islandby Robert Louis Stevenson. He gently stroked the cover, remembering the sound of his mother’s voice as she’d read the story to him when he was only a boy. It had once been the only way his mother, Violet, could get him to go to sleep. Some sleep-starved part of his brain must’ve remembered that old trick and brought him here last night. He opened the cover and caressed the inscription in the frontispiece, his fingers tracing the rise and fall of the ink that had been etched there long ago.
To my dearest boy, remember, always choose joy.
For so long, those words had been imprinted on his heart. They’d been all he had of his mother in the twenty-five years since she had left him. The words had sent him to Hollywood, a young man determined to suck the marrow out of life. Olivia Blount’s mention of his once-treasured story had reminded him of this inscription. He hadn’t thought of it in so long. Touching the words now, he could feel his mother’s presence through the handwriting, and it renewed his belief that he was living his life as she hoped he would. Well, maybe with less boozing and hanky-panky, but what a mother didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. All she cared about was whether he was happy. And he was. He was just going through a fallow period. So, why did he still feel so restless?
It was that damn girl. Olivia Blount was most decidedly not Flynn Banks’s type. A bluestocking who’d turned up dressed like a boy at one of the most glamorous nightclubs in the world. Thathadn’t stopped him from dreaming about her—the perfect pout of her rose-colored lips, the curve of her pert little bottom, and her startling eyes. They had looked gray when he’d first ambushed her in her car, but as the sun had set, they darkened and took on a violet hue.
Yet, it wasn’t her beauty that kept him tossing and turning all night. It was the fact that she had no idea who he was. That she wasn’t the least bit intrigued by him. He thought he was a good actor, exciting and interesting on-screen. But Miss Blount had never even heard of him. That irked him. Was he so unremarkable then? There were only so many ways to grin, say “Avast,” and sword fight. There were thousands of women who did know his name, who would give their eyeteeth to spend one night in his arms. Wasn’t that good enough? What was one raven-haired slip of a girl, who, by her own admission, never went to the pictures?
