By the time we got to the desert gardens the sun was strong and there wasn’t much shade.
Halle wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and fanned her face.I wasn’t surprised she was hot.The only thing keeping me cool right now was my baseball cap.But I couldn’t let her overheat.
‘Take this.’ I whipped off my cap.‘It’ll help you cool down.’
‘But don’t you need it so people won’t recognise you?’ Her brows furrowed.
‘Doesn’t matter.I don’t want you to get burnt.’
‘But if you give it to me thenyou’llget burnt.’
‘Don’t worry about me, sweetheart.According to your playlist, you need a hero, so I’m just making your dreams come true,’ I laughed.I’d done a lot of that today.Although I hadn’t listened to the songs on the list, I’d seen the titles.
‘But you already demonstrated your hero status by rescuing me from falling off a horse yesterday.’
‘Can’t rest on my laurels,’ I shrugged.‘A hero’s only as good as his last heroic gesture.’
‘Very true,’ she nodded, then flashed me a warm smile.‘Play your cards right and I might accidentally fall into a pond or something just so you can pull me out and save me again.’
‘Wow,’ I mock gasped.‘You’d do that for me?Gee, thanks.’ I exaggerated my accent earning me another smile.
Damn.Right now I felt like a dog, desperate for its owner to throw it a bone.Every time Halle smiled at me, I felt like I’d just won the lottery.
It was such a shame she didn’t like taking photos because if you asked me, she looked pretty in every single one of them.
Obviously I’d seen the ones Aidan had taken because I’d looked through them before emailing them to the hotel.But Sammie’s shots of me catching Halle took my breath away.
Wilma had asked before if I was reluctant to upload photos of Halle because I didn’t think she was attractive.But the opposite was true.If Wilma knew how fucking gorgeous Halle was, she’d piss her panties.
Anyhow, it was irrelevant.No matter how good Halle looked, I wasn’t going to put her on my Instagram.
There was the shot where our backs faced the camera that I considered for a millisecond.Posting that would stop Wilma hassling me, but it was still a hard no.I was reluctant about doing it before, but now I was even more certain.
From what I could tell, Halle had been through enough trauma.And I wasn’t gonna be the one to cause her more pain.
There had to be another way to save my career without hurting her.
Now I just had to work out how to find it…
23
HALLE
Was it possible to become addicted to someone’s scent?
It was Wednesday evening and as Jake got off the coach ready for today’s group activity, I followed behind him like a sniffer dog, inhaling his gorgeous woody cologne.
Well, at least I thought it was aftershave.And if it was, I’d have to buy a bottle in New York and spray it on my pillow so that I could get my Eau de Sexy Jake fix when I got back.
Yep.It was clear.With every passing minute, I was becoming more attracted to him.
If I didn’t already realise it yesterday when he said I smelt like roses, when he wiped the ice cream off my lip then licked it off his thumb, I got all the confirmation I needed.
Shamelessly, when I saw his tongue wipe off the ice cream that had been on my mouth seconds earlier, I wondered if he would be into licking other things.From what I’d learnt about Jake so far, he seemed kind and considerate.I mean, the guy risked getting hassled by fans to give me his baseball cap so I wouldn’t overheat.So sweet.
Jake seemed like the kind of man that would actually care about satisfying a woman in bed and not just be focused on his own pleasure, which was very appealing.
The sun may have been hot in those desert gardens, but that wasn’t the only reason I’d started overheating.For the first time in ages, I’d felt a sensation that I thought had left me forever after my last relationship collapsed: desire.
