Review
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“Brown’s novels define the term ‘page-turner.’ "—Booklist
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From the Inside Flap
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It was the publicity stunt from hell as far as Kirsten Rumm
was concerned. She may have been writing the book about her late
husband, aeronautical daredevil Demon Rumm, but she didn't see
the need to play host to the arrogant bad-boy actor starring in
the film version's title role. Still, for the good of the
project, Kirsten agreed to share her beachfront home with the
impossibly sexy screen idol.
Any other woman would do anything to be in her sandals, but
Kirsten wasn't falling for Rylan North, even if he did play his
role of male lead to perfection. His down-home charm, his
gentleness and virile charisma, might be seducing her in every
sense of the word, but he was an actor, after all. Seducing an
audience was his job. Rylan could have any woman he wanted. So
why was he so desperately pretending to want her?
From the moment he saw her, Rylan North knew that Kirsten Rumm
was the woman he'd been waiting all his life to cast as the star
in his real-life love story. What did it matter if he was every
woman's fantasy if he couldn't get Kirsten to so much as glance
his way? He'd caught the look of past hurt behind her sky-blue
eyes-a dark secret that shadowed the sparkle. Rylan was
determined to find out what tragedy held this passionate woman
back from a second chance at love even if it cost him his
reputation, his career, and his life. But first he'd have to get
Kirsten to act on her instincts . . . and to trust the
-and-blood man behind the fantasy.
"From the Hardcover edition.
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About the Author
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Sandra Brown is the author of more than fifty New York
Times bestsellers, with over seventy million copies of her books
in print. She and her family divide their time between South
Carolina and Texas.
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
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Chapter One
"I let myself in.”
He hadn’t known she wore eyeglasses until her head snapped up at
the unexpected sound of his voice. She whipped them off and
dropped them on the stack of manuscript pages lying on the Queen
Anne desk in front of her. Her red pen, too, fell from her
fingers onto the manuscript. One hand momentarily covered her
left as though to still a pounding heart.
“You startled me, Mr. North.”
“Sorry. Actually I’m perfectly harmless.” Compared to the bright,
pristine room, he figured he looked like something that had
suckled at the tattooed of one of Hell’s Angels. Her
haughty expression told him he didn’t belong here. Smiling
covertly, he set his canvas duffel bag down near his feet and
slid off his sunglasses. “I knocked on the front door, but no one
answered.”
“Maybe you should have tried the bell.”
She was miffed all right, he thought. One hundred pounds . . .
and that was a generous guess . . . of irritated female. Prickly
broad, wasn’t she? Were these first few moments going to set the
tone for the next several weeks? Not if he had anything to do
with it.
One of his knees , throwing his body slightly off center
and into that thigh-melting, mouth-drying, heart-stopping stance
that had beaten Farrah Fawcett’s as the all-time
bestseller.
“Should I try another entrance?” He curved his sullen mouth into
the suggestive smile that was as famous as his arrogant stance.
“Obviously my timing was off on this one.”
She didn’t return his smile. “Why bother? You’re in.”
“Right.”
She stood up and walked around the desk. Not until she had taken
a few steps across the terrazzo tile floor did he notice that she
was barefoot. She caught him looking at her bare feet, but she
didn’t apologize for them or go through any of those flustered
motions and babbling apologies that women usually do when caught
in dishabille.
Her small face was set in an expression that strongly suggested,
“If you don’t like my bare feet, that’s just too damn bad.”
What she was better off not knowing was that he liked her bare
feet. A lot. So far, he liked everything he saw, from the top of
her glossy, dark hair to those ten, tempting toes. She was
wearing white jeans, which fitted her a tad too well. In
contrast, her white shirt was at least three sizes too large for
her, somehow far sexier than a skin-hugging T-shirt would have
been. The wide sleeves had been rolled back almost to her elbows,
and the hem was brushing her thighs. It looked like a
hand-me-down man’s dress shirt. He wondered if it might have
belonged to her late husband.
In any event, she was adorable.
“Did I catch you at work?” he asked.
“Yes, you did.”
“On the book?”
“That’s right.”
“Forgive the interruption. I know how hard it is to pick up a
thought once it’s interrupted.”
Impatiently, she pushed her fringe of bangs off her forehead. “My
housekeeper went to the market, so I’ll show you to your room.
Where’s your luggage?”
“That’s it.”
He nodded at the ugly duffel bag. One split seam had been
haphazardly repaired with silver duct tape. Scuffed, red, and
stained, it looked like the sole survivor of a baggage handlers’
training convention.
“I left my Louis Vuitton at home,” he drawled sardonically. “This
is all I can carry on my bike.”
“Your bike?”
“Uh-huh.”
She gazed at him and his duffel bag with repugnance. He wanted to
laugh, but didn’t dare. Instead he let his attention wander to
the glass wall that provided a panoramic view of the beach far
below and, beyond it, the Pacific Ocean.
“You came by motorcycle from L.A. ?” she asked. “You didn’t fly?”
“Depends on how you define ‘fly.’ The California Highway Patrol
might have called it flying.” He grinned at her over his shoulder
and slid his hands, palms out, into the holey, threadbare back
pockets of his jeans. They had seen better days. Better years.
“Terrific view.”
“Thank you. The view was one of the reasons Charlie and I bought
the house.”
Pivoting on the heels of boots which no self-respecting cowboy,
not even one down on his luck, would have been caught dead in, he
faced her again. “Charlie? You didn’t call him Demon?”
“Hardly.”
“Why not?”
“He was my husband, not my idol.”
His expressive hazel eyes, bridged by sleek black eyebrows whose
arches were pointed at the apexes, focused on her. Most people
thought that Rylan North’s incisive stare was a trick of camera
angles and expert lighting, possibly a device the actor used to
convey his vast range of emotions. But it was a natural,
unaffected characteristic—one eyebrow a fraction of an inch
higher than the other; thick, short, black lashes; unmoving,
brown-speckled hazel irises.
Rylan didn’t deliberately subject her to that unsettling stare.
He was only trying to gauge if there was a hidden meaning behind
Mrs. Rumm’s words. Perhaps there wasn’t. But perhaps there was.
He was there to find out. He watched her nervously wet her lips
and decided that the odds were in favor of his intuition being
right on target.
“If you’ll get your bag,” she said in a breathy voice, “I’ll show
you to your room.”
“I like this room.” He wasn’t ready to be shuttled off into a
back room like a disobedient child. He wanted to look at her some
more.
“I’m working in here, Mr. North, and you’re a distraction.”
“Oh, really?”
He learned something then. She didn’t like being teased. Her lips
formed a pucker of disapproval. How far could he push before she
lost the rigid control she imposed on herself? He was to
know, but now wasn’t the time to test it, not when he’d just
arrived. “Okay, I’ll leave you to your work while I soak up some
scenery outside. Is that all right?”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
He raised one foot, pulled off his boot and sock, and dropped
them onto the floor. Then he did the same with the other foot. He
took hold of the hem of his black T-shirt and peeled it over his
head, ignoring her p of outraged surprise.
His shirt joined the heap of foot apparel on the floor. “Go back
to work. I’ll see you later,” he casually tossed over his bare
shoulder as he slid open the panel of glass and stepped through
it. He walked around the swimming pool toward the steps that led
down the rocky cliff to the beach, wondering if she was watching.
He would have bet his next O nomination that she was.
He was tempted to turn around and find out, but didn’t. He had an
image to uphold, that of being an I-don’t- give-a-damn bastard
where women were concerned. And I-don’t-give-a-damn bastards
didn’t react to women no matter how attractive they were. He’d
almost broken that unwritten law last week when Kirsten Rumm
entered her lawyer’s office and they met for the first time.
The appointment had been arranged at his, Rylan’s, request. He
had known the moment Mrs. Rumm came in, shoulders back, chin
high, carriage militant, that she considered the meeting an
imposition. Only her eyes had indicated any vulnerability. They
had been wary.
Her tailored, linen business suit had made him ashamed of his
appearance. He had been up late the night before reading the
movie script and jotting dialogue revisions in the margins. That
morning he had overslept and hadn’t taken the time to shave. He
had dressed in the first clothes his hands had touched when he
reached into the closet, a pair of slacks and a raw silk sport
coat. Beneath the jacket, his partially unbuttoned shirt was
d. Thank God the rumpled look was in.
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