Page 20 of A Star is Scorned

He was still laughing, and all she could do was scowl at being caught out. She threw her dishcloth doubling as a napkin at him, but he ducked, and it landed in the sink. “You did that on purpose!”

His eyes flashed with a hint of the mischief that was always there, lingering at the edges of his existence. “And if I did? So what if I enjoy watching a lady savor”—he paused for effect, the silence implying something lewd—“my cooking.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What is this? You light a candle. You make me dinner. Are you trying to seduce me?” She leapt off the stool and leaned against the inside of the cabin, trying to put more distance between them.

More for herself than for him. She was far too excited at the idea that anyone, particularly Flynn Banks, would want to seduce her.

But it would be a mistake to let him see that.

She made a show of clutching the neck of her blouse to her throat, silently praying he couldn’t see the rising flush of pink at her neck that signaled her desire.

“A fella can’t make his phony girlfriend dinner? Is there a law against it or something?” He leaned forward when he said it, bracing his hands against the too-small table between them.

If this was one of his pirate movies, he’d sweep the plates off the table, pull her onto it, and ravish her. The thought of it made her bite her lip and drop her hands.

The corner of Flynn’s mouth curled up into a smirk. “You’re thinking something naughty. I can tell.”

She huffed, embarrassed that he could read her so easily. “No! I’m thinking which kitchen knife would be the best to defend myself with.”

He laughed, then held up his hands. “I’ve learned from our fencing lessons not to trust you with a blade.” The compliment made her smile in spite of herself. “In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if I can trust you all.”

She scoffed. “And what is that supposed to mean? Between the two of us, I’m not the one who’s untrustworthy.”

“Oh, really? So you’re not a bald-faced liar?”

Her mouth fell open and she stared at him, scarcely believing her ears. “Excuse me? I’m not the one who’d say anything to get a woman into bed.”

“I don’t need to say anything. I only need to smile.” He demonstrated his point, and in spite of herself, her knees wobbled. Jeepers, he was infuriating. And too handsome for his own good.

“It pains me to think what a better man could have done with your face.”

He only grinned even more wickedly. “A better man would have wasted it.”

“Ohhh, you’re impossible.”

“And you’ve done nothing but lie to me since the moment I met you.”

“May I remind you that you jumped into my car?”

“That’s no excuse for fibbing. Not only did you fail to enlighten me of the fact that you were my costar and not, in fact, a tourist—or whatever you wanted me to think you were—but you also pretended that you’d never heard of me or seen a single one of my films.”

She didn’t like where this was going. But in for a penny, in for a pound. “That isn’t a lie. I haven’t seen any of your films. I told you—I prefer to read. If I go to the pictures, it’s to see a women’s picture. Something like Reno Rendezvous.”

She expected him to roll his eyes at her taste in movies, but instead his lips slashed into a wild grin, the look of an animal who had its prey right where it wanted.

“Really?” His eyes sparkled, a touch of madness in them.

“Then, where did you get the idea for that trick to cut off the wind to the Santa Guadalupe?”

Nuts. She had hoped he wouldn’t notice that, what with trying to keep them all afloat and his efforts to prevent his mainsail from shredding to bits. “I, um, I read about it in a book.”

He leaned further over the table, getting closer to her. “No, you didn’t. You saw it in a movie. In The Pirate’s Folly, to be exact. It’s the way my character, Captain William Roberts, manages to outrun the Spanish.”

“That’s, that’s, that’s—” she sputtered.

She was out of excuses. And the way his forearms were rippling as he leaned all of his weight onto the table was extremely distracting.

The corded muscles pulsed with the pressure of his weight, and her eyes moved up to the bulging biceps beneath the clean polo shirt he’d changed into after the race. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Oh no, it’s not. What’s ridiculous is this effort to keep pretending you haven’t seen my movies.”

“Fine!” she shrieked, surprised by the intensity in her own voice.

“Fine.” She cleared her throat, braced her hands on the opposite side of the table, and leaned toward him until their noses nearly touched.

“What do you want me to say? That I’ve seen all of your films multiple times?

That I watched The Pirate’s Folly six times in a single weekend?

That I haven’t missed a Flynn Banks picture in years and could probably recite some of them from memory? ”

He blinked at her. Whatever he was expecting her to say, it wasn’t that. He began to roar with laughter, lifting his hands from the table and clutching at his belly. He fell back against the kitchen counter and laughed until tears began to leak from his eyes.

“What exactly is so funny about that?”

“Y-y-you—” He struggled to catch his breath, still laughing. “Here, I was thinking less of myself because some beautiful dame hadn’t seen my pictures, thought them beneath her—and you’re practically the president of the Flynn Banks fan club.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and puckered her lips. “I am not.”

“Ha, ha, ha. Yes, yes you are. It’s absurd, really.”

Livvy tried to process the fact that she’d revealed her most humiliating secret, thus eliminating any chance she had at keeping the upper hand with him. Not to mention that he seemed to care about her opinion. And he’d called her beautiful.

Her mind reeled. But as she tried to puzzle through it all, he finally recovered.

“Finished now?” she asked, her voice dripping with disdain.

He actually checked himself, feeling his chest and his face before responding. “I think so. But what I can’t understand is why? Why would you lie about such a thing? Most of the country has seen a Flynn Banks picture.”

For the first time in tonight’s long list of ignominious moments, she blushed.

She looked at the deck and toed a coiled piece of rope with her shoe.

“Because I didn’t want you to think I was some simpering schoolgirl.

I wanted to be your costar, your equal. I thought if you believed I was an intellectual, you’d be intimidated.

You have girls throwing themselves at you every day.

The last thing you needed was another one.

I wanted you to respect me, instead of seeing me like every other girl. ”

He barked out another laugh. “I assure you, I have never and will never think of you the same way I do any other girl.”

She didn’t know if he was teasing her or praising her, but the words made her insides ignite, curls of flame licking at the sides of her belly.

He worried his lip underneath his two front teeth, then looked up and nodded. “Well, I suppose that leaves only one more question.”

“And what is that?” She braced for something provocative and lewd. Something befitting his reputation as Hollywood’s number one rascal.

“Olivia Blount. Liv de Lesseps. You have a lot of names for such a slip of a woman. What should I call you?”

The sudden unexpected question caught her off guard, and she smiled. “My friends call me Livvy.”

The corner of his lips tugged up into a crooked, close-mouthed smile that made her involuntarily take a step toward him. “And am I?” She stumbled on the coil of rope as he asked his question. He caught her by the elbow. “Your friend?”

She looked up and met his infernally blue eyes, sensing mischief and want and something unknowable twinkling there. She gave him one of his own infuriatingly confusing winks. “For now.”