Page 25 of A Star is Scorned

A strange sensation passed over her, some mixture of pleasure and embarrassment.

She hadn’t realized he’d been watching her that closely.

Until that last piece, the music had been so lovely, so moving that it had been impossible not to get swept up in it.

“I love music. I always have. My parents used to take my sister and me to hear the local symphony. But I haven’t been out to see a live orchestra since—” Her voice caught as she was suddenly flooded with memories of her parents and the swirl of emotions that came with their loss.

“Since?” Flynn raised his eyebrows.

Livvy couldn’t give him that piece of herself.

He hadn’t earned the right to it. And if he knew the truth…

She didn’t know what would be worse: if he met her with disappointment or with pity.

So, she swallowed back the rising tide of grief that threatened to overwhelm her.

“Well, it’s been a very long time, anyway. ”

Flynn looked as if he wanted to push her to say more, but their drinks arrived, and she sipped at her water, trying to banish the emotions that Flynn’s words had stirred in her.

Flynn sipped at his beer, a brush of foam giving him a fake mustache.

Livvy giggled, breaking the spell of the tension that had sprung up between them. “You look like Dash Howard.”

He scoffed and swept at his upper lip with the back of his hand. “Never insult me like that again.”

It only made her laugh harder. “I thought he was your best friend.”

“He is! But everyone knows that of the two of us, I’m the better looking one.”

She rolled her eyes at that. He was teasing, but there was still a hint of vanity there. Flynn Banks was a bit of a peacock. “Oh, I don’t know. I think he’s rather handsome. I’ve always preferred his pictures.”

Flynn narrowed his eyes at her. “You minx. That’s a lie and you know it. No one who learned how to sail a ship from watching my movies prefers Dash Howard.”

She threw back her head and laughed. He was so unexpected. So playful. Kind and funny.

“Would you rather be sitting here with Dash Howard right now?”

She bit her lip and pretended to think about it, and Flynn took another pull on his beer.

“Oh, c’mon, Livvy.”

“Well,” she teased, drawing out each word, “he is madly in love with his wife, so…”

Flynn snorted, and Livvy heard him say what sounded distinctly like, “Poor bastard.”

Her eyes caught on the ghost of the lipstick stain Rhonda had left on his face earlier this evening.

A pang of hurt and jealousy flared again.

She resisted the urge to reach across the table and scrub it from Flynn’s face.

To Flynn, this was a big game. If he didn’t rehabilitate his image, what would actually happen to him?

A slap on the wrist? He was a member of the British aristocracy.

His movie-star salary was probably mere gravy compared to what his family was worth.

He wouldn’t be destitute if the press got wise to their ruse.

She shouldn’t have let him bring her here tonight; she should’ve insisted they stay at the fundraiser and play up their budding romance.

What good was sitting alone in this booth with him?

But when she met his gaze, she gasped. He was studying her, his usually twinkling blue eyes deeper and darker, full of something that looked an awful lot like hunger.

What did he see when he looked at her? An innocent?

A try-hard? Or something else? A girl who loved music and books, who wanted desperately for someone to take her seriously?

People described Flynn Banks as a man who could undress women with his eyes, but this wasn’t that.

It was something more…intimate. Like he could see her innermost thoughts.

This. Is. Not. Real. She recited it in her head like a mantra.

So what if he noticed the way she loved music and called her beautiful?

It was all part of the act. Maybe Flynn was one of those actors who preferred to stay in character throughout the course of a production.

He could charm the habit off a nun, and she couldn’t let herself get caught up in the fantasy of their pretending.

Her hand was on the table, and he reached out as if he was going to take it. She drew back, afraid of what his touch might do to her. That it might unravel her.

“Livvy,” he growled, his voice low and warm like a shot of whiskey. Not that she made a habit of taking shots of whiskey.

Suddenly, the room felt very hot. Was that fire really necessary? It was Los Angeles in October, for heaven’s sake. Maybe she should go to the bathroom and put a wet paper towel to her face?

She grabbed her water and savored the cool press of the glass against her lips.

Flynn followed her movements with his eyes, seeming to lock into the bead of liquid that clung to her mouth.

She darted her tongue out to lick it away, and the black circle of his pupils swelled, nearly drowning out the cool ring of blue of his irises. She couldn’t look away.

“Dinner is served.” Pedro broke the hypnotic power of Flynn’s gaze as he returned with a tray of two steaming-hot plates.

Using a pot holder, he slid them onto the table.

The smell of warm, delectable spices and melted cheese assaulted Livvy’s senses, and her mouth began to water for entirely different reasons.

She turned her gaze to her plate, the deep brown of the enchilada sauce and golden hues of the cheese swirling into each other.

Flynn laughed, breaking her focus.

“What’s so funny?”

“You. You look like a wolf licking its chops.”

“I do not!” But she knew she probably did. “It just smells incredible, that’s all.”

“I hope you don’t think I meant that as an insult. If anyone studied a plate of El Cholo enchiladas any other way, I’d send them to have their head examined. Taste them. I want to know what you think.”

Livvy obliged, picking up her fork and cutting a small bite of enchilada with the edge of the tines.

She raised it to her mouth, trying not to drip sauce on her gown, and as the blend of peppers, spices, and cheese collided with her taste buds, she tried not to moan.

Flynn had not been exaggerating; this was the best thing she had ever tasted.

Maybe leaving the fundraiser hadn’t been the worst idea after all.

The food was an explosion of flavors inside her mouth that were both entirely unfamiliar and reassuringly satisfying.

How could something taste like home when she’d never had it before?

After swallowing, she glanced at Flynn, and his eyes danced with merriment. “Good?”

“The tops.” She wanted more right now. And not just the prim ladylike taste of her first bite. She looked down at the plate and then back up at Flynn, who had yet to touch his own food.

“Swirl together the beans and the rice and the enchilada.” She did as he said, scraping all three items together onto her fork with the back of her knife. “There’s no need to be a lady for my sake.”

He seemed to read her mind, and the words hit Livvy in the gut.

Why was that the most attractive thing in her life that a man had said to her?

She was eating dinner, for Pete’s sake, not doing a striptease.

Yet that permission to let go, to enjoy herself without judgment, made her feel free in a way she so rarely did.

But she seemed to experience that sense of freedom more and more in Flynn’s presence—on the boat during the race, acting opposite each other in a scene, tonight listening to the orchestra, and now here, eating this divine meal.

Ironically, all those things had happened because of this publicity dating scheme—but Flynn made Livvy feel authentic and alive in a way she never had before.

Except when she was reading a book or watching a movie.

Frankly, she hadn’t known people could simply experience this freedom in their daily life.

Flynn tucked into his meal and they ate in companionable silence, as Livvy resisted the urge to scarf down everything on her plate in under a minute.

Still, it seemed as if no time at all had passed before her food was gone.

Flynn laughed as she used the edge of her fork to scrape up the remaining sauce on the plate.

She stuck her fork in her mouth and crinkled up her nose in a teasing gesture, making a show of enjoying every last bite.

“You’ve shown me a different side of you tonight, and I like it,” Flynn told her. “I like watching you savor things.”

His words were laced with a double meaning, and a white-hot pulse of want shot through her.

No, no, no. He was a lothario. This was how he got starlets into his bed on a nightly basis.

She could not allow herself to fall for it.

If she and Flynn weren’t doing this for the sake of an audience, they weren’t going to do it at all.

As Pedro cleared their plates, George Salisbury came over, twisting his hands together nervously.

“Why the long face, George? I told you it’d be impossible for someone not to enjoy your food.” Flynn nodded at the empty plates that Pedro was carting away, both of them licked so clean you might never have known there was food on them.

“It was the best meal of my life,” Livvy declared. She wasn’t exaggerating either.

George gave her a weak smile. “No, no, nothing like that. But thank you, Miss De Lesseps. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

Banks, there’s a man out front, a photographer.

He arrived here about five minutes after you did.

He won’t leave, says he wants a picture of the two of you coming out of the restaurant. I just wanted to warn you.”

“No trouble, George. Could you maybe have José take the car round the back?”

Livvy was relieved at first. But then she realized this was the perfect opportunity to make tonight a true success. “Wait, Flynn. Let’s go out the front.”