Page 16 of The Sun & Her Burn (Impossible Universe Trilogy #2)

I braced myself, feeling every atom close up at the thought of the coming criticism.

Just because I was used to Miranda’s constant complaints didn’t mean I’d found a way to alchemize my heart to stone.

I was too emotional, too empathic and raw to deal well with well-aimed judgements, no matter how hard I tried.

Adam’s frown faltered for a moment as if he was surprised by my words.

“You’re too young,” he said and then paused, waiting for my rebuke.

“Or you’re too old,” I offered sweetly. “I guess it’s a glass half full or half empty debate.”

Even though I thought I was fairly funny, the Brit scowled at me again.

“You may be Miranda’s daughter with some exposure to this world, but being tied to me opens you to an entirely new level of inspection, most of it unkind. I doubt you could last two weeks as my girlfriend.”

“Sebastian didn’t mention you were such a curmudgeon,” I said mildly, trying to defuse the tension because Adam seemed set on convincing both of us that this was not a good idea.

There was an edge of panic and helpless frustration that I could sense lurking beneath his cold demeanor, which made my sympathetic heart reach out to him.

He lifted a thick brow. “Curmudgeon?”

“A bad-tempered person. A grump. Usually an old one,” I defined with a saccharine smile.

His glower deepened. “I understood the meaning. I’m hardly old.”

“But you agree that you’re bad-tempered?”

He stared at me for a long moment. I’d always wondered if they used special filters on his films and photo shoots to make his eyes seem so luminously green, but even in the low, intimate light of the restaurant, they glowed.

Finally, his mouth twitched. Just a tick, but it softened his features and the tension around his shoulders.

“Sometimes,” he agreed, leaning back in his chair more comfortably. “When I have good reason to be.”

I drummed my fingers on the tabletop. “I hate to continue our argument, but don’t forget I’ve known you for a long time, albeit at a distance. I know you’re a brooder, Adam.”

Another mouth twitched, one he curbed by biting the edge of his plush lower lip.

“You’re not wrong,” he admitted. “It’s in my nature to overthink.”

“It’s not in mine,” I said with a light laugh. “I’m fairly impulsive.”

“So it wouldn’t be hard to convince you to agree to this…arrangement?” he asked, cocking his head as if he was making a study of me.

I shrugged. “You made it sound like I was going to beg you for the opportunity, and now you’re saying you’ll have to convince me?”

Adam had the good grace to wince slightly. “I was an arsehole. It’s a defense mechanism. Perhaps you can understand that, given the current shitstorm that is my life, I might be somewhat prickly.”

I leaned forward without thinking to place my hand over his on the table. “I’m sorry to hear about your troubles.”

He went utterly still under my touch, as if it was something threatening. After a moment, he slid his hand out from under mine and let it drop into his lap.

“Thank you,” he said, a muscle in my jaw popping as he clenched his teeth. “What exactly did Sebastian tell you?”

I liked the way he pronounced Sebastian, distinctly British and very posh.

“Only that someone was threatening to out you in the press,” I said quietly even though we were officially the only people left in my corner of the establishment.

Adam nodded curtly, his gaze distant. “Yes. While I have absolutely no issue with anyone’s sexuality, I’m sure you can understand it would have negative repercussions on my career.”

“Like losing the Daventry role,” I said. “I imagine it’s every British actor’s dream to have a shot at playing the iconic spy.”

“Indeed,” he said. “Even if we start immediately, it might be too late to salvage my connection to the film, but it would shore up my defense in case certain things did come to light.”

“I hate that you have to worry about such things in this day and age,” I muttered. “It’s absolutely ridiculous that who someone could love might affect their career. Why should anyone care?”

“Isn’t that the age-old question?” Adam asked wearily, rubbing a hand over his chin.

“It has always perplexed me that people are so afraid of anything other when the human mind was meant to be curious about things we do not know. If more people asked questions and were open to learning about the world and themselves, I’m sure we wouldn’t still have problems with racism and homophobia and sexism.

Tell me, Linnea, do you have a curious mind? ”

It felt like one of the most important questions I would ever answer, so even though my reply was obvious, I took a moment to let the question settle, to look into Adam’s guarded gaze and write the truth on every inch of my face.

“Yes,” I told him. “I’ve always had an inquisitive nature. It’s gotten me into trouble before.”

“And will you let it again?” he quipped with a wry grin, opening his hands to reference himself.

“I cannot promise this bargain will not be more trouble than it’s worth.

I can offer you money and fame, but it’s a double-edged sword.

You will be scrutinized by the public, stalked by paparazzi, and mocked in the media.

People will say you are too ugly to be with me, that you are a gold digger or a whore, that I don’t really love you, and I’m having an affair with this or that actress on the side. ”

“You don’t really love me,” I pointed out.

Adam leaned forward to brace his elbows on the table and reach over to take my hands in his.

They were warm, a shocking ridge of callous under the base of his strong fingers as they curled over mine.

I was utterly engulfed in his hold, transfixed by those long-lashed eyes as they seemed to unpeel every layer of my skin and muscle and bone to see through to the fabric of my soul.

“If you agree to this, Linnea,” he said in a low, husky murmur that made my blood thrum.

The way one lover spoke to another in the darkest hours of night tangled in sex-warmed sheets, “no one who ever looks at us would imagine that we are anything less than beautifully, wonderfully, incandescently in love with each other. You will be the sun I revolve around. All the press and the public will ever hear from my lips is that I am the lucky bastard who landed the love of his life.”

I couldn’t breathe.

Perhaps it was just that Adam was such a good actor that he could deliver the lines with heart-stopping poignancy, or that I had always yearned for a love exactly like he was describing.

Or maybe it was something more elemental—a base magic that passed between our clasped hands and locked eyes, a subliminal message that revealed something of both our truths.

Two lonely souls desperate for connection.

“And if I agree to this, Adam,” I mimicked softly, turning my palms up so I could hold his hands right back.

“I want you to understand that our love story might be a farce, but our friendship would not. If you want someone to play the part and leave you alone otherwise, I’m not the right girl for you.

I can’t pretend to love someone I don’t know, and I won’t defend someone as viciously as I plan to defend you if they won’t tell me about the demons we have to fight against.”

I paused, taking in the way Adam’s lids had shuttered, his mouth a white seam in his tanned face.

“Can you do that?” I asked softly. “Can you be my friend? Or is it too hard to teach an old dog new tricks?”

His eyes flashed as I’d intended them to, and he automatically said, “Thirty-eight is not old.”

I grinned at him in reply, and he shook his head at me, his mouth softening.

“Why do I have the feeling agreeing to be friends with you is infinitely more dangerous than agreeing to our fake relationship?” he asked warily.

My smile widened. “I can be a lot.”

He surprised me then by lifting our conjoined hands to his lips, brushing them against my knuckles.

“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” he murmured, not unkindly.

Something in my chest clenched and refused to loosen.

“Just promise me one thing,” he said, dropping our hands back to the table and untwining our fingers. He leaned back to cross his arms, leaving my hands curled like dead bugs on the tablecloth.

“What?”

“Promise me, no matter what happens, you won’t fall in love with me.”

I laughed lightly, but swallowed it down when Adam only leveled me with a cool, somber gaze.

“I mean it,” he pressed. “Acting is my passion and my profession. It will seem very often as if I love you and am the type of bloke worthy of your love in return. That allusion is a lie, Linnea. I won’t ever love again, do you understand?”

My gut soured at his sincerity. How could a man who stressed how young he was not understand how deeply wrong it was to close himself off to love for the rest of his life?

“I have no intentions of falling in love with you, Adam,” I said after taking a moment to collect myself.

It was the truth, too. I was currently in danger of losing my heart to an entirely different man with golden eyes and a pure heart of gold.

I might be moved by Adam’s blatant sensuality and authority and intrigued by his broken, brooding nature, but there was no way I would ever get seriously involved in a very fake relationship.

I wasn’t an idiot.

“I know you probably aren’t used to hearing this, given you’re famous and fairly good-looking,” I continued with a wave of my hand as if those traits were meaningless. “But you are not actually irresistible.” At his look of wary surprise, I grinned. “Besides, I’m not into old men.”

“Thirty-eight is not old ,” he snapped.

When our picture appeared on the most popular gossip website, The Backlot, the following morning, it captured the moment that followed and my head thrown back in belly-deep laughter.