The Mills & Boon Sparkling Christmas Collection - Kate Hardy Mills & Boon e-Book Collections

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the story.

      But then Eloise broke the silence. ‘I almost don’t want to ask what happened next. But I think I have to.’

      With a sigh, Noah pulled away, out of her embrace. Sitting up on the edge of the bed, he stayed facing away from her as he spoke, every word cutting through him as it formed on his lips. ‘We agreed to take it slow. We’d already waited so long, and we had our whole future together to figure it all out. The next day, she went back to his house to pack up her stuff while I was out at a call-back audition. I asked her to wait until I could go too, but she wanted to get it done. He was supposed to be at work but...

      ‘I got the part—my first big movie role. I raced home to tell Sally, but when I got there the flat was empty. And then the police called.’

      There was a rustle of sheets and then Eloise’s body was pressed up against his from behind, her warmth flooding through him as she pressed kisses against his shoulders. But those kisses couldn’t erase the guilt he carried every day. He should have been there—not just that day, but every day before that. He should have been looking outwards, not inwards. He should have been there for her.

      But he wasn’t.

      ‘He’d beaten her. So hard she’d blacked out, they think. And when she fell...her head cracked open on the corner of the table. She died in moments.’

      ‘Oh, Noah, I’m so sorry.’ Eloise spoke against his skin, holding him tight to her. ‘So, so sorry.’

      They were just words, Noah knew. They couldn’t fix anything. Couldn’t heal the searing pain that had cut through him that day and never fully gone away. His scar tissue might not show on the outside, but it was still there and he felt it pull most days.

      But the thing about scar tissue was that it healed thick and hard, and painless. He might feel the tug around it, like healthy skin, but the dead area—his ability to love, to feel those deeper emotions—they didn’t hurt at all.

      They couldn’t.

      So he didn’t look inwards, not any more. He looked outwards—to easy, casual relationships, to films that focused more on explosions than feelings. And he pushed the guilt and the sorrow down beneath that scar tissue and pretended they weren’t there.

      Until he’d met Eloise, and read a script that could change his career. And now all those emotions he’d sworn not to feel again were bubbling up, filling him, and he knew he had to beat them back down before they destroyed him.

      He couldn’t waste emotion on himself. If he had to feel, it would be as a character—safe in another person’s fictional life, where the emotions couldn’t hurt him. If he felt that pain at all, let it be for the part, for his career. Because Noah Cross didn’t deserve to feel any of those things—love, loss, hope—ever again.

      ‘I know I can’t say anything,’ Eloise whispered, close to his ear. ‘I know I can’t fix it. But I’m sorry. And whatever you need right now—distance, alcohol, whatever. Just say. I can give it.’

      There was only one way to forget, Noah had found, and that was to drown out the memories. Alcohol helped, so did work. But the best thing was sitting naked in bed beside him.

      He turned, sweeping her into his arms in one fast movement. ‘You,’ he murmured against the skin of her neck. ‘Let me have you again. Let me forget.’

      Eloise nodded, and he bore her down to the bed again, determined to block out the emotions once more.

      He’d use them, if he had to. But not as himself. He’d save it all for the part.

      He could give Eloise his body, even his memories, but that was all.

      Everything else, he’d already given up.

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      ELOISE WOKE EARLY, after nowhere near enough sleep to deal with the day ahead. Beside her, Noah slumbered on, one arm wrapped loosely around her waist. She twisted onto her side to look at him, his face peaceful in repose.

      In the early morning light, still grey and cold as the sun just started to peep over the horizon, it was hard to imagine all the secrets and wounds they’d shared the night before. After his confession, Noah had made love to her like a man possessed. A man driving out his demons, she supposed.

      Did he blame himself for Sally’s death? She suspected so, even if he knew intellectually it wasn’t his fault. Guilt and grief had a funny way of twisting things in a person’s mind.

      She felt a tug, somewhere in her middle. A compulsion to try and fix him, to help him feel again. Not just to get some movie role, but because he needed it. She’d thought Noah was just another self-centred, narcissistic actor—like her mother. But that wasn’t it. He honestly didn’t believe that letting people in and feeling something for them could end well. Which, given his experiences, she could sort of understand. She even agreed with him a lot of the time.

      But to always feel that way... That was a very lonely way to live. Far lonelier even than hers.

      She shook her head and prepared to inch out of his arms without waking him.

      ‘Where are you going?’ he asked, tightening his hold on her without opening his eyes.

      ‘I thought you were asleep.’

      ‘I was acting.’ His eyes opened and he blinked lazily. ‘You okay?’

      ‘Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?’

      ‘Last night was...intense.’

      That was one word for it. Eloise had never experienced anything like it—not the exchange of confidences, or the sex. Everything seemed to be on a higher level with Noah, seemed to strip another layer of her defences away.

      ‘It was,’ she admitted. ‘I feel...naked, I guess.’

      Noah smirked. ‘You kind of are.’ Hauling her closer, he angled himself above her again, but there was something different in his passion in the morning light. A desperation she hadn’t seen in his eyes before.

      ‘I’m not going to tell anyone, you know,’ she said before he could kiss her.

      ‘I know.’ His mouth tightened a little and she stretched up to kiss it lightly.

      ‘I want to keep this a secret too, remember.’ The last thing she needed was Melissa finding out her latest scandalous story.

      Noah frowned. ‘Why is that again? Usually I have to stop women shouting from the rooftops after they’ve slept with me.’

      ‘Really?’ Eloise raised her eyebrows and he smiled, the emotions of the night before clearly fading again as he returned to his usual laughing self.

      ‘Well, stop them going to the papers and telling all, anyway. So, why don’t you want anyone to know? Is it Melissa?’

      ‘Partly,’ Eloise said. How could she put it in a way that wouldn’t offend him? ‘But it’s more than that. I don’t want to be another one of your women, with everyone talking about me—and pitying me once you walk away. We both know you’re leaving at the end of the week. We have a built-in time limit.’

      ‘I suppose,’ Noah said slowly. ‘I’m not sure I like being your dirty little secret, though.’

      She laughed. ‘Who said anything about dirty?’

      ‘I was here last night, remember?’ He waggled his eyebrows at her.

      ‘Besides, you’re the one who said you wanted a private fling,’ Eloise reminded him. ‘No strings, no catches—and no gossip.’

      ‘So I’m getting exactly what I want from the situation,’ Noah said. ‘But what about you?’

      ‘I’m doing okay,’ she said, but it was already too late. Noah slid down her body, covering

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