Reputation in Tatters Read online

  ‘After James?’ Unable to ignore the sense of futility that the echoed question had provoked inside her, Freya crossed her arms defensively across her chest. ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘Then let’s leave the subject alone, shall we? We ought to be getting back…some of us have work to do!’

  Watching him stride even further ahead of her, Freya swiped her straw hat against her thigh in pure frustration. ‘Fine!’ she muttered under her breath. ‘But if you think you’re getting away with not telling me anything else about you while I’m here…then think again!’

  Sitting on a wooden bench that overlooked the valley, enjoying a clear, unhindered aspect of the farmhouse, Freya watched another heron elegantly cut a swathe through the cloudless blue sky, then closed her eyes to listen to the mesmerising distant chorus of frogs croaking in a pond somewhere. It was very soothing just sitting there. Peace and relaxation had apparently found her at last, and she prayed that this time it was no fleeting visitor.

  Sighing with contentment as the sun warmed her skin, she let her gaze drift with pleasure over the restful landscape once again. But her contemplation of the soothing scenery was suddenly abruptly banished by the sight of Nash, emerging from the farmhouse and walking towards her. He was wearing a loose white shirt over light blue softly napped denim jeans and his feet were bare. As he approached, sunlight glinting off the darkly golden strands of his hair, his easy hypnotic gait had Freya momentarily catching her breath.

  ‘Ever read this?’ he asked as he reached her. He was holding out a slim hard-backed novel, and for a moment Freya just stared at him without speaking, transfixed by the stunning intense blue of his gorgeous eyes.

  Accepting the book, she pursed her lips a little to moisten them. Examining the cover, and at the same time acutely aware of Nash standing over her waiting for her verdict, she found her throat suddenly dry as sand.

  ‘As a matter of fact I have, and I totally loved it,’ she admitted with undisguised pleasure. Lifting her gaze, Freya steeled herself to meet that too-disturbing glance of his, just then feeling completely inadequate to the task. ‘Were you offering it to me to read?’ she asked lightly.

  ‘It’s been adapted for a movie and they’re still looking for an actress to play the lead,’ Nash told her.

  They were adapting it for a film? Once upon a time Freya would have known something as significant as that. The fact that she didn’t know only served to emphasise how long she’d been out of the loop.

  ‘So?’ But even as she endeavoured to sound blasé her stomach executed an excited cartwheel at the news.

  ‘I think you should audition for it…don’t you?’

  ‘I told you…I don’t even have an agent any more!’

  ‘Why don’t you have an agent any more?’

  Shaking her head slightly, Freya splayed her palm against the smooth, glossy book jacket. ‘Who wants to work with someone that’s become a liability? Whose private life is such a disaster that she can’t get her act together to even read a script…much less audition for a part in a movie!’

  ‘Well…’ His broad shoulders lifting in an unimpressed shrug, Nash stared down at her, his expression unmoved. ‘Don’t you think it’s about time you started to get your act together? There’s no time like the present. Why don’t you start rereading the book, and later on you can tell me what you love so much about it and why you’d be the perfect choice to play the female lead.’

  ‘I think your confidence in me is a little misplaced, if you don’t mind my saying.’

  ‘Actually, I do mind—because I think that’s the biggest load of rubbish I’ve ever heard! You could play that part standing on your head, Freya, and you know it! Why don’t you stop juicing all those old negative beliefs you hold and show people what you’re made of?’

  Indignation surged hotly through her bloodstream at his unflinching words. He knew what she had been through, that there were still bruises smarting from her ordeal, yet he was calmly standing there telling her to get her act together and show people what she was made of! How dared he? She pushed to her feet and thrust the book back into his hand.

  ‘You’re supposed to be helping me! Is telling it like it is the tactic you’re going to be using from now on? Only I didn’t think I’d signed up for boot camp when I agreed to come here!’

  ‘It riles you, doesn’t it? Why didn’t you act like this when your ex was busy trying to destroy your life?’ Nash demanded calmly, his handsome face as implacable as she had ever seen it. ‘Why didn’t you stand up for what was yours? And I’m not just talking about financial assets here… Why did you let him strip you of so much?’

  His words affecting her deeply, Freya felt tears sting the backs of her eyelids like a swarm of lethal hornets.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about this.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because your question is hardly fair!’ she protested. ‘You make it sound as if I invited him to treat me badly!’

  ‘Did you?’

  Once again Nash didn’t pull his punches, and inwardly Freya reeled from the impact. But this time she refused to take the easy route and avoid giving him an answer.

  ‘All right, then! Maybe subconsciously I didn’t feel I deserved the success I had… Maybe I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and when it did I just resigned myself to the inevitable. But I didn’t deliberately choose to sabotage my life, you know!’

  ‘But if you believed you didn’t deserve your success then you did. We all make choices, Freya—practically every second of our lives. You could make the choice of wanting a better life right now! You could totally embrace the fact that you deserve success and that you’re going to get it no matter what anyone else thinks! Maybe all you need to do is learn how to make better choices so that the outcomes of your decisions reflect what you say you really want?’ Pulling his gaze away from her for a moment, Nash held up the book in front of her. ‘This is an opportunity you can’t afford to turn your back on. You’re a born actress, Freya… I’ve seen you perform on screen enough times to know that’s the truth. So do what you were born to do! Yes, you’ve taken some knocks—but what you need to do right now is dust yourself down and take up where you left off. Trust me…it won’t be half as difficult as you imagine it to be.’

  ‘And what about getting another agent?’ Her heartbeat was picking up speed even as she asked the question, because she couldn’t deny the realisation of possibilities that was excitedly building inside her. Freya accepted the book from Nash and felt her fingers close almost possessively around it. He smiled, and after the severe admonition he’d just dealt her it was like wallowing in blessedly cool rain after a drought.

  ‘Leave that to me. All I want you to do right now is to start reading that book again. I need to drive into town to pick up some supplies for us. Later on, when I’ve returned, we can talk more in depth about things.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Oh, and—’ another smile provocatively hijacked his mesmerising lips ‘—you need a bit more sunscreen on your face…your nose is starting to get a little red.’

  She’d been hoping that he’d been about to say something a lot more complimentary than that, and embarrassed heat flooded into Freya’s cheeks. As Nash turned and walked away, she heard his throaty chuckle.

  ‘Can’t play the part of a beautiful Russian doctor with a nose like Rudolph!’ he teased.

  ‘That’s what they’ve got a make-up department for!’ Freya indignantly called after him, just before he reentered the house.

  Pausing outside the door, Nash grinned. ‘Well…it’s going to take a hell of a lot of make-up to cover up vivid cerise if you don’t get that sunscreen on quick!’ He laughed.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT DID cross Nash’s mind that he might have been too hard on Freya with his unsympathetic attack. But then he recalled the distinct flare of genuine excitement in her revealing dark eyes when he’d told her about the film part, and he knew that she had
been as grabbed by the possibility of auditioning for it as he had.

  He had taken a big chance, but he’d already got in touch with the casting agents on the movie and told them that Freya Carpenter might be interested. The agent he’d spoken with just happened to be a man whom Nash knew fairly well through his business dealings, and so was definitely open to some negotiating on his part. Even so, Geoff had been only too delighted at the idea of arranging an audition for Freya. He’d read the statement she’d made the other day in the newspapers, and he professed to be in admiration for her courage at finally speaking out against her money-grabbing ex.

  ‘I always guessed the woman wasn’t the total flake that Frazier made her out to be,’ he’d declared emphatically.

  Now all Nash had to do was keep on convincing Freya that this part—should she get it—was going to be the start of her long-overdue return to acting. His hands tightened perceptibly around the leather-covered steering wheel of the hire car he drove. Again he thought about the angry words he’d used to shake her out of her stupor of pain and regret. Had his anger arisen not just because he suspected she was still resisting taking total charge of her life but also because her situation so reminded him of what his own mother had gone through?

  It was no secret that he’d felt bitterly disappointed and betrayed that she hadn’t acted with more discernment in picking the men she chose to share her life—and Nash’s—with. Considering that Freya might have acted with the same apparent lack of judgement definitely provoked a silent fury inside Nash. Yet at the same time he sensed that the actress had far more resolve in her little finger than his less assertive mother could ever dream of having. He prayed he was right about that.

  Slowing down into the approach to the charming historical town, with its straight blocks of narrow streets and well-preserved medieval buildings, and finding an empty space by the roadside, he parked the car, got out, and started to walk up the steady incline that led to the picturesque town square, with its plethora of cafés and shops.

  The afternoon passed into the evening, but Freya barely even noticed that the sun was going down because she was so immersed in the story she was reading. Nikita Pushkova had been a brilliant young heart surgeon at the top of her profession in Moscow when she chose to treat a poor child from the backstreets with a degenerative heart complaint, in her wealthy practice. The complicating factor had been that the child had contracted HIV from his prostitute mother, and just the mere association with that misjudged disease had been enough to send Nikita’s reputation-conscious colleagues into a furious and indignant state of panic.

  Going against the warnings and advice of her fellow surgeons, Nikita had operated on the little boy anyway, so touched had she been by his plight. Unfortunately, during the operation the child had developed an unforeseen complication and died. Nikita’s reputation as an esteemed surgeon had been left in shreds and the hospital had fired her for bringing such disgrace upon them. The newspapers had inevitably got hold of the story and published a damning report about her that had effectively helped to finish off her career altogether. Her heart already broken by the fact that she hadn’t been able to save the child, and seeing no hope of a future in the profession she had so passionately been drawn to, Nikita Pushkova had taken her own life.

  The story had touched so many chords inside Freya when she’d read it the first time. Now, reading it again, she was even more deeply affected. But, more than that, she was absolutely determined that this part was going to be hers… If she won it, it would be the coup of her career so far. It would also challenge her acting skills in a way that they hadn’t been challenged up until this point. If Freya played this incredible but ultimately doomed young woman then she owed it to her memory to deliver a true and passionate portrayal of someone who’d risked everything to save the life of one poor, disadvantaged child.

  She had just come to the end of a chapter in which Nikita had emerged from the operating theatre, having just lost the child she’d been so desperately trying to save, when Nash called out to her. She’d heard him return from town about an hour ago, but she had remained sitting outside beneath the shade of an abundant and gracious olive tree, totally wrapped up in her book. Now, his announcement that dinner was ready made Freya realise how hungry she was, and she was on her feet and heading thankfully towards the house with unashamed haste, her senses still profoundly affected by the story that had so gripped her.

  ‘There’s apple juice if you don’t want wine,’ Nash informed her as she pulled out a chair to sit down at the rustic kitchen table.

  He’d laid out a veritable feast for the senses before her. There was an array of cold meats, pâté, fruit, French bread and cheeses—including Freya’s favourite, Camembert. For dessert there was a tarte tatin with an almost full jug of fresh cream beside it. There was also a carafe of red wine alongside the matching one of juice. The mellow sounds of some sultry jazz played quietly in the background, and the female singer’s voice that accompanied it unashamedly oozed sex and seduction.

  As Freya sat down, she was aware of an uncharacteristic sense of well-being and excitement flowing through her, and she realised it was nearly all down to this man. Just being in his presence seemed to energise her.

  ‘You’ve been busy.’ She glanced up and smiled. She saw a muscle tick in the side of his smooth-shaven cheek, and for one highly disconcerting moment he just stared at her without speaking. Then, as if someone had thrown a switch, he smiled back and the action created a cascade of delicious shivers that fizzed like sparklers all along Freya’s spine.

  ‘A budding Oscar-winner has to eat,’ he teased lightly, pulling out a chair for himself.

  ‘Yeah…’ Freya raised her shoulders in a shrug. ‘Dream on…’ Her mouth tightened a little. Reaching forward, she helped herself to some bread and Camembert.

  ‘That’s what it’s all about, angel…dreams. If you don’t even allow the dream to take shape and believe in it then how do you think you’re going to make it come true?’

  ‘Is that how you got where you are today? By dreaming about success?’

  ‘We’re not talking about me.’ The shutters came down again, and Freya tried hard to quell her sense of frustration.

  ‘No…I sense a definite aversion to that. Do you think I’m going to sell your story to the newspapers or something, Mr Taylor-Grant?’ she quipped, her dark eyes mischievous.

  A knife-flash of pure unadulterated lust riveted Nash. The things this woman could make a man feel with that dancing, dark-eyed glance of hers were more potentially lethal than dynamite. All Nash’s thoughts were directed to fulfilling the explosive desire that had all but blown his self-control apart, and every muscle he possessed quivered to contain it.

  ‘Touché.’

  Desperately trying to restrain the profound ache that imprisoned his body every time he glanced at Freya, he found himself wondering what it could hurt to talk a little about his own path to career success if it helped encourage her own dreams. Maybe it was the effect of the softly playing jazz, or merely that he was enjoying being a man with a very beautiful, desirable woman, but something was definitely prompting him to let his guard down a little. Anyway, he didn’t have to tell her everything. He could be selective.

  ‘I grew up in a one-parent family, and a ready supply of money and opportunity were assets that were hardly part of my life.’ He cut some more bread and released a sigh. The jazz singer’s voice flowed over him like a warm, soothing waterfall and helped him ease some of the tension that had inevitably cramped his chest at the mention of his past. ‘Dreams of a better future were what sustained me even through the worst of times. I thought about celebrity and fame a lot in those days.’

  ‘You did?’ Freya’s brows knitted together in surprise.

  ‘Like many other kids I imagined those people who had made it into the limelight having the most amazing and thrilling lives. I wanted an amazing life too. But the more I thought about the qualities of fame, and the “s
pecialness” it conferred on the people it visited, the more I realised the downside too. I only had to glance at a newspaper or magazine or watch the TV news to see that. Then I speculated that those celebrities must need good people around them to help deflect some of the not so attractive results of their fame, and I started to think about how I could get into something like that. There was a reasonable library in the town not far from where I lived, and I used to walk there every day after school and read the kind of books that I thought could help me. I also found an ally in one of the librarians there, who eventually suggested that PR might be the career for me.’

  Grinning suddenly, Nash shook his head, remembering. ‘I’m sure he thought I was either insane or completely living in cloud cuckoo land, given where I came from, but he gave me the information all the same. From that moment on I mentally worked on the idea of working in that field. When I moved in with my aunt, in a different, more…shall we say “well to do” area?…my dream really began to take hold, and there wasn’t a day or night that went by when I wasn’t planning my route to realising it.’

  ‘You were a man on a mission…clearly.’ Smiling up at him, Freya was almost intoxicated by the fact that he had shared this very personal revelation of realising his dream with her. She sensed it wasn’t something he shared very often with people…if ever. The fact that he had clearly come from humble beginnings and had overcome his difficult start in life to become the success he was now made her warm to him even more.

  ‘And you have to be a woman on a mission if you want to win the role that will be one step closer to winning an Oscar,’ Nash replied. ‘And you can’t ever let doubt or what other people think get in the way. So… how did you get on with the book? Feeling inspired?’