Driving Her Crazy (8 page)

A louder engine roared in the distance just as things beneath the covers started to stir, snapping Kent out of his stupor.

What the hell was he doing?

He sat bolt upright, displacing her hand and waking her in the process.

‘Come on, Sadie Bliss,’ he said briskly as he kicked out of his swag. ‘The day has started and I’m starving.’ He ignored her groan. ‘Let’s hustle.’

An hour later, Sadie left Kent to another disgustingly unhealthy roadhouse breakfast as she headed for the amenities. Yes, she was starving, but she was seeing Leo today and she was doing that with the flattest stomach possible even if it meant depriving herself of food all day.

Plus she needed a shower. Badly.

The facilities were fairly basic and she thanked God she’d thought to bring her own shampoo and conditioner. Her hair was thick and did not take kindly to cheap products.

Still, even with hair products that cost a small fortune, Sadie despaired as she looked into the grimy mirror. She sucked in her cheeks in the vain hope that they’d look like they used to—all hollowed and model-like. She hunched her shoulders to enhance her collarbones. She pirouetted and craned her neck around to try and see if the size of her bum had reduced any in the last few days.

Even the minimiser bra she’d bought especially didn’t seem to look as good in the cheap roadhouse lights as it had in the expensive Sydney department store.

If only she’d known about this trip a month ago—she could have at least done something earlier.

She’d spent a lot of the last few years imagining her first meeting with Leo again. How she would look, what she would say, how he would react. And she could already sense the reality and fantasy were hopelessly mismatched.

She’d wanted Leo to weep when he saw her. To rue the day he’d told her to go. To eat his words. Words that had struck right at her very core.

Who’s going to want you, Sadie? You’re nothing without me.

And she’d wanted to be smoking hot when he did.

She didn’t care how vain, how girly that made her. How much it didn’t make sense. Leo had worshipped her body, had immortalised it in dozens of his works, and she wanted to show him that she still had it.

That Sadie Bliss was wanted plenty.

She screwed up her nose at her reflection. Could she pull it off?

And what would she do if he crooked that imperious little finger at her? Because despite everything there was still a damaged part of her, the Daddy’s girl, that craved his approval.

Sadie
dialled the number Tabitha had given her as she made her way across to Kent, who was filling up the vehicle. Her heart was pounding in her chest as it rang in her ear and when it picked up her pulse spiked so quickly she thought she was going to faint.

Which turned out to be unnecessary given that it was Leo’s PA who answered the phone. Kevin informed her Leo was painting and not to be disturbed, but that he would pass on the message that the
Sunday On My Mind
reporter was expected by mid afternoon.

‘Is that
Leo
?’ Kent asked as he returned to the vehicle after paying for the fuel.

She ignored his childish emphasis. ‘They’re expecting us.’

‘Ready to go?’

Sadie nodded absently. As ready as she was ever going to be. No time now for losing some last-minute pounds.

This was the day.

‘Your cup of tea is in the dashboard cup-holder,’ he said as he swung up into the vehicle.

Sadie buckled up and they got under way. She sipped her tea and ignored her growling stomach and the light-headed feeling making her a little dizzy. She watched out of the window as the flat red earth and occasional scrubby bushland passed by in a blur, her mind preoccupied with seeing Leo again after three years.

Her enthusiasm of the last forty-eight hours to get Kent talking was non-existent today. She didn’t even notice the jolts and rattles of the vehicle as it negotiated the far more potholed highway. Her mind was busy and her gut was gradually screwing itself into a tighter and tighter ball.

Kent, however, did notice the jolting and the shaking, particularly in the interesting way it manifested itself. Sadie’s chest shifted and bounced in his peripheral vision, totally screwing with his concentration. His initial relief that she wasn’t going to be Little Miss Nosey was quickly tempered. At least conversation might have kept his mind on something other than the way her breasts rocked and swayed in rhythm with the vehicle.

After two hours of complete silence from her, Kent couldn’t stand it for another moment. Particularly when she was wound as tight as a bow string and frowning enough to give her wrinkles that no amount of youth serum would fix. Her thoughts were so loud he could almost hear them forming.

He gave a slight shake of his head as he opened his mouth to speak, not quite believing that he was the one initiating conversation. ‘Penny for them?’ he asked.

Sadie frowned as she turned towards his voice. It took a second for his question to register front and centre in her brain. ‘Nothing,’ she dismissed. ‘Just...formulating some questions for the interview.’

‘Then why are you frowning so much. He doesn’t bite, does he?’

Sadie didn’t answer as she thought about Leo’s particular brand of scathing wit. Plenty of people had felt the sting of it. He wasn’t a man who tolerated fools very gladly.

It was Kent’s turn to frown at her silence. ‘Does he?’ he demanded. Photographing celebrities already felt like a sell-out. He wasn’t going to pander to an overinflated ego, no matter how well regarded he was in the art world.

Sadie frowned again. ‘What? Oh...no, he doesn’t bite.’

Kent cocked an eyebrow. ‘So you do know him?’

Sadie pulled her gaze away from the probing reach of his. ‘How much longer do you think?’

Kent stood waiting at a petrol station in Borroloola his good foot resting up on the bull bar, a map spread over the red-dust-encrusted bonnet of his vehicle, studying the directions to Leonard Pinto’s outback retreat. Sadie had insisted on stopping here even though they’d not long stopped at a roadhouse for lunch.

Well, at least he’d eaten lunch. She’d nibbled on a small apple and hadn’t even finished it. But given her little speech from day one about her cast-iron bladder he was surprised she needed to use the bathroom again so soon.

Movement to his left snagged his attention and he turned his head to focus on the woman walking towards him. It took him a beat or two to realise it was Sadie.

He blinked.

She was wearing a dress. A flowing red dress with shoestring straps that showed the tiniest hint of cleavage. It outlined her thighs and fell in a fringed hem just below her knees.

It was hardly revealing, in fact it seemed to just skim everything. To hint but not reveal.

But the way it flowed against her body, moved against her curves, the way the red offset her hair and complemented her mouth and skin was nothing short of a marvel.

She drew level with him and asked, ‘Does this look okay?’

Okay?

Kent felt as if he had a few short days ago in Tabitha’s office—as if his eyes were poking out on springs. Up close he could see she’d enhanced her eyes a little with some dark kohl, had smeared some gloss on her mouth, big silver hoops hung from her ear lobes. Her raven hair flowed around her shoulders.

She looked like a gypsy and Kent struggled to keep himself from falling under her spell.

‘Wow,’ was about all he could manage when he realised he hadn’t answered her hesitant enquiry. But it seemed to do the trick as a huge grin kicked her crazy big mouth up at the sides.

‘Right answer,’ she murmured. ‘For a moment I thought you were going to say fine.’

He shrugged. ‘I
was
toying with mighty fine.’

‘Ah,’ she smiled. ‘You’re learning.’

He smiled back. ‘I didn’t know we had to dress?’

‘Just trying to make a good impression,’ she quipped as she moved past him to the passenger seat, feeling more confident from Kent’s positive reaction.

Kent blinked again. ‘That ought to do it,’ he muttered under his breath.

He started up the car and pulled out onto the road. The cab was full of a new fragrance. Gone was the smell of earth, diesel fumes, aged leather and axle grease. It smelled like passionfruit and something headier, something that reminded him of sex, and he doubted he’d ever get the aroma out of the upholstery.

Out of his head.

And it irritated him. Largely because he realised he’d spent three whole days not thinking about having sex with Sadie Bliss and now that was all he
could
think about!

Somehow, in such a short time, her smart pouty mouth and treacherous curves had managed to get under his skin.

In his peripheral vision he could see her foot tapping briskly on the floor. Or rather he could see the ripple effects as it vibrated through her thigh and wobbled through her chest.

A thigh and chest he suddenly wished he knew a hell of a lot better.

Damn it. Sadie should have flown. She should have insisted.
He should have insisted
.

Damn Tabitha Fox to hell!

‘You seem nervous,’ he said, because if he had to watch anything more shift on Sadie Bliss he was going to be the one to make it so.

Sadie jiggled her leg. ‘I am.’

‘First big interview?’

Sadie shook her head. ‘No. I mean yes. It’s my first big interview but that’s not why I’m nervous.’

‘Oh?’ Kent continued, pleased to see she’d stopped her infernal jiggling.

Sadie looked at Kent, his eyes fixed on the road, his beautiful mouth a perfect slash in his perfect profile. She was so nervous she wanted to throw up.

So nervous she couldn’t keep it to herself any longer. The need to share the burden of it all was upon her suddenly like a big black cloud.

‘Leo and I used to be lovers.’

SIX

Kent was so stunned by the admission he didn’t see another massive pothole until they hit it and they both bounced in their seats as the whole cab rattled and shook. He’d suspected from the beginning she knew Pinto somehow and her
Leo
slip had confirmed it, but never in a million years would he have thought this.

Sadie glanced at Kent as he drove along without a word.
Back to the strong silent type again.
Not something she needed right now. She needed someone to give her a pep talk. To tell her that what happened in the past didn’t matter. The clock had been reset and she would be fine.

God, anything would do, anything at all.

She just needed him to say
something
.

‘Nothing to say?’ she demanded after his continuing silence stretched her nerves to their limit.

Kent glanced at her, his brain still grappling with the bombshell. The number of questions he had probably outnumbered the stars in last night’s sky but he wasn’t going to get into this with her.

He looked back at the road. What she did with her life was her own concern. It was absolutely nothing to do with him.

He’d known her for three days and it didn’t matter that she was sitting in his car in a dress that oozed sex or that he wanted to pull over and have his way with her because that was never going to happen. They were doing a job together and when it was done they’d probably never see each other again.

So, she had a thing for older guys. If she wanted to sleep with men twenty years her senior then good luck to her.

Or to them anyway.

‘None of my business,’ he said, trying not to think about the twelve years that separated them.

Sadie glared at him. Kent’s lack of enquiry drove her nuts. She’d spent the last three days foraging for crumbs from him thinking it was just about his privacy, but maybe it was really that he didn’t give a damn about anyone else?

‘That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?’

Kent shrugged. ‘Who you’ve slept with is nothing to do with me.’

‘What, no, isn’t he a little old for you, Sadie Bliss? Or, how the hell did that come about, Sadie Bliss?’

Kent sighed. Sadie obviously wanted to talk about it and, as much as he didn’t want to know any more about her, there was a part of him that really, really wanted to know how a smoking-hot woman like Sadie ended up with a guy twice her age.

If Leonard Pinto had been buff and handsome he might have been able to see it, but Kent had seen the man’s picture and he doubted good old Leo would ever be asked to pose for a centrefold.

‘Okay, then, out with it,’ he said. ‘You obviously want to get it off your chest, so spill.’

Sadie looked out of the window, not in the mood to be humoured. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

Kent glanced at her petulant profile and felt as if he were back in high school. ‘I’m not going to ask you twice, Sadie, so why don’t you tell me all about it? Tell me how a man who must be at least twenty years older than you came to be in a sexual relationship with a much younger woman.’

Sadie turned to face him, her eyes blazing. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

Kent raised an eyebrow. ‘Like what?’

‘The way you’re making it sound,’ she snapped.

‘Okay. So how was it, then?’

Sadie turned back to the window, watching the scenery flash by as she gathered her thoughts. ‘I took one of his classes at art school.’

Kent snorted. If Sadie thought that made things sound better, then she was much more immature than he’d originally thought.

‘So...he was your teacher? Isn’t that against the rules?’

Sadie sent him a scathing look. ‘I took the class for a term. We didn’t get involved until six months later.’

‘And how did that start? No, let me guess. He was impressed with your talent and offered to give you extra tuition.’

Sadie looked back out of the window. ‘I went to one of his exhibitions and we got talking. He took me out for drinks afterwards.’

‘And then he said come back to my place and take off your clothes, I want to paint you?’

Sadie ignored the sarcasm. ‘He was the most articulate and witty man I’d ever met. Sophisticated. Urbane. And what he didn’t know about the world and art and culture wasn’t worth knowing. And he was interested in me. This older, interesting man who could have had his pick of women was interested in little ol’ me.’

Kent frowned. Obviously her father’s desertion had had a lasting impact on Sadie. ‘Why wouldn’t he be? You’re an interesting person.’

Not to mention how very interesting she was to look at.

Sadie flicked him an
oh-really
look. ‘Yes, I’ve noticed how you’ve been completely enthralled by my life.’

Kent shrugged. ‘Don’t take it personally. I’ve been pretty uninterested generally the last couple of years.’ He swerved to avoid another crater-like pothole, then looked at her. ‘I can’t believe, though, that there weren’t a veritable glut of men your age that were also interested?’

She nodded. ‘Sure. In my E cups.’ Sadie looked back out of the window. ‘Guys my age tend to have conversations with my chest. Leonard didn’t. He looked me right in the eye.’

Kent felt an instant spike of guilt at his own fascination with her chest, but at least he could take comfort from the fact that
every
part of her seemed to fascinate him.

God knew her mouth was becoming an obsession.

‘So Leonard’s gay? Or bi, I guess.’

Sadie gasped and turned to stare at him. Where in the hell had that come from? ‘Were you dropped on the head as a baby?’

‘Hey, nothing wrong with that,’ Kent assured her. He could understand Sadie being attracted to someone who didn’t objectify her. ‘I’m just saying that any man who doesn’t at least check you out can’t be heterosexual.’

Sadie opened her mouth to blast him despite the traitorous part of her that felt curiously flattered. ‘Are you implying that
all
men aren’t capable of restraining Neanderthal behaviour and if they are then they must be gay?’

‘Heterosexual men check out women, Sadie.’ He shrugged. ‘I agree it’s appalling that some guys behave like morons and that subtlety isn’t part of their repertoire, but we’re pretty simple creatures really, genetically predisposed to appreciate the female form. It’s just as natural as breathing.’

Sadie wondered for a moment if Kent had checked her out. In
that
way. And if so, when? She hadn’t really noticed him gawking like the average male and he’d certainly never had one of those conversations with her breasts that annoyed her so much. In fact she’d have to say that Kent had displayed supreme lack of interest.

Annoyed at the direction of her thoughts when her mind needed to be on Leo, Sadie grappled to get back on the page. ‘Trust me, he’s straight,’ she said icily, seeking and holding his gaze for a moment. ‘Very, very straight. We had lots and lots and lots of sex.’

Which wasn’t exactly true. Leonard had been more into oral sex and they’d had plenty of that but he’d not been great at reciprocating. Still, he’d stimulated her in other ways, intellectually and artistically, so his low sex drive hadn’t ever been an issue.

Being his lover had transcended the physical.

Kent dragged his gaze back to the road as her doe eyes told him stuff he wasn’t sure he was keen on knowing. He really did not want to be regaled with stories of Leonard Pinto’s straightness.

Not as it pertained to Sadie anyway.

‘So
did
he paint you?’ he said, trying to shift the conversation.

Sadie nodded. ‘Oh, yes. I became his muse. Gave up art school, moved in with him so I could pose for him whenever he wanted. All hours of the day or night. It was...exhilarating.’

And it had been. His obsession with her had been heady stuff. It had also been exhausting. Living with an arty temperament had its downside, especially when she was struggling to find time for her own art.

Still, she’d have never taken that part of her life back.

‘He didn’t paint anyone else for nearly two years.’

Kent heard pride soften her voice. It sounded a little co-dependent to him, but Kent couldn’t blame the guy and a part of him hoped he might get to see one of those paintings.

He remembered wanting to photograph her this morning and, whilst he wasn’t a fan of Pinto’s nudes, Kent couldn’t deny he was curious to see a master’s take on Sadie’s curvy perfection. Had Leonard managed to capture the perfectness of her imperfect features?

Although quite how Pinto managed to be so productive with Sadie living in his house and stripped naked a lot of the time he had no clue. He knew for damn sure there wouldn’t be a lot of work going on if she was buck naked and posing for him!

His groin stirred and he clamped down on unproductive thoughts as he zeroed in on the most startling part of her story. ‘You gave up art school?’

Sadie nodded. She’d cut herself off from everything, even her mother. Completely isolated herself. Weeks would go by without seeing another soul and she’d revelled in it, satisfied with being the centre of Leo’s world, buying in to his control over her because she’d loved him and believed he loved her.

‘I was never really good anyway,’ she dismissed.

Kent blinked. That was the second time she’d written off her ability. ‘Says who?’ Art schools were notoriously difficult to get into—they only took talented students. It had taken him two years of applying before he’d been accepted into one to study photography.

‘Leo.’

‘And you believed him?’

Sadie rolled her eyes. ‘He’s Leonard Pinto. I think he knows a thing or two about talent, don’t you?’

Kent thought good old Leo also knew a thing or two about manipulation. ‘How old were you when you hooked up with Pinto?’

‘Nineteen,’ she said wistfully.

Kent paused as that info sank in. ‘And he was?’

‘Thirty-nine.’

Oh, yeah.
Leo knew which side his bread was buttered on.

‘What happened?’ Kent asked. ‘How’d it end?’

‘Behind my back my mother gathered a portfolio of my work and put me up for a scholarship to my dream college in London. And I got it.’

Kent shook his head. And she
still
believed she didn’t have any talent? ‘I’m guessing Leonard was none too pleased to have his muse running away.’

Sadie looked away. ‘I hadn’t painted in over a year. Leo loved me, he didn’t want me to fail. He was right to point out that I’d lost my edge. That I wouldn’t last long there, that places like that require exceptional talent and dedication. That I’d probably only got in because of my association with him.’

Kent ground his teeth at Pinto’s disingenuous actions.
Nice
. ‘So you didn’t want to go?’

Sadie shook her head. ‘No. I did want to go. I’d been doing nothing for a year and I was getting restless. I just...’

‘What?’

‘It was hard. Leo saw it as a betrayal.’

Kent snorted. ‘I thought he loved you.’

Sadie looked away. No. That had been her mistake. She had loved him. Leo had never loved her. ‘I was torn and he told me the decision should be easy and as it wasn’t that I should go.’

Kent didn’t know what to say. Pinto sounded like a total arse. ‘Did you go to London?’

Sadie shook her head, she’d been devastated by the whole thing. ‘I needed to get away from art for a while. So I studied journalism instead. And here I am today coming full circle.’

‘So, why does Pinto want you for the interview?’

Sadie shrugged. ‘Curiosity probably. I think he thought I would fall apart without him. Whatever his agenda is, I’m determined to show him I didn’t.’

Kent looked at her, then looked away. ‘Well, that dress ought to do it.’

He slowed as he saw the sign for Casa Del Leone,
the Pinto retreat, approaching, but not before he noticed that fabulous mouth break into a broad grin.

Neither of them spoke as they drove into the property. The house, complete with massive marble columns, looked as if it had been picked up from Ancient Greece and deposited by Zeus himself. It looked completely out of place in the middle of the Australian outback.

Kent whistled as he pulled the vehicle into the Grecian portico. ‘It looks like a pimple on a pumpkin,’ Kent said as he reached for his seat belt.

‘Wait,’ Sadie said, putting her hand on his forearm.

Kent frowned at her. ‘What?’

Sadie looked at the imposing marble entryway and massive wrought-iron door, her heart suddenly pounding loud enough to shake the columns to their foundations. ‘Do not let me get sucked in by him, okay?’

Kent’s frown deepened as he looked at her hand on his arm. ‘Please tell me after everything you’ve just told me, you’re not still in love with him.’

Sadie shook her head. ‘No...I don’t think so.’ Kent’s impatient look spurred her to clarification. ‘He was a big part of my life for a long time. He was like...an addiction or something. And addicts are never really cured, are they?’ She chewed on her bottom lip. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to get a taste and...fall off the wagon.’

Kent’s gaze involuntarily followed the action of her teeth as they ate away her lip gloss. When he realised he was staring he dropped his gaze to her revenge attire. ‘I think you’re stronger than you think, Sadie Bliss.’

Sadie smiled at him, suddenly conscious of the warmth of him beneath her palm and the bunch of muscles in his forearm. She was surprised how good they felt. How the power of them did funny things to her insides.

He was so different from Leo. And not just in looks. Leo would never have calmly told her she was strong.

Leo had spent two years telling her she needed him.

‘Come on,’ he said briskly, because she was looking at him with those big doe eyes and the ridiculous urge to lean over and kiss her was growing stronger.

Neither of them needed that. Not now.

Not ever.

He undid his belt, her hand falling away. ‘Let’s do this thing.’

Leonard’s PA greeted them at the door. ‘Mr Pinto is in his studio and is not to be disturbed for another two hours. I’ll show you to your rooms and then take you on a tour,’ he said.