Unmasked (Revealed #1) (25 page)

As Christmas experiences go, that must have surely been unforgettable. A niggling feeling settled in my stomach and I had to struggle to keep the smile on my face – spending Christmas Day in bed with a Hollywood star had been pretty unforgettable too.

‘Wow. We had a quiet one, just Mum, Dad, gran and gramps, and me and Scott,’ Sarah said. ‘I was still ill with flu, and by that point poor Scott had caught it too, so it was probably miserable for the rest of family! God, it really hung around, I was ill for a full fortnight.’

‘So glad you’re well enough to come out tonight,’ Cait said, giving Sarah’s arm a squeeze as I agreed with a nod.

‘What about you, Allie? How was Christmas with Master of the Mansion?’ At Cait’s words, I practically sprayed out the mouthful of cocktail I’d just sipped, and had to blink wildly to try and clear the bubbles from my nose.

Master of the Mansion? Sean?

Actually, given his large house and preference for intensity and control, it was quite an appropriate description. But, why, oh why, had Cait brought that up? I’d been praying that she had forgotten our phone call, but I suppose being snowed in with a stranger
was
pretty big news. Seeing as I’d spoken to Cait before I knew who Sean was, not to mention before anything had happened physically between us, it was actually quite a lot bigger news than she would be expecting.

Looking at Sarah, I tried to give a nonchalant shrug, but I clearly failed because it turned out all jerky and was accompanied by my cheeks rapidly flushing – she didn’t know anything about my time with Sean because she’d been too sick to speak to me. We hadn’t seen each other since I’d returned home, and seeing as I was trying to forget about Sean, I hadn’t bothered to call her and ask for details about him either.

‘Master of the Mansion?’ Sarah asked in confusion. ‘Have you been seeing someone, Allie?’

‘Umm … no. Not really,’ I muttered, knowing that my cheeks were the colour of ripe tomatoes as my friends stared at me curiously.

So much for my plan not to talk about Sean. Judging from their expectant faces, there really wasn’t going to be any getting away from it. Where to start?

Swallowing hard, I tried to decide what to tell them, but Cait jumped in and started it for me by turning to Sarah and filling her in. ‘When I spoke to Allie a few days before Christmas, she was at the big house in the country where you’d asked her to cover that cleaning shift for you.’ Biting on my lower lip, I watched as Sarah nodded. ‘Well, it had snowed so hard that she’d got stuck there. Just Allie and the owner. Allie described him as ‘stunning’. Would that be about right?’ Cait asked Sarah, but all I could focus on was the stunned expression on her face.

‘You got stuck there?
With Sean
?’ she asked in a hushed whisper, to which I nodded a bit shakily. ‘How long for?’

‘Until Boxing Day,’ I whispered, causing her eyes to gape so wide that her expression now screamed ‘oh my god’, even though she appeared stunned into silence.

‘Sean? So you found his name out?’ Cait asked, sipping her drink with an appreciative hum.

‘Yeah …’ I replied, suddenly remembering my irritation with Sarah for not warning me who the owner was. ‘That reminds me, missy,’ I said, pointing an accusing finger at Sarah’s chest. ‘You could have bloody well told me who he was! I mean, he’s famous for God’s sake, a little forewarning would have been nice!’

Sarah blushed, but was still grinning broadly, clearly in her element and loving every minute of my discomfort.
Cow
.

‘Famous?’ Cait chipped in, looking more and more curious by the second. ‘Who is he?’ Before I could respond to Cait, Sarah gave a shrug.

‘Technically, I wasn’t allowed to tell you who he was.’ Seeing my continued stare she held her hands up in surrender with a chuckle. ‘Calm down, Allie, you’re going to blow a gasket! When I got the job I had to sign a confidentiality agreement at the agency to say I wouldn’t blab about his address or sell any photographs of his house. But seeing as you met him I guess it doesn’t matter if I talk to you about him.’

A confidentiality agreement? Given who he was I suppose it made sense. He hadn’t made me sign one when I’d left, though, and he’d not sworn me to secrecy either. Did that mean he trusted me? Or that he’d just forgotten?

‘You two are driving me nuts!’ Cait suddenly yelped. ‘I’m here too, you know! Now will one of you please tell me who the heck this
Sean
guy is?’

‘Umm …’ I began vaguely, but paused as I saw Sarah scrabbling in her bag and pulling out her phone. Knowing how much Sarah loved her Google searches, I had a pretty good idea what she was about to do. And then, as expected, I watched as she pressed a few buttons and thrust the phone in Cait’s face, presumably showing Cait images of my Master of the Mansion. I giggled briefly again, biting on my lower lip.

‘Not just any old Sean,
this
Sean.’ As Sarah squawked at a stunned looking Cait, I closed my eyes and hung my head a little. Just thinking about him had completely squelched any desire I might have had to flirt with anyone else tonight. He was it for me. At least, at the moment he was, although I seriously needed to put some effort into getting him out of my brain because it was pathetic how much of my time was spent thinking about him.

I watched as Cait’s face blanched at her recognition of him. ‘But that’s … I mean, he’s … famous … I loved his films when I was a teenager! You spent Christmas with a guy called Sean, who turned out to be Sean frigging Phillips?’ Cait spluttered, sounding and looking about as shell-shocked as I must have done the day I discovered his identity. I could understand her shock. It was rather a lot to take in. I’d still barely absorbed it, and I was the one who had met him and bedded him. I shivered as I remembered just how thorough he had been with me during our last time together, and then sighed heavily.

Oh, God. I had been right earlier – I was ruined for anyone else.

‘Yes. I hadn’t realised it was him when I spoke to you,’ I limply explained to Cait.

‘I can’t believe you didn’t know him straight away! I know he’s not starred in much recently, but he’s famous, Allie! I loved him when I was younger.’ Cait replied, looking more animated than I’d seen her in a long time. Sarah was nodding in agreement and making dreamy faces, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes – it was always good to know that your friends had crushed on the man you’d recently slept with. Not.

I sipped my drink remembering how young and smiley he’d looked in the film I’d watched, quite a contrast to the frequently intense, short-haired man he was now. Even so, I still couldn’t believe I hadn’t recognised him quicker. ‘I know. I think it was seeing him out of context that threw me. I mean, you never expect to find yourself in the house a famous person, do you?’

‘
I
can’t believe you didn’t tell me!’ Sarah shrieked, butting in and waggling an accusing finger at me, the sudden onslaught of attention making me feel defensive and edgy. Not to mention emotional.

‘I tried to call you,’ I responded snappily. ‘But you didn’t answer your phone.’ I gave a guilty shrug, ‘We’ve not spoken about it since because you were ill, and I’ve been trying to forget about him.’

‘Wow. You got to spend Christmas with Sean Phillips. I think that trumps my fishing trip and beach barbeque,’ Cait mused as I desperately tried to think of a way of changing the subject.

‘Wait a minute … back up …’ Sarah said slowly, her eyes narrowing as she held out a hand to stop Cait from saying anything more, and then turned her beady eyes on me. ‘You said you’ve been trying to forget him. Why would you need to forget him if you just spent a few days together?’ Her eyes were intent now as she watched me carefully, and I tried not to flinch outwardly at her scrutiny. ‘Oh my God … something happened between you two, didn’t it?’ she demanded, making my stomach plunge and taking my shoulders along with it as I dropped my chin onto my chest in defeat.

It just wasn’t in my capabilities for me to deny it any longer. I’d hidden the secret for over two weeks now and it was eating me up inside. Sighing heavily, I lifted my head to meet the curious gazes of my friends and then slowly nodded. ‘Yes,’ I whispered, my one word answer immediately causing Sarah’s eyes to flash with triumph, and Cait’s to widen like saucers.

‘This calls for more bloody drinks, and then you, young lady …’ Sarah said, pointing a finger in my direction, ‘… are going to fill us in on every single detail.’

‘Ugh. I’m not sure I want
every
detail.’ Cait said, creasing her face up in mock disgust as Sarah batted her arm and signalled to a barman. ‘Shut up, Caitlin.
I
want every detail, even if you don’t,’ Sarah warned, her use of Cait’s full name indicating just how determined she was. Marvellous, I thought dryly. ‘Now, you two go and grab that booth over there. Come on, look lively …’ She wafted at us with her hands in an impatient ‘hurry up’ gesture, and I rolled my eyes in response. I hadn’t seen her this motivated for ages. ‘Bums on seats, I’ll get the drinks in.’

Obediently following her demands, Cait and I trailed towards the empty booth and slid in, exchanging an amused glance once we were settled. ‘You don’t look massively happy, so I assume things didn’t work out like you wanted?’ Cait asked gently, causing me to cringe and shake my head sadly as she reached out and gave my hand a squeeze. She was always the more tactful of my best friends, bless her. ‘You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, I’m sure we can deflect Sarah,’ Cait added with a kind smile.

On one hand, it was probably going to be horrendous talking about my time with Sean, and would no doubt undo all the effort I had been putting into forgetting him, but then on the other side of things, I had been clamming it all up inside me for weeks now and it might be quite cleansing to get it out. Maybe it would help properly kick-start my healing process.

In the end, I opted for spewing my entire story in all its ugly glory – right from Sean’s initially grouchy ways to our magnetic bond, his incredible lovemaking, and the soft words he’d uttered to me when I’d left and he’d promised to call. I’d finished my story with a screwed up face as I miserably explained how I’d pined for him even though he had never bothered to call.

Throughout my tale my two friends looked on in curious fascination with the occasional sympathetic wince, swear word, or gasp thrown in for good measure. It took exactly twenty-three minutes to dish all the details about my tryst with Sean – and in the end, Sarah really
had
wanted every detail possible, with her even asking me to describe the dimensions of his family jewels. I had declined, of course, merely giving a smug smirk, and saying ‘plenty big enough.’

Finishing the dregs of my third drink, I shrugged at them, trying to look nonchalant but probably failing miserably. ‘So that’s it, really.’

After a second or two of staring at me Sarah gave me a sympathetic look. ‘You fell for him, didn’t you?’ she asked softly, causing me to sigh, almost sob, and nod my head once.

‘Only a bit,’ I lied, meaning
a lot
. ‘But I’m a tough cookie, I’ll get over it. And hey, at least I can tick ‘saucy fling with a film star’ off my bucket list,’ I added, trying to lighten the mood.

‘That you can. Wow,’ said Sarah, still looking shell-shocked. ‘I wish I could meet him. I’ve spoken to him once on the phone and that man has a seriously sexy voice, but every time I’ve actually been at his place he’s been away.’

Typical. Lucky me, being there the one time Sean was home early, I thought bitterly. I honestly wish I’d never met him. As much as I had enjoyed myself with Sean at the time – and I had
really
enjoyed myself – I was now so hurt about it all that I think I would rather have skipped the entire week with him completely.

Seeing my expression, Sarah reached out to squeeze my thigh understandingly. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean that. Of course I don’t want to meet him after what he’s done to you. He sounds like a total shit bag.’ That was about as supportive as Sarah could get, so I gave in and smiled at her with an eye roll.

‘Whatever, don’t worry about it. It’s over now. Shall we dance?’ I suggested, suddenly feeling the need to expel some nervous energy and get us firmly off the topic of bloody Sean Phillips.

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Cait replied enthusiastically, practically dragging me up, which made me laugh, because she never actively chose to dance – or do anything that attracted attention to herself – so this was obviously her way of trying to help put an end to the stressful conversation.

No sooner had we all stood up than Sarah’s phone began ringing with her unmistakable siren ringtone. It was a fast, repetitive honking that was so irritating you just had to answer or smash it to pieces. I
hated
it. ‘You still have that annoying tone?’ I asked with a wince, only just avoiding the temptation to put my fingers in my ears.

‘It’s the only one I can hear when I’m at work and hoovering,’ she replied defensively as she dug in her bag looking for it. The tone was loud enough, it couldn’t be that hard to find the bloody thing. ‘You go and dance. Let me just check this isn’t Mum calling about Scott and I’ll join you.’

Cait and I nodded and made our way to the small dance floor as Sarah rushed to the exit, still digging in her bag. “Counting Stars” by OneRepublic had just come on the speakers and I grinned and spun towards Cait. ‘I love this song!’ We began to dance as Cait listened and then shook her head, a blank expression on her face. ‘I like it, but I’ve not heard it before.’ Seeing my surprised look she grinned. ‘I’ve been living in a rainforest in Vietnam, Allie, there’s not that much chart music to be had over there.’

‘Ah. Of course. Well, I have this album, you’ll have to have a listen; it’s excellent.’

Sarah arrived back a few seconds later, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Everything all right with Scott?’ I asked.

‘Yep, it wasn’t my mum,’ she said mysteriously, just as the song’s chorus came on and she started to jump up and down, grabbing our hands and forcing us to stop talking and join in with her overly exuberant moves. It was all a bit over-the-top for a small bar in Buxton, but I was letting my hair down, so what the hell.