No Longer a Dream
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Carole Mortimer
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18.5K
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10
CHAPTER ONE
‘YOU have a delicious body, one of the most perfect I've ever seen, but I'm not in the mood for you right now, so could you get out of bed and get some clothes on?'
The velvet roughness of that American-accented voice, and the things it was saying, were enough to wake Cat from her heavy sleep, but it was the sharp slap on the tender flesh of her bottom that caused her lids to fly open.
For a moment she just lay there, the feel of the chocolate-brown silk sheet beneath her, sensuous against her nakedness. Nakedness! She looked down sharply, sure she blushed from head to toe as she saw she was indeed completely naked. She looked away quickly, falling on to her back, only to see herself again in the smoky brown glass of the mirrors directly above her. The whole ceiling was covered in mirrors!
Where was she? And who had that silky rough voice belonged to?
She was alone in the room now, so she could only put the questions to herself. And a couple of dozen more like them! Who's bedroom was this? What was she doing here? Who had undressed her? And why?
The last seemed the easiest to answer. Her first time in bed with a man and she didn't even remember it, didn't even remember the man! She covered her eyes with a groan, feeling sick.
‘It must have been some party.’ The velvety voice spoke with harsh amusement. ‘Would you like me to get you a hair-of-the-dog?'
She lowered her arm, didn't actually need to turn in the man's direction, could see his reflection in the mirrored ceiling. He was as naked as she was!
‘Have you gone back to sleep?’ he prompted hardly.
She wished she could sink through a hole in the floor and disappear, at the very least go back to sleep and forget this had ever happened. But she doubted she would ever sleep peacefully again, would always be frightened this nightmare was going to be repeated. For it had to be a dream; she didn't wake up in the bedrooms of men she didn't even recognise, let alone remember!
‘I can see that you haven't.’ He moved to stand over her, looking down at her. ‘I realise that you probably have a terrible hangover, but you've only yourself to blame.'
His voice definitely lacked sympathy, and Cat blinked hard as she looked up at him, unaware of just how much like her name she looked at that moment, her tumble of long blonde curls wilder than usual after a night in bed, her green eyes still sleepy.
‘Do you know where the bedclothes are?’ Her voice was a pained rasp, her throat feeling totally devoid of moisture, her tongue swollen and dry.
Dark brows rose over cold black eyes. ‘On the floor where you kicked them last night.’ He was totally indifferent to the fact that neither of them was wearing a stitch of clothing. ‘You're a restless sleeper.'
She wasn't usually—but then she had never shared a bed with anyone for the night before! She took advantage of his turned back, as he looked through the wardrobe that took up the whole of one wall, to pull the sheet from the floor over her body and up to her chin, sitting up to watch the man over its softness.
He had thick black hair, lightly sprinkled with grey, a finer, softer looking hair covering the whole of his body, and it was the rest of that body that made Cat gulp. This man was lean and powerful rather than muscular, his shoulders wide, his back taut with strength, his waist slender, his buttocks a muscular curve to his body, his legs long and fleshless. He was completely at ease, and yet the latent power was there.
Had she experienced that power? She didn't feel any different, but then that was no guarantee; maybe you weren't supposed to feel different! She had spent the last twenty-four years ‘saving herself’ and now she didn't even know what she had saved herself for!
The man turned impatiently. ‘Are you going to stay in there all day?'
The fact that she had never seen a man's body this intimately before was nothing to the shock she received when her embarrassed gaze finally reached his face. Caleb Steele! She couldn't believe it, but she would know that harshly attractive face anywhere. Even when he was standing across the room from her stark naked!
Black hair that was usually meticulously brushed back from his face fell forward in a damp swathe, eyebrows the same jet-black jutting out over cold black eyes, his nose an arrogant slash between high cheekbones, his sculptured mouth a hard, forbidding line. At almost forty he looked older, a cynical twist to his mouth, the same emotion reflected in those chilling eyes. He was also considered one of the most powerful—and dangerous—men in Hollywood!
He shrugged at her lack of reply, turning back to the wardrobe, taking a brown silk shirt from a hanger to shrug his shoulders into it. ‘Breakfast is out in the dining room. If you want any I would advise you to get up and get dressed,’ he rasped. ‘I don't sit down to eat with women who are only half-dressed!'
Caleb Steele, owner of the Steele film studios, an exclusive hotel and casino in Lake Tahoe, and with tremendous influence in some quarters of the media. He was also the man she had come to the party last night to meet. Well she had met him; God, how she had met him!
She cleared her throat painfully. ‘Mr Steele—'
He turned around, tucking the dark brown shirt into the waist of black trousers, before sliding the zip up with a firm movement, his hands dropping down to his hips. ‘Caleb,’ he bit out in that Atlantic drawl. ‘Mr Steele is a little formal in the circumstances. That is my bed you're lying in,’ he pointed out mockingly.
She squeezed her eyes shut, but he was still there when she opened them again. She had guessed it had to be this man's room, from the sinfully mirrored ceiling, to the wide double bed, and erotic silk sheets. He gave the impression of a man who liked to be comfortable when he took his pleasure with a woman.
‘You also seem to have me at a disadvantage.’ He quirked those rugged dark brown brows enquiringly.
Oh my God, he didn't even know her name! ‘I'm Cat,’ she told him flatly. ‘Catherine Howard. And I've heard all the Henry the Eighth jokes I need, thank you.’ This occasion neither warranted nor necessitated one of the endless jokes she had been subjected to concerning her name over the years.
The firmly moulded lips didn't move by a fraction of an inch, and yet something, she thought it was the expression in his eyes, told Cat that he was amused. She agreed, this was hardly the time for outright laughter, about anything!
‘Was she one of the ones that lost her head?’ he derided, dealing with his unruly hair now as he stood in front of the mirror gracing the big oak dressing-table, looking more like the photographs Cat had seen of him: the film mogul that made even the most temperamental director or actor quake in their shoes.
She had attended the party given by this man's son with such high hopes after Luke Steele told her his father was going to ‘show up’ some time during the evening, knowing that Caleb Steele was probably the only man who could get her an interview with his father, Lucien Steele, the writer. Maybe if she had satisfied him in bed he still could, she thought bitterly.
‘Yes,’ she snapped, knowing that history claimed Henry the Eighth's fifth wife had even been guilty of the adultery he had accused her of, unlike a couple of the others, who had just outlived their attraction. ‘Was I—satisfactory?’ she asked with much more bravado than she felt. They said that your subconscious would only let you do what you really wanted to do; had she wanted to go to bed with this man that caused a shiver of apprehension down her spine even though he had only been casually mocking?
He slowly replaced the brush on the dressing-table before turning to look at her, arching one dark brow, the black eyes unfathomable. ‘Don't you know?’ he asked softly, that black gaze looking at her with new interest, playing over the tumble of honey-blonde hair, deep green eyes shadowed with embarrassment now, the small classical nose, and wide kissable mouth, only her shoulders bared to his view now as she clutched the sheet tightly to her, although the warmth of his gaze as it moved to meet hers seemed to say he approved of what he could see.
Cat moistened her mouth nervously. ‘I—er—I think someone must have put something in one of my drinks.’ Her throat was getting easier now, although she knew the reason for its dryness only too well. ‘I only drink orange juice, you see.’ She became flushed at his sceptical snort. ‘It's true,’ she insisted indignantly. ‘I'm allergic to alcohol!'
‘What happens when you drink it?’ His eyes were narrowed now.
She grimaced. ‘I pass out.'
He gave a derisive inclination of his head. ‘That would seem to be what you did.'
Before or after? She swallowed down her growing feelings of panic. ‘I tell you my drinks must have been tampered with,’ she defended, her cheeks still red. ‘I haven't drunk alcohol since I found out it puts me flat on my back.’ She drew in an angry breath at his knowing look. ‘I meant it makes me lose consciousness! After it happened to me the first couple of times I went to a doctor and he told me my body just won't accept alcohol.'
‘I would say that's a pretty shrewd analysis,’ Caleb Steele mocked arrogantly.
She glared at him. ‘You needn't sound so damned disapproving,’ she snapped. ‘You were the one that took an unconscious woman to bed!’ She gasped once she had made the accusation, although Caleb Steele didn't move a muscle.
‘You responded OK when I touched you,’ he drawled uninterestedly.
Her cry of horror was preceded only by the return of the heated colour to her cheeks. She had gone to bed with this man, made love with him. Oh God!
Caleb Steele showed little concern for her disturbed state. ‘What did you do the last couple of times it happened?’ he asked drily, leaning one hip against the dressing-table, completely relaxed, his arms crossed in front of his powerful chest.
Cat's gaze dropped from the bored interest she could read in his eyes as he waited for her answer. ‘I was with friends—'
‘And this time you weren't.’ He straightened, the casual movement causing Cat to press back against the pillows, the sudden gleam in those fathomless black eyes mocking her nervousness. ‘This time the little cat was left amongst the wolves!’ he scorned contemptuously.
Wolf! She would lay odds on this man being the only wolf at the party last night, for all that it had turned out to be a little wild; and now that he had had her he was spitting her out again!
His eyes narrowed on her flushed face. ‘You aren't one of Luke's college friends, are you?’ He sounded as if that thought didn't please him at all.
‘No, I—’ She broke off, the real reason she had gone to the party the previous evening, the remembered wish to make a good impression on this man, still paramount. She couldn't blurt it all out now, not when she had just spent the night with him. ‘I'm just an acquaintance, really,’ she amended.
He gave a slow nod. ‘And do you usually look this good in the mornings?'
She gazed back at him in alarm. Surely he hadn't changed his mind and was now in the mood to repeat what had happened between them last night? She clutched the sheet even tighter to her.
‘Relax, Cat,’ he drawled, the amusement back in his eyes, even if his mouth only showed a cynical twist. ‘I was referring to the fact that most women I know can't wait to run to the mascara bottle in the mornings.'
Most women he knew! She would bet that amounted to several hundred. Caleb Steele was known for the short and not always sweet affairs he had had since his divorce from his wife fifteen years ago. Any of those women showing the least sign of wanting permanence in his life was out like an old pair of shoes. Any women that tried to take on this man, even temporarily, was a braver one than she!
‘You have naturally black lashes, hmm?’ he mused as she made no answer.
‘No,’ she denied abruptly. ‘I have them dyed.'
‘You do?’ He didn't even bother to try to hide his surprise.
She nodded, all the time conscious of that reflected image above her, hating the mirrors, feeling as if she had no place to hide. ‘At the hairdressers,’ she supplied. ‘It's done all the time,’ she claimed at his cynical expression.
‘I know that,’ he derided, shaking his head in disgust. ‘I just didn't think you—there soon won't be many parts of a woman's body that are completely natural!’ he rasped.
His scorn irritated her. ‘The rest of me is real!’ she snapped. ‘Although what you said earlier isn't true; my body is far from perfect. My legs are too long for one thing—'
‘I wouldn't know,’ he mocked. ‘I'm a breast man myself. And yours are a pair of the finest I've ever seen. Not too big, but not too small either, with a dusky rose nip—'
‘Please!’ she groaned her dismay at his familiarity with her body.
‘Oh I did.’ He moved forward with a feline grace, sitting down on the bed, one arm resting on the bed across her, the other beside her. ‘Do you have any idea of the pleasure a man can get from the taste of your breasts, the soft little moans you give in your throat as your nipples are kissed and caressed to—'
‘Please!’ He was making her feel giddy, his proximity alarming, what he was saying even more so, a mental picture of them the way he was describing burning in her brain, able to imagine his dark head bent over her as he sipped from those life-giving peaks, as she cradled him to her and—
‘Yes, Cat.’ His black gaze held hers as he gently released the sheet from her suddenly relaxed fingers, as he softly pulled the sheet down to throw it back on the floor, leaving Cat's naked body exposed to him in all its silken glory. ‘It was just like that,’ he murmured huskily as his head slowly lowered and that hard mouth claimed one taut nipple with surprising softness and warmth, the rough rasp of his tongue sending aching pleasure down between her thighs.
Her head fell back, and as it did so she could see him in the mirror above exactly as she had imagined him, her skin creamy white in contrast to his black hair, her hand moving up even now so that her fingers could entwine in his hair as she held him against her, groaning anew as he moved to claim the other dusky nipple, drinking his fill of that one, too, Cat unable to look away from the beauty of their reflections above.
‘Dad, I—bloody hell!'
The shocked English-accented voice of this man's son as he burst into the room unannounced was what brought her back to her senses, gasping her dismay at what had happened, and at the identity of the intruder to their pleasure. Caleb Steele's son. Oh God, she groaned for what must have been the dozenth time since waking up to find herself in this man's bed.
Caleb slowly eased himself back, holding her horrified gaze with steady intensity. ‘Get out of here, Luke,’ he instructed coldly, not even turning to look at his son.
‘But, Dad—'
‘I said get out!’ He didn't raise his voice, and he still didn't turn towards the door as his body partly shielded Cat's, but the icy anger was obvious in the tersely spoken order, every muscle in his body tensed in challenge of his authority. ‘We'll talk about this later.’ There was a threat rather than apology in his voice.
‘OK,’ Luke Steele sighed, the soft click of the door telling them he had obeyed the first instruction, too.
Cat's eyes were squeezed tightly shut as she denied the reflection of her nakedness, not in the mirrors this time, but in coal-black depths. Caleb Steele's eyes. She didn't know what had possessed her, what had possessed him; she wasn't exactly his usual type. She was too young to be one of his women; he had publicly stated on more than one occasion that any woman under thirty didn't have the experience or maturity he liked. Surely at twenty-four she was too young!
What was she doing lying here assuring herself she was too young for him? She had just spent the night with him, had been lost in his arms again seconds ago when his son burst in.
She felt the bed ease beside her as he stood up, the gentle caress of the silk sheet as it was placed over her. But still her eyes remained squeezed shut.
‘It's all right, Cat.’ That silky rough voice spoke softly. ‘He's gone now.'
She moistened her lips, lying rigidly still, feeling his presence as he stood beside the bed looking down at her, even though she couldn't see him!
‘But I haven't, hmm?’ Caleb read her mind, ‘Isn't it a little late to feel embarrassment in front of me?’ he derided.
It was that amusement in his voice that made her lids fly open, and she turned to glare at him. ‘I'm sure that you're used to waking up in bed next to a different woman every day of the week,’ she snapped. ‘But I'm not used to this at all!'
He wasn't in the least moved by her show of temper. ‘Every day of the week sounds a little excessive,’ he drawled mockingly. ‘Even I like to rest on Sundays.'
God, why was she even bothering to talk to this man when all she wanted to do was to get dressed and get out of here—or did she mean crawl out of here? She had arrived with such plans the night before, had hoped to get the information she needed; now she knew she would have to start all over again. She doubted Caleb Steele would appreciate her request when she had literally fallen into bed with him; it smacked too much like payment for the night! She might write what most people would consider ‘lightweight’ stuff but she took her job seriously, and trying in any way to influence a person to give her information was not the way she worked. She realised that after last night she would have to work doubly hard to convince Caleb Steele of that.
She sat up, holding the sheet to her. ‘Then as this is a Sunday I'm sure you would like to begin doing that,’ she encouraged firmly.
Black brows arched. ‘Would you be ordering me out of my own bedroom?'
‘I would be—asking you to think about it,’ she grimaced.
The stern mouth actually quirked this time, although he didn't show his teeth in a smile. Perhaps he never did actually smile or laugh; any photographs she had seen of him had always shown him grim-faced. She had assumed that to be because he considered the photographer to be infringing on his privacy. Now she wasn't so sure.
‘I've thought about it,’ he derided. ‘I'm quite happy where I am for the moment.'
‘I—your breakfast,’ she reminded a little desperately, not at all happy with ‘where he was'.
He gave an inclination of his head. ‘I've changed my mind about that. I think I'll order us something in here while you take a shower.'
Cat swallowed hard, judging the distance between the bed and the bathroom door. It was too far! Wide green eyes turned back to him, and she was sure they were panic-stricken.
He looked a little impatient with this display of modesty. ‘Take the sheet with you,’ he advised wearily.
‘Take the—oh. Yes.’ Her expression cleared.
But wrapping a sheet around herself that was both way too big and extremely slippery proved much more difficult than she had anticipated. It always seemed to be so elegantly done in films and on television, but after several minutes she still hadn't managed to get the sheet about her with any degree of safety.
‘Here.’ Caleb Steele finally took pity on her struggles, draping the loose sheet over her free arm while securing the end of it between her breasts. ‘Relax,’ he instructed drily without looking up from his task as she flinched at the intimacy. ‘Don't you know that this sort of modesty is a thing of the past? It's very well done, though,’ he drawled, stepping back to look at her with dispassionate eyes. ‘Maybe I could find a part for you. Did you have anything in mind?'
‘In mind?’ She was standing now, aware that she barely reached this man's shoulder in her bare feet, also aware that the two-inch heels on her shoes wouldn't make that much difference either.
He pulled a face. ‘The casting-couch may be long dead, but the bed isn't.’ He gave the latter a derisive look, its tumbled look showing evidence of their presence there together.
Cat swallowed hard. ‘You think—that is—you believe—'
He once again crossed his arms in front of his powerful chest. ‘Did the director prove difficult?' he mocked. ‘If it was Maurice Goodson I'm not surprised.’ His mouth twisted. ‘He's a happily married man and never touches other women.'
‘I'm glad to hear it,’ she bit out tautly. ‘Maybe some of his scruples will rub off on you—'
‘I'm not married,’ he told her coldly. ‘And not intending to be.’ He studied her between narrowed lids. ‘So if that's the role you're after, kid, forget it.'
She didn't know whether she was more angry at being called ‘kid’ or at the way he assumed she had gone to bed with him because she had in mind being the next Mrs Caleb Steele. She decided the latter more urgently needed rebuttal. ‘You flatter yourself if you think I would even consider marrying someone as cold and arrogant as you,’ she dismissed hardly. ‘And contrary to what you think there's more to life, my life, than using people for gain. The real world isn't like that!'
‘The real world is exactly like that,’ he derided pityingly.
‘Not my world,’ she insisted. ‘I don't want anything from you, Mr Steele. Whatever happened between us last night was not planned. I don't want payment, in any way, shape, or form for it. You—'
‘You know,’ he remarked softly, almost conversationally, ‘it's as well we didn't get to do too much talking last night; I can't stand women that nag.'
‘You—you—'
‘Go take your shower, Cat,’ he dismissed in a bored voice. ‘And take this with you.'
‘This’ was the shimmering green dress she had worn the evening before and which he had just picked up from the bedroom floor, reminding her more forcefully than anything else could have done that she had casually spent the night with this man. She felt as if she didn't know herself any more, so why should Caleb Steele!
She snatched the dress from his hand, looking around for the lace panties that were all she had worn beneath the clinging material, her cheeks colouring anew as she saw Caleb Steele was holding those out to her, too. They were really just the minutest scrap of pale green lace, and she crushed it within her hand.
‘We'll talk as soon as you've had your shower,’ he told her confidently, picking up the telephone at the end of the statement, talking crisply into the receiver as he ordered a full breakfast for both of them.
Cat hastily shut the bathroom door before his talk of grilled food made her physically ill. How could this have happened to her? She had come to the party last night in all innocence. Admittedly it was a little wilder than she had anticipated, the majority of the guests appearing to be around the nineteen or twenty mark as their young host was. She hadn't particularly liked that cynical young man from the beginning, and she had a fair idea that he had been the one who had doctored her drinks, seeming to dislike her as much as she disliked him. When his father had appeared on the scene she didn't know, but he obviously had, and with the alcohol in her system she had gone to bed with him. Which was very strange, because usually she just passed out!
She didn't believe she had made love with Caleb Steele, no matter what he said to the contrary!
She turned straight round and marched back into the bedroom, no longer caring that she wore only the draped sheet. ‘You're a lying, rotten, lousy—’ She broke off as she realised Caleb Steele was no longer alone, that an older man had joined him, a well-dressed pleasant-faced man who appeared to be taking instructions when she entered the room. And from the cursory glance he gave in her direction, the blue eyes completely devoid of emotion, he found nothing unusual in seeing a sheet-wrapped woman walking about his employer's bedroom suite!
Black eyes met her stormy green ones with icy disdain. And then Caleb Steele turned away and resumed his business discussion with the man at his side.
Cat couldn't believe it, had never been dismissed in such a way before! It was just as if she were of no importance at all. She drew in an angry breath. ‘I said—'
‘I heard you.’ His head snapped up. ‘It may have escaped your notice,’ he drawled with heavy sarcasm, ‘but I'm busy right now.'
Busy! He was busy. She was trying to regain her self-respect and he was busy! It may be clichéd, but who the hell did he think he was! The answer to that was all too obvious, but who he was and the amount of money he was worth, didn't much matter to her at this moment. Who she was, and the amount of money she wasn't worth didn't mean Caleb Steele could dismiss her like an old shirt! If he treated all of his women in this way it was no wonder his affairs didn't last.
‘You may be busy, Mr Steele—’ her chin rose challengingly when his associate at last showed surprise—at her formality with the man who's bedroom she stood almost naked in. It was the erroneous impression her appearance gave that made her carry on in spite of the cold anger emitting from Caleb Steele. ‘But I want to talk to you. Now,’ she added firmly as she guessed he was about to dismiss her a second time. ‘Unless you would care to discuss what happened in that bed last night in front of an audience?'
The man at his side gave a choked sound, somewhere between a cough and a laugh, beginning to cough in earnest as that coal-black gaze was suddenly riveted on him.
‘You sound bad, Norm,’ his employer grated with icy insincerity. ‘Why don't you go and get yourself a cup of coffee and we'll continue with this later. When you're feeling better.’ The last was added threateningly.
‘Sure.’ The other man spoke for the first time, American like his employer. ‘I—er—nice to have met you, Miss—er—'
‘Cat,’ Caleb Steele put in icily before she could make any reply. ‘And believe me,’ he drawled suggestively, ‘she more than lives up to her name!’ He flexed his shoulders as if something there pained him.
Like claw marks, from a cat! And she knew damn well that except for that fine covering of dark hair his back was smooth and unmarked.
A speculative light entered the man Norm's eyes. ‘Perhaps we'll meet again, Cat,’ he murmured in a somewhat puzzled voice, as if for once he were surprised at his employer's choice of a bed-partner.
‘I doubt that,’ she answered him but looked at Caleb Steele. ‘I wound to kill!'
‘Yes. Well,’ the older man looked flustered now, ‘I'll talk to you later, Caleb.’ He made a hasty exit before he was caught in the verbal war that seemed to be taking place in the bedroom.
Caleb Steele looked at her with expressionless black eyes. ‘And just how do you intend to wound me, Catherine Howard?’ he challenged in a softly threatening voice.
Her eyes flashed. ‘If I had any sense I'd stab you in the back the way my namesake should have done Henry the Eighth! You're as lying and deceitful as he ever was!’ She tossed back her mane of golden hair.
‘I am?'
Steel encased in velvet. There was no other way to describe that softly spoken threat. But she wasn't about to be intimidated by him; he had lied to her and he was going to admit it. ‘I didn't make love with you in that bed,’ she pointed to it angrily. ‘Or anywhere else last night!'
Dark brows rose. ‘You didn't?’ he drawled.
‘You know I didn't.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘I always pass out. I don't—don't—'
‘Leap into bed with men you don't know,’ he finished coldly. ‘Then how did you wake up in my bed this morning?'
Delicate colour darkened her cheeks. ‘I don't believe you slept in it. I also don't remember you being at the party last night. I can't remember seeing you there, and—'
‘I arrived late,’ he bit out, as if he were tired of the whole conversation. ‘And I did sleep in that bed last night. Next to you.'
She swallowed hard, knowing by the flat uninterested tone of his voice that he didn't lie. But she always passed out!
Her distress must have shown in her face, because something like compassion flickered in his eyes. ‘Cat—'
‘I'm sorry,’ she bit out jerkily, swinging away, needing to escape back to the sanctuary of the bathroom. ‘I was rude to you just now in front of an employee.’ She couldn't think straight, needed to be alone away from the tumbled intimacy of this bedroom so that she could try to piece together the events of last night, try to make some sense of it in her own mind. ‘I—I'll apologise later if you would like me to. I—I'll go and take my shower now—'
‘Cat!'
Again she ignored the steely command in his voice, running into the bathroom, locking the door behind her this time before collapsing back against it.
If only she could remember, if only she knew what had happened last night to make her want to make love to Caleb Steele. She couldn't believe she had wanted to make love with him; she didn't even like the man.
What had Vikki said to her before she left for the party last night, ‘Be good'? And then they had both come back with the rejoinder about ‘being careful’ before Cat had laughingly taken her leave. She had no idea whether she had been ‘good', but careful she certainly hadn't been.
How could she have taken Caleb Steele as her lover when she belonged heart and soul to Harry?
