Kate Hewitt - Bad Blood

The confidence she’d found on the island evaporated and suddenly she wanted to shrink into the background again.

In contrast, Nathaniel was cool and confident, striding through the ranks of photographers with a bored smile that was absolutely in character with his public persona. The man she’d spent the past two weeks with had vanished and he was every inch the remote, supersuccessful movie star.

‘I have nothing to say about my private life,’ he drawled, ‘but if you want to talk about Alpha Man , then contact one of my team.’

‘Do you blame Jacob for murdering your father?’

Nathaniel didn’t break stride, nor did he give any indication that he’d heard, but Katie thought that he gripped her hand a little tighter.

‘Do you think Alpha Man will win the Sapphire for Best Movie, Nathaniel?’

‘Katie, how does it feel to have trapped the wealthiest movie star in the world? Is he paying off your debts?’

Before she had time to recover from the shock, Nathaniel sprang like a leopard trapping its prey. Lithe and lethal, he ploughed through the front row and grabbed the journalist by the front of his shirt, dragging him forward. ‘She did not “trap” me,’ he growled, ‘and what I do with my money is none of your business.’

Frozen with shock, Katie closed her hand over his arm and tugged. ‘Let him go. He isn’t worth it.’

For a moment she thought he hadn’t heard her, and then he released the journalist and the man staggered. His face was white and he looked shaken.

‘Don’t ever speak to her like that again or I’ll rip your throat out.’ Nathaniel wrapped a protective arm round Katie. ‘Now leave us alone.’

Touched by his violent defence of her, Katie suddenly wished the journalists would just vanish. At that moment she felt closer to him than she ever had, and when he lowered his head to kiss her in blatant disregard of the cameras, she felt happiness brim over.

Through the mists of pleasure and the explosion of flashbulbs she heard a voice—a clear, hard voice—shout from the back of the crowd. ‘What about Carrie? Isn’t it time you talked about Carrie?’

Because her mouth was pressed against his, she felt the change, felt the ripples of tension as he slowly lifted his head.

Anxious murmurings spread across the crowd from journalists worried that they’d missed an important story. People turned to one another, seeking enlightenment as to who ‘Carrie’ was.

The journalist who had spoken pushed to the front. She was an icy blonde who had ruthless ambition stamped over every centimetre of her carefully made-up face. Behind her was a cameraman determined not to miss a shot. ‘Must have been a hell of a childhood, Nathaniel.’

Confused, Katie glanced at the woman and then back at Nathaniel. His face was the colour of the palest marble.

‘My childhood was fine.’

‘Really?’ It was obvious that the journalist wasn’t going to let it go. ‘If I knew my mother tried to drown me when I was a baby, I don’t think I’d be fine.’

His mother? Katie frowned, wondering how the woman could have got the story so wrong. It wasn’t his mother who had tried to drown him, it was his father. She waited for Nathaniel to correct the woman but he stood silent, the black fury in his eyes sending an uneasy silence across the crowd of journalists.

The blonde took a step backwards but refused to abandon her story. ‘You’ve been clever. You put out the story that your mother left, so none of us bothered looking. Why didn’t you just tell people she had a complete breakdown and she’s been in a psychiatric hospital ever since? You and your brother Sebastian should be proud that you used some of your many millions to build her a pretty cottage in the grounds so she thinks she’s living a normal life. Why do you keep her a secret, Nathaniel? Are you afraid that if people find out about your mother, it will ruin your perfect movie-star image?’

Carrie was his mother ?

She was in a psychiatric hospital?

Katie’s first impulse was to leap to his defence and deny it, but one look at Nathaniel’s white face and traumatised expression told her that the woman was telling the truth.

And this time he didn’t attack. He didn’t move. It was as if he’d been felled at the knees.

And the warmth inside Katie melted in an instant. His mother , she thought numbly. Hauling back the sick disappointment that he hadn’t told her, she focused on the blonde journalist. The woman’s smile said everything. She knew she’d hit the jackpot.

Pushing her own pain aside, driven by a depth of anger she’d never known before, Katie stepped forward. ‘How dare you use someone’s personal life for cheap entertainment and to make a name for yourself. Shame on you.’ Her voice shook and she stared at the woman with contempt. ‘Shame on you.’

Shaking with anger, Katie stepped backwards just as six bulky men arrived and surrounded them.

‘You’re late,’ Nathaniel said flatly, and the largest of the men gave him an apologetic look.

‘Terrible traffic in downtown LA, boss. Sorry.’

They were ushered out to a waiting limousine and Katie collapsed into the luxurious interior. The warmth she’d felt when he’d leapt to her defence had seeped away through the stab wounds made by this latest discovery. Why hadn’t he told her?

She glanced across at him but he sat in silence, withdrawn and remote. The Nathaniel she’d got to know on the island and in Rio— the real Nathaniel —was gone. Katie pushed aside her own pain. They’d only known each other for two weeks, she reasoned. For a man like him, that wasn’t long enough to establish real trust. She needed to be patient. ‘I’m sorry. She had no right to say all those things. How did she find out?’

Nathaniel tipped his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. ‘The surprise isn’t that she found out, but that it took everyone so long. Sebastian and I have been waiting for this for years. We tried to keep the secret—whenever there is press coverage about my father, it affects Carrie badly. She takes a lot of medication, but even with that, it isn’t good.’

He didn’t talk about it because he was trying to protect his mother. ‘Why do you call her Carrie?’

‘Because that’s how I think of her. I stopped thinking of her as my mother a long time ago. She wasn’t really capable of being a mother. She was too ill.’

‘Is it true that you built her a cottage?’

‘Sebastian and I wanted her to have as normal a life as possible. It’s easier to keep her condition stable when she isn’t around strangers. She lives in her own little world. Most of the time she’s happy enough. She has full-time carers who she sees as family.’

‘And what about you? Her real family?’

‘I see her whenever I’m in England. But she doesn’t recognise me. Or Sebastian.’ Nathaniel’s hands curled into fists. ‘Do you know the really frustrating thing? She talks about me all the time. “My son Nathaniel, famous Hollywood movie star …” But she doesn’t actually know it’s me. She calls Sebastian “Nathaniel” but when I visit her, she can’t seem to make the connection. Once she even asked me if I knew her son Nathaniel.’

Thinking about his bleak, loveless childhood brought a lump to her throat.

He’d learned to survive alone.

She slid along the seat and put her arms round him but he was rigid and unresponsive.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Nathaniel, you’re not fine!’

‘It’s how it is. It’s how it’s always been. I need to warn the clinic.’ Shrugging her away, he reached for his phone. ‘They need to keep her away from newspapers and television. It could have a serious impact on her emotional stability. And then I need to increase security so those jackals can’t get anywhere near her because she associates gangs of journalists with her disastrous marriage to my father. And the LA press don’t have anything on the British tabloids.’