she’d had to shoot one with someone she felt so attracted to. With someone as hot as Dominic MacDonald. With someone she’d had sex with not half an hour ago.
‘I’m fine. I could do without all of this, but that’s the nature of the job I suppose.’
‘You telling me you’re not looking forward to being with me? To having me touch you right where I know you like to be touched…’
He slid his hand under the robe she was wearing, his fingers gently brushing her thighs until she smacked his hand away. ‘Pack it in, Dominic!’ But she couldn’t help laughing, although, that was probably caused partly by nerves. ‘Jesus, this is hard enough without you making it worse.’
Michael watched from behind the monitor as Dominic and India laughed together, revealing a closeness he hadn’t really been prepared to see. But all that did was make it all the more important for him to get this scene in the can, and then think very carefully about confronting a man who’d walked into their lives and given Michael a bigger headache than he could ever have anticipated.
Dominic MacDonald had become a threat Michael just hadn’t been prepared for, but that was fine. It was okay, Michael could deal with him. Even though he’d never had to deal with a situation quite like this one before.
Taking a deep breath he called for action, watching the monitor as the scene took shape. He watched as Dominic slowly pulled the robe away from India’s now naked body, running his hands over her breasts, down over her hips and thighs, his eyes scanning every inch of her as she bit down on her bottom lip, her arms thrown up above her head which only served to accentuate everything Michael missed every day of his life, and a pain like someone stabbing his heart and twisting the knife cut across his chest, forcing him to briefly look away.
Knowing she was with another man was hard enough, but actually seeing her like this was something else, and now it was happening – pretend or not – it was the single-most painful thing Michael had ever experienced. Had he made a mistake by creating this scenario? No. It had needed to happen, to make him realise how much he needed India back in his life. To make him realise how much he still loved her.
He’d given them free reign of this scene, letting them go for it without too much help from him. His main job was to direct the cameras, make sure the angles were right, that not too much was shown, but what did it matter anyway? It was more than likely that none of this would make it to the final edit anyway. This was all for Michael, a personal crusade to mess up his own head and then spur him on to bring Dominic MacDonald down. To make sure he knew the score, because Michael didn’t really care who he was. That didn’t matter, and it should – but it didn’t. Because all that mattered to Michael was getting India back. And that meant Dominic had to lose. Everything.
***
Reece hung around in the open doorway of the hotel room they were using for this scene, watching from a distance, but close enough to be able to see Michael’s reaction to what was going on. And it was just as he’d feared. Michael Walsh was once more on a mission, and the target was quite obviously his daughter. The past was once again rearing its ugly head and Reece felt his stomach dip at the prospect of what might happen next, because Michael was nothing if not unpredictable. And whatever was going on, it concerned India and Dominic, Reece knew that for certain.
There was no reason for this scene to be playing out in front of everybody, and the image of his daughter in the arms of a man she was involved with, off screen as well as on, was one that Reece neither wanted nor needed to see, but it was quite obvious that Michael had done this for a reason. And probably a very selfish and dangerous reason, but this time Reece refused to be shut out of whatever this situation turned out to be. Michael Walsh had hurt his daughter once, in a way that Reece still had no idea about, and that in itself was enough to make him certain that was not going to happen again.