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station near Willoughby, Australia. Then Hollywood would send him packing, and he’d have to return to a home where everyone had grown to depend on him for everything.
    It seemed one or another of his relatives always had their hand out for something—generally money. And they seemed to think he should feel obligated to dole it out to them willy-nilly just because he had it. He wasn’t a brother or a nephew or a cousin anymore. He was a bloody meal ticket, and he knew they would heartily resent it if the money ran out.
    Jayne watched the emotions play across his face as Reilly stared down at his boots, and her heart twisted in her chest. He looked vulnerable. He looked troubled. She could sense the turmoil in him, and she wanted to reach out to offer him comfort.
    “What happened?” she asked softly, offering him the chance to unburden himself.
    He didn’t take it. Not that that surprised her. Reilly was stubborn, having come from a place where men were men. It wouldn’t be easy for him to open up to a woman. Jayne realized with no small amount of dismay that, if and when thetime came, she wanted to be that woman. Feeling that way was just asking for trouble.
    “It just fell through, that’s all,” he said gruffly, setting his granite jaw. He wasn’t about to tell Jayne Jordan he was scared. She’d never thought he had any talent to begin with. It had always rankled that he wanted her in spite of her opinion of his abilities, but want her he did.
    He lifted his eyes and blasted her with their powerful beam of magnetism. “It’s just as well. Now I’ve got all the time I need to concentrate on you.”
    Jayne blinked, feeling like a small fragile animal caught in the mesmerizing gaze of a big golden lion. It took every ounce of courage she possessed just to shake her head. “I don’t want that, Reilly.”
    He took a step toward her, a study in leashed power, and bent his head down toward hers. He hooked a big calloused finger under her chin and whispered in a tone of voice that was like steel sheathed in silk, “Well, that’s just too damn bad, sheila, because I made a promise and I mean to keep it. The year’s up, luv. Now we find out what this thing is that burns between us.”

THREE
    S HE THOUGHT HE was going to kiss her again. To her shame, she knew a part of her wanted him to kiss her again. But he didn’t. He stared down at her a long moment, saying nothing, gauging her response, she supposed. The air around them seemed so highly charged, Jayne thought it was a wonder her hair wasn’t standing on end.
    This was one of the things that frightened her about Reilly. He had such power, was so overwhelmingly male. There was an intensity in him she couldn’t even begin to handle. And then there was the little matter of his reputation. He’d been linked in the tabloids with every starlet from Madonna to Molly Ringwald. If only half the stories were true, he’d had a dozen romances in half as many years. She had seen him herself with anumber of different women while she’d been living in L.A.
    Actors were notoriously fickle. Jayne had had plenty of first-hand experience with that trait before she’d met Mac. They were generally men whose egos were too fragile to withstand criticism, whose passions changed like the wind. They demanded the undivided attention of their partners, always wanting a captive and enraptured audience, because all of life was a stage to them and they all believed they had the starring role.
    Reilly was stubborn and intense and obviously fickle. That seemed a lethal combination to Jayne. His intensity would burn her up while they were together, and when his interest wandered elsewhere, she would be left in the ashes.
    “I think this is better left in the past,” she said, stepping back from him.
    “How can we leave something in the past when it hasn’t had the chance to happen yet?”
    It was a valid question, but she didn’t want to answer it. Some things were just never meant