By His Desire

BY

HIS

DESIRE

Kate Grey

BY HIS DESIRE

Kate Grey

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright 2012 by Kate Grey. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

Chapter One

“Can I make a comment that will probably piss you off?”

Keith Logan glanced at his assistant, Valerie. “Nothing’s ever stopped you before.”

“Yeah, but I usually rip you about work-related stuff, and this is personal.”

Keith turned back to the million dollar painting he’d just lent to the Modern Art Museum. “Go for it,” he said, knowing she would anyway.

“I think you should start spending your money on something that will make you happy.”

He frowned. “I am happy.”

Valerie shook her head firmly. “No, you’re not. And ever since you bought that painting it’s even more obvious. You get this expression on your face whenever you look at it, like…” her voice trailed off.

“Like what?” he asked in spite of himself.

“Like you want something you can’t have. And that’s not the look of a happy man.”

Keith slid his hands into the pockets of his three thousand dollar suit. “I see. And your solution to this supposed problem is to throw money at it? That’s not like you. You usually encourage me to throw my money at hospitals and homeless shelters.”

“Yes, and I’m not going to stop doing that. But it wouldn’t hurt for you to spend something on yourself.” She gestured towards the oil painting, which was a portrait of a young woman. “I was actually glad when you bought this thing, because you wanted it so much and I thought it would make you happy. But it hasn’t. So my advice is to spend a few weeks just…you know, indulging yourself. Go to Paris or London or some city you love. Spend obscene amounts of money for world-famous chefs to cook your favorite dishes. Pay high-class escorts to fulfill your wildest sexual fantasies.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, so I was joking about the last part. But you could indulge in a few crazy one-night stands.”

“What makes you think I’m not doing that already?”

Valerie rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. I’ve been your assistant for three years. I can tell when you’re getting laid. The last time was…” She frowned, thinking. “Two months ago? No—two and a half. That advertising exec, what was her name? Horrible woman. I hated her guts.”

This conversation was starting to bug him a little. “Her name was Emily, and she wasn’t horrible.”

“She was cold as ice and totally ambitious. The worst possible match for you. I just thank God she dropped you for that idiot senator. But whatever. I don’t really care what you do, as long as you do something. You’ve been coming to the museum every day to stare at that painting, and you’re starting to look a little…” she hesitated.

“A little what?” he asked irritably.

“Grim. Dark. Foreboding. And frankly, it’s getting old. I feel like I’m working for Heathcliff and Mr. Rochester and Edward Cullen all rolled up into one.”

“Edward Cullen?”

“Pop culture reference. He’s a vampire. He broods.”

“So if I stop brooding, you’ll leave me alone?”

Valerie sighed. “I just wish you’d figure out the one thing in the world that would make you absolutely, ecstatically happy—and go after it.”

His gaze returned to the painting. “I’ll take it under advisement. Now, if you wouldn’t mind actually earning your salary, I’d appreciate it if you’d go to the auction we were discussing and bid on that first edition.”

“Fine, fine. What are you going to do?”

“Figure out what would make me absolutely, ecstatically happy. Which may turn out to be firing you.”

She grinned at him. “You wouldn’t last a week without me. Later, boss.”

He listened to the efficient clicking of Valerie’s heels as she walked across the marble floor, leaving him alone in the big gallery. He actually would have a hard time functioning without her. She was efficient and irreverent and smart as a whip, and the fact that she was a lesbian was a bonus.

As an extremely well-heeled bachelor, he often had to deal with female employees who had decided he was the husband of their dreams. It was a relief to know there was at least one woman in his life without romantic designs on him. All he had to deal with from her was an annoying tendency to fuss over him like an overprotective sister.

As he stared at the portrait in front of him, he wondered what Valerie would say if he told her that once upon a time, he’d actually known what would make him absolutely, ecstatically happy.

Sarah Harper.

The portrait had been painted by her father, the famous artist, and he had captured his subject perfectly. Sarah had looked exactly like this in high school. Beautiful and intelligent, with a face like eager flame behind a veneer of shyness.

He’d never been able to break through that shyness. All his life, his money and good looks had been enough to charm everyone he’d ever met…except for Sarah. She was the only girl who’d ever haunted his dreams, and he’d never made a dent in her reserve. During the four years they’d gone to high school together he could hardly get her to talk to him, much less go out with him.

They’d graduated and gone on to different colleges, and for the most part Keith had forgotten about her. But every so often she’d pop into his head, always with a hot surge of remembered lust. Something about Sarah had just…done it for him, and even years later the memory of her could still affect him. So when Julian Harper passed away and a few of his unsold paintings showed up in art auction catalogues, Keith paid attention. His own father had died six years ago, leaving him an enormous fortune, and now, for the first time, he was actually glad he had nearly unlimited funds at his disposal. They enabled him to buy the portrait he was looking at right now.

Sarah was sitting on an overstuffed sofa with her feet tucked up under her. She was wearing a green dress exactly the color of her eyes, and her long mahogany hair was loose around her shoulders.

He wished he could have brought the painting home right away, but the auction house’s arrangement with the Harper estate included a month-long showing at the museum before the purchaser could take possession. He still had one week to go before the portrait would be his.

“The museum will close in fifteen minutes,” the p.a. system announced.

Keith checked his watch. Considering how much money he’d donated to this place over the years, the staff probably wouldn’t kick him out at closing time if he wanted to stay. But he’d been here for more than an hour already. It was time to go home.

He turned to do just that, and froze.

Sarah Harper was standing in the middle of the gallery, looking right at him.

* * *

Sarah’s body flushed hot, as though she’d stepped under a heat lamp. Keith Logan was standing just a few yards away. She recognized him immediately, even though it had been ten years since she last saw him.

Her first instinct was to run and hide, as if she were a little girl instead of a grown woman. Her eyes actually went to the exits, as if she were planning her getaway.

Then she took a deep breath. What was she thinking? She needed to pull herself together and go say hello.

And she would. Any second now.

Move, feet. Move.

If she’d been prepared to see him, she would have taken the time to put on emotional layers of protection—enough to cultivate a polite, relaxed demeanor and a friendly smile. But as it was, she felt awkward and exposed, as if she were back in high school again with a secret crush on the most unattainable guy on the planet.

Her palms were actually sweating.

Okay, enough. She managed to put some kind of smile on her face as she forced her legs to carry her forward.

“Keith. Wow. It’s been a while, huh?”

His face was completely blank, which was a little disconcerting. “Sarah. Hi.”

When he held out his hand she would have killed for the chance to wipe hers on her jeans before she took it.

But Keith didn’t seem to notice that her palm was sweaty. His fingers tightened around hers in a warm grip, and a shock of awareness went through her. She wondered if he could sense how fast her heart was suddenly beating.

She pulled her hand away with a jerk, and then blushed. She was acting like an idiot in front of the man who had paid a million dollars for one of her father’s paintings.

She looked up at the painting in question. If it had been left to her, she would never, ever have sold it. But the portrait, along with everything else, had gone to her stepmother.

“So I heard you, um, bought this,” she said, wincing inwardly at the inanity of the statement.

When Keith didn’t say anything, she glanced at him again. He was looking at her, not the painting, with a kind of focused intensity in his blue eyes.

She wondered if she had a foam mustache from the cappuccino she’d drunk earlier. The urge to brush a thumb over her upper lip was almost unbearable, but she remembered what her therapist had told her about that kind of self-consciousness.

It wasn’t a reflection of reality. Let it go.

Maybe Keith was just comparing the way she looked now to the way she looked in the portrait.

“He, um, painted that the summer before I went to college. So of course I look older now.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “I was thinking you look exactly the same.”

She did? Was that good or bad?

Keith, on the other hand, didn’t look exactly the same.

He looked better.

Broad shoulders in a perfectly tailored suit. Black hair, blue eyes, chiseled features. And most of all, a sense of controlled masculine power that sent a tickling sensation to the corners of her body—the insides of her elbows and the soles of her feet and the hollows behind her knees.

Just like in high school, her intense awareness of Keith Logan made her blush like a furnace. She may have made huge strides in dealing with her social anxiety disorder in the last several years, but right now, at this moment, it felt like she was seventeen again.

Time to go, Sarah.

She opened her mouth to say a polite goodbye.

“Have dinner with me tonight.”

She stared at him, her mouth still open. He’d spoken the words abruptly, without smiling, which made her wonder if he’d felt obligated to ask—because they’d known each other in high school, or because of the painting, or something.

“Oh…that’s nice of you, Keith, but I…”

“Do you have plans?”

Still abrupt, and still no smile. His blue eyes narrowed a little as he studied her, and something about that focused gaze made her answer honestly. “No, I was just going home.”

“To write?”

He knew she was a novelist? “Well…yes.” She wrote historical fiction, and was currently working on a story set in ancient Ireland. “My editor is expecting the first draft next month, so I have to keep my nose to the grindstone.”

“You need to eat, though. Right?”

This was starting to feel surreal. Keith Logan, one of the richest men in the city—not to mention the guy she’d had a crush on all through high school—was pushing her to have dinner with him.

“Um…”

“We’ll go around the corner to Michael’s.” Then he held out his arm.

In a daze, she took it.

The feel of his strong, suit-covered bicep under her hand was so distracting that she stumbled on the edge of the carpet in the museum lobby. Immediately that powerful arm was even closer, around her waist.

“Okay?” he asked.

She looked up to tell him she was fine, but the words caught in her throat.

He was so close she saw the shadow of stubble on his jaw, and the scar on his left temple she remembered from high school. He was so close she caught the faint scent of really expensive cologne.

He was so close she felt the warmth of his body through his elegant suit.

“Yes,” she finally managed to say. “I’m fine.”

Except that she wasn’t. She wasn’t anywhere close to fine.

But it was just dinner. An hour, maybe an hour and a half.

She could get through one meal with this man, no matter how awkward and self-conscious she felt around him. It would be a kind of milestone. If she could deal with this, it meant she could deal with any social situation.

One dinner was nothing. One dinner, and then she’d never see Keith Logan again.

* * *

He couldn’t let this be the last time he saw her.

And yet he knew by the time their entrees came that she wouldn’t go out with him again. He’d asked, casually, what she was doing that weekend, and she’d said she was busy. No details—just that she was busy. When he’d asked more specifically if she wanted to get together for coffee sometime—because everyone had an hour for coffee, right?—she said no, thank you. Again, no explanation: just that polite no thank you.