Shameless Playboy (14 page)

 
          
He
looked at her for an age, a moment, a heartbeat. Cars skidded past them on the
late-night street, the traditionally uniformed doorman hailed a cab with a
shrill whistle and London carried on all around them, the city bright and noisy
and shimmering in the winter rain.

 
          
And
there was Lucas, brilliant against the night, as if nothing else had ever
mattered, or could.

 
          
“Come
with me,” he whispered, and held out his hand.

 
          
She
could not speak, or move. She felt herself sway slightly, as if pulled to him
by some invisible chain. She knew too much now—that his body was so strong, so
warm, so incredibly
male
. That he
could set her on fire with only that dark, stirring gaze even as the cold rain
fell down on them both.

 
          
She
felt the great gulf of the loneliness she spent her waking hours denying yawn
open inside of her, reminding her of all the nights she’d spent alone, all the
years she’d denied she was a woman, all the vows and promises she’d made to
herself about how different she would be than her mother, than her own past.
Than what had happened to her. But then Lucas had touched her, and she was
nothing
but
a woman.

 
          
Finally
, something inside of her
whispered, and that word seemed to ricochet inside of her, leaving marks.
Scars.

 
          
She
wanted to reach over and slip her hand into his more than she could remember
ever wanting anything else.

 
          
He
was far too good at this, she thought in a kind of daze—and it was that sudden
spark of reality that gave her the courage, the strength, to step back from
him. To really
see
him again, instead
of what she felt.

 
          
To
remember exactly who he was, and what he did, and
why
he knew all the right buttons to push, and how best to tempt
her. He could seduce a stone gargoyle. He probably had.

 
          
And
if her heart hurt inside her chest, well, that was just another secret she
would learn how to keep. And hide away, where he could never find it again to use
against her.

 
          
“I
can’t,” she whispered. “I won’t.” And then she turned away from him, blind but
determined, and did not breathe again until she’d hurled herself into the
nearest black cab and slammed the door between them.

 
          
Walking
into the morning meeting the following day, with a smile on her face and
exuding all the professionalism she possessed, was one of the most difficult
things Grace had ever had to do.

 
          
If
she could have, she would have called in sick. But she’d suspected that doing
so would be far too telling—it would give Lucas far more of an advantage than
he already had, and she could not live with that possibility.

 
          
I am my own heroin
, he had said, and now
she was terribly afraid he was hers, too. She felt very nearly strung out, and
he had done nothing but kiss her. Just imagine …

 
          
But
she refused to go down that road.

 
          
“Good
morning,” he said, along with the rest of the team as she entered the
conference room—his voice seeming to arrow straight into the center of her,
kicking up echoes and vibrations.

 
          
There
was no need to look at him directly, she told herself as she took her place at
the head of the table and confidently addressed those gathered. There was no
need for anything so foolish, and anyway, she had already blinded herself
staring into that particular sun. She had already flirted with her worst fears.
No need to compound her sins.

 
          
But,
unfortunately, she did have to look at him when the topic of the gala’s
entertainment was raised. She glanced over, surprised to see that while he
lounged carelessly in his seat like a pasha, his eyes were on the tablet in
front of him. It should have felt like a reprieve. Instead, she felt a
hollowness behind her breastbone.

 
          
“We
have some exciting news,” she said crisply, infuriated with her own weakness.
Again. “Once again, our newest addition has proven himself to be an invaluable
asset to the Hartington’s team. If you’ll explain your latest coup, M—”

 
          
She
never finished saying
Mr. Wolfe
. She
didn’t even fully say the word
mister
,
because his head snapped up, his green eyes fierce. Searing. Furious. Daring
her to call him a name designed to distance him, after all that had happened.
After they had tasted each other and burned in the same fire.
Daring her
.

 
          
There
was a tense, tight silence. Grace felt herself flush. His eyes slammed into
her, and she was terrified that everyone could see—that everyone knew—that she
might as well have been writhing in his lap there and then, making a fool of
herself, a spectacle of herself just like before, every inch the names her
mother had thrown at her….

 
          
She
was losing it.

 
          
“Lucas,”
she said, knowing as she did so that she should not have capitulated, that she
should have prevented that gleam of deep male satisfaction from warming his
gaze by any means necessary. That he had won something she could not afford to
lose. “If you could share …?”

 
          
She
could not let this happen, she told herself as Lucas began to talk. She watched
him play to the crowd, with a self-deprecating smile and that wickedly funny
turn of phrase that had everyone on the edges of their seats, hanging on his
every word.

 
          
And
she was no better.

 
          
She
was, in fact, everything her mother had predicted she would become.

 
          
Grace
let that sit there for a moment, a shocking and breathtaking realization, cruel
and all-encompassing—but it was true. How could she deny it? Lucas Wolfe
possessed not one single redeeming characteristic, and still, she had melted,
become a stranger to herself, at his slightest touch. How could that make her
anything but … loose? Easy? Ruined already, from within?

 
          
She
thought of those strange, loaded moments in the rain outside the hotel last
night. She thought of the arrested look in his eyes, as if he’d felt the same
complicated rush of emotion and confusion that she had—

 
          
But
she shoved that all aside, ruthlessly.

 
          
She
would do whatever she had to do, but she would not let him destroy her. She
would not let everything she’d worked for disappear so easily. She would not,
could not, let herself be everything her mother had told her she’d be, sooner
or later. Not now. Not ever.

 
          
He
had expected a cold reception. He had even expected that she might pretend
nothing had happened and carry on as if that was the case.

 
          
But
Lucas had not been at all prepared for Grace Carter, the most determined and
prickly woman he could remember tangling with, to completely avoid his gaze. To
blush in public. And then to bolt toward the door when the meeting had ended,
quite as if she planned to run away from him altogether.

 
          
He
wanted to feel something like triumph, but did not. It was something else,
something closer to temper, that surged through him.

 
          
“Grace?”
he called after her, not bothering to rise from his seat, but loud enough to
carry to the rest of the team as they filed for the door. To force her hand. “If
I could have a word?”

 
          
He
saw her back stiffen, but when she turned, that smile of hers was firmly
stamped across her mouth. Perhaps only he could see the color high on her
elegant cheekbones. Perhaps only he noticed the storm in her dark brown eyes.

 
          
She
waited by the door, smiling and exchanging a few words with her staff as they
left, and then closed it behind the last of them, trapping them together in the
great fishbowl of a conference room. It was glass on three sides, and sat in
the center of the offices and cubicles all around them, so that anyone
happening by in the halls could glance in and see what was going on.

 
          
He
wondered if that made her feel safe. It made him … twitchy. He remained in his
seat, with the whole glossy width of the big table between them, because he
knew that if he stood he would put his hands on her, and if he touched her
again, he did not think he would stop.

 
          
“That
is the ugliest suit I have ever seen,” he told her, his voice low, his careless
posture at complete odds with the strange tightness that held him in a secure
grip. “I cannot imagine where you find these things. It is as if you pay to
deliberately obscure your figure and your natural beauty.”

 
          
“Is
this what you wished to discuss in private?” she asked, her voice frigid even
as her brown eyes shot flames at him. Even as she retained the razor’s edge
version of that smile. “My fashion sense?”

 
          
“I
think you mean your lack thereof,” he replied lazily.

 
          
“Your
concerns are duly noted,” she said tightly. “And this is a world-renowned
designer suit, for your information. But if that is all, I really must—”

 
          
“Grace.”
He liked the way her name felt on his tongue. He liked the sound of it in the
air between them, the command in it. He liked how her eyes darkened in
reaction. He wondered where else she reacted, and how it would taste.

 
          
“We
are not going to discuss it,” she told him, her full lips thinning in distress.
“Not any of it. We will never mention it again. I am deeply appalled at my own
behavior and can only assume you feel the same—”

 
          
“I
do not.” He arched his brow. She let out an impatient, aggrieved sort of
breath.

 
          
“You
should!” Her voice was harsh. Raw.

 
          
She
cleared her throat, and smoothed back her hair with one palm. It did not
require any attention—it was already ruthlessly yanked back into her typical
slick twist, and all he could think of was the glorious fullness of it when it
had fallen around them. The weight of it, the scent of it. Her delicate,
intoxicating little moans against his mouth.

 
          
“I
will thank you not to tell me how to feel,” he said mildly. It was only a
figure of speech, he told himself. It was only to score a point. It did not
mean he
felt
.

 
          
She
looked away, and he could see that she fought with herself—for control,
perhaps. He wanted her to lose that control, once and for all. He had already
tasted it, and he wanted more. He wanted her wild and wanton and free.

 
          
He
simply wanted her. It was no more complicated than that.

 
          
“I
do not have time for this,” she said at last. “For you. For … what happened. I
can think only of the gala.”

 
          
He
thought she sounded desperate. He told himself he wanted her that way. That had
always worked well for him in the past. He ignored the small voice that
insisted that this woman was not like other women. That she could see him. That
she could know him. That she was Grace, and different.

 
          
“All
work and no play …” he began, teasing her, alarmed at the direction of his own
thoughts.

 
          
Her
eyes shot to his. “That is not a topic I suspect you have any familiarity with
at all,” she snapped out. She let out a breath, and when she spoke again, her
voice was smoother. “It’s wonderful that you are able to help so much, that
your connections are so useful. It really is. But that doesn’t change the fact
that my florist is a prima donna or that the security firm keeps changing its
estimate, does it? And those are the things that require my attention. Not you.”