Shameless Playboy (3 page)

 
          
The
one who was still scowling at him.

 
          
“If
I was someone else,” he said, letting his gaze drift to that expressive mouth
she held so tightly, “I might begin to think that scowl meant you disliked me.
Which is, of course, impossible.”

 
          
“Never
say never,” she replied, so very sweetly.

 
          
“I
rarely do,” he assured her in a low voice, lifting his gaze to hers and letting
them both feel the heat of it. “As I’d be happy to demonstrate.”

 
          
There
was a brief, searing pause.

 
          
“Did
you just suggest what I think you suggested?” she demanded, her dark eyes
promising fire and brimstone and other such irritants. Her full mouth firmed
into a disapproving line.

 
          
He
couldn’t have said why he was so entertained.

 
          
“I
can’t say that I remember what I suggested,” he replied, smiling again. “But
one gathers you’re opposed.”

 
          
“The
word is
insulted
, Mr. Wolfe,” she
retorted. “Not
opposed
.”

 
          
But
he knew what that spark in her gaze meant, and it wasn’t insult. “If you say
so,” he said, and let his gaze move over her body.

 
          
She
was tall and slim, with rich curves in all the right places, bright blond hair
and soulfully deep brown eyes, making her the perfect, long-legged distraction.
Unfortunately, she was also wearing entirely too many severely cut articles of
clothing, all of them designed to force a man’s eye from the very places it was
naturally drawn.

 
          
Add
to that her scraped-back, no-nonsense hairstyle and it was abundantly clear
that
this
woman was one of those
stuffy, deeply boring career women who Lucas found tedious in the extreme. The
only kind of distraction this woman would be likely to provide, he knew from
painful experience, would come in the form of a blistering lecture concerning
his many moral failings rather than a few hot moments with her long legs wrapped
around his hips while he thrust deep and true.

 
          
A great pity
, Lucas thought, grudgingly.

 
          
“I
beg your pardon?” It was not the first time she had said it, he realized. She
was still staring at him in a horror he found overdone and on the verge of insulting,
her honey-and-cream voice laced with shock. “I don’t mean to be rude, Mr.
Wolfe, but are you by any chance still drunk?”

 
          
She
might have gone out of her way to hide her many charms, but he happened to be a
connoisseur of women. He could see exactly what her full lower lip promised and
could imagine the precise, delicious weight of her full breasts in his palms.
Why a woman would hide her own beauty so deliberately was a mystery to Lucas—and
one he had no interest at all in solving.

 
          
Not
today, when there were mysteries to go around. Not ever.

 
          
He
moved to one of the chairs in front of her desk and lowered himself into it,
watching the way her huge brown eyes tracked his every movement as he sprawled
into a much more comfortable position. Not with the shell-shocked, often
lascivious awe to which he was accustomed, but with a certain, unexpected
wariness instead. He was interested despite himself.

 
          
“Not
at all,” he said, smiling at her, knowing that one of his legendary dimples was
even now appearing in his lean jaw. “Though a drink would certainly not go
amiss. Thank you. I find I am partial to bourbon this week.”

 
          
“I
am not offering you a drink, or anything else,” she said, a snap in her voice,
though her smile remained nailed in place. “From what I observed last night, I
can’t imagine you would ever require another one.”

 
          
“I’m
sorry,” he replied easily, still smiling, propping up his jaw with one hand. “Did
we meet last night—or were you simply one of the many onlookers? Part of the
inevitable crowd? Perfect strangers do so love to watch my every move and make
up stories to suit their own opinions of my character.”

 
          
It
was meant to embarrass her, as Lucas knew well that even the most prurient
gossipmonger hated to be called out as such, but she did not balk. Instead, she
waved a hand at his black eye, his split lip, her eyes steady on his. Bold,
even.

 
          
“Is
a story required?” she asked from behind that veneer of politeness that he
noted and knew better than to believe. “The truth seems sordid enough, surely.”

 
          
He
forced himself to sink even farther into the chair, every inch of him decadent
and debauched, exactly as vile as she believed him to be. He knew more about
veneers, about masks and misdirection, than anyone ought to know. It had always
been his first and best defense. He thrust aside the dark cloud of memory that
hovered far too close today, another offense to lay at Jacob’s prodigal feet,
and forced a smile.

 
          
“The
wages of sin,” he murmured, his voice suggestive, smoky.

 
          
She
would see what he wanted her to see, he knew. The useless parasite, the
indolent playboy. They always did.

 
          
“Sin
is your area of expertise, Mr. Wolfe,” she said briskly. “Mine is events
management.”

 
          
“And
never the twain shall meet,” Lucas said with an exaggerated, theatrical sigh. “My
heart breaks.”

 
          
“I
rather think you operate from a different part of your anatomy,” she said,
those dark eyes gleaming.

 
          
“I’m
delighted you think about that part of my anatomy,” he replied smoothly. “Feel
free to indulge yourself. At length.” He smiled. “No pun intended.”

 
          
He
was fascinated by the color that showed against her high cheekbones, the way
her full mouth firmed. She was dressed to exude a particular message—competence
and elegance—and Lucas could see she hit those notes perfectly. But only a
blind man could miss the fact that she was perfectly formed—which made him
wonder about the rest of her, the trim body buttoned up tight beneath her
layers of black and gray.

 
          
She
held herself under such tight control. How could he not imagine what she would
be like without it?

 
          
“I
should tell you,” he said idly, flicking an imaginary piece of dust from his
lapel as if he was not watching her closely, “I have never laid eyes upon
something buttoned-up that I was not drawn to unbutton, whether I choose to
indulge that urge or not.” He smiled as her hand crept toward the buttons on
her suit jacket and then dropped sharply to her side as if she’d reprimanded
herself. “It is one among my great many personal failings.”

 
          
She
crossed to the front of her desk and leaned back against it, folding her arms
over her chest. In that position, as she was clearly well aware, she could look
down her fine, delicate nose at him as he sprawled below her in the visitor’s
chair. He was no doubt meant to feel his inferiority keenly. But Lucas had
grown up subject to the uncertain temper and intermittent cruelty of the late,
unlamented bully William Wolfe, also known as his deeply despised and
little-mourned father, and he knew power games when people were unwise enough
to play them in his vicinity. He also knew how to win them. After all, he was
Lucas Wolfe. He was not a legend by accident.

 
          
Something
moved inside of him, rolled over and shook itself to life.

 
          
“Let
me be frank, Mr. Wolfe,” she said, smiling at him again, that bland, placid
smile that he knew, with sudden certainty, was meant to manage and soothe him
even as it hid her own feelings. Unfortunately, it only drew his attention to
her mouth.

 
          
“If
you have so far been less than candid, I cannot imagine the difference,” he
drawled as those brown eyes narrowed. “Will I require full body armor?”

 
          
That
sweet, fake smile sharpened. “Not at all,” she said, and her honey-and-cream
voice seemed to pool in his groin, making him uncomfortably hard. Surprising
him. Intriguing him. “I do apologize if I seem anything less than thrilled
about what will be, I’m sure, a long and productive relationship between you
and Hartington’s. As you know, Hartington’s greatly values its relationship
with your family.”

 
          
His
family. Lucas refused to think about them, the great damaged mess of them, much
less the cavern of guilt that always yawned open when he considered his own
epic failures where they were concerned. He shoved the thoughts, the memories,
aside—cursing Jacob’s name, his sudden reappearance. And then, as ever,
himself. He needed to sleep, he thought; he needed to regain his usual
equilibrium, to reaccess his sense of humor, at the very least.

 
          
“Do
you always speak in press releases?” he asked mildly, allowing no hint of his
inner turmoil to color his voice. “Or is this for my benefit? Because there are
far more interesting ways to secure my undivided attention.”

 
          
“My
focus is the centenary relaunch of the

 
          
Hartington’s
brand,” she continued, only the faintest flash in her milk–chocolate brown eyes
to show him she’d even heard him. “You may not be aware that we will be
throwing a gala event in just over three weeks to celebrate our hundredth year
as we reintroduce Hartington’s to the modern age.”

 
          
“As
a matter fact, I do know that,” he said, his gaze captured by the front of her
stern jacket, where her crossed arms drew attention to the tempting valley
between the breasts he saw only the barest hints of behind the gray silk of her
blouse. He dragged his eyes north and bit back a laugh when he saw her eyes
were narrowed even further in outrage. A different woman might have preened,
but she didn’t, and Lucas found he was less disappointed by the fact she was
not that woman than he should have been.

 
          
“Then
you must also know that this is an exciting time for Hartington’s,” she said.
Lucas did not think she sounded at all excited—rather, she sounded as if she
would like to have him forcibly removed from her office. He was well acquainted
with that tone, having heard it so often in his lifetime, even if, in her case,
it was drenched in all that Texas honey. “I’m sure that a man of your stature
will have a great deal to contribute.”

 
          
“And
by ‘stature,’” he murmured silkily, unable, somehow, to look away from her
narrowed chocolate gaze, and just as unable to rationalize his own behavior—why
should he care what she thought or meant?—”am I to assume you, in fact, mean ‘notoriety’?”

 
          
“Yours
is a face with which the whole of Britain, and indeed the world, is intimately
familiar,” she said, her cool gaze at odds with her soft, velvety voice. “Your
headline-grabbing antics are, truly, a gift to the public relations department.
No publicity is bad publicity, after all.”

 
          
“I
will have to schedule further antics at once,” he said, with bite, though she
neither quailed nor colored as she gazed back at him, as she should have done. “I
am certain there is no limit to the number of headlines I can grab, all for the
greater glory of Hartington’s.”

 
          
“You
are too kind,” she said sweetly, as if she had not picked up on his sardonic
tone, when he was more than certain she had. He could see that she had. She
nodded at his battered face. “Though perhaps you might let those bruises heal a
little bit first.”

 
          
Lucas
realized, belatedly, what a powerful asset she had in that voice of hers, so
soft and sugary and deadly all at once. A rapier-sharp blade sheathed in honey
and cream. It was impressive.

 
          
But
he did not wish to be impressed.