Shameless Playboy (9 page)

 
          
“You
failed to mention that this house is falling down,” she said, her voice faintly
accusing, her chin tilting up as she looked at him.

 
          
“Not
yet,” he said. He looked at the house, still regrettably upright and this time,
thankfully, without his brother’s disapproving presence on the front stair.
While it was certainly in a notable state of disrepair, it had not been reduced
to rubble and a hole in the earth, as Lucas had often fiercely imagined while
still forced to live here. “Though one can dream.”

 
          
But
Grace was not looking at him any longer. She peered up at the house, then
pivoted to look out over the wild, overgrown gardens and sweeping lawn that led
down to the picturesque lake, pretty even beneath the onslaught of the rain.
Her brow creased in fierce concentration, and she pulled her lower lip between
her teeth as she let her gaze move from one dilapidated marker of the once-lush
Wolfe estate to the next. She sighed and then turned her frown on him.

 
          
Somehow,
he restrained himself from pressing his mouth into the indentation between her
dark blond brows.

 
          
“I
suppose we can set up a big tent on the lawn,” she said. “It will be pretty if
the weather is fine, and there will be enough space if it isn’t. And the state
of everything else could work for us. The house and grounds will add a bit of
gothic splendor to the whole enterprise.”

 
          
Lucas
laughed, the sound more bitter than he’d intended. “This is Wolfe Manor. The
ghosts here outnumber the living, I assure you, and are all known by name. And
there is not a person in the whole of England who does not want to come here
and see it for himself.”

 
          
She
looked at him, her expression warily polite, and he remembered belatedly that
she was American, and was not, perhaps, as conversant on the Wolfe family and
their tragic history as any citizen of the United Kingdom might be. He was not
sure if he liked the possibility of her ignorance regarding all things Wolfe or
resented that she might now have to learn all those terrible stories as if they
were new.

 
          
He
could not imagine why he should care either way. And yet he did.

 
          
“One
of my ancestors supposedly drowned in the lake,” he said abruptly, jerking his
chin toward it. “Regrettably, not my father. He died in the house.” He smiled,
though he could feel it was not a very nice smile. It matched the dark memories
that flew at him, each one a new knife in his gut. He shoved them all aside,
ruthlessly. “The rest of us survived this place, in one form or another, but
left the better part of our souls behind. I am not being poetic. There was
never anything good here. Ever.”

 
          
He
looked down at her, unable to understand why he was speaking to her this way—as
if it mattered to him that she see the truth about Wolfe Manor. He could not
understand the urge.

 
          
“But
it will make the perfect backdrop for your gala, I imagine,” he continued after
a moment. “The only thing people like more than glamour is glamour gone wrong,
left to crumble into dust and disrepair and salacious old stories.”

 
          
“You
are so optimistic about human nature,” she said, her voice as tart as ever
despite the sweet honey of it, and completely devoid of any cloying compassion—or,
worse, pity. She did not quite roll her eyes at him, and he felt something
fierce and hot expand in him. “It is no wonder your company is so sought after.”

 
          
“I
am sought after because I am me,” he said, arrogant and deliberate, daring her
to look away, to deny him. “And because anyone seen in my company is certain to
be photographed and speculated about in the next day’s gossip rags. I am sought
after because I am rich, sickeningly handsome and rumored to be excellent in
bed.” He raised his brows at her, challenging her.

 
          
“And
here I thought it was for your remarkable modesty,” she replied, as quickly and
as sharply as he’d known she would. As he realized he’d hoped she would.

 
          
“I
don’t require modesty,” he assured her. “I have a mirror—and, barring that, the
great and glorious British press. I am more than aware of my charms.”

 
          
“Clearly.”
She did not look remotely impressed. Or even interested. Which, in turn, he
found uncommonly fascinating. “But to return to a slightly less important topic
than your vast and staggering ego, I think that we can pull this off.”

 
          
She
turned from him once more, to peer out across his history as if it was no more
than a piece of property she was expected to transform. As if it was merely a
venue.

 
          
Lucas
wondered what she saw. What anyone who had not been abandoned here as a child—in
his case, quite literally as well as emotionally—saw. None of it could ever be
anything simple to him—never just a house, a great lawn, an old estate. His few
happy memories involved his siblings, especially Jacob, and the mischief they’d
gotten into with their decided lack of parental supervision over the years, but
there had never been enough of those moments to tip the balance.

 
          
Wolfe
Manor was where he had been discarded on the doorstep as an infant, his mother’s
identity ever after hinted at, but never confirmed. It was where he had come to
understand as a very young boy that while William Wolfe had viewed all of his
children with a certain caustic disinterest, it was Lucas who he had actively
hated. It was where he had learned to be the person he was today—ever merry on
the surface, ever concealed beneath, ever the disappointment to all who
expected anything from him.

 
          
But
Grace could see none of that. No ghosts, no uncomfortable memories, no absentee
mothers and vicious, cruel fathers. For her, perhaps, this was no more than an
abandoned great house on a vast property—one more British eccentricity for her
to work around. In the pouring rain, no less. He watched as she worried her
lower lip with her teeth, and then pulled out her PDA and began typing into it.

 
          
“We’ll
put lights on the house to play up its mysterious past,” she murmured. “A
haunted house theme, but elegant.”

 
          
He
realized with some astonishment that she was no longer speaking to him. She was
entirely focused on her PDA, and thus the job at hand. As if he, Lucas Wolfe,
the greatest temptation on two feet according to the tabloids and any number of
his former lovers, was … no more than a business associate.

 
          
He
found it surprisingly arousing.

 
          
“We’ll
have the design capitalize on the Wolfe saga at every opportunity,” she
continued in that same distracted tone. “The Wolfe touch on the Hartington’s
brand in the eighties is widely considered to be the glory days—we’ll use that.
Expand it into the new era.”

 
          
She
continued on like that for a few minutes more, while Lucas stood idly by,
holding an umbrella over her head and waiting patiently. Like one more
toothless member of her intimidated staff. Like her lackey.

 
          
He
was sure it spoke to the deficiencies in his character that he’d been hearing
of all his life that he did not mind it as he should. That he found her deep
concentration and ability to block out even him deeply, sensually intriguing.
Would she be like that in bed? Would she gaze at her lover with that kind of
rapt focus?

 
          
He
certainly hoped so.

 
          
“What
is it?” she asked, looking back at him as she slid her PDA back in her pocket,
her brown eyes narrowing as they caught his expression “Why are you looking at
me like that?”

 
          
The
rain had picked up again, thudding hard against the umbrella and rebounding
from the stones beneath their feet. They were both wet, cocooned together amid
the noise of the storm. Lucas found it exhilarating. Or perhaps that was simply
her presence—and the fact she was standing so close to him. Finally. She
smelled like soap and rosemary and something fresher, more feminine, in the
close embrace beneath the umbrella.

 
          
He
could tell the very moment she realized that the pounding rain had trapped them
even closer together, that she was near enough to be wrapped around him if she
wished—that the only reason besides the downpour that would bring two people
together like this had everything to do with the carnal heat that flared
between them and nothing to do with the weather. He watched her chocolate eyes
widen in alarm—and unmistakable awareness.

 
          
He
reached across the scant space between them, and slid his hand along the side
of her face, filling his palm with the soft skin of her tender cheek, letting
his thumb scrape across her full lower lip, wishing he could test it against
his teeth as she had. He was so unused to waiting. He could not recall the last
time he’d had to wait for anything.

 
          
Soon
, he promised himself.

 
          
“I
want you,” he said quietly. It echoed between them as more than a statement of
intent. It was a promise. A vow.

 
          
He
could read her so well, though he did not wish to analyze that unexpected
ability. He heard her breath catch in her throat, saw her eyes heat with
desire. He knew she wanted him. He could feel it in the fire that scorched the
humid air between them, see it in the way her lips parted and the faint tremor
that shook through her.

 
          
“I
am afraid that
I
do not want
you
, Mr. Wolfe,” she said in that brisk,
professional tone, making him blink—though he did not drop his hand. The heat
of her skin beneath his palm did not match the coolness in her voice.

 
          
“You
are such a liar,” he said, his voice low, intent on her heat, her passion. “I
thought we covered this already.”

 
          
He
could already see them together, entwined, entangled. Her long legs wrapped
around his waist, her breasts in his hands. Her lush mouth wrapped around his
hardness. He wanted to take her where she stood, pull her skirt to her waist,
and feel her soft heat with his hands, his mouth.

 
          
“Please
do not touch me again, Mr. Wolfe,” she replied. Her brown eyes were direct.
Serious. She reached up and took his larger hand in hers, and pulled it away
from her face. “It is completely inappropriate.”

 
          
“Grace
…” He let her move his hand, but he curled his fingers around hers, holding her
fast. Something urgent was overtaking him, almost shaking him. He had never
felt anything like it. “Do you really think I don’t know you want me, too?”

 
          
They
were so close, the rain pounding down all around them, stranding them beneath a
noisy umbrella—the only two people in the world. Wolfe Manor, with all of its
howling ghosts and terrible memories, faded away until there was nothing but
the weather, this umbrella and this overly polite, overdressed woman who had
somehow wedged herself under his skin.

 
          
And
she was dismissing him.

 
          
She
even smiled, a studiously polite, faintly pitying smile. Lucas had never seen
anything quite like it—and certainly not directed at him. She tugged her
fingers from his grip, and he let her do it.

 
          
“I
want a great many things that are no good for me,” she told him. Not unkindly,
but with an undercurrent of intensity. “I want to live on nothing but red
velvet cake and dark chocolate. I want to spend my days lolling about on white
sand beaches, reading romance novels and basking in the sun. Who doesn’t?” She
tilted her head slightly, still holding his gaze. “But instead I eat healthily
and I work hard. No one should get everything they want. What kind of person
would they be?”

 
          
“Me,”
Lucas said. But there was an odd note in his own voice, and it seemed as if the
rain roared in his ears. His mouth crooked to the side. “They would be me.”