Unbound (25 page)

When Jonathan withdraws a few steps to make a call, the Earl takes the opportunity to talk to me.

“Where are you from, Miss Lawson?” He doesn’t seem as hostile as he did in the hospital room, if anything he seems to be observing me with interest.

“Chicago,” I reply, a little on my guard, looking over toward Jonathan. He’s still on the phone, but his blue eyes are looking over at us attentively. My heart immediately begins to beat faster and I’ve got butterflies in my stomach.

The Earl nods, lost in thought.

“An American,” he says, as if talking to himself, and I can’t tell if he thinks that’s a good or a bad thing. “And you’re working for my son?”

“I’m doing a three-month internship at Huntington Ventures,” I explain.

The Earl seems puzzled by this piece of information. “Only three months? No longer than that? What do you normally do?”

“I’m studying economics. But I’m almost finished.”

Jonathan finishes his call and returns. He places himself between the Earl and me, as if to shield me from his father. This doesn’t escape the Earl’s notice, but oddly he seems more pleased than angry.

“A student. I see,” he says, looking over at his son. “May I ask how old you are?”

I swallow. “Twenty-two.”

I’m beginning to find his questions a bit disturbing. If he’s asking them to find out whether I’d be a suitable partner for his son, then I’ve probably just failed that test completely. I’m aware of how little I suit Jonathan. In every respect. I’m just surprised that it doesn’t seem to bother the Earl at all, because he’s examining me with the same interest as before. Doesn’t it matter to him? Does he really not care
what
kind of woman he has—as long as Jonathan has somebody?

I can tell that he’s dying to ask more questions, but the black limousine is just turning onto our street and stopping at the curb in front of us.

“See you soon, Father,” Jonathan says curtly, holding the door open for me.

“Goodbye,” I say, before I get in, and the Earl says goodbye to me too. Then Jonathan sits down next to me and slams the door shut.

The limousine drives off right away. Shortly afterwards, the dark glass partition of the driver’s cab is lowered and Steven glances briefly over his shoulder. “Where to, Sir?” he enquires.

Jonathan makes an impatient hand gesture. “Just drive around for a bit. Grace and I have something to discuss.”

The tall blonde man nods and closes the window again. I turn back around and look through the dark rear windowpane. The Earl is standing by the side of the road, but, in contrast to a moment ago, he looks more hunched, as if his shoulders had fallen forward. He looks lost, I think, but I keep that to myself, as I have the feeling such a description wouldn’t go down well with Jonathan.

“Here.” Something falls onto my lap and I turn around again, and grab the newspaper that’s lying there.

It takes me a moment to be able to concentrate on the cover picture properly, but then I see the photo and I gasp for breath. It’s not enormous, it’s true, it’s one of the smaller ones along the top, but it’s still shockingly big. It’s poor quality, it looks grainy, it must have been taken from pretty far away. But you can still recognize Jonathan quite clearly. And me.

We’re standing in front of the restaurant where we went to dinner with that horrible man Richard and I’m leaning close in to Jonathan, with my arms wrapped around his torso and my eyes closed. We look very intimate, like a couple, as the headline next to the picture confirms. “Hunter in Love?” it reads. I feel my heart start to beat wildly and heat spread through me.

I hurriedly leaf through the paper till I find the corresponding article. It’s not very long, there’s just a copy of the same photo, together with a small image of Jonathan. The text says that a mystery beauty was spotted at his side and that the photo proves that his days as “one of England’s, if not Europe’s, most eligible bachelors” may soon be over. It says nothing concrete, just a few words about Jonathan’s previous commitment phobia, and no mention of my name.

At first I’m a little relieved about that, but then I realize it’s only a question of time before everyone around us knows that I’m the one in the photo. Because even though my face isn’t clearly recognizable, my red hair gives me away. Catherine Shepard will catch on immediately, and so will plenty of other people in the company. Like—Annie.

I cover my mouth with my hand and look up, shocked, to meet Jonathan’s searching gaze. He’s examining me and seems to be observing my reaction to the photo closely.

It’s only then that I realize that he already knew about the article before we drove here. That must be the reason he wanted to take me with him—not because he necessarily wanted me to be there for him, I think, feeling disappointment well up inside me.

“What do we do now?” I ask in a weak voice.

Jonathan shrugs his shoulders. “We can’t do anything about the picture,” he says. “But it complicates things.”

“How?”

“Have you any idea what’s happening?”

The urgency of his question irritates me.

“No,” I say stubbornly. Why should I? “I’ve never been on the cover of a magazine before.”

Jonathan ignores the annoyance in my voice.

“Journalists are like blowflies, Grace. They buzz around you and get on your nerves and you can just about put up with them, as long as there aren’t too many of them. But if they smell blood, they attack you in swarms and will never leave you in peace.”

“And you’re afraid they’re going to do that now?”

He shakes his head, almost as if he were a little resigned to it. “I’m not just afraid they will, I know they will. It’s not the first time something like this has happened. Some model at an event puts her arm through mine and that’s all it takes for me to be as good as engaged, according to their headlines. Which is why I avoid things like that as much as I can.”

I groan inwardly. And I’m the stupid cow who hugged him in the middle of the street where everyone could see us. Great idea, Grace! Well done, that was just brilliant!

“But I’m not a model,” I say, wondering whether he’s embarrassed at having been “caught” with me, of all people. Horrified, I remember the two elfin creatures in the photo I looked at with Hope back then.

Compared to them, I’m positively unsightly. But that clearly has its advantages.

“They won’t find me that interesting.”

He looks at me in an amused but also slightly agonised way. “On the contrary,” he explains. “That’s exactly the problem.”

The lump in my throat gets bigger. “What?”

“That’s what makes you especially interesting. An unknown young American woman, who works for me and with whom I really am involved. Don’t you understand—up until now there’s never been anything going on between me and the women I was supposedly having affairs with. But in your case …”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. “They’re going to have a field day. And unfortunately so is my father.” He raises his hands. “I can’t decide which is worse.”

He’s finally lost me now. “But the paparazzi have no idea who I am.”

Jonathan snorts. “They don’t know yet, Grace. But how long do you think it will take till someone from the company tips off the press? They’ll find out your name faster than you’d like. And then we can only hope that other stories distract their attention from you, otherwise you’ll be pursued by more than one paparazzo. By tomorrow at the latest, the story will be the main topic of conversation at the company, you can count on it.”

I feel myself beginning to get nauseous again and turn to the window. Jonathan must know what he’s talking about, I think, apprehensively. It must be very likely then that things will all happen the way he says they will, even though I can hardly imagine it.

A feeling of powerlessness, of helplessness, is growing inside me. This must be what Annie meant when she warned me that Jonathan Huntington would be too much for me to handle. But what can I do now? My first instinct is escape. I could simply take the next plane home, hole up there for a while and hope the English press forget about me again. But I realize almost immediately that that won’t work. I’m definitely too proud to be do that. After all, I didn’t get this internship by cheating—I got it because I earned it. If I left now, it would be like an admission of guilt, as if I were admitting that I’d done something wrong. Which I haven’t. OK, I fell in love with the boss. But can you blame me? Tears of despair are stinging my eyes because everything is suddenly so complicated and it’s scaring me.

“Grace?”

Jonathan’s hand encircles mine and I turn around toward him. When he sees how upset I am, he takes me into his arms and holds me tight. The lump in my throat is now so big I can hardly swallow.

“I wish I could make that photo go away again somehow,” I murmur into his shoulder. I really don’t want to be the main topic of conversation at the office. Or be followed into work by paparazzi. And when I imagine Annie’s face when she finds out—and Marcus’s—a shudder runs down my spine. How could I have got myself into all this?

“I wish I could too,” he says, and the feeling of his lips against my cheek immediately takes my breath away. “But I’ll think of something.”

His nearness is comforting and so are his words and for a moment I cherish the illusion that everything is going to be fine again. I want to forget what’s waiting for me out there and lose myself in that feeling which takes hold of me once again, when he starts to kiss me.

As soon as his lips touch mine, my senses explode. He tastes so good, so familiar, and my body remembers what it was like to surrender to him completely and it wants more of the kind of pleasure that only he can give me. And suddenly nothing else matters. I’m overwhelmed by such powerful excitement that I start trembling and bury my hands in his hair, pulling him towards me, because I don’t want anything to separate me from him. Jonathan feels my response and deepens his kiss, which sets off a chain reaction that leaves me completely breathless. It’s like pouring gasoline on a fire: the more I touch and taste him, the stronger my desire to have him even closer to me burns. And he seems to feel the same way. His lips devour me and his hands wander all over my body. I cling to him like a drowning woman, lost without his touch.

He thrusts his hands under my skirt and kneads my butt and strokes my thighs. I can feel his hard erection between my legs and move around on top of him, teasing him, until he releases my lips and moans aloud with pleasure.

He holds my breasts, which are heavy in his hands, and lowers his head to kiss the cleavage visible above my dress. His tiny stubbly chin hairs tickle the sensitive skin tantalizingly and I wait for him to push the fabric aside, panting aloud as he does so, and lift my breasts out of the cups of my bra with both hands, to give him unrestricted access to them.

“Your breasts are so beautiful,” he growls, putting his face into the valley between the two pale hillocks of my bosom, while his fingers tweak my erect nipples. When he feels me shudder, he raises his head and smiles. “And so sensitive,” he adds, before bending forward again and enclosing one of the hard tips with his lips.

He sucks on it strongly and I feel just as powerful a tug in my lower body; it feels like a burst of flame shooting through me. I groan loudly, oblivious to everything, throwing my head back and burying my hands in his hair, holding him pressed against me so that he can’t stop. But I don’t think he intends to stop. His hot tongue circles my nipple and he sucks it mercilessly, sending new bolts of lightning down between my legs each time, increasing my desire.

When I feel him slide his hand up the inside of my thigh, I instinctively lift my butt so that he can reach the place where my pleasure is concentrated. Without interrupting the breast caresses, he slips his fingers past the fabric of my panties and enters my moist slit with two fingers. With a sigh, I let myself sink down onto his hand, feel him moving inside my and start rocking back and forth in his lap, rubbing myself against him.

It’s an amazing feeling. Although Jonathan isn’t touching my sensitive pearl at all, I can feel the tension building up inside me. The way he’s sucking on my nipples is unbelievably stimulating, and he’s doing it in the same slow, intense rhythm his fingers are moving inside me, which I reflexively mirror.

I hold on to his shoulders and move around on top of him more and more freely, feeling the bolts of lightning grow increasingly powerful, searing me, as Jonathan increases the tempo. My nipples have been stimulated so much they hurt, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to take much more, and I tell him that, breathlessly. Jonathan doesn’t respond, but just keeps mercilessly driving me on, further and faster, and even starts biting my nipples.

“Jonathan,” I moan helplessly. He raises his head and smiles, and I feel myself drowning in his beautiful blue eyes.

“You like this, don’t you?” he asks, as he goes on thrusting into me. I can hear the desire in his voice. “And I like your fieriness, Grace.” He kisses my neck and the spot behind my ear. “Burn for me, baby.”

He lowers his head again and goes on sucking my sensitive nipples, pressing his thumb against my pearl at the same time and massaging it. Then there’s a sudden release of tension as a powerful orgasm seizes my entire lower body. The force of it takes me completely by surprise. I tremble uncontrollably, while my inner muscles cramp up around Jonathan’s fingers, massaging and milking them, and I whimper softly as long, hot waves of release travel through me. By the end, I’m so weak that I collapse forward and lean my forehead against his shoulder.

When I can breathe calmly again, I feel him withdraw from me and reach instinctively for the fastening of his pants. He didn’t give me a chance to get my own back on him and I would like to. But he holds my hand still.

“No, Grace,” he says. “Later.”

He lifts me down off his lap and sets me down next to him. Still dazed, I watch as he takes a white cotton handkerchief out of a hatch by the door, wipes his hand clean and then skillfully rearranges my bra and dress so everything is in the right place again.