At the Billionaire’s Wedding (36 page)

This had to be another dream, because it bore no resemblance to real life.

Cali knew how to ride. It’d just been years since she’d done so. When their house in Gladwyne went, along with the cars and savings, every expensive lesson she’d taken as a child had gone too. She missed riding. Like reading, it could be a peaceful, solitary activity.

Today she felt anything but peaceful. Even a jaunt along quaint country paths and fields dotted with sheep and strewn with picturesque cottages couldn’t calm her nerves. It all seemed straight from a movie set, not least the man cantering along beside her.

He slowed his horse to a walk and she reined in.

“You ride well,” he said, his eyes skimming her body appreciatively. Roxanna had insisted on the tight jeans. “I’m thinking you’re the spy with secret talents after all.”

“That’s me, California Blake, licensed to kill. And to do other things too.”

He ignored her suggestive tone. Or he simply didn’t notice it. She was a pathetic novice at this hookup thing.

“How did you come to be named California?”

“My parents were catastrophically wrong for each other. To try to fix the relationship, they had me. Yes, people really do have babies to try to save their marriages. Desperate people. They said I was supposed to be their gold rush.”

“Were you?” He didn’t respond to her forced humor. She liked that.

“Only fool’s gold.” She dismounted and watched him come down easily from the saddle, the way he seemed to do everything—with nonchalant confidence. “I guess I don’t have to ask who you’re named for, Piers Vaughan Prescott the third.”

He motioned for her to go before him toward the stable. “Not ‘the third,’” he said behind her. “I was named only after my father.”

She gave over her horse to a stable hand. Piers followed her into the sunshine. He gestured toward a path that wended away from the parking lot. “Walk off the cramped muscles?”

“You assume I have cramped muscles from that?”

“No. But I do. I spend my days at a desk or in a car, not on a horse.” He smiled beautifully and she was momentarily speechless. In a sort of daze, she went toward the path.

“I’ve never read about your father in the papers,” she finally managed. “Does he try to stay out of the limelight?”

“He passed away last year.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you. But the business press was never interested in him anyway. He wasn’t involved with the company.”

“He wasn’t?”

“No. He escaped. Got out early. Joined the circus.”

“He did not.”

“No.” He grinned. “He fixed boats down at the shore.”

“Fixed them, or had a fleet of them that he raced?”

“Fixed them. He was a mechanic. A rebel. He did what he wanted despite my grandfather. And he was happy.”

“But not you?”

For a moment he walked beside her without speaking. “Someone has to prepare to run Prescott Global,” he finally said. “My grandfather isn’t young.”

“Well, you’ve made a fortune at not being a rebel, so that ought to comfort your cold, ruthless heart.”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “Gearing up to harangue me for elitism again?”

“I’m considering it. And rampant greed.”

His smile was simple and genuine. His teeth were perfect. She’d had some costly orthodonture in her youth. But Piers’s smile came straight from a movie set. Just like this incredibly elegant stable. And Brampton. And everything about this week.

“I feel like I’m in a nineteenth-century novel where the girl of exceedingly modest means gets immersed in the wealth and luxury of highfliers,” she said.

“Vanity Fair?”

She’d never met a man who’d actually read
Vanity Fair
. “You saw the movie?”

“I might not have the opportunity to read novels now, but at one time I did.”

At that time he’d chosen to read not Stephen King or James Patterson, but nineteenth-century literature? It wasn’t fair for one man to be so comprehensively sexy.

“Understood,” she said. “But I was thinking more like
Pride and Prejudice
,” she admitted.

“She marries the rich guy at the end of that one, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.”

Twitters of birds in the nearby copse and a sheep’s bleat were the only sounds to break the charged silence.

“Fan of happily-ever-afters, like your friend Jane?” he finally said.

She considered giving him a pithy comeback. She decided on honesty. “It’s the reason I read. In books, everything can turn out well in the end.”

“But not in real life?”

Not in her real life. “Real life is messy.” This was the perfect moment to ask. “Why did your girlfriend break up with you?”

“Someone told her I’d once gotten so angry at work that I threw a chair through a fifty-seventh-floor window.”

“Really?”

“That was one of the reasons.”

“She was clearly a lightweight.”

He chuckled. “You wouldn’t have broken up with me for that?”

“I wouldn’t have been dating you in the first place.”

He gave her a direct, skeptical appraisal. He knew the effect he had on her. She’d made it clear at the gazebo and in the bathroom.

She shook her head. “Nope.”

His smile disappeared. “Why not?”

She thrust out her hand. “Hi, Mr. Piers Vaughan Prescott, Junior. I’m Cali Blake, lowly library associate, food stamp hoarder, coupon cutter, and sale hunter whose apartment heat works every other day during December and every third day in January. Nice to meet you.”

He didn’t take her hand. “You like to say things that you think will shock me. They don’t.”

“Because you’re far too sophisticated for that?”

“Because I think you’re cute.”

She ducked her head. “Being poor isn’t cute, Prescott.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay. I’m just really out of place at this party. Obviously.”

“You’re still doing it.”

“Doing what?”

“Saying things to put me off.” He looked displeased. Not pissed off or irritated or any of the ways men tended to react when a woman said something they didn’t like, like they didn’t understand why she couldn’t stop being a pain in the butt. Instead, it seemed almost as if he were disappointed. Which made no sense.

She swallowed awkwardly. “I really shouldn’t be saying anything at all.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I’m guessing we didn’t come out here to talk.”

The light in his eyes seemed to change. “What if I told you I only want to talk?”

“I’d know you were lying.”

“Lying. Right.” He took her shoulders in his hands and bent his head to cover her mouth with his.

She didn’t think. She just kissed him. And she let him kiss her. She let him thread his fingers through her hair and pull her to him, and she let him into her mouth and tangled her tongue with his until heat came between her legs.

Finally she let herself touch him. Lifting her hands, she placed them on his waist. Hard muscle. She fanned her palms up and over his chest. She thought she heard his breathing hitch, but knew she hadn’t. Not this man, who could have any woman’s hands on him.

But he’d brought her out here today. Today he wanted her hands.

And she wanted his. More urgently with every meeting of their lips. When he cupped her breast, she didn’t object. She moved into it, sliding her hand over his butt and finding firm muscle beneath his jeans. He came deeper into her mouth and she lifted onto her toes to get closer. He banded an arm around her and pulled her flush up against him.

“Oh, wow,” she whispered. He was all hard. Everywhere. Entirely. At the pressure of his erection against her abdomen, her insides bucked.
“Oh.”

He stroked across her nipple and she moaned again and wanted to be naked and underneath him. Now.

Too quickly. Too soon.

She ran her hands over his shoulders and into his hair. Soft. Silky. She twined her fingers in it. His scent made her crazy. It made her want to stay in his arms forever, just kissing him. She didn’t want to push him away or shock him or hold him off. She wanted to know him. In every way. Every inch of his body and other things, like his birthday and his favorite color and his ideal day. He kissed her like he wanted that too. He kissed her like
this
was his ideal day.

“This is going too fast,” she said beneath his lips.

“This is supposed to go fast.” He took her mouth again and his fingers caressed perfectly.

He was right.
Wedding party hookup.
She made herself silently repeat the words. She repeated
rebound sex
, too, to remind herself why he was with her now. “Okay.”

His hand slipped beneath her shirt. Stroking up her waist, skin on skin. Surrounding her breast. Over her bra, his thumb circled the nipple. “I’ve wanted to touch you since the moment I first saw you.”

A car horn honked. “Cali! Piers?”

They broke apart.

She blinked. It was still daytime and they were still on the path past the stable, screened by some trees, for which she was now immensely grateful.

From the parking lot she heard Jane’s cousin Cassidy say, “Piers’s Alpha Romeo is here. They’ve got to be here.”

Cali looked up at Piers.

Gaze fixed on hers, he said huskily, “This isn’t finished.”

“Okay.” She straightened her shirt and walked toward the parking lot.

Cassidy was standing beside a car full of people. “Hey, guys! I’m so glad I found you, Cali. Yesterday you said you really wanted to go on the tour at Edmonton Vineyards. It’s in a half hour. I was looking for you at the hotel and Mark told me you’d come here. Do you still want to come?”

“Oh.” Cali moved toward her, brushing back from her hot face hair that’d come loose from her ponytail. “I’m not really dressed for it.”

“You’re perfect,” Piers said softly.

Her heartbeat tripped.

“Guys,” Jane’s other cousin, Kimberly, said from the car. “I’m not feeling great.” She looked completely green. “Too much champagne and sun at the pool, I guess. I think I should go back.”

“If we take you back to Brampton,” one of the techies in the car said, “we’ll miss the winery tour.”

Piers halted a few yards short of the others and touched Cali’s elbow. “I can take her back to Brampton,” he said quietly, “but my car only seats two.”

She looked into the most gorgeously warm blue eyes ever. “That’s really nice of you.”

He gave her a smile—a private smile, she thought. Then he helped Kimberly into his car.

“He’s already seen that vineyard anyway,” one of the others said as they drove away. “His family used to vacation in Tuscany with the people who own it.”

Cassidy turned to Cali with a friendly smile. “How was horseback riding?”

“Great,” Cali said, crossing her arms over her stomach and staring out the window at the postcard scenery. “It was great.”

The Carriage House

As the sun angled low, Cali dressed in one of Roxanna’s sexy outfits, shook off her discomfort, and went to find Piers. She desperately needed to unwind and he knew how to unwind her. If she let herself think about this beyond the opportunity for physical release, she would drive herself insane. So she wouldn’t. He would like it and she would get what she needed. Everybody would be satisfied.

But he’d disappeared. He couldn’t be found in the house, the gardens, at the pool where people were drinking cocktails while swimming, or in the drawing room where some of the others were playing charades. Unlike the American version, English charades seemed to involve making up little plays and using as many dirty words as possible.

Cali grinned as she watched from the sidelines. But she wasn’t in the mood for games. Not this sort of game, anyway.

Maybe he’d left for the evening. There was no reason he would’ve told her that he was leaving Brampton, only her fantasies that had swiftly expanded to include him in everything she did this week.

“You look like a little lost lamb, Miss Blake,” Mark said as she wandered into the foyer.

“Please call me Cali. I’m not like the others here. You don’t have to treat me like royalty.”

He came out from behind the marble desk. “But you are royalty, darling. Everybody who stays at Brampton gets the royal treatment.”

“Not tonight, apparently,” she mumbled, feeling strangely abandoned, and angry at herself for feeling that.

“I know what you need,” Mark said.

“A stiff drink?”

“A stiff something else entirely.”

Oh, good lord. Even the hotel manager could tell she needed to get laid.

“And I think I know someone who can help you with that.” He pointed at the open front door through which a luscious summer breeze wafted, and toward which a luscious man walked from the direction of the parking lot. “Go get him,” Mark said and nudged her forward.

Piers wore a dark blue shirt of some fabric that looked entirely neat yet entirely casual, khakis that had to have been tailored in Paris or Milan, and keyhole aviator sunglasses with blue lenses a shade lighter than his eyes. When he saw her, he smiled.

“I was just coming to find you,” he said, halting very close to her, as if they were together. As if he didn’t mind everyone seeing that they were together.

“Here I am,” she said on a little puff of breath.

He removed his glasses. Dolce & Gabbana. Easily three hundred dollars. Probably his throwaway pair.

“You look amazing,” he said.

“Thank you.” Guilt prickled at her over her own charade. “They’re not my clothes. I can’t afford two-hundred-dollar skirts or fifty-dollar camisoles.”

“I don’t know what a camisole is, but if it’s any of the pieces of clothing on your body right now, I approve.”

Raucous laughter came through the house’s windows, followed by a drunken female shriek of delight. Charades was clearly revving up.

“Sounds like they’re having fun,” he said with a glance toward the window. “Were you planning to join them?”

She couldn’t stop staring at his jaw. His mouth. His perfect cheekbones. His hair that curled up just a bit at the edge of his collar. “Not particularly.”

He brushed his fingertips along her forearm. “Want to get out of here?”