Not For Sale (13 page)

Something soft pressed against her ankle. It was Oliver, purring like a small engine.

“Foolish,” Caroline said softly, and she lifted the cat into her arms.

It was a typical New York-in-June day. Cool in the morning, warm in the afternoon, hot by the time Caroline had trudged from restaurant to diner to deli.

With zero success.

Nobody needed a waitress.

College and high school kids seemed to have snapped up all the openings. There was one possibility, in a deli near Union Square, but the manager had put his hand on her butt as she was leaving and she knew it would not stop with that, so she’d scratched the place off her list.

This time of year, the odds on a translating job were slim to none. Still, she stopped on campus anyway on the odd chance something might be available. There was, not translating, just some research on Pushkin, but the prof who needed it wouldn’t be in until the next day.

Her cell phone buzzed a couple of times. Lucas, saying he just wanted to hear her voice, which went a long way toward making her feel better.

Still, she returned home—to Lucas’s home—sweaty and weary. The doorman greeted her by name; the concierge, too. It felt nice, having them know her.

But she could not, must not, get used to it.

Oliver gave her his usual big greeting. Caroline picked him up, kissed his scarred head and told him what a good boy he was. She put him down, went into the kitchen, put ice in a glass, filled it with water…

Her cell phone rang.

Not Lucas. It was Dani Sinclair. Surprised, Caroline took the call.

Dani cut right to the chase.

“I have a translating job I can’t do,” she said briskly. “Tomorrow, four in the afternoon at the Roosevelt Hotel. It shouldn’t take you more than a couple of hours. Interested?”

Caroline sat at the counter.

“I won’t do anything like what I did last time, Dani. No pretending to be someone I’m not.”

Dani chuckled. “Relax, sweetie. This is a straight deal. A Russian bigwig has a suite there, he’s meeting with a guy representing the mayor’s office. The mayor’s rep will have his own translator. The Russian wants one, too. He called me because I’ve worked for him before but, you know, I have another engagement. What do you say? ”

Despite Dani’s assurances, Caroline still hesitated. The night she’d spent standing in for the other woman had left her with mixed feelings. It had led her to meeting Lucas, and that was wonderful, but the evening had had a strangeness to it she couldn’t get past.

“Listen, you can’t tell me you don’t need the work. There’s nothing much out there. You know how it is when the university’s on summer session.”

“You’re right,” Caroline said slowly. Oliver meowed and jumped into her lap. “But I might have something tomorrow.”

“At school?”

“Yes. With Ethan Brustein.”

“Yuck.”

Caroline laughed. Professor Brustein was not well-liked. He was brilliant, but he had a nasty temper and a short fuse.

“I know. Brustein’s not my idea of a good time, either, but he only wants an hour or two with me.”

“The job at the hotel is three hours, minimum. Might run to four.”

“Four hours,” Caroline said slowly. “And I’ll only have to handle the one guy? ”

“Didn’t I just say that?” Dani said impatiently.

“Well…Okay. Give me his name and his suite number. Oh, and how much is he supposed to pay me, and—”

“Mrroww!”

Oliver jumped to the floor, using Caroline’s thigh as a springboard. Tail bushed, back arched, he stood at her feet, hissing. Caroline swung around and saw Lucas, standing in the doorway.

All her weariness vanished. She got to her feet, her lips curving in a smile.

“Lucas. What a nice sur—”

She stopped in midsentence. Lucas’s face was dark. Stony. His green eyes were the color of the winter sea.

Her heart gave a resounding thump.

“Dani,” she said into the phone, “I have to go.”

“No, wait. I didn’t give you the guy’s name and—”

“I’ll call you back,” Caroline said, and flipped her phone shut. “Lucas? What’s wrong?”

His lips drew back from his teeth in a chilling parody of a smile.

“Why should anything be wrong?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I asked the question.” Her eyes swept over him. There it was again, that cold, accusative expression. No. This was worse. His posture was rigid, his hands were knotted at his sides. “Sweetheart. Please. What’s happened? ”

Lucas felt as if he were drowning in rage.

It was the first time she’d used a term of endearment instead of his name. It should have filled him with happiness. Instead, it added to his fury. How could she call him “sweetheart” after what he’d just heard? That brisk business chat with Dani Sinclair. About Caroline’s return to—to work.

Bile rose in his throat.

She was standing in front of him now, staring at him through enormous eyes. She wore sandals, a pink cotton tank top and a white cotton skirt; there was a little white purse still slung across her body.

She’d obviously just come home. The doorman had told him so and he’d ridden the elevator filled with a hot combination of joy and terror at what he was about to do, to say, stepped out of it and heard her voice, followed it here, saw her looking beautiful and sweetly innocent…

Maybe that was her particular forté. That look of girlish innocence. That supposed naiveté. It had worked on him before.

But it would never work on him again.

“Lucas?”

She put her hand on his arm. He shook it off.

“I told you, nothing happened. Nothing’s wrong. I came back early, that’s all.”

Caroline stared at him. Of course, something was wrong. Very wrong, and whatever it was, it had to do with her. She swallowed, moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.

“I’m—I’m happy that you did.”

More words to torment him. He thought of how he’d suddenly lost all interest in the contract he and the Frenchman had been discussing, how he’d shot to his feet during drinks with the man.

The banker had looked as surprised as Lucas had felt.

And then, maybe because the banker was French and the French were supposed to know about affairs of the heart, or maybe because he just couldn’t keep from doing what he knew he had to do, he’d said that there was a woman, that he was sorry, that he had to leave.

The banker had smiled, risen from his chair and held out his hand.

“What is it you Americans say? Go for it, dude!”

Lucas had laughed, rushed out the door, snared a taxi, told the driver there was an extra fifty in the tip if he got him home in record time.

“Lucas. Please. Talk to me. What are you thinking? Why are you looking at me that way?”

His jaw tightened.
Slow down
, a voice within him said,
damnit, man, slow down and think
.

But he couldn’t.

He felt as if he were dying and the only way to stop that from happening was to keep moving and do what he should have done right from the beginning.

Get Caroline Hamilton out of his life.

Or put her into it, but in the only way they’d both understand.

He told her to follow him.

“Follow him” turned out to be exactly what he meant.

His pace was breakneck. Into the elevator. Down to the lobby. Through it, without pause. No
hello, how are you, nice day
formalities to the concierge or the doorman, no lessening of his stride as he went out the door and started briskly toward the corner.

Caroline had to trot to keep up.

“Where are we going?” she said, but he didn’t answer and finally she gave up, concentrated on trying to stay with him as they crossed Madison Avenue and approached Park where Lucas made his way to a tall apartment building. A few words to the doorman, then a key changed hands.

“Shall I send someone up with you, sir?” the doorman said.

Lucas didn’t bother answering. He put his hand in the small of Caroline’s back and damned near pushed her into the lobby, then into the elevator.

Her heart wasn’t just thumping, it was threatening to burst from her chest.

“Lucas.” Her voice shook. “Lucas, what is this about?”

Still no answer.

The elevator stopped. The doors opened. Lucas got out. Caroline told herself to stand her ground. Why should she follow him when he wouldn’t tell her where they were going? When he wouldn’t speak a single word? But curiosity and a simmering anger got the better of her, and she did.

Down the hall. Past two doors. Three. He came to a halt. She watched as he took a deep breath, then stabbed the key into the lock. The door swung open on a tiled foyer that opened onto a handsome living room. She saw a terrace. A fireplace. A view of Park Avenue.

Lucas’s eyes were cold and flat as he motioned her forward and let the door swing shut behind her. She turned and looked at him. She could hear the beat of her heart throbbing in her ears.

“What is this place?”

“It’s your new home,
querida.
Three rooms, complete with a view.”

“I don’t—I don’t understand—”

“You can select your own furnishings. Or call ABC. Or Bloomingdale’s. Let a designer handle things.”

“I don’t understand,” she said again, but in a voice so small, so pathetic it didn’t sound like her own because, of course, all at once, she did.

“I’ve already ordered some clothes for you. From Saks. They’ll deliver whenever you—”

“I don’t want any of this. Why would you even think I would?”

“The apartment is in my name. You’ll charge the furniture to me, as well. I’ll open accounts for you at whatever shops you like.”

“Lucas! “ She stepped in front of him, looked up at his stony face. She was shaking; her legs felt as if the muscles were turning to water. “Don’t do this. I beg you. Don’t—”

“In addition, I’ll deposit forty thousand a month into whatever bank you choose.”

Caroline’s hand flew to her mouth. Her head was spinning. She was going to faint. Or be sick.

“Not enough? Fifty, then.” Lucas reached for her hand, folded her lifeless fingers around the key. “With only one stipulation.”

She gasped as he caught her wrists, hoisted her to her toes. His mouth came down on hers, hard and hurtful.

“You’ll belong to me,” he growled, “for as long as I want you. Nobody else. No other men. No arrangements through Dani Sinclair or some other procurer.” His mouth twisted. “I don’t want the smell, the taste of anyone else on you. Just me, you understand? Only me, until I’m tired of—”

Caroline wrenched away, tears streaming down her face.

“I hate you,” she said, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate—”

An agonized cry broke from her throat. She whirled toward the door. Flung it open. Lucas reached out for her, then let his hand fall to his side.

The elevator swallowed her up. He was alone.

Nothing new in that. He had always been alone.

But never as much as in that last, terrible moment.

D
USK
had finally faded to the cheerless dark of night.

A black, impenetrable night.

No moon. No stars. Nothing but the mournful sigh of the wind, swooping through the maze of Manhattan’s concrete canyons in advance of a predicted rainstorm.

Lucas sat in his living room, a glass of Scotch between his palms. The room was dark. Not even the glow of the street lamps in Central Park, the distant lights of the city skyline, could penetrate the massing clouds.

Any minute now, he’d turn on the lamps, head into the kitchen and heat something for his dinner. He just wasn’t hungry yet. Wasn’t in the mood for lights, either.

The cry of the wind, the advancing storm, the all-encompassing darkness, suited his mood.

It was hard to accept you’d been played for a fool by a pretty face and a soft voice. And, damnit, it had happened to him twice in as many weeks. First Elin, now Caroline.

Lucas lifted the glass to his lips, took a long swallow.

No.

This was a night for honesty. What had happened with Elin had been little more than a petty annoyance. What had happened with Caroline was…

It was different.

For a little while, he’d thought she was—that she might
be—that there was something more than sex between them. He gave a bitter laugh.

And there had been.

There’d been her, reeling him in like a trout on a line.

“Stupid,” he growled, “damned stupid fool!”

How had he let it happen? He, of all men. He’d grown up knowing what the world was like. No teddy bears and fairy tales for him. The world took. It never gave. You survived only by never forgetting that hard-won wisdom.

As for women—Another lesson learned in childhood. At his mother’s knee, you might say. Women lied. They cheated. They said they loved you and then—

“Hell,” he said, and drank more of the Scotch. No point in going overboard. Caroline had never said she loved him. And he, thank God, had never said he loved her.

A damned good thing, because he hadn’t. He’d let himself toy with the idea, that was all.

Amazing, what a few days and nights of particularly good sex could do to a man’s mind but then, a woman like Caroline would be good at sex. She’d make it an art.

And he couldn’t even place all the blame on her. After all, he’d known what she was from the start. He’d just convinced himself that he had it wrong. The sighs. The whispers. The incredibly innocent, incredibly arousing ways she’d touched him, explored his body as if sex, as if men, as it everything they did when she was in his arms was new.

“Back to square one,” he muttered.

She hadn’t been naive. He was the one. He’d been more than naive. He’d been a fool.

Lucas drained the last of the whisky, rose to his feet and went to the sideboard where he’d left the bottle of Macallan. He poured another generous couple of inches, then drank.

Now he was compounding his stupid actions by feeling sorry for himself. Well, no way was he going to continue with
that. It was unproductive. Unmanly. The thing to do was get past his anger, put what had happened in perspective.

And if that meant getting the memory of Caroline out of his head, the taste of her off his lips, so be it. When a man lived with a woman, memories of her were bound to linger.

Except, he hadn’t lived with Caroline. A week didn’t constitute “living with” anyone.

But he’d come painfully close to asking her to do just that. Live with him. Stay with him. Be his—his mistress. Only his mistress; he’d never have wanted her to be more than that.

And wasn’t that a laugh? What was it she’d said, back when they’d met? Something about not believing in women being mistresses? Oh, yeah, she’d been good at games.

Another long drink of whisky. Maybe enough of it would thaw the lump of ice that seemed lodged in his heart.

If he’d come home five minutes sooner. Or five minutes later. Or if he hadn’t been so quiet as he stepped out of the elevator, he’d never have heard that conversation.

But he’d wanted to surprise her with a declaration of—of what? Not love.
Caralho,
not that! The most he’d have said was
Caroline, will you live with me? Will you stay here with me because I—because I—

Lucas shuddered.

Why in hell had she been making that—that appointment through the Sinclair woman? Money? He’d tried to give her some only this morning and look how that had turned out. And that time in Southampton, when he’d taken her shopping on Jobs Lane. He’d have bought out the boutique but she’d refused to let him buy anything but the simple things she absolutely needed.

It just didn’t make sense.

Unless she’d been scheming for the bigger prize. Waiting and hoping he’d actually ask her to become his wife.

No. She must have known he’d never have done that.

His mistress, then. That would have been a coup. Trouble with that theory was that, basically, he’d made that offer at the Park Avenue apartment. He hadn’t done it romantically but surely he’d offered her everything a woman like her could want. An expensive flat. Charge cards. A monthly stipend. Wasn’t all that a fair enough substitute for hearts and flowers?

Apparently not—which left only one other possibility.

What she’d wanted from the deal she’d been making through Dani Sinclair was sex.

Sex with somebody else. With a different man. A different man than him.

A new face. A new body. Someone else’s hands on her. Someone else’s mouth. Rougher sex, maybe, but, goddamnit, if she wanted it rough…

Lucas hurled the glass of Scotch at the wall. The amber liquid darkened the ivory surface; shards of glass rained down on the floor.

Who gave a damn?

The cat would. If it walked on the bits of glass. Not that he gave a damn about the cat but the animal was his responsibility. For now, anyway. Tomorrow, he’d call the ASPCA.

His mouth twisted as he went to the utility closet.

Caroline had walked out on the cat, same as she’d walked out on him. And she
had
walked out on him, never mind the part he’d played.

Glass swept, wall sponged, he put everything away, glanced at the illuminated dial of his watch.

Tomorrow was Sunday but he had meetings scheduled throughout the day. His staff at eight. His attorneys at nine, his CFO and his accountants at ten. And, finally, the French banker at noon. He needed to be sharp. Alert. All this nonsense gone and forgotten. And it would be.

Damned right, it would be.

One last glass of whisky before bed…

Lightning slashed the sky; thunder roared. The storm was finally here. Good, he thought as he settled into a corner of the living room sofa. Storms, summer storms especially, always left the city seeming fresh and new.

That was how he would feel in the morning. As if he were starting over. No more thoughts of Caroline, or trying to figure out what he’d felt for her. What he’d
imagined
he’d felt for her. No more wondering how he could have fallen for that sweet and innocent act, for believing she’d cared for him.

Lucas snorted. What she’d cared about was delivering a stellar performance, starting with the masquerade that first night with the Rostovs.

Lightning lit the room again. Thunder rolled overhead, loud enough, near enough to make the whisky in the glass shiver.

Something brushed against his ankle. Lucas jerked back.

“Meow?”

It was the cat. The big, ugly, vile-tempered cat Caroline had professed to love.

Lucas glared at the creature. “What the hell do you want?”

“Mrrorw,”
the cat said, and this time, when lightning flashed through the room, Lucas saw that the animal was shaking.

“Don’t tell me you’re scared. A take-no-prisoners tough guy like you? ”

The cat leaned against Lucas’s leg. He could feel it trembling.

He watched the cat for a long minute. Then he put his glass on the coffee table and offered his hand, fingers outstretched, for sniffing.

“Bite me,” he said, “and you’ll never see a bowl of Daintee Deelites again.”

The cat made a small, questioning sound. Carefully, in
what looked like slow motion, it leaned forward and pressed its battered head, face first, into Lucas’s palm.

This was not fair.

Lucas was not a cat person.

The cat was not a Lucas-person.

Over the last week, they’d developed a gentleman’s understanding. Lucas had tolerated the cat’s presence. The cat had tolerated his. Caroline had been their go-between and yes, she was gone but the cat still had food, water and shelter.

What more could a street cat possibly want?

“Mrrow, mrrow, mrrow,”
the cat said in a voice that would better have suited a purebred Persian.

Lucas scowled.

“Damnit,” he said, and lifted the cat into his arms. “I’m not her, okay? I don’t do cuddling. And soothing. You want any of that, you’ve got the wrong guy.”

The cat settled like a warm pillow against his chest, looked into his face, gave a meow so soft and sweet it had no business coming from The Cat from Hell.

A muscle knotted in Lucas’s jaw.

“Sim, ”
he said gruffly, “I know. She’s gone. And you miss her.”

He swallowed hard. Stroked his big hand over the cat’s—over Oliver’s—beat-up ears.

“Damnit,” he whispered, “so do I.”

Oliver offered another plaintive little
meow,
raised his head and rubbed it against Lucas’s jaw.

Lucas closed his eyes. He felt moisture on his cheeks, tasted salt on his lips.

Did cats cry?

They must, for surely these tears could not be his.

Caroline had spent the past hours hot with rage.

She knew that her anger was all but written across her face.

She probably looked like a deranged street person. New Yorkers, inured to the odd, the unusual and, therefore, the dangerous, kept their distance, edging away from her on the subway, giving her a wide berth on the walk from the station to her old apartment house. A drunk or a doper, whatever he was, said “whoa” and scurried away as she ran up the stairs to the front door.

Good. Excellent.

Nobody was going to screw around with her and get away with it.

Caroline unlocked her apartment door, set the locks, threw her purse on the sagging sofa and began pacing from one end of the shoebox-size living room to the other.

That rat! That no-good, cold-blooded, arrogant, self-centered, self-aggrandizing…And if she was repeating herself, so be it.

“How could you?” she said. “Damn you to hell, Lucas Vieira, how
could
you?”

That awful, horrible, ugly thing he’d said. About her. About not wanting to—to smell other men on her, to taste them on her, the brutal, obvious implication being that she—that she would ever—that she was a woman who would—

“Bastard,” she snarled, and kicked the sofa as she marched by.

And that look on his face. That look she’d seen on it before. That look she’d never understood. She understood it now. He’d always thought of her as—as a whore. Because that was what it came down to, didn’t it? That a man who’d say such things to a woman thought that woman was—that she was little better than—than—

A sob rose in her throat. But she would not cry. She would not! Lucas didn’t deserve her tears.

He was cold. He was evil. He was insane. How else to explain that after all he’d said, he’d added that he wanted her to
be his mistress? He’d all but commanded it. She was to live in a place he’d paid for, wear clothes he bought her, spend money he deposited in a bank account for her so that he could have her near enough to—to use when the mood was on him.

This time, she couldn’t keep a low, agonized sob from bursting from her lips.

“Stop that,” she said fiercely.

What was there to cry about? She was angry, not sorrowful. She was better off without him. A thousand times better off. She just could not understand how a man who’d seemed so tender and caring could have turned into a monster right before her eyes.

Caroline flung herself down on the sofa. Snatched a throw pillow and wrapped her arms around it.

“I hate you, Lucas!”

Her voice shook but it was only with anger. Anger was what she felt, she reminded herself. It was all she felt. Why would she feel anything else, ever, for him?

What made it even worse was that she knew, in her heart, that she had to shoulder some of the blame.

She’d slept with him the first night they met. What kind of woman did that? Lots, she knew, but not someone like her.

Then, a couple of days later, she’d moved into his home. Into his bed. Let him pay for the roof over her head, the food that went into her belly. Let him take her away for what she’d thought of as a magical, impromptu weekend when he’d probably had it all planned.

He’d figured he was buying her. That she was a woman a man
could
buy…

The years she’d spent, condemning her mother’s behavior, thinking of Mama as stupid for trusting men, for giving away her heart. The years she’d spent, telling herself she’d never, ever be as foolish as that.

Caroline swallowed hard.

And here she was—surprise, surprise—a proverbial chip off the old block, a foolish woman walking right in her mother’s footsteps.

Caroline jumped to her feet. Enough. No way was she succumbing to self-pity!

God, the apartment was stifling! The only window in the living room was the one at the fire escape and now there was an iron gate across it. She could still open the window but the thought of it being open, gate or no gate, made her feel sick.

Water, splashed on her face and wrists would cool her off. An old trick, but sometimes it worked.

She went into the tiny bathroom, switched on the light and stared at herself in the mirror over the sink. A creature with disheveled hair and a red, blotchy face stared back.

“Pitiful,” Caroline said, “absolutely pitiful, thinking that man cared for you. Thinking you cared for him. Because you didn’t. You didn’t. You—”

Her voice broke.

Quickly, she turned on the cold water, scooped some up and splashed it over her burning cheeks.