Public Relations (11 page)

“Come for me.” The hoarsely worded demand might have been a whisper, but it registered as a shout.

Spasms racked her limbs, pushing her up the last steps of an internal mountain until she leaped off the precipice. Down, down, down, tumbling over and over until she drifted to the bottom of a wide, deep chasm.

An eternity later, he withdrew from her. Georgia realized he must’ve found his own release while she’d been in the throes of the most incredible orgasm of her life. Legs unsteady, ankles wobbling, she turned and leaned against the wall while he smoothed her dress.

He brushed the fabric downward, then cleaned up. Leaning through the door of a small bathroom, he found the paper-towel dispenser. The whir of the device and rip of the towels said he wrapped up the leavings of their interlude and tossed them into the rubbish.

Facing her once more, he hesitated. One hand brushed her shoulder, his thumb a quiet stroke of regret she saw mirrored in his gaze. His attention lingered on her mouth. When his lips parted, she closed her eyes in anticipation of his kiss.

His warmth left her. Sound and light cut through her awareness. As she opened her eyes, the door back to the gallery clicked closed. He was gone.

Chapter Eight

The scent of hazelnut and dark roast tickled Peter’s nostrils. He breathed deeper. Felt the bed shift. His brow tightened as he tried to remember who he’d gone home with. Coming up empty, he opened one eye.

Georgia, her hair wound into a messy topknot, considered him over the rim of a paper coffee cup from her position at the end of his bed. On one elbow, Peter sat up and examined her cross-legged posture. Bare feet. Pink toenails. His gaze traveled up jean-clad thighs to a trim waist and the swell of pert breasts molded against a pink mohair turtleneck. Bluish circles painted the delicate skin under her eyes.

He hadn’t seen her since he’d left her in that hallway last night, and his morning erection waved all sorts of flags, trying to get him to renew his attentions in her direction. She’d been spectacular. Genuine in her need and pleasure, as well as her apprehension. He’d read the opposite pulls of dread and desire in the way she moved into his touch even as her eyes had skittered away. Despite his reputation, or maybe because of it, she’d come down on the side of bravado.

Fuck her against a wall indeed.

He’d not had uncalculated, uninhibited sex like that in years. He toyed with the idea of sleeping with her again, now, and quickly discarded it. Women he hadn’t paid for were like a socialite’s outfits. He never wore them twice. Georgia had known what she’d been getting into when she’d made that offer and hadn’t wanted any more attachment than he.

“You overslept,” she said, barely meeting his gaze.

He glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It flashed an accusatory 9:33. Scrubbing his face with one hand, he sat up fully, the covers falling to his naked waist.

Pointing with his chin, he cleared his throat. “Got any more of that?”

Leaning over the side of the bed, she reached for something on the floor. When she came upright again, she held a small paper bag with steam rising from the top. He reached for it.

She handed him the bag. Their fingers brushed, and they both froze. He flirted with the impulse to stroke along the fleshy part of her thumb with his forefinger. No. Though his body had other ideas, his mind vetoed the action.

Withdrawing his hand and the bag, he noticed the pile of folders resting next to her thigh on the bed. He bunched the covers over his morning erection and withdrew the coffee and muffin from the bag. “Do you have the—”

One folder landed high on his thigh, its edge smacking his arousal and cutting him off. He clenched his jaw and pressed his palm against his crotch in a soothing gesture. Visions of Georgia, her dress pushed past her hips, breasts jiggling as he pumped into her over and over nearly made him curl his fingers around his length. Slowly, painstakingly, he withdrew his hand and opened the folder as he set his coffee on the bedside table. It was her report. All sixty pages of it. His brows rose to his hairline. She had written all this? Researched all this?

“Wait in the kitchen,” he said, needing to get up and get dressed.

Georgia stood, the mattress shifting as she released its springs. “Here.”

He looked up. She held out a gilt-edged envelope. Elegant script spelled his name on the front. Taking the letter from her outstretched hand, he turned it over. A large, gilt
G
was stamped in a circle of gold on the back.

“Is this from Gigi?” Peter indicated the envelope and slipped his forefinger under the sealed flap.

Georgia waved at him dismissively on her way out of the room. He watched her go before returning his attention to what he assumed was a letter of apology from Gigi for standing him up. Underneath the flap, he encountered a stack of thick paper. Frowning, he withdrew the…wad of cash? All hundreds. Fifteen of them in all. His field of view widened, then narrowed.

Fisting the money, Peter stood and drew the blanket around his hips. When the covers wouldn’t come with him easily, he cursed and kept walking anyway. Over the bedroom threshold, down the long hall, and into the kitchen.

Standing by the table, in the process of setting up her laptop, Georgia didn’t look up until he stood directly in front of her. He shoved the wad of cash under her nose. “Is this your idea of a joke?”

She stepped back. He followed until he had her pressed against the island’s edge. Wetting cracked lips with the pink point of her tongue, she glanced from the money to his eyes and back before slowly lifting her chin.

“It’s my month’s salary, minus taxes. Just so we’re clear you didn’t pay me for last night.”

Fury burned away the edges of his vision. Yanking her close, he used his free hand to pull up her sweater. She squeaked, her palms coming up to ward him off. Too quick for her, he found the peachy lace of her bra and stuffed all fifteen bills into the front. He walked away, giving her a view of his naked ass.

In the shower, he jerked the spray to high and the steam on full. How dare she… How dare… Soap flew from his fingers, and he bent down to swipe it from the floor. He lathered his armpits and soaped his balls, lifting his sac and releasing it with painful jerks.

As soon as he could see Georgia without committing an act of violence, he’d fire her. Then he’d go downstairs to give that harpy, Gigi, a piece of his mind. Undoubtedly that’s where Georgia had gotten the money—and the idea smacked of socialite vengeance. Nobody played him like that. Nobody. He reached for the shampoo as his bathroom door bounced off the wall with a resounding thwack.

A livid Georgia, the fire in her eyes vivid even through the steam curling in the air, stalked toward him. She shook the money he’d shoved between her breasts in her clenched fingers. “I ought to sue you for sexual harassment.”

His bark of laughter resounded, sharp and bitter, off the shower walls.

“That’s rich. Considering how you all but begged me to fuck you senseless last night.” He slammed the shampoo onto its shelf with no little force. “Get out, Georgia, before I have you thrown out.”

“Are you angry because I left without begging you for more?” She dropped the money, the bills scattering like so much refuse to the ground. “Or is it because you let yourself fuck someone for free?”

“Get.” He stepped from the shower, water cascading down his face and into his eyes. “Out.”

Her chin lifted. He shook his head, spraying her with drops. Crossing her arms over her chest, she didn’t deign to wipe the water away. Peter narrowed his gaze. Fine, if she didn’t want to leave, she could join him.

Grabbing her by the upper arms, he lifted her from the floor. Feet swinging at his shins, she shrieked as he dropped her on her ass on the shower bench and closed the door behind him.

“Tell me, what is a woman with your prep-school background doing slumming at a two-bit newspaper?”

She sputtered and tried to stand. He pushed her down and leaned in, cornering her.

“Does Gigi give you her cast-off sweaters and keep you in the wings to do her bidding—hide her identity while she shits out so-called news stories—so you can make bank? Or do you lick at her heels just to remember what it feels like to have money and social standing? To actually matter?”

The crack of her hand across his cheek spun his head to the side. Peter turned his face slowly back to hers. Bedraggled tendrils of hair plastered to Georgia’s forehead, the dark spikes of her lashes blinking rapidly to keep the water at bay.

“Fuck you, Peter Wells.” Water dripped from her lips and ran in a river that stuck her sweater to her chest. “Without me you can’t even make a cup of coffee. Tell me, when was the last time you wiped your own ass?”

She hiccupped, and he realized those fatter drops on her lashes weren’t from the shower. Slowly, he stepped back. Rather than standing, she continued her diatribe.

“Even with the stink of you all over me, I stayed up all night.” She punched the air with one finger. “All fucking night! Just to finish that asinine report you wanted. And you dare to question my intelligence and dedication to my job?” Her chin lifted impossibly high, the angle of her head tipping more tears to her face. “I don’t need you or anyone else to tell me who I am. What I am. What I can do. And it’s a hell of a lot more than getting you off against a wall.” Her voice cracked on the last, and he gave her room to stand.

God, he really had used her abominably, hadn’t he? He’d obviously hurt her by walking away last night. He wasn’t used to this—feelings getting in the way of sexual relations—and he had no idea how to deal with the mess he’d created.

His anger melted in the face of her vulnerability, and he reached out to help her. “Wait.”

She batted him away and stepped from the shower. “I’m going to get changed.”

“There’s a robe—” The accusing look she threw over her shoulder made him shut up.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Wells. You’ll get your money’s worth out of me today.” With regal stature she stalked to the threshold and paused, hand on the jamb. “We all know that’s all you really care about.”

Well…shit.

He watched her go, then shut off the water and steam. The
drip, drip
of the shower heads sounded at his feet as he stared at the space she’d occupied on the bench. He ran a hand through his wet hair and wondered at the regret tightening his belly.

Shrill ringing sounded from the bathroom counter. His personal line. After snapping a towel from the pile, he wrapped it around his hips and stalked from the shower to examine the number on the display. The 203 area code caught his eye first. His parents? Lifting the phone from its cradle, he thumbed the button.

“Yeah?”

“Peter?” The quizzical lilt to his mother’s voice said she’d read his mood on that one word. Damn, she was perceptive.

“Hi. Yeah, Ma.” He grabbed another towel and rubbed at his hair.

“What are you doing showering so late?”

In the background, he heard his father grumble about long-distance telephone charges and her getting to the point.

“I overslept.” No sense lying to her. She’d only hound him for the truth.

“When will you be here?” Utensils rattled in the background, a drawer opening and closing. “I’m trying to figure out how much pizza to order.”

He made a face.
God, please not pizza
. “Ma, I’ll get something from the city for you. Bring it with me. What do you want? Maybe a roast from Balducci’s?”

“Your father wants pizza.” And he knew that settled it as far as she was concerned.

“Okay.” Peter breathed deep.

“We couldn’t get in touch with Emma to see if you were bringing anyone. Then Carl said you were bringing your new girlfriend, Georgia.”

There was a pause as Peter frowned and pulled the phone away from his ear to stare at it. What the hell was Carl thinking?

“Is she a, you know, real girlfriend?” his mother asked, not waiting for him to speak.

Heat flooded his cheeks, and he clenched the phone hard. He gripped the cool edge of the marble vanity with his free hand.

Ah. So that’s what Carl had been thinking. His friend smoothed the way for his father’s birthday the only way he’d known how, by making certain his family thought him legitimately attached and over his shenanigans. The only question was after today could he trust Georgia to behave if he brought her? And could he lie to his mother convincingly when they were introduced?

“Um…sure, Ma. She’s real.” He raked one hand through his hair and decided not to blow it dry. No sense going into the office today. Too late and he had to get on the road by three. “You sure you’re okay with her spending the weekend?”

“You’re a big boy, Peter.” She sounded resigned to disappointment.

The thought tightened his chest as he tried to ignore his conscience, which waved red flags and shouted
liar!
in his direction.

“Thanks, Ma.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll bring Georgia with me.”

Truth be told, he could use the buffer for once between him and his brothers. They wouldn’t dare mention the scandal in Georgia’s presence.

“See you at five?”

“Sure, yeah. See you at five.”

They hung up without good-byes. He dialed Carl without preamble. The PR exec picked up on the first ring. “Hey, Peter.”

“My mother said she called you when she couldn’t reach Emma or me to find out who I was bringing this weekend. I know what you did, Carl. You e-mailed her, didn’t you? Put that idea in her head? I’ve never brought anyone with me before. She wouldn’t come up with this on her own.”

“Oh.”

The weighted silence made Peter pause, his hand over his underwear drawer. “You did give my mother the idea I was inviting Georgia, right?”

“Well…” One wary word.

“Carl…”

A chair squeaked. “I may have intimated that she was the kind of person you might like to bring around.”

“Could you warn me next time?” Sinking to the leather padded bench, he decided he’d had it with this day already.

“You weren’t answering your phone this morning, and I figured you could kill two birds with one stone.”