Royal Pain (15 page)

“It turns out we decided to purchase our own table—as it happens—with the British Menswear Guild. So we will look forward to seeing you there. But I do appreciate the offer… genuinely.” He smiled.
Was
that
an
extra
moment
in
the
glance? Nice.

“Ahem.” A deep voice sounded from behind the door.

James held Bronte in his smile for half a second more, then let his glance slide over her shoulder to where the other people stood.

“Bronte Talbott, please allow me to introduce you to my most trusted colleagues”—professional smile—“and silent partners: my sister Gwendolyn Tate and my—what is it technically, Max?—my second cousin once removed, Max Heyworth.”

Then, there was that wonderful, hideous moment when the air left the room, her breath left her body, and she turned in flash-frame slow motion to see Max, previously concealed on the other side of the door that James had opened to let her in.

Wooosh!

Okay, at least the return of oxygen is something to be grateful for
, Bronte thought as the color drained then returned to her face.

Max smiled his best you-can’t-escape-me grin and reached out his hand, leaving it up to her to say whether or not they knew each other.

“Of course, Max. It has been a while. How are you?”

Of
course
James’s second cousin once removed would be Max. It wouldn’t be a three-hundred-pound septuagenarian with hairy ears, would it? Of course not. And her absurd invitation for James to join her at the CFDA ball tonight?
Fabulous
, she thought bitterly.

“Quite well, thank you. And you?”

Pissed off like a motherfucking alley cat. “Very well, thank you.”

Bronte felt the pressure of James Mowbray’s gaze as he looked from her to Max with a curious interest. “Aaah, so you two are already acquainted. Excellent.” Mowbray’s expression looking more resigned than celebratory. A moment later, he squared his shoulders, as if to clarify it was still
his
company the last time he checked, and broke up the little reunion. He put his hand near, but not on, Bronte’s shoulder and gestured toward his sister.

“And this is my sister, Gwendolyn Tate… technically Lady Francis Tate, but we will dispense with the formalities.”

Gwendolyn Tate was a lifesaver, and Bronte would never forget it. She briskly informed her male relatives to stop ogling the lovely Ms. Talbott and kindly allow her to set up her presentation and begin the pitch. While Max and James were turning to take their positions back at the other side of the long, highly polished mahogany conference table, Gwendolyn gave Bronte a conspiratorial secrets-of-those-who-know-how-to-handle-arrogant-British-males sisterhood wink, then told her how much she had enjoyed the information she had seen so far of the BCA pitch.

“Ms. Talbott—”

“Please call me Bronte.”

“Yes, then, Bronte, I have looked through all of the mock-ups for your print ads and am very much looking forward to seeing your presentation. It is most likely I who will be overseeing that aspect of the American launch, so I am particularly keen to get to know you better and ask a few more questions. Shall we begin?”

By that time, Bronte had opened up her laptop and connected it to the USB cord that fed into the projection system in the conference room. She double-checked that her remote control was working and moved over to the screen on the far side of the room to begin her PowerPoint presentation.

“The main push, as I see it,” she began easily, “is the fortification of the brand. While Mowbray may be a household name among your loyal British clientele, it is still a somewhat rarified one here in the United States.”
Click
. “The message needs to be both bold and traditional, and after speaking with James at length about your intentions here in the US market, I believe this is the best course.”
Click, pause, click
. “I think we should play on the American perception of the romantic British heroic ideal—Byron, Mr. Darcy—brought with confidence and cool into the twenty-first century.”
Click, pause
. “The way to visually convey that would be through a series of eight to ten very recognizable, let’s say iconic, mid-twentieth-century British images in black and white.”
Click, pause, click, pause, click
. “Then to superimpose very bright, contemporary images from your latest collection over those original ones. This image…”

Bronte knew the pitch cold and hit it on all cylinders, despite the fact she could not hear the sound of her own voice. By keeping her focus almost entirely on Gwendolyn Tate, she was able to remain professional and on task for the full thirty minutes. On the few occasions she forced herself to glance in Max’s general direction—he
was
in the room, for God’s sake—she was miraculously able to remain calm, letting her gaze slide coolly away from his dubious stare.

Bronte finished up by speaking about estimated budgets, timelines, and some relevant magazine deadlines. After a few final questions from James and Gwendolyn (thankfully, Max kept his mouth shut), Bronte wrapped with a pert, “Thank you again. BCA would be proud to partner with W. Mowbray and Sons.”

She shook hands again with James and Gwendolyn, and reluctantly with Max, then turned to gather up her laptop, undo the patch cords, and put her extra presentation papers away. The other three headed for the door.

Bronte was sliding her computer back into the sleek, navy leather case she adored—more recent retail therapy at Bottega Veneta—when she accidentally dropped her small remote control on the floor and it skittered under the conference table. Thinking she was alone, she squatted unceremoniously, butt in the air, trying to retrieve it when she heard the door close solidly behind her. She bumped her head on the underside of the conference table with an undignified thwack accompanied by the obligatory, “Fuck.”

Max was standing right behind her.

Alone.

“Could you not stare at my ass, please?” Bronte, on all fours, looked back up at him over her shoulder and turned bright red, immediately reminding herself, and him, she suspected, of all the fun they had had in exactly that position many times before. An instantaneous pull of sexual tension crackled between them.

She turned quickly, remote in hand, and sat cross-legged on the floor, pulling her hair around and in front of one shoulder (in a practical, not sultry, way, she assured herself). Her black fitted pants stretched to accommodate the unbusinesslike position. Max sat down on the floor in front of her and smiled suggestively.

Bronte was not amused.

“So did you know I was going to be making this pitch when you
accidentally
bumped into me then followed me into Sarah James yesterday? Is this some sort of joke to you? I know my $150,000 salary is probably like the equivalent of, what, your mother’s Bentley? But it provides quite a satisfying well-rounded life for little old me. So if you are going to dangle this account as some sort of carrot—”

“Hold on, Miss Paranoid. I had no idea you were making the pitch until you walked in this room and started hitting on James.” Deadly smile. “My aforementioned cousins, James and Gwendolyn, merely asked me to sit in as a favor. I was in New York for a meeting earlier this morning to go over some labor negotiations and project finance on another deal. James was already one hundred percent in your court, but didn’t give me any details other than he worried that the ad exec might be a little too, what was the word he used… fiery. Yes, that was it, fiery.”

“I like that. Fiery. I might have to use that in my bio. Nice picture on Page Six, by the way.”

“Listen, Bron, about yesterday…” He paused for an eternity. “Aren’t you going to interrupt me?”

“No, actually, I’m trying to turn over a new leaf. In my vain attempts to embrace Brutal Honesty, I think I may inadvertently frighten people. I’m trying to be more open, more patient.” She punctuated that last bit with her best Pollyanna smile.

“Very well.” He stared at her, first quizzically, then almost scientifically, narrowing his gaze. After another nearly excruciating silence, he added, “I, well, don’t you want to say something?”

“Not particularly.”

“Jesus, you are a tough nut, lady.”

“Oh, that reminds me, there is one thing I meant to ask you. Should I refer to you as ‘Your Grace’ or is that only in Regency romances?”

“Bronte, stop it.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” Max got up and stretched his legs. “By the way, I am joining James and Gwendolyn at the CFDA awards tonight, so I will keep an eye out for you and Sarah James. That part I
did
know about when I saw you at her place yesterday, but I’ve been having a hell of a good time since then imagining what you will be wearing and how tall you are going to be in a pair of her shoes. Didn’t want to spoil my anticipatory fun, now did I?”

Bronte growled as she got up, ignoring the hand he offered. “I am going for my fitting now if you must know.”

“Say no more. I want to be surprised.”

“Don’t you want to escort me, Prince Charming?”

“Alas, I can’t. I already have a—”

“I was only playing along, Max. Please. Whatever. I will see you there. Or not. Whatever. Please tell your cousins it was a pleasure and I will be available for any follow-up questions they might have.”

Bronte had finished gathering up her stuff and was headed toward the door. Max crossed his arms in front of his chest, leaned his hip against the side of the conference table, and watched his future wife strut away in a fabulously sexy huff.

And then he smiled, really smiled, for the first time in almost a year.

It took everything she had not to stab repeatedly and maniacally at the elevator button in the Mowbray reception area. Bronte gave it one firm push, leaned up on the balls of her feet then back down again, and smiled in a friendly way toward the nice receptionist. She smiled back. The seconds plodded on. The elevator dinged then opened. Still no maniacal pushing.

Yet.

The elevator doors closed.

“Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-FUCK!” With a satisfying jab at the L button punctuating each exclamation, Bronte felt her frustration begin to slip away in time with the descent of the elevator.
Damn
him
, she thought to herself. He was so fucking smug. So perfectly composed. Not a care in the world. Mr. Cool Breeze. Fuck.

Bronte went over the scene in the conference room and her mood started to improve. The pitch had gone perfectly. Gwendolyn practically gave her the thumbs up. James was on her team from day one. Max would
never
do anything to mess with her job, no matter what she had implied in her little snit when she was alone with him in the conference room.

Better to shake it off. She had done her best. Either BCA got the account or they didn’t. It was out of her hands. The elevator doors opened and she headed out onto Park Avenue, the warm summer sun smoothing her jagged nerves.

She reached for her cell phone and called Cecily in Chicago.

“Hi, Cecily, it’s Bronte. I just got out of the final pitch to Mowbray and I think it went really well.”

“Oh, we all knew it would. Well done. Are you ready for the CFDA awards tonight?”

“Yes. I’m on my way to Valentino now to pick up the dress.”

“Perfect—oh, there’s Mowbray on the other line. Great work. Call me tomorrow, Bron.” The line went dead and Bronte walked the few blocks to Valentino, thinking that she should have been feeling far more victorious than she was.

By six o’clock, she had rebounded completely. Decked out in an haute couture floor-length black Valentino satin gown, Bronte felt utterly invincible.

Three hours later, she was making a beeline for the ladies’ room. She locked herself in a stall, lowered the toilet lid, and sat down, deflated.

Dress or no dress, she was a mess.

She had laughed, and mingled, and smiled, and made small talk, and poked at her dinner, and whooped when Sarah James won, and she felt like her face was going to crack right off. She tried to stop herself from hyperventilating, hands hung limply between her knees, chin on her chest, when the high-pitched giggles of two women floated into the bathroom.

“But, Lydia, you’re so lucky. He is absolutely scrumptious.”

“Oh, Pen, stop. He’s not scrumptious. He’s a grown-up. The good news is I think he’s going to give me the keys to his place tonight.”

“Eeeeeeee! Lydia, aren’t you excited? You are going to have a blast. Mmmm, this lipstick is to die for. Do you want to try it?”

“Sure, pass it here.”

Bronte couldn’t stand another minute of their inane chatter. She made her way out of her stall and over to one of the wash basins, hoping that Lydia wouldn’t recognize her from their brief introduction on the street yesterday.

No such luck.

“Ms. Talbott, is that you?”

“Yes, Lydia. Hello.”

“Pen, this is the woman I was telling you about, who has done all the fabulous ads for Sarah James. Ms. Talbott, please allow me to present Lady Penelope Blandford. Penelope, Ms. Talbott.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Penelope. If you two will excuse me.”

Bronte emerged from the bathroom with far more force than she had intended and barreled straight into Max’s all-too-familiar chest. She had already seen him once or twice—okay, about seventeen times—across the ballroom, but the effect of the Duke of Northrop in a perfectly fitted tuxedo at very close range was nothing short of devastating. He had clearly been waiting patiently to escort Lydia and Pen back to the ballroom and was disconcerted to have Bronte lurch into his arms instead.

“James says he gave you the good news this afternoon about the Mowbray campaign,” he blurted, hoping to adopt a business-casual tone, when, in actuality, he came off sounding like a stilted, arrogant prig bestowing his patronizing good wishes upon her.

A silence fell around them.

Max was finished accommodating her paranoia any longer. Her upper arms were resting securely in his grasp and apparently she was saying something, but he failed to parse the words through the fog of his own longing.

“…yes… he called… he… we are really grateful for the opportunity to…” Then she simply stopped talking and breathed, a whisper, “Max…” swaying helplessly toward his warmth.

Just then the bathroom door swung open with a giggly, frothy commotion: Lydia and
Lady
Penelope emerged, both showing the effects of not a little champagne. Even though the feel of Max’s hands on her had brought about a distinct thaw, much about Bronte’s demeanor this evening had screamed pure glacier. Lydia’s giggles quickly faded into an awkward silence as the pretty young thing looked askance at the duke and then at the pillar of ice that was Bronte, and then back to Max.

“Excuse me, Max…”

“Lydia.” Max had released Bronte’s arms but kept one warm hand at her lower back, his thumb touching bare skin where the dress plummeted provocatively. “Please mind your manners. Bronte, please allow me to make a formal introduction. Lady Lydia Barnes, Miss Bronte Talbott. Bronte, please meet Lady Lydia Barnes, my sister’s daughter.”

Lydia made a small, contrite curtsy and Bronte just stood there feeling like a ten-foot-tall American brute. Penelope made a little hiccup-giggle that broke the moment, and Lydia asked Max if he would mind if she spent an hour off on her own checking out all the movie stars and then head home on her own. Max gave his young niece a quick peck on the cheek, handed her the keys to his flat, and told her to enjoy herself. “But mind the champagne, Lyd!” he called after her.

Then he turned the full weight of his attention back to Bronte.

He put his other hand on her forearm to guide her toward a private-looking area a few yards away, and Bronte gave a silent prayer of thanks for her full length gloves. His warmth at the small of her back was intoxicating enough; she wasn’t sure she could have handled his touch against her bare wrist.

As they sat down on a modern, kidney-shaped sofa in a shadowed alcove, Bronte was momentarily consumed with the idea that she was going to faint. Her four-inch heels were starting to dig into her ankles and she hadn’t eaten much since those poached eggs fifteen hours ago, come to think of it.

“Have you eaten anything recently?” Max asked, his hand gently rubbing one of her glove-clad arms.

“I hate that you can do that.”

“Do what?”

“Answer my exact thoughts. Here I am pondering the straps of these infernal shoes, which are, at present, digging into my ankles mercilessly, wondering how you can look so fucking hot in that tuxedo and whether or not I remembered to eat today, and then you go and do
that
… that…”

“Oh, Bron…”

“Please, Max, I don’t know how this all got so fucked to hell. You were supposed to be my TM, remember? Not some perfect dream guy… and a fucking duke no less… what’s up with that? How are there still goddamned dukes running around? Are you an imperialist invader? Do you pillage?”

“You I might pillage. But as a rule? No.”

“And that offhand remark, that’s exactly what I am talking about… you might pillage me… where do I go with that?”

“Back to my place?”

“Stop the banter.”

“It’s not banter, Bron. I’m crazy about you. My brother finally had to take a swing at me after I practically screwed up some of the most delicate negotiations yet with our agricultural unions and all because I am trying to respect
your
wishes. To pretend that everything that transpired in Chicago was some sort of alternative universe. That all the time we spent together, all the time we spent in bed, never happened. That you are now some hotshot advertising powerhouse and that I never had my tongue—”

“Stop!” Bronte actually put her hands over her ears, which in hindsight was probably a mistake because the motion of her upturned arms strained the already crushing bodice of her dress, forcing her breasts together and up and nearly out of the tight silk fabric.

Then, as if in slow motion, Max leaned forward and lightly kissed the swell of her left breast, the back of his head and his thick dark hair sweeping under the sensitive part of her exposed upper arm. Excruciatingly erotic.

Bronte’s eyes eased shut and her head fell back—she couldn’t fight it any longer. She felt her naked upper back make contact with the cold, high-gloss, white enamel wall behind her and she gasped. Max captured her lips with his as her hands made their way into his thick, achingly familiar hair and the corded muscles at the nape of his neck.

God, this was so good, she thought. It didn’t matter if they were in her Wicker Park basement apartment or Sarah James’s cluttered office or in this shadowy alcove at Lincoln Center: his lips felt so good on her, everywhere now, on the column of her neck, across her collarbone, back down to the rise of her breasts. Murmuring sweet words and Bronte’s name, like a chant, the heat of his breath against her skin mesmerized her.

“Please, Bron. Let me back in. I promise…”

Red flag. Fire alarm. Ice water in the face.

Bronte’s eyes opened with a flash as she pushed him back into an upright position.

“You promise what, Max?” Her breathing was ragged and shallow as she tried to get more air into her lungs. “I am still that same hard-hearted, stone-cold bitch you met in Chicago, remember? I don’t believe in anything. I used to believe. Before I let myself get duped. Before I made a complete fool of myself and gave it all away to some asshole who didn’t give a shit about me. So d-don’t go around p-promising—”

“It is not like that, Bron,” he said softly and soothingly, as if she were a frightened animal—she
was
a frightened animal, terrified actually—as his masculine, knowing index finger tentatively, longingly, traced the edge of her bodice, dipping into the fabric and across her bare nipple.

“You are a menace…” Bronte tried to sound dismissive, but it came out on a husky whisper that had exactly the opposite effect on Max.

“Quite.”

“Max,” she whispered desperately, as her head began to tilt back again, her seditious body wanting to give him everything. “It’s like you are some sort of ghost lover. I forget who you are when you touch me like that. I mean, not that I forget…” She was unable to suppress a moan as his tongue and lips and teeth tugged at the upper edge of her bodice. She vaguely remembered that the dress was on loan and bite marks at the seams might be hard to explain.

“Mmm-hmmm,” Max murmured encouragingly.

“It’s more that all the externals fall away and it is only you, only the essence of you and the essence of me, when we are together. Do you really think that would stand up to the weight of our real lives?”

“I am sure you are making perfect sense,” he whispered gently as he placed a tender kiss near Bronte’s ear. “But at the moment, the words are not registering in my brain.” He nipped at the pale, exquisite line of her jaw. “Good God, you are phenomenal.”

“Max, I don’t think I can hold off any longer… empty promises or not.”

“None of my promises were ever empty,” he whispered intimately through her hair, the heat of his warm, moist breath sending electric jolts all the way out to her fingertips and toes. “I’m the one who wants to marry you, remember? It’s me, Max. Stop confusing me with those other guys. Or that other
guy
. I never did any of that to you.”

“Where can we go?”

“Anywhere… my place… your place… a hotel… I will do whatever you want, wherever you want, as long as we are together.”

She placed both of her palms on Max’s cheeks and kissed him soundly, almost matter-of-factly, on the lips. As if to say, “Get ahold of yourself for now and let’s get the hell out of here.” He helped her up from her half-sitting, half-reclining position and twined his fingers through hers as they made their way back into the ballroom.

All of a sudden, it was just Max and Bronte walking around Chicago on a spring afternoon, hand in hand, without any of the external complications of families, work, obligations, and duty that had plagued them for the intervening months. They were both oblivious to the stares and comments that began reverberating through the room as Max-and-Bronte, the unit, made their way through the crowd.

Max kept Bronte firmly in hand, the two of them laughing and rushing down the long, wide piazza, past the fountain, and on into the cool, sparkling Manhattan night.

Paparazzi bulbs were flashing for some nearby celebrity who was also leaving, the lights vaguely registering in Bronte’s subconscious mind. The two of them were like a juggernaut, an unstoppable train. Max hailed a taxi, pulled the door open, then hauled Bronte in, all in one smooth motion as he kissed her full on the mouth.

He yanked the cab door shut and the taxi took off for Gramercy Park. The flashbulbs of the receding photographers were the last thing she remembered before Max was undoing the zipper on the side of her dress and running his hands and mouth hungrily across her body.

Who
am
I
to
deny
a
starving
man?
she wondered as she savored the feel of his lips against her rapidly heating skin and frantically beating heart.