Shameless Playboy (11 page)

 
          
For
a moment, one panicked beat of her heart and the next, Grace wondered if this
was yet another in the succession of vivid dreams she’d been having about Lucas
and this very office—all of which started innocuously enough, just like this,
and then quickly became shudderingly, achingly carnal.

 
          
But
he merely waited in the open door, his face particularly unreadable in the gray
light from the window. Grace surreptitiously dug a fingernail into her own palm
and told herself she was relieved when the sharp little pain lanced through
her.

 
          
She
was awake. But he was still here.

 
          
“I’m
sure you can auction yourself off for charity, or some such good cause,” she
said briskly, as if there had been no strained moment at all. She leaned back
in her chair and eyed him warily. “Or, alternatively, step into the street and
announce you have a gap in your social schedule. I imagine eligible ladies will
tackle you where you stand.”

 
          
That
knowing smile flirted with the curve of his mouth. There was something
especially untamed about him today, Grace thought helplessly. The suit he wore
had been crafted with loving attention to every long, sinewy muscle he
possessed, every hard, flat surface. His roguish dark hair fell over his
forehead, begging for female hands to rake it back into place. But more than
that, he seemed edgy. Determined. Words she would never have thought to
associate with this deliberately languid, casual man.

 
          
But
she would not have thought he could act in the interests of Hartington’s,
either, a small voice whispered, nor in so skillful a fashion, and he already
had.

 
          
“Those
are both attractive options,” he said after a moment. “But my needs are more
specific. You, to be precise.”

 
          
Grace
felt her stomach drop out of her body. She carefully folded her hands on her
lap to keep them from betraying her by shaking. She ruthlessly tamped down on
any outward sign, any reaction, because she knew, somehow, that it would be far
too dangerous to show him any hint of what those words did to her. Any whisper
of the clamoring inside of her, her heart thudding against her chest, all of
her
wanting
with a force that scared
her—and she would be lost.

 
          
And
then what would become of her? She was afraid she already knew—and shoved aside
another guilty flash of memory, resolving she would call her mother later to
assuage her guilt and attempt to make amends. But that did not mean she would
become
her.

 
          
“I
am running out of ways to tell you I am not available to you,” she said with a
great calm she did not feel. She met his gaze, her own firm. “Along with the
patience necessary to keep saying it.”

 
          
“I
received the message, believe me,” he assured her, sounding wholly unrepentant.
“Though I believe it was the laughing in my face that truly drove the point
home.”

 
          
His
green eyes gleamed with amusement. She found the sight a relief, and then
immediately wondered why she cared whether he found her entertaining, on any
level. She should not care if he hated her. She should not care if he was
entirely indifferent to her. And yet …

 
          
“I
apologize if I bruised your ego,” she said, with a razor-sharp pretense of sympathy.
“I will confess, I thought it impossible.”

 
          
“Oh,
it is,” he said easily. “Which is why you can spare me a new lecture on
appropriate behavior—it bounces right off my shiny, pretty surface.” His mouth
pulled into that self-mocking curve. “But I still need you to be my date
tonight.” He shook his head when she started to protest. “It is work-related,
of course. I may be a desperate egomaniac, but I can, on occasion, listen.”

 
          
His
eyes were intent on hers, hinting at all the layers of himself he kept hidden
that she could sense hovered there, just out of reach.

 
          
“Sometimes
I am even capable of processing the information I hear,” he continued, deep
irony laced through his voice. “It is astonishing.”

 
          
“There
is no need for sarcasm,” Grace said, trying to sound firm and in control but
fearing she sounded unnecessarily prim instead.

 
          
He
did not answer for a moment, and then, he casually dropped the name of the
current reigning pop star sensation, the young woman who had recently taken the
country by surprise with her debut album—an achievement made all the sweeter
because she was the daughter of one of England’s most beloved former football
heroes.

 
          
Grace
blinked, unable to track the change of subject. “What about her?” she asked,
baffled.

 
          
“It’s
her birthday party tonight,” Lucas said. “Quite the coveted invitation list. It
should be one of the events of the year.”

 
          
“And,
naturally, you’ve been invited,” Grace supplied for him.

 
          
He
did not bother to address that absurdity, and Grace wondered why she’d bothered
to say it. He was Lucas Wolfe. Of course he was invited.

 
          
“I
thought you could accompany me and we could convince her to sing at the gala,”
he said instead, and there was the unmistakable light of challenge in the gleam
of his eyes, the set of his chin. “I suspect she’ll do it if I ask. She’s had a
crush on me since she was a schoolgirl.”

 
          
Grace
shook her head at him. Getting the current number-one pop star to perform at
the gala would, indeed, be a coup—but for some reason, that was not the part of
what he’d said that she focused on.

 
          
“She
is
eighteen!
” she chided him, even as
she was caught up in the challenge in his gaze. The dare. Even as she found
herself unable to look away from him.

 
          
“I
said she had a crush on me, not that I returned the favor,” Lucas replied,
unperturbed. His gaze grew hotter and seemed to light Grace up from within. “Besides,
everyone knows I prefer my women older, desperate and married.”

 
          
Grace
wanted to discuss his sexual preferences about as much as she wanted to fling
herself out the window behind her to the cold street below. But that did not
keep her mouth from drying out, nor her pulse from leaping at her throat.

 
          
“So
you are pathetic rather than predatory,” she found herself saying, despite her
best intentions. Despite the fact she knew it was not at all wise. “My
congratulations.”

 
          
But
Lucas only smiled.

 
          
“Nine
o’clock,” he said quietly, his voice as low as his eyes were bold. He let his
eyes fall over Grace’s tightly buttoned jacket, then back up, and his lips
twisted. “But you cannot wear one of those ghoulish suits you love so much, not
in front of the paparazzi in my company. And, I beg you, do something with your
hair.”

 
          
His
smoky gaze met hers—dared her, provoked her, made her want to throw the nearest
paperweight at his inflated head—and then he smiled again.

 
          
No
one should have a smile like that, Grace thought, hating herself for the flush
that washed through her, the fire that licked into her—for her inability to
tell him exactly what he could do with his sartorial suggestions.

 
          
“Anything
else?” she asked tightly, furiously.

 
          
Because
they both knew that she would do it. She would go to this party and she would
dress more or less to please him. Because she had no choice, she told herself,
because it was her job to do so, but still—she was surrendering, like all of
her worst fears. His eyes gleamed with a hard, male triumph she could feel echo
inside of her, making her soften instead of scream. Making her yearn.

 
          
“That
should do it,” he said in that insinuating voice of his, the one that tickled
and teased, and crept along her skin like the softest feather, the lightest
touch. “And, Grace—I have a certain reputation to uphold. Don’t force me to
choose an outfit for you. I guarantee that you won’t like it.”

 
          
She
was the most irritating woman he had ever encountered, Lucas thought later that
night, lounging on a suede settee in the middle of the celebrity-studded
birthday party, under the all-glass dome of one of London’s most exclusive
nightclubs. Yet for all his annoyance, he was unable to shift his attention
from Grace, who was sitting beside him and yet, somehow, managing to ignore him
completely.

 
          
He
might have admired her fortitude had he not had this electric current of desire
and temper surging through him, making him want to take out his frustrations on
her very sweet flesh. All over her flesh, again and again and again.

 
          
But
that was not a productive line of thought.

 
          
“No
one is convinced by this act,” he told her. “The entire British press knows you
are only pretending to ignore me for effect.”

 
          
“Just
a minute …” she murmured, not paying any attention. Not even glancing at him.

 
          
It
was lowering, to say the least. Lucas almost laughed at himself. He was
brooding in public, which was not like him at all. He, who was known for his
ability to make all around him laugh and fall a little bit in love with his
smile. But he could not seem to shift his attention from the woman next to him,
as she blithely tapped away at that damned PDA of hers. She had taken him at
his word regarding her attire—which perhaps he should have expected.

 
          
But
he had not been prepared. He had suspected she was beautiful beneath her gloomy
clothes, of course—but he’d had no idea how correct he was.

 
          
For
the first time since he’d met her, she was not wearing an undertaker’s suit in
black or gray. Instead, she had chosen to wear a dress so red, so bright, that
it was all he could do not to gawk at the way it flowed over the mesmerizing
legs she’d made even longer, even more wicked, in high platform sandals. The
dress clung to her breasts as he would like his hands to do, spanned her waist
with a lover’s attention to detail and then flared out from her body to show
only saucy hints of the magnificent legs beneath. She looked like a column of
fire, and he wanted to burn them both beyond recognition.

 
          
But
because she was Grace, and might possibly be the death of him, she had left her
hair up. In a slightly more complicated knot, to be sure, with a few tendrils
of golden blond waves left hanging to tease and entice, but it was ultimately
no less controlled than her usual style. He felt certain it was a deliberate
act of defiance on her part.

 
          
One
step at a time, Lucas thought. He was that much closer to getting her naked and
beneath him, and that, really, was what mattered. It was fast becoming an
obsession.

 
          
He
had presented her to the pop princess who had, as he’d anticipated, eagerly
agreed to perform at the gala—an agreement that Grace had immediately set out
to confirm with the girl’s hovering management team while Lucas suffered
through a series of indecent propositions that should have appealed to him more
than they did. He had smiled obediently for the cameras, and then the princess
and her entourage had moved on, leaving Grace behind to email back and forth
with her team members about ways to update the design concept for the party to
best showcase the new talent. And leaving Lucas with nothing to do but imagine
removing that silky smooth red dress from her mouthwatering curves, tasting
every inch of her heated skin as he went.

 
          
“All
right,” she said finally, looking up at him, triumph bright in her eyes. “That
was another fantastic idea. Thank you.” She slid her PDA into the clutch bag
she held. “I’ll find my own way home, and see you in the office—”