The Irresistible Tycoon (8 page)

‘Kim?'

Something of her thoughts must have shown on her face because Lucas's voice was sharply concerned, and now Kim realised she had been staring at him without seeing him. She murmured something about having remembered
she'd left the gas on and stepped into the hall quickly, shutting the door behind her.

Brilliant. As Melody chattered away while they heated the soup and put the crumpets under the grill, Kim's mind was buzzing. Now not only would he think she was grossly inadequate at work he would think she was lackadaisical at home too. Left the gas on. Kim wrinkled her small straight nose. The cottage was all electric!

She sent Melody upstairs to begin undressing before she took the tray through to the sitting room. Ridiculous, maybe, she acknowledged silently as she turned the handle of the door—nearly upsetting the tray in the process—but the easy way Lucas had with the child had disturbed her.
He
disturbed her, always, but she hadn't expected him to know how to talk to children somehow. She would have thought he'd be even more cold and distant than he was with most adults, but he'd been warm, relaxed, his natural hardness quite gone. And she hadn't liked how it had made her feel.

Lucas had taken off his overcoat and his suit jacket and pulled his tie loose when she walked into the room, and as she glanced at him—sitting in apparent lazy relaxation in front of the flickering coal fire the sitting room boasted—Kim felt a bolt of electricity shoot right down to her toes.

‘Nice, the real fire.' His voice was deep, low in his throat, and his eyes were unfathomable.

Kim nodded tensely, watching him straighten himself in the chair with something approaching panic as her gaze seemed to lock on hard male thighs. ‘The previous owners had resisted the convenience of an artificial fire, so we followed suit,' she said tightly, her cheeks flushed as she handed him the tray. ‘With central heating the cottage gets as warm as toast but a fire is so cosy on winter nights.'

Kim knew she was speaking too quickly, her words fall
ing over themselves, but she was so flustered it was a miracle she could talk at all, she told herself desperately.

She smelt like apples and magnolia flowers and baby powder. Lucas felt his body respond to her closeness, the hungry stirring of hard male arousal, and kept his voice easy and cool when he said, ‘This looks wonderful. Thank you.'

‘It's the least I can do, in the circumstances.' It wasn't quite what she had intended to say, or rather his response to her innocent words—the faintly lifted sardonic eyebrow and devastatingly wry twist to his undeniably sexy mouth indicated he had put a different interpretation on her ingenuously polite reply—and Kim found herself scurrying out of the room like a frightened mouse.

Well, she'd handled that well! With the door safely closed behind her Kim sank against it in utter frustration and irritation at her inadequacy. This whole scenario was going from bad to worse.

Melody didn't help much, once she was in the bath and Kim was helping her wash her hair. ‘I like Lucas.' It was a definite statement. Melody was one for definite statements and rarely changed her mind about anything.

‘Mr Kane, sweetheart.' Kim kept her voice casual and very calm. ‘You must call him Mr Kane.'

‘Why?' A small nose wrinkled bewilderedly.

‘Because…because it's polite, with him being Mummy's boss.'

‘I like Mr Kane, then.' The little soapy body wriggled round so Melody could stare her straight in the eyes. ‘Do you, Mummy? Do you like Mr Kane?'

‘Of course I do,' Kim said briskly. ‘Now, it's your night for clean pyjamas, young lady. Do you want your teddy bear ones or the ones with little flowers that Aunty Maggie bought you for Christmas?'

The distraction succeeded. It was an important decision and one which needed some consideration.

It was another ten minutes before Kim led Melody—impossibly angelic in forget-me-not-flowered pyjamas and Minnie Mouse slippers—into the sitting room for a cursory goodnight to Lucas. At least, that was what Kim had planned it would be. Lucas and her daughter had different ideas.

‘I like your pyjamas.'

It was the first thing Lucas said and nothing could have guaranteed his esteem in Melody's eyes more.

‘Aunty Maggie bought them for me.' Great dark eyes locked with silver. ‘And Father Christmas brought my slippers. He brought me lots and lots of presents.'

‘Lucky old you.' Lucas made a funny face. ‘He didn't bring me anything.'

Melody giggled conspiratorially. ‘That's because you're a grown-up, silly.'

‘Oh, is that what it was? I did wonder.'

Melody giggled some more, moving to stand close to his chair with one tiny hand on his knee. ‘You can have one of my chocolates if you like,' she offered solemnly. ‘I had a big tin and Mummy only lets me have one every night because she wants me to have no fillings in my teeth.'

‘Wise Mummy.'

There were all manner of alarm bells going off in Kim's mind but before she could say anything Lucas had bent down and lifted Melody onto his lap, his voice a stage whisper as he said, ‘What I would really like is for you to show me that snowman. Would that be okay with you?'

‘Uh-huh.' Melody had wound one arm round his neck, her small face close to his as she whispered back, ‘His name is Mr Snow. I named him that.'

‘I can't think of a better name.'

She didn't like this. She didn't like this at all. Kim had
combed out her severe office braid and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt before going into the garden with Melody, and now she flicked back her heavy fall of hair, her voice sharp as she said, ‘Show Mr Kane the snowman and then it's bedtime, sweetheart.'

‘Lucas.' It was quiet and even but something in his tone set Kim's heart hammering. ‘You can call me Lucas, Melody.'

‘But Mummy said…'

‘Yes?' Melody had turned to look across at Kim confusedly. ‘What did Mummy say?' Lucas asked softly.

‘She said I had to call you Mr Kane because it's polite.'

‘And Mummy is right,' Lucas said silkily. ‘But now I've said I want you to call me Lucas it's polite to do that, okay?'

‘Okay.' Melody wriggled happily, clearly captivated, and Kim silently ground her teeth in impotent rage. Who did he think he was, muscling in here, talking his way into a meal and then countermanding her instructions to her daughter? And then she remembered the reason for his call and the rage subsided as quickly as it had flared into life.

She had committed an unforgivable mistake and he would have had every right to storm in here tonight crying for blood. Instead he had been amazingly calm and reasonable. She didn't know what he was going to say to her once they were alone, but she couldn't fault his attitude in front of Melody. So…she owed him a little latitude.

She kept repeating that to herself when he stood to his feet in the next instant and wrapped Melody in his overcoat before the three of them paid brief homage to Mr Snow, Melody's stringy arms tight round Lucas's broad neck, but she drew the line at Melody's request that Lucas read her a bedtime story.

‘No story tonight, sweetheart.' She took Melody from Lucas at the bottom of the stairs once they were inside the
cottage again, handing him his coat with a tight smile. ‘Mr Kane and I have some important work things to discuss, so you've got to promise Mummy you'll be a good girl and go straight to sleep tonight.'

‘Aw…' Melody pouted, peering at Kim from under her eyelashes, but when she saw her mother's face was adamant she gave in with her usual good humour and Kim was downstairs again within two or three minutes.

She paused at the sitting room door before opening it, her stomach turning over, and then smoothed down her sweatshirt and wiped suddenly clammy hands on her jeans. If he was going to shout and scream he would have done so immediately, wouldn't he? But it wasn't just that possibility that was churning her insides and she knew it.

‘You have a charming daughter.' Lucas was standing at the window as she entered the room and Kim's heart took a mighty jump as he turned to face her. ‘She's a credit to you.'

‘Thank you.' Kim stood just inside the door, uncertain of whether to sit or continue standing. This was
her
home, her little castle, but she felt as though she were the guest, she told herself crossly. How did he make her feel like that?

‘Can she remember her father at all?'

It wasn't what she had expected him to say and he read the knowledge in the darkening of her velvet brown eyes. Perhaps he shouldn't bring the subject of her husband up again, Lucas acknowledged silently, but he needed to know much more about this reserved, honey-skinned, golden-haired woman and he had a distinct advantage tonight while she was feeling bad about the report. He felt no remorse in thinking this way; in the early days of his joining the family firm his father had taught him always to look for the weak spot in one's opponent and capitalise on it, and he'd found he had a natural aptitude for such ruthlessness.

And Kim was an opponent. He didn't know quite how
it had happened but he knew instinctively it was the case. For some reason she saw him as the enemy and it was grating more and more with every day that passed.

‘Her father?' Kim thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans, her face tense. ‘No, she can't remember Graham.'

‘Come and sit down, Kim.' Lucas indicated the sofa as he walked over to the chair he had vacated earlier, and again it was as if he were the host and she the guest.

She sat down on the very edge of the cushions but as he drew his chair at an angle to the sofa it brought him much too close and so she shifted back in the seat, moving slightly away as she did so. ‘I'm very sorry about the report, Lucas.' Her voice was tight and formal. ‘If it's in the wrong envelope I know what damage it might do, so the offer stands about my resignation.'

He stared at her for a moment, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, although he was careful not to touch her. The warm fragrance of her nearness invaded his air space and his senses were registering how much younger she looked with her hair loose about her shoulders, uninhibited even. But looks were deceptive. He could feel the tension in her like a live thing, keeping him at bay.

‘I joined Kane Electrical straight from university and I was as green as they come,' Lucas said quietly, his deep, slightly husky voice with its trace of an accent causing her nerve endings to quiver. ‘But I was keen.'

He smiled at her, the silver-grey eyes wrinkling at the edges, and Kim forced herself to smile back although it was just a movement of her mouth. He had rolled up his sleeves while she had been out of the room and his muscled forearms were covered in a liberal dusting of black silky hair, and in the position in which he was sitting—with his dark head close to hers and the tanned jawline dark with a
day's growth of stubble—it was impossible to ignore his flagrant masculinity.

‘My father is a cautious Englishman and my mother a fiery and impetuous Colombian, so I've had to learn to temper my mother's explosive genes and perhaps take more risks on the paternal side. It works…mostly.'

Kim nodded. So that was where the echo of an accent came from. His mother.

‘However…' Lucas paused, aware he had her interest. ‘In my first year of working for my father, my mother's genes were rampant. I prefer that as an excuse than the foolishness of crass youth. I took a risk, a big risk, off my own back. There was no real need for it, I guess, but perhaps I felt the need to prove myself. I don't know. Anyway, it was a mistake, a huge one; it nearly broke us. It makes your slip-up very meagre in comparison. I never made that mistake again.'

He was looking at her very closely, his eyes intently searching her wide-eyed face. ‘You will never make the same mistake again, Kim,' he said very softly, and somehow she got the impression he was talking about more than her blunder with the report.

Kim drew in a deep breath, fighting the sudden and unwelcome tears that were pricking at the back of her eyes. ‘It's…it's very good of you to look at it like that,' she managed faintly, keeping strictly to the matter of the day and refusing to acknowledge any hidden connotations in what he was saying. ‘But I'm aware it could be very embarrassing for you.'

‘I'm not easily embarrassed.' He smiled, an unconsciously sexy quirk to his hard firm mouth, and the breath caught in her throat.

The flickering glow from the fire, the strength and warmth and irresistible drawing power of his dark magnetism were too seductive, too dangerous, and Kim surprised
them both when she leapt to her feet, her voice high as she said, ‘Coffee. I'll fetch some coffee.'

‘Great.' His voice was casual and relaxed as he too stood to his feet, and as he reached out and took her hand his face didn't reveal the anger he felt as she stiffened against his touch. ‘Just put it down to experience, Kim,' he said softly. ‘Learn from it, take the positive and leave the negative on the side of the plate and don't let it cripple you.'

He
was
talking about more than work.

She hesitated and then raised her head to meet his eyes, her gaze wary. ‘That's easier said than done.'

‘Possibly.' He could feel her trembling slightly and it checked the crazy impulse he had to pull her into him and devour her mouth; the strength of his desire shocked him. He had never had any trouble in keeping work and play separate, in fact he would go so far as to say he had felt contempt in the past for any business associates who had been foolish enough to mix the two, but this was different. But perhaps that was what they all thought.

The heat from his fingers seemed to be flowing into her, trickling into every nerve and sinew and setting her body alive with a strange electric current. What would it be like to be kissed by a man like Lucas Kane? Kim gave up the fight to dismiss the thought that had been paramount for most of the evening. Thrilling, exciting, out of this world. He'd know how to kiss. Sexual expertise was there in his eyes, his body, even the way he walked and moved…