The Proviso (56 page)

Then, in one swift movement, he picked her up and
plopped her on the massive table, then climbed up after her.

She slid backward until he was over her. She lay
down flat and he dove for her mouth again, still on his hands and
knees above her.

“I could fuck you right now,” he growled, hot,
intense, as his lips skittered across the skin of her chest.

“Oh, please
do
,” she whispered, and he
stopped cold. He stared at her and said,

“What about Ford?”

Eilis had no idea where that came from, but she
didn’t appreciate the interruption. “What about him?”

“You’ve been pining after Ford as long as you’ve had
that painting. You asked me for vacation time to have him paint
you. Is that something you still want?”

“Yes, of course, but—”

“You know what? Forget it,” he said as he lifted
himself away from her and hopped down from the table.

“
What?!
”

“I said forget it,” he said roughly as he
straightened himself out. Eilis shrank from his glare. “I want you,
Eilis, but I’m not going to compete with a man you don’t know and
can’t find and who might not do what you think you want him to do
for you.” He strode to the conference room door, but turned before
opening it. “I’ll forego looking at your books today. I’m sure
they’re excellent, as usual.”

Then he left, slamming the door behind him.

* * * * *

49:
JOLE BLON

FEBRUARY 2007

The Waldorf Astoria’s restaurant wasn’t the best
place in the world to have an argument, especially one over
inappropriate attire, so Sebastian controlled his anger as he
watched Eilis navigate the tables. Once she reached him, he
murmured, very calmly,

“Eilis, if you think I’m going to be seen at
Christie’s with you in that getup, you’ve got another think coming.
I can’t stand that rag, which you know very good and well, so
either go back upstairs and change or go back upstairs and stay. I
don’t care which.”

She drew herself up and Sebastian knew that if she
weren’t in costume, she’d have taken him on at that moment. A
month. He hadn’t seen her in a month since he’d had her underneath
him and willing. He still remembered how stunning she’d been that
day, in cocktail black, all that gorgeous blonde hair down and
around her shoulders, one green eye and one blue eye, an expressive
face flawless with that scar and nose he loved. Blonde bombshell
businessbitch.
Yummy
.

And the first time he’d seen her in a month, she
showed up in Chanel.

When she opened her mouth, Sebastian snarled.
“Don’t. Whatever you have to say, save it until you look
presentable. I won’t be manipulated, Eilis. I don’t play those
games, especially not with women, and
most
especially not
with a woman I want to fuck in the worst way. Your little stunt of
not uploading reports to me on time as I requested? Manipulative.
Knox has less patience with it than I do and he wasn’t a happy
camper.”

So saying, Sebastian went back to his breakfast,
dismissing her. She stood for another couple of seconds before she
decided not to test him. Sebastian’s anger was so thick within him,
he could chew on it. He’d never taken this much guff from a woman.
Ever. He didn’t know why he let Eilis get away with it.

He didn’t know why he acted so differently with her
than with any other woman and/or client. From the very beginning,
he’d treated her differently. He’d let her keep that damned
painting—bad idea. He’d pulled her pigtails to make her façade
crack, then harder and harder when she didn’t respond. He’d spent
time with her, getting to know her on a level he’d never gotten to
know any of his other female clients,
especially
the
beautiful ones.

With Eilis, he thought about sex and money at the
same time, and she had tripped both sides of his brain
and
his cock immediately,
with
the getup on.

Unlike his other clients, he didn’t coddle Eilis. He
met her head-on because that was what she understood and he wanted
Eilis Logan to understand him
very
clearly.

Apparently, she wanted him to understand her, too,
because when she finally came back, she took his breath away.
Again.

She wore an ankle-length maroon skirt that flared
out wide when she walked and turned. Its waistband overlapped half
again around her waist, covering only the most important parts if
the skirt lay just right. A prim white Victorian shirtwaist was
tucked neatly into the waistband, its collar high under a short
maroon silk jacket with Dolman sleeves. Not a bit of skin showed
except when her skirt felt inclined to fall open, which it did at
that moment.

Sebastian hardened at the sight of a long length of
leg, set off nicely by her sky-high heels and the lace top of her
white thigh-high stocking—but it disappeared again with the next
step.

He gulped. Maybe he should’ve let her wear the
Chanel.

“Do I meet your approval
now
, O Omnipotent
One?”

Sebastian bit back a smile at her attitude, happy
now that the Eilis he wanted—the one of fire and passion, the
ruthless bitch with the wounded soul she wanted to hide from him,
the one who’d apologized to her employees when she’d understood
what Sebastian was trying to tell her—was now present and accounted
for.

And boy, was she pissed.

“Not quite,” he said shortly, unable to give quarter
until he’d had his way. “Siddown. Eat.”

She sat without a word. Sebastian took choice bites
from his plate and put them on hers. She looked at it, then pushed
it away from her. She put her elbow on the table and propped her
chin in her hand. She looked away from him and around at the other
restaurant patrons.

“Eilis,” he said. She didn’t move a muscle, but then
he saw a tear streak down her face. At that moment, he’d have given
anything to take her upstairs and make love to her until she didn’t
feel like crying anymore. “You don’t have to do this. I can go take
care of it myself.”

“No,” she said tightly, still not looking at him. “I
deserve this.”

Sebastian sighed and finished his meal. He didn’t
agree with that, but this wasn’t the time to discuss it. He arose
and took a step, holding his hand out to her when she didn’t move.
“Eilis, if you’re going to do this, we have to go. The auction
starts at nine.”

She looked up at him, heartbreak and despair in her
eyes, and he didn’t know how he would pull her through this. He was
responsible for bringing her here, forcing her to do one of the
things she should have done to begin with when she could have saved
her company without receivership.

And he didn’t feel a bit of guilt for that,
either.

“Eilis, cowboy up,” he snapped.

She gulped and put her hand in his, stood, then took
his left arm when he offered it. Once out of the hotel, he hailed a
cab that took them to Christie’s, not a word between them.

This was a high-profile auction and every
überwealthy person in the country, possibly the world, had agents
getting numbers, prepared to buy at least one Ford. Sebastian had
come to watch, not bid personally, as he usually did. He saw his
own agent, nodded slightly, let the man go about his business.

People treated Sebastian deferentially wherever he
went. In the worlds of business and art, he rarely ran into someone
who didn’t know who he was; thus, the surprised glances he and
Eilis garnered on their way to the saleroom were not for him.

They were for Eilis, who turned every head she
passed and left varying expressions of lust in her wake—not that
she would believe him if he pointed it out.

He wrapped his arm around her waist on the pretense
of guiding her through the press of people to get to the VIP
entrance; he could touch her the way he wanted to without damaging
his pride any further. He refused to take second place behind Ford
and he had no intention of pursuing this relationship as long as
Ford stood between them—even if he was in love with her.

Apparently, she didn’t notice that he had his arm
around her, so he took the opportunity to caress her hip while her
mind wandered.

“Eilis, do you want to sit or stand?” he asked
quietly once they were in the mostly filled saleroom.

“Stand,” she said. “I’ll feel like a coward if I
sit.”

Interesting. She chucked up her chin and stared
straight ahead once he’d chosen a fairly inconspicuous spot on the
back wall. Between them, they didn’t have a chance in hell of being
inconspicuous, so he didn’t know why he bothered.

He took his arm from around her waist and she said,
her voice breaking, “Please don’t.”

Against his better judgment, Sebastian nevertheless
wrapped his arm farther around her, then pulled her back into his
body as he leaned back on the wall. He sighed and wrapped his other
arm around her, too.

While he wasn’t sure if she noticed, his cock sure
as hell did. This would be pure hell until the money started
flowing.

Finally, it did. All the bad art he’d sorted from
her vault and had had crated here with the Fords went up first. He
was pleasantly surprised to know that most of them had gained in
value, if only a buck or two. That was a good chunk of change,
right there.

Then the Fords came up and the crowd stirred in
anticipation. The first one went to an unassuming man halfway back
and toward the center of the room.

So did the second.

And the third.

Eilis shuddered with each clap of the gavel. Then
the calls began in earnest as phone bids rolled in, and agents were
ordered to pay whatever they had to pay to get one.

The unassuming man halfway back and toward the
center continued to bid quietly, driving up the prices but dropping
out early, usually about three-quarters to its end price.

It was the sixth painting at which Sebastian felt
moisture on his hands and he realized Eilis was crying, her head
bowed, her tears dripping onto his skin. He’d been so caught up in
seeing how much the lot of them would fetch, he’d nearly forgotten
that he had his arms around one very heartbroken woman.

“Hey,” he said softly, shaking out a handkerchief.
He caught her chin and pulled her face around until she looked at
him. He gently wiped her tears, then turned her in his arms so she
couldn’t see—and she took him up on that immediately. She clung to
him, her hand wrapped around his neck, her fingers in his hair, and
sobbed quietly in his neck.

Eilis’s pain was so great that Sebastian felt no
satisfaction that the eight pieces had fetched fifty-five percent
of her debt. Now, if she’d only put
Morning in Bed
up, too .
. .

At least Sebastian had managed to buy her three
favorites.

The room emptied and still she leaned on him. Her
face was a mess, but she wasn’t crying anymore.

“I’m sorry to have made you do this, Eilis,” he
murmured. “It was for the good of your company and your employees
and I’m proud of you for putting them first.”

“Sebastian,” she whispered, “make love to me,
please.”

Sebastian’s breath caught in his throat and his eyes
widened. “Eilis, do you
remember
how you ended up in the
saleroom at Christie’s?”

She hiccuped. “Yes, but I trust you.”

He grasped her upper arms and set her just far away
from him enough so she could look in his face and see just how
angry he was.

“Do you take me for a fool?” he hissed and her
tear-streaked face betrayed her complete and utter shock. “Dammit,
Eilis, what do I have to do to knock some sense into your head? You
don’t want
me
. You want comfort sex and any cock will do.”
She flinched and he didn’t care. “I’m tired of being your fan club,
Eilis. I won’t be the stopgap between nobody and this asshole you
have in your head who
does not exist
who you want to give
you something you can’t define. Whatever it is you’re looking for?
Not here. Not in my pants. Not in my bed.

“Vacation? Done. One month. I’ll take over your job
so you can find your precious Ford,” he snarled as he released her.
“Maybe
he
can fix whatever it is I can’t reach and you’re
apparently not willing to.” He walked away from her without a
backward glance. She could find her own way back to the hotel.

That night he paced his hotel room, his headset
practically melting from the heat of his rage, barking orders at
Giselle and getting angrier every time she tried to talk him down,
to plead with him not to do what he planned, to tell him it’d
backfire and he’d be sorry.

“I’m going to
kill
that bastard!” he roared
at her before hanging up on her. “And you’re going to help me. You
owe
me, Giselle.”

* * * * *

“
I love you,” she sighed into his mouth, his cock
sliding easily, oh! so easily in and out of her, the weight of his
body comforting and not at all heavy.

He chuckled. “I love you, too, Eilis.”

The snow under her naked body was not cold and the
December air didn’t sting her skin. Snowflakes melted on his body
as they landed. She opened her eyes, but his face lay in shadow and
shade. Beside her, crocuses and hyacinths, tulips and daffodils
sprang up in her line of sight and she thought she had never seen
such a beautiful thing in her entire life: tulips and daffodils in
the snow.

She ran her hands up his body, from those buttocks
she knew so well, up his rib cage, to his shoulders. She was about
to come and the shadow passed from his face. For the first time,
she would see him, who he was—

Eilis awoke abruptly, her hand between her legs, and
she came. When her breathing had calmed, she buried her face in a
pillow and sobbed. It was the same every time she had this dream,
only the locales changed. She would awaken on an orgasm she’d given
herself and never remembered initiating.