Once A Bad Girl (8 page)

Barry lowered himself back into his seat, then took her hand in his small pasty one and squeezed it. ‘Well, that was an unpleasant surprise. He always was a nasty piece of work. It’s all in the genes, you know.’

Lottie didn’t get a chance to ask exactly what Barry meant by that. Josh had executed an on-the-spot pivot that would make a prima ballerina proud, and was headed straight back towards them. The breath caught in her throat at the sight of him, all movie-star cheekbones and action-man pecs, and she squirmed in her seat.

‘Forgot to give you these.’ Josh shoved his fingers into his left pocket, and pulled something out, something small and white. At first, she wondered why he was giving her a crumpled tissue. It took a moment for her befuddled brain to latch onto the fact that it wasn’t, in fact, something she could blow her nose on. The fabric wasn’t smooth but woven, sheer in places, and decorated with tiny flowers.

Lottie buried her face in her hands. ‘Thanks,’ she wheezed, as Josh placed her knickers delicately onto the table. She slapped her hand on top of them and whipped them out of sight. ‘But you shouldn’t have.’

Next to her, Barry made a noise like a pig being strangled. ‘Six months,’ he huffed. ‘Six months of turning me down, and you opened your legs for
him
?’ He shot to his feet for the second time in under a minute, and nearly sent the table flying. ‘How long?’ One pasty hand wrapped around the paper napkin he had tucked into his collar, ripped it free. ‘How long have you been seeing him?’

Josh cut in before she could figure out an answer. ‘We only met a week ago,’ he said cheerily, scratching his chest, looking unreasonably, infuriatingly pleased with himself.

Why was he doing this? What did he possibly have to gain? ‘Barry, please,’ Lottie pleaded, as the napkin was flung aside, only to be caught by the breeze and draped slowly over his half-eaten pasta and clams.

She willed him to say something, anything, but he didn’t, he just glared at her with those gravy-brown eyes, shook his head, and walked off, linen jacket flapping noisily.

Anger boiled up inside her as Josh settled himself into Barry’s seat. ‘You!’ She poked him hard in the chest with her index finger. ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ She jabbed at him again, and he flinched. ‘Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?’

‘Saved you from making a horrible mistake?’

She threw her hands in the air. ‘No! Barry works for Christie’s. He told me about Marlene’s memorabilia. I was hoping he might let something else slip.’

‘Then I really did you a favour. Jeez, Lottie, that’s desperate.’

‘I am desperate.’ Sinking back down to her chair, Lottie pinched the bridge of her nose, as if pain could stop the tears, suddenly realising just how far she’d sunk. ‘I’m out of ideas,’ she admitted. ‘I’m seriously considering selling a kidney.’

Josh folded himself into the chair opposite, took her hand in his big, warm one, and started to play with her fingers. ‘I don’t get why the auction house is so important to you. Businesses go under all the time. You’re attractive, smart. You could get another job.’ He set his thumb to her palm and rubbed.

Tingles of pleasure shot up her arm. She tugged her hand away, straightened up in her chair, refusing to be distracted from the fact that she was very, very angry with him. ‘It’s a family business.’

‘But it’s not your business, right? It’s your father’s. Therefore it’s his responsibility.’

He didn’t understand, but then why would he? ‘No, it’s a family business. That means that all of us pitch in, regardless of who’s name is over the door.’

Those blue eyes cut right into her. ‘I see.’

‘Do you?’ Lottie folded her arms, stared at the swirls in the wrought-iron table top until her vision went blurry and her mind dredged up things she didn’t want to think about. How it had felt to have his weight pin her down on the bed. The sheer bliss of having him move inside her. She hardened herself into ice-cold steel. ‘Not all of us have the luxury of swanning around doing whatever we fancy. Some of us have responsibilities. I won’t let my parents down, Josh, and if that means I have to make nice with people like Barry, so be it.’

‘I guess your family means a lot to you.’

‘Of course it does. My parents have done everything for me. I owe them everything in return.’ Lottie grabbed her tote, found her purse, and dug in it for some money. The remnants of clam mountain leered at her. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work. While I still have work to do, that is.’

‘Sit down, Lottie.’

His voice was low and commanding, and apparently her legs couldn’t disobey. ‘What?’

‘Stop talking for a minute and listen. I think I know a way we can help each other out.’

‘You want to buy my kidney?’

He touched her lips with his index finger, bringing up another disturbingly erotic memory of another time, another place. ‘I said, stop talking. Let’s consider the facts. The auction house needs a big client. Am I correct?’

Lottie nodded, and he removed his hand.

‘I can provide you with a big client. I need some splashy publicity for my club. You can provide me with that.’

‘How?’

He tapped the magazine with one long finger. ‘We’re going to feed the monster. We’re going to have a short, very passionate and very public fling.’

Hooking a finger into the collar of his dress shirt, Josh eased the tug on his throat, and wondered not for the first time what had possessed him. Not just to dress up in the monkey suit, but to suggest this whole crazy scheme in the first place. It was insane. But then when had his life ever been anything but? He was the son of an Oscar-winning actress, and that meant his life was never going to be normal. He’d spent his whole life dealing with it. Too many friendships had gone sour when he’d realised that he was nothing more than a gateway to Marlene, until he’d reached the point where he didn’t bother with it anymore. What was the point? It pained him that he couldn’t trust anyone, but he’d been burned too many times to be any different now.

Hell, he didn’t trust Lottie. But the memorabilia had to be auctioned, and by giving the contract to Spencer’s and keeping Lottie close, he kept control. Plus keeping himself in the media spotlight would guarantee publicity for the club. When he thought about it like that, it all made perfect sense. It was only for a few weeks after all. And he’d done Lottie a favour, getting rid of Barry the Perve. What the hell was she thinking, hanging around with a jerk like that?

Snarling to himself, Josh thumbed the doorbell again, and this time pinned it down. Was the damn thing even working? Why wasn’t she opening the door? He felt like he was 17 and picking up his date for the sixth-form ball all over again. He prayed that whatever happened, baby-pink tulle wouldn’t be involved.

Okay, so he was 20 minutes early, but he and Lottie needed to have a serious talk before they took this thing public. She’d said she didn’t have anything to do with the photos in
Guilty Pleasures
, and he was trying his damndest not to believe her. He didn’t want to believe her. But the fact remained that she’d tried to sneak out without him realising, and if she’d planned that photo, surely she’d have dragged him to the doorstep.

She was either the most media savvy person he’d ever met, or the most naive. Either way, from now on they were playing by his rules, and he was not going to allow himself to be distracted by her big, Bambi eyes. Or her lush, soft pout. Or her breasts. Those gorgeous, hand-filling breasts.

‘Lottie!’ he yelled, his patience drained. ‘Are you in there?’

The door popped open. Violet eyes simmered up at him, and his mind went completely blank.

‘I’m not deaf,’ she said. ‘You can stop ringing now.’

‘Huh?’

Leaning out, she slapped his hand away from the doorbell. ‘You’re early. I’m not ready yet. And no sexist jokes about it, thank you very much.’

‘I wouldn’t dare.’

She eyed him steadily. ‘We both know that’s a total lie. Now are you going to come in? Or do you want to stand there all night, waiting for another photographer to take a picture?’

Josh tucked his hands into his trouser pockets as the door swung back and she scampered away, giving him nothing more than a glimpse of little black shorts and long, dark hair. He couldn’t decide if he wanted that to be her outfit, or her underwear.

He pushed the door closed behind him and took a moment to orient himself in her space. It didn’t take long. There wasn’t much of it. He’d stepped straight into the living room of her basement flat, a compact cube of a room with a stumpy sofa tucked into the bay window and a fossil of a television threatening to crush a glass coffee table. A pair of pink porcelain cats sat either side of it, claws bared. At the other side was what he guessed passed for a kitchen, with a couple of gas rings, a battered kettle and a noisy fridge.

How did she live with so little space? How did she breathe? One thing was clear though. Whatever her job at the auction house paid, it wasn’t much. Could she have been tempted to take a payout from
Guilty Pleasures
for setting up that photo? He fought the urge to duck as he sauntered through the half-open door that lay to his left, telling himself that the ceiling wasn’t that low, and he wasn’t that far over 6ft tall, and that Lottie was someone he needed to keep an eye on. It had nothing to do with the urge to be near her.

A loud squeal greeted him. ‘What are you…Josh, I’m not dressed! Get out!’

‘What’s the problem? I’ve seen it all before.’

‘Last week!’

‘So?’

‘Last week you had permission to see me naked. This week, you don’t.’

‘Then I promise not to look. But before we go out tonight, we need to talk.’ He lowered himself cautiously onto the slippery satin throw that covered the bed. The bedframe groaned. ‘How do you cope with a bed this small?’

The wardrobe door hid most of her, but it couldn’t hide the delicious curve of her bottom encased in those shorts that he now saw were some sort of clingy black lace. Strictly speaking, that part of her wasn’t naked, so he wasn’t breaking his promise.

‘It’s not small,’ she informed him tartly. ‘It’s a perfectly normal size.’

‘For a pixie!’

‘Then there’s your answer. I use my magical powers.’

‘Stop trying to hide in the wardrobe for a minute and listen to me.’

Fabric rustled, and she muttered something rude. It occurred to Josh that he’d heard her say something similar, loudly, right before she came. Blood crashed south, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

He pressed his fingers hard against his temple as she emerged from behind the door, wearing a crumple of noisy black fabric that covered her from armpit to knee. ‘You can’t wear that.’

Her eyebrows shot up. ‘I can, and I will.’

‘Okay.’ Josh held his hands up in surrender. ‘But you can’t wear that tonight.’

‘Why? What’s wrong with it?’ She was trying her damndest to be cool, but he heard the panic in her voice.

‘This is a film premiere, Lottie. The battleground of the serious attention seekers. We need something “wow”.’

She smacked her forehead with the heel of her hand. ‘Didn’t I tell you? The shops are all out of “wow” at the moment.’

Josh got to his feet. It only took one short stride to get next to her. Gripping her shoulders, he moved her to one side. ‘Let me see.’ He glanced inside, expecting to see neatly folded piles of pastel.

He did a double take. ‘If the shops are out of wow, it’s because you bought it all.’ She had every colour in the rainbow hanging from the rail, plus a few more besides. He pulled out a strapless crimson number that would have made Jessica Rabbit blush, an emerald-green catsuit, a gold-sequinned jacket. ‘Do you moonlight as a showgirl or something?’

She fiddled with the back of the ruffly black dress, her face turned to the wall. ‘I like fancy clothes. What’s wrong with that?’ She managed to move the zip maybe an inch. Josh didn’t bother to help her. No point. She wasn’t leaving the flat in it.

‘But you don’t wear them.’

‘I do!’

‘You don’t wear them outside your flat.’

She shrugged, gave up the fight with the zip, and slowly turned to face him. ‘I don’t see how this is any of your business.’

She looked, he thought suddenly, tired. Dark circles he hadn’t noticed before ringed those pretty eyes, and her skin had the pale tinge of someone who spent far too much time cooped up indoors. He wanted to scoop her up and carry her back to his house, set her up in a deckchair in the garden and ply her with fruit, but that was not going to happen. Instead, he rummaged in the wardrobe again. And there it was. ‘Put this on. I’ll wait next door while you get ready.’

Lottie pushed the bedroom door closed, leaned back against it and closed her eyes. She pushed her knuckles against her mouth and held in the scream.

She shouldn’t have given him her address. She shouldn’t have agreed to let him pick her up. She should have caught the bus to Leicester Square, met up with him there, where there was plenty of space and he wouldn’t have to stand so close, stealing all the oxygen inside her tiny flat. It might be cheap to heat and easy to clean, but the downside was that it made him look even bigger, even more imposing.

And the suit. Dear lord, the suit. It was like James Bond had walked through her front door. Her insides were jelly, heat liquefying in her stomach just at the thought of all that tanned, taut muscle packed inside that gorgeous combination of jet black and bright, snowy white. She wanted to wrap herself around him, put her tongue in his mouth and never leave the flat again.

But that wouldn’t save the auction house. She’d made her deal with the devil, and now she had to honour it. Goosebumps rose up on her flesh as she wiggled her way out of the black dress and put it back neatly in the wardrobe, then turned to see what he’d picked out.

Her heart jumped into her mouth. Was he serious? She stood in her underwear and stared at it for a moment, clutching protectively at her bra.

A gentle knock sounded at the door, and she whirled round. ‘What?’

‘Do you need any help getting dressed?’