Shameless Playboy (26 page)

 
          
They
had not been a demonstrative family at the best of times, whenever that might
have been, and Lucas felt the gesture for what it was. An olive branch. A
bridge. It was not the twenty years they’d lost, but it was a start.

 
          
“Jacob,”
he said, staring ahead at the lake, as if all the answers lay just beneath the
gleaming surface.

 
          
He
heard Jacob pause behind him, and smiled then, more focused on the future than
the endless, dreary past. More interested in who he could be than in who he’d
been.

 
          
At
last.

 
          
“Welcome
home,” he said quietly into the coming night, and was not at all surprised to
discover he meant it.

 
          
Lucas
shook every hand, posed for every picture and flattered every guest who
ventured near him. The great tent was filled with golden, glittering light and
hung with tapestries and chandeliers, and the people who filled it were
strictly the crème de la crème of Europe. Celebrities, socialites, aristocracy.
All mingled with the expected corporate kings, basking in the past and future
of Hartington’s with the members of the Wolfe family who had made an
appearance.

 
          
Jacob,
the mysteriously returned heir, was at least as interesting to the gathered
press corps as the current reigning Hollywood idol, Nathaniel, and the
brand-new fiancée he had on his arm. Even Annabelle, who was photographing the
event and hid behind her camera and her great reserve as was her way, was a
Wolfe and therefore noted, no matter how little she might have wished to
interact with the guests. Or, for that matter, her brothers. And Lucas, of
course, who the press could not help but love, so skillfully did he manipulate
them at their own game, was always a paparazzi favorite.

 
          
“No
more pictures,” he told his least-favorite photographer with a smile—when the
man deserved his fists for taking those pictures of him and Grace. “Haven’t you
caused enough trouble this week?”

 
          
But
he laughed, as if there were no hard feelings, because that was how best to
avoid having his next intimate moment broadcast to the entire world. It was
better to work with them than fight against them, he knew. It was wiser to let
them think they had control. He was certain there was a lesson in there
somewhere, should he care to search for it.

 
          
It
was, Lucas thought as he moved away from the photographer, straightening his
tuxedo jacket with an expert jerk, a perfect night all around. Old Charlie
Winthrop looked jovial and well pleased, sitting with the rest of the board of
directors as they basked in the celebration happening all around them. The
marketing and publicity departments had had their moment to shine and present
the relaunch to great applause and many pictures, and Lucas had even said a few
words before yielding the stage to the pop princess herself.

 
          
Yet
Grace was nowhere to be found.

 
          
Lucas
could see the other members of her team on the fringes of the crowd, weaving
their way through the brightly clad groups to fix problems, relay information
or put out the odd fire. But no Grace. Eventually, after he’d looked for her in
vain for far too long, he flagged down one of the interchangeable girls who had
always spent the morning meeting making cow’s eyes at him.

 
          
“Where
is Grace?” he asked, impatient with the starry way the girl blinked at him.
You do not even know me
, he wanted to
scold her, but did not.

 
          
“Oh
…” the girl breathed. She gulped. “Well, Mr. Wolfe, uh, she’s been sacked.”

 
          
The
words did not make sense. Lucas stared at the girl before him, aware that he
had lost his smile, that he had gone too still, that he was glaring ferociously
at the poor creature.

 
          
“I
beg your pardon?” His tone out-froze the towering ice sculpture nearby, and
made the girl flush scarlet.

 
          
“M-Mr.
Winthrop met with her just before the first guests arrived,” she stammered out.
“No one knows what he said, but she told Sophie to take charge and then she
left.” She sucked in a shaky breath. “That’s all I know!”

 
          
But
Lucas had already stopped listening to her. Temper roared through him, thick
and vicious. He scanned the party, his eyes narrowing in on Charlie Winthrop,
who was laughing merrily with his band of cohorts, completely unaware of the
danger he was in. He wanted to rip the round little man apart with his hands,
but there was a greater urgency moving through him then, something much closer
to fear. He felt his hands clench into fists at his sides, and could only
imagine what expression he wore when the girl before him made a squeaking sound
and melted away.

 
          
He
forgot her immediately. He looked around the glittering party, taking in all
the famous faces, all the rich and the bored, the infamous and the outrageous.
They were all the same. The same faces he had seen again and again, in every
party, from London to Positano to Sydney and back again. The same gossip, the
same stories, the same old game.

 
          
But
he had no interest at all in playing, not anymore.

 
          
He
had changed. He was not the same man he had been when he’d staggered up the
drive to Wolfe Manor, battered and bleeding, all those weeks ago. He was not
the same man he’d been pretending to be the whole of his life, and the
pretense, the mask, no longer seemed to fit him as it should.

 
          
And
the reason for that was not here, as she should be.

 
          
The
great well of emotion, black and terrible, vast and unconquerable, that he had
tried to outrun all day today swelled in him, nearly knocking him from his
feet, so intense he wondered if he could beat it back and maintain his balance.
He did, but barely. In his whole life, only three people had mattered to him so
much that their loss had altered the course of his existence. His mother. His
brother Jacob.

 
          
And
now, tonight, the woman whose absence seemed to alter the very air around him,
making it impossible to breathe.

 
          
He
had suffered through the other losses, had even accepted them. But not this
time. Not this one.

 
          
Not
Grace.

 
          
For
the first time in a long time, maybe ever, Lucas wanted to—
had to—
fight for what he desired, what he needed, what he could not
imagine living without. He had no other choice. He could not let Grace leave
him, could not let her disappear, could not let her go. He could not.

 
          
Because
for the first time in his life, he realized as his heart beat too hard and the
panic raced through him like an electric charge, he had far too much to lose.

 
          
Grace
sat in her room at the Pig’s Head for a very long time, staring at nothing.

 
          
“We
wanted you to
manage
Lucas Wolfe,
Grace,” Charles Winthrop had said, his round face screwed into a contemptuous
sneer, right there in full view of the staff and Wolfe Manor itself. Grace had
had no recourse but to stand there and take it. “Not manhandle him in public
view.”

 
          
So
disgusted. So disdainful.

 
          
“Act
like a whore and you’ll be treated like a whore!” her mother had shouted years
ago, as all of Racine gathered around their copies of an old American sports
magazine to condemn Grace and whisper about her behind their hands. As
Mary-Lynn threw Grace’s meager belongings out the door into the dirt and
screamed at her to stay out.

 
          
Charles
Winthrop had not actually called her a whore, of course. He had murmured about
propriety and reputation. He had made it clear that a woman who had had the bad
taste to allow herself to be photographed in such a compromising position—he
did not clarify if he meant on Lucas’s lap or in her bikini at seventeen—was by
definition no longer the appropriate choice to represent Hartington’s
interests, much less their corporate events. He might as well have handed her a
brand-new scarlet letter to wear on her forehead—perhaps even affixed it
himself.

 
          
She
had seen the way he’d looked at her, the way his eyes flicked over her
professional demeanor, as if looking for the cracks in her veneer—as if, were
he to look at her in exactly the right way, the whore would seep out and show
herself.

 
          
Just
as her mother had always predicted.

 
          
What
was surprising, Grace thought now, rising to her feet and looking around the
room, though she hardly saw it, was that she’d been furious, not upset. She
hadn’t been
hurt
that Charles
Winthrop thought so little of her when faced with those pictures—she’d wanted
to throw something at his head. That fury and indignation had carried her in an
outraged silence all the way back to her room at the inn—where the reality of
the situation had settled around her like a suffocatingly heavy cloak, and had
forced her to sit there on the couch by the window for much longer than she
should have.

 
          
Because
she had lost everything.

 
          
Again.

 
          
The
truth of that was starting to sink in now, the longer she stood in the room,
still and silent. The more time passed. She knew the gala was happening even
now—could even hear the music on the wind—and she was finished. It was all as
she’d feared it would be. She’d lost her career. The respect of her peers.
Everything she’d worked so hard for, all these long years. Hadn’t she warned
herself? Hadn’t she had her memories of her mother’s voice to chime in when her
own had wavered? Hadn’t she understood from the start that this very thing
would happen?

 
          
She
needed to go, she knew. She needed to pack up her things and head back to
London. She needed to come up with a new plan for her life—a new direction. But
every time she told herself it was time to get moving, she remembered some
other bright, captivating moment that had happened in this room, with Lucas,
and she could not bring herself to budge from her position. As if she was
paralyzed.

 
          
He
was the reason for her downfall, and even so, she yearned for him. He had
thrown her love back in her face, disappeared without a trace, and still, she
longed for him. How could that be? How, even now, could there be a part of her
that whispered fiercely that it did not matter what she’d lost, that she would
do it again—that he was worth it. That all of this was worth it.

 
          
This
was it, she knew, with a sickening certainty. This was the exact ruin her
mother had foreseen. Grace just hadn’t expected it to feel like this. So …
encompassing.

 
          
She
had always known she would pay a high price for touching a man like Lucas
Wolfe. She had never been in any doubt on that score. He was the proverbial
rocky cliff, and she understood, now, why the hapless ship hurled itself
against those rocks, again and again, until all that remained were splinters
and painful memories, churning waters and the remains of what had once been a
proud, sleek vessel.

 
          
She
was surprised when she felt the wetness on her cheeks, and it was not until she
raised her hands to her face that she realized she was crying.

 
          
Just
as it took her long moments to realize that when the door opened and Lucas
stormed in, it was really him, not just a convenient fantasy tossed her way by
her desperate imagination.

 
          
He
was breathing heavily, almost as if he had been running in his elegant
black-tie evening wear, and his eyes were burning with a light that made her
stomach clench in automatic response. Desire. Despair. Both.

 
          
“What
are you doing here?” she demanded, furious that her voice was hoarse, that
there were tears on her face, that he would see her like this, brought so low. “The
gala is happening right this minute!”