Shameless Playboy (4 page)

 
          
“In
any case,” she continued, “I am truly delighted to have had this opportunity to
meet with you, Mr. Wolfe—”

 
          
“By
all means, call me Lucas,” he said quietly, weighing that soft, sweet voice
against the steel he could sense beneath, and could even see in her gaze. “I
insist that all character assassinations be made on a first-name basis.”

 
          
“—and
I am certain,” she continued, that smile remaining firmly in place, “that I
will have the pleasure of working with you sometime in the future, after we’ve
had the relaunch. I’ll be sure to schedule a meeting with the PR team in the
next few weeks, once you’ve had time to settle in and get your bearings….”

 
          
This
time she trailed off as he shook his head, her brows rising in inquiry. Lucas
found he enjoyed that far more than he should.

 
          
“You
are Grace Carter, are you not?” He enjoyed saying her name—because he could see
that she did not like the way he said it. As if he could taste the flavor of it
with his tongue. It was his turn to smile. “Charlie assured me you were the
person I needed to find.”

 
          
There
was a slight, humming sort of pause. She blinked, and he felt it like a
victory.

 
          
“Charlie?”
she asked, an odd, slightly strangled note in her voice.

 
          
“Charlie
Winthrop,” Lucas supplied helpfully, and was delighted when her cheeks reddened
again—this time, he had no doubt, with temper.

 
          
It
made him wonder what she would look like if it was passion that heated her. If
it was him. “I am to be at your disposal,” he said, making his voice as
suggestive as possible. “Completely.”

 
          
He
was intrigued when the expression that flashed across her face was anger. Most
women were not angry when flirted with, especially not when the flirt in
question was as accomplished as Lucas, without a shred of immodesty, knew
himself to be. He had once made the queen smile while enjoying the races at
Ascot. What was one embittered executive next to Her Royal Majesty?

 
          
“Of
course,” she said through her smile, even as she glared at him as if she’d like
to incinerate him on the spot with the force of her gaze.

 
          
“Perhaps
you’ve heard of him,” he said, unable to keep the amusement from his voice. The
hint of triumph.

 
          
Lucas
found himself fascinated by the way she visibly wrested control of herself,
wrapping her show of temper behind another wide smile and an extra helping of
that sweet, sweet Texas honey with its swift, sure kick beneath.

 
          
“If,
as the CEO of Hartington’s, Mr. Winthrop feels your contributions to the
company are best utilized through my office,” she said, her voice smooth while
her eyes burned, “then I am delighted to have you aboard.”

 
          
If
he had not known better, he might have believed her. If he had not seen her
mask slip, and the way she put it back on so skillfully. If he had not been as
accomplished a master of disguise himself, he might not even have recognized
hers when he saw it.

 
          
But,
God help them both, he was.

 
          
And,
worse—she intrigued him.

 
          
He
shifted in his chair, deliberately emphasizing his idle bonelessness because he
knew, somehow, it would infuriate her. He stretched his long legs out in front
of him, nearly brushing her feet with his, and watched her spine stiffen as she
deliberately did not move out of the way, did not cede her ground. More power
games, presumably.

 
          
Lucas
had never encountered a power game he did not feel compelled to win. That was
how he was wired, to his own detriment. And, unfortunately for Miss Grace
Carter of the too-dark clothes and the obvious disapproval, he never, ever
lost.

 
          
Not
in decades now. Not ever again.

 
          
“You
are a liar,” he continued, letting his voice drop into an insinuating growl
that he knew would get to her. “Lucky for you, so am I.”

 
          
Their
eyes met. Held.
Seared
.

 
          
“We
should get along famously,” he said with a deep satisfaction, and then he let
loose his smile, like the holstered weapon it was, and let it do its work.

 
          
* * *

 
          
When
Charles Winthrop had confirmed publicly that, indeed, Hartington’s was
delighted to welcome the famous Wolfe heir aboard—and privately that he
expected Grace to personally manage the wild-card playboy with her usual aplomb—Grace
had smiled calmly, exuded serenity and comforted herself with visions of
smashing every piece of china and shred of pottery she owned. The deep blue
bowl from her first trip to Paris, in smithereens. The candlesticks from her
holiday on the Amalfi Coast, in a million tiny pieces.
Bliss
.

 
          
When
she had explained to her awestruck team—in full view of the smirking,
flirtatious Lucas, who appeared to bewitch three-quarters of the staff simply
by existing, or possibly by lounging across the cabinets so that his magnificent
torso was on display—that Lucas was now a crucial component of their strategy
for the fast-approaching centenary project, she had kept a suitably straight
face and had imagined lighting a small, personal bonfire on her wraparound
balcony and setting ablaze the art she’d hung on the walls when she’d moved in
a year earlier. The painting she’d bought directly from the hungry-looking
painter with the poet’s eyes on the Charles Bridge in Prague. The print of the
first van Gogh she’d seen in the famous Metropolitan Museum in New York City.
All smoke and ashes. It made her smile feel real.

 
          
“We
are delighted to have you on the team, Mr. Wolfe,” she said as they walked
together from the conference room, her smile sweet and her tone razor sharp. “But
in future, please do try to contain yourself. The secretaries are not here to
serve as your personal dating pool.”

 
          
“Have
you asked them?” he asked lazily, his rangy body moving with a grace that
should have seemed out of place in the dim light of the hallway. Instead, he
seemed to take it over. “Because I was under the impression that my every wish
was their command. I believe one of them told me so.”

 
          
“I
don’t need to ask them,” Grace replied, smiling more sharply and pretending she
was un affected by his nearness. “I need only consult company policy.”

 
          
“Hartington’s
has a Lucas Wolfe clause?” he asked, in that deeply amused drawl that wove
spells through her and around her. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or
insulted.” Against her will, hardly aware of it, Grace found herself standing
still in the corridor instead of walking briskly toward her office. Standing,
gazing up at him, like a moon-faced calf. How could he beguile her without even
seeming to do so?

 
          
She
could not afford it.

 
          
“Leave
the secretaries alone,” she said calmly, as if he had not slipped past her
defenses somehow already. As if she had meant to stop there and look up at him.

 
          
“Happily,”
he said. His abused mouth tilted up in the corner. His green gaze was a banked
fire that seemed to kick off echoes within her, hot and wild. “But tell me,” he
continued softly, pointedly, “where else should I direct my attention?”

 
          
“Perhaps
to your brand-new job,” she bit out, ignoring the way he looked at her, his
eyes so hooded, so suggestive. “You may find it challenging, after all, having
never had one before.”

 
          
“I
am so sorry to shatter your illusions,” he said, laughing, though she thought
it did not quite reach his eyes, “but despite my well-documented, dissipated,
sybaritic existence, I have, in fact, held a job. We all have our deep, dark
secrets, do we not?”

 
          
She
had no intention of discussing secrets with this man.

 
          
“You
understand, Mr. Wolfe, that when one says ‘job,’ one is not referring to your
rather questionable relationships with somewhat older ladies of excessive
means.” She smiled. Hard. “There are other words for that.”

 
          
“Someday
you will have to teach me all the ins and outs of your vocabulary,” he said, in
a voice that seemed to demand she imagine what tutoring him might involve. Something
powerful shook through her, stealing her breath. He smiled. “The job I held was
somewhat less illicit, I’m afraid.”

 
          
“You?”
she asked, in disbelief. “Who on earth would employ you?”

 
          
“Not
everyone finds my face as distasteful as you seem to do,” he said, challenge
and mockery stamped across his expression. He angled his head toward her, too
close, and she had to fight to keep herself from jumping back and letting him
see how he got to her. “In fact, some people find it addictive.”

 
          
“Are
you referring to yourself?” she asked lightly, and smiled to take the sting
away.

 
          
His
smile then was as sharp, and far more dangerous. “I mean myself most of all,”
he said quietly, an undercurrent in his voice she did not understand. “I am my
own heroin.”

 
          
It
was the ferocity in his voice that lingered with her even hours later, and the
fact she could not dismiss the man from her thoughts made her fantasize anew
about destroying all of her belongings in a dramatic—if private—show of temper.

 
          
But
the sad truth, she acknowledged late that evening when she arrived home and
looked around the carefully pristine, perfectly decorated penthouse apartment
that normally made her feel happy and successful and tonight felt oddly empty,
was that she was entirely too practical.

 
          
She
could not let herself be so reckless, so careless. No matter how good it would
feel. She’d learned that lesson the hard way.

 
          
“Women
in our family are built to love,” her mother had said with a shrug years ago,
when Grace had collapsed in a sobbing mess on her bed, trying to handle the
fallout of her first, doomed relationship. Back when her mother still spoke to
her. “Too much and too long, and always messy. That’s how it goes. It’s our
curse.”

 
          
“You
don’t understand—” Grace had moaned.

 
          
“You’re
no different, Gracie,” her mother had said, and shaken her head as she’d
reached for another cigarette. “I know you want to be, but you’re not, and the
sooner you get your head around that the happier you’ll be.”

 
          
Now,
so many years and miles away from that conversation, and all the betrayal and
pain that had followed it, Grace sank down on her smooth, modern couch in the
foreign country she called home, and reached back to let her hair fall, heavy
and thick, from its place on the back of her head. She shook out the pins, and
ran her fingers through the wild mess of it that she only ever dared let down
when she was alone. It was too unruly, too untamed—too reminiscent of the girl
she had been, who she preferred to pretend had never existed at all.

 
          
I am my own heroin
, he had said, and she
thought it was an apt description of his lure, his innate danger.

 
          
There
was never any
something more
with a
man like Lucas. There was only heartbreak and loneliness. She needed only to
consider her poor mother’s endless string of misery and despair, her life lived
on the strength of broken promises and late-night tears, as one more man smiled
like he meant it and Grace’s mother
believed
.
She always believed, and they always let her down. Always.