Shameless Playboy (6 page)

 
          
“It’s
that voice of yours,” he said, musingly, as if he’d given the matter a great
deal of thought. His head tilted to one side. “It’s so surprising. It goes down
like a good cream tea, and then a few moments later the sting sets in. It’s
quite a formidable weapon you have there, Miss Carter.”

 
          
“I
prefer
Ms
. Carter, thank you,” she
retorted automatically.

 
          
“You
should be careful how you use it,” he replied, and she knew she did not mistake
the threat then, the sensual menace. It resonated between her legs, made her
breasts feel too heavy, brought her breath too quickly to catch in her throat.
He knew that, too—she had no doubt. His wicked, battered lips crooked to the
side. “
Ms
. Carter.”

 
          
“So
you do, in fact, listen when others speak,” she said as if delighted and smiled
sharply at him. “One did hope. Perhaps next week we can graduate to knocking
before entering!”

 
          
“But
where’s the fun in that?” he asked, laughing at her. A real laugh—one that made
his eyes crinkle in the corners and his head tip back. One that lit him up from
the inside. One that seemed to make her chest expand too fast, too hard.

 
          
It
was a good thing she had resolved to ignore him, Grace thought dimly,
captivated against her will—or she might really be in trouble.

 
          
The
novelty of his brand-new office wore off quickly, Lucas found. It rather made
him feel like a caged animal, for all that it gleamed of dark wood and chrome
and featured no-doubt-coveted views of London from the floor-to-ceiling windows
that dominated the far wall. But while Lucas was many things, most of them
damning, covetousness had never been among his flaws. Why should he covet
anything? Whatever he wanted, he had. Or took. And yet he stayed in the grand
leather chair, behind the immense desk, and pretended he could convey some kind
of authority—
become
some kind of
authority figure—by doing so.

 
          
But
then, he was not sitting in his new office to feel good about himself or his
life choices. He was doing it to prove a point. A long overdue point that
should not have required proof, he thought, tamping down the surge of anger
that seared through him.

 
          
“Hello,
Lucas,” Jacob had said that early Thursday morning, freshly risen as if from
the dead. He had looked Lucas up and down from the great front door where he’d
stood, the restored master of Wolfe Manor, his black eyes flicking from bruise
to cut to disheveled shirt and making Lucas feel as close to ashamed as he’d
been in years.

 
          
The
very grounds around them had seemed infested with the malevolent ghost of
William Wolfe and all the pain he’d inflicted on his unlucky children and wives—or
perhaps that had just been the sleepless night getting to Lucas. Perhaps it was
Jacob himself, taller and broader than in Lucas’s memory—a grown man now, of
substance and wealth, if his fine clothes were any indication.

 
          
For
a long moment they had both stood there, the early-morning light just beginning
to chase away the gray, sizing each other up as if they were adversaries.

 
          
On
the one hand, Lucas had thought, Jacob had once been his best friend, his
partner in crime and his brother. They were only a year apart in age, and had
grown up sharing the brunt and burden of their father’s temper. If Lucas could
have been there that one fateful night to do what Jacob had done for their
family, he would have. Happily—and without a shred of the agony he knew Jacob
had felt for what Lucas had always viewed as a necessary act, if not long
overdue.

 
          
On
the other hand, Jacob had taken off without a word and stayed gone for well
over a decade. He had left Lucas in his place—a disaster for all concerned.
They had been boys back then, if much older than they should have been and far
too cynical, but they were grown men now and, apparently, strangers.

 
          
But
Lucas had not wanted to believe that. Not at first. Not after so long.

 
          
“It
is lovely to see you, dear brother,” he’d said when the silence had stretched
on too long. “I would have slaughtered a calf in your honor, but the kitchens
are in some disrepair.”

 
          
“I’ve
followed your exploits in the papers,” Jacob had said in his familiar yet
deeper voice. His black eyes raked Lucas from head to toe again, then back,
missing nothing.

 
          
Even Jacob
, Lucas had thought, something
sinking through him like a stone. But he had summoned his most insouciant
smile. He had not otherwise reacted.

 
          
“I’m
touched,” Lucas had replied, blandly. “Had I known you were so interested in my
adventures, I would have added you to the annual Christmas card list. Of
course, that would have required an address.”

 
          
Jacob
had looked away for a moment. Lucas had wanted to reach out, to bridge the gap,
but he had not known how. His head had pounded ferociously. He’d wished
fervently that he’d just gone home, slept it off and left the ghosts of his
past alone. What good had this family ever been to him? Why did he still care?

 
          
“It’s
not as if we don’t already know where this lifestyle leads,” Jacob had said, so
quietly that Lucas almost let it go, almost pretended he hadn’t heard. Anything
to maintain the fiction of Jacob he’d carried around in his head all these
years. Jacob, the hero. Jacob, the savior. Jacob, who knew him.

 
          
“My
original plan was to prance off into the ether, abandoning family and friends
without so much as a backward glance,” Lucas had snapped back at him. “But
unfortunately, you’d already taken that role. I was forced to improvise.”

 
          
“You
know why I had to leave,” Jacob said in a low voice, thick with their shared
past and their family’s secrets, public and private.

 
          
“Of
course,” Lucas had interrupted him, years of pain and resentment bubbling up
from places he’d spent his life denying even existed. He’d laughed, a hollow
sound that echoed against the stones of the manor house and inside of him in
places he preferred to ignore. “You’re nearly twenty years too late, Jacob. I
don’t need a big brother any longer. I never did.”

 
          
“Look
at yourself, Lucas—don’t you see who you’ve become?” Jacob’s voice had been
quiet, but had flashed through Lucas as if he’d shouted.

 
          
It
was not the first time Lucas had been compared to his father, but it was the
first time the comparison had been made by someone who shared his bone-deep
loathing of the man who had wrecked them both. By someone—the only one—who
ought to know better. It was a body blow. It should have killed him. Perhaps it
had.

 
          
“I
thought you were dead,” Lucas had said coldly, unable and unwilling to show his
brother how deeply those words cut at him. “I’m not sure this is an
improvement.”

 
          
“For
God’s sake,” Jacob had said, shaking his head, his eyes full of something Lucas
refused to name, refused to consider at all. “Don’t let him win.”

 
          
Staring
out the windows of his luxurious office now, Lucas let out a hollow sort of
sound, too flat to be a laugh. He had turned on his heel and left his prodigal
brother behind—and had thought,
To hell
with him
. He’d spent the whole long walk down the private lane pretending
nothing Jacob had said had gotten to him. Yet when he’d reached the road, he’d
flipped open his mobile and rousted Charlie Winthrop from his sleep to announce
he’d had a sudden change of heart and would, despite years of claiming
otherwise, dearly love to work for Hartington’s in any capacity at all.

 
          
Careful what you wish for
, he mocked
himself now. Especially if you were Lucas Wolfe, and had a tendency to get it.

 
          
At
half past eleven, Lucas dutifully walked into the conference room, expecting to
be bored silly by corporate nonsense. Bureaucracy and posturing. It was one of
the reasons he managed his own affairs almost entirely via his computer. But
instead of a dreary presentation, he found the room in the grips of evident
chaos. One did not have to know a single thing about business to know that
something had gone wrong. The very fact that none of the events team seemed to
notice or care that he had entered the room told him that—it was a rare
experience for him and, strangely, felt almost liberating.

 
          
He
sank into a seat at the oval-shaped table, reveling in the feeling. It was as
if he was very nearly normal, for the first time in memory.

 
          
Even
smooth, efficient Grace looked harried when she strode into the room a few
minutes late, a frown taking the place of the competent, soothing smile he
already knew was as much a part of her as her ruthlessly controlled blond hair.

 
          
“I’m
so sorry, Grace,” one of the anxious-looking girls said at once, all but
wilting against the glossy tabletop, distress evident in her very bones.

 
          
“Don’t
be silly, Sophie,” Grace said, but that marvelous voice was tighter than it had
been earlier, and tension seemed to reverberate from her in waves as she set
down a stack of files in front of her. “You could hardly have foreseen a burst
pipe when you found the place six months ago.”

 
          
Another
team member rushed up to whisper something in her ear, making her frown deepen,
and as the rest of the staff took their seats, Lucas took the opportunity to
simply look at Grace.

 
          
He
wasn’t at all certain why he found the woman so compelling.

 
          
There
was absolutely nothing about the severe gray suit she was wearing that should
have appealed to him. Lucas preferred women in bright colors, preferably
showing swathes of tanned, smooth skin. He liked impractically high heels and
tousled manes of lustrous hair. Glimpses of toned thighs and full breasts. Not
a skirt that showed far too little leg, a jacket he knew she had no intention
of unbuttoning and another boring silk blouse in some pale, unremarkable pastel
shade that covered her up to her delicate collarbone.

 
          
And
yet. There was something about Grace Carter that he could not dismiss. That
kept him captivated. That had plagued him throughout the long, boring weekend
while he had been surrounded, as always, by the kinds of women he usually
preferred yet had found unaccountably tedious and insipid this time. That had
kept him awake and brooding until he’d placed exactly where he’d seen her
before and why he’d noticed her in the first place. He’d thought her a boring
prude, of course—but the point was, he’d remembered her.

 
          
That
in itself was highly unusual.

 
          
“All
right,” Grace said, calling the meeting to order, her brow smoothing and that
great calm seeming to exude from her once again. Lucas could feel the room
relax slightly all around him. That was her power, he realized. The gift of
that smile.

 
          
He
felt something in him ease, which should have alarmed him—but, oddly, did not.
Instead, he watched her take over the room without seeming to do so. It was
almost as if he could not bring himself to look away.

 
          
“As
many of you have already heard,” she said briskly, “we’ve just had word from
the centenary venue that their sprinkler system malfunctioned dramatically over
the weekend and flooded the grounds. Completely. They expect that the space
will be unusable for at least the next two months, which, of course, means we
no longer have a location for the gala.” She raised her hands when the
murmuring from the staff increased in volume and took on the unmistakable edge
of panic. “I suggest we all look at this as a challenge,” she said. She flashed
that smile. “Not a catastrophe.”

 
          
She
seemed so calm, so at ease. As if she expected no less than seven catastrophes
before lunch every day, and what was one more? But Lucas could see something in
her chocolate-colored eyes, something that seemed to ring in him. Like she was
scared and fighting hard not to show it. Like she had as much riding on this as
he did, however improbable. Like she might be someone completely different when
she was alone, and had nothing to prove, and was not performing for the crowd.