Shameless Playboy (8 page)

 
          
“Perhaps
my charmed life is more complicated than you might imagine,” he said, a hint of
chill in his voice and that uncannily shrewd gaze of his, but only for the
barest moment. Grace was convinced she’d imagined both when he blinked, and
that self-mocking smile of his returned. “My brothers and sister and I were
once the Hartington’s window display at Christmas,” he said, his tone light and
yet, somehow, Grace could hear only the sardonic inflection beneath, the hint
of something much darker. “Decked out in matching outfits like the von Trapps,
merry and bright. A true Christmas card come to life. The punters adored us, of
course. Who could resist a brood of angelic children? They all but emptied
their wallets on the spot.”

 
          
“As
a matter of fact, I’ve seen the pictures,” Grace said quietly, uncertain of
him, suddenly. Perhaps he was unaware that there were blown-up photographs of
his family all over the executive office suite: seven bright-eyed, shockingly
good-looking children arrayed around their attractive father, like a series of
Norman Rockwell paintings. They all fairly exuded hearth and home and
happiness. She was not sure he would welcome that knowledge. The atmosphere
inside the car had changed, and he seemed more dangerous, more unpredictable, though
he had not moved at all.

 
          
She
was imagining things, she told herself. But she remained on her guard.

 
          
“Such
a happy family we looked,” Lucas said in a soft voice that Grace did not
believe at all. “Beyond that, my brother Jacob and I worked in the store during
every school holiday for years. My father felt it was character building,
apparently.” His smile seemed knife-edged now, deeper somehow, and resonated
through her, making her ache in ways she was afraid to examine. “I spent my
time talking the shopgirls out of their pants rather than learning how to
operate the till. I built my character carefully, and with excessive practice.”

 
          
Grace
had a sudden, flashing vision of the teenaged Lucas, prowling about the
gleaming sales floors of Hartington’s with this same lean and feral edge to
him. He would have been much less restrained in his youth, she imagined—all
green eyes and cocky swagger and far too much self-awareness. She repressed a
sudden shiver. There was nothing safe about this man. She doubted very much
there ever had been, even when he’d been small.
If
.

 
          
“It
is difficult to imagine you young,” she said, voicing her thoughts without
meaning to, her voice far softer than it should have been. Almost as if she
cared.

 
          
Their
eyes met then, and something bright and profound moved through Grace, searing
into her through the gloom of the rainy day and the stuffy confines of the car.
She found she was holding her breath. That she could not look away from him as
she knew she should.

 
          
“It
was a chronological situation, nothing more,” he said after a short pause,
never moving his electric, arrogant gaze from hers. “I never had the
opportunity to be naive or innocent.” He seemed to recollect himself and looked
away then, that smile sharpening as he did. Grace felt it as if he’d cut into
her, as if he’d carved symbols deep into her flesh. “But I doubt innocence
would have suited me, in any case.” When he looked at her again, he had gone
predatory. Male. Hot and knowing—and it made her melt and tremble, despite her
best intentions. “I was always far more proficient in sin.”

 
          
“So
I have read,” Grace said primly, ignoring the clamoring need in her own body. “At
length. It is what makes you such an excellent choice to head up the new
Hartington’s campaign. All women have already had numerous fantasies about you,
and all men wish they could be you. You are, yourself, the ultimate luxury
brand.” She smiled. Professionally. “Kudos.”

 
          
“
All
women?” he asked, his eyes hard and
gleaming on hers—as, she realized on some level, she must have known he would.

 
          
Had
this man ever ignored a gauntlet thrust down before him? She knew, somehow,
that he had not. He smiled that wolf’s smile, and it connected hard with that
strange humming deep inside of her that grew louder the nearer he was. He was
everything she had spent her whole life fearing, avoiding. He made her into
someone else, someone lost in the shimmering heat that suffused her, the flame
of interest in his gaze. He made her feel things she’d never believed she was capable
of feeling. She could not seem to look away. For a long, spinning moment, she
could not find it in her to fight him—to fight the weakness in herself.

 
          
And
she knew that was as good as the death of her.

 
          
“Does
that mean you’ve fantasized about me, Grace?” he asked, in his seducer’s voice,
a low, sexy rasp that promised far too much she knew he could never deliver.

 
          
“I
believe I have already asked that you call me Ms. Carter,” Grace said, sounding
like a starchy, stereotypical schoolmarm sort of person, to her horror. Yet it
was exactly the image she strove to project, with her severely cut suits and
her scraped-back hair: efficient and competent. A vestal virgin, clutching her
pearls.

 
          
But
what other option did she have? She was trapped in the back of a car with a man
who exuded sex—long, slow, all-encompassing, masterful sex, for that matter,
from which one was unlikely to recover. And Grace knew what that kind of sex
meant, the damage it could and did wreak. She had seen it happen too many
times. She had lived it.

 
          
“You
should have said no, Gracie,” her mother had said so long ago, her face hard
and drawn, her eyes flashing the same censure Grace had seen everywhere else.
Her own mother, who should have known better—should have tried harder, Grace
had thought, to protect her daughter. But Mary-Lynn had made her choice. “You
should have said no, but you didn’t, and now you have to live with the
consequences.”

 
          
Sex
like that was a threat, Grace knew, shaking off the unpleasant past. Sex like
that was about power, and, ultimately, pain. She had never wanted anything to
do with it after the events of her senior year—but then, she had never met a
man who fascinated her on all the levels this man seemed to do. For the first
time in years, since she had set her course and focused exclusively on putting
the past behind her and excelling in her career, Grace felt lost.

 
          
“Is
that part of your fantasy?” Lucas asked, his voice low, suggestive. He shifted
closer to her, and Grace froze—her entire body, her very being, focused on the
heat he generated, on the length and strength of his lean, hard body mere
inches away from hers. Only inches. A breath. “I’m happy to call you anything
you like.”

 
          
“Thank
you, Mr. Wolfe,” she said in that brisk, insultingly matter-of-fact voice that
had gotten her out of sticky situations in the past. She pretended not to
notice how hard it was to dredge up this time, how hard it was to employ. “But
I doubt very much I’m the target demographic for your particular brand of
charm.”

 
          
“You
are a woman, are you not?” he asked mildly.

 
          
“Yes.”
She smiled, bright and false. “But a discerning woman, I’m afraid.”

 
          
His
gaze moved to her mouth, and she felt it like a touch. Hot and demanding. Sure.

 
          
“Excellent,”
he said softly. “Can you discern my thoughts?”

 
          
She
felt herself flush in helpless reaction, and could only hope that her legendary
cool kept her skin from actually turning red and broadcasting her response to
him. How could this be happening? She had never had trouble in the past, keeping
her feelings and any unwanted attractions safely hidden away in the parts of
herself she kept locked up tight. Soon enough, they’d disappeared, subsumed
into the work she’d always known would save her. Anything to pretend her past
belonged to someone else.

 
          
“I’m
afraid not,” she managed to say, forcing herself to sit there calmly, as if she
was relaxed. “My psychic abilities only work on more … intellectual subjects.”

 
          
“That
is a great pity, indeed,” Lucas said, not at all discomfited. “My own abilities
are far more universal. Shall I tell you what
you’re
thinking?”

 
          
She
wanted to know what she was missing, she knew suddenly—with a deep, new need
that frightened her with its intensity. She wanted him to touch her, to taste
her. To mark her. Brand her. Take her. She wanted to taste that wicked mouth
with her own. She wanted him in ways she’d never wanted another man—even though
it made no sense. Even though it made her everything her mother had ever called
her. But none of that seemed to matter.
She
wanted
.

 
          
But
that didn’t mean she planned to act on it.

 
          
“I
doubt that would be wise,” she said, and mustered up an approximation of her
professional smile. “Mr. Winthrop wanted me to usher you through your first
project, not mortally insult you.”

 
          
His
gaze moved up to meet hers once more, and his smile was far too satisfied, far
too aware. As if he knew that all he needed do was touch her and she would
collapse at his feet, as much his to toy with as any of the hundreds of women
who had undoubtedly landed face-first at his trouser cuff before. He was the
ultimate predator, and that should have repulsed her utterly—but it did not,
and she could not account for it. Anger and fear and something else, something
too much like yearning, collided inside of her, making Grace feel jangly and
breathless, unnerved.

 
          
“It
seems your luck has held,
Ms
. Carter,”
he said at last, laughter lurking somewhere in his voice, and that dark,
sensual promise in his eyes. That was when she noticed that the car had slowed
considerably. He inclined his head toward the window. “We’re here.”

 
          
Lucas
did not mind when Grace all but leaped from the car the moment it rolled to a
stop at the top of the winding drive, in the looming shadow of the great house
he so hated. Let her run. He had always enjoyed the chase—not that, in truth,
he had ever had to do much more in the way of chasing than indicate his
interest. But he’d always liked a new challenge to keep life interesting, and
there were only so many times one could leap from a plane or climb a mountain
when one did not, in fact, have a death wish.

 
          
He
climbed out of the limousine after her, more focused on the sweet curve of her
behind in the latest of her series of stuffy, corporate suits than in the fact
that he was once more at Wolfe Manor.

 
          
Acquiescing
to an urge he only belatedly realized was uncharacteristically chivalrous
instead of calculating, he relieved the driver of his umbrella. He motioned the
poor man back into the warm and waiting car, then followed the prickly
Ms. Carter
through the rain toward the
front of the house, from where, he knew, she could see just about the whole of
the property laid out at her feet. He loathed the very sight of it—all the
picturesque British countryside spread out so prettily, with the charming
little village of Wolfestone in the distance. He knew that appearances were
deceiving: the prettier the surface, the uglier the mess beneath. He had not,
perhaps, thought through his impulsive offer of this house for Hartington’s
use, much less considered that he would have to return here himself.

 
          
He
concentrated instead on the woman standing with her back to him, frowning
through the weather at what there was left of the once-famous view.

 
          
“You’re
wet,” he said, close enough to her to see her start, and man enough to enjoy
the flustered look she sent his way when he caught up to her. He indicated the
rain, lighter now than before but still falling with no sign of stopping, and
then moved even closer, shielding them both beneath the umbrella.

 
          
He
doubted she knew the picture she made as she stood there, damp and inviting,
her lush mouth soft, her usually sleek hair escaping from its confines and
curling slightly, making her seem more wanton, more open. He felt himself
harden and shifted closer to her.