Whatever You Like (19 page)

“Kawamoto's company—
my
company—just got slapped with a patent lawsuit by one of our competitors.”

“Oh, no,” Lena exclaimed. “That's terrible, Roderick.”

“The lawsuit is baseless,” he said grimly, “but trying to unsnarl this mess is going to cost time, money and resources I hadn't anticipated. I've been on the phone with the lawyers and company execs since the crack of dawn.”

“No wonder you sounded so tense when you answered the phone,” Lena murmured sympathetically.

“Yeah.” He heaved a long, deep breath.

A knot of dread tightened in Lena's stomach. “With all that's going on,” she said quietly, “it doesn't sound like you're going to be able to return home on Monday.”

There was a heavy pause. “I'm not. In fact, it may be a while before I'm back in Chicago.”

Her heart plummeted. She was afraid to ask, but she knew she had to. “How long?”

“I can't say right now. At least three months. Maybe more.”

Lena closed her eyes. She felt as if she were drowning, slowly suffocating.

“I've authorized the release of the grant funds. Your college should receive the check next week.” His tone was suddenly brisk, impersonal. As if he were merely concluding one of his business transactions. Was that all she'd been to him? A business transaction that had served its purpose, but had now run its course?

“Thanks,” she murmured. “Ethan will be very pleased.”

“I'm sure. How soon will you receive your promotion?”

“I don't know…I haven't given it much thought.”

“Of course.” His tone was faintly mocking. “You have other sources of income.”

Anger flared in her chest. “That's right,” she said tartly. “I do. And now that our little arrangement is over, I can go back to earning my ‘other sources of income.'”

“Right,” he drawled sarcastically. “New people, new experiences.”

Taken aback by the unexpected assault, she whispered harshly, “Why are you doing this? Why are you saying these things to me?”

He fell silent for so long she wondered whether they'd lost their connection—literally and figuratively.

“Roderick—?”

“Look, I need to go,” he said abruptly. “I'm at the office, and they're waiting for me to start a meeting. I'll call you tomorrow.”

“Don't bother,” Lena snapped.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. It was fun while it lasted, Roderick. We both got what we wanted out of the deal, so there's no need to drag this out any longer.”

“Is that what we're doing?” His voice was chillingly soft.

“Take care of yourself, Roderick.” She forced the words past a throat clogged with raw emotion. “I wish you the best.”

He paused for a long moment. “So that's it.”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“Whatever you say, Lena.” The line went dead.

Calmly and deliberately, she disconnected, then dialed another number.

On the second ring, Zandra answered, “Hello?”

“Zandra. It's Lena.”

“Hey, Lena. What's up?”

She took a deep breath. “I'm ready to come back to work.”

There was a pregnant pause. “Are you sure?”

Lena closed her eyes to prevent the tears that threatened. “As sure as I'll ever be.”

N
ursing a glass of champagne, Lena swept a disinterested glance over the crowd of fashionably dressed strangers. It was another Saturday night. Another elegant ballroom. Another swanky function attended by some of Chicago's movers and shakers.

And she couldn't wait to go home.

“Having a good time?” asked her companion, Dylan Chapman, an attractive, dark-haired Englishman who was in Chicago on business.

Lena forced an upbeat smile. “Of course. You?”

Amused green eyes met hers. “About as good a time as you're having,” he said with a smooth, cultured British accent.

A guilty flush heated Lena's face. “I'm sorry,” she murmured sheepishly. “I'm afraid I haven't been very good company tonight, have I?”

“It's not you. It's this bloody soiree.” He raked a
distasteful glance around the room. “I'd rather swim buck naked across the English Channel in the middle of February than be forced to endure another one of these dull, pretentious gatherings.”

Lena nearly spit out her champagne. “Dylan!” she gasped.

He grinned at her. “I'm sorry—was that too candid?”

“Well, no, not really.” She laughed, using a napkin to dab at her mouth. “But I don't understand. If you don't want to be here, why did you come?”

“I didn't have much of a choice,” Dylan admitted with a wry grimace. “The company I work for expects me to attend these dreadful functions and schmooze with all the right people.”

Lena gave him a rueful smile. “And schmoozing's not really your thing.”

“Not by any stretch.” He smiled winsomely. “My only consolation is that you were able to accompany me this evening. I was crushed when I contacted the agency three weeks ago and Miss Kennedy told me you'd be unavailable for a while.”

Lena arched an amused brow. “Crushed?”

“Inconsolable.” He grinned. “I'm glad I took a chance and called the agency again. Let that be a lesson to anyone who says persistence doesn't pay off.”

Lena chuckled. “I'm flattered that I made such an impression on you, Dylan, considering that our previous encounter consisted of a ten-minute conversation at a party held over four months ago.”

“The best ten minutes of that whole dreary evening, I assure you.” He smiled at her. “Since neither of us seems to be enjoying ourselves, what do you say we cut out early and grab a cup of coffee somewhere?”

Lena smiled. Dylan was a smart, funny, attractive man whose company she enjoyed. But the way he'd been flirting with her throughout the evening made it obvious that he was interested in more than sharing coffee with her. The
last
thing she wanted to do was lead him on. God knows she'd had more than enough drama with clients.

“Not that your offer doesn't sound tempting,” she answered smoothly, “but I'm afraid I'll have to pass.”

Dylan chuckled. “It's just as well. The gentleman who's been glowering at us for the past five minutes would probably take great satisfaction in dismembering me if I tried to sneak out of here with you.”

Lena frowned. “What gentleman?”

“Tall, good-looking fellow. Killer tux. Lethal glare.”

Lena followed the direction of Dylan's gaze across the crowded ballroom—and froze.

Roderick.

Her heart jammed in her throat.

What was he doing in Chicago? Just over a week ago he'd told her he wouldn't be home for months. And now here he was at the same party, his dark eyes simmering with leashed fury as he glared at her and Dylan.

Averting her gaze, Lena took a hasty gulp of champagne and coughed when the bubbles shot straight up her nose.

“Are you all right?” Dylan asked.

She nodded quickly, throat burning, eyes tearing up.

“Old flame?”

“Not old enough,” she mumbled.

Dylan nodded wisely. “Want me to tell him to bugger off?”

That wrung a hoarse, mirthless laugh out of her. “I wouldn't recommend that.”

“Indeed. I've grown rather fond of having my limbs attached to my body.”

Lena grinned wryly at him before she braved another glance in Roderick's direction. He was now conversing with a beautiful woman whose breasts were spilling out of her low-cut dress. His date? Lena wondered, then told herself she shouldn't care. Even though she did.

Dylan was also studying Roderick, his eyes narrowed speculatively. “He looks familiar.”

“Hmm.” Lena didn't volunteer Roderick's name. She'd spent the past week trying her damnedest to forget about him. Why did he have to show up tonight? Had he known that she would be there? Did he intend to make his way over to her, or would they spend the whole evening pretending to be strangers?

She needn't have worried.

When she glanced around the room again, Roderick was gone.

 

She and Dylan toughed out the party until ten-thirty. After dropping him off at his hotel, Lena implored the chauffeur to drive around the city for a while so she could clear her head. By the time she returned to the empty silence of her apartment, midnight had come and gone. She went through the motions of changing into a nightgown, brushing her teeth and cleansing her face. And then she crawled into bed and prepared to lie awake for hours, as she'd done every night since leaving Tokyo.

It was after one when she heard the doorbell ring.

She didn't pretend not to know who it was.

She'd been expecting him.

But that didn't stop her heart from hammering wildly as she slid out of bed, slipped on a robe and made her way to the front door.

He was in shirtsleeves, the shirttail untucked from his pants and his tie jerked loose around the collar. Without waiting for an invitation, he shouldered past her into the apartment.

Closing and locking the door behind him, she said tightly, “It's late—”

“Did you have a good time at the party?” he asked curtly.

“Yes, I did,” she lied, defiantly folding her arms across her chest and glaring at him. “Did you?”

“I think you know the answer to that question.”

“Actually, I don't. One minute you were talking into a woman's cleavage. The next minute you were nowhere to be found.”

“Jealous?” he taunted.

Her temper flared. “Go to hell, Roderick.”

As she stalked past him he grasped her upper arm, pulling her around to face him. She hated the way her body shivered in response to his touch.

His eyes blazed into hers. “I didn't leave with her.”

“I don't care!”

“Liar,” he snarled.

She tried to yank her arm away, but he tightened his hold. Not hurting her, but making it impossible for her to escape.

“Who was that man you were with?”

“Who do you
think?
” she hissed. “He was a client.”

“Did you sleep with him?” Roderick demanded.

Her jaw went slack, and she stared up at him in wounded outrage. “How
dare
you ask me that question?”

“Did you?”

“None of your damn business!”

“The hell it isn't!”

“Why?” she jeered. “You think you
own
me? Just because we had an arrangement for three weeks, you think that gives you the right to barge in here and ask me whatever the hell you want?”

“Don't play with me, Lena,” he growled warningly. “I drove by here an hour ago, and you weren't home. So answer my damn question. Did you sleep with him?”

Something snapped inside her, and she shouted, “Yes, damn you! I slept with him!”

Roderick's face contorted with fury, even as a whispered denial burst from his lips, “I don't believe you!”

“No? Well, it's true. I fucked him,” Lena spat, deliberately crude. “I was rattled after I saw you at the party, so he suggested that we leave and go somewhere to talk. He was a very good listener. One thing led to another, and we wound up back at his hotel room.”

Roderick closed his eyes and ground out through clenched teeth, “You're lying.”

“I assure you I'm not. He has a strawberry birthmark on the inside of his right thigh. I told him the shape reminded me of the British royal crest. He said it was proof that he was the rightful heir to the throne, and we laughed. And then he kissed me—”

Roderick released her arm abruptly and stalked toward the living room as though he couldn't stand to be anywhere near her.

But she wasn't finished with him. She wanted to hurt him as much as he'd hurt her with his unjust accusations.

“Ever since the first time I heard Idris Elba speak,”
she continued tauntingly, “I've had a thing for British accents. So I was in trouble the moment Dylan opened his mouth. While we made love he talked dirty to me. The things he said with that accent… Oh, man, it drove me wild.” She laughed, a harsh, nasty laugh she didn't even recognize as her own.

“Poor Glenn,” she said, shaking her head with mock sympathy. “It took him
three
dates to get me into bed. You and Dylan? One and done. At this rate, my next client won't even have to wait—”

“Enough!” Roderick roared. He spun around and advanced on her, looking enraged enough to hit her. But he did something potentially worse. He cupped her face in his hands and seized her mouth with fierce, hungry possession.

“Damn you,” Lena whispered furiously, even as she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back with equal ferocity.

She heard a crash as he swept the small foyer lamp to the floor, plunging them into moonlit darkness. He then lifted her against him and planted her on top of the table. In a frenzy of impatience, he unzipped his pants and shoved her silk robe and nightgown out of the way, growling when he discovered that she wore no panties.

His mouth ground bruisingly against hers as her thighs locked around his hips. He drove into her, swallowing her sharp cry as he buried himself to the base.

He began thrusting, rocking the table against the wall with the force of each deep, savage stroke. Within moments they were both crying out and erupting together in a violent rush.

Lena's body was still vibrating with the aftershocks
of orgasm when Roderick struck the wall behind her with his fist, then dropped his head forward, aligning his cheek with hers. His breathing was as loud and ragged as her own. Tears welled in her eyes, but she refused to shed even a single one.

If he'd told her right then and there that he loved her, that he
didn't
believe she was a whore who slept indiscriminately with her clients, she would have recanted everything she'd said.

But a moment later he pulled out of her, tucked himself back into his pants and zipped up. He didn't speak, didn't meet her eyes in the moonlight. Instead he turned and walked slowly to the door, as if his legs had become lead weights. Her breath stalled as he paused with one hand on the doorknob, head bent, broad shoulders hunched as he wrestled with the decision to stay or go. She waited, heart pounding frantically, every fiber of her being clamoring to call out to him, to beg him not to leave her. But she remained proudly silent.

After an agonizing eternity, he opened the door and departed without a backward glance.

And this time Lena knew she'd seen the last of him.

Slowly she drew her legs up to her chest, dropped her face onto her knees and finally let the tears fall, a bitter deluge of heartache and regret.