Authors: Fiona Brand
“I still have the key to this door,” he said quietly. “If you don’t unlock it, I’ll let myself in.”
Over her dead body.
“Just a minute.” Annoyed with herself for forgetting to reclaim the key, she reached for the chain and tried to engage it. In her haste it slipped from her fingers.
She heard Lucas say something short and sharp. Adrenaline pumped. He knew she was trying to chain the door against him. The metallic scrape of a key being inserted into the lock was preternaturally loud as she grabbed the chain again.
Before she could slot it into place the door swung open, pushing her back a half step. Normally, the half step back wouldn’t have fazed her, but with the weird shakiness of the virus she was definitely not her normal, athletic self and had to clutch at the hall table to help with her balance. Something crashed to the floor; glass shattered. She registered that when she had grabbed at the table her shoulder must have brushed against a framed watercolor mounted on the wall.
Lucas frowned. “Don’t move.”
Ignoring him, she bent down and grasped the edge of the frame.
Lean fingers curled around her upper arms, hauling her upright. “Leave that. You’ll cut yourself.”
Too late. Curling her thumb in against her palm, she made a fist, hiding a tiny, stinging jab that as far as she was concerned was so small it didn’t count as a cut. She blinked at the bright porch light. “I didn’t give you permission to come in, and you don’t have the right to give me orders.”
“You
did
cut yourself.” He muttered something in Medinian. She was pretty sure it was a curse word. “Give me the watercolor before you do any more damage.”
Her grip on the watercolor firmed, even though his request made sense. If she got blood on the painting it would be ruined. “I don’t need your help. Get your phone and go.”
“You look terrible.”
“Thanks!”
“You’re as white as a sheet.”
He released her so suddenly she swayed off balance. By the time she recovered he had laid claim to her sore thumb and was probing at the small cut. But she still had the painting. “Neat trick.”
His gaze was oddly intent. “There doesn’t seem to be any glass in it.”
He wrapped a handkerchief around her thumb and closed her fingers around it to apply pressure. “How long have you been sick?”
Her jaw tightened. She was being childish, she knew, but she hated being sick. It literally brought out the worst in her. “I’m not sick. Like I said before, all I need is a good night’s sleep, so if you don’t mind—”
The brush of his fingers against her temple as he pushed hair away from her face distracted her.
“Does that hurt? Don’t answer. I can see that it does.”
He leaned close. Arrested by his nearness, she studied the taut line of his jaw, suddenly assaulted by a myriad of sensations—the heat from Lucas’s body, the clean scent of his skin, the rasp of his indrawn breath. That was one of the weird things about the virus: it seemed to amplify everything, hearing, scent, emotions, as if protective layers had been peeled away, leaving her senses bare and open.
In a slick move, he took the watercolor while her attention was occupied by the intriguing shape of his cheekbones, which were meltdown material.
A small sound informed her that he had placed the painting on the hall table. Out of nowhere her stomach turned an uncomfortable somersault. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
His hand closed around her upper arm, and the heat from his palm burned through the cotton sweatshirt. Then they were moving, glass crunching under the soles of her slippers as he guided her out of the entrance hall into the sitting room. Another turn and they were in the bathroom.
Long minutes later, she rinsed her mouth and washed her face. She had hoped that Lucas would have left, but he was leaning against the hallway wall looking patient and composed and drop-dead gorgeous. In contrast she felt bedraggled and washed-out and as limp as a noodle.
Disgust and a taut, burning humiliation filled her. It was a rerun of Thailand, everything she had never wanted to happen again.
He folded his arms across his chest. “I’m guessing this is a relapse of the virus.”
Keeping one hand on the wall for steadiness, she made a beeline for her bedroom. “Apparently. This is the first recurrence I’ve had.” Her head spun and for a split second she thought she might be sick again, although she was fairly certain there was nothing left in her stomach. Two more wavering steps then the blissful darkness of her bedroom enfolded her. “Don’t turn on the light. And don’t come in here. This is
my
room.” And as such it was off-limits to men who didn’t love her.
“You should have told me you were still ill.”
Her temper flashed, but if it was measured on a color spectrum it would have been a washed-out pink, not the angry red it had been earlier in the evening. She didn’t have the energy for anything more and she was fading fast. “I didn’t
know
I was still ill.”
“That’s some temper you’ve got.”
Her teeth would have gritted if she’d had the strength. “Inherited it from my mother.” She dragged her coverlet back. “She’ll be home soon.” The thought filled her with extreme satisfaction. She hadn’t been able to kick Lucas’s butt out, but Margaret Ambrosi would. Especially if she found him in her little girl’s room.
Gingerly she sat on the side of the bed. Now that the stomach issue was over her attention was back on her head, which was pounding. What she needed was another painkiller, because the last one had just been flushed.
Dimly, she registered that despite her express order, Lucas
was
in her room. “I told you not to be here.”
He crouched down and eased her slippers off her feet. “Or what? You’ll lose that famous temper?”
“That’s right.” A shiver went through her at the burning heat of his hands on her feet. The chill on her skin made her realize that the next stage of the virus was kicking in. Oh, goody, she thought wearily, Antarctic-cold shivers followed by sweats that rivaled burning desert sands. Exactly how she always wanted to spend a Saturday night.
“I’ll take the risk. I survived Thailand, I can survive this.”
He pulled her to her feet. Her nose bumped against his shoulder. Automatically, she clutched his lean waist and leaned into his comforting strength. She inhaled, breathing in his scent, and for a crazy moment all she wanted to do was rest there.
A split second later, the sheet peeled back, Lucas eased her into bed and pulled the sheets and coverlet over her.
With a sigh, she allowed her head to sink into the feather pillow. “All I need is another one of the painkillers on the bathroom vanity and some water and I’ll be fine.” It was surrender, she knew it, but she really did need the pill.
She registered his near silent footfalls as he walked to the bathroom, the hiss of water as he filled the glass, then he was back. His arm came around her shoulders as he propped her up so she could take the pill and drink the water. When she was finished he set the glass down on her bedside table.
She settled back on the pillows. “You know what? You’re good at this.”
“I had lots of practice in Thailand. Do you need anything else?” His voice was closer now, the timbre low and deliciously gruff.
It was the kind of velvety masculine rumble that, if they had been in bed together, would have invited a snuggling session. Then suddenly she remembered. Lucas was with Lilah now; he no longer wanted her. If he felt anything for her, it had to be pity. A weak, watered-down version of fury roared through her.
She peeled her lids open and peered at Lucas, ready to read him the riot act, then forgot what she was about to say because there was a strange, intent expression on his face. “Nothing. You can leave. Phone’s on the coffee table. That was what you came for, wasn’t it?”
He was so close she could feel the heat blasting off his body, see his gaze sliding over her features, cataloging her white face and messy hair. For shallow, utterly female reasons she wished that her face was glowing instead of chalky-white and that she had taken the time to brush her hair. Mercifully, the strong painkiller finally kicked in, taking the heat out of the ache in her head and dragging her down into sleep. “I don’t want you here.”
It was a lie. The virus had made her so weak that she was fast losing the strength to keep up the charade, even to herself.
“I’m staying until I know you’ll be all right.”
“I would like you to leave. Now.” The crisp delivery she intended was spoiled by the fact that the words ran together in a drunken, blurred jumble.
She was certain the soft exhalation she heard had something to do with amusement, which made her even more furious. The mattress shifted as he planted a hand on either side of her head and leaned close. “What are you going to do if I don’t? Make me leave?”
For a crazy moment she thought he was actually flirting with her, but that couldn’t be. “Don’t have to,” she mumbled, settling the argument. Her eyelids slid closed. “You’ve already gone.”
Silence settled around her, thick, heavy, as the sedative effect of the pills dragged her down.
“Do you want me back?”
The words jerked her awake, but they had been uttered so quietly she wasn’t sure if she had imagined them or if Lucas had actually spoken.
She could see him standing in her bedroom doorway. Maybe she had been dreaming, or worse, hallucinating. “I took codeine, not truth serum.”
“It was worth a try.”
So he
had
asked the question.
She pushed up on one elbow. The suspicion that he was sneakily trying to interrogate her while she was drowsy from the pills solidified. Although she couldn’t fathom why he would be interested in what she really thought and felt now. “I don’t know why you’re bothering. Thank you for helping me, but please leave now.”
He shook his head. “You’re…different tonight.”
Different? She had been dumped. She had committed the cardinal sin of making love with her ex and could quite possibly be pregnant.
“Not different.” Turning over, she punched the pillow and willed herself to go to sleep. “Real.”
Six
T
en days later, Carla strolled into the Ambrosi building in Sydney.
When she reached her office, her assistant, Elise, a chirpy blonde with a marketing degree and a formidable memory for names and statistics, was in the process of hanging up the phone. “Lucas wants you in his office.
Now
.”
A jolt of fiery irritation instantly evaporated the peace and calm of four days spent recuperating at her mother’s house, the other five in the blissful solitude of the Blue Mountains at a friend’s holiday home. “Did he say why?”
Elise looked dreamily reflective. “He’s male, hot
and
single. Does it matter?”
Nerves taut, Carla continued on to her desk and deliberately took time out to examine the list of messages and calls Elise had compiled in her absence. Keeping her bag hooked over her shoulder, she checked her calendar and noted she had two meetings scheduled.
When she couldn’t stall any longer, she strolled to Sienna’s old office, frowning at the changes Atraeus money had already made to her family’s faltering business. Worn blue carpet had been replaced with a sleek, dove-gray weave. Fresh paint and strategically placed art now graced walls that had once been decorated solely with monochrome prints of Ambrosi jewelry designs.
Feeling oddly out of place in what, from childhood, had been a cozily familiar setting, she greeted work colleagues.
Directing a brittle smile at Sienna’s personal assistant, Nina—Lucas’s PA now—she stepped into the elegant corner office.
Lucas, broad shouldered and sleekly powerful in a dark suit with a crisp white shirt and red tie, dominated a room that was still manifestly feminine as he stood at the windows, a phone held to one ear.
His gaze locked with hers, he terminated the call. “Close the door behind you and take a seat.”
Suddenly glad she had made an extra effort with her appearance, she closed the door. The sharp little red suit, with its short skirt and fitted V-necked jacket, always made her feel attractive and energized. It probably wasn’t the best idea for dealing with Lucas, but she hadn’t worn it for him. She had a job interview at five with Alex Panopoulos, and she needed to look confident and professional. His upmarket Pan department stores were branching into jewelry manufacture and he had been chasing her all week to come in for an interview.
She hated the idea of leaving Ambrosi Pearls, but she had to be pragmatic about her position. When Constantine had offered the company back to Sienna on her wedding day they had held a family meeting. In essence, they had agreed to honour their debts, so the transfer of the company to The Atraeus Group had gone through as planned. With Sienna’s marriage to Constantine binding both families together, combined with Constantine’s assurance that he would keep the company intact, it had seemed the most sensible solution.
As a consequence, Carla now owned a block of voting shares. They would assure her of an income for the rest of her life, but they gave her no effective power. Her current personal contract as Ambrosi Pearls’s public relations executive was up for renewal directly after Ambrosi’s new product launch in a week’s time. She didn’t anticipate that Lucas would renew it. Her tenure as “The Face of Ambrosi” was just as shaky, but as she provided that service for free to help the company save money, it was no skin off her nose if Lucas no longer wanted her face on the posters.
Annoyance flickered in Lucas’s gaze when she didn’t immediately sit. He replaced the phone on its base. “I didn’t expect you back in so soon.”
She lifted a brow. “I felt okay, so there was no point in staying at home.”
“I’ve been trying to reach you all week. Why didn’t you return my calls?”
She shrugged. “I was staying with friends and didn’t take my phone.” She had left the phone at her apartment on purpose. The last thing she had needed was to have a desperately low moment and make the fatal mistake of trying to call or text Lucas.
There was a small charged silence. “How are you?”
“Fine. A couple of days in bed and the symptoms disappeared.” She smiled brightly. “If that’s all…”
“Not exactly.” His gaze rested on her waist, where the jacket cinched in tight. “Are you pregnant?”
Despite her effort at control, heat flooded her cheeks. “I don’t know yet. I have a test kit, but it’s early to get an accurate reading.”
“When will you know?”
She frowned, feeling distinctly uncomfortable with the subject and the way he was regarding her, as if she was a concubine who had somehow escaped the harem and he had ownership rights. “I should know in another couple of days. But whether I’m pregnant or not, it needn’t concern you.”
Actually, she could find out right that minute if she wanted. The test kit had said a result could be obtained in as early as seven days. She had studied the instructions then chucked the box in the back of one of her drawers. She still felt too raw and hurt to face using the kit and discovering that not only had she lost Lucas, her life was about to take a huge, unplanned turn. In a few days, when she felt ready, she would do the test.
Anger flickered in his gaze. “You would abort the child?”
“No.”
She felt shocked that he had even jumped to that conclusion. If there was a child, there was no way she would do anything other than keep the baby and smother it with love for the rest of its life. “What I meant is that
if
there is a child, I’ve decided that you don’t have to worry, because you don’t need to be involved, or even acknowledge—”
“Any child of mine would be acknowledged.”
The whiplash flatness of his voice, as if she had scraped a raw nerve, was even more shocking. Carla sucked in a breath and forced herself to loosen off the soaring tension. She was clearly missing something here. “This is crazy. I don’t know why we’re discussing something that might never happen. Is that all you wanted to know?”
“No.” He propped himself on the edge of the desk. “Have a seat. There’s something else we need to discuss.”
There were three comfortable client seats; she chose the one farthest away from Lucas. The second she lowered herself into the chair she regretted the decision. Even though he wasn’t standing, Lucas still towered over her. “Let me guess—I’m fired in a week’s time? I’m surprised it took you so long to get around to—”
“I’m not firing you.”
Carla blinked. Constantine had fired Sienna almost immediately, although his reasons had been understandable. Continuing on as CEO of a company in Sydney while he was based in Medinos had not been viable.
His gaze flicked broodingly over the crisp little suit. “Do you always dress like that for work?”
His sudden change of tack threw her even more off balance. She realized that from his vantage point he could see more than the shadowy hint of cleavage that was normally visible in the vee of the jacket. She squashed the urge to drag the lapels together. “Yes. Is there a problem?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Nothing that an extra button or a blouse wouldn’t fix.”
She shot to her feet. “There is nothing wrong with what I’m wearing. Sienna was perfectly happy with my wardrobe.”
He straightened, making her even more aware of his height, the breadth of his shoulders, the incomprehensible anger simmering behind midnight-dark eyes.
“Sienna was female.”
“What has that got to do with anything?”
“From where I’m standing, quite a lot.
She didn’t know what was bothering him. Maybe a major deal had fallen through, or even better, Lilah had dumped him. Whatever it was she would swear that he was behaving proprietorially, but that couldn’t be. He had dumped her without ceremony; he had made it clear he didn’t want her. To add insult to injury, the tabloids were having a field day reporting his relationship with Lilah.
His gaze dropped once again to the vee of her jacket. “Who are you meeting today?”
Temper soaring at the lightning perusal, the even more pointed innuendo, she reeled off two names.
“Both male,” he said curtly.
“Chandler and Howarth are contemporaries of my father! And I resent the implication that I would resort to using sex to make sales for Ambrosi, but if you prefer I could turn up for work in beige. Or, since this conversation is taking a medieval turn, maybe you’d prefer sackcloth and ashes.”
His mouth twitched at the corners and despite her spiraling anger she found herself briefly mesmerized by the sudden jolt of charm. Lucas was handsome when he was cool and ruthless, but when he smiled he was drop-dead gorgeous in a completely masculine way that made her go weak at the knees and melt.
“You don’t own anything beige.”
“How would you know?” she pointed out, glad to get her teeth into something that could generate some self-righteous anger.
She wasn’t vengeful, nor did she have a desire to hurt Lucas. It was simply that she was black-and-white in her thinking. They were either together or they weren’t, and she couldn’t bear the underlying invitation in his eyes, his voice, to be friends now that he had decreed their relationship was over. “As I recall, you were more interested in taking my clothes off than noticing what I was wearing. You had no more interest in my wardrobe than you had in any other aspect of my life.”
His brows jerked together. “That’s not true. You were the one who decreed we had to live separate lives.”
Her hands curled into fists. “Don’t say it didn’t suit you.”
“It did, at the time.”
“Ha!” But the moment of triumph was hollow. She just wished she had realized she wasn’t built for such a shallow, restricted relationship.
Pointedly, she checked her wristwatch. “I have a meeting in ten minutes. If there’s nothing else, I need to go. With the product launch in two days’ time, there’s a lot to do.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. We’ve made some changes to the arrangements for the launch party. Nina will be heading up the team running the promotion.”
Not fired, Carla thought blankly. Sidelined.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, but when she spoke her voice was still unacceptably husky. “Some product launch without the most high-profile component, or have you forgotten that I’m ‘The Face of Ambrosi’?”
Broodingly, Lucas surveyed Carla’s perfect face, exquisite in every detail from exotic eyes to delicate cheekbones and enticing mouth. Add in the outrageously sexy tousle of dark hair trailing down her back and she was spectacularly irresistible.
Ambrosi had cut costs and cashed in on Carla’s appeal, but he found himself grimly annoyed every time he noticed one of the posters. “It’s hard to miss when your face is plastered all over the front of the building.”
And in every one of the perfumed women’s magazines he had been forced to flick through since he’d stepped into Sienna Ambrosi’s front office.
Triumph glowed briefly in her gaze. “You can’t sideline me. I have to be there.” She began ticking off all the reasons he couldn’t surgically remove her from the campaign.
His frustration levels increased exponentially with every valid reason, from interviews with women’s magazines to a promotional stunt she had organized.
“I have to be there—it’s a no-brainer. Besides, the costuming has all been completed to my measurements.”
He cut her off in midstream. “No.”
Carla’s eyes narrowed. “Why not?”
Not a subject he was prepared to go live on, he thought, gaze fixed on the sleek fit of her red suit.
Every time he saw one of the posters, he had to fight the irrational urge to rip it down. The idea that Carla would do a promotional show in the transparent, pearl-encrusted creation he had viewed in front of an audience filled with voyeuristic men was the only no-brainer in the equation.
Over his dead body.
He felt as proprietary as he imagined a father would feel keeping his daughter from hormonal teenage boys. Not that his feelings were remotely fatherly. She could threaten and argue all day; it wasn’t going to happen.
“You haven’t been well, and you could be pregnant,” he said flatly. “I’ll do the interviews, and I’ve arranged for a model to take your place for the promotion. Nina is hosting the promotional show. Elise will take care of the styling.”
Styling
. He gripped the taut muscles at his nape. A week ago he didn’t even know what that meant.
“I’m so well I’m jumping out of my skin. I’m here to work. The launch is
my
project.”
“Not anymore.”
Silence hung heavy in the air. Somewhere in the office a clock ticked; out on the street someone leaned on a car horn. Carla groped for the fire-engine-red bag that matched her suit.
Lucas’s stomach clenched when he saw tears glittering on her lashes. Ah, damn… He resisted the sudden off-the-wall urge to coax her close and offer comfort. He had expected opposition—a fight—but he hadn’t been prepared for this level of emotion. Somewhere in the raft of detail involved with taking over Ambrosi and figuring out how to handle Carla, he had forgotten how passionately intense and protective she was about her family and the business. Although how he could forget a detail that had seen
him
sidelined in Carla’s life, he didn’t know. “Carla—”
“Don’t.” She turned on her heel.
Jaw clenched against the need to comfort her and soothe away the hurt, he reached the door first. His hand landed on the cream-and–gilt-detailed panel of the door, preventing her from opening it. “Just one more thing. My mother and Zane fly in tomorrow. I’ve organized a press conference to promote The Atraeus Group’s takeover of Ambrosi and the product launch, then a private lunch. As a family member and PR executive your presence is required at both.”
She stared blankly ahead. “Will Lilah be there?”
“Yes.”
Lucas had to restrain himself from going after Carla as she strode out of his office. His jaw tightened as he noted the outrageously sexy red heels and the enticing sway of her hips as she walked. The fact that he had lost his temper was disturbing, but ten days kicking his heels while she had disappeared off the radar had set him on edge. The second he had seen her in the red suit he had lost it. He had been certain she wasn’t wearing anything but a bra under the tight little jacket, and he had been right.