The Most Expensive Lie of All (12 page)

An older woman entered the bathroom and Aspen pretended to be wiping her hands.

She’d have to tell Cruz.

Would it mean she’d still get the money if she backed out?

Oh, who cares about the money?
This was no longer about the money. This was now about self-preservation. This was about going back to the wonderful, predictable life that she loved.

Yes, but there won’t be that life if you don’t go through with this.

She’d backed herself into a corner and the only way out was through Cruz. A man who, for all his surface arrogance, genuinely cared about his family and was smart. And also ruthless. He would chew her up and spit her out without a backward glance if she let him.

‘Let’s not forget why you’re here, Aspen,’ she told her reflection softly.

He was pitting himself against her for Ocean Haven. Her farm. She should hate him for that alone but she didn’t, she realised. She didn’t hate him at all. Because she had come to understand him a little better. Understand what he had thought of her. What had shaped him as a boy. What had shaped him as a man.

How did you hate someone you instinctively sensed was good underneath? And what did that even matter?

Shaking her head at her reflection, she refastened a few loosened strands of hair and wondered where all her positive self-talk had run off to.

Maybe down the toilet.

She smiled at her lame attempt at humour and nearly walked straight into Cruz where he leant against the wall opposite the ladies’ room.

‘You were taking so long I got worried. I was just about to go in but I didn’t want to surprise you.’

‘I would have been okay.’ She let out a shaky breath. ‘It’s the old lady in the cubicle you might have had some trouble with.’

Cruz laughed and it broke the tension. He held out his hand. ‘Shall we go?’

She looked at his perfect, handsome face. Then his hand, palm up. He was strong, maybe stronger than Chad, but he wasn’t nasty. Even when he’d thought she had done him wrong he still hadn’t picked on her the way Chad would have done. No, Cruz was arrogant and controlling, but he was honest and straight down the line. A straight arrow. Black and white. No shades of grey.

‘Aspen?’

She saw hunger and desire in his eyes and it made her feel hot all over. Maybe she could do this.
Maybe.

She glanced at his hand, wondered if she was as crazy as her uncle had suggested and placed hers in it.

He smiled.

She swallowed.

It wasn’t until they were halfway across the foyer that she saw a familiar figure—a man—leaning against the reception desk. He had his back to her, so she couldn’t see his face, but he was average height with blond hair and a slightly stocky bodybuilder’s physique.

Chad?

Cruz pressed the lift button and Aspen’s attention was momentarily snagged by their reflection in the gold-finished doors. They looked good together, she thought. He was tall and broad, and she looked feminine and almost otherworldly in the beautiful green dress.

His eyes met hers and she couldn’t look away.

Then the lift doors opened. Aspen snuck another quick glance over her shoulder but the man she had spotted wasn’t there. She let out a relieved breath. After their last acrimonious argument Chad had kept to his own part of the world and she to hers.

Still, she stabbed repeatedly at the penthouse button and only realised how questionable her behaviour looked when she noticed Cruz’s bemused expression and realised he hadn’t swiped his security tag across the electronic panel.

His eyebrows rose and Aspen’s gaze dropped to the space between their feet, her heart beating too fast. Seeing the man who might or might not have been her ex-husband had been terrible timing. Just when she’d begun to think maybe her night with Cruz would be all right it was as if the powers that be had sent her a message to take care.

To remind her that being in a man’s control was when a woman was at her most vulnerable.

As the lift ascended Cruz pushed away from the mirror-panelled wall and invaded her space, startling her out of her dark reverie when he placed his warm hands either side of her waist.

‘Okay, talk to me. You’re as nervous as a pony facing the bridle for the first time. The same as you were last night.’

Aspen gave a low laugh at his analogy and jumped when his thumbs stroked her hip bones through the dress. She couldn’t tell him she thought she’d just seen Chad. That would raise a whole host of questions that she did not want to answer. And what if she was wrong? Then she’d just look stupid. Or paranoid.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re shaking.’

Was she?

He gave her a look. ‘Is it the deal? Because—’

‘It’s not the deal. Actually I’d forgotten all about that again.’

Her answer seemed to please him but she didn’t have time to consider his satisfied—‘Good.’—because the lift doors opened.

When he’d released her he placed his hand on the small of her back as he ushered her through to the living room. The housekeeper had been and the room was cast with shadows by the floor lamps that had been switched on for their convenience.

‘Do you want a drink?’

‘Yes, please.’

She’d said that too loudly and his eyes narrowed.

‘Of...?’

Aspen forced a smile. ‘Gin and tonic.’ She winced. She hated gin and tonic.

She wandered over to the wall to study one of the paintings she’d admired the evening before but never taken the time to look at. An overhead light outlined it perfectly and she gasped.

‘That’s a Renoir.’

‘I know.’

He was right behind her and she heard the tinkle of ice as he handed her the drink she didn’t want.

‘You’re not having one?’

‘No.’ He perched on the arm of a nearby sofa, watching her. ‘Something wrong with it?’

‘What?’

He motioned patiently towards the highball in her hand. ‘Your drink?’

‘No. It’s fine. At least, I’m sure it’s fine.’ It was all about maintaining control. If she did that she could get through this. ‘Look, maybe we should just...start.’

‘Start?’

Aspen could have kicked herself, and she moved towards a side table so she could let out a discreet breath and put the drink down. She knew he hadn’t taken his eyes off her and she told herself that he wanted her. She’d felt how aroused he had been last night, and again in the stable that day. He had felt huge!

So why had he stopped? Was he struggling to maintain an erection with her as Chad had done? She shuddered. On those occasions Chad had been particularly vile.

Cruz tilted his head and looked as if he was about to say something, and then he changed his mind. Instead he uncurled his large frame and came towards her until he practically loomed over her. Then he reached for her hair.

She didn’t mean to do it, of course, but she flinched and his hand stilled. ‘I’m just going to take your hair down.’

She stared at his chest and tried to slow her heartbeat.

‘Is that okay?’

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

‘Turn around.’

It took all of her willpower to give him that modicum of control, but when she did turn around he stroked her shoulders.

‘You have a beautiful back. Lean and supple. Strong.’

He kneaded the bunched muscles either side of her neck and her involuntary sigh of pleasure filled the quiet room.

‘That feels so good. I know I must be really tight.’

Cruz groaned inwardly, knowing she hadn’t meant that comment the way his depraved mind had interpreted it. Yes, she did feel tight. Too tight. Too nervous.

He wanted to ask her what was wrong, but she moaned softly and her head lolled on the graceful stem of her neck and the question died in his throat.

All through dinner he’d imagined doing this. Touching her, tasting her. He’d been harder than stone all night and he wasn’t sure if he’d committed to five hotels in China or fifty. Nor did he care. Right now he’d put a hundred on Mars if someone asked him to.

Aspen moaned again and shifted beneath his pressing thumbs.

‘Harder or softer?’ he asked, the rough timbre of his voice reflecting his deep arousal.

He heard her breath catch, and then his did as well as her gorgeous bottom brushed his fly.

‘Harder,’ she whispered, and a shudder ripped through him.

The musky perfume of her skin was ambrosia to his senses and he trailed soft kisses across her shoulders. Her head fell forward and she braced her hands on the side table in front of her. Cruz registered her position on a purely primal level and knew all he’d have to do was lift that long silk skirt, tear whatever excuse for a pair of panties she was hiding underneath, bend her a little more forward and slide right into her—and he very nearly did.

But he wanted more of her taste in his mouth first, and with unsteady hands he gripped the side of her waist and trailed tiny moist kisses down the column of her spine until he reached the small of her back.

She undulated for him, arching backwards, and unable to hold himself back any longer he rose, spun her around to face him and slanted his mouth across hers. Not softly, as he had done earlier in the stables—he was too far gone for that—but hard, with barely leashed power and a deep driving hunger to be inside her.

She opened for him instantly, her fingers impatient as they delved into his hair to anchor him to her. That was okay with him. He barely noticed the bite of her short nails, concentrating instead on the throbbing sense of satisfaction as his tongue filled her mouth. He tasted coffee and cream and couldn’t suppress a groan.

Somehow some of her earlier hesitation seeped into the minute part of his brain that still functioned on an intellectual level and he attempted to steady himself—before he just dragged her to the floor and had done with it.

Then her tongue stroked his and his mind gave out. Sensation hot and strong coursed through him, just as it had every other time he’d kissed her, and he couldn’t help curving her closer so that they touched everywhere.

The silky fabric of her dress slid against his jacket in an erotic parody of skin on skin. Which was what he wanted. What he needed. And, keeping his mouth firmly on hers, he shucked out of it and then lashed at the buttons on his shirt.

She moaned, her warm hands pushing the fabric off his body as she shaped his arms and his shoulders before clinging once more around his neck.

Cruz reached behind her neck. His fingers felt clumsy in his desperation as he finally managed to undo the two pearl-like buttons that held the top of the dress together.

Aroused to an unbearable pitch, he smoothed a hand down to the small of her back, his lips cruising along her jawline until he could tug on the lobe of her ear. She was wearing tiny gold studs and he tongued one as he bit down gently on her flesh and brought his hands around to cradle both breasts in the palms of his hands. She trembled delightfully and her responsiveness rocked him to his core.

His thumb caught her nipple and she cried out, gripping him tighter. Cruz knew that neither of them was going to make it to the bedroom so he didn’t even try. Instead he lifted her onto the side table and hoped it would hold.

It did, and he pulled back and looked down at her.

Her nipples pebbled enticingly beneath his lingering gaze and he plumped one breast up. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he breathed, taking the rosy tip into his mouth.

Arousal beat through his body, hot and insistent, and he urged her thighs wider so that he could settle his erection between her legs. Unfortunately the table wasn’t high enough for him to take her on it and he knew he’d have to lift her onto him when the time came.

‘Thank heavens you’re wearing a dress,’ he growled around her tight, wet nipple, his impatient hands delving beneath the reams of fabric to find her.

Moments later he felt her panic in the stiffening of her thighs and the press of her fingernails on his shoulders.

‘Wait!’

His blurred mind tried to take in the change and he mentally pulled back.

‘We might need some lubricant,’ she blurted out against his neck.

Lubricant?

Cruz stilled, and was struck by how slight and vulnerable her body felt compared to his much larger frame curved over her. Instantly his libido cooled as he recalled those times she had flinched away from him when he’d reached for her. He frowned. Had she
never
experienced pleasure during sex?

He brought one hand up between them to cup her jaw and brought her eyes to his. ‘Aspen, what’s wrong?’

‘I’m just...’ She licked her lips, her mortified gaze flitting sideways. ‘I don’t have much natural lubrication. I should have told you earlier.’

Stunned, Cruz could only stare at her. He could tell she was serious but he had briefly felt her moist heat through her panties and knew she needed extra lubrication the way Ireland needed rain.

As if taking his prolonged silence as a rejection, she shoved his chest hard enough to dislodge him and desperately scooted off the table.

Only her stilettos must have come off when he’d lifted her because her feet tangled in the fabric of her dress and she pitched forward.

Cursing, Cruz grabbed hold of her before she fell. ‘Aspen, wait.’

‘No. Let me go.’

Ignoring her attempts to break free, he gently tugged her back into his embrace. She immediately buried her head against his neck and he brought one hand up to stroke her hair. His heart thundered in his chest as his dazed mind tried to process what was happening.

He waited until he felt her breathing start to even out and then he leaned back so he could look at her face.

‘Who told you that you didn’t have any natural lubrication?’

She groaned and burrowed even more fully against him.

Cruz cupped her nape soothingly. ‘I know you’re embarrassed. Was it Anderson?’

‘It happens to some women.’

Cruz had no doubt she was correct, but he had already felt how damp she was through her lace panties and, whatever problems she had, he very much doubted this was one of them.

‘I’m sure it does
chiquita
, but it hasn’t happened to you.’