The Replacement Wife (8 page)

And yet
this
time, with this woman, he nearly lost his cool.
This
time he wanted to rend them apart, these squalid little men with their sordid insinuations. He wanted to break the arm of the man who dared shove against Becca as she moved past him, ducking against the driver’s burly frame and outstretched arm, her face concealed behind big, dark sunglasses.

Theo was used to them—hell, he expected them, and even on occasion utilized them, like today. And yet he wanted to have them all thrown in jail for trespassing, for assault, for
something
—because he could see how difficult an ordeal the short walk from the car was for Becca. How her breath caught in her throat in panicked little gasps, how her body swayed every time they shouted Larissa’s name. How she looked as if they were physically attacking her. But they were immune to any reprisals, these cockroaches, and Becca was stronger than she should have been. More warrior than woman, he thought. Quixote to the end. She simply kept walking. And the scum were forced to stop at the door to the apartment building, where the staff of doormen stood ready to do battle to keep them from the premises.

Theo found that he was holding on to his temper by the barest thread.

“I would have saved you from that if I could,” he said quietly, taking her by the arm and steering her toward his private elevator. He could not read her gaze behind those sunglasses, but he could see the turn of her mouth, the faint quiver of her lower lip. And yet she stood too
straight, too tall. As if she dared not bend, lest she break apart.

“But that would have defeated the purpose of taking me out to lunch,” she said, her voice devoid of inflection. Of emotion. Of
Becca.
“So what would be the point?”

He said her name as the heavy doors slid closed behind them, enclosing them in the lush maroon-and-gold elevator car. But it was too quiet, suddenly, too close, and she was still standing there like a soldier.

“I had no idea that was what it felt like,” she continued in that same empty voice. “All those cameras. All those
people.
So many of them, and so close.” She squared her shoulders, in a show of bravery that seemed to roll through him, leaving marks.

“Becca,” he said again, but she wasn’t listening to him.

“But this is what you wanted, isn’t it?” She slid her sunglasses up over her forehead and into her hair, and fixed him with those mossy-green eyes, so serious now, so dark. “I assume that’s why you didn’t prepare me. So I wouldn’t look confident, or used to them. So I would look fragile instead. Like someone just recovered from a collapse and fresh from private rehab somewhere should look.”

He had never hated himself more than he did at that moment. She was not even condemning him—which made it that much worse. She was simply accepting his ulterior motives, and he could not pretend that they weren’t true. That he hadn’t had exactly that thought, that hope. That he hadn’t set the scene with exactly that end in mind.

What did that make him? He almost laughed at himself then—
make
him? This was clearly who he already
was. Who he’d been for some time. What that meant, he wasn’t at all sure he wanted to know.

“Becca,” he said again, his voice unusually thick—as if it belonged to someone else. “I’m—”

“Don’t you dare apologize!” she snapped at him, some kind of temper flaring in her—but at least that was better than the blankness. “This was the deal. This is the job. Did I say I couldn’t handle it?”

“I didn’t know you,” he said, urgently, not meaning to move closer to her, not meaning to take her shoulders in his hands, not meaning to draw her into him, so her head tilted back and she looked up at him with those damned eyes of hers, that seemed to turn him into a stranger to himself. “I didn’t know you at all. I only knew that you looked like her. I had no idea that this would be anything but a game for you to play.”

She looked at him, and he had the uncomfortable sense that she saw things he didn’t even realize were there. Something dark passed over her face, and when she smiled, it was brittle.

“Who says that it’s not?” she asked. “It turns out that I’m good at passing for a spoiled little princess. Who could have guessed?” She laughed, a little bit wildly. “It must be those Whitney genes, after all.”

“Don’t do this,” he said then, that urgency moving through him, making his voice rougher than it should have been.

“I don’t understand,” she said, her own voice uneven in return, the wildness fading from her expression, and something far older, far sadder, taking its place. “Is it that you don’t want me to play this game according to the rules you set up yourself? Or is it that you don’t want me to be any good at it?”

He found himself shaking his head, found his fingers
testing her toned muscles, found himself achingly, shockingly hard. He wanted to answer her with his body. He wanted to lose them both in the only truth that mattered to him right then. The only thing that could set them both free of a game he no longer understood the way he’d thought he would.

“I don’t know,” he said, with brutal honesty. He wanted things he couldn’t name. He
wanted.
And she was Becca, not Larissa, and he couldn’t seem to find that anything but perfect. Right. And her eyes held all the secret depths of the forest. And he wanted her, most of all. Now. But more than that, he wanted to be the kind of man who never would have hurt her, and it was already much too late.

Electricity seemed to hum in the air, and he could see only her. Only her, and that wild, unmanageable heat that only she seemed to stir in him, reflecting back at him. And then she sighed slightly, and he saw something almost like hopelessness flash in her gaze. But then she blinked, and it was gone.

She smiled then, heartbreaking and real, and he forgot everything but that.

“I didn’t know who you were, Becca,” he gritted out. “I swear.”

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I know who
you
are.”

And then she arched up on her toes, hooked an arm around his neck, and pressed her mouth to his.

H
IS HANDS MOVED
to hold her, both of them warm against her shoulders and then tight on her back, but Theo did not otherwise so much as flinch. His mouth was warm, his lips firm beneath hers, and the feel of him, silk and steel, made her shiver uncontrollably.

But Becca forced herself to pull away, though it seemed much more difficult than it should have been, and dropped back down from her toes. He looked down at her, a slight frown between his remarkable eyes, and she had the sense he was trying to figure her out. As if she was the puzzle. She gazed up at him, her lips still tingling from their contact with his. However brief, she could still feel the heat of him, roaring through her veins, making her heart clatter against her ribs.

The paparazzi outside had been terrifying. More like a pack of wild dogs than people, they had pressed in against her, shouting insults and horrible, vicious questions, while flashbulbs went off again and again, blinding her. But safe inside the elevator, she had wanted to forget. Forget … everything. Did it matter that Theo had proved himself to be as ruthless as he’d always told her he was? She knew that should horrify her, but it hadn’t. It didn’t. After the terrible commotion outside, after the panic that had surged through her and made her wonder
if she’d be sucked into the pack of them, whole, Theo had seemed safe in comparison. Or at least, dangerous in an entirely different, somehow more manageable way.

She had felt his hands on her, had seen the heat and the remorse in his penetrating amber gaze, and she just hadn’t seen the point of pretending to be anything but just as fascinated by him as he’d accused her of being. And if she had to run the gauntlet of paparazzi, she’d reasoned, if she had to put up with all the downsides of this glittering role she was playing—why not take advantage of the only upside she could see in all of it?

Careful,
the practical side of her had cautioned.
You’re too emotional right now, this is much too intense … .

But she’d kissed him anyway. She shouldn’t have done it, she knew. She might very well live to regret it with her whole heart—and yet she could not seem to feel as badly about that as she knew she should.

Instead, she felt exhilarated, as if she could take a running start from one of Theo’s balconies and soar away, high over the proud skyscrapers of Manhattan and into the sky beyond. And yet her eyes still felt too full, too heavy, as if she might cry at any moment. Her hands twitched with the urge to press against her own lips.

It was as if she no longer had control of her own body.

You are entirely too emotional,
that prim voice inside of her lectured sternly.
You are letting this crazy situation tie you into knots.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, because she didn’t know what else to say. She felt as if she’d run for miles, and could now only shake slightly, ache too deeply and dream of moving that fast, that far, all over again.

“For what?” he asked quietly, his eyes intent on hers,
burning into her, branding her. “For kissing me? Or for stopping?”

Becca had no idea how to answer that. She felt her lips part, but no sound came out, and a darker fire bloomed into life in Theo’s gaze. She could feel it sear into her skin.

But the elevator doors slid open, and Becca tore her gaze away from his. She walked quickly, blindly, into the vast penthouse, only stopping when she realized that she had not caught her breath in some time. That was why she felt very nearly dizzy, she told herself. That was why her skin no longer seemed to fit her correctly.

“And now you run away,” Theo said softly, far too close behind her. “Perhaps you are sorry for all of it, after all.”

Becca turned, slowly. She had the odd feeling as she did so that the world was altering, right then and there, in that moment. That she would look back on this very second and know, somehow, that after it she had no longer been the same person. That Theo would wreck the Becca Whitney she knew, forever after. And still she turned, unable to stop herself or stave off the inevitable, and he was even closer than she’d imagined. His gaze was still hot and intent, turning her into jelly. Making her want to simply fling herself into his arms, right here in this great room that should have made her feel insignificant. But it didn’t. Not today. Not when this man with his tortured gaze looked at her like this, as if he wanted to burn them both alive with the electricity that hummed between them. As if that would be some kind of sacrament.

“Or perhaps that was not you kissing me at all,” he said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to move inside of her, as if he was already deep within her. “Perhaps
it was one more ghost, conjured into life by that rabble outside.”

“Don’t!” she gasped at him, hardly able to speak, hardly able to get the word out. But once it was there, between them, and he looked at her so expectantly, she found she could not seem to continue. There was too much noise in her head. Too many cautionary whispers on the one side, and too many treacherously seductive murmurs on the other. As if she really was two people in the same skin, both desperate for control—and neither winning it.

There were so many things she wanted to say. She wanted to explain to him how much it hurt her, though she told herself it shouldn’t, that she still didn’t know if he looked at her that way for herself, or if he saw Larissa. She wanted to tell him that it didn’t matter anyway, because clearly this connection between them was better, hotter,
more
than he could ever have had with another woman, no matter who she was.

But the last thing in the world she wanted to do right now was utter that name out loud. Not when he was so close, so sensually intent, and she could reach out her hand and feel the heat of him. Not when she so desperately wanted to prove that she was no ghost. She was real. Just like him.

“What do you want?” she asked, her voice much too low, much too breathy, to be her own. A frankly sensual smile curved in that hard jaw, and arrowed directly into her core.

“I already told you what I want.” His brows rose, and his hands moved at his sides, though he did not touch her. She knew, somehow, that that restraint hurt him. “The better question is, what do you want?”

Becca laughed then, surprising herself. It was the
laugh of a dedicated wanton, low and rich, and came from some deep, feminine place inside of her she’d never encountered before. Some place where she was not conflicted about this man at all. A place where she simply wanted him, no matter how much she struggled against it. And so she laughed, sensual and suggestive, and watched his eyes narrow with desire.

“I think I made myself clear,” she said.

He reached out then, and wrapped his fingers around the end of her ponytail, tugging on it gently, making her head dip toward him.

“Be more clear.” It was a command. Clear and concise. Why should that make her melt all the more?

“I
was the one who kissed
you,”
she reminded him. “But you didn’t seem to care very much for the experience.”

What if there was a reason for that? Suddenly, her confusion flooded her. What if she was imagining this fire, this breathlessness? What if it had nothing to do with
her
and everything to do with who she looked like? And what did it say about how far she’d fallen that she might not mind as she knew she should—as she clearly
would,
if she had any self-respect left at all?

“I want you to be certain about what you’re doing,” he said in that ruthless way of his, that purely masculine command ringing out in his voice. Strong. Certain. And soothing her that easily. “You need to be absolutely sure, Becca. Because I won’t be satisfied with
halfway.
Or
once.”

A prickling sort of heat broke out all over her skin, making her clothes feel too tight, her breaths too shallow, as if she might burst. Into flame. Into pieces. She wasn’t sure she cared which.

“Typical,” she managed to say, despite the heat and
the ache and the riot in her head, deep in her blood and between her legs. “You’ve barely kissed me and yet you demand that I decide whether or not I want to sleep with you right here and right now? Is this how you negotiate your business affairs, Theo? All or nothing, based on the faintest and least illuminating of examples?”

“Let’s see if you find this more illuminating,” he said, with the faintest hint of a smile his eyes glinting, and then he bent his head and took her mouth with his.

Theo did not merely
kiss.
Theo … possessed.

His mouth opened over hers, hungry and demanding, and he angled himself closer, his hands spearing into her hair to hold her and guide her as he took his time with her mouth, tasting her, teaching her, making dark, sensual promises with every touch of his tongue, his lips.

And Becca went wild.

Her arms were around him, testing his wide shoulders and anchoring behind his neck. He bent into her, making her arch toward him, finally pressing her swollen breasts against the hard wall of his chest. He angled his mouth for a better, hotter fit, making her groan against him, and then he undid her completely by pulling her hips flush against his.

He was hard and big, and she felt herself melt all around him.

She could not get close enough. She could not break away. She had the frenzied notion that her whole life had been leading right here, to this kiss. To him.

“Theo.” she murmured, and he shifted, lifting her high against his chest. With a touch, he encouraged her to wrap her legs around his lean waist, bringing her hips tight against his. She felt his hardness against her softness, and moved against him, making them both
shudder. He dug his fingers into her hair, pulling out the ponytail holder and tossing it carelessly aside. Freed, her hair fell around them, shielding them in the scent of musk and flowers. And again he took her mouth, with such devastating skill, such resolute mastery, that she felt herself shuddering against him. So much want. So much need.

He made her mindless.

“So tell me,” he said against her mouth, his maleness hard and proud against her, making her want to move, to be as wild as she felt, to writhe and scream and find herself in this hot, bright fire. “Have you seen the light?”

“You know I have,” she whispered, her voice broken, her lips slightly swollen from his. “It turns out you are a very illuminating man, after all.”

Theo only smiled. Hard. Satisfied. Male.

And then he shifted her in his arms, and carried her up the spiral staircase to his bedroom.

Becca barely noticed the details of the room, all masculine colors and shades, everything dwarfed beside the sweeping floor-to-ceiling windows that dominated the far wall. She only had the faintest sense of the city beyond them, and then she was on her back in the middle of the wide, platform bed, and Theo was beside her.

Any teasing had fled somewhere on the walk from the floor below, and Becca could feel the silence all around them, making the fire inside of her burn brighter, hotter. Making the way he looked at her, the way his hands traced patterns along her body, feel something very close to sacred.

He pulled her boots from her legs and let them clatter at the side of the bed. He stripped off his coat and the
light, cashmere sweater he wore beneath. And then he came over her, resting in the V of her thighs, making her sigh in some mixture of desire and satisfaction.

He did not speak. He kissed her face, moving from her forehead to her jaw, then down along her neck. His hands tested the weight of her breasts through the silky material of her dress, dragging thumbs over her painfully hard nipples until she arched up from the bed against him.

She felt as if she’d been waiting forever to touch him, to trace his long, lean muscles with her palms, her fingers, her mouth. He was hot to the touch, and smooth, his skin against hers making the world seem to spin around them.

Theo sat back, and looked down at her, his face almost harsh with passion. He pulled her to sitting position and with little ceremony, pulled her dress off and over her head. He let out a small sound when she sat before him in nothing but her bra and panties, and then he reached over and took her face in his hands, guiding her mouth to his.

He kissed her again and again, passion and promise, and this time when his mouth moved from hers he found her breasts, tasting one and then the other through the sheer silk and lace, making her head drop back and her eyes drift closed. His hands smoothed down her abdomen, then around to her back, and she hardly noticed when he pulled the bra from her body. But a jolt of fierce pleasure rocked through her when his lips closed over a hard nipple, pulling the hard peak insistently into the hot, wet depths of his mouth. He did the same with the other, inflicting his delicious torture until she was truly mindless in his arms, bucking against him, trying to ride his hardness as he pressed against her.

He laughed slightly, and tilted her up and toward him, so her legs fell on either side of where he knelt on the mattress. Then he let one hand find its way to her softness. He held her for a moment, making her pant with desire and impatience. She could feel the heat of his hand through the scrap of lace—and could not help the way her hips rolled against his palm, demanding that he end this torture.

But instead, he kissed her, taking her mouth with dizzying skill. Again and again he tasted her, and then he slowly, achingly, worked his big hand into her panties, until he could trace her femininity with his clever fingers. One stroke, another, making her sex flood with heat, making her gasp against his mouth, and then he twisted his wrist and drove one finger deep into her. Then another. Then, still kissing her as if he would never stop, he set an easy, devastating pace. His hot hand against the center of her core, his fingers inside of her, and his mouth against hers.

Becca bucked against him, again and again, clutching at his shoulders, and then she burst into a thousand pieces, sobbing his name into his mouth.

When she came back to herself, she was flat on her back on the bed, her panties were gone, and Theo was laying tender kisses along the undercurve of her breast, the slight swell of her belly and the jutting thrust of her hipbone.