Читать книгу The Playboy Takes a Wife - Crystal Green, Crystal Green - Страница 7

Chapter Two

As the Chandler party returned from the horse stables on their grand tour of Refugio Salvo, Lucas kept his photo-op smile in place. The cameras caught it with their freeze-frames, trapping him in the flashes yet again.

Alicia was at the head of the group, leading them toward the main building, which had been sparsely decorated for the upcoming holidays. There they’d be having an informal meet and greet with the children, who had already welcomed Lucas into their home with a sweet rendition of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” before Alicia had guided them onward. They’d seen the state-of-the-art school building with its computer room, the mini gymnasium with basketball hoops and hardwood floors, the library stocked with the most recent and popular titles, the cozy quad-occupancy rooms in the cottages.

Money. It could work wonders.

Lucas stuck his fists in his pockets. Idly, he watched the way Alicia moved, her hands clasped behind her back, her hips swaying under the oversized jacket and full, dark skirt as she traveled the dirt path that led from the paddock to the main house. The mild air, scented with hay and sunlight, toyed with her black curls. When one strand of wild hair tickled her cheek, Lucas imagined smoothing it away, tucking it behind an ear and receiving one of her gorgeous smiles in return.

But she hadn’t been smiling so much during the tour. Not after she’d told him the real reason she was interested in Lucas Chandler.

We were hoping that he’s one to part easily with his money.

Join the club, honey, he thought.

He’d tried to forget how his chest had clenched when she’d said that. But why was he surprised? People liked him for what he could supply, whether it was cash, amusement or a good headline to laugh over in a tabloid.

That was all anyone had ever expected of him, so what was the big deal?

Hell, maybe he just wanted more from a woman who’d at first seemed a little different from the rest.

They arrived at the casa’s back door, where one of the older boys—a teen with slashing eyebrows, crooked teeth and long scraggly hair—greeted them. Camera flashes bathed the teen and Lucas as they shook hands.

Then, as everyone started entering the building, Alicia thanked them, inviting the crowd to eat and mingle.

The journalists wasted no time in attacking the spread: burritos, small tostadas, punch and cookies placed carefully on plates over the paper tablecloths. The boys stood nervously around the poinsettia-strewn room, plastic cups in hand, waiting to play host to their patron.

While going inside, David gave a laconic nod to Lucas. His brother was obviously happy about how today had gone. A flare of satisfaction caught Lucas in its spotlight and he glanced at the ground, hiding his reaction.

After the teen had entered, too, that left Lucas, who had stepped back outside to hold open the door for Alicia, the last of their group.

She hadn’t moved from her hostess spot. In fact, Lucas got the feeling that she’d been watching him the whole time. He could tell by the intelligent depth of her gaze, the tilt of her head that maybe she’d gleaned something about him that he wanted to hide. Something that most people never caught on to.

He shut the screen door, arming himself with the Dimples to throw her off the scent of what she might’ve seen: Lucas’s need to get this right, his fear of always being a joke.

“A job well done, Ms. Sanchez,” he said lightly.

Narrowing her eyes a little, she held his jaunty stare. “I’ve been waiting to apologize to you. For the entire tour, I kept wondering what you must think of me.”

“Don’t sweat it. You thought I was a regular guy, I thought you were going to be a nun….”

“I’m talking about my comments. Please don’t let my failure to say what I really meant reflect on the orphanage. We really are grateful for everything you’ve done. I hope you don’t believe we aren’t appreciative.”

Caught by her honesty—Lucas wasn’t really used to it from anyone except David—he leaned against the casa’s stucco, the texture scratchy against the fine weave of his shirt.

Before he could answer, a preteen bounded out of one of the cottages, his all-white clothing spotted by colors.

“Ay, Roberto,” Alicia said, stopping him. She laughed, glowing, as she straightened the boy’s wardrobe. “Did we interrupt your painting?”

Roberto nodded, shooting a glance to Lucas, who shrugged in confederacy with the boy. Being late was cool with him.

“You.” Alicia sent Roberto off with a soft, good-natured push. “Just don’t let Sister Maria-Rosa see you.”

After Roberto tore off, Lucas watched Alicia. She was still smiling in the wake of the boy’s presence.

How could he ever doubt this woman’s intentions? She seemed so openhearted, so guileless.

But…damn. It wasn’t as if Lucas had great insight into character. There was a lot of anecdotal evidence that could prove his lack of judgment.

“Well…” Alicia said, whisking her hands down over her skirt, removing the imaginary wrinkles. “I suppose we should be getting inside.”

Disappointment dive-bombed him. “Yeah—” he adjusted his tie “—I suppose we should.”

Neither of them moved.

Instead, they waited as the wind hushed around them, the sun sinking closer to the horizon.

Both of them laughed at the same time, a quiet, intimate admission that neither of them felt like going anywhere.

“I’ve had it with reporters,” Lucas said.

“I can tell.”

“Not that I don’t want to greet more of the kids. Don’t get me wrong.”

“Of course.”

His eyes met hers and, for a moment, everything around them stopped—the wind, the rattle of branches.

For the first time in his life, Lucas didn’t know what to say to a woman. But he didn’t really want to be talking, anyway. In this pocket of stolen time, he was content just to look at her, to see the gold in her eyes shift with thought and sunlight. How had she come to be here, wearing these frumpy clothes and hanging out with nuns?

As if reading his mind, she looked away and touched her bracelet, almost as if it gave her something to concentrate on.

“So what’s your story?” he asked softly. “What made you decide to volunteer for this kind of social work?”

Another strand of hair grazed her cheek, her lips. Lucas couldn’t take his eyes off her mouth, the lush promise of it.

“I’ve found,” she finally said, “that I’m good at working with young people.”

“I can see you enjoy them.”

The startling hue of his eyes seemed to press into her, digging for more information. She fidgeted, her skin too aware, too flushed with thoughts she shouldn’t be having.

The forbidden nature of them kicked her brain into high gear; all the impulsive reasons she’d moved from the only home she’d known in the States to come down to the resort area where her parents had met.

“When my grandparents passed away, I realized what I needed to do with my life,” she said, voice thick with emotion. She missed them so much, wanted them back so badly. “They raised me in San Diego, but, after they died, staying there didn’t appeal to me.” She swallowed, tacking on a harmless falsehood just to cover the reminder of why she was really in Mexico. “Not when I realized there was so much to be done down here.”

“Your grandparents raised you?”

Alicia flinched, crossed her arms over her chest. “My mom and dad…passed out of my life. A long time ago.”

Another adjustment to the truth.

Lucas Chandler stood away from the wall, so devastatingly handsome, so confusing to her. Couldn’t her body just ignore those dimples, that inviting gaze?

He ambled closer, a growing hunger in his eyes, his interest in her so obvious that it almost took her breath away.

Closer…mere inches away.

Inhaling his scent, she got dizzy. Her head filled with scenarios, hints of fantasies—

Skittish, she took a casual yet significant step away.

She didn’t want to offend him by assuming he was hitting on her, but she was trying to be a careful girl. Especially lately, after her view of life had been so blasted apart by what her grandfather had told her as he lay dying.

From a few feet away, she heard Lucas chuckle. When she chanced a look at him, she saw a vein in his neck pulsing.

Stop him from getting close again. “I think it’s time to go inside now. The children are waiting and—”

“We shouldn’t be standing out here by ourselves.” His grin wasn’t amused so much as wry. “I know. One photo with me and there goes your reputation. You’re obviously held in some esteem around here, and we don’t want to ruin that.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

But he was right. The last thing she needed was this man standing only a few tension-fraught feet away from her, his skin giving off heat and the smell of musk and soap. She’d been around enough to know his type; he could make a girl think that whatever trouble they could get into was right.

Back when she was sixteen, she’d learned this well. Swayed by an older crowd—one her grandparents didn’t know about—she’d given in to peer pressure on a summer night with a boy named Felipe.

And she’d liked it. So much. Too much.

Afterward, she’d been dogged by all the moral lessons she’d learned from church and her grandparents; she’d even wondered what was wrong with her that she’d enjoyed it so much.

Needing some kind of stabilizer, Alicia had made a vow to wait for intimacy again until marriage. Then she could be a good wife, and sex would be respectable with her husband.

She was no angel—not even close. But now, more than ever, she tried her best to be.

There was a cryptic flicker in Lucas’s eyes. It seemed to make him change his mind about being so close to her, because he grinned tightly and nodded while he turned away. Like the gentleman she’d seen all day, he held open the door for her to enter the building, his gaze suddenly a million light-years distant.

The sound of happy chatter greeted her, and she was drawn to it—charity, a cleansing of the soul.

But as she passed by Lucas Chandler, she met his gaze, seeing that it was anything but removed. Seeing that it was so filled with a lingering admiration for her that she couldn’t help picking up her pace and fleeing.

An hour later, most of the boys had retired to their rooms, signaling the end of the reception. The reporters had been ushered away by David long ago, when the food had become less than a novelty and they’d gotten itchy to take pictures again.

Thank God for their absence, because Lucas was done with business for today. Come to think of it, he’d actually lucked out by avoiding the press in his more private moments. He’d all but lost his head out there with Alicia, almost forgetting what a picture alone with him would’ve cost her.

He really hadn’t been thinking clearly, not with the way his body had been reacting to hers, growing more responsive with every step he’d taken toward her. And he was used to getting what he wanted from women too easily not to be miffed by her reluctance.

Still, he’d respected her refusal to turn their alone time into something more, had seen the warmth in her eyes when she’d talked about being with the kids. Lord knew Lucas didn’t hang out with many people who had ambitions beyond planning the next party or acquiring the next “big thing” that would make them a Donald Trump overnight. She was refreshing, so why change her into one of his social casualties?

Especially since he was supposed to be turning over that new leaf.

As David summoned the limo and took a phone call outside, the last of the orphans said goodbye to Lucas. Gabriel, the kid who’d been so friendly at the beginning of the day, had seemed oddly shy at the reception, adhering to Alicia—who’d kept her distance from across the room—the entire time.

But, now that the excitement had died down, the dervish Gabriel was back, zipping over to Lucas with the verve of a tightly packed hurricane. He was carrying the jacket Alicia had been wearing.

“Hi,” he said, giving the material to Lucas and shuffling from foot to foot.

Alicia followed him over, and Lucas perked up even more.

“He’s practicing English on you,” she said, acting as if he hadn’t invaded her personal bubble earlier.

Maybe her polite cheer would force Lucas to be a good boy around her.

“Well, then…” He hunkered down to eye level with Gabriel. “Hi, back to you, too.”

That was the boy’s cue. Gabriel started to rattle off a breathless description of all the food he’d eaten today, and Lucas listened attentively. Somewhere in back of him, an enterprising reporter clicked away with a camera. Obviously, at least one of them hadn’t gone home, after all.

Photo op. Lucas had stumbled into a nice one, hadn’t he?

It wasn’t until Gabriel stopped chatting and started watching him with those big dark eyes that Lucas realized his throat was stinging with an emotion he couldn’t identify.

What the hell?

Brushing it off, he chalked it up to seeing evidence of the good those English lessons had done.

He abruptly stood, averting his face, ignoring thoughts of all the numb days that had been linking his existence together.

His sight settled on his brother, who was lounging by the doorway, tucking his phone into a suit pocket, face pensive.

Keep it together, he told himself.

By the time Gabriel tugged on Lucas’s pants, Lucas had collected himself enough to turn around again.

The child stood there, dark eyes wide and playful. “Come on, come on. Hide-and-seeks.”

As the child jumped up and down and tried to lure Lucas out of the casa, a nun from across the room called to the boy.

“It’s time for chores, Gabriel. Say goodbye now.”

The child frowned, looking as if he didn’t comprehend why the fun had to end. Then, without warning, he turned to Alicia and fired a barrage of upset Spanish words that Lucas couldn’t translate. His tone was choked, his hands fisted in front of him as he punched the air.

Lucas’s chest tightened with concern, with empathy.

But when Alicia patiently reached out to smooth Gabriel’s spiky hair, just the way you would your own child, the boy paused, at first shaking his head and denying her. But as she spoke soothing words, Gabriel allowed her to get closer, closer.

Carefully, she drew him to her, continuing to murmur as she hugged him and smoothed a hand up and down his back.

Thank God, within a few seconds, Gabriel had stopped, his head resting on her shoulder, one hand fisting the material of her blouse.

In his eyes Lucas saw those reflections again, the painted shadows of his own heart buried beneath this kid’s chest. The need to find someone who could help him, too.

The words slipped out before Lucas could rein them in. “We’ll hide-and-seek next time, Gabe, huh?”

He didn’t know why he’d said it. Dammit, when would he ever be coming back here?

But then that beautiful smile lit over Alicia’s lips, and Lucas knew it wouldn’t take much more persuasion.

“See you soon, then, Mr. Chandler,” Alicia said, leading Gabriel away and acting calm enough to fool him into thinking that nothing dramatic had just happened with the kid. “Thank you for everything.”

Lucas nodded, unable to stop himself from appreciating the way her curvy hips swiveled under that shapeless skirt. She gave real nice form to it, that was for sure.

Before reaching the door, she sent him one last glance, and the power of it just about bowled him over. All she did was smile a little, and his world tipped.

What was it about her? In that smile it seemed as if she could read his mind, slip beneath his skin, whisper inside his head.

I know you’re hurting, he imagined the smile saying. And I understand.

After they’d left, Lucas finally took a breath.

Realizing that he’d been holding the same one for what seemed like hours.

David had already gone outside by the time Lucas had said his farewells to the orphanage director. The Brain was waiting for his brother near the limo, where they had a view of the property: the main building, the annexes and the cottages, the chapel, the stables.

Arms crossed casually over his chest, David assessed Lucas, eyes a cool blue. With his stoic/casual pose, he looked like a stone-carved cowboy.

“Guess who called?” David said.

Lucas knew the answer before being told. “What’s the damage from the old man this time? Or is he announcing another future stepmom who’s two years older than I am?”

Well practiced in this line of conversation—one that never went anywhere—David kept his silence. Instead, his body language said it all: the loose limbs that spoke of a man in control of his own destiny, the slight tensing of his jaw that hinted at tension between the brothers. David was a big fan of Lucas’s hands-off business approach; he didn’t mind running everything while Lucas flashed his smile to the world at large. It was Lucas’s majority holding in the corporation’s stocks—a contract-tight promise his father had made to his first wife that included always seeing that Lucas, the firstborn, would own the company—that got to the Brain.

“Just spill it,” Lucas said, tired of waiting.

“He wanted an update. Wanted to know if today’s events were enough to impress Tadmere and Company.”

Tadmere, the family-oriented American media empire they were trying to acquire. Owning them would revitalize TCO, as well as give them more of an avenue to compete with the print rags and news shows that made a living off stalking Lucas. But the current, very pious owners were balking at turning over “their baby” to a company supposedly led by a man of Lucas’s reputation. It was Tadmere—and that scandalous Rome trip—that had prompted this whole personal PR campaign to make him look like a “nice guy.”

“And what did you tell him?” he asked nonchalantly, as was his habit. His dad hated when he did that.

And Lucas thrived on it.

“I told him things went perfectly.” David glanced at his Rolex and stood away from the limo. “He was happy about that, Luke. Really happy.”

A splinter of euphoria stabbed at his chest, making him bleed a little. It happened every time the old man seemed to be coming around, ever since he’d survived the stroke. But, even now, Lucas wasn’t about to get too giddy; Ford Chandler would return to prehealth-scare form soon enough. Lucas wasn’t about to set himself up for a fall.

“I’m sure you can imagine the happy fireworks going off in me,” Lucas said.

David sighed and shook his head. “Come on. You and I both know that, this time, maybe Dad will come around to appreciating you. I, for one, am sick to death of the way things are. And don’t deny—” David held up a finger to silence Lucas just as he was about to protest “—that you are, too. Suck it up this time and don’t get all rebellious against the guy. He’s sticking out an olive branch, these days. Would you just take it?”

“And what would sucking it up entail, David?”

“Just doing more of what you did here today. That’s all. Did it hurt so much?”

In the back of his mind, he heard Gabriel speaking English to him, saw all the boys lined up by the food tables and smiling in an effort to impress him.

Him—the notorious Lucas the Lover.

Respect, he thought. How would it feel to finally have it?

But it was impossible to come clean with David at this point. After all, it’d been tough enough to admit to his brother that he’d gone overboard in Rome with Cecilia DuPont and that he needed to cut the shenanigans.

And it’d been awful to admit it to himself, too. Admit that, more than anything, he craved one kind damn word from a father who didn’t give out many of them.

In response to that, Lucas had made a career out of being apathetic about the business his dad had raised from the ground up with his heart and soul. TCO was the son Ford Chandler favored best, so why didn’t he expect resentment from Lucas?

Resentment. God, it wore him out. He was weary from fighting a father who’d seemed to age fifteen years in the last month. The last time Lucas had seen his dad—hell, it was the day the competing tabloids had come out with that picture of Cecilia dancing in all her naked glory in a fountain, with a champagne-swilling Lucas cheering her on—the man had looked almost done. Finito, as Lucas’s Italian buddies would’ve said.

His fed-up father had been in a hospital bed in the penthouse of one of his New York buildings, skin pale from the pains Lucas had brought on. That was the day Lucas had realized that he might not have much time to show his dad he could be an actual success—not the punchline of the family.

“I think we accomplished a lot here,” Lucas said. “I wouldn’t say no to doing more of it.”

There. Underplay it. Don’t let them know how much it would mean for you to be taken seriously.

A small grin lifted the corners of David’s mouth, and Lucas knew he’d said the right thing.

“Today was just the first step,” his brother said. “It’ll take more than a few charitable photo ops to erase that bad-boy image you’ve got going.”

The memory of his father’s exhausted sighs and the slump of his shoulders—disappointment—edged into Lucas. He could do more, all right.

Still, he didn’t want to seem too excited. He couldn’t go that far yet. “You have something in mind, Einstein?”

“I’ve had some ideas today.” David’s eyes went a bit dreamy, the pose of many genius brainstorms that had kept TCO afloat. “It’d be perfect if you could do something to put the world’s—and Tadmere’s—doubts to bed for good. What we need to do is make you a pillar of society.”

“We’ve had a good start.”

“It goes way beyond the orphanage. I’m talking about a life change. A total tabula rasa so no one remembers Rome or Paris or the many screwed-up headlines you’ve inspired.”

Lucas bristled, mostly because the words were coming from his younger sibling. Mostly because they were true.

“Mammoth task,” he muttered.

“Not really.”

David was watching something in the distance, so Lucas turned around.

Without warning, his heart pinged around his chest and jumped up to lodge in his throat. Alicia Sanchez was walking hand in hand with a work-clothing-garbed Gabriel to the stables, swinging arms and laughing together.

“You got along with her real well,” David said. “And you’re good with kids, especially that one.”

Slowly Lucas turned back around, shoulders stiff and wary, his blood racing.

David held up both hands. “Trust me on this—if you could even do one thing like convince the public that you’re capable of a stable relationship with a decent woman, Tadmere would be ours. It might take some time for them to see what a wonderful monogamous man you’ve become, but… What can I say? Love changes even the wildest of miscreants. Then maybe, in the future…kids.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” But even as he said it, a part of Lucas—the one that’d felt numb today, the one who’d cried out for a father’s respect—didn’t completely shut out the idea.

“Think of how the world would look at you,” David added. “A reformed rake. People love that.”

Monogamy. Respect. A relationship. Respect.

Respect, respect, respect.

That was the bottom line, the one prize that had eluded Lucas for so long that it seemed like a dream.

“She’s beautiful.” David again, damn him. “If you could be paired with a ‘nice’ woman like her…pure gold.”

“Yeah, and, if the public found out that this was just a relationship built on the need for good PR, I definitely would come off looking even worse than before.”

“Lucas—” David cocked a stoic eyebrow “—think of those Rome pictures with Cecilia. How could you possibly come off as more of a rake? Besides, we’ve got our publicity machines to cover for us.”

Embarrassed anew to have been caught nearly in flagrante delicto by the press, Lucas glanced over his shoulder. Alicia and Gabriel were disappearing behind the buildings.

But that wasn’t the only reason he couldn’t help looking.

Fantasy merged with reality just for one pulse-stopping moment: Alicia’s smooth cheek against his palm, her curly hair between his fingers, her lips against his…

But then the rebuttals rushed in, pounding against his skull. Good girl. Playboy. Right.

“Forget it,” Lucas said, his tone brooking no argument.

“Listen, celebrities do this kind of thing all the time for good ink when they want to polish themselves up. Can you imagine the great press, even from the sources we don’t own?”

And it’d be just a business decision, Lucas added. Nothing different from any of the other safe relation ships—dead ends—that you’ve had with every woman up until this point.

As Gabriel scuttled into the open, laughing and trying to break free, Alicia emerged to catch him, hugging him to her. Lucas’s stomach somersaulted.

Why? Because… Well, hell, because he was having doubts that he even had the ability to be a one-woman guy. All the press’s snide opinions testified to that.

Right? That’s the only reason he was feeling so weird.

“It wouldn’t hurt to talk to her to test the waters and see how she might react to such an idea, anyway,” David’s voice said.

The words drifted over Lucas as he kept watching Alicia, the woman who intrigued him and, Gabriel, the child who he suspected was so much like him.

Something like a family, Lucas thought as an unfamiliar emotion filled up the emptiness behind his ribs. What if…

Lucas turned to his brother, ending the discussion with a lethal glare.

Yet that didn’t mean he wasn’t hearing David’s logic over and over in his own mind as they drove back to his five-star resort room, where he ended up pacing the floor most of the night.