Читать книгу Modern Romance August 2019 Books 1-4 - Ким Лоренс, Heidi Rice - Страница 13

THE AIR DOWN by the River Liffey offered no cooling respite against the muggy oppression of the evening and Lucas scowled as they walked along the quayside, unable to quite believe where he was. When he’d told Tara to choose a restaurant, he’d imagined she would immediately plump for one of Dublin’s many fine eating establishments. He’d envisaged drawing up outside a discreetly lit building in one of the city’s fancier streets with doormen springing to attention, instead of heading towards a distinctly edgy building which stood beside the dark gleam of the water.

‘What is this place?’ he demanded as at last they stopped beneath a red and white sign and she lifted her hand to open the door.

‘It’s a restaurant. A Polish restaurant,’ she supplied, adding defensively, ‘You told me to choose somewhere and so I did.’

He wanted to ask why but by then she had pushed the door open and a tinny bell was announcing their arrival. The place was surprisingly full of mainly young diners and an apple-cheeked woman in a white apron squealed her excitement before approaching and flinging her arms around Tara as if she were her long-lost daughter. A couple of interminable minutes followed, during which Lucas heard Tara hiss, ‘My boss...’ which was when the man behind the bar stopped pouring some frothy golden beer to pierce him with a suspicious look which was almost challenging.

Lucas felt like going straight back out the way he had come in but he was hungry and they were being shown to a table which was like a throwback to the last century—with its red and white checked tablecloth and a dripping candle jammed into the neck of an empty wine bottle. He waited until they were seated before he leaned across the table, his voice low.

‘Would you mind telling me why you chose to come and eat here out of all places in Dublin?’ he bit out.

‘Because Maria and her husband were very kind to me when I first came to the city and didn’t know many people. And I happen to like it here—there’s life and bustle and colour on the banks of the river. Plus it’s cheap.’

‘But I’m paying, Tara,’ he objected softly. ‘And budget isn’t an option. You know that.’

Tara pursed her lips and didn’t pass comment even though she wanted to suggest that maybe budget should be an option. That it might do the crazily rich Lucas Conway good to have to eat in restaurants which didn’t involve remortgaging your house in order to pay the bill—that was if you were lucky enough to actually have a mortgage, which, naturally, she didn’t. She felt like telling him she’d been terrified of choosing the kind of place she knew he usually frequented because she simply didn’t have the kind of wardrobe—or the confidence—which would have fitted into such an upmarket venue. But instead she just pursed her lips together and smiled as she hung her handbag over the back of her chair, still pinching herself to think she was here.

With him.

Her boss.

Her boss who had turned the head of everyone in the restaurant the moment he’d walked in, with his striking good looks and a powerful aura which spoke of wealth and privilege.

She shook her hair, which she’d left loose, and realised that for once he was staring at her as if she were a real person, rather than just part of the fixtures and fittings. And how ironic it should be that this state of affairs had only come about because she’d told him she was leaving, which had led to him bizarrely inviting her to dinner. Did he find it as strange as she did for them to be together in a restaurant like this? she wondered. Just as she wondered if he would be as shocked as she was to discover that, for once. she was far from immune to his physical appeal.

So why was that? Why—after nearly six years of working for him when her most common reaction towards him had been one of exasperation—should she suddenly start displaying all the signs of being attracted to him? Because she prided herself on not being like all those other women who stared at him lustfully whenever he swam into view. It might have had something to do with the fact that he had very few secrets from her. She did his laundry. She even ironed his underpants and she’d always done it with an unfeigned impartiality. At home it had been easy to stick him in the categories marked ‘boss’ and ‘off-limits’, because arrogant billionaires were way above her pay grade, but tonight he seemed like neither of these things. He seemed deliciously and dangerously accessible. Was it because they were sitting facing each other across a small table, which meant she was noticing things about him which didn’t normally register on her radar?

Like his body, for example. Had she ever properly registered just how broad his shoulders were? She didn’t think so. Just as the sight of two buttons undone on his denim shirt didn’t normally have the power to bring her out in a rash of goosebumps. She swallowed. In the candlelight, his olive skin was glowing like dark gold and casting entrancing shadows over his high cheekbones and ruggedly handsome face. She could feel her throat growing dry and her breasts tightening and wondered what had possessed her to agree to have dinner with him tonight, almost as if the two of them were on a date.

Because he had been determined to have a meal with her and he was a difficult man to shift once he’d set his mind on something.

She guessed his agenda would be to offer her a big salary increase in an attempt to get her to stay. He probably thought she’d spoken rashly when she’d told him she was leaving, which to some extent was true. But while she’d been getting ready—in a recently purchased and discounted dress, which was a lovely pale blue colour, even if it was a bit big on the bust—she’d decided she wasn’t going to let him change her mind. And that his patronising attitude towards her had been the jolt she needed to shake her out of her comfort zone. She needed to leave Lucas Conway’s employment and do something different with her life. To get out of the rut in which she found herself, even though it was a very comfortable rut. She couldn’t keep letting the past define her—making her too scared to do anything else. Because otherwise wouldn’t she run the risk of getting to the end of her days, only to realise she hadn’t lived at all? That she’d just followed a predictable path of service and duty?

‘What would you like to drink?’ she questioned. ‘They do a very good vodka here.’

‘Vodka?’ he echoed.

‘Why not? It’s a tradition. I only ever have one glass before dinner and then I switch to water. And it’s not as if you’re driving, is it?’ Not with his driver sitting in a nearby parking lot in that vast and shiny limousine, waiting for the signal that the billionaire was ready to leave.

‘Okay, Tara, you’ve sold it to me,’ he answered tonelessly. ‘Vodka it is.’

Two doll-sized glasses filled with clear liquor were placed on the tablecloth in front of them and Tara raised hers to his—watching the tiny vessel gleam in the candlelight before lifting it to her lips. ‘Na zdrowie!’ she declared before tossing it back in one and Lucas gave a faint smile before drinking his own.

‘What do you think?’ she questioned, her eyes bright.

‘I think one is quite enough,’ he said. ‘And since you seem to know so much about Polish customs, why don’t you choose some food for us both?’

‘Really?’ she questioned.

‘Really,’ he agreed drily.

Lucas watched as she scrolled through the menu. She seemed to be enjoying showing off her knowledge and he recognised it was in his best interests to keep her mood elevated. He wanted her as compliant as possible and so he ate a livid-coloured beetroot soup, which was surprisingly good, and it wasn’t until they were halfway through the main course that he put his fork down.

‘Do you like it?’ she questioned anxiously.

He gave a shrug. ‘It’s interesting. I’ve never eaten stuffed cabbage leaves before.’

‘No, I suppose you wouldn’t have done.’ In the flickering light from the candle, her freckle-brushed face grew thoughtful. ‘It’s peasant food, really. And I suppose you’ve only ever had the best.’

The best? Lucas only just managed to bite back a bitter laugh as he stared into her amber eyes. It was funny the assumptions people made. He’d certainly tried most of the fanciest foods the world had to offer—white pearl caviar from the Caspian Sea and matsutake mushrooms from Japan. He’d eaten highly prized duck in one of Paris’s most famous restaurants and been offered rare and costly moose cheese on one of his business trips to Sweden. Even at his expensive boarding school, the food had been good—he guessed when people were paying those kinds of fees, it didn’t dare be anything but good. But the best meals he’d ever eaten had been home-made and cooked by Tara, he realised suddenly.

Which was why he was here, he reminded himself.

The only reason he was here.

So why were his thoughts full of other stuff? Dangerous stuff, which made him glad he’d only had a single vodka?

He stared at her. Unusually, she’d left her hair loose so that it flowed down over her narrow shoulders and the candlelight had transformed the wild curls into bright spirals of orange flame. Tonight she seemed to have a particularly fragile air of femininity about her, which he’d never noticed before. Was that something to do with the fact that for once she was wearing a dress, instead of her habitual jeans or leggings? Not a particularly flattering dress, it was true—but a dress all the same. Pale blue and very simple, it suited her naturally slim figure, though it could have done with being a little more fitted. But the scooped neck showed a faint golden dusting of freckles on her skin and drew his attention to the neatness of her small breasts and, inexplicably, he found himself wondering what kind of nipples she had. Tiny beads of sweat prickled on his brow and, not for the first time, he wished that the impending storm would break. Or that this damned restaurant would run to a little air conditioning. With an effort he dragged his attention back to the matter in hand, gulping down some water to ease the sudden dryness in his throat.

‘The thing is,’ he said slowly, putting his glass down and leaning back in his seat, ‘that I don’t want you to leave.’

‘I appreciate that and it’s very nice of you to say so, but—’

‘No, wait.’ He cut through her words with customary impatience. ‘Before you start objecting, why don’t you at least listen to what I’m offering you first?’

She trailed her fork through a small mound of rice on her plate so it created a narrow valley, before looking up at him, a frown creasing her brow. ‘You can’t just throw more money at the problem and hope that it’ll go away.’

‘So we have a problem, do we, Tara?’

‘I shouldn’t have said that. It’s nothing to do with you, not really. It’s me.’ She hesitated. ‘I need a change, that’s all.’

‘And a change is exactly what I’m offering you.’

Her amber eyes became shuttered with suspicion. ‘What do you mean?’

He took another sip of water. ‘What if I told you that I’m going to be leaving Dublin for a while, because I have to go to the States?’

‘You mean on business?’

‘Partly,’ he answered obliquely. ‘I’m thinking of investing in some property there. I need to spread my money around—at least, that’s what my financial advisors are telling me.’

‘This wouldn’t have anything to do with that letter, would it?’ she questioned curiously.

He grew still. ‘What letter?’

‘The one...’ The words came out in a rush, as if she’d been waiting for a chance to say them. ‘The one which arrived from America last week.’

Lucas wondered if she’d noticed his reaction at the time. If she’d seen the shock which had blindsided him. It suddenly occurred to him how much of his life she must have witnessed over the years—a silent observer of all the things which had happened to him. And wasn’t that another reason for keeping her onside? Bringing another stranger into his home would involve getting to know a new person and having to learn to trust them and that was something to be avoided, because he didn’t give his trust easily. His mouth hardened and his jaw firmed. And it wasn’t going to happen. No way. Not when there was a much simpler solution.

‘I’m planning a minimum six-month stay and I’m thinking of renting an apartment because the idea of spending that long living in a hotel isn’t what you’d call appealing.’ He slanted her his rare, slow smile. ‘And that’s where you come in, Tara.’

‘Where?’ she questioned blankly.

‘I want you to come to New York with me.’ He paused. ‘Be my housekeeper there and I’ll increase your salary—’

‘You pay me very generously at the moment.’

He shook his head with a trace of impatience. Who in their right mind ever pointed out that kind of thing to their employer? ‘The cost of living is higher there,’ he said. ‘And this will give you the opportunity to try living in a brand-new city. This could be a win-win situation for both of us, Tara.’

He thought she might show excitement and more than a little gratitude, not a look of sudden suspicion, which hooded her eyes. Inexplicably, he found his gaze drawn to the delicate bowed outline of her lips, which he’d never really noticed before. Well, of course he hadn’t. He’d never been this close to her before, had he? Close enough to detect her faint scent, which was like no other perfume he’d ever encountered. Nor realised that her clear skin was porcelain-pale apart from those few freckles which dusted the upturn of her nose. He shook his head, perplexed by the observation and by the inexplicable rise of heat in his blood.

‘New York,’ she said slowly.

‘You said you wanted a change. Well, what greater change from Dublin town than living in the buzzing metropolis of Manhattan? Didn’t you go on a trip there last Christmas?’

She nodded.

‘And didn’t you have a good time?’

Once again, Tara nodded. She’d saved up and gone with her friend Stella, who was a nanny in nearby Dun Laoghaire, and they’d done the whole New York holiday thing together. A fun-packed snow and shopping trip, marred only by the fact that Tara had fallen over on the ice rink outside the Rockefeller building and grazed both her knees. ‘We had a very good time.’

‘So what’s stopping you from saying yes?’ he probed.

Tara nibbled on the inside of her lip, reminding herself that her plan had been to get away from Lucas—not to sign up for more of the same. She needed to remove herself from the influence of a powerful man who was selfishly pursuing his own interests. He certainly wasn’t thinking about what was best for her at the moment, was he? Only what was best for him.

And yet.

She ran her fingertip over the frosted surface of her water glass. If she looked at it objectively couldn’t this be the best of all possible outcomes? A trip to a glamorous city she was already familiar with, without all the uncertainty of having to fix herself up with a job? Wouldn’t a spell in America provide the inspiration she needed to turn her life around and decide what she wanted to do next?

But still she held back from saying yes because something seemed to have changed between her and Lucas tonight. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on because she had no experience of this sort of thing. Was she imagining the tension which was stoking up between the two of them, like when you threw a handful of kindling on the fire? She certainly wasn’t imagining the heart-racing feeling she was getting whenever she stared into his gorgeous green eyes—not to mention the fact that her body was behaving in a way which wasn’t normal. At least, not normal for her. Her nipples were aching and there was a delicious syrupy feeling deep in the very core of her. She could feel a weird kind of restlessness she’d never experienced before, which was making her want to squirm uncomfortably on the wooden seat, and she was having to concentrate very hard not to keep wondering what it would be like to be kissed by him.

Was it because they were in the falsely intimate setting of a candlelit restaurant, making her wish she’d chosen somewhere brighter? Or because she’d stupidly decided to wear a dress and wash her hair—as if this were a real date or something? And now she was left feeling almost vulnerable—as if she’d lost the protective barrier which surrounded her when she was working at his house and cleaning up after him.

He was still studying her with an impatient question in his eyes, as if he wasn’t used to being kept waiting. Come to think of it—he wasn’t.

‘Well?’ he demanded.

‘Can I have some time to think about it?’ she said.

He looked surprised and Tara guessed that most women wouldn’t have thought twice about accompanying their billionaire boss to a glamorous foreign city with the offer of a pay-rise.

‘How long do you want?’ he demanded.

Tara chewed on her lip. Should she ask her friend Stella’s advice? She certainly didn’t have anyone else to ask. She’d been so young when her mother died that she hardly remembered her and her grandmother had passed away just before she’d come to work for Lucas. ‘A few days?’ she suggested and gave a little shrug. ‘Maybe you’ll change your mind in the meantime?’

‘If you continue to prevaricate like this, then maybe I will,’ he retorted, not bothering to hide his displeasure. ‘Let’s just get the bill and go, shall we?’

‘Okay.’ She rose to her feet. ‘But I need to use the washroom first.’

Still unable to believe she wasn’t grabbing at his job offer with eager hands, Lucas watched as she walked through the restaurant, his gaze mesmerised by the curve of her calves, which led down to the slenderest ankles he’d ever seen. Suddenly he could understand why men living in the Victorian age had found them highly arousing.

He told himself to look away but somehow he couldn’t. Somehow Tara Fitzpatrick’s back view seemed to be the most beautiful thing he’d looked at in a long time, with those red curls spilling wildly over her shoulders. Her dress was slightly creased from where she’d been sitting but it was brushing against a bottom firmed by hard work and regular cycling—a realisation which was rewarded by an unwanted hardening at his groin. What the hell was happening to him? he wondered irritably. Was it simple physical frustration? Had Charlotte’s unexpected appearance at his house this afternoon reminded him just how long it had been since he’d had sex? He remembered their split, when he’d grown bored with her and bored with bedding her. Because despite the actress’s undeniable beauty and sexual experience, hadn’t making love to her sometimes felt as if he were making love to a mannequin? And there hadn’t been anyone since, had there? Not even a flicker of interest had stirred in his blood, despite the many come-ons which regularly came his way.

With an impatient shake of his head, he glanced at his cell-phone to see what the markets were doing, but for once his attention was stubbornly refusing to focus and when he looked up, Tara was back. She must have attempted to brush the fiery curls into some kind of submission, because they looked half-tamed. Her eyes were bright and her air of youthful vitality made his heart clench with something he didn’t recognise. Was it cynicism? He shook his head, confused now and slightly resentful because he’d come out tonight thinking this was going to be a straightforward exercise and it was turning into anything but.

‘The bill, Tara,’ he said impatiently. ‘Have you asked for it?’

‘I’ve done more than that.’ She gave a wide smile. ‘I’ve paid it.’

‘You’ve paid it?’ he repeated slowly.

‘It’s very reasonably priced in here,’ she said. ‘And it’s the least I can do, since we came here in your car.’

As he followed her out of the restaurant—after a farewell even more ecstatic than their greeting—Lucas found himself trying to remember the last time a woman had offered to pay for a meal. Not recently, that was for sure. Not since those days when he’d had nothing and heiresses had sniffed around him like dogs surrounding a piece of fresh meat. When he’d been forced to leave his fancy school because there had been no money—or so he’d been told. But pride had made him refuse to accept the charity of women who had been hungry for his virile body. He’d fed himself. Sometimes he’d eaten the food left lying around after a meal in the directors’ dining room. And sometimes he just used to go without. Tara had been wrong when she’d suggested he’d never eaten peasant food, he thought, the harsh reminder of those days making his jaw clench as his car purred smoothly down the quayside towards them.

But when he joined her on the back seat the bitter memories were dissolved by a rush of something far more potent. Lucas felt a beat of promise and of heady desire. Flaring his nostrils, he inhaled her subtle scent, which was more like soap than perfume. Half turning his head, he saw the brightness of her hair and suddenly he wanted to tangle his fingers in it. One slender thigh was placed tantalisingly close to his—a gesture he suspected was completely lacking in provocation—yet right now it seemed the sexiest thing he’d ever encountered. He swallowed as desire beat through him like an insistent flame and if it had been anyone else he might have reached out and caressed her. Touched her leg until she was squirming with pleasure and widening her thighs and whispering for him to touch her some more.

But this was Tara and he couldn’t do that because she worked for him. She worked for him. She made his bed and cooked his meals. Ironed his shirts and kept his garden bright. She was an employee he wanted to accompany him to America. She wasn’t a prospective lover—not by any stretch of the imagination. He stared straight ahead, attempting to compose himself as the traffic lights turned red.

Her heart pounding and her shoulders tense, Tara told herself to stop feeling so nervous as the powerful car purred through the city streets because none of this was a big deal. She’d just had dinner with her boss—that was all—and he’d just offered her a job in America, which was a massive compliment, wasn’t it? She’d never been in his chauffeur-driven car before either, and travelling home in such luxury should have been a real treat. Yet she was finding it difficult to appreciate the soft leather or incredibly smooth suspension as they travelled through Dublin. All she could think about was how different Lucas seemed tonight and how her reaction towards him seemed to have undergone a dangerous and fundamental shift. From being a demanding employer, he seemed to have morphed into a man she was having difficulty tearing her eyes away from. For the first time ever, she could understand why he inspired such a devoted following among women. Suddenly, she got why someone as beautiful as Charlotte would be prepared to humiliate herself in order to wheedle herself a way back into his life.

And I don’t want to feel this way, she thought. I want to go back to the way it was before, when I tolerated him more than idolised him and was often infuriated by him.

The car pulled into the driveway of his Dalkey house but instead of being relieved that the journey was over, all Tara could feel was a peculiar sense of disappointment. Blindly, she reached for the door handle, her usually dextrous fingers flailing miserably as she failed to locate it in the semi-darkness.

‘Here,’ said Lucas, sounding suddenly amused as he leaned across her to click a button. ‘Let me.’

Of course. The door slid noiselessly open because it was an electronic door and didn’t actually have a handle! What a stupid country girl she must seem. But Tara’s embarrassment at her lack of savvy was exacerbated by a heart-stopping awareness as Lucas’s arm brushed against hers. She swallowed. He’d touched her. He’d actually touched her. He might not have meant to but his fingers had made contact and where they had it felt like fire flickering against her skin.

Scrambling out of the car into an atmosphere even stickier than earlier, she cast a longing look towards the heavy sky, wishing it would rain and shatter this strange tension which seemed to be building inside her, as well as in the atmosphere. She scrabbled around in her handbag to fish out her key but her fingers were trembling as she heard a footfall behind her and Lucas’s shadow loomed over her as she inserted it tremblingly into the lock.

‘You’re shaking, Tara,’ he observed as she opened the door and stepped into the house.

‘It’s a cold night,’ she said automatically, even though that wasn’t true. But he didn’t correct her with a caustic comment as he might normally have done.

And the strange thing was that neither of them moved to put on the main light once the heavy front door had swung shut behind them, and the gloom of the vast hallway seemed to increase the sense of unreality which had been building between them all evening.

There was something in the air. Something indefinable. Tara felt acutely aware of just how close Lucas was. His eyes were dark and gleaming as he stared down at her and she held her breath as, for one heart-stopping moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. She felt as if he was going to pull her into his arms and crush his lips down on hers.

But he didn’t.

Of course he didn’t.

Had she taken complete leave of her senses? He simply clicked the switch so that they were flooded with a golden light, which felt like a torch being shone straight into her eyes, and the atmosphere shattered as dramatically as a bubble being burst. A hard smile was playing at the edges of his lips and he nodded, as if her reaction was very familiar to him.

‘Goodnight, Tara,’ he said in an odd kind of voice. And as he turned away from her, she could hear the distant rumble of thunder.