Читать книгу Tycoon's Forbidden Cinderella - Melanie Milburne, Melanie Milburne - Страница 9
ОглавлениеAUDREY EYED HER mother’s wedding invitation as if it were a cockroach next to her breakfast teacup and toast plate. ‘I would do anything to get out of this wedding party and I mean anything.’
Rosie, her flatmate, slipped into the seat opposite and pinched a slice of toast off Audrey’s plate and began munching. ‘Three times a bridesmaid, huh? Go you.’
Audrey sighed. ‘Yes, well, being a bridesmaid three times would be bad enough but they’re my mother’s marriages and all to Harlan Fox. I thought she’d learned her lesson by now.’
‘I guess that does complicate things a bit...’ Rosie twisted her mouth in a glad-it’s-you-and-not-me manner.
‘I don’t know why my mother hasn’t learnt from her past two mistakes.’ Audrey stirred her tea until it created a whirlpool similar to the one she was feeling in her stomach. ‘Who marries the same man three times? I can’t bear another one of my mother’s marriages. I can’t bear another one of my mother’s divorces. None of them were civilised and private. They were nasty and horribly public.’ Her teaspoon fell against the saucer with a clatter. ‘That’s the problem with having a soap opera star for a parent. Nothing they do ever escapes public attention. Nothing. Good or bad or just plain dead embarrassing, it’s all splashed over the gossip magazines and the net for millions to read.’
‘Yeah, I kind of figured that after that spread about your mother’s affair with one of the young cameramen on set,’ Rosie said. ‘Amazing she has a daughter of twenty-five and yet she can still pull guys like a barman pulls beers.’
‘Yes, well, if that wasn’t bad enough, Harlan Fox is even more famous than my mother.’ Audrey frowned and pushed her cup and saucer away as if it had mortally offended her. ‘What can she possibly see in an aging rock star of a heavy metal band?’
‘Maybe it’s because Harlan and his band mates are in the process of reforming to go back on the tour?’ Rosie had clearly been reading the gossip pages rather avidly.
Audrey rolled her eyes. ‘A process somewhat stalled by the fact that two of its members are still in rehab for drug and alcohol issues.’
Rosie licked a droplet of raspberry jam off her finger and asked, ‘Is Harlan’s hot-looking son Lucien going to be best man again?’
Audrey sprang up from the table as if her chair had suddenly exploded. The mere mention of Lucien Fox’s name was enough to make her grind her teeth until her molars rolled over and begged for mercy. She scooped her teacup off the table and poured the contents in the sink, wishing she were throwing it in Lucien’s impossibly handsome face. ‘Yes.’ She spat out the word like a lemon pip.
‘Funny how you two have never hit it off,’ Rosie said. ‘I mean, you’d think you’d have heaps in common. You’ve both lived in the shadow of a celebrity parent. And you’ve been step-siblings on and off for the last...how long’s it been now?’
Audrey turned from the sink and gripped the back of the chair. ‘Six years. But it’s not going to happen again. No way. This wedding is not going to go ahead.’
Rosie’s eyebrows lifted until they met her fringe. ‘What? You think you can talk them out of it?’
Audrey released her stranglehold on the chair and picked up her phone from the table and checked for messages. Still no answer from her mother. Damn it. ‘I’m going to track Mum and Harlan down and give them a stern talking-to. I’ll resort to blackmail if I have to. I have to stop them marrying. I have to.’
Rosie frowned. ‘Track them down? Why? Have they gone into hiding or something?’
‘They’ve both turned off their phones. Their publicists apparently have no idea where they’ve gone.’
‘But you do?’
She drummed her fingers on the back of her phone. ‘No, but I have a hunch and I’m going to start there.’
‘Have you asked Lucien where he thinks they might be or are you still not talking since the last divorce? How many years ago was that again?’ Rosie asked.
‘Three,’ Audrey said. ‘For the last six years my mother and Harlan have been hooking up, getting hitched and then divorcing in a hate fest that makes headlines around the world. I’m over it. I’m not going to let it happen again. They can hook up if they want to but another marriage is out. O.U.T. Out.’
Rosie shifted her lips from side to side as if observing an unusual creature in captivity. ‘Wow. You really have a thing about weddings, don’t you? Don’t you want to get married one day?’
‘No. I do not.’ Audrey knew she sounded like a starchy old spinster from a nineteenth-century novel but she was beyond caring. She hated weddings. Capital H hated them. She felt like throwing up when she saw a white dress. Maybe she wouldn’t hate weddings so much if she hadn’t been dragged to so many of her mother’s. Before Harlan Fox, Sibella Merrington had had three husbands and not one of them had been Audrey’s father. Audrey had no idea who her father was and apparently neither did her mother, although Sibella had narrowed it down to three men.
What was it with her mother and the number three?
‘You didn’t answer my question,’ Rosie said. ‘Are you talking to Lucien again or not?’
‘Not.’
‘Maybe you should reconsider,’ Rosie said. ‘You never know, he might prove to be an ally in your mission to stop his dad and your mum getting married.’
Audrey snorted. ‘The day I speak again to that arrogant, stuck-up jerk will be the day hell turns into an ice factory.’
‘Why do you hate him so much? What’s he ever done to you?’
Audrey turned and snatched her coat off the hook behind the door and shrugged it on, pulling her hair out of the collar. She faced her flatmate. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I just hate him, that’s all.’
Rosie’s brows shot up again like skyrockets and she leaned forward in her chair, eyes sparkling with intrigue. ‘Did he try it on with you?’
Audrey’s cheeks were suddenly feeling so hot she could have cooked another round of toast on them. No way was she going to confess it was she who had done the ‘trying it on’ and been rejected.
Mortifyingly, embarrassingly, ego-crushingly rejected.
Not once but two times. Once when she was eighteen and again when she was twenty-one, both times at her mother’s wedding reception to his father. Another good reason to prevent such a marriage occurring again.
No more wedding receptions.
No more champagne.
No more gauche flirting with Lucien Fox.
Oh, God, why, why, why had she tried to kiss him? She had been planning to peck him on the cheek to show how sophisticated and cool she was about their respective parents getting married. But somehow her lips had moved. Or maybe his had moved. What did it matter whose had moved? Their mouths had almost touched. It was the closest a man’s mouth had ever been to hers.
But he had jerked away as if she had poison on her lips.
The same thing happened at their parents’ next wedding. Audrey had been determined to act as if nothing could faze her. She was going to act as if the previous almost-kiss had never happened. To show him it hadn’t had any impact on her at all. But after a few champagnes to give her the courage to get on the dance floor, she’d breezed past Lucien and hadn’t been able to stop herself from giving him a spontaneous little air kiss. Her mouth had aimed for the air between his cheek and hers but someone bumped her from behind and she had fallen against him. She’d grabbed at the front of his shirt to stop herself from falling. He’d put his hands on her hips to steady her.
And for a moment...an infinitesimal moment when the noise of the reception faded away and it felt they were completely and utterly alone...she’d thought he was going to kiss her. So she’d...
Oh, God, she hated thinking about it even now...
She’d leaned up on tiptoe, closed her eyes and waited for him to kiss her. And waited. And waited.
But of course he hadn’t.
Even though Audrey had been tipsy on both occasions, and a part of her knew Lucien had done the honourable thing by rejecting her clumsy advances, another part of her—the female, insecure part—wondered if any man would ever be attracted to her. Would any man ever want to kiss her, much less make love to her? She was twenty-five and still a virgin. She hadn’t been on a date since she was a teenager. Not that she hadn’t been asked a few times but she’d always declined because she could never tell if guys wanted to go out with her for the right reason. Her first date at the age of sixteen had been a disaster—an ego-smashing disaster she would do anything to avoid repeating. She’d only been asked out because of who her mother was. It had nothing to do with her whether the boy liked her or not. It was about her celebrity mother.
It was always about her celebrity mother.
Audrey picked up her keys and the overnight bag she’d packed earlier. ‘I’m heading out of town for the weekend.’
Rosie’s eyes twinkled like they belonged on a Christmas tree. ‘Am I allowed to know where you’re going or is it a state secret?’
It wasn’t that Audrey didn’t trust her flatmate, but even Rosie with her down-to-earth nature could at times be a little star-struck by Audrey’s mother. ‘Sorry, Rosie. I have to keep the press out of this if I can. With Mum and Harlan in hiding, the first person the paps will come looking for is me.’
Please, God, not again. The press had followed her relentlessly after her mother had gone to ground. At Audrey’s flat. She’d stayed for three weeks and had taken three overdoses, not serious enough for hospitalisation but serious enough for Audrey to want to prevent another marriage between her mother and the hard-partying Harlan Fox.
‘What about Lucien?’
‘What about Lucien?’ Even saying his name made Audrey’s spine tighten and her scalp prickle as if a thousand ants were tugging on the roots of her hair.
‘What if Lucien wants to know where you are?’
‘He won’t. Anyway, he’s got my number.’
Not that he’d ever used it in the last three years. Or the last six. But then, why would he? She was hardly his type. His type was tall and blonde and sophisticated, women who didn’t drink too much champagne when they were feeling nervous or insecure and out of their depth.
‘Gosh, how lucky are you to be on Lucien Fox’s speed dial.’ Rosie’s expression had gone all dreamy. ‘I wish I had his number. I don’t suppose you’d—?’
Audrey shook her head. ‘It’d be a waste of time if I did. He doesn’t date boring homespun girls like us. He only dates size zero supermodels.’
Rosie sighed. ‘Yeah, like that one he’s been dating now for weeks and weeks—Viviana Prestonward.’
Something slipped in Audrey’s stomach. ‘H-has he?’ Her voice came out scratchy and she cleared her throat. ‘I mean, yes, yes, I know.’
‘Viviana’s amazingly beautiful.’ Rosie’s expression became one part wistful, three parts envious. ‘I saw a picture of them at a charity ball last month. Everyone’s saying they’re about to become engaged. Some girls have all the luck. They get the best looks and the best guys.’
‘I wouldn’t call Lucien Fox a prize catch.’ Audrey couldn’t keep the bitter edge from her tone. ‘He might be good-looking and rich but his personality needs a serious makeover. He’s so stiff and formal you’d think he’d been potty-trained at gunpoint.’
Rosie tilted her head again in her studying-an-exotic-creature manner. ‘Maybe he’ll ask you to be the bridesmaid at his wedding too, I mean, since you’re going to be step-siblings again.’
Audrey clenched her teeth hard enough to crack a coconut. ‘Not if I can help it.’
* * *
Audrey drove out of London and within a couple of hours pulled into the country lane that led to the secluded cottage in the Cotswolds. Her mother had bought the house when she landed her first role on television. It often amazed Audrey that her mother hadn’t sold it by now, but somehow the cottage remained even though several husbands and their houses had not.
It was too small to be the sort of place the press would expect to find Sibella and Harlan, so it was the first place on Audrey’s list. Her mother had left a hint in the note on her doorstep, along with the invitation:
Gone to smell the daffodils with Harlan.
That could only mean Bramble Cottage. At this time of year the rambling garden was full of daffodils. Along the lane, in the fields, under the trees, along the bank of the stream—the swathes of yellow had always delighted Audrey.
Bramble Cottage was a perfect hideaway as it was on a long country lane lined with hedgerows and lots of overarching trees, creating a leafy tunnel. The lane had a rickety bridge over a trickling stream that occasionally swelled enough with rainwater to be considered a river.
When she came down to the cottage with her mother as a child, Audrey had been fascinated by the trees along the lane because they looked as if they were reaching down to hug her. Going through that shady green tunnel had been like driving into another world, a magical world where it was just her and her mother. A safe world. A world where there were no strange men coming and going from her mother’s bedroom.
No press lurking about for candid shots of Sibella’s painfully shy daughter.
Audrey couldn’t see any sign of activity at the cottage when she got out of her car but she knew her mother and Harlan would have covered their tracks well. On closer inspection, however, she realised the cottage looked a little neglected. She’d thought there was a caretaker who kept an eye on things. There were often months and months or even a couple of years between her mother’s fleeting visits. The garden was overgrown but in a way that was part of the charm of the place. Audrey loved how the plants spilled over the garden beds, their blooms filling the air with the fresh and hopeful fragrance of spring.
Audrey left her car parked in the shade of the biggest oak tree a short distance away so as to keep her car from being seen if any paparazzi happened to do a drive-by. She did a mental high-five when she saw the marks of recent tyre tracks on the pebbled area in front of the cottage. She bent down so she could inspect the tracks a little more closely. A car had come in and gone out again, which meant her mother and Harlan hopefully weren’t far away. Probably picking up supplies or something. ‘Or something’ being copious amounts of alcohol most likely.
She straightened and glanced up at the suddenly darkening sky. That was another thing she loved about this place—watching a spring storm from the cosy shelter of the cottage. The spare key was under the left-hand plant pot but Audrey gave the door a quick knock just in case either her mother or Harlan was still inside. When there was no answer, she unlocked the door just as the rain started to pelt down as if someone had turned on a tap.
She closed the door and looked around the cottage but it didn’t look as though anyone had been there in months. Disappointment sat on her chest like an overstuffed sofa. She’d been so certain she would find them here. Had she misread her mother’s note?
She glanced at the cobwebs hanging from a lampshade and suppressed an icy shiver. There was a fine layer of dust over the furniture and the air inside the cottage had a musty, unaired smell. So much for the caretaker, then. But Audrey figured this would be a good test of the hideously expensive therapy she’d undergone to rid herself of her spider phobia. She pulled back the curtains to let more light in but the storm clouds had gathered to such an extent the world outside had a yellowish, greenish tinge that intensified with each flash of lightning. She turned on the sitting room light and it cast a homey glow over the deep, cushiony sofas and the wing chair positioned in front of the fireplace.
Audrey was battling with an acute sense of dismay that her mission to track down her mother and Harlan had come to a dead end and a sense of sheer unmitigated joy she had the cottage to herself during a storm. She figured she might as well stay for an hour or two to set the place in order, maybe even stay the night while she thought up a Plan B.
She reassured herself with the possibility that her mother and Harlan would return at any minute. After all, someone had been here—she’d seen the tyre marks. All she had to do was wait until they got back and sit them down and talk them out of this ridiculous third marriage.
Audrey glanced at the fireplace. Was it cold enough to light a fire? There was kindling and wood in the basket next to the fireplace, and before she could talk herself out of it she got to work setting a fire in the grate. It would come in handy if the power was to go off, which was not uncommon during a storm.
As if by her just thinking of a power cut, the light above her head flickered and a flash of lightning rent the sky outside. A sonic boom of thunder sounded, and it made even an avid storm-lover such as she jump. The light flickered again and then went out. It left the room in a low, ghostly sort of light that reminded her of the setting of a fright flick she’d watched recently. A shiver scuttled over her flesh like a legion of little furry feet.
It’s just a storm. You love storms.
For once the self-talk wasn’t helping. There was something about this storm that felt different. It was more intense, more ferocious.
Between the sound of the rain lashing against the windows and the crash of thunder, she heard another sound—car tyres spinning over the pebbled driveway.
Yes!
Her hunch had been spot-on. Her mother and Harlan were returning. Audrey jumped up to peep out of the window and her heart gave a carthorse kick against her breastbone.
No. No. No.
Not Lucien Fox. Why was he here?
She hid behind part of the curtain to watch him approach the front door, her breathing as laboured as the pair of antique bellows next to the fireplace. The rain was pelting down on his dark head but he seemed oblivious. Would he see her car parked under the oak tree?
She heard Lucien’s firm knock on the door. Why hadn’t she thought to lock it when she came into the cottage? The door opened and then closed.
Should she come out or hide here behind the curtain, hoping he wouldn’t stay long enough to find her? The Will I or won’t I? was like a seesaw inside her head.
He came into the sitting room and Audrey’s heart kept time with the tread of his feet on the creaky floorboards.
Step-creak-boom-step-creak-boom-step-creak-boom.
‘Harlan?’ Lucien’s deep baritone never failed to make her spine tingle. ‘Sibella?’
Audrey knew it was too late to step out from her hiding place. She could only hope he would leave before he discovered her. How long was he going to take? Surely he could see no one had been here for months... Yikes. She forgot she had been laying a fire. Her breathing rate accelerated, her pulse pounding as loud as the thunder booming outside. She’d been about to strike the match when the power had gone off and it was now lying along with the box it came from on the floor in front of the fireplace.
Would he see it?
Another floorboard creaked and Audrey held her breath. But then her nose began to twitch from the dust clinging to the curtain. There was one thing she did not have and that was a ladylike sneeze. Her sneezes registered on the Richter scale. Her sneezes could trigger an earthquake in Ecuador. Her sneezes had been known to cause savage guard dogs to yelp and small babies to scream. She could feel it building, building, building... She pressed a finger under her nose as hard as she possibly could, her whole body trembling with the effort to keep the sinus explosion from happening.
A huge lightning flash suddenly zigzagged across the sky and an ear-splitting boom of thunder followed, making Audrey momentarily forget about controlling her sneeze. She clutched the curtain in shock, wondering if she’d been struck by lightning. Would she be found as a little pile of smoking ashes behind this curtain? But clutching the curtain brought the dusty fabric even closer to her nostrils and the urge to sneeze became unbearable.
‘Ah... Ah... Choo!’
It was like a bomb going off, propelling her forwards, still partially wrapped in the curtain, bringing the rail down with a clatter.
Even from under the dense and mummy-like shroud, Audrey heard Lucien’s short, sharp expletive. Then his hands pulled at the curtain, finally uncovering her dishevelled form. ‘What the hell?’
‘Hi...’ She sat up and gave him a fingertip wave.
He frowned at her. ‘You?’
‘Yep, me.’ Audrey scrambled to her feet with haste not grace, wishing she’d worn jeans instead of a dress. But jeans made her thighs look fat, she thought, so a dress it was. She smoothed down the cotton fabric over her thighs and then finger-combed her tousled hair. Was he comparing her with his glamorous girlfriend? No doubt Viviana could stumble out of a musty old curtain and still look perfect. Viviana probably had a tiny ladylike sneeze too. And Viviana probably looked amazing in jeans.
‘What are you doing here?’ His tone had that edge of disapproval that always annoyed her.
‘Looking for my mum and your dad.’
Lucien’s ink-black brows developed a mocking arch. ‘Behind the curtain?’
Audrey gave him a look that would have withered tumbleweed. ‘Funny, ha-ha. So what brings you here?’
He bundled up the curtain as if he needed something to do with his hands, his expression as brooding as the sky outside. ‘Like you, I’m looking for my father and your mother.’
‘Why did you think they’d come here?’
He put the roughly folded curtain over the back of the wing chair and then picked up the curtain rail, setting it to one side. ‘My father sent me a text, mentioning something about a quiet weekend in the country.’
‘Did his text say anything about daffodils?’
Lucien looked at her as if she’d mentioned fairies instead of flowers. ‘Daffodils?’
Audrey folded her arms across her middle. ‘Didn’t you notice them outside? This place is Wordsworth’s heaven.’
The corner of his mouth twitched into an almost-smile. But then his mouth went back to its firm and flat humourless line. ‘I think we’ve been led on a wild-goose chase—or a wild-daffodil chase.’
This time it was Audrey who was trying not to smile. Who knew he had a sense of humour under that stern schoolmastery thing he had going on? ‘I suppose you got the invitation to their wedding?’
His expression reminded her of someone not quite over a stomach bug. ‘You too?’
‘Me too.’ She let out a sigh. ‘I can’t bear to be a bridesmaid for my mother again. Her taste in bridesmaid dresses is nearly as bad as her taste in men.’
If he was annoyed by her veiled slight against his father he didn’t show it. ‘We need to stop them from making another stupid mistake before it’s too late.’
‘We?’
His dark blue gaze collided with hers. Was it even possible to have eyes that shade of sapphire? And why did he have to have such thick, long eyelashes when she had to resort to lashings of mascara? ‘Between us we must be able to narrow down the search. Where does your mother go when she wants to get away from the spotlight?’
Audrey rolled her eyes. ‘She never wants to get away from the spotlight. Not now. In the early days she did. But it looks like she hasn’t been here in months, possibly a year or more. Maybe even longer.’
Lucien ran a finger over the dusty surface of the nearest bookshelf, inspecting his fingertip like a forensics detective. He looked at her again. ‘Can you think of anywhere else they might go?’
‘Erm... Vegas?’
‘I don’t think so, not after the last time, remember?’
Audrey dearly wished she could forget. After her clumsy air kiss to Lucien—as if that hadn’t been bad enough—her mother and his father had been ridiculously drunk at the reception of their second wedding and had got into a playful food fight. Some of the guests joined in and before long the room was trashed and three people were taken to hospital and four others arrested over a scuffle that involved a bowl of margarita punch and an ice bucket.
The gossip magazines ran with it for days and the hotel venue banned Harlan and Sibella from ever going there again. The fact that Audrey’s mother had been the first to throw a profiterole meant that Lucien had always blamed Sibella and not his father. ‘You’re right. Not Vegas. Besides, they want us at the wedding to witness the ceremony. Not that the invitation mentioned where it was being held, just a date and venue to be advised.’
Lucien paced the floor, reminding her of a cougar in a cat carrier. ‘Think. Think. Think.’
Audrey wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or to himself. The thing was, she found it difficult to think when he was around. His presence disturbed her too much. She couldn’t stop herself studying his brooding features. He was one of the most attractive men she’d ever seen—possibly the most.
Tall and broad-shouldered and with a jaw you could land a fighter jet on. His mouth always made her think of long, sense-drugging kisses. Not that she’d had many of those, and certainly none from him, but it didn’t stop her fantasising. He had thick, black, wavy hair that was neither long nor short but casually styled with the ends curling against his collar. He was clean-shaven but there was enough regrowth to make her wonder how it would feel to have that sexy stubble rub up against her softer skin.
Lucien stopped pacing and met her gaze and frowned. ‘What?’
Audrey blinked. ‘What?’
‘I asked first.’
She licked her lips, which felt as dry as the dust on the bookshelves. ‘I was just thinking. I always stare when I think.’
‘What are you thinking?’
How hot you look in those jeans and that close-fitting cashmere sweater.
Audrey knew she was blushing, for she could feel her cheeks roaring enough to make lighting a fire pointless. She could have warmed the whole of England with the radiant heat coming off her face. Possibly half of Europe. ‘I think the storm is getting worse.’
It was true. The lightning and thunder were much more intense and the rain had now turned into hail, landing like stones on the slate-tiled roof.
Lucien glanced out of the window and swore. ‘We’ll have to wait it out before we leave. It’s too dangerous to drive down that lane in this weather.’
Audrey folded her arms across her middle again and raised her chin. ‘I’m not leaving with you, so you can get that thought out of your head right now.’
His eyes took in her indomitable stance as if he were staring down at a small, recalcitrant child. ‘I want you with me when we finally track them down. We need to show them we are both vehemently against this marriage.’
No way was she going on a tandem search with him. ‘Were you listening?’ She planted her feet as if she were conducting a body language workshop for mules. ‘I said I’m not leaving. I’m going to stay the night and tidy this place up.’
‘With no power on?’
Audrey had forgotten about the power cut. But even if she had to rub two sticks together to make a fire she would do it rather than go anywhere with him. ‘I’ll be fine. The fire will be enough. I’m only staying the one night.’
He continued to look at her as if he thought a white van and a straitjacket might be useful right about now. ‘What about your thing with spiders?’
How like him to remind her of her embarrassing childhood phobia. But she had no reason to be ashamed these days. She’d taken control. Ridiculously expensive control. Twenty-eight sessions with a therapist that had cost more than her car. She would have done thirty sessions but she’d run out of money. Her income as a library archivist only went so far. ‘I’ve had therapy. I’m cool with spiders now. Spiders and me, we’re like that.’ She linked two of her fingers in a tight hug.
His expression looked as though he belonged as keynote speaker at a sceptics’ conference. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. Really. I’ve had hypnotherapy so I don’t get triggered when I see a spider. I can even say the word without breaking out in a sweat. I can look at pictures of them too. I even draw doodles of them.’
‘So if you turned and saw that big spider hanging from the picture rail you wouldn’t scream and throw yourself into my arms?’
Audrey tried to control the urge to turn around. She used every technique she’d been taught. She could cope with cobwebs. Sure, she could. They were pretty in a weird sort of way. Like lace...or something.
She was not going to have a totally embarrassing panic attack.
Not after all that therapy. She was going to smile at Incy-Wincy because that was what sensible people who weren’t scared spitless of spiders did, right?
Her heart rate skyrocketed. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Beads of sweat dripped between her shoulder blades as if she were leaking oil. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Her breathing stop-started as though a tormenting hand were gripping, then releasing her throat. Grip. Release. Grip. Release. Grip. Release.
What if the spider moved? What if this very second it was climbing down from the picture rail and was about to land on her head? Or scuttle down the back of her dress? Audrey shivered and took a step closer to Lucien, figuring it was a step further away from the spider even if it brought her closer to her arch-enemy Number One. ‘Y-you’re joking, right?’
‘Why don’t you turn around and see?’
Audrey didn’t want to turn around. Didn’t want to see the spider. She was quite happy looking at Lucien instead. Maybe her therapist should include ‘Looking at Lucien’ in her treatment plan. Diversionary therapy...or something.
This close she could smell his aftershave—a lemony and lime combo with an understory of something fresh and woodsy. It flirted with her senses, drugging them into a stupor like a bee exposed to exotic pollen. She could see the way his stubble was dotted around his mouth in little dark pinpricks. Her fingers itched to glide across the sexy rasp of his male flesh. She drew in a calming breath.
You’ve got this. You’ve spent a veritable fortune to get this.
She slowly turned around, and saw a spider dangling inches from her face.
A big one.
A ginormous one.
A genetically engineered one.
A throwback from the dinosaur age.
She gave a high-pitched yelp and turned into the rock-hard wall of Lucien’s chest, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in the cashmere of his sweater. She danced up and down on her toes to shake off the sensation of sticky spider feet climbing up her legs. ‘Get rid of it!’
Lucien’s hands settled on her upper arms, his fingers almost overlapping. ‘It won’t hurt you. It’s probably more frightened of you.’
She huddled closer, squeezing her eyes shut, shuddering all over. ‘I don’t care if it’s frightened of me. Tell it to get some therapy.’
She felt the rumble of his laughter against her cheek and glanced up to see a smile stretching his mouth. ‘Oh. My. God,’ she said as if witnessing a life-changing phenomenon. ‘You smiled. You actually smiled.’
His smile became lopsided, making his eyes gleam in a way she had never witnessed before. Then his gaze went to her mouth as if pulled there by a force he had no control over. She could feel the weight of his eyes on her mouth. She was as close to him as she had been to any man. Closer. Closer than she had been to him at the last wedding reception. Her entire body tingled as if tuning in to a new radar signal. Her flesh contracting, all her nerves on high alert. She could feel the gentle pressure from each of his fingers against her arms, warm and sensual.
His fingers tensed for a moment, but then he dragged his gaze away from her mouth and unwrapped her arms from his waist as if she had scorched him. ‘I’ll take care of the spider. Wait in the kitchen.’
Audrey sucked in her lower lip. ‘You’re not going to kill it...are you?’
‘That was the general idea,’ he said. ‘What else do you want me to do? Take it home with me and handfeed it flies?’
She stole a glance at the spider and fought back a shudder. ‘It’s probably got babies. It seems cruel to kill it.’
He shook his head as if he was having a bad dream. ‘Okay. So I humanely remove the spider.’ He picked up an old greetings card off the bookshelf and a glass tumbler from the drinks cabinet. He glanced at her. ‘You sure you want to watch?’
Audrey rubbed at the creepy-crawly sensation running along her arms. ‘It’ll be good for me. Exposure therapy.’
‘Ri-i-ight.’ Lucien shrugged and approached the spider with the glass and the card.
Audrey covered her face with her hands but then peeped through the gaps in her splayed fingers. There was only so much exposure she would deal with at any one time.
Lucien slipped the card beneath the spider and then placed the glass over it. ‘Voila. One captured spider. Alive.’ He walked to the front door of the cottage and then, dashing through the pelting rain, placed the spider under the shelter of the garden shed a small distance away.
He came back, sidestepping puddles and keeping his head down against the driving rain. Audrey grabbed a towel from the downstairs bathroom and handed it to him. He rubbed it roughly over his hair.
She was insanely jealous of the towel. She had towel envy. Who knew such a thing existed? She wanted to run her fingers through that thick, dark, damp hair. She wanted to run her hands across his scalp and pull his head down so his mouth could cover hers. She wanted to see if his firm mouth would soften against hers or grow hard and insistent with passion.
She wanted. Wanted. Wanted the one thing she wasn’t supposed to want.
Lucien scrunched up the towel in one hand and pushed back his hair with the other. ‘This storm looks like it’s not going to end anytime soon.’
Just like the storm of need in her body.
What was it about Lucien that made her feel so turned on? No other man triggered this crazy out-of-character reaction in her. She didn’t fantasise about other men. She didn’t stare at them and wonder what it would be like to kiss them. She didn’t ache to feel their hands on her body. But Lucien Fox had always made her feel this way. It was the bane of her life that he was the only man she was attracted to. She couldn’t walk past him without wanting to touch him. She couldn’t be in the same room—the same country—without wanting him.
What was wrong with her?
She didn’t even like him as a person. He was too formal and stiff. He rarely smiled. He thought she was silly and irresponsible like her mother. Not that her two tipsy episodes had helped in that regard, but still. She had always hated her mother’s weddings ever since she’d gone to the first one as a four-year-old.
By the time Sibella married Lucien’s father for the first time, Audrey was eighteen. A couple of glasses of champagne—well, it might have been three or four, but she couldn’t remember—had helped her cope reasonably well with the torture of watching her mother marry yet another unsuitable man. Audrey would be the one to pick up the pieces when it all came to a messy and excruciatingly public end.
Why couldn’t she get through a simple wedding reception or two or three without lusting over Lucien?
Another boom of thunder sounded so close by it made the whole cottage shudder. Audrey winced. ‘Gosh. That was close.’
Lucien looked down at her. ‘You’re not scared of storms?’
‘No. I love them. I particularly love watching them down here, coming across the fields.’
He twitched one of the curtains aside. ‘Where did you park your car? I didn’t see it when I drove in.’
‘Under the biggest oak tree,’ Audrey said. ‘I didn’t want it to be easy to see in case the press followed me.’
‘Did you see anyone following you?’
‘No, but there were recent tyre tracks on the driveway—I thought they were Mum and Harlan’s.’
‘The caretaker’s, perhaps?’
Audrey lifted her eyebrows. ‘Does this place look like it’s been taken care of recently?’
‘Good point.’
Another flash of lightning split the sky, closely followed by a boom of thunder and then the unmistakable sound of a tree crashing down and limbs and branches splintering on metal.
‘Which tree did you say you parked under?’ Lucien asked.
Audrey’s stomach lurched like a limousine on loose gravel. ‘No. No. No. Noooooo!’
