Читать книгу The Billionaire Gets His Way / The Sarantos Secret Baby - Оливия Гейтс - Страница 12

Something in his voice when he uttered his demand made all Violet’s reserve puddle around her ankles like something she’d rather not think about puddling around her ankles. After only a small hesitation, she closed the door, released the chain then opened it again. Gavin pushed past her into her apartment, and it was he, not she, who closed the door. Then, for good measure, he placed himself between it and Violet, making it truly impossible to escape from him.

Not that she wanted to escape. Escape was such a desperate word, after all. And she wasn’t desperate. She was merely a little concerned. Okay, a lot concerned. For some reason, though, her fear wasn’t for her physical safety. It was for something else she didn’t think it would be a good idea to consider too closely.

“Here’s the situation,” he said. “The event tonight is a very big deal, not just because—” He halted abruptly, looking Violet up and down, from her head to her toes. “What the hell are you wearing? Is that sushi?”

For the first time, it occurred to her how underdressed she was. Then she reminded herself that she was relaxing at home, making her attire perfectly acceptable. Gavin was the one whose outfit was out of place—he was grossly overdressed. Yeah. Put the burden on him, where it belonged.

“Well, it’s not like I’m wearing real sushi,” she replied indignantly. “And pajamas are perfectly in keeping with my plans for the evening. Which is to do nothing.”

She hoped she punctuated that announcement adamantly enough that he would realize he was wasting his time with whatever his proposition was.

“Well, you’re going to have to change. You can’t wear that to the Steepletons’ party.”

She crossed her arms over her midsection, realizing for the first time that her pajamas were so big, the sleeves nearly covered her hands. “Problem solved then. I’m not going to the Steepletons’ party. Thanks so much for stopping by.”

She started to reach past him for the doorknob, but as he had done at his office that day, he snaked out a hand, circling his fingers firmly around her wrist. Deftly, before she even realized his intent, he switched their positions so that she was between him and the door. Only where she had kept her distance from him, he crowded into her space again, anchoring one big hand on the door by her forehead and arcing the other arm on the door above her head. She tried to shrink away but found herself effectively pinned to the spot without him even touching her. In spite of that, her breath caught in her chest, heat pooled in her belly, and something snaked down her spine that left a trail of heat in its wake.

“Like I said, this event tonight is a very big deal for me, not only because it raises money for a cause I respect, and not only because I’m one of the biggest, if not the biggest, donors.” He dipped his head lower to hers, his voice going steely and cool. “But even more important than that right now, if I don’t show up or, worse, if I show up without a date, it’s going to look like I’m not there because I’m hiding out. Or, worse, that I can’t get a date.”

She swallowed with some difficulty, then pointed out, “But you can’t get a date.” Quickly, she added, “Not that that’s my fault, since my book is a work of complete fic—”

“So I need to be there with a date. Because showing up with a beautiful woman on my arm will prove there are still some people who don’t believe a word of your damned book, and there are still beautiful women who are willing to be seen with me.”

Color her shallow, but it took a moment for Violet to move past the word beautiful. He thought she was beautiful? In her sushi pajamas? Then she remembered that both times he’d seen her before this evening, she’d been arrayed in thousands of dollars’ worth of gorgeous rented clothing and accessories and artfully applied cosmetics. All modesty aside, she supposed she did clean up rather well. Still, it was obvious that his beautiful—both times—had been for Raven French, not Violet Tandy.

Then she moved on to the rest of his statement and realized a number of problems with it. “Okay, first,” she said, “you showing up with the author of the book isn’t going to do anything to dispel the so-called rumors that people think you’re a character in the book.”

“I won’t be showing up with Raven French,” he said. “I’ll be showing up with Violet Tandy.”

Oh. So did that mean those beautifuls had been for her, after all? And why did that make something inside her go all warm and fizzy? Who cared what Gavin Mason thought of her? The guy was a Neanderthal when it came to women.

“You can’t show up with Violet,” she said. “Violet doesn’t have anything to wear to a high society party.”

“Why not?”

“Because Violet doesn’t go to high society parties.”

He nodded at that. “Right. Violet only attends private parties, doesn’t she? I guess the attire for that would be a bit limited. In more ways than one.”

Okay, that did it. No more Ms. Nice Guy. Splaying both hands open on his chest, Violet pushed Gavin with all her might. The action must have caught him by surprise, because he actually stumbled backward a step or two, looking at her in disbelief when he finally came to a halt.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said. Before he had a chance to trap her again, she strode defiantly into the middle of her living room to put more distance between them, then spun around to face him. “You are not going to stand here, in my home, and impugn my reputation.”

He laughed at that. A deep, full-throated laugh that came from somewhere deep inside him, sounding rich and dark and, well, kind of sexy, truth be told. Violet had always loved hearing men laugh, because they so seldom did, most of them. And Gavin’s laughter was in keeping with the man—confident, powerful and larger-than-life.

“I impugn your reputation?” he managed to say through his laughter. “Sweetheart, you’ve done a fine job of that all by yourself. This may come as a shock to you, considering the world you live and work in, but even in today’s decadent society, women who take money in exchange for sex don’t have a reputation to impugn. It doesn’t matter if you are making money now with … a different body part. Once a prostitute, always a pros—”

“I am not a prostitute!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, hoping, in hindsight, that her downstairs neighbor wasn’t home. “You know, you’re not helping your own cause here if you expect me to do you a favor.”

“It isn’t a favor,” he said, completely unfazed by her outburst. “It’s your chance to pay up on a debt you owe me.”

“But—”

“Think of it this way,” he interrupted her. Again. “If you go to this fundraiser with me tonight, being no more than Violet Tandy, writer—not that you need to tell anyone what you wrote—I might be inclined to reconsider my lawsuit.”

Now Violet was the one to narrow her eyes. “You’re saying if I go to this party with you tonight you’ll forget about suing me? “

“I said I’d reconsider it.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning maybe I’ll change my mind about pursuing it.”

Violet dropped her hands to her hips, a deliberate attempt to look less as if she were on the defense and more as if she were on the offense. Even if she still felt plenty defensive and in no way offensive. “Maybe isn’t good enough,” she told him.

“All right then. Probably. I’ll probably change my mind about pursuing it.”

“That’s no better than maybe.”

“Of course it’s better,” he told her. “Probably means much more likely than maybe.”

“But it’s still not definitely.”

“It’s still better than maybe. And it’s the best offer you’re going to get. And, it’s only good for—” he lifted an arm and pulled back the jacket and shirt sleeve to reveal an elegant gold watch beneath “—another sixty seconds.” He dropped his hand to his side. “One minute, Violet. Make a decision. Either go with me tonight and instill a feeling of gratitude in me that might make me rethink prosecuting you for libel, slander and defamation of character, or turn me down and know I’ll go after you with both guns drawn.”

Oh, like that was any kind of choice. Heads he won, tails he also won. There was no guarantee of anything in it for Violet.

Except for the opportunity to attend a swanky Gold Coast party, she thought, which she’d never done before and doubtless never would again. Except for the chance to rub shoulders with the cream of Chicago society. And maybe, you know, get some material for her new novel, which so happened to be about the cream of Chicago society—fictional society, natch, lest there be some confusion about that at some point—and which was barely half finished. And which her publisher was breathing down her neck to turn in so they could capitalize on the success of High Heels and Champagne and Sex! Oh, My!, striking while the iron was hot and all that. So maybe there was a little something in it to benefit Violet. Other than spending an evening with Gavin Mason.

No! Spending an evening with Gavin Mason wasn’t a benefit. That would be a punishment. The burden she had to bear in order to get the good stuff. Which was not Gavin, lest there be some confusion about that, too. Which maybe there was, since Violet was getting more confused by the moment, but—

“Thirty seconds, Violet.”

She mentally ransacked her wardrobe, coming up empty until she remembered a black dress she’d purchased secondhand for a graduation from high school party. That had been ten years—and okay, okay, ten pounds—ago. But it was a forgiving jersey knit with a simple cut that would stay in style forever.

“Fifteen seconds.”

Coupled with a rhinestone bracelet and earrings that could pass for cubic zirconium, provided the lighting wasn’t great, and a pair of slender heels she’d worn to the same graduation party, and maybe, just maybe—

“Five seconds, Violet. Four, three, two—”

“Okay,” she said. “Okay. I’ll go to the party with you. And you, in turn, are promising you’ll probably change your mind about the lawsuit.”

He said nothing for a moment, then smiled. But instead of saying he promised to do anything, he only echoed one word. “Probably.”

It was the best she was going to get, she told herself. And it was at least a little bit better than what she’d had before. Because there was a chance now, however small, that Gavin would leave her alone after tonight, and she’d never have to see him again.

So why didn’t that make her feel at least a little bit better? In fact, why did she kind of feel worse?

Sugar rush, she finally concluded. All that ice cream was creating one of those carb crashes. Yeah. That had to be it. No other explanation made any sense.

“When can you be ready?” Gavin asked.

Violet looked down at her sushi pajamas, then at Gavin’s flawless tuxedo. Then she drove her gaze higher, to his face, marveling again at how exquisitely his features were arranged. Never, she thought. She could never be ready for a man like him.

“Fifteen minutes,” she told him. “Give me fifteen minutes, and I’m good.”

Fifteen minutes, Gavin echoed to himself as he watched Violet hesitate at the entry to the Steepletons’ ballroom. Fifteen minutes, she’d said, and she was good. Good. Unbelievable. Not only did she look way better than good—words like radiant, luminous and stunning came most readily to mind—but any other woman would have needed hours to put herself together so well.

The black dress was styled simply, even modestly, with a straight neckline that went from collarbone to collarbone in front and had a slight dip in back that revealed just enough skin to make a man want to see more. But it hugged her curves like a lover’s caress, making it not very modest at all. She’d even managed to twist her hair up into something sleek and elegant that revealed the slender column of her nape, a creamy span of flesh that beckoned to a man’s fingertips … and mouth.

Her jewelry was a puzzle, however. Gavin had bought enough diamonds for his companions over the years—though not, God forbid, a ring of any kind—to know whether a woman’s gems were real or not. Violet’s were not. He would have thought that among her clientele over the years, there would have been at least a few generous types who gave her a trinket or two for services rendered, even if they were paying good money for those services. In Gavin’s experience, men who bought women liked to decorate them from time to time, if for no other reason than to remind them who was really in charge of the arrangement. Evidently, Violet’s customers had never given her anything but her required fee, otherwise she would have been wearing the real thing. Maybe he should get her a little something for—

For what? he immediately asked himself. For helping him out tonight? Why should he feel grateful because she’d done an amazing job of looking incredibly beautiful in a matter of minutes? Hell, she was used to putting herself together quickly. A woman in her profession would naturally need to wind things up with a client quickly and make an elegant exit to ensure being hired for another night, even if the jerk didn’t buy her something nice now and then. Violet had had a lot of practice looking this good in fifteen minutes.

She turned around to look at him, smiling a soft smile. And just like that, Gavin felt like someone had punched him in the gut. Because when she smiled that way, without artifice or inhibition, she went beyond beautiful. That naiveté was back, but with it was an innocence and purity that he would have thought impossible to fake. For the first time, he could see why men would pay money, and lots of it, to bed her. Because bedding Violet would make a man feel like he was her very first, that no man had come before him, that he would leave an indelible impression on her that would outstay any man who came after him.

Maybe that wasn’t exactly a PC way of thinking these days, but there it was just the same. A lot of men were still attracted to the notion of virginity. And if that virgin happened to know a lot about sex and was an eager partner, all the better. No wonder Violet’s memoir had so many chapters in it. God knew how many men had come before Gavin.

His thinking halted him in his tracks—literally, since he had been about to step forward to escort Violet into the room. How could he be thinking about how many men had come before him, unless he was thinking about becoming one of Violet’s men?

He didn’t have time to ponder that further, because her smile increased, revealing a small dimple on one cheek that was. Damn. The only word he could think to describe it was enchanting, even though that was a word he normally, manfully, avoided.

“After blackmailing me to come to this thing,” she said, “are you going to stand in the hallway all night?”

Well, no. Not when there were other rooms he’d much rather make use of. He’d been to the Steepletons’ house many times since meeting Richard a decade ago, and he knew for a fact that they had eight bedrooms in their Lakeshore Drive mansion. Gavin even had intimate knowledge of two of them, since he’d made use of them with his date during every party he’d attended here. He had intimate knowledge of the Steepletons’ master bathroom, too. And one of the coat closets. And their gazebo. And a window seat in the dining room behind a pair of heavy drapes.

Good times. Good times.

“After you,” he said to Violet now.

He splayed his hand at the small of her back, the warmth of her skin seeping through the soft fabric and into his fingers. The dress was so clingy, it was almost as if he were touching bare skin, which naturally made him wonder if Violet was as silky and creamy under her dress as the rest of her seemed to be.

The moment he touched her, however, she surged forward and away from him, almost as if he’d been holding a hot poker. So Gavin stepped forward, too, this time barely stroking her back with the tips of his fingers. Even that scant brush of contact made her twitch, but she didn’t pull away from him this time. He gave her a moment to get used to the connection, then he moved forward once more, until scarcely a breath of air was between them.

Lowering his head to her ear, he said, very softly, “Don’t flinch when I touch you, Violet. And don’t pull away. You’re my date, which means we are intimately involved. Don’t do anything that will make others doubt that, or I’ll have to reconsider my offer.”

“Your offer was only to reconsider in the first place,” she replied without turning around, her voice as quiet as his. But she sounded a little breathless, which, for some reason, made Gavin feel a little breathless, too. “How can you reconsider a reconsideration?”

“You’ll find out if you do a bad job convincing everyone here that you’re crazy about me and that we’re only here long enough to make an appearance, after which we’ll be escaping to have sex for the rest of the night because you can’t keep your hands off me.”

Now she turned around to face him fully, splashes of pink blossoming on each cheek. The blush was back. The surprising, alluring, strangely erotic blush. Gavin managed to keep his breathing in check, but wasn’t quite as successful controlling another part of himself—a part he’d as soon not be losing control of at the moment, since the cut of his jacket was such that it wouldn’t hide his condition.

“Now wait just one minute,” she whispered. “There was nothing in this deal that said I had to pretend we’re sexually involved. I’m supposed to be your date.”

Gavin smiled at that. “Sweetheart, it’s a given that any woman who’s dating me is also sleeping with me. I assumed you knew that, since it’s the same thing you wrote about Ethan.”

She opened her mouth to respond to that, evidently thought better of what she had intended to say, and snapped her lips shut. Pity. He’d started to have all kinds of good ideas for that open mouth. Of course, none of them had involved talking.

He urged her forward, this time wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her close. Screw the courtesies. It wasn’t like he’d ever been big on courtesies with other women. Why should Violet be any different? Especially since she wasn’t the sort of woman who commanded courtesy to begin with.

Ah, dammit, where was the bar?

He found it immediately, tucked into the same corner of the ballroom where the Steepletons always put it, and he steered Violet in that direction. Before he could even ask her what she wanted, she requested a glass of champagne from the bartender, who poured it with great flourish before handing it to her with a smile. She smiled and thanked him warmly, then lifted the glass to her lips for a sip before declaring it delicious and thanking the bartender again. When the man turned to Gavin, Gavin barked out an order for his favorite Scotch, taking it from the man’s extended hand without acknowledgment and guiding Violet toward a small pocket of people on the other side of the room.

“You know, you were very rude back there,” she said as they threaded their way through the crowd.

Gavin had no idea what she was talking about. “What? When?”

“The bartender,” she said. “You didn’t even thank him for your drink.”

“Why would I thank a bartender for doing his job?”

“Because it’s a nice gesture,” she said. “Because it makes someone in that position feel appreciated.”

“Who cares if he feels appreciated? He’s a bartender. It’s not like he’s trying to cure cancer or bring peace to a war-torn country.”

“No, but he made this party more enjoyable for you by fixing you a nice drink. Therefore, you should thank him.”

How could she possibly care about the hired help? Gavin wondered. Who even noticed the hired help? They were invisible. Or would be, if she would stop carping on them.

“Come on,” he said, striving to make the bartender invisible again. “There are some people over here who need to see you with me.”

He wasn’t sure, but he thought she growled under her breath at that. Which, truth be told, he found kind of erotic. But then, there was little about Violet tonight that he didn’t find erotic, so maybe that wasn’t surprising.

“This won’t take long,” he told her. “Nod and look sexy for a few minutes, and then we can move on to another group. If everything goes smoothly, and you play your part well, then I can have you out of here and home before midnight. Just like Cinderella.”