Читать книгу The Dare Collection March 2019 - Rachael Stewart - Страница 22

“YOU SHOULD LOOK HAPPIER, Scotland,” Jason drawled after he cleared the room. He was standing by the windows in this stuffy, confining office, his dark gaze fastened to Lucinda’s like he could see straight through her. It almost frightened him how much he wanted to believe he could. “You won. You get what you wanted all along. Surely that calls for, if not a celebration, a smile?”

And her familiar scowl made his heart beat a little faster.

“This isn’t about winning. This is a highhanded bit of strategy. The best defense is a good offense or whatever you Americans are always ranting on about.” She stood straighter, as if she was seconds away from taking a swing at him. Which he would have welcomed, because he knew how it would end. “When you and I both knew you flew all the way to England because you didn’t like the fact that I left you without your express permission.”

After the executives had swarmed around Lucinda like ants on a picnic lunch, offering her all kinds of congratulations that didn’t make it to the envy in their eyes, Jason had demanded some privacy. Not that there was much of it in this glass box of a room that might as well have been a fishbowl. The men in their suits all filed out, baring their teeth and murmuring their grudging appreciation Lucinda’s way as they went. Some tried to glad-hand Jason, too, but he stared at them until they slunk away.

Now it was only the two of them and too much glass. And all he wanted to do was strip those dour clothes right off her. All that relentless, ruthless black. The angrily slicked-back red hair when his mouth watered for her glorious curls. He could see that the shoes she’d worn on the island had been a concession because here, the shoes she wore were skyscraper high, with red on their soles and killer points as heels. She looked mean and sharp, and he loved every inch of it.

He ached, everywhere, that he didn’t have his hands on her already.

Especially when she was glaring at him as if his presence here was some kind of betrayal.

But Jason was holding on to the advice Charlie had given him. Hard. If he didn’t want to be like their father, he didn’t have to be. It was that simple and that complicated.

Their father would never have chased a woman across the world. Their father had barely managed to remember a woman’s name the next morning, or the location of the children he’d littered about the planet.

Step number one of not being Daniel St. George was the fact Jason had gotten on that plane. He’d decided that in the final tally, he didn’t really care what happened on that island he’d never wanted and didn’t know what to do with himself. He wasn’t attached to it. He didn’t have any dreams about it one way or another.

But he wasn’t sure he wanted to go on living the same old life he’d already been living. Not without Lucinda.

Wasn’t that a kick? She was the one night he never wanted to forget. If he had to chase her down on the other side of the planet, well, he was prepared to do that and more. He was more than happy to hunt her down. Lure her in with the resort she wanted. Keep her close with the one thing he knew she couldn’t resist. Not without removing herself entirely.

Him.

“You don’t want to build any kind of resort on that island,” Lucinda was saying, her pale red brows pulled tight. Jason could see the sun on her face in the form of all those cute freckles, but her skin looked pale even so. Her blue eyes were too big, too wide, and her mouth might have been painted in a bright color he very much wanted to taste, but she pressed her lips flat. “You want to keep it as some kind of sulky tantrum. A monument to a man you’re terrified you’ve already become. I understand that.”

“Yeah. You sound real understanding.”

“I’m not going to pretend this is professional, because I think we ripped through that boundary a long time ago.”

“It was never professional, darlin’.”

Lucinda’s chin lifted higher, which should have been impossible. “Do you really believe that you’re the only person in the world who has a shit father, Jason? I don’t know how to break this to you, but that doesn’t make you special. It makes you alive, that’s all. You should count yourself lucky that your shit father was considerate enough to ignore you for your entire life. Mine was far less accommodating.”

She laughed, though there was precious little humor in the sound. “And mine didn’t leave me a luxurious private island, complete with a stately home for my personal use, plonked down in the middle of the sparkling Pacific Ocean as an apology. Last I heard, in fact, my father has drunk his way through several stints in prison, at least as many bouts of liver disease and more lost jobs than you can count. And he’s still going strong, no doubt beating up my mother and terrifying neighbor children just the way he used to do me. So you will forgive me, I hope, if my sympathy for your plight is somewhat dim.”

“Good rant, Lucinda,” Jason drawled. “Have you been stewing on that one ever since you left Fiji?”

She looked past him and blinked. Then squared her shoulders as if she’d forgotten that they had an entire audience clustered there on the other side of the glass, pretending that they were going about their business. When she looked back at him, her hands were curled into fists at her side, and Jason knew her well enough now to understand that that storm in her gaze was turmoil. Emotion.

Not that she’d admit it. Not his stubborn redhead.

His heart kicked at him again.

“As a matter of fact, I did not spend a series of unpleasant long-haul flights having fights with people who weren’t there. I do try to avoid that whenever possible.” Lucinda sighed, as if her pissy, prissy voice irritated her, too. “If your goal was to disconcert me, I’m afraid you’ve come all this way for nothing. I don’t know why you suddenly want to develop the island, but if you’re under the impression that I’m going to come over all noble and refuse to do it because you’re so clearly using it as a bargaining chip in whatever psychodrama you have going on in your head, I’m afraid you’re going to be quite disappointed.”

“I don’t give a shit about the island, darlin’,” Jason said quietly. “If I wake up one morning filled with regret that I developed this one, guess what? I can buy myself another one. As you pointed out, the place itself has no sentimental value to me. But it does to you.”

“Wrong again.” She quirked her lips into that frozen, polite smile that she probably didn’t realize just made him hard. “I’m not a sentimental person. It’s not in my nature.”

“Maybe not in the past. But you didn’t know me then.”

This time her laugh was straight-up patronizing. “This conversation is becoming deeply embarrassing.”

She didn’t say, for you. She didn’t have to say it.

“I don’t embarrass easily,” Jason replied. He smoothed his hand down the front of his monkey suit, amused when her gaze tracked the movement. And even more entertained when her eyes snapped back to his, her cheeks flushing when she saw he was watching her do it. “You can have my island. And develop it anyway you want, tiki torches and private coves out the ass for all I care. We can sign all these contracts and all the lawyers can wet themselves with this clause and that clause. Whatever. But you and I are going to come to different kind of agreement.”

She regarded him coolly. “I’m listening.”

So stuffy. So clipped, like she was the Queen talking down to a dirty peasant. But she should know better. Because she and Jason weren’t that different, underneath it all. He knew all about her now. And he knew that trash like the two of them loved it when they were underestimated. Hell, it gave them life.

“You already gave me your body once,” he said, low and lazy, like this was a bar instead of a boardroom. “All I want is more.”

Color stained her cheeks, but Lucinda didn’t flinch. Her cool expression didn’t change at all. “Define ‘more.’”

“You,” he said, very distinctly and directly. So there could be no mistake. “In my bed. As long as it takes.”

“As long as it takes to have sex? I think we both know that’s no time at all. Did you really fly all the way here to ask for a quick shag?”

“For as long as it takes to build your resort,” he said, patient now as he waited for that to sink in.

The color all over her cheeks deepened. Her eyes narrowed. And at her sides, those adorable little fists grew so tight her knuckles whitened.

“You understand, of course, that you’re not talking about another night. Or even a week. It will take years.”

“I understand.”

Her throat worked. “You can’t possibly want that. You don’t.”

“I’m pretty sure I asked for it. Explicitly and directly.”

“Right. You mean you want me in one of your beds. When and if you have the urge. Like your own, personal call girl. Is that it?”

Jason laughed. “If that’s what you want to call yourself, I’m all for it. I like a little role play.”

She shuddered, then clearly tried to hide it. “So whenever I’m in the vicinity—”

“You’re going to spend a lot of time in the vicinity,” Jason interrupted her smoothly. Because this was the key point. “It’s a remote island, Scotland. You’re going to spend so much time there, making it what you want it to be, that really, it doesn’t make sense for you to do anything but move in.”

Her lovely, lush mouth dropped open. Her blue eyes clouded over with confusion.

And everything in Jason pulled tight.

“Move in,” she echoed faintly. “With you.”

“I can’t think of a better way to get you in my bed every night, can you? Much as I love flying around the planet, it’s kind of a long commute from my island to London.”

“This is ridiculous. You’re just...taking the piss.”

He loved it when her accent slipped. When her eyes flashed. When she used expressions he was quite certain weren’t considered strictly appropriate in a business setting. Something she was normally so concerned with.

Jason was perfectly happy to be the reason she lost her cool.

“I told you what I want, Lucinda. It’s the only way for you to get your hands on my island. So really, the choice is yours.”

“What kind of choice is that?” As if she heard her own voice echoing back at her from the glass wall, she cleared her throat. And he watched her pull herself together. He watched her pull that smooth, cool mask into place again. “I imagine you think this is something else I’m likely to balk at. Well, guess again. I can’t say my ambitions have ever extended to becoming some man’s live-in fuck toy, but if that’s what it takes.” She lifted her shoulder, then dropped it, her gaze defiant on his. “I’ll do it.”

“Then it sounds like we have a deal.”

“That cottage would be a perfect place to make my base of operations,” Lucinda said, musingly. “When you feel the need to go fishing around in the international model pool, as you tend to do so often, that’s fine. There will be beds aplenty and no need to overlap in any of them. And I’m sure there are hotel bars aplenty in all those resorts on Fiji should I need to scratch an itch.”

Jason opted not to think too hard on how she’d go about scratching that itch, because if he did he was likely to shatter all that glass that hemmed them in. He considered shattering it anyway, but restrained himself.

Barely.

And who knew he had all that greedy possessiveness in him?

“That’s not how this is going to work, baby,” Jason said instead, his gaze so intent on her that he was surprised she didn’t bow beneath the pressure. “I’m not going to share. Neither are you.”

Lucinda stared back at him for what felt like a small eternity. Maybe two. He watched that pulse in her throat go nuts. He watched those knuckles get even whiter.

“Jason. You do realize that what you’re suggesting sounds an awful lot like...”

She didn’t finish.

“A relationship?” He laughed. “It does sound like that, doesn’t it? But don’t worry, Lucinda. You don’t have to call it that if it scares you.”

He expected her to jump on that word and insist that nothing scared her, but she didn’t. Her gaze wheeled around the room and yet he knew, somehow, that she wasn’t seeing a thing.

“I can’t possibly imagine why you would want such a thing,” she said, sounding something like panicked. “I don’t believe you do.”

“Believe it.”

Her mouth actually fell open again, her eyes coming back to his and fixing there in confusion. She started to say something but stopped, almost as if the words weren’t forming the way she wanted them to.

And all of these were victories, Jason knew. But not the one he wanted.

“But...” She shook her head. “You don’t do relationships. Ever.”

“And look where that got me. I might as well be following the Daniel St. George playbook, step by asshole step. It all led to the same place. That’s not the life I want.”

“If what you want is a relationship, I’m quite sure you can find any number of women to oblige you. All you need do is swan out into the street and stand still a moment. You don’t need me to facilitate any of it.”

“I want you.”

Lucinda blew out a breath, and suddenly she didn’t look like a fighter. She looked shaky and uncertain, and that made his chest hurt even more. “No. You can’t. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Jason moved toward her then. And he considered himself a martyr of the highest order when he didn’t simply put his hands on her and throw her on the table that took up most of the space in this fishbowl. He stopped when he was close—close enough to cause a little comment out there on the other side of the glass, maybe.

Let them stare, he thought.

“It’s like this, Scotland,” he rumbled at her, trying to keep his hold on himself intact. Trying to ignore the hundreds of ways he could feel it fraying. “I know why you ran off the way you did. Feelings are messy. That’s why I spent my whole life avoiding them, but guess what? They caught up to me anyway when you sauntered into my crumbling-ass hotel. And I could have come here, and made pretty speeches, but that’s not the way to your heart.”

“My heart?” she echoed, looking appalled. She looked around as if she wanted to back up, but the table was behind her. She frowned at him. “This is about business, Jason. It’s all very unorthodox, I grant you, but still business.”

“Call it business if you want,” he said, easily enough. “I don’t really care. If an island is what it takes to buy some time with you? I’m going to call it cheap. Because I think what really scares you is that you can’t maintain this business bullshit. You could do it after one night, sure. You could crawl out of my bed, run away in the dark and put your armor back on. But you won’t be able to do that month after month. Year after year. Then what?”

Her lips trembled. “You’re insane.”

“That’s not the word I’d use. But the one that fits would freak you out, so sure, I’m insane. The question is, are you willing to put yourself on the line or are you too afraid? It’s a simple choice, Lucinda.”

“There’s nothing simple about this!”

“You know that I can make you come,” Jason said, calmly. “Over and over again. So what’s the harm? You get to live in a beautiful house, come so hard it makes you cry regularly, and work on building the resort of your dreams. It seems to me the only reason you wouldn’t jump at the chance is if, deep down, you know that the reason you left in the first place is that you can’t have that kind of sex, with me, without getting your heart involved after all.”

And he reached over and pressed two fingers over her heart, as punctuation.

This time, she flinched. She swatted at his hand, but ended up hooking his fingers with her palm.

And he was almost surprised that she didn’t take a swing at him, the way she was looking up at him then, like she wanted to kill him with her own hands. But he could see that there was something almost desolate behind the flash of fury.

If he could, he’d let her kill him if that would take the desolation away.

“The joke’s on you, Jason,” she threw at him, fury and despair in her voice and all over her face, and he got it then. She’d already killed him. The man he’d been before she showed up on his island was good and dead, and here he was instead. Ready and willing to do whatever it took to make her happy instead of...whatever this was. “Because I don’t have a heart. And I could live with you for the rest of my life, and that’s not going to change.”

He wanted to grab her up in his arms and kiss her until that darkness lifted. But he knew his way around armor, so he grinned instead.

“Great,” he said, and even shrugged lazily. “Then you have nothing to lose.”