About the Authors

RACHAEL STEWART adores conjuring up stories, from heartwarmingly romantic to wildly erotic. She’s been writing since she could put pen to paper—as the stacks of scrawled-on pages in her loft will attest. A Welsh lass at heart, she now lives in Yorkshire with her very own hero and three awesome kids—and if she’s not tapping out a story she’s wrapped up in one or enjoying the great outdoors. Reach her on Facebook, Twitter (@rach_b52) or at rachaelstewartauthor.com.

J. MARGOT CRITCH currently lives in St John’s, Newfoundland, with her husband, Brian, and their two little buddies, Simon and Chibs. She spends equal amounts of time writing, listening to Jimmy Buffett’s music and looking out at the ocean—all the while trying to decide if she wants coffee or a margarita.

Naughty or Nice & A Sinful Little Christmas

Rachael Stewart and J. Margot Critch

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90115-8

NAUGHTY OR NICE & A SINFUL LITTLE CHRISTMAS

Naughty or Nice © 2019 Rachael Stewart A Sinful Little Christmas © 2019 Juanita Margot Critch

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Naughty or Nice

Back Cover Text

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

A Sinful Little Christmas

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

About the Publisher

Naughty or Nice

Rachael Stewart

Ten years of wanting. Ten years of waiting. Now Eva Beaumont and Lucas Waring have one chance to satisfy everything they’ve ever wanted from each other… Enjoy their explosively sexy reunion in this enthralling romance from reader favorite Rachael Stewart.

This is my moment. Tonight, among the glitter and champagne and those who are vying for a piece of my business, it’s perfect. Gloriously so. Then Lucas Waring walks in, and one glance from his dark, intense eyes gives me the same jarring bolt of awareness I always felt when I saw him. Careful, Eva. After all, Lucas Waring is the Beaumont family’s worst nightmare…

He used to be my brother’s best friend—before he broke my eighteen-year-old heart. And yet I still feel that want, that aching need unfurling through my body. If Lucas Waring wants my business, I’ll give him a chance…once we’ve finally experienced a deliciously carnal arrangement that’s long overdue.

This time, nothing is stopping me from having what I want. Not my family. Not my locked-down heart. Nice Eva is gone forever. Naughty Eva has taken her place. Only my heart’s about to pull the biggest betrayal of all…

Harlequin DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha heroes and bold, fearless heroines exploring their deepest fantasies.

Four new Harlequin DARE titles are available each month, wherever ebooks are sold!

To my kids, who will be doing their utmost to get on Santa’s nice list! I know you’re too young to read this—in fact, you’ll always be too young—but I can’t have a Christmas book without dedicating it to you. I love you regardless of your naughty little antics.

To my family and friends for making every Christmas as special as it can be.

And to my gorgeous readers, too… Are you on the naughty or nice list this year? How about joining me and straddling them both? Ho ho ho ;-)

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good read!

Rxx

PROLOGUE

I TWIST MY hands in front of me, the heel of one stiletto grinding into the plush carpet of my father’s study.

I know Lucas is going to follow me here. I saw it in his eyes. That same look I’ve caught several times over in the past few months…the same look I know I sport: want, desire—love.

I’ve loved him for years—long before Mum and Dad became his guardians…long before I really knew what it was that had my heart trying to leap out of my chest, my body throbbing, my tongue tied.

I’m eighteen. It’s my birthday party. It’s as good a time as any to tell him—or so I keep telling myself. I can’t go on keeping it locked up inside. But I’m scared. It doesn’t matter that I sense he feels the same, that I see the way he looks at me when he thinks no one else is watching.

I pin his expression in my mind, focus on it as I grab my flute of champagne and throw back the remainder. The hit of alcohol makes me wince, but I need it—Dutch courage. I return it to the side as I watch the door.

You love him. You can tell him. You have to.

I hear footsteps in the hallway, louder than the music from my party, underway further down the hall, and I take a breath, pressing my hands into my thighs, forcing them to still and hoping their dampness doesn’t mark the bright white of my dress.

The door opens and I can’t breathe.

‘Evangeline?’

His voice sends blood rushing through my body, my pulse rate skittering out of control.

‘Yes…’ It comes out like a whisper, my fear coming through, and it frustrates me. I want to be confident. I want him to see me as a woman, not the little sister of his best friend, Nate.

Get it together.

His head appears around the door, his gaze hesitant as he looks from me to the hallway and back again.

‘Hey.’

He steps inside but pauses, the confident twenty-one-year-old I usually see oddly absent. He’s boyish, uncertain, and my heart turns over.

‘Hey,’ I manage back, breathless.

We don’t move closer. My knees feel like jelly and his fingers tremble a little as he rakes one hand through his hair, his other still hanging on to the door handle.

Take control. You need to do this. You need to show him.

‘Close the door.’

I’m surprised at the confidence I’ve injected into my tone—am surprised all the more when he does what I ask. But his eyes don’t return to me. They burn a hole in the floor at his feet.

I take a small breath. ‘Why won’t you look at me?’

His eyes waver and I can sense the fight in him.

I step forward, my progress slow as the tight minidress restricts my movement, riding ever higher up my thighs. The moment I’d chosen it I’d had this in mind. To confess my love, maybe even seduce him. I want my first time to be with him and tonight would be so perfect.

‘Lucas?’

He shakes his head, but then his eyes lock with mine and I feel their burn. Need is etched in the tightness of his jaw, in his hands fisting at his sides.

‘We shouldn’t be in here…alone.’

‘Then why did you come?’ I press.

Please let him be torn. Please let him confirm what I suspect.

‘I—’

He shakes his head again but his eyes are still fixed on mine. His internal fight is clear in their depths, and he runs his teeth over his lower lip. The move distracting me with the glimpse of his tongue, the mouth I so desperately want to taste.

‘Being alone with you, like this…’ He waves a hand up and down my length, his eyes travelling over me and setting my skin alight.

‘Don’t trust yourself?’ I tease, forcing out the playful jest even though I know how much rides on his response.

I pause less than an arm’s reach away and look up at him from beneath my lashes, not quite ready to reach for him. That fear of rejection is still there.

‘You know we shouldn’t.’

It’s my turn to shake my head. ‘Why?’

‘Because—because of who you are. Of who your family are to me.’

‘In a way, we’re your family too.’

‘Exactly, Eva—they’re all I have.’

I risk another step and hold his tormented gaze. I want to kiss it away, take away the pain of his past, his loss, his loneliness. He never had a father. His mother, although best friend to my own, was hardly ever present, and now she’s been dead almost a year. But I have been here. I’ve always been here for him. I can be enough. If only he will see it.

‘And we will always be here for you. But I have to tell you how I feel. I have to tell you I… I…’ My voice cracks and I curse the show of weakness.

‘Don’t, Evangeline—don’t say it.’

His words are a warning that I can’t abide, and it’s the push that I need.

‘Why?’

‘Because it will change everything.’

‘And why is that so bad?’

He takes a breath and it shudders out of him, but he says nothing.

Now. It has to be now.

‘Lucas.’ I slip my hands over his shoulders, feel him tense beneath them, but there’s no going back. ‘I love you.’

He squeezes his eyes shut, closing me out, and when he opens them again they’re blazing. His hands are reaching out, tight on my hips as he forces me away.

‘I love you too, but not—not like this. I can’t.’

He turns to leave and I move, stepping between him and his escape, so swift that he ends up pressed against me, my back against the door as my lips part on a gasp.

It’s not just surprise—it’s the strange frisson that runs right down my front as my body absorbs his heat, the very hardness of him.

His eyes drop to my mouth and there’s no need for words. His intent sears me seconds before his lips claim mine.

Christ, I’m in heaven.

He isn’t soft, tentative, uncertain. He’s hard, determined, his tongue forcing my mouth apart, demanding entry, coaxing me into doing the same.

I’ve been kissed before, and I’ve kissed boys before, but I’ve never been devoured—not like this.

My body thrums, my breasts prickle against his chest, and the dull ache in my gut swells and throbs with mindless need. My hands are in his hair, clinging him to me, his own rake over my body, feverish, trembling. I can’t believe this is real. I feel drugged, dreaming.

And then he groans into my mouth, pressing me back harder, and I know it’s real. I know this is happening…my dream is coming true.

His fingers drop to my naked thighs, encouraging my dress higher. I don’t know whether I lift my leg to hook it around him or he does, but the hard swell of him inside his jeans presses at the throbbing heart of me and I moan my pleasure.

He curses, his teeth nipping at my lip as he shakes his head once more. ‘I’ve wanted you, so long.’

His confession jerks me alert. I want more of it. More words. More to affirm how he feels.

‘How long?’

‘Too long.’

Happiness bursts within me. Everything’s falling into place.

I find his lips again, desperate to seal his words with my kiss. ‘And you can have me. I’m yours. I’ve always been yours.’

There’s a strange knocking sound—one that doesn’t compute with the whirlwind that is my mind—and suddenly I’m thrust away from him. I try to focus through the haze. I see his widened gaze, his alarm clear.

‘Lucas? You in there?’

The handle shifts with my brother’s voice, but the door doesn’t budge. I realise Lucas has turned the latch. It fills me with hope, but hope dies just as swiftly. He looks as if he’s seen a ghost as he stares at me in horror.

‘Lucas! Come on, man. Someone said they saw you head in here… Eva too.’

Oh, God.

He was pale before. Now he looks deathly. His eyes leave me, his head shaking.

‘I’m an idiot. A fucking idiot.’

He says it under his breath and I tiptoe towards him, my hand reaching out. But he moves away from me just as quickly, his eyes throwing daggers. ‘Don’t.’

There are footsteps down the corridor and then my father’s voice. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Nothing… I’m just getting Eva. Mum wants her to cut the cake.’

‘The last place Eva will be is in my study, son.’

Nate gives an awkward laugh. ‘Sure…of course. I’ll check upstairs.’

They move off, their voices growing distant, and I know my brother is protecting us. But I don’t want protection. I don’t want to hide any more.

‘Lucas, please don’t push me away. I don’t want to deny this any more. I know you feel the same. I know you—’

‘You don’t know anything.’

‘You want me—’

‘Yes, I want you.’ He launches the words at me, so certain. ‘But that’s not love.’

‘It is—because I love you.’

‘You don’t love me. You’re infatuated, confused, doped up on hormones.’

My heart starts to split in two, ice running through the middle. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about…’

‘I know you and your family are all that I have. That without you I have nothing.’

I don’t know what to say to that. I know the truth of it. But it makes my reasoning all the more valid. It’s so simple.

‘Then accept that we love one another and that my family will be happy for us. Once they adjust.’

His head shakes violently. ‘No, they won’t. Don’t you see? Nate was banging this door down to stop us. He knows.’

‘But—’

‘No, Eva, he’s already made it clear you’re off-limits and, hell, he’s right. What happens to me a year or two down the line when this…whatever this is…fizzles out?’

‘It won’t.’

‘You can guarantee that, can you?’

‘I… I…’

He rakes both hands through his hair, his torment written in his haunted brown eyes. Eyes I’ve dreamed about for so long.

And then he’s turning away and heading for the door.

‘Please,’ I hear myself say. ‘Don’t go.’

He doesn’t even pause—doesn’t even look back as he unlocks the door and slips away. Leaving me standing there, my heart in tatters, as I realise he means it.

That no matter how much I love him he can never be mine.

CHAPTER ONE

THIS IS MY MOMENT. For the first time in my life I know that I’ve made it. That I stand apart. My family name hasn’t handed me this. Aside from a small investment from dear old Ma and Pa, this is all me.

My baby is finally ready, and companies are clambering over themselves to head up its manufacture, its distribution, wanting to join forces, to conquer the field.

But I have weeks to decide.

Tonight is about enjoying the buzz…feeding it.

The room is fit to bursting with prospective producers and vendors alike. And here’s me, confident in a festive red silk dress that just sweeps the floor, my blonde hair knotted up high, sophisticated, yet softened by the loose locks that fall free. The delicate bubbles of the champagne in my hand are feeding my ego and my mood to perfection.

‘Well, you did it, angel.’

I turn and lift my chin to meet my father’s eye. I can see the admiration in his gaze—something I’ve hungered for since I found I could outrun my brother at fourteen.

It’s not that I’m naturally competitive, but when you’re always deemed the less capable, the girl, it can happen. Even more so when your brother can apparently do no wrong, when in truth he does plenty wrong, and still has admiration dished out in spades.

‘I know.’

He tenses, and I fear he’s read the bitterness in my tone. But, no, his eyes leave me and narrow. Something else has caught his attention.

‘What the hell…?’ he mutters.

I follow his line of sight, but already my nerves sizzle. My father doesn’t ever show unease—he doesn’t do emotion, particularly in a business setting like tonight’s launch party. My launch party.

‘Did you invite him?’

‘Wh—?’ The word dies and my entire body draws tight.

I see him. I see the exact cause of my father’s unease and feel it seep into my very skin. My mood dies with it. The champagne flute trembles in my hand and I know I should look away, but I can’t.

Ten years and still my eyes are hooked on him.

Lucas Waring.

My family’s nemesis.

My heart’s downfall.

‘No,’ I manage to say.

I shouldn’t be surprised—not when the room is full of his peers.

Peers? Are you dreaming?

They’re not his equal. No one is. Waring Holdings has it all and now here is Lucas, wanting…what?

‘He can’t possibly think you’ll be interested in working with him.’

My father speaks my mind exactly. He can’t. But what else?

‘There’s only one way to find out.’

I’m not the eighteen-year-old girl I once was, and I’m not the woman I became soon after that, determined to evade him. I am in control now. This is my night. This is work.

‘Excuse me.’

‘No.’ My father steps into my path. ‘I’ll get rid of him.’

I hold his eye as my lips twitch. What I want to say is Stop treating me like a child, but in my mind that sounds petulant and childlike in itself. Instead I smile up at him. ‘He’s made the effort to come. I should at least see what he wants.’

‘But—’

‘But nothing, Dad. Giving someone as powerful as Lucas the cold shoulder tonight of all nights would send the wrong message to the room.’

My father grunts and swigs his champagne. He knows I’m right. He didn’t get where he is today by letting personal differences get in his way. But then it’s the first time I’m aware of that Lucas has dared venture near any of us in five long years.

Ever since my family shut him out and the blame for the demise of the company he co-owned with Nate seemed to land firmly at his feet.

I questioned it at the time. I continued to question it each and every time Nate screwed up after that. It couldn’t have been down to Lucas—not entirely. But it seems Lucas has suffered the same as me.

Nate’s golden halo failed to shift.

I can’t deny I’m curious as to what truly went down. And I also can’t deny that his presence here tonight only serves to help my cause, my product. It’ll feed the frenzy already taking hold as companies vie for my business.

Or it’ll send them running, because they’ll think there’s no chance in hell you’ll look anywhere else but him.

Not him—his business, Eva!

I give my head a small shake, the loose curls from my updo brushing against the prickled skin of my nape. It loosens up my thoughts, the tension.

‘Why don’t you make sure Mum doesn’t flip at his presence?’ I say, and with another sip of champagne I start to make my way towards him, praying he doesn’t spy me before I’m prepared.

But already his head is turning, as if he senses my approach, and then his eyes are locked on mine and I can feel a startling rush through my system. It doesn’t matter that I’m used to the sight of him on the TV, in the tabloids—that same old zing is in my belly, that heat that only his physical presence has ever instilled creeping into my cheeks.

I want to look away, but I won’t give him that. I am stronger now, wiser, and the better for it. And so I enjoy him, my eyes sweeping over every inch of him. His black hair, long on top. His prominent brow arching over heavy-lashed eyes that narrow on me, dark and intense. I ignore the hiccup to my pulse and cut lower, to his wide, angular jaw with its intentional stubble.

I avoid his mouth entirely.

I don’t need the memory of its brief contact all those years ago. I really don’t.

I move my eyes lower, to the broad set of his shoulders—wider than I recall. Imposing. I don’t dwell on the muscle behind that. Instead I focus on the designer cut of his deep grey suit, the white shirt and his defiantly skinny black tie.

My lips lift at the edges, I can’t help it. Always the rebel…

I lift my eyes back to his and they flicker. There’s something there. I just don’t know what. Unease?

Maybe.

Like hell.

He owns the room. His presence commands attention even when he’s not looking for it. Just like he’s commanding my own, against my will.

A waiter passes between us and he reaches out for a glass, but not once does his gaze release me, and I can feel myself being drawn in like the besotted eighteen-year-old I once was.

Careful, Eva.

‘Lucas…’

I draw his name out, feel it fall softly from my lips, and I see his eyes flit to them. I know they’re red and glossy. The perfect match for my dress and the countrywide festivities, and I imagine him looking hungrily over them now.

If only…

‘I wish I could say it’s a pleasure to see you.’

I’m proud of the steadiness in my voice, its hard edge—it’s what he deserves for what he did to me ten years ago and for the last five, too, if my family are right… In this second I’m not sure which I want to hurt him more for.

Yes, you do…liar.

He watches me with that intense stare that I can’t even begin to read and raises his glass to his lips. Too late I’m looking, remembering, and my betraying tongue sweeps over my own lips…

‘It’s rude to stare.’

My eyes leap and I curse his very presence, his very effect over me. But there’s a tightness to his voice, a flare to his eyes that he cannot hide, and I know he’s not immune to me—not any more. It gives me power and I feed on it.

‘It’s rude to attend a party without an invitation.’

He smiles, the movement small and soft—and, dammit, my insides quiver.

‘I’m used to being welcomed with open arms. Invited or not.’

I raise my brow, the idea of being close enough to embrace him not helping my focus.

It’s a figure of speech, idiot.

I cock my head, masking my unease. ‘Once upon a time that may have been true, but not here, not now, and not with me.’

‘Not with you, or not with your family, Evangeline?’

If I could melt to the floor I would. No one calls me Evangeline—no one. Unless they’re my parents. I am Eva—strong, dependable, Eva. A woman who has proved her worth a hundred times over.

But when he says it, the way he says it, it’s not like Mum and Dad do it. It doesn’t make me feel like a girl, weak and vulnerable. I feel empowered, worthy of so much, catapulted onto a pedestal and ready to be worshipped.

By him. At my feet.

Oh, yes.

I swallow, the bolt through my body jolting me straight.

It scares me. He scares me. And I know I need him gone—that no matter what I said to Dad I don’t dare to entertain him for longer than is necessary.

‘Cat got your tongue?’

‘No,’ I blurt.

‘So?’

I can see a pulse working in his jaw, and his eyes are intense as they watch and wait for my response.

‘Is it you or your family telling me I’m not welcome, Evangeline?’

‘Both.’ I say it and immediately regret it. It’s too personal, too unprofessional, but I can’t think clearly. Not with him so close.

‘Is that your way of asking me to leave?’

I sense nearby heads turning, ears tuning in.

Careful, Eva…

I’m losing myself in the fierce glint of her blue gaze, almost daring her to throw me out. There’s something about the fight in her that I want to provoke.

It’s so much easier than dealing with all the shit buried ten years deep.

‘No, Lucas, I’m not asking you to leave.’

She wets her lips. Again. And the red shines ever deeper, the carnal colour driving a string of sinful thoughts—none of which have a place in this room, with this audience.

Or fit with the reason you’re here.

It’s about business.

Not her.

Not…

A pulse flutters in her throat and she raises her hand, her red-tipped fingers circling over the delicate ripple. Christ, I want to do that—be the person with his fingers over that creamy skin.

I tighten my hold on the stem of the glass, slipping my other hand inside my pocket. Out of trouble.

‘Good.’ I tear my eyes away, looking towards the grand Christmas tree and the big screen that stands proud alongside it, streaming highlights of the product I’m here to secure. ‘Because I think we have a future together…in business.’

I suck the inside of my cheek.

In business? What the actual fuck? Do you want to make it any more obvious you want her in your bed too?

I hear her laugh, and the sound is as surprising as its effect, rippling through my body like an aftershock. I’d forgotten how she can do that—be it with a laugh, a smile or a song when she thinks no one’s listening.

‘Of course, Lucas. Of course in business. What else could you possibly be suggesting?’

She watches me over the rim of her glass, the depths of her eyes alive with suggestion, amusement, confidence. And it’s the confidence that’s my undoing. It’s new. To me, at least. Where there was once a questioning innocence there’s now the maturity of a woman who knows her own mind, her own desires.

And where do those desires lie now?

Ten years ago she made it obvious, but now…

Hell, most women desire me—it’s par for the course. My money and power attract all sorts, even without the body I work hard to hone.

But you don’t care about other women. You only care for her.

Cared—not care. Because that would be damn stupid.

Ten years ago she was forbidden. As the sister of my best friend, as the daughter of the closest thing I had to parents—real parents.

But, let’s face it, here I am now, her family’s worst nightmare, and all that loyalty no longer applies.

Just think what you can do with that.

I look her over, slowly, purposefully, and before I can hold back it’s out. ‘It wasn’t my intention—I came here tonight to secure a deal, to offer you a very lucrative contract… But now I find myself wanting a whole lot more.’

Her eyes widen and the glass quivers beneath her chin, not quite lowering but not quite lifting either. She’s shocked and I seize the advantage.

‘What’s it been, Evangeline—seven years?’

‘Six.’

She says it so certainly it makes me wonder. Has she counted it down to the exact day, the exact moment? Because I sure as hell have, despite my intentional miscalculation. And even then it had been a brief passing—a moment at the Beaumonts’ home before Nate and I flew out on business. But it’s ingrained in my memory. The sight of her with another man—her fiancé. Happy.

‘How is Peter?’

I don’t know why I even ask it. I can see she isn’t married—her bare finger gives that away. And there’s no reason for me to think he’s still on the scene, so why I need the added reassurance is beyond me.

‘I have no idea. We broke up not long after that night.’

My question hasn’t even jarred her, and that tells me enough. She remembers the occasion.

I don’t want to feel the pleasure-filled rush that comes from this, but it’s there anyway—as is the burning need to taste those lips that keep goading me with their illicit colour, their inviting sheen.

‘And Nate?’ I manage to ask. ‘I can’t see him here.’

Her lashes flutter at my change in focus. Moving from one unsettling topic to another. But the need to talk business, to get back to safer ground, is lost on me.

‘My brother had some work to tie up in Hong Kong. He’ll be back for Christmas.’

I nod and ignore the weird ache her mention of Christmas kick-starts inside me. Christmas at the Beaumonts’ was my tradition for so long. I never dwell on how much I miss it, but in that second I feel it. The cold, dull ache of what once existed but is no more.

And Nate still has it all, whereas I—

For fuck’s sake, Lucas, get with it!

‘Good for him.’ I crush the ache, but the bitterness is there in the chill of my tone.

Her eyes narrow and I look away, forcing my shoulders to relax as I sip at my drink, wanting to quash the past just as much as I want it brought to the fore and dealt with.

But what would that accomplish? Nothing.

‘I see your parents made it.’ I gesture to where they’re standing together at the bar, their eyes drawn to us as inconspicuously as they can manage. But I know they are watching. I can feel their penetrative stare as much as I can feel the heat of her proximity.

‘They wouldn’t miss it. It’s in their interest to see me and my business do well.’

‘I understand they have a twenty-five per cent share?’

‘You’ve done your research.’

‘I always do my research.’

I trust no one. Not any more. What little trust I ever gave was destroyed by her brother five years ago.

‘I make it my business to know all there is about the companies I wish to work with and the people who run them.’

‘And what does your research tell you about me?’

‘You or your business?’

‘Both.’

If it had been any other woman I might have thought she was fishing, but looking into her eyes I see she is not. That fierceness is still there, that sense that she has proved herself over and over again, and knows I won’t have found her wanting. And it drives me to the brink.

Would that confidence extend to the bedroom too?

‘Your product has an eager market, but its patent will only protect it for so long. Time is of the essence, and you need a ready production line and a route to market that is as speedy as we can make it.’

‘We?’ Her brows rise. ‘That’s quite presumptuous of you.’

‘You know my company can give you both.’

She hums low in her throat and it resonates through me. My eyes fall to her lips, to their provocatively tight line. How I want to probe it with my tongue…make her yield…

‘And what of me, Lucas? What does your research tell you about me?’

I want to tell her that I’d value her business, but more than that, I’d value her. I want to tell her that I’d trust her. That everything I knew of her all those years ago hasn’t really changed…that all I’ve learned in the intervening years only reinforces that view. That there is nothing in her to spark my doubt.

Except my experience with her brother—an experience which has made me an outcast of her family…

You’re getting personal. This is business. You only have to trust her as far as the contract you draw up dictates.

Yet already I can feel myself wanting more. Wanting to see how far I can push the perfect, composed businesswoman before me and make her crack. Make her desire me like her eighteen-year-old self did.

If only I could go back, take what she offered so willingly instead of—

‘Are you ready, Eva? The floor awaits you.’

It’s her father. He appears by her side from out of nowhere. Fuck her red lips. If not for those I would have sensed his approach. Been ready for it. Instead I’m forced to look straight from them to him, and I can see displeasure in every hard-cut line to his face.

It’s as if he can see inside my soul to the ingrained need I have for his daughter and is telling me where to shove it.

‘Mr Beaumont.’ I say it smoothly and raise my glass, giving him the half-smile I reserve for business.

His eyes flash. I can see he wants to ignore me, and Eva positively thrums with tension as her gaze flits between us.

‘Yes, of course—thank you, Dad.’

She lifts a hand to her father’s chest, clearly telling him to stand down, and it riles my blood. I’m not a man to tell tales, and I’m not about to start now, but the truth of what happened five years ago is burning to get out.

I wash it back with champagne and turn to Eva, my hand falling to the curve of her back as I move to speak and feel the words evaporate on the heat of her skin beneath the silk.

She turns to look at me, her mouth parting in what I think is surprise—until I see the flush to her cheeks, the flare to her eyes, and I know, in that moment, that she feels it too. The desire. And if I were a betting man I’d put money on it being stronger than ever before.

‘Let’s talk later.’

I don’t wait for a response. I turn and walk away. Seeking out the shadows where I can regain my prized composure in peace.

I’m not used to losing my cool. I depend on it to face the many challenges that come my way. But something tells me that working with Evangeline would be a challenge like no other—because, regardless of my intentions when I set out tonight, I want her.

Her and her business.

Trouble is, I know which one I want more…

I watch as she takes to the podium, her entire body glinting under the fairy lights of the tree, and my body stiffens with a need so fierce I know it should have me running in the opposite direction and yet I’m rooted.

I owe the Beaumonts nothing.

But I owe her a ten-year-old debt. And suddenly I can’t wait to pay up in full.

CHAPTER TWO

I DELIVER MY speech to the room and my words flow. I’ve rehearsed them a zillion times over and could do it in my sleep. Which is a good job, considering my attention is off the product and on the dark corner of the room where I know he waits. Listening…

I can feel his intense stare, his hunger. It was there in his touch, in his eyes that burned into my back all the way to the podium, and it’s still there, fuelling my own.

The audience is enraptured. I’ve been reeling them in for the last twenty minutes. But still my mouth dries with anticipation. For him.

I pause to sip some champagne, my smile sweeping the entire audience before coming back to him. I need this to be sated. Before it consumes my every thought, drives my every action.

I raise my glass and offer a toast to the future. It’s an excuse to loosen my vocal cords further, before I leave the stage and do what’s expected of me—circulate the room.

Most people I’ve spoken to already. But now it’s about verbally agreeing to meetings and having my PA follow them up. Sealing their interest.

I know he will be on that list of interested parties. I owe it to my product.

It won’t sit well with my family, but I’ll deal with that as I do any business dealing—with professionalism. My parents can’t fault me for that, and whatever deal I sign will buy them out. It’s money back in their pocket and the business wholly my own. It’s what I’ve dreamed of for so long. And if that money comes from a deal with Lucas, so be it.

Yeah, and what about Nate?

I bury the instinctive snort. I’m sick of him getting a free ride. I love him. I do. But I’m almost certain that whatever happened five years ago had more to do with him than the tale I’ve been given: that Lucas simply ran when the going got tough, leaving Nate and my father to clean up the mess.

But what about what he did to you? What about your heart?

Now my tummy turns over. My heart has no place in this. Not any more. I will consider his business offer, but as for the unvoiced part of his proposition…

I find him in the room. He leans against a pillar, one leg crossed over the other, his body relaxed. But his eyes as they lock with mine are anything but.

I moisten my lips. For that my body is already willing—my eighteen-year-old self still craving satisfaction, longing to experience what he cruelly refused all those years ago. Only this time it’ll be on my terms. I’ll show him what he’s been missing, get this carnal need sated, and then it can all be about business.

If I choose to sign with him.

‘You were amazing, Eva.’

I drag my eyes away to smile at Clare. She’s a fabulous assistant—her excitement bubbles over as if it were my own. ‘Thank you.’

‘If anyone had the slightest doubt they’ll be utterly convinced now that they want it—even if it’s to gain a piece of you.’

I know she means it professionally, but I can’t help thinking of Lucas, and again I’m distracted, my eyes hunting him out. And then a crazy urge takes over.

‘Clare, do me a favour and hold the room for five. I just need to take care of something.’

‘Sure.’

I’m already heading for the exit, the restrooms, giving a polite ‘I’ll be back in just a moment…’ to anyone who pauses to speak to me.

I know I don’t need to beckon him, that he’ll be hot on my tail. And he is. As soon as my hand presses into the restroom door he’s at my back.

‘Escaping?’

I turn and smile up at him. ‘Wait here.’

His brow pinches together. He’s unaccustomed to being commanded—that’s obvious. But he does as he’s told and I walk through the door, scanning the stalls. They’re all empty and I don’t hang around. I pull open the door and reach for the skinny black tie that reminds me so much of the defiant teen I loved.

‘Come.’

I walk backwards and he moves with me, feeding the power swimming like liquid heat through my veins, my core.

‘What is this, Eva?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I hope it’s you calling in a ten-year debt.’

I keep moving, ignoring the brief spike of pain, of heartbreak. Knowing I’m about to replace it with something far more satisfying.

‘Do you remember that night?’

His jaw clenches, his eyes ablaze, and I know he’s reliving it.

‘Yes,’ he grinds out.

His tension is palpable and I take conceited pleasure in it.

‘I remember.’

I push open a stall door, thankful for the opulent finish, and nudge him inside. A toilet wouldn’t be my ideal place to feed this need, but it’s certainly the most convenient. And, as far as toilets go, this is designed for a certain clientele—a sleek private vanity area, with space for a woman’s multitude of possessions or her derriere, should the need arise. How very convenient.

I back him inside, blindly locking the door behind me. ‘Do you remember how you left me?’

He falters and shakes his head.

‘No?’ I raise my brow at him, my fingers toying with the slit in the silk that rides high up my thigh.

‘I do remember.’

His voice is tight. It reverberates through my spine as I circle the exposed skin and raise the slit higher. ‘What do you remember, Lucas?’

‘I remember you wore a white number that barely covered your arse.’

I can feel the effort it takes him to form the words and my confidence edges ever higher. I hook my fingers into the fabric of my dress and spread it open across my thigh, loving how his eyes track the move, his breath hitching.

‘What else?’

‘I remember how your skin felt beneath my palms…the taste of champagne on your tongue.’

He gives a small shudder and his fists flex at his sides. I know he wants to reach for me, but something is stopping him. And I’m glad. I want to be in control. The one driving this…

I lift the fabric until it exposes the lace of my nude thong and watch him swallow heavily.

‘Do you want to know what I remember, Lucas?’

His eyes lift to mine, burning deep, and I don’t wait for his answer. I focus on the sex, the need, the desire that has lived on in spite of my shattered heart.

‘I remember aching for you so badly… I remember being wet and ready for you…’

I ease my hand between my parted legs and he exhales sharply, his eyes falling away once more, his fists tight.

‘I can remember wanting to do just this…’

I slip my fingers beneath the lace. Christ, I’m so wet. My thong is damp against the backs of my fingers. He does this to me. Without a touch he has me primed and ready.

I catch my lower lip in my teeth as I pull my fingers back over my clit, pleasure ripping through me, my hips gyrating into their touch. His eyes flare and I lock onto them, getting off on his reaction as much as the skilful touch of my own fingers.

I could come like this. I know it. Come and leave. Make him suffer. But it’s not enough.

‘Come here,’ I tell him.

He doesn’t hesitate. He steps forward, his hands reaching to cup my face, but I lean away from him. I don’t want him to kiss me. Not on my lips at any rate. It’s too personal—too close to my teenage dreams.

I press my free hand to his chest and look up into his questioning gaze. ‘Make me come.’

He cocks a grin at me. ‘My pleasure.’ He lowers his hand.

‘No.’

He frowns.

‘With your mouth.’

His eyes widen. ‘You like being in charge now?’

‘Always.’

I slip my hand out of my thong and gather up the skirt of my dress. ‘On your knees.’

As he follows my instructions, surprise floods me. I didn’t expect this swift agreement. And then he’s upon me, his mouth encasing my mound through the lace, the heat of his breath making me shudder, and my knees go weak.

He probes me with his tongue, his teasing through the fabric enough to make my legs buckle completely. He palms my behind. Holding me steady.

‘Why don’t you sit?’ he murmurs against me, encouraging me to the countertop. I go willingly, my dress hitched up to my hips, and the cold surface a shock to the cheeks of my arse. I spasm and he laughs. The sound resonates over my clit.

‘Easy…’

I fork my hand over his head and draw him against me. My other hand clutches the edge of the countertop. ‘I don’t want easy.’

This time his laugh is tight, and his eyes are now black with his own need. He catches the lace of my thong in his teeth and tugs. ‘These need to go’

I am captivated by him. For all I want to be in charge, I would actually let him do anything to me in this moment. I nod my head, my hand releasing him to grip the countertop.

He takes hold of the waistband just as the sound of people approaching reaches us—the unmistakable click of stilettos, women talking. The door opens and I tense. My eyes widen on to his, but he merely smiles as he continues with his task.

A stall door opens, a tap runs. The women are still talking, but I’m not listening. I’m focused entirely on not giving us away, my knuckles white with the effort of holding everything in as well as keeping my perch upon the vanity.

He shimmies down my thong, the thin cord stinging against my skin as he pulls it from underneath me. He brings it to my calves but doesn’t take it off. Instead he bends forward and lifts my ankles, ducking to position himself between my legs. The sharp points of my heels dig into his tailored jacket and for a split second I worry about damaging it—but then his eyes lock with mine and my brain empties.

I am spread open and bare before his hungry gaze. Outside our stall the women talk and talk, but all I care about is him and the crazy tumultuous heat swirling through my limbs.

His eyes lower as his fingers part me and I whimper. It’s a small choked sound that I cannot help and the women pause in their chatter. I have no idea if we’re discovered, but in that moment all I want is his mouth on me, drinking up the need I feel slipping from me.

Yes, Lucas, now, I beg silently.

And slowly he leans in.

His breath reaches me first, warm and teasing, and then the probe of his tongue. Its very tip flicks against my clit. I buck wildly, the whimper becoming a strangled squeal, and he breaks away, his eyes flashing in warning.

I bite into my lip so hard I fear I may draw blood. But the women continue with their chatter, and whether they’ve heard or not I don’t care.

He leans back in and this time I’m ready for it, my body set rigid as I anticipate the spasm, the pleasure, the—

Oh, my fucking God.

She ripples beneath me, her muscles straining to keep still, and I can’t help the smile that lifts my lips. How I’ve wanted this. Dreamt of it, even. Working her is a pleasure like none other.

Working her? My body mocks me. I am drowning in her. Her taste, her essence, her every reaction. She’s working me. And I don’t care.

I surround her perfect pussy, my nose nudging, my tongue dipping into the place I so want to plunge, and my cock swells harder, thicker, in the confines of my trousers.

She pants above me, her hands clawing at the counter. Everything about her urges me for more, to go faster, but I’m in my element…exploring, tasting, probing.

She shivers as I run my tongue over her clit, her breath a hiss between her teeth. I repeat the move, slow and hard at first, lapping at her. Jesus, I could stay like this for as long as she would let me. And then she writhes and I sense her climax building. I change my tempo, make quick flicks of my tongue in tune with her movements, then faster as she tenses.

I can’t wait to tip her over and start anew. To feel her lose it and then go again and again.

I break away just enough to watch as I slip two fingers inside her, plunging deep and bringing them out wet and slick. She is so ready, so hot and needy, all for me.

I hear her pant my name. The sound mingles with the noise of my fingers inside her and with the muttering taking place outside the cubicle door and my smile grows. I want her to scream my name. I want her to forget her place, the perfect persona that she presents to the world, and break…for me.

I grow hungry…two fingers become three…and then her frenzied hands freeze, her knuckles flashing white at the counter-edge. I look up into her face, feasting on the desperate heat of her gaze, the fierce pinch of her teeth as she draws back her lower lip. I drop to her clit, sucking over her hard, and she cries out. The room stills but I don’t stop. I can’t stop. Not until she shatters under my hand, my mouth…

‘Lucas… Lucas…’

I keep going, and then her thighs close around my head and her entire body convulses with wave after wave. She’s coming hard and my body is at bursting point, living it with her. For a split second I worry I might lose it too—and then a cough breaks the air from the other side of the door. A prim, what-do-you-think-you’re-doing? type of cough.

I look up at her, my grin as reckless as I feel, but something in her eyes holds me still, robbing me of breath. It’s not their satiated blaze. There’s something almost vulnerable—something that takes me back ten years.

And then she blinks. It’s gone. Did I imagine it?

She releases the counter to comb her fingers through my hair. Her touch is like fire upon my skin and I shoot the thought down.

The heels outside retreat, the restroom door opens and shuts. We’re alone, and I’m not wasting the opportunity. I throw my focus back to her, leaning into her warmth, her wetness, and I drink her down, cleaning up every last drop.

She quivers around me, gives a small whimper. ‘I’m…sensitive.’

I know she means in her body, the orgasm having left her raw, but I think of that look. I need to replace it with the wild heat of seconds before, so I soften my touch upon her, I tease… I can feel her shifting away from me, as if the moment is over, but I’m not ready. I’ve not had my fill.

‘We should be…getting back…before we’re missed.’

Her words are hitched and I know I’m getting to her. Her hand in my hair has turned rough, and her body trembles with resurging tension.

‘I can’t…not again…not so soon.’

Wanna bet?

I hold her apart, my mouth and my tongue unrelenting. My body pleads for release. I know I should stand, take her now. But I can’t. I am lost to her pleasure.

‘Oh, God, Lucas!’

This time she cries it so loud the sound echoes through the empty room—hell, it probably reaches the outer corridor too. This is madness. But I’m all for it.

She grips me against her with both hands now, her hold fierce as her legs spread wide over the marble top. She’s clinging to me as if her life depends on it, but I’m not going anywhere. I catch each wave of her orgasm with my mouth. It’s perfect, heavenly, and as I get to my feet my cock spasms painfully.

Now.

I look down into her sparkling gaze. Her smile is soft, warm.

‘I didn’t think—’ She breaks off, her cheeks flushing deeper, her lashes lowering.

Her sudden embarrassment makes me ache—and not with need, but with something I don’t want to acknowledge. I use my hands to stroke her inner thighs gently, holding her open to me. I don’t know why I’m waiting. I should bury myself in her and be done with it. With this.

‘It’s a well-known fact that women can enjoy multiples.’

‘In general—just not me.’

So I’m the first. That feeling swells inside me and I drop my head. I need to kiss her. To taste those cherry-red lips. But she turns her head away. It’s a rejection. A shot of ice water in my face.

‘No kissing.’

‘Fuck me, Evangeline, what we’ve just shared goes a whole load further than kissing.’

Her thighs tense beneath my fingers and her palms drop to my chest. ‘I must get back.’

She has to be kidding.

Her hands forcing me away tell me otherwise.

I’m lost for words.

Carefully she closes her legs and slips from the countertop, bending to retrieve her thong from the floor. I get there first. Scoop it up into my hand. Our gazes lock in silent challenge. Hell, if she’s leaving me like this I’m taking something. Even if it’s to reassure me that I didn’t dream it.

She wets her lips, their glossy redness killing me. ‘Fine—keep them.’

She smooths down her dress as she rises. I follow suit but make no attempt to leave. There’s something about her I just can’t shake. Call it too many years of absence, a need to make up for lost time, an opportunity to take what I’ve always wanted at last.

I have a ridiculous urge to say something—but what?

She reaches for the door latch and my hand covers hers on instinct. There are voices approaching once more and her eyes flicker in their general direction, away from me. I want so much to read her thoughts.

‘You need to go, Lucas.’

Her voice is cold. Unsettling. And then she looks at me and I can’t work out whether it’s with hatred or sadness, or both. But it’s enough for my hand to fall back to my side.

She pulls open the door, forcing me to move out of the way. It doesn’t matter what her eyes tell me now. She wanted me—and that doesn’t just die out on a simple tongue-fuck or two.

She turns to me, her hand hot against my chest as she backs me out of the cubicle.

‘This isn’t over,’ I say.

But she smiles—it’s soulless—and her hand shifts from me to curl around the edge of the cubicle door.

‘Yes, it is… Now we’re even.’

I register her meaning, shaking my head. Like hell we are…

‘We’re not even.’ My grin is one of sheer arrogance. ‘Not by a long shot.’

Her brow lifts into an elegant arch—I can’t tell if it’s in disbelief or challenge—and she closes the door in my face, the lock twisting into place.

It’s a first for me. I should feel humiliated, cheapened—used, even. But I’m feeling none of those things.

Fire burns in my veins—fire for the chase, the thrill of the conquest. She will be mine. My groin pulses and I adjust myself, lifting my hand to sweep it over my face as determination settles in.

When I’m buried deep inside her—then we’ll be even.

I turn and head for the door. I should clean up, but the lingering taste of her keeps me hungry. If I get my way, I’ll have what I crave before the night is out.

And I always get my way.

CHAPTER THREE

I FEEL LIKE JELLY. It’s the only way to describe how my insides tremble and my legs are weak.

Two orgasms.

Two.

I would have been content with one.

Whatever. You want more already—more a thousand times over.

And even then I know I’d still be wanting.

Because it could never just be about sex with him.

He’s dangerous. To my senses, my sanity—and, if I really dwell on it, my heart. All over again.

I was foolish to even go there.

I circle the room, talking with prospective partners, my business persona enough to hide my distraction.

Him.

I feel his presence with every word I say, every breath I take, every clip of my heel against the gleaming floor as I walk. I can feel his eyes following me and I purposefully evade him. My schedule for the next two weeks is filling up and I know he’ll be wanting his share. Perhaps that’s why I leave him until last. Because I’m goading him. Not because I still want him.

He’s at the bar now. I know it without looking. I’ve been aware of his movements ever since he appeared.

‘Your feet aren’t going to touch the ground over the next fortnight,’ Clare tells me as she scans her tablet. ‘And we still have those few that weren’t able to make it tonight…’

He’s moving. I can feel it.

Don’t turn.

‘I can offer them Friday,’ she says, ‘or later the following week. Of course, we still need to schedule in Waring Holdings, but if—’

‘Good to see I’m on the radar.’

Shit. He’s right behind me already.

I don’t want him to know how I feel, and I don’t want Clare to read it. So I school my expression, turning to face him with a polite smile that I hope masks a multitude of sins. I took what I wanted earlier to get him out of my system. I need him to see that. To hell with what my body is still saying.

‘Of course you are, Lucas.’ I gesture to Clare. ‘My PA will arrange a convenient time for us to meet the week after next.’ I add the timing for my own benefit, I need those days to get myself straightened out. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me…?’

I move to leave but he steps in front of me, his frown so genuine I’m momentarily struck still.

‘Does your PA deal with your after-hours schedule too?’

Now it’s my turn to frown. He’s not ready to let me go. That much is obvious. ‘Can you excuse us a second, Clare?’

‘Sure.’ She doesn’t even quirk a brow at his remark, such is her professionalism, and I’m grateful for it.

I watch her walk away and purse my lips as I turn back to him. Refusing to acknowledge the excited tremble that runs up my spine as his eyes sparkle at me, glinting in the fairy lights adorning the tree beside us.

‘Do you mind keeping this professional?’

If I expect my cold demeanour to rub off on him, it doesn’t. He actually looks as if he’s about to laugh.

‘I was merely suggesting you might be hungry.’

His eyes trace a slow path to my belly and back up, teasing me through the silk.

‘The hors d’oeuvres were delightful, but hardly enough to keep one going all night.’

I swallow. It’s the way he draws out the words all night…the sequence of carnal images it paints…

‘So, are you free for a late dinner? The place is emptying out.’ His hand, still holding a glass, sweeps the room, but his eyes are all for me. ‘For old times’ sake, Evangeline. We’ve so much to catch up on.’

There’s my name again. There’s that same excited shudder. My brain is screaming at me to turn him down, to keep this all about business from here on in. It’s wrong on so many levels—not least of all my family’s. I want to be stronger. I want to be able to stamp this out and move on.

‘Slow to work out that you’re not wanted here, Waring?’

Shit. Dad.

I’d been so focused on Lucas I hadn’t sensed my parents’ approach. Now they’re both standing directly beside me and I can feel the war building. This can’t be happening. Not tonight of all nights. My night.

Fuck that.

A pulse moves in Lucas’s jaw. He’s mad. Really mad.

‘I don’t believe anyone has said that.’ He raises his drink to his lips, the movement casual, but I can feel the barely restrained anger thrumming off his rigid stance.

My mother touches a hand to my father’s arm. ‘Now, David—’

‘I am,’ my father says, talking over her. ‘And she will—won’t you, Eva?’

He’s looking at me. They both are. And I see red. This is what I’ve been fighting to escape—my family’s control, interference, whatever you want to call it. For all that they love me, I’m tired of being under their thumb, dancing to their tune. And this is my product, my life. I’ve earned the right to say who I get involved with.

The way my brain phrases that last bit—involved with—isn’t lost on me, but I push past it and look to my father.

‘Waring Holdings is a good fit for the business.’

My father’s colour deepens, his eyes widening as my mother’s hand tightens upon his arm. But anger has given me the strength I need. Not just to deal with Dad, but with Lucas too.

‘They will be on my list for consideration.’

I feel Lucas’s chest puff and my eyes snap to his.

‘Please ensure that Clare has your details before you leave, so that we can arrange a mutually agreeable time to meet.’

My words leave no room for misunderstanding but rather than looking rebuked, he appears amused. The spark in his eye an open challenge. ‘Of course.’

‘Now, shall we go?’ I say to my parents. ‘We don’t want to leave François waiting.’

My mother looks warily between us all. ‘I thought you…?’

She’s right. I told them before the night began that I wouldn’t be joining them for dinner at their favourite French restaurant afterwards. I had some grand plan of a fancy takeaway, a hot bath and more champagne. Wallowing in my triumph, so to speak, and soaking away the stress of the last few months—years, even.

Now I know that a bath would only encourage debauched fantasies of what I might be doing with Lucas…

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I say over the heat that starts to swirl, and I face him off. ‘Thank you for coming, Lucas.’

His lip twitches and I read the double meaning in his eyes. Christ. I almost expect him to say, Not me, but you did…twice.

My cheeks flame as his eyes dance. ‘I look forward to our next meeting.’

Look forward to it? I’ll be on heat for it—and at my wits’ end if I don’t get this under control.

Still, I have at least a week—maybe more.

Plenty of time.

It’s late when the door to Je l’adore opens and she emerges, her parents in tow.

I don’t know why I’m here. Or rather I know why, but I don’t approve of my actions.

Seems seeing her again has broken something in me. Something I kept locked away when I had a friendship to protect, a surrogate family to honour. Without it, I can’t shake free.

I want to blame it on unsated desire. Sex. Simple as.

I tell myself that if I have her, then I can move on. It’s an ability that’s served me well in the past. I don’t form attachments. Not any more.

I look at her now from my vantage point in the back of my limo across the street. She’s laughing, her arms around her mother as they bid each other goodnight. There is so much love between them and my gut lurches at the sight of it. There’d been a time when I’d been part of that. Had loved and been loved, or so I’d thought.

Then she turns to her father and that lurch turns into a twist. I don’t want to care any more. It’s old ground. But I owe part of myself to that man, my only real father figure. He shaped me, and my success is in some way because of him.

Love, respect, anger—they all collide. I flex my fists, breathing through it. I always knew tonight would be hard, but there’s so much I didn’t bank on.

And right up there is this rush of feeling for her. An emotion I thought well and truly dead.

Seems she is my weakness after all.

She pecks her father on his cheek and I can almost sense his need to say something. I know him, and I know he’s not going to let this go, but whatever he says she shakes her head at it and gestures for them to get in their waiting car.

I know she has an exclusive apartment around the corner—one of many homes owned by her family—and I’m banking on her heading back there tonight.

Just as I’m banking on getting what I came for…

I’m wired by the time I say goodbye to Mum and Dad. I could blame it on the amazing party—the culmination of my hard work. But it’s not. It runs a whole lot deeper.

Loving Lucas had been as natural as breathing in my teens. And just as impossible to prevent. He’d always been a part of our lives, his mother constantly using mine as a sitter so she could go on date after date, never finding anyone permanent.

I don’t know whether she was picky or desperate, but it had made me mad. Mad at how she could neglect Lucas, not care about him. The day he got his exam results I remember her delivering a swift ‘well done, honey’ before planting a kiss on his forehead and leaving for the night. There was no celebration—no nothing.

It had been my parents who had cheered him on, congratulating him, spoiling both him and Nate because they’d done well.

We’d even taken him away with us on family holidays. It had been inevitable, really.

He’d been gorgeous, athletic and toned, intelligent, a rebel, but never taking it too far—not like Nate, who never knew when to quit. It was always Lucas reining him in, looking out for him.

He’d looked out for me too, and my heart had revelled in it. Loving the way he didn’t disregard my opinion, unlike Dad and Nate, who saw me as just a girl. Lucas made me feel special.

But when his mother had died suddenly things changed. We truly became his family, gave him a home, and as much as Nate was his best friend, and my father a man he respected and could call on for advice, my mother the one to feed, water and look after him, I was Lucas’s ear. It was my turn to be there for him.

I was the one he talked to about how he felt, about his grief which was tainted with guilt at not having been the closest of sons to his mother. But his remorse only succeeded in making me more angry, more protective, as I tried to tell him it wasn’t his fault. She should’ve been a better mother. She should’ve been there for him more.

Like I had been.

Until my eighteenth birthday, that is. Until I pushed him too far.

I was naïve to think he would consider me worth the risk. Naïve to think he could have loved me enough.

I take a shaky breath and duck my head against the bitter cold wind. I know better now. I won’t go there again.

I teeter down the pavement towards home and I shiver. The champagne topped up with wine had been doing a fine job of warding off the chill until now.

How could things have gone so wrong five years ago?

Ten years ago I messed up and he broke my heart.

But five years ago, he and Nate and their business… I just don’t get it.

My parents loved Lucas—Nate loved him. I can’t believe he just bailed on the company, as my father and Nate claim. They hate him for it, but the Lucas I know—I knew—wouldn’t do that. And the anger, the resentment—it’s there on both sides.

If we’re to work together I need to get the full story. I need to know I can trust him. Which means I need Lucas to tell me his side of it. And that means dragging up the past.

I wanted to press Dad at dinner, to be honest and tell him that I suspect Nate of playing a greater role in what went down five years ago. But I didn’t. Instead, Lucas just became the elephant in the room.

A rather sexy, irresistible, fuck-me-now elephant.

I remember how he looked on his knees, his head buried between my legs, and the chill evaporates with a lick of heat. I wonder whether his trunk would be just as impressive as the oversized animal’s…

A surprised laugh erupts over my crazed thoughts.

‘You know, talking to oneself is the first sign of madness.’

Lucas. Oh, God.

I misstep and quickly correct it. Straightening my spine I turn to face him, praying that the low light hides the excitement rising beneath my shock. ‘Technically, I was laughing, and that is a sign of good character…not that you’d know much about that.’

His brow lifts over eyes that flicker and I wonder if my words sting. Guilt fires inside me—it’s a low blow—but I bury it.

‘What are you doing here, Lucas?’

‘I would have thought that was obvious.’

I take a shaky breath and remind myself of the trillion reasons why this needs to stop. ‘I thought I made it clear earlier that we’re even.’

He steps towards me and heat flares with his proximity. My lungs drag in air that is tainted with his cologne.

‘And I told you,’ he murmurs, ‘we’re not…not even close.’

I hear the desire ring in his voice, feel it echo in my blood, and I force myself to turn away, to walk. ‘It’s close enough, Lucas.’

‘That’s not what your eyes were telling me earlier, Evangeline.’

He follows close behind me and I ignore the shiver of delight, wrapping my arms around my middle, hugging my faux fur coat tight.

I can’t tell him that I’m scared of falling for him again. But I can tell him that my family hating him makes this a very bad idea.

But part of me suspects he is doing this because of my family and their vendetta.

I know my product is good enough to warrant his attention, but this—this has nothing to do with my product and everything to do with me.

‘Are you denying that you want me?’

I can hear the disbelief in his voice and it annoys me. Like my father—like my brother, even—he assumes he knows what I want. Is he going to start dictating what’s best for me too?

‘No, I think you know that well enough,’ I admit. There’s no point in lying about the obvious. ‘You knew it ten years ago and you know it all over again now. But here’s the thing, Lucas…’

I turn to face him. My apartment is a building away now. Sanctuary is close. I just need to hold it together a few more moments.

‘I’m not the kid I was then. I won’t jeopardise my work for some…’ I struggle for the right phrase and settle for the easiest, most innocent. ‘Some silly distraction.’

His laugh is low, seductive, and he takes advantage of my stationary state to close the distance between us, reaching out his hand to cup my jaw. I want to move away, to stop the frisson at his touch, but I can’t make my body obey.

His thumb is soft, warm as he brushes it over my cheekbone, and my eyes are lost in the darkness of his, so close I can just make out the rim of brown, the flecks of gold that dance in the snow-white lights adorning the trees that line the street.

‘There’s nothing silly about the way I feel right now.’

Dammit, does he have to look so sincere?

A group of revellers round the corner and start moving down the street, their voices deep and loud as they roll out a rendition of ‘Good King Wenceslas’.

‘Seems we’re destined to have spectators,’ he says.

And as my lips part on no words I’m swamped by the memory of our previous encounter and the fear that I want him to kiss me. So much it hurts. But it’ll be my undoing. A ten-year-old memory stoked, refreshed, and my feelings with it.

And a hope for something that just isn’t possible.

My tongue sweeps across my lower lip.

It’s nerves. I’m just nervous.

My clit pangs painfully, mocking me.

‘Please, Lucas, this has to stop.’

I think of his mouth, his tongue, the dizzying pressure he administered so expertly over me. Stop. Don’t stop. My thoughts are as chaotic as the blood racing through my veins.

‘Tell me to leave…’

He steps forward, close enough to stop the chill wind breaching the gap between us, and now I’m just hot. Hot and confused.

‘…and I will.’

‘I… I…’

‘Tell me.’

‘Please…’ I try again and fail. I don’t want to breathe—don’t want to inhale his scent, his warmth, his appeal. All my barriers are collapsing.

‘Evangeline…’

My name rolls over his tongue and his head dips. The air sits in my lungs as I neither rebuke him nor pull him in. And then he sweeps past my mouth, along my cheek to my ear, his lips gently brushing over my skin with his words.

‘I want you.’

A strange whimper sounds, and as he lifts his head, his lips curving, I know it’s come from me. I see the triumph in his gaze as he moves for my mouth and a slice of sanity erupts.

‘Don’t kiss me.’

I palm his chest and he frowns.

‘Don’t make this about more than sex.’

His head tilts to one side as he studies me, the meaning of my words sinking in. ‘Last time I checked, kissing was quite an essential element—quite an irresistible element.’

He looks to my mouth, eyes hungry, and as though emphasising his point he runs his teeth over his lower lip. God, yes. My tummy contracts on a rush.

‘Oi-oi! Get yourself a room!’ one of the passing revellers declares, and there’s a string of cheers and laughter from his crew.

Lucas doesn’t flinch—doesn’t even back away. ‘A room sounds like a good idea to me.’

He reaches around me with his other hand and brings me closer. Close enough to feel his hardness pressing between us. Damn suits and their forgiving cloth. I didn’t need any confirmation of his impressive trunk. Not when I’m hanging by a thread.

My hands soften against him. ‘This isn’t a good idea.’

‘Au contraire. I see it as the only way to get our business off on the right foot.’

He leans back in, his mouth hovering by my ear once more.

‘I need to know how it feels to be inside you…to cease the raging fantasy and know the real thing. I need to know so I don’t spend every meeting thinking about what it would be like to bend you over and fuck you hard.’

Air flutters past my lips. I could come just listening to his dirty talk. No one has ever spoken to me like this. No one.

‘Lucas…’

It’s not his name that betrays my every want. It’s the husky intonation, the plea-like quality of my voice. I don’t care that the revellers are now wolf-whistling and cheering, entertained by our display.

My body surrenders and my lashes close… ‘Your room or mine?’

CHAPTER FOUR

SHE OPENS HER eyes and for a second, I wonder if she will still refuse me.

Something vulnerable, something edgy persists in her gaze, but then she turns and walks away.

No refusal, then…

I follow.

She hasn’t told me to go. She hasn’t told me to stay.

But one thing I’m sure of, Evangeline does what she wants and I’ll go along with it until she tells me otherwise.

Hell, I don’t want this to be about more than sex either. It will only muddy the waters, exposing us both to a future headache neither of us needs.

But not kissing her?

That’s like being gifted a three-course dinner without the main course.

And those lips…

She turns to look at me now as she pushes the door open and holds it for me. They curve a little and her lashes lower as I step forward. I want to taste them…to feel them part beneath my pressure…to swallow her moan with the one I know I’d give.

Because I’ve only tasted them once, and the memory is burned into my soul.

She says nothing as we cross the harsh white vestibule. It’s all glass, high ceilings and bright lights, but she lifts its starkness just by being there and I can’t look away.

A warning sparks in my gut—a warning I want to ignore.

So much time has passed since I loved her. The sweet, feisty, fun-loving girl that she was. So many women have come and gone since, none of whom have inspired a need for more or warranted a trust I feel incapable of giving. I date. I have fun. I move on. They’re not relationships as such. Merely acquaintances who satisfy the basic urge for companionship, sex.

I want it to be the same with her. Safe.

But it’s not.

I had so much to lose back then and it served me well, kept me protected.

But now there are no barriers against what’s burning between us, and I should be running the other way.

But I’m not.

We reach the lift and she presses the button to call it. I half expect her to turn, tell me she’s changed her mind, but she doesn’t and the warning starts to trickle through my spine: Are you sure you can keep a lid on this?

She sneaks a look at me from beneath her lashes, her thoughts hidden as she nibbles over her lip—that deliciously full lip that I want to trace with my tongue—and a tide of longing drowns out the panic.

The lift opens and we walk in. It’s vacant and small. I expected it to be vast, to give me room to stave off the heat her nearness is driving. I’ve wanted her for so long. Fantasised about it even when I knew I shouldn’t. And now I’m going to have her I want it to last—not to erupt like my teenage self would have done.

But it’s impossible to put down the semi-permanent erection I’ve been sporting since sitting between her legs. Hell, even before then. From the moment she gave me that look across the room, daring me to follow her. It was there with her intent, her desire.

I fist my hands inside my pockets, fix my gaze to the lift doors and count to ten…twenty… The ground shifts to a gentle stop. The top floor. The penthouse. Only the best for the Beaumonts.

As the doors slide open there’s more white, more glass, more coldness. It’s similar to my place, further into the city, but it reeks of her family—not her. Not the girl I knew. But as for the woman… What do I truly know?

We should have gone to mine.

‘You don’t like it?’

I realise she’s caught me frowning, my hands still deep in my pockets and my shoulders tense. I force myself to relax and give her a smile. ‘It’s not what I expected.’

She shrugs off her coat and opens a concealed closet, hanging it up. ‘It’s my parents’ place, and it’s exactly how they like it.’

‘Not you.’

It’s a simple statement, and I guess I could be wrong but I want to know I’m right. I see a flash of colour run along her cheekbones, her lips twitching.

Not only am I right, I’ve pleased her—and, Christ, does it feel good.

‘No, not really.’ She closes the closet and starts to head off towards an open living space. ‘I have a place I’m renovating in Notting Hill. This is a stopgap.’

My smile grows with my confidence as I follow her. I still know her. ‘What colour?’

She eyes me over her shoulder as she enters the kitchen and reaches for a glass. ‘Colour?’

‘The house…’

She gives a soft laugh. ‘What makes you think I’ve gone for a colour?’ she asks, dispensing water from the sleek black fridge door. ‘I could have gone for au naturel stone.’

She leans back against the countertop and takes a sip from the glass, her eyes holding mine.

‘Again…not you.’

She smiles approvingly. ‘Pink.’

‘Pink?’

My brow rises—she has to be teasing. I search her gaze and it dances with humour. I would have had her saying blue—yellow, even—but pink…

‘Now you look like my mother when I told her the same.’

I laugh as I imagine the scene and see humour reflected in her gaze. She looks beautiful, amused, so at ease suddenly, and it warms me through. It feels like old times. When the banter was so quick to spark between us.

I smile. ‘I bet she was all for yellow—am I right?’

‘Yellow, or even blue, anything but pink.’

She shakes her head softly and there’s a silent exchange, an acceptance that we still work.

I can feel it.

And then it’s gone.

She stiffens as the mood shifts and I grapple to get it back. ‘Whatever floats your boat, I say.’

She takes a breath, visibly composing herself as she turns away to place her glass on the side.

‘You do,’ she says, her eyes coming back to me, her voice low, her eyes intent. ‘Right now.’

The swift change from light-hearted to sexual unsettles me. My eyes narrow. Is she forcing us back to sex? Taking away our connection? The personal talk?

You should be happy.

She gives her head a small flick as her eyes stare into mine. ‘Or have you changed your mind?’

Fuck that.

I’m moving before I know it.

Fuck personal. Fuck talk.

She’s in my arms, her hands beneath my jacket shoving it down my shoulders. I throw it to one side, pulling her back against me and seeking out her mouth, instinct driving me, making me forget not to kiss her. She turns away, arching her neck and offering up the creamy expanse of skin instead.

The gesture cuts deep and I scrape my teeth against her—a nip of punishment and acceptance in one—and the whimper it draws triggers a groan of my own. Christ. The series of things I want to do to her, with her, is rampaging through my brain, and my arousal strains painfully between us.

I run my hands over her dress, seeking out the fastening—a zipper, buttons, anything. It’s frustrating as hell. ‘If you don’t get this off, I swear I’m going to rip it.’

She laughs at me. The husky lilt driving me crazy.

‘So impatient…’

‘I’ve had ten years to wait for this. I call that patience enough.’

Her eyes widen as she stares up at me and she’s momentarily still.

Shit. Too much.

‘Off,’ I command, wanting her back in the moment, to forget what I said.

And she turns away to pull the escaped curls over her shoulder. ‘The zipper is concealed in the back.’

I find the fastening and slowly—too slowly for my tortured cock, but too quickly for my struggling control—I lower it, exposing her exquisite skin, her spine that I want to trace with my fingers, my lips, my tongue. Goosebumps prickle where the fabric parts, calling to me, and I press a kiss to the nape of her neck, breathing her in.

‘You are beautiful, Evangeline.’

She shudders on a breath, turning her head so that I’m on the periphery of her vision, her lashes low, her forbidden lips parted. The zipper stops over the curve of her bare arse and I remember her thong sitting pretty in my pocket. I smile. She went to dinner like this, bare and exposed, thanks to me.

And then all sane thought leaves me as she slips the dress from her shoulders and it pools at her feet. Her perfectly round cheeks are exposed to my hungry gaze and I can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t believe.

Her eyes lift to mine above her shoulder. ‘Are you just going to stare?’

‘I’m savouring.’

Engraving this moment in my memory, worshipping it—you, Evangeline.

I reach out to smooth each mound and she curves into my touch, her teeth biting into her lip.

‘Please, Lucas, I want you now. You can savour later.’

Later? How much later? In an hour? Two? A day? A week?

I don’t pose the question; the answer is too depressing.

And if I only get to be inside her once, I’m going to make it the best she’s ever known.

I bow my head into the curve of her neck, my lips gently brushing her skin as I say, ‘Now who’s impatient, hmm…?’

I grasp her hips and pull her back against my clothed erection, relishing the moan she gives in return, the feel of her cheeks cradling my arousal. And when I release her to trail my fingers up her sides she doesn’t move away. She stays curved against me, her palms planted on the cold white countertop as she pushes into me.

I lift my lips to the edge of her ear. ‘What would your parents say to you fucking in their kitchen?’

She whimpers—she likes my dirty talk. I know it and I love her for it.

Enough with the love!

I focus on my hands. I want to touch her everywhere, claim her everywhere, coax out every sound of ecstasy she’s capable of making. I stroke along her back and unclasp her bra. The nude lace obediently falls open, the straps landing loose down her arms before I encourage them off. Her breasts fall free. I can’t see them, but knowing they are there, waiting, has me aching, painful, desperate.

I trace the curve of her waist around to her belly, higher… I stroke beneath the curve of her breasts, feel their weight shift as she writhes.

‘God, Lucas, please.’

I grit my teeth against her heated plea, feel my control fraying as I rotate my palms and surround each breast. I shudder on my own breath even as I feel her do the same, feel her hardened beads pressing into my palms. I roll her nipples between my thumbs and forefingers, making them harder, prouder, feeling the tautness in the ripples that surround them.

Just perfect.

Perfect and mine.

For now.

I pinch them tighter and she inhales sharply between her teeth.

‘God, yes.’

‘You like that?’

My voice is strained, my balls heavy. I’m so close, and I know she is too.

‘Yes…’

It’s practically a hiss as she leans back, her body arched. Her bra hits the floor as she flicks it away so she can raise her hands to my neck, and I do it again and again, making her writhe. Her naked body against my clothed one. It’s one hell of a contrast and it’s pushing me over.

I’m tempted to make her come like this. It’s clear she would. But I need to feel her—feel her wetness, the evidence of her need.

I trail one hand down her belly and she sucks her tummy in.

‘I can’t get your pussy out of my head,’ I tell her, kissing her shoulder. ‘The way you taste…’ I nip her skin. ‘The way you move…’ She claws my neck as I cup her and her legs shift apart, granting me all the access I need. ‘The way you’re wet just for me…’

I move, sliding my middle finger in deep, and pull back until her clit is beneath my fingertip. Slowly I rotate it over her and she whimpers, the noise sending my balls heavenward. The smooth undulation of her hips is pushing my release and I grit my teeth.

Not yet.

I’m losing it.

It’s the only way to explain how we’ve got to this point. In my parents’ perfect, clinical abode. All orderly and cold. Me naked. Him clothed. Me on the brink. Him…

Oh, yes…

I can feel he’s close. Every taut muscle is pressing into my back, and his stance as he rocks with rigid precision against me is so fucking hot. I ride my arse against him, staving off my own release.

I want him to come. I want him to come inside his clothing. I want to feel that power—to know that a man like Lucas Waring can lose it, still caged inside his underwear, over me. It’s that which keeps me just this side of sane.

I drop one hand to move it with his and feel his body jerk.

‘Christ, Evangeline.’ His breath rasps. ‘What are you doing to me?’

I smile through the salacious heat whipping around us, pushing his fingers lower, encouraging him to sink inside me as I move with him.

He breathes into my neck, his stubble grazing my skin as he buries his face there. His other hand drops to my thigh and grabs it, lifting it, granting himself greater access, greater friction over my clit as his wrist rubs against me and his cock presses harder, more urgently.

‘Yes, Lucas, yes…’ I pant, and my control is slipping.

But his is too. He’s trembling against me, his body ever more tense, and then I am gone. Wave after wave crashes over me, and my head is swimming with ecstasy. And then I feel him, hear his growl into my shoulder, feel his teeth biting as he bucks and shudders, his own release wild and sudden.

I hang off his neck, holding him to me, keeping us locked together, and my lips stretch in a triumphant smile. I look to the pristine white ceiling, catch our reflection in the rim of a chrome spotlight, and it’s a reminder that this is real. So very real and so electrifying.

I should be scared—scared of what it means for the future, scared about whether I can give this up. Instead I’m content in his arms, naked and at home.

‘Fuck, I haven’t… I shouldn’t have…’

He shakes his head and his disbelief, his sudden vulnerability, resonates through me. I turn and hook my hands behind his neck, eager to see off any hint of real emotion—because that I can’t deal with.

‘Oh, yes, you should…because that was erotic as fuck.’

He lifts his lashes; his eyes meet mine and I am winded. They are almost shy as they search, seeking out a lie that doesn’t exist. It was fucking hot. It was everything I wanted.

‘You have to be kidding me…?’ His hands drop to my behind, soft, yielding.

He doesn’t believe me.

‘No.’

I almost kiss him—can feel the urge burning through my veins. But where would that leave us?

And then his crazy statement replays in my mind: ‘I’ve had ten years to wait for this.’

Shit.

I push it away. I can’t think about what that means. It’s too hopeful. And I learned my lesson once. I won’t go there again. Focus on the sex. It’s tangible. It’s what he came for and it’s the one thing I agreed to and can give. For tonight.

‘Just thinking about it turns me on all over again,’ I say.

As if on cue my nipples prickle into his shirt and I run my teeth over my lower lip. I’m not kidding. Three orgasms and still I want more. I know it’s a bad sign, but as I curve into him, breathing him in, I couldn’t care less.

Slowly his smile lifts, his eyes with it, and he presses his forehead to mine. ‘Keep talking like that and I’ll be taking you to bed next.’

‘I like the sound of that…’ I smile, all sultry. ‘But how about a shower first?’

I take his hand and before I can question my senses I head to the bathroom, loving how he comes with me. No question. No hesitation. This feels like a dream.

One that I don’t want to wake up from.

Again, it’s a warning. Again, I ignore it, pushing open the bedroom door and heading straight for the en suite bathroom.

Lucas releases my hand and I look at him over my shoulder.

‘I’m stripping for this,’ he says.

Then it hits me—we’ve done so much but I’ve not seen him naked. Not yet.

I reach into the bathroom to set the shower going before sauntering towards him. He’s placing his cufflinks on the dressing table that blends into the shelving system that runs along one wall. His dark, erotic presence is at total odds with the crisp white room. He doesn’t belong here. Hell, neither do I. But it only makes my blood rush faster, my ache build.

He’s tugging his tie undone when I reach him, and I go to work on his shirt, pulling it out of his trousers and moving on to the buttons. My eyes follow my progress, and my mouth dries further the more skin I unveil, the more muscle, the more toned ripples that are triggered with each scrape of my fingers.

I’ve seen him shirtless before. He only ever slept in lounge pants when he stayed with us. And he was captivating then—in a boyish, trim way. But now he’s all hard, lean muscle and I can’t believe I’m getting to strip him.

‘I’ve waited ten years for this…’

His voice reverberates through my mind. Ten years ago he refused me, and didn’t give me a backward glance. Or so I thought. Now he’s hinting at something else…something more.

My insides twist. My heart aches. I want this to be about sex. I don’t want to feel anything else—not on that level.

‘Hey, are you okay?’

I realise I’ve stilled, my eyes unseeing on his chest, my fingers frozen.

You fool.

‘Of course,’ I say softly, pressing a kiss to his chest and breathing in the thought-obliterating scent of him as I tell my brain to shut down. To go with the flow.

I release the last button and smooth my hands over his shoulders, coaxing off his shirt, exposing the beauty of him to my appreciative gaze. He really is exquisite. I’ve had men—of course I have. I almost married one in trying to forget Lucas.

That foolish move seems ever more idiotic as I drown in a sea of sensation over the man before me now.

I could never forget Lucas. Never carve him out of me.

I trace his pecs, watch them flicker, then I lick my lips as I trail my hands lower, over the taut expanse of muscle to the hint of hair that thickens above his belt buckle.

I move to unfasten his trousers and he catches my wrists, halting me. I look up, questioning, praying I can hide the swirl of emotion running away inside me.

‘As much as you found it a turn-on,’ he says with a lopsided smile, ‘I’m taking myself in there and getting these off alone.’

He steps around me and I watch him go, mesmerised by the movement of his shoulder blades, by the sharp waist and the curve of his behind in those trousers.

Fuck, how I want to bite that.

I giggle at my own crazed desire. It’s so unlike me. As if a dormant part has suddenly awakened inside of me and is taking over. Pushing out all else.

Thank God.

I give him a minute, until I hear the sound of the water change, and then I know he is in there…ready and waiting.

I go in. My sanity well and truly gone. There’ll be time for that tomorrow. I need him inside me now…filling me, making me whole.

I enter the cubicle and he’s there, slicked up, his eyes dark and needy. I step forward and my smartwatch beeps. I don’t know why I look at it. Maybe it’s because he does. But I immediately wish I hadn’t.

The incoming text message glares up at me, and with it everything changes.

I can’t un-see it.

I wish I could. But I can’t.

I should be grateful. But I’m not.

CHAPTER FIVE

FIVE DAYS SINCE I’ve seen her.

Five days since she told me to finish my shower and leave.

I’d blame it on the fact that I lost my load like an inexperienced fool if not for the fact she was so turned on by it. She told me so herself and I believed her. It was written on her face…in her actions.

And then her watch beeped and she morphed into someone else entirely.

A cold replica.

She had no time for me…for us.

Not that there would ever be an ‘us’—but, hell, in that moment in her kitchen…before, during, after… I felt things shift between us. I thought it felt right, picking up where we’d left off ten years prior, saying to hell with everyone and everything else.

Clearly I was wrong.

She offered no explanation. Nothing. As if I didn’t even warrant one. And I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of grovelling for justification.

I cleaned up, dressed and left.

Two days later Monday morning hit, and my PA informed me that my meeting with her had been scheduled for a week Friday.

I laughed. Actually laughed. Did she really think she could keep me hanging on for two weeks like some insignificant prospect?

But you’ve only got yourself to blame.

I’ve hardly covered myself in glory, following her around like some fool, giving her the impression she can wrap me around her little finger.

But no more.

It’s time she saw the real me. The one who stays in control.

So now I’m here, in her building, more than a week early and ready to face the music.

I know she’s not going to like this, but I have a score to settle. Not just professionally, but personally too.

‘Mr Waring, I’m afraid Miss Beaumont has an appointment with Houston Logistics right now,’ her PA says to me, her smile polite but confused. ‘I believe we have an appointment scheduled for next week on Friday?’

I give her a smile loaded with charm. ‘That was the case, but Houston and I have decided to swap.’

‘To…swap?’

Her brows lift past the rim of her thick black glasses and I want to laugh. It’s a worrying sign. Laughter tells me that I’m nervous. And I’m never nervous.

Control, Lucas. Control.

I clear my throat and slot my hands into my pockets, letting my eyes drift across the office and back to her. ‘That’s right. We—’

‘Lucas?’

Eva.

My pulse skips a beat. Her sudden presence triggers an adrenaline shot and I’m slow to turn to face her, to neutralise it.

‘Evangeline, it’s good to see you.’

Good? Christ. ‘Good’ has nothing on the reality.

She’s striking in pink today. A simple shirt that looks anything but simple clings to her curves and disappears into a tight black skirt. Her legs are exposed from the knee down and accentuated by heels that trigger a carnal hit, making me think about things that have no place in this room right now.

Control.

I drag my eyes back up to her hair—something innocent. It’s twisted high on her head, smart and professional and sexy as fuck.

Dammit all.

I meet her eyes. They’re bright. Their blue depths alive and popping. I could say it was down to effective make-up, but I know it’s her reaction to me.

And then I find my control. I’m not alone in this. She feels it too.

It puts us on an even footing, at least.

My chest eases and I step forward, offering my hand. She eyes it suspiciously before taking it for the briefest handshake I’ve ever experienced. But I feel the current that sparks between us, and I see it reflected in her dilated gaze as she looks up at me.

‘I’m afraid I’m too busy to see you today.’ She crosses her arms, her lips giving a delightful little tremble as she breathes. ‘If you’d called ahead we could have saved you the disappointment.’

She looks past me to her PA.

‘Clare, when are Mr Waring and I scheduled to meet?’

‘Well, you—’

‘Now.’ I cut over her. There’s no point dragging this out. ‘Shall we…?’

I gesture to the open door behind her. Her office. But she’s busy looking at her PA, as though she needs saving, and I allow myself a momentary sense of satisfaction because I’ve unsettled her.

It doesn’t beat my experience last Friday night. No, I had the rug well and truly pulled out from beneath me then. But it’s a start.

‘It seems Mr Waring and Houston Logistics have made an arrangement to swap appointment slots.’

I almost feel sorry for her PA as her voice pitches, and I know she can sense the undercurrent between us.

‘Swap?’ Eva looks at me incredulously. ‘Clare, could you ring and confirm that’s the case?’

‘Sure.’

‘No need—use my mobile.’ I extract my phone. ‘Houston’s in my recently dialled—we played in a golf tournament Sunday. Great chap.’

‘Of course you did.’

She doesn’t take my phone—she doesn’t spare me another glance. She simply turns on her heel and starts for her office.

‘Clare, would you mind bringing me a coffee, please?’

Something tells me she wants something stronger than coffee, and I have to stop myself from grinning.

‘No problem.’ Her PA looks at me, hesitant. ‘Can I get you one too, Mr Waring?’

I force my attention off Eva’s elegant curves as she strides away—she’s so damn sexy when she’s pissed off. ‘Black, no sugar. Thank you,’ I say, and follow her in.

Her office is contemporary. A geometric pattern adorns the grey walls, but there are splashes of colour everywhere. Splashes of her. It has a bright couch with co-ordinating chairs, and a glass coffee table adorned with industry magazines. Her desk is large, a mixture of modern glass and old twisted oak. Interesting, fascinating…just as its owner.

I close the door behind me and wait for her to offer me a seat. Actually, I’m waiting for the eruption that I sense is coming.

She’s standing at the room’s only window, looking out. From here, I can’t make out what she sees, but I’m guessing it’s the park across the road. Her building is in a residential area of the city—it’s pleasant. Especially on a day like today, when the sun is out, not a cloud in sight.

Her shoulders lift as she takes a long, drawn-out breath. ‘It’s a shame you didn’t have the decency to let me know about your little arrangement with Houston.’

Her voice is brittle. As if I’ve done something to offend her. As if it’s me who kicked her out and not the other way around. My teeth grind.

Control, Lucas. Today is about business.

Except it’s not.

If it was purely work I would have left it until next week to prove my company’s worth. Instead I’m here now, trying to push past Friday night.

‘An oversight—my apologies.’

My tone is careful, restrained, and she turns to me.

If looks could kill…

‘I like to feel prepared for my meetings, don’t you?’ she asks.

She has a point. ‘Of course.’

She walks to her desk and wakes up her computer. ‘Then you’ll understand my request to rearrange.’

I laugh before I can stop it and her eyes flash to me.

‘Something funny?’

‘Look, I’m here with the perfect deal, tailored to your product—there’s nothing you need to prepare. Unless…’

I look at her—really look at her. The quick undulation of her chest is giving away her rapid breath, and there’s a persistent flush to her skin. I had it tagged as annoyance, but now I’m not so sure.

I close the distance between us and she backs up, her eyes widening. ‘What is it, Evangeline? Did you want more time in the hope that whatever this is between us would go away?’

She scoffs and looks back to her screen. ‘So bloody full of yourself, aren’t you?’

I raise my hands in defence. ‘You’re the one acting all angry. A simple switch in meetings shouldn’t warrant this. Although, let’s be honest, it’s me who got the brutal rejection—a naked one at—’

‘Stop it, Lucas.’

‘What? Reminding you of the truth? Of what we were about to do before that—’

‘Look, you want to talk business? Fine. Let’s do that.’

She drops into a seat and gestures for me to do the same. She won’t look at me, though, and I’m itching to push my luck, to walk around her desk and lift her chin, force her to accept it’s still there, riding strong.

‘But stick to business, Lucas, or you’re out.’

I move to the seat she’s offered me and stand before it. ‘Just tell me one thing…’ I shouldn’t ask, and part of me doesn’t want to know, but… ‘What changed?’

She looks up at me, eyes hesitant, the bob of her throat giving her away. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You do know what I mean. One minute we’re having the best sex of our lives…’ I see her entire body clench, her fingers fisting over her keyboard, and I know she’s fighting it—fighting the heat the memory triggers. ‘The next your watch tells you something and you turn into an ice queen… So what gives?’

She closes her eyes, her fingers relaxing over the keys, and I can’t bear it. She’s shutting me out and I want to know why.

‘Or should the question be—who?’

Her lashes lift. Her eyes are unreadable—hatefully unreadable. There was a time I could have read her like a book, but this new skill she has is driving me crazy. All the more so because I’m letting it get to me.

‘That has no place in this conversation.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Positive.’

She looks at her phone and activates the screen, calm as the day outside. ‘I have another meeting this afternoon, so I suggest we get on with this.’

I feel my mouth gape and quickly snap it shut.

‘I’ll find out what’s keeping Clare first.’

She stands and leaves. Her absence is just as frustrating as her presence.

‘That has no place in this conversation…’

That makes the reason personal. And if it’s personal, does that mean she has another man? Was it guilt that had her kicking me out?

I can’t believe it of her. The Eva I know wouldn’t be unfaithful, no matter how strong our connection. But if it’s not another man…

I look to her phone on the desk. Whatever that notification was, there’ll be a record of it on there. The temptation to lift it and take a chance on it being unlocked, or possessing an easy-to-guess PIN is there, but I’m not going to sink that low. I’m not.

As if I’ve summoned it, the phone starts to flash with an incoming call: Nate.

Something twists deep inside me and I feel I have my answer.

She took me back to her place straight off the back of seeing her parents. Their hold over her wasn’t enough to stop it. But Nate…

My lip curls; the bitter, acrid taste of betrayal stings my throat.

I let him get between us before, there’s no way I’ll let it happen again.

This contract was important enough when it was purely business—now it just got personal, real personal, and I’ll do everything within my power to see it signed. Pull every trick in the book if I have to.

She will sign it.

And do a whole lot more if I have my way.

The business is revenge enough, but Eva… She’s the icing on the cake.

As I walk back into my office, I notice two things that stop me in my tracks.

Firstly, Lucas has made himself at home, and I don’t want to feel the excited rush that comes with the sight. His jacket is slung over the back of his chair and he has his laptop propped open as he taps away, his crisp white shirt rippling with the movement of his shoulders, his hair falling forward over his forehead.

Too appealing. Too comfy.

Secondly, my phone has moved. It now sits alongside his laptop and my eyes rest there as my heart lurches.

Has he…? Could he have…? It’s my birthdate—would he remember?

He turns his head to look at me, but barely acknowledges my presence before he looks back to his screen and slides my phone across the desk, to where it was before.

‘It kept ringing, so I silenced it.’

I come alive at his voice—so matter-of-fact, so deep and thrilling. ‘Right. Sorry.’

Jesus. Why am I apologising? I remember the coffees I’m holding on to and kick the door closed behind me before striding over and slapping one down next to him.

‘It’s not quite barista standard but it does the job well enough.’

‘Thank you.’

His lashes lift but I don’t wait for our eyes to meet—not at this proximity. Not even excusing myself on the pretence of chasing up Clare has helped me get my head back in the game. I quickly scoot to my side of the desk, putting a whole chunk of glass and wood between us. Better.

‘Don’t you want to see who’s been calling? They’ve been quite persistent.’

He doesn’t look at me as he asks the question but there’s an edge to his tone—something that has my skin prickling.

‘It can wait.’

Now he looks at me and his eyes are cold, piercing. ‘You sure about that?’

I swallow. ‘Yes.’

‘I think you should at least check.’

He’s goading me, and I don’t want to give him the satisfaction, but I can’t stop curiosity getting the better of me. I reach out and activate the screen, glancing at it with my trusty poker face. Not that I think it will fool him.

Three missed calls. Nate.

Shit.

I shut the screen down and lean back in my chair, taking my coffee with me. ‘I’ll call him back later.’

‘Three missed calls, though,’ he pushes. ‘Could be urgent?’

I give a dismissive shrug and his eyes lower briefly, burning into the fabric of my blouse. It’s buttoned high, it’s perfectly decent, and yet I feel as if he’s stripped me. Heat swamps my belly, my breasts, my nipples prickle against the lace of my bra.

‘It’s fine. I’ll call him back later.’

I’m repeating myself, but this time the words are harder, stronger, fed with the strength of will it’s taking for me to fight this dogged attraction. Because that’s all this can be—attraction. I don’t know Lucas now, and I don’t know the truth of what went down five years ago with Nate, or the true reason he is back. I want to think it’s for my product, but is it really?

He gives me a slow smile and closes the lid of his laptop. ‘Okay.’

I watch him take up his coffee, watch him sip at the hot, steaming liquid, and not once does he release me from his gaze. I could look away, but it feels like a challenge: first who does admits defeat.

Well, not me…

‘Shall I start from the top?’ he asks. ‘Me? My company? The basics? Or is that a bit like covering old ground?’

How is he doing it? Remaining so calm when I know he’s not? He wanted me to see that Nate had called. He wanted to test me…assess my reaction. Has he worked out it was Nate who ruined Friday too?

‘I know enough about Waring Holdings,’ I say, grateful for my projected confidence.

‘Is that so?’ He shoots me a grin as he settles back in his seat. ‘Please enlighten me.’

I wonder if this is a test too, or if he’s genuinely curious as to what I know.

I humour him, reeling off facts and figures, cities of presence, high-profile partners—the lot—and I know I’ve surprised him. I can see it in the swell of his chest, his pumped-up reaction as I feed his ego. I don’t mind doing it—not when I’m stating facts.

He runs his forefinger along his lower lip and rubs at his chin. ‘You’ve done your homework.’

‘Of course.’

I don’t want to say I knew all this anyway. That he might have been out of my life but I couldn’t help keeping tabs on him. It’s not like anyone can ignore him anyway, not when he’s splashed all over the media to enjoy.

‘I thought you said you needed time to prep for our meeting?’ he says.

My cheeks colour. He’s got me, and I look at my mug to avoid his eye, taking a sip. ‘I like to know who I’m meeting. If I’m expecting Houston Logistics, I want to see Houston Logistics.’

‘Are you saying you prefer dear old Leslie’s company to mine?’

‘I think from a distribution point of view you’re on a par.’

‘You know that’s not what I meant.’

‘Isn’t it?’ I challenge—and, God help me, my belly flutters excitedly. Sparring with him is too much fun.

He gives a soft laugh. ‘Fair enough, but I disagree. We’re not on a par. Open your email. I’ve sent you some comparisons to look at it.’

‘Comparisons?’ I place my coffee on the desk and look at my computer screen, doing as he asks.

‘Sure. I figured I’d make it easy for you. In the attachments you’ll find a whole host of competitors and the reason Waring Holdings outperforms them all.’

I open up his email and the first attachment, giving it a quick scan, and then the next, and the next.

What the hell?

‘How can you—?’

‘How can I know who I’m up against? Your launch party told me that, and my research team did the rest. I may be missing a few—in fact I’m sure I will be—but if they’re not on my radar they’re not worth worrying about.’

I can’t believe it. A thorough analysis worthy of myself or my team is laid out before me. It wouldn’t take me long to check what the reports say for accuracy, but I know in my gut that I won’t find anything to fault.

And then Nate’s words come back to haunt me—his timely text from Friday night, the multitude of communications since: You can’t trust him.

I look at Lucas now and Nate’s warning clashes with what I know for myself, with what I feel.

Why did he want me to see that Nate had called? Was it his way of saying his conscience is clear? That he’s not worried about him or what he has to say? And if his conscience is clear, then what does that say about my brother? My family?

A wave of uncertainty washes over me and I throw my focus into the spreadsheets and the words before me. But they simply blur.

Lucas left, though. The company collapsed, my brother and father dealt with the fallout, and Lucas was long gone. Why didn’t he stick around and protest his innocence? At least help? Why did he go without saying goodbye?

And there it is—the crux of it.

Christ, it was hardly like you spent any time together by then. He owed you nothing.

But the pain is there, and I know it’s a huge part of it all. He left without so much as a nod in my direction, without even attempting to clear his name with me, and he must have known the crap my family would lay at his feet.

‘What really happened?’ I say, looking at the screen.

‘Excuse me?’

I look at him now, my eyes narrowed. ‘Between you and Nate…the company?’

He stills, his posture straight as his eyes fall away from me. ‘You should talk to him about it.’

‘I’m talking to you.’

Not to mention that it’s the last thing I want to raise with Nate. He went off the rails for two years after the company collapsed, drinking heavily, socialising day and night—he was a mess. No one talks about it. Least of all me.

‘If we’re potentially going to work together, I want to hear your version of events.’

‘It’s not my place.’

‘The hell it’s not! You left when the going got tough—is that how it was? Because that’s exactly how my family see it. Things got a touch hard and you legged it, leaving them to pick up the pieces.’

Colour seeps into his cheekbones, his knuckles whiten around the mug he still holds, and his eyes harden as they land on me.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Then tell me—give me your side and I’ll consider you as equally as I am everyone else.’

‘My company stands for itself. I’m not justifying the past to you.’

‘You told me Friday night that you make it your business to know all there is about the companies you wish to work with and the people who run them. This is me doing the same due diligence.’

He leans forward in his chair and I think he is about to speak. I hold my breath, waiting. This is it: the truth, his side to balance out theirs.

‘Thank Clare for the coffee.’

What?

He places his mug on the desk and gets to his feet.

I stand abruptly. ‘You can’t leave.’

‘Changed your mind already?’

There’s humour in his words but not in his eyes.

‘We have things to discuss, to go over,’ I say.

‘It’s all there in the email. The last attachment details the arrangement I propose. I think you’ll find it fair.’

‘But—’

‘Speak to Nate, Eva, or drop the past.’

His tone brooks no argument, but how can I tell him I don’t dare have it out with my brother for fear of a relapse?

‘My business references speak for themselves. Speak to anyone about Waring Holdings and they will put your mind at ease…if it’s truly the business you’re worried about.’

He lifts his jacket from the back of the chair and shrugs it on, taking up his laptop and case.

‘My number is in the email—call me when you’re ready to talk business.’

And with that he leaves. I haven’t even managed a goodbye. I’m still floundering under the mess that is the past and the present, my family and my business—and, if I’m truly honest, my heart.

To think I had believed it possible to be around him again and keep it tucked away was ridiculous.

Maybe in some way I hoped the past would protect me, keep me safe from falling again. And maybe it would have, if not for the fact that the past as I know it—as my family know it—could well be based on a lie. Or a clever manipulation of the truth. My brother was a pro at doing both when he wanted to.

And Lucas’s words in my kitchen about his ten-year wait… They told me there was more to his rejection than I believed all those years ago.

But where does any of that leave me now?

If the company failure was down to Nate, why would Lucas want to go into business with another Beaumont? Why would he sleep with me?

I don’t want to think of it as some sort of vendetta, but I can’t help it. The rejected eighteen-year-old still inside me can’t believe his sudden turnaround. Get in business with the little sister…get in bed with her.

It makes for the greatest revenge. But…

‘I’ve had ten years to wait for this.’

Surely that shows he cares about me? Not my family, not my business, but me?

I want answers. To explain ten years ago, five years ago. I want the whole damn lot.

And that means going after him.

My phone starts to buzz, along with my watch, and I know it’s Nate again without even looking. I ignore it.

I’m going to finish going through the email. I’m going to get my meetings done for the day. And then I’m going get my head around all of this.

If only it can be as simple as it sounds.

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