The Shameless Playboy. Caitlin Crews
busy for my charm and beauty?” he asked, that wicked grin making his eyes gleam, his expression somewhere between suggestive and irrepressible—and surprisingly infectious. Grace had to fight to keep from smiling automatically in return. “Surely not. That would require hell to freeze over, for a start.”
She ignored him, rising to her feet to regain the appropriate balance of power.
“I would invite you make yourself comfortable,” she said with a tight smile, close enough to courteous, knowing her voice would make the words sound sweeter than they were, “except that seems rather redundant, doesn’t it?”
Every instinct she had screamed at her to let this man know exactly what she thought of his kind. Womanizing, useless, parasitic, just like all the men her poor mother had paraded in and out of their trailer when Grace was a child. Just like the father she’d never met, who from all accounts was yet one more pretty, irresponsible wastrel in a long line of the same. Just like every other idiot she’d had to slap down over the years.
But as a member of the Wolfe family Lucas was considered royalty at Hartington’s, given that his family had once owned the company. The Wolfes might not own Hartington’s any longer, but Hartington’s board of directors loved to play up the connection—and as the events manager who was in charge of Hartington’s centenary relaunch in a matter of weeks, Grace was expected to act in Hartington’s best interests at all times no matter the cost to herself.
“I am always comfortable,” he assured her, his voice a symphony of innuendo, his green eyes wicked and amused. “Making myself so at every opportunity is, I confess, very nearly my life’s work.”
She had a huge project to manage, which meant she had better things to do with her time than waste it on this useless, if shockingly attractive, man. Grace hated wasting time. That was the feeling that expanded within her, she told herself, threatening her ability to breathe.
“I’m sorry,” she began, the polite smile she was known for curving her lips, though she knew her gaze remained cool on his. “I’m afraid I’m quite busy today. May I help—?”
“Why do I recognize you?” he interrupted her, languidly, because of course he had all the time in the world.
Grace was horrified to feel that rich voice of his wash through her, sending tendrils of flame licking all over her skin, coiling low in her belly. She felt it, and it panicked her. Surely she should be immune to this man’s brand of practiced, cynical charm—she, who prided herself on being absolutely unflappable!
“I can’t imagine,” she said, which was a lie, but it was not as if she and Lucas Wolfe would ever speak again, would they? She could not fathom why they were speaking now—and why the cynical boredom she’d sensed in him in a chic and crowded hotel bar the night before had changed to something else, something dangerous and edgy. As if a dark fury lurked within him, just out of sight, hidden beneath his well-known and deliberately polished exterior.
But surely not. She was being fanciful.
“I know I’ve seen you before,” he continued, his green eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at her, then warming as he let his all-too-practiced gaze drop from her face to skate over the figure she’d dressed in Carolina Herrera and other exclusive labels no doubt down-market to a man of his tastes. His lips moved, sensual and inviting for all they were cut, seeming to … suggest things. “You have the most extraordinary mouth. But where?”
Heat danced through her, simmering in every place his green gaze touched her: her breasts, the indentation at her waist, her hips, her legs. Grace was forced to remind herself that a man like Lucas Wolfe more than likely looked at every single person he encountered in that very same way—that the promise of sex and intrigue that seemed to heat his expression meant about as much to him as a handshake meant to anyone else. Less.
She felt a strange sort of echo sound through her, a deep alarm, reminding her of that naive girl she’d been so long ago and had sworn she would never be again. Not with another man like this one, who would render her just as pathetic and deceived as her poor, trusting mother. Who would destroy her whole life if she let him.
That was what men like this did. Simply because they could.
Grace knew that better than anyone.
“He’s more than a bit of all right, isn’t he?” the fashion buyer from Hartington’s had cooed to Grace last night, when she’d first seen Lucas—much drunker and far more disreputable than he appeared now, if that was possible—at an extraordinarily glamorous fashion show thrown by Samantha Cartwright, one of London’s most beloved and avant-garde designers.
Mona had sighed lustily, gazing at Lucas from across the trendy bar as he’d flirted with Samantha Cartwright herself, oblivious to all the watching, judging eyes around them, Grace’s among them. “And, of course, we’re to treat him like a king should he so much as glance our way. Boss’s orders.”
Grace had nodded, as if she’d had the slightest expectation of interacting with the famous playboy, known as much for his devil-may-care attitude as for his long and illustrious string of lovers. Not to mention his much-discussed allergy to anything resembling work, particularly for Hartington’s, who had been after him for years to take a figurehead position with the company as his equally disreputable late father had once done.
She’d felt a potent mix of awareness and disgust as she’d watched him. How could a man like Lucas, who was unabashedly making a play for the much older, and very much married, Samantha Cartwright right there in full view of half the city, also manage to seem so … alive and vibrant, in the midst of London’s crème de la crème, as if he were the real thing and they were nothing but fluff and misdirection?
However, all his sexiness and charm had not prevented Samantha Cartwright’s husband from expressing his displeasure at finding Lucas secluded with his wife sometime later—all over Lucas’s pretty face.
The fact that she, personally, had had a strange moment, a near-interaction with this man, did not signify. He clearly could not recall it and she—well, if her sleep had been disrupted last night, what did that matter? It could as easily have been the espresso she should have known better than to order after dinner. It had to have been.
“I believe I saw you last night at the Cartwright show,” she said now, and felt gratified when he blinked, as if not expecting that response. Grace smiled, razor sharp, and let her dislike for him—for all men like him, so careless and callous—flood through her. “Though I cannot imagine you remember it.”
“I have an excellent memory,” Lucas replied, his voice silky, and she had to admit that it got to her. It should not have affected her at all, the lazy caress of it, like bourbon and sin, but it did. The man was lethal, and she wanted nothing to do with him.
“As do I, Mr. Wolfe,” she said crisply. “Which is how I know that we do not have an appointment today. Perhaps I can direct you …?”
She let her words trail off, and waved her hand in the general direction of the door and the offices beyond. But Lucas Wolfe did not move. He only watched her for a moment. His battered, sexy mouth curved slightly.
“You knew who I was the moment you saw me.” He looked amused. Triumphant. She could not have said why that seemed to claw at her.
“I imagine every single person in England knows who you are,” she replied briskly. She let her brows arch, hinting at disdain. “One assumes that must be your intention, after so many scandals, all of which are dutifully reported in the papers.”
“And yet, you are not English,” he said, shifting his body, making Grace suddenly, foolishly glad that her desk stood between them.
She was abruptly aware of how powerful he was, how well-tuned and whipcord tough his body was, for all he kept it concealed behind a lazy smile, calculating eyes and sophisticated clothes. Leashed and hidden, though the truth of it lurked beneath the surface. As if his playboy persona was a mask he wore … but that was ridiculous.
“You