It was better to concentrate on the flowers, the trees. The calls of the birds and the ocean breeze.
She was free from all the emotional clutter of real relationships, and that was a good thing. She could enjoy whatever Lachlan did, because none of it mattered. Their arrangement was temporary, summer could only last so long, and so she didn’t need to worry if it was setting a precedent that, should she ask him why he seemed so distant when his sister spoke of family things, he replied by changing the subject.
A real girlfriend might object, but that wasn’t Bristol’s job.
She wasn’t here to get closer to him, or get to know his sister, or do anything at all but exist in the role he’d carved out for her. Sex and conversation, one dark and deep, the other light and easy.
You can be easy, too, she liked to tell herself when she floated in the calm water of her favorite cove. You have these few, sweet months to let someone else do the thinking.
As a holiday for her brain, she couldn’t think of anything better.
And as the days passed, Lachlan talked to her less and less when he came to find her in the bright light of another perfect Spanish morning. He preferred to pull her over his lap and move inside her again and again, letting her arch back into all that endless blue.
That didn’t matter either.
If that was what he wanted, that was what she gave.
But somehow, today, the idea of this odd, breathless vacation from reality making it into the tabloids made it all feel less like a job and more like...a problem.
One she ought to have been solving, surely.
“What you mean by every tabloid?” she asked Indy. “I’m not comfortable with one tabloid.”
“Then I have some bad news for you,” her sister replied.
Bristol scowled at her phone. Indy liked to call and check on her older sister when she woke up. And since she’d decided New York was boring without Bristol about a week after Bristol had left, she was currently oversleeping in Europe.
She was also maddeningly vague about where, exactly, in Europe she happened to be.
And because Bristol knew Indy desperately wanted her to ask, she didn’t.
“You know you have a little something called the internet at your disposal, Bristol,” Indy was saying now, with so much laughter in her voice that Bristol could practically see her accompanying eye roll. “You can access this exciting new invention with the newfangled handheld computer you’re using to talk to me, in a totally different country, right now.”
“I access the internet all the time, asshole,” Bristol replied. “And yet, oddly enough, it’s not the tabloid newspapers I look for when I do.”
“Well, good news, then,” Indy said brightly. “You look amazing. What else matters?”
Bristol could think of a great many things that mattered, but she had to pretend she wasn’t interested for the rest of the call. For reasons. But the moment Indy hung up—after making airy comments about where she was that managed to sound detailed without actually imparting any information—she went looking.
And sure enough, there she was.
It was the same picture on a number of tabloid covers, from one of the balls they’d been to during that first, long cycle through the capitals of Europe. Paris, she thought, if she remembered the progression of her formal dresses correctly. It was a lovely picture of the sweeping fairy tale of a dress, which she recalled had been surprisingly comfortable for a garment so fussy that it had taken two other people to get her into it.
But she wasn’t named.
Lachlan Drummond and his latest date, as one tabloid identified her. There were several female friends. And a few unnamed companions. All featured several gushing, pseudo-journalistic paragraphs about Lachlan’s philanthropic contributions to the world before segueing to several far more salacious paragraphs about all the other women he’d been seen with before Bristol.
The word Lothario was used. Unironically.
And Bristol congratulated herself on being his employee, not his actual girlfriend, because as an employee she had no grounds whatsoever to feel...anything.
Accordingly, she assured herself that she felt nothing at all.
She felt so much nothing, in fact, that she couldn’t sit still. The open, airy terrace suddenly felt too close. Too claustrophobic. She found herself charging away from the villa for a nice long walk through the old citrus groves, down to the far cliffs and back.
Not to clear her head, which would suggest that there was some clutter in there. Which there couldn’t be, because this wasn’t a relationship. She wasn’t involved with Lachlan in that way and no matter what the tabloids said, neither were any of those other women.
“I’m outside to be outside,” she chanted to herself as she walked. “I’m out here to breathe deeply, that’s all.”
But she admitted to herself on the walk back that maybe, just maybe, she didn’t know what she was doing. She saw Lachlan’s sister and her oldest child from a distance and ducked back into the olive trees, pretending she wanted solitude. When what she really wanted was to avoid Catriona, with her too-direct gaze and casually incisive questions that Bristol couldn’t answer.
Not the way she would have answered them if this was real.
What she did know was that she was sweating a little while she marched around the island and hid behind olive trees. And more, there was a great big ball of mess inside her, no matter how she tried to pretend there wasn’t.
There was nothing to do about any of it but keep walking.
She’d lapped the whole island twice by the time she could finally breathe normally again. At which point it was easy enough to find her practiced smile and make her way back into the villa. And right back into her role.
The one she’d agreed to play. Legally.
“Where have you been, Bristol?”
Lachlan’s voice came out of nowhere when she stepped through the ancient gate, strewn with morning glories and buzzing with cheerful bees. It made her...not quite jump, though her pulse instantly kicked into high gear. She blinked against the brightness as she looked around, eventually finding him standing in one of the wide-open arched doorways that allowed each room in the villa to flow into the next, then straight on into the sea and sky.
“I didn’t see you there,” Bristol said, and didn’t give in to the urge to put her hand against her belly. She didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that her own skin no longer seemed to fit. That she was buzzing and hollowed out and the only thing left was that same want.
Always that want, like a fire in her blood.
Sometimes when she looked at him, all she could think was that she’d let her pussy take her over. All she could do was melt, and moan, and say more.
It didn’t help that he was even more beautiful and sensually formidable in casual clothes. Surely it should have diminished him not to be prowling around in his desperately chic corporate suits, too Wall Street to breathe. He should have looked like any random guy in his clearly very old and worn cargo shorts, a T-shirt with an obscure band on the front, and bare feet.
He did not.
His blue gaze was shadowed, but the light caught at his dark blond hair and made him gleam like gold. The rest of him was a pageant of wide shoulders, that ripped abdomen, and his narrow hips. Even his legs made her feel like swooning, when Bristol didn’t think she’d ever noticed a male leg before in her life.
God help her, even his feet were sexy.
She was so busy trying not to drool over the biceps that strained against the frayed edge of his blue T-shirt sleeves that she almost missed the hard line of his mouth. The set to his jaw.
But his voice, stern and dark, reminded her where she was. And what she was here to do—which was not simply flutter about, admiring him.
Even if he did look like a dressed-down Greek statue.
B
ristol reminded herself that Greece was quite a ways off to the east, give or take a few seas. And Italy.
“I came to find you, but couldn’t,” Lachlan said.
This was how it was now. Or maybe this was how it had always been, but Bristol hadn’t realized it. This pulsing sort of undercurrent beneath whatever words they used. This dark thing inside her while she fought to keep her voice light and that smile on her face—because that was the professional thing to do, surely.
Was she only imagining it was the same for him?
“I’m sorry,” she said, because apologizing was always the right move. She’d been using it on her advisers and committee members and professors for years. Coming out of the gate with an apology always put them on the back foot. “I didn’t expect you to have any free time today. I would have made myself available.”
There was something taut in his face then. It took her a moment to understand he was clenching his teeth enough to make a muscle flex in his jaw. “I don’t think that’s true, Bristol. I think you went for a walk. Catriona said she saw you down near the olive groves more than an hour ago.”
“And here I thought we’d left Stephanie behind for a while. Is your sister keeping tabs on me? You really do have eyes everywhere.”
“I asked her if she’d seen you.”
Bristol felt that buzzing, wanting thing shift then. Into the other thing she felt most often around him—the need to push his buttons. Hard.
Because she knew what happened when she did. He didn’t betray a temper. Not Lachlan.
He fucked it out instead, and took his revenge that way.
And she loved every minute of it.
She pulled her phone out of the pocket of the flowy skirt she was wearing, then made a show of looking at it for missed calls and messages she already knew weren’t there.
“I expected you to be here,” he growled.
“And I’ve agreed I should have been. But Lachlan, you also could have called, and I would have come running.”
Had she meant to use that particular tone? It wasn’t bitter, exactly. But she knew that if she could hear the edge in it, he could, too.
He clearly did. “Do you have a problem with making yourself available to me, Bristol?”
And it was easier to smile then, because she could hear the dangerous note in that silky tone he used. The fine hairs on her arms and the back of her neck prickled, and her pussy was instantly slippery and achy.
Maybe he liked flirting with all the dark places between them as much as she did.
“I do not,” she said, still smiling. “That’s the job, isn’t it?”
He didn’t like that. She could see he didn’t like it.
And she opted not to ask herself why she should feel it like a personal triumph when he reached over and fit his hand to the curve of her cheek. Bristol already knew the answer.
“Don’t you know better than to say things like that?” His voice was still like silk, never quite concealing the power beneath. And the lick of fire that she tried not to think of as theirs. “The job is never supposed to feel like a job.”
She laughed, unwisely. “To who?”
His hand tightened against her cheek and she thought he might pull her close, but he didn’t. Instead, he let go and shifted back, leaving the feel of his palm against her skin. So hot she was sweating a little.
“My assistant tells me we’ve gotten some tabloid notice,” he said. “I think we got ahead of the worst of the speculation. At least for now.”
“Oh?” She shrugged carelessly. “Are we required to pay attention to those things? Is that part of the job? Because keeping myself abreast of the latest nasty gossip would definitely feel like a job.”
“I prefer to pretend they don’t exist.”
Bristol told herself the sunshine was making her a little giddy, but she was fairly sure it was actually that intent blue gaze of his. It seemed to cut into her—much too deep, like everything he did. Deep and unmistakable and as dangerous to her as it was good. She wished she didn’t know that.
“But they have a funny way of poisoning things. The insinuations. The gossipy, breathless tone. It’s better to ignore them entirely if you can.”
“I’ve been ignoring them entirely my whole life. I hardly plan to stop that practice now that I might see myself torn apart in them.”
His mouth curved, and it made the sun seem that much brighter. “So you’ve seen them.”
“I saw, thanks to my sister, who looks for such things, that there are some pictures of you with an unnamed companion who bears a striking resemblance to me.”
“Trust me, they know your name.”
“That is not comforting.”
“See? Poison.”
Bristol reminded herself that she was not here to assert herself the way she wanted to do. Or to carry on about her individuality, or cast aspersions on the sorts of “news” outlets that would choose not to name her deliberately. And she certainly wasn’t here to make arch comments about how bracing it was to find herself anonymous when she’d spent so long making a name for herself in the first place.
The words might have been on her tongue, but she swallowed them down.
She had chosen to take this position with her eyes wide open.
Looking at him—at that impossibly beautiful face of his that sometimes, like now, made her want to cry—she found too many words tangled on her tongue, and that wasn’t the deal they’d made.
Bristol made herself smile. As if this was all a joke. “Luckily for me it’s a temporary poison. The antidote is waiting for me in September.”
That muscle in his lean jaw flexed again. “I hope so, for your sake.”
She found herself frowning at him when she normally tried hard to keep from doing that. It had been one thing back in New York. Before she’d signed up for her role as his always-available, always-amenable companion. Also, clearly, frowning gave her away. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s inevitable that they’re going to start discussing who you are. They’re probably digging around in your past as we speak.”
“Terrific.”
“You were counseled about this.”
“I was.” She should have paid closer attention to Stephanie, obviously. Or rather, she should have been prepared to feel more than she’d expected she would. “I don’t have anything in my past I’m embarrassed about. Or, I suppose, the more pertinent thing is I don’t have anything in my past you would be embarrassed about.”
“I know this, Dr. March. You’re not the only one who does research.” He actually let out a laugh when she lifted a brow, which made her want to dance. Sing. Something. She refrained. “Fine. I have staff who do research.”
“You were modifying my expectations about fading into blessed obscurity in the fall,” she reminded him, and the gleam in his eyes warned her that she sounded...a bit tart.
She smiled to cover it.
Lachlan crossed his arms, which drew too much attention to those arms. Bristol ordered herself to pay attention to what he was saying. Or to pretend that was possible when he was looming around, too gorgeous to bear.
“Once they decide how to run at you, they’ll beat that drum until the end of time. If you think of it like a game, it’s better. They’ll make up a character, call it you, and make sure every picture they print serves the story. You can try to fight it, but it’s a war of attrition and they’ll always win. It’s better to ignore it.”
“I remember this part,” she said. But it had felt different, hadn’t it, when there’d been no pictures of her anywhere. When it had all been theoretical tabloids.
To go along with all the theoretical sex at Lachlan’s command and convenience.
Her clit throbbed, the greedy little thing.
“And even when we’re finished, long after Septembe
r, it’s entirely possible they’ll trot you out in every story they do like this about me, forevermore.” He studied her. “Like all the exes they decided to mention today.”
“Then I’m going to require combat pay,” she retorted, as breezily as possible.
“Don’t worry,” Lachlan said lazily enough, his blue eyes glittering and his jaw still tense. “You’ll be adequately compensated.”
And normally conversations like this, threaded through with so much left unsaid, were solved in bed. Vigorously.
But Catriona was calling from out on the lawn, and her kids were suddenly there to demand their uncle’s attention. Lachlan held Bristol’s gaze a beat or so longer than he should have, and they were swept into the charming chaos of it all.
Bristol told herself it was a welcome break.
But her head was spinning, like it or not. Because it had been one thing to decide to do this thing. She couldn’t deny that there were benefits. There was not having to decide what she planned to do now that she finally had her doctorate, sure. There was also the true and real freedom of surrendering herself entirely to Lachlan’s sexual demands. She didn’t have to think about anything. All she had to do was feel.
Feel and want and come back for more.
She didn’t understand how she could love that as much as she did, yet still feel a stark sense of pure fear at the idea that this private thing of theirs was now public.
Not to mention that hollow thing, always there, where she stored the emotions she would sort out in the fall.
She’d been warned. Bristol knew that.
But being warned about the very real price of being seen with such a famous man was different from it actually happening. It was different from knowing that people she knew could see her in that dress, smiling brightly up at Lachlan. And it hadn’t occurred to her to worry about the fact she would be reduced to just...one more woman gracing his arm for the moment, soon to be discarded.
They would use her name, or they wouldn’t, but it didn’t really matter. He was right—soon enough she would be relegated to the lower paragraphs. Sometimes with a photograph, sometimes not, but always just another footnote in the broader story that was Lachlan Drummond.
The Pleasure Contract Page 8
