The Seduction (Billionaire's Beach Book 5)

by Christie Ridgway

  Yes, she’d definitely bitten him there.

  Emmaline’s hand went to her forehead. “We shared one of the little vodka bottles in the minibar. Then I…then I went into the bathroom to slip into the terry robe the hotel provided.” Her hands trembling, her stomach jittering with delighted anticipation. Staring in the mirror over the sink, her hair tousled by his hands, her cheeks pink and her mouth red and swollen, she’d seen…

  A woman taking charge of her life. A woman no longer running. A woman who thought she might make an adequate and exciting lover after all.

  “And when you came out of the bathroom?” Charlie prompted.

  “He was gone,” Emmaline said. “I almost thought I’d imagined him, but there were those two glasses we’d been drinking from on the small desk by the TV. I saw the straight chair that he’d turned around to straddle as we sipped the vodka.”

  “Did you think he might come back?”

  “I…” Emmaline blinked. “Wow. No,” she admitted. “I believed…” That he’d had second thoughts. That she’d been too forward for his taste or that she’d kissed weird or that he’d considered her too busty. There’d been a dozen things she’d thought she’d done wrong or were wrong about her.

  Self-esteem issues, a little voice whispered inside her. All those ways that Enzo found to belittle you poking up their ugly heads.

  But, something had sent Lucas Curry running. And the fact was, he hadn’t come back.

  “Oh, Emmaline,” Charlie said, gusting out a sigh. “And then when you encountered him you presumed it was coincidence and also managed to convince yourself he didn’t recognize you as his Near Miss?”

  She grimaced again, feeling stupid. “When you put like that…”

  “I can promise, Emmaline, that he did not forget you.”

  What Charlie didn’t say was that Emmaline had been a fool to even believe that for a second. But the other woman didn’t know about the other man in her past that she prayed had forgotten about her. It was a matter of life and death.

  Squeezing shut her eyes, she fought the little shiver that wiggled down her spine. “Please, Charlie, what should I do now?”

  She held her breath, hoping her friend would recommend Emmaline spend a few days with her, during which she could play on the beach with Wells, pretending reality away by building sand castles with high turrets and deep moats.

  “Of course you’re going to have to face the man and have an honest conversation,” Charlie said matter-of-factly.

  “Of course,” Emmaline repeated, heart sinking. “Good advice.”

  After ending the call, she stared at her reflection in the mirror across the room. Had she said “of course” to Charlie? Of course not, she decided instead, thinking of the certain humiliation of such a discussion. Then she grabbed up her purse and keys, determined to clear her head and come up with her own, more acceptable answer.

  Ninety minutes of mindless driving later, she realized that her subconscious had been directing her steering wheel.

  She was on the road to Palm Springs.

  Heading home.

  A lump formed in her throat, and she tried commanding herself to turn the car around. But her hands refused to obey her will, and when she saw the first windfarm, the tall turbine generators seemed to beckon her nearer.

  Then scrub and sand gave way to the iconic palm trees, and she drew in a shuddering breath as she traveled toward the city center. As always, the surrounding mountains appeared oddly flat in the desert light, more movie backdrop than dirt and rock. She slid low in her seat and adjusted the frames of her oversize sunglasses. Surely no one would notice her in the driver’s seat of this nondescript sedan. It would be unthinkable to recognize her as the daughter of Bruno D’Angelo, the girl who had whizzed around these streets since sixteen years old in a custom-painted Miata. Powder blue, her favorite color.

  Such a naïve, too-trusting girl she’d been.

  “I’ll just take this one cruise along Palm Canyon Drive,” she whispered to herself, “then head back to LA.”

  But the scant number of people on the sidewalks—it was well over a hundred degrees—gave her courage to break her promise to herself. With one eye on the pedestrians trying to escape the merciless sun by hopscotching from shade patch to shade patch, she took the turns to reach her old neighborhood. The houses of those blocks—Mediterranean style to mid-century modern—stood quiet, the only movement the heat shimmering from the black asphalt.

  Nudging up the air conditioning, she drove past her childhood home, not daring to turn her head. But her peripheral vision noted that it looked just as buttoned-up as those around it, still with its distinctive mid-century flat rooflines and palm trees-and-cacti landscaping. Her father could be inside his home office with his AC on too. Or he could have traveled to Lake Arrowhead, where they had a condo used as a base for snow skiing or to escape the worst of the summer heat.

  The lump in her throat grew.

  Her father might be ill. Dying. Dead.

  Pulling to the side of the road a block from the place, Emmaline struggled to control her riotous thoughts as she blinked back the sting of tears. After leaving the country, she hadn’t reached out to anyone through phone or email, nor had she done internet searches for the names of near and dear. Same with the names of the deadly.

  Whether it was fiction or fact, she’d worried that someone could find her by monitoring such activity. And she hadn’t wanted to torment herself by coming across photos of her father at the latest trendy restaurant opening in Palm Springs Life or Desert magazine. Though she’d wondered if she might rest easier if she found a wedding announcement with Enzo’s name listed as the groom, in her heart of hearts she’d known he would still be furious about her defection even if he now had a wife and children.

  His pride couldn’t stand the hit, and he’d want to punish her with a blow of his own.

  But now that she’d made her way to Palm Springs, there was another source of information. One she felt convinced wouldn’t betray her.

  A few minutes later, she pulled into the alley that ran behind a small stucco building which served as both the residence and tarot room of Dina Fabbri. It looked deserted here, too, but she quickly climbed from her car, wiped her damp palms on the skirt of her cotton dress, and gave a light rap to the back door.

  The sun broiled the top of her head as she waited, but her patience was rewarded when Dina appeared in the opening, more wizened than before, her hair having gone from gray to silver.

  At the sight of the older woman, homesickness and loneliness crashed over Emmaline, two heavy waves that nearly buckled her knees. After five years of keeping as upbeat as possible while she wandered the world on her own, now she only wanted to slide to the ground and weep. It was bad enough to glimpse the house where she’d lived and played, but to see a beloved person who’d been part of her past—joy bubbled inside her, followed by more pain that made her eyes sting.

  She blinked rapidly, and then tried on a smile. “Dina, it’s—”

  “Coco,” the old woman whispered, using the name Emmaline had grown up with, a diminutive of her mother’s Collette. Her hand reached out to take her wrist. “Coco, come in, come in.”

  Emmaline hesitated. “You’re alone?”

  “Yes, yes.” The old woman’s grip was surprisingly strong as she drew Emmaline into her tiny kitchen. The window over the sink was almost completely obscured by an air-conditioning unit that hummed, bringing welcome cool air into the space.

  Dina pushed Emmaline into one of two chairs pulled up to a postage-stamp sized table, then bustled to a round-edged refrigerator that she would have thought retro if she didn’t know it was the original. A pitcher of cold tea came out of it, and then a glass of the stuff was put in front of Emmaline.

  Only then did Dina sink into her own seat. “Coco.” Her nearly black eyes studied her guest’s face. “Why are you here, cara? I thought we agreed there would be no calls, no visits.”

  Em
maline shrugged. “Papa…”

  Maybe the elderly woman could actually read minds as well as the cards. “He’s fine.”

  Relief coursed through Emmaline, and another sting of tears pricked her eyes. “Yes?”

  “Just fine, topolina.”

  Little mouse. Emmaline managed to smile faintly at that. “And you’re all right, Dina? No one ever suspected?”

  “Pfft.” She wiped that concern away with a liver-spotted hand. “These men, they think we women aren’t worth anything.”

  But they’d be wrong to underestimate Dina. Thanks to her British-born husband, she’d learned how to create new identities. While she could have made a fortune doing so under the aegis of Palm Springs’s California Mafia, she’d kept her skill a secret from them.

  Instead, under the cover of her tarot-reading business, she generated escape routes for those in need, mostly women looking for a way to start over, like Emmaline. So when she’d escaped the desert five years before, after leaving a letter telling her father that she couldn’t stay, Coco D’Angelo had become Emmaline Rossi.

  Emmaline after a favorite doll. Rossi from the last name of a character on a TV show that Dina favored.

  Emmaline now gathered the elderly lady’s hands in hers. “How can I ever thank you for what you did for me?”

  Her dark eyes glistened with her own unshed tears. “Your mother was a treasure to me, as were you, always. I don’t ask for thanks, just that you remain safe.” She hesitated. “You’re doing well?”

  “I am. I—”

  “No.” Dina shook her head. “Best if you don’t tell me anything.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” Emmaline said. “But Papa wouldn’t blame you—”

  “Your father, no.”

  Bruno D’Angelo was a businessman, running a string of cash-only enterprises in the desert—laundromats, nail salons, and vending machines.

  “But Enzo…” The old woman just looked at Emmaline, and of course it went without saying. It was why she’d left.

  Enzo’s family was involved in high-end restaurants all over the Southland, as well as nightclubs, card clubs, and even casinos in Nevada. They weren’t used to hearing “no” or dealing with any kind of failure.

  Including a fiancée who’d wanted out of the upcoming wedding.

  When Emmaline—then Coco—went to Dina with her fears and her bruises, she’d learned of the older woman’s sideline. It made sense, then, how her dying mother had told her if trouble came to her from Papa’s business or anything else, that Dina could be counted upon to help.

  By that time, Emmaline suspected her father’s businesses were being used to launder money coming from Enzo’s family enterprises—legitimate or not-so. It was the convenience and profitability of that arrangement that she’d believed would keep her father safe from any reprisals the younger man might want to dish out after discovering Emmaline had fled Palm Springs.

  Thankfully, it appeared to be true.

  “You should be going,” Dina said now, pushing to her feet. “No reason to take chances.”

  “I know,” Emmaline said, but instead of moving, stared into her glass, emotions—regret, loss, love—filling her chest until she ached with them. “Though sometimes I wonder if I should have done things differently.”

  “Running was not a mistake,” Dina replied, her voice firm. “It saved you.”

  On her way back to Malibu, those words rolled around in Emmaline’s head in an endless loop. Running was not a mistake.

  Did that mean running was the answer to the dilemma now hanging over her head?

  She could do it. She could escape the situation with Mr. Curry by simply packing her bags and moving on. Under the circumstances, it might be argued that particular choice was the professional thing to do. After all, the instructors at the Continental Butler Academy expected their graduates to always make decisions based on what was right for the employer and his household. The awkwardness that now existed between her and the man who signed her checks couldn’t be considered part of a healthy environment.

  Though she supposed it might also be considered cowardly to grab her things and sneak away from Mr. Curry’s house before he came home from work.

  Chapter 5

  Late afternoon, a couple of hours earlier than usual, Lucas headed from his office toward Malibu. How he’d left things with Emmaline the night before had been nagging at him all day. While he didn’t regret addressing what had come to feel like an elephant in the room, he wished he hadn’t made his butler uncomfortable.

  Which he had.

  The pure shock on her face would have made him laugh under other circumstances. Had she really convinced herself he’d forgotten it was she he’d held in his arms? From the sidewalk outside of baggage claim, they’d ducked into the back seat of a cab that smelled strongly of the pine-shaped air freshener hanging from a suction hook on the plexi-glass between them and the driver. As the car started off, Lucas had driven his fingers into Emmaline’s wavy, unbound hair, releasing the delicious perfume of it. He’d buried his face there to drink it in, then slid his mouth through the warm strands to find the heated flesh of her face.

  She’d trembled and pressed closer to him, finding his lips with her own. The kiss had nothing gentle about it, nothing tender. Just need and want and urgency. As it went on, he’d clutched at her, his hands as demanding as the kiss. When his fingertips encountered the smooth skin of her leg, he’d slid them beneath the hem of her silky skirt, palming the sleek curve of her thigh.

  They might have taken it to public indecency-territory if the driver hadn’t then pulled to a stop under the hotel’s portico.

  Lucas now turned into his own driveway, drawing in long breaths as he tried to gain control of his thoughts. Time to be cool, Curry. Time to assure Emmaline that honesty between them hadn’t jeopardized their working relationship.

  As he let himself inside the house, the hair on the back of his neck stood up, the unnatural quiet unsettling him. When he returned home, usually the sounds of Emmaline puttering in the kitchen met him at the front door. Not to mention the scent of something delicious cooking or baking.

  But today the only noise was the clattering of his own footsteps on the floor. The only smell the briny-salty aroma of ocean from beyond his back doors.

  A sudden concern clutched at his belly. Something was wrong.

  He glanced about the silent house as a sense of foreboding closed around him like a dark shadow.

  Had she left him?

  Christ, she couldn’t have left him! Because…because…

  It wouldn’t do, that’s all. Not when he’d become accustomed to all those graceful touches she’d brought to his home, all those pleasant comforts she’d added to his life in her short weeks in his employ.

  Confronting her with the truth was not going to cost this boss his butler.

  When he didn’t glimpse her in any of the open areas of the house, he strode for her quarters, irritation kindling. He didn’t care for the worry curdling in his gut. She shouldn’t have shut the door in his face last night, and she shouldn’t have him brooding over it all day.

  Damn the woman.

  At her door, he lifted his hand, rapped his knuckles on the surface. A no-nonsense request for her attention. “Emmaline?” he said, his voice rough. “I need to speak with you.”

  She’d better be in there, he thought, temper spiking. “Don’t make me wait.”

  But she did, curse her. Just as he reached for the knob to throw it open himself, he saw it move. Relief doused his temper and soothed most of his worry. Okay. Okay.

  He’d been overreacting.

  Then she stood in front of him, feet bare, little floaty dress rumpled, her hair tangled around her shoulders.

  Her luxurious lashes gathered in damp clusters.

  Rage shot up and slammed into his heart. “What hurt you?” he demanded. “Who hurt you?” The son of a bitch was a dead man.

  She stared at him, then brushed at the
traces of tears on her cheeks with the heels of her hands. “Nothing. Nobody. It’s…it’s been a day.”

  “What kind of day?” he bit out.

  Wordlessly, she shook her head.

  His fingers curled into fists. “There’s something wrong, Emmaline. You’re not like this.”

  “I am like this,” she retorted, with a touch of her own temper. “I’m Italian. I’m emotional. It’s a failing I’m aware of, and I try to dial the drama down. But I can’t always be as calm and collected as Charlie or as stiff-upper-lipped as Sara.”

  Despite himself, he had to fight off a smile. Was it wrong of him to enjoy this little exhibition of fire? She’d displayed her hot-blooded nature in the taxi, but since moving into his house she’d been the picture of equanimity.

  “You’re usually all poise and grace,” he murmured, then grinned. “Well, except when you attempt to throw horseshoes.”

  Ignoring that, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Did you need something?”

  His gaze wandered past her to see suitcases open on the bed and clothes stacked in piles around them. His gut clenched again, and his gaze shot to hers. “What’s going on?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “I’m packing.”

  Because he’d blown it last night. Shit.

  He shoved a hand through his hair. Cool, Curry. Stay cool. He looked toward the luggage again, his gaze snagging on her sewing basket. It was a pretty thing, oval-shaped and covered in a flowered tapestry. The box was like Emmaline herself, he thought now, decorative on the outside, but with practical purpose and some sharp points on the inside.

  He couldn’t see either of them leaving his house, damn it.

  “There’s no need for you to go anywhere,” he said.

  She bit her lip. “It’s just too weird now.”

  His hands shoved into his pockets. “Emmaline, did you really think I didn’t recognize you at the interview as the same woman from the missing luggage line?”

  With a shrug, her gaze drifted from his. “When we met at the coffee place, I was in my butler uniform, and I had my hair in a French braid. I looked different.”

  “Not that much different.” And he guessed she’d clung to the near-absurd tall tale as a way of protecting herself from having to think too much about what he was sure was an out-of-character surrender to lust with a stranger.