On a suppressed sigh, she returned her attention to her meal and they chatted companionably about the food, Malibu, and what it was like to work in the service of others.
“Tell me about his guy you’re butlering for,” Roland said.
“Let’s see…” How to describe Lucas without giving away how he enthralled her?
“Wait,” Roland said. “Let me guess. Does he have three lovely young women that work for him as well—two brunettes and a blonde?”
She stared at him, perplexed.
“They fight crime? He directs them via speakerphone.”
Her lips twitched. “You’re thinking of Charlie’s Angels. I’m thinking you need to watch a little less late-night television.”
As they continued to converse, Roland proved there couldn’t be a more delightful dinner companion. He kept her entertained through dessert and on the drive home. And when he pulled into the drive of the house where she lived, he turned off the car and just looked at her. The sky was pale orange with purple streaks, the last of the sunset acting as a wild and crazy color stylist.
Roland cleared his throat. “You take my breath away, Emmaline.”
She glanced down and said lightly, “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“We could turn some heads together.”
Her gaze shot up. “Roland…”
He held up a hand. “It sounds like a line. But that’s not what I’m about. I’m looking for something special with a special someone.”
“Um…”
“I’m thirty years old, I own a business, I have thirty-five full-time employees and twice that on my part-time staff roster. People will vouch for me.”
I’m twenty-six, she wanted to answer. And I’ve been living under an assumed identity for more than five years. It’s possible people could get hurt if I’m found out.
She didn’t know if that last were true. Maybe Enzo wouldn’t want to avenge his ego. But the fact was, she wasn’t a normal woman who could do a normal thing like dating. It would like lying to a man—it would actually be lying to a man—if she didn’t confess that she wasn’t Emmaline Rossi but instead Coco D’Angelo, runaway daughter of a second-tier Mob boss in the Palm Springs branch of the California Mafia.
No, she wasn’t a normal woman at all.
Maybe he read that depressing thought on her face. Before she could utter any words, he gave her a smile. “This was a great evening together. Shall we leave it at that for now?”
At her grateful nod, he climbed out of the car and hurried around to help her from her own seat. They strolled together toward the front door, and she breathed in the balmy night air, edged with salt and chill, a Malibu signature cocktail.
Roland slanted her a glance. “You landed in a pretty good place,” he said, as if he could read her mind. “Even if your employer isn’t the enigmatic Charlie.”
Emmaline released a little laugh and looked into Roland’s remarkable eyes. His gaze shifted to her mouth, and she knew he was thinking of kissing her. What a normal man would do to a normal woman at the end of an enjoyable date.
Suddenly, Emmaline thought she wanted the experience. It wouldn’t have to mean anything. Roland wouldn’t begrudge her a pleasant kiss even if she wasn’t in any place to start a relationship with him.
What would it be like to feel his mouth on hers? Might it overlay that memory of Lucas and her the other night, their lips aligned, her body responding with such ardent desire?
She should want that. Supplanting the memories of her boss and what they’d done together was smart. Safe. Now that she thought about it, a really fabulous idea.
“Emmaline,” Roland murmured, and cupped the back of her head with a gentle hand. He bent toward her.
Dampening her lower lip with her tongue, she lifted her face toward him.
Then the front door swung open. She and Roland both started and whirled around, like guilty teens being discovered by Dad.
Lucas stood in the doorway, a hand on each jamb, his expression that blank one she found so impossible to read.
“Emmaline,” he said, his tone neutral. Then he held out a hand to her date. “Lucas Curry.”
“Roland Finch. Good to meet you.”
Emmaline took their distraction to slip over the threshold. When the two men’s palms parted she smiled at Roland and gave him a little wave. “Thanks, again. Good night.”
He glanced at her boss, then back at her. “Now I’m thinking there’s just one angel at work,” he said, and saluted her before trotting toward his car.
The door swung shut in his wake. Heat prickled like goosebumps over Emmaline’s skin, and her scalp felt like it was on fire. She sidled toward her quarters without looking at Lucas’s face. All the awkwardness she’d had three days to avoid came rushing in, filling the four walls with a crackling tension. Her heartbeat seemed to bounce off every hard surface.
“Emmaline?” he said, from his place by the door.
“Y-yes?” Her throat had closed to the width of a straw, making it difficult to suck in air. If he asked her to bed with him now, what would she do?
Agree, of course. Talk about giddy. At the idea of being with him, her stomach flopped around and her brain spun like a little girl’s who’d been offered a pony ride. There was nothing normal about her intense reaction to him, but normal seemed highly overrated at the moment. Her hand rising to her throat, she felt her pulse thrumming there and turned to look at the man whom she’d miserably missed for three long days.
Pretending she hadn’t was just one big fib.
His steady gaze made her feel as if he saw past her clothes and skin. Her stomach lurched, because she still had all her desperate secrets.
She swallowed. “Yes, Lucas?” Her chest ached, her breath trapped there.
“We’ll talk in the morning,” he said, turning toward the staircase.
Chapter 8
Hefting a heavy, insulated basket in one hand, Lucas let himself into the house. The smell of coffee immediately greeted him, and he swallowed a curse. He’d wanted to be back from his errand before Emmaline awakened.
But there she was, bustling about the kitchen, a cloth in hand and swaddled by a long expanse of dark-gray fabric tied with a bow at her waist. He frowned.
“I thought we agreed you’d forego the uniform,” he said.
She whirled, then ran a hand over the material covering her front. “It’s only an apron. I have on regular clothes underneath.”
Her nervous gaze traveled around the room, seeming to avoid him at all costs.
Without further comment, he strode to the island and set the basket on the surface, then crossed his arms over his chest. Watching her return from a date with another man the night before had been an unpleasant coming-home gift. The impromptu business trip had been compulsory, but the hassle of it had been doubled by the fact that it postponed Emmaline and his being able to process together what had happened between them on the couch.
In the heat of the delicious moment of satisfying her, completely and gratifyingly, he’d leaped to the conclusion that he’d done something as hasty and dangerous as falling in love. But on the plane flight north later that night, he’d reassessed. Surely he was too smart to be ass over ears, too controlled.
It didn’t make sense that he even believed in something as ephemeral and illogical as love.
For the hours of the flight and whenever he had a quiet moment while he was gone, he’d gone to work on the idea like one of his employees, seeking weaknesses.
They hardly knew each other.
Mutual lust did not a relationship make.
What the fuck was love anyway?
He’d flown home thinking maybe he’d return to find her prosaically folding towels or cutting up vegetables, and it would be as if that time with her naked and riding his hand was some kind of illusive fever-dream. A delayed and deceptive after-effect of the crappy bout of flu.
Driving up to the house, for a tense moment he’d even wondered i
f she wouldn’t be there at all. If perhaps those weeks of her in his household had been a figment of his imagination—an illness-induced fantasy. But then he’d spied tossed on a countertop the straw hat she wore out in the herb garden and noted the cheery bouquet of sunflowers popping from the mouth of an earthenware pitcher that he was sure he’d never seen before.
He’d smiled to himself and relaxed when he found the cookie jar full of the oatmeal and chocolate chip bars that she promised were ten-percent healthy for him.
All had been right with his world, though he’d worried, a little, about her continued absence. Then he’d heard a car drive up to the house.
His feet had headed straight for the front door.
Where he’d met her would-be swain. Instantly, Lucas’s competitive streak had been triggered. He’d determined he wasn’t happy about handing over a newly sex-awakened Emmaline to some slick guy who looked like he should be starring in a magazine photo shoot at Zuma Beach. Just days past she’d come apart in his own arms, and that meant…something.
He hadn’t known what exactly, and what exactly to do next, but during the course of the night he’d made a plan. Maybe if they spent the day together he could come up with a notion of how this thing between them should go from here.
Now, though, taking in her rigid posture, he thought she might not be amenable…or easily persuadable. Her wariness hadn’t abated with his absence. Lucas considered his options.
“So…” he said. “Big plans for the morning?”
“The usual.” She busied herself at the coffee maker, then came toward him, his favorite mug, filled to the brim, in her hand. “Coffee before you have to leave for the office.”
“I don’t have to go in today,” he said, taking the brew. “I have something else that needs doing.”
“Oh?” A polite enquiry.
“Yes.” He sipped his drink, then set it aside. “And I could use some help.”
Emmaline glanced up. “Of course.” She wiped her palms on her apron as if readying herself for a new task—filling the salt and pepper shakers or coming up with a dinner menu for a weekend party or mending a loose seam on the canvas umbrella on the terrace.
The woman could do anything.
“I’ve got orders.” Mental ones, from his brain to himself. “To relax. Smell the roses, so to speak. I’ve been working too hard, what with the merger and the wedding stuff.”
Her eyes rounded. “Orders,” she repeated, clearly taking it as he’d hoped she would–orders from a medical professional.
Did he feel guilty for manipulating her? No. It was bad of him, “Mr. Curry” bad, “sir” bad, but he figured she could use a break too.
“A day on the beach,” he said. “With you as companion.”
“But—”
“I need someone to keep me in line. Without a minder, I’ll probably be checking in with my assistant four times an hour and bringing up his blood pressure as well.”
She fidgeted with her apron, pleating it with restless fingers. “Isn’t there anyone else?”
“I pay you to manage my household,” he said, resolute. “And part of that household is me.”
Bowing to that bit of logic, Emmaline agreed. He rewarded her by giving her time to finish a few of her morning chores, but soon enough he was shooing her to her rooms to get into a swimsuit.
Before doing as bid, she fussed at him about towels and sunscreen and cold drinks. There was mention of needing to prepare snacks. That’s when he flipped open the top of the basket he’d procured at the little café up the coast. “Everything two beach picnickers might need.”
Then he told her he’d meet her on the sand at the bottom of their steps.
He didn’t tell her about the paddle boards.
She came tripping down the stairs, sunglasses concealing over half her face, a ball cap covering her head, with a ponytail of brunette hair flying out the back opening. She wore a Hawaiian-patterned swimsuit in blue, green, and white, with a matching mesh sarong tied around her hips. Lucas decided merely seeing her like that—bright clothes, lots of bare, golden limbs—could give him that case of hypertension he’d told her he was all about preventing.
A breeze wafted by, cooling his hot skin and sending the scent of coconut wafting past his face. She’d smell like it everywhere, he thought, cataloging the places he could seek out its strongest notes—at the bend of her arm, mixed with the salt of a light summer sweat at the small of her back, in the heaven that was the cleavage between her pillowy breasts.
“Are you all right?” she asked, coming to a stop before him. “Are you in pain?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
She reached up to put her palm against his forehead. “You feel hot.”
He said “yes” to that too, but stopped any of her further fretting by taking her elbow and turning her toward the boards that he’d carried from the garage. The paddles stood up, jaunty, where he’d jammed them into the sand.
Emmaline instantly said, “This is not going to work.”
“I’m supposed to relax,” he reminded her.
“It will not be relaxing to have to chase after me as I float toward Hawaii.”
He smiled at her. “The currents might take you in the direction of Mexico instead. Margaritas and fish tacos sound nice.”
“I’m serious. I will not be able to control that contraption.”
“It’s not a contraption. It’s a recreational tool. And I’ve seen you wield both a food processor and a fancy espresso machine. Surely this can’t be any harder.”
“Two words,” she said, lifting her sunglasses to pin him with her stare. “Horse shoes.”
He laughed.
“Honest, I’m no good with recreational tools,” she said, her expression solemn. “In my hands, a bat becomes a boomerang. I gave myself a concussion once throwing a ball for a dog.”
“All right,” he said, deciding she wasn’t kidding. “Plan B.”
As it turned out, he actually did manage to unwind once he got her seated on his board. It wobbled only a little as he climbed on to stand behind her, and she squealed a little bit more than that—“You may never tell anyone I whined about cold water,” she ordered in a severe tone—and then he was paddling them through the bay’s calm waters. Today the waves seemed too lazy to rise higher than a few inches and then dash themselves desultorily upon the sand.
The sun beat warmly on his shoulders and the top of his head, but the breeze, cooled by the Pacific, kept them comfortable. Emmaline crossed her pretty feet at the ankle and leaned back on her hands.
“I feel like Cleopatra being paddled down the Nile,” she said.
He smiled and let a little more serenity slide over him.
The beach was sparsely populated. Most people preferred the beaches at Santa Monica and Zuma with their parking spaces, public restrooms, and snack bars. But as they approached a large house with dramatic glass walls, Emmaline started waving at a little figure in the surf. “There’s Wells! Hey, kiddo!”
Lucas navigated them closer to shore, and they bobbed in the small surf as the child splashed out beyond his knees. Emmaline’s friend Charlie was right behind the boy, and she kept a watchful eye on him as they chatted.
“I lost another tooth,” Wells told Emmaline and grimaced to display the gap in the bottom set. “I tried to talk Charlie into tying a string around it and yanking, but—”
“Charlie shuddered at the thought,” the woman in question said. “It’s perfectly fine to wait until it comes out on its own.”
“She doesn’t like to see my blood,” Wells confided. “You should have seen how upset she was when I cut my chin, and rivers of it went all over my shirt.”
Emmaline gave a dramatic shudder and then asked him the going rate the Tooth Fairy paid out.
“Five dollars,” Wells said promptly.
“One dollar,” Charlie corrected. “And fifty cents goes into your savings jar for college.”
They bid them farewe
ll shortly after, and Lucas turned back to paddle toward home. “That kid is seriously cute.”
“I agree,” Emmaline said, lifting her face toward the sky so that the end of her ponytail tickled the expanse of skin between her shoulder blades.
“He looks a lot like Charlie.”
“You think so?” Emmaline mused vaguely, then she glanced over her shoulder at him. “Really?”
He shrugged. “They look like mother and son to me. He’s lucky to have found someone to care for him like that after his own mom died.”
“You’d know how that is,” she said. “You became Stella’s parents.”
“I’m sure I screwed up more than once, but I did my best. Luckily she was beyond the Tooth Fairy stage.”
“Wells is still a believer,” Emmaline said, an odd, pensive note in her voice.
“When did you stop?” he asked, curious. “Believing, that is. Did an older friend spill the beans, or…”
“When my mother died. I don’t think anyone had to tell me, I just knew they were all a sham…the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Santa. Even the Valentine’s Pixie.”
Ah, Emmaline. His chest ached, and it was good he had to paddle or else he’d have her in his arms before he’d decided what came next with them. “I don’t think I know the Valentine’s Pixie.”
“I’d wake up in the morning on February 14th and my room would be decorated all over with hearts and cupids. My mom claimed it was the Valentine’s Pixie who stopped by, spreading love like glitter on that day to glow and grow inside us for a whole year.”
Lucas smiled. “Sweet.”
“She was genius at creating enchantment.”
Over the shliss of his paddle scooping water, he heard Emmaline’s little sigh.
“When she passed, all of it went out of my world.”
“That isn’t true.”
Emmaline looked over her shoulder at him.
“You’re creating magic all the time yourself, Emmaline. Many sorts of magic, from flowers in a pitcher and cookies in a jar to the precise stacks of T-shirts in my drawers.”
The Seduction (Billionaire's Beach Book 5) Page 12
