Living the Charade

by Michelle Conder

  ‘But you’re not impressed?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘What does impress you?’

  He folded his arms across his torso and Miller’s brain zeroed in on the shifting muscles and tendons under tanned skin. What had he just asked?

  She cleared her throat. ‘The usual. Manners. Intellect. A sense of humour—’

  ‘You like your cars well-mannered and funny, Miss Jacobs? Interesting.’

  Miller knew she must be bright red by now, and hate turned to loathing. ‘This isn’t funny.’ She caught and held his amused gaze. ‘Are you intending to sabotage my weekend?’

  It gave her some satisfaction to see an annoyed look flash across his divine face.

  ‘Sunshine, if I was going to do that I wouldn’t have shown up.’

  ‘I don’t like you calling me Sunshine.’

  ‘All couples have nicknames. I’m sure you’ve thought up a few for me.’

  More than a few, she mused silently, and none that could be repeated in polite company.

  Desperate to break the tension between them, Miller moved to the back of her car and pulled out her overnight bag. Valentino met her halfway and stowed it in the sports car before holding the passenger door wide for her.

  Miller raised an eyebrow and gripped the doorframe, steeling herself to stare into his eyes. This close, the colour was amazing: streaks of silver over blue, with a darker band of grey encircling each iris.

  She sucked in a deep breath and ignored his earthy male scent. ‘You need to understand that I’m in charge this weekend.’ Her voice wasn’t very convincing even to her own ears but she continued on regardless. ‘On the drive down we’ll establish some ground rules, but basically all I need you to do is to follow my lead. Do you think you can do that?’

  He smiled. That all-knowing grin that crinkled the outer edges of his amazing eyes. ‘I’ll give it my best shot. How does that sound?’

  Terrible. It sounded terrible.

  He leaned closer and Miller found herself sitting on butter-soft leather before she’d meant to. Her brain once again flashing a warning to run. Taking a deep breath, she ignored it and scanned the sleek interior of the car: dark and somehow predatory—like Valentino himself. It must have cost a fortune to rent, and again she wondered what he did for a living.

  She couldn’t look away from the way his jeans hugged his muscular thighs as she watched as he slid into the driver’s seat. ‘You’re not a lawyer like your brother, are you?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Good God, no! Do I look like a lawyer?’

  Not really. ‘No.’ She tried not to be too disappointed. ‘Do you have the questionnaire I gave you?’

  ‘No one could fault your excitement about wanting to get to know me.’

  He reached into the back, his body leaning way too close to hers, and handed her the questionnaire.

  Then he started the car, and Miller’s senses were on such high alert that the husky growl of the engine made her want to squirm in her seat.

  ‘You’ll notice I added to it as well,’ he informed her, merging into the building inner city traffic.

  She glanced up, feeling completely discombobulated, and decided not to distract him by asking what he’d added. She concentrated on the questionnaire.

  His favourite colour was blue, favourite food was Thai. He’d grown up in Melbourne. Hobbies: swimming, running and surfing—no wonder he looked so fit! No sign of any cerebral pursuits—no surprise there. Family: two sisters and two brothers.

  ‘You have a big family.’

  He grunted something that sounded like yes.

  ‘Are you close?’ The impetuous question was too personal, and unnecessary, but as she’d spent much of her youth longing for siblings her curiosity got the better of her.

  He glanced at her briefly. ‘Not particularly.’

  That was a shame. Miller had always dreamed that large families were full of happy, supportive siblings who would do anything for each other.

  ‘What does “Lives: everywhere” mean?’ she asked, glancing at the questionnaire.

  ‘I travel a lot.’

  ‘Backpacking?’

  That got a hoot of laughter. ‘Sunshine, I’m thirty-three—a bit old to be a backpacker.’

  He threw her a smile and Miller found her eyes riveted to his beautiful even white teeth.

  ‘I travel for work.’

  She blinked back the disturbing effect he had on her and once again scanned the questionnaire. ‘Driving?’ She couldn’t keep the scepticism out of her voice as she read out the answer under ‘Occupation’. ‘Driving what?’

  He threw her a quick look. ‘Cars. What else?’

  ‘I don’t know. Buses? Trains?’ She tried not to let her annoyance show. ‘Trucks?’ God, don’t let him be a taxi driver; Dexter would never let her hear the end of it.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re one of those stuck-up females who only go for rich guys with white collar jobs.’

  Miller sniffed. She’d been so busy working and establishing her career the last time she’d gone for any man was back at university. Not that she would be telling him that. ‘Of course not.’

  But she did like a man in a suit.

  He snorted as if he didn’t believe her, but he didn’t elaborate on his answer.

  Sensing he might be embarrassed about his job, she decided to let it drop for now. Maybe he wouldn’t mind pretending to be an introverted actuary for the weekend. No one really knew what they did except that it involved mathematics, and not even Dexter was likely to try and engage him in that topic of conversation.

  She flipped the page in front of her and found her eyes drawn to his commanding scrawl near the bottom.

  Her nose wrinkled. ‘I don’t need to know what type of underwear you wear.’ And she didn’t want to imagine him in sexy boxer briefs.

  ‘According to your little summary we’ve been dating for two months. I think you’d know what type of underwear I wear, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course I would. But it’s not relevant because I’ll never need to use that information.’

  He glanced at her again. ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘I could have just made something up had the need arisen.’

  ‘Are you always this dishonest?’

  Miller exhaled noisily. She was never dishonest. ‘No. I loathe dishonesty. And I hate this situation. And what’s more I’m sick of having men think that just because I’m single I’m available.’

  ‘It’s not just because of that?’

  ‘No,’ she agreed, thinking of TJ. ‘My client isn’t really attracted to me at all. He’s attracted to the word no.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I know. It’s what has made him his fortune. He’s bullish, arrogant and pompous.’

  ‘Not having met the man, I’ll have to trust your judgement. But if you want my opinion your client is probably more turned on by your glossy hair, killer mouth and hourglass figure than your negative response.’

  ‘Wha—? Hey!’ Miller braced her hands on the dashboard as the car swerved around a bus like a bullet, nearly fainting before Valentino swung back into the left-hand lane two seconds before hitting a mini-van.

  ‘Relax. I do this for a living.’

  ‘Kill your passengers?’ she said weakly.

  He laughed. ‘Drive.’

  Miller forgot all about the near miss with an oncoming vehicle as his comments about her looks replayed in her head.

  Did he really think she had a killer mouth? And why was her heart beating like a tiny trapped bird?

  ‘I don’t think we can say we met at yoga,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’ She didn’t believe for a minute that he could be interested in her, but if he thought he would be getting easy sex this weekend he had another thing coming.

  His amused eyes connected with hers. ‘Because I don’t do yoga.’

  Miller felt her lips pinch together as she realised he was toying with her. �
�You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

  ‘More than I thought I would,’ he agreed.

  Miller released a frustrated breath. No one was going to believe she was serious about this guy. Her mother had always warned her not to lie, and she mostly lived by that creed. Yesterday, she’d let blind ambition get in the way of sound judgement.

  Okay, maybe not blind ambition. Possibly she was a little peeved that she’d felt so professionally hamstrung in telling TJ Lyons what she thought of his lack of business ethics.

  ‘Maybe we just shouldn’t talk,’ she muttered, half to herself. ‘I know enough.’ And she was afraid if he said any more she’d ask him to pull over so she could get out and run away as fast as she could.

  ‘I don’t.’

  She looked at him warily. ‘Everything you need to know is in my dossier. Presuming you read it?’

  ‘Oh, it was riveting. You enjoy running, Mexican cuisine, strawberry ice cream, and cross-stitching. Tell me, is that anything like cross-dressing?’

  Miller willed herself not to blow up at him. ‘No.’

  ‘That’s a relief. You also like reading and visiting art galleries. No mention of what type of underwear you prefer, though.’

  Miller channelled the monks of wherever. ‘Because it’s irrelevant.’

  ‘You know mine.’

  ‘Not by choice.’ And she was trying very hard not to think about those sexy boxers under his snug-fitting jeans.

  ‘So what do you prefer?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Are you a plain cotton or more of a lace girl?’

  Miller stifled a cough. ‘That’s none of your business.’

  ‘Believe me, it is. I’m not getting caught up in a conversation with your client not knowing my G-strings from my boy-legs.’

  ‘Potential client. And I thought all men talked about was sport?’

  ‘We’ve been known to deviate on occasion.’ He threw her a mischievous grin. ‘Since you won’t tell me, I’ll have to use my imagination.’

  ‘Imagine away,’ she said blithely, and then wished she hadn’t when his eyes settled on her breasts.

  ‘Now, there’s an invitation a man doesn’t get every day.’

  Miller shot him a fulminating glare, alarmed to feel her nipples tightening inside her lace bra.

  Striving to steady her nerves, she made the mistake of reading out the next item he’d added to the questionnaire. ‘“Favourite sexual position.”’

  ‘I haven’t finished imagining your lingerie,’ he complained. ‘Though I’m heading towards sheer little lacy numbers over cotton. Am I right?’

  Miller faked a yawn, wondering how on earth he had guessed her little secret and determined that he wouldn’t know that he was getting to her. ‘You’ve written down “all”.’

  He threw her a wolfish grin. ‘I might have exaggerated slightly. It was getting late when I wrote that. Probably if I had to name one... Nope. I pretty much like them all equally.’

  ‘I wasn’t asking.’

  ‘Although on top is always fun,’ he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘And there’s something wicked about taking a woman from behind.’

  His voice had dropped and the throaty purr slid over Miller’s skin like a silken caress.

  ‘Don’t you think?’

  Miller released a pent-up breath. She’d had one sexual partner so far and it hadn’t been nearly exciting enough for them to try variations on the missionary theme. She hated that now all she could visualise was her on top of the sublime male next to her and how it would feel to have him behind her. Inside her.

  Her heart thudded heavily in her chest and she suddenly found her attention riveted by the way his long fingers flexed around the steering wheel. Imagining them on her body.

  ‘What I think is that you should concentrate on driving this beast of a car so we don’t run into one of those semis you’re so determined to fly past.’

  ‘Nervous, Miller?’

  He said her name as if he was tasting it and Miller’s stomach clenched. Oh, this man was a master at sexual repartee, and she’d do well to remember that.

  Miller shook her head. ‘Are you ever serious about anything?’

  He threw her a bemused look. ‘Plenty. Are you ever not serious about anything?’

  ‘Plenty.’ Which was so blatantly untrue she half expected her nose to start growing.

  He passed another car and Miller absently noted that after her earlier panicked response he was driving marginally less like a racing car driver. That thought triggered something in her mind and her brow furrowed.

  Determined to ignore him for the rest of the trip, she pulled her laptop out of her computer bag.

  ‘What happened to the getting-to-know-you part of our trip?’

  He threw her a sexy smile that shot the hazy memory she’d been trying to grab on to out of her head and replaced it with an image of the way he had insolently leant against the bar last night.

  ‘I know you run, swim, work out, and that you take your coffee black. Your favourite colour is blue and you have four siblings—’

  ‘I also don’t mind a cuddle after sex.’

  ‘And you don’t have a serious bone in your body. I, on the other hand, take my life very seriously and I am not interested in whether you like sex straight up or hanging from a chandelier. It’s not relevant. What I’m looking for this weekend is someone to melt into the background and say very little. Starting right now.’

  * * *

  Tino smiled as he revved the engine and manoeuvred the Aston Martin around a tourist bus. He hadn’t enjoyed himself this much in...he couldn’t remember.

  He was in a hot car, driving down a wide country highway on a warm spring afternoon, completely free from having to answer questions about his recent spate of accidents, his car or the coming race. The experience was almost blissful.

  With any luck his anonymity would hold and he’d forget the pressure of being the world’s number one racing driver on an unlucky streak. Because, as he’d told Sam, it was all media hoopla and coincidence anyway, and he’d prove it Sunday week.

  He glanced at the stiff woman beside him and involuntarily adjusted his jeans. He hadn’t expected her to give him a hard-on but she had. Which was surprising, given that her black linen trousers and matching shirt were about as provocative as a nun’s habit.

  His eyes drifted over the blade-straight hair that curtained her delicate profile from his view down over her elegant neck to the gentle swell of her breasts. Was she wearing lace underneath? By the blush that had crept into her face before he’d guess yes. The thought made him smile, and his gaze lingered on her hands as they poised over her computer keys.

  She had an effortless sensuality that drew him, and whenever she glared at him hot sparks of sexual arousal threatened to burn him up.

  They’d be good together. He knew it. It was just a pity he had no intention of using the weekend to test his theory.

  He wasn’t looking for a relationship right now, sexual or otherwise, and he had very strict guidelines about how women fitted into his life. The last thing he wanted was a woman getting into his headspace and worrying about whether or not he was going to buy it on the track every time he raced. He’d seen it too many times before, and no way would anyone land him with that kind of guilty pressure.

  He still remembered the day he had watched his father clip the rear wheel of another car, flip over and slam into a concrete barrier. It had been one of those races that had reinvigorated race safety procedures and it had changed Tino’s life for ever. He’d still known that he would follow in his father’s footsteps, but after feeling helpless in the face of his beloved mother’s grief, and fighting his own pain at losing his father, he’d locked his emotions away so tight he wasn’t sure he’d recognise them any more.

  Which was a bonus in a sport where emotions were considered dangerous, and his cool, roguish demeanour scared the hell out of most of his rivals.

  His approa
ch was so different from his father’s attitude to the sport he’d loved. His father had tried to have it all, but what he should have done was choose family or racing. Emotional attachments and their job didn’t mix. Any fool knew that.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘THIS it?’ Valentino pulled the car onto the shoulder of the road and Miller glanced up from following the GPS navigator on her smartphone.

  ‘Yes.’ Miller read the plaque on the massive brick pillar that housed a set of enormous iron gates: ‘Sunset Boulevard.’ So typical of TJ’s delusions of grandeur, Miller thought tetchily.

  Valentino announced them through the security speakers, and the sports car crunched over loose gravel as he pulled around the circular driveway and stopped between an imposing front portico and a burbling fountain filled with frolicking cherubs holding gilded bows and arrows.

  ‘Who’s your client?’

  Miller didn’t answer. She was too busy staring at the enormous pink-tinged stone mansion that looked as if it had been airlifted directly from the Amalfi Coast in Italy and set down in the middle of this arid Australian beach scrub—lime-green lawns and all.

  Her car door opened and she automatically accepted Valentino’s extended hand. And regretted it. A sensation not unlike an electric shock bolted up her arm and shot sparks all the way down her legs.

  Her eyes flew to his in surprise, but his expression was so blank she felt slightly stupid. At least that answered her earlier unasked question. No, he didn’t find her attractive; he’d just been enjoying himself at her expense.

  She registered the opening of a high white front door in her peripheral vision and felt her world right itself when Valentino dropped her hand.

  ‘Miller. You made good time.’

  She glanced towards her boss.

  ‘And I can see why.’ Dexter stared at Valentino and then cast his appreciative eyes over the silver bullet they’d driven down in.

  A bulky figure followed Dexter down the stone steps and she pasted a confident smile on her face when TJ Lyons ambled forward like a cattle tycoon straight off the station.