Lincoln swiped a finger across his track pad and brought up his schedule for the day.
“Does she have an appointment?” he said coolly as he perused his digital calendar. “Because I can’t see one.”
“She doesn’t,” Barnaby replied. “She just turned up.”
Lincoln narrowed his eyes. “Well, tell her she can make one then.”
“Lincoln, just get the fuck out here!” Barnaby growled.
The buzzer went dead. Lincoln sighed.
He knew Barnaby would make his life difficult for the rest of the day if he didn’t deal with the secretary’s supposed emergency. He closed down his computer screen, rose reluctantly from his desk, and crossed his office. Lincoln opened the door and stepped out into his private lobby. Which, right now, didn’t appear to be so private judging by the number of employees lurking at the periphery of the bright space and looking in from the adjoining corridors.
Lincoln’s gaze landed on the elderly figure sitting on the couch directly opposite him and next to Barnaby’s desk. He blinked. The woman was dressed in a pale tweed outfit and low pumps. Her hair was up in some kind of fifties do and she clutched a granny purse in her veiny hands. Thick-rimmed glasses covered her rheumy, distracted eyes and her rose-colored lipstick was slightly smudged.
Lincoln studied her with rising awe.
Wow. She must have been a firecracker in her heyday to be running an escort service. Lincoln’s heart sank in the next instant. He masked a grimace. Shit, this is gonna be unpleasant.
Dexter, one of the Hudson Group’s accountants, appeared in Lincoln’s line of sight. He walked past Barnaby’s desk and leaned down to offer a glass of water to the woman on the couch.
“Here you are, Aunt May. Hmm, wanna come to my office?” Dexter mumbled.
“In a minute,” the old lady whispered loudly. She slipped a butterscotch out of her handbag and popped it into her mouth, her gaze focused unblinkingly on something to her right as she started sucking on the candy.
Lincoln gave Barnaby a puzzled frown.
The secretary jerked his head subtly toward the opposite side of the airy floor, his hazel eyes sparkling with shocked delight and a hint of devilry.
It was then that Lincoln realized that everyone, including Dexter and Dexter’s aunt by the exchange he’d just heard, was staring goggle-eyed at the same spot just around a blind corner of the lobby, where the late morning sun shone through the glass facade of the high-rise building housing the local branch of the Hudson Group and offering a dizzying view over mid-town Tokyo. Lincoln took a step forward, curious as to who or what had captivated everyone’s attention.
He heard her before he saw her. His gaze swung south and found the cause of the impatient tapping noise he’d just registered.
The first thing Lincoln noticed were the shoes. They were traffic-light red, leather Manolo Blahnik stilettos made to hug a woman’s feet and designed to inspire a man’s dick to pay attention. The ball of the left one was dancing a restless tune against the marble floor of the lobby.
The next thing Lincoln registered were the black, see-through stockings with a solid seam running up the back of the most beautiful legs he had ever seen, legs that disappeared enticingly under an above-knee, navy blue, pinstripe pencil skirt that wrapped around a stunning ass and shapely hips.
Lincoln allowed his gaze to roam up the delicious dip of the woman’s lower back and her rolled-up sleeved, black silk blouse, vaguely aware that he was growing hard. Sunlight cast a golden halo around her head and the cascade of luxurious, pale blond hair tumbling past her slim shoulders to the bottom of her delicate shoulder blades.
The tapping noise suddenly stopped. The woman straightened stiffly. She uncrossed her arms, her left hand clenched tightly on the handle of her cherry-colored Prada bag where she lowered it by her side.
Lincoln knew instinctively that she was staring at him through the reflection in the glass. How he was certain she was looking at him in particular and not the other men ogling her from across the lobby Lincoln wasn’t sure since she was wearing sunglasses, but he was willing to wager a significant sum of money that her eyes were focused on him.
She twisted slowly on her heels and faced him across the open floor. Diamonds glinted in the clip-on earrings on her earlobes. Her breasts were lusciously full, her nose pert and slightly upturned, her lips plump and crowned by a perfect Cupid’s bow, and her lipstick ruby red.
All the blood in Lincoln’s body went south. He held his breath as the jaw-droppingly gorgeous stranger crossed the lobby and stopped in front of him.
The woman pushed her sunglasses up onto her head, her stilettos bringing her slender, five-foot-six body just high enough to his own hulking six-foot-two frame for her to only have to tilt her chin up to fix him with an electric blue stare.
Lincoln’s dick pressed up uncomfortably against his zipper when he caught a hint of the perfume wafting enticingly off her golden skin in subtle waves. He detected Jasmine and Lily of the valley, as well as a musk base note.
“Lincoln Hudson?” the woman said coldly.
Her voice was deep and commanding, with a hint of huskiness that made his mouth water. Since speech seemed a bit beyond him at the moment, Lincoln could only arch an eyebrow in response and pray to God he wasn’t drooling.
The woman frowned slightly. “Eveline Claude.” She marched past him and headed inside his office. “Let’s talk.”
Lincoln took a shallow breath. Fuck.
He met his secretary’s gleeful stare and knew Barnaby had guessed what was going on inside his mind.
There was only one word to describe Lincoln’s reaction to Eveline Claude, the owner of Le Secret and, by the looks of it, the woman dying to tear him another asshole judging by the anger he’d read in the icy depths of her eyes.
Instalust.
The Proposition (Nights Series Book 6) Page 14
