My Secret Life

by Lori Wilde

“You’ve been acting very odd lately,” Tanisha said. “Ever since Max made you art director. I think it’s going to your head.”

  “It’s not going to my head,” she denied.

  “No?” Tanisha looked as if she didn’t believe it for a second.

  “No.”

  “Well, something’s wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “You—” she pointed a pitiless finger “—are seriously into denial.”

  Feeling badgered, she crossed her arms over her chest. “What makes you think something is wrong?”

  “Because your skirt’s on backward.”

  Katie looked down and saw that Tanisha was right. Her zipper was twisted around to the front, not in the back where it belonged. It must have happened in the theatre.

  Her face heated. Good grief, she was seriously into denial.

  Denial that her feelings for Liam were growing too fast and too strong.

  Tanisha narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Have you fallen off the cold-turkey wagon? Where were you during your lunch hour?”

  Thankfully, her extension rang and she snatched up the receiver to avoid answering her friend’s probing questions.

  “Katie?”

  She caught a skittish breath. The sound of Liam’s voice, as spellbinding as snake-charmer music, curled through her body. Her tongue was cemented to the roof of her mouth and her hand tightened around the receiver. A dozen erotic images erupted in her mind.

  She recalled the way he had looked at the movie theatre, muscles coiled tight, face scrunched up in ecstasy. Her hands tingled, recalling how her fingers had brushed against the smooth skin of his strong, clean-shaven jaw. Her nose twitched in memory of the tangy scent their lovemaking generated. Her mouth watered and her sex clenched with electric shivers. She wanted to do it again.

  And soon.

  But it wasn’t just the physical act, and her enjoyment of it, that had her aching to be joined with him again. What she remembered most about their adventure in the theatre, what frayed her heart with an emotion she didn’t want to think about, was the way he’d tenderly cupped her face in his hands. He’d stared deeply into her eyes and then kissed her lightly, tenderly, the moment after they’d climaxed together.

  “Katie,” he repeated.

  “Uh-huh,” she whispered, her pulse skipped a zealous message to her brain. I want him.

  “I know this is short notice,” he apologized, “but are you free on Wednesday night?”

  “Um…what’s up?”

  “Mayor Delancy is having a dinner party at his house and I need a date. Can you come with me?”

  Can I come with you? That was a loaded question if she’d ever heard one. “I’d love to.”

  “Great, I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.” He rang off without another word.

  Katie hung up, feeling a strange mix of emotions— anticipation mingled with sheepishness and a light dusting of bafflement. She’d been a flirt since childhood. Teasing men, leading them on and then taking off when things got too serious for her to handle. She liked keeping guys off balance, making them unsure of where they stood with her.

  But Liam was different. Here he’d gone and asked her for a last-minute date and she hadn’t hesitated. In the past—with any other guy—she would have pretended she had another date. Instead, she eagerly accepted Liam’s invitation without thinking twice. How messed up was that?

  Katie put a hand to her stomach, alarmed. Something very strange was happening to her. Something she could not control or explain.

  And she wasn’t at all sure she liked the path she was headed down.

  9

  LIAM PACED his penthouse apartment, his nerves shredded, even though he was loath to admit Finn Delancy held that much power over him. Tough guys didn’t get nervous over being the guest of honor at dinner parties thrown by their illegitimate fathers.

  The only thing that calmed him was the knowledge that he would have Katie by his side. She knew how to successfully navigate blue-blooded waters. One ally. That was all he needed to give him the strength to confront the man he’d never called father.

  He picked Katie up in his Lamborghini at seven-thirty on the dot. She opened the door looking exactly like what she was—a well-bred Boston Brahmin. She wore a little black cocktail dress that fit her curves perfectly and showcased her sleek blond hair. The dress showed enough cleavage to be enticing without being vulgar. The skirt hem hit right above her knees. Not too long, not too short.

  A five-carat diamond lay draped around her long slender neck, and she had on a matching bracelet. She’d twisted her hair up off her shoulders like Aubrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s—his mother’s all-time favorite movie.

  She’d struck exactly the right note.

  He stared, stunned by the simplicity of her beauty. “You look amazing.”

  Her smile was surprisingly shy. “Thank you.”

  “I brought you a corsage.”

  “I can see that.”

  He suddenly felt like a giant dork standing there with the vibrant red rose corsage in his hand. He’d gotten it on Vanessa’s recommendation, but now the gesture seemed way too high-school-promish. “It’s a dumb idea.”

  “No, no.” She reached for the corsage. “Flowers are never a dumb idea.”

  “Should I pin it on for you?”

  “Please.”

  He took the corsage out of the box and stepped forward to pin it on her dress. She smelled so good, so tempting. His knuckles grazed the curve of her skin, his fingertips brushing the velvety material of her dress. She felt so warm and alive.

  Katie lowered her lashes, watching him pin the corsage in place. The fact she was watching him threw Liam off his game. Her succulent aroma, mingled with the smell of the roses, enticed him. He wanted to lean over and nibble on the creamy expanse of her exposed neck.

  “Your thumb,” she exclaimed. “Look, Liam, you’re bleeding.”

  It was only then he noticed he had poked his finger with the pin while putting on her corsage. He’d been so overwhelmed by her that he hadn’t even felt the prick of pain.

  Katie snatched a tissue from a nearby box, reached out, took his hand and dotted away the blood.

  Something knotted inside him at her tender touch. Something alien and scary.

  He wondered how he looked to her, successful entrepreneur in a tux, Boston’s most eligible bachelor, all suave and debonair, sticking his finger with a pin and not even paying attention because her beauty had so preoccupied him.

  “Where did you get that tattoo?” she asked. “It doesn’t fit with the rest of you.”

  He stiffened. He was sensitive about the tattoo. He wore wide watchbands to hide it, but when he looked down he could see the inky barbs peeping around the edge of his Rolex.

  “I got into some trouble when I was a kid,” he admitted, hoping a simple explanation would be enough.

  “What kind of trouble?” She breathed, and he could tell she was intrigued.

  “I got mixed up with a gang,” he mumbled.

  “A real gang?”

  “Real enough.”

  She blinked. “I don’t believe you.”

  He didn’t know what possessed him to do what he did next. Her tone of voice, maybe. Or perhaps he had a desire to shock her. But the next thing Liam knew he was stripping off his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt.

  A smile curled her lips. “I like the way this is going.”

  Her teasing frustrated him. He aimed to stun, not titillate.

  He whipped off his shirt and then tugged down the right side of his trouser waistband, revealing the jagged silvered scar just above his hipbone.

  Katie’s eyes widened to the size of quarters. “Ohmigod!”

  Talking about being stabbed was more difficult than he’d thought it would be. But Liam was not prepared for what she did next.

  Katie crossed the distance between them, sank to her knees and softly pressed her lips to his scar, leaving behind t
he scarlet imprint of her mouth branded against his skin. The gesture sent quivers shooting through his groin. Uncontrollably, his penis hardened. Disturbed by her response and his reaction to it, he held out a hand to help her to her feet.

  “Tell me,” she whispered, and touched his arm, leaving him wishing he’d never started this.

  He lifted his shoulder, shrugging as if it had been no big deal, rather than a defining moment in his life. “It was the stupid mistake of a fourteen-year-old kid, looking for a place to belong.”

  “Why did you feel the need to belong that badly?”

  “I grew up without a father. My mother worked two jobs to make ends meet. I spent a lot of time alone.”

  “What happened to your dad?”

  He certainly hadn’t intended on getting into all this now. “I never knew him. He took off the minute he found out my mother was pregnant.”

  “Wow, none of that was in the Young Bostonian article about you.”

  “I don’t tell many people about it.”

  Her eyes softened. “Thank you for telling me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “How did you get from there to where you are today?” She studied him intently, her gaze heating up his skin as he fumbled with the shirt buttons.

  “After this—” he swept a hand at his scar “—my mother knew she had to get me out of that neighborhood or I was going to end up dead.”

  “How did she get you out of that environment?”

  “She took a job as a cook’s helper at a private school in upstate New York. Even though it paid a lot less than her two jobs in Boston, we were allowed to live in a two-room apartment on the school grounds and I received free tuition. If it weren’t for the sacrifices she made, I wouldn’t be here today.”

  That might sound overly dramatic, but it was the honest truth. He would have been killed or in prison, of that he had little doubt.

  “How come you don’t have the tattoo removed?”

  “I keep it as a reminder of where I’ve been, of what I’ve escaped. I’m not proud of it, but it’s important not to forget my past.”

  “Oh,” she said as if she understood, but he knew she had no concept of what his life had been like. How could she from her ivory tower?

  Looking at the regal tilt of her head, he felt like that fatherless fourteen-year-old boy again who’d grown up in the South Boston housing project. Unsure of himself and desperately longing for success, but terrified he’d never fit in with Katie’s kind, no matter how hard he tried. He’d come a long way, but there were some barriers that could never be breached.

  Who was he to think he could ever possess a woman like her? He could amass all the money in the world and never be in her league. To believe otherwise was folly. His tattoo was proof of that. You couldn’t change your DNA.

  But part of his DNA was as blue-blooded as her own.

  The part he hated.

  Liam stepped back, hoping if he put some distance between them he could think more clearly, but he could not.

  Katie met his gaze with a knowing smile. He had the frantic notion she could see right through him like an X-ray.

  Afraid of his vulnerability, Liam cleared his throat. “We better leave if we don’t want to be late for the mayor’s party.”

  Delancy lived in one of the largest mansions on Beacon Hill. A valet hired for the evening parked his car. Liam took Katie’s hand and guided her up the cobblestone walkway.

  He noticed the carved lintels and decorative iron-work. Delancy was living here while he and his mother had been crammed into a six-hundred-square-foot apartment on the wrong side of the tracks and then later in an equally small garage apartment behind the dean’s house at Fernwood Academy for Boys.

  The old rage caught fire inside him.

  Katie must have picked up on his mood because she stopped on the front doorstep and looked at him. “Liam, is everything okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “You seem tense.”

  “A bit nervous, I guess.”

  “You?” She sounded surprised.

  “I’ve never met the mayor before.” At least not officially. Not outside of a pirate’s costume.

  “Don’t be so impressed with Finn Delancy. My family’s known his for years. People on Beacon Hill are like people anywhere else and most of them have a skeleton or two in their closet. Blue blood or not, you’re twice the man Finn Delancy will ever be. Relax. You’ll do fine.”

  Her words washed away his anger. She squeezed his hand, strengthening his courage and then reached out to rap the door with the heavy brass knocker.

  A reserved-looking young woman wearing a starched white apron answered their knock.

  “Liam James and Katie Winfield,” Katie announced to the woman.

  The mayor’s home was something straight out of a nineteenth-century novel. The foyer towered two stories above their heads and the walls were paneled in luxurious mahogany. The rugs were Persian, the artwork original masterpieces and the massive chandelier looked as if it had come straight from the home of a Venetian artisan glassblower.

  While my mother and I were eating macaroni and cheese, Delancy was living in a palace.

  The woman took Katie’s wrap and handbag and ushered them into the library where a group of Boston’s elite were gathered around the fireplace sipping cocktails. The room was stocked floor to ceiling with books and overstuffed chairs. Liam would have killed to have access to such a library when he was in school.

  “Katie, darling,” a straw-thin, middle-aged woman with a face smoothed by plastic surgery crossed the room to greet them. Liam recognized her from photos he’d seen in the newspaper and on TV as Delancy’s wife, Sutton. “Don’t tell me you’ve landed our city’s most eligible multimillionaire bachelor.”

  “No, no,” Katie said quickly. “Liam’s a client of Sharper Design.”

  Her immediate denial that their relationship was anything more than business bothered him. Would it have been so terrible to let Sutton assume they were a couple?

  Sutton linked her arm through Liam’s, tugging him away from Katie. “You must tell me all about yourself, dear boy. You might be Boston’s most eligible bachelor, but I’ve asked around and no one seems to know much about you other than the luscious fact that you’re fabulously wealthy. Who is your family?”

  He had to be careful. Much as he wanted to blurt out the truth, this wasn’t the time or the place. He was here to get the lay of the land and to find out as much as he could about the enemy.

  Finn Delancy broke away from his cronies at the fireplace and walked over to join Liam, Katie and Sutton in the middle of the room. He cradled a crystal tumbler of Scotch in his hand.

  Liam didn’t miss the lecherous look Finn sent in Katie’s direction. He had to fight to suppress an overpowering urge to plant his fist in the older man’s kisser.

  “How do you do, Mr. James? I don’t believe we’ve ever met.” Delancy stuck out his hand.

  Liam gritted his teeth. It was all he could do to civilly shake the man’s hand. “No?”

  Delancy looked confused by the questioning tone in Liam’s voice.

  Liam said nothing, just stared Delancy in the eyes. The mayor was the first to look away, shifting his attention to his glass of Scotch. “Can I get you something to drink?” Delancy searched the room for the maid, snapped his fingers at her and said, “Alice, get Mr. James a…”

  “Whiskey,” Liam said. He wasn’t much for hard liquor, but this evening was shaping up to be a whiskey kind of night. “Neat.”

  Delancy reached up and put a hand on Liam’s shoulder. “Come on over and let me introduce you to everyone.”

  He flinched at the intimate contact, turned his head to look for Katie and found her right beside him. If not for her, he would feel like a hapless sheep among a pack of wolves. He might know how to make money and flip real estate, but he didn’t have a clue how to walk the delicate tightrope of high-society politics.

  Everyone at
the party knew Katie and while Liam had met a few of the people in the room at various functions, he knew none of them personally. He chatted with State Senator Gerard Clarkson and his wife, Nancy, along with two CEOs of Boston’s largest corporations, a retired PGA superstar and their dates.

  Alice brought Liam his whiskey and he took a bracing swallow. Katie was charming the crowd, regaling them with stories of her family, taking the pressure off him. He ended up in one corner, shoulder propped against the wall, watching her dazzle the guests. She would make someone a wonderful wife someday.

  The thought sent a fissure of jealousy through him. He didn’t want to think of her as someone else’s wife.

  Occasionally she paused in the middle of her conversation to cast a sidelong glance his way. There was no question about it—Katie captivated him.

  She also scared him.

  “Dinner is served,” Alice announced from the doorway.

  Everyone trooped into the large dining room. The table was lavishly but very tastefully set with expensive but simple patterned china, genuine silverware and crystal goblets. A roasted goose was the main attraction.

  Liam started to sit next to Katie, but Sutton Delancy intervened. “No, no, we don’t sit with our dates.”

  Her chastisement over his faux pas sent a heated rush of embarrassment through Liam, reminding him how out of place he was here.

  He remembered something he’d read once. When riding in a car, lower-class couples sit beside their spouses, middle-class couples sit with men in the front seat and women in the back, and the ruling classes sit with each other’s spouses.

  And here he was, uncomfortable with the ruling class. He looked over at Katie, who seemed totally at ease.

  “You’re the guest of honor,” Sutton went on. “You must take your place here, young man.” She pulled out the chair at the head of the table.

  Delancy took the spot directly opposite Liam at the foot of the table and guided Katie to sit at his right hand. Sutton sat to Liam’s left as the remainder of the guests found their places.

  “So tell us,” Sutton began, after the maid served the first course of bouillabaisse, “how did you get started in real estate? The way you’re going, you’ll own half of Boston within the next five years.”