Yes, they’d had the most spectacular night of lovemaking of her life, but Draco would never let it stop there. Men like him wanted more. Needed more. With his position back at home he was expected to marry, to raise a family. He could never do that with someone like Blair, and she didn’t want to be that someone anyway. She didn’t have that kind of person inside her to give.
The failure with Rhys was categorical proof of that, and with her family track history—no, best not to go down that route. Besides, where would a girl like her fit in with the centuries-old traditions of Draco’s life? No, it was far, far better that she make a silent retreat here and now, before he could tempt her into wanting more—wanting him—again.
She swept her legs off the bed, relishing the sensation of her bare feet sinking into the plush pile of the carpet. A far cry from the polished wooden floors in her small apartment, and yet another example of the differences in their lives. Blair rose from the bed, acknowledging the minor aches in her muscles. Aches which sent a flush of desire across her body as she remembered how she’d earned them.
She looked around the room for her clothing, scowling silently as she remembered that Draco had undressed her in the bathroom and she’d left her pack in there. Would she be able to slip inside and gather her things without him noticing? She doubted it. So, what did that leave? Going home wrapped in a sheet? Hardly likely, although a sense of urgency gripped her. How much longer would Draco be in the bathroom, she wondered?
She darted across the room and listened at the door, the sound of water cascading in the shower reassuring her for a moment.
There was nothing else to do but borrow something of his, she decided. She could always courier it back to him, if he even noticed it missing. She quickly rummaged through the dark cherrywood tallboy, grabbing a T-shirt and a pair of lightweight drawstring track pants. Draco was taller than she, but not by so much that the track pants would drag on the ground. She swiftly pulled the clothes on, regretting for a moment that she hadn’t had a chance to grab her shoes. Okay, she acknowledged, there might not be much between them in height but there certainly was in body size. Draco’s shirt hung on her like a rag, and the pants would trip her in a minute, no matter how high she hitched them to her waist. She bent to quickly roll up the legs a couple of twists and then tied the T-shirt in a knot at her lower back. There, that was a bit better.
But what about her feet? A quick glance in the walk-in wardrobe confirmed there was no way her narrow feet would carry off wearing a pair of Draco’s running shoes or anything else in there. She’d have to forget about footwear for now and just pray she didn’t have to walk too far before finding a taxi.
She stiffened as she registered the sudden silence in the bathroom behind her. Damn, he was out of the shower. She didn’t have much time.
Blair shot through the apartment and let herself out the front door. She ran lightly down the corridor to the elevator and leaned on the button to call the car to the top floor, her eyes fixed on the door to Draco’s apartment the whole time. When the door whooshed open behind her she jumped, and then laughed at herself for her ridiculousness. What had she been expecting? That he’d jump out from behind the elevator doors and drag her back to the apartment, hold her there as his love slave forevermore?
She rolled her eyes at her mirrored reflection in the closing doors, taking a minute to push her fingers through her hair.
One night he’d asked for. One night he’d had. It had to be enough—for both of them.
Some people might call it running away—others, well, “tactical withdrawal” were the words that immediately came to Blair’s mind. If she wasn’t at the apartment or the restaurant, then Draco couldn’t find her, and that’s just the way she wanted it. The instant Blair got back home she showered and changed into her own clothes, grateful to put on fresh underwear and to rid herself of the tingling sensation of Draco’s clothing against her bare skin. All her bare skin.
She threw the clothes in a bag for dry cleaning and added them to the laundry to be picked up by their linen supply company. Then she quickly put together a few things, enough to last her a couple of days, and headed out the door.
She hadn’t been to visit her father since she’d returned from Tuscany. Now seemed as good a time as any. Monday and Tuesday were supposed to be her days off, not that she usually took them, so it wasn’t as if she was running away. Not really, she told herself as she threw her bag into the passenger seat of her station wagon and put the vehicle in gear. A couple of days at the beach would do her good.
As she drove down the rutted driveway toward the house her father rented by the beach at Kaiaua, on the Seabird Coast southeast of Auckland city, she knew she’d made the right decision. Already, the soothing sounds of the sea, the cries of wheeling gulls and the soft onshore breeze began to invigorate her in a way being back at work hadn’t in a long time.
She thrust open her door and loped over to the house. She ignored the two shallow stairs that led to the weathered wraparound deck and jumped the short distance, her feet landing with a muffled thud before she ran around to where she knew her father would have his French doors open to the ocean.
“Dad?” she called as she stepped inside.
A tantalizing aroma filtered through the air to tweak at her nose, and Blair instinctively followed the scent through to the compact kitchen, just beyond the airy, open living area that faced the sea.
“I thought you might turn up today,” Blair Carson, Sr. commented without turning his back as Blair entered the kitchen.
“Hello to you too, Dad.”
Blair smiled at his usual, taciturn nature. Not even a surprise visit could wrest a smile from his careworn features. But then she hesitated.
“What made you expect me today?”
Her dad gestured to the laptop computer open on the small kitchen table. “That.”
Blair sat down at the table and focused on the screen. Even though her dad was an hour from the city now, he liked to keep a finger on the pulse of what was happening, especially in the restaurant and entertainment industries. Her heart plummeted when she identified herself and Draco in the photo. The picture showed Draco holding her fingertips to his mouth, and more damningly, showed the expression of longing on her face.
The editorial accompanying the photo was full of conjecture and innuendo about what “something new and exciting” loomed on Blair’s menu. It made her feel sick to her stomach. Worse, the reporter had gone to great lengths to emphasize the title and estates that Draco would inherit on his ailing father’s death, giving him a celebrity she knew he would loathe.
“I thought you’d sworn off men,” her father commented dryly after she’d read the e-zine page through to its end.
“I have.”
“Then what was that all about?”
“It was him.”
“The one you met in Tuscany, at the palazzo? Isn’t his family some kind of royalty over there?”
“Ancestral nobility, but they haven’t used their title in years. But yeah,” she sighed. “The very same.”
“Did he follow you here?”
“No. He was at the memorial service for Mrs. Woodley. Believe me, I tried to put him off trying to see me again.”
“Obviously not all that effectively.” Her father turned back to the stove. “Oh well, we should see an upswing in patronage at the restaurant. Are you going to see him again?”
Blair got up from the table and helped herself to a mug from the cupboard and poured herself a coffee from the carafe her father kept constantly full. It bothered her that her father instantly thought of the advantage to Carson’s. How she felt about Draco didn’t enter into it.
“No. Last night was a one-time-only.”
Her father turned to look her in the eye. “Really?”
“Yes, Dad. Really.”
“That’s a shame. You should see him again. If only because the publicity would be good for takings. Want some breakfast?”
&nbs
p; What? Was that it? Inquisition over already? Blair could hardly believe her father had let the subject go just like that. Still, he’d equated the e-zine gossip spread with a chance to keep Carson’s up there in the public eye.
“Yes, thanks. I’m starved.”
Her dad laughed, the sound like wind through dry leaves in autumn. “You’re always starved. About time you put some meat on that frame, young lady.”
“You can talk,” Blair responded with a genuine smile.
Her lean build was a direct legacy from her father. At least she assumed it was just from him. She’d never seen a picture of her mom, and her memories of her were vague—more the sensation of a brief hug here, a lingering scent of fragrance there. The trill of amused laughter. The sound of weeping late at night.
The coffee in Blair’s mug left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth. What was it about Blair and her father that they couldn’t find happiness in lasting love? She’d lost count of the failed relationships he’d embarked upon and then left during her childhood, let alone since her teenage years. They’d clung to one another many a time, secure in the knowledge that no matter how often others came and went they’d always have each other.
Yet, would they? Blair felt increasingly vulnerable. A heart attack had forced Blair Sr. into early retirement. In fact, it had only been her taking over his dreams and vision for Carson’s that had seen him agree to withdrawing from the restaurant. He’d had to move out of Auckland as well, because he hadn’t been able to stay away, or out of the kitchen, when he’d remained in town. And while he’d been happy to cover for her during her Tuscan culinary tour—a trip that was supposed to have been her honeymoon—she could see how taxing it had been for him when she’d returned.
She owed it to her dad to see his dream for Carson’s—her dream as well—come true. And if she was to achieve that ever-elusive five-star ranking for the restaurant, she had to pour everything she was into making it work.
Which meant pushing last night’s memories and Draco Sandrelli very firmly into her past.
Blair felt completely reenergized when she returned to her flat at midday on Wednesday. Reenergized and refocused. A call to Gustav had confirmed her father’s prediction that the e-zine article would see an upswing in business. Traditionally quieter nights, Monday and Tuesday had produced far higher receipts than usual and the restaurant had operated at near capacity each night.
She hummed to herself as she skipped downstairs and checked that preparations were well underway for the evening’s menu. In the tiny office off the kitchen, where she made calls to suppliers and drafted menu plans, she came to a shuddering halt. There on her seat was a dry-cleaning package. On top of it a sheet of paper with a large question mark next to the words “not yours, I presume—G.”
Damn, she’d forgotten about Draco’s clothes the minute she’d dispatched them to the laundry. Would he have missed them? She doubted it. What worried her most was that sending them back to him would only rouse his interest in her again.
She picked up the packet from her chair and shot back upstairs to her rooms. She’d shove it in the cupboard and deal with it another day. She wasn’t up to facing Draco again.
The evening started with the usual hustle and bustle, and Blair was glad to be back in her own kitchen. As capable as she was, her father was proprietary about his space—worse so, now that his space was so limited at the beachfront bach. She swung into the ebb and flow of cooking and plating up dishes with the years of experience and pleasure she took in her work.
By the time the front door was closed to patrons and the last diner had been seen off into a taxi at the curb, Blair was ready to put her feet up. The cleanup done in the kitchen and the last of her staff off on their way home, she took a moment to sit at one of the tables and relish the silence that now reigned supreme.
A sharp hammering at the front door had her catapulting out of her chair in shock.
Who the—
She swiveled the slim-line blind that screened the glass front door to peer out into the evening gloom.
Draco. Her heart skittered in her chest.
“Let me in, Blair. We need to talk.”
“We said all we have to say, Draco. One night. Remember?”
“Vividly. Do you remember too, cara mia? Would you like me to repeat just which were my favorite parts—I’m sure the reporter sitting in the car just behind me would be keen for all the details.”
Reporter? Blair peered past Draco’s dark form. There was a car pulled right up to the curb. She caught a brief glimpse of the reporter’s camera through the open window. The thought of the headlines in tomorrow’s gossip pages was enough to get her to open the door and usher Draco inside immediately, not quickly enough to completely avoid the sudden flash of white light as the reporter took their picture.
“Why on earth did you bring that reporter here?” Blair demanded, her hands fisted on her hips to avoid using them for any other purpose.
“You’re mistaken. I did not bring him. He was already waiting here, much as there have been reporters stationed outside my apartment and following my driver from pillar to post since early Monday morning.”
Draco stepped closer to her and lifted his hand to trace a finger along her cheekbone.
“You’ve caught some sun. Where have you been hiding the past two days?”
Blair bristled instantly. Hiding?
“For your information, Draco Sandrelli, I wasn’t hiding. I went to visit my father. I do that sometimes on my days off.”
“I’m impressed that you take days off,” Draco said, whistling softly. “According to your staff, that doesn’t happen often. Some coincidence, don’t you think, that you should slip out of my apartment without saying good-bye and then go incommunicado immediately after that? Looks like hiding to me.”
“What you think isn’t important to me. What do you want, anyway? The restaurant, as you can see, is closed.”
“Hmm, what do I want? A leading question, no?”
He closed the remaining distance between them, his arms wrapping around Blair with the familiarity of lovers, his head bending to her ear. A shiver of anticipation danced down her spine as she felt his breath against her skin.
“I’ll show you what I want,” he growled, before his tongue licked out to tease her earlobe.
Her hands moved to his shoulders as her knees went weak, then common sense prevailed. They were in her restaurant with reporters outside. This was totally crazy.
“No, Draco. Stop, please.”
The words wrung past her lips as Blair drew on every ounce of self-control she possessed to push him away.
“We can’t,” she continued. “Not with—”
She gestured toward the front of the restaurant and shook her head. When the heck had her life grown so complicated?
“Fine then, we will go somewhere more private. Your rooms, perhaps?”
“To talk,” Blair asserted.
“If you wish.”
A tiny smile pulled at Draco’s lips, the sight of that sensuous curve sending a bolt of sheer longing through Blair’s body. She pushed the sensation down, refusing to let her desire for him control her, and showed him through the kitchen to the back of the restaurant.
She felt the sheer presence of him at her back, like a wall of heat imprinting the length of her body. The hairs on the back of her neck tickled with awareness.
Blair went to unlock and open the back door, but Draco forestalled her action, his hand big and warm as it trapped hers against the doorknob.
“Wait just a moment. We will open it slowly to ensure none of those reporters have snuck around the back.”
Blair did as he suggested, looking both ways before signaling to him that the way was clear. He followed her up the stairs to her flat. As she pushed open the front door she was suddenly assailed with the massive differences between their lives.
Draco came from wealth, a long, long line of money and privilege with a heritage that stretche
d back centuries. Even his apartment here in Auckland shrieked money, although the simple, modern lines were a far cry from the opulence of the palazzo. She smiled to herself. Palazzo. How many people could say a palazzo was their home?
Oh yeah, they were different all right. For some reason it hadn’t seemed to matter when she was in Tuscany—she’d been wooed by the strength of their attraction and by the sheer luxury of simply indulging in one another. But even so, back then she’d known it couldn’t last. Nothing ever did in her life. His life was so totally at the extreme opposite of the scale to hers, and clearly no one had ever said no to him before. At least no one had ever said no and meant it.
“Can I offer you a drink?” Blair said, as Draco stood just inside the door taking in their surroundings.
She supposed that to his eyes it would all look very temporary and not a little bit shabby. For the amount of time she spent here, it did the job.
“No. I didn’t come to have a drink with you.”
“Then what did you come here for?”
The look in his eyes nailed her feet to the floor where she stood. Heat suffused her body in a slow wave. He wanted her, period. And weakling that she was, she wanted him too.
“Come back to my apartment.” His voice was low, slightly uneven. “Come and stay with me until I have to go home.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? My building’s security would give you some peace from these wretched reporters. Besides, you know you want to. Just look at you. Already I can see you’re aroused in the way your eyes gleam, in the way you’re breathing. If I touched you, your skin would be hot beneath my fingers, and if I cupped your breast I’d feel your heartbeat against my palm.”
Breath shuddered from Blair’s lungs. She could almost sense his hand against her, so evocative was his tone.
“Come back to my apartment,” he coaxed.
“How long?” Blair dragged the edges of her sanity around her like a deflective cloak. Somehow, she had to find the courage to resist him. If she didn’t, she knew there could only be heartbreak in store.
Secret Baby, Public Affair Page 4
