by Fiona Brand
He could deny the story the tabloids would print and which would no doubt hit the stands by morning, or he could allow the story to stand. If he took the second option, Carla’s name would be dragged through the mud. He would not allow that to happen.
Until that afternoon, he had been certain about the one thing he didn’t want: a forced marriage to Carla Ambrosi.
But that had been before she had waved Alex Panopoulos in his face.
The elevator door slid open. Jaw tight, Lucas strode to his apartment and waited for Tiberio to swipe the key card.
He walked through to his bedroom, every muscle locking tight as he studied the rumpled bed. He picked up the sexy, exotic silk wrap, his fingers closing on the silk. Her delicate feminine scent still clung to the silk, the same scent that currently permeated the very air of his room and would now be in his bed.
If she had wanted to force his hand, he reflected, she could have done it at the beginning, when the media had published the story about the first night they had spent together. Instead, she had walked away from him. He was the one who’d had to do the running.
He had gotten her back, but only after weeks of effort. His fingers tightened on the silk. It was an uncomfortable fact that he wanted Carla more now than he had in the beginning. With each encounter, instead of weakening, his need had intensified.
Now Panopoulos had entered the picture.
Alex was a clever man who had leveraged a modest fortune into an impressive retail empire. Lucas was aware that he wouldn’t miss the opportunity to enhance his bid to place his stores in Atraeus resorts by marrying close to his family.
Lucas reached for his cell phone, and remembered that Carla had destroyed it. He shook his head at the irrational urge to grin. The destruction of personal property, especially his, shouldn’t be viewed as sexy.
He found the landline then, irritated because his directory had been on his dead cell and he had to ring his PA on Medinos to find the unlisted number. Frustrating minutes later, he made the call. Panopoulos picked up almost immediately.
Lucas’s message was succinct and direct.
If Panopoulos offered Carla any kind of position within his company, or laid so much as a finger on her, he would lose any chance at a business alliance with The Atraeus Group. Lucas would also see to it personally that a lucrative business deal Panopoulos was currently negotiating with a European firm The Atraeus Group had a stake in, deVries, would be withdrawn.
Panopoulos’s voice was clipped. “Are you warning me off because Constantine is now married to Carla’s sister?”
“No.” Lucas made no effort to temper the cold flatness of his reply. “Because Carla Ambrosi is mine.”
The instant he said the words satisfaction curled through him. Decision made.
Carla was his. Exclusively his.
He was over making excuses to be with her. He wanted her. And he would do what he had to to make sure that not Panopoulos or any other man went near her again.
Terminating the call, Lucas propped the phone back on its rest.
Panopoulos was smart; he would back off. Now all Lucas had to do was talk to Lilah, then deal with the press and Carla.
Carla wouldn’t like his ultimatum, but she would accept it. The damage had been done in the instant the reporter had snapped them on the street.
* * *
The following morning, after a mostly sleepless night, Carla dressed for the scheduled press conference and luncheon with care. Bearing in mind the elegance of the restaurant Lucas had booked, she chose a pale blue dress that looked spectacular against her skin and hair. It was also subtly sexy in the way it skimmed her curves and revealed a hint of cleavage. High, strappy blue heels made her legs look great, and a classy little jacket in powder-blue finished off the outfit.
Normally she would dress in a more low-key way for a press conference, but any kind of meeting with Lucas today called for a special effort. The heels were a tad high, but that wasn’t a problem; she had learned to balance on four-inch stilettos from an early age. She figured that by now that particular ability was imprinted in her DNA.
She decided to leave her hair loose, but took extra care with her makeup in an effort to hide the faint shadows under her eyes.
Minutes later, after sipping her way through a cup of coffee, she stepped out of her apartment. As she locked the door, she noticed a familiar sleek sedan parked across the entrance to her driveway, blocking her in. Her tiredness evaporated on a surge of displeasure.
As she marched toward the car she could make out the shadowy outline of a man behind darkly tinted windows. It would be one of Lucas’s security team, probably the guy who had tailed her to her interview with Alex Panopoulos.
Temper escalating, she bent down and tapped on the passenger-side window. Tinted glass slid down with an expensive hum. Glittering dark eyes locked with hers and a short, sharp jab of adrenaline shot through her. Lucas.
Dressed in a gray suit with a metallic sheen and a black T-shirt, his hair still damp from his shower, Lucas looked broodingly attractive. His hair was rumpled as if he’d run his fingers through it. He looked edgy and irritable, the shadow on his jaw signaling that he hadn’t had time to shave.
The irritating awareness that still dogged her despite her repeated efforts to reprogram her mind kicked in, making her belly clench and her jaw set even tighter. “What are you doing here?”
“Keeping the press off.” Lucas jerked his head in the direction of a blue hatchback parked on the opposite side of the street.
With an unpleasant start, Carla recognized the reporter who had snapped them outside Lucas’s apartment the previous evening. “He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t following you.”
“He arrived before I did.”
Her stomach sank. That meant the press would be going all out with whatever story they could leverage out of that kiss. “Even more reason for you not to be here.”
He leaned over and opened the passenger door. “Get in.”
Carla gauged the time it would take to dash to her small garage, open the door and back her convertible out. With the reporter just a few fast steps away it would be no contest.
The flash and whir of the camera sent a second shot of adrenaline zinging through her veins as she slid into the passenger seat and slammed the door. The thunk of the locks engaging coincided with the throaty roar of the engine as the vehicle shot away from the curb. Seconds later, they were on the motorway heading into town and forced to an agonizing crawl by rush-hour traffic.
Carla relaxed her death grip on her purse, strapped on her seat belt and checked the rearview mirror. Anything but acknowledge the fact that she was once more within touching distance of Lucas Atraeus.
And riding in his car.
Although this wasn’t his personal car. His taste usually ran to something a little more muscular and a lot faster, like the Maserati, but the intimacy still set her on edge and recalled one too many memories she would rather forget.
The first time they had made love had been in a car.
Two years ago he had given her a lift home from a dinner at a restaurant, a family meet-and-greet following Constantine and Sienna’s first engagement.
Accepting a lift with Lucas, when she had expected to be delivered home the same way she had arrived, via hired limousine service, had seemed safe despite his bad-boy reputation with the tabloids. Plus there was the fact that recently he had been photographed on two separate occasions, each time with a different gorgeous girl.
Despite telling herself that he was clearly not on the hunt, when she slid into his car, she had felt a deliciously edgy kind of thrill. Lucas was gorgeous in a dangerous, masculine way, so she was more than a little flattered to be singled out for his attention.
It had taken a good half hour to reach her apartment during which time Lucas had played cruising music and asked her about her family and whether or not she was dating.
When they’d reached her place it was pitch-dark. Ins
tead of parking out on the street, Lucas had driven right up to her garage door and parked beneath the shelter of a large shade tree. An oak overhung the driveway and blocked the neighbor’s view on one side. Her security lights had flicked on as Lucas turned off the engine, although they remained encapsulated in darkness since the garage blocked the light from reaching the car.
With the music gone, the silence took on a heavy intensity, and her stomach had tightened on a kick of nerves because she knew in that moment that despite her frantic reasoning to the contrary, he did want to kiss her. If Lucas was just dropping her home, he wouldn’t have driven right into her driveway, and so far up it that the car was partially concealed.
He had barely touched her all night, although she had been aware that he had been watching her and, admittedly, she had played to her audience.
But all of the time she had flirted and played she had been on edge in a feminine way, her nerves tingling. She was used to being pursued, that went with the fashion industry and the PR job. But Lucas was in a whole different league and she hadn’t made up her mind that she wanted him to catch her.
She had turned her head, bracing herself for the jolt of eye contact, and his mouth caught hers, his tongue siding right in. A burning shaft of heat shot straight to her loins and she went limp.
Long seconds later, he had released her mouth. She gulped in air and then his mouth closed on hers again and she was sinking, drowning. Her arms closed convulsively around his neck, her fingers tangling in his hair, which was thick and silky and just long enough to play with. Not a good idea, since playing with Lucas Atraeus was the dating equivalent of stroking a big hunting cat, but the second he had touched her, her normal rules had evaporated.
She’d felt the zipper of her silk sheath being eased down her spine, the hot shock of his fingers against the bare skin of her back.
He’d muttered something in Medinian, too thick and rapid for her to catch, and lifted his head, jaw taut. “Do you want this?”
She realized he was holding on to control by a thread. The realization of his vulnerability was subtly shocking.
From the first her connection with Lucas had been powerful. Cliché or not, she had literally glanced across the restaurant and been instantly riveted.
Head and shoulders above most of the occupants of the room, all three Atraeus brothers had been compelling, but it had been Lucas’s faintly battered profile that had drawn her.
She had let out a shuddering breath, abruptly aware of what he was asking. Not just a kiss. Somehow they had already stepped way beyond a kiss.
He’d bent his head as if he couldn’t bear not to touch her. His lips feathered her throat, sending hot rills of sensation chasing across her skin, and abruptly something slotted into place in her mind.
She had been twenty-four, and a virgin, not because she had been consciously celibate but for the simple reason that she had never met anyone with whom she wanted to be that intimate. No matter how much she liked a date, if they couldn’t knock her sideways emotionally, she refused to allow anything more than a good-night kiss.
Making love with Lucas Atraeus hadn’t made sense for a whole list of logical reasons. She barely knew him, and so there was no way she could be in love, but instead of recoiling, she’d found herself irresistibly compelled to throw away her rule book. On an instinctive level, with every touch, every kiss, Lucas Atraeus felt utterly right. “Yes.”
A car horn blasted, shattering the recall, jerking Carla’s gaze back to the road.
“What’s wrong?”
Lucas’s deep, raspy voice sent a nervy shock wave through her. His gaze caught hers, dispatching another electrical jolt. “Nothing.”
His phone vibrated. He answered the call, his voice low. A couple of times his gaze intercepted hers and that weird electrical hum of awareness zapped her again, so she switched back to watching the wing mirror. Once she thought she spotted the blue hatchback and she stiffened, but she couldn’t be certain.
“He’s not behind us. I’ve been checking.”
Which raised a question. “You said he got to my place before you did, so how did you know he was there?”
Constantine inched forward in traffic, braked, then reached behind to the backseat and handed her a newspaper, which had been folded open.
The headline, Lightning Strikes Twice for Atraeus Hatchet Man, sent her into mild shock, although she had been expecting something like it.
They hadn’t made the front page, but close. A color photo, which had been taken just as Lucas had kissed her, was slotted directly below the story title.
Her outrage built as she skimmed the piece. According to the reporter, the romantic fires had been reignited during a secret tryst while she’d been on Medinos. An “insider” had supplied the tidbit that the wedding had literally thrown them together and they were now a hot romantic item. Again.
Although the speculation that Lucas would pop the question was strictly lighthearted. According to the “source,” if Carla Ambrosi hadn’t had what it took to keep Atraeus interested the first time around, the “reheat” would be about as exciting as day-old pasta.
Carla dropped the newspaper as if it had scorched her fingers. The instant she had seen her name coupled with Lucas’s she should have known better than to read on.
Two years ago when Lucas had finished with her after that one night, she had been angry enough to go to the press. They’d had a field day with speculation and innuendo. Her skin was a lot thicker now, but the careless digging into her personal life, and the outright lies, still stung.
Reheat.
Her jaw tightened. If she ever found out who the cowardly “insider” was, the next installment of that particular story could be printed in the crime pages.
Folding the newspaper, she tossed it on the backseat. “You should have called me. You didn’t have to show up on my doorstep.”
Making it look like there really was substance to the story.
“If I’d called, you would have hung up on me.”
She couldn’t argue with that, because it was absolutely true.
Lucas signaled and made a turn into the underground parking garage beneath the Ambrosi building.
Carla was halfway out of the car, dragging her bag, which had snagged on a tiny lever at the base of the seat, when movement jerked her head up. A man with a camera loomed out of the shadows, walking swiftly toward them. Not the guy in the blue hatchback, someone else. The pale gleam of a van with its garish news logo registered in the background.
Lucas, who had walked around to open her door, said something curt beneath his breath as she yanked at the strap. The bag came free and she surged upright.
“Smile, Mr. Atraeus, Ms. Ambrosi. Gotcha!”
The camera flashed as she lurched into Lucas.
The touching was minimal—her shoulder bumped his, he reached out to steady her—but the damage was done. In addition to the kiss outside Lucas’s apartment the tabloids now had photos of Lucas picking her up from her apartment then delivering her to work.
The day-old pasta had just gotten hotter.
Nine
When Carla stepped out of her office to attend the press conference later on that morning, one of Lucas’s bodyguards, Tiberio, was waiting for her in the corridor.
Lucas wasn’t in the office. He had left after dropping her off that morning, so there was no one to interpret. After a short, labored struggle with Tiberio’s fractured English, Carla finally agreed that, yes, they would both follow Lucas’s orders and Tiberio could drive her to the press conference and see her safely inside.
On the way down to the parking garage, she decided that she was secretly glad Lucas had delegated Tiberio to mind her. She had been dreading dealing with the paparazzi when she arrived at the five-star hotel where the press conference was being held.
To her surprise, Tiberio opened the door on a glossy black limousine, not the dark sedan Lucas’s security usually drove. When she slid into the leather i
nterior, she was startled to discover that Lucas was already ensconced there, a briefcase open on the floor, a sheaf of papers in his hand.
The door closed, sealing her in. Lucas said something rapid to Tiberio as he slid behind the wheel. There was a discreet thunk, followed by the low hum of the engine.
She depressed the door handle, when it wouldn’t budge, her gaze clashed with Lucas’s. “You locked it.”
His expression was suspiciously bland. “Standard security precaution.”
Daylight replaced the gloom of the parking garage as they glided up onto the street. Her uneasiness at finding Lucas in the car coalesced into suspicion; she was beginning to feel manipulated. “Tiberio said you had ordered him to mind me, that he was supposed to drop me at the press conference. He didn’t say we would be traveling together.”
Lucas, still dressed in the silver-gray suit and black T-shirt he had been wearing that morning, but now freshly shaved, retrieved a cell phone from his briefcase. “Is there a problem with going together?”
She frowned. “After what happened, wouldn’t it be the smart thing to arrive separately?”
Lucas’s attention was centered on what was, apparently, a swanky new phone. “No.”
Her frustration spiked as he punched in a number and lifted the phone to his ear then subsided just as quickly as she listened to his deep voice, the liquid cadences of his rapid Medinian. Reluctantly fascinated, she hung on every word. He could be reciting a grocery list and she could still listen all day.
Minutes later, the limousine pulled into a space outside the hotel entrance. When she saw the media crush, she experienced a rare moment of panic. Publicity was her thing; she had a natural bent for it. But not today. “Isn’t there a back entrance we can use?”
Lucas, seemingly unconcerned, snapped his phone closed and slipped it into his pocket.
She flashed him an irritated look. “The last thing we need right now is to be seen arriving together, looking like we are a couple.”
