He thought about her voice, all Texas heat and that sweet, Southern honey, saying, I love you. He thought about the way the words seemed to loosen things inside of him, open him up, make him feel as if there was light where there had only been dark and decay before.
“Do you know,” he said conversationally, as if the world had not shifted beneath him, as if he was the same man he had been before, as if the very concept of hope was not foreign to him in every way, “I think you may be right.”
The late-afternoon sun dipped closer to the land, casting shadows all around them. Behind them, lights blazed from a thousand clever lanterns Grace had placed every few feet, and the closed-off yet well-lighted manor house gleamed like a gothic wonderland, beckoning guests to venture near. Inviting the whispered stories, the half-recalled legends, the tragic and celebrated and mythical history of the Wolfe family. His family.
Meanwhile, the rather less mythical truth was two men who might one day be friends again, but were in any case still brothers, standing quietly near an old family lake, putting ancient ghosts to rest.
“I will see you at your gala, then,” Jacob said after a moment.
“Indeed you will,” Lucas agreed. He felt some of his old mischief rise to the surface, and grinned. “I will be performing the role of Lucas Wolfe, England’s favorite playboy, for all the assembled guests. Prepare yourself. I am quite good at it. No less than three-quarters of the crowd will end the night desperately in love with me.”
“They always do,” Jacob said, in the lightest tone Lucas had heard from him since his return. He reached over and clasped a hand on Lucas’s shoulder, briefly, then let go as he turned toward the house.
They had not been a demonstrative family at the best of times, whenever that might have been, and Lucas felt the gesture for what it was. An olive branch. A bridge. It was not the twenty years they’d lost, but it was a start.
“Jacob,” he said, staring ahead at the lake, as if all the answers lay just beneath the gleaming surface.
He heard Jacob pause behind him, and smiled then, more focused on the future than the endless, dreary past. More interested in who he could be than in who he’d been.
At last.
“Welcome home,” he said quietly into the coming night, and was not at all surprised to discover he meant it.
Lucas shook every hand, posed for every picture and flattered every guest who ventured near him. The great tent was filled with golden, glittering light and hung with tapestries and chandeliers, and the people who filled it were strictly the crème de la crème of Europe. Celebrities, socialites, aristocracy. All mingled with the expected corporate kings, basking in the past and future of Hartington’s with the members of the Wolfe family who had made an appearance.
Jacob, the mysteriously returned heir, was at least as interesting to the gathered press corps as the current reigning Hollywood idol, Nathaniel, and the brand-new fiancée he had on his arm. Even Annabelle, who was photographing the event and hid behind her camera and her great reserve as was her way, was a Wolfe and therefore noted, no matter how little she might have wished to interact with the guests. Or, for that matter, her brothers. And Lucas, of course, who the press could not help but love, so skillfully did he manipulate them at their own game, was always a paparazzi favorite.
“No more pictures,” he told his least-favorite photographer with a smile—when the man deserved his fists for taking those pictures of him and Grace. “Haven’t you caused enough trouble this week?”
But he laughed, as if there were no hard feelings, because that was how best to avoid having his next intimate moment broadcast to the entire world. It was better to work with them than fight against them, he knew. It was wiser to let them think they had control. He was certain there was a lesson in there somewhere, should he care to search for it.
It was, Lucas thought as he moved away from the photographer, straightening his tuxedo jacket with an expert jerk, a perfect night all around. Old Charlie Winthrop looked jovial and well pleased, sitting with the rest of the board of directors as they basked in the celebration happening all around them. The marketing and publicity departments had had their moment to shine and present the relaunch to great applause and many pictures, and Lucas had even said a few words before yielding the stage to the pop princess herself.
Yet Grace was nowhere to be found.
Lucas could see the other members of her team on the fringes of the crowd, weaving their way through the brightly clad groups to fix problems, relay information or put out the odd fire. But no Grace. Eventually, after he’d looked for her in vain for far too long, he flagged down one of the interchangeable girls who had always spent the morning meeting making cow’s eyes at him.
“Where is Grace?” he asked, impatient with the starry way the girl blinked at him. You do not even know me, he wanted to scold her, but did not.
“Oh …” the girl breathed. She gulped. “Well, Mr. Wolfe, uh, she’s been sacked.”
The words did not make sense. Lucas stared at the girl before him, aware that he had lost his smile, that he had gone too still, that he was glaring ferociously at the poor creature.
“I beg your pardon?” His tone out-froze the towering ice sculpture nearby, and made the girl flush scarlet.
“M-Mr. Winthrop met with her just before the first guests arrived,” she stammered out. “No one knows what he said, but she told Sophie to take charge and then she left.” She sucked in a shaky breath. “That’s all I know!”
But Lucas had already stopped listening to her. Temper roared through him, thick and vicious. He scanned the party, his eyes narrowing in on Charlie Winthrop, who was laughing merrily with his band of cohorts, completely unaware of the danger he was in. He wanted to rip the round little man apart with his hands, but there was a greater urgency moving through him then, something much closer to fear. He felt his hands clench into fists at his sides, and could only imagine what expression he wore when the girl before him made a squeaking sound and melted away.
He forgot her immediately. He looked around the glittering party, taking in all the famous faces, all the rich and the bored, the infamous and the outrageous. They were all the same. The same faces he had seen again and again, in every party, from London to Positano to Sydney and back again. The same gossip, the same stories, the same old game.
But he had no interest at all in playing, not anymore.
He had changed. He was not the same man he had been when he’d staggered up the drive to Wolfe Manor, battered and bleeding, all those weeks ago. He was not the same man he’d been pretending to be the whole of his life, and the pretense, the mask, no longer seemed to fit him as it should.
And the reason for that was not here, as she should be.
The great well of emotion, black and terrible, vast and unconquerable, that he had tried to outrun all day today swelled in him, nearly knocking him from his feet, so intense he wondered if he could beat it back and maintain his balance. He did, but barely. In his whole life, only three people had mattered to him so much that their loss had altered the course of his existence. His mother. His brother Jacob.
And now, tonight, the woman whose absence seemed to alter the very air around him, making it impossible to breathe.
He had suffered through the other losses, had even accepted them. But not this time. Not this one.
Not Grace.
For the first time in a long time, maybe ever, Lucas wanted to—had to—fight for what he desired, what he needed, what he could not imagine living without. He had no other choice. He could not let Grace leave him, could not let her disappear, could not let her go. He could not.
Because for the first time in his life, he realized as his heart beat too hard and the panic raced through him like an electric charge, he had far too much to lose.
Grace sat in her room at the Pig’s Head for a very long time, staring at nothing.
“We wanted you to manage Lucas Wolfe, Grace,” Charles Winthrop had said, his round
face screwed into a contemptuous sneer, right there in full view of the staff and Wolfe Manor itself. Grace had had no recourse but to stand there and take it. “Not manhandle him in public view.”
So disgusted. So disdainful.
“Act like a whore and you’ll be treated like a whore!” her mother had shouted years ago, as all of Racine gathered around their copies of an old American sports magazine to condemn Grace and whisper about her behind their hands. As Mary-Lynn threw Grace’s meager belongings out the door into the dirt and screamed at her to stay out.
Charles Winthrop had not actually called her a whore, of course. He had murmured about propriety and reputation. He had made it clear that a woman who had had the bad taste to allow herself to be photographed in such a compromising position—he did not clarify if he meant on Lucas’s lap or in her bikini at seventeen—was by definition no longer the appropriate choice to represent Hartington’s interests, much less their corporate events. He might as well have handed her a brand-new scarlet letter to wear on her forehead—perhaps even affixed it himself.
She had seen the way he’d looked at her, the way his eyes flicked over her professional demeanor, as if looking for the cracks in her veneer—as if, were he to look at her in exactly the right way, the whore would seep out and show herself.
Just as her mother had always predicted.
What was surprising, Grace thought now, rising to her feet and looking around the room, though she hardly saw it, was that she’d been furious, not upset. She hadn’t been hurt that Charles Winthrop thought so little of her when faced with those pictures—she’d wanted to throw something at his head. That fury and indignation had carried her in an outraged silence all the way back to her room at the inn—where the reality of the situation had settled around her like a suffocatingly heavy cloak, and had forced her to sit there on the couch by the window for much longer than she should have.
Because she had lost everything.
Again.
The truth of that was starting to sink in now, the longer she stood in the room, still and silent. The more time passed. She knew the gala was happening even now—could even hear the music on the wind—and she was finished. It was all as she’d feared it would be. She’d lost her career. The respect of her peers. Everything she’d worked so hard for, all these long years. Hadn’t she warned herself? Hadn’t she had her memories of her mother’s voice to chime in when her own had wavered? Hadn’t she understood from the start that this very thing would happen?
She needed to go, she knew. She needed to pack up her things and head back to London. She needed to come up with a new plan for her life—a new direction. But every time she told herself it was time to get moving, she remembered some other bright, captivating moment that had happened in this room, with Lucas, and she could not bring herself to budge from her position. As if she was paralyzed.
He was the reason for her downfall, and even so, she yearned for him. He had thrown her love back in her face, disappeared without a trace, and still, she longed for him. How could that be? How, even now, could there be a part of her that whispered fiercely that it did not matter what she’d lost, that she would do it again—that he was worth it. That all of this was worth it.
This was it, she knew, with a sickening certainty. This was the exact ruin her mother had foreseen. Grace just hadn’t expected it to feel like this. So … encompassing.
She had always known she would pay a high price for touching a man like Lucas Wolfe. She had never been in any doubt on that score. He was the proverbial rocky cliff, and she understood, now, why the hapless ship hurled itself against those rocks, again and again, until all that remained were splinters and painful memories, churning waters and the remains of what had once been a proud, sleek vessel.
She was surprised when she felt the wetness on her cheeks, and it was not until she raised her hands to her face that she realized she was crying.
Just as it took her long moments to realize that when the door opened and Lucas stormed in, it was really him, not just a convenient fantasy tossed her way by her desperate imagination.
He was breathing heavily, almost as if he had been running in his elegant black-tie evening wear, and his eyes were burning with a light that made her stomach clench in automatic response. Desire. Despair. Both.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, furious that her voice was hoarse, that there were tears on her face, that he would see her like this, brought so low. “The gala is happening right this minute!”
“How can you possibly care about that now?” he asked in the same tight voice, as if he fought to keep himself under control.
She should have left ages ago. Why was she still here? Had she lingered deliberately, hoping for exactly this? His reappearance? What did she imagine would come of this? She had told him she loved him, and he had walked away. What more was there to say?
She wished there really were rocks strewn in front of her, so she could knock herself oblivious upon them. It could only be an improvement on the agony she felt coursing through her, making her feel weak. Making her want to be the kind of woman who begged. But she was not. She could not allow herself to be, not even for him. Not even now.
“I must pack,” she said in a low voice, not daring to look at him as she jabbed at her eyes with the backs of her hands. She already felt too much. And she had already shown him too much, left herself too vulnerable. She was afraid there was nothing left. “And you must go back to that party. They need you.”
“I am sure they do,” he said, in a voice she did not recognize. Uneven. Rough. “But what about what I need?”
She jerked her eyes to his, and caught her breath, not at all sure she recognized the Lucas who stood before her, his fists clenched and his green eyes so bright with emotion.
Out of control, she thought, in a kind of wonder.
“Are you all right?” she asked, frowning.
He moved farther into the room, his big, lean body more tense than she had ever seen it, his beautiful face in an uncharacteristic scowl.
It occurred to her that she had never seen him like this. That this was, finally, the maskless, artifice-free Lucas Wolfe, all rampaging emotion and driving need—and he was in a towering rage.
She should not find that exhilarating. She should not allow that to let her … wish.
“All right?” he asked, his tone murderous. He shook his head as if he could not understand her, and crossed the room until he was right in front of her, inches away, and still scowling. “I cannot live without you, you idiotic woman! How could anything ever be all right again?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“THAT’S lovely,” Grace replied, stung, her eyes heavy with tears yet again. “Poetic, really. Thank you.”
“Is this what you wanted?” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, in the same thick, rough voice, the volume increasing even as Grace stared up at him. “Did you do this deliberately?”
“Did I …?” She shook her head, fighting back the tears, wanting to reach over and shove him away from her—but too afraid that if she touched him, it would be to drag him closer. “What are you talking about?”
“What am I supposed to do now, Grace?” he demanded, outraged. “How am I supposed to carry on with my life? Have you ever thought of that?”
She felt her own temper kick in, the one that urged her to wreck things, punch things, cause damage and destroy her own property. The one she usually tamped down. It was better than the tears. Anything was better than the tears.
“I’ve been a little bit busy today, Lucas,” she threw at him, suddenly, deeply furious. “There was the invasive tabloid article, complete with photographs, and the gala I still had to prepare for while awaiting my boss’s arrival. Then I was summarily fired because of my whorish behavior. So, no—I’m afraid I have not spent a lot of time wondering what you might do with your life. I’m a bit preoccupied with my own!”
“You can’t just do this!” he cried wildly, throwing
his hands out as if she’d wrecked him, somehow. As if he, the man who defined ease, was at a loss. He moved closer, to glare down at her. “You can’t show up in my perfectly constructed life, turn it inside out and then vanish into the night! Were you even planning to tell me what had happened? That you were leaving?”
“Was I supposed to?” she demanded, fire and anguish twining inside of her, making her stomach tense—as powerful as the urge to reach over and touch him. Hit him. Caress him. She could not tell. “Before or after you stormed off and left me standing on that staircase? I told you that I loved you, Lucas, and you ran away.”
“I had to think!” he shouted, completely unhinged, and Grace stopped breathing.
Lucas Wolfe … yelling? Truly out of control? Was this really happening? This was Lucas stripped down, laid bare, she realized. This was no more and no less than … a man. Not the legend. Not a collection of pretty words and practiced smiles, one for every occasion, whatever the situation called for. This was just a man.
An angry, emotional man.
Mine, a small voice whispered, reigniting that flame of hope she’d thought he’d extinguished when he’d walked away from her.
“I had to think,” he repeated, his breath coming fast, his eyes hard on hers. Almost desperate. “Because I need you, and I have never needed anyone. Ever. It is not an easy thing, to change the habits of a lifetime—”
“Because, of course, it was so easy for me,” she interrupted, feeling unhinged herself, as if the world was starting to spin, around and around, drunk and erratic.
“I am not a good bet,” he threw at her, almost snapping out the words. “Quite the opposite, especially for someone who has achieved all that you have achieved, and all on your own. I have actively discouraged anything so much as masquerading as a commitment—even a second night in my company. I have never known any other way to be.”
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