Heiress Behind the Headlines

by Caitlin Crews

  Jack whipped things together in a selection of pans with a briskness that spoke of long practice, then finally poured the mixture of ingredients over the hot, fresh pasta. Larissa picked up the pasta bowls without being asked and took them over to the table, as if they’d choreographed it. As if they’d performed this simple, shared ritual a thousand times before. It occurred to her, with a little thump of shock, that this was the most intimate she had ever been with anyone. Much less a man.

  The realization made a shiver run through her. She felt as if the floor beneath her feet was suddenly precarious.

  “That’s not the first time you’ve chopped vegetables, clearly,” Jack observed, in that deceptively casual way of his that made her suspect he was looking for clues. Did he think she was some great mystery he felt called upon to solve? Or was he merely looking for confirmation of existing prejudices? In her experience, it was always one or the other. And it never ended well.

  But tonight, she couldn’t let herself think of that, not in the way she should. Not while the kitchen was so bright and cheery, holding the storm and the dark at bay. Not while she could smell garlic and basil in the air, and not when she sat at a simple wooden table to eat a meal she’d helped prepare, with a man who looked the way she’d always dreamed a man—her man—would look, should she ever find one of those.

  If she took this moment out of time—forgot what came before, what had just happened in the sitting room—maybe, just this once, she wouldn’t have to pretend. Maybe she could simply, truly enjoy herself.

  “I haven’t cooked anything in longer than I can remember,” she started to say, and then cut herself off—sure, somehow, that she had revealed too much. That he would call her poor little rich girl or something worse and she would deserve it, and she wasn’t sure she could handle the necessary self-recrimination just now. But he only gazed at her, his beautiful face inscrutable, his dark eyes so much more compelling than they should be. She swallowed. She should know better than to let this night, this man, get to her. She should be more realistic. She knew she should.

  “My mother had a housekeeper at her home in France,” she said as she settled herself in the heavy wooden chair across from him. She pulled the coarse linen napkin onto her lap. “Her name was Hilaire and she was ferocious. More a displaced tyrant than an employee.”

  She gazed at the wide bowls in front of them, the ceramic surfaces gleaming with the bright blues and joyful yellows of Provence. It almost felt as if she was tucked away in the château across the Atlantic with her silent, perpetually unwell mother, surrounded on all sides by plane trees, azure skies and fields of lavender. She could almost hear Hilaire’s ill-tempered muttering as she forced spoiled, defiant Larissa to perform any chores she deemed suitable, and the more menial, the better. They were some of her favorite memories, though Larissa knew better to admit such things aloud. People always got the wrong impression.

  But when she looked up, she saw only the deep brown of Jack’s eyes, and the way he lounged there, his big, powerful body so relaxed in that chair, his elegant fingers toying with his wineglass. Why that should make her feel at ease in response, she was afraid to examine.

  “She believed that every woman should know how to prepare a decent meal,” Larissa said.

  She shrugged out of habit, always so quick to pretend that these things meant nothing to her. That she had not looked upon those endless hours in the airless kitchen, making inevitable messes that would cause Hilaire to unleash a torrent of abrasive French, as the highlights of her childhood. At least someone, somewhere, had cared enough to correct her, to show her how to improve. Later, she would hate the way leaving Provence made her feel—though she would never admit that to herself in so many words—and so she’d stopped going. And in time, Hilaire had left her mother’s employ, and Larissa had only visited the château when she grew bored with the yachts cluttering up the St. Tropez harbor or with the celebrity-infested commotion of Cannes. And so her life had remained empty, uncluttered. Anesthetized.

  Those could not be tears that pricked the back of her eyes.

  Jack smiled slightly, and picked up his fork.

  “My mother felt the same,” he said, his voice low. As if he was as wary of this—this intimacy—as she was. “She said that no son of hers would go through life unable to care for himself in the most basic way.” His smile deepened, though he aimed it at the food before them, and Larissa felt the slightest pang. She wondered what it would be like to be what caused that wistful smile, what called it forth. He looked at her after a moment, that smile more guarded. “She was an Endicott through and through, just like my grandfather. The ‘Sutton excesses’ made her uncomfortable.”

  “What about you?” Larissa asked. “You fall somewhere in between the Puritan Endicotts and the profligate Suttons, don’t you?”

  She remembered the younger Jack, the careless Jack. The famous playboy Jack. He’d driven impossibly expensive cars, had dropped unimaginable sums of money on forgettable evenings. He’d been like all the rest of them. Their peers. Their “friends.” She took a bite of the pasta, sighing happily as the rich flavors washed into her, chasing away the damp, the cold. The fight.

  He flashed that devastating smile at her, the one that had made him so beloved, America’s most eligible bachelor. She had to look away from all that shine, and told herself she didn’t know why.

  “People have to change, Larissa,” he said, in an odd tone. When she looked back at him, however, his expression was shuttered. “What other choice do they have?”

  “Most people never change,” she countered, with a shrug that felt too sharp. “Most people balk at the slightest suggestion that they should. Most people will go to great and dizzying lengths to make sure that absolutely nothing changes, ever. Themselves, their lives. Nothing.”

  “Then they are no better than children,” Jack said dismissively. He stabbed at his pasta, and she could not help but admire the leashed ferocity in him, the controlled power. She felt too much these days, and far more than that when she was with him. Far too much. “An adult must take responsibility for himself. He must do what is expected of him. If that requires change, so be it. It is called growing up. It is his duty.”

  “It’s a very unusual person who simply wakes up one morning and decides, apropos of nothing, to change their life,” she said, picking her words carefully, still thinking she could protect herself somehow from the things she could not help but feel. “I suspect that sweeping personal change is more often preceded by some catastrophic personal event. Because why would anyone risk it, otherwise? It’s too painful.”

  She took another bite, chewed it thoughtfully. “And of course, no one supports change. Everyone around you will fight tooth and nail to keep you in exactly the box they put you in, much too afraid of what it might mean to let you go free. No one ever changes, if they can avoid it. No one.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment, studying her from across the table. And then he blinked, and the tension seemed to ease again somehow, like the tides. They talked of other things. The island’s history. His own summers here as a boy. Innocuous subjects, until they had both eaten their fill. Larissa carried their bowls to the deep sink and when she turned, found him close behind her. Too close. He leaned in, bracing himself with a hand on either side of her, caging her between his strong arms.

  She knew she should do something. Scream. Run. Object, at the very least. But she only stared, while her blood seemed to turn into molten lava beneath her skin.

  “Have you changed, Larissa?” he asked softly, a half smile on his mouth though his brown eyes were serious. “Is that what you’ve been trying to tell me?”

  All of her anxiety and fear rushed back into her then, shaking her. How could she have forgotten what a threat this man was? How had she managed to shove that aside? Had the unexpected—and highly unlikely—fantasy of domestic bliss completely addled her? Or was it the surprising memories of her time in Provence, that she normal
ly kept as hidden away as possible?

  “I don’t make pronouncements about whether I’ve changed,” she said, tilting her head back to look him in the eye. Pretending she felt strong. “How pompous. Have you ever heard someone make an announcement like that without then proving—usually shortly thereafter—that they hadn’t changed at all?”

  “Rarely,” he said. But his gaze was trained on her mouth and darkening by the moment. “But then, not everyone has quite as far to go as you do, do they?”

  There was some part of her that wanted to hate him for that comment, so snide and so offhanded—and part of her did hate him for it. It was the same part that curled up into a tight ball and wondered how she had ever let her defenses down, how she had ever given him the opportunity to hurt her. Because she’d expected more, somehow, after the way this odd evening had gone. That was her mistake. She’d expected better from him, from this. More fool, she. Would she never learn?

  “No, of course not,” she said, trying desperately to shove her walls back into place. Trying to prop them up again, keep him out somehow. “I am the poster child for ruin. Thank you for reminding me.”

  Why should she feel as if her usually hard, impenetrable defenses had been broken, somehow? Chipped? From one simple dinner? She couldn’t even call this strange interlude an act of kindness on his part—it had been much more a simple lack of active malice. Was that all it took to make her lose her head? Was she that pathetic?

  She knew, of course, that she was. Or that it was Jack who soothed her into a false sense of security, who made her forget herself. Who made her want to believe in fantasies—who made her remember too much, expose herself too much and feel too much. Hadn’t she run from exactly that five years ago? Hadn’t she known better even then? On some level, hadn’t it been that weekend with Jack that had inspired her to walk, eyes wide open, into a loveless, controllably numb engagement to Theo?

  “Why do I want to believe all the things you’re saying tonight, Larissa?” His voice was a whisper, a low rasp of sound, and she shouldn’t have felt it like a caress. She shouldn’t have felt it trace patterns of swirling heat down her arms, across her belly, and below. He shifted closer, and she was aware of him with every cell of her body. Aware of his height, the strength and width of his shoulders, the hard cage of his powerful chest. Aware of his beautiful mouth, his knowing gaze, too close to hers. “And if you’re not who I think you are, why don’t you defend yourself?”

  She laughed slightly, but it was a blocking maneuver more than any kind of humor. “Never defend, never explain,” she said airily, though the light tone cost her. “Didn’t someone famous say that?”

  “If you can’t defend,” he urged her, his mouth so close, too close, not nearly close enough, “then you really should explain. There’s only the two of us here. No one will know but me.”

  “And me,” Larissa replied. The crazy part was that she wanted to tell him. She wanted to explain everything to him, to share it all with him. What kind of insanity was that? And to what end? Did she think he could save her somehow? He was far more likely to ridicule her. And on some level she knew that this time she had to save herself, whatever that might look like. Whatever it took.

  “Larissa …” He said her name like it was a song. A curse. His strong hands cupped her face, then slid back to bury themselves in her hair. She felt a kind of drumbeat roll through her, low and deep, insistent.

  She was so afraid of this man. And at the same time, she’d never felt more awake. More alive. He made her feel that way. He always had. He made her feel.

  “If you live any kind of complicated life,” she said, whispering, her eyes glued to his, her skin shrinking over her bones, too small and too hot for her own body, “there will be people who hate you, and there’s nothing you can do to change their minds.” His eyes were so dark. So magnetic. She felt as if she could drown in them—as if she already had. “You can only move forward, and try to cause less damage. Less harm. What else is there to do?”

  “Less damage?” he echoed. His fingers flexed against her scalp, making her press into him. His words seemed to caress her mouth. “Less harm? What does that even look like for someone like you?”

  And she couldn’t seem to help herself. She couldn’t seem to do what she knew she should. She couldn’t make herself step away, put space between them, leave. She had always been so weak, so unable to resist temptation. And Jack Sutton was the greatest temptation of all, even when he hurt her.

  She was so tired of self-examination, of fearlessly looking at her own reflection, of taking honest stock of what she’d made of herself. And she had always been so weak for him. Always. She was still.

  Larissa pushed up on her toes, closed the breath of space between them, accepted that she was damned, and fit her mouth to his.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE kiss exploded all around her, through her. Need punched into her as she tasted him, as he angled his head to fully capture her mouth, his hands holding her fast as he took her mouth with his. And again. And then again.

  It was too much. It would never be enough.

  Larissa wanted to be closer, to touch him, to feel him under her hands. She pushed his sweater out of the way, her fingers trembling with excitement, to feel his rock-hard abdomen under her palms. The heat of his skin was like a burst of fire, singeing her, blasting through her.

  He muttered her name, a curse or a prayer and she didn’t care which, and then shifted to lift her up and settle her on the lip of the sink. She hardly noticed; she just draped her legs over his hips and lost herself in the fit of him against her, the way their bodies seemed to ignite on contact. And the sweet insanity of his hot mouth as it tasted her, taught her, took her.

  She was caught in the tumble of memories she’d held at bay for so long, all of them chasing each other and fusing, somehow, with the present, making his kiss that much hotter, her heart beat that much harder. She saw them together in her head, skin slick and so much pleasure, and when she focused on now his hands were on her body and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. He was dark and wicked and she could do nothing but burn, molten-hot and then hotter still.

  There was some part of her, still, that knew better. That knew what a terrible mistake this was—and suspected there would be a harsh price to pay for giving in to this particular temptation—but she didn’t care. She couldn’t bring herself to care—she couldn’t let herself. His clever lips drifted from her mouth to her jawline, leaving a trail of fire as he went, and she simply couldn’t bring herself to stop it. She couldn’t make herself do it. She was still so weak, after everything she’d been through.

  She had always been the most foolish of creatures, so hell-bent on her own destruction, hadn’t she? At least here, now, with Jack, she was almost convinced that touching him like this—tasting him—was worth whatever pain would come later. He took her mouth again in that powerful, commanding way and Larissa had the flashing, dizzying thought that it was worth anything at all.

  So instead of beating herself up any further over things she wasn’t going to change—not tonight, not now—she moved closer. She reached down and tugged on the hem of his sweater, urging him to pull it up and over his head. He complied with a lazy masculine grace, shrugging it from his smooth, strong shoulders, and Larissa let out a soft sigh. It was as if he’d been carved from marble, yet he felt like hot, smooth satin beneath her greedy hands. He was glorious.

  He will wreck you, that little voice whispered. But she was already wrecked in all the ways that mattered, wasn’t she? And she couldn’t see why she should deny herself this, why she should punish herself more than she already had, for something that felt as inevitable as the rain that drummed against the windows behind her. As inescapable. As if his mouth against hers had been a foregone conclusion the moment she’d looked up and seen him standing there in the door of that bar, weather all around him.

  Maybe it had been inevitable that they would end up this way since that we
ekend five years ago. Larissa just couldn’t bring herself to regret that, not when he tasted like magic and he moved against her as though they were both made of that ache, that heat.

  His hands moved down her back, managing to sear into her despite the heavy sweater she wore. Then they moved to her legs, holding her thighs so that she could feel his warmth through the faded denim. He shifted, pulling her legs higher over his hips, pressing his hardness tight against the core of her. Larissa felt a wave crash over her, through her—some potent mix of lust, need, fire.

  He inhaled sharply; Larissa gasped aloud.

  His chest was like a wall in front of her, hard and unyielding, and Larissa dropped her head forward. She tasted him, salt and man, and then followed the distracting lines of his defined muscles before pressing her mouth against that valley between his pectorals. He was lean and athletic, all rip-cord strength and smooth, confident power. Perfect, she chanted somewhere deep inside, like a prayer to the gods she’d disappointed long ago. This man is perfect.

  “You are overdressed,” he said, his voice a low thread of sound in the quiet room. It hummed with the same need that coursed through her, and made her feel like someone else. Made her imagine she could be whoever this was, this woman he held in his hands who turned so very bright with his touch. Brighter than she’d ever been before—when she’d spent so many years believing she’d only ever be the same shade of gray. Yet here, with him, she felt herself glow. Shine. She leaned back slightly, their hips still flush against each other, and studied his face.

  His cheekbones seemed sharper somehow, as if desire rendered them more prominent, and his dark eyes were nearly black with passion. They glittered down at her, fierce and demanding. An answering drumbeat kicked up inside her skin, a thick pulse that made her heart skip and a heaviness coil low in her belly. She could not remember ever wanting anyone or anything as much as she wanted this man. Not five years ago, not now.