Project: Runaway Heiress

by Heidi Betts

  The makeup, however, would have to remain until they returned to the hotel suite and she could take some cotton balls and about ten gallons of makeup remover to it. Not that she looked like a clown. It was just that everything—eyeliner, shadow, mascara, blush, lipstick—was thicker and heavier than usual to be seen from a distance and on camera.

  She was about to turn away from the oversize mirror and head back out front when a pair of hands spanned her waist and warm lips pressed against the side of her neck. Her gaze flicked to her reflection, and now Nigel’s, close behind her.

  “You were wonderful,” he spoke near her ear, barely above a whisper. “I knew you would be.”

  Stepping away before someone noticed his familiarity with the person who was supposed to be simply his personal assistant, he added, “That model never did show up, so thank you for saving the show.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said with a touch of reluctance. Then she turned to face him, crossing her arms and hitching one hip in annoyance. “You might have asked if I wanted to play supermodel before pushing me out onstage against my will. Do you have any idea how petrified I was? You’re lucky I didn’t throw up on one of the other models or pass out right in the middle of the runway and ruin the whole show.”

  To her surprise, he chuckled at her aggravation, a wide smile stretching across his handsome features.

  “Nonsense. You were exceptional. And I can’t imagine anyone else looking as lovely in that gown...not even a professional model paid to look good in designer creations.”

  As much as she wanted to hold on to her mad, his flattery was working. She was glad she’d been able to help out in such a way when he’d needed her, happy that he was pleased with her performance.

  But that didn’t change the fact that she was in trouble. Bad enough they’d slept together last night. That she wanted it to—hoped it would, even—happen again.

  Now she needed to worry about someone recognizing her and figuring out what she was doing playing out a second identity. That Nigel might realize what she was up to and hate her forever.

  Her heart gave a painful lurch. She might be lying to him. What they had might be casual, temporary and doomed to be short-lived. But the thought of him finding out who she really was, what she’d been doing pretending to be his personal assistant all this time, nearly brought tears to her eyes.

  An ill-fated romantic fling she could handle. Seeing a look of betrayal, possibly even disgust, in his eyes after what they’d shared... No, she didn’t want her time with him to end like that.

  Which meant she needed to be very careful from this point on. She needed to guard herself against any further attachment to this man. Whatever else transpired between them, she couldn’t let it affect her emotionally.

  Most importantly, though, she needed to get back to the Ashdown Abbey offices in Los Angeles and find out once and for all who stole her designs for the California Collection.

  Oblivious to the twisting, hazard-strewn path her thoughts were taking, he ran his hands down her bare arms, threading his fingers with hers. “If you’re ready, we can go. We’ll have to make pleasantries as we weave our way through the crowd out there, but the car is waiting to take us back to the hotel.”

  “Don’t you need to stick around awhile?” she asked. “Rub elbows and talk up the company to key account holders?”

  “Already done,” he replied. “I spoke to several buyers just after the show, while you were changing back into street clothes, and anyone else who might be interested in acquiring our designs has my card. They can call me at the office on Monday.”

  “That was quick,” she said. “I would have thought you’d need to spend the rest of the day schmoozing.”

  He offered her a gentle smile. “Sometimes I do. But for the most part, these types of events drag on for the public’s enjoyment. Those of us who are there for business tend to know each other, look for each other and get straight to the point. Besides,” he said, leaning in and lowering his voice to a sultry whisper, “I don’t want to be stuck out there, making nice with mere strangers, when I could spend the rest of my time in Miami alone with you.”

  A flush of longing washed over her, making her catch her breath. She licked her lips, waiting until she thought she could speak without sounding like Kermit the Frog.

  “So,” she said carefully, “we’ll be headed back to Los Angeles soon?”

  “Tomorrow. But that gives us the rest of the day and this evening to enjoy the sand and sun.”

  She cocked her head, unable to keep her mouth from quirking up at one side. “The sand and sun, or our suite back at the Royal Crown?”

  He returned her grin with a wink and wicked twinkle to his hazel-green eyes. “I’ll let that be your choice, of course. Though I know which I’m hoping for.”

  She shook her head and chuckled, unable to resist his inherent charm. The man was entirely too tempting for his own good. Or hers.

  And though it might not have been the wisest decision for her to make, especially given her current situation, she wanted to spend the night with him. Another night, just the two of them alone together.

  While she realized it would essentially be digging herself even deeper into her deception and making it that much harder to walk away, she wanted as much time alone with him as she could get. Secret minutes, private hours, cherished memories to carry with her the rest of her life.

  She might not have a future with Nigel—how could she when she’d been lying to him ever since they met?—but

  she could have this. The here and now. And if that was all she could lay claim to, then she was going to grab on with both hands and savor it for all it was worth.

  “All right,” she told him slowly, teasing him a little. “I’ll tell you what. You can take me to lunch, and I’ll let you know afterward what I want to do next.”

  He gave her a look, one that said he intended to do everything in his power to convince her to make the right decision. The one that led straight back to their hotel suite and ended with them both sweaty, naked, wrapped together like kudzu vines.

  She shivered a little at the slideshow of pictures that ran through her head. Oh, yes, they would get there. But it wouldn’t hurt to make him worry a bit about the day’s outcome first.

  Turning in the opposite direction toward the curtained-off entrance between backstage and the show area, he offered his arm. As she took it and they started walking, he said, “Fair enough. Just remember that I haven’t quite gotten my fair share of time in that big bed back at the hotel. It would be a shame to fly home before I’ve gotten to use it properly.”

  Lily bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing aloud. The campaign to spend the rest of their time in Miami safely ensconced in the suite had begun already, it seemed. Although she didn’t see why they had to restrict their activities to the bed he was so preoccupied with. After all, there was also the sofa, the desk, the balcony, the shower, the bathroom vanity...

  Leaning into him, despite the fact that someone might see and perceive that there was more going on between them than mere boss-and-secretary professional relations, she said, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  * * *

  The sofa, the desk, the bathroom vanity, the shower and the bed. They’d hit every place but the balcony, at least in part, before checking out of the hotel Sunday morning and boarding the jet back to Los Angeles.

  Lily knew how dangerous it was to let herself get so carried away with Nigel. Had reprimanded herself several times while locked away with him, doing all the things she told herself she shouldn’t. But she just didn’t have it in her to stop before she absolutely had to, so she’d decided to adopt a don’t-ask-don’t-tell attitude. She wouldn’t ask herself why she was letting things go on this way when she knew how they were going to end, and she wouldn’t tell herself later what a fool she’d been for letting her time at Ashdown Abbey and her feelings for Nigel Statham get out of control.

  Which was how
she ended up agreeing to have room service deliver lunch after the runway show instead of eating in a lovely, public five-star restaurant so they could spend more time together, alone in the suite. And how she allowed him to sit so close to her on the flight home, interspersing business talk with naughty whispers about his favorite parts of what they’d done together and what he’d very much like to do in the future. Not the far distant future, but soon after they landed.

  As hard as she tried to resist, she even let him talk her into going home with him from the airport. It was a terrible idea. One that could only get her deeper into the hole she was digging for herself. The same hole that was quickly filling with quicksand, threatening to pull her under.

  But there was something about his fingers trailing along her bare thigh just beneath the hem of her skirt...his warm breath dusting her ear, sending ripples of sensation all the way down to her toes. It stirred up too many memories from their time locked away together in the hotel suite, and made her weak and susceptible and eager to make more.

  So she let herself be persuaded. Let him lead her from the jet to his waiting Bentley, let him not drop her off at her apartment, but take her home with him instead, her heart in her throat the entire drive.

  She’d expected some dazzling but garish mansion in Beverly Hills, complete with swimming pool and a home bowling alley or some such. Instead, he led her past a uniformed doorman into a very nice redbrick apartment building not far from the Ashdown Abbey offices. Definitely a few steps up from the one where she was staying, especially when she discovered—of course—that his was the penthouse apartment.

  The view was spectacular, as were the layout and furnishings. Not his own, he’d explained; he’d rented it that way, but they suited him perfectly nonetheless. A lot of chrome and glass and neutral colors, interspersed with splashes of bright color.

  He gave her all of ten minutes to process her surroundings while his chauffer brought in their luggage and he poured them each a glass of wine. Then he’d led her to the bedroom, where he’d proceeded to give her the grand tour of his king-size bed, ocean-blue satin sheets and the eggshell paint of the ceiling over her head.

  He’d kept her there for hours...not that she’d minded. Then when she began making noises about going home to her own apartment, he’d insisted she stay for dinner. She’d refused, at least until he’d offered to cook. That was something she just had to see.

  Unfortunately, she’d also had to eat it with a smile on her face, since she hadn’t had the heart to tell him his culinary skills needed work.

  After that, he’d very deftly seduced her again, keeping her distracted and too exhausted to protest until morning. Of course, in the morning, they’d had to go into the office.

  Thankfully, she’d had enough clothes with her from the trip that she hadn’t had to wear the same thing two days in a row. And Nigel had been kind enough to drop her off a couple of blocks from the Ashdown Abbey building so it looked as though she’d arrived by herself, then followed behind several minutes later.

  From there, they’d proceeded to fool around in his office, exchange heated glances even when they weren’t alone, and—to Lily’s consternation and self-reproach—practically move in together. It was comfortable and a lot easier a routine to fall into than she would have expected. At the very least, she found herself spending entirely too much time in Nigel’s presence and sleeping over at his penthouse.

  Time she was spending getting swept up in the fantasy of spending the rest of her life with this man, inching ever closer to the edge of falling for him once and for all. But not getting any closer to discovering the thief of her designs. Every minute she was with Nigel was one she didn’t use to snoop around or pore through Ashdown Abbey records.

  After nearly a week of sneaking around at work, of them acting like boss and secretary with a professional relationship only, then using the evening hours to act like a couple of randy teenagers—or worse, star-crossed lovers in some romantic chick flick—Lily realized she had to get back on track.

  She considered herself extremely lucky that nothing had ever seemed to come of her jaunt down the runway in Miami. Apparently, everyone—even the media—had been more focused on the debut designs than who was wearing them. And the big hair and heavy makeup had certainly helped.

  Because no one had ever called to ask what she’d been doing there, or pointed at a photograph from the show and commented that one of the Ashdown Abbey models looked an awful lot like that Zaccaro chick from New York.

  Thank goodness.

  But even if she couldn’t bring herself to break things off with Nigel entirely, she did manage to clear her head enough to insist on spending the night at her own apartment for a change. Without him joining her there.

  Lily hadn’t taken her personal cell phone with her to Florida, only the one provided to her by Ashdown Abbey for company business. And she’d been so distracted by her impromptu stay at Nigel’s penthouse that she’d forgotten to grab it the single time she’d managed to swing by her own apartment. It was still in the nightstand beside her neatly made, narrow twin bed, exactly where she’d left it.

  So when she finally got inside her apartment, alone, and was able to take a breath, clear her head and focus again, she found her voice-mail box full. As soon as she turned the phone on, it started beeping with notification after notification that she had messages waiting.

  Suspecting what she would hear and who most of them would be from, she almost didn’t want to listen, but knew she had to. Kicking off her heels, she moved around the living room, gathering papers and folders and notebooks even as she dialed in for the messages.

  Sure enough, several were from her sister Juliet. Where are you? Why didn’t you say where you were going in your note? Why haven’t you called me back? Please call me back. We’re worried about you. Where are you?

  Lily’s heart hurt more with each message, guilt biting at her as her sister’s voice grew more and more frantic.

  Then there were the ones from her private investigator, Reid McCormack. He was anything but frantic. In fact, he sounded downright furious, and darned if Lily could figure out why. He worked for her, after all. Shouldn’t she be the one to get upset at his lack of progress rather than the other way around?

  But while his first couple of voice mails were polite enough, simply requesting an update or letting her know he’d found no connection between Ashdown Abbey and the theft of her designs in New York, they quickly deteriorated into demands for her to return his calls and threats to put an end to their association if she didn’t soon come clean with her sisters.

  She rubbed the spot between her brows, massaging away the beginning of a headache. This was all supposed to be so simple, and now it was so complicated. She was supposed to be the only one involved, at risk, and now things had spread to encompass so many others. People she cared about and wanted to protect.

  With a sigh, she glanced at the phone’s display and did the math for the difference between West Coast and East Coast time. If she waited just a little longer, she might be able to call the apartment back in New York and leave a message for her sisters when neither of them would be home. That would give her the chance to reassure them—especially Juliet—that she was fine and hoped to be home soon without having to explain where she was or what she was really up to.

  Because if Juliet or Zoe answered, there would be no end to the number of questions they would ask. They’d grill her like a toasted-cheese sandwich, and she just couldn’t tell them the whole truth. Not yet.

  Which brought her to the next and most important item on her must-do list. She had to figure out how Ashdown Abbey had gotten enough of a peek at her designs to incorporate them into their California Collection.

  Tossing all of the paperwork she’d gathered so far from the annals of Ashdown Abbey on the coffee table in front of the sofa, she trailed into the bedroom and changed from the sundress and sandals she’d worn home from Florida to a pair of comfortable c
otton pajamas. Then she returned to the front room, started a pot of coffee—which she suspected would be only the first of many—and hunkered down on the floor cross-legged, with her back to the couch.

  Given all the snooping she’d already done and information she’d collected, Lily didn’t understand why she couldn’t figure out who the design thief was. It had to be there, buried, hidden, eluding her. Worse, she felt as though the answer was right there, just out of reach. If only she knew exactly where to look...or exactly what she was looking for.

  What she needed was a second set of eyes. Her sisters—Juliet, at any rate—would be terrific at poring through the pages and pages of data. But hadn’t the entire point been not to get her sisters involved?

  The detective would be another excellent choice. But Juliet had contacted him right after Lily had, and now he was smack in the middle of a conflict of interest. From his perspective, anyway—not from Lily’s, and she hoped not from Juliet’s once she found out what was really going on. It did explain Reid McCormack’s souring disposition, though.

  On the heels of that thought came another wave of guilt. All right, all right, she told her nagging conscience. Grabbing her cell phone, she dialed McCormack’s office number first. The better to not catch him and be able to leave a message he could listen to later...when she wasn’t on the other end of the line, a cornered recipient of his wrath.

  And thankfully, it was his voice mail rather than his real live voice that answered.

  “Mr. McCormack, this is Lily Zaccaro,” she said. Quickly, succinctly, knowing she didn’t have much time before the system cut her off and wanting to sound very sure of herself, she continued, “I’m sorry I haven’t contacted you, but I got your messages and promise I’m nearly done here. I’m not going to give her any details about my whereabouts, but I will call Juliet and let her know I’m okay. And I’ll explain everything as soon as I get back to New York. I’m sorry if this is causing you problems, but please don’t say anything to my sisters—not yet. Thank you.”