“Aubrey, wait.” He planted a palm on the door, holding it closed.
She paused with her hand on the knob. Her spine remained steel-girder stiff, and she kept her chin tucked as if she wanted to hide from what had just happened.
Well, didn’t that make him feel like a damned prize?
Her scent, a heady floral mingled with hot sex, filled Liam’s lungs as he inhaled. He battled the unaccustomed urge to smooth her tangled hair and straighten the tucked-under collar of her blazer. “We used protection and I’m clean, but if you need anything you have my numbers.”
She turned and met his gaze. Panic and regret darkened her eyes. “I won’t call, Liam. I can’t.”
“Yeah. I guess you’re right. My family’s in enough turmoil without throwing an affair with the enemy’s daughter into the pot.”
Her mouth dropped open and a wounded expression briefly crossed her face before she blinked it away. “The enemy? That’s how you see my father?”
He cursed his clumsy tongue. “Matthew Holt and my grandfather have had a few run-ins. Holt Enterprises and EPH don’t always see eye to eye on how we conduct business.”
“No. No, they don’t. You’re right. I hope your mother likes the painting. Goodbye, Liam.” She yanked open his door and then quietly closed it behind her.
Liam banged his forehead against the wood and then slowly turned to face the painting. Where was his brain? The afternoon shouldn’t have happened. He should have left the pub the minute Aubrey started with her prying questions. He shouldn’t have taken her to the gallery or brought her home for a lesson in Art 101. He sure as hell shouldn’t have taken her to bed. Because today he’d had the best sex of his life and there was absolutely no chance that he’d ever repeat the experience.
He cursed all the way back to his bedroom. Aubrey’s scent clung to his skin and to his bed. Determined to remove all traces of her from his apartment, he ripped off the sheets. As he shoved them into the hamper for his housekeeper to wash, he caught sight of his watch.
Damn. He hadn’t called work to tell them he wouldn’t be returning after his luncheon appointment. A first. He never missed work. Hell, for the past nine months he’d practically lived in the EPH building. He headed for the phone on his bedside table. A sliver of black sticking out from under his bed stopped him in his tracks. He bent and scooped it up. Aubrey’s thong. His pulse rate tripled. He should return it. But how?
Mail? Nah, he didn’t think so.
In person? Hell, no. That would be stepping right back into the fire. He couldn’t risk his family—particularly his grandfather, who believed appearances were everything—finding out about today.
For several seconds he studied the black satin dangling from his fingers and then he crushed the lingerie in his hand and shoved it in his nightstand drawer.
He couldn’t have Aubrey, but he could have the memories of this wild afternoon to fuel his fantasies when the only lover he had was his right hand.
“Happy to have you home again, Mom. I brought a bottle of champagne to celebrate.” Liam set the champagne on the coffee table and bent over the chaise in the den of the family brownstone to kiss his mother’s cheek.
She had a little more color in her face than she’d had when he’d visited her at The Tides a couple of weeks ago, and she’d lost some of the gauntness hollowing her cheeks. Short tufts of newly grown hair, more gray than before, peeked from the scarf she wore over her head.
Liam nodded hello to his father. He and his father had never been close. Michael Elliott had spent too much of Liam’s childhood at work, leaving Liam to rely on his grandfather for mentorship as the years passed.
“You and your wine collection. Thank you.” Karen Elliott shifted her legs to the side and patted the cushion. “Sit down, Liam. It’s good to be home. Your grandparents’ estate is a wonderful place to recuperate, but it’s time for me to get on with life. Besides, you’ve all spent way too much time worrying about me and traipsing out there.”
“Glad to do it. I brought you a surprise.” He ignored her “you-shouldn’t-haves,” retrieved the picture from the foyer where he’d left it and rested the bottom edge of the frame on the sofa. “Dad, could you help me with this?”
“Certainly.” His father stepped forward.
With his father’s assistance Liam removed the paper. The memory of doing the same with Aubrey yesterday barged front and center into his thoughts. He set his jaw and deliberately blocked the images as best he could. Which wasn’t so great.
His mother’s gasp was reward enough for the weeks of phone calls Liam had made to nearly every gallery in the Northeast, his pleas with gallery owners and, finally, the letter he’d written to Gilda Raines and sent along with a picture of his mother gazing at one of Gilda’s paintings in the medical center. Seeing his mother’s eyes light up and then fill with happy tears was icing on the cake.
She smiled up at him. “Gilda Raines never sells anything. She donates to hospitals, but she never sells. How did you convince her?”
He shrugged. “I wrote her a letter and told her I needed a gift for a very special lady.”
“Don’t waste your flattery on me, Liam Elliott.” His mother dismissed his words with a wave of her hand, but color seeped into her cheeks.
He didn’t mention that the artist probably wouldn’t have sold him anything if Aubrey hadn’t been with him. He’d seen the refusal in Ms. Raines’s eyes until Aubrey had remarked about the painting being exactly what Liam’s mother needed. He knew because he’d been looking at Gilda instead of the art on the easel.
Liam had a feeling he was supposed to know why the artist had selected this particular piece from her collection and what the painting signified the second he laid eyes on it, and when he hadn’t Gilda’s decision had been made. No sale. But Gilda had taken an instant liking to Aubrey, and Aubrey’s promise to explain the meaning behind the morning glory had changed Gilda’s mind. No doubt about it. He would have walked away empty-handed if not for Aubrey Holt. He owed her. Even the gallery manager had whispered her surprise over the sale—when she’d slipped him her phone number. Not a number he intended using.
His mother carefully eased forward on the cushion until she could stroke the frame. “It’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.”
Tears streamed from her eyes and she pressed trembling fingers to her lips. Those were more than happy tears this time. Liam stood by helplessly, but his father immediately took her into his arms and tucked her face to his chest. Did his mother’s emotional reaction have something to do with the way Aubrey had described the painting? Liam’s ears burned and he shifted uneasily. If so, then his parents deserved a moment of privacy.
He propped the frame against the back of the sofa, shoved his hands into his pockets and retreated to the opposite side of the room to look out the window at the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood where he’d grown up. Until he’d moved away, he hadn’t paid much attention to the well-maintained nineteenth-century brownstones lining the shaded street, the wide bluestone sidewalks or decorative ironwork. He hadn’t appreciated that he was only a short train ride from Times Square, Coney Island and Shea Stadium and a Mets baseball game.
While he’d been trapped under the weight of family expectations, his thoughts had been elsewhere. Traveling. Exploring. With his grandfather owning Elliott Publication Holdings, one of the largest and most successful magazine conglomerates in the world, it had been assumed for as far back as Liam could remember that each family member would start with EPH and work his or her way up. Liam hadn’t even left the area to attend college. Instead he’d commuted to Columbia University on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and interned at EPH, working hard to climb the EPH ladder.
Liam didn’t like to make waves. As a second son, he was a peacemaker not a troublemaker.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday would cause all kinds of trouble if word of his after-lunch activities got out.
“I want to hang it in the bedroom.
” His mother’s statement interrupted his thoughts.
“Just show me where,” his father answered in an indulgent I’ll-give-you-anything-you-want voice. “Could you help me, son?”
“Sure.”
Carrying the painting, Liam followed his parents into their bedroom. His father helped his mother settle on the bench at the end of the bed. She glanced around the room and then pointed. “I want to hang it there, so it’ll be the first thing I see each morning and the last thing before I turn out the light.”
TMI. Too much information. Aubrey’s description echoed in Liam’s head and his skin shrank three sizes. Don’t want to go there. His parents’ intimate life was none of his business and Liam liked it that way.
His father removed the landscape already hanging on the wall and replaced it with the morning glory.
“Perfect,” his mother announced.
His father hooked an arm around Liam’s shoulders and nodded toward the painting. “This was a great idea.”
Liam glanced at his mother. She studied the art with her hands clasped under her chin and a smile on her face. And then he turned back to his father. “So do you know what it means?”
His father shifted uncomfortably and lowered his arm. “Only because your mother fell in love with one of the paintings by this artist hanging in the hospital physical therapy room. I asked what was so great about a picture of a flower and Renee explained it to me.”
Renee was the social worker engaged to Tag, Liam’s younger brother. They’d met when Renee was assigned to keep Tag from terrorizing the hospital staff caring for their mother after her double mastectomy.
Liam shared a sympathetic look with his father and then confessed, “I had to have somebody explain it to me, too.”
His father crossed to the dresser and returned with a pair of gilt-edged tickets in his hand. “While I have you here I need a favor. There’s a charity thing this weekend. Your mother and I have decided to skip it, but we need an Elliott to make an appearance. Saturday night. Black tie. You’ll need a date. Can you swing it?”
Aubrey’s violet eyes flashed in Liam’s mind. No. Definitely not Aubrey. He’d come up with someone who had Saturday night free and a spare formal hanging in her closet. “Sure.”
“Good.”
“So, how about you put the champagne on ice and I dash down the street and pick up dinner at Mom’s favorite restaurant?” Liam suggested.
How in the hell he’d find a date on such short notice he didn’t know. He’d been out of the dating circuit since his grandfather’s announcement in January. But that wasn’t his father’s problem. If his parents wanted an Elliott at the gala, then Liam would be there, doing his duty the way he’d always done.
Aubrey looked at the man beside her and longed for a bed, a thick pillow, a silk-covered down comforter and solitude. Not sex. Which made her immediately think of Liam Elliott.
She huffed an exasperated breath and checked her diamond-faced watch. How long had she lasted this time? Less than an hour since she’d last vowed to never again think about Liam or their afternoon of amazing, curl-her-toes sex. God, she was weak. Blame it on exhaustion. She’d had precious little sleep during the past five nights, and when she had fallen into bed, Liam Elliott had joined her, invading her dreams and tangling her sheets.
Damn him.
As if thinking about Liam incarnated remnants of that afternoon, Aubrey spotted Trisha Evans across the ballroom. The gallery employee hadn’t known that Aubrey and Liam weren’t a couple, but that hadn’t stopped her from brazenly passing Liam her phone number along with a come-and-get-me smile and his receipt.
Witch.
The crowd shifted and Aubrey choked on her champagne when she recognized Trisha’s escort. Liam. Well, he hadn’t waited long to accept the brunette’s invitation. Emotion churned in Aubrey’s stomach. Anger? Jealousy? Whatever it was, it didn’t belong. How could she be angry or jealous? She and Liam weren’t—and never could be—a couple.
“Who’s the chick?”
“Pardon?” Aubrey turned to look at the hulking football player who’d escorted her to the arts fund-raiser this evening. One of her father’s magazines was doing a series of articles on Buck Parks and his recent retirement from the NFL. Her father had “suggested” Aubrey and Buck create a little buzz about the feature by appearing together at the gala.
“The brunette in the barely there red dress. You’re glaring at her like you want to mash her face into the turf.”
An apt description. “No one. She’s no one important.”
But at that moment Liam turned his head. His gaze lasered in on Aubrey from across the room and her breath jammed in her chest. He looked amazing in a tux. Suave. Sexy. GQ-gorgeous.
“Ah, now I get it.”
Aubrey blinked and broke the connection with Liam. Looking away wasn’t as easy as it should have been. She found sympathy in Buck’s eyes. “Get what?”
“It’s not her. It’s him.”
Was she completely transparent? “You’re mistaken. He’s the financial operating officer of Holt Enterprises’ chief competitor. I can’t be interested in him.”
Buck grinned and dipped his head. “Who’re you trying to fool, Aubrey?”
Buck was tall and built, smart and funny. He smelled good and filled out his custom-tailored tux to perfection. Why couldn’t she get hot and bothered over him? But she didn’t. She experienced no blip of her pulse when he said her name, no sweaty palms when he looked at her, no burning twist of her stomach when he touched her. The feeling—or lack thereof—was mutual.
Mischief danced in his eyes. “Wanna give him something to think about? Because he’s on his way over here.”
Aubrey’s heart stopped and then slammed in a rapid jackhammer beat. “He is?”
“Yep. I can plant one on you. Long, slow, and I’ll make it look deep and hot. He’ll get the message.”
If she weren’t panicking, she’d appreciate the handsome ball player’s offer, but at the moment she was on the verge of hyperventilating. If he covered her mouth with his, she’d suffocate.
Buck’s big hand curled around her waist and he tugged her closer. “Last chance,” he whispered against her jaw.
“Aubrey.” Liam’s hard voice sent a flash-fire of heat over her skin.
Gulping, she took a second to gather her scattered nerves, pasted what she hoped passed as a disinterested smile on her face and turned. “Good evening, Liam. Trisha. Are you enjoying the ball?”
Aubrey avoided Liam by focusing on Trisha’s triumphant smirk. Buck’s hands tightened on Aubrey’s waist. She made a mental note to thank him later. He reached past her and offered his hand first to Trisha and then to Liam. “Buck Parks.”
Trisha, evidently not satisfied with one big fish on the hook, fluttered her mascara-laden lashes at Buck and gushed her name and something inane about football. Aubrey’s deafening pulse drowned most of it out.
“Liam Elliott.” Testosterone crackled in the air as the men shook hands and then Buck’s arm settled around her waist and hauled her close to his hard body. Her pulse didn’t even hiccup.
Aubrey risked looking at Liam again.
“Mom loved the painting,” was all he said. His unreadable expression gave nothing away.
“I thought she would.”
And then his lips twitched. “She had me hang it in her bedroom. I didn’t ask why. Don’t want to know.”
Aubrey’s lips curved upward. “No. I bet not.”
Then memories of Liam touching her, tasting her, filling her, wiped away her smile and set her legs to trembling. She had to get out of here or at least away from him. She couldn’t leave the gala until she’d done as her father requested. Dance, schmooze, get your picture taken by a few society reporters.
“Well, it was good seeing you both, but I promised Buck a dance. Bye.” And then she looked up at the former quarterback and silently pleaded for him to rescue her. Lucky for her, Buck was as quick with his thoughts as h
e was on his feet.
Getting the seats switched cost Liam fifty bucks. The fact that he’d paid money to torture himself with what he couldn’t have didn’t say much about his intelligence.
He deliberately stalled until after Aubrey and her date were seated at the big, round table with three other couples before leading Trisha to their seats in the banquet hall adjoining the ballroom. Aubrey glanced up as he pulled out his date’s chair. Her violet eyes widened and filled with horror and then the color and her polite smile slid from her face.
She jerked her gaze forward and sat stiffly erect. Liam settled beside her. Their shoulders brushed as he adjusted his chair, and her scent filled his lungs, bringing back a flood of incendiary memories. His thigh nudged hers beneath the crowded table and blood drained from his brain.
He recovered enough to introduce Trisha and himself to the other diners at the table and then turned to Aubrey and her date. The big lug with her had tried to crush Liam’s hand earlier. Too bad it hadn’t worked. Liam had done his own share of bone crushing during the exchange.
Aubrey cozying up to the quarterback is none of your business.
“You left something at my place,” he whispered to Aubrey.
Her cheeks turned scarlet, confirming she’d not only heard him, she knew exactly what she’d left behind, but she didn’t turn her head. In fact, she ignored him, which irritated the daylights out of him.
“Want it back?”
“No. Throw it out.” Her reply was barely audible over the hum of conversation in the large room.
He waited until after the salads had been served. “Can’t do that, sweetheart.”
She dropped her fork. Within seconds a server had replaced it with a clean one and stepped back to hover. One bad thing about five-thousand-dollar-a-plate dinners was that the wait staff never went far. They hovered behind you, watching every move. Not that he intended to touch Aubrey—no matter how much he wanted to.
Parks stretched his left arm across the back of Aubrey’s chair, clenching his fist and displaying his Super Bowl ring for Liam’s scrutiny. The gesture blatantly staked a claim, riling Liam. Hard eyes met Liam’s behind Aubrey’s back. Liam set his jaw.
Dynasties:The Elliots, Books 7-12 Page 49