by JoAnn Ross
Buffy heard the excited voices on the other side of the boat, which offered a better view. In no mood to enjoy the sight, she stayed where she was and tried to figure out how to salvage her faltering career.
A hand covered her mouth. Startled and frightened, she began to fight, but her attacker had the element of surprise, along with the strength to lift her off her feet and throw her over the railing.
The sound of the former editor’s body hitting water with a muffled splash was covered up by another explosion of red-white-and-blue fireworks.
Seconds later, the red glow of the abandoned cigarette arced through the air like a falling star, landing in the icy water, where it was instantly extinguished.
Grace and Lucas had returned to the dining salon after the fireworks when Robert came up to them. He seemed nervous, Lucas thought. And definitely distracted.
“Have you seen Buffy?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve lost your bride already,” Grace said flippantly.
“I don’t need your sarcasm, Grace,” he snapped. “I need to know where my agent is.”
Grace thought the fact that he’d referred to Buffy as his agent rather than his wife spoke volumes about their relationship. “I have no idea. We had a brief conversation outside on the deck. But that was before the fireworks.”
“Then she did speak with you?”
“As I said, only briefly.”
“So, what do you think?”
“About what?”
“About collaborating again.”
Grace had to laugh at that. Buffy and Robert made quite a pair; they obviously deserved each other. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told your new agent, Robert. Not in this lifetime.”
“Dammit, Grace. I’m making you a generous offer. There’s a lot of money to be made with the Roberta Grace name—”
“You should know, since you were so good at spending it.”
“Lord, you can be frustrating.” He raked a hand through his blond hair. “Did you ever think that Geraldine might try to keep the name for Penbrook? And just get someone else to write the books? Some has-been desperate to resuscitate a dying career?”
“Someone like Anne?” Grace admittedly hadn’t thought of that possibility before the conference. But since talking with the self-proclaimed Queen of Romance, she’d been forced to wonder.
“Rumor has it that she’s at the top of Geraldine’s list. It’s not fair, Grace. We worked damn hard to build that name into a household word. How can you even consider walking away from it?”
“I’m not. I intend to win in court. Against you, and if it comes to that, against Geraldine. And Anne.”
“Talk about your David and Goliath scenarios,” he muttered. “Dammit, Grace…”
Grace wasn’t certain exactly what happened next. All she knew was that Robert had reached out and taken hold of her shoulders, as if to shake some sense into her, when he was suddenly flying through the air. He landed, face first, in the center of the dessert table, scattering tarts and petits fours and breaking the towering ice-sculpture swan into splinters.
CHAPTER 10
“OH, THAT WAS MARVELOUS,” Jamie, who’d come up just in time to witness the event, declared with evil glee. “I only wish I’d had my video camera going—I could have undoubtedly paid for a new nursery with proceeds from selling copies of the tape.”
There was no hint of an answering smile on Lucas’s stony face. “Do me a favor and stay with Grace for a second,” he said. “I’ve got one more thing to do.”
“I won’t let her out of my sight,” Jamie promised.
“Lucas…” Grace said, demurring at the same time. Although she couldn’t deny that seeing Robert the Rat sprawled amidst all those gooey pastries was more than a little enjoyable, neither did she want to be responsible for Lucas committing murder. Which he looked perfectly capable of doing.
“Don’t worry.” The reassuring words were ground out on a steely tone that Grace didn’t find all that encouraging. “I won’t kill him. Though the idea is tempting.”
Too tempting, Lucas thought as he made his way through the crowd, which parted for him like the waters of the Red Sea. He stood over Grace’s former husband, his hands curled into fists.
Robert dragged a hand down his face, leaving a messy trail of whipping cream and chocolate sauce. He glared up at his attacker. “The minute this ship docks, I’m going to call the police and press charges for assault and battery.”
“You do that.” Lucas leaned down, grabbed a fistful of stained shirt and yanked him back onto his feet, hauling him forward until their faces were inches apart. “In fact, why don’t we give the D.A. a few more charges to prosecute? Like me throwing you overboard and leaving you to drown.”
Aware that all eyes in the huge dining room were on him, Robert tried to bluster. “You wouldn’t dare—”
“Want to bet? The only problem is the sharks probably wouldn’t eat you. Professional courtesy being what it is.”
“You had no right—”
“I had every right. In fact, see this?” He moved his jacket aside just enough to allow Robert to view the 9mm pistol in its shoulder holster. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t use it to shoot you for laying hands on my woman.”
Before Robert could come up with an answer, the captain’s voice came over the loudspeaker, announcing the ship’s return to port.
“Looks as if tonight’s your lucky night, Radcliffe, because I’ve just decided you’re too much of a weasel to do hard time for.” Lucas abruptly released the other man and watched as he fell back into the scattered, smashed pastries. “Touch Grace again and I won’t be so generous.”
With that threat hanging in the air between them, Lucas turned and walked back to Grace.
“My hero,” Jamie said with a dramatic sigh, patting the front of her scarlet silk maternity dress.
He flashed a grin that was like the sun coming from behind gunmetal gray clouds. “Just doin’ my job.” He put his hand on Grace’s waist and smiled down at her as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Ready to leave, Gracie?”
“I think that might be a good idea,” she murmured, glancing back at Robert, who was glaring at Lucas’s back.
They were halfway down the gangplank when Geraldine caught up with them. “That was quite something,” she said. “I have a feeling that this year’s Penbrook Press party will go down in romance publishing history.”
“You can bill me for the cost of the table,” Lucas said. He was in no mood to listen to any complaints. He just wanted to escape this circus and get across the bay to his boat, where things were a great deal more quiet. And sane.
“Oh, I have no intention of doing that,” Geraldine assured him. “That little display of macho heroics undoubtedly proved worlds more entertaining than the male strippers I’d considered hiring.”
To Lucas’s amazement, she touched a hand to his chest, in that same seductive way the British actress had when trying to convince him to try out the oversize Jacuzzi in her hotel room suite.
“You’ve no idea what a relief it is to know that our Grace is in such good hands. Isn’t that true, Georgie?” she asked the man standing in his usual position right behind her.
“A relief,” he agreed. For the first time since Lucas had met the editorial director, he wasn’t carrying that damn dog. Lucas wondered idly if good old Georgie had finally shown some guts and dared to toss the Lhasa apso overboard. “It would be absolutely horrendous if any harm came to Rainbow Romances’ beloved Roberta Grace.”
“Speaking of my career with Rainbow Romances,” Grace said, “I was talking with Buffy earlier, and she mentioned something that Anne Kilgallen had brought up this morning—”
“Oh, darling,” Geraldine interrupted, as if sensing the direction the conversation was about to take, “this is hardly the time or place to discuss business.
“Why don’t you have Tina call me when we all get back to New York. We can have a lovely, ridiculo
usly expensive lunch at the Plaza and talk tactics.”
Grace decided that this wasn’t really a hill to die on. Although she’d prefer to get matters settled, out of the corner of her eye she saw Robert stumbling to his feet. While she didn’t think him foolhardy enough to take Lucas on again, she also didn’t want to risk spending the rest of the night at the police station.
“All right. I’ll do that.” She exchanged nods with Geraldine and George, hugs with Jamie, then finally, she and Lucas were back in the Porsche, headed out of the city.
“Well, Geraldine’s right about one thing,” Grace decided as they crossed the bridge.
“What’s that?”
“This was definitely the most exciting publisher’s party I’ve ever attended. With the exception of that little fracas at the ABA a few years ago.”
“Fracas?” Lucas checked the rearview mirror as he had the last time they’d driven to Sausalito, satisfied that once again they weren’t being tailed.
“A bookseller had a bit too much merlot at lunch and made the mistake of asking a former heavyweight boxing champion infamous for settling personal disputes with his fists if he could actually read the autobiography he was signing.
“It took two hours to put the publisher’s booth back together, and the bookseller ended up being taken to the hospital with a broken jaw and several cracked ribs.”
“Dangerous business you’ve got yourself in, Gracie.”
“So I’m discovering, the hard way.”
“I suppose this is where I should apologize,” he said.
“Apologize?”
“For punching out your ex.”
He’d worried Grace might be annoyed at him for creating a scene. But her light laughter said otherwise. “You don’t owe me an apology, Lucas. In fact, the sight of Robert sprawled amidst all those petits fours is going to be one of those things I’m still going to be smiling about when I’m an old lady.”
“When you’re sitting on the deck of our sailboat off some tropical island drinking mai tais after making love to your horny old husband.”
“Now there’s a thought,” she murmured.
Lucas took it as encouragement that she didn’t argue, and decided not to press his luck. “Do you want to talk about this latest glitch?” he asked. “About the possibility of Penbrook keeping your name?”
Grace was surprised and pleased that he was inviting her to fret about business when she knew that his original plans for the rest of the evening had centered around pleasure.
“I think I’ll wait until tomorrow to start obsessing over that one. I don’t want to think about business, or Robert or Tina or Geraldine.” She placed her hand on his thigh. “I just want to dwell in the moment.”
He covered her hand with his. “Now there’s a plan.” His pirate’s grin was a wicked slash of white that made her body—and her heart—yearn.
Neither Lucas nor Grace said anything the rest of the way to Sausalito. There was no need.
The thick fog created a muffler, making Grace feel as if she and Lucas were the only two people in the world as they walked hand in hand down the dock to the Rebel’s Reward. Although she certainly wasn’t the type of woman to fall into bed with a man she’d just met—in fact, Robert had been the only other man she had ever slept with—what they were about to do felt amazingly right.
“I was thinking,” Lucas murmured as he helped her onto the deck. “Perhaps I’m being selfish.”
“Selfish?”
“Well, I suppose, technically, I might be accused of rushing you into things.”
“I suppose that’s true,” she agreed as he unlocked the door that led belowdecks. “Technically.” In contrast to the cool night air, the cabin was warm and cozy. She was even warmer; in fact, Grace felt as if she were burning from the inside out.
“I don’t want you to feel pressured because of any misplaced idea of gratitude.”
She shrugged out of the tuxedo jacket she’d been wearing since they left the boat. Her bare shoulders gleamed like alabaster in the low lamplight, but looked much, much softer. It made him ache for a taste. Until meeting Grace, Lucas had never known that hunger had claws. Patience, he reminded himself as he dispensed with his shoulder holster and pistol.
“Nothing’s going to happen here tonight unless you want it to.”
“I know. And I appreciate that.” The filmy stole that teased more than it covered joined the jacket on the back of the chair. “Then again,” she considered, “as you’ve pointed out, it’s undoubtedly foolhardy to reject a gift from the gods.”
Because he was desperate to touch her, Lucas stayed where he was, giving her room to maneuver, time to decide. “I want you to be very, very sure about this, Grace.”
His dark eyes were as solemn as his tone. The fact that he’d called her Grace, rather than the more familiar Gracie, assured her that Lucas was very serious.
“I am.” It was barely a whisper, hardly audible over the faint slapping of water against the hull of the ketch.
“Because if I make love to you tonight, I’m not going to be willing to let you go.”
“So much for the three-night stand.” Her attempt at humor fell decidedly flat.
“Three nights isn’t bad for a start. But I want a lot more.”
Grace told herself that some women—most women—would think she was crazy for even hesitating. But her independence had been a hard-won prize, and she worried that if she allowed herself to love and be loved by such a strong-willed man, she might end up losing all she’d gained.
“You don’t have to worry about things being like they were with your ex,” he said, once again seeming to possess the uncanny ability to read her mind. “My ego is comfortable enough to appreciate your strengths. As well as your soft spots.”
Because he could no longer resist touching her, he gathered her into his arms. “And speaking of soft spots…” he murmured, nuzzling her neck.
She wrapped her arms around him and held on hard. “I hate to admit this,” she muttered into his shirt, “but since we’re being totally honest here, I think I should tell you I’m a little bit afraid.”
Damn. It was the last thing he wanted. Lucas decided her reaction was what he got for belting her ex-husband. She’d already been married to a man who’d mentally abused her; it only made sense that she’d be nervous about getting involved with a gun-toting brute who solved problems with his fists.
He cupped her chin in his fingers, as delicately as if he were holding spun glass, and lifted her gaze to his. Her eyes were the deep green of the sea. They were also laced with an anxiety that made him want to go out and drown himself in the bay.
“I’d never hurt you, Grace.”
Those remarkable eyes widened with obvious surprise. “I know that, Lucas.”
Relief flowed through him like a cool, clear river. “I thought, perhaps, because of what I did to the Rat—”
“No.” She pressed her fingers against his lips, forestalling his words. “We’re not going to talk about him. Not tonight.” She touched her palm to Lucas’s cheek. “What I’m afraid of is disappointing you.”
“Oh, baby.” He took hold of her wrist, turned his head and pressed a kiss against the sensitive flesh of her palm, sending a jolt of heat radiating outward through the rest of her body. “If there’s one thing you could never do it’s disappoint me.”
It was so easy. Amazingly easy. As he lifted her into his arms and carried her into the adjoining stateroom, Grace felt as if she’d been waiting for years for this moment. Which she had, she realized as he put her back on her feet beside the bed, releasing her long enough to light the gas fire. She’d been waiting her entire life for this man.
The flames came instantly to life, creating a flare of heat and a flickering glow that danced on the walls. The shutters were closed, ensuring privacy, although she suspected that the fog that had curled around the ketch like a sleepy gray cat would have prevented anyone from seeing into the cabin.
“You are so beautiful.”
With his eyes on hers, he unzipped her gown. It drifted to the floor in a frothy white cloud. With any other man she might have felt self-conscious, standing there wearing only a strapless bra, tummy-control panty hose and a pair of ridiculously expensive lace bikini panties she’d splurged on from the Victoria’s Secret catalog. But not with Lucas. Never with Lucas. The way he was looking at her made Grace feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.
“So are you.” Turnabout being fair play, she tugged at his tie, tossed it onto the built-in dresser, then went to work on the ebony studs running down the front of his pleated shirt. “Whoever invented these things was a sadist,” she complained, as her fingers seemed to turn to stone.
He chuckled and pressed a kiss atop her bent head. “Take your time. We’ve all night.” And thousands more, if he had anything to say about it.
There was a bit more fumbling, then finally, just when her nerves were at the breaking point—success! She folded back the shirt and pushed it off his shoulders, only to be met with another obstruction. “I can’t believe this!”
“Here. Let me help.” He unfastened the cuff links. “Free at last.”
“Thank God.” She pulled the shirt the rest of the way off and tossed it uncaringly onto the floor beside her discarded gown. Her hands explored smooth tanned skin, taut muscles and a frightening ridge of raised white scar that ran from his right nipple nearly to his navel. A frisson of ice skipped up her spine. “What’s this?”
“Just an old knife wound.” Her touch was magic. Torment. Lucas forced a careless shrug when his body wanted to tremble. “A souvenir of a past assignment that didn’t go exactly as planned.”
“My God, if that had been on the other side, it could have ripped open your heart.”
“I’ve always been lucky.”
Because thinking about that night wasn’t his favorite thing to do at any time, but least of all when he was about to bed the woman he’d been waiting for all his life, Lucas framed her face between his hands and kissed her. Hard.