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.”
“If that is your résumé, it leaves something to be desired,” she said, trying to sound fierce, tough, though she could hear the shake in her voice. The quake. And everything that was not Lucas tilted and whirled—or perhaps that was only her stomach.
He considered her then, seeming to take in her wet eyes, the slight tremor that shook through her, for the first time since entering the room.
“I may crash and burn at any moment,” he said, his voice softer, though not necessarily calmer. “There is nothing to suggest that I am not exactly the waste of space everyone believes me to be. Everyone including me.” His green eyes searched hers. “Everyone save you.”
She was afraid to breathe. Afraid to move. Afraid that she was imagining this wild, electric moment.
“Are you?” she asked softly.
He let out a breath that was very nearly a laugh, and suddenly his nearness was overwhelming. She wanted to touch him more than she wanted anything else, wanted to burrow into him and hold him, even if it was to her own detriment. Even if it ruined her more than it already had. She did not care what that said about her, what that made her. A broken ship against the rocks. Her mother. None of that seemed to matter.
The closer he was, the more she felt free.
“No one else has ever seen beneath the surface,” he said, his voice low, intense. “But you—you saw through me from the start.” He reached over, taking her shoulders in his hands and bringing her flush against him. “If you give me a year, Grace, I will give you everything I have. I cannot promise it will be much, but it’s yours.”
She tilted her head back, and saw the warring emotion in his smoky green eyes, the fear and the hope. And something unfurled inside of her then, something strong and hard. Something right and true. Undeniable.
Because she could recognize truth when she saw it, when he shared it. When he offered her what she had given him earlier today, no matter what words he used.
The only words he knew, she thought. The only words he could.
“Are you offering me a test run?” she asked, over the sudden lump in her throat. “A year to see if you can work out all the kinks?”
“I could tell you that I love you,” he said in a low, intense voice, his eyes fixed to hers. “And it might even be true. I believe it is. But what does the word even mean to one such as me? What context do I have for it?” He leaned close, placed his forehead against hers, as if he needed her to help him stand. Grace felt herself shake against him, into him. With him. “I know that I should let you go—it’s the only thing I’ve ever been any good at—and instead I am here, making promises I have no idea at all if I can keep.”
“Qualified promises,” Grace pointed out, emotion tangling in her throat, in her voice. “What every girl dreams of, I’m sure.”
He let out a breath, and ran his hands up and down her arms, in an easy rhythm, building heat, spreading fire.
“My brother Nathaniel is getting married to his Katie next month,” he said. “Will you come with me?”
She laughed then, unexpectedly, the tears spilling over, and she didn’t care.
“Have we downgraded from a year to a month?” she asked, sneaking her arms around his narrow waist. “How much testing do you think you require?”
“I don’t know who I am!” The words seemed almost torn from him. He pulled back and stared down at her. “Don’t you understand? I want to give you the world, Grace, but I have no idea how to do it.”
“I do not want the world,” she said simply, sliding her hands up to hold his beautiful face between them. “I can get that for myself, if I wish it. I only want you.”
“I am yours,” he said, his words ringing through her, around her, with the force of a vow. “In every way.”
“Then what else do we need?” she asked, and pressed her mouth to his.
Fire and wine. Lucas’s wicked mouth, and her own needy little moan. He pulled back, his eyes dark with passion and something else, something she knew might take him some time to accept as truth. To truly believe.
But she was more than happy to wait.
“A date,” he said, tilting his head back, his mouth crooking up in the corner. “I need a date to the gala. And you no longer work for these people, Grace, so really, no more of these appalling suits. I cannot bear it.”
She did not ask how he managed to produce a midnight-blue gown from nowhere, one that clung to her breasts like a lover and then swept all the way to the floor, fitting her perfectly. And she did not argue when he only looked at her when she emerged from the en suite bathroom, her hair in a French twist, and ordered her, in that dark, demanding voice, to take it down.
“Enough hiding,” he said, and then held out his hand. And this time, she took it without hesitation.
She walked into the gala she had planned for so many months with her head held high, her hair swirling around her shoulders, no longer pretending to be anything but what she was. A woman. A competent and confident woman who did not need to hide any part of herself away, no matter what Charles Winthrop might think.
“Grace,” her former boss said when he saw them come in, his round face creasing with concern. “What are you doing? I thought you understood that you were not welcome here.”
“She is with me,” Lucas bit off with absolutely no sign of his famous charm, and perhaps a shade too much of the seething danger she had always seen in him. “And by definition always welcome, is that not so?”
The other man paled. Grace put her hand on Lucas’s arm, and smiled her cool smile at Charles Winthrop.
“Don’t worry,” she said in her best calm, cutting way. “I am only a guest. But you can be sure that as of Monday morning, I’ll be your competitor. Who knows where? Perhaps I’ll go out on my own. But rest assured, I have no intention of simply drifting off into the ether because you fired me.”
She had enjoyed the look on his face more than she should have. But then, she had never claimed to be a good person, had she? And in any case, Lucas was smiling at her, in a way she knew he had never smiled at anyone else. In a way that was only hers. Theirs.
It heated her up like the Texas summers of her youth. The man was lethal, and she loved him.
“Come, Cinderella,” he said quietly, smiling as he drew her toward the dance floor. “It’s coming up to midnight. Do try to keep your shoes on.”
She did not care about the cameras, the staring and whispering former staff members, the entire rest of the world. She moved into his arms, and let him lead her into the music.
“I’m beginning to understand the point of the fairy tale,” she said, smiling up at him, losing herself in the hot, bright gleam in his green eyes. “Who cares if I lose a shoe?”
“Who, indeed?” he asked softly, and swept them both away.
Much later, when the party had ended and most of the guests had dispersed, Lucas led her away from the tent and out onto the great lawn, where she could see the moon was just starting to rise over the trees. For a moment they stood there, side by side in silence, and gazed out over the darkened grounds. She shivered slightly when he turned to look at her, and told herself it was from the chill in the air.
“I walked around these grounds for hours today,” he said quietly. “I thought I would confront myself—or my father’s ghost. Perhaps I thought they were the same. But there was nothing here. Only an angry fool tramping about in the cold.”
“It is just a house,” she said softly. “Just some land. And he is only here as long as you keep him here.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“The only ghost I seem to be haunted by these days is you,” he said, his voice a rasp against the thick night all around them.
“I am no ghost,” she assured him, feeling a rush of heat to her eyes and fire to her core, an ache behind her ribs. “I am real and I am right here, Lucas.”
“I have no idea at all how to build a new life without burning the old one to the ground,” he said. “But I suppose we do not all need to be phoenixes, rising from the ashes, do we? Some of can simply walk on. Change.”
“We can grow,” she agreed in a whisper, heedless of the tears that overflowed and tracked down her cheeks, basking only in the great white heat of the joy that moved through her. “Live. Without ghosts and without fear.”
Grace nestled against him, tucked into his side as if she’d been made to fit him that precisely, that well. As if she was meant to be his, and there, in the dark and facing all of his ghosts full-on, he let himself believe it.
The manor house stood behind them, covered in scaffolding, drenched in the past and lit up by the rising moon. Lucas took one last, hard look at it as the lights from the gala went off, one by one, leaving nothing to see but stone and brick and memories.
It was just a house. And he was free of it.
Finally.
Bad Blood Collection Page 34