by Moriah Jovan
She smiled. “I tried to. Usually when it starts to snow, I go ahead and flip it on low. It’s very expensive, but worth every penny.”
Sebastian left late that night after a kiss that scorched her everywhere. “Thank you, Eilis,” he whispered against her lips. “Thank you for the nicest weekend I can remember.”
And then he was gone in his old truck, which backfired once, the gates slowly closing behind him. She didn’t know whether to laugh over the wonderful weekend or cry because he was gone.
* * * * *
48: Not Happy Enough Medium
JANUARY 2007
It was Friday. Sebastian would be in her office today and she bit her lip when she stared at herself in her bathroom mirror. Every time he looked at her in disguise, his lip curled a little bit and she was beginning to hate that look. She knew he hated it and he had since he’d picked her out so easily at the Ford exhibit.
Since then, they’d been on that wonderful date to Bryant’s, and then that weekend in December when he’d caressed her bare torso in firelight, snow outside, mulled wine in their bellies, Christmas carols playing at just above a whisper in the background.
He’d pressed her against him to make sure she knew he wanted her, yet he hadn’t taken advantage of her weakness in the firelight. She didn’t believe that he didn’t know she would’ve gone to bed with him that night if he’d pushed just a bit.
He knew what she looked like and he thought she was perfect. Why couldn’t she just take that and run with it?
She knew what her biological parents looked like. Her mother was one of the most beautiful women she’d ever seen. Her father was handsome, distinguished. Her half brother was what she would regard as extremely handsome. Whatever bad genes they had floating around in there, Eilis had gotten.
A tear tracked down her cheek when she thought of that look Sebastian gave her every time he saw her in Chanel. She remembered his sketch of her dressed that way, and though he’d never said anything to her about it, she knew he despised it. His face was very expressive once one knew his moods. If one didn’t, it was his body that radiated humor and warmth. It was that cat’s comforting purr of his.
He did not purr with her when she was in Chanel.
She sighed and went to re-do her makeup because the tear had riven a track through it. Then she goofed and had to wipe off more.
The image in the mirror was pathetic, half made up, half not. She gulped.
Without thinking about it, she took out her brown contacts and wiped off the rest of her makeup, then reapplied just as much as she knew would flatter her.
Without thinking about it, she unpinned her hair and brushed it until it gleamed the palest of blondes, like freshly churned butter with only a splash of color.
Without thinking about it, she undressed and threw the Chanel in the corner of her bedroom, then chose a dress she had never worn once she’d left the tailor’s shop.
Black linen sheath. Low, wide, square neckline. Hem three inches above her knees. Sleeveless. Eilis’s tailor had begged her to let her create this for her; even as she fit it, Eilis stood wondering how she’d allowed herself to be bullied into having something so outrageous made. It clung to every curve, emphasized everything about her body she hated.
Only . . . Something was very, very wrong with it because it certainly didn’t fit the way the tailor had intended it to. Eilis ran to the scale and she gaped in astonishment.
She didn’t know whether to squeal for joy or dread telling Sebastian, “Hey, you were right.” Again.
And she wasn’t hungry.
Eilis decided to go with it. She shrugged on the plain black velvet bolero jacket—also loose—that went with it. Though possibly a little too cocktail for work, she didn’t care. It had just become her new favorite dress. As soon as she had a chance, she’d go back to her tailor and have it taken in.
Stepping into a pair of very expensive, very high heels, she looked into her full-length mirror and caught her breath. She had never looked at herself and thought she was even plain. Today, she was . . . pretty.
Her mouth tightened. Coco Chanel was dead to her now—
—and she slid into the right-hand driver’s seat of her Jaguar.
Between the weight she’d lost, her favorite dress, her Jaguar, and the . . . new lightness of heart that Sebastian had bestowed upon her, she walked into work with her normal long stride that wasn’t evident in the Chanel skirt. She ignored the looks, the gaping jaws, the one programmer who dared whistle at her only because he was so caught up in his own world he didn’t know who she was.
She went directly to Karen’s office and whatever she interrupted, oh well. Karen’s mouth dropped open.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
Karen gulped. “For what?”
“For not trusting you. For not knowing you. For not letting you do what I hired you to do. I’ve owed you this apology for a long time and I was too ashamed to approach you.”
Karen smiled then, a gleam in her eye that made Eilis feel forgiven. “Thank you.”
“How’s your daughter?”
Then Karen told her. Eilis sat down in a chair across from her and just listened. The girl’s doctors didn’t expect her to live much longer, and Karen didn’t expect her marriage to survive the child’s death. Eilis quietly told her that when the time came, she would pay for the arrangements.
They parted ways with a hug and then Eilis took a deep breath and started meeting her employees. It was a long time coming.
Eilis spent the entire day on her feet. After the first hour, she’d taken her shoes off and carried them around looped in her fingers. She went from cubicle to cubicle, talking to her employees as herself, not that Chanel woman.
She asked them specific questions about their lives now that she knew who they were by name and by sight, her knowledge augmented with overheard conversations and sly queries of Louise who, it seemed, knew everything about everyone.
Plenty of people were suspicious of her, but she left them alone with a smile and a gentle hand on the shoulder.
At three, she was so deep in the labyrinth of Cubicleville that she didn’t notice Sebastian’s arrival. At quarter of four, she had gotten drawn into an extended discussion with a charming programmer who had no particular bias for or against her. She started when she heard Sebastian’s voice behind her.
“Excuse me, miss?”
She looked over her shoulder to see him as achingly beautiful as always. It seemed the entire staff had followed him to watch his reaction to this very strange Eilis Logan.
His gaze swept her head to toe and back again, and though he didn’t smile, she felt his humor and approval. He stuck his hand out for her to shake and when she took it, he said, grave as usual, “Hi. I’m Sebastian Taight. Who are you and what do you do?”
“I’m Eilis Logan and I’m the CEO.”
The whole place roared. He did then smile, that heartbreaking smile she’d seen so often that weekend he’d reorganized her life. He turned and offered her his right arm, which she took. The whispers behind them were just loud enough for her to hear,
Damn, they look fine together.
“What happened?” he asked once they reached her office.
She drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know. Maybe I got tired of the way you look at me when I’m wearing Chanel.”
His eyebrow cocked. “Oh? How do I look at you then?”
“Like you despise it, like you might despise me for wearing it.”
“You’re right. I do despise it. I get very angry and short with you whenever I see you in it because I know what you look like.”
Nude.
The word hung in the air and Eilis stared at Sebastian. His eyes darkened to purple, but he only said, “Well, I must say it’s a very pleasant surprise. Come into the conference room, please. I need to talk to you about something.”
Her smile dimmed and her gut clenched at how dire he sounded, but once the doors were close
d and—locked?—he wrapped his palms around her face and kissed her hard, hot, urgent, his tongue begging hers to play. She sighed and entwined her fingers with his where they clutched her face. She matched his tongue stroke for stroke.
Sebastian slid one hand down her shoulder, then her ribs, then over her buttock, hers still entwined with it. He pressed her against him so she could feel his arousal. She moaned softly as his hand kneaded her, pressing her tighter and tighter against him.
Then, in one swift movement, he picked her up and plopped her on the massive table, then climbed up after her.
She slid backward until he was over her. She lay down flat and he dove for her mouth again, still on his hands and knees above her.
“I could fuck you right now,” he growled, hot, intense, as his lips skittered across the skin of her chest.
“Oh, please do,” she whispered, and he stopped cold. He stared at her and said,
“What about Ford?”
Eilis had no idea where that came from, but she didn’t appreciate the interruption. “What about him?”
“You’ve been pining after Ford as long as you’ve had that painting. You asked me for vacation time to have him paint you. Is that something you still want?”
“Yes, of course, but—”
“You know what? Forget it,” he said as he lifted himself away from her and hopped down from the table.
“What?!”
“I said forget it,” he said roughly as he straightened himself out. Eilis shrank from his glare. “I want you, Eilis, but I’m not going to compete with a man you don’t know and can’t find and who might not do what you think you want him to do for you.” He strode to the conference room door, but turned before opening it. “I’ll forego looking at your books today. I’m sure they’re excellent, as usual.”
Then he left, slamming the door behind him.
* * * * *
49: JOLE BLON
FEBRUARY 2007
The Waldorf Astoria’s restaurant wasn’t the best place in the world to have an argument, especially one over inappropriate attire, so Sebastian controlled his anger as he watched Eilis navigate the tables. Once she reached him, he murmured, very calmly,
“Eilis, if you think I’m going to be seen at Christie’s with you in that getup, you’ve got another think coming. I can’t stand that rag, which you know very good and well, so either go back upstairs and change or go back upstairs and stay. I don’t care which.”
She drew herself up and Sebastian knew that if she weren’t in costume, she’d have taken him on at that moment. A month. He hadn’t seen her in a month since he’d had her underneath him and willing. He still remembered how stunning she’d been that day, in cocktail black, all that gorgeous blonde hair down and around her shoulders, one green eye and one blue eye, an expressive face flawless with that scar and nose he loved. Blonde bombshell businessbitch. Yummy.
And the first time he’d seen her in a month, she showed up in Chanel.
When she opened her mouth, Sebastian snarled. “Don’t. Whatever you have to say, save it until you look presentable. I won’t be manipulated, Eilis. I don’t play those games, especially not with women, and most especially not with a woman I want to fuck in the worst way. Your little stunt of not uploading reports to me on time as I requested? Manipulative. Knox has less patience with it than I do and he wasn’t a happy camper.”
So saying, Sebastian went back to his breakfast, dismissing her. She stood for another couple of seconds before she decided not to test him. Sebastian’s anger was so thick within him, he could chew on it. He’d never taken this much guff from a woman. Ever. He didn’t know why he let Eilis get away with it.
He didn’t know why he acted so differently with her than with any other woman and/or client. From the very beginning, he’d treated her differently. He’d let her keep that damned painting—bad idea. He’d pulled her pigtails to make her façade crack, then harder and harder when she didn’t respond. He’d spent time with her, getting to know her on a level he’d never gotten to know any of his other female clients, especially the beautiful ones.
With Eilis, he thought about sex and money at the same time, and she had tripped both sides of his brain and his cock immediately, with the getup on.
Unlike his other clients, he didn’t coddle Eilis. He met her head-on because that was what she understood and he wanted Eilis Logan to understand him very clearly.
Apparently, she wanted him to understand her, too, because when she finally came back, she took his breath away. Again.
She wore an ankle-length maroon skirt that flared out wide when she walked and turned. Its waistband overlapped half again around her waist, covering only the most important parts if the skirt lay just right. A prim white Victorian shirtwaist was tucked neatly into the waistband, its collar high under a short maroon silk jacket with Dolman sleeves. Not a bit of skin showed except when her skirt felt inclined to fall open, which it did at that moment.
Sebastian hardened at the sight of a long length of leg, set off nicely by her sky-high heels and the lace top of her white thigh-high stocking—but it disappeared again with the next step.
He gulped. Maybe he should’ve let her wear the Chanel.
“Do I meet your approval now, O Omnipotent One?”
Sebastian bit back a smile at her attitude, happy now that the Eilis he wanted—the one of fire and passion, the ruthless bitch with the wounded soul she wanted to hide from him, the one who’d apologized to her employees when she’d understood what Sebastian was trying to tell her—was now present and accounted for.
And boy, was she pissed.
“Not quite,” he said shortly, unable to give quarter until he’d had his way. “Siddown. Eat.”
She sat without a word. Sebastian took choice bites from his plate and put them on hers. She looked at it, then pushed it away from her. She put her elbow on the table and propped her chin in her hand. She looked away from him and around at the other restaurant patrons.
“Eilis,” he said. She didn’t move a muscle, but then he saw a tear streak down her face. At that moment, he’d have given anything to take her upstairs and make love to her until she didn’t feel like crying anymore. “You don’t have to do this. I can go take care of it myself.”
“No,” she said tightly, still not looking at him. “I deserve this.”
Sebastian sighed and finished his meal. He didn’t agree with that, but this wasn’t the time to discuss it. He arose and took a step, holding his hand out to her when she didn’t move. “Eilis, if you’re going to do this, we have to go. The auction starts at nine.”
She looked up at him, heartbreak and despair in her eyes, and he didn’t know how he would pull her through this. He was responsible for bringing her here, forcing her to do one of the things she should have done to begin with when she could have saved her company without receivership.
And he didn’t feel a bit of guilt for that, either.
“Eilis, cowboy up,” he snapped.
She gulped and put her hand in his, stood, then took his left arm when he offered it. Once out of the hotel, he hailed a cab that took them to Christie’s, not a word between them.
This was a high-profile auction and every überwealthy person in the country, possibly the world, had agents getting numbers, prepared to buy at least one Ford. Sebastian had come to watch, not bid personally, as he usually did. He saw his own agent, nodded slightly, let the man go about his business.
People treated Sebastian deferentially wherever he went. In the worlds of business and art, he rarely ran into someone who didn’t know who he was; thus, the surprised glances he and Eilis garnered on their way to the saleroom were not for him.
They were for Eilis, who turned every head she passed and left varying expressions of lust in her wake—not that she would believe him if he pointed it out.
He wrapped his arm around her waist on the pretense of guiding her through the press of people to get to the VIP entrance; he could touch h
er the way he wanted to without damaging his pride any further. He refused to take second place behind Ford and he had no intention of pursuing this relationship as long as Ford stood between them—even if he was in love with her.
Apparently, she didn’t notice that he had his arm around her, so he took the opportunity to caress her hip while her mind wandered.
“Eilis, do you want to sit or stand?” he asked quietly once they were in the mostly filled saleroom.
“Stand,” she said. “I’ll feel like a coward if I sit.”
Interesting. She chucked up her chin and stared straight ahead once he’d chosen a fairly inconspicuous spot on the back wall. Between them, they didn’t have a chance in hell of being inconspicuous, so he didn’t know why he bothered.
He took his arm from around her waist and she said, her voice breaking, “Please don’t.”
Against his better judgment, Sebastian nevertheless wrapped his arm farther around her, then pulled her back into his body as he leaned back on the wall. He sighed and wrapped his other arm around her, too.
While he wasn’t sure if she noticed, his cock sure as hell did. This would be pure hell until the money started flowing.
Finally, it did. All the bad art he’d sorted from her vault and had had crated here with the Fords went up first. He was pleasantly surprised to know that most of them had gained in value, if only a buck or two. That was a good chunk of change, right there.
Then the Fords came up and the crowd stirred in anticipation. The first one went to an unassuming man halfway back and toward the center of the room.
So did the second.
And the third.
Eilis shuddered with each clap of the gavel. Then the calls began in earnest as phone bids rolled in, and agents were ordered to pay whatever they had to pay to get one.
The unassuming man halfway back and toward the center continued to bid quietly, driving up the prices but dropping out early, usually about three-quarters to its end price.