Rumors on the Red Carpet

by Carole Mortimer

  He’d had little time even for the idea of marriage after his parents had separated and then divorced so acrimoniously, and making his own fortune before he was even twenty-one had quickly opened his eyes to the fact that most women saw only dollar signs when they looked at him, not the man behind those billions of dollars.

  So far in their acquaintance Cyn Hammond had resisted all his offers of help, financial or otherwise, and that pride and independence just made him like her more.

  ‘Good point.’ He straightened abruptly. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

  * * *

  Thia admired Lucien’s loose-limbed walk as he left the room, only able to breathe again once she knew she was alone. She knew from that determined glitter in Lucien’s eyes just now that she had only barely—literally!—managed to avert a possibly physically explosive situation. Just as she knew she wasn’t sure if she had the strength of will to resist another one...

  The truth was her breasts tingled and she grew damp between her thighs every time she so much as dared a glance at all that fascinating naked and bronzed flesh!

  Lucien was without doubt the most nerve-sizzling and gorgeous man Thia had ever seen. His whole body was muscled and toned but not too much so, in that muscle-bound and unattractive way some men were. And as for the strength and beauty of that perfectly chiselled face...!

  All that wealth and power, and the man also had a face and body that would make poets of both sexes wax lyrical. Hell, she was writing a sonnet in her head about him!

  And now she was completely alone with him, in his fiftieth floor apartment, with her tattered and ripped blouse pulled tightly across her bare breasts...

  She should have kept to her earlier decision to leave. Should have made her escape as quickly and as—

  ‘Here you go—what is it?’ Lucien questioned sharply, having come back into the room and seen how pale Cyn’s face had become in his absence. Her eyes were dark and troubled smudges between those sooty lashes. ‘Cyn?’ he prompted again concernedly as she only continued to look at him nervously, with eyes so dark they appeared navy blue.

  Her creamy throat moved as she swallowed before speaking. ‘I think it would be better if I left now, after all...’

  Lucien frowned. ‘What have you eaten today?’

  She looked puzzled by the change of subject. ‘No breakfast, but I bought a hot-dog from a street vendor on the way to the Empire State Building for lunch.’

  ‘Then you need to eat. Put this T-shirt on and then we’ll go into the kitchen and see what Dex has provided us with to cook for dinner.’ He held out the white T-shirt he had brought back for her to wear, having pulled on a black short-sleeved polo shirt over his own naked chest. A naked chest that had seemed to bother her as much as she bothered him...

  Her eyes widened. ‘Does Dex do your food shopping for you, too?’

  ‘When necessary, yes.’

  ‘What else does he do for you...?’

  ‘Many, many things,’ Lucien drawled derisively.

  ‘You probably wouldn’t know how to go about buying your own groceries anyway,’ she dismissed ruefully.

  ‘Probably not,’ he acknowledged easily. ‘Does it bother you that we’re eating here?’

  Cyn shrugged. ‘I just assumed you would be ordering hotel room service this evening.’

  ‘Most of the time I do.’ He nodded.

  ‘But you decided tonight would be an exception?’ she said knowingly.

  ‘I just thought you would prefer to eat here. Don’t tell me.’ He grimaced. ‘You don’t know how to cook?’

  ‘Of course I know how to—’ She broke off, eyes narrowing suspiciously. ‘You’re challenging me to get your own way again, aren’t you?’

  He quirked a brow. ‘Is it working?’

  Some of the tension eased from her expression. ‘Yes.’

  He nodded. ‘Then that’s exactly what I’m doing.’

  Cyn eyed him frustratedly. ‘Why are you so determined to keep me here?’

  Lucien had absolutely no idea! Especially when he had initially made the suggestion of dinner in his apartment just to see what Cyn’s reaction would be. Boy, had that backfired on him! ‘Why are you so determined to leave?’ he came back challengingly.

  ‘Yep, the face of an angel and the wiles of the devil...’

  Lucien heard her mutter the words irritably. ‘Sorry?’ he said. He knew exactly what Cyn had said—he just wanted to see if he could get her to say it again. Especially the part where she said he had the face of an angel...

  ‘Nothing.’ Cyn refused to humour him and gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘Okay, give me the T-shirt.’ She took it out of his outstretched hand before holding it up defensively in front of her breasts. ‘Why don’t you just disappear off into the kitchen while I slip off my blouse and put this on?’ she prompted as he made no effort to leave.

  ‘And if I’d rather stay here and watch you slip off your blouse...’

  He enjoyed the flush that instantly coloured her cheeks. Enjoyed teasing Cyn, full-stop. So much so that, despite her being so disruptive and stubborn, teasing her was fast becoming one of Lucien’s favourite pastimes. Exclusively so.

  ‘Life is just full of little disappointments!’ she came back, with insincere sweetness.

  ‘Oh, it wouldn’t be a little disappointment, Cyn,’ he assured her huskily. And it wouldn’t be; Lucien could imagine nothing he would enjoy more than to see Cyn strip out of her blouse, allowing him to look his fill of those pert little breasts and plump, rose-coloured nipples.

  ‘Go,’ she instructed firmly.

  ‘And you accuse me of being bossy...’

  ‘You’ve made a fine art of it. I’m just doing it out of self-defence.’

  Lucien gave a wicked ‘wiles of the devil’ grin. ‘Do you need defending from me?’

  She eyed him irritably. ‘Now you’re deliberately twisting my words.’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe that’s because you’re trying to spoil my fun.’

  She gasped. ‘Because I won’t let you stand there and gawp at me while I change my blouse?’

  ‘I never gawp, Cyn,’ he drawled derisively. ‘If I stayed I would just stand here quietly and appreciate.’

  Her face warmed. ‘You aren’t staying.’

  Lucien gave another appreciative grin; she really was cute when she got her dander up.

  Cute? He had never found a woman cute in his life!

  Until now...

  Because Cyn, all hot and bothered and clutching his T-shirt tightly to her as if it were her only defence, was most definitely cute.

  ‘Okay, I’ll leave you to change,’ he murmured dryly. ‘I’ll take the bottle of wine and glasses through with me.’

  ‘Fine.’ She nodded distractedly.

  Anything to get him out of the room while she changed her top, Lucien acknowledged ruefully as he collected up the bottle of wine and glasses before leaving. As if such a flimsy barrier—any barrier!—could have stopped him if he had decided he wanted her naked!

  * * *

  ‘Did you have Dex follow me today...?’ Thia prompted huskily when she entered the kitchen.

  Lucien turned from taking food out of the huge chrome refrigerator that took up half the space of one wall in what was a beautiful kitchen—white marble floors again, extensive kitchen units a pale grey, a black wooden work table in the middle of the vast room, silver cooking utensils hanging from a rack next to a grey and white cooker. No doubt there was a dishwasher built into one of those cabinets, too.

  He hadn’t answered her question yet...

  ‘Lucien?’ she said softly as she lifted her replenished glass from the table and took a sip of red wine.

  ‘I got so distracted by how sexy you look in my T-shirt that I
’ve forgotten what the question was,’ he came back dryly.

  No, he hadn’t. This man didn’t forget anything. Ever. And his prevarication was answer enough. He had instructed Dex to follow her this afternoon. And Thia wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Annoyed that he had dared to have her followed at all, but also concerned as to why he continued to feel it necessary...

  And sexy was the last thing she looked in Lucien’s white T-shirt. The shoulder seams hung halfway down her arms, meaning that the short sleeves finished below her elbows, and it was so wide across the chest it hung on her like a sack, so long it reached almost to her knees. Well...it didn’t hang completely like a sack, Thia realised as she glanced down. Colour once again warmed her cheeks as she saw the way the T-shirt skimmed across the tips of her breasts. Across the hard, aroused thrust of her nipples!

  Even so, ridiculous was the word Thia would have used to describe her current appearance, not sexy.

  ‘Did you have Dex follow me today?’ she repeated determinedly.

  ‘I did, yes.’

  ‘Can I ask why?’ she prompted warily.

  ‘You can if you can make salad and ask at the same time.’ Lucien seemed totally relaxed as he placed the makings of a salad down on the kitchen table before returning to the fridge for steaks.

  Thia rolled her eyes. ‘I’m a woman, Lucien. Multi-tasking is what we do best.’ She took the salad vegetables out of the bags and put them in the sink to wash them.

  ‘That sounds...interesting.’ He turned to arch mocked brows.

  She was utterly charmed by this man when he became temptingly playful. And she shouldn’t allow herself to be.

  It wasn’t just those twelve years in age that separated them, it was what Lucien had done in those twelve years that set them so far apart—as evidenced by all those photographs of him online, taken with the multitude of women he had briefly shared his life with. Or, more accurately, his bed.

  And at the grand age of twenty-three Thia was still a virgin. Not deliberately. Not even consciously as in ‘saving herself’ for the man she loved and wanted to marry.

  She had just been too busy keeping her life together since her parents died to do more than accept the occasional date, and very rarely a second from the same man. Jonathan had been the exception, but even he had become just a friend rather than a boyfriend. Thia had never been even slightly tempted to deepen their relationship into something more.

  And yet in the twenty-four hours she had known Lucien Steele she seemed to have thought of nothing else but how it would feel to go to bed with him. To make love with him.

  Weird.

  Dangerous!

  Because Lucien might desire her, but he didn’t do falling in love and long-term relationships. And why should he when he could have any woman—as many women as he wanted? Except...

  ‘What are you thinking about so deeply that it’s making you frown...?’ he asked huskily.

  Thia snapped herself out of imagining how it would feel to have Lucien Steele fall in love with her. A ridiculous thought when she so obviously wasn’t his type.

  And yet here she was, in this apartment, with a relaxed and charming Lucien, and the two of them intended to cook dinner together just like any other couple spending the evening at home together.

  She took another sip of wine before answering him. ‘Nothing of any importance,’ she dismissed brightly as she put the wine glass down to drain the vegetables. ‘Do you have any dressing to go with the salad or shall I make some?’

  ‘Can you do that?’

  Thia gave him a scathing glance as she crossed the room to open the vast refrigerator and look inside for ingredients for a dressing. ‘I’m a waitress, remember?’

  ‘You’re a student, working as a waitress in your spare time,’ he corrected lightly.

  She straightened slowly. ‘No, I’m actually a waitress who’s working for a degree in my spare time,’ she insisted firmly. ‘And you still haven’t answered my original question.’

  ‘Which was...?’

  ‘Why did you have Dex follow me today?’ she repeated determinedly, knowing that Lucien was once again trying to avoid answering one of her questions.

  He shrugged. ‘Dex suggested it was necessary. I agreed with him.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that he was obviously as concerned about your walking about New York on your own as I was. You might have been robbed or attacked. Speaking of which...’ Lucien strolled across the kitchen, checking her wrist first, which was only slightly reddened from where Jonathan’s fingers had twisted it, before gently peeling back the sleeve of the white T-shirt. He drew in a hissing breath as he saw the livid black and blue bruises on the top of her arm.

  ‘They look worse than they feel.’ Thia pulled out of his grasp before turning to take down a chopping board and starting to dice vegetables for the salad. ‘Isn’t it time you started cooking the steaks...?’ she prompted dryly.

  ‘Deflection is only a delaying tactic, Cyn. Sooner or later we’re going to talk about those bruises,’ he assured her grimly.

  ‘Then let’s make it later,’ she dismissed. ‘Steaks, Lucien?’ she repeated pointedly when she turned to find him still watching her from between narrowed lids.

  He gave a deep sigh. ‘Okay, Cyn, we’ll do this your way for now,’ he conceded. ‘We’ll eat first and then we’ll talk.’

  ‘It really is true what they say—men don’t multi-task!’ She smiled teasingly.

  ‘Maybe we just prefer to do one thing at a time and ensure that we do it really, really well?’ Lucien murmured huskily, suggestively, and made a determined effort to damp down the renewed anger he felt at seeing those bruises on Cyn’s delicately lovely skin.

  Colour washed over her cheeks. ‘You’re obviously wasting your talents as an entrepreneur, Lucien; you should have been a comedian.’

  But what Lucien was actually doing was mirroring her own deflection...

  Because he was once again so angry after seeing Cyn’s bruises—bruises inflicted by Miller—that he didn’t want to have to answer her question as to why he’d had Dex follow her on her outing this afternoon just yet.

  Oh, he accepted that he would have to answer it some time—just not yet. Talking about the reason Dex had followed her to the Empire State Building earlier, and how his concern was directly linked to Jonathan Miller, was not conducive to the two of them being able to enjoy cooking and eating a meal together. And, despite Lucien’s earlier irritation, he was totally enjoying Cyn’s company.

  ‘How do you like your steak?’ he prompted as he moved to turn up the heat beneath the griddle, hoping he remembered how to cook steaks. Cyn’s assumption earlier had been a correct one: it had been years since Lucien had cooked for himself or anyone else.

  ‘Medium rare, please,’ she answered distractedly as she put the salad into a wooden bowl. ‘Are we eating in here or in the dining room?’

  ‘Which would you prefer?’

  Her brows rose. ‘You’re actually asking for my opinion about something now?’

  Lucien turned to lean back against one of the kitchen cabinets. ‘Smart-mouthed young ladies are likely to get their bottoms spanked!’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Dinner hosts who threaten their female guests are likely to get cayenne pepper sprinkled on their half of the salad dressing. What is it?’ she questioned curiously as Lucien began to chuckle. ‘You aren’t used to being teased like this, are you?’ she realised slowly.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ he conceded ruefully, unable to remember the last time anyone had dared to tease him, let alone argue with him in the way that Cyn so often did. ‘My mother does it occasionally, just to keep it real, but only mom/son stuff.’ He shrugged.

  Cyn eyed him wistfully. ‘Have you remained close to both your parents?�
�

  He nodded. ‘I don’t see either of them as often as I could or should—but, yeah, I’ve stayed close to both of them.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  Lucien looked at her searchingly. ‘Don’t you have any family of your own?’

  ‘None close, no.’ She grimaced. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me, Lucien,’ she added lightly as he still frowned. ‘I had great parents. I lost them a little earlier than I would have wished or wanted, but I still count myself lucky to have had them to love and be loved by for seventeen years.’

  The more Lucien came to know about Cynthia Hammond, the more he came to appreciate that she really was unlike any other woman he had ever known. So obviously beautiful—inside as well as out. And that outward beauty she could so easily have used to her advantage these past six years, if she had wanted to, by snaring herself a rich husband to support her. Instead she had chosen independence.

  No feeling sorry for herself at the premature death of her parents. She was just grateful to have had them for as long as she had. And instead of bitching about the necessity to fend for herself after their deaths she had picked herself up and started working her way through university. And instead of bemoaning the fact that Jonathan Miller, a man she had believed to be her friend, had let her down royally since she’d come to New York she had done all she could to remain loyal to him.

  It was fast becoming an irresistible combination to Lucien when coupled with the fact that she was so bright and bubbly she made him laugh, was mouthwateringly beautiful, and obviously intelligent.

  She also, Lucien discovered a short time later—once the two of them were seated opposite each other at the small candlelit table in the window of the dining room, where they could look out over the city—ate with such passionate relish that he found himself enjoying watching her, devouring her with his eyes rather than eating his own food.

  The expression of pleasure on her face as she took her first forkful of dessert—a New York cheesecake from a famous deli in the city—was almost orgasmic. Her eyes were closed, cheeks flushed, pouting lips slightly moist as she licked her tongue across them.