Scandalous Box Set

by Layla Valentine

  “It is beautiful,” I admitted.

  “Worth the delay?” His warm breath on my ear made me shiver.

  “Very much so,” I said dreamily. “I’d love to come back when I have more time.”

  “As well you should. I would treat you to a thorough tour. Lots of history here, you know.”

  “I do love the history.” I shivered again, this time in response to the wind which had picked up speed.

  “Perhaps when it’s warmer,” he said with a hint of amusement. “Let’s get you out of this cold.”

  “Oh, it isn’t that bad,” I said, but I let him lead me back inside. “Now we really should be getting to the store.”

  “Yes, we very much should. Although…” he trailed off, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

  “Yes?”

  “Well you see, you have a choice now. We could either go round the back side of Buckingham palace past another park, or go the other way past the front where all of the more interesting architecture is.”

  “Well…if we’re just driving past, I would certainly prefer the latter.”

  “Excellent! Of course you know that will take us right to Big Ben, and what would a trip to London be without a photo in front of the world’s most famous clock?”

  I laughed and checked the time. Amelia hadn’t tried to get in touch with me yet, so I assumed she hadn’t gone to the house and found it empty. It would be lunchtime before long and we would have to stop anyway, as there was nothing fit to eat at the house.

  “You win,” I said with a grin. “Onward to Big Ben!”

  I knew I couldn’t blame jet lag for my lack of self-control anymore. I was well and truly charmed, and I couldn’t seem to find it in myself to care. I exclaimed over the sights we drove past, delighting in the pride and joy which shone from his eyes every time I got a thrill.

  “You really love this city, don’t you?” I asked.

  “I love seeing it through your eyes,” he answered. “I’m afraid I’ve grown to take it all for granted. Watching you experience it is like experiencing it anew.”

  “I’m glad I could do that for you,” I said. “Oh, there it is!”

  He parked and we stepped out. The tower’s stones were richer and warmer in person than they had ever looked in pictures or movies, contrasting beautifully with the flat gray of the heavy sky.

  “Picture?” Dan asked with a grin.

  “Of course! Would you mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  I opened my camera and handed him my phone, then struck a series of silly poses in front of the clock. He laughed and took picture after picture.

  “What about one together?” I asked, breathless with laughter.

  “I would, but I believe your storage is full,” he said apologetically. “I don’t think I caught that last one.”

  “Oh well,” I said with a shrug I didn’t really mean.

  I hadn’t realized before that moment how much I wanted to remember this little ill-advised adventure through London with the world’s most handsome man. I decided that I would clear some space in my phone just so I could get one shot of him before I left.

  “Shall we move on?” he asked.

  “We probably should,” I said, taking my phone back.

  I expected him to turn around, but he crossed the bridge in front of us, giving me a picturesque view of the Thames. Snow and glittering city lights in the cloudy half-light made the silvery water look like something on a postcard.

  “I should incorporate this somewhere,” I said as I gazed out at it. “Maybe in the library. A subtle strip of silver around the top of the bookcases, up by the ceiling.”

  “Lovely,” he said. “You have quite a talent for this.”

  “I would hope so,” I laughed. “Otherwise I’m wasting my time on this career.”

  “No chance of that,” he said with a smile. “You won the attention of Amelia Hornsby-Harris. There isn’t a tradesman in town who wouldn’t love to pick your brain to figure that out. She has very particular, elite tastes, you know.”

  I smiled, but anxiety twisted hard in my belly. If she showed up tomorrow to find the house in that state, I would be lucky to keep this job. “Do you think we could make it to the store soon? I’m loving all the sightseeing, but—Oh! There it is!”

  “The London Eye,” he said, pleased.

  “Do you think we’ll have time?” I asked.

  He grinned at me. “Why, your Grace, I do believe you’re beginning to enjoy yourself.”

  “Maybe a little,” I admitted with a smile. My stomach growled audibly and I blushed.

  “Lunchtime it is,” Dan said, laughing. “The South Bank has some great little restaurants and it’s right here. We’ll have to park and walk, is that all right?”

  I was going to decline, but my stomach had other ideas. “All right,” I said. “A quick lunch, then we’re right back on our mission.”

  “Of course.” He beamed at me.

  I began to think that I would suffer any amount of anxiety and stress just to see him smile like that. Dangerous infatuation, I told myself, but there was nothing I could do about it. He opened the door for me after he parked, and once again I got that heady rush of feeling like a captain and a lady all at the same time.

  “It’s a way down, but we won’t find closer parking,” he said, offering me his arm. “Besides, the walk along the Thames is gorgeous. Good for the heart to walk in the cold.”

  In more ways than one, maybe, I thought as I looked up at him. It had been so long since I’d been out with a man socially, I couldn’t quite remember how it felt before. I was almost positive that it had never been this easy. I caught myself getting lost in the snowy beauty of London as we walked arm-in-arm to the café.

  Not just London itself, but my companion as well. The cold air brightened his eyes and darkened his cheeks, making him look like a living, breathing painting of himself. I played with the idea of incorporating accent colors into the house in those shades; the bright blue of his eyes, the blue-black hair, the cream and crimson of his skin. I put the thought away, deciding that my artistic sensibilities had crossed the line into creepy territory.

  “Here we are,” he said as he opened the door for me.

  “Why thank you, kind sir,” I said with a flirtatious little glance.

  “My pleasure, dear lady,” he answered with a theatrical bow.

  I laughed and forgot about the time for a moment. We sat by a window overlooking the river, ordered our food quickly, and then sat in comfortable silence for a moment.

  “Do you always want to live in London?” The question sounded almost wistful, and I realized a moment too late that I had been playing with what-ifs involving an impossible future with him in the back of my mind.

  “I’ve considered moving to New York permanently,” he said.

  I shot him a questioning look, and he hurried to clarify.

  “I visit my parents whenever I can,” he explained. “So I’ve spent a lot of time there. My mother has family all over the East Coast, and I wouldn’t mind developing closer relationships with those people.”

  “Why haven’t you?” My heart leaped tentatively as I asked, as the impossible seemed a little more probable with every syllable he uttered.

  He moistened his lower lip and bit it, almost shyly. I could see thoughts whirling in his deep blue eyes, but he shook them away with a quick movement. “My business keeps me here. Perhaps, someday, I will be as fortunate as you have been.”

  I shrugged one shoulder. “I have been lucky,” I admitted. “But that isn’t all it takes, you know.”

  “Tell me what it takes,” he said, his eyes twinkling.

  “Risk,” I said with a grin. “I had a few long-term opportunities available for me back home. They would pay less initially, but they were sure to be repeat customers. I could count on that income. But there would be no awards, no acclaim, and no attention. Had I been satisfied with simply working hard and paying my bills, I would
have stayed. But I want more. So the moment I saw this opportunity, I took it.”

  “Did you consider what it might do to your reputation with your other potential clients?”

  I shook my head. “Maybe for a second. But I made them no promises and signed no contracts, so as far as I was concerned, I was free to pursue other things. A job like this will boost my asking power as well as my international reputation. But it’s anything but safe. The stakes are high and the task is next to impossible. If I was a cautious kind of person, I never would have taken the job.”

  “Are you so keen to take risks in all areas of your life?” His twinkling eyes darkened, and he took an innocent sip of his drink.

  I blushed and looked away out the window. “Depends on who you ask,” I said. “Social risk is a bit more subjective.”

  “In some cases, I suppose,” he said.

  I gave him a sharp look, wondering at the bitterness I sensed under his tone. He smiled brightly at me, and I wondered if I had really heard it at all.

  “Where does this project lie on your list of professional goals? Did you intend to travel to historic buildings around the world when you began this career?”

  “It was always a dream. I didn’t allow it to become a goal until it had already happened. That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

  “I think it does,” he said thoughtfully. “You thought it out of your reach, so didn’t invest any energy in it until it was right in front of you. I understand that.”

  I cocked my head to one side. “You’ve put off hopes of your own?”

  He smiled at me. “Hasn’t everybody? The thing that sets you apart, Grace, is that you are sensitive to opportunity, and don’t dismiss it out of hand simply because you believed it impossible.”

  “Of course not, that would be silly,” I said with a chuckle.

  “It would,” he said pensively. “Very silly indeed. Ah, there’s our food.”

  Good food filled the space for a while, pushing conversation to the wayside. I was beginning to relax in spite of myself, but I still couldn’t wait to get back to work. An unfinished wall was a thorn in my side, and I couldn’t simply ignore its existence—no matter how much I wanted to. This was the best lunch date I could remember being on, and it wasn’t even an official date.

  “Now that you know it is possible, what are you planning to do?”

  “Oh…not much at the moment, honestly. If the jobs come to me, I’ll take them, like this one, but I’m not going to be actively pursuing them.”

  “Why?”

  I smiled sadly. “My mom needs me more these days. It was already difficult for me to leave her for a few weeks. I can’t imagine how she would manage if I was just gone all the time.”

  “Is she unwell?”

  “No, just getting older. As I said, she had me when she was almost forty. She’s been on a slow decline ever since my dad died, and she relies on me pretty heavily. I’ve been at her to move out of the house in Queens for years, but she won’t budge. She loves that house, even if it is high-maintenance and too big for just her.”

  “In that case, I’m happy that you managed to get out of the country at least once. You really should take advantage of the opportunity while you can.”

  “I think I’ve taken full advantage of it today,” I said with a laugh. “Thank you for talking me into it.”

  “You haven’t even begun to experience the true romance of London,” he said, artistically solemn.

  “Really? Palaces and towering gates, Big Ben, the Thames…what else could you possibly have up your sleeve?”

  It was a challenge, and he took it as such. He smiled slyly. “Shakespeare’s Globe?”

  I cocked my head to one side. “What’s that? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Well, you have heard of Shakespeare.” His eyes twinkled.

  “Of course I have.” I laughed.

  “Clearly a playwright would need a stage on which to perform, and so Shakespeare’s associates built him a theater. It burned down, unfortunately, but it’s been rebuilt. It’s a great historical landmark. You would do yourself a great disservice if you never saw it.”

  “When you put it like that,” I said with feigned reluctance. “All right, Dan, show me the Globe.”

  He beamed at me and called for the check. I almost insisted that I pay; after all, my salary as an interior designer must be at least twice what his was as a decorator, but the look he shot me stopped me before I could say anything. Chuckling at the pervasiveness of male pride across the world, I gathered my things.

  “Walk this way,” he said, taking my arm. “It’s beautiful down here.”

  “Is it a shorter walk? We do still have errands to complete, you know.”

  “All in good time, my dear.”

  “Since when did you assign yourself boss of this venture?” I asked teasingly.

  “Since I became the only one who knows how to get to Shoreditch from Kensington,” he shot back with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Help! It’s a mutiny, and I’m being held hostage by my own ignorance.”

  He laughed and chucked a snowball at me, hitting me in the shoulder.

  “Why you…” I dissolved into giggles as I threw snow at him.

  He ran from me, tossing snowballs at me every few paces as I pelted him from behind. Laughing and breathless, he stopped in the shadow of a building and threw an armful of snow at me, showering my head and shoulders under the pile.

  Growling in mock-rage, I scooped up a double handful and smashed it on his face, making sure to shove it down his collar. Laughing and yelping, he caught my wrists before I could grab another handful.

  As we stood there panting in the snow, his blue eyes darkened and intensified as his gaze locked onto mine. Electricity built between us, compounding with each heartbeat. He slid his hands down my wrists then up my arms. Before I knew what was happening, I was wrapped in his embrace, shocked into warmth by his supple mouth on mine.

  Time lost all meaning for me. I could feel his hunger, his need, as he took my mouth with his, clutching me even closer to his chest as he explored my tongue with his own. Eagerly returning his kiss, I ran my gloved hands through his wet hair.

  After a blissful eternity, he pulled back ever so slightly and gestured to the building behind him. “Shakespeare’s Globe,” he said breathlessly.

  “Gorgeous,” I sighed without breaking eye contact.

  He smiled rakishly at me from beneath his brows. Freezing water dripped off of the curl in the center of his forehead, landing delicately on his aristocratic nose. I brushed it off with the tip of my finger, but it didn’t do much good. My gloves were also soaked.

  “You know, I think my hotel is pretty close,” I said. “What do you say we go get warmed up?”

  “I say brilliant.” He kissed my cheek, and I shivered as his cold nose touched my skin. “The car’s too far for you to walk all wet. We’ll take a cab.”

  Chapter 10

  Grace

  The ride to my hotel was so short that my heart was still beating a wild tattoo in my chest when we arrived at my room. Or maybe it was just reacting to his electrifying proximity; every touch and look we shared on the way over made my head spin, every passing moment intensifying the aftershocks of that amazing kiss.

  “Lovely room,” he said as I closed the door behind us.

  “It is,” I agreed breathlessly. “God, I’m soaked!”

  His eyes twinkled at me, and I bit my lip. I turned my back to him as I stripped out of my scarf, hat, gloves, and coat. When I sat on the bench to take my tall boots off, he had already removed everything down to the thermal shirt he wore beneath his sweater. I bit my lip, pleased to see that he was as fit and muscular as I had hoped.

  “Um…tea?” I asked, trying to sound casual as I moved into the main room. “There’s a kettle in here. I haven’t used it, but there it is.”

  “Grace.” His voice was husky around my name, and I turned toward him. He was so clo
se I could feel the warmth of his body against mine. My breath caught in my throat as I met his deep blue eyes.

  “I should tell you,” he began, then hesitated.

  I touched his face, tracing his chiseled jaw with my fingers. I couldn’t help it. He was too gorgeous for words. All I wanted was to feel his lips on mine again.

  As if reading my mind, Dan caught me around the waist and pulled me close. He hesitated for a heartbeat, his breath tickling my lips, his eyes two embers burning into my own. When he kissed me it was like an explosion between us. I wrapped myself around him, slaking his thirst and stoking my own.

  “What did you want to tell me?” I whispered as I kissed his face.

  “That you’re beautiful,” he said, holding me tight. “Utterly.”

  I beamed up at him for a heartbeat, then kissed him again. Momentum had taken hold. The foreign city, the classy hotel room, his accent, the way he touched me, everything transported me out of myself. All of my personal reservations about sleeping with people I barely knew fell away in the magic of the moment and before I knew it, we were falling naked onto the bed.

  His body was magnificent, trim and muscular without being too bulky, fit and firm without being intimidating. His big hands swept over me from shoulder to hip, igniting my senses.

  I moaned against his mouth as his fingers found my center, working inside of me as I arched against his hand. His kisses moved over my face to my throat then down, pausing to nibble my collar bone before taking the tender flesh of my breast between his lips.

  Crying out, I tangled my fingers in his hair as his fingers continued to work their magic inside of me.

  His breath was hot and quick against my skin as he moved his mouth over my writhing belly to my bucking hips. His tongue zeroed in on my clit like a magnet as his fingers played. Gasping with pleasure, legs quaking, I gripped the sheets as though I would fly off without them to anchor me.

  He found my natural rhythm almost psychically, drawing me near the pinnacle of climax in moments then keeping me there, poised on the edge of bliss until I couldn’t take it any longer. Just as my lips were forming a plea, he pressed his lips to me in an intimate kiss and curled his fingers, pushing all the right buttons. I cried out as the orgasm shook me to my core.