the first time Lucas had been compared to his father, but it was the first time the comparison had been made by someone who shared his bone-deep loathing of the man who had wrecked them both. By someone—the only one—who ought to know better. It was a body blow. It should have killed him. Perhaps it had.
“I thought you were dead,” Lucas had said coldly, unable and unwilling to show his brother how deeply those words cut at him. “I’m not sure this is an improvement.”
“For God’s sake,” Jacob had said, shaking his head, his eyes full of something Lucas refused to name, refused to consider at all. “Don’t let him win.”
Staring out the windows of his luxurious office now, Lucas let out a hollow sort of sound, too flat to be a laugh. He had turned on his heel and left his prodigal brother behind—and had thought, To hell with him. He’d spent the whole long walk down the private lane pretending nothing Jacob had said had gotten to him. Yet when he’d reached the road, he’d flipped open his mobile and rousted Charlie Winthrop from his sleep to announce he’d had a sudden change of heart and would, despite years of claiming otherwise, dearly love to work for Hartington’s in any capacity at all.
Careful what you wish for, he mocked himself now. Especially if you were Lucas Wolfe, and had a tendency to get it.
At half past eleven, Lucas dutifully walked into the conference room, expecting to be bored silly by corporate nonsense. Bureaucracy and posturing. It was one of the reasons he managed his own affairs almost entirely via his computer. But instead of a dreary presentation, he found the room in the grips of evident chaos. One did not have to know a single thing about business to know that something had gone wrong. The very fact that none of the events team seemed to notice or care that he had entered the room told him that—it was a rare experience for him and, strangely, felt almost liberating.
He sank into a seat at the oval-shaped table, reveling in the feeling. It was as if he was very nearly normal, for the first time in memory.
Even smooth, efficient Grace looked harried when she strode into the room a few minutes late, a frown taking the place of the competent, soothing smile he already knew was as much a part of her as her ruthlessly controlled blond hair.
“I’m so sorry, Grace,” one of the anxious-looking girls said at once, all but wilting against the glossy tabletop, distress evident in her very bones.
“Don’t be silly, Sophie,” Grace said, but that marvelous voice was tighter than it had been earlier, and tension seemed to reverberate from her in waves as she set down a stack of files in front of her. “You could hardly have foreseen a burst pipe when you found the place six months ago.”
Another team member rushed up to whisper something in her ear, making her frown deepen, and as the rest of the staff took their seats, Lucas took the opportunity to simply look at Grace.
He wasn’t at all certain why he found the woman so compelling.
There was absolutely nothing about the severe gray suit she was wearing that should have appealed to him. Lucas preferred women in bright colors, preferably showing swathes of tanned, smooth skin. He liked impractically high heels and tousled manes of lustrous hair. Glimpses of toned thighs and full breasts. Not a skirt that showed far too little leg, a jacket he knew she had no intention of unbuttoning and another boring silk blouse in some pale, unremarkable pastel shade that covered her up to her delicate collarbone.
And yet. There was something about Grace Carter that he could not dismiss. That kept him captivated. That had plagued him throughout the long, boring weekend while he had been surrounded, as always, by the kinds of women he usually preferred yet had found unaccountably tedious and insipid this time. That had kept him awake and brooding until he’d placed exactly where he’d seen her before and why he’d noticed her in the first place. He’d thought her a boring prude, of course—but the point was, he’d remembered her.
That in itself was highly unusual.
“All right,” Grace said, calling the meeting to order, her brow smoothing and that great calm seeming to exude from her once again. Lucas could feel the room relax slightly all around him. That was her power, he realized. The gift of that smile.
He felt something in him ease, which should have alarmed him—but, oddly, did not. Instead, he watched her take over the room without seeming to do so. It was almost as if he could not bring himself to look away.
“As many of you have already heard,” she said briskly, “we’ve just had word from the centenary venue that their sprinkler system malfunctioned dramatically over the weekend and flooded the grounds. Completely. They expect that the space will be unusable for at least the next two months, which, of course, means we no longer have a location for the gala.” She raised her hands when the murmuring from the staff increased in volume and took on the unmistakable edge of panic. “I suggest we all look at this as a challenge,” she said. She flashed that smile. “Not a catastrophe.”
She seemed so calm, so at ease. As if she expected no less than seven catastrophes before lunch every day, and what was one more? But Lucas could see something in her chocolate-colored eyes, something that seemed to ring in him. Like she was scared and fighting hard not to show it. Like she had as much riding on this as he did, however improbable. Like she might be someone completely different when she was alone, and had nothing to prove, and was not performing for the crowd.
He could not have said why he wanted so much to believe that. Maybe that was why he opened his mouth, surprising himself as much as anyone else. More.
“Exactly what are you looking for?” he heard himself ask, as if from afar. “In terms of a location?”
Her dark eyes seemed to slam into him. She held his gaze for what seemed too long—and yet even as she smiled politely at him, he could see the wariness, the uncertainty, the panic she hid from the rest. It was almost as if he could feel it—he, who felt nothing. Deliberately.
“It must be the perfect melding of old and new, to stand as a showcase for Hartington’s—an updated classic.” She smiled that professional smile, the one that made him want to lick her until he saw the real one she must have hidden away in there somewhere. “Do you know anything that fits the bill?”
“As a matter of fact,” Lucas said, far too easily, “I do.”
He hadn’t known where he was going with this until it fell into his head, exquisitely formed, the perfect solution. Better by far than the miserable pile of stones and nightmares and broken childhood dreams deserved.
“It must also be suitable for a corporate event, Mr. Wolfe,” Grace said. Her dark eyes were level on his, her voice perfectly professional. “Not, for example, a den of iniquity.”
“Those are the only dens worth inhabiting,” he replied at once, aware of all the eyes on him, on them, as if they could see the same sizzle he felt. “I make an excellent guide to all the local dens of iniquity, in fact. Perhaps we should take a company field trip.”
There was a small titter from the group around him, but Grace, of course, merely flashed that calm smile.
“Tempting,” she said, though it was clear that she was anything but tempted, “and one has no doubt at all of your expertise—
“I should hope not,” he said, his lips curving. “I’m Lucas Wolfe.”
“—but I think we’ll have to decline.” Her smile took on that edge. He should
