In Bed with the Boss's Daughter
Шрифт:
Sanctuary with a plump suede lounge setting.
She slumped into the nearest chair, took off her shoes, propped her bare feet on the occasional-table, and closed her eyes.
“Hiding, princess?”
Paris jolted upright. Only one person ever applied such mocking emphasis to K.G.’s pet name for her…and he was helping himself to the seat directly opposite. Had she really thought a Ladies sign would give him pause?
“Not hiding, resting,” she corrected. “My feet.”
His gaze dropped to her feet, and she stared in horrified fascination as his long, dark fingers circled her ankle. She stopped breathing when his thumb traced a strap mark across the bridge of her foot. A languorous warmth stole up her leg, past her knees, into her thighs….
“No wonder your feet hurt,” he growled. “Your shoes are too tight.”
Abruptly he let her go, and somehow Paris managed to slide both feet from the table. She jammed them solidly on the floor and pressed her knees together, as if that might prevent the spread of traitorous heat.
“My feet are swollen from the flight,” she said archly. And it felt as if her tongue might be, too. “Which is why I’m sitting here resting them.”
His eyes narrowed a fraction, but they didn’t leave hers, not even for a heartbeat. “Funny. I had the impression you were running away from me.”
“And why would I do that?”
He shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe running away has become a habit with you.”
His mocking tone needled, but she didn’t allow herself to respond. Instead she ran through her mother’s checklist. Posture straight. Head up. Smile in place. Cool retort. Except she couldn’t think of a cool retort. Her brain felt as foggy as a London morning.
“Nothing to say, princess? Don’t you want to talk about running away?”
“I thought we’d established I was resting my feet.”
“I didn’t mean tonight.”
Paris wished he would lean back in his chair. From this close she could feel his irritation whipping across the table and snapping at the edges of her composure. Stay cool, she intoned silently. Then, as if his meaning had only just gelled, she allowed her eyes to widen. “Surely you don’t mean I ran away to London. I’d been thinking of going for ages.”
“K.G. never mentioned it.”
“I hadn’t told him.”
“No?” He drew the word out so long she had time to spell skeptical.
“I hadn’t seen my mother for years. I decided to spend some time with her, to get to know her again.”
“It took six years to get to know Lady Pamela?” he asked derisively.
No. It took six years to learn the benefits of hiding my emotions and looking out for my pride. She fixed Jack with a frosty look. “Actually, it took six years to take your advice and grow up.”
“This is the grown-up Paris Grantham?” One corner of his mouth lifted in an almost sneer as his gaze slid down her body. It was obvious he didn’t care for what he saw.
“Isn’t this what you had in mind?” she asked with a defensive lift of her chin.
“No.”
His bald answer shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. Dashed expectations smarted at the back of her throat and eyes. Jet lag makes one tired and emotional, she justified as she bent to retrieve her shoes. He moved more quickly. Her shoes already dangled from his left hand.
“D’you really want to put these back on?”
Paris swallowed to ease the constriction in her throat. She seriously considered making a lunge for the shoes, but the thought of missing and landing headfirst in his lap stopped her. She took a deep breath and glared across at him. “What do you want, Jack? Why did you follow me in here?”
“To talk, princess.”
“About ancient history?”
“One night of it.”
“We can talk if you like, but my memory’s not so good.”
No way would she ever admit how much she remembered, how clearly she remembered everything about that night. His closemouthed fury when he dragged her from the table. Her feeling of smug jubilation as she snuggled in close in the back of the taxi he hired to take her home. Her heartfelt request, his horrified rejection, her humiliation. Six years and she still remembered every feeling, every word, as keenly as if it had happened yesterday.
“You remembered the bit about growing up,” he said evenly. “I imagine you haven’t forgotten what came before.”
“I gather I made some sort of proposition, although I’d drunk too much champagne to recall what,” she countered with a dismissive shrug.
“You invited me into your bed, and it was no mindless drunken proposition.”
Paris’s heart jolted. She hadn’t expected him to pursue this, to take issue with her. As though it mattered to him.
“You said you wanted me as your first lover,” he continued, his intonation slow and deliberate.
“Like you said, I needed to grow up. Don’t read too much into it.” While her pounding heart rushed the heat of remembered humiliation into her face, Paris gathered her pride, pushed to her feet and reached for the shoes, but he swung them out of her reach and slowly rose to face her.
“You said you loved me.”
“I was young and foolish.” She stepped around the table and lunged for the shoes, but he must have moved sideways, too, because they ended up toe-to-toe.
“And what are you now, princess? Old and smart?”
“What I am is grown-up and over it!”
“Are you?” When he reached out and cupped her face in one hand, she was too surprised to react. “Is this your idea of grown-up? Wearing your hair this way?” His fingers threaded into her hair and slid slowly back toward her crown. Paris gritted her teeth to stop any sound—like a groan of pleasure—escaping her mouth. Some pins gave, and a thick swathe of hair fell free, blocking half her vision.
Now she could see only half his square whisker-darkened jaw, half the nose he’d broken in a site accident and hadn’t bothered having straightened, half the mouth that was too full-lipped and sensual for the blunt strength of the rest of his face.