Bronwyn Jameson - In Bed with the Boss's Daughter

Did you think he’d go six years without a haircut? Did you think Grantham’s manager of construction projects would turn up to a project launch in jeans and hard hat?

Now she could see he’d changed in other ways. He didn’t wink or grin crookedly or lift his glass in greeting, and she neither recognized nor understood the fierce anger burning in his eyes. He handed his glass to someone on his left and started toward her with steady purpose.

Oh, help!

For all her anticipation when choosing a dress to knock his socks off, despite her practice of witty opening lines, she wasn’t ready to face him. Not now. Not tired and fuzzy-headed.

She turned and excused her way through the crowd, but her skirt was too slim and her heels too high for a rapid escape. Finally she fell out the door into the wide and refreshingly empty lobby, but she paused only long enough to recall the resolve on Jack’s face. Then she headed straight for the Ladies sign. When she pushed through the door into the anteroom, the air rushed from her lungs in a heartfelt whoosh.

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.

But his beautiful mouth wasn’t smiling. It was set in a grim line, and his deep-set eyes weren’t the warm, molten chocolate she remembered. The laughter lines still sprayed from the corners, but he didn’t look like a man who did much laughing these days. He looked like a man who worked more on the worry lines between his brows.

Paris did not want to smooth those lines away.

“Do you mind?” She wrenched free of his tormenting touch and glared at him through narrowed eyes. “Is there anything else you’d like to wreck, apart from my hairdo? My dress, maybe? It’s part of the new grown-up me!”

Big mistake, Paris thought, the moment his eyes dropped to the dress.

“Oh, yes,” he murmured gruffly. “This dress is extremely you.”

His knuckles brushed across her neckline, and Paris felt the slight resistance as some rough skin caught in the georgette. He stroked a fingertip over the pulled thread, and Paris swallowed. He’d barely touched her, yet her breasts were tight and tingly, needy.

Needy?

What she needed was her head examined for responding to such a cynical touch. She drew herself up to her full height. “What’s with you, Jack? I don’t understand your attitude and, quite frankly, I’m sick of this…this…” Paris searched around but couldn’t find any suitable description. “I’ve just flown halfway around the world, I’ve spent all day auditioning another bloody stepmother contender, and now—” she took a deep breath, because the last one had run out “—and now I have to put up with you glowering at me and pawing me and ruining my hair… What are you—don’t you da—”

His mouth descended to hers, swallowing the rest of the word and the rest of her complaints. Not that Paris remembered what they were. They fled her brain the instant his lips closed over hers. Some dim recess registered the soft thump of her shoes hitting the carpeted floor, the rough strength of his hands on her shoulders, the brush of his unbuttoned jacket against her body, the accelerated thud of her heartbeat.

For a time she managed to concentrate on the taste of frustrated anger—and then she needed to breathe. With her nose hard up against his cheek, she inhaled the scent of his skin, discovered it hadn’t changed. No fancy cologne to match the fancy suit, no conservative aftershave to match the barbershop cut, just strong elemental outdoors male. She uncurled her fingers from the tight fists crushed between their bodies and gripped his jacket, anchoring herself against a sudden weakness in her knees.

His mouth eased its rough pressure, and for the barest moment Paris savored his gentled caress, the fleeting brush of his thumbs against her neck, the fullness of his lips on hers. And then those lips retreated as suddenly as they’d advanced, leaving her swamped by conflicting emotions. Shocked confusion registered in his eyes, too, but was quickly displaced by the same old fierce-eyed irritation.

Carefully Paris released her grip on his lapels. Casually she smoothed out the creases. Deliberately she coaxed her mouth into a facsimile of a smile. “If that’s a sample of what I missed out on six years ago, I can count myself lucky,” she drawled.

His eyes glinted dangerously, and his hold on her shoulders tightened. “You want to talk samples?”

A disturbing sense of anticipation washed through Paris’s body as his head ducked and his gaze lit on her lips. Her legs wobbled, and she swore that the only thing holding her up was his grip on her shoulders, a grip that felt like a curious mix of support and restraint, holding her up and him back.

But he didn’t kiss her. Instead he slowly and deliberately ran his tongue across her bottom lip, before pulling back and rocking on his heels. He flashed a tight smile and declared, “Yep, tastes exactly like saccharine!”

Paris’s mouth fell open, then slammed shut.

“Now why do you suppose that is? Too much time with Lady Pamela or with poor old Teddy?”

“Edward’s neither poor nor old!”

“No?” He lifted one brow. “Bankrupt, but not poor. An interesting concept. Is that why you dumped him?”

Paris shook her head slowly, hoping to clear the confusion. He was mad because she’d run away six years ago? Because he didn’t like her hairdo? Because she’d dumped her fiancé?

“You think I dumped him because of the bankruptcy thing?” she asked slowly. Then she almost laughed out loud at the irony.

Yes, she had dumped “poor Teddy” because of his money troubles. Because he’d wanted her money, her father’s money, to rescue his crumbling fortune. That was the only reason he’d wanted to marry her in the first place.