Naughty Or Nice. Rachael Stewart
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The word dies and my entire body draws tight.
I see him. I see the exact cause of my father’s unease and feel it seep into my very skin. My mood dies with it. The champagne flute trembles in my hand and I know I should look away, but I can’t.
Ten years and still my eyes are hooked on him.
Lucas Waring.
My family’s nemesis.
My heart’s downfall.
‘No,’ I manage to say.
I shouldn’t be surprised—not when the room is full of his peers.
Peers? Are you dreaming?
They’re not his equal. No one is. Waring Holdings has it all and now here is Lucas, wanting…what?
‘He can’t possibly think you’ll be interested in working with him.’
My father speaks my mind exactly. He can’t. But what else?
‘There’s only one way to find out.’
I’m not the eighteen-year-old girl I once was, and I’m not the woman I became soon after that, determined to evade him. I am in control now. This is my night. This is work.
‘Excuse me.’
‘No.’ My father steps into my path. ‘I’ll get rid of him.’
I hold his eye as my lips twitch. What I want to say is Stop treating me like a child, but in my mind that sounds petulant and childlike in itself. Instead I smile up at him. ‘He’s made the effort to come. I should at least see what he wants.’
‘But—’
‘But nothing, Dad. Giving someone as powerful as Lucas the cold shoulder tonight of all nights would send the wrong message to the room.’
My father grunts and swigs his champagne. He knows I’m right. He didn’t get where he is today by letting personal differences get in his way. But then it’s the first time I’m aware of that Lucas has dared venture near any of us in five long years.
Ever since my family shut him out and the blame for the demise of the company he co-owned with Nate seemed to land firmly at his feet.
I questioned it at the time. I continued to question it each and every time Nate screwed up after that. It couldn’t have been down to Lucas—not entirely. But it seems Lucas has suffered the same as me.
Nate’s golden halo failed to shift.
I can’t deny I’m curious as to what truly went down. And I also can’t deny that his presence here tonight only serves to help my cause, my product. It’ll feed the frenzy already taking hold as companies vie for my business.
Or it’ll send them running, because they’ll think there’s no chance in hell you’ll look anywhere else but him.
Not him—his business, Eva!
I give my head a small shake, the loose curls from my updo brushing against the prickled skin of my nape. It loosens up my thoughts, the tension.
‘Why don’t you make sure Mum doesn’t flip at his presence?’ I say, and with another sip of champagne I start to make my way towards him, praying he doesn’t spy me before I’m prepared.
But already his head is turning, as if he senses my approach, and then his eyes are locked on mine and I can feel a startling rush through my system. It doesn’t matter that I’m used to the sight of him on the TV, in the tabloids—that same old zing is in my belly, that heat that only his physical presence has ever instilled creeping into my cheeks.
I want to look away, but I won’t give him that. I am stronger now, wiser, and the better for it. And so I enjoy him, my eyes sweeping over every inch of him. His black hair, long on top. His prominent brow arching over heavy-lashed eyes that narrow on me, dark and intense. I ignore the hiccup to my pulse and cut lower, to his wide, angular jaw with its intentional stubble.
I avoid his mouth entirely.
I don’t need the memory of its brief contact all those years ago. I really don’t.
I move my eyes lower, to the broad set of his shoulders—wider than I recall. Imposing. I don’t dwell on the muscle behind that. Instead I focus on the designer cut of his deep grey suit, the white shirt and his defiantly skinny black tie.
My lips lift at the edges, I can’t help it. Always the rebel…
I lift my eyes back to his and they flicker. There’s something there. I just don’t know what. Unease?
Maybe.
Like hell.
He owns the room. His presence commands attention even when he’s not looking for it. Just like he’s commanding my own, against my will.
A waiter passes between us and he reaches out for a glass, but not once does his gaze release me, and I can feel myself being drawn in like the besotted eighteen-year-old I once was.
Careful, Eva.
‘Lucas…’
I draw his name out, feel it fall softly from my lips, and I see his eyes flit to them. I know they’re red and glossy. The perfect match for my dress and the countrywide festivities, and I imagine him looking hungrily over them now.
If only…
‘I wish I could say it’s a pleasure to see you.’
I’m proud of the steadiness in my voice, its hard edge—it’s what he deserves for what he did to me ten years ago and for the last five, too, if my family are right… In this second I’m not sure which I want to hurt him more for.
Yes, you do…liar.
He watches me with that intense stare that I can’t even begin to read and raises his glass to his lips. Too late I’m looking, remembering, and my betraying tongue sweeps over my own lips…
‘It’s rude to stare.’
My eyes leap and I curse his very presence, his very effect over me. But there’s a tightness to his voice, a flare to his eyes that he cannot hide, and I know he’s not immune to me—not any more. It gives me power and I feed on it.
‘It’s rude to attend a party without an invitation.’
He smiles, the movement small and soft—and, dammit, my insides quiver.
‘I’m used to being welcomed with open arms. Invited or not.’
I raise my brow, the idea of being close enough to embrace him not helping my focus.
It’s a figure of speech, idiot.
I cock my head, masking my unease. ‘Once upon a time that may have been true, but not here, not now, and not with me.’
‘Not with you, or not with your family, Evangeline?’
If I could melt to the floor I would. No one calls me Evangeline—no one. Unless they’re my parents. I am Eva—strong, dependable, Eva. A woman who has proved her worth a hundred times over.
But when he says it, the way he says it, it’s not like Mum and Dad do it. It doesn’t make me feel like a girl, weak and vulnerable. I feel empowered, worthy of so much, catapulted onto a pedestal and ready to be worshipped.
By him. At my feet.
Oh, yes.
I swallow, the bolt through my body jolting me straight.
It scares me. He scares me. And I know I need him gone—that no matter what I said to Dad I don’t dare to entertain him for longer than is necessary.
‘Cat