His Inexperienced Mistress. Chantelle Shaw
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a moment she contemplated pulling the script she had promised to read from her bag, but that would no doubt make the headache worse so she left it there.
No great hardship, since she didn’t want to read it anyway. She had no interest in starring in a theatrical production about her parents, no matter how talented the writer-director was.
She’d nearly scoffed out loud at the notion.
As if she’d feed the gossipmongers and provoke more annoying comparisons to her mother by actually playing her in a drama. Lord, she’d never hear the end of it. The only reason she was pretending to consider the idea was a favour to a friend.
Her mouth twisted as she imagined the look on Tristan’s face if he knew about the role. No doubt he’d think her perfect to play a lost, drug-addled model craving love and attention from a man who had probably put the word playboy in the dictionary.
In fact it was ironic, really, that the only man Lily had ever thought herself to be in love with was almost as big a playboy as her father! Not that she’d fully comprehended Tristan’s reputation as a seventeen-year-old. Back then she’d known only that women fell for him like pebbles tossed into a pond, but she hadn’t given it much thought.
Now she was almost glad that he’d rejected her gauche overtures, because if he hadn’t she’d surely have become just another notch on his bedpost. And if she was anything like her mother that would have meant she’d have fallen for him all the harder.
Lily removed her cap and rubbed her forehead, glancing briefly at Tristan, slashing his red pen through a document he was reading. If she tried to interrupt him now to discuss her house arrest he’d no doubt bite her head off. Still…
‘I take it you won’t be put out if I don’t feel up to making conversation right now?’ she queried innocuously, smiling brightly when he looked at her as if she had two heads. ‘Thought not,’ she mumbled.
Suddenly she was feeling drained, and not up to fighting with him anyway, so it was a good thing he’d ignored her taunt. A taunt she shouldn’t have made in the first place. Never prod a sleeping tiger…wasn’t that the adage? Especially when you were in the same cage as him!
Lily leaned back against the plush leather headrest and closed her eyes. The manly scent from Tristan’s jacket imbued her with a delicious and oddly peaceful lassitude, and she tried to pretend none of this was happening.
Cheeky minx! She knew he didn’t want to talk. He couldn’t have made it any plainer. He slashed another line through the report he was reading and realised he’d marked up the wrong section. Damn her.
She sighed, and he wondered if she knew the effect she was having on his concentration, but when he glanced up it was to find she’d fallen asleep.
She looked so fragile, swamped in his jacket, her blonde hair spilling over the dark fabric like a silvery web.
He knew when he got it back it would smell like something from his late mother’s garden, and made a mental note to have his housekeeper immediately launder it. Then he realised the direction of his thoughts and frowned.
He was supposed to be focused on work. Not contemplating Lily and her hurt expression when he’d cut off her attempts to explain her situation earlier.
He didn’t want to get caught up in her lies, and he had taken the view that the less she said the better for both of them. She had a way of getting under his skin, and for an insanely brief moment back in the bar, when her eyes had teared up, he’d wanted to reach out and tell her that everything would be all right. Which was ridiculous.
It wasn’t his job to fix her situation. His job—if you could call it that—was to keep her out of trouble until Jordana’s wedding and find out any relevant information that might lead to her—or someone else’s—arrest.
It was not to make friends with her, or to make empty promises. And it certainly wasn’t to kiss her as he had wanted to do. He shook his head. Maybe he really had taken leave of his senses getting involved with this. Stuart, the friend and colleague who had helped him find the loophole in the law that had placed her into his custody, had seemed to think so.
‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Chief?’ he’d asked, after the deal had been sealed.
‘When have you ever needed to ask me that?’
His friend had raised an eyebrow at his surly tone and Tristan had known what was coming.
‘Never. But if she’s guilty and people question your involvement it could ruin your legal career. Not to mention drag your family name through the mud again.’
‘I know what I’m doing,’ he’d said. But he didn’t. Not really.
What he did know was that he was still as strongly attracted to her as he had been six years ago. Not that he was going to do anything about it. He would never get involved with a drug-user.
His mother had been one—although not a recreational user, like Lily and her ilk. His mother had taken a plethora of prescription meds for everything from dieting to depression, but the effect was the same: personality changes, mood swings, and eventually death when she had driven her car into a tree.
She had never been an easy woman to love. A shop girl with her eye on the big prize, she had married his father for his title and, from what Tristan could tell, had spent most of their life together complaining on the one hand that he worked too hard and on the other that the Abbey was too old for her tastes. His father had done his best, but in the end it hadn’t been enough, and she’d left after a blazing row Tristan still wished he hadn’t overheard. His father had been gutted, and for a while lost to his children, and Tristan had vowed then that he would never fall that deeply under a woman’s spell.
He expelled a harsh breath. He was thirty-two years old and in the prime of his life. He had an international law firm and a property portfolio that spanned four continents, good friends and enough money to last several lifetimes—even with the amount he gave away to charity. His personal life had become a little mundane lately, it was true, but he didn’t really know what to do about that.
Jordana thought it was because he chose unsuitable women most of the time, and if he did date someone ‘worthy’ he ended the relationship before it began. Which was true enough. Experience had taught him that after a certain time a woman started expecting more from a man. Started wanting to talk about love and commitment. And after one particularly virulent model had sold her story to the tabloids he had made sure his affairs remained short and sweet. Very sweet and very short.
He knew he’d probably marry one day, because it was expected, but love wouldn’t play a part in his choice of a wife. When he was ready—if he ever was—he’d choose someone from his world, who understood the demands of his lifestyle. Someone logical and pragmatic like he was.
Lily made a noise in her sleep and Tristan flicked a glance at her, wincing as her head dropped sideways and butted up against the glass window. Someone the opposite of this woman.
She whimpered and jerked upright in her sleep, but didn’t waken, and Tristan watched the cycle start to repeat itself. That couldn’t be good for her headache.
Not that he cared. He didn’t. She was the reason memories from the past were crowding in and clouding his normally clear thinking, and he resented the hell out of her for it.
But just as her head was about to bump the window again he cursed and moved to her side, to move her along the seat. She flopped against his shoulder and snuggled into his arm, her silky hair brushing against his cheek, giving him pause. He felt the warmth of her breath through his shirt and went still when she made a soft, almost purring sound in the back of her throat; his traitorous body responded predictably.
If he were to move back to his side now she might wake up and, frankly, he could do without her peppering him with the questions he’d seen hovering on her lips while he’d been trying to work.
She made another pained whimper