Conner said. He’d been handling women like Nichole since he’d turned fourteen. “She probably came as a plus one.”
“Next year I’m going to make sure that the invitations are better vetted,” his mother said. “I don’t want her kind getting in here.”
“Whose kind?” his sister, Jane, asked, joining them.
Jane was a posh and trendy woman who had her own cooking and lifestyle show on TV. She didn’t shy away from the media the way Conner and his mother did, but then Jane had been sheltered from most of the fallout from their father’s infidelity.
“A reporter.”
“Scourge of the earth,” Jane said, winking at him. “Where is she? I’ll go take care of her.”
His sister was a troublemaker, and Conner knew the only way to deal with her and their mother was to end this conversation. “I’m handling it.”
“Which one is she?” Janey asked.
“The redhead,” his mom said.
“Oh, I see why you want to ‘handle’ her. Go for it, big bro,” Jane said.
“Mom, I think you should have disciplined Janey a lot more when we were younger. She’s a complete brat.”
“She’s perfect,” their mom said as Jane stuck her tongue out at Conner.
He shook his head and walked away from both women. He worked his way through the well-heeled party crowd, picking up a firecracker mojito—Janey’s creation—from a uniformed waiter on his way to Nichole and Palmer.
She glanced up as he approached, and Conner saw the guilty look in her eyes a moment before she masked it with a brazen smile.
“Conner Macafee,” she said, with a little too much enthusiasm. “Just the man I’ve been wanting to see.”
“Nichole Reynolds,” he said, matching her energy. “Just the woman I don’t remember inviting.”
“With women there is always some sort of intrigue,” Palmer said.
“Indeed,” Conner agreed. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
“I always do,” Palmer said.
Nichole looped her arm through Conner’s and led him away from Palmer. “If I waited for an invitation from you, I’d never have the chance to talk to you in person.”
“That’s because I don’t do interviews.” Conner’s father had been very involved in politics. Even after he’d left office, he’d been in a high-profile business that had demanded lots of press and reporters having access to his life. As a teenager Conner had been photographed and interviewed by every society magazine. He’d hated living in a fishbowl and had vowed never to allow it to happen again once he was an adult. Something he’d been very successful at, even though he lived a jet-set life and had a reputation as something of a player, he didn’t give interviews and was seldom, if ever, caught by the paparazzi.
“I think you’re reacting negatively to someone in the past,” she said, dropping her arm from his once they were far from the crowd. “I promise it will be painless.”
“Maybe I like pain,” he said, primarily to bait her but also because there were times when pain was the only reminder he had that he was alive.
She narrowed her gaze as she stared at him; he knew she was trying to guess if he was telling the truth. “So how about answering a few questions?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I’ll do anything to get this interview, Conner.”
The hint of determination in her tone intrigued him. It had been a long time since anyone had been so dogged to get something from him.
“Anything?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m known as the girl-who-gets-her-story and you’re making me look bad at work.”
“We can’t have that now, can we?” he asked, stepping closer into her personal space and letting his hands fall lightly on her shoulders. She was tall for a woman—probably five-eight—but she only came to his chest and he liked the feeling of power he had looking down at her.
“You do know I don’t give interviews,” he said.
“But this is different. You’re doing a television show.”
“Not me, my company. There’s a very big difference,” he said.
“Your dad didn’t see it that way. He practically lived on the pages of the Post.”
And that was precisely why Conner wouldn’t. “I’m not my dad. And the answer is still no.”
“Please,” she said, tipping her head back and pouting up at him.
Her luscious red lips made him want to groan out loud. He felt a zing of lust shoot straight through him.
“I might do it, but the price will be high,” he said, knowing he’d never sit for an interview with her. But he wanted her and didn’t see why he couldn’t indulge the fantasy a bit.
“Name it,” she said.
He lifted a strand of her hair and wrapped it around his forefinger. She held her breath as a blush spread over her neck and cheeks. Her creamy skin with the light dusting of freckles was smooth under the fingers of his other hand.
He wanted her.
But he knew he’d never have her. He couldn’t be with a woman he couldn’t trust, and at the end of the day her loyalties would always be with her newspaper. But he wasn’t about to let her go without stealing at least a kiss from her. He suspected the shock of what he was going to say would drive her away and maybe even cost him that kiss he wanted so badly. But that was his intention. Self-preservation won out over lust … well, sort of.
“Be my mistress for a month and I’ll answer all your questions,” he said.
Nichole stared up into the bluest eyes she’d ever seen and tried to make sense of what he’d just said. She’d never imagined she’d be so turned on by someone so … well, conservative. She would have to call him that. To be honest, he was so far out of her league, she knew he must be toying with her.
She was used to doing whatever it took to get a story but this was … risqué and daring and she wanted to say yes. But ethics made her back down. She suspected he’d said that to push her away and that made her mad.
“A month?” she asked. “What kind of secrets are you hiding, Mr. Macafee? I had only planned on asking you about Matchmakers, Inc. But for that kind of price, I’d have to have full access to every part of you.”
She knew he wouldn’t negotiate with her. Why would he? She’d read the papers back when his father died. She knew the scandalous stories of the second family that Old Jed Macafee had kept hidden and she remembered seeing the photos of Conner and his sister, Jane, as they’d been caught leaving the country on a private Learjet owned by a Greek billionaire. There had been something so sad about the once-press-friendly teenagers suddenly donning dark glasses and refusing to look at the cameras.
Conner was never going to let her interview him. She’d known it was a long shot from the beginning, but she’d gone after it anyway. Her dad always said you had to break a lot of eggs to make an omelet.
“No, you wouldn’t,” he said. “If you agree to this, I will specify the parameters and if you break one of the rules outlined for you, then you leave and never bother me again.”
She shook her head. “If I agree, then we will hammer out an arrangement that works for both of us. Why would you even suggest this?”
“Because I know you are going to say no,” he said with the confidence of a man who knew he held all the cards. “Though I would really like to kiss you.”