add a bit of gothic splendor to the whole enterprise.”
Lucas laughed, the sound more bitter than he’d intended. “This is Wolfe Manor. The ghosts here outnumber the living, I assure you, and are all known by name. And there is not a person in the whole of England who does not want to come here and see it for himself.”
She looked at him, her expression warily polite, and he remembered belatedly that she was American, and was not, perhaps, as conversant on the Wolfe family and their tragic history as any citizen of the United Kingdom might be. He was not sure if he liked the possibility of her ignorance regarding all things Wolfe or resented that she might now have to learn all those terrible stories as if they were new.
He could not imagine why he should care either way. And yet he did.
“One of my ancestors supposedly drowned in the lake,” he said abruptly, jerking his chin toward it. “Regrettably, not my father. He died in the house.” He smiled, though he could feel it was not a very nice smile. It matched the dark memories that flew at him, each one a new knife in his gut. He shoved them all aside, ruthlessly. “The rest of us survived this place, in one form or another, but left the better part of our souls behind. I am not being poetic. There was never anything good here. Ever.”
He looked down at her, unable to understand why he was speaking to her this way—as if it mattered to him that she see the truth about Wolfe Manor. He could not understand the urge.
“But it will make the perfect backdrop for your gala, I imagine,” he continued after a moment. “The only thing people like more than glamour is glamour gone wrong, left to crumble into dust and disrepair and salacious old stories.”
“You are so optimistic about human nature,” she said, her voice as tart as ever despite the sweet honey of it, and completely devoid of any cloying compassion—or, worse, pity. She did not quite roll her eyes at him, and he felt something fierce and hot expand in him. “It is no wonder your company is so sought after.”
“I am sought after because I am me,” he said, arrogant and deliberate, daring her to look away, to deny him. “And because anyone seen in my company is certain to be photographed and speculated about in the next day’s gossip rags. I am sought after because I am rich, sickeningly handsome and rumored to be excellent in bed.” He raised his brows at her, challenging her.
“And here I thought it was for your remarkable modesty,” she replied, as quickly and as sharply as he’d known she would. As he realized he’d hoped she would.
“I don’t require modesty,” he assured her. “I have a mirror—and, barring that, the great and glorious British press. I am more than aware of my charms.”
“Clearly.” She did not look remotely impressed. Or even interested. Which, in turn, he found uncommonly fascinating. “But to return to a slightly less important topic than your vast and staggering ego, I think that we can pull this off.”
She turned from him once more, to peer out across his history as if it was no more than a piece of property she was expected to transform. As if it was merely a venue.
Lucas wondered what she saw. What anyone who had not been abandoned here as a child—in his case, quite literally as well as emotionally—saw. None of it could ever be anything simple to him—never just a house, a great lawn, an old estate. His few happy memories involved his siblings, especially Jacob, and the mischief they’d gotten into with their decided lack of parental supervision over the years, but there had never been enough of those moments to tip the balance.
Wolfe Manor was where he had been discarded on the doorstep as an infant, his mother’s identity ever after hinted at, but never confirmed. It was where he had come to understand as a very young boy that while William Wolfe had viewed all of his children with a certain caustic disinterest, it was Lucas who he had actively hated. It was where he had learned to be the person he was today—ever merry on the surface, ever concealed beneath, ever the disappointment to all who expected anything from him.
But Grace could see none of that. No ghosts, no uncomfortable memories, no absentee mothers and vicious, cruel fathers. For her, perhaps, this was no more than an abandoned great house on a vast property—one more British eccentricity for her to work around. In the pouring rain, no less. He watched as she worried her lower lip with her teeth, and then pulled out her PDA and began typing into it.
“We’ll put lights on the house to play up its mysterious past,” she murmured. “A haunted house theme, but elegant.”
He realized with some astonishment that she was no longer speaking to him. She was entirely focused on her PDA, and thus the job at hand. As if he, Lucas Wolfe, the greatest temptation on two feet according to the tabloids and any number of his former lovers, was … no more than a business associate.
He found it surprisingly arousing.
“We’ll have the design capitalize on the Wolfe saga at every opportunity,” she continued in that same distracted tone. “The Wolfe touch on the Hartington’s brand in the eighties is widely considered to be the glory days—we’ll use that. Expand it into the new era.”
She continued on like that for a few minutes more, while Lucas stood idly by, holding an umbrella over her head and waiting patiently. Like one more toothless member of her intimidated staff. Like her lackey.
He was sure it spoke to the deficiencies in his character that he’d been hearing of all his life that he did not mind it as he should. That he found her deep concentration and ability to block out even him deeply, sensually intriguing. Would she be like that in bed? Would she gaze at her lover with that kind of rapt focus?
He certainly hoped so.
“What is it?” she asked, looking back at him as she slid her PDA back in her pocket, her brown eyes narrowing as they caught his expression “Why are you looking at me like that?”
The rain had picked up again, thudding hard against the umbrella and rebounding from the stones beneath their feet. They were both wet, cocooned together amid the noise of the storm. Lucas found it exhilarating. Or perhaps that was simply her presence—and the fact she was standing so close to him. Finally. She smelled like soap and rosemary and something fresher, more feminine, in the close embrace beneath the umbrella.
He could tell the very moment she realized that the pounding rain had trapped them even closer together, that she was near enough to be wrapped around him if she wished—that the only reason besides the downpour that would bring two people together like this had everything to do with the carnal heat that flared between them and nothing to do with the weather. He watched her chocolate eyes widen in alarm—and unmistakable awareness.
He reached across the scant space between them, and slid his hand along the side of her face, filling his palm with the soft skin of her tender cheek, letting his thumb scrape across her full lower lip, wishing he could test it against his teeth as she had. He was so unused to waiting. He could not recall the last time he’d had to wait for anything.
Soon, he promised himself.
“I want you,” he said quietly. It echoed between them as more than a statement of intent. It was a promise. A vow.
He could read her so well, though he did not wish to analyze that unexpected ability. He heard her breath catch in her throat, saw her eyes heat with desire. He knew she wanted him. He could feel it in the fire that scorched the humid air between them, see it in the way her lips parted and the faint tremor that shook through her.
“I am afraid that I do not want you, Mr. Wolfe,” she said in that brisk, professional tone, making him blink—though he did not drop his hand. The heat of her skin beneath his palm did not match the coolness in her voice.
“You are such a liar,” he said, his voice low, intent on her heat, her passion. “I thought we covered this already.”
He could already see them together, entwined, entangled. Her long legs wrapped around his waist, her breasts in his hands. Her lush mouth wrapped around his hardness. He wanted to take her where