Czytaj książkę: «Hot And Bothered»

Hot and

Bothered

Liz Maverick

Contemporary, sexy stories for sassy women.

Cosmo Red-Hot Reads from Mills & Boon.

www.millsandboon.co.uk/cosmo

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Dear Reader

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

About the Author

Copyright

Chapter One

If it’s Friday, it’s Paris, I thought with a grin as I looked at the two open bottles of champagne clutched in my hands. Man, I loved my job. My personal life was nonexistent, but my job? Yeah, I could put a nice big green check mark in that box. I sat crossed-legged next to my sister, Anna, on the floor of the nicest kitchen this side of the Seine’s left bank, swilling French bubbly.

Our view of the rest of the apartment spanned out in front of us like something from a celebrity magazine feature. Pastel-blue drapes in duchesse satin. White cane armchairs. Cream-colored marble and gold-leaf accents. My handiwork. I traveled the world buying and decorating upscale vacation rentals for my employer, Brooks Property. Until I was out of town and the property went on the market, it was mine to do with what I liked.

This time I was throwing a twenty-fifth birthday bash for Anna. Usually, I’d just sun on the private decks or take a lot of hot baths in the ever-present “spa tubs” these tony places inevitably featured. Frankly, it was much more fun having someone to share it with. I just wished the other people Anna had invited to share it with hadn’t included the Marchand brothers. That was the funny thing about saying, “Do whatever you want.” People do. And now, after ten years of dodging, I was going to have to open my door to Jack Marchand with a smile on my face.

“We probably should have bought a baguette and some cheese,” Anna said, also double-fisting bottles. She took a gulp from the left, a gulp from the right, squinted and then finally put the bottles on the floor. “Is it wrong that I just want to go with the pretty pink stuff because it matches my dress?”

“It’s your birthday,” I said, looking with some amusement at my sister, all peaches-and-cream complexion, plump curves and pink fuzzy sweater. Of course she wanted pink champagne. Apart from our matching blue eyes, we were opposites. I had a closet full of slim little black dresses, black leggings and black sweaters to go with dark hair that I sometimes dyed darker. We had six different bottles of the finest champagne Paris had to offer in front of us, and she just wanted the pretty pink stuff.

But for the first time in my life I had plenty of money, and if my little sister wanted two thousand bottles of the pretty pink stuff, that was what she was gonna get for her special day.

Anna came back from the refrigerator with a massive brick of butter, a knife and a box of crackers we’d bought earlier in the day at the Monoprix. “Maybe I’ll meet someone at the party,” she said, handing me a slathered round.

“You know everybody. They’re your guests.”

“Yes, but people change. And people bring dates they won’t leave with. And people also get divorced. God, this butter is good.”

“You’re the only person I know who can make that sound not entirely as awful as it should.”

“I just wish I understood men a little bit better. They can be so—”

“Disappointing?” I suggested.

“Confusing. Remember, I saw Jack at the five-year reunion. He was lovely. I mean, all the Marchand boys are still...sort of...bad. But we’ve all grown up.”

I rolled my eyes, annoyed that the thought of a wealthy French bad boy still appealed to some shallow part of my soul. Some shallow, shallow, shallow part of my soul. I groaned. “Tell me again that he was unattractive and charmless.”

Anna raised an eyebrow. “Um, no. You know I never said that. He was as handsome and charming as ever.”

I grimaced. “He always was a smooth talker.”

“You used to call it a talent with words.”

“So slick.”

“You called it charismatic.”

“And those stupid leather sneakers.”

“The ones that used to make you swoon? I didn’t notice.” Anna brightened. “I did notice his sense of humor.”

“The joke was on me. Hey, you’re supposed to be on my side.”

“I am on your side!” Anna said, flailing the butter knife around. “Why do you think I invited him? I think he’s a good man who once did a bad thing, not a bad man who once did a good thing. Remember the business with the keg stand?”

I winced. I remembered Jack as a brilliantly fun, even-keeled guy, but he had a line. A line that was not to be crossed. And when that line was crossed, he had a temper. And someone had crossed that line with Anna, and he’d used that temper to good purpose that day. But that didn’t excuse what he did to me.

“Besides, I know he wants to see you. And you need closure!”

“Did you forget how he basically made the second half of high school a complete misery?” I asked.

Anna put down the butter knife with great ceremony and turned to me. “What is it you always say to me?”

“Living well is the best revenge.”

She gestured grandly to the gorgeous apartment and then to me. She said something else about how seeing me now would make him realize what he’d lost out on, and described some bizarre theory about how men needed to experience with all of their senses what they were missing in order to have regrets. I was busy wondering what else about grown-up Jack might be the same as the things I’d adored in high-school Jack.

“Not that I really understand men,” Anna said, punctuating her final words with the last cracker.

I grunted. “If you want to understand men, just remember that every man has a tell.”

Anna laughed, her fingers covering a bulging mouth. She swallowed and said, “I never noticed. I mean, beyond losing the ability for intelligent thought when confronted by a woman’s naked body.”

“That’s a universal to all men. I’m talking about something way more individual. I’m talking about the sort of tell that points out a man’s vulnerability. The almost imperceptible evidence of a man’s Achilles’ heel.”

My sister considered that and then shook her head. “I really can’t think of an example.”

“You’re not the keen observer I am,” I said. “You’re the great big golden retriever romping in the middle of everything. You’re too much in it. I’m on the side, watching. And I can say with great certainty, that every man has his tell.”

“Maybe it’s time you stopped standing on the side. No reason you should. Look at all you’ve done. And did you just call me a dog?”

“Yes.”

“You bitch.”

I giggled. “Pass the champagne.”

“Which one?”

“Is it wrong if I say I don’t care? Whichever’s closer.”

“So what are you going to do when you see him?” Anna asked. “You can’t run. You’re the host.”

“There’s nothing to be done. Standing on the side observing doesn’t automatically make you a wallflower. It makes you capable of making well-informed decisions. Like my decision to ignore Jack Marchand. I will greet him pleasantly, like the good host that I am. I will make sure he has a glass of pretty pink stuff, and then I will go host someone else. He’s not going to expect anything else. He’s zero to me, and I’m zero to him.” I demonstrated the absolute zero-ness of it all by vigorously brushing the crumbs off my leggings onto the floor. You are the crumbs I am brushing onto the floor, Marchand. The particles of the pieces of the crumbs I am brushing onto the floor. The microscopic dust on the particles—

“I think this is a grand opportunity for closure,” Anna said, eyeing the way I appeared to be rubbing a hole in the thighs of my leggings.

“Closure? Hell, this door has been closed to him for a decade already.”

“And yet you still get all hot and bothered whenever his name comes up.”

“Bothered. Just bothered. It’s not my fault he’s a bad memory that lingers.”

Anna licked the butter off her fingers and rewrapped the much-diminished cube. “You might only be bothered, but I’m willing to bet he’s still hot.”

Chapter Two

“Tall, dark and ooh la la,” Anna said, sticking her face over my shoulder. The video intercom showcased three figures on the landing below. The Marchand brothers. Luc, Christian and yes, Jacques.

Yeah, they still had plenty of ooh la la. “Your perfume is making me lightheaded, Anna,” I lied, gently head-butting her aside. The view was making me lightheaded.

One of the brothers tossed a cigarette to the ground. Probably Luc, if his high school habits hadn’t changed. The three men appeared to argue over the discarded cigarette, and then a shoe crushed the butt into the ground. A shoe very much like the one that used to press against the back of my chair in history class.

Whoa. Obviously, I’d expected to feel something in this moment. Something akin to doom-like resentment. Or bloodthirsty vengefulness. I hadn’t expected to feel...excited. “I’m thrown, dammit,” I whispered. “Thrown.”

“Um, that’s the third time they’ve pressed the button. They’re going to be just as fun to watch once they’re inside.” Anna squeezed my arm. “It will be fine, sis. It was a long time ago.”

I flushed. “Right.” I didn’t move. I stared at the leg attached to the shoe, followed it up to the chest and squinted at the tiny screen, hoping for a less-pixelated glimpse of Jacques “Jack” Marchand’s expression. Was he thrown?

“I’ll handle Jack. You take care of his brothers.” Anna reached across me to hit the buzzer and then floated to the door in a cloud of pink chiffon.

She was right. Closure would be a good thing. I should think of this as an opportunity. Besides, I looked as good as a girl is going to get in Paris. I was wearing one of my go-to LBDs accessorized with a badass updo from a fantastic salon tucked away on Boulevard St. Germain, smoky eyes thanks to a special event in the cosmetics department at Le Bon Marche and a dash of red at the soles of my precious Louboutin shoes. I wasn’t that awkward high school girl anymore, and this was my damn party.

“Zero,” I muttered, steeling myself as Luc and Christian came through the door all tanned skin and perfect hair. In school we called the trio The French Revolution, and they still deserved the nickname; I actually felt a surge in the party energy around me as they entered the hall. I moved forward as Anna expertly peeled Jack away with a hand on his back and a glass of champagne.

I resisted the urge to crane my neck in Jack’s direction, whispering, “Zero,” again. But I couldn’t force myself not to care. Okay, fine, Cassie. At least force yourself to look like you don’t care.

“Bonsoir,” I said, airily kissing Jack’s brothers on the cheeks and likewise leading them to a champagne station on the opposite side of the room. It should have been way harder to ignore Jack’s presence. Luc still looked like the wild one, more casual than his brothers in motorcycle boots under his slacks and a V-neck under his blazer. I’d never gotten more than a few words out of him in high school, and I always took Jack’s word for it that his brother’s dark glower was more bark than bite. Clotheshorse Christian was easier to put your finger on—and many a girl in my class had tried—looking entirely at home in his rich man’s uniform—full suit and tie—though he wore his tie purposely loose like a naughty prep-school boy.

Luc immediately drifted to the wall where he planted himself like a bouncer, one hand jammed in his pocket, his shoulders tight. “Is he okay?” I asked Christian, just as a platinum-blonde joined his brother at the wall. “Oh, he’ll be okay,” Christian answered with a suggestive lilt in his voice.

I suddenly recognized the blonde, and my fingers went cold. Irina Lively from high school. She was the nicest head of a three-headed hydra that included Beatrix Swan and Mary-Ann Peterson, but even a nice monster is still a monster. For a second, I was that girl again, the one who stood out in all the wrong ways. My palms started sweating. Great. Ten years had passed, and thinking about high school still made my palms sweat. Would Anna kill me if I left my own party? What the hell was Irina even doing in Paris? Were Beatrix and Mary-Ann here, too? Well, what the hell was I doing here? Anna’s birthday wasn’t really until next week, but I’d timed it this week for a reason, and it made perfect sense for Irina’s tony set to be in Paris at the same time.

Twice a year the government allowed the fashion world to officially offer sales under the unassuming moniker, les soldes, or “the sales.” Ever since discovering this secret, I’d made it my business to save my Paris business for July and January, and I can say with great certainty that nothing makes a bitter European winter more tolerable than fifty percent off. Fifty percent off during a Parisian summer is just the icing on the bon bon. I looked around nervously for the other two hydra heads and thankfully didn’t see them.

I escaped to the kitchen where I asked the servers to put out more food to accommodate Anna’s expanding guest list, got my shit together and went back to the party, which was already getting pretty crowded. There, as I stepped into the living room, was Jack directly in my sightline.

My heart pounded in my chest. He sported a sleek charcoal-gray suit that draped perfectly off his broad shoulders, a crisp white shirt open at the collar to reveal sun-kissed skin, and those shoes. His trademark Italian leather sneakers, fashionably rebellious enough to say I don’t care what you think. Except I knew he did care what people thought. If he hadn’t cared so much what people thought back in high school, things wouldn’t have gotten all messed up.

Okay, look away, Cassie. If you don’t look away soon, he’s going to see you...staring. Sigh. Jack saw me, all right, and I’d be damned if I was gonna spook. We locked eyes, me staring defiantly back across the room, watching him process my existence. There was something tougher about him, more of a self-assurance in his air. Maybe, like me, he’d just become more comfortable in his skin. But just as I was telling myself that maybe he’d actually grown meaner, a slight smile softened his jawline, and he headed straight for me.

I’m sunk.

“You’re going to have to forgive me,” he said, the first meaningful thing from his mouth since that French kiss ten years ago.

“You’re going to have to make me,” I replied coolly. That voice. I used to pray he’d ask a question in class just so I could hear that rich voice. If you closed your eyes and just listened to him talk, it was better than standing under the Eiffel Tower with a crepe smothered in chocolate hazelnut sauce.

His eyebrow arched and then he smiled, laughing softly. He reached out and took my hand, holding it in both of his for a moment. And then he slid my palm under the edge of his suit so I pressed against the warm linen of his shirt, just over his heart. My breath hitched but no way did he hear it against the rest of the party noise.

With his hand against mine, with my fingers buried in his warmth, he looked down at me and said, “I was a stupid high school boy who didn’t stand up for what he wanted.”

I pulled my hand away and switched my champagne glass to that hand to dissipate the heat. You’re not going to seduce me this time, Marchand. I mean, he was doing a good job given that it had been about one minute, but I wasn’t falling for it this time. “You were the worst thing that could happen to a teenage girl. The ultimate high school humiliation.”

“You think of me that way? As your high school humiliation?”

“You should be flattered I think of you at all.”

“You make it very difficile for a guy to explain. You never come to the alumni reunions.”

“Have you heard of a little thing called email?”

“These things are better in person, non? And I assumed you’d have my name set up in your SPAM filter,” he added with a sheepish grin that produced a couple of killer dimples.

“Not even,” I said with a disdainful snort, making it clear he wasn’t important enough for that. Actually, I had a filter with his name on it set to go to my “Important” folder, so it wouldn’t accidentally go to SPAM. Nothing he needed to know.

“Cassandra, I wish I could go back and change it all.”

“Words, words, words,” I said.

“What would it take for you to believe me? Shall I make a public declaration?”

I hastily put my hand out to stop him, but he’d already raised his drink, and my fingers hit a wall of muscle commonly known as the six-pack. “No! This is Anna’s night. Besides, if they’ve forgotten, I don’t need to remind them of what happened.”

“Was it that bad?” he asked, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t sound genuine.

“If you have to ask, we must not remember it the same way. Think of it from a high school girl’s point of view.”

“You give me your version, and then I’ll give you mine.”

I laughed, hating that I liked him even when the topic was how much he deserved me hating him. “Here’s the condensed version. You flew to New York with your brothers for high school, landed in the seat behind me for history class, seduced me with your accent and started hanging out with me in secret under the auspices of needing tutoring, even though we were studying the Napoleonic Wars, which made me think that you might actually like me, a suspicion that was confirmed after we talked and talked forever about everything until we both said we must be soul mates and then you asked me on a date and took me to that swanky Upper East Side party where you purposely palmed the piece of paper with my name on it for Seven Minutes in Heaven so you’d have an excuse to make out with me and put your hands in places they probably shouldn’t have been at that point, and when our time was up you, in fact, told me how much you liked me and asked me to be your girlfriend, and I said yes and then we left the bathroom, and you took me to your house and I lost my virginity to you, after which you took me home, and it was then it probably dawned on you that Anna and I didn’t live on the Upper East Side like everybody else, and didn’t have gobs of money and a swanky apartment like everybody else, and I don’t know who gave you a big speech that weekend, but you never called me and when Monday rolled around, I’d already told Anna you were my boyfriend and she’d apparently spread it around, and then all that was left was for you to confirm it, except when I got to school the only thing you confirmed was that American girls were suckers for boys with accents, and that having sex didn’t make me your girlfriend, and because every sundae needs a cherry, I also tanked history with the only C grade I ever got in school.”

“Breathe, Cassie,” Jack said.

I took his advice and then kept going. “You know, here’s the thing. I realize it might sound like a small infraction. And I realize that it seems...well, a little much to be pissed off about it for ten years, but here’s the thing. I was just a young girl. I was already on the outside when it came to social status and money. And here you come, making me think you don’t care about any of that, and that you like me for myself, but the next thing I know, the whole school is laughing at a joke with my name on it.”

I noticed that in spite of the calming breath, I was advancing on Jack, backing him slowly toward a tower of canapés. I planted my feet and continued my explanation.

“You know how mean girls can be, Jack. That’s just a shitty, shitty thing to do to a young girl who is still developing her self-confidence. It took me a long time to build myself back up, and luckily I did a good job, so I don’t have to stand here and suck up and pretend that what you did is okay because you’re handsome and rich. Because it’s not. It’s not okay to treat people like that.”

Jack was looking down at me, a muscle working in his tight jaw. “I was young and stupid and worried about the wrong things. I wish you could have known what was in my mind and in my heart. I regretted it, but didn’t know how to fix it.”

I’m not sure why his honesty surprised me. I felt bare, somehow. I hadn’t expected a meaningful conversation. There was that whole thing where I was supposed to greet him properly and then move on to the next guest. Certainly, in my daydreams, I’d march up to him at some point and spill something expensive and sticky on his suit, call him a douchebag and flounce off. But meaningful conversation hadn’t really been in my plans. I made a show of watching the rest of the partygoers to hide my confusion, but I didn’t really register more than the swirl of colorful skirts and the flash of diamonds. I shrugged, as if I didn’t much care, and said, “So what happened? Walk me through it,” like I was just sort of curious.

The grim set of his mouth relaxed into a smile. “Yes, let’s walk through it. We’ll begin where it started going wrong. We were at the party.”

That was kind of where it started going really right before the wrong part, in my opinion, but I didn’t want him to take it as a compliment. “Geneva Sims’s party,” I said. “If we’re going to do this, I think we ought to be precise.”

“You want this walk-through to be precise? I have no quarrel with that,” he said. The delicious twist of his mouth probably should have served as some kind of warning, but I nodded for him to continue, once again flying toward flame.

“So. Geneva Sims’s parents’ condo on Park Avenue. You, in a blue dress. Très jolie.”

“Me, in a blue dress,” I repeated robotically, suddenly realizing I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d worn that night, but I was willing to go with blue dress in exchange for the naughty look in his eye.

“A blue dress with a short skirt and some sort of...” He reached out and lightly touched my chin, tracing down my neck with a fluid motion until his finger rested just below my collarbone. His fingertips pressed against my flushed skin. “Some sort of necklace. A fussy thing. I remember it got in the way.”

Oh, I remembered that. It was probably still behind Mrs. Sims’s toilet or wherever Jack had flung it.

“Someone had proposed Seven Minutes in Heaven, and I stole your card from the bowl while everyone was gathering.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Jack leaned over, and with his lips pressed to my ear softly asked, “Où sont les toilettes, s’il vous plait?” I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. I pointed out the bathroom door, across the room and at the end of a hall. And before I knew what was what, Jack was walking me toward it, ignoring the guests who were parting in our wake.

“Jack,” I said, in my best warning tone. “We don’t have to be that precise. I’m the hostess. I have duties.”

“Anna is happy,” he said, pointing to my sister, who was, indeed, happily doing hostess things, flitting from one group of guests to another. He held out his hand, and God help me, I put my palm in his. “I led you to the bathroom,” he continued. “I loved having an excuse to hold your hand.”

I actually blushed. Damn you, Jack.

He pushed open the door and dragged me inside the gleaming marble bathroom. Jack switched the light off, and we stood there in the pitch black.

“I reached out for you in the dark,” he whispered. “And I grabbed nothing. I felt like a fool. My heart was pounding. I felt so rushed.”

Now we have all the time in the world.

His hand grazed my shoulder. I sucked in a quick breath as he wrapped both hands around my shoulders and pulled me closer. “Do you remember what happened next?”

I couldn’t think.

“Let me remind you.” His hands slid up my arms, grazed my neck and cradled my face. His thumb stroked my mouth until I opened for him, and his tongue found mine. Pure fire. Divine. I hate you, Jack.

“I’d kissed other girls before,” Jack whispered against me. “But none that meant anything to me. You were different.”

The only answer I could manage was a quick breath as my body relaxed in his arms, and the strap of my dress slipped down my shoulder. Liquid lust. That’s what he sent traveling through my veins. Just like he’d done ten years ago. But there was one big difference. I wasn’t the same tentative teenager experiencing her first kiss, unsure of herself, unsure of what she liked.

I was damn sure now. I let my brain shut down cell by cell as his sinful mouth took control, and I answered the play of his tongue with mine. “Mais oui,” he whispered, his mouth slanting over mine again and again, hot, wet, so demanding. I’d thought of Jack as sophisticated and experienced once; now I realized we’d both been unsure of ourselves then. No longer.