The Irresistible Tycoon Read online

  ‘Relax.’ He strolled over to the bed and her hormones went into hyperdrive. The designer stubble was dynamite. ‘You’ve plenty of time to get Melody to school—and if you’re late for work the boss will understand.’

  Kim slid a tentative arm from under the covers, the other still holding the duvet tight round her neck, and took the cup of tea he was offering with a nod of thanks.

  ‘One sugar, I understand?’ Lucas said lazily. ‘Melody’s helping me cook breakfast and is a mine of information as to your likes and dislikes. That’s a very intelligent little daughter you’ve got there.’

  ‘I know.’ Just go. Go.

  ‘You look gorgeous to wake up to.’ Lucas seemed in no hurry to leave, his eyes stroking over her flushed face and his stern mouth uncharacteristically tender.

  ‘You didn’t wake up to me,’ Kim protested quickly.

  ‘I’ve recently woken up, you’re here…’ His words faded as his mouth covered her own and the teacup wobbled alarmingly. The kiss was brief and incredibly sweet, and he studied her face for a moment when he straightened again. ‘Gorgeous,’ he said softly.

  ‘Lucas, you shouldn’t be in here. Melody will think—’

  ‘Absolutely nothing,’ he finished for her smoothly. ‘There’s always a dozen or so small people running about when my family gets together, so I know how children’s minds work at Melody’s age.’

  So that was why he was so comfortable around young children. Kim stared at him, realising—with a touch of exasperation—that everything she learnt about him dispelled the image of a hard-hitting automaton a little more. She wanted to find out he was mean to old ladies, that he didn’t like children, that he kicked the cat and beat the dog—anything!

  ‘Do you like children?’ It was out before she had time to think.

  He didn’t seem to consider the question strange. ‘When they’re like the ones in my family, or Melody,’ he said calmly. ‘Brats I can do without.’ And then he smiled mockingly. ‘Not what you wanted to hear?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ The colour which had just begun to diminish returned in a fresh surge of scarlet. Impossible man!

  ‘Of course you don’t,’ he taunted softly.

  She wasn’t going to win this one. Kim tried to look stern and assertive. ‘Where’s Melody?’ she asked pointedly.

  ‘Sitting at the breakfast bar, eating a bowl of Frosties,’ Lucas returned easily, ‘before her bacon and egg. Speaking of which—’ he dropped another kiss on her nose before turning and walking out of the room, saying over his shoulder ‘—you can be first in the shower but you’d better be quick. Breakfast will be ready in five minutes.’

  First in the shower, for goodness’ sake! As the door closed behind Lucas’s big frame, Kim found herself glaring across the room. Anyone would think he lived here the way he was carrying on.

  And then, before she had time to school her features into anything resembling sweetness, the door opened again and Lucas popped his head round. ‘I forgot to say thanks for the bed and board,’ he said softly, his eyes amused as they took in her expression. ‘I appreciate it more than I can say, Kim.’

  She managed a creditably gracious smile. ‘That’s okay; you were obviously out on your feet. I’d have done the same for anybody.’

  ‘Now don’t spoil it. And you’re down to four minutes, thirty seconds, by the way.’

  Kim had time to do no more than shower and slip into her bathrobe before breakfast, piling her hair into a towel turban-style before running downstairs to the kitchen.

  Lucas and Melody were perched on the two high stools the small kitchen boasted in front of the minuscule breakfast bar, and they looked comfortable together. Too comfortable. Melody was in the middle of one of her long and involved stories about a happening at school to which Lucas was giving his full attention, and as Kim surveyed Melody’s animated face and Lucas’s patient one she felt a dart of pure panic.

  ‘Mummy!’ Melody saw her first. ‘Lucas has cooked bacon and eggs and he says I can have mine in a bun. Can I, Mummy?’

  ‘If you eat it all up,’ said Kim mechanically, walking across and kissing the top of Melody’s fair head as Lucas slid off his stool and waved for her to be seated.

  They ate with Lucas propping up the sink unit as he devoured three buns bursting with bacon and egg whilst Melody looked on with unconcealed admiration.

  Her daughter clearly thought he was the best thing since sliced bread, Kim told herself crossly, and Lucas was playing up to his role of man of the hour with gusto. Immediately as the thought hit she acknowledged its unfairness. Lucas was just being Lucas, she admitted miserably, which made everything a thousand times worse and a million times more dangerous.

  ‘Can I ask a favour?’

  As Melody danced off upstairs to change from her pyjamas into her school clothes Lucas perched himself on the stool she had vacated. It brought him close, much, much too close, and Kim’s voice was something of a snap as she said, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you have a razor I can use?’

  It wasn’t what she had expected and of course he knew that only too well, Kim thought nastily, but although she knew she was blushing she kept her voice very even when she said, ‘I’ve only light duty disposables that I use for my legs, I’m afraid. I’m not sure they’ll cope with a man’s beard.’

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  And then, before she was aware of what he was doing, he had moved his stool in front of hers so that his long legs were either side of her.

  ‘You’ve a crumb on your chin.’ His voice was soft as he reached out and stroked her skin, and she felt terribly aware that she only had her bra and panties on beneath her towelling robe.

  She knew what he wanted—it was written all over his dark face—but the shiver that slithered down her spine was more of anticipation than apprehension as his mouth lowered to hers and his whole body seemed to enclose her.

  He kissed her slowly and thoroughly, taking his time, savouring her lips with a pleasure that was visible. His tongue nuzzled her teeth and as her mouth opened to accommodate him he plunged immediately into the secret territory, fuelling her desire with a heady rush of sensation that made her gasp out loud.

  When he pulled her off the stool to stand in front of him she was powerless to resist, even when his hands slid beneath the folds of the robe to the warm silky flesh beneath. His fingers were possessively skilful as he brought her breasts to tingling life through the lace of her bra, and the sharp little needles of pleasure grew and grew in time with her pounding heartbeat.

  His thighs were hard against hers, the image of his sexuality stamped forcefully on her soft belly, and Kim could feel his heart slamming against his ribcage like a sledge-hammer as he allowed the kiss to deepen into an intimate assault on her senses that was almost like a consummation in itself.

  And then, slowly, she felt the embrace change, his hands continuing to stroke and pet her as they moved to the small of her back but with a control that restrained even as it pleasured.

  She raised dazed eyes to his and the silver gaze was waiting for her, his voice rough and not quite steady as he said, ‘Melody is upstairs,’ and then, when he could see she was still too bemused and disorientated to understand, ‘Another minute and I wouldn’t be able to stop. Okay? You do something to me, Kim. Something mind-blowing.’

  ‘Do I?’ she asked faintly, aware the towel had fallen as her hair tumbled free.

  She raised a trembling hand to push back the heavy fall of silk from her face as she spoke, and as she flung back the shining, thick curtain the robe fell fully open, revealing her slender, honey-tinted, rounded curves to Lucas’s hungry eyes.

  With a wordless exclamation Lucas pulled her to his chest again and kissed her hard on the lips, his mouth urgent and expressing the desire that still had Kim weak and shaky. ‘It’d be good between us—you know that, don’t you?’ he whispered huskily. ‘Say it, tell me you know it too.’

  Yes, it would be good,
incredible, but what about when it ended? Kim asked herself silently. How did one cope in the aftermath of a nuclear missile exploding everything that was safe and familiar to smithereens?

  She had never wanted this. She had never wanted to fall in love again. And then she froze, her face turning as white as a sheet as the truth she had been trying to fight for weeks refused to be ignored any longer. She loved Lucas. She loved him.

  ‘Kim?’ He had been watching her closely and his voice was terse. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing.’ All the desire and excitement his love-making had induced was gone and she felt as cold as ice.

  ‘You look like someone has just kicked you in the teeth so don’t tell me nothing,’ Lucas said as evenly as he could, struggling for calmness.

  ‘I said nothing is the matter, so nothing is the matter,’ she said numbly, struggling out of his arms with a strength that took him by surprise. ‘Just leave me alone, Lucas.’

  ‘Leave you alone?’ he said incredulously.

  ‘Yes.’ She was crying and screaming inside but her voice was actually cool, she thought amazedly. ‘I want you to leave, now.’

  ‘Oh, no—oh, no, sugar.’ There was a raw determination in his voice that was even stronger than the anger. ‘No way. We’ve come a long way since October and I’m sure as hell not going backwards. You talk to me.’

  ‘You can’t make me do anything.’ Her chin was sticking right out but the fear and defiance in her face was all at odds with what he was asking. Lucas stared at her, recognising that this opposition had its roots in something much more deep than their conversation that morning. And, for all her aggression, she looked about as old as Melody right at this moment.

  His anger collapsed. ‘No, you’re right,’ he said quietly, ‘but only because I don’t and wouldn’t operate like that. Brute force or any sort of blackmail is not my style, Kim. But nevertheless we are going to talk. And do you know why?’

  She stared at him, her eyes wide and enormous in the lint paleness of her face.

  ‘Because I love you,’ he said softly.

  ‘No!’ It brought a response but not the one he had hoped for. Lucas felt as though ice-cold water had been thrown at him but he didn’t betray it by the flicker of an eyelash.

  ‘Yes,’ he said coolly. ‘I’ve been around enough to know the real thing when it happens, Kim. And just for the record I’ve never said that to another woman, not even in the most…intimate times.’

  She jerked her head, her eyes wild as she went for the jugular in an effort to make him leave. ‘And there have been plenty of those,’ she flung at him tightly.

  ‘I’ve not been celibate,’ he agreed with silky smoothness, ‘but licentiousness has never held any appeal.’

  ‘I don’t want a relationship with you.’ She said it slowly, with a sharp little pause in between each word, and Lucas felt his anger mounting again at the sheer intractability in her face.

  ‘Then you’ll spell out why,’ he ground out equally slowly. ‘You owe me that at least and I’m not budging until we have that talk, Kim. Take Melody to school and then come back here. I mean it.’

  She had heard that particular note in his voice too many times over the last months to doubt it, normally when he was digging his heels in over a business situation that seemed impossible and which he was determined to change. But he couldn’t change her. Not now, not ever. But she would talk to him. Perhaps when he heard it all he would realise she was serious? And she was. Oh, she was, she told herself desperately. But how was she going to tell him about the humiliations, the awfulness of it all? But she’d have to; it was the only way.

  ‘All right.’ It was dull, lifeless, and took away any triumph Lucas might have felt.

  Melody was all skips and smiles and giggles when Kim came downstairs from getting dressed a little later, and once her daughter had said goodbye to Lucas—insisting on being lifted up into his arms so she could kiss his cheek—she gambolled out to the car like a spring lamb.

  The reason for her exuberance became apparent once they were on their way to school.

  ‘Is Lucas going to be my new daddy?’ Melody asked interestedly, almost causing Kim to swerve into the kerb.

  ‘What?’ Her voice was too shrill and she tried to moderate it a little as she said, ‘What do you mean, sweetheart? Of course not.’

  ‘Aw.’ Melody grimaced at her like a dissatisfied elf. ‘Susan has got a new daddy and so has Kerry, and Kerry’s daddy makes her breakfast. She told me. And he brings her presents sometimes.’

  The penny dropped. Kim took a long silent breath as she searched for the right words and then said carefully, ‘People often bring other people presents, chicken, just to be nice, especially grown-ups for children.’

  ‘And do people stay and cook breakfast too?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘I like Lucas.’ It was defiant and hopeful and bewildered all in one, and Kim’s heart went out to the small scrap of humanity at the side of her.

  ‘And he likes you too, darling,’ she assured Melody quickly.

  ‘But not enough to be my new daddy?’

  This child of her heart had a way of going straight for the kernel in the nut. Kim glanced at her helplessly. ‘There’s more to being a daddy than that,’ she managed softly. ‘Adult things, and very complicated. But Lucas likes you every bit as much as you like him, I promise you.’

  She could feel Melody gazing at her and prepared herself for what might come next, but in the mercurial way of children Melody suddenly tired of that avenue of thought and said instead, ‘I got all my letters right yesterday, Mummy. Even the hard ones.’

  ‘Well done, darling.’

  ‘Kerry didn’t. And she can’t hop, either.’

  So a new daddy didn’t provide the answer to everything. Kim’s hand reached out and squeezed one of Melody’s for a moment. They would get through this. Somehow.

  On the way back to the house Kim found she was shaking, and she stopped the car in a quiet lay-by for a few minutes to give herself the chance to calm down and prepare for what lay ahead.

  Somehow, and she still wasn’t quite sure how or when the situation had escalated so alarmingly, she was going to have to convince Lucas she wasn’t in the market for an affair, albeit a potentially serious one from his comment about loving her. Did he? Did he love her? Kim considered the possibility with tightly shut eyes, her hands resting limply on the steering wheel.

  How could you want something and yet fear it so much it made you nauseous at the same time? she asked herself silently, dragging in the air through lips that trembled.

  Love meant disappointment and betrayal and bitter hurt. She knew that; she knew it. It meant a transference of power from one person to another with terrifying consequences. It meant subjugation and a bondage that was worse than anything in the physical realm because it involved the heart, the emotions, the very essence of who you were.

  She couldn’t really remember her parents beyond a deep male voice mixed with the faint odour of cigar smoke, and the feel of her mother’s softness enveloping her in a warm, secure, satisfying embrace in the middle of the night when—presumably—she had woken from some bad dream or other. But she could remember her Aunt Mabel. Remember the promises that she was safe now, that everything would be all right, that she would be loved and looked after like Mummy and Daddy would have wanted.

  And then her aunt had gone, and she had found herself in an alien environment. She had cried and screamed, she could recall that as though it were yesterday, and someone—a trained child counsellor, probably—had explained everything to her.

  It hadn’t been until much later that she had realised her Aunt Mabel, who for two years had been her security and base, hadn’t made any provision for her. Had left her at the mercy of those relatives who had descended like vultures on her aunt’s estate.

  Kim opened her eyes wide and stared straight ahead. And then there had been Graham… Her face set in rigid control and
she turned the ignition key with a sharp movement of her hand.

  Lucas was waiting for her when she drew up outside the cottage. He looked tough, remote, but she now knew that remoteness of his was a devastating weapon which he used with expert finesse, lulling one into a false security that was deadly.

  ‘The coffee’s ready.’ His voice was gentle—deliberately so, Kim warned herself silently.

  ‘Lucas, this is pointless, us talking like this,’ Kim nerved herself to say quickly.

  ‘I disagree.’ He smiled blandly.

  Kim tried a different approach. ‘The Marsden contract is hanging on a thread,’ she reminded him evenly. ‘You were supposed to call Miles Marsden at nine this morning.’

  Lucas suggested somewhere that Miles Marsden could go before narrowing his eyes and staring at her fixedly. She stared back for a moment before the silver gaze became unbearable.

  ‘Coffee,’ he reaffirmed smoothly, his voice firm but expressionless. ‘I’ve got used to my daily quota and I can’t do without it, or perhaps I should say I don’t intend to do without it.’

  They weren’t talking about coffee. Kim walked past him into the hall as he waved her over the threshold of the house, and again she had the feeling that she was the guest and Lucas the host. It rankled but she welcomed the shot of adrenalin; she would take any Dutch courage she could get to see her through the next little while.

  Kim continued through to the kitchen and she saw immediately that Lucas had restored the place to its usual gleaming brightness. The only hint of their earlier breakfast was the faint smell of bacon.

  ‘You shouldn’t have cleared up,’ she said stiffly. ‘There was no need.’

  He ignored the comment as though she hadn’t spoken, following her into the limited space and leaning against the wall, his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets and his eyes broodingly intent.

  He had shaved whilst she’d been gone. Kim found her gaze drawn to the hard square jaw and her heart gave a little kick. And showered too by the look of his still-damp hair.

  Kim found she was moving jerkily as she poured the two cups of coffee; the liquid steel gaze was far too intense to be comfortable. She swallowed hard as she handed Lucas his coffee, keeping her gaze fixed on a spot over his left shoulder.