Tycoon's Forbidden Cinderella

‘I have, but then, I don’t call my father Dad, either.’

‘Because he prefers you not to?’

‘Because I prefer not to.’

She considered him for a long moment, her chocolate-brown gaze slightly puzzled. ‘If you’re not close to him then why do you care if he remarries my mother or not?’

Good question. ‘He’s not much of a father but he’s the only one I’ve got,’ Lucien said. ‘And I can’t bear to see him go through another financially crippling divorce.’

Resentment shone in her gaze. ‘Are you implying my mother asked for more than she deserved?’

‘I’m now his accountant as well as his son,’ Lucien said. ‘Another divorce would ruin him. I’ve been propping him up financially for years. It won’t just be his money he’ll be losing—it will be mine.’

Her eyebrows rose as if the notion of his generosity towards his father surprised her. ‘Oh... I didn’t realise.’ She chewed at her lip a couple of times. ‘In spite of my mother’s success as a soap star, she never seems to have enough money for bills. She blames her manager and he blames her.’

‘Do you help her out?’

‘No...not often.’

‘How often?’

Her left eye twitched and then she suddenly cocked her head like a little bird. ‘Listen. The storm’s stopped.’

Lucien pulled back the lace curtain and checked the weather. The storm had moved further down the valley and the rain had all but ceased. ‘I’ll go and check out the damage. Wait here.’

‘Stop ordering me about like I’m a child.’ Her voice had a sharp edge that reminded him of a Sunday School teacher he’d had once. ‘I’m coming with you. After all, it’s my car.’

‘Yeah, well, let’s hope it’s still a car and not a mangled piece of useless metal.’

* * *

Audrey looked at the mangled piece of useless metal that used to be her car. There was no way she would be driving anywhere in that anytime soon, if ever. Half the tree had come down on top of it and crushed it like a piece of paper. At least her insurance was up to date...or was it? Her chest seized in panic. Had she paid the bill or left it until she sorted out her mother’s more pressing final notice bills?

Lucien whistled through his teeth, his gaze trained on the wreckage. ‘Just as well you weren’t sitting in there when that limb came down.’ He glanced at her. ‘Is your insurance up to date?’

Audrey disguised a swallow. ‘Yes...’

His gaze narrowed. ‘Your left eye is twitching again.’

She blinked. ‘No, it’s not.’

He came up close and brushed a fingertip below her eye. ‘There. You did it again.’

‘That’s because you’re touching me.’

His finger moved down the slope of her cheek to settle beneath her chin, elevating it so her gaze had to meet his. ‘There was a time—two times—when you begged me to touch you.’

Audrey’s cheeks felt hot enough to dry up all the puddles on the ground. ‘I’m not begging you to touch me now.’

His eyes searched between each of hers in a back and forth motion that made her heart pick up its pace. ‘Are you not?’ His voice was low and deep and caused a shiver to ripple down her spine like a ribbon running away from its spool.

His eyes were so dark a blue she could barely make out the inkblot of his pupils. She could feel his body heat emanating from his fingertip beneath her chin right throughout her body as if he were transferring sexual energy from his body to hers. Pulses of lust contracted deep in her female flesh, making her aware of her body in a way she had never felt before. She moistened her mouth, not because her lips were dry but because they were tingling as if they could already feel the hot press of his mouth.

The need to feel his mouth on hers was so intense it was like an ache spreading to every cell of her body. She could feel a distant throbbing between her legs as if that part of her was waking up from a long slumber, like Sleeping Beauty.

Lucien watched the pathway of her tongue with his midnight-blue gaze and she could sense the battle going on inside him even though he had dropped his hand from her face. The tense jaw, the up and down movement of his Adam’s apple, the opening and closing of his hands as if he didn’t trust them to reach for her again.

Was he thinking about kissing her? Maybe she hadn’t been mistaken at their parents’ last wedding. Maybe he’d been tempted then but had stopped himself. It was a shock to know he wanted her. A thrilling shock. Six years ago he hadn’t. Three years ago he had but he’d tried to disguise it.

Would he act on it this time?

‘Were you thinking about kissing me?’ The words were out of her mouth before she could think it was wise or not to say them, her voice husky as if she had been snacking on emery boards.

His gaze became shuttered, his body so still, so composed, as if the slightest movement would sabotage his self-control. ‘You’re mistaken.’

And you’re lying. Audrey relished the feminine power she was feeling. Power she had never experienced in her entire adult life. When had anyone ever wanted to kiss her? Never, that was when.

But Lucien did.

His jaw worked as if he was giving his resolve a firm talking-to and his eyes were almost fixedly trained on hers as if he was worried if they would disobey orders and glance at her mouth again.

‘I bet if I put my lips to yours right now you wouldn’t be able to help yourself.’ Argh. Why did you say that? One part of Audrey mentally cringed but another part was secretly impressed. Impressed she had the confidence to stand up to him. To challenge him. To flirt with him.

His eyes became hard as if he was steeling himself from the inside out. ‘Try it. I dare you.’

A trickle of something hot and liquid spilled over in her belly. His gravelly delivered dare made the blood rush through her veins and set her heart to pounding as if she had run up a flight of stairs carrying a set of dumb-bells. Two sets. And a weight bench. Before she could stop the impulse, she lifted her hand to his face and outlined his firm mouth with her index finger, the rasp of his stubble catching against her skin like silk on tiny thorns. Even the scratchy sound of it was spine-tinglingly sexy. He held himself as still as a marble statue but she could still sense the war going on in his body as if every drop of his blood was thundering through his veins like rocket fuel. His nostrils flared like a stallion taking in the scent of a potential mate, his eyes still glittering with resolve, but there was something else lurking in the dark blue density of his gaze.

The same something she could feel thrumming deep in her core like an echo: desire.

But Audrey wasn’t going to betray herself by kissing him. He had rejected her twice already. She wasn’t signing up for a third. And if the gossip surrounding Lucien and Viviana was true, she was not the type of woman to kiss another woman’s lover. She didn’t want him to think she was so desperate for his attention she couldn’t control herself. With or without champagne. She lowered her hand from his face and gave him an on-off smile. ‘Lucky for you, I don’t respond to dares.’

If he was relieved or disappointed he didn’t show it. ‘We’re wasting valuable time.’ He turned and strode back to the cottage and took out his phone. ‘Call your mother while I call my father. They might have switched their phones back on.’

Audrey let out a sigh and followed him into the cottage. She’d tried calling her mother’s phone fifty-three times already. Even under normal circumstances, her mother would only pick up if she wanted to talk to Audrey and even then the conversation would be Sibella-centred and not anything that could be loosely called a mutual exchange. She couldn’t remember the time she had last talked to her mother. Really talked. Maybe when she was four years old? Her mother wasn’t the type to listen to others. Sibella was used to people fawning over her and waiting with bated breath for her to talk to them about her acting career and colourful love life.

Audrey should be so lucky to have a love life...even a black and white one would do.

* * *

Lucien left a curt message on his father’s answering service—one of many he’d left in the last twenty-four hours—and put away his phone. He had to get back on the road and away from the temptation of Audrey Merrington. Being anywhere near her was like being on a forty-day fast and suddenly coming across a sumptuous feast. He had damn near kissed her down by her wrecked car. Everything that was male in him ached to haul her into his arms and plunder her soft mouth with his. How easy would it have been to crush his mouth to hers? How easy would it have been to draw those sweet and sexy curves of hers even closer?

Too easy.

Scarily easy.

So easy he had to get a grip because he shouldn’t be having such X-rated thoughts around Audrey. He shouldn’t be looking at her mouth or her curves or any beautiful part of her. He shouldn’t be thinking about making love to her just because she threw herself into his arms over that wretched spider. When she had launched herself at him like that, a rush of desire charged through him like high-voltage electricity. Just as it had at their parents’ last wedding. Her curves-in-all-the-right-places body had thrown his senses into a tailspin like a hormone-driven teenager. He could still smell her sweet pea and spring lilac perfume on the front of his shirt where she’d pressed herself against him. He could still feel the softness of her breasts and the tempting cradle of her pelvis.

He could still feel the rapacious need marching through his body. Damn it.

He would have to stop wanting her. He would have to send his resolve to boot camp so it could withstand more of her cheeky ‘Were you thinking about kissing me?’ comments. He wasn’t just thinking about kissing her. He was dreaming of it, fantasising about it, longing for it. But he had a feeling one kiss of her delectable mouth would be like trying to eat only one French fry. Not possible.

But he could hardly leave her here at the cottage without a car. He would have to take her with him. What else could he do? When he’d first seen her at the cottage he’d decided the best plan was for them to drive in two cars so they could tag-team it until they tracked down their respective parents. He hadn’t planned a cosy little one-on-one road trip with her. That would be asking for the sort of trouble he could do without.

Audrey came back into the sitting room from the kitchen and put her phone on the coffee table in front of the sofa with a defeated-sounding sigh. ‘No answer. Maybe they’re on a flight somewhere.’

He dragged a hand down his face so hard he wondered if his eyebrows and eyelashes would slough off. Could this nightmare get any worse? ‘This seemed the most obvious place they’d come to. They used to sneak down here together a lot during their first marriage. My father raved about it—how quaint and quiet it was.’

She perched on the arm of the sofa, a small frown settling between her brows, the fingers of her right hand plucking at the fabric of her dress as if it was helping her to mull over something. ‘I know, that’s why I came here first. But maybe they wanted us to come here.’

‘You mean, like giving us a false lead or something?’

She gave him an unreadable look and stopped fiddling with her dress and crossed her arms over her middle. ‘Or something.’

‘What ‘‘or something’’?’ A faint prickle crawled over his scalp. ‘You mean, they wanted us both to come here? But why?’

She gave a lip shrug. ‘My mother finds it amusing that you and I hate each other so much.’

Lucien frowned. ‘I don’t hate you.’

She lifted her neat brows like twin question marks. ‘Don’t you?’

‘No.’ He hated the way she made him feel. Hated the way his body had a wicked mind of its own when she was around. Hated how he couldn’t stop thinking about kissing her and touching her and seeing if her body was as delectable as it looked under the conservative clothes she always seemed to wear.

But he wasn’t a man driven by his hormones. That was his father’s way of doing things. Lucien had will power and discipline and he was determined to use them. He would not be reduced to base animal desires just because a pretty, curvy woman got under his skin.

And Audrey Merrington was so far under his skin he could feel his organs shifting inside to make room.

‘Good to know, since we’re going to be related again,’ she said with a deadpan expression.

‘Not if I can help it.’ Lucien was not going to rest until he’d prevented this third disastrous marriage. His father had almost drunk himself into oblivion the last time. There was no way he was going to stand by and watch that happen again. He was sick of picking up the pieces. Sick of trying to put his father back together again like a puzzle with most of the bits damaged or missing.

He picked up his keys. ‘Come on. We’d best get on the road before nightfall. I’ll organise someone to collect your car when we get back to London.’

She stood up from the arm of the sofa so quickly her feet thudded against the floor like punctuation marks. ‘But I don’t want to go with—’

‘Will you damn well just do what you’re told?’ Lucien was having trouble controlling his panic at how much time they were wasting. His father could be halfway through his honeymoon at this rate. Not to mention his bank balance. ‘You don’t have a car, so therefore you come with me. Understood?’

She pursed her lips for a moment as if deciding whether or not to defy him. But then she stalked over to where she had left her overnight bag and her tote, and, picking them up, threw him a mutinous look that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the deck of The Bounty. ‘You can take me back to my flat in London. I’m not going anywhere else with you.’

‘Fine.’ He opened the front door of the cottage so she could walk out ahead of him. ‘Go and sit in the car while I lock up.’

* * *

Audrey went to his car, sat inside and pulled the seat belt into place with a savage click. Why did he have to be so cavemanish about getting her to go with him? She could have had a hire car delivered or got a friend to collect her. Even a taxi would be worth the expense rather than suffering a couple of hours in Lucien’s disturbing and far too tempting company. The last thing she wanted to do was to make a fool of herself again. She wasn’t eighteen now. She wasn’t twenty-one. She was twenty-five and mature enough—she hoped—to put this silly crush to bed once and for all.

Okay, so that wasn’t the best choice of words.

She would nix her crush on Lucien. It was just a physical thing. It wasn’t a cerebral or emotional thing. It was lust. Good old-fashioned lust and it would burn out sooner or later as long as she didn’t feed it. Which meant absolutely no fantasising about his mouth. She wouldn’t even look at it. She wouldn’t daydream about it coming down on hers and his tongue gliding through the seam of her lips and—

Audrey pinched herself on the arm like someone flicking an elastic band around their wrist to stop themselves from smoking. This was like any other addiction and she had to stop it. She had to stop it right now. She would be strong. She would conquer this.

Besides, according to Rosie and her gossip magazine source, Lucien was in a committed relationship. It was weird how edgy it made her feel to think of him in a long-term relationship. Why should she care if he was practically engaged? Was he in love with Viviana Prestonward? Funny, but Audrey couldn’t imagine him falling in love. He was nowhere near the playboy his father was between marriages, but neither was he a plaster saint. He dated women for a month or two and then moved on.

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