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‘I’ve already stated you will be staying as my guest.’
‘And I’ve refused the offer! Sorry.’ She grimaced at her sharpness. ‘It’s very kind of you, Lucien, but no. Thank you,’ she added less caustically. ‘As I said, I pay my own way.’
He looked at her through narrowed lids. ‘How old are you?’
‘Why do you want to know?’ She looked puzzled by the question.
‘Humour me.’
She shrugged. ‘I’m twenty-three—nearly twenty-four.’
‘And your parents aren’t helping you through university?’
‘I’m sure they would have if they were still alive.’ She smiled sadly. ‘They were both killed in a car crash when I was seventeen, almost eighteen,’ she explained at his questioning look. ‘I’ve been on my own ever since,’ she dismissed lightly.
The lightness didn’t fool Lucien for a single moment; his own parents had divorced when he was sixteen, so he knew exactly how it felt, how gut-wrenching it was to have the foundations of your life ripped apart at such a sensitive age. And Cyn’s loss had been so much more severe than his own. At least his parents were both still alive, even if they were now married to other people.
The things Cyn had told him went a long way to explaining the reason for her earlier smile, though; Lucien had more money than he knew what to do with and Cyn obviously had none at all.
‘I can relate to that,’ he murmured huskily.
‘Sorry?’
‘My own parents parted and divorced when I was sixteen. Obviously it isn’t quite the same, but the result was just as devastating,’ he bit out harshly.
‘Is that why you’re so driven?’
‘Maybe.’ Lucien scowled; he really had talked far too much about his personal life to this woman.
‘It was tough for me, after the accident, but I’ve managed okay,’ she added brightly. ‘Obviously not as okay as you, but even so... I worked for a couple of years to get my basic tuition fees together, so now I just work to pay the bills.’
He frowned. ‘There was no money after your parents died?’
Cyn smiled as she shook her head. ‘Not a lot, no. We lived in rented accommodation that was far too big for me once I was on my own,’ she dismissed without rancour. ‘I’ve almost finished my course now, anyway,’ she added briskly. ‘And then I can get myself a real job.’
It all sounded like another world to Lucien. ‘As what?’
She shrugged her bare shoulders. ‘My degree will be in English Literature, so maybe something in teaching or publishing.’
He frowned. ‘It so happens that one of those other Steele Something-or-Others is Steele Publishing, with offices in New York, London and Sydney.’
She smiled ruefully. ‘I haven’t finished my degree yet. Nor would I aim so high as a job at Steele Publishing once I have,’ she added with a frown.
Lucien found himself questioning the sincerity of her refusal. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman had downplayed the importance of his wealth in order to try and trap him into a relationship.
* * *
Thia had no idea why she had confided in Lucien Steele, of all people, about her parents’ death and her financial struggles since then. Maybe as a response to his admission of his own parents’ divorce?
She did know as she watched the expressions flitting across his for once readable face, noting impatience quickly followed by wariness, that he had obviously drawn his own conclusions—completely wrong ones!—about her reason for having done so!
She turned to look out of the window beside her, stung in spite of herself. ‘Just ask your driver to drop me off anywhere here,’ she instructed stiffly. ‘There are a couple of cheap hotels nearby.’
‘I have no intention of dropping you off anywhere!’ Lucien Steele rasped. ‘This is New York, Cyn,’ he added as she turned to protest. ‘You can’t just walk about the streets at night alone. Especially dressed like that.’
Thia felt the blush in her cheeks as she looked down at her revealing evening gown, acknowledging he was right. She would be leaving herself open to all sorts of trouble if she got out of the car looking like this. ‘Then you suggest somewhere,’ she prompted awkwardly.
‘We’ll be at Steele Heights in a couple of minutes, at which time I suggest you put aside any idea of false pride—’
‘There’s nothing false about my pride!’ Thia turned on him indignantly. ‘It’s been hard-won, I can assure you.’
‘It is false pride when you’re endangering yourself because of it,’ he insisted harshly. ‘Now, stop being so damned stubborn and just accept the help being offered to you.’
‘No.’
‘Don’t make me force you, Cyn.’
‘I’d like to see you try!’ She could feel the heat of her anger in her cheeks.
‘Would you?’ he challenged softly. ‘Is that what all this is about, Cyn? Do you enjoy it...get off on it...when a man bends you to his will, as Miller did earlier?’
‘How dare you—?’
‘Cyn—’
‘My name is Thia, damn it!’ Her eyes glittered hotly even as she grappled with the door handle beside her, only to find it was locked.
‘Tell Paul to stop the car and unlock this damned door. Now,’ she instructed through gritted teeth.
‘There’s no need for—’
‘Now, Lucien!’ Thia breathed deeply in her fury, not sure she had ever been this angry in her life before.
He sighed deeply. ‘Aren’t you being a little melodramatic?’
‘I’m being a lot melodramatic,’ she correctly hotly. ‘But then you were a lot insulting. I don’t— Ah, Paul.’ She had at last managed to find what she sincerely hoped was the button for the intercom.
‘Miss Hammond...?’ the driver answered uncertainly.
‘I would like you to stop the car right now, Paul, and unlock the back doors, please,’ she requested tightly.
There was a brief pause before he responded. ‘Mr Steele...?’
Thia looked across at Lucien challengingly, daring him to contradict her request. She was so furious with him and his insulting arrogance she was likely to resort to hitting him if he even attempted to do so.
He looked at her for several more minutes before answering his driver. ‘Stop the car as soon as it’s convenient, Paul. Miss Hammond has decided to leave us here,’ he added, and he turned to look out of the window beside him uninterestedly.
As if she were a petulant child, Thia acknowledged. As if he hadn’t just insulted her, accused her of—of— She didn’t even want to think about what he had accused her of!
She kept her face turned away from him for the short time it took Paul to find a place to safely park the limousine, her anger turning into heated tears. Tears she had no intention of allowing the cynical and insulting Lucien Steele the satisfaction of seeing fall.
‘Thank you,’ she muttered stiffly, once the car was parked and Paul had got out to open the door beside her. She kept her face averted as she stepped out onto the pavement before walking away, head held high, without so much as a backward glance.
‘Mr Steele...?’ Dex prompted beside him uncertainly.
Lucien had uncurled himself from the back of the car to stand on the pavement, his expression grim as he watched Cynthia Hammond stride determinedly along the crowded street in her revealing evening gown, seemingly unaware—or simply uncaring?—of the leering looks being directed at her by the majority of the men and the disapproving ones by the women.
‘Go,’ Lucien instructed the other man tightly; if Cyn—Thia—had so little concern for her own safety then someone else would have to have it for her.
CHAPTER FOUR
A REALLY UNPLEASANT thing about waking up in a strange hotel room was the initial feeling of panic caused by not knowing exactly where you were. Even more unpleasant was noticing that the less-than-salubrious room still smelt of the previous occupant’s body odour and cigarette smoke.
But the worst thing—the very worst thing—was returning to that disgusting-smelling hotel bedroom after taking a lukewarm shower in the adjoining uncleaned bathroom and realising that you had no clothes to leave in other than the ankle-length blue evening gown you had worn the night before, along with a pair of minuscule blue panties and four-inch-heeled take-me-to-bed shoes.
All of which became all too apparent to Thia within minutes of her waking up in that awful hotel bedroom and taking that shower!
She had been too angry and upset the evening before—too furious with the arrogantly insulting Lucien Steele—to notice how faded and worn the furniture and décor in this hotel room was, how threadbare and discoloured the towel wrapped about her naked body, let alone the view outside the grimy window of a rusted fire escape and a brick wall.
Thia had been sensible enough the night before, after the lone night porter on duty had openly leered at her when she’d booked in, to at least lock and secure the chain on the flimsy door, plus push a chair under and against the door handle, before crawling between the cold sheets and thin blankets on the bed.
Not that it had helped her to fall asleep—she’d still been too angry at the things Lucien Steele had said to be able to relax enough to sleep.
She dropped down heavily onto the bed now and surveyed what that anger had brought her to. A seedy hotel and a horrible-smelling room that was probably usually let by the hour rather than all night. God, no wonder the night porter had leered at her; he had probably thought she was a hooker, waiting for her next paying customer to arrive.
At the moment she felt like a hooker waiting for her next paying customer to arrive!
How was she even going to get out of this awful hotel when she didn’t even have any suitable clothes to wear?
Thia tensed sharply as a knock sounded on the flimsy door, turning to eye it warily. ‘Yes...?’
‘Miss Hammond?’
She rose slowly, cautiously, to her feet. ‘Dex, is that you...?’ she prompted disbelievingly.
‘Yes, Miss Hammond.’
How on earth had Lucien Steele’s bodyguard even known where to find her...? More to the point, why had he bothered to find her?
At that moment Thia didn’t care how or why Dex was here. She was just relieved to know he was standing outside in the hallway. She hurried across the room to remove the chair from under the door handle, slide the safety chain across, before unlocking the door itself and flinging it open.
‘Oh, thank God, Dex!’ She launched herself into his arms as she allowed the tears to fall hotly down her cheeks.
‘Er—Miss Hammond...?’ he prompted several minutes later, when her tears showed no signs of stopping. His discomfort was obvious in his hesitant tone and the stiffness of his body as he patted her back awkwardly.
Well, of course Dex was uncomfortable, Thia acknowledged as she drew herself up straight before backing off self-consciously. What man wouldn’t be uncomfortable when a deranged woman launched herself into his arms and started crying? Moreover a deranged woman wearing only a threadbare bathtowel that was barely wide enough to cover her naked breasts and backside!
‘I’m so sorry for crying all over you, Dex,’ she choked, on the edge of hysterical laughter now, as she started to see the humour of the situation rather than only the embarrassment. ‘I was just so relieved to see a familiar face!’
‘You—do you think we might go into your room for a moment?’ Dex shifted uncomfortably as a man emerged from a room further down the hallway, eyeing Thia’s nakedness suggestively as he lingered over locking his door.
‘Of course.’ Thia felt the blush in her cheeks as she stepped back into the room. ‘I—is that my suitcase...?’ She looked down at the lime-green suitcase Dex had brought in with him; it was so distinctive in its ugliness that she was sure it must be the same one she had picked up for next to nothing in a sale before coming to New York. The same suitcase that she had intended collecting, along with her clothes, from Jonathan’s apartment later this morning... ‘How did you get it?’ She looked at Dex suspiciously.
He returned that gaze unblinkingly. ‘Mr Steele obtained it from Mr Miller’s apartment this morning.’
‘Mr Steele did...?’ Thia repeated stupidly. ‘Earlier this morning? But it’s only eight-thirty now...’
Dex nodded abruptly. ‘It was an early appointment.’
She doubted that Jonathan would have appreciated that, considering he hadn’t emerged from his bedroom before twelve o’clock on a single morning since her arrival in New York. ‘And Lu—Mr Steele just asked him for my things and Jonathan handed them over?’
Dex’s mouth thinned. ‘Yes.’
Thia looked at him closely. ‘It wasn’t quite as simple as that, was it?’ she guessed heavily.
He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘I believe there may have been a...a certain reluctance on Mr Miller’s part to co-operate.’
Thia would just bet there had. Jonathan had been so angry with her yesterday evening that she had been expecting him to refuse to hand over her things when she went to his apartment for them later. An unpleasant confrontation that Lucien Steele had circumvented for her by making that visit himself. She could almost feel sorry for Jonathan as she imagined how that particular meeting would have panned out. Almost. She was still too disgusted with Jonathan’s unpleasant behaviour the previous evening to be able to rouse too much sympathy for him.
But she was surprised at Lucien Steele having bothered himself to go to Jonathan’s apartment himself to collect her things; Lucien had let her leave easily enough last night, and he didn’t give the impression he was a man who would inconvenience himself by chasing after a woman who had walked away from him as Thia had.
She drew a shaky breath. ‘No one was hurt, I hope?’
‘I wasn’t there, so I wouldn’t know,’ Dex dismissed evenly.
‘I had the impression you accompanied Mr Steele everywhere?’ Thia frowned her puzzlement.
‘Normally I do.’ His mouth flattened. ‘I spent last night standing guard in the hallway outside this room, Miss Hammond.’ He answered her question before she had even asked it.
Thia took a step back in surprise, only to have to clutch at the front of the meagre towel in order to stop it from falling off completely. Her cheeks blushed a furious red as she tried to hold on to her modesty as well as her dignity. ‘I—I had no idea you were out there...’ Maybe if she had she wouldn’t have spent half the night terrified that someone—that dodgy night porter, for one!—might try to force the flimsy lock on the door and break in.
A suitable punishment, Lucien Steele would no doubt believe, for the way in which she had walked away from him last night! Because there was no way that Dex had spent the night guarding the door to her hotel room without the full knowledge, and instruction of his arrogant employer...
‘I doubt you would have been too happy about it if you had.’ Dex bared his teeth in a knowing smile before reaching into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulling out an expensive-looking cream vellum envelope with her name scrawled boldly across the front of it. ‘Mr Steele had Paul deliver your suitcase here a short time ago, along with this.’
Thia stared at the envelope as if it were a snake about to bite her, knowing that it had to be Lucien Steele’s own bold handwriting on the front of it and dreading reading what he had written inside.
At the same time she felt a warmth, a feeling of being protected, just knowing that Lucien had cared enough to ensure her safety last night in spite of herself...
* * *
‘A Miss Hammond is downstairs in Reception, asking to see you, Mr Steele. She doesn’t have an appointment, of course,’ Ben, his PA, continued lightly, ‘but she seems quite determined. I wasn’t quite sure what I should do about her.’
Lucien looked up to scowl his displeasure at Ben as he stood enquiringly on the other side of the glass-topped desk that dominated this spacious thirtieth-floor office. Lucien wasn’t sure himself what to do about Cynthia Hammond.
She was so damned stubborn, as well as ridiculously proud, that Lucien hadn’t even been able to guess what her reaction might be to his having had her things delivered to her at that disgustingly downbeat hotel in which she had chosen to stay the night rather than accept his offer of a room at Steele Heights. He certainly hadn’t expected that she would actually pay him a visit at his office in Steele Tower.
And he should have done—Cynthia Hammond was nothing if not predictably unpredictable. ‘How determined is she, Ben?’ He sighed wearily, already far too familiar with Cyn’s stubbornness.
‘Very.’ His PA’s mouth twitched, as if he were holding back a smile.
The wisest thing to do—the safest thing to do for Lucien’s own peace of mind, which would be best served by never seeing the beautiful Cynthia Hammond again—would be to instruct Security to show her the door...as if she didn’t already know exactly where it was! But if Cyn was determined enough to see him, then Lucien didn’t doubt that she’d just sit there and wait until it was time for him to leave at the end of the day.
He pulled back the cuff on his shirt and glanced at the plain gold watch on his wrist. ‘I don’t leave for my next appointment for ten minutes, right?’
‘Correct, Mr Steele.’
He nodded abruptly. ‘Have Security show her up.’
Lucien leant back in his high-backed white leather chair as Ben left the office, knowing this was probably a mistake. He already knew, on just their few minutes’ acquaintance the evening before, that Cynthia Hammond was trouble.
Enough to have caused him a night full of dreams of caressing that pearly skin, of making love to her in every position possible—so much so that he had woken this morning with an arousal that had refused to go down until he’d stood under the spray of an ice-cold shower!
He had even had Paul drive by the hotel where he knew she had spent the night on his way to visit Jonathan Miller’s apartment this morning. The neighbourhood was bad enough—full of drug addicts and hookers—but the hotel itself was beyond description, and fully explained Dex’s concern when he had telephoned Lucien the night before to tell him exactly which hotel Cyn had checked into and to ask what he should do about it. What the hell had possessed her to stay in such a disreputable hovel?
Money. Lucien answered his own question. He knew from his conversation earlier that morning with Jonathan Miller that Cyn really was exactly what she had said she was: a student working as a waitress to put herself through university, and just over here for a week’s visit.
Her finances were not Lucien’s problem, of course, but he had been infuriated all over again just looking at the outside of that disgusting hotel earlier, imagining that vulnerable loveliness protected only by the flimsy door Dex had described to him. Dex had been so worried about the situation Lucien believed the other man would have decided to stand guard over her for the night whether Lucien had instructed him to do so or not!
Just another example of the trouble Cynthia Hammond caused with her—
‘Wow! This is a beautiful building, Lucien! And this office is just incredible!’
Lucien also gave a wow, but inwardly, as he glanced across the room to where Cynthia Hammond had just breezily entered his office. A Cynthia Hammond whose black hair was once again a straight curtain swaying silkily to just below her shoulders. The beautiful delicacy of her face appeared free of make-up apart from a coral-coloured lipgloss and the glow of those electric blue eyes. She was dressed in a violent pink cropped sleeveless top that left her shoulders and arms bare and revealed at least six inches of her bare and slender midriff—as well as the fact that she wore no bra beneath it. And below that bare midriff was the tightest pair of skinny low-rider blue denims Lucien had ever seen in his life. So tight that he wondered whether Cyn wore any underwear beneath...
And that was just the front view. Ben’s admiring glance, as he lingered in the doorway long enough to watch Cyn stroll across the spacious office, was evidence that the back view was just as sexily enticing!
Cyn did casual elegance well—so much so that Lucien felt decidedly overdressed in his perfectly tailored black suit, navy blue silk shirt and black silk tie. ‘Don’t you have some work to do, Ben?’ he prompted harshly as he stood up—and then sat down again as he realised his arousal had sprung back to instant and eager attention. The benefits of his icy cold shower earlier this morning obviously had no effect when once again faced with the enticing Cynthia Hammond.
Trouble with a capital T!
‘Thanks, Ben.’ Thia turned to smile at the PA before he closed the door on his way out, then returned her gaze to the impressive office rather than the man seated behind the desk, putting off the moment when she would have to face the disturbing Lucien Steele. Just a brief glance in his direction as she had entered the cavernous office had been enough for her to feel as if all the air had been sucked from her lungs, and her nerve-endings were all tingling on high alert.
This black and chrome office was not only beautiful, it was huge. Carpeted completely in black, it had an area set aside for two white leather sofas and a bar serving coffee as well as alcohol, and another area with a glass and marble conference table, as well as Lucien Steele’s own huge desk, bookshelves lining the wall behind him, and an outer wall completely in glass, giving a panoramic view of the New York skyline.
It really was the biggest office Thia had ever seen, but even so her gaze was drawn as if by a magnet inevitably back to the man seated behind the chrome and black marble desk. The office was easily big enough to accommodate half a dozen executive offices, and yet somehow—by sheer force of will, Thia suspected—Lucien Steele still managed to dominate, to possess, all the space around him.
As he did Thia?
Maybe she should have power-dressed for this meeting rather than deciding to go casual? She did have one slim black skirt and a white blouse with her—they would certainly have blended in with the stark black, white and chrome décor of his office. Much more so than her shockingly pink cropped top.
Oh, well, it was too late to worry about that now. She would have to work with what she had.
‘Say what you have to say, Cyn, and then go,’ Lucien Steele bit out coldly. ‘I have to leave for another appointment in five minutes.’
Her breath caught in her throat as she looked at Lucien. A Lucien who was just as knee-tremblingly gorgeous this morning as the previous night. Thia had convinced herself during her restless night of half-sleep that no one could possibly be that magnetically handsome, that she must have drunk too much of the Carews’ champagne and imagined all that leashed sexual power.
She had been wrong. Lucien Steele was even more overpoweringly attractive in the clear light of day, with the sun shining in through the floor-to-ceiling windows turning his hair that amazing blue-black, his bronzed face dominated by those silver eyes, and his features so hard and chiselled an artist would weep over his male beauty. And as for the width of those muscled shoulders—!
Time for her to stop drooling! ‘Nice to see that you’re still living up to my previous description of you as being arrogant and rude,’ she greeted with saccharine sweetness.
He continued to look at her coldly with those steel-grey eyes. ‘I doubt you want to hear my opinion of you after the stunt you pulled last night.’
She felt the colour warm her cheeks and knew he had to be referring to the hotel in which she had spent the night, which Dex would no doubt have described to his employer in graphic detail. ‘I didn’t have the funds to stay anywhere else.’
‘You wouldn’t have needed any funds if you had just accepted the room I offered you at Steele Towers,’ Lucien reminded her harshly.
‘Accepting the room you offered me at Steele Towers would have put me under obligation to you,’ she came back, just as forcefully.
Lucien stilled, eyes narrowing to steely slits. ‘Are you telling me,’ he asked softly, ‘that the reason you refused my offer last night was because you believed I would expect to share that bedroom with you for the night as payment?’