The Mistress Deal

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She looked down at herself, laughter flickering across her features. She was wearing her oldest leggings and a T-shirt embellished with several holes from her welding torch; her hair was pulled back into an untidy bundle on her neck. “You mean you won’t take me to the cocktail party like this? Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“I’m starting to wonder,” Reece said with a note in his voice that brought her head up fast.

The words came from nowhere. “Don’t you go seeing me as a challenge, either,” she said.

“I’m beginning to think Wallace Harvarson has a lot more to answer for than a mere five hundred thousand dollars,” he said tightly. “Go get ready, Lauren. Pin your hair up. Pile on the red nail polish. But for Pete’s sake, hurry.”

She started to laugh. “It’ll take more than a few pins to make me presentable,” she said, and stood up, moving away from the table and stretching her muscles with unselfconscious grace.

The answering laughter vanished from Reece’s face. He said sharply, “You did that today?” She nodded, watching him walk closer to the rough carving she’d been working on for the last few hours. He said, as though the words were being dragged from him, “I can see where you’re headed—and already it’s a thing of beauty.”

“I thought I could just make a copy,” Lauren said ruefully, pulling the ribbon from her hair and shaking it in a cloud around her head. “But it got away from me.”

The lines of the emerging sculpture of a mother and child were utterly modernistic, yet imbued with an ancient and ageless tenderness. Reece said in a hard voice, “I’m going to have a shower. I’ll wait for you in the living room. I’m the host of this shindig this evening and I want to arrive on time.”

“Yes, sir,” she retorted, and watched him march across the dark-stained floors and out of the door. She put her chisel down on the table. Had she ever met a man who was such a mass of contradictions? He’d seen instantly what she was striving to create from the block of wood; and run from it as though all the demons in hell were after him.

But she mustn’t see him as a challenge.

The challenge, she thought wryly, looking down at herself, was to transform herself from a frump to a fashion model in less than twenty minutes. Move it, Lauren. You’ve got all week to figure out Reece Callahan.

It might take a lifetime. A thought she hastily subdued.

Seven o’clock. Lauren was late. Scowling, Reece switched to the news channel, and not for the first time wondered what in God’s name had possessed him to suggest that Lauren Courtney pose as his lover. As a result, Wallace Harvarson was getting off scot-free and he, Reece, was saddled with an argumentative and thoroughly irritating woman who didn’t count punctuality among her talents. Because she had talents. That bloody statue had got him by the throat the minute he’d seen it; which she, of course, had noticed right away.

The new federal budget was due to be tabled; he tried to pay attention. Then, behind him, overriding the news-caster’s voice, he heard Lauren say, “Will I do?”

He flicked the remote control and stood up, turning to face her. She had draped herself against the door frame, her eyelids lowered demurely. Her dress was black, a full-length sheath slit to mid-thigh. A vivid scarlet-and-blue scarf swathed her throat and fell provocatively over one breast; her thin-strapped sandals had stiletto heels and her earrings dangled almost to her shoulders, little enameled discs of blue and red that moved with her breathing.

He said ironically, “You’ll be noticed.”

She smiled; her lips were also scarlet, he noticed, dry-mouthed. “Isn’t that the whole aim?”

“I guess so.” He walked closer, noticing her incredibly long lashes. “How do you keep your hair up? It’s contradicting all the laws of gravity.”

It was piled in a mass of curls, making her neck look impossibly long and slender. “Pins and prayer,” said Lauren.

“Let me see your hands.”

“You would ask that,” she said, and held them out, palms down. The hot coffee had left red blotches on the back of her left hand; she had two clean Band-Aids wrapped around her index finger.

“Do you often cut yourself?” he rapped.

“It’s an occupational hazard,” she said limpidly. “To quote you.”

“Is the cut deep?”

“Nope. But I’m human. I bleed.”

“In contrast to me.”

“You said it. I didn’t.”

“You don’t have to.” He didn’t know which he hated more, the way the black fabric clung to her breasts, or the mockery in her turquoise eyes. In a hard voice he added, “This is all very amusing and I’m sure we could stand here trading insults for the next hour. But my car’s waiting downstairs. Let’s go…and Lauren, don’t forget what this is all about, will you? Wallace—remember him?”

“Are you telling me to behave myself?”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“You don’t have a worry in the world,” she snapped. “I promise I’ll be the perfect mistress.”

She looked as though she’d rather take a chisel to him. A blunt chisel. He checked that he had his keys in the pocket of his tuxedo and said with a mockery equal to hers, “Shall we go, darling?”

Her nostrils flared. “If you think I’m going to start this charade one minute before I have to, you’re out to lunch.”

The sudden mad urge to take her in his arms and kiss her into submission surged through Reece’s body with all the force and inevitability of an ocean wave. Oh, no, he thought, I’m not going there. Not with Lauren Courtney. Sure recipe for disaster. He said coldly, “I don’t give a damn what you do when we’re alone. But you’d better stick to the bargain in public. Or else the deal’s off.”

“Fine,” she said. “Let’s go.”

She stalked to the elevator ahead of him, and stared at the control panel all the way down. His car was a black Porsche; he held the door while she folded herself into the passenger seat, revealing rather a lot of leg as she did so. Her silk stockings were black, her legs long and slender; his hormones in an uproar, Reece got into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. Once this week was over, he’d find himself a woman. An agreeable woman without an artistic bone in her body. He’d been too long without one, that was his problem.

Nothing to do with Lauren.

In a silence that seethed with things unsaid, they drove to the city’s most luxurious hotel. Reece pulled up in front of it. “Okay,” he said, “we’re on. You’d better act your little head off, sweetheart, or I’ll pull the plug on your precious stepfather so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

“How nice,” Lauren said, “an ultimatum. Guaranteed to make me feel as though we’ve been making mad, passionate love the whole day long.”

Very deliberately he put his arm around her shoulders, caressing her bare flesh and dropping his head to run his lips along her throat. “We made mad, passionate love the minute I came home from work, that’s why we’re late…and we’re going to do the same as soon as we get rid of all these people. Right, my darling?”

He felt her swallow against his cheek. “Right,” she cooed and delicately nibbled at his ear with her teeth.

Sensation scorched along every nerve he possessed. The soft weight of her breast was pressed against his sleeve; her perfume, as sensual and complex as the woman herself, drifted to his nostrils. His body’s response was instant and unequivocal. He wanted her. Wanted her in his bed. Now. Naked, beautiful and willing.

Then Lauren murmured against his earlobe, “You’d better not kiss me, not unless you want scarlet lipstick all over your face when we walk through the door. We don’t have to be quite that convincing, do we?”

She was totally in control. That was the message. She didn’t want him, Reece thought grimly. She was only toying with him, playing a role, the very role he’d insisted on.

He was an idiot. A prize jerk.

With a superhuman effort, he managed to say lazily, “I’m sure we can convince them we’re mad for each other without the benefit of Revlon. Perhaps you’d better wipe my ear.”

Her fingers were warm, brushing against his hair as they smoothed his flesh. He fought down a tide of sensation that would drown him if he let it and said, “The valet’ll park the car. Let’s go, Lauren.”

She took his face between her palms, looked straight into his eyes and whispered with passionate intensity, “I’m crazy about you, honey. You know that, don’t you?”

For a split second he found himself believing her, so convincing was the blaze of emotion in her eyes. But she was acting. Only acting. Feeling a rage as fierce as it was irrational clamp itself around his throat, he said, “Haven’t I believed every word you’ve said from the moment we met?”

Her lashes flickered. Gotcha, he thought. “And don’t call me honey. Even in jest.” Then he climbed out of his car, passing the keys to the uniformed valet. “Callahan’s the name,” he told him easily.

“Thank you, sir.”

Reece walked to Lauren’s door, opened it, and took her hand, raising it to his lips. “Have I told you yet how beautiful you look?”

She swayed toward him, her lips in a provocative pout. “A hundred times and never enough.”

A man’s voice said loudly, “Reece—good to see you.”

Reece turned. “Marcus, I’m glad you could make it. And Tiffany, how nice to see you. May I introduce Lauren Courtney? Dearest, this is Marcus Wheelwright, CEO of the European branch of my company…and his daughter Tiffany.”

Marcus was fiftyish, heavy-set and jovial. Tiffany, Reece noticed, was her usual ice-maiden self, wearing a white satin gown with diamonds glittering around her throat, her blond hair sleekly perfect. He wouldn’t be surprised if Lauren’s hairdo fell down before the night was over; but Tiffany’s would never do that. And Tiffany was probably never late for anything. Hurriedly he brought his attention back as Marcus shook Lauren’s hand. “Not the sculptor?” Marcus asked. “I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

“We met recently,” Reece said. “Love at first sight, wasn’t it, darling?”

Lauren laughed up at him, lacing her arm through his. “Absolutely…I’m still in a state of shock. Are you based in Paris, Marcus?”

“Paris. Hamburg. Oslo. You name it,” Marcus said; he had the look of a man recovering from a disagreeable revelation. Whereas Tiffany, Reece noticed, looked coldly furious.

Lauren started to discuss the art market in Paris, skillfully including Tiffany and Reece in the conversation, every movement of her body giving out the message that she was a satiated woman who’d been equally generous in return. It was a masterful performance, Reece thought savagely, and struggled to play his part. Then Marcus drew him aside with a question about their French office; answering automatically, all his senses keyed to Lauren, Reece heard Tiffany say, “So you’re Reece’s latest plaything.”

“That’s not what I would have called myself,” Lauren replied.

“Don’t fool yourself on that count—I’m the one who’ll last. I have breeding, all the right connections.” Tiffany gave Lauren’s earrings a scornful glance. “And taste.”

“Whereas I’m merely talented, intelligent and beautiful,” Lauren said.

“Also incredibly conceited!”

“Merely realistic.”

Reece smothered the urge to laugh out loud and tried to pay attention to Marcus, who wanted to fire his office manager; deflecting him from the topic, Reece said heartily, “I should go inside, Marcus. I’m glad you and Tiffany have had the chance to meet Lauren—I’m a very lucky guy.”

“You certainly are,” Lauren said, laughing as she briefly laid her head on his shoulder; several of her curls, he noticed, were already tumbling from their pins. He let his palm rest warm on her nape, feeling the contact scour his nerves in a way that had nothing to do with deception and everything to do with his hormones. He didn’t need to act. He lusted after Lauren Courtney like a tomcat in springtime.

Did he want her to know that?

He did not.

“I’ll talk to you later,” he said to Marcus and Tiffany. “Come along, darling, let’s get a drink.”