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‘I—would you please restart the lift now...?’ Those tears were trembling on the tips of her long dark lashes, threatening to overflow.
He was scaring her, damn it!
Because this—his coming on to her so strongly—was too much, too soon after Miller’s earlier aggression.
Or just maybe, despite what she might claim to the contrary, her relationship with Miller wasn’t as innocent as she claimed it to be...?
In Lucien’s experience no woman was as ingenuous as Cyn Hammond appeared to be. Her ingenuousness had encouraged him to reveal more about himself and his family in the last five minutes than he had told anyone for a very long time. Not that Lucien was ashamed of his heritage—it was what it was. It was his private life in general that he preferred to keep exactly that—private.
He straightened abruptly before stepping back. ‘A word of advice, Cyn—you should stay well away from Miller in future. He’s bad news.’
Her expression sharpened. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I believe you’ve more than used up your quota of questions for one evening.’ His expression was grim.
‘But you seem to know something I don’t—’
‘I’m sure I know a lot of things you don’t, Cyn,’ he rasped with finality, before turning to press the button to restart the elevator.
‘Thank you,’ Cyn breathed softly as it resumed its soundless descent.
‘I didn’t do it for you.’ Lucien gave a hard, dismissive smile. ‘The elevator has been stopped between floors for so long now Dex is probably imagining you’ve assassinated me.’
Thia frowned. ‘Is it a defence mechanism, or are you really this arrogant and rude?’
His gaze was hooded as he answered her. ‘Quite a bit of the latter and a whole lot of the former.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ She nodded, able to breathe a little easier now that he wasn’t standing quite so close to her. Well...perhaps not easier. Lucien Steele’s presence was still so overpowering that Thia challenged anyone, man or woman, to be completely relaxed in his company.
He put his hand beneath her elbow again as the lift came to a stop, the doors opening and allowing the two of them to step out into the marble foyer of the luxurious Manhattan apartment building.
Thia’s eyes widened as she saw Dex was already there, waiting for them. ‘How did you...?’
‘Service elevator,’ the man supplied tersely, dismissively, his censorious glance fixed on his employer.
‘Stop looking so disapproving, Dex,’ Lucien Steele drawled. ‘I checked before getting in the elevator: there’s absolutely nowhere that Miss Hammond could hide a knife or a gun beneath that figure-hugging gown.’
Thia felt the colour warm her cheeks. ‘Definitely a lot of the latter,’ she muttered, in reference to their previous conversation and heard Lucien Steele chuckle huskily beside her even as she turned to give the still frowning Dex a smile. ‘Mr Steele does like to have his little joke.’
There was no answering smile from the bodyguard as he opened the door for them to leave. ‘I’ve had the car brought round to the front entrance.’
‘Good,’ Lucien Steele bit out shortly, his hand still beneath Thia’s elbow as he strode towards the black limousine parked beside the pavement, its engine purring softly into life even as Dex moved forward to open the back door for them to get inside.
‘I can get a taxi—a cab—from here,’ Thia assured Lucien Steele quickly. His behaviour in the lift wasn’t conducive to her wanting to get into the back of a limousine with him.
‘Get in.’
That compelling expression was back on Lucien Steele’s face as he raised one black brow, standing to one side as he waited for her to get into the back of the limousine ahead of him.
Thia gave a pained frown. ‘I appreciate your help earlier, but I’d really rather just get a cab from here...’
He didn’t speak again, just continued to look down at her compellingly. Because he was so used to everyone doing exactly as he wished them to, whenever he wished it, he had no doubt Thia was going to get into the limousine.
‘I could always just pick you up and put you inside...?’ Lucien Steele raised dark brows.
‘And I could always scream if you tried to do that.’
‘You could, yes.’ He smiled confidently.
‘Or not,’ Thia muttered as she saw the inflexibility in his challenging gaze.
Sighing, she finally climbed awkwardly into the back of the limousine. She barely had enough time to slide across the other side of the seat before Lucien Steele got in beside her. Dex closed the door behind them before getting into the front of the car beside the driver and the car moved off smoothly into the steady flow of evening traffic.
‘I don’t like being ordered about,’ Thia informed Lucien tightly.
‘No?’
‘No!’ She glared her irritation across the dim interior of the car. The windows were of smoked glass, as was the partition between the front and back of the car. ‘Any more than I suspect you do.’ Once again he was intimidating in the close confines of the car, so big and dark, and she could smell his lemon scent again, the insidious musk of the man himself, all mixed together with the expensive smell of the leather interior of the car.
‘That would depend on the circumstances and on what I was being ordered to do,’ he drawled.
Her irritation deepened along with the blush in her cheeks. ‘Do you think you could get your mind out of the bedroom for two minutes?’
He turned, his thigh pressing against hers as he draped his arm along the back of the seat behind her. ‘There’s no need for a bedroom when this part of the car is completely private and soundproofed.’
‘How convenient for you.’
‘For us,’ he corrected huskily.
Thia’s throat moved as she swallowed nervously. ‘Unless it’s escaped your notice, I’m really not in the mood to play sexual cat-and-mouse games.’ She moved her thigh from the warmth of his and edged further along the seat towards the door. ‘You offered to drive me home—not seduce me in the back of your car.’
‘I believe my original offer was to take you for a quiet drink somewhere,’ he reminded her softly.
She gave a shake of her head. ‘I’m not in the mood for a drink, either,’ she added determinedly.
He smiled slightly in the darkness. ‘Then what are you in the mood for?’
Thia ignored the innuendo in his voice and instead thought of Jonathan’s brutish and insulting behaviour this evening—that reckless glitter in his eyes—all of which told her that it wouldn’t be a good idea for her to go back to his apartment tonight. In fact after tonight she believed it would better for both of them if she moved out of Jonathan’s apartment altogether and into a hotel, until she flew back to London in a couple of days’ time.
Not that she could really afford to do that, but the thought of being any more beholden to Jonathan was no longer an option after the way he had spoken to her earlier. She was also going to repay the cost of the airfare to him as soon as she was able. She was definitely going to have bruises on the top of her arm from where he had gripped her so tightly. It was—
‘Cyn?’
She turned sharply to look at Lucien Steele, flicking her tongue out to moisten the dryness of her lips—only to freeze in the action as that glittering silver gaze followed the movement, reminding her all too forcefully of his earlier threat. ‘I—could you drop me off at a hotel? An inexpensive one,’ she added, very aware of the small amount of money left in her bank account.
This situation would have been funny if Thia hadn’t felt quite so much like crying. Here she was, seated in the back of a chauffeur-driven limousine, with reputedly the richest and most powerful man in New York, and she barely had enough money in her bank account to cover next month’s rent on her bedsit, let alone an ‘inexpensive’ hotel!
Lucien Steele pressed the intercom button on the door beside him. ‘Steele Heights, please, Paul,’ he instructed the driver.
‘Will do, Mr Steele,’ the disembodied voice came back immediately.
‘I totally forgot about the worldwide Steele Hotels earlier in my list of Steele Something-or-Others...’ Thia frowned. ‘But I’m guessing that none of your hotels are inexpensive...?’
The man beside her gave a tight smile. ‘You’ll be staying as my guest, obviously.’
‘No! No...’ she repeated, more calmly. ‘Thank you. I always make a point of paying my own way.’
Her cheeks paled as she recalled that the one time she hadn’t it had been thrown back in her face. She certainly had no intention of being beholden to a man as dangerous as Lucien Steele.
Unfortunately she was barely keeping her head above water now on the money she earned working evening shifts at the restaurant. That would change, she hoped, once she had finished her dissertation in a few months’ time and hopefully acquired her Masters degree a couple of months after that. She could then at last go out and get a full-time job relevant to her qualifications. But for the moment she had to watch every penny in order to be able to pay her tuition fees and bills, let alone eat.
A concept she realised the man at her side, with all his millions, couldn’t even begin to comprehend...
‘Why the smile...?’ Lucien prompted curiously.
Cyn gave a shake of her head, that silky dark hair cascading over her shoulders. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Try me,’ he invited harshly, having guessed from her request to go to a hotel that she had indeed been staying at Miller’s apartment with him. Lucien had meant it when he’d said he didn’t poach another man’s woman. Ever.
His own parents’ marriage had been ripped apart under just those circumstances, with his mother having been seduced away from her husband and son by a much older and even wealthier man than his father. They were divorced now, and had been for almost twenty years, but the acrimony of their separation had taken its toll on Lucien. To a degree that he had complete contempt for any man or woman who intruded on an existing relationship.
The fact that Cyn Hammond claimed she and Jonathan Miller were only friends didn’t change the fact that she was obviously staying at the other man’s apartment with him. Or at least had been until his aggression this evening...
She gave a grimace as she answered his question. ‘I’m a student working as a waitress to support myself through uni. Now do you believe you inhabit a different world from me? One where you would think nothing of staying at a prestigious hotel like Steele Heights. I’ve seen the Steele Hotel in London, and I don’t think I could afford to pay the rent on a broom cupboard!’
‘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—?’
