Mistress on his Terms

“I didn’t know you’re a lawyer.”

“And I didn’t know you’re a meddlesome busybody, so that makes us even.”

She shifted in her seat, the better to observe him. He really was quite outstandingly good-looking. “Why are you so determined to dislike me, Sebastian?”

“I have no feelings toward you, one way or the other, Ms. Talbot. I already told you, you’re an inconvenience, but I’ll get over that as soon as I’ve deposited you on Hugo’s doorstep.” He punctuated his statement with a telling pause before continuing, “Provided you don’t hurt him or anyone else I care about.”

“It’s obvious you think I’ll do exactly that.”

He swung his head and pinioned her in his cold blue stare, and she almost cringed at the expression she saw in their depths. “Let’s just say that, in my experience, the apple seldom falls far from the tree.”

She stared at him, more perplexed by the second. “Meaning?”

“Meaning if you’re anything like your mother—!”

But then, as if he’d given away more than he intended, he clamped his mouth shut and returned his attention to the road.

Lily, though, wasn’t so inclined to let the subject drop. “What do you know about my mother?”

“More than I care to.”

“Because of things Hugo’s told you?”

“Hugo had no contact with her for more than twenty-six years.”

“Exactly! Which make his opinions less than reliable.”

“Then for once we’re in agreement.” He flicked on the right turn indicator and slowed the car as they approached the neon-lit entrance to a restaurant set back about fifty yards from the road. “On which fortuitous note, I propose we stop for something to eat. Stentonbridge is still a good two hours’ drive away.”

Part of her wanted to tell him she was more interested in having him explain his cryptic remarks than she was in food. But another, more cautious part urged her not to pursue the topic. That he knew more than he was telling was plain enough, but although she’d come here looking for answers, she didn’t want them from him. Whether or not he’d admit it, there was too much anger seething beneath his surface, and she didn’t relish the idea of it bursting loose on some dark country road miles from anywhere.

She’d waited this long to find out the truth. She could wait a few hours longer.

She wasn’t what he’d anticipated. Watching her covertly as she studied the menu, he had trouble reconciling the woman sitting opposite him in the booth with his expectations of a vulgar, money-grubbing fortune hunter. He’d been prepared for flashy good looks, provocative necklines, big hair, fake fingernails and too much cheap jewelry. They fit the image. Lily Talbot did not.

Oh, he supposed she was pretty enough, in an ordinary sort of way. More than pretty, some might say. But the cheapness wasn’t there, no matter how hard he searched for it. She had narrow, elegant feet. Her hands were delicate, the nails well-cared for and buffed to a soft shine. Her features were small and regular. Patrician, almost. Her dark brown hair lay smooth and shining against her cheek. She looked out at the world from wide, candid eyes and she smiled a lot. Her mouth was permanently upturned at the corners, her lips soft and full.

Apart from a watch, her only other jewelry was a pair of small gold earrings. She wore a blue denim skirt, which came to just below her knees, a short-sleeved white blouse buttoned to a vee at the front and sandals. Her legs were bare and, he hadn’t been able to help noticing, extremely long and shapely. Her skin was lightly tanned and she’d painted her toenails pink. They reminded him of dainty little shells.

Ticked off, he glowered at her, knowing Hugo would love her, that he’d accept her immediately and not once question her motives for suddenly wanting to make contact with him. But the fact remained that her mother’s betrayal, over a quarter of a century before, had nearly killed him, and it was Sebastian’s self-appointed job to make sure the daughter didn’t finish the job now.

Unaware of his scrutiny, she tapped her fingernail against her front teeth and continued to peruse the menu. She had lovely teeth, a lovely smile. “For Pete’s sake, I invited you here to eat, not spend the night,” he practically barked. “Make up your mind what you want to order.”

“I like looking at menus,” she said, rewarding him with a look of pained reproach from her big brown eyes.

“Then you must be a very slow reader. I could have memorized the entire thing in half the time you’re taking to get through it.”

“Well, I’m not like you.”

Hell, no! She was pure woman, and the fact that he couldn’t stop taking inventory of her assets was beginning to irk him more than a little! “In case it’s slipped your mind, Hugo’s been waiting a long time to meet you. If it’s all the same to you, I’d as soon not prolong his agony.”

She slapped the menu closed and leaned back in the booth. “I’ll have a large order of fries and a vanilla milk shake.”

“You took all this time to decide on a milkshake and fries?” he asked incredulously.

“With ketchup.”

“If that’s all you want, we could have stopped at a fast-food drive-in and saved ourselves some time.”

She collected her bag and the sweater she’d heaped on the bench. “Okay. Let’s go find one.”

“Stay where you are!”

He must have raised his voice more than he realized because the next thing he knew, the waitress had come barging over to their booth to inquire, “Your boyfriend giving you trouble, honey?”

Lily Talbot exploded into warm, infectious laughter, as if the woman had said something hilariously amusing. “Heavens, he’s not my boyfriend!”

“And I’m not giving her trouble.”

The waitress eyed him darkly. “You’d better not be.” She fished out her notepad and waited with pen poised. “So what’ll you have?”

He relayed Lily’s request and ordered a steak sandwich and coffee for himself. “I thought women like you existed on salad and tofu,” he said, while they waited for their food.

“Women like me?” She regarded him pertly. “And what kind of woman is that, Sebastian?”

“Under thirty and in thrall to the latest trend, no matter how outlandish it might be.”

“You don’t know much about women, do you?”

Enough to know you’re bad for my concentration, he could have told her.

She leaned forward and he couldn’t help noticing the graceful curve of her breasts beneath her blouse. He even found himself wondering if she was wearing a bra. Damn her!

“Real women aren’t slaves to fashion, Sebastian,” she informed him, her tone suggesting she found him singularly lacking in intelligence. “We make up our own rules.”

“What happens if your rules don’t coincide with men’s?”

“Then we compromise, the way we have since the beginning of time.”

“Sounds to me like a convenient excuse to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and not be held accountable for your actions.”

She looked at him pityingly. “Don’t you know that if you always go looking for the worst in people, you’ll eventually find it?”

She was either a complete innocent or a contemptible schemer, and until he determined which, he wasn’t about to let down his guard. “I don’t have to go looking, Ms. Talbot. I live by the credo Give a person enough rope and she’ll eventually hang herself.” He paused meaningfully. “You’d do well to remember that.”

CHAPTER TWO

LILY shook her head in bewilderment, floored by his unremitting hostility. “Well, so much for striking up pleasant dinner conversation!”

“I’m sorry if the truth offends you. We can change the subject if you like, and talk about the weather instead.”

“I’d prefer not to talk to you at all. You’ve been nothing but disagreeable from the minute you set eyes on me and I’m tired of trying to figure out why. I’m beginning to suspect you don’t have to have a reason because you’re the kind who makes a career out of being miserable.”

“At least we’re not harboring any illusions about what each of us thinks of the other.”

There was no getting past that steely reserve of his, no hint of humanity or warmth in his makeup. He might be handsome as sin on the outside, but inside he was as dry as the law books he probably considered riveting bedtime reading. “Oh, go soak your head!” she snapped.

He looked mildly astonished, as if he thought he had a corner on the insult market. “Now who’s being offensive?”

“I am,” she allowed, “because trying to be pleasant about anything is a lost cause with you, Sebastian Caine. You’re fixated on being as insufferable as possible, whether or not you have just cause.”

Their meal arrived then, so she poured a dollop of ketchup on her plate and stabbed a fork into her French fries.

“No need to take out your frustrations on your food, Ms. Talbot. That’s not my heart you’re impaling.”

More’s the pity! “Oh, shut up!” she said, wondering why she’d ever thought coming here was a good idea in the first place. Hugo Preston might have sounded eager to meet her, but he hadn’t cared enough to pursue the connection until she’d approached him. Given her other troubles, she didn’t need the aggravation of having his obnoxious stepson enter the mix! “Just shut up and eat, and let’s get this whole miserable evening over with as soon as possible.”

But it was not to be. When at last they were ready to leave, the waitress brought more than their bill. “Hope you folks aren’t planning to go far tonight. Just got word of flash floods right through the area. Police are asking people to stay off the roads.”

“Oh, brother, just what I need to make the day complete!” Sebastian threw down a fistful of money and glowered at Lily as if she were in cahoots with God and had personally orchestrated the storm. “Grab your stuff and let’s get moving.”

“But if the police are warning people to stay put—?”

He took her elbow and hustled her out to the porch. “We don’t have a whole lot of choice, unless you want to spend the night here.”

“Perish the thought!”

A small river was running through the parking lot, a fact Lily discovered when she inadvertently stepped in it and felt water splashing up past her ankles. Not that it really mattered; by the time she flung herself into the car, she was soaked to the skin all over.

Sebastian hadn’t fared much better. Great patches of rain darkened the shoulders of his pale gray suit jacket, the cuffs of his trousers were dripping, and his hair, like hers, was plastered to his head.

Muttering words unfit to be repeated in decent company, he fired up the engine, started the windshield wipers slapping and inched the car over the rutted ground toward the road. Before they’d even cleared the parking lot, the side windows had misted over and the air was filled with the smell of wet clothes and warm damp skin. In fact, Lily was pretty sure she could see steam rising from her skirt.

To describe the driving conditions as poor didn’t approach reality. In fact, they were ghastly. The road ahead resembled a dark tunnel into which they were hurtling with no clear idea of where it might curve to the right or left.

Fists clenched so tight her fingernails gouged the palms of her hands, Lily huddled in her seat and prayed they’d reach Stentonbridge without incident. But they’d covered only about forty miles of the remaining distance when Sebastian brought the car to a sudden, screeching halt.

There was no sign of human habitation; no lights in farmhouses, no illuminated storefronts, no street lamps. Nothing but the driving rain pounding on the car roof like urgent jungle drums, and the dark shapes of trees twisting in the wind.

“Why are we stopping here?” she said. “Or aren’t I allowed to ask?”

And then she saw. Where earlier in the day there’d been a bridge over a ravine, there now was a torrent of muddy water cascading down the hillside and taking with it everything that stood in its path. Another twenty feet, and the car would have careened into empty space, then plunged into the swirling rapids.

“Precisely,” Sebastian said, hearing her shocked gasp.

It was late July. High summer in that part of Ontario. Even the nights were warm. But suddenly she was freezingly cold and shivering so hard that her teeth rattled.

This was how it happened: one minute people were alive, with the blood flowing through their veins, and their minds full of plans for the next day, the next year…and then, in less time than it took to blink, it was all over. That’s how it had been for her parents, and how it had almost been for her.

Tragedy wasn’t selective in its choice of victims; it could strike twice.

She tried to breathe and could not. The air inside the car was too close, too drenched, and she was suffocating. With a strangled moan, she released the buckle of her seat belt and fumbled for the door handle.

Her lungs were bursting. She had to get out—out into the open air. With a mighty shove, she sent the door flying wide and half-fell, half-crawled from her seat. Never mind the rain pelting down, or the wind whipping wet strands of hair across her face. Anything was better than being locked in the close confines of that long, low-slung burgundy car, which all at once looked and felt too much like a mahogany coffin.

Blind with panic, she set off through the wild night with one thought uppermost in her mind: to find her way back to the brightly lit safety of the roadside café. She’d covered no more than a few feet, however, before she blundered full tilt into a solid wall of resistance and felt her arms pinioned in an iron hold.

“Have you lost your tiny mind?” Sebastian Caine bellowed, raising his voice above the din of the waterfall. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

“We were almost killed!”

“And almost isn’t good enough? You want to finish off the job?”

“I w-want…” But the irrational, superstitious terror that had propelled her out of the car and sent her stumbling away in the dark refused to translate into words. She tasted salt and was astonished to find tears mingling with the rain on her face. To her shame, a great ugly sob broke loose from her throat.

“Stop that!” he ordered. “Nothing’s happened yet. At least have the decency to wait until real calamity strikes before you decide to fall apart.” He gave her a little shake, but the hint of sympathy texturing his next remark showed he wasn’t as blind to the cause of her distress as he’d first appeared. “Look, I appreciate that your parents’ accident must still be pretty vivid in your mind, but letting your imagination run wild isn’t helping. Get a grip, Lily, and go back to the car.”

“I don’t think I can,” she wailed.

Even though the night was black as the inside of a cave, she sensed his frustration. “Then let me make it easy for you!”

Before she knew what was happening, he bent down, grabbed her behind her knees and flung her, firefighter-fashion, over his shoulder. Oblivious to her shriek of outrage or her hands clawing at his back, he marched back to the car and tossed her into the passenger seat as if she were a sack of potatoes.

“You’ve taxed my patience enough for one day,” he informed her savagely, yanking her seat belt into place, “so don’t even think about pulling another stunt like the last one, or you will wind up alone on the side of the road and let me tell you, it won’t be an experience you’ll want to talk about—always assuming, of course, that you survive the night.” Then, as a further inducement to comply with his orders, “You do know, of course, that this whole area’s swarming with cougars and snakes. And vampire bats.”

He slammed her door, raced back to the driver’s side and climbed in.

“You’re lying,” she said shakily. “Especially about the bats.”

In the glow from the dashboard, his grin and the whites of his eyes gleamed demonically. “Prove it.”

Unable to drum up an answering smile she huddled down in the seat, listless with defeat. The day, which had started out so full of anticipation, had sunk too far in disappointment to be redeemed with humor and she was beyond fighting to save it. She just wanted it to be over.

As he swung the car around, the headlights sliced across the landscape, turning the rain to long silver darning needles spearing the night. “We passed a motel about ten miles back. Let’s hope the road hasn’t washed out between here and there, and that they still have vacancies.”

Luck was with them, but barely. The motel had been built in the fifties and hadn’t seen a dollar spent on it since. A bare bulb hung above the desk in the office. Tears in the vinyl padding on the one chair were held together with duct tape. The manager, Lily noticed with a shudder, reeked of tobacco and had tufts of hair growing out of his ears, which left him looking like a troll.

“Busy night tonight, what with the weather and all,” he told them. “Only got the one room left. Take it or leave it, folks. You don’t want it, someone else will.”

“We’ll take it,” Sebastian said, slapping down a credit card and filling out the registration card.

“I’m not spending the night in the same room with you,” Lily informed him, trailing behind as he marched to their assigned unit.

“You’d rather sleep in the car?”

“No!”

He unlocked door number nineteen and flung it open. “Well, I’m not offering to, if that’s what you’re hoping, so step inside and make yourself at home while I unload our stuff.”

“Sebastian,” she exclaimed, still hovering on the threshold when he returned with her luggage, a zippered nylon sports bag, and a newspaper, “this place is a flea pit!”

He reined in a sigh. “So sorry it isn’t up to the five-star standards you were probably hoping for, but it’s warm and dry, isn’t it? There’s a shower and a bed.”

Exactly. One bed! Not a bed and a pull-out sofa, not even an armchair. Just a double mattress that sagged in the middle and was covered by an ugly green bedspread, which had seen better days. The only other furniture consisted of a nightstand holding a fake wood reading lamp, a ratty chest of drawers with a TV on top, and a straight-back chair that matched the one in the office, even down to the duct tape patching.

“I’m not sleeping on that bed!”

He shrugged. “Sack out on the floor then.”

Not an inviting prospect, either. There were suspicious stains on the threadbare carpet. “You’re the most insensitive creature I’ve ever met!”

“And you’re a spoiled brat.” Kicking the door closed, he dumped her suitcases next to it, tossed the sports bag and newspaper on the bed, and shrugged out of his jacket. His shoes and socks came off next, followed by his tie.

She watched in sly fascination as he proceeded to peel off his shirt, thereby displaying an expanse of muscular, well-tanned chest and proof positive that his width of shoulder owed nothing to clever tailoring. Well, if he thought flexing his pecs would impress her, he was in for a disappointment! It would take more than that to get a rise out of her.

Just how little more she soon found out. “What do you think you’re doing?” she squeaked in horror, when he casually began unbuckling the belt holding up his pants.

“I’d have thought it was obvious. I’m getting out of these wet clothes, and then I’m taking a shower. Close your mouth and stop gaping, Ms. Talbot.”

“I don’t believe…what I’m seeing!”

“Then don’t look.”

The belt was off, the zipper of his fly sliding down. The next second, he was shucking his trousers as unselfconsciously as if he were completely alone. And for the life of her, she couldn’t look away.

He glanced up and caught her staring. “You’re blushing, Ms. Talbot.”

Any fool could see that! “Well, one of us certainly should be, and it clearly isn’t going to be you.”

He had great legs. Wonderful thighs. Lean, muscular, tanned. Long, strong, powerful. And he preferred briefs to boxers. Plain white cotton to silk stripes and fancy colors.

“Don’t you dare remove anything else!” she said hoarsely. “I’m not interested in seeing you in the altogether.”

“Just as well,” he said, folding his trousers over the back of the chair. “I don’t show my altogether to just anyone.”

He draped his jacket over a wire hanger in the curtained recess that passed for a closet then did the same for his shirt. And she, ninny that she was, followed his every move and wondered how it was that God had seen fit to bless men with such trim, taut hips, even if the rest of them was oversized!

“Sure you don’t want to use the bathroom?”

“Quite sure, thank you. There’s probably an inch of mold growing in the tub.”

“No tub,” he said, almost gleefully, poking his head around the door to inspect. “Just a shower stall.”

“I wish you the joy of it.”

“I’m sure you do.” He flung a glance over his shoulder and she could have sworn he was biting back a snicker. “No peeking, Ms. Talbot, and no funny business.”

“Funny business?”

“There isn’t room for two in here. If you change your mind about taking a shower, wait your turn.”

“Oh, dream on!” she gasped, flabbergasted by his gall. “Heaven only knows what might come crawling up the drain.”

But the truth was, her clothes were sticking to her most uncomfortably, her skin felt unpleasantly clammy and the idea of standing under a hot shower didn’t seem such a bad idea, after all. She had fresh underwear and a nightshirt in her suitcase; dry clothes she could pull out for tomorrow. Who was she really punishing by stubbornly refusing to make the best of the situation?

Sebastian reappeared ten minutes later, wearing a skimpy towel draped perilously around his hips and nothing else. His black hair stood up in spikes, drops of water gleamed on his skin, and he smelled of clean, warm man. “The place might be a flea pit, but at least there’s plenty of hot water. Sure you don’t want to take advantage of it?”

She cleared her throat. “I might.” She eyed his makeshift loincloth, then hastily glanced away again.

“There’s another towel in there, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he said snidely.

“Good,” she croaked and fled with the toiletry bag, nightshirt and panties she’d taken from her suitcase.

In keeping with the rest of the place, the bathroom was basic: a washbasin, a toilet and a fiberglass shower stall with a mottled glass door. An unused towel the same size as the one barely covering the delectable Sebastian Caine lay folded on a shelf, and the management had kindly provided a minuscule bar of soap, a tiny bottle of shampoo, most of which he’d used, and two paper cups.

Fortunately she came fully equipped with hand-milled French soap, body lotion, salon formula shampoo and conditioner and, praise heaven, toothbrush and paste. She wasted no time putting them all to good use.

From the feel of them, the pillows were stuffed with peanut shells, and the mattress wasn’t a whole lot better. But it beat a marble slab in the nearest morgue, which was where they’d almost certainly have wound up if he hadn’t spotted the washed-out bridge when he did.

He’d been rattled, and he didn’t mind admitting it. But her reaction had been over the top! Jumping out of the car like that and racing off without the first idea where she was headed pretty much proved his first impression had been right: the woman spelled nothing but trouble. Still, he hadn’t been able to help feeling sorry for her. She’d been trembling like a leaf when he finally caught up with her, and the way she’d felt when he’d picked her up…

Best not to dwell too long on how she felt—or looked. His mandate was to deliver the goods, not sample them! Which reminded him Hugo would be expecting them to show up at the house anytime now.

Jamming a pillow behind his head, he stretched out on the mattress, pulled the top sheet up to his waist and reached for the phone.

Hugo picked up on the first ring. “Sebastian?”

“How’d you guess?”

“I saw the weather report on television. The whole county’s under siege with this rain. You’ll never make it up here tonight.”