The Elliotts: Bedrooms Not Boardrooms!

“I can’t help you. Nothing about the way EPH does business with its advertisers has changed.” Nothing except the magazines’ personnel were going at each other’s throats with fangs bared. His grandfather had decreed that the magazine with the highest profit margin proportionally at the end of the year would see its editor in chief become CEO of EPH. Nobody wanted to lose.

As financial operating officer Liam was in charge of tracking the numbers. The weight rested heavily on his shoulders. He’d had to take his personal feelings out of the equation, forget the people involved and deal strictly with the cold, hard facts. It wasn’t easy. He worried about EPH and worried about his mother even more.

And while his extended family self-destructed around him Liam realized life was passing him by. He was thirty-one. His parents had been married and had four children by his age. Even his brothers and sister had wised up. Gannon had married in February. He and his wife Erika were expecting their first child. Liam’s younger brother Tag was engaged, and his sister Bridget had recently married a Colorado sheriff and left the family business. He also had a handful of cousins and an uncle who’d recently found their significant others.

All Liam had was a long history of hooking up with the wrong women, a job in the family business, a Porsche he rarely drove—but shelled out a fortune for in parking fees—and a Park Avenue apartment he only used for sleeping. He had no one to stand by and support him the way his father had supported Liam’s mother through her ordeal.

His workaholic father had risen several notches in Liam’s opinion over the past nine months by getting his priorities straight. Family first. Work second. It hadn’t always been that way. It had taken almost losing his wife to set Michael Elliott straight.

The sandwiches arrived and the server departed.

Aubrey’s violet eyes met Liam’s and the impact hit him like a fist in the gut, knocking the breath out of him. “How is your mother? I read about her illness in the paper.”

What was she—psychic? “She’s improving. She’s finished chemotherapy and her hair’s growing back.”

“Her diagnosis must have been terrifying for all of you.”

“Yes.” He could have lost his mother, and while she wasn’t out of the woods yet and wouldn’t be until she’d been cancer-free for five years, optimism was on the upswing. The doctors gave her a good prognosis.

“You’re close to her?”

“Now more than ever. Are you close to your mother?”

Sadness filled Aubrey’s eyes. “No. She left my father when I was eleven. She couldn’t stand always coming in second to Dad’s mistress—work.”

“You didn’t keep in touch?”

“I shuffled back and forth for a while, but then she remarried.” Aubrey ducked her head and the curtain of her shiny hair swung forward. “The sandwich is good and you’re right about the vinaigrette. It’s delicious.”

He ignored her bid to switch topics. “You didn’t get along with the new husband?”

Color leeched from Aubrey’s face. “He liked me a little too much.”

The sandwich turned to rubber in Liam’s mouth. “He came on to you?”

Aubrey abandoned her lunch. “Yes.”

Anger percolated in Liam’s veins. “How old were you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Did your mother divorce the bastard?”

“No. Look, could we talk about something else?”

His appetite deserted him. He wanted to ask how her mother could stay with the pervert and if her father had beaten the crap out of him. But he didn’t. “Sure.”

“I heard Patrick is considering retirement. Any idea who will replace him?”

Liam rested his fists beside his plate. “Aubrey, I’m not going to discuss EPH.”

She abandoned the pretzel she’d been nibbling. “I understand. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

He didn’t understand the emotions chasing across her face. Disappointment was easy to identify, but he’d swear he saw failure in Aubrey Holt’s eyes. Why? “You haven’t. Until you started with the EPH interrogation I was having the best time I’ve had in months.”

Her lips parted and color washed her cheeks. Before she could reply his cell phone rang. He unclipped it from his belt. “Excuse me. Liam Elliott.”

“Mr. Elliott, this is Trisha at the Davenport Gallery. Gilda Raines has agreed to talk about parting with the painting you wanted for your mother. I’d suggest you come now. Gilda is … unique. She wants to meet you before she makes her decision.”

“I’ll be right there.” He snapped the phone shut and signaled for the waitress. “I hate to cut this short, but I have to go.”

“Problem at work?”

A wry smile tugged his lips. Did Aubrey never give up? “No. I’ve been trying for months to buy a painting by my mother’s favorite artist. The artist has finally agreed to discuss selling. I don’t want to give her time to change her mind. I’m going to meet her now.”

“Which artist?”

He reached for his wallet. “Gilda Raines.”

Aubrey sat up, alert and radiating excitement. “Are you serious? She’s my favorite, too. And you’re going to meet her! She’s a recluse who never meets anyone.” Her hand covered his on the table and sparks hopped up his arm. “May I come with you?”

Liam looked across the table at the enemy’s daughter, at her pale, slender hand over his. A wise man would cut his losses and say goodbye. Now. Evidently he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was because the shine in those violet eyes and the curve of her lips overrode his conscience’s objections.

“You can ride along. But I’m not answering questions about EPH. If you ask even one I’ll have the cab pull over and put you out. Are we clear?”

Her grin stole his breath. “As clear as the Hope Diamond.”

Two

Aubrey wanted to get to know Liam better, but putting her hand in his lap wasn’t quite what she had in mind. She hadn’t hit ground zero, but she’d come close enough that he inhaled sharply and his warm thigh muscles tensed beneath her fingers.

“Sorry.” She snatched her hand away and dug her nails into the armrest on the car door, bracing herself as the taxi zigzagged around slower cars.

“Not a problem.” His voice sounded tight.

Her palm continued to tingle long after it left Liam’s rock-hard thigh behind, all the way down Lexington Avenue, in fact. Awareness whizzed through her veins. The cabbie drove like a carjacker evading the law, but that wasn’t surprising considering Liam had offered to double his fare if he’d get them to the gallery fast.

Another swerve pitched her back against the hard-muscled, good-smelling, taboo man beside her. Their shoulders bumped and their eyes met. Liam’s gaze slowly lowered to her mouth. Aubrey’s breath caught and her heart raced.

How would he kiss? Soft or hard? Reserved or passionate? She’d never know. She turned to look back out the window and a disappointed sigh slipped past her lips.

The cab pulled to the curb in front of the gallery. Aubrey said a silent prayer of thanks and climbed out while Liam paid the fare.

He joined her on the sidewalk. “You said you like this artist?”

“Yes. Her paintings are very sensual.”

“They’re flowers,” he said with a straight face.

Aubrey studied the confused frown on Liam’s face. Did he not know anything about the artist? “Have you ever studied Georgia O’Keeffe?”

He shook his head. “Only enough to know vaguely who she is. Art’s not my thing.”

What were his interests outside of work? She’d never know that either. Disappointment weighed heavily on her shoulders.

“Gilda Raines has been compared to a modern-day O’Keeffe although she’s more likely to paint the flowers and scenes from the Southeast rather than the Southwest. She’s originally from Charleston, South Carolina, and she took up painting after her husband, the love of her life, died. I’ve heard she’s quite an unusual personality.”

She followed him inside a bright, open area. Oils of varying sizes graced the walls and a few pieces of sculpture stood on wide pedestals scattered throughout the space.

A chic brunette approached. “Mr. Elliott?”

“Yes.”

“Trisha Evans.” In Aubrey’s estimation, the handshake lasted longer than it should have. “And you are?”

“Aubrey Holt.”

“Ms. Raines is waiting for you in the private viewing room. Follow me.” She turned and led the way. Aubrey wondered if the woman normally sashayed that way or if she’d widened the pendulum swing of her hips for Liam’s benefit. And then Aubrey rolled her eyes. What did it matter if the woman wanted to advertise her wares? Aubrey would probably be doing the same thing if Liam’s last name were anything but Elliott.

A woman no more than five feet tall awaited them. Her face held remarkably few lines for someone in her late sixties. The morning glory painting on the easel beside her took Aubrey’s breath away. It wasn’t one she had seen before. This painting seemed to express everything she’d felt before she’d discovered Liam’s identity.

“So you wanna buy my painting,” Gilda Raines said without preamble in a rich southern drawl, drawing Aubrey’s attention momentarily away from the mesmerizing artwork. The artist’s dark eyes assessed Liam.

“Yes, ma’am.” He briefly glanced at the framed oil.

Ms. Evans barely finished with the introductions before Ms. Gaines asked, “Why?”

“I explained about my mother in my letter. About her illness.”

Aubrey’s gaze jerked to Liam. He’d written to the artist?

“I don’t get many letters begging me to sell—especially a painting someone has never seen. Anything, you said. ‘I’ll buy anything.’ I don’t part with my babies often, Mr. Elliott, and when I do it’s for a good reason. I don’t know that I should give up one now. Why should I?”

“Because my mother admires your work and having one of your paintings will make her happy.”

Thin arms crossed over a loose-fitting paisley print shirt. Gilda remained mute, but her expression said, “Not good enough.”

Even though it wasn’t any of her business, Aubrey butted in. “Because after a double mastectomy his mother needs to be reminded she’s a woman.”

All three heads swiveled toward Aubrey. “Your morning glory embodies womanhood, femininity and sexuality. I’m guessing Karen Elliott feels she’s lacking all of those qualities at the moment.”

Gaines’s eyes narrowed and she cocked her head. “How would you know?”

Memories encroached, robbing a little of the brightness from Aubrey’s afternoon. “I lost a friend to breast cancer last year. I spent time with her during her treatment. Quite a few of your paintings hang in the Women’s Health Center. The Daylily is my favorite, but Jane liked The Gardenia best.”

Jane, her father’s personal assistant for as far back as Aubrey could remember, had lost her life to the disease after a long, valiant struggle. The heartbreaking shame of it was that if Jane had gone for the mammograms her doctor had been recommending for the past two decades they might have caught the cancer in time to save her life, but Jane had been afraid the procedure would be uncomfortable and embarrassing so she’d put it off only to learn too late that the hell of chemotherapy was much worse than the slight discomfort of a mammogram.

Grief reopened in Aubrey’s chest. She pressed a hand over her aching heart and turned back to the artwork to blink away her tears. For as far back as she could remember she’d talked more to Jane than to her socialite mother or workaholic father, and Aubrey still missed Jane, her confidante and hero.

It had been Jane who’d realized something was wrong after Aubrey’s mother had remarried and Jane who’d pried the confession out of Aubrey about her stepfather’s inappropriate advances. And it had been Jane who’d gone to her boss and revealed the sordid truth. Aubrey had been swiftly removed from her mother’s home and she hadn’t been allowed to visit again. When her mother wanted to see her she’d had to come to the Holt apartment. She hadn’t come often.

Gilda joined Aubrey beside the painting and tipped her head to indicate Liam. “Do you think he gets it?”

Aubrey blinked away the past and looked over her shoulder at Liam. The careful neutrality of his face confirmed he didn’t understand the nuances behind the flower. And then she met Gilda’s skeptical gaze. “I can explain it to him.”

Gilda cackled and nodded. “Yes, I’m sure you can. All right, then.”

And just that quickly the deal was done. Minutes later the artwork had been packaged and placed in the trunk of a taxi and Aubrey and Liam were on the way to Liam’s apartment—a decision Aubrey considered both wise and foolhardy. Wise because she might be able to glean more information from Liam, but also foolhardy because she was only tormenting herself with what she couldn’t have.

The cabbie drove as aggressively as the first even without the added incentive of a double fare. He swerved to avoid a bicycle messenger at the last possible second, pitching Aubrey practically into Liam’s lap. Liam’s strong hands steadied her.

She lifted her gaze to his. “Excuse me.”

The blue of his eyes darkened and his gaze dropped to her lips. “No problem.”

Aubrey ordered her muscles to move her away from the warmth and strength of Liam’s grasp. They mutinied. Liam’s hand lifted from her upper arm to cup her jaw. He stroked her cheekbone with his thumb and then threaded his fingers through her hair. Aubrey shivered and inhaled a shaky breath.

Why oh why did this man have to be the one to awaken every feminine instinct in her body?

Before she could force herself to retreat, Liam’s head lowered. Instead of scooting back to her side of the slippery vinyl seat Aubrey lifted her chin and met him halfway.

His lips brushed hers, softly at first and then more insistently. Her pulse raced. Her lungs seized. And then his slick tongue parted her lips and she tasted him. Delicious. Aubrey covered his hand on her face, determined to remove it, but somehow her fingers threaded through his and her other hand clenched the lapel of his jacket.

The movement of the car rocked her breast against his bicep, stroking with each swerve and bump in the road and causing her nipples to tighten and warmth to puddle low in her belly. And then Liam’s arms banded around her and he lifted her across the seat and into his lap. She gasped at the suddenness of the action, at the heat of his thighs beneath hers and his groin against her hip.

A second of sanity prevailed, and she drew back to gasp for breath, but she didn’t go far. Her forehead rested on his. Their noses touched. His heart slammed beneath her palm and his breath swept her skin.

“What are we doing?” she whispered.

“Damned if I know.” One of his hands raked up and down her spine. The other settled on her hip and stroked downward until he found skin. The hem of her knee-length skirt had ridden up to midthigh. She wasn’t wearing stockings. His hot palm glided over her knee, down her calf and back up again, edging beneath the fabric.

This really had to stop … in a minute. Aubrey couldn’t remember ever being so aroused so quickly and in such an inappropriate location—a cab, for pity’s sake, in plain view of the driver up front. Liam kissed one corner of her mouth and then the other, and then he took her bottom lip into his teeth and gently tugged. His tongue laved the sensitive inner skin.

A sound, half-moan, half-whimper, bubbled in her throat. She struggled for lucidity. “This is not … I didn’t. I wasn’t looking for this today.”

Liam’s chest rose and fell on a deep breath. “I know.”

“We shouldn’t. You’re the competition.”

The hand on her thigh tightened before grazing upward over her hip, beneath her blazer and past her waist to rest just below her breast. “I know that, too.”

Don’t stop. Dizziness forced Aubrey to suck in a forgotten breath. One more kiss, she promised herself as she arched against him. Just one. She angled her head and took his mouth, savoring the taste of forbidden fruit. His thumbnail scraped over her nipple and a moan poured from her mouth into his. She twined her tongue around the slickness of his and then suckled. His chest vibrated beneath her palm in a purely masculine purr, and he shifted on the seat, pulling her closer and bringing the hot shaft of his erection flush against her hip. Heat flooded her core and moisture dampened her skin. She tingled all over as if she’d been dunked in a warm champagne bath.

“We’re here, bud,” the taxi driver’s heavy Bronx accent interrupted. Liam’s muscles turned rigid beneath her.

Shocked by her uncharacteristically brazen behavior, Aubrey scrambled out of Liam’s lap and back to her side of the cab. Her face—her entire body—burned. Rather than look at Liam, she glanced out the car window and blinked in surprise. Park Avenue? Liam lived only a few blocks away from her place on Fifth. Walking distance. Her heart missed a beat. So close … and yet worlds apart because of their employers.

Liam opened the door and offered his hand. Wisdom decreed Aubrey say goodbye and give the driver her address. But she’d promised Gilda Raines that she’d explain the painting to Liam.

You don’t have to. His mother will understand it and Gilda will never know.

But you promised.

And she didn’t break promises.

Snatching up her purse and her leather satchel, she slid across the seat, placed her hand in Liam’s and let him help her from the car. She quickly released his hold when a fresh wave of longing swept through her.

This can’t happen. But her mind and body didn’t seem to be speaking the same language. Turning away from temptation, she studied the gray stone building and waited on the sidewalk while the cabbie removed the painting from the trunk.

A doorman rushed from the apartment building. “Need help with that, Mr. Elliott?”

“No thanks, Carlos, I have it.”

Aubrey followed the men into the building and across the marble floor past a bank of elevators to a private elevator located at the end of a short hall. Private elevators meant one thing. Penthouse. She’d had fantasies about elevators, a handsome stranger and a blackout. She’d never even considered having an elevator all to herself and not having to rely on being trapped by a power outage to pursue her naughty dream. She shouldn’t be thinking that now, but knowing the man had the power to lower her IQ fifty points with a single kiss and that he had his own elevator sent her mind sprinting down a dangerous alley.

Everyone in Manhattan or magazine publishing knew the Elliotts were wealthy, but she’d had no idea Liam owned such an expensive piece of real estate. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe like her he rented a family-owned property. Aubrey loved her bright and airy apartment, but she sometimes wished for more independence. She and her father had an odd relationship. Aubrey yearned for his approval, but she wished she didn’t. Being on her own. She sighed. Probably wouldn’t change a thing. Her father would continue to give her everything she wanted materially, but nothing emotionally.

The elevator doors closed, leaving the doorman behind. Aubrey faced forward, but turning her back on Liam didn’t help. Dark wood wainscoting covered the bottom half of the doors and walls of the elevator, but the top half was mirrored. No matter which way she looked she faced multiples of Liam’s reflection. He surrounded her. She lowered her gaze to the marble floor.

“You get used to it,” he said, drawing her eyes back to his. “The mirrors,” he added when she lifted an eyebrow.

He rested the painting on the floor and shoved his free hand in his pocket. His relaxed pose would have fooled her if not for the intensity in the blue eyes watching her. She didn’t know what to say. Evidently, her adolescent, tongue-tied stupor had returned.

The doors glided open into a small carpeted hall containing two doors, one on the left and another on the right. So the elevator wasn’t exclusively Liam’s. It would take a power outage to ensure privacy, after all—not that it mattered since she and Liam wouldn’t be doing the deed in the elevator or anywhere else.

He unlocked the door on the right and motioned for her to precede him. Aubrey walked through the dark wooden portal. Her heels tapped across the granite floor leading into Liam’s living room. The warm wood tones, scatter rugs and traditional furniture and fabrics surprised her. She’d expected a bachelor pad to look more like … well, a bachelor pad. Black leather, chrome, fur rugs. But other than the granite floor, his home had none of those I-am-man-hear-me-roar attributes. Jewel tones of emerald, ruby and sapphire dominated a decor that was surprisingly classic and very similar to her tastes. A couple of landscapes hung on the walls. Vineyards, unless she missed her guess.

The man continued to surprise her. Too bad she couldn’t hang around to uncover the rest of his secrets.

“Tell me why three women just looked at me like I was a pitiful dumbass.” Liam balanced the heavy frame across the arms of a wing chair.

Aubrey’s grin hit him in the solar plexus. “Didn’t like that, did you? Here let me do that.”

She approached to help him remove the paper from the painting. Their fingers tangled as they reached for the same piece of tape. It was a wonder the sparks between them didn’t ignite the heavy brown paper protecting the artwork. Liam jerked too hard and a tearing sound rent the air.

“Careful,” she said. “You’re going to want to rewrap this to take it to your mother.” She carefully removed the remainder of the paper and then placed it on the floor beside the chair. Stepping back, she tilted her head and observed the picture. “Tell me what you see.”

Liam looked at the painting. “A white flower with a magenta center surrounded by green vines.”

Aubrey closed the distance between them. Her shoulder brushed his. In her heels she stood almost eye to eye with him. “Focus on the vines. What do you see?”

Violet eyes. Sleek, milk-chocolate hair. Smooth ivory skin. Her scent filled his senses. Roses? Gardenias? Something floral and heady, reminiscent of hot summer evenings at The Tides, his grandparents’ estate in the Hamptons. If the kiss they’d shared in the taxi had shaken Aubrey as much as it had him she didn’t show it.

Sunlight streamed through the window, heating his skin. He shrugged out of his suit coat and tossed it over the back of the sofa and then transferred his attention from the woman who had his hormones in an uproar to the piece in question. “Curves. The vines are curvy.”

“Resemble anything you’ve seen before?”

“Yes. Plants.” His tone and expression must have revealed his frustration.

She reached out and traced a fingertip over the thickest vine. “Look again.”

He felt stupid—neither a familiar nor welcome feeling. “Hills. Valleys.” And then it clicked, and it was so obvious he didn’t know how he’d missed the shape before. “A woman’s body. Reclining.”

Each leaf and vine shimmered like wrinkled emerald-green satin sheets and the woman’s form lay right in the middle. Damn, how had he missed that?

Because any man who wasn’t thinking about sex would only see a tangle of vines.

“Very good.” Her approving smile filled him with an inordinate amount of warmth. “Now look at the morning glory itself. Notice the dew trembling on the edge of the blossom and the curling tendrils of the shoots surrounding the flower.”

Her description made it impossible for him to miss the hidden meaning. Liam’s ears burned and he swore. “I bought a pornographic painting for my mother.”

Aubrey’s low chuckle danced down his spine. “No, you bought her a sensual one. There’s nothing dirty about this picture.”

“If that symbolizes what I think it does, then I can’t give it to her.”

“Gilda Raines paints of life, birth, femininity and sensuality. Like you said, it’s just a flower to the uninformed observer, but to someone who looks deeper it’s the cradle of life.”