Rumours on the Red Carpet

And lastly because Thia had no idea how to deal with the unprecedented arousal now coursing through her body!

She gave a shrug. ‘I don’t enjoy parties like this one.’

‘Why not?’

She grimaced, taking care not to insult this man for a second time this evening. ‘It’s just a personal choice.’

He nodded. ‘And where do you fit in with this crowd? Are you an actress?’

‘Heavens, no!’

‘A wannabe?’

‘I beg your pardon...?’

He shrugged those impossibly wide shoulders. ‘Do you wannabe an actress?’

‘Oh, I see.’ Thia gave a rueful smile. ‘No, I have no interest in becoming an actress, either.’

‘A model?’

She snorted. ‘Hardly, when I’m only five feet two inches in my bare feet!’

‘You aren’t being very helpful, Cyn.’ There was an underlying impatience in that amused tone. Thia had seen far too much of the reaction of New York’s elite these past four days not to know they had absolutely no interest in cultivating the company of a student and a waitress. Lucien Steele would have no further interest in her, either, once he knew. Which might not be a bad thing...

Her chin rose determinedly. ‘I’m just a nobody on a visit to New York.’

Lucien totally disagreed with at least part of that statement. Cynthia Hammond was certainly somebody. Somebody—a woman—whose beauty and conversation he found just as intriguing as he had hoped he might...

She quirked dark brows. ‘I believe that’s your cue to politely excuse yourself?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘And why would I wish to do that?’

She shrugged her shoulders beneath his jacket. ‘It’s what everyone else I’ve met in New York has done once they realise I’m of use to them.’

Yes, Lucien could imagine, knowing New York society as well as he did, that its members would have felt no hesitation whatsoever in making their lack of interest known. ‘I believe I’ve already stated that I prefer not to be like everyone else.’

‘Ain’t that the truth? I mean—’ A delicious blush now coloured those pale ivory cheeks as she briefly closed her eyes before looking up at him apologetically. ‘I apologise once again. I’m really not having a good evening!’ She sighed.

He nodded. ‘Would you like to leave? We could go somewhere quiet and have a drink together?’

Cyn blinked those long lashes. ‘I beg your pardon...?’

Lucien gave a hard, humourless smile. ‘I hate parties like this one too.’

‘But you’re the guest of honour!’

He grimaced. ‘I especially hate parties where I’m the guest of honour.’

Thia looked up at him searchingly, not sure whether or not Lucien Steele was playing with her. Not sure why he was bothering, if that should be the case!

The steady regard of those pale eyes and the grimness of his expression told her that this was a man who rarely, if ever, played.

He was seriously asking her to leave the Carews’ party with him...

CHAPTER TWO

THIA GAVE A rueful shake of her head as she smiled. ‘That really wouldn’t be a good idea.’

‘Why not?’

‘Are you always this persistent?’ She frowned.

He seemed to give the idea some thought before answering. ‘When I want something badly enough, yes,’ he finally murmured, without apology.

The intensity in that silver gaze as he looked down at Thia told her all too clearly that right now Lucien Steele wanted her.

Badly.

Wickedly!

She repressed another shiver of awareness just at the thought of how those chiselled lips and strong hands might feel as they sought out all the secret dips and hollows of her body.

‘I really think it’s time I went back inside.’ She was slightly flustered as she slipped his jacket from about her shoulders and held it out to him. ‘Please take it,’ she urged when he made no effort to do so.

He looked down at her searchingly for several seconds before slowly taking the jacket and placing it dismissively over the balustrade in front of him—as if it hadn’t cost as much as Thia might earn in a year as a waitress including tips!

‘Cyn...’

He wasn’t even touching her, and yet he managed to hold her mesmerised just by the way he murmured his own unique name for her in that deeply seductive voice, sending more rivulets of awareness down Thia’s spine and causing a return of that tingling sensation in her breasts, accompanied by an unaccustomed warmth between her thighs.

‘Yes...?’ she answered breathlessly.

‘I really want you to leave with me.’

‘I can’t.’ She groaned in protest at the compulsion in the huskiness of his voice, sure that this man—a man who was not only sinfully handsome but rich as Creosus—rarely, if ever, asked for anything from anyone. He just took.

‘Why not?’

‘I just— What colour are your eyes, exactly...?’ Whatever colour they were, they held Thia captive by their sheer intensity!

He blinked at the unexpectedness of the question. ‘My eyes...?’

‘Yes.’

His mouth twisted in a rueful smile. ‘I believe it says grey on my passport.’

Thia gave a shake of her head. ‘They’re silver,’ she corrected, barely able to breathe now, even knowing this was madness—that she was so totally aware of Lucien Steele, her skin so sensitised by the intensity of that glittering silver gaze fixed on her so intently, that she could feel the brush of each individual strand of her hair as it caressed lightly, silkily, across her shoulders and the tops of her breasts.

A totally unexpected and unprecedented reaction. To any man. Goodness knew Jonathan was handsome enough, with his overlong blond hair, laughing blue eyes and lean masculinity, but for some reason she had just never found him attractive in that way. Just looking at Lucien Steele, knowing she was aware of everything about him, of all that underlying and leashed power, she knew that she never would be attracted to Jonathan—that Lucien Steele was so overpowering he ruined a woman’s appreciation for any other man.

‘Grey...silver...they can be whatever the hell colour you want them to be if you’ll only leave with me now,’ Lucien Steele urged again, with that same intensity.

She was tempted—Lord, was Thia tempted!—but it wouldn’t do. No matter how distracted and inattentive Jonathan might choose to be, she couldn’t arrive at a party with him and then leave with another man. Especially a man she found as disturbing as she did Lucien Steele!

A man who was over six feet of lean and compelling muscle. A man who was too handsome for his own good. A man who was just too...too intense—too much of everything—and whom she had discovered she found so mouthwateringly tempting.

Thia straightened her spine determinedly. ‘I came here with someone.’

Those silver eyes narrowed with displeasure. ‘A male someone?’

‘Yes.’

His gaze moved to her left hand. ‘You aren’t wearing any rings.’

Thia gave a shake of her head. ‘He isn’t that sort of friend.’

‘Then who is he?’

‘I don’t think that’s any of your business—’

‘And if I choose to make it so?’

‘He’s just a friend,’ she dismissed impatiently, not sure even that was true any longer. Jonathan had made it obvious he inhabited a different world from her now—a world she had no inclination or desire ever to become a part of.

Lucien Steele’s expression was grim as he shook his head. ‘He can’t be that much of a friend if he brought you here and then just left you to your own devices.’

This was the same conclusion Thia had come to over the past four days! ‘I’m an adult and perfectly capable of looking after myself, thank you very much,’ she assured him tartly.

Lucien Steele raised dark brows. ‘So much so that you came out here alone rather than remain at the party?’

She felt stung by the mockery in his tone. ‘Maybe I just wanted to get away from all that boot-licking?’ she challenged.

‘Handmade Italian leather shoes,’ he corrected dryly.

‘Whatever,’ Thia dismissed impatiently. ‘I’m sure you didn’t come here alone tonight, either...’ She vaguely recalled Jonathan mentioning something about Lucien Steele currently being involved with the supermodel Lyndsay Turner. A woman who, six feet tall and blond, couldn’t be any more Thia’s opposite!

Lucien’s mouth thinned as he recalled the scene that had taken place with Lyndsay a week ago. A scene in which the supermodel had seriously overestimated his feelings for her and that had resulted in the end of their month-long relationship. Hell, he didn’t do promises—let alone engagement and wedding rings.

He grimaced. ‘As it happens, I did. And I want to leave with you,’ he added determinedly, knowing it had been a long time since he had wanted anything as much as he now wanted to spend time alone with Cynthia Hammond.

‘You don’t know the first thing about me,’ she dismissed exasperatedly.

‘Which is precisely the reason I want the two of us to go somewhere quiet and talk—so that I can get to know you better,’ he pushed insistently. The more this woman resisted him the more determined he became to leave the party with her this evening. At which time he intended to find out exactly which of Felix Carew’s male guests was the friend Cyn had mentioned...

She attempted to tease. ‘Has no one ever told you that it isn’t possible to have everything you want?’

‘No.’ A nerve pulsed in Lucien’s tightly clenched jaw.

‘Because you’re so rich and powerful no one would ever dare to tell you otherwise?’ she asked softly, reminding him of his earlier comment.

‘No doubt.’ Again he answered unapologetically.

Thia gave an exasperated laugh at this man’s unrelenting arrogance; she really had never met a man quite like him before! ‘Then I shall have the distinction of being the first to do so! It’s been...interesting meeting you, Mr Steele, but I really should go back inside and— What are you doing...?’ She gasped softly as his gaze continued to hold hers captive even as his head slowly descended towards her, the warmth of his breath as light as a caress against her cheeks and lips.

‘I want—I’d like to kiss you,’ he corrected huskily, his lips just centimetres away from her own. ‘Are you going to let me?’

‘No...’ Thia was aware her protest sounded half-hearted and she found herself unable to look away from those mesmerising silver eyes.

‘Say yes, Cyn.’ He moved slightly, his lips a hot and brief caress against the heat of her cheek before he raised his head and looked at her once again, not touching her with anything but the intensity of that glittering gaze.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move so much as a muscle, as she continued to be held captive by the intensity of those eyes. Much like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Or a freight train. Either of which was capable of flattening whatever stood in their way. As Lucien Steele’s brand of seduction was capable of crushing both Thia and her resistance...

She drew in a shaky breath before stepping back and away from him. ‘Thank you for the invitation, Mr Steele, but no.’

‘Lucien.’

She shook her head. ‘I believe I would prefer to continue calling you Mr Steele. Not that we’ll ever meet again after this evening. But even so—’

‘Why not?’

Thia gave a lightly dismissive laugh at the sharpness of his tone. ‘Because you inhabit this world and I—I inhabit another one.’

‘And yet here you are...?’

‘Yes, here I am.’ And she wouldn’t be coming back again if she could help it! ‘I really do have to go back inside now—’

‘And look for your friend?’ he prompted harshly.

‘Yes.’ Thia grimaced, very much afraid that she and that ‘friend’ were going to have words before the evening was over. Certainly she had no intention of letting Jonathan get away with bringing her to another party like this one and then leaving her to go off somewhere with the beautiful Simone. Jonathan’s habit of just forgetting Thia’s existence the moment they arrived at one of these parties was becoming tedious as well as a complete waste of her time, when she really didn’t enjoy being here.

‘Who is he?’

‘It’s really none of your business,’ Thia snapped in irritation at Lucien Steele’s persistence.

Those silver eyes narrowed, his jaw tightening. ‘At least tell me where you’re staying in New York.’

She gave an exasperated grimace. ‘That’s even less your business! Now, if you’ll excuse me...’ Thia didn’t wait for him to reply before turning on her four-inch-heeled shoes and walking away, her head held determinedly high as she forced herself not to hurry, not to reveal how desperately she needed to get away from Lucien Steele’s disturbingly compelling presence.

Even if she was completely aware of that silver gaze as a sensual caress across the bareness of her shoulders and down the length of her spine and the slender curve of her hips!

Lucien Steele was without doubt the most disturbingly sexual man she had ever—

‘Where the hell have you been?’ Jonathan demanded the moment she stepped back into the Carews’ huge sitting room. The expression on his boyishly handsome face was accusing as he took a rough hold of her arm.

An entirely unfair accusation, in Thia’s estimation, considering he was the one who had gone missing with their hostess for almost an hour, leaving her to be approached by Lucien Steele!

‘Can we talk about this somewhere less...public, Jonathan?’ She glared at him, very aware of the silent—listening?—presence of Lucien Steele’s bodyguard, Dex, just feet away from the two of them. ‘Preferably in the privacy of your car, once we’ve left,’ she added pointedly.

Jonathan looked less than pleased by her last comment. ‘You know damned well I can’t leave yet,’ he dismissed impatiently, even as he physically dragged her over to a quieter corner of the room.

‘Could that possibly be because you haven’t yet had a chance to say hello to Lucien Steele?’ Thia felt stung into taunting him as she rubbed the top of her arm where Jonathan’s fingers had dug so painfully into her flesh that she would probably have bruises to show for it tomorrow. ‘I noticed you and our beautiful hostess were noticeably absent when he arrived.’

‘What does that mean?’ he glowered darkly. ‘And what the hell’s got into you, talking to me like that?’

‘Nothing’s got into me.’ She gave a weary sigh, knowing that not all of her frustration with this evening was Jonathan’s fault. Her nerves were still rattled from that encounter with Lucien Steele on the balcony—to a degree that she could still feel the seductive brush of those chiselled lips against her cheek and the warmth of his breath brushing against her skin... ‘I just want to leave, that’s all.’ She grimaced.

‘I’ve told you that I can’t go just yet.’ Jonathan scowled down at her.

‘Then I’ll just have to go downstairs and get a taxi—’

‘It’s a cab,’ he corrected impatiently. ‘And you aren’t going anywhere until I say you can,’ he added determinedly.

Thia looked at him searchingly, noting the reckless brightness of his eyes and the unaccustomed flush to his cheeks. ‘Have you been drinking...?’

‘It’s a party. Of course I’ve been drinking!’ Jonathan eyed her impatiently.

‘In that case I’m definitely taking a cab back to your apartment,’ Thia stated firmly.

‘I said you’ll leave when I say you can!’ His eyes glittered.

Thia’s cheeks warmed as she stared at him incredulously. ‘Who do you think you are to talk to me like that?’ she gasped.

Jonathan’s expression darkened. ‘I think I’m the man who paid for you to come to New York!’

Her eyes widened incredulously. ‘And you believe that gives you the right to tell me what I can and can’t do?’

‘I think it gives me the right to do with you whatever the hell I feel like doing!’ he sneered.

Thia felt the colour drain from her cheeks at the unmistakable threat in his voice. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you, Jonathan.’ Her voice shook as she tried to hold back tears of hurt. ‘But I do know I don’t like you like this. You’re obviously drunk. Or something.’ She wasn’t a hundred per cent certain that reckless brightness in his eyes and the flush to his cheeks had been caused by alcohol alone...

Jonathan certainly wasn’t behaving this evening—hadn’t been for the past four days, if she was completely honest—like the charming and uncomplicated friend she had known in England...

She drew in a deep breath. ‘I think it’s best if I leave now, Jonathan. We can talk later. Or tomorrow—’

‘You’re staying put, damn it.’ He reached out and grasped the top of her arm once again, the fingers of his other hand like a vice about her wrist as he twisted painfully.

Thia gave a gasp at the pain he was deliberately—viciously—inflicting on both her arm and her wrist. ‘You’re hurting me, Jonathan,’ she breathed, very much aware of the other guests in the room and the curious sideways glances that were now being sent their way.

‘Then stop being so damned difficult! I’ve said you aren’t going anywhere and that’s an end to it—’ Jonathan broke off abruptly, his gaze moving past Thia and over her left shoulder and his eyes widening before he abruptly released her arm and wrist and forced a charmingly boyish smile to his lips.

Thia’s spine stiffened as she guessed from the sudden pause in the conversation around them, the expectant stillness in the air and the way her skin tingled in awareness, exactly who was standing behind her.

Only one man had the power to cause such awe in New York’s elite and the ability to possess the very air about him...

The same man who exuded such sexual attraction that it caused every nerve-ending in Thia’s body to react and strain towards the pull of that raw sensuality!

Lucien Steele...

* * *

Lucien had remained out on the balcony for several more minutes after Cynthia Hammond had walked away from him, giving the hardness of his arousal time to subside even as he pondered the unexpected fierceness of his physical reaction to her.

Her skin—that pearly, luminescent skin—had been as soft and perfect to the light caress of his lips against her cheek as he had imagined it would be, and he could still smell her perfume...something lightly floral along with underlying warmly desirable woman. The same warmth that had surrounded him, enveloped him, as he’d shrugged back into his evening jacket ready for returning to the Carews’ party as if the woman herself were wrapped around him.

Lucien couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such a visceral reaction to a woman that he wanted to take her right here and right now. If he ever had...

All the more surprising because Cynthia Hammond, at little over five feet tall, ebony-haired and probably only twenty or so, wasn’t the type of woman he usually found himself attracted to. He had always preferred tall, leggy blondes, and women nearer to his own age of thirty-five. Women who knew and accepted that his interest in them was purely physical, and that it would be fleeting.

Cynthia Hammond looked too young, too inexperienced to accept the intensity of passion Lucien would demand from her even for the brief time that his interest lasted. And it would be brief—a week or two, a month at the most—before Lucien once again found himself feeling restless, bored with having the same woman in his bed.

No, better by far, he had decided, that he stay well away from the too-young and too-inexperienced Cynthia Hammond.

And he would have done so if, when he had finally stepped back into the Carews’ apartment, Dex hadn’t felt it necessary to take him to one side and inform him of the way Jonathan Miller had verbally berated Cynthia Hammond the moment she’d returned to the party, before physically dragging her away.

Did that mean that Jonathan Miller, the star of one of the television series currently airing on Lucien’s own network, was the friend Cyn had come to the party with?

Watching the couple as they’d stood together on the opposite side of the room, talking softly but obviously heatedly, Lucien had been unable to stop the narrowing of his eyes when he saw the way Cyn suddenly paled. His fists had clenched at his sides as he’d realised that Miller had a painful grip on her arm and his other hand was twisting her wrist, despite Cyn’s obvious efforts to free herself. The thought of a single bruise marring the pearly perfection of her skin had been enough to send Lucien striding forcefully across the room.

Jonathan Miller was one of the reasons Lucien was back in New York at the moment. The actor’s behaviour this past few months had become a definite cause for concern and required that Lucien intervene personally after receiving information that the verbal warning he had given Miller six weeks ago, about his drug habit and the affair he was having with his married co-star—the wife of the show’s director—had made little difference to the other man’s behaviour.

Another private meeting with Jonathan Miller would have to wait until tomorrow. At the moment Lucien was more concerned with the aggressive way the younger man was currently behaving towards Cyn. No matter how intense or demanding Lucien’s own physical needs might be, he would never deliberately hurt a woman—he much preferred to give pleasure rather than pain—and he wouldn’t tolerate another man behaving in that way in his presence, either.

His gaze settled on Cyn as she stood with her bared shoulders turned towards him. ‘Are you ready to leave now...?’ he prompted huskily.

Thia’s heart leapt into her throat as Lucien Steele reiterated his invitation to leave the party with him, as he offered to take her away from this nightmare. Away from Jonathan. A Jonathan who was becoming unrecognisable as the charming man she had met two years ago—a man she had thought was her friend.

But friends didn’t deliberately hurt each other, and the top of her arm still ached from where Jonathan’s fingers had dug so painfully into her flesh just seconds ago, and her wrist was sore from where he had twisted it so viciously. Not only had he hurt her, but he had frightened her too when he had spoken to her so threateningly. And it shamed her, embarrassed her, to think that Lucien Steele might have witnessed that physical and verbal attack.

‘Cyn...?’

She could see the confusion in Jonathan’s eyes and he was the one to answer the other man lightly. ‘I think you’ve made a mistake, Mr Steele. This is Thia Hammond, my—’

‘Cyn...?’

Long, elegant fingers slipped possessively, gently beneath her elbow and Lucien Steele continued to ignore the other man as he came to stand beside her. Thia felt that now familiar shiver down the length of her spine just at the touch of those possessive fingers against her skin, accompanied by the compulsion in Lucien Steele’s husky voice. She could actually feel that compulsion as that voice willed her to look up at him.

She turned slowly, much like a marionette whose strings were being pulled, her lids widening, pupils expanding, and all the air suddenly sucked from her lungs as she took her first clear look at Lucien Steele in the glare of light from the chandeliers above them.

Oh. My. God.

She had thought him mesmerising, compelling, as they had stood outside together in the moonlight, but that was as nothing compared to the intensity of the magnetism he exuded in the brightly lit sitting room of the Carews’ apartment. So much so that even this huge room, the size of a tennis court, seemed too small to hold all that raw and savage power.

His hair was so deep a black it appeared almost blue beneath the lights of the chandelier, and his bronzed face was beautifully sculptured. His high, intelligent brow, the sharp blade of a nose between high cheekbones, and his mouth—oh, God, his mouth!—were sinfully, decadently chiseled. His top lip was slightly fuller than the bottom—an indication of the sensuality he had exuded when they were outside together on the balcony?—and his jaw was square and determined, darkened by the shadow of a dark stubble.

It was the face of a warrior, a marauder, a man who took what he wanted and to hell with whoever or whatever stood in his way.