Girl Behind the Scandalous Reputation

His hand had tightened on her hip to push her back, but she’d gripped his shoulder and looked at him with such unguarded innocence his heart had skipped a beat, and almost of its own accord his hand had slid around to the sweet indentation at the small of her back.

Her breath had hitched and when she’d stumbled he’d caught her against him. Her body had instantly moulded to his as if she was unable to hold herself upright. And he’d been unable to hide his physical reaction from her. His body had been gripped in a fever of desire: heart pounding, body aching and warning bells clanging so loudly in his head it was a wonder he’d been able to think at all.

He’d stupidly danced her into a secluded corner, with every intention of reprimanding her and telling her he didn’t do girls barely out of nappies, but she’d quivered in the circle of his arms, lips delicately parted, and he’d fused his mouth with hers before he’d even known what he was about.

The bolt of pure heat that had hit his groin at the contact had almost unmanned him.

Before he’d known it he’d had one hand tangled in her golden mane, the other curved over her bottom and his tongue deep in her mouth, his lips demanding a response she had been more than happy to give.

He’d completely lost all sense of where he was, and hours could have flown by before a hand had circumspectly tapped him on the shoulder.

Thomas, the family butler, had stood behind him, seemingly mesmerised by the imported mirror balls suspended above the dance floor.

Apparently his father required his presence most urgently.

For a second Lily’s dazed disappointment had only been outweighed by his own. Then he’d realised what he’d nearly done and been appalled at himself. She was his little sister’s friend, and the erotic images playing through his mind were highly inappropriate.

He remembered he’d abruptly released her and curtly told her not to bother him again, that he wasn’t interested in babies. And then she’d punished him by attaching herself to some Armani suit for the rest of the night like ivy on a brick wall.

One of the businessmen hooted a laugh, and the sound broke Tristan’s unwanted reverie.

He closed his eyes briefly to recompose himself, and then made the mistake of glancing into the mirror behind the bar—where his gaze collided with Lily’s.

For a split second something hot and primal arced between them, and then the pink tip of her tongue snuck out to douse her full lower lip and just like that he was hard again.

Damn. Had she done that on purpose? Had she known what he’d been thinking about?

He blinked slowly and turned his gaze as hard as his groin. He wasn’t an idiot, and he wasn’t going to let her use that come-hither look she’d probably learned in the cradle to manipulate him. The sooner she figured that out, the better for the both of them.

‘I don’t care what you did or didn’t know. You signed the forms and now we’re leaving.’

‘Wait.’ She put her hand out to touch him and then snatched it back just as quickly.

His jaw clenched. ‘What now?’

‘We need to sort this out.’

He picked his jacket up off the stool and shrugged into it. ‘It’s sorted. I’m in charge. You’re not. So let’s go.’

‘Look, I know you’re angry—’

‘Is that what I am?’ he mocked.

‘But,’ she continued determinedly, ‘I didn’t know I had that…stuff in my bag.’ Her voice was barely above a whisper. ‘And I’m not going with you until I know what happens next.’

Tristan glanced at the ceiling, hoping some divine force would penetrate it and put him out of his misery. He knew she had a headache. He’d known the minute he’d seen her. And now she was giving him one.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ he groaned.

‘No, I’m not. I mean it, Tristan; I won’t let you push me around like you did six years ago. Back then—’

‘Oh, cut the theatrics, Honey. There’s no camera to turn it on for here.’

‘Lily.’

He stared at her for a beat.

‘And I’m not—’

Tristan glared at her and cut her off. ‘You think I like this any more than you do? You think I didn’t rack my brain to come up with an alternative? I have just involved a good friend of mine to get you out of this mess and all you can do is act the injured innocent. You broke the law, not me, so stop behaving like I’m the bad guy here.’

Lily seemed to lose a little steam over that. ‘A friend?’ she whispered.

‘What? You thought I could just stroll up here myself and demand your release? I’m flattered you think I have that much power.’

Tristan glanced around the bar and saw that more passengers had entered. They were getting far more attention than he was comfortable with.

‘He won’t go to the press, will he?’ she asked.

Tristan shook his head. ‘So typical of you to be worried about yourself.’

‘I wasn’t worrying about myself,’ she snapped. ‘I was thinking about how this might impact Jordana’s wedding if it gets out.’

‘A bit late to think about that now. But, no, he won’t say anything. He has discretion and integrity—words you’d need to look up in a dictionary to learn the meaning of.’ He shook his head at the improbability of the whole situation. ‘For God’s sake, it’s not as if you couldn’t get a fix here if you were so desperate.’

She looked at him from under her cap. ‘Whatever happened to being innocent in this country until proven guilty?’

‘Being caught with drugs in your bag sort of makes that a moot point,’ he scoffed.

Lily’s chin jutted forward. ‘Aren’t lawyers supposed to be a little more objective with their clients?’

‘I’m not your lawyer.’

‘What are you, then? My white knight?’

A muscle ticked in his jaw. ‘I’m doing Jordana a favour.’

‘Ah, yes. The big brother routine,’ she mocked. ‘I seem to recall you really enjoy that. It must have made you feel valued—rescuing Jordana from my disreputable company all those years ago.’

She wrapped her arms around her torso in a defensive gesture that pinched something inside him, but he refused to soften towards her. He had no respect for people who created a demand for drugs and hurt those around them by using, and all today had done was confirm his father’s view that Lily Wild was bad news just waiting to happen.

‘It’s just a pity I didn’t nip your friendship in the bud sooner. I could have saved my family a lot of embarrassment.’

That seemed to take the wind out of her sails and he almost felt bad when her shoulders slumped.

‘So what happens now? Where will I be staying?’ she asked.

Tristan pulled a wad of notes from his pocket and threw some on the bar. ‘We’ll discuss the ground rules later.’

‘I’d like to talk about them now.’

He turned to her, what little patience he’d started with completely gone. ‘If I have to pick you up and cart you out of here I will,’ he warned softly.

Her eyes widened. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

Tristan crowded her back against the bar stool again. ‘Try me.’

She inhaled a shaky breath and put her hand up between them. ‘Don’t touch me.’

Touch her? He hadn’t really intended to, but now, as his gaze swept down her curvy body, he realised that he wanted to. Badly. He wanted to push aside that cardigan, slide his hand around her waist and pull her up against him until there was no sign of daylight between them. Until she melted into him as she had done six years ago.

‘Then co-operate,’ he snarled, crowding even closer and perversely enjoying her agitated backwards movement. It wouldn’t hurt her to be a little afraid of him. Might make sure she kept her distance this time.

‘I’m trying to.’

Her eyes flashed, and the leather creaked as she shifted as far back on the stool as she could, her monstrosity of a bag perched on her lap between them.

Tristan leaned forward and hooked his foot on her bar stool, jerking it forward so she was forced back into his space. He caught her off guard, and his bicep flexed as she threw her hand out to balance herself. Her breath caught and her eyes flew to his.

‘No, you’re not. You’re trying to bug me.’ He watched as colour winged into her face, his eyes narrowing as she snatched her hand back from his arm. ‘And it’s working.’

She raised her chin. ‘I don’t like your controlling attitude.’

He stilled, and their eyes locked in a battle of wills: hers bright and belligerent, his surprised but determined. His nostrils flared as he breathed her in deep. She smelled of roses and springtime and he had to fight the instinct to keep inhaling her.

They were so close he could see the flawless, luminescent quality of her skin—a gift from her Nordic heritage—and her thick, sooty lashes, as long as a spider’s legs, nearly touching her arched brow. His eyes turned hot before he was able to blank them out, and her breath stalled as she caught the heat.

He stopped breathing himself and felt the blood throb powerfully through his body. For a split second he forgot what they were doing here. Time stood still. But before he could wrap his hand around her slender neck and bring her mouth to his she blinked and lowered her eyes.

Tristan exhaled, his anger all the stronger because of the unwanted sexual tension that lay between them like a living thing.

‘Do you really think I care?’ he snapped. ‘When I first heard you were coming to Jo’s wedding I didn’t even intend to say hello. Now I find that hello is the least of my problems, and I can assure you I will not spend the next eight days arguing every single point with you. So if—’

‘Fine.’ She cupped her hand over her forehead and winced.

He knew what she meant, but he was insulted by her attitude and wanted to hear her say it.

‘Fine what? Fine, you want to come with me? Or fine, you want me to take you back to Customs?’

She raised her head and he waited. The smudges under her eyes looked darker, and her skin had lost even more colour.

‘Oh, to hell with it.’ He straightened and held his hand out to her. She took it, without argument, and he realised that the shock of the morning was finally starting to set in—or maybe she’d been in shock the whole time.

Her fingers were icy in his, and he shrugged out of his jacket once again and pulled it around her. She squirmed as if to push it off, and her eyes jerked to his when he grabbed her upper arms and dragged her close.

‘Co-operate,’ he growled, pleased when she stilled.

‘You never say please.’ She sniffed.

Hell, she was still trying to call the shots. He kept his eyes locked on hers, because if they dropped to her mouth he knew he’d taste her. He was hard and he was angry, and the adrenaline pumping through his veins was pushing his self-control to its outer limits.

‘Please,’ he grated after a long, tense pause. ‘Now, can you walk?’

‘Of course.’ She gripped her bag and swayed when he released his hold on her.

He knew it would be a mistake on so many levels, but before he could think twice he scooped her into his arms and strode out of the bar.

She started against him, but he’d had enough. ‘Don’t say a goddamned word and don’t look around. The last thing I need is for someone else to recognise you.’

And just like that she relaxed and turned her head into his shoulder, her sweet scent filling his every breath.

The cool breeze was a welcome relief as he exited the terminal and headed down the rank of dark cars until he found Bert.

His chauffer nodded and held the rear door open, but just as Tristan was about to toss Lily inside she laid the flat of her hand against his chest and looked up through sleepy eyes.

‘My luggage…’ she murmured.

Tristan’s chest contracted against the hot brand of her touch.

‘Taken care of,’ he growled, wishing the unbearable physical attraction he still felt for this woman could be just as easily dealt with.

CHAPTER FOUR

LILY collapsed back against the luxuriant leather car seat and closed her eyes, trying to equalise her pounding heart rate. Her head hurt and she felt shivery all over. She didn’t know if it was remembering her previous attraction to Tristan that had brought it screaming to the fore, or the man himself, but she was unable to deny the sweet feeling of desire that had pooled low in her pelvis when he’d held her in his arms and looked at her as if he wanted to kiss her.

Kiss her? Ha! Shake her, more like it. Especially given how much he still disliked her.

As she did him.

Actually, now that she thought about it, her physical response was probably due to emotional tiredness and stress making her super-sensitive to her surroundings and nothing to do with Tristan at all. How could it be when he immediately assumed that she was guilty? When he clearly thought she was lower than dirt?

His cold arrogance fired her blood and made her want to fall back on all her juvenile responses to criticism. Responses that had seen her play up to the negative attention her celebrity lineage provoked by flipping the press the bird, wearing either provocative or grungy clothing, depending on her mood, and pretending she was drunk when she wasn’t.

Nowadays she preferred to ignore any bad press or unfair comparisons with her parents’ hedonistic lifestyles, and just live her life according to her own expectations rather than other people’s. It worked better, to a certain extent, although she knew she’d never truly be able to outrun the shadow of who her parents had been.

Hanny Forsberg, her mother, had arrived in England poor and beautiful and on Page Three before she had found a place to live, and Johnny Wild, her father, had been a rough Norfolk lad with a raw musical talent and a hunger for success and women in equal measure.

Both had thrived on their fame and the attention it engendered, and after Lily was born they had just added her to their lifestyle—palming her off on whichever one wasn’t working and treating her like a fashion accessory long before it had become hip to do so.

The camera flashes and constant attention had scared her as a child, and even now Lily hated that she always felt as if she was living under the sullied banner of her parents’ combined notoriety. But none of that had been enough to put her off when her own creativity and natural talent had led her down the acting career path. Lily just tried as best she could to take roles that didn’t immediately provoke comparisons between herself and her parents—though as to that she could play a cross-dressing homosexual male and probably still be compared to her mother!

Sighing heavily, and wishing that one of her directors was going to call ‘cut’ on a day from hell, Lily turned to stare out at the passing landscape she hadn’t seen for so long.

Unfortunately the rows of shop fronts and Victorian terraces soon made her head throb, and she was forced to close her eyes and listen to the sound of Tristan texting on his smartphone instead. A thousand questions were winging through her mind—none of which, she knew, Tristan would feel inclined to answer.

For a moment she contemplated pulling the script she had promised to read from her bag, but that would no doubt make the headache worse so she left it there.

No great hardship, since she didn’t want to read it anyway. She had no interest in starring in a theatrical production about her parents, no matter how talented the writer-director was.

She’d nearly scoffed out loud at the notion.

As if she’d feed the gossipmongers and provoke more annoying comparisons to her mother by actually playing her in a drama. Lord, she’d never hear the end of it. The only reason she was pretending to consider the idea was a favour to a friend.

Her mouth twisted as she imagined the look on Tristan’s face if he knew about the role. No doubt he’d think her perfect to play a lost, drug-addled model craving love and attention from a man who had probably put the word playboy in the dictionary.

In fact it was ironic, really, that the only man Lily had ever thought herself to be in love with was almost as big a playboy as her father! Not that she’d fully comprehended Tristan’s reputation as a seventeen-year-old. Back then she’d known only that women fell for him like pebbles tossed into a pond, but she hadn’t given it much thought.

Now she was almost glad that he’d rejected her gauche overtures, because if he hadn’t she’d surely have become just another notch on his bedpost. And if she was anything like her mother that would have meant she’d have fallen for him all the harder.

Lily removed her cap and rubbed her forehead, glancing briefly at Tristan, slashing his red pen through a document he was reading. If she tried to interrupt him now to discuss her house arrest he’d no doubt bite her head off. Still…

‘I take it you won’t be put out if I don’t feel up to making conversation right now?’ she queried innocuously, smiling brightly when he looked at her as if she had two heads. ‘Thought not,’ she mumbled.

Suddenly she was feeling drained, and not up to fighting with him anyway, so it was a good thing he’d ignored her taunt. A taunt she shouldn’t have made in the first place. Never prod a sleeping tiger…wasn’t that the adage? Especially when you were in the same cage as him!

Lily leaned back against the plush leather headrest and closed her eyes. The manly scent from Tristan’s jacket imbued her with a delicious and oddly peaceful lassitude, and she tried to pretend none of this was happening.

Cheeky minx! She knew he didn’t want to talk. He couldn’t have made it any plainer. He slashed another line through the report he was reading and realised he’d marked up the wrong section. Damn her.

She sighed, and he wondered if she knew the effect she was having on his concentration, but when he glanced up it was to find she’d fallen asleep.

She looked so fragile, swamped in his jacket, her blonde hair spilling over the dark fabric like a silvery web.

He knew when he got it back it would smell like something from his late mother’s garden, and made a mental note to have his housekeeper immediately launder it. Then he realised the direction of his thoughts and frowned.

He was supposed to be focused on work. Not contemplating Lily and her hurt expression when he’d cut off her attempts to explain her situation earlier.

He didn’t want to get caught up in her lies, and he had taken the view that the less she said the better for both of them. She had a way of getting under his skin, and for an insanely brief moment back in the bar, when her eyes had teared up, he’d wanted to reach out and tell her that everything would be all right. Which was ridiculous.

It wasn’t his job to fix her situation. His job—if you could call it that—was to keep her out of trouble until Jordana’s wedding and find out any relevant information that might lead to her—or someone else’s—arrest.

It was not to make friends with her, or to make empty promises. And it certainly wasn’t to kiss her as he had wanted to do. He shook his head. Maybe he really had taken leave of his senses getting involved with this. Stuart, the friend and colleague who had helped him find the loophole in the law that had placed her into his custody, had seemed to think so.

‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Chief?’ he’d asked, after the deal had been sealed.

‘When have you ever needed to ask me that?’

His friend had raised an eyebrow at his surly tone and Tristan had known what was coming.

‘Never. But if she’s guilty and people question your involvement it could ruin your legal career. Not to mention drag your family name through the mud again.’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ he’d said. But he didn’t. Not really.

What he did know was that he was still as strongly attracted to her as he had been six years ago. Not that he was going to do anything about it. He would never get involved with a drug-user.

His mother had been one—although not a recreational user, like Lily and her ilk. His mother had taken a plethora of prescription meds for everything from dieting to depression, but the effect was the same: personality changes, mood swings, and eventually death when she had driven her car into a tree.

She had never been an easy woman to love. A shop girl with her eye on the big prize, she had married his father for his title and, from what Tristan could tell, had spent most of their life together complaining on the one hand that he worked too hard and on the other that the Abbey was too old for her tastes. His father had done his best, but in the end it hadn’t been enough, and she’d left after a blazing row Tristan still wished he hadn’t overheard. His father had been gutted, and for a while lost to his children, and Tristan had vowed then that he would never fall that deeply under a woman’s spell.

He expelled a harsh breath. He was thirty-two years old and in the prime of his life. He had an international law firm and a property portfolio that spanned four continents, good friends and enough money to last several lifetimes—even with the amount he gave away to charity. His personal life had become a little mundane lately, it was true, but he didn’t really know what to do about that.

Jordana thought it was because he chose unsuitable women most of the time, and if he did date someone ‘worthy’ he ended the relationship before it began. Which was true enough. Experience had taught him that after a certain time a woman started expecting more from a man. Started wanting to talk about love and commitment. And after one particularly virulent model had sold her story to the tabloids he had made sure his affairs remained short and sweet. Very sweet and very short.

He knew he’d probably marry one day, because it was expected, but love wouldn’t play a part in his choice of a wife. When he was ready—if he ever was—he’d choose someone from his world, who understood the demands of his lifestyle. Someone logical and pragmatic like he was.

Lily made a noise in her sleep and Tristan flicked a glance at her, wincing as her head dropped sideways and butted up against the glass window. Someone the opposite of this woman.

She whimpered and jerked upright in her sleep, but didn’t waken, and Tristan watched the cycle start to repeat itself. That couldn’t be good for her headache.

Not that he cared. He didn’t. She was the reason memories from the past were crowding in and clouding his normally clear thinking, and he resented the hell out of her for it.

But just as her head was about to bump the window again he cursed and moved to her side, to move her along the seat. She flopped against his shoulder and snuggled into his arm, her silky hair brushing against his cheek, giving him pause. He felt the warmth of her breath through his shirt and went still when she made a soft, almost purring sound in the back of her throat; his traitorous body responded predictably.

If he were to move back to his side now she might wake up and, frankly, he could do without her peppering him with the questions he’d seen hovering on her lips while he’d been trying to work.

She made another pained whimper and he looked down to see a frown marring her pale forehead.

Oh, for the love of God.

He blew out a breath and lifted his free hand to her hairline, stroked her brow. The frown eased instantly from her forehead and transferred to his own. If he wasn’t careful this whole situation could get seriously out of hand. He could just feel it.

Five minutes. He’d give her five minutes and then he’d move. Get back to the waiting e-mails on his smartphone.

Twenty minutes later, just as he was about to ease his fingers from her tangled tresses, his chauffeur announced that the car had stopped. Well, of course he’d noticed.

‘Drive us to the rear entrance, Bert,’ he said, trying to rouse Lily. She rubbed her soft cheek against his palm in such a trusting gesture his chest tightened.

God, she really was a stunning woman.