The Mistress Deal

“Do you have to argue about everything?” he snarled.

“With you, yes.”

“I should have asked for character references before I signed that goddamned agreement.”

“Adversity might teach you a thing or two,” she retorted. “I’m going to bed. Good night.”

“Be ready by quarter to seven tomorrow evening.”

“Yes, Reece, I’ll be ready.” And wearing the most outrageous outfit I own, she thought vengefully. She turned away, marching toward the door at the end of the hall, and heard him say behind her, “I’ll bring your case down. And your tools—if you trust me to, that is.”

So much for the grand exit, Lauren thought with a quiver of inner laughter; she’d forgotten about her suitcase. “That far I trust you,” she said.

Her bedroom was painted terra-cotta, the bedspread and drapes in shades of teal blue, the whole effect confident yet full of welcome. Two exquisite Chinese scrolls hung on either side of the marble fireplace, while the shelves held an enviable collection of Ming pottery. Aware through every nerve of Reece’s footsteps as he entered her room, she turned to face him. He said evenly, “That door leads to the bathroom, and the balcony’s over there. I’ll see you tomorrow evening around six or six-thirty.”

He didn’t want to see her in the morning, that was obvious. She leaned over to switch on a lamp, her hair swinging softly around her face. “Enjoy your day,” she said with the merest breath of sarcasm.

For a full five seconds Reece stared at her in silence. She raised her chin, refusing to look away, wishing with all her heart that he’d put a shirt on. Then he said crisply, “Good night, Lauren,” and closed the door with a decisive snap.

Lauren sank down on the wide bed, knowing she’d give almost anything to be back in the unpretentious guest bedroom in Charlie’s apartment. Anything but Wallace’s reputation, she thought unhappily.

Eight days wasn’t long. She could manage. Even if Reece Callahan repulsed and attracted her in equal measure.

It would be a great deal safer if she were indifferent to him.

Lauren woke early the next morning. The sun was streaming through the French doors that led onto the balcony and she knew exactly what she was going to do all day. But she’d need a key to Reece’s condo.

Quickly she dressed in her leggings and sweater. In her bare feet, her hair loose around her face, she hurried down the hall, not even glancing at the statue of the Madonna: she’d have lots of time for that. In the spacious living room, she called, “Reece? Are you up?”

“In the kitchen.”

He didn’t sound exactly welcoming. Pasting a smile on her face, she walked into an ultramodern kitchen equipped with what seemed like acres of stainless steel. Reece was, thank goodness, wearing a shirt. He was munching on a piece of toast, gazing at the papers strewn over one of the counters. She said, “You start early.”

“So, apparently, do you. What do you want?”

“A key—I need to go out this morning.”

“The doorman has an extra, I’ve told him to give it to you.” He shifted one of the papers, making a note with the pen in his free hand.

“That toast smells good,” she said provocatively. “I think I’ll have some.”

“Can’t you wait until I’ve gone?”

“Are you always cranky in the morning?”

“Not with people I like.”

“Try harder,” Lauren said, glaring at him as she headed for the coffee machine.

His voice like a whiplash, he said, “Sandor’s beginning to have all my sympathy.”

The mug she was filling almost slipped from her grasp; scalding liquid splashed the back of her hand. With a gasp of pain, she banged the mug down on the counter and ran for the sink, where she turned on the cold tap and thrust her hand under it. Then Reece was at her side. “Here,” he ordered, “let me see.”

“It’s nothing!”

He took her by the wrist, putting the plug in the sink with his free hand. “You haven’t broken the skin—you’re better off immersing it in cold water.”

The cold water did relieve the pain. Biting her lip, Lauren said, “There’s a moral here—I shouldn’t start fights before I’ve had my caffeine fix.”

“You’re still in love with Sandor.”

Her wrist jerked in his hold like a trapped bird. “It was over years ago, Reece.”

“Which isn’t an answer—as you well know.”

“You’re not getting any other.”

He moved closer to her, his eyes roaming her face. “No makeup,” he said. “The real Lauren Courtney.”

“You’re unshaven,” she responded in a flash, “but do you ever show the real Reece Callahan?”

With sudden deep bitterness he said, “Is there a real Reece Callahan?”

Shocked, she whispered, “If you have to ask the question, then of course there is.”

“Oh, sure,” he said, moving away from her and drying his hands. “Let’s scrap this conversation. Did you say you wanted some toast?”

“Yes, please.” Only wanting to lighten the atmosphere, she added, “This is a very intimidating kitchen—I’m what you might call an erratic cook.”

He didn’t smile. “Pull up a stool and I’ll bring you a coffee. Cream and sugar?”

“No cream. Three spoonfuls of sugar.”

“To sweeten you?”

“To kickstart the day. Creativity is enhanced by glucose—at least, that’s my theory.”

He gave his papers a disparaging glance. “With the negotiations I’ve got the next few days, maybe I should try it.”

“Honey’s better than sugar, and maple syrup’s best of all.”

“So you’re a connoisseur of the creative process. You should write a book,” he said dryly, putting her coffee in front of her.

“No time… Do you know what, Reece? We’ve just had a real conversation. Our first.”

“Don’t push your luck,” he rasped, “and don’t see me as a challenge.”

She flushed. “A useless venture?”

“Right on.”

She said deliberately, “I don’t believe you bought every one of the paintings and sculptures in this condo strictly as an investment.”

“You can’t take a hint, can you?” Reece said unpleasantly, taking the bread out of the toaster.

“The Madonna and child? An investment? You bought that statue because in some way it spoke to your heart.”

His back was turned to her; briefly, his body shuddered as though she’d physically struck him. Then he pivoted, closing the distance between them in two quick strides. Towering over her, he dug his fingers into her shoulders. “Stay out of my private life, Lauren. I mean that!”

His eyes were blazing with emotion, a deep, vibrant blue; his face was so close to hers that she could see a small white scar on one eyelid. She’d hit home; she knew it. And found herself longing to take his face between her palms and comfort him.

He’d make burnt toast out of her if she tried. Swallowing hard, Lauren said with total truth, “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He said harshly, “I’m going to be late for work. If your hand needs attention, the first-aid kit’s in my bathroom cabinet. I’ll see you this evening.” Gathering all his papers in a bundle, he left the kitchen.

Thoughtfully Lauren started to eat her toast. The ice in his eyes had melted with a vengeance. And he’d bought the Madonna and child for intensely personal reasons that she was quite sure he had no intention of divulging.

One thing she knew. She wasn’t going to be bored during the next few days.

CHAPTER FOUR

“LAUREN, what in hell are you doing?”

The chisel slipped, gouging into the wood. With an exclamation of chagrin, Lauren whirled around. “Don’t ever creep up on me again when I’m working, Reece—look what you made me do! And what are you doing home anyway? You said six o’clock this evening.”

Reece hauled his tie from around his throat. “It’s six thirty-five and we’re supposed to leave in twenty minutes.”

Lauren’s jaw dropped. “It can’t be. I stopped for lunch no time ago.”

“Six thirty-six,” he said, ostentatiously looking at his gold watch.

“Oh, no,” she wailed, “I promised I’d be ready.”

“You did.”

“Reece, I’m sorry. You’d better get out of here so I can change. I swear I won’t be more than ten minutes late.”

“What did you do to your finger?”

She glanced down at two Band-Aids adorning her index finger. “I cut it. No big deal.”

“You’re a mess,” he said.

She looked down at herself, laughter flickering across her features. She was wearing her oldest leggings and a T-shirt embellished with several holes from her welding torch; her hair was pulled back into an untidy bundle on her neck. “You mean you won’t take me to the cocktail party like this? Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“I’m starting to wonder,” Reece said with a note in his voice that brought her head up fast.

The words came from nowhere. “Don’t you go seeing me as a challenge, either,” she said.

“I’m beginning to think Wallace Harvarson has a lot more to answer for than a mere five hundred thousand dollars,” he said tightly. “Go get ready, Lauren. Pin your hair up. Pile on the red nail polish. But for Pete’s sake, hurry.”

She started to laugh. “It’ll take more than a few pins to make me presentable,” she said, and stood up, moving away from the table and stretching her muscles with unselfconscious grace.

The answering laughter vanished from Reece’s face. He said sharply, “You did that today?” She nodded, watching him walk closer to the rough carving she’d been working on for the last few hours. He said, as though the words were being dragged from him, “I can see where you’re headed—and already it’s a thing of beauty.”

“I thought I could just make a copy,” Lauren said ruefully, pulling the ribbon from her hair and shaking it in a cloud around her head. “But it got away from me.”

The lines of the emerging sculpture of a mother and child were utterly modernistic, yet imbued with an ancient and ageless tenderness. Reece said in a hard voice, “I’m going to have a shower. I’ll wait for you in the living room. I’m the host of this shindig this evening and I want to arrive on time.”

“Yes, sir,” she retorted, and watched him march across the dark-stained floors and out of the door. She put her chisel down on the table. Had she ever met a man who was such a mass of contradictions? He’d seen instantly what she was striving to create from the block of wood; and run from it as though all the demons in hell were after him.

But she mustn’t see him as a challenge.

The challenge, she thought wryly, looking down at herself, was to transform herself from a frump to a fashion model in less than twenty minutes. Move it, Lauren. You’ve got all week to figure out Reece Callahan.

It might take a lifetime. A thought she hastily subdued.

Seven o’clock. Lauren was late. Scowling, Reece switched to the news channel, and not for the first time wondered what in God’s name had possessed him to suggest that Lauren Courtney pose as his lover. As a result, Wallace Harvarson was getting off scot-free and he, Reece, was saddled with an argumentative and thoroughly irritating woman who didn’t count punctuality among her talents. Because she had talents. That bloody statue had got him by the throat the minute he’d seen it; which she, of course, had noticed right away.

The new federal budget was due to be tabled; he tried to pay attention. Then, behind him, overriding the news-caster’s voice, he heard Lauren say, “Will I do?”

He flicked the remote control and stood up, turning to face her. She had draped herself against the door frame, her eyelids lowered demurely. Her dress was black, a full-length sheath slit to mid-thigh. A vivid scarlet-and-blue scarf swathed her throat and fell provocatively over one breast; her thin-strapped sandals had stiletto heels and her earrings dangled almost to her shoulders, little enameled discs of blue and red that moved with her breathing.

He said ironically, “You’ll be noticed.”

She smiled; her lips were also scarlet, he noticed, dry-mouthed. “Isn’t that the whole aim?”

“I guess so.” He walked closer, noticing her incredibly long lashes. “How do you keep your hair up? It’s contradicting all the laws of gravity.”

It was piled in a mass of curls, making her neck look impossibly long and slender. “Pins and prayer,” said Lauren.

“Let me see your hands.”

“You would ask that,” she said, and held them out, palms down. The hot coffee had left red blotches on the back of her left hand; she had two clean Band-Aids wrapped around her index finger.

“Do you often cut yourself?” he rapped.

“It’s an occupational hazard,” she said limpidly. “To quote you.”

“Is the cut deep?”

“Nope. But I’m human. I bleed.”

“In contrast to me.”

“You said it. I didn’t.”

“You don’t have to.” He didn’t know which he hated more, the way the black fabric clung to her breasts, or the mockery in her turquoise eyes. In a hard voice he added, “This is all very amusing and I’m sure we could stand here trading insults for the next hour. But my car’s waiting downstairs. Let’s go…and Lauren, don’t forget what this is all about, will you? Wallace—remember him?”

“Are you telling me to behave myself?”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“You don’t have a worry in the world,” she snapped. “I promise I’ll be the perfect mistress.”

She looked as though she’d rather take a chisel to him. A blunt chisel. He checked that he had his keys in the pocket of his tuxedo and said with a mockery equal to hers, “Shall we go, darling?”

Her nostrils flared. “If you think I’m going to start this charade one minute before I have to, you’re out to lunch.”

The sudden mad urge to take her in his arms and kiss her into submission surged through Reece’s body with all the force and inevitability of an ocean wave. Oh, no, he thought, I’m not going there. Not with Lauren Courtney. Sure recipe for disaster. He said coldly, “I don’t give a damn what you do when we’re alone. But you’d better stick to the bargain in public. Or else the deal’s off.”

“Fine,” she said. “Let’s go.”

She stalked to the elevator ahead of him, and stared at the control panel all the way down. His car was a black Porsche; he held the door while she folded herself into the passenger seat, revealing rather a lot of leg as she did so. Her silk stockings were black, her legs long and slender; his hormones in an uproar, Reece got into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. Once this week was over, he’d find himself a woman. An agreeable woman without an artistic bone in her body. He’d been too long without one, that was his problem.

Nothing to do with Lauren.

In a silence that seethed with things unsaid, they drove to the city’s most luxurious hotel. Reece pulled up in front of it. “Okay,” he said, “we’re on. You’d better act your little head off, sweetheart, or I’ll pull the plug on your precious stepfather so fast you won’t know what hit you.”

“How nice,” Lauren said, “an ultimatum. Guaranteed to make me feel as though we’ve been making mad, passionate love the whole day long.”

Very deliberately he put his arm around her shoulders, caressing her bare flesh and dropping his head to run his lips along her throat. “We made mad, passionate love the minute I came home from work, that’s why we’re late…and we’re going to do the same as soon as we get rid of all these people. Right, my darling?”

He felt her swallow against his cheek. “Right,” she cooed and delicately nibbled at his ear with her teeth.

Sensation scorched along every nerve he possessed. The soft weight of her breast was pressed against his sleeve; her perfume, as sensual and complex as the woman herself, drifted to his nostrils. His body’s response was instant and unequivocal. He wanted her. Wanted her in his bed. Now. Naked, beautiful and willing.

Then Lauren murmured against his earlobe, “You’d better not kiss me, not unless you want scarlet lipstick all over your face when we walk through the door. We don’t have to be quite that convincing, do we?”

She was totally in control. That was the message. She didn’t want him, Reece thought grimly. She was only toying with him, playing a role, the very role he’d insisted on.

He was an idiot. A prize jerk.

With a superhuman effort, he managed to say lazily, “I’m sure we can convince them we’re mad for each other without the benefit of Revlon. Perhaps you’d better wipe my ear.”

Her fingers were warm, brushing against his hair as they smoothed his flesh. He fought down a tide of sensation that would drown him if he let it and said, “The valet’ll park the car. Let’s go, Lauren.”

She took his face between her palms, looked straight into his eyes and whispered with passionate intensity, “I’m crazy about you, honey. You know that, don’t you?”

For a split second he found himself believing her, so convincing was the blaze of emotion in her eyes. But she was acting. Only acting. Feeling a rage as fierce as it was irrational clamp itself around his throat, he said, “Haven’t I believed every word you’ve said from the moment we met?”

Her lashes flickered. Gotcha, he thought. “And don’t call me honey. Even in jest.” Then he climbed out of his car, passing the keys to the uniformed valet. “Callahan’s the name,” he told him easily.

“Thank you, sir.”

Reece walked to Lauren’s door, opened it, and took her hand, raising it to his lips. “Have I told you yet how beautiful you look?”

She swayed toward him, her lips in a provocative pout. “A hundred times and never enough.”

A man’s voice said loudly, “Reece—good to see you.”

Reece turned. “Marcus, I’m glad you could make it. And Tiffany, how nice to see you. May I introduce Lauren Courtney? Dearest, this is Marcus Wheelwright, CEO of the European branch of my company…and his daughter Tiffany.”

Marcus was fiftyish, heavy-set and jovial. Tiffany, Reece noticed, was her usual ice-maiden self, wearing a white satin gown with diamonds glittering around her throat, her blond hair sleekly perfect. He wouldn’t be surprised if Lauren’s hairdo fell down before the night was over; but Tiffany’s would never do that. And Tiffany was probably never late for anything. Hurriedly he brought his attention back as Marcus shook Lauren’s hand. “Not the sculptor?” Marcus asked. “I didn’t know you two knew each other.”

“We met recently,” Reece said. “Love at first sight, wasn’t it, darling?”

Lauren laughed up at him, lacing her arm through his. “Absolutely…I’m still in a state of shock. Are you based in Paris, Marcus?”

“Paris. Hamburg. Oslo. You name it,” Marcus said; he had the look of a man recovering from a disagreeable revelation. Whereas Tiffany, Reece noticed, looked coldly furious.

Lauren started to discuss the art market in Paris, skillfully including Tiffany and Reece in the conversation, every movement of her body giving out the message that she was a satiated woman who’d been equally generous in return. It was a masterful performance, Reece thought savagely, and struggled to play his part. Then Marcus drew him aside with a question about their French office; answering automatically, all his senses keyed to Lauren, Reece heard Tiffany say, “So you’re Reece’s latest plaything.”

“That’s not what I would have called myself,” Lauren replied.

“Don’t fool yourself on that count—I’m the one who’ll last. I have breeding, all the right connections.” Tiffany gave Lauren’s earrings a scornful glance. “And taste.”

“Whereas I’m merely talented, intelligent and beautiful,” Lauren said.

“Also incredibly conceited!”

“Merely realistic.”

Reece smothered the urge to laugh out loud and tried to pay attention to Marcus, who wanted to fire his office manager; deflecting him from the topic, Reece said heartily, “I should go inside, Marcus. I’m glad you and Tiffany have had the chance to meet Lauren—I’m a very lucky guy.”

“You certainly are,” Lauren said, laughing as she briefly laid her head on his shoulder; several of her curls, he noticed, were already tumbling from their pins. He let his palm rest warm on her nape, feeling the contact scour his nerves in a way that had nothing to do with deception and everything to do with his hormones. He didn’t need to act. He lusted after Lauren Courtney like a tomcat in springtime.

Did he want her to know that?

He did not.

“I’ll talk to you later,” he said to Marcus and Tiffany. “Come along, darling, let’s get a drink.”

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