Claiming Magique: 1 (10 page)

Uh-uh. She wasn’t getting away with
that. She was his now. She’d settled the matter with her “yes” and “thank you”,
the way she’d softened in his arms.

Their time together wasn’t at an
end. It was just beginning. He was going to prove it to her.

“You need to relax,”
Alexa
said to Wallace.

Advice she should have heeded
herself. No matter what had just happened at the restaurant, everything was
going to be all right.

She’d survived this long without
Hunt in her life and would continue to do so, this time making certain of it.
It had been a huge mistake to give in to her yearning, allowing him to embrace
her again, holding him in return as though he were her lifeline when he wasn’t.
Even so, she couldn’t deny how good he’d felt, so solid and strong, washing
away all the loneliness she’d known, making her believe she wasn’t only wanted,
but cherished. A moment
Alexa
figured she’d treasure,
fool that she was.

She sighed.

Wallace made a noise that sounded
pained. She glanced over. He sat in the passenger seat of Ronnie’s Lincoln Town
Car like a man going to an execution, his hands gripping his knees, legs
bouncing. A visual representation of how she felt.

This had to stop. “Nothing bad is
going to happen.”

“As long as I’m driving,” he
countered. “I should be behind the wheel.”

“Yes, I know. But it’s all right. I
can manage. I do have a license.”

“You’re not Ms.
DuBlanc’s
driver. I am. If anything happens to you or this car, she’s not going to be
happy with me.”

“Nothing’s going to—”

“Red light,
red light, red light!”

Alexa
brought the sedan to a sharp stop. “Okay, okay, okay.”

Wallace blew out his breath.

Ignoring him,
Alexa
resisted the urge to see if Hunt was in one of the cabs behind them. Not
exactly following, but at least moving in the same direction. A short time
before, she’d forced herself and poor Wallace, her pseudo professor, to order a
second dessert neither of them wanted, hoping Hunt and David would leave before
they did.

Sweet David kept sneaking glimpses
of their table even as Hunt stopped staring, pretending she didn’t exist. No
different from her father. So why had she hoped for Hunt’s continued interest,
while also dreading it?

You know why.

She gripped the steering wheel to
keep from pounding it with the heels of her hands. Hunt knew her real name, so
he no doubt knew who her family was. Before she’d hooked up with him in the
ladies’ lounge, she’d kept asking herself if that was why he’d continued to
call the agency, wanting to book an appointment. Had he hoped that by getting
to know her better, making her crave him more than she already did, he’d gain
entry into her father’s inner circle? Was he like most guys, coveting the man’s
wealth and connections to help him in his own career, while using her to get
that far?

Alexa’s
stomach and chest hurt at the thought, bringing her back to
the few times her father had actually taken the time to speak to her.

“You’ll think men will want you,”
he’d warned, a mantra he kept repeating as though she’d been too stupid to get
it the first thousand times. “But it will only be because of my money. Remember
that.”

What a nice thing to say to a little
girl who’d never considered
herself
as pretty as her
mother or attractive enough for any man, especially her father.
Alexa’s
poor eyesight had forced her to wear glasses and
then contacts when all the other kids were free of them. Only Lasik surgery had
fixed that problem when she’d turned twenty. She’d been so thrilled with the
results,
she’d barged into her father’s office without
making an appointment.

“What’s different about me?” she’d
demanded.

He’d glanced up from his work and
gave her less attention than he did
waitstaff
at
restaurants. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

Before she could react to such a
cruel question or scream at him to notice her…to just be nice…he’d said, “If
you are, you’re on your own,
Alexa
. I put up with
your crap during school when you managed to get yourself expelled repeatedly.
I’m not doing it anymore.”

That was the last time she’d sought
him out. When she’d lost the weight he’d criticized her about for years,
becoming the woman she was now, she hadn’t bothered to ask him what he thought.
Nor did she contact her mother, who was in Madrid with her newest lover, a man
Alexa’s
age. Eventually, she’d met Ronnie, becoming one of
her girls.
Alexa’s
clients confirmed she was finally
worthy, interesting enough to capture and hold a man’s attention. They didn’t
know about her father. They knew her as
Magique
.

If not for Ronnie forbidding it,
Alexa
would have made appointments with her father’s
friends and colleagues, just to piss him off. How often she’d imagined him
showing up at her apartment unannounced, needing to see her as she’d so often
begged to see him. In her fantasies, she’d pictured herself calm, him angry,
then pleading with her not to continue with the agency. Not because her
activities embarrassed him, but because he cared about her.

The light turned green.

“Go, please,” Wallace muttered,
then
gestured to the right for
Alexa
to get into that lane and make the turn. She didn’t, driving through the
intersection instead.

His hand dropped to his lap. “We’re
returning to the penthouse? I thought Ms.
DuBlanc
was
leaving for the country this morning.”

“She did. Francine took her. Ronnie
wanted you to stay in the city to chauffeur me to wherever I need to go.”

“So you can continue to follow Mr.
Prescott?”

Alexa
rolled her shoulders.
Didn’t ease the
stress in them and her neck.
“We’re not following him.”

“Of course not,” he said, despite
her lie.

Okay, so stalking Hunt like a
lovesick teen was stupid, but
Alexa’s
compulsion to
see him again was so strong, she couldn’t stop herself. She needed to look at
him, stand in the space he’d once taken, hoping to catch his scent. She’d
wanted to see how he behaved around other women, if he was remotely interested
in anyone.
If he’d too easily forget about her and their one
evening together.

“Will I be taking you anywhere
tonight?” Wallace asked.

She wished. However, following Hunt
again was out of the question, considering he now thought Wallace was a former
professor of hers or a current client. Given how Hunt’s expression had darkened
upon seeing Wallace, that possibility had crossed his mind.

Odd.
If he were only interested in her father’s connections and
money, why would he be jealous of Wallace or any man?

Alexa
recalled how Hunt had behaved when he knew her only as
Magique
. How he’d mounted her first,
then
later carried her into the bathroom so they could be alone, away from Tim and
David’s demands. Hunt had acted then as if he didn’t want to share her. In the
ladies’ lounge, he’d been as out of control as her, both of them carrying on as
if they hadn’t had sex in years…or as though they required each other’s touch.

She smiled,
then
bit her lip, the thought pleasing and scaring her.

“Whoa, careful,” Wallace said,
reaching for the wheel.

Alexa
jerked the Lincoln back within the white lines. The driver
in the next lane continued to blast his horn, giving her the finger as he
passed. As though drifting into his lane was tantamount to murder or not loving
your own child.

As the blare died down, Wallace
pleaded, “Tonight, please let me drive.”

“I’m not going out,” she said.

The only appointment she’d made
since that evening on R Street was the one she had with Tim and David.

Hunt hadn’t known about it when
they’d been in the ladies’ lounge. He would have said something if he had.

Once David had arrived and they’d
talked, Hunt stopped staring at her, pretending indifference. Had David told
him about the upcoming date?
Most likely.
Had he also
told Hunt that she’d agreed to see his friends again, but not him?

What else? And Hunt’s reaction told
Alexa
exactly what he thought about that, which deepened
her sorrow even more but didn’t stop her resolve.

She didn’t want the promise of
tenderness, affection, love. Not any longer. For too many years, she’d hoped
for happiness that never came and couldn’t chance going through all that
disappointment again.

* * * * *

At this late hour, he should have
been asleep or catching up on stuff to benefit his clients, but couldn’t seem
to do either.

Hunt pounded his pillows,
then
shoved them behind himself, trying to get comfortable
against the headboard. His laptop with unfinished work was somewhere beneath
his bed linens, forgotten as he’d gone through the items Flannigan had provided
on
Alexa
.

Lifting a copy of one of the photos,
Hunt turned it to the nightstand light and couldn’t help but smile. In the picture,
Alexa
was posing for a school portrait with her other
classmates, all of them female, each ten or eleven years old, dressed in green
plaid skirts and white blouses with Peter Pan collars. The lenses of
Alexa’s
glasses reflected the area’s overhead lights. Her
hair was done up in a high ponytail.
Her smile absent.

Hunt wondered if she’d had braces at
the time.
Poor kid.
She looked miserable, her
shoulders drawn in as though she was trying to make herself invisible or
smaller. She still had her baby fat, her little tummy bigger than the rest of
the girls who all looked as though they were in training to be anorexics or
super models.

In the next series of school photos,
Hunt saw
Alexa’s
gradual transformation. She no
longer wore glasses, the specs no doubt replaced by contacts. She’d started to
shoot up, filling out her curves, which slimmed down her waist and tummy a bit.
Gone was that miserable look. In its place was an increasing air of defiance at
last, complete with her arched brow, pursed lips and arms crossed over her
chest.

Good for you.
He hoped she’d given hell to
whomever
had hurt her, making her feel less than amazing.

She had her mother’s striking good
looks, her father’s smarts. According to Flannigan’s report, her parents had
met in New York, having traveled in the same social circles. Her mother’s
people had been one of the ruling elite in Vietnam, escaping to this country
when all the shit happened in Saigon.
Alexa’s
father
was in banking, his pedigree going back to the
Mayflower
. His holdings
and heritage were on a par with the Rockefellers,
DuPonts
,
Gettys
.

His parenting skills clearly weren’t
as stellar, given what his little girl was doing for a living despite her Oxford
degree. Hunt debated if her father knew, and if he did, if he cared.

He traced her face in the photo with
the glasses, wishing he could have known her then, told her how special she
was. A foolish hope, Hunt knew. At that age, he probably would have teased her
relentlessly, calling her four eyes or worse, telling her she was stupid and
ugly.

Anything to
make him feel better about himself.
It hadn’t been easy protecting his mom, especially when she too often sided
with her boyfriends, crying how much she loved them, how only they could keep
her from being alone.

You had me. Why wasn’t I enough?

He dropped the photo and ground the
heels of his hands into his eyes, not wanting to think about
Alexa
turning him down today, her agreeing to see Tim and
David. Why in the fuck was she doing that? She wanted him more than she wanted
either man. Hell, his friends weren’t even in the running. Hunt wasn’t a stupid
kid anymore, trying to guess what was in a woman’s heart. He’d seen the
helpless desire in
Alexa’s
eyes, felt it in her body
as she’d melted against him.

She’d followed him to the
restaurant, possibly a lot of other places too, and now she was pushing him
away with that stupid David and Tim date. Had she honestly believed they
wouldn’t tell Hunt about it? Had she hoped they would?

Hurt and annoyance tightened his
muscles, while images flooded his mind of what he wanted to do.

He pictured
Alexa
entering his apartment, wearing a silvery sheath with matching heels.
Surrounded by his bedroom’s dark paneled walls, chunky furniture and the scent
of leather, she seemed completely feminine and utterly fragile.