Project: Runaway Heiress (9 page)

After several long minutes, she turned back around. For a second, she stared at him, looking none too pleased. But then her gaze floated past him and her chest fell as she expelled a breath.

“I guess I can sleep on the sofa,” she said, giving him a wide berth as she walked past him. “With luck, maybe it pulls out.”

The sofa was long enough for a body to stretch out upon, but didn’t look comfortable enough that anyone would want to. Still, she started removing the cushions one by one, feeling around for a handle that would turn it into her bed for the night.

Nigel opened his mouth to stop her before the first cushion was even taken off, but found himself distracted by the sight of her shapely rear as she leaned over. He’d noticed her change in wardrobe this morning when he’d picked her up for their flight—from the dark, Ashdown Abbey business attire she’d been wearing around the office to a much lighter, brighter dress of unknown origins—but hadn’t truly appreciated her current clothing choice until just now.

When she didn’t find what she was looking for, she straightened with a huff, putting her hands on her hips. He could have gone on admiring the view all afternoon, but finally took pity on her.

“Nonsense,” he said, causing her to spin around, cushions still askew. “There’s no need for you to stay on the sofa.”

She quirked a brow. “Do you expect me to sleep on the floor, then?”

He gave a snort of laughter. “Certainly not.”

The quirked brow lowered as she narrowed both eyes, her mouth flattening into an angry slash. “If you say the bed is big enough for both of us,” she all but growled, “I will not be responsible for my actions.”

Her frown deepened when he chuckled at her obvious irritation.

“What kind of employer do you think I am?” he couldn’t help but tease.

She didn’t respond, simply waited, her expression still one of a woman who’d just unwittingly sucked on a lemon.

Crossing the space between them, he cupped her shoulders, giving her an encouraging “buck up” shake before letting his palms slide down her bare arms.

“Surely this suite is spacious enough for the two of us to manage without getting under each other’s skin. And we can ask that a cot be brought up before nightfall, set it up out here. I’ll use it,” he added. “You can stay in the bedroom.”

Some of the temper leached out of her features, softening the lines around her mouth and eyes.

“I can’t make you do that. This is your suite. You should be able to enjoy the bed.”

He had half a mind to inform her that he’d enjoy it best if she joined him there. He hadn’t even seen the bed in question yet, but he’d stayed in enough luxury suites to have a pretty good idea of just how expansive and inviting it would be.

Surely enough room for two to sleep comfortably. And more than enough room for them to do much more than that.

Though he knew it was a bad idea all around, he indulged himself for a moment in fantasies of having her naked and in his arms. Of rolling around on slick satin sheets with her. Of having her beneath him, above him, plastered to him by their own perspiration and mutual passion.

His errant thoughts alone caused tiny beads of sweat to break out along his brow and upper lip. He could only imagine the physiological response he might suffer from full-on body-to-body contact of a carnal nature with her.

Which was a problem. A rather large, obvious problem, if she’d cared to glance down and notice as much. Thankfully, she didn’t.

But hadn’t he sat down just last week and given himself a stern talking-to? Hadn’t he learned his lesson with Caroline?

Lessons,
plural, he reminded himself now. Thanks to his ill-fated affair with Caroline, he’d learned not to get involved with women who were even loosely involved in the fashion industry, and certainly not one with whom he worked. His own personal assistant would be even worse.

He’d also learned that it was probably wise to avoid any sort of romantic attachment to American women altogether. Especially when he was trying to get Ashdown Abbey firmly established here in the States. And when his father was breathing down his neck about the delay in that success.

For those reasons and probably hundreds more, Lillian needed to remain off-limits. He couldn’t deny that he would enjoy a quick, lusty romp with her. No warm-blooded male could without being accused of lying through his teeth.

But better to lie on a too-short, too-narrow cot in the middle of the sitting room, picturing Lillian on the other side of the bedroom door, than to make one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

No amount of pleasure was worth the destruction crossing that line could bring. Or so he tried to convince himself.

“It’s no problem, truly,” he told her, wanting to move things away from the hazardous territory his thoughts were treading upon.

Not giving her a chance to protest further, he grabbed her bags and carted them into the other room, setting them at the foot of the bed. When he turned, she was behind him, watching his every move.

“Go ahead and unpack, settle in. I’ll call down for a cot and ask them to have it delivered by nightfall. In the meantime, I have a business dinner at seven o’clock with the head of one of our most important accounts. I’d like you to come along, if you’re feeling up to it.”

After a short pause in which she didn’t respond, he added, “I’ll understand if you’re tired from the flight and would prefer to stay in.”

“No,” she responded quickly, straightening in the doorway. “I’d love to go.”

He gave a sharp nod. “Excellent. I’ll leave you to freshen up and get ready. We’ll leave in an hour, if that’s all right.”

“Of course.”

They both started forward at the same time, she toward her luggage and he toward the bedroom door. Their arms brushed as they passed one another, a jolt of electricity, awareness, summer heat pouring through him. It made him catch his breath, swallow hard and wonder if she was suffering the same disturbing effect...or if he was the only one doomed to spend the weekend drenched in sexual frustrations thicker than the Miami heat.

Eight

D
inner their first night in Miami. Breakfast in the room—but set out so beautifully and served so elegantly that they might as well have been at a five-star restaurant. A business luncheon. And then, the evening before the Saturday morning fashion show, a cocktail party where a handful of those involved in the show—designers, buyers, planners, executives—could rub elbows and size up the competition in a friendly, noncompetitive atmosphere.

Lily had known the schedule ahead of time, but hadn’t realized how busy or rushed it would actually be.

True to his word, Nigel slept on a cot in the middle of the sitting room of the luxury suite. The roll-away bed looked completely out of place and—to Lily, at least—flashed like a giant neon sign that spelled G-U-I-L-T every time she laid eyes on it.

She didn’t have any other ideas or a better solution to their awkward one bed/two bodies predicament, but it still wasn’t right that she’d kicked him out of the bedroom of his very own suite.

Guiltiness aside, however, she had to admit she was more than a little relieved to have a door to close and a separate room to escape to each time they returned from yet another business-related outing.

She didn’t fear for her safety, exactly—at least not physically. She feared for her sanity and her best intentions.

The longer she was with Nigel, the more she admired him. The more attractive she found him. The more often she caught herself zoning out to simply stare at him, admiring the line of his jaw, the slight bow of his mouth, the way his lips quirked when he was amused or his brows rose when he was curious or intrigued.

What sent her skittering into the bedroom so often under one flimsy excuse or another, though, was the problem she was having regulating her temperature. Oh, how she wished she could blame it on the Florida heat and humidity. Such a nice, handy reason for the hot flashes that kept assailing her at the most inconvenient moments.

But it was hard to point fingers at the weather when the worst of her symptoms seemed to hit mostly indoors, when they were surrounded by comfortable-verging-on-chilly air conditioning.

Which led her to only one terrifying conclusion: it wasn’t her current location causing her so many problems...it was Nigel himself.

It was her body, her hormones, her apparently too-long-dormant, ready-to-party-like-it-was-1999 libido kicking up and screaming for attention.

Why couldn’t her sex drive have come out of hibernation while she was still in New York? There were men there. Handsome, funny, available men. Or so she’d been led to believe by her sister, who seemed to find a different one to go home with every other night.

But seriously, how hard would it have been to—in crude terms—get laid before flying to Los Angeles, where she was pretending to be someone else entirely? Why had she been living practically like a nun the past several months, only to meet Nigel and have her inner pole dancer wake up wanting to shake her moneymaker?

Oh, yes, she was in trouble. Pretending to be a mild-mannered personal assistant by day, tossing and turning and fighting the urge to throw open the door and invite Nigel to join her in the big lonely bed by night.

That
was why she made herself scarce at every opportunity. That was why she turned the lock on the bedroom door each night before she climbed into the king-size bed.

Not to keep him out, but to keep herself in.

But with every tick of the clock, every sleepless hour that passed, Lily was losing the battle. The thoughts that spiraled through her head made her hot and restless and frustrated.

Then she would wake up still tired and out of sorts, doing her best to get her errant emotions under control while she dressed and got ready. Thinking she was back to normal and fully prepared to face Nigel again, she would open the bedroom door...and find him standing there, looking like the answer to the prayers of single women around the world. Or he would turn at the sound of the door opening and her heart would screech to a stop, leaving her chest empty and her throat burning.

She was amazed she managed to stumble her way through the day without doing something truly embarrassing like drooling, weeping or collapsing at his feet in a puddle of needy, pathetic female.

Nigel never showed signs of suspecting her inner turmoil, so she must have been doing a decent job of hiding it. Thank goodness.

Now here she was, holed up once again in the suite bedroom that had caused all of her problems to begin with. And Nigel was out there, once again, waiting for her.

They had time yet before they needed to leave for the preshow cocktail party, but as cowardly as she knew it was, she couldn’t bring herself to spend their in-between time out in the main sitting area.

She’d tried, early on in their stay. They’d talked business, and Nigel had filled her in on what to expect from the weekend and various events they would be attending. But the longer they talked, the more they ran out of things to say, and the more awkward the lengthy pauses became.

Awkward and...tension-filled. As though the air was slowly being sucked out of the room, replaced by a growing electrical current. It would cause her chest to grow tighter by degrees and goose bumps to break out along her skin.

So over and over again, she retreated to the bedroom and relative safety.

She wondered if Nigel was beginning to get suspicious. But even more, she wondered if he felt any of the sizzling awareness, the building attraction that assailed her every time they were alone together.

A part of her hoped he did. After all, she shouldn’t be the only one suffering and running for cover like a nervous squirrel.

A bigger part of her, though, hoped that he didn’t. Uncontrollable lust and a passionate fling with the man who was supposed to be her boss but was really a possible archnemesis was something she so sincerely didn’t need.

It would be much better to suffer in silence, even if her continued run-and-hide routine was becoming increasingly difficult to pull off, while he remained completely oblivious.

At least tonight they would be surrounded by other people. The party would keep them busy, talking and shaking hands, drinking and nibbling on hors d’oeuvres. By the time it was all over with and they made their way back to the hotel, they would both be exhausted and more than ready to go their separate ways for a good night’s sleep. Or as many hours as they could squeeze in before having to get up and go to the fashion show, anyway.

She was walking around in one of the hotel’s soft, fluffy terry-cloth robes, fresh from the shower and lining up her underthings before beginning to dress, when there was a light tap at the door. Her heart lurched, mouth going dry, because she knew it could only be Nigel.

Swallowing hard, she took a deep breath and tiptoed over, checking the front of her robe to be sure she wasn’t flashing too much bare skin before pulling the door open a crack.

As expected, Nigel stood on the other side. He was still dressed in the clothes he’d been wearing all day, but had removed the suit jacket and tie and opened the first few buttons of his dress shirt, giving her a rather mouthwatering peek at the smooth chest beneath.

Through the crack of the door, he looked at her, his gaze starting at her still-damp hair and skating down the line of her terry-wrapped body to the tips of her painted toes, then back up. His eyes glittered as they met hers, sending ripples of desire to every dark nook and cranny of her being.

Her pulse kicked up and she tried to swallow again, but found that both her throat and her lungs refused to function.

Thankfully, he saved her from choking on her own words and sounding like a strangled crow by filling the uncomfortable silence and speaking first.

“Lillian,” he began. “Sorry to disturb you, but I have a small request.”

He sounded so serious, she immediately straightened, shifting from vulnerable woman getting dressed to personal assistant on the alert in the blink of an eye.

“Of course,” she responded. “What do you need?”

“Would it be too much to ask that you wear something special this evening?”

Her brow rose. Images of lacy teddies and garter belts with silken stockings filled her head. Surely he couldn’t mean
that
sort of “special.”

From out of nowhere, around the other side of the doorjamb, he revealed a long, hunter green garment bag with the Ashdown Abbey logo embroidered in the upper right-hand corner.

“This is one of the gowns from the line we’ll be showing tomorrow. I was hoping I could talk you into wearing it tonight as a bit of a sneak peek for our competition.”

He shot her a lopsided grin, accompanied by a wicked wink, and she couldn’t help smiling in return.

“I’ll be happy to try,” she told him, reaching toward the top of the garment bag where he held it by a thick, satin-wrapped hanger. “But I’m not exactly a supermodel. It may not fit.”

His gaze flitted down her fluffy white form once again, as though he could see straight through the robe to the body beneath.

“I think you’ll be fine. We don’t design for stick-thin women to begin with, even when it comes to runway shows, and this dress in particular is a very accommodating design.”

“All right,” she said with a small nod.

She’d brought one of her own elegant maxi dresses with her that would have been perfectly acceptable for a cocktail party, but she had to admit she was curious to see what Nigel wanted her to wear. And it was more than a little flattering to be asked to model one of Ashdown Abbey’s brand-new, as-yet-unseen designs in front of other designers and associates for the first time.

She would rather be showing off her
own
creations, of course, but since she wouldn’t be able to reveal that they were her designs, anyway...well, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Still standing there, dress in hand, bedroom door open, she wasn’t quite sure what else to say. It didn’t seem right to simply slam the door in Nigel’s face, even though she was eager to peel open the garment bag and see what lay inside.

Finally, he said, “I’ll give you a few minutes. Let me know if you have any problems.”

With that, he took a step back, but seemed reluctant to move away. And she was equally reluctant to close the door, shutting herself in again. But they did have a party to get to.

“I’ll only be a few minutes,” she murmured.

“Take your time. The limo won’t be here to pick us up for an hour yet.”

She disappeared back inside her luxurious little Girl Cave as he turned and headed off to get ready himself. Hanging the garment bag on the open armoire door, she slid the center zipper all the way down and peeled back the sides.

It was almost like scratching a lottery ticket. She held her breath, slowly revealing the gown beneath.

As lottery tickets
and
designer gowns went, it was a winner. Stunning. Gorgeous. Awe-inspiring. And for her, just a bit envy inducing.

The sheer, champagne-colored chiffon shimmered in the light and with every movement, no matter how slight.

The ruched bodice ran at an angle to the single beaded shoulder strap, about two inches wide, leaving the other shoulder entirely bare. A wide swath of the same jewels from the shoulder made up a belted waistline of sorts.

From the waist down, the chiffon flowed in angled layers over the same-colored charmeuse all the way to what she assumed would be the floor once she put it on.

Suddenly, she was both excited and nervous at the prospect of modeling it. Not surprisingly, the dress was beautiful. But she hadn’t worn anything this fancy in a very, very long time. And now, not only was she being asked to dress up like she was attending a royal wedding, but she would be expected to “sell” another designer’s work.

Knowing she didn’t have a choice, she hurried back to the bathroom to finish with her hair and makeup, then returned to the main room and shrugged out of the terry-cloth robe. Even though she’d planned for a cocktail party and packed accordingly, the underthings she’d brought didn’t quite suit the gown she would now be wearing.

If Nigel had shown her the dress ahead of time, she probably would have taken a quick shopping trip for something a bit sexier. Stockings instead of nylons, perhaps, and a bra and panty set the same color as the gown.

Luckily, some of the bras and panties she had with her were pale enough not to be seen through the champagne material. And though the bra wasn’t strapless, the straps were able to be rearranged or removed completely. She would just have to hope it stayed up and in place all night.

Moments later, she was reaching for the gown, turning it around and searching for the narrow hidden zipper that ran the length of the back. Time to see if the design was as forgiving as Nigel claimed.

Stepping into the pool of material, she drew it up and slipped the single strap over her left shoulder. The bodice settled over her breasts and the cups of her bra, the rest of the gown falling into place from her midriff down.

Reaching around, she clutched the two sides of the dress at the back in one hand and held them together. The fit might be snug, but she thought it would work. Especially if she held her stomach in most of the time.

She looked okay, too, judging by her reflection in the bureau mirror. Provided the dress stayed in one piece once she got it zipped up. Which she couldn’t quite manage on her own.

Butterflies unfurling at the base of her belly, she moved to the bedroom door and opened it, slowly and quietly. Venturing into the other room, she glanced around, searching for Nigel. She might not
want
to ask for his help, but she kind of needed it.

But the sitting room was empty.

Still holding the gown closed behind her with one hand, she strolled farther into the room, checking the balcony and wondering if he’d left the suite entirely for some reason.

Then she heard a click and turned just as he stepped out of the guest bath looking like a million bucks. Maybe one point eight.

He was wearing a tuxedo. Just a plain black tuxedo, the same as men had been wearing for decades.