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Lucy grinned sheepishly. “She says Fridays are spa days and insisted I accompany her. She’s afraid I won’t look presentable tonight if I don’t have a manicure.”
He glowered at her for a full minute and then bent down to give her a soft kiss on the lips that only served to enhance the ache in his dick even more. “Never bring me donuts again unless you’re willing to spare me at least an hour to thank you properly,” he said seriously.
Lucy smiled at him, that same smile Holden had recently discovered did wonders for his ego. “I’ll be sure to make a note of it.”
He took her little hands in his bigger ones and gently squeezed them. “If you let anyone do anything to your hair,” he warned, “I’m going to be really pissed.”
“And here I thought someone once said you didn’t like blondes,” she said, laughing before she pulled the doors open and breezily walked past his secretaries toward the elevators. Holden caught sight of their puzzled expressions and merely smiled at all three of them before he slammed his office doors shut.
Slowly he went back to his desk and plopped down on his chair with a big, dopey smile.
She’d brought him donuts—and not because he was paying her to.
If he didn’t love her already, he’d have fallen for that. Hard.
“A girl could really get used to this,” Lucy muttered in a semi-dazed state, her eyes fixed unseeingly at the ceiling while a pair of expert hands slowly lathered her hair and massaged her scalp.
“Um-hum,” Irene mumbled from the chair beside her. “Just wait until we get to the pedicure. You’ll be so relaxed you won’t even be able to walk.”
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bsp; Lucy considered that for a moment. “I hope that’s not entirely true, Irene,” she said, because she had every intention of dancing with Holden tonight at the benefit—and afterward doing the same thing, but naked and in the dark.
“I told Patrick I’m not returning that bag to the store, Divine,” Irene suddenly said. “It’s a very comfortable, lightweight bag and I’m just going to have to keep it.”
“You should. I think it’s the loveliest bag ever.”
“What I can’t understand is why you wouldn’t keep it.”
Lucy remained silent and closed her eyes as the hot water trickled past her scalp and hair. She didn’t want to relive that precise moment of her life, much less discuss it in the middle of a busy spa-salon for everyone within earshot to hear.
“He’s never done that for anyone, you know,” Irene offered. “No matter how big a hotshot he is, he’s still a little insecure in the romance department.”
If Irene hadn’t spoken in her usual loud-as-a-train-wreck voice, Lucy would have sworn she’d heard wrong. “What do you mean?”
“I think it was the fact that I raised him all by myself and I was a bit too pushy. I should have coddled him more. I remember—”
“Not that, Irene, the other part,” Lucy interjected.
“Oh yes, well. As far as I know, he’s never given a woman anything.”
“What about Katrina?”
“Oh, pooh! That was only me wishing, dear. I’m afraid my son was never interested, even if she was. He didn’t encourage her in the least.”
Lucy stared blankly at the ceiling, fairly certain Holden wouldn’t divulge the details of his personal relationships to his mother. “Well, I clearly remember purchasing a gift on his behalf for—” Suddenly aware of the fact that the hands on her scalp had an owner, she decided not to mention names and instead finished, “Someone special.”
“That’s just because he was trying to make you quit, dear. I know for sure that he never intended to give her anything. He just needed an excuse to have you running all around town, which is why you had to take it back, didn’t you?”
Oddly, Lucy’s voice sounded like an infant’s squeaky toy when she spoke. “He told you that?”
“Of course not, silly. It was Pipsqueak who told me all about it—he knows everything, dear.”
Lucy thought that for a discreet butler, Mr. Pimwick sure knew how to pass around the gossip. “You two seem to get along just fine, Irene,” Lucy said, smiling to herself.
“Ha! He’s insufferable is what he is.”
Both women laughed and minutes later, while they were sinking their feet into a tub of delicious, hot bubbling water, Lucy replayed Irene’s words in her mind and felt hopeful. Perhaps Holden wasn’t the womanizer Lucy had assumed him to be. And now that she thought about it, she clearly recalled that out of the dozens of articles published about him over the course of ten years, not once had she read anything about him being involved with anyone.
