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Flaming colour exploded in her cheeks at the deliberately provocative statement. ‘No, of course not! I’m a journalist, I’m not interested in your sexual prowess...’ she protested, a bit too much.
He was still laughing at her. She could see it in his eyes and the twitching dimple.
‘So there shouldn’t be a problem, then, should there?’ he said, as if it were a question when clearly it wasn’t.
‘I suppose not,’ she said.
She only realised the concession she’d inadvertently made when he added, ‘I assume you have your passport with you, to get past the security on your way in?’
‘Yes, but...’ she began, but before she could say more he glanced past her.
‘Have Jennifer book a suite at the George V for Ms Carstairs tonight, Daryl,’ he said.
Lacey’s cheeks ignited all over again at the realisation Daryl had just witnessed their whole compromising conversation. But she didn’t really have time to contemplate the true horror of that indignity before Cade spoke again.
‘And tell the pilot she’ll be accompanying us.’
‘But wait,’ she said as he cupped her elbow to lead her out of his office.
She stumbled to a stop. The brush of his fingers was electric—just as it had been five years ago.
He frowned as she tugged her arm free. Had he felt it too? He must have.
‘I don’t have anything to wear to a ball,’ she managed, clinging to the practical as she instinctively rubbed her elbow where his fingers had touched.
And I have a four-year-old daughter who I’m supposed to be reading a bedtime story tonight.
He nodded, still watching her, the amusement gone from his eyes. Hehadfelt it... Why did that make the conflagration at her core so much worse? The guilt started to engulf her... Not just because she would have to leave the precious bedtime ritual she and Ruby enjoyed so much to her sister Milly tonight but because she had to deny her daughter’s existence to the man in front of her. The man who was also responsible for Ruby, even though he didn’t know it.
You made that decision five years ago with no regrets. Ruby’s yours, not his. You chose to have her. You chose not to involve him.
He’d cut her out of his life that night, quickly and ruthlessly, wrenching her out of the cloud of afterglow and thrusting her into cold, hard reality as she’d lain on that desk, her heart hammering and her breasts still tender from his kisses.
‘That should not have happened, and it won’t happen again. The condom appears to have split, so if there are any consequences contact my office and I will deal with it.’
She tried to remember the cruelty of his dismissal that night, but the guilt and shame pressed against her throat as other even more disturbing sensations flooded her system. Sensations which had derailed her common sense once before.
His gaze lifted from her burning face back to his assistant. ‘Have Jennifer arrange for a stylist to come to the hotel and dress Ms Carstairs.’
‘Yes, Mr Cade.’
Cade lifted his arm as his assistant shot out of the room to do his bidding, but she noticed he was careful not to touch her again. Perhaps she had a mite more power here than she realised.
‘After you, Lacey,’ he said.
But I haven’t agreed to go.
She should tell him where to stick his arrogant assumptions. But as she looked into his eyes, the deep jade so much like her daughter’s, it occurred to her this might be the only chance she’d ever get to really get to know this man. Or at least, to get to know him enough to find out if she’d made the right decision five years ago never to tell him about his child.
Perhaps it was time she stopped running from that reckless girl and found out if Ruby’s father deserved to know he had the sweetest, smartest, most engaging child in the known universe.
CHAPTER THREE
‘INCREDIBLEWORK,LACEY,you just got yourself a promotion. You’re now our star writer. But how on earth did you manage to get Cade to invite you to Paris?’
I have no idea.
Lacey stood on the ornate balcony of the luxury Parisian hotel suite, gazing at the Eiffel Tower glittering in the distance, as she gripped her phone and struggled to come up with a coherent answer for her editor.
