Scandalizing the CEO (11 page)

Plotting with her secretary had been his only option.
He knew she was going to keep making him work to get back into her good graces. She might not be doing it intentionally, but she was definitely avoiding him. And he’d had enough of that.

Having her here in his bedroom felt right. It was the place he thought of when he pictured her with him.

He put her tote on the padded bench at the end of the bed. “Would you like a bath?”

“Yes. I think I would.”

“I’ll draw you one while you open this,” he said, handing her a gift-wrapped box.

He left before she opened it. The ultramodern bathroom was an oddity for the UK, but he’d seen it in a magazine and decided he wanted one. It was large, with a garden tub and a stained-glass window that overlooked the backyard. He had a glass-enclosed double shower and a steam room in the space as well. The double sinks had a marble countertop.

He drew the bath for Ainsley and added some soothing bath salts he’d had his secretary order. He turned on the heated towel racks and checked to see that the champagne he’d left chilling was still cold. He popped the cork and poured them both a glass.

When he went back into the bedroom, she was still sitting on the padded seat with the gift box on her lap.

“You didn’t open it.”

“I was waiting for you,” she said.

“I’m here,” he said.

She toyed with the white ribbon on the box. “Why did you get me a gift?”

“Not so we could play twenty questions. Are you going to open it or not?”

She ripped the paper, folded it into a neat square and put it next to her on the bench. Then she opened the shirt-sized
box. She drew back the tissue paper and pulled out the La Perla negligee. She pulled it from the box and held it up in front of her.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I wanted to find something that was as sexy as you are, but this was as close as I could come.”

She blushed. “I’m not sexy.”

“Then my memories of our night together must be wrong. Because I remember a very sexy woman in heels, hose and a garter belt seducing the hell out of me. Ready for your bath?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.

“Yes.” Ainsley kicked off her shoes and then stood up to follow him into the bathroom. A sigh escaped her when her bare feet hit the heated wooden floor. This bathroom—this entire house—had been designed with comfort and luxury in mind.

He turned off the taps of the tub, helped her take off her clothes and then hugged her close. “I missed you.”

“Me, too,” she said. The weeks apart had been long and made her realize how important Steven was to her.

He undressed and they both got in the tub, sitting behind her and drawing her into his arms and back against his chest.

She sighed again as she relaxed against him. He cupped her breasts in his hands as she let her head rest against his shoulder. Her head tipped to look up at him.

“Tell me what you’ve been so busy with that you couldn’t see me,” he said.

“Work. Seriously, that’s all I’ve been doing. I have to go to parties and dinners and every minute of my day is claimed by someone.”

“I want to be that someone. I thought you wanted a
relationship,” he said. He circled his fingers around her areola.

She shifted her shoulders and the tips of her pink nipples poked up through the suds in the tub. From his perspective, her body was all creamy skin, white soap bubbles and then there were those pink nipples…

“I do want one. I just didn’t anticipate both of us being so busy. What have you been doing?”

“Getting the North American unit up to speed.”

“How did you do that?”

“I sent my best man to do the job—Dinah. She works for me at Raleighvale.”

“Is it hard running two companies?” she asked.

“Not for me,” he said.

He lifted one hand from her breast and tipped her chin up. He leaned down and kissed her long and deep. Just what he’d wanted to do ever since she’d walked out of Heathrow.

She turned in his arms until she straddled him. He hadn’t had a chance to have her on top of him as they made love, and he wanted to be able to see her face above his as he took her.

He cupped the water from the tub and rinsed her breasts off. Her nipples beaded in the air as his hands left them, replacing his touch with his mouth. She pushed her fingers into his thick dark hair and drew him to her.

Steven knew he’d revealed too much of himself by bringing her here, but as she shifted on him, her warmth replacing the warmth of the water in the tub, he didn’t care.

He wanted this woman. He knew he couldn’t take her in the tub. He needed to put on a condom before that happened, but for now it was enough to tempt both of them.
To let the tip of him tease the entrance of her body as his mouth moved over her breasts.

She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him close to her. He needed to keep her by his side, he thought. Marriage?

“Make love to me, Steven.”

"Yes," he said, standing to lift her out of the tub and carry her into his bedroom. Thoughts of marriage would wait until later.

S
teven wrapped Ainsley in one of his big bath towels and carried her to his bed. He took a minute to dry off and then reached for the box of condoms he had in the nightstand drawer. He removed one and sheathed himself before falling down next to her on the bed.

“I thought you’d want to see me in that beautiful nightgown,” she said.

“Not until I’ve had a proper welcome home. Then you can try on whatever you want.”

She laughed. “I missed this.”

“Did you? Then why did you refuse my calls while you were in Milan?”

He shifted on the bed so he was lying on top of her. He braced his elbows on either side of her body to keep most of his weight from her, but probed the entrance to her body.

She twined her arms around his neck, lifted herself up
and kissed him. “I wanted to make sure that you really wanted me. And I knew if you were serious about me, then you’d still want me when I returned to London. After you left that morning, I needed to know that I was as important to you as you are to me.”

“I’ll show you how important you are,” he said sliding into her body inch by inch, taking his time and claiming her.

“I hope you can,” she said softly. She wanted to believe in Steven, yet knew she still didn’t trust him with her heart.

She held tightly to his shoulders as he began to thrust into her. She stopped talking and her eyes closed as her head fell back. He wanted to draw out their lovemaking, but couldn’t. It had been too long since he’d had her and he felt his orgasm coming fast.

He tried to hold back, wouldn’t come before she did. He whispered hot, sexy words into her ear. Brought his hand up between their bodies and caressed her breasts, teasing her nipples until he heard her gasp and then the sound of her low moan as she climaxed.

“Come for me,” he said.

He held himself still as her body pulsed around him and then he started thrusting again. He ducked his head, caught her nipple between his lips and sucked on her until he felt his orgasm explode though him. He was blinded by it as he thrust into her two, then three times, until he was completely drained.

He collapsed next to her on the bed, using a corner of her towel to wipe the moisture from between her legs. He went to wash off and then came back to bed, pulling her into his arms.

“Now that pressing matters are out of the way, what were you saying? You were testing me?”

She pinched his side. “Yes, I was. I don’t want to be the only one who has something at stake here.”

“And what makes you think that you are?”

“Because you left,” she said. “If you’d stayed that morning…well, I would have felt more confident.”

“Why don’t you?” he asked. She was lying on his chest and toying with the light hair that covered him. Her lowered head hid her expression.

“You’re the first man I’ve felt this way about,” she said. “And you aren’t like my magazine. I can’t manage you the same way.”

“Why can’t you?”

She shrugged. “Because I care about you, Steven. I’ve really missed you.”

He hugged her tight for a minute. He was glad to hear that she cared about him. It meant a hell of a lot more than he’d thought it would.

“If you hadn’t been playing games, we could have enjoyed the last three weeks.”

She pushed herself up on an elbow and looked down at him. “I wasn’t the only one.”

“No, you weren’t,” he admitted. At first he’d been waiting for her to make the first move. After all, she was the one who’d wanted a relationship. But it hadn’t taken him long to realize what she was doing. So now he was here with her in his arms and he didn’t want to let her go. He was going to ask her to be his wife.

That was dangerous thinking for a man with no roots. A man who always moved on. He wasn’t looking for a permanent home. He reached over and turned off the light. He didn’t want to dwell on that now.

She curled on her side and fell asleep but he stayed
awake, holding her as tightly as he wanted to because there was no one but the moon and stars to see him.

In the quiet of the night, he realized his half-hatched plan of an engagement wasn’t going to work. Ainsley cared about him. She was going to want the whole shebang. She wasn’t going to settle for some long-term engagement just so he could sleep with her every night.

He only knew that he wanted her by his side and he was going to have to figure out how to make that happen. He wondered if she’d stop playing games now that he’d made the first move.

He hoped so, because he wasn’t going to let her retreat back into her shell. He wasn’t going to let her use work as an excuse to keep him at arm’s length. He was in charge of this relationship and he would set the terms.

The words were strong and he knew he could say that now in the middle of the night, but in the cold light of day…he would do whatever it took to ensure that she was in his arms every night.

She stirred in her sleep as he squeezed her tight—too tight. He soothed her and then tried to go to sleep, but he held her for a long time before drifting off. He kept watching her face. He had to figure out how to keep her from meaning too much.

Ainsley woke up alone in Steven’s big bed. There was a note on the nightstand. She reached over and picked it up. She’d forgotten to remove her contacts last night so she had no problem reading it.

Steven’s spidery scrawl read:

She climbed out of bed, surprised by her own nudity. But as she stood there in the room, she found that she wasn’t uncomfortable. Steven loved her body and she was coming to like it, too. She was coming to realize that she was the woman she saw in the mirror. That wasn’t a facade but who she really was.

When she got downstairs, he was still on the phone and gestured for her to wait on the deck. She brought her BlackBerry with her and checked her e-mail. Freddie had sent her one saying that Maurice, the publisher of their magazine, needed to talk to her urgently.

She dialed his number in New York and was put through immediately to his office.

“It’s Ainsley,” she said when he came on the line.

“Good. Did you get Malcolm Devonshire?”

“Not yet. I’m still working on it. I did get all three of the mothers.”

“That’s great. As I mentioned before, I’m going to use your articles here in the States, as well. The Everest Group is going to relaunch the Manhattan Mega Store through an in-store event with XSU, the new group that’s just signed with Everest Records. It will be their North American CD launch.”

“Great. I assigned Bert Michaels to do the interviews with the mums. I think I might have to assign someone to do a sidebar piece on XSU. That’s a nice plus.

“Also, I wanted to make sure you know that Steven Devonshire and I are dating. Are you still okay with that?” she asked Maurice.

“I am. I think as long as you’re circumspect and we keep the focus off Steven, we’ll be fine.”

“Okay. I’ll have to talk to my assistant about which
writer we have available to do the XSU interview. Let me call you right back.”

“Just send it via e-mail. I want to know about Malcolm by close of business tomorrow.”

“No problem,” she said. But she had absolutely no idea how she was going to make that happen. Malcolm wouldn’t even return her calls. She knew he also had an estate in Surrey. She’d have to get Steven to take her there today—it couldn’t be that far. The sooner she talked to him the better.

She called her office and gave Cathy a list of things to do today. She hung up just as she heard Steven behind her. He walked out with a tray of fruit salad and juice.

“I had my housekeeper prepare this for us. Do you want something heavier for breakfast?”

“No. This is perfect,” she said. She hated eating breakfast. That was probably part of the reason she tended to overeat all day. So she’d started eating something small. But she still didn’t really like breakfast.

“Do you have anything planned for us today?” she asked.

“Is there something you’d like to do?” he asked.

“Yes. I’d like to meet your biological father.”

Steven shook his head. “Afraid you’re on your own there.”

“Why? Steven, this is important to me. My boss is going to run the interviews with your mothers in our U.S. magazine as well. This is huge. If I get Malcolm to agree—”

“Sorry, Ainsley. I don’t talk to him. You can call his attorney and see if you can work something out.”

She shook her head. “Did you two have a falling out?”

“I don’t want to talk about this.”

She stood up and walked over to him. “I do. This is important to both of us.”

He shook his head. “Not to me. I don’t need Malcolm Devonshire.”

“Then why are you working for him?”

“So I can show him up.”

She realized that she was making him angry. She didn’t understand why he couldn’t simply call his father…except that he always referred to Malcolm as Malcolm, not Dad.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Why? So you can get some juicy tidbits to add to your article? Or because you care for me?”

“I do care about you.”

“Then let this go,” he said.

“I can’t. It might be the writer in me but I want to know more.”

“What does that matter to you? Isn’t it enough to talk to my mother and Malcolm’s other sons about our business?”

She crossed her arms under her breasts and watched him. “This isn’t about the article anymore. This is about you and me. I want to know why you’re so upset.”

He turned away from her. Placing the tray on the table, he stalked over to the railing. His house overlooked a beautiful plot of land, and she felt as if the rest of the world didn’t exist.

But it did. There were bosses to answer to and articles to get published. She knew she should just let him be, but she couldn’t.

She walked over to him, putting her hand on his back. “I’m sorry, Steven.”

“For what?” he asked, glancing down at her.

“For not realizing that Malcolm was just a sperm donor and not a father to you.”

He turned to face her and she wondered if she’d misjudged him. Had she said the wrong thing?

“Sperm donor? That’s brilliant. I’ve never heard him described that way before, but you certainly pegged it.”

“You may have noticed that I’m pretty good at observing people and figuring out what makes them tick.” She smiled, half in relief.

“I am, too, which is why I’m so good as a CEO,” he said.

“You are good as a man, too,” she said.

“You might be the only one who thinks so.”

She doubted that. Steven didn’t let people in. She wasn’t sure that she was the only one who cared for him. As she watched him look out over his property, pretending his parentage didn’t matter, she suddenly realized that she loved him.

Steven knew that he’d made a mistake by bringing Ainsley here. Now that she was here, he wanted to get her back to the city. Anywhere he could put barriers between them. It was fine if they were going to have a relationship. That was something he could definitely handle. But if she was going to keep asking questions about Malcolm outside of the articles she was having written…well, then she had to go.

He never thought about the lack of a father in his life. Men like Roman had long filled the gap as father figures when he’d been a young boy. But once he’d gone off to Eton he’d been on his own. There had been men that he’d learned things from when he’d been starting out in business, but for the most part he was a loner.

That’s right, he reminded himself. He was a loner. He didn’t have room in his life for a woman with soft violet eyes and compassionate hugs.

The only thing he needed a woman for was sex. He and Ainsley were white-hot in bed, but that didn’t mean he wanted to open his veins and bleed for her in private. The article was his public face and no one saw the private man—not even Ainsley.

“You haven’t said anything in almost thirty minutes,” she said.

“You haven’t, either,” he said. They were eating lunch on the patio at his house. He’d shown her his estate and the quiet day he’d envisioned for them hadn’t turned out as he’d planned. They were both tiptoeing around each other and he knew it was past time to get back to the city and back to work.

“I was afraid of saying the wrong thing again.”

“You won’t,” he said. Because he’d buttoned up his emotions and tucked them away. He wouldn’t react as he had earlier. He just hadn’t expected her to ask him questions outside of the article. If you asked most people about seeing their father, it wouldn’t be a big deal. But he was a Devonshire bastard and even if Ainsley wanted to put a better spin on it, the world knew that Malcolm wasn’t much of a father to the boys he’d sired.

But he’d spent his life knowing that his father hadn’t wanted to have anything to do with him. That was why he’d been so reluctant to go to that meeting at the Everest Group and, conversely, why he was so determined to win the contest Malcolm had set in motion. He wanted to show the old man that he—Steven—was better at the business Malcolm had dedicated his life to.

He checked his e-mail on his iPhone and saw that
Dinah was back from the States. She’d sent a long file of recommendations and that was just what he needed—to bury himself in work at the office. He felt a twinge of regret that he wasn’t going to follow through on his plan to ask her to live with him, but their awkward conversation today had reminded him what living with someone would entail.

When you were dating you didn’t have to share every detail of your life, but once you moved in…Then came resentment and anger and he didn’t need that. Steven Devonshire was a rock—an island—and he needed nothing.

“I have to get back to the office. A bit of an emergency has come up.”

She nodded. “Let me get my bag and I’ll be ready to go.”

She went back into his house and he watched her go. Knew she’d never be here again. A part of him was really going to miss her. He liked Ainsley more than anyone he’d slept with in a long time. Hell, forever. He’d never met a woman who got to him the way she did.