Untaming Lily Wilde (39 page)

“So, guess who I saw today,” Lily said, breaking the silence and tossing Seb’s exhibition catalogue into Emma’s lap.

“Christ!” Emma looked from the catalogue to Lily and back again. “Are you OK?!”

Lily shrugged. She wasn’t OK, but she’d live. It’d suck for a while - possibly a very
long
while - but -

“You’re in here…” Emma gasped. She shifted along so that Lily could see the photograph. Crowded escalators. Embankment Station. All the world a blur, except for one woman amongst the rush of bodies. Lily.

33

The email came was waiting for her at work the following Friday. She didn’t notice it at first among the other hundred or so emails waiting to be sifted, then when she did, his name made her double take with an audible hiccup of surprise. But no one noticed. Nor did anyone notice when she opened up the email and room span topsy-turvy.

Happy Birthday, Lily Wilde.

When had she told him her birthday?

Think about it.

Seb x

Attached was a flight voucher. So much money. Too much. She just had to book the flight.

If only.
There was too much to lose. Too much risk. After all she’d been through she needed stability. Safety. Not a new life on a new continent with a man she barely knew. He was crazy for suggesting it. She was crazy for considering… but no.
Absolutely, definitely, unequivocally N-O…

At least - probably no.

Probably.

“Visitor for you, Lily. Reception. Keep it quick,” Nigella Chambers snapped, pulling Lily from her reverie.

What on Earth?!
No one visited her at work. No one.
Unless… no it couldn’t be Seb. Could it?
Her heart stuttered a little in anticipation. “Won’t be a minute,” she called back, already half way to the lift. You’re being crazy, she told herself.
He’s gone. Get over it.
But as she pressed the Ground Floor button, she nursed a little grain of hope. Would he visit? Would he do that for her?
New York’s not so far… he could be here… he could be…

She had to get a handle on herself.
She smoothed down her skirt, raked her fingers through her hair, stole a quick glance at her flushing cheeks in the mirror, forced herself to breath.
The lift doors parted and…

Christoph. Arms folded. Leaning back into the grey reception sofa, watching her, his eyes smiling, his lips doing nothing of the sort.

She stood motionless in the lift.
What was he playing at?
Her eyes shifted toward the number panel inside the lift; with a press of a button she could be back on Floor 9 pretending this little head-trip had never happened. But as as the lift doors made to close, she found herself stomping an angry foot in their path.

“What do you want?” She ignored the twitching attention of Floyd the receptionist, and focused her death-stare on the man in front of her.

“Good to see you too.” He patted the sofa next to him, indicating that she should sit down. In
her
work place. Perhaps they’d snuggle up together in front of the Floyd and reminisce about the rape they’d never quite managed to share. Suffice to say, she didn’t sit.

“What do you want?” If she kept up the stuck-record routine perhaps he’d skip the cow-shit. Or perhaps not.

His brow knotted a little as he scanned the neat and glassy reception. “You like working here?”

She didn’t answer.

“You know, I never had the slightest interest in publishing until now. Suddenly I feel like adding to my business portfolio. Isn’t that odd?” He fixed his stare upon her angry pout, and the hint of a smile tweaked at the corners of his lips.

It was hard to speak with him staring so intently at her mouth, like a tiger ready to pounce on her words. But she pushed through the hammering tension in her jaw and chest and spurted out, “Listen. You’ve got two minutes. Two. And if you want to bore me to death with your business portfolio then that’s fine with me. But if you’ve got something you want to say then bloody well get on with it.”

His smile broadened. He was infuriating.

He stood up, and suddenly the sheer expanse of him flooded Lily’s memory. For a brief instant she was back in Seb’s bedroom with Christoph directing her, powerful, intimidating, controlling to the point of her own blissful abandon. And she must have given a little of herself away in that instant, because Christoph laughed. He actually laughed, as he took her wrist and pressed two fingers against her quickening pulse. “As I thought.”

She pulled her wrist free. “What do you want?” This time she sounded a lot less confident than she’d have liked.

“You know what I want.”

She glanced over at Floyd, still behind his desk, still pretending not to listen. “Are you like this on purpose?” she hissed at Christoph.

“Like what?!” He arched his eyebrows, pretending to be offended.

“Maddening. Look. I’m on a deadline.”

“Then come outside, away from Kermit here, and let me make myself as clear as possible, as quickly as possible.”

She would really have loved to have scowled at that, but the Kermit thing was just so un-Christoph that she snorted instead. Poor Floyd, in his emerald green suit. Not his fault that he had the voice to match.

Floyd coughed waved the Signing In book frantically as they took their leave, but Lily assure him they wouldn’t leave his sight as they moved street-side of the revolving glass door. This wouldn’t take long.

“I want you to reconsider my offer -”

She shook her head, incredulous. “No. I’m not your fucking prostitute. You - you make me nothing. Just some toy you can buy, play with, toss aside. I’m not doing it.”

His cool tone didn’t shift, and he continued as though she’d not spoken a word, “And here’s why you’ll do it: because you’ve wondered. Ever since you changed your mind. You’ve wondered if you made the wrong choice, for the wrong reasons; if you did it just to appease your boyfriend. Your monumentally hypercritical boyfriend no less.”

“Seb’s not my boyfriend,” she interrupted. “So I guess whatever petty rivalry you’ve got going on, this isn’t going to factor. Sorry to disappoint you, Christoph. We’re no longer a thing. Barely were to begin with.”

“Oh, now I doubt that’s quite true.”

“What can I tell you?” And she meant it. This was ridiculous. He didn’t want her (and even if he did, he wasn’t getting her), he wanted one up on Seb. Games. Idiotic rich-boy games.

Christoph pulled a packet of Lucky Strikes from his jacket pocket and lit up, offering one to Lily, who shook her head.

“You too huh?” She mumbled.

He looked quizzical for a moment then seemed to catch her meaning. “Oh, you’d be surprised how much Seb and I have in common. He likes to think he’s more gallant, of course. And I know I’m more ruthless.” He inhaled deeply, then tilted his face to meet the warmth of the sun as pushed a slow trail of smoke from his lips. “But really, we’re almost the same man. Just with very different starts in life.”

It was her turn to look quizzical, though she wasn’t particularly in the mood for a Compare and Contrast session.

Christoph sighed. “His, sugar-coated, rosy and coddled, mine - well - not so much. But let’s not dwell - it’s worked out fine for me. Lily -”

“What?”
Why do I get chills when you say my name like that? Why do I like getting chills!?!

“This has nothing - not
nothing
- but very little to do with Seb.” His eyes were piercing hers now, holding her transfixed to the point of barely being able to blink. “We’re not finished, you and me. Tell me you’re not the slightest bit curious to know what it’d be like. No Hatherly. No contracts. Just me,” he looked her up and down, “wanting you. Taking you.”

“Raping me.”

A smile cracked across his face. “With your permission. Hardly seems like such a punishable offense.” Then, as he took her in, all of her, nearly shaking with something not-quite-fear but not far off, his smile slipped. “I wouldn’t hurt you, Lily.”

“Wouldn’t you? My backside begs to differ.”

He stubbed out his barely touched cigarette and moved closer, too close. Too close for a would-be-rapist who absolutely definitely wasn’t getting her hot under the collar right now. Too close for someone who’s unimaginably beautiful lips she absolutely would not be kissing as they dipped toward her. Any second now she’d turn away. Any second.

“Your backside loved it,” he spoke against her lips. “And you know that’s not what I meant.” His tongue eased along her lower lip which he then took lightly between his teeth, tugging playfully, a billion times more playful than she’d seen him before. He held her like that, laughing as if they were two excitable teenage lovers, experimenting with each other’s bodies. He released her lip, then pressed in fully, kissing her in earnest, tasting her with a curling swipe of his tongue as she leaned instinctively into his embrace. She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t even bring herself to try. He wasn’t like Seb, far from it. He was everything Seb wasn’t; self-serving, cutthroat, unyielding. And she wanted his kiss. She wished to God she didn’t.

He was the one to break the moment. He pulled back, gratified, watching confusion snake its way across Lily’s expression.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said, to herself, to him, to nobody in particular.

“I know, sweetness, but
I
do. That’s the beauty of you and me. All you have to do is let me take over.”

“You tried to pay for me, Christoph.” She couldn’t look at him as she said it. What was wrong with her. She hated him, didn’t she? Why had she just let him kiss her? Why had she enjoyed it so fiercely?

“You’re right. They asked. I paid.”

“They asked?”

He shrugged. “I might have suggested it if they hadn’t. Money means very little to me, Lily. A means to an end. I’m sorry if that offends you.”

“It does.”

He took her face in his hands. The action stung, reminding her painfully of Seb, and she raged against the tears pricking her eyes.

He pressed his lips to hers once more, sighed, then eased back to pull something from his jacket. Another cigarette, she thought, but instead, he drew out his wallet, removed a card and slid it neatly into her shirt pocket. “For when you change your mind.”

He waved nonchalantly to something or someone behind Lily, and a polished black car pulled in close to the curb.

“I won’t change my mind,” she said, too quietly to be convincing.

“Too late, sweetness. You already have.”