‘Bronte—wait.’ Lisa touched Bronte’s arm as she turned to leave. ‘I think you should tell him.’
‘I know, but he’s not here.’ And the last of her confidence had already sunk into the toes of her muddy boots. However well she might have settled into the house in Regent’s Park, however confident she felt in her role as Nico’s guardian, she didn’t belong in Lukas Blackstone’s world and she never would. Nico would have to one day, and she’d do her best to prepare him for that, when the time came. But the time did not have to be now.
‘Nonsense, he’s right upstairs,’ Lisa said, looking determined as she steered Bronte out of her office towards a bank of lifts. With night falling over Hyde Park, the suite of offices was virtually empty. Lisa led her up a small flight of stairs to a separate lift with a bronze plaque above it marked ‘Penthouse only’. ‘He’s not due at the event for at least thirty minutes, which gives you plenty of time to talk to him alone and uninterrupted.’
Lisa whisked a small card out of the jewelled clutch purse which matched her sleek outfit and swiped it through a sensor on the lift panel. A bell dinged and the lift doors opened with an efficient swish.
‘This is your chance. To talk to him about Nico.’ She gave Bronte a gentle shove into the mirrored interior of the penthouse elevator. ‘And stop him from avoiding you both. He’s more interested in you two than he wants to let on,’ Lisa added.
‘What makes you think that?’ Bronte asked, her thighs starting to tremble. Was she really ready to meet Lukas Blackstone in the flesh again? To have another confrontation with him? Especially unaccompanied? In his penthouse? Could she trust all those unbidden thoughts and desires from their meeting months ago in the hospital waiting room not to burst out of hiding?
‘Because he never misses an opportunity to ask after you both and he always listens intently to everything I tell him, not just about Nico but also about you,’ Lisa said, the sympathy and understanding in her voice disturbing Bronte even more.
She didn’t want Lukas to have an interest in her.
The surge of something hot and fluid made the earthquake in her knees hit nine point five on the Richter Scale and her heart kick her ribs in hard heavy thuds, calling her a liar.
‘After working with him for five years,’ Lisa continued, ‘I can tell you he’s a man who keeps his thoughts and feelings better guarded than Fort Knox. But I think he cares for you two. Or he would, if he gave himself a chance.’
‘I’m really not sure this is a good idea,’ Bronte said limply, wanting to step off the lift and run like hell, but unable to make her shaking legs move.
Leaning into the lift, Lisa used the card again and stabbed a button marked ‘Private’.
‘I get that,’ Lisa said as she stepped back. ‘But I’m ready to stake my job on being right.’ A smile flickered across her face. ‘And I’m sick to death of him using me as a go-between. Good luck.’
The doors swished closed, trapping Bronte in the lift alone.
Thirty seconds later, she stepped out into the palatial lobby area of a stunning penthouse apartment, completely convinced she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life.
Floor-to-ceiling glass panelling afforded a stunning view of Hyde Park as night drew in, floodlights illuminating Marble Arch in the distance through the trees. Muted lighting gave the flooring a mirrored sheen. A newsreader’s voice droned as financial statistics scrolled over the flat-screen TV on the far wall.
‘Hello? Lukas?’ she called out in a tremulous whisper. She cleared her throat and tried again, glancing up the staircase leading to a mezzanine level.
‘Bronte...?’ Her head swung round so fast at the gruff enquiry from behind her she was lucky not to get whiplash.
Heat roared up from her core to incinerate every one of her pulse points at the sight before her.
Lukas Blackstone was naked, apart from a damp towel wrapped around his hips. He stood staring at her, his long hair-dusted legs apart, guarding a doorway that led into the dimly lit interior of a bedroom suite. Her gaze devoured the sleek musculature of his chest. Each bulge glistened with d
roplets of water, drawing her gaze down to the even more perilous territory of his hips. The man had a V so magnificent every drop of moisture in her mouth dried to dust. Magic fairy dust that made her tongue tickle with the urge to lick the water off those spectacular abs and delve down to...
She gulped audibly, becoming light-headed as every molecule of blood in her head plunged south.
‘What are you doing here?’ he said, his voice so husky it seemed to reverberate against her aching clitoris. ‘Is there a problem with Nico?’
Nico. Yes, Nico. Nico is why I’m here. Isn’t it?
The thought skittered across her mind but, as she tried to grab hold of it and cling on, her gaze roamed up to his face and another blast of heat surged south.
‘Nico’s good,’ she said. ‘He’s wonderful.’ She had something specific to tell him about Nico but, whatever it was, it had been incinerated in the inferno now blazing through her body, leaving her mind clinging on to one thought, and one thought only.
I want to explore the ridged muscles of that eight pack with my tongue.
She forced her gaze to remain on his face, her breathing becoming rapid and uneven as she saw the same burning desire reflected back at her—in the rigid flex of the scar tissue tightening over his jaw, the bob of his Adam’s apple, and the growing bulge lifting the towelling.
She stood frozen, crippled by her own yearning as he crossed the room. And cursed under his breath.
‘You shouldn’t have come,’ he said, the words ripped from his throat.