No Holding Back
Isabel Sharpe
Reporter Hannah will do anything for a story – including gate-crashing Jack’s estate on a stormy New Year’s Eve. But she soon discovers he’s more than champagne and caviar.And being stranded, she’s got the chance to savour all his other delights!
About the Author
ISABEL SHARPE was not born pen in hand like so many of her fellow writers. After she quit work in 1994 to stay home with her first-born son and nearly went out of her mind, she started writing. After more than twenty novels—along with another son—Isabel is more than happy with her choice these days. She loves hearing from readers. Write to her at www. IsabelSharpe.com.
No Holding Back
Isabel Sharpe
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Lori H, for being there every day to whine to
Table of Contents
Cover (#uef1351f5-4603-59f6-859a-056a186da4b3)
About the Author (#u6efa170f-0e4e-5300-84bd-e204c286a200)
Title Page (#u83c4f434-4da4-55cc-9768-e7c841f56337)
Dedication (#u3a867e1e-4a58-5e14-a8b9-aeb3b7b2ce5e)
Chapter One (#ufce48527-3061-5373-aa1f-47edde3ced5b)
Chapter Two (#u2275c5ae-02b6-522a-b4ae-9cf92e8aa8e8)
Chapter Three (#u5e67b7b6-6415-5113-be74-e9868041f7f1)
Chapter Four (#u15cb2600-6f35-523a-8dae-9b407b1cfa3a)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
“SO THERE I WAS IN PARIS at one of the greatest restaurants in the world, and stomach flu picks that night to turn on me, between the pigeon aux olives and the baba au rhum.”
“Oh, no. Imagine that.” Hannah O’Reilly swallowed another mouthful of tepid champagne and glanced desperately behind the large pallid lump named Frank who’d inflicted himself on this portion of her evening. At a New Year’s Eve party in an ostentatious mansion outside of her home city of Philadelphia, wearing one of those dresses saved all year for parties like this, she should be dancing wildly with a hot stranger. If she wanted boredom, she could have stayed home.
A waiter wafted by with a tray of tidbits. Hannah grabbed one, not sure what was in it, but assuming it cost more than her daily food allowance. Gerard Banks, owner of both this house and the newspaper that employed her, The Philadelphia Sentinel, threw a fancy New Year’s Eve party every year for his staff, friends and family. Hannah didn’t know which category this guy Frank belonged in, staff, friend or family, but she wished he’d bludgeon someone else with his stories. She was here for a healthy serving of hedonism.
“Another time, in London, I ate an oyster and felt movement between my teeth.” He mimicked checking in his large mouth and pretended to hold something up. “Turned out to be a worm. Never ate oysters after that.”
“I don’t blame you.” She laid her hand on his jacket sleeve to cushion the rejection. “You know…I think I’d like a refill on my champagne. It was great talking to you.”
“Sure.” He sighed and lifted his soda in a resigned toast. “Happy New Year.”
“Same to you, Frank.” She escaped, breathing a guilty sigh of relief, maneuvered between a chatting couple and a chartreuse settee, set her glass on a table full of similar empties next to the stone hearth and went searching for a champagne-bearing waiter. Then she was going to find some wild single hottie and flirt her head off. Because she was determined that this new year would launch a fabulous new chapter of her life. Careerwise, familywise and manwise. Out of the rut, into the rutting.
Bingo. Tuxedoed waiter ten paces ahead, carrying a tray of fizzing delight. She dodged between a ficus and a ceramic statue of a leopard. With any luck she could cut him off on the other side of the orange suede couch, and—
“Hannah, how’s the year winding down for you?” Tragically, her boss, Lester Wanefield, neither wild nor single nor with an extra glass of champagne, stepped into the few remaining feet between her and her next dose of bubbly. “Hey, now don’t you do good things for red sequins.”
“Oh. Thanks.” She loved how she looked in this dress, but enticing her boss made her wish she’d worn sackcloth.
“Great party, huh?”
“Mmm, yeah.” If she could keep herself from thinking the money should be used for something more worthy. Like charity or education or disease research or Hannah’s bank account.
She kept her eye on the waiter. This could still work. If he moved a few feet to his right and glanced her way…
“I’ve been thinking about your next assignment. Not for your Lowbrow column, but a feature story. Maybe start it on the front page.”
Lester had her full attention then—all rotund, gray-bearded, bespectacled, five-foot-six-inches of him. Now that she’d been at the paper over a year, she’d been pestering him—well, hinting first, suggesting second, pestering third—for more substantial assignments than the powder-puff stories he’d been tossing at her and burying in the back sections. “That would be fabulous, Lester. You know, I’ve actually been researching a story. There’s a little-known side effect of the drug Penz—”
“A story about boobs.”
If she punched him in his large stomach, would he squeal like the pig he was? “Boobs.”
“Women who’ve had boob jobs, to be precise. How does having a bigger rack alter their dating habits, their sex lives, their ability to attract men and does it change the type of men they score with?”
“How…interesting.” He had to be kidding. “But I was actually hoping to do—”
“We’ll call it ‘Rack of Glam.’ And I want lots of pictures.” He leered at a well-endowed woman strutting past. “Lots of pictures.”
“I’d rather—”
“I know you would, O’Reilly. But you don’t get your ‘rathers’ in this business until you’ve been around a lot longer than you have.”
“So you’ve said.” Ad nauseam. “But I—”
“No butts.” He gave her bare shoulder a condescending squeeze and winked. “Just boobs.”
Ew.
She approximated a smile, knowing further argument would only cement his opposition. But grrrrrr. How much girly news could a nongirly woman stand? Girly dress tonight aside.
She needed to find a story on her own, something bigger and sexier than the drug side effects, something so compelling that even Pig Lester couldn’t turn it down. A huge scoop with enough popular appeal to hook him, but enough substance to further her career and get her on such sound financial footing that if her parents’ lives imploded again she could be the one they could depend on.
Like…
Like…
Yeah. Like that.
She blew out a breath and spotted another waiter, wished her boss a Happy New Year that she barely managed to keep from sounding like Damn You and Your Family to Hell, and followed, determined to score more alcohol, this time to numb the frustration. A story about boobs. Whoopee. The year ended in approximately fifteen minutes and as far as she was concerned, good riddance. Landing what she thought would be her dream job hadn’t worked out. Again. Her last boyfriend hadn’t worked out. Again. Her determination to lose ten pounds hadn’t worked out. Again. Twenty-nine years old and she thought she’d be set for life by thirty.
At least circumstances had miraculously turned around for Mom and Dad. Though fat lot of help she’d been able to be.
The waiter stopped to serve an evening-gowned trio. This was her chance.
“Hannah.” Her closest work-friend, business reporter Daphne Baldwin, snagged her hand and dragged her into the library. “You have to meet this person…Dee-Dee something. Royco or Rosmer or Rrrrrr…I forget. But you have to meet her.”
“Why?” Hannah glanced wistfully at the top of the retreating waiter’s head, his tantalizing tray just visible above the crush of people. So close, and yet…
“Because, she’s…wait.” Daphne searched the room and frowned. “She was just here.”
“Where’s Paul?”
Daphne made a face. “He wouldn’t come. Said he didn’t see why he should get dressed up in uncomfortable clothes and hang around people he didn’t know and didn’t want to know, when he could stay home and be comfortable drinking without having to worry about driving drunk.”
He had a point, though Hannah wouldn’t dare admit it out loud. There were times she felt Daphne’s mellower half would be happier with a woman who matched his nonenergy, and that Daphne needed more of a live wire, but Daphne insisted he was her life’s ballast. Hannah thought he was more her life’s punching bag. “So you’re a wild single tonight. He better watch out.”
“I don’t know, Hannah, he’s been acting weird lately. Doesn’t want to do anything with me.”
“You mean he no longer jumps to do everything you want to do?”
“Ha ha ha.” Daphne continued to scan the crowd, unperturbed by Hannah’s bull’s-eye zinger. “I’m serious. He’s been distant and…I don’t know, unresponsive. Like there’s something really bugging him, but he won’t tell me.”
“Do you think he’s cheating?”
“What?” Daphne’s horror was immediate, and so impressive that nearby heads turned.
Oops. Where was the Reverse button on this conversation? Obviously Hannah had struck a nerve, and it wasn’t her place to torture her friend by planting suspicions. “No, no, I don’t think he is, I just…Isn’t that what you always suspect when—”
“Paul would never cheat. He doesn’t have the time. Or the initiative.”
Oof. As much as Hannah loved Daphne, sometimes she thought Paul should cheat, just to stop her from taking him for granted. “Something at work?”
“He’d tell me that. It’s probably a midlife crisis. Men get those all the time, don’t they? Serves them right for not being slaves to hormones every month like we are.” She frowned and plunked her hands onto her enviably trim hips. “Now where the heck is that woman?”
“Why do I need to meet this person?” Hannah sighed, queasy over her friend’s relationship attitudes and feeling generally cranky. She didn’t want to make small talk with any strangers, not even Mr. Hot-Wild-Single-Whoever. The dress was wasted. The night was wasted. The year was wasted. Her life was on its way to being wasted. Only she wasn’t wasted because the damn waiters were avoiding her.
Fine. She’d ring in the New Year, butt-kiss Gerard for spending gazillions on people he underpaid, and get home to the city before the predicted ice storm hit. Too bad about her fantasy of spending the night enraptured with a new love, but probably just as well. It was always the same tired story. She fell for men like stemware during an earthquake, then when they sensed the depth of her passion and excitement and hope for the future, they abruptly moved on. No matter how hard she tried to act indifferent, men could always tell. Maybe she should make a resolution tonight to avoid the gender altogether.
“Come on.” Daphne dragged her out of the library into another room, some sort of study, then another huge garish living room, as if the front living area the size of Hannah’s entire apartment wasn’t enough. “Don’t see her here, either. Let’s go back.”
“Ooh, wait.” Hannah caught a glimpse of Rory, the VP of advertising whom she had a minicrush on, standing alone, looking a little lost. At the office Rory barely acknowledged her in her usual attire of jeans and baggy sweaters. Should she test her slinky red-sequined minidress out on him and see if he—
Argh! What was she, some kind of addict? Ten seconds and she’d already forgotten her resolution. Men bad, Hannah. Alone good. Alone safe.
Alone, boring and predictable.
“Let’s try this way.”
Hannah dug in her feet before Daphne could continue bulldozing. “Would you mind telling me what is so thrilling about this person?”
“Oh. Right. Duh.” Daphne thwacked her forehead, making her fabulous brown curls bounce. “She’s close to Jack Brattle.”
Zip. Hannah’s gaze left Rory’s tall form at light speed and fixed on her friend. “Jack Brattle?”
“Knew that’d get your attention.”
“Where is she?” Hannah grabbed Daphne’s rock-muscled arm, not even indulging her usual envy for Daphne’s discipline in the gym. “Find her. An interview with Jack Brattle could get me—”
“I know, I know, world renown and riches galore. Why do you think I wanted you to meet her?” Daphne pulled Hannah—or was Hannah now pulling Daphne?—toward the house’s huge foyer into which spilled a staircase worthy of Scarlett O’Hara’s Tara. And at this staircase, oh happy day, Daphne proceeded to point. “There she is.”
And there she was, a little-black-dress-clad platinum-blond bombshell cliché, sauntering down the steps on requisite spike heels. A perfect candidate for Lester’s “Rack of Glam” article.
“I’m sorry, is there a Pamela Anderson look-alike contest tonight?”
“Shh.” Daphne positioned herself at the bottom of the staircase. “Hi, Dee-Dee.”
“Hey.” Dee-Dee reached them, shook back her mane of peroxide and flicked a glance at Hannah. “Cool dress.”
“Thanks. Thank you.” Hannah gave her best ingratiating grin. “I love yours, too.”
“This is Hannah O’Reilly. She works with me at the Sentinel.”
“Yeah?” Another shake of overcooked hair.
“She writes the Lowbrow column.”
“Oh!” Something approaching life quivered in her too-taut face. “I love your column! You’re always fighting with that guy who writes the Highbrow column, D. G. Jackson. Too funny!”
“Yes!” Hannah gritted her teeth. Way too funny. Mr. Jackson took malicious delight in thumbing his nose at her column, which extolled the virtues of inexpensive food and entertainment around the city of brotherly love, while his dwelt on places and things no normal person could afford and no sane person would waste that much money on. She’d responded to one particularly degrading remark by sending him a case of Grey Poupon and blogging about it. He’d reciprocated with cans of spray-cheese. Word got out, and now both their editors were fanning the flames…all in the name of circulation and buzz.
Circulation and buzz. Yeah, superdeedooper. What about the news? She wanted to write news.
“So…what does this D.G. guy look like?” Dee-Dee tipped her head and started playing girlishly with a fried strand, making Hannah want to tell her D.G. could be Liberace’s surviving twin. “His articles are so charming and funny and classy all at the same time.”
“I’ve actually never met him.” Hannah smiled, aching to change the subject to Jack Brattle—where was he, how soon could she meet him? “But maybe I can arrange to set you up sometime for lunch.”
“Oooh, I’d love that. I have this feeling about him…” She giggled. “Would you really do that for me?”
“Sure, no problem.” Hannah hadn’t been serious, but it didn’t hurt to promise one favor right before she asked for another. And maybe she could work a date with the grievously tacky Dee-Dee into another joke on Mr. Highbrow. “So…Daphne tells me you’re best buddies with Jack Brattle.”
“Oh.” Blink-blink of false eyelashes. “I don’t know about best buddies. I shouldn’t even have told—”
“Friends, though?”
“Well.” She looked uneasily between Hannah and Daphne. “I’ve…met him.”
Hannah sent Daphne a sidelong glance. Met was a far cry from close to. “When was this?”
“Oh, a while back.” She gestured vaguely. “I’m really not supposed to tell. It just sort of slipped out.”
And thank God for that. Jack Brattle had kept himself out of the public eye as effectively as his late gazillionaire father had kept himself in it, which meant the absence of a Brattle in the news left that much bigger a hole.
An interview with Harold Brattle’s son and heir…Or, given that Dee-Dee was full of hot air as well as silicone, even snippets of inside information on Jack’s whereabouts, his habits, tastes, sexual preference…Any reporter would give up major organs for that scoop.
Many had tried, none had succeeded. Not since the disappearance of Howard Hughes had a missing person generated this much mystery and excitement. Yet by all accounts Jack Brattle continued to run his father’s empire while remaining invisible. From time to time people claimed to have encountered him—like people kept seeing Elvis—but the sightings always turned out to be hoaxes or misidentification.
“Whatever you can tell me would be great. I’ll handle it all very discreetly. No one will ever be able to trace anything back to you.”
“Oh gosh. I’m so not supposed to.”
“I know.” She laid a sympathetic hand on Dee-Dee’s soft arm, wanting to pinch her. “I completely understand. I’ve put you in a really tough position.”
“Well…” Dee-Dee bit her bee-stung lip. “I do know where he lives. A guy I met once took me by his house. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell you that.”
“Really?” Hannah’s droopy spirits perked up. Rumors had been flying that Jack owned property in the area, but his cover had been scrupulously complete. Or at least he hadn’t walked down any local streets with a giant name tag on. “You are amazing, wow.”
“In West Chester.” Apparently now that Dee-Dee had started, the confession had gotten easier. “My friend said he’s abroad until spring, but the house is not that far from here.”
Hannah’s reporter lust started rising. Around them the chatter intensified as enormous flat-screen TVs in several rooms flickered on, and crowds gathered to watch midnight approach.
“Can you tell me how to get there?”
“Well…yeah. I could. But he’s away. And I’m really not supposed to.”
“Simple curiosity on my part. I wouldn’t try to go in or bother anyone. Just drive past. No one would ever know I’d been by.” She smiled her most innocent smile, shrugging as if it didn’t matter all that much if Dee-Dee spilled or not. Please. Please. Please.
“Well…okay. You got paper or anything?”
“I have a BlackBerry.” She nearly gasped out her relief, fishing the life-organizing electronic device out of her adorable dress-matching red-sequined bag as fast as she could before Dee-Dee changed what there was of her mind. “So what does he look like?”
“Oh, he’s…” Dee-Dee gestured expansively and raised her eyes to the ceiling. “You know.”
“Ah. Yes.” Hannah’s heart sank even as she opened a new memo, ready to write down directions. Dee-Dee definitely hadn’t met him. Probably didn’t even know which house was his. This would turn out to be another attention-grabbing hoax. She better prepare herself for the disappointment right now. And yet, on the crazy minuscule chance this could be legit…“So where does he live?”
She poised her fingers over the tiny keyboard and waited. Several minutes later, she’d written down Dee-Dee’s directions, which consisted mostly of phrases like “turn left at that big stone thing” and “stay on the road even when it looks like you shouldn’t.”
A miracle if she found it. And an even bigger one if there was anything to find.
Excitement swelled in the room. Someone started a countdown from sixty seconds. Hannah slipped the BlackBerry back into her evening bag, then snagged—finally—a second glass of the slightly sour champagne from a passing waiter and turned to face the screen, counting along with everyone else.
As soon as midnight came and went she’d find Gerard, thank him for a wonderful evening and set out on her hunt for the wild and elusive Jack Brattle, heir to his father’s real estate fortune which could, of course, given that Dee-Dee didn’t seem qualified for Mensa, be nothing but a wild-goose chase.
She lifted her glass as the shouting started. Five, four, three, two, one…
Or…she could scoop every other reporter in the country and make this a really phenomenal start to the rest of her life.
Chapter Two
HANNAH PRESSED HER FOOT gingerly on the accelerator, peering through the windshield into a curtain of sleet, bouncing tzap-tzap off the glass and tinkling on the roof of her beloved bright red Mazda, which she’d named Matilda. Hannah considered herself a very persistent investigator, but even she was questioning how smart it was to be out here so late in this mess with no one around. Pennsylvania’s gentle rolling countryside surrounded her car. Despite the beauty of the fields, forests and sloping hills, she did not want to slide off the road and end up spending the night in any of them.
Amazingly, Dee-Dee’s directions had held up so far, which fueled her determination to keep going. Hannah had found “the stone thing” and she even recognized the “amazing tree.” The woman might not radiate brainpower, but, whether or not Hannah found the Jack Brattle pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, Dee-Dee obviously had a sharp eye and a killer memory. All Hannah had to do now was turn down a driveway where the gates were “kind of creepy and jail-like.” Not to mention, “not very visible from the road unless you were looking.”
She was looking; she just wasn’t seeing.
The sleet fell harder. A driveway crept by; Hannah peered toward it. No gates.
“Come on, Jack’s house.” At this point, she just wanted to see the damn thing, mark the address so her BlackBerry could find it again, and come back when the weather wasn’t intent on killing her. Of course hindsight was now sitting on her shoulder whispering that she would have done a lot better to come back later in the first place.
Next driveway. No gates. Phooey. Properties weren’t exactly close together out here in Billionaireland. Everyone needed his own private stable, pool, tennis court, golf course…all the basic necessities of survival.
Her BlackBerry rang. She dragged it from her bag, which she’d flung onto the passenger’s seat, and glanced at the screen. Dad, calling to wish her Happy New Year. If she didn’t answer, he’d worry. She eased Matilda over to the side of the road and turned on her flashers.
“Happy New Year, Dad.”
“Happy New Year to you, sweetheart.” His rough slow voice crackled over the tenuous connection. “Why don’t I hear party noise, you didn’t go? Or do fancy parties not make noise?”
“I left after midnight. Wanted to get home before the weather turned bad.”
“Is it bad now? I haven’t looked outside in a while.”
“Uuh, no. Not bad yet.” The tinkles of ice crystals on her roof turned to sharp taps. In the white beam of her headlights pea-sized balls bounced and rolled on the asphalt. Hail to the chief. “The roads are fine.”
“Okay. But call me when you get home. The storm is supposed to come on fierce.”
Tell me about it. “I’m…seconds away, Dad. In fact, turning on my street now. How’s Mom?”
“Better, still better. Always better, thank God. I don’t know what we would have done without Susie.”
“She’s a blessing, for sure.”
“Mom even fed herself part of her dinner tonight. I made lasagna.”
“Good for her! Her favorite. That’s wonderful.” She smiled, ashamed of herself for not being grateful enough as the clock ticked toward midnight for the few good events of the past year. Dad’s latest employer, The Broadway Symphony, on the brink of collapse, had been saved by a generous donor who wiped out the orchestra’s debt and allowed her father to keep the first job he’d ever held down this long—going on five years now. And Susie, a nursing angel of mercy, had showed up at their door, highly recommended by Mom’s doctor, offering to help out with Mom’s rehabilitation right there in their home for practically slave wages, saying she needed the experience.
Before those miracles, Hannah had gone through agonizing feelings of helplessness with her own bank account in no shape to help. Prey to addiction and poverty, her parents hadn’t done much to give her a secure childhood, but especially now that they’d climbed out of the pit, she wanted them to have a secure retirement. “Tell Mom I love her and that I know this year will have her back to her old self. I’ll call tomorrow.”
“I’ll tell her. I hope it’s a good year for you, too, Hannah-Banana.” He coughed to clear his throat—a legacy of lifelong smoking. “Maybe a nice young man will come along.”
“Maybe.” She rolled her eyes. Yeah, maybe. Maybe he’d even stick around longer than a few weeks or a month. And maybe cancer would start curing itself and global warming spontaneously reverse.
“You take care of yourself. Drive safely.”
“I will. Love you, Dad.” She ended the call with another pang of guilt as the sleet continued to bombard Matilda, collecting on the roads at an alarming rate. This was crazy. If anything happened to her, what would it do to her poor father who’d already had his relatively new sobriety and stability threatened with her way-too-young mom’s shocking stroke and his livelihood nearly yanked out from under him?
Hannah was being selfish. She should turn around now and crawl home, give up this crazy quest until the weather was better.
Except she’d already come this far…And it was Jack Brattle. What if someone else in the business had overheard Dee-Dee? What if Hannah lost this huge long shot at a scoop? What if? What if? What if?
She put Matilda in gear and moved slowly forward, wheels crunching ice. A flash of lightning made her jump and hold on to a wince while waiting for the expected thunder. Thun-dersnow. Whee. This only added to the fun.
Next driveway…No gates.
The wind started whipping in earnest, sending Matilda into a shimmy. Hannah narrowly avoided a largish branch on the road. Snow mixed with the sleet to reduce visibility further.
Oh goody.
Next driveway. She had to turn in and focus her headlights to see…
Gates! Creepy dark jail-like ones! Eureka. She’d found it. Or found something.
Out came her trusty BlackBerry. She called up the GPS system and noted her location. Bingo. Adrenaline rushed out to party. She had Jack Brattle’s address. 523 Hilltop Lane, West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Tomorrow she’d come back to—
More lightning. Close. A mere beat later thunder cracked the sky over her car. Wind gusted.
Hannah went rigid in her seat. The gate had opened a crack, then swung back. She swore it had. Matilda inched forward, Hannah peering through the torrential snow-sleet.
There. There it went again. Unlocked? It certainly looked that way. And, according to Dee-Dee, who seemed to be on the up-and-up since her directions had panned out so far, Jack Brattle wasn’t in residence. Hmm…
Wait, what was she thinking? He must have a full staff living on the estate and security up the wazoo. If she even crossed the property line she’d probably be surrounded by guard dogs and torn to shreds.
But maybe before they quite devoured her, she could get a glimpse of the house. After all, by now she had the perfect excuse. A lone disoriented traveler, lost on her way back from a party and…Help! Where was she? Could she depend on the kindness of strangers until the worst of the storm passed?
And by the way, while she waited, could she whip out her BlackBerry, take pictures of every room in the house and interview everyone old enough to speak?
They’d go for it. Sure they would.
Now. The gates. She fumbled under her seat for the umbrella she kept in the car. Of course it wasn’t there. Where had she lost this one? Who knew?
No umbrella. And since she’d been to a party she was wearing her couple-times-a-year wool coat and not her everyday water-resistant parka with hood. Not to mention open-toed heels instead of warm fleece-lined boots.
Oof.
But okay, for Jack Brattle…
She dashed out of the car, whistling “This Could Be the Start of Something Big,” one arm up to keep from being pelted, which accomplished pretty much nothing. But oh joy, it was worth every thwacking and stinging and drenching moment because, hot damn, the gate was really and truly unlocked!
Not only that, the hinges were beautifully oiled, so the huge structure moved soundlessly and easily with one good shove. Was breaking and entering meant to be or what?
Back in the car, giggling with cold and nervous excitement and residual champagne, she applied her wet foot to Matilda’s accelerator and then…
She, reporter Hannah O’Reilly, gained admittance to what she was starting to dare believe was Jack Brattle’s estate, and got thwacked, stung and drenched pushing the gate nearly closed behind her.
Woohoo!
The long driveway curved through a wooded area thick with tall evergreens that blocked out the worst of the assault. A good thing because otherwise, given the current visibility, she could easily have ended up bumper to bark at some point.
Two or three tensely expectant minutes later—no attack dogs yet—the trees gave way to a large grassy lawn already frosted white. Matilda slid gracefully sideways on the last turn; Hannah reduced her speed, heart thumping even harder than it had been. She definitely did not want to get stuck here.
Another gust of wind rocked the car and sent snow flying nearly horizontal. Hannah pined briefly for her cozy—the politically correct term for tiny—apartment, for sitting safely in bed with her warming blanket heating the sheets, a good book in her hand, a hot mug of tea on her nightstand.
But then…no Jack Brattle scoop. After years of an unsatisfying career fund-raising while writing too-often rejected magazine articles and pieces for her neighborhood paper on the side, she’d managed to land a job in journalism, which she’d wanted since she was a kid and had written and produced her own paper: Hannah’s Daily News, circulation, approximately four, including herself; number of issues: twenty. She still had them somewhere.
Another flash of lightning, a clap of thunder. The sleet rattled her roof in earnest now—could it really hail during a snowstorm?
She guided Matilda around the circular driveway, came to a stop opposite the grand front steps, complete with stone Grecian urns. Snow obscured the view, but it wasn’t hard to tell the house was a colossal Colonial.
This wasn’t how the other half lived, this was how the other millionth lived.
So…
Car in Park, she sat for a minute before switching off the engine. She really didn’t want to drive all the way back to Philly in this mess. The roads were dangerous and the trip could take hours. Options were either to wait out the storm right here in Matilda…she had plenty of gas to run the heater periodically…or see if anyone was home. No lamps glowed in any windows, at least not in the front of the house, at least as far as she could see. The light shining over the entrance could be on a timer.
Nothing ventured…
She pulled the handle and nearly had her arm torn off as a gust of wind wrenched Matilda’s door wide open. Her excitement gave way to jitters. This storm took itself quite seriously. Now she hoped someone was home, not only for the sake of her immortality-guaranteeing article, but to make sure she survived this.
Up the steps, she nearly slipped twice, squinting through the sting of ice, finally reaching the front door. Holding her breath, she rang the bell, then crossed her fingers for good measure and crossed her arms over her chest, strands of her ruined upsweep whipping her cheek, earrings turning into tiny daggers repeatedly flung at her neck. Another gust rocked her back on her probably ruined heels. Hannah made a grab at the house’s front-door handle and miraculously stayed upright.
This was not that much fun. At least not yet.
Another poke at the bell, another shivery icy minute or so waiting, though by now she knew it was ludicrous. On New Year’s Eve with the master abroad any remaining staff would have the night off, and if there were some type of butler or housekeeper on duty, he-she would have answered by now.
She stepped away and craned up at the facade to see if any lights had gone on in response to her ring. Though housekeeper-butler rooms would be in the back, wouldn’t they? She wasn’t that up on her mansion architecture.
A horrifically bright flash of lightning, a massive crack of thunder, a truly terrifying assault of wind. Hannah yelled and leapt toward the door, pressing herself against it for the tiny bit of shelter theoretically offered by the ledge above.
Then the odd impression of something dark swooping through the air in her peripheral vision, and the open-mouthed disbelief as the limb of a tree—large enough to be a tree itself—landed on her car.
Crash.
Hannah stared. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Oh, Matilda.
Her roof and hood were crumpled down to the seats, the windshield smashed. If Hannah had still been inside, she could be dead now.
Dear God. Delayed shock hit, funny breathing and all-over-body shaking that wasn’t only from the cold this time. This was really, really not good. Really. When was she going to learn to curb her impulsive behavior? She knew this storm was coming. Jack Brattle’s estate was not going to disappear overnight. Her parents and friends would say it again. How many times do we have to tell you, look before you leap? Think before you act.
Think, period.
Okay, okay. Staying calm. She had other more important things to worry about. Like not freezing to death.
Down the treacherous steps again, she tugged at poor sweet Matilda’s door. It didn’t budge. Slipping and sliding her way around to the other side, she pushed her arm through cold scratching branches to yank on the other door, even knowing the frame was too crunched to be able to open.
Oh Cheez Whiz. Her evening bag containing her Black-Berry was still in that car. Her GPS system would broadcast her location, but not until someone realized she was missing and tried to find her. Why had she told Dad she was already home safely?
Because he had enough to worry about.
She staggered back up the steps, huddled against the house’s cold uncaring door again. Not for the first time she envied her mother and father their renewed commitment to each other after they got their lives back on track, their mutual caring and support. If she had someone now, the kind of man she dreamed about finding, he’d stop at nothing to bring her home safely.
Or he would have stopped her being such an idiot coming here tonight in the first place, and she’d be home safely in bed with him now, ringing in the New Year in one of her very favorite ways.
Tears came to her eyes and she blinked them away in disgust. Okay, game plan. She was responsible for herself and had been as far back as she could remember. Maybe there was a service entrance? Maybe someone in the house would hear her ring or knock from there? Maybe there was a cottage behind the house she could break into, or maybe her amazing luck would hold and there’d be a garage with the door left coincidentally open…
Oh dear.
Another flash of lightning. Hannah turned away from it, burying her face in her hands, shoulders hunched, waiting for the smash of thunder.
Boom. More wind. Sleet pelting her back.
“Stop.” She grabbed the door handle and twisted desperately, knowing it would be locked and the gesture was completely—
The handle turned.
The door swung open.
She tumbled in, gasping with surprise, then relief, slammed the door behind her, closing out the terrible storm.
Did that really just happen?
Who the hell went abroad and left his front door open? More than that, what house of this size and value didn’t have a dead bolt and a security system? She waited with held breath for the ear-splitting shriek of an alarm. Whoop-whoop, intruder alert.
Nothing.
Maybe he had a system that only sounded at the police station. One could only hope. Rescue would be welcome if the cops took long enough so she had plenty of time to look around. Because it was slowly dawning on her, now she’d escaped the possibility of hypothermia, that she could very well be in Jack Brattle’s house.
Of course it was possible the door was open because someone had already broken in. Maybe some terribly dangerous criminal was right now prowling the floors above her.
She listened, listened some more, kept listening…and heard nothing, besides the distant hum of the heating system. Really, what kind of idiot would be out on a night like this?
Ha ha ha.
Maybe someone was asleep upstairs? Maybe he or she forgot to lock the gate and the front door after a particularly fun party?
“Hello?” She wandered closer to the staircase, barely visible from the light coming in through the front windows. “Hello?”
Nothing. She climbed halfway up, peering into the darkness of the second floor, and prepared to shout as loudly as she could. “Anyone home?”
Still nothing.
Most likely careless—or tipsy—staff or service people were responsible for the unlocked entrances. Maybe they’d intended to come right back and the storm had held them up or held them off. Whoever they were, she owed them a huge juicy kiss for inadvertently offering her shelter. Bless their irresponsibility. She was not only going to survive the night, she was going to survive the night inside Jack Brattle’s house—because she just had to say that again. Inside Jack Brattle’s house.
That was assuming Dee-Dee was telling the truth, which Hannah would, because why would she go to all that trouble to send Hannah anywhere else?
Of course Mr. Brattle would have a phone so she could call for help right away, but…she didn’t need it right away. Later would be fine. Far be it from her to make someone risk his or her life coming to rescue her now in this terrible weather. Right? Right.
Oh, this was a night for her memoirs. First, she needed out of these wet shoes and to hang her coat somewhere waterproof so drips from melting ice bits wouldn’t stain the hardwood.
She fumbled at the wall near the door and struck pay dirt with a light switch that threw a soft chandelier-glow over the breathtaking entranceway. Hannah let her eyes feast in a slow circle around her. Parquet flooring, and thick vivid Oriental rugs that she lost no time in exploring with frozen toes after she kicked off her shoes and stripped off her sodden stockings. Mmm, bliss.
The house was warm—deliciously warm—so obviously whoever left was planning to come back soon. At least when he or she did, the storm, the open gates, open door and Hannah’s devastatingly destroyed car provided the ideal justifiable excuse for her presence.
This could not possibly have been more perfect. Maybe being impulsive hadn’t been so bad for once. Matilda—God rest her engine—would not have given her life in vain.
A promising set of louvered doors slid open to reveal, just as she’d hoped, a vast closet with an array of expensive coats—men’s coats—in conservative shades of brown, black, gray and tan, suitable for the average heir. She brushed her hand over the textures—wool, cashmere, leather—sniffed the lingering hint of their owner’s very nice cologne, then pushed past the wooden hangers for a metal one her damp coat wouldn’t ruin. Down the hall to her left she discovered a first-floor bathroom in whose shower she hung her dripping woolen mess.
And now…to explore. Jack Brattle’s house.
Kitchen first, glimpsed as she’d passed in search of the bathroom. Ooh la la. State of the art, but not detracting from the nineteenth-century feel of the entranceway. She skimmed her fingers over the built-in paneled refrigerator. Wouldn’t she love to microwave a hot dog in a room like this? She bet it had never seen one.
Out of the kitchen, exploring room after room, not unlike Gerard Banks’s house—and hey, how often did she score a two-mansion day?—but here there were no leopard statues, no large-screen TVs or—dare she say—gaudy furniture. Jack Brattle was all dark wood, leather, brick fireplaces, rich subdued colors in rugs, books, cushions. True old-money class.
She had to admit, in spite of her aversion to opulence, the house was incredible. The kind of place that brought to mind every fabulous manor she’d imagined while reading, from The Secret Garden to Jane Eyre. And yet, a home she could imagine someone actually lived in, not redecorated every season to show off to visitors and lifestyle magazines.
Up the curving staircase to a landing with a comfortable-looking burgundy couch and gold patterned chair, another shelf of books and a window seat beside it. Down the hallway lined with portraits and landscapes, passing at least four bedrooms, a workout room, a study, another bedroom, apparently unoccupied like the others, and then, what she suspected was the master bedroom suite. Was this where Jack Brattle slept?
The glimmer of light under the door registered at the same time she pushed it open…
And came face-to-face with the wettest, handsomest naked man she’d ever been startled out of her wits to meet.
Chapter Three
“OH! I’M SO SORRY!” HANNAH jammed her eyes shut and reared back into the dim hallway, slapping a hand over her closed lids for good measure. Oh, no. Oh my goodness, oh my…goodness what a sight. Even with her eyes closed she could still see—
No, stop. She could be arrested for breaking and entering, this was not the time to go lusty-wench. He could be calling the cops right now. Reporter Busted for Ogling Billionaire’s Bodacious Bod.
“Sorry. I’m really sorry. I, um, got lost and your entrance was open and my car is—”
She sensed the door moving in front of her, slid two fingers apart and peeked through.
Gulp.
He was standing, towel wrapped around his, um, hips, ohhh, yeah, and, um, his chest was…whew. He…Wait. He was smirking. She apparently amused him. Or maybe he thought it was funny because he’d called a SWAT team, which was pulling into his driveway right now and unloading bazookas.
“I was, um…just saying that your door was open.”
“You pushed it open.”
“It was—” She realized just in time what he meant. “No. Downstairs. The front door. Was open. My car is outside with a tree on it. What I mean is, I got lost and the roads are bad and then, so I saw your gate open and then the car-crushing thing happened and I came in because you’re unlocked in front, and I was freezing and thought the place was empty, so I started looking around, but…uh…but it’s not, is it. Empty that is.”
Silence. He looked even more amused, but as if he were trying hard not to be. God, he was gorgeous. Gor-gee-usss. If this was Jack Brattle, then he had to be emotionally bankrupt or deeply miserable because it was just not fair that anyone could have all that money and all that…everything and look the way he did.
“No, the house isn’t empty. I’m here.”
“Right. Right. I see that. I’m so sorry. I just needed shelter because I didn’t…have any.”
“Okay.”
Are you Jack Brattle? She couldn’t ask, because she wasn’t supposed to know this was his house. But, of course, who else could be naked in the master bedroom? Stunningly naked, she might add.
“I’m Hannah.”
“Jack.”
Jack! Jack! It took every ounce of energy not to light up like a tree angel, blast off like a rocket, or fizz like a shaken Coke. Bless Dee-Dee and her gravity-defying boobs.
“Nice to meet you, Jack. I’m truly sorry to barge in on you like this. Especially—” She gestured to his towel without looking at it even though she really wanted to look at it, and at him. All of him. “—like this. My phone is in my car, which I can’t get into. If I could use yours to call the—”
“Wait here.”
She nodded demurely, then when he went back into his room and closed the door, she did a silent, hopping, fist-pumping victory dance in his hallway. Besides a front-page spread in Lester’s “Rack of Glam” article, she owed Dee-Dee a hundred lunches with D. G. “Highbrow” Jackson for this. No, a thousand.
Hannah stopped dancing and put a hand to her hammering heart. Regroup. She was a pro. He was her subject. When he came back out, she needed to talk less—since she’d just broken the world record for disjointed babbling—and observe more. So far she’d observed that he wasn’t very chatty, not that she’d given him much of a chance, and that he had no problem giving orders. “Wait here” was not the most charming way she’d ever been asked to linger. Though for all he knew she was a lying con-artist thief, so maybe a lapse in manners was forgivable.
She had also observed that he was the kind of male eye candy she liked best. Thick dark hair, none of this California surfer-dude stuff for her. A strong face, very masculine, stopping short of head-clubbing-caveman. Tall. Dark brown eyes that sent out a shock of attraction on contact, and that indicated copious brainpower behind them.
And—gravy on her stuffing—the man obviously worked out. Good shoulders, flat stomach and that great sculpted butt that—
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Oh. Well. That’s okay.” He’d put jeans over the great sculpted butt, which was disappointing because while she liked him naked just fine, she always thought of Jack Brattle in a tuxedo, kind of James Bondish. Were they thousand-dollar designer denim? Looked like Lees to her. “You certainly don’t need to apologize. I’m the one who intruded on your—”
“I saw your car out my window. Impressive.”
“I do things thoroughly.”
“Uh-huh.” He moved forward unexpectedly and took hold of her wrist—not very gently. “So what are you really here for?”
She gasped at his harsh tone, which took her completely by surprise after his initial pleasantness. “To keep from freezing to death?”
“You’re sure that’s all?”
“Yes.” In spite of her shock over his Jekyll-Hyde act, she felt a crazy pang of sympathy and a dose of guilt. Guys like Jack Brattle probably had people with ulterior motives surrounding them 24-7. Including her at the moment. “Why else would I be here?”
“You’re not a reporter, are you?”
She laughed nervously, unable to lie to this man’s face. “Of course I am. Breaking into strangers’ houses on major holidays is how I work.”
“I see.” His lips half smiled, and she realized with more guilt and a twinge of satisfaction that he thought she was joking. Advantage Hannah. Except then he started looking her leisurely up and down in the short clingy sequined dress and she didn’t feel like she had an advantage anymore. At all. “You didn’t come here with…other ideas?”
“What? Why would I do that? I didn’t even know you were going to be home.” Oops. Because I thought you’d be in Europe, Jack Brattle. “I mean here.”
His brow went up. “Where did you think I’d be?”
“I have no idea. I thought the house was empty, then I found out it wasn’t. You left your door unlocked, so I—”
“You told me. I’m sorry if I insulted you. Women have—It’s happened before, though not at this house.”
“You have others?”
“Yes.” He started looking her over again, and she got all flustered and a little heated up, when she really wanted to be annoyed and insulted. “And that is a very seductive dress.”
“I was at a party.”
“Where?”
“Malvern.”
“You live in Philly?”
“Yes.”
“Strange way of heading back to the city from there.”
“I got lost, I told you.”
“Yes, you did.” He held her eyes and she controlled her hot and flustered self enough to look back fairly steadily.
Except the second she relaxed her guard, she started thinking about how much she wanted him to kiss her, and how sexy and romantic it would be right here in his twilit hallway. He could back her up against the wall and have his multibillion-dollar way with her.
Mmm.
What would he do if she leaned forward right now and—
Stop it. Just stop. Had she learned nothing about herself and about men in the years since puberty? Not to mention she’d just become outraged when he suggested she was thinking exactly what she was thinking.
“Sorry about that.” He relaxed his interrogation-stare, so apparently she’d passed the test. “I just have to be careful.”
“Why?”
He winked. “Double-O-Seven stuff.”
“Seriously?” She nearly swallowed her tongue. Had she not just been thinking James Bond? And here he was, the legend come to life, though she doubted he was actually doing anything but running his late father’s business. A business, of course, she knew nothing about as far as he was concerned, so she’d play along. “You’re a spy?”
“Not even close. What are we going to do with you?”
She had many ideas by now, none of which she could say out loud. But his abrupt change of subject away from the personal meant this could be a tough interview. “If you’ll point me to a phone I can call Triple A and have my car towed.”
Say no, say no, say no.
“Why don’t you wait until this weather clears? I’m sure Triple A will have its hands full rescuing motorists who couldn’t find conveniently unlocked, apparently deserted houses.”
“If you’re sure…” Stranded in a mansion with a hot über-rich playboy who could make her career? A miracle. Though she had no idea if Jack Brattle actually was a playboy. She could rule out gay now that she’d met him and had been on the receiving end of those eyes. If he was a playboy, he certainly kept his conquests as thoroughly out of the press as he kept himself. Maybe he sold his discarded women into slavery to ensure their silence.
She did think it was odd he wasn’t more disconcerted about his door being left unlocked.
“Are you hungry?” He put a hand to his sadly now-covered stomach. “I’m starved. Hardly got a thing to eat tonight.”
“Were you out?”
“For a while. The forecast convinced me to ring in the New Year at home.”
“Considering the state of my car, you made the right choice. Home would have been a lot simpler.”
And one-eighth the fun.
“Where in Philly is home?”
“Ah.” She glanced pointedly at her surroundings. “A stunning three-room estate above a shoe-repair shop.”
“Location, location, location.”
“So they say. Did you grow up in this…hut?”
“Yes. You never did tell me if you were hungry.”
“Famished.” Another abrupt change of subject. He wasn’t going to make this easy by volunteering long tales of his childhood, was he.
“This way to the kitchen.” He pointed down the hall and curved his other arm behind her as if he were going to touch her, but ohh, not quite. “Or maybe you’ve already been there.”
“I…took a peek, yes. Couldn’t resist. This is so not my life.”
“Don’t assume that’s a bad thing.”
“No?” She turned at the top of the stairs to see his face. Reserved as usual. “Why? Most people would die to—”
“Most people have no idea.”
Billionaire’s Bitter Secret. “Tell me then.”
“It’s not what you think.”
“What do you think I think?” She knew he thought she’d gone too far when he shot her a look and started down the stairs ahead of her. “You think I ask too many questions.”
“You do sound like a reporter.”
“Didn’t I tell you I was one?” She laughed again, ha ha ha, watching him closely, but he only laughed, too, ha ha ha. Wow. Obviously he wasn’t as suspicious as he seemed or he’d have been all over that one. “Just naturally curious I guess.”
He ushered her into the kitchen and turned on subtle track lighting around the tops of the cabinets that lit the room one might almost say romantically, if one was thinking along those lines, but, of course, Hannah wasn’t. She wasn’t going to fall in the blink of an eye for any more toads who happened to be wearing prince’s clothing. Might as well become infatuated with movie actors.
Of course, she did that, too.
“Have a seat.” He indicated a tall stool pulled up to the space-age-looking island in the center of a vast area that would set any chef drooling, then rubbed his palms together. “What do you feel like?”
“Surprise me.”
“Okay. Let’s see.” He narrowed his eyes, looked her up and down speculatively, which made her hope her stomach wasn’t pooching out in doughy rolls. “You don’t look like a peanut-butter-and-jelly woman…”
“Ha!” She put on a deeply offended look. “I’m a prime, grade A, number-one peanut-butter-and-jelly woman. My desert island food.”
His smile made the corners of his deep brown eyes crinkle. “Then let’s go in another direction. You game?”
“Sure.” When he looked at her like that she’d agree to anything.
“Any foods you hate?”
“Tofu hot dogs. They taste like how my dentist’s office smells.”
He chuckled, which made him look twice as charming, she should mention, and worse, making him laugh gave her a stupid silly thrill. “Crossing tofu hot dogs off the list. Now…”
He looked around, as if choosing which cabinet to open and amaze her with first. Then he opened one with a flourish…and apparently struck out. As he did also on his second try. One more, and he made a sound of satisfaction and pulled out a couple of plates.
Hannah kept on her polite smile. He didn’t know where he kept his plates? Did this man do nothing for himself?
Powerful Billionaire Helpless in His Own Home.
Two drawers later he’d located knives, forks and spoons. Quite a while passed before he found champagne glasses. The champagne, however, he scored on his first try, and she’d just say that wow, it was not Asti Spumante, and it made her uncomfortable thinking of how much the bottle cost and how much her parents could have used the money she and…Jack…would drink up in such a short time. Probably a week’s groceries in that bottle. Maybe two.
“To start us off.” He removed the cork expertly and just as expertly poured her a glass. Clearly he had more experience with bartending than cooking, she’d guess with bottles exactly this expensive and more. “Happy New Year, Hannah.”
“Thank you, Jack.” She lifted her glass and toasted him, feeling a fizz of excitement even before she’d started drinking, a feeling she recognized all too well. No, no. No crushes. She was here as a professional first, not a female, and never the twain should meet. “You’re not having any?”
“After I get the food ready.”
“Cheers, then.” She took her first sip tentatively, hoping to be able to sneer and assure herself a bottle of bubbles couldn’t possibly be worth that much money.
Oh wow.
Not that she was an expert, in fact, she prided herself on being an expert on all things not likely to be in Jack Brattle’s palace, but even she could tell the champagne was exquisite. Nothing like the swill Gerard served at the party, not that she’d blame him with that many people drinking that much. But this…tiny bubbles that streamed daintily upward, a smooth delicate flavor that changed over the course of the sip-swallow, and no sour aftertaste to ruin the experience. This was why champagne existed, and what everybody was after while making do with inferior stuff.
“I don’t need to ask what you think, I can see it in your face.”
“I was that obvious? How unchic of me. But, yes.” She turned the glass reverently. “I’ll have to work not to guzzle.”
“Feel free.” One eyebrow quirked. “I enjoy watching that much pleasure.”
Ohh my. Except instead of arching an eyebrow back and saying something sultry like, I’d love to show you exactly how much pleasure I can feel, Jack, she gave a snort of nervous laughter and then made an even more revolting noise to get champagne out of her sinuses.
“You okay?”
“Mm, yeah. Sure. Fine.” She thumped her chest and took another more cautious sip.
“I’ll put the bottle where you can reach.” He took a slim elegant wine cooler from under the island and slid the champagne inside, putting it on the counter next to her. “There’s more where that came from.”
“Thank you.” There was more. More hundreds-of-dollars bottles of champagne. Not just this one, carefully saved for the occasion, of course not. The idea both thrilled and repelled her.
“Let’s see what’s in here.” He rummaged through his refrigerator, mumbling to himself—which tickled her since she did the same thing—occasionally withdrawing cans or jars or various other containers, and placing them on the counter next to him. Hannah’s bid to check out what billionaires had in their refrigerators besides not-Asti Spumante champagne was foiled when she couldn’t stop checking out the pull of his wide shoulders under the soft-looking shirt and the shape of his beautiful you-know-what—yes, they were Lee jeans and, oh, he did such lovely things for them. They should be grateful. She certainly was.
A few minutes slicing this and that, arranging that and the other, another few minutes at the gleaming toaster, then he loaded up his haul onto a large lacquered tray and bore it triumphantly to the island. “Seems we’ve done pretty well.”
“Um…yes.” She put down her champagne and gaped. Suffice to say what was in his refrigerator bore absolutely no resemblance to what she had in hers. A glass jar of foie gras with slices of toasted brioche and thin slices of what looked like apple or pear but wasn’t—maybe quince?; tins of osetra and beluga caviar to be served with delicate bone spoons alongside toasted pita bread squares, and a satiny white cream of some sort to spread over them; translucent slices of prosciutto next to a silver bowl of fresh green and black figs; cheeses whose names she didn’t know on a polished elegantly grained wooden tray; olives in three colors; flawless miniature vegetables—tiny carrots, yellow squash, cucumbers and elongated radishes—with a green creamy herb dip; perfect maroon grapes the size of peas, tangerines the size of golf balls; plump raspberries whose gorgeous perfume made her want to bury her face in them; assorted miniature pastries…
“Are you expecting a crowd?”
“You said you were hungry.”
“You eat like this all the time?”
He looked blank. “Doesn’t everyone?”
Billionaire Out of Touch With Reality. She was about to roll her eyes when he winked, and she blushed instead, because the wink made it seem as if they were alone in a highly intimate situation. The fact that they were alone in a highly intimate situation only made her blush harder. But that wink would do it even in a crowd of thousands. And yet…how could she eat this? Enough for twenty people. What would he do with the leftovers? Toss them? To waste money and food…she hated the idea of both. However, no, she couldn’t help herself. She was dying to try everything. Would he let her take some to share with Mom and Dad? With her friends. Her landlady? The whole block? Everyone should be able to eat like this.
“Now, the final touch.” He fumbled with buttons on an under-cabinet music system and soft jazz floated into the room. Oh my. Oh my my my. You could absolutely not beat the cheesesteaks at Jake’s Corner Bar, or the fresh almond cookies at Mama Fortunato’s Bakery, or the sizzling shrimp at Hu Min’s Dragon but…
Oh, but…
Mr. Amazing then rummaged in another three drawers before he found what he was looking for, which turned out to be candles. Candles. What kind of man thought of candles?
Perfection in a Male: My Evening with Jack Brattle.
Was this his typical evening at home? He couldn’t have been expecting her. Maybe just a typical New Year’s? But why would he haul it all out for her if he was planning a party later?
Was he…trying to seduce her?
She shouldn’t, but with half a glass of excellent champagne in her, on top of a couple of glasses of not-so-excellent champagne, and dazzled by the man and the occasion, she sort of hoped so. Not that she could give in and sleep with Jack Brattle when she was planning to publish an article about him. She had her limits. What fun though to hold this memory close to her heart, and place it reverently into her best friends’ voice mails and long e-mails to people she didn’t know that well, for the rest of her life.
“Do you often throw impromptu candlelight suppers in the middle of the night for strange women?”
“I might make it a habit after tonight.” He considered her carefully. “So far, no signs that you’re a deranged killer…are you?”
“Ah, no. I gave up deranged killing. Hell on a girl’s nails. And those dry-cleaning bills…” She made a tsk-tsk noise and shook her head.
“I hear you.” He pulled up another stool close to hers, so what could she do but wiggle around until she faced him? “I’m glad you showed up.”
“Really?” Fishing, fishing, she was shameless.
“Really.” He poured himself champagne, topped hers off and put the bottle back in the fancy chill-thing, which undoubtedly kept it at the perfect temperature. “Since I left my party early, the evening didn’t feel finished. I’m glad to have company to salvage it.”
I Need a Woman: Billionaire’s Sad Tale of Deprivation.
He clinked his glass to hers. “Dig in.”
Maybe she shouldn’t have, maybe she should have at least hesitated and spent another minute or two contemplating the plight of the poor, but she didn’t. She dug.
Oh my. Dug again. And again, and where was her shovel? If D. G. Jackson could see her, he’d never stop saying told-you-so. She’d deserve it, too.
“Caviar?” He passed it, amusement in his eyes.
Caviar…who knew? She’d had the jarred preserved stuff from the supermarket once and decided the fish should have been able to keep it.
“Foie gras?” The amusement became a smile.
Foie gras…she’d cheerfully gain forty pounds on the stuff given the chance.
“Prosciutto with figs?” This time he was outright smirking.
Prosciutto with fresh figs…sign her up for that action every day. And on and on, while they talked about the food she was eating: him discussing the various types of caviar, she bringing up overfishing in the Caspian Sea; he regaling her with memories of his first taste of foie gras, her mentioning the controversy involved in force-feeding the geese and ducks; him painting a picture of the summer he spent in Lebanon and the fig tree outside his bedroom window from which he could pick ripe figs first thing in the morning, to which she had no politically correct objections. All the while their champagne glasses were emptying and refilling until finally she couldn’t eat or drink another bite and what a horrible shame that was.
“I have reached my absolute limit.”
He drained the last of the bottle into her glass. “C’mon, I dare you.”
“Oh, you Satan.”
He picked up her practically licked-clean plate, grinning triumphantly. “Enjoyed it?”
“Ya think?” She gathered up dishes and bowls and placed them in the sink. “I’ve never had a feast like that. I’m not much of a luxury foods person.”
“Ah.”
Something about the way he spoke made her glance at him suspiciously, though he was concentrating apparently innocently, on rinsing plates. What was that about? Had she disgraced herself with her greed? Maybe, but everything was so good she couldn’t regret it. And he’d been eating quite healthily himself. Best of all, with Mr. Jack Brattle’s notorious aversion to publicity, this multidollar-binge could remain her guilty secret.
“I feel like I should run about five miles to atone for those calories.”
“There’s a pool if you want to do laps.”
Of course there was. “No suit.”
“I’m sure you’d look great in one of mine…”
She giggled and blamed it on the champagne. “Um. Minor coverage problem.”
“If you’re sure…”
“No women in the house?” She tried to ask casually, and succeeded. She thought.
“Not for a long time.”
“Are you divorced?” A natural question, wasn’t it?
“No.” He walked toward her, drying his hands.
“Never married?”
“Never. You?”
“Never. Girlfriend?”
“No. Boyfriend?”
“No.”
And there they stood. If he was feeling anything like what she was feeling, the obvious circumstances of their proximity and their mutual singlehood were suggesting a number of delightful possibilities. Unfortunately there was that damn ethics thing because getting romantic with a man and then publishing an article about him was taking kissing and telling way further than she was comfortable taking it. But ohh, his mouth was so tempting, his lips full and sharply drawn, surrounded by the faint masculine gray of stubble-to-come.
A song came on, a smooth velvety jazz lullaby sung by a female artist whose voice she didn’t recognize.
He took a step forward and she took one, too. His arms went up, one at her shoulder height, one at her waist. “Dance with me, Hannah.”
Jack Brattle: All the Right Moves.
“Love to.” Mmm, she hadn’t been in a man’s arms since Norberto, the smooth-tongued, talented-in-bed, charming, absolute cheating idiot creep jerk butthead…
Okay, she’d ignored all the warning signs and leapt happily into his arms and gotten her heart smacked down yet again. She should have known better.
But now, Jack Brattle smelled soooo good. And he moved like a dream. Under her hand, his shoulder was solid and warm, his chin also warm and smoothly close-shaven when it occasionally brushed her forehead. His fingers held hers lightly, but he kept his body close.
Hannah should know better right now. She’d have to crash down into reality all too soon. Somehow that seemed so deliciously far away, though, and he was so deliciously near.
“You dance divinely, Ms…what?”
“O’Reilly. Thank you. As do you, Mr…?”
She knew he wouldn’t answer, but she lifted her head from where it had pillowed itself on the smooth comfortable front of his shirt and looked up expectantly.
“…Brattle.” He stopped their dance. Looked down intently.
Her reaction was perfect, since she was actually shocked and could do a convincing double take. She couldn’t believe he’d told her. What about keeping himself such a tremendous secret all those years? All that trouble to stay hidden, and now he was telling her, a complete stranger who’d already joked she was a reporter and had been asking all kinds of questions?
Why would he do that?
Her treacherous imagination immediately supplied the kind of answer that was always getting her in trouble. Maybe he’d fallen for her, same as she’d fallen for him and therefore he had given her this incredible gift of trusting her with his identity.
She sighed. Nice story, but it never happened. At least not to her.
Something was definitely odd about the confession, but her brain discarded those thoughts because he was still inches away, their hands were still on each other’s bodies, champagne fizzed through her veins, and since somewhere there must be someone for whom the name Jack Brattle rang only the faintest of bells, she decided the best possible course of action was to pretend to be that person, go on tiptoe and kiss him.
Of course, of course he kissed like a dream. The first was soft and quick, probably a surprised response to her typical lack of self-control. Then another at his initiation, longer and sweeter…then gradually hotter. Her body warmed, she felt his next kiss right down where kisses went when doled out by seriously sexy men. And when she pressed closer—and who could help it when his strong arms slid around her so completely—she could tell that he was…er, enjoying the kiss, too.
Mayday. She was completely crazed with lust, unbearably infatuated with everything about this man and this evening. This was where she should back up, think this through and make sure she understood every possible ramification of her—ooh.
He’d nudged her legs apart and put his thigh between hers, which made her skirt ride upward. His hand dipped to caress her rear, which she faintly hoped, with the last glimmer of her sanity, had gotten firmer since she’d been going to the gym.
What had she been thinking? Something about pulling away. Something about…
Aw, hell.
He guided her back a few steps and lifted her onto the edge of his counter stool, stepped between her thighs and kissed her exactly how women all over the world longed to be kissed whether they knew it or not. He was very hard now, pushing the swollen heat against her thin, red, lace panties, making her nearly ready to come just thinking about being in bed with him.
Wasn’t she supposed to stop this? Something about a story, about ethics…
His lips left hers to explore her neck; his hands drew her skirt slowly up, building her arousal with the expectation of more intimate touch. He slid those same warm hands back and forth on her hips as more and more of her skin became available to his fingers.
Must…hang on…to brain. “Jack.”
“Mmm.”
“This is a little…unreal.”
“How so?”
“You and this amazing house and the incredible food and the champagne and now…this.”
“What ‘this’?”
“Nothing that should be happening.” Her voice was low and breathless, making it damn clear how serious she was about stopping. Which would be not enough.
“I know. It’s a lousy idea.”
“You do? It is?” She opened her eyes. “Why shouldn’t you be doing it?”
“Shh. Pretend it’s not happening.” He trailed his fingers across the lower edge of her abdomen, then along the lacy sides of her panties. “What happens tonight stays there. In the morning, it will all be erased.”
“So…this isn’t happening?”
“No.” He urged her legs farther apart, slid fingers teasingly inside the lace edge. “It’s not happening.”
“Mmm, Jack, but it…really does feel like it’s happening.” She braced her feet on the chair rungs, lifted her hips. He took his cue and slid her panties down, got them over one leg and let them fall down the other.
“No, don’t worry.” He knelt and she leaned her elbows behind her on the counter, tipped her head back, open and vulnerable to him, feeling his warm breath on her sex, closing her eyes in delicious impatience for his even warmer tongue. “I promise it’s not happening.”
“If you say so—oh!” She gasped, let her hips lift and retreat under his talented thrusts, so close to coming so soon that she had to take deep breaths and open her eyes to slow the process down. She wanted him with her. She wanted this to last forever. But, no, she wasn’t going to hold out much longer. “Are you sure this isn’t happening? It really really feels like it is. Any second now.”
“Let it happen, Hannah.”
“I want you with me.”
“I don’t have a condom downstairs.”
“But if this isn’t happening…” She was panting, trying desperately to hold on to some kind of logic. “Then we don’t need…oh!”
He’d moved to kiss her inner thighs, but now settled firmly back on her clit and she was lost. The orgasm started in a dark rush, then boom, steam engine blowing past, making everything rattle and roll in its wake, subsiding eventually to the distance and the past.
“Oh my goodness.” She slowly unclenched her muscles, slumped wearily back on the counter, staring at him with what was certainly a worshipful look as he stood up, smiling male triumph.
Then the impact of what she’d just done hit nearly as hard as the orgasm, creating a serious rupture in her afterglow. Sex with an interviewee who didn’t know yet that he was an interviewee…absolutely not. He’d think she’d slept with him for the story.
Jack Brattle—Jack Brattle—stepped forward and scooped her back to upright, bent and kissed her hard, once, then again and nearly overwhelmed her dismayed and blissful heart by gazing into her eyes and smoothing back what must by now be a rat’s-nest hairdo. “You know they say what happens to you New Year’s Day predicts how you’ll spend your whole year?”
“Does it?” She smiled wistfully up at him, already in love with this perfect, beautiful, incredibly talented-tongued man. “Then this is going to be the best year of my life.”
“I haven’t had a perfect night like this in a long time.”
Something about how he said it made her think that instead of being polite, he meant the words literally. “Me, neither.”
She meant them literally, too.
“I have a brilliant idea.” He held out his hand. “Come upstairs with me and we’ll make more things not happen.”
“That is a brilliant idea.” Hannah accepted his hand, slid off the stool, picked up her panties and took a moment to get her hips working while he supported her. “As soon as I can walk again.”
Up the stairs, then, resting her fingers in his, anticipation mixing with dread, mixing with elation, mixing with sadness. Maybe none of this would have happened by morning as far as he was concerned, but she doubted she’d ever forget a single second.
Not only that, but morning was going to come way too soon. And with it the dismal certainty that once again she’d done plenty of leaping without the slightest bit of looking beforehand. And once again she’d have to pay—this time by having to give up the career opportunity of a lifetime.
Chapter Four
HE WAS SO SCREWED. NO MATTER how he played the rest of this evening, Derek was screwed. Everything had gone as planned, but nothing was working out as it should.
Obviously Dee-Dee had played her role perfectly at Gerard Banks’s party, dangling the Jack Brattle interview in front of Hannah and supplying her with directions to the house. He’d had no doubt she’d take the bait. However, once the weather had changed so dramatically for the worse, he’d never dreamed she’d risk driving out tonight. After his shower earlier in the evening, he’d been about to relock the gate and front door.
Instead, he’d met Hannah for the first time stark naked. That hadn’t been part of the plan. Nor had been his immediate attraction, which only compounded the interest and curiosity that was sparked by the provocative wit she revealed in her Lowbrow column, blogs and occasional features in The Philadelphia Sentinel.
He’d started the Highbrow column as D. G. Jackson when Philly’s restaurant scene began to take off, wanting to indulge his passion for food on the one hand, and on the other, wanting to introduce the average man and woman to dishes, flavors and establishments he or she might otherwise be intimidated by. In his view, good food was one of life’s greatest joys. But once Hannah began countering his “highbrow” suggestions with her “lowbrow” alternatives, he quickly learned that she knew what she was talking about as well as he did. He took great pleasure in going—incognito, of course—to every hole-in-the-wall and mom-and-pop joint she recommended, all of which satisfied as she promised.
His interest only intensified along with their public rivalry. Who was Hannah O’Reilly? What was she like? How could he find out? He wouldn’t call her an obsession, but he certainly thought about her more than was normal, certainly more than any woman he’d met since he’d been forced by circumstances in his early twenties to grow up practically overnight. Okay, maybe obsessed. But not being the kind of man who tolerated unanswered questions, he’d come up with tonight’s plan.
The chance for Hannah to experience the lifestyle of the elusive Jack Brattle was his bait. Lure hungry journalist with promises of the interview of a lifetime, then make her the most “highbrow” meal he could whip up, secretly document her enjoyment, and in his last column before he left Philadelphia for good, skewer her as a closet gourmet. Anyone with taste buds as unerring as hers would be an easy mark.
Hannah had shown up, Derek played the Suspicious Heir act apparently convincingly and she’d gone down without a fight—though he wished he could have captured photographic evidence of her shoving in the foie gras and washing it down ecstatically with Pol Roger Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill 1985.
After the “impromptu” meal, perfectly poised for a wrap to the ultimate checkmate, what did he do? He asked her to dance. Nice one. What did he think, he’d have her gorgeous body pressed against his and remain completely impassive, then Hey, thanks for the dance, I’m off to bed, choose a room, and see you in the morning? He’d immediately started getting ideas involving a lot more than dancing, fueled wilder when it became apparent she was getting the same ones.
Now…with this beautiful, sexy, willing woman stranded in his house, to say that things had gotten out of hand was like saying winter got chilly in Antarctica. Lure her, yes, feed her, yes, dance with her…okay. Kiss her? Bad idea. Succumb to the sexual promise of her blue eyes, rose lips and slender body?
He’d already said he was screwed.
Worse, he was leading her upstairs, unsatisfied lust driving out common sense. Once she got into his bedroom…
Well, she’d be screwed. He didn’t want to think about how low this was for him to go. He might be fascinated by Hannah way beyond the typical male interest in boobs and a great ass, but nothing he could say would convince her of that if she knew who he was and why she was here.
His only hope of going through with the rest of the night without feeling like total scum was to ditch the idea of the article. At least she hadn’t admitted yet that she was a reporter, so he wasn’t the only one holding back truths. Granted, she’d dipped a cautious toe in honesty, but quickly gave up total immersion when he pretended to think she was joking.
What a pair. I’ll lie to you, you lie to me, come into bed, and we’ll lie together.
He got to the end of the hall, pushed open the dark door—so much dark in this house to accompany the dark memories—pulled her into the room and into his arms. She nestled against him; he lowered his chin onto her hair, inhaling her light perfume, more tropical and exotic than he would have expected on a woman whose face could be in an Ivory soap commercial…and whose body could be in an X-rated movie—okay, the perfume made sense.
Either way, Ivory or triple X, she was driving him wild. Watching her come…He was going to have to do some serious soul-searching if he wanted his ego to regain control of his id.
Did he? He wasn’t sure. Because the alternative would be very, very sweet.
“So…” She drew back, keeping her hands linked lightly behind his neck. “What’s not going to happen now?”
Oh, the choice of words. If he had any sense of honor, he’d tell her everything wasn’t going to happen now, he was D. G. Jackson, he’d set her up for this entire evening, though he hadn’t planned the sexual part, and—
“Hmm?” She started rotating her pelvis seductively against his erection.
“Hannah.”
“Ye-e-es?”
“I can’t think while you’re doing that.”
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